Just across my desk, a circular from renowned author Norman Spinrad concerning recent publishing ventures, with fascinating remarks on progress in astronomy, the James Web Space Telescope, our evolving anthropological understanding, publishing, politics, cultural trends, and so on.
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| Norman Spinrad |
On August my critique "Citizens of the Galaxy" will be published in Asimov magazine. Three of my stories, "The Sword of Damacles," "Ad Astra" and "Up and Out," have already been published in magazines and are the major part of the book CITIZENS OF THE GALAXY, which has yet to find a publisher.
It has long been an economic trade publishing practice, at least in science fiction, to blow up a novella, say 30,000 words, into a 60,000 word novel, or visa versa publish say a 20,000 piece of a finished novel, in a magazine to try to help get the novel published.
But CITIZENS OF THE GALAXY the book could be published as either a single novella enlarged to a novel or that novella plus two short stories plus more, and work literally either way, and I would be eager to have a good professional editor help me make the decision, if only I can find one to work with me to make the decision.
"Up and Out" is the 25,000 word novella which has already been published in Asimov's magazine to mutual satisfaction, but strictly literally speaking, would be best at about 40,000 words, but would not be hurt at say 60,000 words. But the other two published stories, written before the novella, and are related to it story wise, together would be something different and deeper.
"The Sword of Damocles" takes place entirely in a super orbital telescope in a future in which it is known that there are extrasolar alien cultures, but nothing more and what that would mean to the culture below. Some time later I was commissioned to write what literature would be like a century in such a future. And Up and Out, the novella, takes place in the same future.
But what makes CITIZENS OF THE GALAXY currently unique is that the future is now about to begin in real time. When we understand that we are now in the process of realizing that we are not alone in this galaxy.
Within less than two years, the James Web Space Telescope has completely opened up our knowledge of the universe, let alone our mere galaxy. Billions of suns. As many as trillions of stars and moons. The understanding that h20 and carbon are the most common chemicals in the galaxy, in the universe, the waters of life.
And as I write this, as I have written the magazine stories, as the critique of Citizens of the Galaxy you can read in August, as probably even before I can find a publisher for the book CITIZENS OF THE THE GALAXY, we will know for scientific certainty that we are at least not the only life in this galaxy, indeed not the only life in the universe but citizens of the galaxy.
Which is why I want to open this book of speculative fictional with something that is not fiction but a piece of non-fiction speculation that I wrote almost half a century ago, The Transformation Crisis. When there was not a single planet known outside our solar system, first written as a speech I wrote to deliver in a university, then published in a magazine, then in various versions online when the online came to be, and yet true speculative non fiction now and will always be true as long as we are Citizens of the Galaxy, as long as there are any consciousness beings who survive as citizens of this galaxy or any other.
It is obvious and inevitable than any civilization that evolves anywhere will reach a transformation crisis when its technology evolves to the point where it has the power to destroy itself. It either does destroy itself or it evolves the wisdom not to do so and can survive for millions of years.
And our transformation criss is now. It began with Hiroshima, it continues with what we have done with our planet, with our solar system, it may continue to be a crisis for centuries, before humanity either fails our crisis or succeds its transformation.
Humanity meet "aliens" has been a central story of "science fiction" but for the most part it has been mainly humans verses aliens, ala Cowboys against Indians, Us verses Them, perhaps because 20th century SF grew out of action magazines. But now, only now, meaning perhaps only in the last few years, is speculative fiction being written virtually knowing what the galaxy really is, and that there are most probably other citizens of the galaxy out there.
And once there is proof that there is at the very
least other life in the galaxy, speculative fiction cannot help but become a
central literary fiction, if not the dominant literature. So this is what
CITIZENS OF THE GALAXY is, both what such a culture might be like and
what its literature would be like.
I have published something like 30 novels but only once have I set two of them in the same speculative "Norman Spinrad Universe." CITIZENS OF THE GALAXY is and is not such a book. The three stories take place in the same speculative culture, and indeed some of the characters appear in more than one of the stories, sometimes central, some times not.
And as I look back of those 30 or so novels I realize that only a very few of them are Us Against Them stories. And not so many of them are neither set in utopias or dystopias. And now, things being dire as we are at the edge of our transformation crisis, dystopias seem more creditable and realistic than utopias.
But CITIZENS OF THE GALAXY is neither. I have chosen, or rather been chosen perhaps, to write the stories in a speculative future sent about one or two centuries in the future, in a culture that has successfully passed through it's transformation crisis. Neither utopia nor dystopia, but of course not without personal and cultural drama.
I have always, or almost, wanted to write stories that the readers at least feel somewhat the better for having read them, or at least not bummed out. As I have always agreed that it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. And certainly, most people, given the situations now, must prefer that now.
So why have I been forced to do this now, to ask anyone who might read this SOS to do anything that might help CITIZENS OF THE GALAXY find a publisher? Or even an agent. There are all too many white male writers with similar backgrounds complaining that this is why they find themselves black balled. Perhaps this may be so for them, be they too MAGA or too Moke, but I cannot deny that I did it to myself.
People have wondered why Norman Spinrad hasn't published another novel since THE PEOPLE'S POLICE some ten years ago. Is he dead? Has he retired? Has he lost his literary desire?
No, the answer is that I was black balled by myself. No publisher, no agent, and what caused this is what happened to THE PEOPLE'S POLICE. Tor was the publisher, David Hartwell was the editor, and THE PEOPLE'S POLICE was published in hardcover, and this novel meant so much to me that I spent my own money to make video in New Orleans, knowing that Tor wouldn't pay for making that, but since it was free to them, they would be eager to make the best of the freebie.
But before the book was to be published the shit hit the fan. David Hartwell was killed in an accident, meaning that THE PEOPLE'S POLICE became what is known an orphan novel, meaning that it had no champion at Tor. Tor did nothing with the video and didn't pay a penny in promotion. Worse even than that, when they showed me the hardcover cover, a male and female cop back-to-back and creating an evil raciest face, exactly against the spirit of the novel, I was not amused. They had never showed me the proposal of the cover, and said it couldn't be changed because David Hartwell had approved it, which I knew to be a lie.
I was furious, but what could I do but wait for the trade
paperback and hold my anger and get a better cover on it? And I did. But then I
was told that there would be no trade paperback. At which point it meant
war. I was determined to free THE PEOPLE'S POLICE from the clutches of Tor.
As Hemingway had put it, when I write it, I am an artist, when I finish, I become a son of a bitch. If necessary. Suffice it to say that I did. I won the battle against a major publisher. All by myself. Suffice it to say that no agent could afford to act for a client against a major publisher. Mine didn't, I couldn't blame him and I haven't been able to get another agent since, and things having become in the biz these days what they are, no major or even other appropriate other publisher will even read a novel proposal except through an agent, even from likes of a Norman Spinrad.
Did I know I was black balling myself? Was I an asshole? Was I a hero? Was I both? Was I even thinking that way?
Be that as it may, here I am now, writing this, asking anyone who can, who would want to, give me a helping hand out of this black balling hole, as my former agent could not dare to do. Or send this along to someone or something else who might. As always, anyone who reads this can send it anywhere else, to anyone else who might care, to simply a good publisher. And or good editor. Or an agent who would want to try. Or a magazine or newspaper who would want to retell the story.
To any citizen of this galaxy, or for that matter beyond.
Norman Spinrad
1 rue de la Bucherie
75005 Paris
06-61-97-53-43
Wikipedia pages:
English-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Spinrad
Francais--
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Spinrad
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