A brave new world: science fiction predictions for 2013
From The Guardian:
2012 has been a year of transition for science fiction and fantasy literature. SF’s reputation as home of the Bearded White Male hides a more interesting story. SF is the literature of geeks, and today, geeks run the world. Geek culture isn’t infiltrating the mainstream: it is the mainstream. And geeks come in all ages, genders and backgrounds.
. . . .
Space is SF’s new black
Once upon a time our imagination populated outer space with exotic alien civilisations, and the space race inspired thousands of SF novels through the 60s and 70s. But when exploration revealed nothing but a barren solar system and infinite vacuum, space fell somewhat out of fashion, even within SF. Now, though, the discovery of Earth-like exoplanets, the Curiosity rover touchdown and the media sensation of Felix Baumgartner’s space jump are exciting people about space again. Surfing the zeitgeist of space is James Smythe’s The Explorer
, a thriller of deep-space exploration with overtones of the best 70s space-based SF. Ian Sales’ Adrift on the Sea of Rains
is one of the most outstanding self-published books of the year, and a homage to the golden age of SF writing and the Apollo space programme.
All hail the Kindle serial
Serial fiction has been threatening a resurgence for as long as people have been publishing on the internet. But 2013 may be the year it happens – and John Scalzi may be the writer to kick off the revolution. Along with publisher Tor books, Scalzi is planning to serialise the next novel in his hugely popular Old Man’s War series via the Amazon Kindle platform. The Human Division
begins serialisation this month with new instalments each week, but has already entered the Kindle bestsellers list. The Kindle seems like a natural platform for serial fiction, so expect to see hundreds of other authors and publishers following suit if Scalzi’s experiment is a success.
Link to the rest at The Guardian
Okay, I confess. When I saw this headline in the upcoming posts I assumed it was going to be about Moon Colonies and Flying Cars.
SF fan here, but my response to this article is “meh.” I can’t get excited about any of this.
I just started reading the sample pages from The Explorer – yikes. (IMO)
I would assume serialization would pick up due to the success of Wool. However, I think serialization of sci-fi novels will be very tricky.
Wool pulls it off because it is such a simple story. Hugh could add on to it without having to go back and modify the previous installments. People love it because of the great writing and characterization, not because of the complex and expansive plot. Scalzi isn’t known for the former two. Complex and expansive plots need a lot of planning, tie-ins, re-writing, etc.
I got the first Scalzi serial installment for free for signing up in advance. It works.
About how many words is it?
The incentives for the author seem lacking for the Serials program too. $1.99 for a serialized novel that’s exclusive to Amazon just does’t seem to be fair to the author. Great for readers and Amazon.
I’m more concerned with the possibility that serialization may become just a means of getting consumers to pay more. It wouldn’t be too hard to make what would be a $9.99 ebook cost $15 or more.
The current setup for Kindle Serials is a one-time subscription fee for all episodes:
**quote**
Kindle Serials are stories published in episodes. When you buy a Kindle Serial, you will receive all existing episodes on your Kindle immediately, followed by future episodes as they are published at no additional cost. Enjoy reading as the author creates the story, and discuss episodes with other readers in the Kindle forums.
**end quote**
It’s really a way to cheapen content at the author’s expense. All the serials I currently see in the Kindle store are $1.99 (albeit at the 70% rate) for the entire series. Maybe the author would receive a larger audience by being in the program than otherwise, but exclusivity might cut against that advantage.
An odd thing is that it appears the going price for a complete serialized novel is $3.99, higher than the serialized version during the subscription.
Some of us were publishing serials before Scalzi did it. But having someone like Scalzi do it will add legitimacy to it, so this is a good thing.