Posthuman Blues

I started Joseph Christy-Vitale's "Watermark," a well-written book that suggests that a chunk of lethal star-stuff from a distant supernova entered the solar system 12,000 years ago, wreaking gravitational havoc and wiping out a global civilization in the process. Incidentally, this is the basic premise of Herbie Brennan's "The Atlantis Enigma," also enjoyable.





"Watermark" is a Paraview Pocket Book, edited by Patrick Huyghe (who tackled the original manuscript of "After the Martian Apocalypse"), so some of my appreciation for Christy-Vitale's book is its publishing history. I feel we're both members of some unofficial club for writers with an affinity for planet-wide holocaust.

I've fielded a few queries (both online and in "meatspace") about how "After the Martian Apocalypse" came to be. The answer, perhaps disappointingly, is "organically." Thanks to the Internet, I was able to circumvent some of the usual publishing conduct so painfully described in how-to-write articles. I didn't hire an agent; my Mars website, the Cydonian Imperative, ultimately functioned as an online book proposal. So I was spared the typical experience of post-mailing sample chapters to prospective publishers and in general driving myself crazy.

Most of the "get published now" literature seems to ignore the stark reality of the Web and its vast networking potential. Of course, this doesn't mean I won't have to wrestle with old-fashioned networking in the future. The genre fiction market is glutted with would-be authors; I'd be very surprised if a single nonfiction book does much to impress the editors at, say, Tor or Ace (two consistently good science fiction publishing imprints).

Summing up, I don't particularly know a whole lot about the publishing world and its economic nuances. Frankly, I find it all quite headache-inducing. So I'm clinging -- probably naively -- to the notion that if I'm a good enough writer, unafraid to share my output with knowledgeable strangers, there's a plausible chance my efforts will meet with some success. But of course my own experience is couched in the nonfiction industry, and it's easier to break into nonfiction than fiction.

Right now, I've got three book proposals I want to pitch -- one for a novel, one for a short-story collection, and another for a speculative science/paranormal book along the lines of what I've already done (minus the Martian trappings). If I happen to learn anything along the way, I'll let you know.