Yesterday, Gollancz issued a press release describing a project in which a hundred plus science fiction author’s back-lists would be coming back into print in e-book form. They call this the SF Gateway project and by what I can tell it is an impressive list and an impressive project. As described in their press release:
It will build to 3,000 titles by the end of 2012, and 5,000 or more by 2014. Gollancz’s Digital Publisher Darren Nash, who joined the company in September 2010 to spearhead the project said, “The Masterworks series has been extraordinarily successful in republishing one or two key titles by a wide range of authors, but most of those authors had long careers in which they wrote dozens of novels which had fallen out of print. It seemed to us that eBooks would offer the ideal way to make them available again. This realization was the starting point for the SF Gateway.” Wherever possible, the SF Gateway will offer the complete backlist of the authors included.
I am very excited about this project and so glad to see Gollancz doing it. By all appearances it is a win for everyone. Authors (or their estates) get their books back into print; and fans and readers get some hard-to-get books made easily available to them in e-book format. I was browsing the list of authors who have already signed contracts for this project. The list includes (but is not limited to):
- Poul Anderson
- Gregory Benford
- James Blish
- John Brunner
- Algis Budrys
- John W. Campbell, Jr.
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Hal Clement
- L. Sprague de Camp
- Samuel R. Delany
- Philip K. Dick
- Gordon R. Dickson
- Philip Jose Farmer
- Joe Haldeman
- Harry Harrison
- Frank Herbert
- Damon Knight
- Henry Kuttner
- Murray Leinster
- H. P. Lovecraft
- Katherine MacLean
- Barry N. Malzberg
- C. L. Moore
- Frederik Pohl
- Mack Reynolds
- Eric Frank Russell
- Bob Shaw
- Robert Silverberg
- Clifford D. Simak
- Cordwainer Smith
- E. E. “Doc” Smith
- Norman Spinrad
- Theodore Sturgeon
- William Tenn
- James Tiptree, Jr.
- Jack Vance
- Kate Wilhelm
- Connie Willis
- Gene Wolfe
They appear to be signing more authors every day. As a fan of science fiction and a lover of the e-book form, this is incredibly exciting to see the backlist of these authors preserved in a form that will make it accessible to an entirely new generation of readers. They are doing this in conjunction with the new Encyclopedia of Science Fiction project and both will be tightly bound so that author and items that show up in the Encyclopedia will be linked to their books in the SF Gateway project.
To have 3,000-5,000 classic science fiction books released in e-book form over the next few years is like hitting the science fiction gold rush. Way to go, Gallancz!
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