Re: Miriam, don't tell that to a certain writer here... : )

From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sat Jul 21 2001 - 20:39:10 MDT


At 09:21 AM 7/21/01 -0400, Mike Lorrey wrote:

>For example, I have not seen a single work by Damien Broderick on store
>shelves around here since I bought _The White Abacus_ 4 years ago or so.

Well, could be due to the fact that I haven't published a new novel since
then. :)

(But TRANSCENSION will be out in February.)

On the other hand, I'd be disappointed if THE SPIKE isn't to be found in
most US bookstores. But I very much doubt that Forge (a subset of Tor,
primarily an sf publisher) have spent a cent in promo, so the book might
well be lying about in boxes in the warehouse, waiting to be pulped.

Oh, and there was a rather nice antho of the best Aussie short sf I
co-edited with David G. Hartwell not long ago, CENTAURUS, but that is an
expensive hardcover; I haven't heard yet of any plans to bring it out in pb.

On the fourth hand, an increasing amount of my old-but-readable sf is
building up at Fictionwise.com, where it'll never go out of
pay-per-download-print. I hope to be able to announce soonish that they'll
be doing THE JUDAS MANDALA, the 1982 novel where I, you know, coined the
term `virtual reality' (but not quite as we know it, Jim).

>Its difficult to find Egan and many other more skilled writers.

That really *is* depressing. Egan, Banks, Macleod, McAuley, Reynolds...
stax of the most brilliant English-language sf being written today hardly
raise a ripple in the USA.

>Card is
>the exception though, he does get shelf space, though generally much
>more for his fantasy novels than for his SF.

Scott Card has made the (wobbly, always rescindable) transition into more
general acceptance. His novel THE LOST BOYS is a quite remarkably effective
immersive account of life as a Mormon computer programmer, in which the
dark fantasy/horror element is really just a distraction from the
naturalistic force of the book.

Damien Broderick



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