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Even if your publisher knows (and I've met a few people who know who KJ Parker is) that doesn't mean they'll tell the world. So yeah, hush hush. Some pseudonyms are purely for market purposes, and exist only to fool bookstore algorithms! Everyone knows Mira Grant is Seanan McGuire, for instance.
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Apr 20, 2015 21:20
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thehomemaster posted:Well now I have a question: how do you remain pseudonymous? Sometimes publishers keep things hush hush. Sometimes publishers or others gently caress things up: quote:The Solicitors Regulation Authority has also issued a written rebuke to Christopher Gossage, of Russells solicitors, who confided to his wife's best friend that Robert Galbraith, author of The Cuckoo's Calling, was really one of the most famous and wealthy authors in the world.
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Apr 20, 2015 21:21
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Stephen King created Richard Bachman so he could release more than one book a year, which I guess wasn't kosher in the 70s and 80s if you were a popular author.
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Apr 20, 2015 21:36
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:which I guess wasn't kosher in the 70s and 80s if you were a popular author. What? Why was this?
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Apr 20, 2015 21:37
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angel opportunity posted:What? Why was this? No clue, just what I found on the Bachman wiki page so it could be bullshit. quote:At the beginning of Stephen King's career, the general view among publishers was that an author was limited to one book per year, since publishing more would be unacceptable to the public. edit: actually that comes straight from King's website - quote:I did that because back in the early days of my career there was a feeling in the publishing business that one book a year was all the public would accept but I think that a number of writers have disproved that by now. Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Apr 20, 2015 |
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Apr 20, 2015 21:41
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Is there anything out there remotely like the Fallout and Wasteland games? I know about the Silo saga and the Wasteland KS novels.
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Apr 20, 2015 21:58
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General Battuta posted:Some pseudonyms are purely for market purposes, and exist only to fool bookstore algorithms! Everyone knows Mira Grant is Seanan McGuire, for instance. Also to trick unwary book buyers. When I worked in a bookstore, I noticed how all the authors shelved near or around Dan Brown suddenly had covers that looked eerily similar to the DaVinci Code. Also known at the video store "Transmorphers" effect. 
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Apr 20, 2015 22:31
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General Battuta posted:Some pseudonyms are purely for market purposes, and exist only to fool bookstore algorithms! Everyone knows Mira Grant is Seanan McGuire, for instance. They're also used if an author is very 'branded' in one genre and wants to expand to another without risking upsetting or misleading their existing fan base. Nora Roberts, who mostly does romance, writes near-future sci fi murder mysteries under the pen name J.D. Robb. Even though it still clearly says "WRITING AS" on the cover, and the books are shelved in a different part of the library, there would still be the occasional little old lady picking one of them up without paying attention and getting an unpleasant surprise.
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Apr 20, 2015 22:41
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ravenkult posted:Is there anything out there remotely like the Fallout and Wasteland games? Kim Stanley Robinson's The Wild Shore comes to mind, as do parts of Leibowitz.
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Apr 20, 2015 22:49
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I always figured that K.J. Parker was a pseudonym of Kij Johnson. I assume anything that K.J. Parker puts in bios or interviews is fake, intended to obfuscate the trail. From my understanding, Kij grew up in either Minnesota or Iowa, and would have been a young adult during the huge farm crisis that hit in the early 80s. Tons of family farms, many which had been in the same family for generations, were failing. It really hit the area between her birthplace and college hard. Even if the failed farm didn't happen to her family personally, she likely would have known people drastically affected by it. I live in southern Minnesota and people still occasionally talk about how bad it was, enough where I don't think it's weird when it keeps coming up in casual conversation. Also, I could see wanting to use a pseudonym to avoid complications with her editing career, as the implication I've gotten from discussion concerning their identity is that the person is known within the industry and keeping their identity hidden makes a lot more sense if they aren't an author, but are involved at a high level on the editorial side. Finally, the initials. I'm probably wrong, but I'm used to that. I am looking forward to finding out tomorrow.
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Apr 20, 2015 23:07
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ravenkult posted:Is there anything out there remotely like the Fallout and Wasteland games? Fritz Leiber’s novella The Night of Long Knives. I got the impression when I read it that it may have inspired some of the elements from Fallout.
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Apr 20, 2015 23:18
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Azathoth posted:I always figured that K.J. Parker was a pseudonym of Kij Johnson. I assume anything that K.J. Parker puts in bios or interviews is fake, intended to obfuscate the trail. This makes a lot of sense (Johnson's publishing history even sort of matches up with Parker's) and would be really cool as I'm a big fan of Johnson, but their writing styles aren't even close. Johnson's prose is way more ornate, and she uses Japanese mythology as a touchstone while Parker seems to base everything she writes around the Roman/Byzantine empires. It could be possible but I'd be shocked.
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Apr 20, 2015 23:25
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^^^^ Curse you.Azathoth posted:I'm probably wrong, but I'm used to that. I am looking forward to finding out tomorrow. She doesn't really read like KJ Parker, though. Even the short stories. Me, I have no idea who it is.
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Apr 20, 2015 23:29
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Well, poo poo, Christmas came early this year! Not quite sure how to feel about this; I'm a giant fan of Parker's work, so this has me wondering if this is gonna be like the day when we find out Santa Claus isn't real. Still, if we must speculate, I'd always assumed Parker was Tom Holt's wife, if not Holt himself. They were both solicitors, a job neither of them liked, they live in the same area, and Holt's always the first name that comes up when people discuss Parker. His comic fantasies don't read like Parker's work, but I read one of his earlier historical-fictional duologies (Goatsong and The Walled Orchard, the memoirs of a comic playwright living in Athens during the Peloponnesian War) and they're very reminiscent of Parker. Same sort of protagonist, same handling of battles, same ironizing worldview that inadequately hides a faint despair over the folly and absurdity of Man...
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Apr 21, 2015 00:12
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My left-field, uniformed guess is that its going to turn out to be some moderately popular, well-respected female author who has zero connection to SF/F and writes in another genre entirely. Someone like Kate Atkinson or Hilary Mantel. Or it's Vox Day.
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Apr 21, 2015 00:12
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Watch it turn out to be someone completely out of left field, like J.M. Coetzee, or R.A. Salvatore. Or J.K. Rowling.
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Apr 21, 2015 00:34
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Admittedly, the vastly different styles is pretty damning to my argument. I think such connections as I drew could be drawn for any number of potential authors. I find such speculation fun, in its own way.Popular Human posted:My left-field, uniformed guess is that its going to turn out to be some moderately popular, well-respected female author who has zero connection to SF/F and writes in another genre entirely. Someone like Kate Atkinson or Hilary Mantel. Toph Bei Fong posted:Or J.K. Rowling.
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Apr 21, 2015 00:35
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After this there'll be no more secrets left in SF/F, apart from exactly how fat Greg Egan is.
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Apr 21, 2015 00:43
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I mostly want KJ Parker to come out as some ridiculous hack, like John Ringo or Larry Correia.
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Apr 21, 2015 01:09
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All I know for sure is I'm not KJ Parker.
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Apr 21, 2015 01:21
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:All I know for sure is I'm not KJ Parker. Me neither. edit: Though to be fair, this is exactly what I would say if I were KJ Parker and wanted to keep my identity a secret.
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Apr 21, 2015 02:00
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Toph Bei Fong posted:Watch it turn out to be someone completely out of left field, like J.M. Coetzee, or R.A. Salvatore. Or J.K. Rowling. RL Stine
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Apr 21, 2015 02:04
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Azathoth posted:I want this to be true so goddamn bad. Never gonna happen, but it would be funny as hell to watch Parker become the top-selling fantasy writer literally overnight.
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Apr 21, 2015 02:27
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KJ Parker JK Rowling .... JK...KJ
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Apr 21, 2015 02:56
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KJ Parker.. Parker.. ... ar... er... ... Harper... Harper Lee???
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Apr 21, 2015 03:09
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Just a heads up. Book 2 of the Revanche series is up and available. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WFDFR80 Same dude who did the Daniel Faust series, but this series is so much more incredibly bleak.
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Apr 21, 2015 03:24
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I just finished reading A Colder War and want to read more things like that - should I continue on with Charles Stross? I want to feel the terror of the ancients. Let me know if I should move this to the COSMIC HORROR thread instead.
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Apr 21, 2015 04:07
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Hedrigall posted:After this there'll be no more secrets left in SF/F, apart from exactly how fat Greg Egan is. He doesn't read as a super fat dude. No one who personally goes on a sightseeing/research trip to Iran can be that fat. Edit: He's also a vegetarian. Phobophilia fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Apr 21, 2015 |
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Apr 21, 2015 04:10
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A colder war is most similar to his "Laundry Files" in setting. But nothing else he's written is really quite like it.
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Apr 21, 2015 04:12
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Missile Gap isn't bad. Not a perfect fit, but pretty good all the same.
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Apr 21, 2015 04:21
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KJ Parker is clearly Stanislaw Lem writing under an assumed name after having faked his death. The SFWA can't reject him now!
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Apr 21, 2015 04:48
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Phobophilia posted:He doesn't read as a super fat dude. No one who personally goes on a sightseeing/research trip to Iran can be that fat. Oh, I assumed because he's never been sighted and doesn't attend conventions etc, that he was like a 800 pound bedridden dude emailing new books to his agent every few years. ... but seriously, he's a great writer.
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Apr 21, 2015 05:03
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ravenkult posted:Is there anything out there remotely like the Fallout and Wasteland games? I want to say that there was a poo poo-ton of post-apocalyptic stuff published back in the 1980s and before, but right now I can't actually think of any titles worth recommending. Lots of it was unmemorable crap, I'm afraid.
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Apr 21, 2015 05:41
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On the Beach Damnation Alley This Immortal
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Apr 21, 2015 06:59
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Seconding On the Beach (Nevil Shute) for post-apocalyptic. Alas, Babylon (Pat Frank) and Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham) are also great. Day of the Triffids has some pretty good prescient technology considering it was written before Sputnik or much of the Cold War. Both of these cover a more extended decay period than On the Beach. rchandra fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Apr 21, 2015 |
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Apr 21, 2015 07:43
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ravenkult posted:Is there anything out there remotely like the Fallout and Wasteland games? I just read the Harlan Ellison short story "A boy and his dog", which apparently inspired a great deal of post-apoc fiction (fallout included).
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Apr 21, 2015 07:48
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rchandra posted:Seconding On the Beach (Nevil Shute) for post-apocalyptic. Add "Earth Abides" to the list. That one is a really moving novel,
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Apr 21, 2015 10:49
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Just a heads up. Book 2 of the Revanche series is up and available. Woot. Thank you. Been looking forward to this.
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Apr 21, 2015 12:57
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Hedrigall posted:After this there'll be no more secrets left in SF/F, apart from exactly how fat Greg Egan is. Arthur C Clarke invented the geostationary communication satellite. Greg Egan invented something for it to orbit.
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Apr 21, 2015 13:07
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Iron Lung posted:I just finished reading A Colder War and want to read more things like that - should I continue on with Charles Stross? I want to feel the terror of the ancients. Let me know if I should move this to the COSMIC HORROR thread instead. For me, Tim Powers' Declare, though different in style, produced very much the same subject-matter sensations as A Colder War.
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Apr 21, 2015 13:53
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