Ah, the sweet taste of vindication … or at least, the satisfaction of seeing someone else agree with your own hypothesis by result of their own reasoning. Mondolithic Studios asks rhetorically whether science fiction is still a distinct genre:

I think what confuses some people is the fact that Science Fiction isn’t really a distinct genre unto itself anymore. It’s mutated into dozens of sub-genres and movements, liberally exchanged genetic material with Fantasy and social satirism and burrowed into the internet in the form of hundreds of thousands of scifi and fantasy-oriented blogs, galleries, fanzines, vlogs, podcasts and short story webzines.

Indeed.

A new life in the off-world colonies!

I’d add metaverse platforms like Second Life to that list; it’s early days yet, but Jason Stoddard and Eric Rice are leading the pack on this one, and I’m confident we’re going to see new ways of telling stories (genre or otherwise) emerging from virtual worlds in the next few years.

And let’s not forget the mash-up projects; the first one that leaps to mind is Jeremy Tolbert‘s Dr. Julius Roundbottom site, where he’s combining ‘shopped photography and clockpunk vignettes and feeding them out over RSS just like a blog. [Disclosure - Jeremy is a good friend and co-blogger at Futurismic]

Then there’s Pete Tzinski, who’s delivering his ongoing God in the Machine story as a serial, just like Wells and Conan-Doyle did, but on the web instead of in magazines. Or Don Sakers, doing the same thing with a novel. I can’t vouch for the quality of the material, because I’ve not read either of them yet – but what I can say for certain is that these people are out there using the web as a delivery system for fiction in new (or new-old) ways. People are often dismissive of pioneers until the first successes appear on the new frontier – and appear they will.

Sub-genres as suburbs

But back to Mondolithic again:

You could think of traditional Science Fiction as the built-up, established, older city core, and Sprawl [Fiction] as the rapidly expanding literary suburbs young writers are fleeing to in search of more elbow room to test out new ideas. So people who assert that “Science Fiction is dead” are looking at where scifi used to be and missing the bigger picture completely. Science Fiction has changed out of all recognition and if you want to think of that as a crisis, it’s a crisis of diversity rather than a morbidly existential one. [my bold]

This reminds me of my genre ghetto analogy; the Mondolithic writer has reached a very similar image, although he’s come to it from a different angle. And that angle reminds me of my floating point variable analogy – if I might be so vain as to quote myself:

For me at least, it’s that simple. A book is not, in and of itself, science fiction. But it may well partake of science-fictionality (science-fiction-ness?) to a lesser or greater extent – and that extent is, at least partly, determined by my perception of the book in question, as well as my perception of the canon of works that inform the term ‘science fiction’.

I could also delve back into my analogy to the sub-genres of rock music, but I think everyone’s heard enough of that by now. And why belabor the point? After all, I’m not saying anything that far smarter and more qualifier commentators aren’t saying too. Lou Anders on the steampunk resurgence:

…a visit to Wikipedia shows how large the canon of steampunk really is, including a lot of alternate history, much of Tim Powers, and labeling a lot of classic fiction as “proto-steampunk” in the same way PKD and Bester are sometimes said to be proto-cyberpunk.

So, is steampunk a niche of a niche of a niche? Or is the real age of steampunk just beginning?

I’d argue it’s having a high moment right now, but it will never die completely – and nor will any sub-genre, ever again. This is the internet, baby – everything here will last forever, or at least until civilisation as we know it collapses.

Sub-genre definition by consensus

But to close, I’ll just reiterate that sub-genre is in the eye of the beholder. Damon Knight’s adage is an enduring one, and filters down into the subdivisions with the same power it had at the top of the pyramid – in other words, steampunk means what you point to when you say it.

And it’s the debate over these definitions that, in my opinion, keeps genre fiction alive – if we care enough to debate the labels, that’s a sign of vigour. And debate we do, as Kathryn Cramer observes while riding flank on some Wiki wars:

Since there are not commonly shared theories of literary genre underpinning the evolution of these [Wikipedia] articles, they tend to devolve into something reminiscent of the end game of a game of life when the little groups of pixel enter a repeating pattern; cycles of argument about whether a work or writer is or is not hard sf, as if this was as easy to decide as something like nationality …

I’d suggest the fluidity of definition is actually a good thing, at least as far as literature is concerned; floating point variables, as mentioned above. (But then I’d also argue that nationality is a much more fluid concept nowadays, too.) Consensus is morbidity.

But the take-home point is this – as the chap at Mondolithic observed, science fiction is far from dead. It just appears to have gone through a metastasis.

OK, first off let me make one thing perfectly clear – I do not want to see science fiction and fantasy short story print magazines die off. It is not a thing that would bring me any sort of joy.

Secondly, let me make it clear that Doug Cohen’s suggestion that everyone make a point of subscribing to a short story publication is well-meaning and good-spirited, and that I think anyone who can afford to do so should do exactly that.

(I recommend Interzone, myself, but then I’m biased!)

But I think that subscription drives are a short-term solution that fails to look at the long-term issues.

Where have the readers gone, and why?

Subscription rates are falling; this is undeniable. And the genre needs the short fiction markets to nurture new talent; this is also undeniable.

What we are missing are the cold hard facts. Why are subscriptions to short fiction magazines dropping? Subscription drives are an admirable thing, but until the source of the problem is located, it’s like adding more water to a leaking bucket. We need to find the hole and patch it.

Now, for all I know, the magazine publishers may well be hunting for the leak. I certainly hope so. I know some of them are looking at methods of patching the leak, too, if not already rolling out potential patches and strengthening. This is a good thing.

But what worries me is this; subscription drives may cause an unfounded short-term sense of security. If publishers look at the next twelve months and breathe a sigh of relief, they may not think ahead to the next five years. Beating the wolf away from the door is great, but it would be better to chase him back into the forest.

What should we do to save the short fiction markets?

I don’t have all the answers, sadly. Alhough I have my opinions on futureproofing the genre short fiction scene, which were not universally popular when I announced them, they are only opinions – and they are the opinions of someone who isn’t a publisher of short fiction magazines. In an absence of facts, all I can do is throw theories into the air.

So here’s what I suggest:

Follow Doug Cohen’s advice, and subscribe to a magazine if you can afford to do so.

But while you’re at it, or if you can’t afford to, or even if you don’t want to, get in touch with the magazine publisher and tell them how you feel.

Tell them why you weren’t subbed before, or why you lapsed, or why you’d like to subscribe but can’t (or won’t). Give these people some feedback, and help them find a solid path to a lasting future.

You can’t fix a problem simply by throwing money at it. We need to think smarter than that.

There seem to be a lot of posts containing advice for writers in my RSS reader at the moment, so I thought it would be nice to share them with everyone. Let’s see …

First up we have Jeff Vandermeer reposting the start of his “Evil Monkey Guide to Creative Writing” at his recently-relocated blog.

My Futurismic co-blogger and rising science fiction novelist Tobias Buckell has links to some extensive notes on plotting that were taken at the Taos Toolbox writer’s workshop.

Finally, Jetse de Vries is e-submissions fiction editor for Interzone, but he’s a writer in his own right, too. He shares with us the lessons he’s learned from reading the slush pile, and discusses the value of “trunking” stories that you just can’t seem to sell.

[Cross-posted to Futurismic]

Well, the Readercon panel on book reviews seems to have generated a lot of dicussion around the issue … kind of the inverse of the Eastercon panel, which took place after the worst of the smoke had cleared from that particular salvo.

But here’s the inestimable Paul Kincaid, hitting the nail on the head and describing my own standpoint on how and why I review books almost exactly:

“My own credo is simple. A review should be honest (any reviewer who allows her opinion to be swayed by friendship, bribery, peer pressure or whatever, is not worth reading), defensible (I don’t mind if people disagree with my judgement, I am quite used to being the only critic to hold a certain position, pro or con, on any particular book, but I want to be sure the readers can see why I reached that particular judgement), and, so far as I am able, well written (a review is also an entertainment, the reader should be rewarded for taking the time to read the piece). This credo, it should be noted, is an aspiration; I have no idea how close I ever get to achieving it.

Notice I say nothing about reviews being good or bad, positive or negative. It is part of the honesty of a review that if you don’t think a book is any good you have to say so. It is also part of the honesty of a review to recognise that very very few books are entirely wonderful or entirely terrible, and the job of a reviewer is to identify and note that balance. Because of that I do not believe I write positive reviews, or negative reviews – but I hope I write honest reviews.”

Result. Paul Kincaid is one of my newly-inherited reviews team at Interzone, which – given his pedigree and experience – is quite bizarre, because by rights he should be the person editing me. Though I doubt he wants the administrative headaches that come with the post – another indicator of his native common sense!

He and I (and others) are keen to see what comes from Jonathan’s plans for Son of Scalpel, too. This debate – for better or for worse – probably has a good few years mileage in it yet.

It’s been a lively week in the publishing world – or so it seems to someone who was away from his RSS feeds for a week.

Genre mags are giving it away for free

I’m very pleased to see that Fantasy & Science Fiction are experimenting with publishing full stories from their back-catalogue on their website. It’s a great way to raise the profile of the writers, and to drive traffic to their own site by providing uniquely valuable content with no strings attached.

They’re some way from the mass of content that Subterranean are giving away, but it’s a good start. I think the recent overseas postal rate hike is making a lot of the small press mags look seriously at new options before they discover a hard place to hem them in between the rock at their back.

For example, I will not be renewing my sub to Locus in paper format; not because the magazine is no good, but because the airmail price increase means that I might as well stick to getting the news from their website – meaning that I get it when it’s still relevant. Hard choices, sure, but it’s a changing world. Better to jump before the chasm gets too wide.

Talking of giving away content, Gareth L. Powell’s story “The Last Reef” is available to read in full on the TTA Press website, as is a teaser for his forthcoming “Ack-Ack Macaque” (at the bottom of the same page, as a downloadable image of the mag layout for the start of the story). We’re looking at ways of expanding the amount of content that the TTA Press site carries over the coming months; more news on that when I have it in a definite format.

The Waterstones cash-for-promo leak

Of course, there are other options for promoting writers – but as the recent alleged leaked memo from Waterstones confirms, they’re strictly for publishers who have a lot of cash to splash around. As someone who gets to see some of the machinations of the music industry, those figures aren’t even slightly surprising. The record companies, music press and brick-and-mortar stores work in very similar ways to the bublishing industry, and that’s a large part of why they’re in such a mire of quicksand at present.

As I’ve said before, this is something the genre publishers should learn from sooner rather than later. Being smaller, they have the ability to change more quickly, being less caught up with the train-wrecking momentum of the big boys.

Harry Haxxor and the Pilfered Plot

The saturation of blather about the forthcoming final installment of [popular children's fantasy series that I can't be bothered to name-check] is reaching ridiculous proportions. I was more than a trifle suspicious when I saw the news that OMGHAX PL0+ SU|/||/|4RY G4N|<3d FRUM W3BSIT3ZORZ!!!1!!1, and Bruce Schneier also seems to be less than convinced that this is anything more than a publicity stunt.

The question of which side of the fence the stunt has come from will likely never be made apparent – at least not with the same degree of headline-grabbing fervour as the original story.

OUP just wishes Google would ask first

On the subject of the pilfering (or not) of licenced content, an executive of the Oxford University Press has gone on the record as saying that all publishers really want is the opportunity to give permission for their work to be digitised by Google, rather than the opportunity to refuse the permission already assumed.

I need to research this matter more thoroughly, so I’m not going to call one way or the other on the veracity of the claims until I know the facts of the matter. But there are hints that publishers are starting to wake up to the usefulness of the digitisation projects, even though they don’t want to go back on their earlier statements of outrage.

Espresso Print-on-Demand Machine goes live in New York

If nothing else, digital copies of public domain material could become far more useful and accessible in the next few years, once a few more libraries and bookstores follow the New York Public Library’s lead, and install Espresso Book Machines to print titles on demand for customers. Until we reach a point that the vast majority of readers are prepared for reading in electronic formats at all times, these devices are as close as the publishing industry can get to the just-in-time customer-satisfying power of downloaded music – and as such represent a wise step forwards in trying to adapt to a changing business landscape.

From Nick Mamatas:

“As the readership of science fiction is widely believed to be overwhelmingly male, there is a long history of women writers obscuring their gender (so as not to have their work prejudged) by writing under a name that includes their initials and their last name.

Going through the slush recently, I decided to count up the number of women who use initials versus the number of men who do so.

One hundred percent of the authors who submit their work to Clarkesworld under an initialed byline are women.”

There’s no doubt that there are gender and cultural imbalances in the genre fiction scenes. Is this doing anything to help the situation?

Well, I hope you’ve all had a nice long holiday weekend – even if the weather was as rotten as it was here in Velcro City. I hardly noticed, though – I’ve been busy.

One of the many things I’ve been doing over the weekend is playing around behind the scenes at T3A Space, the new-look blog-style website for TTA Press (publisher of short genre fiction magazines Interzone, Crimewave and Black Static). T3A is where updates and story acceptances for the TTA stable are posted, and over the coming months it’s going to grow into a content-rich site with lots of good stuff to read.

Andy (TTA’s head honcho) already had things looking sexy with an eye-catching theme (luckily – as, having seen VCTB, no one in their right mind would set me loose on the aesthetics of a website), but yours truly has been hacking about with the ergonomics and functionality. Upgrades include a working spam-free comments system, and lots of other behind-the-curtain search-engine friendly stuff. There’s still work to be done, but things are looking good so far.

I’ve also set the RSS feed for the site to run through Feedburner, which is a very easy operation but well worth the time invested. But if you click through, you’ll see the subscription counter sat at a lowly first-day count of zilch, zero, nada.

So, here’s the challenge – I’d like you all to subscribe to the T3A RSS feed, which I’ve made extra easy by linking to it there. You don’t even have to click more than once! Let’s see if we can’t get that counter to show something a little more impressive than zero by tomorrow, eh?

Proof (as if proof were required) of the old adage that “if you don’t blog about it today, BoingBoing will have pipped you to the post tomorrow” … but better late than never; here’s a sterling post from Warren Ellis on internet publishing and ‘burst culture’.

In keeping with the spirit of what he’s saying, I’m just going to snatch out the bits I want, but you should really go and read the whole thing – it’ll take a few minutes at most, and it’s time well spent.

“365Tomorrows was an ideal reaction to sf publishing in new media, the concept of flash fiction and the way the medium works. 100-word bursts of speculative fiction, daily. JR Blackwell’s gotten herself a career out of it. And note how 365T kept producing and fulfilled its mandate even as sf sites and sf print magazines died on either side of it.”

365T is a good little site; Jeremy Tolbert and a bunch of co-conspirators have something quite similar going on at The Daily Cabal (which, for my money, carries higher quality fiction, but as far as I can tell doesn’t yet have the reach of 365T).

“How far behind the curve is the sf publishing community? When International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day came around, hundreds of writers of gift and ambition ran short work for free on the web. This came about following a recently-resigned official of the Science Fiction Writers of America calling those who produce material for the web SCABS.”

I can add nothing to that.

“The web isn’t a replacement medium — it’s *another* medium. That said, if your concept of a magazine is something designed in one-page bursts, or three pages that only carry 500 words due to the mass of images, then, really, you’re not doing anything the web can’t do better, are you?”

Zing!

“Bursts aren’t contentless, nor do they denote the end of Attention Span. If attention span was dead, JK Rowling wouldn’t be selling paperbacks thick enough to choke a pig, and Neal Stephenson wouldn’t be making a living off books the size of the first bedsit I lived in.”

The death of print does not mean the death of reading. At least, it doesn’t *have* to.

“And just a thought: if you’re an sf writer grappling for space in one of the fiction magazines for seven cents a word or whatever the rate is now — what exactly are you losing by teaming with writers of like mind, going to the web and convincing a friend to work out the monetising bells and whistles for you?”

I refer you again to The Daily Cabal. And also to the No Fear of the Future group-blog, which has been running some brilliant material since it started up, and has done a great job of shoving the names of a bunch of previously unfamiliar authors in front of my eyes on a regular basis. Sure, it’s early days yet – but there’s a lot to be said for boarding the train early while it’s easy to find a comfy seat.

Nothing particularly new there, at least not to anyone who’s been reading rants (by me and others) about this sort of thing for a little while. But because Ellis has come out and said it, the meme will get a lot further (31 links to the piece as counted by Technorati at time of posting this response). For some reason, people pay a lot more attention to him than they do to me …

Well, I said I wanted outsider views of the genre, and by pure serendipity my Technorati tag feeds supplied one this evening. Read this if you write, edit, market or review science fiction novels and stories, because this is how someone who isn’t tuned into the community sees the scene:

“Another area where the bulk of science fiction seems to be significantly off (but not nearly as obvious as networking and computing) is the development of new space and capitalization. Probably partially because of the failure of NASA to do anything significant in space after Apollo, most of the spacy science fiction is left assuming that most of space development and travel is governmental, when things are looking today like private companies and good old entrepreneurship will be what leads the way. Similarly, too much science fiction fails to see the connections between capitalism and democracy and has governments that are either highly anarchical or huge, bureaucratic, and socialist.

All of this is a considerable shame, because science fiction has been used since Jules Verne as a way to discuss the moral quandaries and implications of up and coming technology and the social institutions surrounding us. While science fiction is rarely spot on with it’s predictions, having virtually all of society take a left turn from the predictions science fiction made opens up a deluge of questions that haven’t even been considered, and makes the ones that have seem silly.”

I know, and I expect that most of you know, that there’s plenty of science fiction (some better, some worse, granted) that addresses the issues mentioned there. Why hasn’t this dude found it? How can we make sure people like him do find it?

I’m sure there’s a good few of you reading VCTB who don’t get sent more books than you have time to read*, and who in fact would like more books, preferably without paying for them. For those people, I shall pass on some news from the UK SF Book News Network.

UK genre publisher Orbit are celebrating the release of the latest Kelley Armstrong book (No Humans Involved), by offering you the chance to win every book that they publish in the next twelve months – which will be about sixty titles.

All you have to do is email orbit[AT]littlebrown[dot]co[dot]uk with the answer to the following question:

How many full-length novels has Kelley Armstrong written set in the Otherworld?

The answer should be easy enough to track down. Answers to be in by Thursday 31st May. Good luck!

[* I'm not complaining. But donations toward buying my own home, or simply renting a lock-up somewhere, would be gratefully received.]