bob@cadovax.UUCP (Bob "Kat" Kaplan) (04/11/85)
Last year I read Jayne Anne Phillips' "Black Tickets," a collection of short stories. Some of them were long, some of them were short, some of them were good, some of them were bad. Sort of uneven, in other words. But I was interested enough in her to read her novel "Machine Dreams." So I read it and it was pretty good. I'd even recommend it to someone. It wasn't really great, and it seems as though the literary world may be giving Phillips more than her share of praise, but that's alright with me because I think she's going to get better. When her next book comes out, I'll read it. But that's not the point I wanted to make. I don't venture into supermarkets very often, but I did recently and right at the check-out counter was a rack of paperback copies of "Machine Dreams." Right next to the Sidney Sheldons and Danielle Steeles! And not only that, but you could get your copy in your choice of colors (like they do for books where the cover is likely to be more interesting than the text)! I thought supermarket racks were the exclusive domain of cheap fiction! I don't know what her publisher and distributors have in mind. Maybe a made-for-TV-movie or perhaps a mini-series? The mind boggles. I just hope it doesn't ruin her. -- Bob Kaplan "Our love burns like fire, then turns to ashes."