Locus’ Recommended Reading for 2005 – the master list – is out on their website: http://www.locusmag.com/2006/Issues/02RecommendedReading.html
Liking the first novel category which includes matociquala‘s Hammered/Scardown/Worldwired and jaylake‘s Rocket Science. Jay – and Deborah – score in the anthology category for Polyphony 5 too while Elizabeth Bear gets another mention in the novelette category for “Wax” alongside Jay, with Ruth Nestvold, for “The Canadian Who Came Almost All the Way Home From the Stars”.
And congratulations to all the other writers who are mentioned in this list. I need to get reading, but until I’ve got a wider sampling, I can certainly recommend the talents of Sarah Monette, Jason Stoddard, Theodora Goss and Holly Black (all of whom I had the pleasure of meeting at World Fantasy in November). I’d certainly welcome opinions on what to put on my to-buy list….
Thanks for the heads up!
Also, psst.
http://matociquala.livejournal.com/710411.html
Ooh, thanks for the list. I’ll have to let another of my friends know he made it! (Reminds self to renew Locus subscription one of these years….)
I just started Scardown. I have to say, my interest in reading Bear’s work was sparked by her comments in your lj, whereupon I started reading her lj and then became enchanted. What incredible good judgment…
It’s been a while since I’ve asked a completely random question — I’d better remedy that!
I’ve seen a lot of talk lately (John Scalzi often mentions it) about obscurity being more dangerous to the average author than piracy, and I was thinking about e-publishing and contracts. I think I remember that most contracts are worded so that rights eventually revert to authors — how long after a book’s going out of print is this? Would the rights reverting to the author mean that the author could publish, say, a free e-book version if no other publisher wanted to reprint? I’m thinking a stable of formerly out-of-print books might help an author combat obscurity to some degree, if it’s contractually possible. What do you think? Would you modify/have you modified any contracts for this purpose?
And I thought of another. How many (if any) authors have you taken on as clients for whom you haven’t found a publisher? Do you know stats on other agents, or averages? (Not meant as a “what’s your record?” question so much as “if I find an agent, how good ARE my chances of getting published?”)