Many Revisions

I’ve been revising things lately.

My new editor at Tor got back to me about A Young Man Without Magic a couple of weeks ago, with suggestions for revisions he wanted. I’ve now completed those, and the book’s accepted and tentatively scheduled for November 2009.

With that done, I’m working on the sequel, Above His Proper Station. The first draft is finished, so I’ve been revising. I’m up to Chapter Five in the second draft.

FoxAcre Press is going to be reprinting two old science fiction novels I wrote for Avon back in the 1980s, and you wouldn’t think I’d be doing any revisions on reprints, but in fact the publisher suggested a few changes, so I’ve revised Among the Powers (formerly entitled Denner’s Wreck), and just today I revised Shining Steel.

I’m serializing Realms of Light (the sequel to Nightside City), and readers have caught a couple of mistakes in the first two chapters, so I corrected those. I don’t suppose that really counts as “revisions,” though.

While waiting to hear back about A Young Man Without Magic I finished the first draft of an unsold (and probably unsellable) science-fantasy novel called Vika’s Avenger, and I started revising that before deciding it was a waste of time.

So — lots of revising. Not a lot of writing from scratch.

8 thoughts on “Many Revisions

  1. Re: Vika’s Avenger…if it is truly unsalable, have you considered posting it as a serial? I know there is interest expressed by some of your fans. And if you believe it is unwise to post as a serial, could you say why?

  2. I’m considering that, yes. I’m considering several possibilities, but they’re all going to wait until (a) after the holidays, (b) after I’m done with Realms of Light, (c) after I’ve finished Above His Proper Station, and probably (d) after we move.

  3. Re: Shining Steel and Denner’s Wreck. I think its wonderful that these two classics are being re-printed. I’ve had them in my library for quite a long time and vote them on par with Mick Farren’s early works. It’s a bit of a shame that some of the more “obscure” but well-crafted sci-fi works do fall by the wayside. It’s good to see they are coming back and although I do look forward to the revision, I do tend to worry as this seems to becoming quite the trend with movies and comics, with other media forms such as written and videogame genres falling into place.
    My apologies, I did not intend to go off on a rant, I am somewhat of a purist and I realize you will stay true to the story and will indeed be purchasing copies to enjoy.

  4. Oh, the revisions were very minor, stuff that should have been edited in the first place.

    I got a look at the new cover for Shining Steel last night, and am happy with it. Not sure when it’ll actually be available.

    As far as obscure old works vanishing, that’s always happened. Not always obscure ones, either; ever hear of a book called Elsie’s New Relations? It was a runaway bestseller in the late 19th century, spawned a long-running series, and took the name “Elsie” from nowhere to one of the most popular girl’s names in America for a few years. Which I know because I had both a great-aunt and a step-grandmother named Elsie, and my great-aunt went by her middle name, Nora, because there were so many girls named Elsie when she was young.

    Before reading this just now, had you ever heard of Elsie’s New Relations?

  5. Oh, that was my father’s aunt and my mother’s stepmother, so it wasn’t just one family that liked the name.

  6. Unfortunately, not to my recollection, although Elsie Dinsmore does sound vaguely familiar. Besides the classic gothic fiction from the 18th century and 19th century, I pretty much stuck with the “pulp” genre: Howard, Lovecraft, Haggard, Salgari, Rohmer, E. Burroughs, etc. About the only children’s novels from that era I have read have been Baum’s works

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