The Bookshelf Archive

- webzine columns by Hart Williams -

before SALON, before SLATE, a pioneering
webzine that was a bit too far ahead of its time ...

 ... Long, long ago, (about a year or so, in Web Time*) I was contacted by a gentleman who was putting together an online 'zine. It was called Webzine Weekly, which quickly became WebZine, and came out monthly. We won a "Top 5% of the Web" from Point Communications (the review is probably still there) and churgled forward, groping blindly towards literary immortality.

[*1996 - ed.]

But the original intent was, evidently, beyond its time: to syndicate several columns, to make money off the web. Well, like the Stanley Steamer, it was ahead of its time, and behind, and it is gone.

But my Santa Fe Sun columns were archived there, and I find that now the archive has crumbled to cyber-dust, and I must, therefore replace it. Fortunately, I downloaded the archived columns in anticipation of just such a day, and present (with minor modifications) the original archived columns, including the infamous "Rama: Lama? Ding-dong?" column, which is archived at several other areas of the Web.

Why? Because, I think, I have a long track record of being ahead of the times, ahead of the breaking story, and this is just another example. In other words, I was one of the only reviewers in the country to cover the damned thing, even though it was getting massive radio advertising, and had glowing quotes from famous people about how great it was -- until the Washington Post exposé and the WIRED exposé and the ... well, you get the idea.

Suddenly, blurbs were withdrawn. This, then, is my little book column that I started when I was living at St. Elizabeth's Shelter for the Homeless in Santa Fe, sans typewriter, sans anything but the knowledge of how to review, and how to write.

Perhaps there's a lesson in that, somewhere.

1997 © Hart Williams

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Presented as the originally appeared on-line (more or less)