Silence882 - Stephan Manza
I am really tired of you continuously trashing my book with your stupid and mostly self-serving comments every time the subject arises. What is it with this compulsion you have to display your own limitations? Your failure to recognize the accuracy and quality of my work simply displays your ignorance, your lack of experience and your irresponsibility.
There is a reason why both my editions became two of the best selling orchid books in history; it is because they offer innovative ideas that work. My book is the one that changed orchid growers; from being killers of orchids (see your own tag,”Paph Assassin’), into SUCCESSFUL orchid growers, and my 1st edition book was the tool that initiated the change. Mine was the first book written in English to list and to show photos of all the known paphiopedilums. More importantly, it is unique, as no other book has caused such a revolution in the cultivation of virtually all types of orchids. But first you need to actually read it.
Your comments that my book is a “rant,” and that “the information is available in a dozen other places” acutely displays more of your ignorance. You just don’t get it! I suggest you read the Bulletin and the Orchid Digest and The Orchid Review issues published BEFORE your frame of reference (your own birth date), and become an educated person. Most books on your list came after my book. Many have copied me (without citation), as have other recent authors who now take my principles of culture and apply them to numerous other genera of orchids.
One of your main complaints seems to be that my book has no bibliography. Let me spell this out for you: A bibliography is for authors who employ other people’s ideas as the foundation for their work. I have read (at least once) almost every piece of literature ever written in English (and some in French), and then discarded most of it because I found it just a lot of replicated, bogus data that mostly leads to the death of our cultivated orchids.
My paph book is based on PURE research. Pure research is where you start from scratch and then go out to find what works, on your own. My research on paphiopedilums was done both in the greenhouse and from the jungle; it is something no other person has ever done. If you are unable to comprehend it, then I think you have the problem, not my book. Many thousands of orchid growers have found it offers them great success.
Your comment, “None of his information is ever cited.” is a correct assessment. Mine is a CULTURAL book, not one about taxonomy. This is spelled out quite clearly in the Introduction (both editions), something you yourself could have read, had you bothered; and I put photos in my book for readers to see what each species looks like and to compare with those they have.
I accept your criticism about a few of the color photos. Since I chose to keep the cost of printing low, while still producing a high quality art book, I was forced to accept some discoloration caused by the flow characteristics of inks and by the physical placement of the photos in signatures. I wished photos in mine were as excellent as Cribb's 2nd edition paph book, but I didn’t think it would sell very well at well over a hundred dollars if I demanded such perfection. I believe most readers agree, (ask Phil Cribb).
You probably are an intelligent person and I assume you are simply ignorant and not devious. I really don’t know if you are seeking revenge with me for sending you a courtesy notice regarding your copyright infringement issue concerning graphics from my book, but if you are, I would think you might be grateful that I chose not to prosecute you. But maybe not.
While I agree that Averynov’s book is superb, most people will agree that the quality of photos in my book are quite a lot better. Still, his are more than acceptable to most everyone, and I noticed you failed to criticize them in your commentary. The major point you fail to notice is that just about every orchid grower is more interested in learning how to grow their plants well, than they are in reading taxonomy.
This is why my book remains a best seller.
Meanwhile, stop trying so hard to impress people by your acquisition of book lists and a Web site displaying other people’s data, and instead, go learn what orchids require in order to prosper, and then learn how to grow them because right now you understand neither. Only then might you become knowledgeable, and your opinions actually mean something.
Lance A. Birk