As part of the review I’m doing for SFReader, I just read Stephen Baxter’s “Last Contact” in Jonathan Strahan’s Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy. Last Contact is an apocalyptic story about what would happen if Dark Energy pulled the universe apart down to the atomic scale (and beyond). The scenario is called “The Big Rip” and was thought might happen in 10 trillion years or so, but Baxter’s premise is that it happens in the next 10 years, which causes the death of every human on Earth.

The story itself is very well written with compelling characters, but didn’t really do that much for me because the plot is linear (by design), and the protagonists passive. It’s merely an execution story on a grand scale, which we get TONS of in the slush at EDF.

The Big Rip, the driving force of Baxter’s tale, has now been proven false, in the same year Baxter wrote his story. How’s that for bad luck?

Universe Today reports:

Previously, it wasn’t known for sure if dark energy was a constant across space, with a strength that never changes with distance or time, or if it is a function of space itself and as space expands dark energy would expand and get stronger. In other words, it wasn’t known if Einstein’s theory of general relativity and his cosmological constant was correct or if the theory would have to be modified for large scales.

But the Chandra study strengthens the evidence that dark energy is the cosmological constant, and is not growing in strength with time, which would cause the Universe to eventually rip itself apart.

That’s why I’m leery about writing near-term science fiction. Sometimes the science just works against you.

Tags: Last Contact, Stephen Baxter, The Big Rip, Year's Best Fantasy and Science Fiction

EDIT: Looks like Mr. Knight has reposted the entry in the thread, and removed the text that I was complaining in this post. Kudos to him. 

I recently ran across this thread at SFReader.com. In it, Edward Knight literarlly begs for speculative fiction readers to buy his new anthology Unparalleled Journeys II. By doing so, he had just guaranteed that I, for one, won’t be reading.

There is a definite stigma in our industry against publishers who solicit authors to buy their own work or the work of authors they know personally. This marketing ploy has be employed (effectively, unfortunately) by vanity publisher PublishAmerica, who, as you can see from the link I’ve provided, has acquired a reputation as a scam publisher.

Why does this stigma exist? Well, it boils down to what kind of services publishers provide. In these days of easy Print On Demand publishing, where authors can literally have their books in their hands without any outside help within a week, a publishing house has to add value in order to remain pertinent. In theory, that value comes in the form of selling your books. By going through a publishing house, an author should be able to sell more books than if they had self-published (or else what’s the point?).

Now, an author can easily sell to their friends, and doesn’t have much difficult selling in the tight knit speculative fiction community. So where does that leave the publisher? Well, responsible publishers try to sell to the general public, either on much trafficked websites or in bookstores, and some do so very successfully. Those who don’t berate potential authors for not promoting or buying books they have no interest in.

It’s a bad sign that Journey Books Publishing feels that they have to beg for readers. I wish Edward Knight all the luck in the world, but I, for one, will not be reading.

Music to write by: “Just Because” by Jane’s Addiction

First novels advances are notoriously low these days, yet new authors still have dreams of being able to quit their day jobs. Story of six figure advances abound, but how much, really, are new authors making? Tobias Buckell has compiled a list of first novel advances and nicely categorized them into sections (such as agented and unagented) and genre. He’s been doing this for a couple of years and amassed a pretty accurate picture of the kinds of advances being doled out. He’s currently soliciting more stats, so if you’ve recently recieved your first advance, drop by his blog and let him know.

According to Tobias, the average first novel advances break down thusly:

Career Advances are a little better:

*Extrapolated

Brenda Hiatt has done virtually the same thing for romance novels, but she’s broken it down by publisher. She’s got a clever trick which prevents me from deep-linking to the list, but it’s highlighted on the left side of her blog under the title Show Me the Money.

Looks like Pocket and HarperCollins are tops in Romance at 15,000 and 13,500 respectively with advances ranging all the way down to zero (Wings E-Press).

What does this mean for us? Don’t quit your day job. Of course, you could always hope you get lucky. Stephen King’s “Carrie” sold for 200,000 back in the 70s. Who knows? That could be you!

Hey guys,

Music to Write By: “Superman’s Dead” by Our Lady Peace.

Still in moving mode, so this will be another brief one.

Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” has just won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I talked about this novel in a previous post. Basically, I said the book was really good, but I objected to McCarthy abusing the English language and grammar in general to appear more literary.

So the most prestigious award in the world (barring, perhaps the Man Booker Prize) has honoured McCarthy. Having read a few Pulitzer Award winning novels like House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday and The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, I can tell you that often books are picked, not for merit, but because they add something to the tapestry of English Literature. If you follow the link, you’ll see that House Made of Dawn was honoured because it was written by a Native American author about the plight of Native Americans. The book is experiemental, switching from 1st to 3rd to 2nd person POV. Is it well written? Well, it’s competent, but not on the order of “Regeneration” by Pat Barker or The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, both Booker Prize winners.

Is this the case with The Road? Was it honoured for successful experimentation rather than a beautiful story? I don’t think so. McCarthy has mastered the sympathetic character in his protagonist “the man” (never named). The book is stunning in the depth of emotion you feel for its characters. The guy is a talented author.

Still, the Pulitzer commitee doesn’t honour authors simply for writing a great story. They obviously thought McCarthy’s book added something to English Literature and I agree. Though I despise the grammatical trickery McCarthy chose to use, he got the literary community to notice a sci-fi novel. The book has done a lot for the genre. He should be congratulated.

Hey guys,

Music to write by: “Renegades of Funk“ by Rage Against the Machine

There has been a lot of buzz around the blogosphere recently about Copyright, so I thought I’d throw a few of my own ideas into the mix.

Cory Doctorow recently issued a call for writers to write a reply to SF novelist Mark Helprin’s call in the NYT for copyright to be extended eternally. I think it’s obvious to most writers that this is a Bad Idea. For an illustration of why this is so, crafted better than I ever could, read Melancholy Elephants by Spider Robinson.

Personally I cannot imagine a world of eternal copyright (although it would drastically cut down on the number of Bad News Bears rip offs that come out year after year). Imagine if you could no longer write about feuding families and star-crossed lovers because Shakespeare already did that? Or shipwrecks? Or gunfights at high noon? This is extreme, but you see what I mean.

On another note, due to the advent of POD technologies, Simon & Schuster has modified their boilerplate contract so that the rights to a book they purchase never revert back to the author (even if the book goes off market, or doesn’t sell any copies). They’ll own your book. Think of it. They could take your book off the market, not sell it ANYWHERE (even Amazon), and you could NEVER get it back. Ridiculous. Read SFWA’s response to this policy here.

Lastly, I just thought I’d throw this out there because it’s interesting. Landi Guidetti was recently sued for copyright violation for downloading 4 songs over the USC network. One of Cory’s students interviewed him. It’s damn interesting. Have a look.

What are your thoughts on Copyright? As authors, this is near and dear to our hearts. We make our livings on it. But technology is gradually rendering it obsolete. Or is it? How do you think technology will affect us?