My absolute favorite author, Lois McMaster Bujold, was the Guest of Honor at Denvention 3. Her speech is a fascinating look at genre, as defined by (and as it defines) writers, readers, and publishers, and the ways in which genre expectations color and shape both works and our response to them. (She particularly focuses on SF/F and romance genres, with a little dabble into mysteries.) You should go read the transcript.

And, oh, for those of you who are Miles-fans like I am, the next Vorkosiverse book should be out sometime early/mid 2009. Yay!

Kevin Anderson Christopher Anvil David Brin
Eric Flint Alan Dean Foster David Drake
Dave Freer Brian Herbert LE Modesitt
C.L. Moore John Ringo Clifford Simak
Schmidt Mark Twain Van Vogt
Voltaire David Weber H.G. Wells


Where can you find all these great authors (and many, many more) in one place? Jim Baen's Universe, that's where!

As you may or may not know, Baen's Books is one of the best SF&F publishing houses out there. It's a medium-sized company that has a disproportionate number of the best authors around today, particularly if you limit the field to the 'harder' side of the SF genre. One of the things that got them where they are today is the ability and the willingness to take risks, and a firm belief in the merits of the Web.

A few months ago, they started a SF e-zine, with stories by some of the best names in science fiction. With none of the paper publishing costs, they can pay their writers more (i.e. enough to make it attractive even to Big Name Authors) and still have more stories per issue than a regular paper SF magazine. The goal for each issue is 120,000 words, about half again as much as you would find in a regular paper SF&F magazine. Here's how that is broken down:

Five science fiction stories
Four fantasy stories
Two serials
Three introducing slots (i.e. completely new authors getting their first break)
One classic story
One fact article
Three columns, two by Eric Flint and one "open" slot.
Each story has at least one new piece of artwork; some have as many as three.

There are six issues per year, and the cost is only $30 total. That's five bucks an issue, which is a pretty good price for that much stuff. (BTW, the first few issues are considerably larger than the amount shown here.) The first three issues are already available, with the fourth scheduled to go up in December. People with special needs (i.e. blind, severely handicapped, military on active duty, students, people in developing countries) will get a steep discount once they get the software tweaked to handle that; they're hoping that'll be done by the end of the year.

Folks, this magazine is running right now on a trial basis; if they're going to continue it, they need more subscriptions. I would be extremely disappointed to see this magazine fail because it's got some absolutely great stuff in it. So go out and pick yourself up a subscription, or buy one for a friend/loved one for Christmas! Or both! (Yes, this is a shameless advertisement. It's for a good cause.)

In addition to the fact that there's great stories and articles available for a very good price, short stories have always been extremely important to the SF&F genre. They provide a place for new authors to start out, hone their craft, and build an audience as professional writers before switching to the cut-throat world of novels, and they provide a place for Big Name Authors to experiment with new stuff without risking a full novel on it. But as everyone knows, the traditional genre magazines have been struggling for the past few decades. This is an effort to counteract that. If you love SF&F, if you love the written word, please help support this magazine! And spread the word!

Jim Baen, founder and owner of revolutionary SF publishing house Baen Books, passed away yesterday, June 28, at 5pm. Jim had suffered a massive bilateral thalamus stroke on June 12, 2006, from which he never woke up. He turned one publishing house around (Ace Books' sf line) and established two others (TOR, owned by Tom Doherty, and his own Baen Books) as leaders in the field. In recent years he has revolutionised the field of electronic publishing. He figured out that by getting rid of encryption, offering e-books in a wide variety of popular styles, and giving out free samples both of older works and parts of new releases, e-publishing could become a profitable part of his publishing house. (By "profitable" I mean that Baen Books now makes more money on electronic publishing than it does with dead-tree sales to Canada.)

Baen books have a distinctive style that Baen himself set: tight writing, lots of action, and good characterizations. Militaries are not evil by default, sex is not necessary to sell the story (though he had no problems including it if it worked to advance the story), and most importantly of all, that science fiction/fantasy both could and should be uplifting. Baen publishes a lot of military sf, and a lot of stuff that is dismissed by more "serious" and "literary" members of the sf community as "mere space opera," but that never bothered Jim, or his readers. After all, his books were a lot more fun to read than the stuff the "serious literary" writers were putting out.

Toni Weisskopf would like to let people know they will be doing celebrations of Jim's life at Tri-noc-con and Worldcon. She also says that rather than sending flowers or something like that, what the Baen family would most appreciate is purchasing a copy of The World Turned Upside Down, an anthology of great classic sf stories that Jim helped put together recently, and donating it to a local library or school or something. The stories in the anthology were chosen by Jim and David Drake and Eric Flint (two of his most successful writers) as the ones that had the greatest impact on them as children--the stories that turned their world upside down. BTW, it's a great collection of stories, and you might want to buy it for yourself.

The surviving partners of Baen and his heirs intend to continue Jim's
legacy of innovative, independent publishing. Longtime Baen Books
executive editor Toni Weisskopf will be acting publisher and direct
day-to-day operation of the company.

Here's David Drake's euology.

And Jim's Wikipedia entry.

bigbananaslug (one of the regulars at Baen's Bar, the Baen Books forum, under the name of Banana Slug) had this to say. He quotes most of David's eulogy, but adds his own stuff at the bottom.

Jim will be greatly missed


Image created by Ken Burnside and Charles Oines, and belongs to the Baen family.

Who is Jim Baen, you may ask? Jim Baen is the owner and publisher at Baen's Books, one of the best science fiction publishers anywhere. His stable of authors includes such greats as David Webber, David Drake, Eric Flint, Lois McMaster Bujold, Timothy Zahn, Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson, John Ringo, Anne McCaffrey, Andre Norton, Jerry Pournelle, Spider Robinson, and in past years Mercedes Lackey. He has also steadily been reprinting older, out of print classics of science fiction by such authors as Heinlein, Laumer, and Schmitz.

He is an innovator in the field of electronic fiction: he maintains an electronic Free Library of Baen titles, and sells more current titles inexpensively and free of encryption through Webscriptions. He recently launched Baen's Universe, an electronic sf magazine featuring fiction from both the top names in the business; there is also one spot per issue reserved for a previously unpublished author.

Here's all the news we have on his condition:

"Dear Barflies

I'm sorry to have to announce that Jim Baen suffered a stroke on Monday, and
has been in the hospital ever since. His condition is serious, but it's too
early for any prognosis as to how he'll fare from here on in.

His family has arrived in NC, and are with him in the hospital. I've been to
see him, as have other members of Baen's staff and his friend David Drake.
In the meantime, so far as Baen Books is concerned, our plans continue on
schedule.

The business is fine, we're all simply very
concerned about Jim.

Toni Weisskopf
Chief editor, Baen Books"

They have requested no flowers or cards, just prayer.

BTW, I'd highly reccommend checking out Baen's Universe.

Here's an essay by editor/writer Eric Flint on why Baen Books has started a mag when others are on downward spirals. If you want a look at the practicalities and economics of sf fiction writing, check it out.