S1ngularity

April 19, 2003 2:22 PM

"S1ngularity is the literary equivalent of a heroin spike in the eye..." is the typically underblown description of the latest ezine set up by sf critic, bookseller and force of nature Gabe Chouinard. Crazy, passionate and friends with, among other authors you've never heard of but should, Jeff VanderMeer Mr Chouinard and his cohorts are attempting to "bring exemplary fiction to the masses, and complement it with serious critical reviews and probing, insightful interviews."
And have what looks like a lot of fun in the process.
posted by thatwhichfalls (6 comments total)

Oh look, another lit mag.


Just give me Granta, thanks.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 2:47 PM on April 19, 2003

i'm sorry, but i cannot support a website that ugly.
posted by luckyclone at 2:57 PM on April 19, 2003

S1ngularity is the literary equivalent of a heroin spike in the eye...

Oh, I see, like heroin in the eye. So, my eye would then go numb, or close up, or be otherwise rendered unusable. And this is good? Somebody needs to work on their metaphors.

The almost-subtle use of 1337-spelling makes me think of that other great artistic work, the film S1m0ne

And yeah, the site is ugly in that "Post-Modern for 1992" sort of way.
posted by Ayn Marx at 8:13 PM on April 19, 2003

It was absolutely driving me nuts where I'd heard of Chouinard, besides the occasional column on the net. Turns out he hosts a Delphi Forum (Delphi was my gateway to becoming chatty on the web), he used to hang out at Warren Ellis's (now dead) Delphi Forum, and occasionally visited the now defunct Clockwork Storybook and the Clockwork Storybook Forum (where Mefi's own vraxoin used to publish online fiction with Chris Roberson, Mark Finn, and comic book writer Bill Willingham). Chouinard has a "coming soon" webpage (don't we all have at least one of those still floating out there?) and is involved in Locus online.

Small world.

So he's probably reading this thread...
posted by Shane at 8:54 PM on April 19, 2003

Gosh. Another hip, happening, "We bad. We gonna reINVENT da genre" site. Gee.
posted by Samizdata at 12:39 AM on April 20, 2003

Whereas, I'm usually right up there in the front of the crowd to poke the pretentious....this doesn't strike me as one of those "too artsy to be real" things.

I, as one of the people in black, like the site design...it's not as intuitive as something designed by a GUI expert, but it serves...which is fine. The content is outstanding...I haven't looked for their rate page yet, but assuming they pay what most zines pay (between nada and zip), they've got some pretty amazing talent.

As a publisher myself, I've seen much worse attempts...and some of the criticisms strike me as the instinctive slapback at pretentious art snobs, without actually checking the content. For example, one of the stories this month is from Michael Jasper...a brilliant new writer.

My editorial take, as a publisher, is that the site design could use some work...but the content is solid, and I like it. ( I suddenly feel like Simon from American Idol...I've said something nice...surely that can't be right.)
posted by dejah420 at 1:42 AM on April 20, 2003