The book, by the way, was published in 1975, and when you read the essay by Robert Silverberg and marvel at his productivity and awards and marvel at the wonderful books he wrote, just think of this: He's continued to produce fine work for all the years since then. And then think about this: He doesn't even mention that he was writing two books a month for the soft porn market during some of the time he talks about. He didn't come out about that until a good many years later.
For someone of my age who loved SF as a youngster, this book is fascinating reading. Highly recommended.
Update: Todd Mason has some excellent comments on this book here.
11 comments:
You're right, HELL'S CARTOGRAPHERS is a great book!
Though two books a month at that point in his life/career wasn't even the most ridiculous part of Silverberg's prolificacy...so much as the quality of the sf and fantasy he was writing at nearly that speed at the same time. Barry Malzberg was certainly taking notes.
I had to dust off my review. Imitation is the sincerest form of admitting someone else has a very good idea.
Ah, too kind, Bill.
I really like the book. The part about how Bester came to write his two great novels is as interesting as ever, as are many other tidbits in all the essays.
Oh, I hasten to add, that was, You're too kind to my comments! Few books of its sort have come along since, but most of those have been pretty impressive, too...Charles Platt's DREAM MAKERS books, some of Douglas Winter's, but those (for good or ill and probably a little of both) were interview-based, as most such projects have been (Darrell Schweitzer's interviews, too)...MH Greenberg did a good reprint volume of essays and such...and certainly Ed Gorman and others have done impressive work in crime fiction along the same lines...
I remember reading this years ago. I also remember in the early 70s a very drunk Harry Harrison trying to pick up on my date in the hall at LACon outside one of the bidding parties.
Or maybe it was a Westercon or a Nasfic. Some Con anyway . . .
Drunken pros were like that. Some still are...
Many is the pint of beer I've drunk with Harry Harrison. A group of us used to meet every Friday night in the Mitre, a pub in Brighton, England. But I can't say that I ever saw him visibly drunk! Of course, he was older by then -- this was about ten-twelve years ago, when Harry lived in Rottingdean, near Brighton. Sadly missed.
And oh, by the way, I think the cover of that Orbit paperback edition of Hell's Cartographers is by my old friend Ian Miller, an artist who also lived in Brighton.
I met Harrison only once, briefly, at an Aggiecon in the early '80s. Friendly guy, and he signed an SF Book Club omnibus of Stainless Steel Rat novels for me.
I met him once, as well, at some sort of event that gathered SFWAyans...perhaps the Nebula weekend was to occur in Philadelphia, but oddly I've forgotten the details, though this was only a few years back...or, at least, a few years before his death. I asked him about his term at Ultimate Publications, and he shrugged and said, in so many words, you took a job like that along with whatever else one could put together, simply to make one's way (he'd just returned to the US at that point, with not too much lined up).
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