RARA-AVIS: Re:Sturgeon's "Cellmate"

From: Eric Chambers ( nqexile@yahoo.com.au)
Date: 13 Jun 2008


"Juri Nummelin" juri.nummelin@pp.inet.fi, wrote,
 PS. Sturgeon's law: what a bunch of crud. If 90 % percent of everything was
 crap, we wouldn't have this list or then there's thousands of cruddy
 hardboiled and noir novels being published each year.

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Juri, look at it this way, do you think all the things we mention here add up to more than 10 percent of everything out there? Try this. Go to any provincial library, look at the books in the crime section. Are there more than 10 percent of them that you'd read? Would you consider more than 10 percent of what is on TV at any given time worth watching? I always figured that those of us who contribute to this list are actively in pursuit of excellence. By the way, surely not every work or creator mentioned here is in the top 10% of excellence?

I myself live by Sturgeon's law, by it's reverse implication. I'm an incurable optimist. I'm the guy who keeps digging through the crap looking for the pony.

I figure if 90 percent of everything is crap,(and for a person of discernment I think that is self-evident) it therefore follows that 10 percent of everything might be excellent. So I spend my life looking for it. And one place that quest led me was here.
  

       
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