This is an interview with David Truesdale, the editor of Tangent Magazine. I have admired Dave's publication for some time now, and recently got to work with him as a judge for one of the DarkEcho contests. He's a really nice fellow, and was very interesting to interview.

SHAUNA: All right, Dave. To appease those who have never heard of Tangent Magazine, why don't you explain what the magazine is like in your own words.

DAVE: In short, Tangent is a quarterly short SF review magazine, the only one of its kind. We review every original piece of short fiction printed in every professional SF and F magazine in the United States, as well as some zines from England, Ireland, and Canada. We also cover a wide variety of smaller (semi-pro and small press) fiction magazines here in the States, as well as quite a few collections and anthologies. Within each 80 page issue Tangent also includes a number of diverse (and sometimes controversial) columns and feature articles, and quite a lively letter column from time to time. Our first bi-monthly (and much slimmer) issue was dated July/August, 1993. The Spring 1995 issue (#10) was the first of the larger quarterly issues. The Fall 1996 issue (#16) should be available by Thanksgiving.

SHAUNA: How about The Starlog SF Yearbook?

DAVE: Boy, you've done your homework! This project was something I dreamed up just after the original Tangent had folded, back in 1977. The original Tangent was a much different magazine, by the way. It was considered a "sercon genzine", which, is fannish parlance, stands for a Serious and Constructive General interest fanzine. It was loaded with book, movie, and other fanzine reviews, and featured at least three pro interviews an issue.

But in 1978 I came up with a format for a Science Fiction Yearbook that had never been tried before in our genre. I had just finished running an interview with Fred Pohl for the final issue of Tangent and was aware that, at that time, he was the SF consultant for Bantam books. So I asked Fred what he thought of the idea. He liked it very much, and shopped it around to a few NY publishers. For one reason or another, it was turned down. But then I got to thinking where else I might send this elaborate proposal and I immediately thought of David Gerrold. I knew he was writing a column for Starlog at the time, and since I'd just received a 35,000 word interview from him (for an issue of Tangent which would never see print), I thought I'd ask David what he thought of my Yearbook proposal. He liked it very much as well, sent it along to Kerry O'Quinn, the publisher of Starlog, who eventually did the project. It came out in early 1979. Although I was disappointed in the production values, and the fact that we had some trouble getting people paid, I was very proud of this unique project. Somewhere, buried in a box, I still have the telegram David sent me the day he got the word that the project was a "go."

I'd like to try another one someday.

SHAUNA: I understand you've interviewed a number of great writers. Would you tell us about some of them, and any interesting experiences you've had?

DAVE: I could go on and on about the wonderful people I've interviewed over the years, but because of space restrictions I'll just pull up a few of my favorite quotes, okay? I don't necessarily agree or disagree with any of the following quotes, but each, I believe, does hold at least a grain of truth and is interesting in its own right.

Ballantine books SF editor Judy Lynn del Rey: "When a writer is writing he is basically writing to communicate. If there's no one out there to read what he writes or who cares what he writes, he's writing for himself. And that is, in a sense, literary masturbation. Who cares?"

Ballantine books Fantasy editor Lester del Rey: "And this is the sign of a bad writer. It is the function of a writer to take his ideas and present them in a form which can be assimilated easily. That's his job, whether he's writing fiction or non-fiction." -- Tangent #3, 1975.

Both Lester and Judy Lynn passed away some years ago, after beginning Del Rey books.

Poul Anderson: "I think the first duty of all art, including fiction of any kind, is to entertain. That is to say, to hold the interest. No matter how worthy the message of something, if it's dull you're just not communicating." -- Tangent #2, 1975

Jack Williamson: "A lot of experimental writers deplore plots. They feel plotting is sort of a crude, amateurish, primitive device, a restriction even. I like to feel that you can use plot to reveal character, to state theme, to animate setting. In a sentence you have to have a subject and a predicate, and I look for a similar pattern in a short story or novel. I feel this patterning is basic to language. If it isn't there...one of the possibilities of meaning is gone." -- Tangent #5, 1976

Ray Bradbury: "When you grow up in science fiction you grow up in everything! It's the greatest and only field worth growing up in. It's the total field. It's complete commitment to the whole human race all over the Earth." -- Tangent #5, 1976

And from one of my favorite writers of all time, who is sadly also no longer with us, Alfred Bester. This lengthy quote was part of a conversation held in the bar at the Muehlbach Hotel (where Alfie bought all the drinks and talked for hours), the site of the 1976 Worldcon, MidAmericon, known as Big MaC.

"Very often I write out of irritation of cliches, and by the time I wrote THE DEMOLISHED MAN I was so fuckin' goddamned sick and tired of the good guy/bad guy cliche. I am always with the anti-hero. I've always, all my life, been an anti-hero man. (Laughing) I'm demented, you know that...

"I have a terrible, terrible weakness as a writer. I have a complete lack of confidence in the spine of the story, of the essential story-line. And as a result of this lack of confidence I try to cover it. I fake by covering it with glitter, with bangels, with sequins. Apparently, I am up to my ass in ideas. Ideas are nothing for me. I've got big notebooks crammed with ideas that I've never been able to use. But anyway, my accusation against myself is a lack of faith in the basic story-line. After all these years I still try to cover it up, and it's like the hand is quicker than the eye. What I'm virtually doing is saying oh, look at this, get a little fact from that, oh here's a fine new character -- and all of this is so you're not looking at the central story-line. I'm trying to keep you away from it...

"In the early days, an editor took me in hand and laid it out for me. He said, 'Alfie, you are writing in a straight line that goes up 90 degrees from the bottom to the top. You can't do that. You've got to write saw-tooth. You give'em a peak then a rest, a peak then a rest, and so on.' He went on to say that I demand too much of the reader. And I do try, I sincerely try to give them a rest period, but my idea of a rest period is apparently somebody else's idea of high action, so what can I do? I don't want to write an average script. I want to knock your block off every time. And in case you do get up then I want to knock you down again so you can't get up. I want to knock you dead. I'm of the school that says you start with an earthquake and build to a climax. There are many motivations for writing. One is to do a professional job, to do justice to an idea in a story--but way in the back but very powerful, is this: 'Oh, the sons-of-bitches! How SURPRISED they're gonna be when they read this!' " -- Tangent #6, 1977

But if there has to be one single highlight of all the writers I've met it would have to be, without question, speaking for several hours with (husband and wife) Edmond Hamilton and Leigh Brackett, in April, 1976. It was at a Minicon in Minneapolis, MN, where the theme was the 50th Anniversary of Modern SF. Leigh, of course, wrote the original treatment for the first STAR WARS movie. Unfortunately, Ed died the following February, and Leigh passed away before she ever saw STAR WARS. That interview was the last ever conducted with them both. They were wonderful people, and should you ever see any of their books in a dealer's room at some con, snatch them up.

SHAUNA: As the editor of Tangent you see a lot of magazines. At this point in time do you have any favourites? If so, which ones are they? We'd like to check them out if we haven't already!

DAVE: I'm sure to get into trouble no matter what I say in answer to this one, but yes, I'm partial to a new magazine or two. I happen to like Bryan Cholfin's Crank! very much. And much of the work appearing in Century, though some pieces are a bit too mainstreamish for my taste. But these are two quality magazines which deserve as much support as they can get. I think Talebones and TransVersions are on the verge of really going places, as is Aberrations, if they can survive long enough to make a go of it. And then, of course, of the newer, much larger magazines I think SF Age has improved tremendously since its first issue, and I enjoy it quite a lot. At least one of its stories has already won a Nebula award. And Shawna McCarthy is doing wonders with Realms of Fantasy. Though Adventures of Sword and Sorcery only has three issues under its belt, there's been some dramatic improvement, and I think the editor, Randy Dannenfelser, will be taking it in some interesting new directions in the future. And of course there's always plenty of good stuff to be found in the pages of Analog, Asimov's, F&SF, Tomorrow, and Britain's Interzone, which recently won a Hugo. I enjoy all of these magazines. Many of the other magazines reviewed in Tangent are just too new yet to say one way or the other, but I've noticed reviewers being periodically surprised at some of the quality in some of them.

SHAUNA: When I get a new issue of Tangent I usually flip to your mailbag first to read some of those "Close Encounters of the Literary Kind". You see, I'm thoroughly amazed at how nasty some of the editors get when they receive a negative review in Tangent. Call me sick, but I've found some of the most heated letters comical. (Probably because they weren't addressed to me!) But really, I have to know, Dave. What goes through your mind when you, or one of your reviewers, gets a rotten letter from a pro editor?

DAVE: Well, to be honest, the first thing I do is read the letter very carefully. Regardless of the tone of the letter I check out the "facts" first. Most often it simply boils down to a difference of opinion. If the letter is directed to a specific reviewer I forward the letter and print the original letter and the response, if any. If not, then I will usually print the original letter in the interests of allowing readers/editors to give voice to their opinions. I let the chips fall where they may, unless the letter writer has written something ridiculously irresponsible or foul-mouthed. But this hasn't happened yet. There's a difference between a spirited, opinionated letter and a purely nasty, offensive one. I thoroughly encourage the former, and most of what I get are like this.

If a letter is directed to me specifically, rather than another reviewer, I handle it the same way. But then, as editor, I always get to have the last word, don't I? It really hasn't happened very often, and in the one instance I can recall, I think the letter writer would handle it much differently in the future, hopefully taking to heart the responses he received from those commenting on his missive. Actually, (knock on wood) Tangent receives very few truly negative letters as a percentage of what arrives in the mail. As an editor, I like receiving mail of whatever stripe. It means people are reading the magazine, and feel strongly enough about what they are reading to write about it. And let's not forget that a magazine devoted primarily to criticism must be able to take its fair share, too, right? It comes with the territory.

SHAUNA: Why do you think your latest editorial in Tangent will "stir up the hornet's nest"?

DAVE: Because if not read carefully, it will sound just like the usual "rant" concerning the old issue of SF merging with the mainstream. Which it is not. I tried to show the inherent differences, on a fundamental level, between what Mainstream sets out to do, and what SF attempts, by quoting what I think are excellent definitions of both as explained by James Gunn and David Hartwell. Once these separate and unique types of literature are shown to have derived from essentially different defining predicates, I then tried to explain why printing straight mainstream stories in magazines labeled SF, or F, wasn't playing fair with the reader. And I knew this wouldn't set well with those who favor no labels at all to the fiction they read, or write (some of whom are my good friends). It's more a matter of truth in labeling than anything else, from my point of view. For example: I like seafood and pasta, but when I walk into a classy Italian restaurant and all I see are fish dinners on the menu.... Or when I walk into a record store to purchase a collection of Ravi Shankar's Best only to get home and find Boxcar Willie or Doris Day mixed in with him, I feel cheated.

SHAUNA: Is it true you're a member of Mensa? If so, exactly how high does your IQ have to be to join? Do you think they'd let Chris Holliday in? (Hey! I have to tease Chris a little, don't I?)

DAVE: I've been a member of Mensa off and on since 1986. And obviously one's IQ doesn't have to be very high if they let me in, right? I don't think I've paid my dues for the past several years, actually. Tangent is a great drain on my meager finances, and it was either pay Mensa dues or SFFWA dues. I like Mensa very much and have some great friends there, but I'd rather hang with the SF crowd. I'm positive Mensa would let the esteemed editor of this wonderful on-line publication join their ranks! I've found SF people to be every bit as bright--if not more so--than "regular" Mensa members. And without question we throw better parties!

SHAUNA: All right, Dave. If you have any additional comments about anything I failed to ask, or if you have something you'd like to shamelessly promote, here's your opportunity. The floor is yours!

DAVE: Recently, my major cause celebre is Andre Norton's High Hallack Project. It was to have been the first ever genre writer's retreat; 70 acres of secluded woodland in the hills of Tennessee where writers in the fields of SF, F, mystery, romance, western, and YA could write in peace. They could live there up to six weeks at a time, and use Ms. Norton's 10,000 volume research library (including film archives) as well. But due to some recent setbacks (which we all hope are temporary), the building of the retreat has been cancelled. Only plans for the library are still alive, but are contingent in large part on donations from the various writer's organizations, as well as from all of us. Ms. Norton has just moved from her long-time home in Florida to the High Hallack site.

For more complete information on just what this unique project is, how to contribute, and the complete pictorial interview Tangent will be running in our Fall issue, I would recommend that you simply visit the Tangent web page at: http://www.sff.net/people/Dave.T/ sometime after the 3rd of November.

The entire "official" High Hallack web page should be up and running (as an add-on to the Tangent site) sometime the weekend of Nov. 1-3.

Shauna, it's been a pleasure. I thank you and Chris for inviting me.

Copyright © 1996 by Shauna Skye. All Rights Reserved.