DargonZine
Volume 13, Number 10 |
Distributed: 10/14/2000
Circulation: 744 |
 |
DargonZine is the publication vehicle of the
Dargon Project, a collaborative group of aspiring fantasy writers on the
Internet. We welcome new readers and writers interested in joining the
project. Please address all correspondence to
<dargon@shore.net>
or visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.dargonzine.org/. Back
issues are available from
ftp.shore.net
in members/dargon/. Issues and public discussion are posted to newsgroup
rec.mag.dargon.
DargonZine 13-10, ISSN 1080-9910, (C) Copyright October, 2000
by the Dargon Project. Editor: Ornoth D.A. Liscomb
<ornoth@shore.net>,
Assistant Editor: Jon Evans
<godling@mnsinc.com>.
All rights reserved. All rights are reassigned to the individual
contributors. Stories and artwork appearing herein may not be reproduced
or redistributed without the explicit permission of their creators, except
in the case of freely reproducing entire issues for further distribution.
Reproduction of issues or any portions thereof for profit is forbidden.
|
Editorial
f you've been with DargonZine for a while, you'll know that every
so often I take a few moments to note as we pass one milestone or
another. I had planned this Editorial with the intention of noting the
publication of our 300th Dargon story; however, in looking up the
numbers I was diverted by the fanciful idea of measuring DargonZine's
output in terms of a bookshelf, rather than simple numbers. How many
paperbacks would it take to contain all our stories? The answer
surprised me.
I started with DargonZine's output: our stories, not including
editorials of course, amount to a tidy 1.5 million words. Then I
consulted the FAQ for the Usenet newsgroup misc.writing, which indicated
that the average word count for a standard novel is about 80,000 words.
Dividing one into the other gave me a total of 18 trade paperbacks.
That's an awful lot of shelf space!
It also averages out to a little more than one novel per year over
our sixteen-year history; however, lately our output has been higher
than that. For the past couple years we've actually been printing
stories at twice that rate, with no signs of slowing.
Eighteen paperbacks, and a another new novel every six months, is a
whole lot of fiction. I can't think of any other site with such a huge
collection of reading material; and I certainly don't know of another
site where you can download all those novels absolutely free and
completely ad-free.
This issue continues some of the traditions that have made us so
successful. We begin with the conclusion of Dafydd's two-part "Talisman
Six", itself a part of a huge serial that has spanned every DargonZine
issue for the past two years. Already a novel and a half in length, the
Talisman epic illustrates one of the more ambitious possibilities of the
serial format.
Our other two stories both demonstrate how storylines in a shared
anthology can overlap and intertwine. Rena Deutsch's "Past, Present, and
Presage" links her own storyline with Mark Murray's longstanding series
about Raphael and Megan. Also, although Max Khaytsus' "Loren Armare"
deals with the troops of his duchy of Arvalia, his third and last part
in the series focuses mostly on Dalton, a completely unrelated character
who was introduced by Michael Schustereit five years ago. These kinds of
linkages between storylines are what makes collaborative writing
exciting.
So enjoy these works as we celebrate publishing our 300th Dargon
story. And be on the lookout for our next issue, DargonZine 13-11, which
promises to be an absolute blockbuster, with five more new stories!
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