RIP David Hartwell

[OSJ]

In a year that continues to suck, the field of imaginative literature lost one of the last old-school editors and the horror genre lost one of its most talented writers of short fiction. 

 

Too often these days the position of "editor" is that of a minor functionary whose real duties are providing the sales and marketing staff with "two minute drills" to summarize this month's offerings and explain why your bookstore should increase its order by 30% over last month. These positions despite their lofty title generally are filled by folks a couple of notches above entry level, but that's about it.  A step up is the "book chooser", somewhat akin to a quarterback being called a "game manager". These folks are usually called "acquisition editors" and they actually buy books as long as said books are very similar to what was purchased last month and the month before, etc. While these people actually have some degree of authority, their main concern is to preserve their job by not disturbing the status quo. These people are why Piers Anthony has sold 36 Xanth novels a  fantasy series noteworthy for its obsessive discourse on the under garments of young girls. These people also provide the explanation for the existence of over 1200 novels concerning the activities of Perry Rhodan. Fortunately only a couple of dozen have been translated from German to inflict on the English reading world.

 

Finally, you have the real editor... This is a vanishing breed. This is the person that will read a new author's first draft and make suggestions as to how said book will be more marketable. The is the person that seeks out the semi-retired and living in obscurity author from past decades who now makes their living teaching courses in creative writing. They seek out the semi-retired writer because they have a gut feeling that the author still has something to say and just needs to be encouraged to sit down at their desk and commence to saying it.  This is the person who will create an entire new imprint for a company and month after month fill the slots with terrific new work from both the established names and the newbies.  This is the person that will set up  series of meetings with their new author and go through the new novel page by page, line by line; tearing it down and then help the author rebuild something truly fine in its stead. Dave Hartwell was that kind of editor. 

 

If you ever wondered why a practicing physicist like Greg Benford would dramatically reduce the hours spent on his "real' job in order to write science fiction, or why the middle-aged editor of Plant Engineering, somewhat known for his failed attempt to write science fiction and fantasy would find it in himself to give it one more try and wind up producing the work we call The Books of the New Sun  and its myriad spin-offs and sequels, and how these two gentlemen and others found themselves on the bookstore shelves alongside classic works of modern fantasy such as the stories of Clark Ashton Smith or the sword and sorcery of Andrew J. Offut, you need but glance behind the curtain at Timescape Books (a division of Pocket) to see the levers being pulled and buttons being pushed by David Hartwell. An entire generation has been entertained by the fruits of his labors and 90% of those same people will never even know his name...  We lost one of the great ones today, people. His name doesn't appear on the bulk of the books that he had a hand in, but if you look at anything published by Timescape or TOR in the last forty years, there's a pretty good chance that you're looking at Dave's legacy.

[OSJ]

Sorry, I was so shook writing about Dave Hartwell that I didn't say anything further about the writer I mentioned... I didn't know her, just knew her fiction, which for the most party was excellent. A.R. Morlan was an extremely talented and apparently a deeply disturbed lady. Like I say, I didn't know her, I tried to buy stories from her on a couple of occasions and got no reply, which was odd as I paid pretty competitive rates and for a few years the Darkside anthologies were where you wanted your work to be seen. I just assumed she was busy and left it at that. I later found that this behavior was all too typical and likely what kept her from greater success. I'm not going to go into the details of the last couple of sad years, but it had reached the turning point where she didn't see any way out. I would just suggest seeking out her short stories or her one novel, The Amulet. And as a memorial to Ana, if you have friends or relatives that have fallen off your radar in recent months or years, pick up the telephone or send an e-mail just to let 'em know they aren't alone. You never know, you might be saving a life.