Locus, October 2014
Page 8
EATON RECEIVES $3.5 MILLION GIFT
UC Riverside officials announced August 28, 2014 that $3.5 million had been gifted to the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy. The gift comes from the estate of Jay Kay Klein and is the largest gift ever bestowed upon the UCR library. Mr. Klein had previously donated his photo collection of science fiction writers and fans, valued at $1.4 million. The Eaton Collection is the largest repository of science fiction and fantasy literature that is open to the public.
AMAZON NEWS
As the negotiations between Amazon and Hachette drag on, Douglas Preston’s Authors United campaign, designed to put pressure on Amazon to stop using the careers of Hachette authors as bargaining chips, is now appealing directly to Amazon shareholders. A new letter being circulated for author signatures before being sent to the board reads, in part:
Russell Grandinetti of Amazon has stated that the company was ‘‘forced to take this step because Hachette refused to come to the table.’’ He has also claimed that ‘‘authors are the only leverage we have.’’… Amazon was not ‘‘forced’’ to do anything. This is an obvious fact. We all have choices. Amazon chose to involve 2,500 Hachette authors and their books. It could end these sanctions tomorrow while continuing to negotiate. Amazon is undermining the ability of authors to support their families, pay their mortgages, and provide for their kids’ college educations. We’d like to emphasize that most of us are not Hachette authors, and our concern is founded on principle, rather than self-interest. We find it hard to believe that all members of the Amazon board approve of these actions. We would like to ask you a question: Do you as an Amazon director approve of this policy of sanctioning books?
The entire letter can be read online:
Amazon isn’t too popular in Europe now, either. A group of a thousand writers in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland have signed a letter protesting Amazon’s tactics with Swedish publisher Bonnier Group. They accuse Amazon of manipulating recommendation lists, misleading customers about the availability of Bonnier Group titles, and delaying book deliveries in order to put pressure on the publisher during negotiations: ‘‘Amazon uses authors and their books as a bargaining chip to exact deeper discounts.’’
Amazon is expanding its presence in Germany, which is its largest market outside the US, with plans to open two logistics centers in nearby Poland. The European Commission is investigating complaints that Amazon’s domination of the German e-book market violates antitrust laws, after the German Publishers and Booksellers Association made a complaint in June 2014.
CANADIAN SF/F HALL OF FAME
The new Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame has been announced, and the first honorees will be inducted during the Aurora Awards Ceremony at VCON in Vancouver, BC on October 4th, 2014.
All prior Aurora Award lifetime achievement winners are being inducted: Phyllis Gotlieb, Judith Merril, Dennis Mullin, Robert J. Sawyer, A.E. van Vogt, and Susan Wood. In addition, William Gibson, Jeanne Robinson, and Spider Robinson were selected for induction by a jury.
The 2014 jurors are Clint Budd (chair), Steve Fahnestalk, Robert J. Sawyer, Lorna Toolis, and Diana Walton. For more:
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PEOPLE AND PUBLISHING
MILESTONES
Edward Bryant (2007)
EDWARD BRYANT, 69, suffered a fall in late August and fractured several vertebrae, but his spinal cord is intact. He is wearing a back brace and is recovering well.
AWARDS
URSULA K. LE GUIN, 84, will receive the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. The medal is presented annually to ‘‘a person who has enriched our literary heritage over a life of service, or a corpus of work,’’ and includes a $10,000 cash prize. The medal will be presented November 19, 2014 by Neil Gaiman at the National Book Awards ceremony in New York.
RICHARD POWERS’s Orfeo is one of ten titles longlisted for the National Book Award in the fiction category. The finalists will be announced October 15, 2014, and the winners at the November 19 ceremony. For more:
Ursula K. Le Guin (2008)
SALMAN RUSHDIE, 67, won the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, which includes 500,000 Danish kroner (around $90,000) and an ‘‘Ugly Duckling’’ sculpture designed by Stine Ring Hansen. The international award was founded in 2010 and is given by the Danish government to celebrate Andersen’s influence. J.K. Rowling and Isabel Allende are among past winners.
LOUISE ERDRICH, 60, is the 2014 recipient of the PEN/Saul Bellow Prize for Achievement in American Fiction. The lifetime achievement award includes a $25,000 prize.
KAREN JOY FOWLER’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and HOWARD JACOBSON’s J are among the six finalists for the Man Booker Prize, to be announced October 14, 2014.
BOOKS SOLD
ANDRE NORTON’s Tales from High Hallack, Volume Three, the final volume of her collected stories, gathering work from 1996 to 2005 (the year of her death), sold to Open Road.
SEANAN McGUIRE’s Indexing: Season 2, continuing her series, went to Alex Carr at 47North via Diana Fox of Fox Literary.
RICHARD KADREY sold the seventh and eighth books in the Sandman Slim series to Jennifer Brehl at Voyager, with David Pomerico to edit, via Ginger Clark of Curtis Brown.
BRIAN KEENE sold Pressure, described as ‘‘Jaws meets Alien’’, to Nicole Sohl at Thomas Dunne Books.
Salman Rushdie (2008)
BEN WINTERS sold Underground Airlines, an alternate history where the US Civil War never happened and slavery still exists, to Josh Kendall at Mulholland Books. Kendall will edit with Wes Miller, in a pre-empt via Joelle Delbourgo of the Joelle Delbourgo agency.
ANDY WEIR’s next SF thriller went to Julian Pavia at Crown and Michael Rowley at Del Rey UK via David Fugate of LaunchBooks Literary Agency.
ROBERT CONROY’s alternate history Gettysburg: The Fourth Day sold to Tony Daniels at Baen via Eleanor Wood of Spectrum Literary Agency.
YASMINE GALENORN sold her Whisper Hollow series to Kate Seaver at Berkley via Meredith Bernstein.
ALLEN STEELE’s next collection, Tales of Time and Space, went to Ian R. Strock at Fantastic Books.
KENT LESTER’s The Seventh Sun and a second book went to Tom Doherty at Tor via Russell Galen of Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency.
JOHN RUSSELL FEARN’s new collections Before Earth Came and Earth’s Mausoleum sold to Wildside Press via Phil Harbottle.
COLLEEN GLEASON’s third Stoker & Holmes novel, The Chess Queen Enigma, sold to Kelli Chipponeri of Chronicle via Maura Kye-Casella of Don Congdon Associates.
A translation of MINSOO KANG’s classic Korean work The Story of Hong Gildong sold to Sam Raim at Penguin via Christopher Vyce of the Brattle Agency.
MICAH ACKERMAN sold Wormwood and two more books to Michael Wilson at Permuted Press via Jennifer Azantian of Azantian Literary Agency.
MICHAEL HODGES sold horror novel The Puller to Gary Lucas at Severed Press via Laura Wood of FinePrint Literary Management.
EDWARD ZAJAC sold humorous SF A Swift Kick in the Asteroids to Alisa Gus at Curiosity Quills Press via Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media Group.
CHARLES DAY sold Legend of the Pumpkin Thief to Georgia McBride at Tantrum.
CHRISTINE NORRIS sold A Curse of Ash and Iron, about a woman cursed so none of her friends and family recognize her, to Kathleen Kubasiak of Curiosity Quills Press via Jordy Albert of Booker Albert Agency. She had previously sold the book to the now-defunct Strange Chemistry imprint of Angry Robot.
DONNA GRANT sold books six through nine in the Dark Kings paranormal romance series, along with three novelettes, to Monique Patterson at St. Martin’s via Natanya Wheeler of the Nancy Yost Literary Agency.
Ben Winters (2014)
KENDARE BLAKE sold the first
two books in new series Three Dark Crowns to Alexandra Cooper at HarperTeen at auction for six figures via Adriann Ranta of Wolf Literary Services.
THOMAS SNIEGOSKI sold YA SF Unleashed to Michael Strother at Simon Pulse via Howard Morhaim of Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.
RACHEL NEUMEIER sold YA fantasy The Wyvern King and a second book to Michelle Frey at Knopf Children’s via Caitlin Blasdell of Liza Dawson Associates.
AMY ALWARD’s children’s fantasy The Potion Diaries and two more books sold to Elv Moody and Jane Griffiths at Simon & Schuster UK Children’s in a pre-empt via Juliet Mushens of the Agency Group. Zareen Jaffery of Simon & Schuster Children’s will publish in the US.
CLAIRE FAYERS sold The Voyage to Magical North and two more children’s fantasies to Noa Wheeler of Holt Children’s and Rachel Kellehar at Macmillan UK Children’s at auction via Gemma Cooper of the Bent Agency.
Author/illustrator HENRY H. NEFF sold middle-grade fantasy Impyrium and two more books in the series to Antonia Markiet at HarperCollins Children’s Books in a pre-empt via Josh Adams of Adams Literary.
VICTORIA SCOTT sold Titans, about a girl who ‘‘rides a steel, mechanical horse in Detroit’s underground racing circuit,’’ to Erin Black at Scholastic via Sara Crowe of Harvey Klinger.
JESSICA CLUESS sold YA fantasy A Shadow Bright and Burning and two more books to Chelsea Eberly at Random House Children’s at auction via Brooks Sherman of the Bent Agency.
MONICA TESLER’s SF YA Bounders and two more books sold to Michael Strother at Aladdin in a pre-empt via David Dunton of Harvey Klinger.
JACQUELINE DAVIES sold time-travel YA The Book of Daniel and a second book to Ann Rider of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s via Tracey Adams of Adams Literary.
A.S. KING sold I Crawl Through It to Andrea Spooner at Little, Brown Children’s via Michael Bourret of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management.
PHYLLIS SHALLANT, writing as ANNABELLE FISHER, sold Secret Destiny of Pixie Goldblum to Virginia Duncan at Greenwillow via Jennifer Laughran of Andrea Brown Literary Agency.
LINDA DAVIES sold YA Longbowgirl, about a girl transported into the past, to Rachel Leyshon and Barry Cunningham at Chicken House via Matthew Carlini of Vigliano Associates.
LISA GAIL GREEN’s Forbidden, about teen angels and demons, and Beyond the Silver Moon, about an incubus, went to Samantha Streger at Full Fathom Five via Melissa Nasson of Rubin Pfeffer Content.
Nisi Shawl (2014)
KELLY HASHWAY’s Fading into the Shadows went to Trisha Wooldridge at Spencer Hill Press via Sarah Negovetich of Corvisiero Literary Agency.
ROBERT LUIS ANDERSON’s first novel Dreamland sold to Rosemary Brosnan at HarperTeen in a pre-empt via Stephen Barbara of Foundry Literary + Media.
KEVIN SANDS sold debut YA historical fantasy Blackthorn and a second book to Liesa Abrams at Aladdin and Martha Sharpe at Simon & Schuster Canada at auction via Daniel Lazar of Writers House.
New writer PINTIP DUNN sold SF suspense novel Fit to Die and another title to Liz Pelletier at Entangled Teen via Beth Miller of Writers House.
ANDREA PRICE BERTHOT’s debut The Heartless City, ‘‘a Jekyll-and-Hyde retelling,’’ sold to Vicki Keire at Curiosity Quills Press via Jen Linnan of Linnan Literary Management.
CLAUDE LALUMIÈRE & MARK SHAINBLUM will edit Tesseracts Nineteen: Superhero Universe for EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing.
NISI SHAWL will edit the first volume of The Year’s Illustrious Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy, collecting stories from 2014, for Aqueduct Press. She will be assisted by readers NANCY JANE MOORE, KEFFY KEHRLI, K. TEMPEST BRADFORD, and ROCHITA LOENEN-RUIZ. L. TIMMEL DUCHAMP will write a summary of the year in feminist SF.
RICHARD BREWER & GARY PHILLIPS will edit Occupied Earth, an anthology of linked stories about an alien invasion, for Jason Pinter at Polis.
BOOKS RESOLD
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN’s Expanded Universe sold to Arc Manor/Phoenix Pick via Eleanor Wood of Spectrum Literary Agency for the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Trust.
MICHAEL BISHOP resold Who Made Stevie Crye? and Count Geiger’s Blues to Patrick Swenson at Fairwood Press for the new Kudzu Planet Productions imprint, devoted to reprinting Bishop’s out-of-print work.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE resold Six-Gun Snow White, with new illustrations by GREG RUTH, to Joe Monti at Saga Press via Howard Morhaim of Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.
The late BERNARD WOLFE’s out-of-print postapocalyptic novel Limbo (1952) sold to Malcolm Edwards at Orion via Murray Weiss of Catalyst Literary Management.
SUSAN BARKER’s The Incarnations resold to Sally Kim at Touchstone via Helen Edwards of UK publisher Doubleday/Transworld UK.
BOOKS DELIVERED
CHARLAINE HARRIS turned in Day Shift to Diana Gill at Voyager.
S.M. STIRLING’s The Change: Tales of Downfall and Rebirth was delivered to Diana Gill at Voyager.
SIMON R. GREEN handed in From a Drood to a Kill to Diana Gill at Voyager.
MARK LAWRENCE delivered The Liar’s Key to Diana Gill at Voyager.
PUBLISHING
LOU ANDERS is leaving his position as editorial director and art director at Pyr after ten years to ‘‘devote his professional energy to being a full-time author.’’ His debut novel Frostborn appeared earlier this year. RENE SEARS will take over as interim editor.
Lou Anders (2013)
STUART APPLEBAUM is stepping down as executive vice president of communications at Penguin Random House after 43 years with the company, and will become emeritus executive vice president of corporate communications.
CAITIE FLUM is now an assistant agent at Liza Dawson Associates.
RYAN DOHERTY, a senior editor at Bantam Dell, has taken the new position of vice president of literary development at Sony Pictures, focusing on ‘‘book-to-film-and-television opportunities for all content divisions across Sony Entertainment.’’
JASON SIZEMORE, publisher of Apex Magazine, has announced that he will take over as editor-in-chief from SIGRID ELLIS, who is stepping down. Poetry editor ELISE MATTHESEN is departing, with BIANCA SPRIGGS taking over.
MEDIA
Arthur C. Clarke (1983)
ARTHUR C. CLARKE’s Childhood’s End is being adapted as a six-hour miniseries for Syfy, produced by Akiva Goldsman and Mike De Luca, with an adaptation written by Matthew Graham, and Nick Hurran to direct. TV rights to 3001 were optioned to Warner Horizon Television, which will develop the project for the SyFy Network, via Russell Galen of Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency.
STEPHEN KING’s ‘‘The Things They Left Behind’’ is being adapted as a TV series about ‘‘an unlikely pair of investigators carrying out the unfinished business of the dead’’ for CBS, with Warner Bros. producing. Executive producers are David Katzenberg, Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and Seth Grahame-Smith; the latter is writing the pilot script.
Film rights to E.C. TUBB’s stories ‘‘Lucifer’’ and ‘‘Fallen Angel’’ sold to Colour Drop Productions via Phil Harbottle on behalf of the Tubb estate.
DAVID GAIDER will write another Dragon Age tie-in novel for Tor via Eleanor Wood of Spectrum Literary Agency.
TOR.COM LAUNCH
Tor.com celebrated the launch of their new digital novella imprint on with a party at Housing Works in New York on September 10, 2014.
Lee Harris, Irene Gallo, and Carl Engle-Laird
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THE DATA FILE
Young People Read More • Audiobook Sales Up • Where Books Are Bought • Forbes’s Top-Earning Authors • Future Library • E-Books in the Bathtub • B&N News • Awards News • Publishing News • World Conventions News • Announcements • Legal News • Book News • Financial News • International Rights • Other Rights
YOUNG PEOPLE READ MORE
A new Pew survey has encouraging news: Americans age 16-29 are reading more than older Americans. The new report on ‘‘Younger Americans and
Public Libraries’’ has a broader scope than the title suggests, drawing from years of research on reading habits, use of technology, cultural interests, and social engagement. The report reveals that 88% of Americans under 30 read at least one book in the past year, compared to 79% for those over 30. Younger teens read the most, with 46% of those aged 16-17 reporting that they read books (in print or digital formats) on a daily basis. 43% of those 18-29 report reading books daily, compared to 40% of readers above age 30.
Young people don’t think the Internet has all the answers, either, with 62% of those under 30 agreeing that ‘‘a lot of useful, important information… is not available on the internet,’’ compared to 53% of older Americans.
The notion that libraries are useless for the new generation is partly refuted here, with 50% of those age 16-29 having used a library in the past year, slightly more than the 47% of older Americans who did so. Despite their greater use of libraries, younger people are more likely to consider libraries unimportant, with only 19% of those under 30 saying the closure of a library would have a major impact on them and their family, compared with 32% of older adults. Just over half of younger Americans think library closures would have a major impact on their communities, while 67% of those older think it would.
The survey can be read in its entirety here:
AUDIOBOOK SALES UP
Nielsen BookScan reports that sales of physical audiobooks increased 6% in the first five months of 2014, over the same period in 2013. Most audiobook sales are through book club memberships, accounting for 44% of all units, with 25% of sales from online stores, 10% from chain bookstores, and the remaining sales divided among supermarkets, warehouse clubs, mass merchandisers, and other channels.