On Sun, May 30, 2004 at 07:22:05PM -0500, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > "Howard Brazee" <howard at brazee.net> writes: > > I disagree. Sturgeon's law worked then and it works now - but now there > > are tremendously more educated writers. Even applying Sturgeon's law to > > the 10% gives us an elite 1% that is vastly larger than the 10% of the past. > > Not by my standards. > > And when I looked at the 2003 novels and such nominated for the > retro-hugo, it was *amazing* how much first-rate stuff was published > in 1953. No offense intended David, but the retro-hugos are exactly the wrong way to look at it. The nominated books are the top 1% or so of their year *after having stood the test of time*. A better test would be to grab tend random books published in those years. IMHO the result would be a very large percentage of really bad books. Ob plug -- I just picked up John M. Fords new short story collection, 'Heat of Fusion.' Wow. Just . . . wow.