trouble at Vicinanza Agency

As many of you know, the Ralph Vicinanza Literary Agency was the premier SF/F agency in the world. Everyone was saddened when Ralph Vicinanza himself died suddenly last September. SFWA reports "Following the passing of Mr. Vicinanza, the two remaining agents in the company have left the agency and the executors of the Vicinanza estate have chosen not to engage in further active agency." They recommend authors consult the SFWA Grievance Committee to deal with various issues this has brought up. If you are affected by this: good luck!

ghostwriting is alive and well

Is anyone besides me mystified at all the celebutantes writing novels these days? Nicole Richie has had two novels published. Hilary Duff released her first novel, Elixir, last year. Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi published a novel in January (despite telling The New York Times last year that she had read only two books in her life), A Shore Thing, which landed on the New York Times best-seller list. And now the Kardashians are writing a novel, and on and on.
Clearly, these women had help. I can only conclude in this day and age ghostwriting is alive and well. Read about it in The New York Times: In Their Own Words? Maybe.

Has anyone gotten in on this ghostwriting gravy-train? Is it a good development? Or just one more signal that the publishing industry is in trouble? What do you think?

Amazon the publisher?

The latest news in the publishing world is Amazon.com has signaled its determination to enter the book publishing business. In recent weeks Amazon has rolled out two new book imprints, announced a roster of best-selling authors whose books will be published under those imprints, and hired a prominent publishing executive, Larry Kirshbaum, to set up an office in New York.

Certainly this is making tradition book publishers anxious. But I can't help thinking it might benefit authors. What do you think?

Bethany Overland discusses it over at www.techflash.com: E-sales to imprints: Amazon's ambitious publishing plan.

Shout out to authors

I should also give a shout out to our May 31, 2011 ElectricSpec issue authors.

Check out the awesome short fiction:

• Invasive Species by Ryan Kinkor
  
• Frazee by Patricia Russo
  
• Remodel with Swan Parts by Michael Griffin
  
• The Turtle Wore Mascara by E. Bundy
  
• Inside the Walls of East Lombard Street by Anthony J. Rapino

Robert J. Sawyer Interview Live!

Today, my interview of Robert J. Sawyer is out in ElectricSpec! His comments were fascinating. Check it out!

Robert J. Sawyer Interview

Next week, on May 31, 2011, my interview with award-winning Science Fiction author Robert J. Sawyer comes out in ElectricSpec. He discusses a multitude of fascinating topics, including:

• his hardest writing task ever
  
• how he does research for his novels
  
• humanity's best chance for meeting a non-human intelligence
  
• his favorite character out of the hundreds he's created over the years
  
• how to keep track of and interweave multiple plots/subplots
  
• what science fiction should really be called
  
• an impending paradigm shift in human society
  
• an easy and effective way to ground a story in our here and now
  
• what he learned from the world of television
  
• how humanity can outlive the sun
  
• his next project

Check it out!

Writing on Reading: The WWW Trilogy

Robert J. Sawyer's WWW trilogy, consisting of WWW:Wake, WWW:Watch, and WWW:Wonder, is his best work to date (and that's saying something). Of course, Sawyer is best known for his novel FlashForward which was the basis for the ABC TV series.

About WWW:Wake, Sawyer says, Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a genius at math — and blind. ...When a Japanese researcher develops a new signal-processing implant that might give her sight, she jumps at the chance, flying to Tokyo for the operation. ...Once the implant is activated, instead of seeing reality, the landscape of the World Wide Web explodes into her consciousness, spreading out all around her in a riot of colors and shapes. While exploring this amazing realm, she discovers something — some other — lurking in the background. And it's getting smarter ...

As you can see, the plotting here is very compelling. Sawyer also does an amazing job with characterization. In addition to the lovable protagonist Caitlin, there's a cast of empathetic and unique characters including the A.I. Webmind, Caitlin's autistic father Malcolm Decter, a chimpanzee bonobo hybrid Hobo, and many others.

Besides, excellent plotting and characterization, Sawyer fills the trilogy with fascinating "big ideas", such as the nature of consciousness, a 'flight versus sight' paradigm shift in human culture, the moral arrow through time and many others. To make a long review short: I strongly recommend this trilogy.

I'm also excited to announce I recently interviewed Mr. Sawyer for ElectricSpec and he was fascinating. Stay tuned next week for more information!