Our Purpose and Our Dream
Andrew Marini—the founder of Startling Visions Publications—has created and launched Startling Visions Books with four main goals:
1) To Promote Startling Vision Fiction as a Legitimate and Important Fiction Type
2) To Champion the Short Story Form
3) To Encourage and Further the Concept of Inexpensive Quality Entertainment
4) To Counter the Notion of Ephemeral Media
1) To promote the kind of stories that comprise Startling Vision Fiction as a legitimate and valuable Literature
Exploring, explaining, and venerating the gamut of storytelling which we call Startling Vision Fiction, as defined in Andrew Marini's own words here, is the most important function of our publications.
2) To Champion the Short Story Form
The short story form—once one of the most common forms of all published fiction—has for the last several decades been increasingly undervalued and overshadowed by the dominance of the novel. This is true for all types of literature, but especially so with so-called "genre fiction", such as Startling Vision Fiction.
We believe it is time to help re-establish the importance of the short prose format's place in the field of literature by devoting most of our publications to short stories of Startling Vision Fiction.
3) To Encourage and Further the Concept of Inexpensive Quality Entertainment
It seems likely most people would agree that good, inexpensive entertainment is not easy to come by today. Though complaints about the high costs of living are certainly common to every generation, there's little doubt that the prices of entertainment forms haven risen exorbitantly in the last twenty-five years, such that even small paperback books from large commercial publishers have become prohibitively expensive. With Startling Visions Publications, we are trying to buck this trend and provide quality, entertaining fiction at below-industry prices.
4) To Fight Against the Notion of Ephemeral Media
Despite the fact that there are people who always throw a magazine or book away once they've read it, who never watch a movie or television program more than once, or who won't listen to the same audio play twice, the old concept of "disposable media" has been proven to be a falsehood. The value of beloved entertainments of the past has never been more keenly realized than now, and by helping to keep older stories accessible to a modern audience, Startling Visions Publications is just one more source for the preservation of our literary heritage.
"Disposable media" is the perception that most average consumers are only really interested in experiencing a work of fiction once—be it a book, magazine, audio play, movie, or television series—and after experiencing it that one time, they will have little or no desire to revisit it later. In the past this viewpoint has caused many major publishing companies to be wary about producing new releases of older works of entertainment, simply out of a belief that the average consumer is not interested in "old stories". While some works were seen as being perennial "classics" and therefore always profitable, the rest were regarded as mainly being of interest only to collectors, while the "average" consumer is constantly looking for something "new". This mindset has long contributed to works falling out of production, making it more difficult to revisit them.
Today, however, old books and magazines, as well as classic television, radio, and cinema, are enjoying a Renaissance like they've never seen before, thanks in part to newer and better means of producing quality reproductions. More pulp magazines, dime novels, comic books, and vintage paperbacks are being reprinted now than in any previous decade, and laser disc technologies have widened the possibilities of preservation and publication of collections of old movies and whole television series. The internet and improved audio recording and enhancing capabilities have helped a growing community of Old Time Radio enthusiasts spread the love of classic radio plays to new listeners.
The theory of "disposable media", then, has been disproved, and Startling Visions Publications is a new participant in the fight to keep great fiction of the past from vanishing in the present. The more entertaining stories we can bring to light for a modern audience, the greater the chance that our literary heritage will live and thrive for future generations, inspiring new writers to embrace the story-telling methods and ideals of the great eras of literature.
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