Twenty years a novelist
by Rob - November 15th, 2010.Filed under: Uncategorized.
Twenty years ago today — November 15, 1990 — I received my very first copy of my very first novel. Golden Fleece was a mass-market paperback original from Warner Questar. It was technically a December 1990 title, but books trickle into stores a bit in advance of the publication month.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Brian Thomsen, who was my editor, has since passed away, and Warner wrapped up the Questar line shortly after publishing my book (a few years later, they launched their new SF imprint, Aspect).
I’m delighted that after 20 years, Golden Fleece is still in print: Tor has a lovely trade-paperback edition of it (and it’s also available as an ebook).
Here’s Orson Scott Card writing in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction about Golden Fleece:
Sawyer gives us something rare in this age of the quotidian hero: a genuine tragedy. It is no accident that he invokes Greek myth in the title of the book. Sawyer is willing to play on the same field as Aeschylus and Euripides, and he proves himself equal to the task.
JASON is, in my opinion, the deepest computer character in all of science fiction. And Aaron is, in my opinion, one of the most well-drawn, fallible, human detectives I’ve encountered in mystery fiction — in a league with, say, [Ruth] Rendell’s Inspector Wexford.
You might as well buy two copies in the first place — one to read and keep, and one to shove at your friends, saying, “Read this! Now!”
How good is Golden Fleece? A friend of mine — an English professor — used to ask, whenever he saw me, `Why are you still writing that spaceship stuff?’ Now I can answer. Because this is possible.
Robert J. Sawyer online:
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November 15th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Congrats, Rob for a nice twenty years of publishing!
I hope to celebrate my tenth year of novel publishing next fall. And I have the pleasure of looking forward to more of your work!
November 16th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Twenty years of not only publishing, but publishing regularly, and well. A rare and laudable feat. Excelsior!
November 17th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Congratulations! Golden Fleece is one of my favorite RJS books. I actually just re-bought the Kindle version for my wife to read, and I took the liberty of re-reading it myself again. Awesome book.
Indeed, “Starplex” is the only one of your novels I’ve yet to read. Still waiting for it to be available on the Kindle, though…
And of course I’m eagerly awaiting anything else coming from Rob’s quill! (or word processor).
Keep it up!