Beyond the Drawbridge

As you may or may not know, one of my posts from last year made it into an anthology, the best of science blogs 2007. I was pretty stoked about this at first, but then I looked at the state of science blogging and my reaction turned into more of a ‘meh’ than a ‘yippee’.

Basically, science blogging is crap.

Most of it is rehashing of published science (some is exceptional, and done very well) or Creationist/ID bashing, which is a waste of time and effort and does a great deal of harm to science (again, for an exception, see Steve Matheson. He’s coming at it from an appropriate side, though). The weblogs that attract me are witty, well-written, and deal more with the doing of science (and gratifyingly, both those authors are in the anthology) than the actual science itself; which I can get from Nature or Science or JMB or wherever.

So on looking at the list of authors and posts, my enthusiasm was somewhat pissed on, and I decided not to buy the book.

However, it arrived in the post on Tuesday, so I’m kind of stuck with it. The Black Queen was thrilled to bits to see my little piece (ooer) on page 12, and on the train on Wednesday morning read the first entry, written by the compiler/editor of the anthology (hmmm). To paraphrase (because she said it so much more elegantly than I can remember) it was padded, dry, pretentious claptrap. What took three pages could have been said in a paragraph.

And she’s right, of course; she always is.

So I will pay the editor for my copy, because it is only right, but don’t you bother buying it; I don’t get any royalties. I ‘ll lend you my copy.

PS. I’m the only author in that anthology to use the word ‘fucking’ in their post. I thought you should know that.