The office at the very end of the building was not without its benefits, and with a slight pull from Lindbyer, the morning sunlight rushed in through the cracks in the shutters, quickly filling the gaps in the artificial light blocked by the wooden doors, forming streaks of light and shadow on the table top of the window desk. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The stripes were suddenly half covered by oval shadows, and Linde Baier sat down in the leather chair, and he pressed the keyboard buttons placed on the push plate of the desk, and the 21-inch LCD screen, which had been attached to the desk table, slowly rotated upward, and finally stopped at an angle suitable for viewing with a bright light.

He was seated and was about to start doing what he was supposed to do.

The first thing to do is to turn off the default date reminder on the display, and of course he knows that today is the deadline.

The second thing is that among the only two icons on the desktop of the monitor, he double-clicked the red icon on the left, and he pops up as the editor-in-chief, responsible for editing the preliminary review manuscript of the magazine.

"Eleventh." He whispered a word.

This is the eleventh review of this issue.

Among the thirty-two manuscripts, the first one he reads now is also the eleventh review. This time, he carefully reviewed it three times, and finally couldn't find any mistakes, so he pressed the button on the top right of the window to pass the second review. In the second part, he found three minor mistakes and corrected them, and also pressed the pass button in the upper right corner.

These two manuscripts, as well as the hot coffee delivered by Kelly, put him into a working state.

The review of the third and fourth articles also went quite smoothly, but he did not directly correct the few mistakes he found. ---- the author did not give the right to make corrections---- Lindebyer marked the mistake and sent an e-mail to both authors.

……

When Kelly brought in coffee for the third time, Lindebyer took off her glasses and was leaning back in a soft chair with her eyes closed, which was not a serious posture. It was only in the office that he felt like he was back to his true self and found a feeling that he couldn't find at home.

The lighter part of the morning has been done, and the next part is the real hard work.

He rubbed his eyes lightly and silently calculated: out of thirty-two manuscripts that passed the initial review, fifteen could barely be finalized. There are still five gaps in the required number of manuscripts in this issue, and this gap is difficult to fill in the remaining manuscripts.

Even trying to find one is not an easy task. ---- each one of them looks worse than the others.

Do you want to fill up the numbers with manuscripts that don't look the worst? Lindbyer frowned, the quality of this kind of manuscript is far from satisfying him, in fact, in recent years, which issue of the manuscript can really satisfy him.

"Supernatural science fiction" is on the wane. He let out an imperceptible sigh.

Year after year of downhill, he also carefully thought about various reasons year after year, the shrinkage of the publishing industry by the impact of new media, the overall decline of short science fiction, the repeated reduction of group investment, etc., etc., until now, not to mention the quality of submissions, even the quantity has gradually become unstable, if it were not for the long-term persistence in his heart, I am afraid he would have ......

Why don't they understand!

It is true that the print run of short story magazines is not more than tens of thousands, and it does not bring much direct income, but is it all that cash is obtained from short story magazines?

Each year, how many new authors does supernatural science fiction discover for the mature chain of Castle Publishing? How many new sci-fi readers have been cultivated who don't have the patience for a long time? How much potential attraction and intangible capital is formed as part of a complete sectoral structure?

He thought silently, his hands clenching involuntarily.

Short story magazines are an indispensable part of the industrial chain, and their existence is more important than the purpose of profit, and it has enough reasons to survive in the book company group.

Lindbyer knew very well in his heart that all the higher-ups understood what he was thinking, otherwise the small magazine "Supernatural Science Fiction" and his small department would have long since ceased to exist.

But is it just survival, is that the reward of years of hard work? The ultimate goal of years of struggle?

It's a question that hasn't been answered for years, and Lindbyer doesn't want to think about it any longer. He slammed his head down, opened his eyes and manipulated the mouse to point at the monitor desktop, where there were only two black icons.

The new submission list instantly fills the display screen.

There is a popular saying in the editorial department of "Supernatural Science Fiction": reviewing new submissions in science fiction can exercise the patience nerve to be as thick as a certain part. ---- if it can "stick to it".

Although the phrase is remembered word for word, Lindebyer certainly would not agree with such rude words. At least he wouldn't agree.

Now, Lindbyer hopes for good luck and less suffering in the morning.

He sat up straight and clicked on the first topic.

As a department leader who is worthy of salary, he often spares no effort to manage and teach his editors: to have good patience and responsibility for the submission of new authors; Always keep the tone of advice in mind; It is necessary to have a broad mind and a mentality of tolerating mistakes, so as to assist the author to continuously improve in his creation. The most important thing is to psychologically eliminate the natural aversion to the beginning of the manuscript that you don't like.

Lindbyer doesn't just pay lip service, he always leads by example.

For example, the first three new submissions that were quickly excluded by him as soon as he opened the list were rejected simply because they were not suitable for the topic of this issue.

But Lindbyer definitely didn't think they were bullshit, nor did he think they didn't make sense, they were unsightly, they were old-fashioned, and the plots were vulgar.

He didn't slam his mouse on his desk and scold "bullshit" while thinking that the authors who wrote these three submissions were shitting their heads with feces and urine.

Although Lindbyer only reads each submission for one minute; Although in the office, there were several sounds of hard objects hitting hard objects.

Of course, Lindbyer still had some very patient thoughts in his mind: Is the current author only cranky? Don't they know that supernatural science fiction needs science fiction in the first place? This is a sci-fi submission mailbox, not a magic submission mailbox! It's not a madhouse mailbox!

Lindebyer took a sip of his coffee, feeling a little calmer as he held the group delivery mug with the red and black castle painted on it. So, he manipulated the mouse click to submit the fourth new article.

If he moved his gaze a little to the upper right, he would see that the email was coming from across the ocean, in that ancient and mysterious country.

Destiny manipulates the mouse with a light click.