2011 - Tor/Forge Blog

A Record Breaking Year for Tor Books in 2011

December 21, 2011May 10, 2024torforge2 Comments

2011 has been a fantastic year for us at Tor and we hope that it was a great one for all of you as well. A heartfelt thank you to all the readers that have supported us this year.

Here’s to a great 2012!

A record number 30 bestsellers in 2011, up from 20 in 2010!!!

2011 NYT Bestsellers

1/16 – Preston/Impact: MM Fiction #19

1/23 – Bear/Halo: HC Fiction #16

1/23 – Card/The Lost Gate: HC Fiction #35

1/31 – Jordan & Sanderson/Towers of Midnight: E-Book List #11

2/6 – Jordan/New Spring: Graphic List #2

3/20 – Lustbader/Last Snow: MM Fiction #34

3/20 – Erikson/The Crippled God: TPB Fiction #12

5/15 – Carr/Hitman: HC Non-Fiction #17

5/22 – Forstchen/One Second After: MM Fiction #29

5/29 – Scalzi /Fuzzy Nation: HC Fiction #23

5/29 – Lustbader /Blood Trust: HC Fiction #34

6/12 – Cameron/A Dog’s Purpose: TP Fiction #13

6/12 – Sanderson/Way of Kings: MM Fiction #25

7/1 – Card/Ender’s Game: MM Fiction #32

7/17 – Vaughn/Kitty’s Big Trouble: MM Fiction #15

7/24 – Tamaki/ Dance in the Vampire Bund Vol. 10: Manga Fiction #3

7/24 – Takemiya/Torodora, Vol 2.: Manga Fiction #9

8/28 – Vinge / Cowboys & Aliens: MM Fiction #28

9/4 – Goodkind / The Omen Machine: HC Fiction #1!!!!

9/4 – Taylor / An Irish Country Doctor: MM Fiction #34

10/2 – Jordan/Eye of the World Graphic Novel: Graphic List #4

10/2 – Weber/How Firm a Foundation: HC Fiction #8. E-Book List #31, HC & PB Combined #16

10/15 – Kamachi/A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 2: Manga Fiction #2

10/23 – Jordan & Sanderson/Towers of Midnight: MM Fiction #11

10/30 – Taylor / A Dublin Student Doctor: HC Fiction #26

10/30 – Vinge / The Children of the Sky: HC Fiction #28

10/30 – Wilson / The Dark at the End: HC Fiction #30

11/13 – Traviss/Halo: Glasslands: TP Fiction #10, HC & PB Combined #31

11/27 – Sanderson/The Alloy of Law: HC Fiction #7, HC & PB Combined #10, E-books #13

12/4 – Goodkind/The Omen Machine: E-Book List #18, E-Books & print combined #34

The Breakdown

10 hardcovers
3 trade paperbacks
9 mass markets
2 graphic novels and 3 manga
2 e-books

A Dog’s Purpose has appeared on the trade paper fiction list a record 27 weeks and counting! (Will we hit 28? We’ll know in 3 hours J)

Towers of Midnight a record 18 weeks on the list!

Kirkus Reviews’ Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2011

THE HUM AND THE SHIVER by Alex

WITH FATE CONSPIRE by Marie Brennan

SCHOLAR by L.E. Modesitt

THE HUM AND THE SHIVER by Alex Bledsoe

WITH FATE CONSPIRE

SCHOLAR by L.E. Modesitt

Kirkus Reviews’ Best Historical Fiction

THE RICHEST HILL ON EARTH by Richard Wheeler

Kirkus Reviews’ Best Teen Books

ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD by Kendare Blake

Library Journal Best Books SFF

LEVIATHANS OF JUPITER by Ben Bova

QUANTUM THIEF by Hannu Rajaniemi

THE UNREMEMBERED by Peter Orullian

THE CHILDREN OF THE SKY by Vernor Vinge

Library Journal Best Books Thrillers

STRONG AT THE BREAK by Jon Land

Amazon.com’s Best Books: Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011

AMONG OTHERS by Jo Walton

VORTEX by Robert Charles Wilson

BN.com’s Best Science Fiction Releases of 2011

THE CHILDREN OF THE SKY by Vernor Vinge

QUANTUM THIEF by Hannu Rajaniemi

Honorable Mentions:

FUZZY NATION

COUNT TO A TRILLION

LEVIATHONS OF JUPITER

Shelf-Awareness Top 10: Reviewers Choice

AMONG OTHERS by Jo Walton (Ron Hogan)

GANYMEDE by Cherie Priest (Ron Hogan)

A DOG’S PURPOSE by Bruce Cameron (Marilyn Dahl)

39 Starred Reviews in 2011

Kirkus

Anna Dressed in Blood – Kendare Blake, The Hum and the Shiver – Alex Bledsoe, With Fate Conspire – Marie Brennan, Spellbound – Blake Charlton, Camouflage – Bill Pronzini, Fuzzy Nation – John Scalzi, The Quantum Thief – Hannu Rajaniemi, Scholar – L.E. Modesitt

Publishers Weekly

Up Against It – MJ Locke • The Secret of Crickley Hall – James Herbert • The Beloved Dead – Tony Hays • End of Days – Bob Gleason

Endurance – Jay Lake • Fuzzy Nation – John Scalzi • Down the Mysterly River – Bill Willingham • Ganymede – Priest • The First Days – Rhiannon Frater • The Quantum Thief – Hannu Rajaniemi • Bye Bye, Baby – Max Allen Collins • Infernal Angels – Loren D. Estleman • Dark Jenny – Alex Beldsoe

Prospero Regained – L. Jagi Lamplighter • In the Lion’s Mouth – Michael Flynn

Library Journal

Lucky Stiff – Deborah Coonts • Alloy of Law – Brandon Sanderson • Fall from Grace – Wayne Arthurson • The Beloved Dead – Tony Hays • The Children of the Sky – Vernor Vinge • The Hum and the Shiver – Alex Bledsoe • Spellbound – Blake Charlton • The Unremembered – Peter Orullian

The Illusion of Murder – Carol McCleary • The Highest Frontier – Joan Slonczewski • Sisterhood of Dune – Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

Booklist

Lucky Stiff – Deborah Coonts • Hellhole – Brian Herbert and Kevin J, Anderson • End of Days – Bob Gleason • Dark Jenny – Alex Beldsoe • The Galahad Legacy – Dom Testa

Awards

Edgar Award

Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva won Best First Novel

2011 Locus Awards

Tor Books named Best Books Publisher for 24^th year in a row

Warriors, ed. By George R. R. Martin and Gardner ozois named Best Anthology

Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with his Century: Volume 1: 1907-1948: Learning Curve by William H. Patterson, Jr. named Best Non-Fiction Book

Ellen Datlow was named Best Editor

Macavity Award

Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva won Best First novel

Anthony Award & Crimespree Award

The Damage Done by Hillary Davidson won Best First Novel

Endeavour Award

Dreadnought by Cherie Priest

2010 Spur Awards

The Last Train from Cuernavaca by Lucia St. Clair won Best Western Long Novel

Snowbound by Richard S. Wheeler won Best Western Short Novel

2011 Emperor Norton Award

Nested Scrolls by Rudy Rucker

2010 Romantic Times Book Reviews Awards

Carole Nelson Douglas was given a Career Achievement award in the Mystery Category

Passion Play by Beth Bernobich won Best Epic Fantasy

David Gemmell Legend Award

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

Nebula Awards

Tor.com’s short story “Ponies” by Kij Johnson won Best Short Story

Best Tweet of 2011 sent Dec 21^st at 8:52am (EST)

@BrandSanderson Brandon Sanderson

Ladies and gentlemen, A Memory of Light–the final book in The Wheel of Time–has been finished.

What's New

December #TorChat Revealed: 2011 In Review

December 20, 2011May 10, 2024torforge1 Comment

Who is ready for an End of the Year party? Because that is what we’re going to do.

Join us this Wednesday on Twitter for a very special #YearEnd wrapup on #TorChat. All day, @torbooks and other sf/f folks are going to be sharing their favorite books of the year, their holiday gift recommendations, and what they’re looking forward to next year.

2011 was just too great a year to condense into our usual hour so we’ll be talking about books all day long. We would love to hear about your favorites from the past year too.

Let’s give 2011 a proper send-off as only Tor Books fans can!

About #Torchat
#TorChat is a genre-themed chat series created by Tor Books and hosted on Twitter. Guest authors join fans in lively, informative and entertaining discussions of all that’s hot in genre fiction, 140 characters at a time, from 4 – 5 PM EST on the third Wednesday of every month. Each #TorChat revolves around a different genre topic of interest, often of a timely nature, and strives to provide a new media opportunity for readers to connect with their favorite authors.

What's New

World Book Night U.S. Releases 2012 Picks

December 14, 2011May 30, 2024torforge1 Comment

WORLD BOOK NIGHT U.S. 2012 ANNOUNCES ANNA QUINDLEN AS NATIONAL CHAIR AND NAMES ITS 30 SELECTIONS FOR FIRST GIVEAWAY OF 1 MILLION FREE BOOKS

New York City, December 14, 2011 – World Book Night U.S. has announced the selection of its honorary national chairperson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Anna Quindlen, and revealed the WBN 2012 U.S. book picks. In addition, World Book Night U.S. has opened the registration process for those wishing to become volunteer book givers.

World Book Night is an ambitious campaign to give away a million free books across America all on one day — April 23, 2012 — by enlisting 50,000 volunteer book lovers to help promote reading by going into their communities and distributing free copies of a book they especially enjoy. World Book Night was successfully launched in the UK earlier this year, and now the U.S. is joining the effort, which is supported by American publishers, bookstores and libraries nationwide.

Anna Quindlen has enthusiastically agreed to be the campaign’s Honorary National Chairperson. Quindlen said: “What’s better than a good book? A whole box of them, and the opportunity to share them with new readers. The idea behind World Book Night is inspired, and as a writer and a reader I’m thrilled to be part of it.”

World Book Night U.S. board chairman Morgan Entrekin added: “We are thrilled and flattered that Anna has agreed to join our cause. Her energy has already been a great asset to the campaign, and we look forward to her being a leading voice among the many for this ambitious effort to promote reading and a love of books across America.”

Volunteer book givers are welcome to apply now. They can go to www.us.worldbooknight.org and register through February 1, 2012, by providing answers to several questions and picking a book to give out from the World Book Night U.S. 2012 list.

World Book Night U.S. Executive Director Carl Lennertz said: “We want the book givers to reach out to new or light readers, especially in underserved places like nursing homes, schools, hospitals and poor neighborhoods, but also in public gathering places like coffee shops and malls. And by offering a range of fiction, non-fiction and books for teens, we believe we have great books that the givers will be passionate about handing out, and will appeal to a wide audience of potential new readers.”

Sherman Alexie, author of the World Book Night U.S. 2012 pick The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, said: “This is a celebration of the individual book and the individual reader. I am honored to take part.”

Also a World Book Night U.S. author, for her book Because of Winn-Dixie, Kate DiCamillo added: “It makes perfect sense to me that World Book Night will take place in spring. Extending your hand to give someone a book, a story, is a gesture of hope and joy. It is a chance for all of us, givers and receivers, to break into blossom.”

The book picks have been finalized and there will be 30 picks printed, rather than 25. Lennertz said: “We decided to expand several categories, notably from three to five YA/middle reader books, due to popular demand from booksellers and librarians, as well as adding a sci-fi novel, an additional mystery, and a surprise classic from an indie press. I am thrilled about this, as it broadens the appeal of the list to our two audiences: the 50,000 book givers and the million new readers we want to reach.”

The books were chosen by a panel of independent booksellers, Barnes & Noble buyers, and librarians through several rounds of voting. Thirty-five thousand copies of each World Book Night title will be printed as special, not-for-resale paperbacks, totaling over a million copies to be distributed nationwide. Copies of several of the picks will be shipped directly to military bases, and there will be an outreach to prison libraries.

Lennertz added: “We didn’t ask the panel to come up with a best-books-of-all-time list. I asked that they envision themselves handing out the book in a public or social services setting, and to imagine that book getting someone excited about reading. This is a beautiful mix of books.”

The 30 World Book Night U.S. titles for 2012, alphabetical by author, are:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Ballantine)
Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger (Da Capo)
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (Beacon Press)
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (Tor)
Little Bee by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
Blood Work by Michael Connelly (Grand Central)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Riverhead); a Spanish-language edition, La breve y maravillosa vida de Óscar Wao (Vintage Espanol), will also be made available.
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick)
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (Vintage)
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (Grove Atlantic)
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick (Algonquin)
Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton (Berkley)
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (Ballantine)
The Stand by Stephen King (Anchor)
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (Perennial)
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (W.W. Norton)
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner)
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (Mariner)
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Perennial)
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Atria)
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (Picador)
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Back Bay)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (Broadway)
Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco)
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

World Book Night will take place on April 23, 2012, in the U.K. and U.S., with thousands of volunteers going out into their communities to give away special World Book Night free paperbacks. World Book Night in the U.S. is a non-profit organization, and has filed for 501(c)3 charitable status. World Book Night U.S. is supported by publishers, Barnes & Noble, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers, the American Library Association, and Ingram Content Group.

www.us.worldbooknight.org www.twitter.com/wbnamerica https://www.facebook.com/worldbooknightusa

Sweepstakes

Waiting on Wednesday: Article 5 Sweepstakes

December 14, 2011May 10, 2024torforge36 Comments

We’re gearing up for a very exciting Tor Teen release in January. Article 5 is the debut dystopian novel of Kristen Simmons.

For a while now we’ve been seeing this title come up in your Waiting on Wednesday picks. So now we’re giving you the opportunity to enter for the chance to win an advance reading copy of Article 5 before it pubs!

To enter for the chance to win, simply comment in this blog post and tell us what your Waiting on Wednesday pick is this week.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. You must be 18 or older and a legal resident of the 50 United States or D.C. to enter. Promotion begins December 14th, 2011 at 12:00 a.m. ET. and ends December 19th, 2011, 11:59 p.m. ET. Void in Puerto Rico and wherever prohibited by law. Please see full details and official rules here. Sponsor: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Sweepstakes

Shadows in Flight Sweepstakes

December 5, 2011October 13, 2013torforge150 Comments

Shadows in Flight releases next month but we have a chance for you to win one of five advance reading copies now. Comment below to enter for a chance to win.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. You must be 18 or older and a legal resident of the 50 United States or D.C. to enter. Promotion begins December 5, 2011 at 10 a.m. ET. and ends December 9, 2011, 12:00 p.m. ET. Void in Puerto Rico and wherever prohibited by law. Please see full details and official rules go here. Sponsor: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Author Features

A look back at my weird, cool life

December 5, 2011May 30, 2024torforge5 Comments

By Rudy Rucker

The thing I like about a novel is that it’s not a list of dates and events. Not like an encyclopedia entry. A novel is all about characterization and description and conversation, about action and vignettes. I decided to structure my autobiography, Nested Scrolls, like that.

This is a picture of me in my senior year at college. At that time I had the idea that Army-issue-style transparent glasses frames were cool. My roommate and I were writing things on the walls.

Plot? Well, a real life doesn’t have a plot that’s as clear as a novel’s. But, as a writer, I can think about my life’s structure, about the story arc. And I’d like to know what it was all about. In writing my autobiography, I came up with a few ideas.

The picture below shows me with a “magic door” in Big Sur, California in 2008. I depict this a portal to a parallel world in my novel, Mathematicians in Love.

You might say that I searched for ultimate reality, and I found contentment in creativity. I tried to scale the heights of science, and I found my calling in mathematics and in science fiction. You don’t have to break the bank of the Absolute. Learning your craft can be enough.

This picture shows me as the singer of the Dead Pigs punk rock band in Lynchburg, Virginia, 1982. This was a time when I was still drinking and smoking pot. But eventually I found a way to stop. Once you’re in your forties, Jack Kerouac and Edgar Allen Poe aren’t good role models. They died in their forties.

Here I am with my daughter Georgia in 1973. In some ways I like children better than grown-ups. Their minds are more open, less encumbered. As a youth, I was a loner. But then I found love and became a family man. I’ve spent a lot of time with my wife and our three children over the years. And now we have grandchildren. New saplings coming up as the old trees tumble down.

Here I am selling prints at the Westercon in Pasadena, 2010. I’ve taken up painting as a hobby. It’s a lot harder, at least for me, to sell a print or a painting than a story or a book! I’ve had a number of careers. Initially I was a math professor—math always came easy for me. Nothing to memorize! Then I took up writing, really that’s my core career. But, even with thirty-odd books out, writing doesn’t pay very much.

So I spent the last twenty years working as a computer science professor in Silicon Valley. Riding the wave. It was a blast. And eventually I even got good at teaching, mutating from a rebel to a somewhat helpful professor.

Whatever I did, I never stopped seeing the world in my own special way, and I never stopped looking for new ways to share my thoughts.

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Author Features

And Hilarity Ensues

December 5, 2011May 10, 2024torforge13 Comments

By Lev AC Rosen

I’d never thought of myself as particularly funny person before setting out to write All Men of Genius. But somehow, I got it into my head to write something inspired by two classic romantic comedies. I’m not sure entirely why. I suspect because at the time I was writing the novel, there wasn’t much lighter steampunk out there—this was before Boneshaker came out, much less the Parasol Protectorate series—and while I loved the aesthetic, and the books were good… they were all such downers. I wanted to do something fun. So I looked to fun for inspiration. And then somewhere along the line, well into writing it, I realized I had to be funny.

Humor is one of the hardest things to do, and if you don’t find my book funny, I will not hold it against you. It’s incredibly subjective—moreso, I’d be willing to say, than other forms of art. I tried to hit as many different notes of humor as I could—high witticism, low sex humor, dark humor, random swearing bunnies—but I also know that these are all funny to me, and might not be funny to my next door neighbor. There are some books/tv shows that my friends find hilarious which I find so tedious that they are actively aggravating and make me want to hit things. Humor is like that—hit the right note for the right person, and they’ll laugh, hit the right note for the wrong person, and they’ll get offended, or angry or sad. But one thing I did learn is that you have to hit it hard. Sure, you could right something mildly amusing and safe—and everyone will find it pleasant. But the risk of going over the top is one worth taking—a laugh is better than a smile. I’ve never been the sort to try to write a book for everybody, something sweet and mildly amusing and forgettable. That’s something I learned while writing this—I think humor needs to go to extremes (in my case, that extreme is most often of the ridiculous sort) to really be worth doing.

The other lesson I’ve been learning about writing funny is that it’s not taken as seriously—once the book is out. That may seem like a contradiction—humor isn’t meant to be taken seriously—but I like to think that at least some of my jokes had a point, and overall the book had some weight to it. They say a comedy can never win best picture at the Oscars, and I’m feeling something similar when I hear people react to my book. Not all of them, mind you—there have been many wonderful reviews and letters which get at the heart of the more serious aspects of the novel, as well and enjoying the comedic wrapping—but there have been several who seem to read it and soon as they laugh, and understand that the book is a comedy, stop engaging with it on an intellectual level—they just sit back and enjoy the laughs. Which is great—anyone enjoying my book for any reason is great. I want to make that perfectly clear. But it makes me feel a little marginalized on behalf of what I’ve written. I don’t mind being thought of as funny. But it’s a little sad to me that some people think of it as just funny.

It’s a tricky business, the funny one. It’s a little like juggling while giving an impassioned speech on the repeal of DOMA. You have to keep all the balls in the air, and even then, sometimes people will just applaud the juggling, not the speech, and maybe someone will throw rocks at your afterwards. But it’s worth it for the people who laugh and nod. Hell, it’s worth it if you can make yourself laugh.

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Author Features

Scholar—Pursuit of a Different Dream

December 5, 2011May 10, 2024torforge3 Comments

By L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

Don’t all heroes in fantasy dream about becoming the supreme mage, ruler, liberator, warrior, or the like? And even if they don’t have that dream, don’t most of them end up doing something like that in order to get their dream?

In the new Imager Portfolio subseries, beginning with Scholar, the main character is Quaeryt, and, of course, he has a dream. But because of his background, that dream is rather different from most dreams and ambitions one reads about in fantasy. To begin with, Quaeryt doesn’t know his birth name, nor from where he comes. He also has odd white-blond hair and a bad leg. He’s been raised by the scholars of Solis to become a junior scholar, and it’s not been an easy path, so much so that he ran away to become a seaman for part of his youth and had to crawl and grovel to be taken back by the scholars. He does have one advantage: his tutor happened to also be the tutor of the heir to the throne of Telaryn, and Quaeryt came to know the young Lord Bhayar. So Bhayar occasionally gives Quaeryt scholarly tasks to do, and the scholars of Solis allow Quaeryt to remain at their scholarium because… well… it’s useful to have a scholar who has access to the man who will rule.

Quaeryt has more than one secret, but the most critical one is that he’s an imager at a time when the land is being fragmented into five warring nations and when imagers are often hunted down and killed. To make matters worse, he can feel the scrutiny of court politics turning toward him because he is different and an acquaintance of Bhayar, who has recently come to power. So Quaeryt gets himself sent on a paid mission to recently conquered Tilbor, ostensibly to see if he can recommend a better way of governing the province… and to remove himself from scrutiny in Solis while he tries to find a way to follow his dream. Except—and there are always exceptions—just before he is to leave Solis, he finds himself beckoned into the privategardenofBhayar’s family, where Bhayar’s youngest sister hands him a letter. But… it’s not a love letter, nor is it a letter about court intrigue, not directly, but something far more dangerous for a scholar… and Quaeryt is about to discover that he only thought he knew all the secrets that surround him, let alone those he is about to discover in Tilbor.

Scholar is also a different book in another way, because while Quaeryt is pursing his secret dream, one that he doesn’t even allow himself to often think about, he is constantly striving to stay out of the limelight, to avoid being noticed, and even when he is favorably noticed, attempting to give credit to others.

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Author Features

Michael Scott and Colette Freedman on Inspiration

December 5, 2011May 10, 2024torforge6 Comments

Colette Freedman:

When I was a young girl, I read the books that little girls were supposed to read: books by Judy Blume, Paula Danziger, Carol Ryrie Brink. I devoured Nancy Drew and completed the entire Little House on the Prairie series. But there was something missing … an element of danger and suspense which none of these books were giving me.

So, I asked my father for advice. An avid reader and sci-fi/fantasy enthusiast, he eagerly brought me down to the basement, which could easily pass for a second hand bookshop similar to NYC’s The Strand. As we navigated our way through the maze of history and philosophy books, past the huge sections on the Middle East and humor, we arrived at the wood paneled shelf against the back wall. It was packed with books from floor to ceiling. He showed me alphabetized shelves from Piers Anthony to Roger Zelazny. Hundreds, if not thousands of battered paperbacks stared back at me, tempting me to open them. And for the next several years, I did. I read F. Paul Wilson and Eric Van Lustbader. I was drawn to Arthur C. Clark and Andre Norton. While my friends were reading E.B. White, I was reading Harry Harrison. Now, I still appreciated books which were more geared for my own age group, specifically Madeleine L’Engle’s science fiction books, Robert C. O’Brien’s fantasies and Lois Duncan’s horror novels. But, in the back of the basement, I found my true inspiration.

When I first met Michael Scott, and we discussed collaborating, I was thrilled to dive into the world of dark fantasy and horror which has long informed my tastes. And when I introduced him to my father, they talked like old friends: a similar taste of authors and books cutting through the awkwardness of their first meeting.

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Michael Scott:

Like most authors, I became a writer because I was a reader.

I would maintain that you cannot become a writer unless you have been a reader, and a voracious reader at that. There comes a point in every reader’s life when they put down a book (usually in disgust) and say, “I can do better than that.” In that moment, writers are born.

The type of writer you become is dictated by your formative books. Science Fiction readers become Science Fiction writers, Horror readers become Horror writers.

The book series which really made me want to become a writer was Mary Norton’s The Borrowers, wonderful books about tiny people who live alongside us and “borrow” all those things of ours which go missing. I was perhaps ten or eleven when I first read The Borrowers at the start of the school holidays. By the end of the holidays, I had read the first three books from start to finish and started right over again. (I would have to wait almost thirteen years for the final book, The Borrowers Avenged, which appeared the year my own first book was published.) Mary Norton was shelved in the local library alongside Andre Norton. And there were shelves of Andre Norton. That summer, having finished The Borrowers, I moved onto The Witch World.

Andre Norton was published by DAW Books, and I quickly learned that all I had to do was pick one of the yellow-spined paperbacks. DAW published everyone: Marion Zimmer Bradley, Fritz Leiber, E.C. Tubb, Lin Carter, Thomas Burnett Swann. I read them all.

Is it any wonder I became a fantasy writer?

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Sweepstakes

Sisterhood of Dune Sweepstakes

November 16, 2011May 10, 2024torforge9 Comments

Sign up for the Tor/Forge Newsletter for a chance to win the following prize pack:

Here’s your chance to win an advance reading copy of Sisterhood of Dune, the newest addition to the Dune universe.

About Sisterhood of Dune: It is eighty-three years after the last of the thinking machines were destroyed in the Battle of Corrin, after Faykan Butler took the name of Corrino and established himself as the first Emperor of a new Imperium. Great changes are brewing that will shape and twist all of humankind.

The war hero Vorian Atreides has turned his back on politics and Salusa Secundus. The descendants of Abulurd Harkonnen Griffen and Valya have sworn vengeance against Vor, blaming him for the downfall of their fortunes. Raquella Berto-Anirul has formed the Bene Gesserit School on the jungle planet Rossak as the first Reverend Mother. The descendants of Aurelius Venport and Norma Cenva have built Venport Holdings, using mutated, spice-saturated Navigators who fly precursors of Heighliners. Gilbertus Albans, the ward of the hated Erasmus, is teaching humans to become Mentats…and hiding an unbelievable secret.

The Butlerian movement, rabidly opposed to all forms of “dangerous technology,” is led by Manford Torondo and his devoted Swordmaster, Anari Idaho. And it is this group, so many decades after the defeat of the thinking machines, which begins to sweep across the known universe in mobs, millions strong, destroying everything in its path.

Every one of these characters, and all of these groups, will become enmeshed in the contest between Reason and Faith. All of them will be forced to choose sides in the inevitable crusade that could destroy humankind forever…

Click to Enter (Open to US only)

###

Every issue of Tor’s monthly email newsletter features original writing by, and interviews with, Tor authors and editors about upcoming new titles from all Tor and Forge imprints. In addition, we occasionally send out “special edition” newsletters to highlight particularly exciting new projects, programs, or events.

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