Lacking Natural Simplicity

Recent Reading

This is a couple of weeks of reading.

• The Game of Kings, by Dorothy Dunnett, copyright 1961, copyright renewed 1989; Vintage Books/Random House, May 1997. First in the Lymond Chronicles.

• Queens' Play, by Dorothy Dunnett, copyright 1964, copyright renewed 192; Vintage Books/Random House, May 1997. Second in the Lymond Chronicles.

• Eight of Swords, by David Skibbins; Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Minotaur/St. Martin's Press, April 2005. An interesting mystery.

• A Gladiator Dies Ony Once: The Further Investigations of Grodians the Finder, by Steven Saylor; St. Martin's Minotaur/St. Martin's Press, June 2005. The second collecton of Roma Sub Rosa short stories, after The House of Vestals. I think I like this series of Roman mysteries the best of the ones I've read.

• SPQR VII: The Tribune's Curse, by John Maddox Roberts; Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Minotaur/St. Martin's Press, April 2003. While Saylor's Gordianus and Davies' Falco are to some degree outsiders amongst the inner realms of Rome's political machinations through which they often wander, but Roberts' DeciusCaecilius Metellus the Youger is definitely an insider. I think it was one of John Maddox Roberts' "Roman Empire in Space" SF books that introduced me to the Roman Empire (at one remove) when I was a youngster.

• SPQR IX: The Princess and the Pirates, by John Maddox Roberts; Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Minotaur/St. Martin's Press, June 2005. I've apparently missed SPQR VIII: The River God's Vengance.

Sales of Midlist Authors

Back in January of 2004, Walter Jon Williams said:

In 1990 the average midlist science fiction novel, by a non-name writer, would ship 75,000 copies and sell 60,000. Now the average midlist novel ships less than 20,000 and sells less than 10,000.

It was possible to make a living selling 60,000 paperbacks a year, but if you sell less than 10,000, you'd better have a McJob.

In February 2005 Tobias Buckell summarized his survey of genre advances.