Making Book is an astonishing collection of essays by Teresa Nielsen Hayden. It's far easier to quote some of the comments about it than to describe it:
"Teresa Nielsen Hayden is a bloody good writer. Her effortless mastery
of the comma-separated list, courageous use of subjunctives, and wicked
precision with a semicolon make this one of the few 1990s publications which
will not cause the late William Atheling, Jr. to rotate in his grave."
—David Langford
"Making Book is like a tea party with E. B. White, Dorothy
Parker, and M. F. K. Fisher (and imagine what they would have said about
Iguanacon). Teresa Nielsen Hayden is smart, funny, satirical, sensitive-a
treasure of an essayist."
—Emma Bull
"An orrery of a book, all bright shiny bits whirling about and just when
you think it's all random it clicks and you can see that the prose precesses
with the drunken grandeur of a Galilean moon."
—Steven Gould
"Maybe I'll go to sleep one night and wake up as Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
I'd like that. Every time I wrote something, I'd just close my eyes and imagine
people like me giggling and then sitting up straight going, 'Hey! I hadn't
thought of that!' And, geez, I'd know everything. I mean, I'd understand about
the languages of Canada, the languages of copyediting, and the languages of
narcolepsy; the true meaning of 'Fred,' the true meaning of 'Jon Singer,' the
true meaning of 'Claude Degler,' and the true meaning of the serial comma; and I
could explain these languages and concepts so perfectly that everyone else would
understand them too, only they wouldn't know how they'd come to understand them
exactly, but they'd nevertheless find themselves thinking, 'Maybe I'll go to
sleep one night and wake up as Teresa Nielsen Hayden.'"
—Steven Brust
"You don't have to be interested in science fiction to adore this book.
A fondness for style and secret knowledge will carry you through it in
joy."
—Will Shetterly
"Making Book is delightful. Also insightful, erudite,
laugh-out-loud funny, and more than a little dangerous."
—Beth Meacham and Tappan King
"Teresa Nielsen Hayden is a rare talent, a writer who combines a
powerful, deft style with an astonishing intellectual range. And Making Book
is a delight-a dizzying feat of literary legerdemain that leaves you gasping,
applauding, wanting more."
—Laura J. Mixon
Table of Contents
- God and I
- Of Desks and Robots
- Apocalypse Now and Then
- Black Top Hat and Mustache
- Major Arcana
- Bei mir bist du Schoenherr
- High Twee
- The Big Z
- Hell, 12 Feet
- Tits and Cockroaches
- Over Rough Terrain
- Workingman's Fred
- On Copyediting
- Review of American Psycho
- The Pastafazool Cycle
Publishing information
Original printing, 500 copies, $6.00 in advance and at Boskone 31, $9.95 afterwards (later raised to $11.00), February 1994. Twice reprinted.