Press Release Your Luck | Gollancz's Gateway to SF

When just a few weeks ago Gollancz announced that a significantly updated edition of ye olde print reference tome The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction would be made available to all comers on the internets at no charge, I'll admit: excited as I was about the prospect of One Resource To Rule Them All - which is exactly what I imagine this definitive third edition of the encyclopedia will represent - I did wonder where their margins were.

Were Gollancz undertaking this behemothic endeavour just to curry favour with the genre community? Or would it be monetised, somehow?

Well, now we know. This press release just arrived in my inbox:

Gollancz, the SF and Fantasy imprint of the Orion Publishing Group, announces the launch of the world’s largest digital SFF library, the SF Gateway, which will make thousands of out-of-print titles by classic genre authors available as eBooks.

Building on the remarkable success of Gollancz’s Masterworks series, the SF Gateway will launch this Autumn with more than a thousand titles by close to a hundred authors. It will build to 3,000 titles by the end of 2012, and 5,000 or more by 2014. Gollancz’s Digital Publisher Darren Nash, who joined the company in September 2010 to spearhead the project said, “The Masterworks series has been extraordinarily successful in republishing one or two key titles by a wide range of authors, but most of those authors had long careers in which they wrote dozens of novels which had fallen out of print. It seemed to us that eBooks would offer the ideal way to make them available again. This realization was the starting point for the SF Gateway.” Wherever possible, the SFGateway will offer the complete backlist of the authors included.

The SF Gateway will be closely integrated with the recently announced new online edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, which provides an independent and definitive reference source of information on the authors and books included. Direct links between the Encyclopedia and the Gateway will provide easy access to eBook editions, for sale through all major online retailers.

The Gateway site will also act as a major community hub and social network for SF readers across the world, allowing them to interact with each other and recommend titles and authors. The site is planned to include forums, blogs, regular promotions, and is envisaged to become the natural home on the net for anyone with an interest in classic SFF.

Authors featured in the launch include such names as Marion Zimmer Bradley, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Frank Herbert, Alice B. Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr), Robert Silverberg, Kate Wilhelm and Connie Willis. A full list of authors so far under contract is appended to this announcement; negotiations are in anadvanced state for many more. 

The announcement in its entirety can be found here.

In short, then, when it arrives, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction will come hand-in-hand with a second site, SF Gateway, which looks to have its hooks deep in the encyclopedia: where possible, articles in the latter will include links to related eBooks made available through the budding marketplace of the former. Which roundly answers my earlier question.

Nor, by the sounds of it, is SF Gateway merely some genre-oriented shopfront. It also has designs on providing this community we're all a part of in one way or another with a social network tailor-made to our needs: a gathering place along the lines of Suduvu and Tor.com and of course the Westeros forums.

And I'm all for that. Come to that, I'm all for all of this... depending on a couple of little things.

Which is to say: depending of course on the still-TBD implementation of these two prongs - depending, in other words, on how passive or invasive this interlinking proves to be when the time comes, and furthermore whether or not the content of the enclyclopedia is in any way, shape or form governed by those eBooks the SF Gateway will sell - taken together, these two bold new ventures sketch the outline of what could come in time to be a single indispensable resource. And if any one publisher in the UK is better positioned to make a go of such a thing than Gollancz, I haven't heard of it.

So it's good news, everybody!

Are we all agreed?

***

Update Posted by Niall Alexander at 18:00

Quick as that, our man in Gollancz - that is to say deputy publishing director Simon Spanton - got back to me to allay whatever concerns I may have had about how the relationship between the encyclopedia and SF Gateway might jeopardise the form and/or content of either endeavour, or both. He's what Simon had to say:

A condition of the SFEncy accepting our support in going online was the absolute maintenance of their editorial independence. Nor have any considerations about inclusion of titles on SFGateway been influenced by the content of the SFEncy. Linked and integrated they may be but the independence of the projects is too key to their value for there to be any consideration of moving away from that independence.

So let's keep this quick: fly away, my fears! :)

Couldn't be happier to see 'em off, either.

Book Review: Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin

Buy this book from

Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com /

IndieBound / The Book Depository

"Abner Marsh has had his dearest wish come true - he has built the Fevre Dream, the finest steamship ever to sail the Mississippi. Abner hopes to race the boat some day, but his partner is making it hard for him to realise his ambition. Joshua York put up the money for the Fevre Dream, but now rumours have started about the company he keeps, his odd eating habits and strange hours. As the Dream sails the great river, it leaves in its wake one too many dark tales, until Abner is forced to face down the man who helped to make his dreams become reality."

***

Abner Marsh has lived his life on the river. "A big man, and not a patient one," he has worked his way up the chain of command, from hand to mate to captain. As of 1856, he was proprietor of the moderately successful Fevre River Packet Company, named after the river in his home town, and though grossly overweight and alone, Abner was as happy as such a man could hope to be. His dreams were of racing the fastest ship on the Mississippi, the glorious Eclipse, and beating her. But the year since has been hard. In July, the "Mary Clarke blew boiler and burned, up near to Dubuque, burned right to the water line with a hundred dead. And this winter - this was a terrible winter." An ice jam has destroyed four of the Company's steamboats; including the Elizabeth A., brand new at a cost of $200,000 and the apple of Abner's eye. It's been a run of bad luck rather than any fault of his command or management, but it's left the captain near to ruin. Near to ruin, and further than ever from the great liner Abner had hoped to challenge.

Enter Joshua York, an enigmatic benefactor who offers Abner a chance to turn things around. For part ownership of the Fevre River Packet Company and co-command of its most prestigious vessel, York is prepared to pay for the construction of a new ship - and the Fevre Dream, as the captain has a mind to call it, will be "the finest steamship ever to sail the Mississippi." All York asks is that neither Abner nor the crew challenge his behaviour, which, he explains, might seem "strange or arbitrary or capricious" at times. Curious conditions and no mistake, yet to Abner they seem a small price to pay for an opportunity long thought lost to outsteam the Eclipse.

A deal is struck. The Fevre Dream is built; Abner and York set a course for New Orleans and push off into the river, with high hopes and great expectations. Right about then, of course, everything goes wrong.

Fevre Dream is an early-80s vintage Masterwork, and it's a novel about a place and a time. A time "when the river swarmed and lived, when smoke and steam and whistles and fires were everywhere," a time George R. R. Martin evokes so masterfully you'd be forgiven for thinking he grew up on the banks of the muddy Mississippi a century and a half ago. Fevre Dream is also a novel about people; about hope, friendship, trust and betrayal. At the arterial pivot-point of this place and this time is the story of Abner and York, men whom could hardly be less alike, yet find themselves bound together, for good or ill, each with his own impossible dream to realise.

Fevre Dream is also a novel about vampires. A fact which, sadly, is as like in this day and age to throw its readers off as it is to draw them further in. York and the unusual company he keeps don't call themselves vampires, of course, and they're not your run-of-the-mill fang-bangers in any case: surround them with mirrors, as on the main deck of the steamship they commandeer, and you will see their reflections; they don't immediately turn to dust in sunlight (though the UV will eventually cost them a dear price); many of them find garlic to be a fine addition to a meal. Martin posits that they're a race entire in and of themselves, rather than one derived of our own. They feed from us simply because they believe themselves higher up the food chain than mere humans; as Damon Julian so memorably observes, we are as cattle to them.

Fevre Dream is a historical novel, by all accounts. Its period and setting positively sing, Martin brings each out so beautifully. We are with the hands as they venture out to sound the treacherous river's depths; we are in the pilot room as dawn breaks to see the silt-laden Mississippi stretch out, orange-brown, into the heat-hazed distance ahead. Some nights, a thick fog descends upon the river, reducing visibility so near to zero that the Fevre Dream must dock till it passes. And so we see New Orleans, gaudy yet magnificent, the den of sin that is Natchez Under-the-Hill; we hold over in Bayou Sara, St Louis and Memphis to take on freight. Fevre Dream is an exhilarating whistle-stop journey through a period of history alive with possibility, potent with the promise of technology, innovation, progression and revolution. It is a fascinating study of a time and a people and a way of life, all lost to us.

In short, Fevre Dream is a masterwork. It meets the very definition, in fact: it is an outstanding work or art, a spare and superlative piece of fiction amongst a horde of has-beens and hopefuls who can only aspire to its effectiveness. Its only failing a somewhat rudderless calm before the storm that heralds its chilling climax, George R. R. Martin's third novel, near enough thirty years old as of this writing, well and truly deserves its place in the canon of great fantasy. Plotted with such precision as to feel inevitable, parsed by the most spare and elegant prose, driven by a striking cast of flawed yet relatable individuals - some tragic, some comic, some outright horrific - and heady with such atmosphere you can just about smell the river stink and taste York's alcohol and laudanum blood substitute, Fevre Dream is testament to a place, a time, a people... and to the enduring power of fantastic literature.

***

Fevre Dream

by George R. R. Martin

August 2008, Gollancz

Buy this book from
Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com /
IndieBound / The Book Depository

Recommended and Related Reading

The Masterworks Meme

Pilfered wholesale from the OF Blog of the Fallen - thanks to my SFF Masterworks Reading Project comrade-in-arms Larry for doing the gruntwork! Last place I ever expected to see a meme getting off the ground anyway...

So. In bold, the books I've read. The books I own but haven't yet read are italicised.

NB: Some of the SF Masterworks were released in a line of special hardcovers - denoted by roman numerals - as well as the paperbacks we all own a few of, so there are a few duplicates in the list.

I - Dune - Frank Herbert

II - The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin

III - The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick

IV - The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester

V - A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller, Jr.

VI - Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke

VII - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein

VIII - Ringworld - Larry Niven

IX - The Forever War - Joe Haldeman

X - The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham

1 - The Forever War - Joe Haldeman

2 - I Am Legend - Richard Matheson

3 - Cities in Flight - James Blish

4 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick

5 - The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester

6 - Babel-17 - Samuel R. Delany

7 - Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny

8 - The Fifth Head of Cerberus - Gene Wolfe

9 - Gateway - Frederik Pohl

10 - The Rediscovery of Man - Cordwainer Smith

11 - Last and First Men - Olaf Stapledon

12 - Earth Abides - George R. Stewart

13 - Martian Time-Slip - Philip K. Dick

14 - The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester

15 - Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner

16 - The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin

17 - The Drowned World - J. G. Ballard

18 - The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut

19 - Emphyrio - Jack Vance

20 - A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick

21 - Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon

22 - Behold the Man - Michael Moorcock

23 - The Book of Skulls - Robert Silverberg

24 - The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells

25 - Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

26 - Ubik - Philip K. Dick

27 - Timescape - Gregory Benford

28 - More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon

29 - Man Plus - Frederik Pohl

30 - A Case of Conscience - James Blish

31 - The Centauri Device - M. John Harrison

32 - Dr. Bloodmoney - Philip K. Dick

33 - Non-Stop - Brian Aldiss

34 - The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke

35 - Pavane - Keith Roberts

36 - Now Wait for Last Year - Philip K. Dick

37 - Nova - Samuel R. Delany

38 - The First Men in the Moon - H. G. Wells

39 - The City and the Stars - Arthur C. Clarke

40 - Blood Music - Greg Bear

41 - Jem - Frederik Pohl

42 - Bring the Jubilee - Ward Moore

43 - VALIS - Philip K. Dick

44 - The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K. Le Guin

45 - The Complete Roderick - John Sladek

46 - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick

47 - The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells

48 - Grass - Sheri S. Tepper

49 - A Fall of Moondust - Arthur C. Clarke

50 - Eon - Greg Bear

51 - The Shrinking Man - Richard Matheson

52 - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Philip K. Dick

53 - The Dancers at the End of Time - Michael Moorcock

54 - The Space Merchants - Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth

55 - Time Out of Joint - Philip K. Dick

56 - Downward to the Earth - Robert Silverberg

57 - The Simulacra - Philip K. Dick

58 - The Penultimate Truth - Philip K. Dick

59 - Dying Inside - Robert Silverberg

60 - Ringworld - Larry Niven

61 - The Child Garden - Geoff Ryman

62 - Mission of Gravity - Hal Clement

63 - A Maze of Death - Philip K. Dick

64 - Tau Zero - Poul Anderson

65 - Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke

66 - Life During Wartime - Lucius Shepard

67 - Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - Kate Wilhelm

68 - Roadside Picnic - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

69 - Dark Benediction - Walter M. Miller, Jr.

70 - Mockingbird - Walter Tevis

71 - Dune - Frank Herbert

72 - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein

73 - The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick

74 - Inverted World - Christopher Priest

75 - Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle

76 - H.G. Wells - The Island of Dr. Moreau

77 - Arthur C. Clarke - Childhood's End

78 - H.G. Wells - The Time Machine

79 - Samuel R. Delany - Dhalgren (July 2010)

80 - Brian Aldiss - Helliconia (August 2010)

81 - H.G. Wells - Food of the Gods (Sept. 2010)

82 - Jack Finney - The Body Snatchers (Oct. 2010)

83 - Joanna Russ - The Female Man (Nov. 2010)

84 - M.J. Engh - Arslan (Dec. 2010)

 

We'll get to the Fantasy Masterworks another time.

 

For the moment, I'll be in the naughty corner, hanging my head in shame. What an embarrassment of gaps there are in my classic genre literature quotient... particularly right there in the middle of the SF Masterworks, I've read practically nothing.

 

I wonder if there's something to that? Certainly there's something of a preponderance of if not obscure then at best secondary works of fiction by Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke in the middle of the list. I wonder if perhaps the rights were going cheap and the imprint had done so well for Millennium, its original publishers, that they were happy to slap the Masterwork label on any old thing to draw out a few more sales...

 

But what do I know? Feel free to talk me around.

 

If you've got a blog of your own, do feel free to reproduce this meme and leave a link to your answers in the comments, if you will. It's all for a good cause: raising awareness about the SFF Masterworks site. You should go there, too - and check out my first review for the reading project, of Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin.

The SFF Masterworks Reading Project

You all know me by now. Nary a day goes by without a post here on The Speculative Scotsman. Be it a review, an opinion piece, snarky commentary on some tasty news tidbit or something else entirely, most days, there's something on the site to help keep your eye muscles amused. It's no trouble, really. I even rather enjoy it.

So little effort goes into the day-to-day upkeep of TSS, in fact, that a few months ago I ganged up with a few other bloggers to launch Scrying the Fantastic. We were going to collate the release details of every book in the genre, from every publisher with an interest in our literature of choice, every month. Big ideas for the win! Of course, at the end of the day, we were just a few bloggers with limited time and few real resources to throw at a project which, to be perfectly frank, needed some form of support to survive.

Thus, to many a quivering lower lip, Scrying the Fantastic slipped off into the great speculative goodnight. The Justice League of Bloggers hung up their alter egos once and for all and disbanded - and I was left with so much free time on my hands that I had to find something to fill it, didn't I?

(You're all getting the sarcasm here, right?)

Enter the SFF Masterworks Reading Project. I've linked to it once before, but consider this your official notice: the SFF Masterworks Reading Project officially exists. You should hop on over and subscribe to the RSS feed. I mean, world leaders are already queuing up to say nice things about. Only last weekend, newly elected British Prime Minister David Cameron went on record with what follows when asked his opinion on the site:

"I think in any organisation it's right to set out what you stand for, what you're fighting for... so that people can see that the modern compassionate [SFF Masterworks Reading Project] is in it for everybody - not just the rich."

High praise from a gigantic snake dressed in human clothing, eh?

Umm...

Right, that's what I was saying: the SFF Masterworks Reading Project. Ladies and gentlemen, it's on. Bloggers from hither and thither - including myself, Larry from the OF Blog of the Fallen, the Yeti what stomps, Neth, Gav, Amanda and a whole host of other speculative sorts - have come together to achieve the impossible: to read, discuss and review, between us, every last one of the hundreds of Fantasy and SF Masterworks.

It just so happens that my first review for the ambitious project chronicles my first experience of the ubiquitous George R. R. Martin's fiction - the first of my many, many #bookfails. Today, if you check out the site, you'll see my thoughts on the 13th Fantasy Masterwork: Fevre Dream. I'll say this much: vampires be damned, it's a blinder of a book.

So. Come on over to the SFF Masterworks blog and find out which of your favourite bloggers are going to be playing in this vast sandbox of classic genre fiction. Chuckle at our snappy little minibios. Read a few reviews. Then go buy some books, sure in the knowledge that not only has the world at large acknowledged their greatness, but... you know... we have too. And I think that's important. Really, I do. Are these 30 year-old masterworks even relevant in this day and age? The genre seems to be gaining momentum by the hour; have we left the classics behind?

And what makes a masterwork a masterwork anyway?

All that, and I'm sure there's plenty more to come. It's an exciting time, and for myself, I'm incredibly proud to be a part of such a prestigious gang of bloggers. What in God's name they've done, inviting me to be a part of it, I'm sure they'll only come to realise in time, but for now, I'm chuffed to bits and looking forward to getting stuck into my second masterwork.

Now seriously: get on to the SFF Masterworks blog and say hey.