The PD Gazette - call for comments

menikoff (by the way, happy belated birthday!) and I are actually losing our minds enough to start pulling together the articles to do this - a "Dickens Project"-style online journal currently dubbed the PD Gazette.

The PD Gazette will be a snapshot of public domain literature and history, presented as a series of snapshots of period literature accompanied by the occasional article that puts said literature in context. The first book to win the coin toss to be serialized will be The Three Musketeers, originally published as a serial novel in 1844.

So far, the supplementary materials discussed for this run of the PD Gazette include:

- poetry of 1844 (Poe, Eliz. Barrett, Blake, etc)
- short stories of 1844 (Poe, etc.)
- possible popular song lyrics (Swing Low Sweet Chariot was first published this year. Huh.)
- 1844 literary reviews of Musketeers, if available
- historical background for 1844 (original article, written by us)
- historical background for time of Musketeers (original article, written by us or granted with permission)
- possibly original artwork/pictures of Dumas, etc.

My plan is for us to pull together all the materials we would need for the entire Musketeer run and put together the first issue as a .pdf. If we haven't made ourselves crazy, we'll then go start talking to people like Stanford and Killdevil Hill and Project Gutenberg, etc. We'll actually make the entire run of the book, then post it online (no print version) at set intervals, so that all the hard work is done up front.

And if we're not nuts by the end of it, we'll talk about the next book, since we can both think of dozens that we want to do. There is a possibility of theme issues too, where we break the historical link and instead do a short run where everything is tied by theme. (A goth set based around Northanger Abby is irresistable to me.)

I'm slightly staggered by how enthusiastic other folks are for this - not only Menikoff, but someone to whom I mentioned it in passing who practically begged to give us unlimited server space for hosting it.

All of this winds up to being a lengthy preamble to a question I've already asked - what, oh ye teachers, librarians, and lit buffs, ought to be added?

Taking notes for future reviews

Credit to jeff_morris, on whose LJ I found this.

Long story short: A vanity press announced that good SF is hard to find, because [Science fiction authors] have no clue about what it is to write real-life stories, and how to find them a home [they are] writers who erroneously believe that SciFi, because it is set in a distant future, does not require believable storylines, or that Fantasy, because it is set in conditions that have never existed, does not need believable every-day characters." This rant was to prove that said vanity publisher was Above That and only printed the good stuff.

So a bunch of SFWA members decided to see if they could top Eye of Argon in the crapola contest and get the publisher to publish it. They did. It did. (Although it seems to have rescinded the offer when the authors publicly pointed out the scam... not to mention their work of art's numerous problems.) A .pdf of Atlanta Nights by Travis Tea is available online for the brave of heart and strong of stomach.

But the real fun comes in when you read the blurbs.

"Its quality and literary value are evident from the very beginning."

"You have to read this book to believe it."

"You won't believe what's between these covers!"

The ellipsis award goes to "...this... book... makes... for... wondrous... reading..." while the snark award goes to "Atlanta hasn't seen anything like this since Sherman marched through Georgia." Yolen gets the best last word: "I stayed upright reading it."

I am so taking notes for future RtE reviews!