Simon Owens of Bloggasm examines the rise of SF/F e-zines and whether they will ever become profitable. The article has generated a good bit of controversy, as can be seen in the article's comments section and on the readers forums at Asimov's. Overall, I think it is a good examination of the history of e-zines, although leaving out Jim Baen's Universe and Intergalactic Medicine Show is strange, especially since these are two of the best online magazines and have the best claim to profitability. Still, I give props to Owens for writing an extremely informative article. (If you want to see Owens' article on the Million Writers Award I run, go here.)
Story of the week: Conclusion of Joe Haldeman's Marsbound
A few weeks ago, I selected Joe Haldeman's Marsbound as my story of the week. At the time I mentioned how I was going out on a limb picking a serialized novel without reading the third and final part. Hence my parting comment: "If Haldeman finishes the story as well as he began it, Marsbound will no doubt be one of my favorite novels of the year."
Well, the April issue of Analog contains the novel's finale. And the final verdict: Marsbound is my favorite hard science fiction novel of recent years. Without giving too much away, Haldeman's story of Carmen Dula, one of the first teenage colonists on Mars, contains a perfect mix of character development, intrigue, suspense, sensawunda, and glimpses into the massive scale of our universe--in short, all the things I expect from a great science fiction novel. My only complaint--a minor one--is that the story wraps up too quickly after the explosive conclusion. I had become so connected with Carmen's character that I wanted more of a denouement to wind me out of her fascinating life.
Still, that complaint is not significant. If you can't track down the last three issues of Analog, Haldeman's novel is set for an August release in hardcover.
John Scalzi promises to destroy your writing career if...
Best-selling SF author John Scalzi has this advice for people thinking about falsely using his name to promote their wannabe writing careers: "Certainly if I found out someone was lying about my association with them, I would go out of my way to make sure everyone knew what a lying sack of crap they were. And at this point I have a fairly loud megaphone."
Scalzi's advice comes in response to Justine Larbalestier's wonderful post on asking people for blurbs for a new book. Tobias Buckell also weighs in on the subject of blurbing. The long and short of what these three top-notch writers say: Ask nicely, don't bother the author if they don't respond, and don't be a lying sack of crap.
UPDATE: John Scalzi also gives some excellent monetary advice to wannabe writers. His best financial suggestion: "get the hell out of New York/LA/San Francisco."
Science fiction story idea generator
Writer Julia H. West has created a science fiction story idea generator, something sure to outrage half the SF/F writers in the world while simultaneously pleasing the other half. Click on the generator's links and you will be given all the characters, plot ideas, and emotions needed to complete a story. For example, with a few clicks on the generator I came up with a story about a deformed baby in a monastery who is ecstatic about his job as a xenoarcheologist, perhaps because his wrist radio just informed him the plague is about to hit. I'm sure this story will hit all the best-seller lists!
From my snarky tone you may have picked up that I'm not a fan of this type of writing aid. But as something to play around with, the generator is loads of fun. (Hat tip to Omnivoracious for pointing me to Julia's generator.)
Story of the Week: The Overseer by Albert E. Cowdrey
Perhaps my view of American fantasy and horror is biased. As someone born and raised in the American South, I have always believed that the most native and fully fleshed American fantasy and horror works have owed their very lifeblood to the literary sub-genre of Southern Gothic. William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily." "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" by Flannery O'Connor. The novels of Cormac McCarthy and Dorothy Allison and Anne Rice. The mix of sultry Southern settings of humidity and heat and green and decay, combined with hundreds of years of racial and political turmoil, create a backdrop against which fantasy and horror grow until they seem all too real. Appear all too capable to swallowing us alive.
My new story of the week is Southern Gothic at its best: "The Overseer" by Albert E. Cowdrey, published in the March 2008 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The story follows the life tale of Nicholas Lerner, a rich and powerful one-armed Confederate veteran reaching the end of his life in 1903 New Orleans. The story opens with Lerner's valet Morse prying into the life of the crippled old man even as Morse cleans and prepares his employer for the new day. "Damn him, thought Lerner. He knows I detest conversation with a razor at my throat." Of course, that ironic sentence sums up all of Lerner's haunted life, as every conversation he's ever engaged in has been with a razor to his throat--or him holding one against someone else's very existence. Now Lerner is desperate to free himself from the literal spectre which has propelled him through this cursed life, but equally unwilling to give up the riches his life has granted him.
"The Overseer" is a ghost story of racial conflict, hate, revenge, war, and survival, but it is also much more. This story forces the reader to ask how many of the world's evils results from our own sinful actions, and how many result from those who overseer our every movement. This story is highly recommended and will no doubt be on many of the coming 2008 "year's best" lists.
Essay: Is There Nepotism in Science Fiction?
Orson Scott Card 's InterGalactic Medicine Show published an excellent essay last month by Carol Pinchefsky called "Is There Nepotism in Science Fiction?" While I suggest anyone who submits to SF/F magazines and publishers read the essay, to summarize Pinchefsky's argument: While the SF/F community is small, nepotism by editors is self defeating. Still, it doesn't hurt to be nice if you meet an editor at a convention. After all, no one likes to purchase stories from raving lunatics who whine on and on about not getting published because of nepotism. (Disclaimer: That last sentence is not in Pinchefsky's essay, but should have been. :-)
Science fiction authors feel the need to steal
The always great SF Signal asks leading science fiction authors which sf ideas they'd love to have stolen from their fellow authors. Because as SF Signal states, "A little professional jealousy isn't a bad thing, right?" Among the answers: The Ringworld, all of Brave New World, and Gene Wolfe's Soldier of the Mist.
InterGalactic Medicine Show offers free stories
Orson Scott Card 's InterGalactic Medicine Show is one of the best online science fiction and fantasy magazines out there, and they're now offering people a chance to read some of their stories for free. According to an e-mail from editor Edmund R. Schubert, "During the month of February we are going to make one story from each of our first four issues available at no charge. Two stories will be set free on February 1st, and two more on February 15th. Just visit www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com and explore the table of contents; the free stories will be clearly marked."
Among the stories slated for a free read on Feb. 15 is "Tabloid Reporter To The Stars" by Eric James Stone, one of the best SF/F stories of the last year (the story will also be featured in the upcoming IGMS anthology from Tor, due out in August). While I'm pleased IGMS is working so hard to attract more readers, I should point out that their current purchase price of $2.50 an issue will hardly break anyone's bank. Issue 7 came out a few weeks back and I'll be reviewing it on my blog in a few weeks, but until then throw a little money on the IGMS table. You'll be supporting a great magazine and gaining a great read.
2007 SF/F magazine circulation numbers
The Feb. 2008 issue of Locus features their annual year in review, including a survey of the major SF/F magazines. For Analog Science Fiction and Fact, overall paid circulation fell 3.2% in 2007 to 27,399 (with subscriptions making up 22,972 of that number), while their sister publication Asimov's Science Fiction saw circulation drop 5.2% to 17,581 (of which 14,084 are sent to subscribers). The numbers for both these magazines are actually pretty good, with sell through on newstands increasing by a few percentage points and the steep drop in circulation seen in recent years leveling out.
Fantasy and Science Fiction saw a startling 11.2% drop in circulation to 16,489, almost all of that from their subscriptions. Realms of Fantasy saw a 2.5% drop in circulation for 2006--their last year for available numbers--to 22,544. The good news, though, is that RoF saw their subscription base grow by over a thousand. The other professional SF/F magazine, Interzone, saw its circulation remain in the two to three thousand range.
There are two interesting things about these numbers. First, newsstand sales remain a problem. New readers discover magazines by first reading them. If they can't find the magazine, they won't subscribe. The good news, though, is that all of these magazines except RoF are now available as electronic downloads from Fictionwise. As electronic reading devices become more accepted, I imagine this will offset the fewer and fewer newsstands which carry SF/F magazines. I'd also suggest Locus provide circulation numbers from places like Fictionwise in next year's overview.
Second, Fantasy and Science Fiction's circulation drop should stand as a testament to how data thieves can harm any business. According to editor and publisher Gordon Van Gelder, 2007 would have been a good year financially if not for the recent postage hike and the theft and abuse of F&SF's subscription list by "rogue subscription agencies, which cost us dearly." This appears to indicate that F&SF's large drop in subscribers last year was due to scammers contacting current F&SF subscribers. As an Asimov's subscriber, I have experienced these same scam artists, who call and try to con you into "renewing" your subscription. While I'd read announcements about these scams and hung up on them with a few choice words, it is understandable that many subscribers would fall for the scam, thereby alienating valuable SF/F readers and causing a deserving magazine to lose subscribers. I hope F&SF bounces back from this no-fault-of-their-own problem. I also encourage people to subscribe and support all these magazines.
William Gibson sells "whatever"
Even though I'm a big fan of William Gibson and always look forward to reading his books, I still have to laugh at this report in the Jan. 2008 issue of Locus: "William Gibson sold his next novel to Susan Allison at Putnam via Martha Millard. No title, no plot, no outline. Just whatever."
Of course, knowing Gibson's writing ability, I bet even a novel titled Whatever would be amazing.
Medical marijuana as anger management tool
I guess this is another trend which science fiction totally failed to predict: medical marijuana as an anger management tool. The jaw dropping information comes at the end of an Associated Press report on vending machines in L.A. now dispensing medical marijuana.
A man who said he has been authorized to use medical marijuana as part of his anger management therapy said the vending machine's security measures would at least protect against illicit use of the drug. "You have kids that want to get high and that's not what marijuana is for," Robert Miko said. "It's to medicate."
Fiction rarely tops the weirdness and mysteries of real life.
Sci Phi: The Journal of Science Fiction and Philosophy
A new magazine caught my eye the other day--Sci Phi: The Journal of Science Fiction and Philosophy. Edited by Jason Rennie, Sci Phi focuses on fiction combining the ideas of science fiction and philosophy. According to Rennie, he first encountered the term Sci Phi in Mark Rowland's book The Philosopher at the End of the Universe. Rennie also states that philosophical ideas have long been discussed in the medium of story telling. "From Plato’s conversations questioning the basis of morality in his Euthyphro dialogues, through Thomas More’s exploration of Utopia and down to Nietzsche’s stories about the mad man proclaiming the death of god and its consequences. It should be no great surprise that the modern story telling art of science fiction would likewise provide such a vehicle."
Stanley Schmidt and his well-deserved Hugo
Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Canadian science-fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer stirred up some controversy recently by calling for Analog Science Fiction and Fact editor Stanley Schmidt to win the Hugo Award for Best Editor. Schmidt has been nominated for the award many times, but has never won. Sawyer's call was taken up on the readers forums of both Analog and Asimov's. While a number of people supported Sawyer's call, others said that this wasn't a strong year for Analog and that the award should not be given for mercy or pity reasons.
Personally, I take exception to the idea that giving Schmidt a Hugo would be an act of mercy or pity or that this wasn't a strong year for his magazine. Analog remains the best-selling science fiction magazine in the U.S. and a number of the magazine's stories from the last year have been honored. Richard Horton picked two Analog stories--"Vectoring" by Geoffrey Landis and "Virus Changes Skin" by Ekaterina Sedia--for his upcoming best of the year anthology, while "Things That Aren't" by Michael A. Burstein and Robert Greenberger made the Nebula preliminary ballot. To those 2007 stories I would add several other strong tales, especially "Icarus Beach" by C. W. Johnson and "Some Distant Shore" by Dave Creek. And to top all that off, I absolutely loved the serialization of Karl Schroeder's Queen of Candesce. Without Analog I'd never have started Schroeder's Virga sequence, which for my money is the best hard science fiction series in many years.
And that's just from 2007. This year is also shaping up to be a great one for Analog, with the first three 2008 issues having some amazing stories (especially the serial Marsbound by Joe Halderman).
So would it be an act of mercy to give Schmidt a Hugo for all that? Absolutely not. Instead, the award would be well deserved.
Matthew Cheney on muses and ghosts
Matthew Cheney has returned to blogging after taking a break following the sudden death of his father (I offer my sincere sympathy to him on his loss). Cheney's new column for Strange Horizons deals with both his father's death and their mutual love of movies. The essay is extremely moving and observant, especially as Matthew notes how movies were one of the few things in life which brought the two of them together. The essay's ending will leave you with a massive lump in your throat and an overwhelming desire to immediately call your own father.
Books that make you dumber than Virgil's whole analysis
Via the always great SF Signal comes books that make you dumb. Created by Virgil Griffth, the analysis cross references the 10 most popular books at different colleges with that college's average SAT score. This, according to Virgil, shows the correlation between the type of books being read and how dumb or smart someone is.
There are way too many issues with this analysis to take it seriously, starting with the fact that having read Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is not a signature mark of intelligence these days. Ironically, Virgil originally labeled Lolita as "Erotica" instead of "Classics." After being mobbed by literature majors, Virgil changed this while snarking that his complainers "lack any sense of humor."
Anyway, I'm sure this analysis will provoke tons of outrage and indignation, all while missing the larger points that a) the analysis is based only on Facebook data, and b) any analysis which claims people who don't read at all are smarter than those who read Fahrenheit 451 or the Bible can only be laughed at.
Submissions as a screen for bad writers
(Note: This rant was previously published in storySouth.)
Consider this a dose of harsh medicine for wannabe writers. Consider this insight into how to become a professional writer and, alternately, how to eternally doom your stories to editorial limbo.
For six years now I've been editing storySouth, a literary journal focusing on Southern writers. I initially edited the fiction and nonfiction while my co-editor Jake Adam York edited the poetry. Whatever we were doing must have worked because storySouth grew to the point where we needed other editors to assist us. Now Scott Yarbrough edits storySouth's fiction, Dan Albergotti the poetry, while Jake and I continue on as overall editors and I still edit the nonfiction. If you read our guidelines or masthead, these facts are laid out for the world to see.
The problem is that far too many writers are not reading our guidelines, let alone our magazine. I know this because in the last week I've received nine fiction submissions snail mailed to my house. Our guidelines specifically state to e-mail submissions to the editors. Anyone who reads our ONLINE journal couldn't fail to note that gee, storySouth is an ONLINE journal! Perhaps they accept electronic submissions. Let me look at the guidelines. The answer: YES! And who edits the fiction? Why its a nice chap named Scott Yarbrough.
Obviously the writers who mailed these fiction submissions to me never even read our guidelines, let alone storySouth. They pulled up our listing in some print or online submission database and let loose their submissions. Several of them didn't even include SASEs for a response. Two asked that their stories be considered for storySouth's Million Writers Award, which is for PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED fiction (another fact these writers could have learned by doing even the most basic of homework).
Now comes the clincher. After looking through all these short stories mailed to the wrong editor without looking at our journal or guidelines, some without a SASE, all without a clue, one pattern becomes clear--they all stink. Not one of them is readable past the first paragraph. And that brings us to this simple truth about publishing: Good writers do their homework. Bad writers do not. If a writer can't be bothered to do even a bit of reading about the magazine or journal they are submitting to, know that the editor will see this. And editors know that the truth behind a lack of preparation on the part of a writer is that their story is likely bad, bad, bad.
Science fiction as philosophical writing
The title of a new article in Wired Magazine says it all: "Clive Thompson on Why Sci-Fi Is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing." The reason I read so much science fiction is because these days most other literary genres--both nonfiction and fiction--require little thinking on the part of a reader. As Thompson adds, that might be why so many literary writers are now trying their hand at science fiction.
What's the difference between a new and old writer?
SF/F and horror writer James Van Pelt ponders the difference between being a new and old writer on his blog. As Pelt notes, despite being first published in 1990, some people still call him a new writer. This prompted him to explore the differences he's noted between being a new and more established writer. One big benefit: his confidence is higher. Ironically, this creates a new concerns--that an editor will give him the "literary equivalent of a mercy kiss, which is a girl kissing a totally inappropriate guy goodnight at the end of a date only because he was so needy, but she never plans on kissing him again." As Pelt says, there is some deep neurosis at work in that statement.
Probably the best part of Pelt's rumination is when he says "Being an old writer means that I feel more like a Walmart greeter at the writers' gate of literature rather than someone in the parking lot hoping to get in."
Classic!
Michael Chabon teeters on the brink of genrecide
Michael Chabon, acclaimed literary writer and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for such wonderful novels as The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, appears to be killing his literary reputation with a form of seppuku known as genrecide. At least, that's the only way I can understand his decision to become an active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (according to the fall 2007 issue of the SFWA Bulletin). I bet his literary peers and acolytes will choke on that news.
Seriously, Chabon is one of the few literary heavyweights in the U.S. who gives full credit to genre writers and works. While I disagreed with him on a minor point regarding his essay last year on Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road, we can only wish that more members of the literary elite were as open minded and talented as him.
Cloverfield review
My wife and I saw Cloverfield last night and it was an enjoyable throwback to old Hollywood spectacles like King Kong, where the film takes the audience to places we'd prefer not to see in real life (but are perfectly happy to watch on the big screen). Overall, the film does a masterful job of creating a realistic yet sensawunda story about a monster attacking New York City. The movie also strikes me as very 21st century, with scenes that people will be playing over and over on their iPods and DVD players as they attempt to figure out more of the story. Big hint: That last scene at Coney Island isn't simply a flashback to happier times in the main characters's lives. Check out what's making a splash in the ocean.
My one criticism is that the jerking and shaking of the handheld camera quickly grows old. When the Blair Witch Project came out, technology was such that the only way to hold a camcorder steady was to use a tripod. Now most camcorders come with built in image stabilizers. Would it have really taxed the directors' imaginations for their characters to have a Canon GL2? I know the audience would have thanked them.