Last Month (September)

03 October 2001
The Secret (Part I)

So, then, just what raised my ire last time? An article on how to write fantasy novels! The author has no apparent credentials to write such a book—not a recognizeable name, not a SFWA member, no known academic credentials—except, perhaps, that the author is an editor at the book division of the company that publishes said magazine. He offers ten "rules" for writing a fantasy novel, and comments that

If you follow these rules, you will be in good company. You may not sell 100 million copies of your story or make every bestseller list. But your words may lead your readers into a new world, one which they have never imagined before but which, after reading your story, will be as real to them as the reaches of Middle-Earth or the halls of Hogwarts.

To call this a non sequitur is inaccurate, as that implies some cogent logic behind the premise. The author's premise is ten rules to follow (first five today, with my commentary):

1.    "Put old wine in new bottles" (citing the Arthuriana explosion and the "non-originality" of the Potter books). Well, this is one method. But it's one that must be considered very carefully indeed. One can follow a source tale slavishly, adding just enough for a distinctive expression, and still be effective (e.g., some of the retellings in the Datlow and Windling series of anthologies); one can use a tale as inspiration for an original work (Card's Enchantment). There doesn't seem to be much middle ground, though; perhaps this is because most "updatings" of tales to meet "modern sensibilities" show little respect for the source material, which translates into visible disrespect for the reader.

2.    "Learn the differences between archetypes, stereotypes, and good characters" (citing Diana Wynne Jones's marvelous little The Tough Guide to Fantasyland). This is only part of the story, because it implies that archetypes and stereotypes relate only to characters. Even a cursory perusal of Jones's satire should disabuse one of that notion—and Jones only scratches the surface.

3.    "Use magic, but limit its powers" (citing Harry Potter). This is a very, very poor choice of phraseology, reflecting a complete misunderstanding of the use of magic in storytelling. It's also an inapt example, because the limits in the Potter books appear to be as much related to the fact that we're dealing with students as to the limits of magic itself. I think that perhaps the author should be forced to read Frazer. Not the abridgement, but the original.

4.    "Make your hero an orphan" (citing Potter). After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I had to reread point 2 above. Counterexamples from works cited by the author in the article include Ged (Le Guin's Earthsea books), Lyra and Will (His Dark Materials), and Bilbo (The Hobbit). Counterexamples from works that should have been reviewed include Manuel (James Branch Cabell), Charles de Lint's adult heroes, George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, and countless others.

5.    "Take a trip" (citing Tolkien). The Quest is certainly one variety of fantasy, and perhaps the most obvious. It is far from the only possible structure, and it need not involve a trip of any kind. In modern fantasy, the Quest motif all too often is used as an excuse to create some sense of verisimilitude by "showing" (more in a couple of days on why that's not the right term) more of the surrounding area—"Look, reader, my world is big and real!"

to be continued…

05 October 2001
The Secret (Part II)

The rest of the "secret formula" is as follows. Of course, the comments that follow are mine, and just scratch the surface; I could—and, in a couple of places, have—written articles for (academic) publication on topics like these:

6.    "Sell the impossible with the 'trick of particularity'" (citing Dante and Billingsley). This is an incredibly dangerous and inaccurate statement. Following this is how one ends up with semi-Regencies in which the costumes are described exquisitely—often becoming far more lively than the characters wearing them—but there seems to be central heating and indoor plumbing for no comprehensible reason. The details must work together with the environment. The two examples are inapposite. Dante is not really fantasy in the sense of modern commercial fiction, but allegory, and the details provided are those that meet the reader's expectations, not those that would establish the environment or characters as independent. The Billingsley is just a poor example, because the use of details is so far subordinate to the other techniques used to maintain verisimilitude that attempting to study the book for the use of details is meaningless.

7.    "Freely mix humor and fantasy" (citing Pratchett). If you can pull it off, great. Even Pratchett is not consistently good at this. Further, the statement itself implies that somehow humor and fantasy are inconsistent with each other. Cabell, Dunsany, Voltaire… oh, I give up. This particular "rule," and its inappropriate example (I doubt that there exists an adequate market for someone directly competing with the prolific Pratchett) demonstrates just how poorly read the author of the article really seems to be.

8.    "Withhold information to increase surprise, wonder, or tension" (citing Pullman). At this point, if I had not been reading the magazine in the library, I would have thrown it on the floor and stomped on it. Not only is that a completely inept—no, not merely inept; flat wrong—description of His Dark Materials in general, it completely misses the point of the scene used as an example. There is no information withheld; it is discovered by the characters at the same time as the reader learns it. Pullman is careful to place his information in context. An author who needs to stoop to hiding the ball to maintain narrative tension is not going to get published—and doesn't deserve to be.

9.    "In fantasy, all images have meaning" (no citation). So? How is that different from any other kind of fiction? What the author may really mean is that one must be careful with metaphors and similes, because the figurative meaning could overwhelm the willing suspension of disbelief. Again, this is no different from any other kind of fiction. Curiously, the author provides no citation of examples that, in his misguided opinion, exemplify doing this correctly. While there may have been space limitations, I suspect that this comes more from their lack of existence.

10.   "In the end, a heart of gold trumps all" (no citation). After I finished gagging, I had to wonder just who the author's dealer is, and whether I could get some of what he's been taking. How many counterexamples need I cite? From Tolkien, we have Bilbo and Aragorn; Harry Potter's achievements come from a combination of humility, courage, and persistence; Lyra and Will may be "good" characters, but their hearts are certainly not gold; need I go on? And this is without even considering some of the true antiheroes that stand out in fantasy fiction—the Elrics, the Tyrion Lannisters…:

Next time, we'll try putting these rules together and see what we come up with. I can guarantee you that it won't be pretty.

07 October 2001
The Secret (Part III)

Let's try following The Secret Formula a couple of times to see what we come up with. (Remember, I demand something approaching literary values, not something approaching George Lucas's screenwriting.)

(a)    An Orphan left in the care of his uncle {4} is threatened by mysterious creatures in the nearby Dark Woods {2, in part}. A Mysterious Stranger tells the orphan that he must go on a Quest to find a wondrous sword {1, 5}, with the aid of some magic jewels {3}. The Stranger refuses to say why the orphan is the one who must make the journey, only that he is In Deadly Danger {8}. Following a series of adventures and the gathering of The Companions (including one longtime friend) {2, 5}, the company ventures forth into the wild. As a result of an enemy attack during a partial betrayal {1, 2}, the Orphan and a single companion must fulfill the rest of the quest alone after having retrieved an Artifact of Power which only he can wield {1, 3}. The remainder of the party (one of whom miraculously returns from apparent death) is left to confuse the enemy with a valiant rearguard action, since one of them is the Rightful Warlord {1, 2, 8, 9, 10}. The battle scenes have explicit descriptions of tactics, and even of some of the individual weaponplay {6}. Meanwhile, the Orphan and his companion reach the Personification of All Evil with the assistance of a member of the Enemy Race whose loyalties are quite uncertain {1, 2, 3, 8}. During the climactic battle, which coincidentally occurs at the same moment as the climactic battle before the City suffered through by the remainder of the Companions {1}, the Orphan discovers the power of the Artifact {3} and uses it to destroy the Personification, which the Stranger explains was a foregone conclusion once the Orphan understood the power of the Artifact {1, 3, 9, 10}. Throughout, the prose attempts a number of bon mots, usually initiated by a smartass Companion {7} (that most of the jokes fall flat is typical, but irrelevant).

(b)    A Noble Girl whose mother has died {4} is threatened by her father's new wife, a Wicked Witch, and the Evil Foreign Invaders {2}. She is an herbalist who has contact with the petty gods of her pantheon {3, 6, 9}. The Wicked Witch drives her from her home and curses her Beloved Brothers {1, 2, 3}; she is captured by a Big-Hearted Leader of the Evil Foreign Invaders {2, 5, 10} who kindly marries the Noble Girl {1}. After she completes a Magic Garment {1, 3, 6}, she uses its powers to free all of her Brothers save one {1, 9}. The reunited siblings drive out the Wicked Witch, with some aid from the Big-Hearted Leader {1}. The Big-Hearted Leader has now forfeited his leadership of the Evil Foreign Invaders, but is accepted as the new leader of the Noble Girl's people {1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10}.

So, are these random? Not at all. Example (a) applies to any number of really awful Tolkien knockoffs; the one I had initially in mind was Terry Brooks's awful The Sword of Shannara—the root of all evil from Del Rey. But it also applies to most gaming-related fiction, particularly the Dragoncrap Chronicles. Example (b) fails the formula, because there just isn't any humor in the book (factor 7); in fact, it's almost relentlessly humorless. Nonetheless, it applies to a fair number of recent retellings, particularly including Judith Marillier's vastly overrated Daughter of the Forest.

Is there a secret formula? Really? Truly? Yes, little writers, there is. Donald Maass, the President of the Association of Authors' Representatives, recently wrote of it. His formula for writers seeking to break out from the midlist (and, in this environment, that even means breaking into the midlist) is very simple. It has only a single step:

Write a better book.

And there, my friends, is the core of the problem with checklists. Maass's book describes a number of areas for improving much fiction, but doesn't try to prescribe treatment of the problems. Diagnosis is, indeed, an important tool; but treatment is purely the author's responsibility. It's one thing to show examples of good and bad work; it's quite another to tell the author How to Fix Anything With Common Household Objects. There's that "showing" v. "telling" imprecation again. This time, though, it actually holds. Next time, we'll see why it's an illusion concerning factor 6.

11 October 2001
Vanna, I'd Like to Buy a Clue

It's time to lay off one target (for one day only, so don't get your hopes up) and smear another one today. And here I thought that Edit Ink was dead and buried. As it's near Halloween, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the rising of the undead lifesuckers, or at least of their methods.

On Tuesday, a number of leading agents received the following letter (name of the guilty party has been deferred to later in this entry; no cheating). I've since found out that even editors at major publishers, including the Executive Editor for NAL, have also received this criminal communication. As you'll see shortly, "criminal" is not an exaggeration. Italics appear in the original.

Dear Colleague:

You've heard the saying one man's trash is another man's treasure. Now find out how your slush pile can actually become a source of revenue.

[VanityPress] (www.[VanityPress].com), a leading online publishing services provider, introduces KickbaXPlus. KickbaXPlus is [VanityPress]'s referral program, established to create a lucrative situation for everyone involved.

The idea is simple: By joining the [VanityPress] referral program, you send [VanityPress] your slush pile—the authors you've rejected. These are authors whom you've deemed aren't yet ready for mass market. [VanityPress] introduces them to print-on-demand self-publishing as a viable alternative. Should they decide they want to try us, we help them publish their book and we send your business a fee to thank you for the referral.

Everyone wins—you quickly generate a stream of revenue for your business, [VanityPress] meets new authors seeking an alternative to traditional publishing, and the authors become self-published. Along with a check, we send you a quarterly statement that shows a listing of the authors whom you've referred and which ones have chosen to self-publish with us. This statement is useful for tracking which authors may eventually be ready for traditional publishing.

For example, let's say you submitted 50 referrals in one month and 10% of those authors elected to use Xlibris—that's five authors. Our customers spend about $1000 [sic] on average upon choosing one of our service levels. With five authors, that's $5,000 of which 10%* would be your finder's fee: $500. At this rate, you will have generated an additional $6000 [sic] a year for your business—with little effort.

Please read the enclosed brochure and return the attached card to request further information. Or, you can visit www.[VanityPress].com/kickbaxplus or call 1-868-795-4274 and ask for KickbaXPlus. Join at any time, leave at anytime. There is no risk and everything to gain—with very little effort.

See what your slush pile can do for you.

Yes, this letter is virtually identical to that used by Edit Ink. No, it's not a legal scheme. Kickbacks are verboten over here (that's a very broad hint as to who sent the letter…). And this is a particularly slimy kind of kickback: sending someone whose dreams of commercial publication have just been trashed to a vanity publisher.

The real irony of Xlibris's scheme—oops, the undead cat is out of the bag—is that any AAR agent (and a number received the letter) who accepts such a kickback is violating the Canons of Ethics, and the editors are prohibited from accepting such kickbacks by their own corporate ethics policies. Including those at Xlibris's corporate parent. So, who is likely to accept this kickback? Only those who already have dubious ethics. As if they need any more encouragement, eh?

We won't get into "inducement to fraud," statutory fraud, or any of the other problems. I'll let the FTC do that, as it has been made aware.

This very much reminds me of "Dear Verna" from a case I worked on many moons ago. As Chief Judge Posner said in his opinion,

Read against this background of nefarious purpose, the letter is seen to be replete with falsehoods and half truths. "Dear Verna… You're a good customer. To thank you for your business, I've set aside $750.00* in your name." She is no "Dear Verna" to them; she has not been selected to receive the letter because she is a good customer, but because she belongs to a class of probably gullible customers for credit; the purpose of offering her more money is not to thank her for her business but to rip her off; nothing has been "set aside" for her. "We could write your check on the spot. Or, call ahead and I'll have the check waiting for you." Yes—along with a few forms to sign whereby for only $1,200 payable over three years at an even higher monthly rate than your present loan (and than your present loan plus a separate loan for $200, which we could have made you), you can have a meager $200 now.

Emery v. American Gen. Fin. (I), 71 F.3d 1343 (7th Cir. 1995)

"Dear Colleague…"

15 October 2001
The Secret (Part IV)

   Written on the road and posted late. So sue me.

Returning to the Secret Formula, what's wrong with it? Whatever one may think about the literary merits—or lack thereof—of The Sword of Shannara, it's hard to deny that it has sold reasonably well and launched a successful professional career. The problem is very similar to what American forces suffered in Vietnam: preparation to fight the last war, not the one in progress.

The formula given out is a fair-to-middling analysis of what seems to be "hot" at this time. But let's look at the realities of publishing before determining that this is a reasonable target, eh? Let's assume that a newbie writer is interested in writing a fantasy novel.^† Assuming a reasonable period of time for writing a first novel—say, one year—it's nearly the end of 2002 by the time the book makes its way into the hands of editors and agents. In this publishing environment, YABFFN (Yet Another Big Fat Fantasy Novel) will have difficulty getting any attention at all if it's formulaic. Let's assume, though, that there's something about this one that seems to be a possible spark. After a relatively short period of time in the slush pile, the publisher offers a contract. That's another nine months, to mid-2003. Book-length fiction is typically on an 18-month publication cycle from acceptance of the draft manuscript. (Don't kid yourself, though. With only very rare exceptions, a new writer's manuscript no longer gets the purely editorial attention it needs.)

If the book is considered suitable for the Christmas or Early Spring list, it might be published in early 2005. This formula is based on analyzing works from the late 1990s—six or more years ago. In Internet time (and Literary Fashion time), that's half a lifetime.

More critically, though, the "formula" doesn't even explain itself. Ingredient 6 (the so-called "trick of particularity") is so badly stated and misunderstood that it's difficult to know where to begin. The most obvious failure in the statement is that it does not define the reference frame. Details used to establish or maintain a suspension of disbelief need to be convincing to the reader, relevant to the character(s), and consistent with the narrative voice. This is where the "herbalist as doctor" segments so common in quasiMedieval and quasiArthurian works go so badly wrong. In those rare instances in which the Herb of Curing, in its identity, description, and availability, is within the intellectual grasp of the characters, it fails to remain so for the reader—and virtually always requires an explicit Telling passage that is completely outside the currently fashionable "tight focus third-person semiobjective" narrative voice foisted off on beginning writers by semiskilled writing instructors who wouldn't know a literary value if it slid up their collective legs and gnawed off their gonads. So this kind of Telling is ok, but everything else needs to be Showing? Could we please have either some consistency or a solid theory for why they need not be consistent? In contrast, consider the way that Tolkien's treatment of kingsfoil in the Minas Tirith infirmary puts the attention not on the herb, in all its dubious particularity, but upon the character interactions related to the underlying situation: the prophecied sign of true kingship, the subtext of idiocy by the ruling/healing elite, the necessity of compassion in a ruler…

^†   If the writer is not a newbie—has one or more books in print from a commercial publisher or commercially oriented small or university press—he or she would be much better off reviewing Don Maass's recent Writing the Breakout Novel. For that matter, so would the newbie.

19 October 2001
The Secret (Part V)

My last word on formulas-for-success comes not from observing publishing and literature, but from studying fraudulent get-rich-quick schemes. Almost invariably, these schemes depend upon earning the trust and confidence (hence "con artist") of the victim with promises of almost effortless riches, or a cure for cancer, or whatever else is the apparent object of the scheme. Showing someone how to use a particular tool from a well-diversified toolbox, thus enabling the student to perform his or her own work, is more than acceptable. Giving the student a plan without realistic instruction on the tools is quite another, particularly when the plan is as defective as this Secret Formula.

The proof, however, is in the doing. As noted previously, the author of the article has no apparent credentials for writing it. His author biography doesn't indicate that he's even working on the kind of book whose dubious virtues he extols. Neither does it indicate much in the way of any other background relevant to teaching literary craft or art. We need to ask the follow-up question that seldom gets a satisfactory answer: If the formula is so clear, obvious, and easy, why isn't the individual who offers the formula exploiting it him or herself? In the context of the publishing industry, this is even less satisfactory, as failure to succeed by following this formula will only convince the deluded writer that the publishing game is crooked,† and drive the writer into the hands of Northwest Publishing, or Commonwealth Publishing, or Appaloosa Press, or another outright publishing scam, in an attempt to get the immortal novel—<SARCASM>it follows all of the rules, so it simply must be immortal</SARCASM>—into print.

I am being exceptionally polite here and assuming that maybe, just maybe, the author of the Secret Formula has no ill will. That, however, leaves open the question of perspicacity. Or maybe not.

†   It is, but in a rather different manner completely irrelevant to any "formula for success."

23 October 2001
No Apologies

I offer no apologies to Mick, Keef, and the boys for the following. They have been the inspiration for so many awful garage bands that they deserve the following misappropriation. Perhaps we can get Devo to cover it…

 
Publication

I can't get no publication

I can't get no publication

'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try

I can't get no, I can't get no

I'm just readin' in my chair

That big-time writin' magazine

They're tellin' me more and more

About some useless information

Supposed to inspire my imagination

I can't get no, oh no no no

Hey hey hey, that's what I say

I can't get no publication

I can't get no publication

'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try

I can't get no, I can't get no

When I'm tryin' P-O-D

And that man writes back to tell me

How great my sales can be

But it won't be a deal 'cause it doesn't pay

A big royalty to me

I can't get no, oh no no no

Hey hey hey, that's what I say

I can't get no publication

I can't get no agent action

'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try

I can't get no, I can't get no

When I'm writin' this new tale

And I'm plottin' this and researchin' that

And I'm tryin' to make this sale

They tell me "Story's gonna come back later next week"

'Cause you see I'm on losing streak

I can't get no, oh no no no

Hey hey hey, that's what I say

I can't get no, I can't get no

I can't get no publication

No publication, no publication, no publication

26 October 2001
Nothing in Particular

Two fellow NAWers—StephenMatthewSL LeighFarrellF, on 25 September, and Vera Nazarian on 26 September—have, in the last few days, questioned why fantasy novels seem to be so much bigger than science fiction novels. I have a two-word answer for this. It may not make sense without some explanation, so please bear with me. The two words are:

James Joyce
 

Rather, not Joyce himself, but serious misreadings and misunderstandings of two of the more influential, if more often referenced than read, novels of the twentieth century: Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake. Not long ago, I offhandedly dismissed invocation of a so-called "rule of particularity" that implies that one maintains verisimilitude by piling on more and more details. This completely misses the point of Joyce's works. Ulysses, and to a somewhat lesser extent Finnegan's Wake, are reactions to the minimalism of the mainstream in early-twentieth-century fiction—reactions bordering on satire, irony, and parody. Using a satire as the model for one's straight novel is not the most advisable of methods.

One can also lay some blame on the explosion in casual viewing of visual media caused by the rise of TV. Sure, there was lots of cinema earlier in the century. However, it was not accessible from one's recliner at home, and represented a major "event" for most people. This has resulted, to some extent, in the atrophy of the populace's visual imagination. (One need only look at the contemporary painting and sculpture drawing the greatest praise to spot the atrophy—there is no there there. Or is that just Oakland?) Thus, the novel aimed at the general populace must use more space to do word-paintings to help the reader along. One can only imagine the size of Lord of the Rings if it had been written under contemporary market rules. Or perhaps it's unimaginable: find me a description of, say, Arwen, and her raiment, that does more than invoke some abstract sense of beauty. Nonetheless, she is no less successful as a tertiary character than the excrutiatingly detailed descriptions of chambermaids in much fantasy that bears more than passing resemblance to a bad Regency Romance.

A third explanation is simply the difference between close/presupposed and distant/unanticipated histories. It takes a lot more to convince one of the reality of something that one believes one knows something about. Most Americans think they know something about medieval culture (the dominant paradigm of commercial fantasy, whether Western or otherwise)—as a rule, they're wrong—and expect to see certain things. A fantasy writer must justify both the congruent and discontinuous features of her world. Most Americans, however, admit that they don't really know that much about science, and thus do not have preconceived notions of "how the future will look." That both of these concerns betray an utterly appalling misunderstanding of fiction only reinforces the conclusion—Americans know even less of literature than they do of science or history. Dr. Debra Doyle has quite rightly cited the roman (in English, Romance, although that is the name of a literary type rather than a commercial category) as a more-accurate paradigm for interpreting long-form speculative fiction than the novel; but I digress. Surprised?

139  INT. A TV interview set, very much like any midday talk show. Taping is in progress; we see lights and other equipment. INTERVIEWER and the set have the "local media" look: trying too hard to look professional, but merely betraying overweaning ambition and naïveté. SAVAGE is in a bright-orange coverall with a visible (but not legible) prison number; on the back is spray-painted block lettering reading "Property of Poictesme Prison System".

INTERVIEWER: You've been confined for how long now?

SAVAGE: Almost nineteen years.

INTERVIEWER: Have you been rehabilitated?

SAVAGE: No. It's hopeless. I still have uncontrollable urges…

INTERVIEWER: (beat) So, if you're released, you'd probably theorize again?

SAVAGE (resignedly): Yes. (beat) I probably would.

None of this is to disparage StephenMatthewSL's or Vera's observations; it is merely an alternate reality. And yes, there is a point in that term of art. But to understand why, you'll need to read good translations of Don Quixote and Candide, then Cabell's The High Place. For starters.

29 October 2001
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane

StephenMatthewSL LeighFarrell doesn't quite agree with some of my analysis last time concerning Big Fat Fantasy. To paraphrase, he doesn't credit Joyce with the influence that I did, and he doesn't think that there has been that much atrophy of the American public's visual imagination. The latter is certainly open to argument, although the victory of the easy-to-defeat, crash-prone early graphic RPGs, such as Ultima, over the vastly more challenging and reliable text adventures, such as Zork, provides some indication that the American visual imagination wasn't all that healthy even 20 years ago.

However, my comments on Joyce clearly need some clarification. The difficulty, as StephenMatthewSL (I've got to come up with a better appellation for him/them) properly points out, is that very few authors today, and particularly few fantasy authors, have even read Joyce. Joyce, and his allies, work more subtly on the publishing food chain.

In the beginning, a few literati believed in Joyce. He became much more popular when declared obscene, but still largely among the literati (both academic and in the upper reaches of publishing). In a sense, this influence began building up in the literary livers of English letters. Of course, it had unfortunate, unintended, unpredictable side effects. As first junior academics (the ones who actually teach) and less-senior editors, and then more students of literature and junior publishing people both inside and outside of the publishers became interested, the satire lost its edge and effect. There were occasional exceptions—notable for being exceptions (Gaddis and Pynchon come to mind). But there was more and more bloat, much of it coming from authors who had professed influence by Joyce (whether they had read him or not). And so we ended up with garbage like Mitchener in the 1950s and 1960s.

While literary livers were storing this literary DDT (which did, for a time, successfully control the overt minimalism of the early part of the twentieth century), environmental stress was changing the publishing industry. More-detailed accounting led to an inescapable conclusion: If one keeps the same number of pages in one's line, it's more profitable to spread them among fewer titles, and the longer a book/series (to a point, anyway) the lower the incremental cost of each additional page. This sickness leads to Robert Jordan et al.—if one pulls every page out of every book, and lays them end to end, they still don't reach a conclusion.

No, Joyce is not the single greatest influence. Take away this chain that his literary monsters catalyzed, and I'm uncertain that we'd have the same face of publishing today. Ironically enough, I agree with StephenMatthewSL that Joyce's less-voluminous works, such as the stories that make up Dubliners, are far more satisfying than his longer works. In the end, perhaps Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake are nothing more than incomplete experiments that didn't prove anything. In that sense, they're more like the Michaelson-Morley experiments that disproved the existence of the ether, but really provided little positive data on the nature of light. But, without them, Einstein never could have done the work in optics that led to the theory of relativity. In legal terms, it's "but for" causation.

<<<Last Month (September) — Next Month (November)>>>

• the fine print first (you'll need to replace "{at}" with "@" on the address line). Please come back soon.
• Return to
• Return to Surreality Check