Happily, I got the first over-$50 donation to my Clarion fund earlier than expected, yesterday, so one of today's projects is actually putting together the pdf story file promised as a premium. This is a Good Thing.

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So last month I went on about unexploited source material for Jewish fantasy, mentioning specifically bizarre and suggestive references to demonology in the Talmud. As it happens, I did finally start working on something incorporating that. So, I shlepp over to the MSU Library last night to write, and before I get started I grab the volume of the Steinsaltz edition of the Talmud (pretty much "the edition" for us poor shlubs who can't actually read Hebrew or Aramaic and need extensive notes to help us slog through even an English translation) that I had vaguely remembered the passage I was looking for being in. Needless to say, I remembered wrong. Totally different tractate from the looks of it, although it having been over four years since I've cracked open a volume of this stuff, that could go either way.

Soooo....any yeshiva-educated sf writers out there? Or crack reference librarians? Or any one else who may know what I'm talking about? I was specifically looking for a comment in the gemorrah about abandoned buildings being "known" to be inhabited by demons, but anything related is good also. I've got some more ideas about where to look that I'll try tonight, but meanwhile help is always appreciated.

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The ESP/alternate-history story has been out at "Strange Horizons" for longer than I've ever had them hold onto something before (though still less than the officially stated response time). I'm trying to decide whether it's more likely to be because they're really thinking about or because for whatever reason it takes them longer to get to stories submitted through the new on-line form. I have my suspicions, but I choose to ignore them.

This is also the story that netted the most frustrating rejection of recent memory to the last place it was out at (I think I'll leave out the name of the magazine). It was one of those form rejects that start out by saying that they don't have time to tell you individually why your story was rejected (that part is perfectly understandable and I have no problem with it) but then go on to say "but it was probably because of X, since that's the most common problem." In this case, X was that an idea that seemed original to the author because the author is an ignorant shmoe (I'm paraphrasing here) really wasn't from the perpsective of some one more familiar with the field.

Now, the maddening thing about that as a rejection for this particular story is that it was explicitly, self-consciously retro in the science-fictional sensibilities on display. Telepathy, etc., are referred to as "psionic powers," characters are seen reading stories by Robert Heinlein, etc., etc., etc. Now, you can love classic sf homages or you can hate them, and you can find the way these elements are put to use here interesting and original or boring and unoriginal, you can love or hate the writing, plot, etc. All that makes sense, and would be par for the course. What doesn't make sense is to say, "you probably weren't aware of this, but the basic speculative conceit here isn't terribly original."

Now, if this had been an individually tailored response, however inexplicable, I would have been perplexed, but I wouldn't have been tacky enough to mention it in public. It does, I think, say something about the folly of putting statistical guesses in form rejects and make you appreciate the more standard polite-fiction form rejects: "thank you for submitting to Magazine A. Unfortunately, your story did not meet our current needs. Best of luck in placing it elsewhere." Honestly, what's wrong with that? I don't mind being told something sucked for whatever reason (even if I don't see it, since after all by definition, I wouldn't would I?) by some one, even the lowest level slush reader, who actually read a couple pages of the story and is in a position to know what it was about. That's life, and no one too sensitive for that has any business doing this. I do however mind being told something sucks by some one making a statistical guess. That seems like a bit much.