Upon a Burning Throne
Page 71
Robert N. Stephenson of Altair, Ian Randal Strock of Artemis, David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer of Year’s Best Fantasy, Michael Plogmann of Storisende, Darrell Schweitzer and Nick Mamatas of Weird Tales, and probably a few more whose names I’ve forgotten, all of whom published my early short work through the ’80s and ’90s.
Mr. Shanbhag of Strand Book Stall at P.M. Road, who was kind enough to extend credit to a young writer who promised to pay for the books at month’s end when his salary came in. It was my dream to someday see my own books in that small, crowded, but wonderful shop. Not only did the dream come true, my books topped the Strand Bestseller Lists for weeks. The man was an institution unto himself in Indian bookselling!
R. Sriram of Crossword, India’s first bookstore chain, who took a bean-head’s suggestion to introduce a separate section for science fiction and fantasy, and agreed with me that 250 copies of a children’s book by an obscure new author named Rowling would surely sell out overnight because the book was that good. (They didn’t; the copies just sat there for most of a year, but when they finally began to move, boy, did they move!)
Ravi Singh, Paromita Mohanchandra, V. K. Karthika, Hemali Sodhi, Lillette Dubey, Pallavi Joshi, Hemu Ramaiah, Saugata Mukherjee, Chiki Sarkar, Akash Shah, Mugdha Godse, and all the other wonderful people who played a role, some more significant than others, in a long and eventful publishing career.
Gautam Padmanabhan, the finest publisher any Indian author could ever ask for, and a wonderful human being. The only publisher who came to visit me at home in two different cities, on two separate occasions, to convince me to publish with him. I’m delighted to have been a small part of the great success that is Westland (now Amazon Westland) but am not surprised at the sheer level of your success. The Indian Big Five publishers were content to act (mostly) as import gateways for all the foreign dross flooding desi bookshelves. It took publishers like yourself—and specifically you—to show them that desi authors could achieve videshi sales targets. You made it possible for Indian authors to sign million-dollar contracts just for Indian publishing rights. You changed Indian publishing and my career. I owe you far more than just books. Thank you, and here’s to another several dozen books together!
This list is already long, and I’ve only just reached the present millennium! Like my literary idol Harlan Ellison (when it comes to forewords and afterwards, acknowledgments, and the like), I offer no apologies, but I am going to do something unusual in an acknowledgments page. I’m going to stop this already very long section here with a promise that epic fantasy novelists are notorious for: To Be Continued. (Soon, I promise!) There are still several dozen (hundred?) more people I have to thank, and I’m out of time and space here, a predicament in which more than one science fiction writer has found themselves. Ciao, for now!
Ashok Kumar Banker
Mumbai, India / Los Angeles, USA
September 3, 2018
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About the Author
Ashok K. Banker is the author of more than sixty books, including the internationally acclaimed Ramayana series. His works have all been bestsellers in India and have sold around the world. He is also the author of many short stories, including the Legends of the Burnt Empire series (published in Lightspeed), which takes place in the same world as Upon a Burning Throne. He lives in Los Angeles and Mumbai.
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