The Long Reach of the Book

Here’s a book:

note the tentacles.

50 Short Science Fiction Tales is a collection I found on my brother’s book shelf at some point as a kid. It has since been reissued, but we had an edition from the 70s, or possibly the 60s. If the cover design didn’t bowl you over, I don’t blame you. The only title that could be more forgettable is SOME STORIES. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the authors have forgotten about this book altogether (assuming they’re still alive. I don’t really follow sci-fi, on which I will expand below). I forgot about it, but years ago Googled around until I tracked it down on Amazon.

In retrospect, I recognize some of the authors credited on the cover. You don’t have to be a sci-fi fan to know Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein. Pretty sure I’ve seen Fritz Leiber’s name before, too. But I couldn’t tell you which stories were theirs, and I couldn’t have when I was a kid, either.

As an adolescent, my reading habits (for better or worse) ran to epic fantasy, and I seemingly had a great tolerance for melodramatic bullshit. I’ve gone back and tried to read some of the same books as an adult and alternated between laughing out loud and cringing in embarrassment. Terry Brooks, I’m looking in your direction. Point is, if there wasn’t medieval weaponry and magic and a world at risk, I wasn’t interested.

Right up my alley.

I grew up in the boondocks, however, without much in the way of disposable income. My reading material was limited by both what was available in the local boondock-bookstores (or, gasp, at the distant mall) and by the fact that five bucks was a considerable layout. My appetite for books far outstripped my ability to procure them. When there were no new Dragonlance books to read I scoured the house and the library looking for anything that wouldn’t put me to sleep, like a bear scrounging for food at the dump.

So one summer I took 50 Short Science Fiction Tales off the shelf and worked my way through it. There’s the story about the guy who thinks he’s following someone. The story about the guy who imagines a monster that turns out to be pretty real. The one about universes playing tug of war through a portal in a purse. Plenty of entertainment value, but nothing that will blow you away. I’ve never recommended the collection to anyone.

But, even though I haven’t read the book in years, I know it better than most modern classics. I know it better than THE HUNGER GAMES, better than most of Daniel Pinkwater’s phenomenal books, better than THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO, which I couldn’t put down.

Because, jonesing for books, I went back and read 50 Short Science Fiction Tales again another day. And again. I went back and re-read the stories I had enjoyed. I probably looked through it for pieces I could perform when I was on the Speech Team. I read constantly, and when I had nothing to read I returned to the books on my shelf until I was sick of them.

I’m still not really into science fiction, but I dip my toe in its waters from time to time. And my taste in sci-fi has been defined by those 50 short stories. My view of the entire genre is filtered through some pulp stories two guys threw together fifty years ago. Not because I haven’t read other sci-fi, but because, for lack of other books, I read 50 Short Science Fiction Tales so many freaking times. Recently I wrote my first short science fiction story, and it could pass for one of the stories in this book.

God, you’re thinking, Brendan sure likes to talk about himself. You’re right, but I also have a point. Your book could be someone else’s 50 Short Science Fiction Tales. Any book could be. Right now, there are people at summer camps looking for something to read. People picking up mass markets paperbacks in bus stations. Bored kids on summer vacation, miles from the nearest bookstore and broke besides. They don’t care whether a book was tossed off quickly for the advance or was slaved over for years by a passionate author. They don’t care when the book was published or what the reviewers said. For lack of anything better, they are about to give their undivided attention to some random paperback.

Right now if you self-publish you’re going to put in a lot of sweat and tears and your book will be awash in a sea of questionable quality. If you get a traditional book deal, your advance will probably be smaller than it would have been a few years ago, and the shelf space on which your book will appear shrinks every month. In other words, there are lots of challenges to face. But ebooks are forever. You never know when something you published will change someone’s life. You never know when something you published might get discovered by the perfect fans and become a commercial success. You might never know at all: Theodore Sturgeon will probably never know that he helped shape my taste in reading and writing. But remember, when you look over disappointing sales figures and reflect on the immense challenge of marketing on your own work, that every time you publish you are changing someone’s life.

So, you know, don’t publish crap. That’s the other point.