F()CUS EDITORIAL Martin McGrath on encountering Rama and the Editor MartincusMcGrath influence of Arthur C Clarke. 48~Orive,ParkStreet.St Albans, Au lHL ESCAPE VELOCITY fO<USI'IUIgulneOnttworld.com Geoff Neider looks back at the lessons learnt from launching a new sf magazine. Focus is published twlC~ a ~ar by the British Science Fict,on =~~artn:nd~~~n;;;~0~~~~:u1~J~~:~ion PLANNING A NOVEL wnt,ng. Contributions. ideas and c.orrespondence are all wflc~, Michael Amos explains how, with planning, novel writing ~lelease contact 1M editor fim If you intend to submit a lengthy can be fun. Individual copyrights are the property of the contributon and MASTERCLASS3: BRINGING HOME THE BACON editor.Vl@WSexpressedhereinarenotnec~rilythoseofthc! If you are going to make a living as a professional writer 8SFA or BSFA committee members. Errors iIf1d omiuions are 1M then one of the most important lessons you'll need to learn responsibility of 1M editor lSSN; OI44-S60X 0 8SFA 2008 is how to make it pay. BSfAlnforrrwobOn BSFA TO ADMINSTER JAMES WHITE AWARD '3 ~......, Short story competition to become regular part of the BSFA VKePJes.odent schedule, plus news from the Writers' Guild and market CN" TonyCu11M news. ~fa_(ouk CAUGHT IN A WEB '4 MartlnPom Jetse de Vries looks at how the internet is changing the 6, Ivy Croft Road, W...-too. relationship betwffn authors and their fans. N. bmwonh. 8]'9 oJJ mtpottsezoom.co.uk BEYOND THE BLOG ,6 M~berstllpSetvlcn ~te< Wilk,mon Paul Raven returns with the second half of his look at (Uk and Europe) 39 GIyf1 Avenue. New ".net. ~ EN.. 9PJ using the web as a means of promoting a writer's work. tKtamembers.hipeyahoo.oo.uk WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW1 NO THANKS! ,B "'-t~hlpfeft It's the one piece of advice every aspiring writer receives, Uk h6 pa or (Unw~-(IB pal. ~Write what you know." But, asks Dev Agarwal, what if Ufe membership Ten times annlUl rate (hEio) we didn't. OuuIdeUk l)l JoinVfam,1y membellh,p Add h to the abaft prices POETRY S, 7, 1] & '7 I'm not a poet, Edward Comma said. But I've got some Otequn (Sttrllng only) should be made payable to wBSFA Ltd" and sent poems... to ~ttr Wilk,mon at the addreu above or pay via PiOypat on the 8SFA webs'teiOlw.¥W.bsfa.co.uk. wbscrlben from outside the UK ;Jre InVited to pay via the website 8ritishSClenc.FlctionAuoclatlonLtd. RegIStered In England aod Wales. Company No. 921Soo Registered addreu: 61 Nycrott Road. Wanon, Tamworth, StilHordshire. 8]'9oJJ 8SFAWeb!.ite www,bsfa.(o.uk Donnas<ott awardsOtKfa.(o.uk Orbiter Writing Groups Terry Jackman lerryj6dmanOtlscali.net Other 8SFA Publications V«tor. ThtI critkal journal of lht 8SFA Ftlt\ll"",echtor~I'lelters: Niall Hamson F~t 6, ANon Houw.] Boyn H,1l Avenue. MaJdenhead,Be<kstllfe,SL64ET vector.tditorsogmail.com ~;Sperring '9 Uphilll ROiOd umbo-lOge CBI )HX ambilrie+Ondwottci.oom _veaor-magu,ne.co.uk .Iog ...IrixOnlinor.Newsand....news Editor lan'tNhates fir'wiOn9O.aol.com All cartoons In lhis issue rourtcsy of www.flI:aringzero.nd Rediscovering Rama Martin McGrath offers an entirely inadequate tribute to the influence of Sir Arthur C Clarke on his own desire to be a writer. This mailing is me first to go out to would be an overstatement bot there members since the sad news reached was certainly a period while I was at the BSfA of the death ofour President university and just after - before the Arthur C Clarke. Clarke's science coming of the Internet proper (before fiction made a big impact on me as both Amazon and Google) and before genre fan - although, for many years. 1 I discovered "fandom"· - that every didn't know he was responsible. visit to a bookshop was accompanied I must have picked up Rendezvous by quick scan of the bookshelves for With Rama sometime in the Ine anything that looked familiar. seventies (probably between doing my In the end, when I'd more or less Eleven Plus and going to secondary given up, it was reading an article in a school) at a time when I was strip­ computer magazine about a planned mining the science fiction section adventure game from Sierra about of Dungannon District Ubrary at astronauts visiting a giant spaceship the rate of three books a day - and passing through our sobr system that nuy the great god of books bless the put the book back in my hand. sweet libnrians who assumed that By then. of course, I knew who everything with spaceships must be Clarke was. I'd threaded together the for children. short fiction ("Overhead, without Anyvn.y I know I read Rama at Ie<lst any fuss, the Stars were going out" three times tNt summer - although is I"IOt a line you forget), 200', A foil the name of the author and the book ofMoondust, The FountJJins of Paradise, didn't Stay in my head. I was at that Against the faR of Night and put them stage tOO indiscriminate to be a fan to the face of that old bloke who way, of saying thank you to Sir Arthur Th. cOYer of talking ",bout science on the television of anyone and too disorganised to C Clarke (and the others) for filting my lhis Issue Is keep a record of what I was reading. and mysterious crystal skutts. sky with stars and giant, mysterious, Spaclman So - a bit like Rama itself - I swept But could Rendezvous With Ramo spaceships. by Stephen inexorably onward, leaving everything be as good as I remembered. Martin McGrath Sweet trailing helplessly in my wake. Yes.And better. Except that not everything I read In Not only was I transported to ·Thonk God, con you imogine the looks if those days was left behind. that mysterious ship, now with an I'd jumped ifllo the middle of some fonnish conversation with my puppyish enthusiasm Some books made impressions. adult's appreciation of the themes ond soid:NI'm !!ying to find 0 book obout 0 Heinlein's Otiun the Galaxy and and the skill with which this great of giontobjea thor.pasu:s dlrough the soIor Dickson's Dorsai, violent, exciting adventure was constructed, but I was system ond dlis spaceship is u:nt to intercept adventures stuck in the mind. Dick's also tnnsported back to that time in it ond it tums out that the obje<t is a giofl! weird, depressing Goloaic Pot-Healer my life when all that mattered was *" spaceship and that the end is something lodged firmly as, for all the wrong books ",nd adventure and when utter oboutthrtt$_"AnddJey"dho¥esoid:MOh.you reasons, did Edmund Cooper's The freedom was never further away than meon Rendenous With ~lN" the HufO, Tenth Pfo~t (some books should ~~ the cover of the next novel or short Nebula and 8SFA owofO.wintWIg douic or stayed in the adult section). James story collection. the,enrebyoneo(theholylmilyO(fOIden White, a fellow Ulsterman from the That'S what books you love can o,eaudJoo:,OUf'leryown SirArThvfCCla~, youlfnorotlt~f.""'Oh.youho¥elteon:lo( "other side", delivered visions of do, they can tnnsport you to disunt it then,NI'd say, ~ slipping awoy to ~ understanding the allen when such worlds but they are also time machines myself" embommmenL things seemed impossible. Richard C that can take you back in your own Meredith's We All Died A! BreokO'o¥OY lifetime. I don't claim to be a writer Sta60ns remains amazingly vivid while of Clarke's quality, I don't even dare other, more lauded novels slipped aspire to it, but I confess one of the Contribute! away. things that first put me in front of a And then there was that book with keyboard was the knowledge that it The deadllnc rnr the IICXI IssUC 01 Focus IS FRIDA \ l O(IOR~R the giant spaceship that nobody could was possible to illicit such emotion Send your suhmlsslOns/qucflcslsuggcstlons to understand. through words on a page. Incusm,lg.lllnc("~nliworldcom To say that Rama haunted me Which is my lengthy, roundabout AUTUMN 2007 f@CUS 3 Taking readers to 11.2 kil per second and beyond Geoff NeIder is the co-editor of Escape Velocity, a recently launched science fiction magazine that's experimenting with Print On Demand and new formats. Here he talks about setting up the magazine and the struggle to find stories. We found a niche in speculative fiction and a print copy. It's not much and we and this is what happened. Escape now have around 30 submissions per Verocity is a fledgling science fiction & week, fact magazine published by Adventure Books of Seattle, a small press that WHY REJECT? publishes books in keeping with the Many submissions are unsuitable company name but with a focus on in spite of asking writers to read the science fiction. Our international staff guidelines, Along come stories about includes owner and editOf Robert dragons. ghosts, pixies. historical Blevins. co-editOf me, a bookkeeper, romances and crime stories with no a technical adviser and a COlIer art sci·fi element. Then instead of the designer. 5,000 word maximum limit we receive novellas. or a chapter from a novel-in­ RATIONALE progress that doesn't stand alone as a The rationale for Escape velocity '''''Y. came from different directions. Robert Sometimes I suggest another wanted: ·Stories. articles. interviews, market - apologies to Peter Crowther for special image sections. letters to the suggesting his PS PubliShing at least editor, a puzzle page; glossy COYefS.