Locus, October 2014

by Locus Publications

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  Loncon 3, the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention, August 14-18, 2014 at ExCel, London Docklands, issued Media Release #35, announcing the Retro Hugo Award winners.

  Sasquan, the 73rd Worldcon, August 19-23, 2015 in Spokane WA, published Media Release #2014-4, announcing that the Housing Bureau opened for Sasquan members on September 16, 2014, allowing members to make hotel reservations, with instructions for how to request party space. For more: .

  ANNOUNCEMENTS

  The next Eurocon (BCon) will be held November 4-6, 2016, in Barcelona, Spain at the Centre for Contemporary Culture. Guests of honour are writers Aliette de Bodard and Richard Morgan, fan organizer Jun Miyazaki, and artist Enrique Corominas. The con committee is led by Pep Burillo, Alejo Cuervo, and Ian Watson. Event organizers are Cristina Macía, Ana Díaz Eiriz, Oskar Arias (von Arien), Lupe Lorenzana, Raquel Lozano Álvarez, Ismael Ávalos Pérez, and Miquel Codony. Memberships are €30 until April 27, 2015. For more: .

  A Tribute to Ray Bradbury is being held October 12, 2014 in Pomona CA as a benefit for the Pomona Public Library. Admission includes a screening of film The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, with a script written by Bradbury based on his story, and a panel discussion with special guests including actors Joe Mantegna and Edward James Olmos, and Bradbury biographer Sam Weller. For more, and to buy tickets: .

  The Museum of Science Fiction has announced an exhibit design competition for its 2015 Preview Museum, to open in Washington DC next year. Exhibit designs are welcome from students, designers, and architects worldwide, with a deadline of October 31, 2014. The winner will receive a $1,000 prize. For submission details: .

  An exhibit of Astounding and Amazing issues from 1920 - 1950 is on display at Darling Library at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa CA, August 20 - October 3, 2014. The issues were provided by collector and guest curator William Lomax. For more: .

  LEGAL NEWS

  Some unhappy Apple shareholders are suing the company in the wake of the antitrust lawsuit won by the Department of Justice. In their filing, the shareholders claim that CEO Tim Cook and other executives ‘‘bear responsibility for ensnaring Apple in a multi-year anticompetitive scheme,’’ and that they took part in a ‘‘breach of fiduciary duties, waste of corporate assets, and unjust enrichment,’’ and brought ‘‘significant damages’’ down on the company. The shareholders want ‘‘to hold the individual defendants responsible for the company entering into these illegal anticompetitive agreements.’’

  BOOK NEWS

  Lock In by John Scalzi (Tor) was the number one bestselling book in the SF/Fantasy category at the iBooks store for the week ending August 31, 2014.

  FINANCIAL NEWS

  US Census Bureau Preliminary figures show July bookstore sales of $707 million, down 5.1% from July 2013. Year-to-date sales dropped 7.6% to $5.8 billion. All retail sales were up 4.6% for the month, and up 3.7% YTD.

  AAP figures for April and May showed generally flat trade sales, with children’s and YA providing some bright spots thanks to a few big hits, including Veronica Roth’s Divergent series. Total trade sales for April were $491 million, up $4 million from the previous year; May’s sales were $525 million, up $2 million. Adult trade sales for April were $363 million, down $20 million from April 2013; Children’s/YA sales were $128 million, up $24 million. In May, Adult sales were $371 million, down $37 million; Children’s/YA sales of $154 million were up $39 million. E-book sales for April, boosted by customer credits from publisher legal settlements received at the end of March, reached $138.5 million, up $16 million; May sales were $120 million, up $3 million.

  Six major publishers saw profits for the first half of 2014, though some saw their profit margins slip a bit. Penguin Random House’s figures for 2014 are not comparable to pre-merger figures for the first half of 2013, which only include figures for Random House. The combined company saw the biggest increase in total sales in the first half of 2014, from Random House’s EURO915.0 million (about $1.17 billion) in 2013 to Penguin Random House’s EURO1.46 billion ($1.87 billion) in 2014, a 59.7% increase. Their 2014 operating margin of 10.9% falls somewhere between 2013 operating margins of 14.3% for Random House and 5.4% for Penguin.

  Lagardere Publishing saw sales drop 1.5% to EURO903.0 million ($1.15 billion) and earnings fall 28.2% to EURO51.0 million ($65.3 million), with the profit margin dropping from 7.7% to 5.6%. The company primarily blamed declines on weakness in European markets; US subsidiary Hachette Book Group, which includes Little, Brown and Orbit US, reported sales up 5.6%, in part thanks to the addition of 1,000 Hyperion titles. HBG’s US e-book sales were only 29% of trade sales for the period, down from 34%; fewer movie tie-ins and ‘‘punitive’’ action from Amazon were blamed for the drop. E-book sales were 11.3% of sales for all of Lagardare, the same as last year.

  HarperCollins’s first-half sales rose 11.7% to $715 million; profits jumped 68.6% to $86.0 million; their profit margin rose from 8.0% to 12.0%. Credit for much of the increase went to Veronica Roth’s Divergent trilogy, with 19 million books (35% of those e-books) sold in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2014. E-book sales were up about 35% overall, 22% of HarperCollins’ revenues for the fiscal year.

  Harlequin, sold to HarperCollins on August 1, reported its last full-half sales as part of Canada’s Torstar. Sales for the six-month period were down 3.3% at C$183 million (about $166 million); profits fell 24.9% to C$17.5 million ($15.9 million). Their profit margin fell from 12.3% in 2013 to 9.6%. Declining performance was blamed primarily on lower North American sales.

  Simon & Schuster saw first-half sales increase 1.1% to $364 million, with earnings up 13.3% to $34.0 million. Their profit margin rose from 8.3% to 9.3%. E-book sales fell more than 9%, blamed on particularly strong 2013 sales of certain titles in e-book.

  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s trade group saw first-half sales drop 14.0% to $69.3 million. Earnings fell substantially, from $11.3 million to $0.6 million, a 94.7% drop. Both frontlist and backlist sales were down, backlist mostly because of strong sales of Life of Pi and The Hobbit in 2013. Digital sales were 16% of trade revenue, the same as in the first half of 2013.

  INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS

  Brazilian rights to Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves sold to Miguel Conde at Rocco at auction via Laura Riff of Riff Agency on behalf of Nichole LeFebvre of the Friedrich Agency.

  German rights to Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link sold to Golkonda via Agence Hoffman on behalf of Taryn Fagerness Agency and Renee Zuckerbrot Literary Agency.

  Polish rights to Whispers by Dean Koontz sold to Replika via Lennart Sane of Lennart Sane Agency.

  Hungarian rights to Jean M. Auel’s The Plains of Passage sold to Ulpius-Haz via Katai & Bolza in association with Jennifer Weltz of the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency.

  Brazilian rights to Underground Airlines by Ben Winters went to Rocco in a pre-empt via Jenny Meyer on behalf of Joelle Delbourgo Associates.

  Complex Chinese rights to The Border by Robert McCammon sold to Eric Chen at Nautilus via Gray Tan of the Grayhawk Agency on behalf of Cameron McClure of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

  Czech rights to City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett went to Host via Nada Cipranic of Prava I Prevodi in association with Cameron McClure of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

  German rights to The Rithmatist and another title by Brandon Sanderson sold to Heyne via Christian Dittus of Paul & Peter Fritz Agency, and Polish rights to Words of Radiance and the third Stormlight Archive novel went to Mag via Renata Paczewska of ANAW Literary Agency, all on behalf of Krystyna Lopez of JABberwocky Literary Agency.

  Danish rights to Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and Voyager by Diana Gabaldon sold to Gyldendal via Danny Baror of Baror International.

  German rights to The Age Atomic by Adam Christopher went to Papierverzierer via Franka Zastr
ow of Thomas Schlueck Agency in association with Cameron McClure of the Donald Maass Literary Agency on behalf of Stacia Decker.

  Polish rights to A Natural History of Dragons sold to Zysk via Renata Paczewskaat of ANAW Literary Agency on behalf Krystyna Lopez of JABberwocky Literary Agency.

  German rights to Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon went to Ute Engel at Blanvalet via Sylvie Rosokoff of Trident Media Group, and Spanish rights to books one through six in the Dark-Hunter series sold to Random House Mondadori via Lauren Paverman of Trident Media Group, all on behalf of Robert Gottlieb.

  Brazilian Portuguese rights to Ernie Cline’s Armada went to Taina Bispo at Leya via Joao Paulo Riff of Riff Agency on behalf of Kirsten Neuhaus of Foundry Literary + Media.

  Danish rights to the Red Rising trilogy by Pierce Brown sold to Gyldendal via Philip Sane of Lennart Sane Agency on behalf of Havis Dawson of Liza Dawson Associates.

  German rights to Pillar to the Sky by William Forstchen sold to Festa via Thomas Schlueck Agency on behalf of Eleanor Wood of Spectrum Literary Agency.

  Italian rights to Lois Duncan’s Down a Dark Hall sold to Mondadori Ragazzi via Elena Benaglia on behalf of Szilvia Molnar of Sterling Lord Literistic.

  Italian rights to E.C. Tubb’s new collection Greater than Infinity went to Edizioni Della Vigna via Phil Harbottle.

  German rights to Michael J. Sullivan’s Hollow World sold to Heyne via Agence Hoffman on behalf of Taryn Fagerness Agency and Laurie McLean of Foreword Literary.

  Slovenian rights to Kiera Cass’s The Selection and two more books sold to MKZ via Kristin Olson Literary Agency in association with Kathleen Ortiz of New Leaf Literary & Media on behalf of Elana Roth of Red Tree Literary.

  Czech rights to Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers went to Albaros via Kristin Olson on behalf of Maria Massie of Lippincott Massie McQuilkin. Estonian rights went to Varrak via Anastasya Markova of Synopsis Literary Agency.

  German rights to The Potion Diaries by Amy Alward went to CBJ, and Brazilian rights to Pensamento.

  German rights to The Ruby Circle by Richelle Mead went to Lyx via Annelie Geissler of Mohrbooks on behalf of Lauren Abramo of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management.

  French rights to Bitter Spirits, Grim Shadows, and Grave Phantoms by Jenn Bennett sold to Ada via La Nouvelle Agence on behalf of Taryn Fagerness Agency and Laura Bradford of Bradford Literary Agency.

  Russian rights to anthology Edge of Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan, sold to AST via Danny Baror of Baror International on behalf of Howard Morhaim of the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.

  Spanish rights to Speculative Japan 1, edited by Grania Davis & Gene Van Troyer, sold to Satori Ediciones.

  OTHER RIGHTS

  Audio rights to Bride of Death by Tim Pratt sold to Audible via Ginger Clark of Curtis Brown.

  Audio rights to California Bones, Pacific Fire, and the third in the trilogy by Greg van Eekhout went to Melanie Donovan at Recorded Books via Liza Dawson and Caitie Flum on behalf of Caitlin Blasdell of Liza Dawson Associates.

  Audio rights to Day of Wrath by William Forstchen went to Haila Williams at Blackstone Audio via Eleanor Wood of Spectrum Literary Agency.

  Audio rights to The Accidental Alchemist by Gigi Pandian sold to Aretha Bright & Susie Bright at Audible via Jill Marsal of the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

  Audio rights to Eren by Simon Clark sold to Jodie Coles at WF Howes via Molly Ker Hawn of the Bent Agency.

  Audio rights to Andrew Klavan’s Werewolf Cop went to Jeff Golick at Dreamscape Audio via Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media Group on behalf of Robert Gottlieb.

  Audio rights to The Twenty-Year Death by Ariel Winter sold to Steve Feldberg at Audible via Chelsea Lindman of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.

  Return to In This Issue listing.

  KAMERON HURLEY: THE STATUS QUO IS NOT A NEUTRAL POSITION: FICTION AND POLITICS

  I often find myself getting asked tricky questions from new writers, but the trickiest of all is this: they want to know how I’ve managed to have a career while speaking so publicly about my beliefs and values online.

  I’ve been writing on the internet since 2004, and publishing in more traditional venues since 1996. And I have a distinct set of values and politics and opinions that I bring to both my fiction and nonfiction work, of course.

  Doesn’t everyone?

  Kameron Hurley

  I explore a variety of topics quite boldly on the page, and make good use of tactical swearing. I’ve had my nonfiction work recognized with two Hugo Awards, and garnered a solid online following for speaking honestly and publicly about both my values and the realities of the writing and publishing life.

  Yet one of the things I’ll hear from newer writers, and even my colleagues, is that they avoid potentially polarizing topics when writing both online and in more traditional print magazines like this one. They fear turning off a certain subset of readers. What many don’t realize is that our values are quite apparent even in our fiction – it’s in whether or not we choose to portray the status quo as heroic and normal, or challenge it. It’s in how we treat our male and female characters, and whether or not we acknowledge that there are people living between those two binary boxes. It’s in how we build future and imaginary worlds, and who we choose to put in charge of them, and how they organize themselves. It’s in whether we believe, or not, in good and evil, in a creator(s), or not. It’s in who we say our heroes should be. It’s all there, everything we believe, painted right into our stories, whether we like it or not.

  Truth be told, the readers you will lose by saying all that out loud are likely going to be the same ones you would lose simply because they were turned off by your fiction.

  The newer writers who approach me tend to be people who believe passionately and fervently in their sets of values, folks who feel that their work, specifically, has been called out as ‘‘political’’ while the work of their peers seems to not ruffle any feathers. I always found this strange, when people told me that the only ‘‘political’’ fiction out there was written by folks at the far left or right of the spectrum, and that somehow, the work that maintained, presented, or celebrated the status quo was free of icky sticky politics.

  Oddly enough, it seems many consider fiction that upholds the status quo, that supports current politically acceptable or traditional views, as apolitical. It is, somehow, ‘‘normal,’’ and it’s the rest of us working around the margins of that that are making all the fuss. We’re muddying the clear waters. All our science fiction and fantasy should be ‘‘fun’’ people tell me. Free from anything outside the accepted norm.

  Which, you know, for writers in genres which are supposedly ‘‘fantastic’’ is a deeply amusing assertion.

  I expect these folks who think pure genre fiction is free from politics think we should just write about a post-racial capitalist utopia, where men are men and women are women. Because writing such a thing is not a statement of politics or morals or values, but of cold, objective fact.

  Right?

  But all writing is political. All art is political. If we choose to write from the viewpoint of the status quo, of ‘‘accepted’’ views of history, of gender roles, of economics, of race relations and commerce, that does not make our work any less political. It’s simply that those politics are less visible to us from where we’re sitting, because those are the politics the media feeds us, the ones the talking heads prop up, the ones the schools that were raising good little factory workers told us were not political at all, but human, and normal. They told us these views, these positions, were fact, and anything that veered from that was disruptive.

  And to be disruptive, to stand out, was a grave crime indeed.

  That’s us. The disruptors.

  What we choose to write about – violent matriarchies, benevolent patriarchies, anarchist utopias, capitalist dystopias – cannot help but take a political position. Hierarchy is good. Capitalism is bad. Binary gender is natural. Bisexualit
y is natural. Or not. Freedom of information is bad. Freedom of information leads to terrorism. The state is benevolent and should be trusted to protect its citizens. The state is corrupt and must be abolished.

  Intentional or not, our work expresses a certain set of values. The more they tilt away from the accepted cultural ‘‘norm’’ of values, the more visible they will be, but they’re no more or less valid expressions.

  It turns out that science fiction and fantasy writers have a long and glorious tradition of political rambling, political writing, and both challenging and propping up the status quo. Heinlein’s work was deeply political, as was the work of Ursula K. Le Guin, Samuel R. Delany, Joe Haldeman, Joanna Russ, Octavia E. Butler – throw a dart at a book in your library or swipe through your e-book selections and you’ll find a writer who expresses a certain view of the world, whether it’s in conversation with or directly challenging the society they’re writing from.

  New writers tend to have a deep fear of saying something wrong on the internet, and I don’t blame them – things can escalate quickly. But it is not so much the flame wars or hater comments they seem to fear, but the idea that particular editors, or publishing professionals, or colleagues won’t work with them if they know what their politics are.

  And to that, I say, well, you know, as long as your ‘‘politics’’ aren’t about kicking puppies and taking away women’s right to vote and stomping on all other races and countries but your own and stripping people of their human rights, you’ll probably do fine. There is a long history of writers who have done all those things, and still managed to have careers. So you’ll be all right.