The inspiration for this post came from Randy Stafford’s comment on my post about entering 2024. To quote: “The writers I feel most guilty about not reviewing are those who have done good work, have sort of been forgotten, and are nearing the end of their lives.”

There are a number of good writers out there who, for whatever reasons, have not gotten wide recognition. But they’ve done good work, readable and entertaining work. There was a time when we would refer to such writers as midlist writers. That was before traditional publishing began to implode and New York started to fous mostly on the big name bestsellers.

This was back when the mass market paperback was the primary format for fiction, especially fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and westerns. And romance, although that genre isn’t really the focus of the blog.

Ya know, that genre stuff. The thing that paid the bills so New York publishers could publish the important literay authors. (Quick, name five important lilterary works from 1985. 1995? 2005?)

It’s not entirely true that fantasy and science fiction weren’t ever published in hardcover. (Mystery had been to some degree, and Stephen King was the token horror writer in hardcover. I have no idea about romance or westerns.) I was thrilled in high school to be able to buy a hardcover sicence fiction novel that wasn’t a Science Fiction Book Club edition. And more works  by bigger names began to be published in hardcover.

But it was still the paperback midlist where most writers appeared, especially those early in their careers. As distribution became more centralized (a topic for another post) and sales begann to be tracked by computers, what has been called the death spiral began to happen.

Here’s how it worked:

Let’s say author Justin Case writes a science fiction or fantasy novel,the first volulme of a trilogy, and the publisher prints eighty thousand copies. (These numbers are entirely made up for example purposes. Actual numbers could vary from these by quite a bit. The basic idea here is what is important to this discussion.)

The first book sells sixty thousand copies. The remaining twenety thousand are pulped. (Yet another topic for another day.)

Well, sales are tracked by computer, and the sell-through on Justin Case’s first novel was seventy-five percent. Not bad for a debut author.  So when it comes time to publish the second novel in Justin Case’s trilogy, the publisher only prints sixty thousand copies because that’s what sold last time. The computer said so.

The second volume sells forty-five thousand copies. Again, a seventy-five percent sell through. But these numbers are lower.

Maybe the third volume of the trilogy will be publsihed. Maybe it won’t. That depends on the whims of the publisher and the terms in Mr. Case’s contract. Do you see one reason why so many trilogies aren’t fiinished? To complicate matters, some readers might have missed the first volume but seen the second. They want to read the first book, but its now out of print and no longer available.

So that pass on the second, and another reader and another sale is lost.

An example whose name you might recognize. Megan Lindholm had something like this happen to her, so she started writing under the name of Robin Hobb. Under that name she’s been quite successful.

Other writers were not so lucky.

Many of them did good work but didn’t have the numbers to get a contract on the next book.  Some reinvented themselves under another name. Or switched genres. Or both.

But many of them quit writing.

Are publishers still taking on debut authors? Of course. They have to as the big names age and either retire or die, The big names need to be replaced.

How many of those debut authors last more than a few years?

I don’t know an exact number, but think about traditionally published authors who have come and gone in the last decade.

And what about writers whose work was primirily short fiction or novelette length? Novellas are sometimes published as stand-alones, but not often. And they are harder to sell to short fiction markets.

So, Randy’s statement got me to thinking.

Every reader has a different list of authors whose work they enjoyed and is in danger of being forgotten.

Who is on your list?

I would like to read some of these writers, especially if they are ones I’ve not read before. The  parameters on this question (or boundary conditions, if you prefer) are the authors aren’t currently active or are being published so infrequently that they can be effectively considered inactive.

They can be living or dead, although living is what Randy mentioned in his post.

They can be writers of novels, short fiction, or both. They aren’t restricted to fantasy and scieince fiction. Writers of ystery, westerns, horror, and historical fiction are all fair game in the suggestions.

The goal here is to provide some exposure for them. I’ll try to post reviews about some of their work, although I make no promises that I’ll review every name mentioned.

Also, if the author primarily wrote short fiction and didn’t have a collection, please note that. The ISFDB should have a listing of any fantasy or science fiction writer who published short fiction. As for other genres, if you can, please provide a link or at least a partial bibliography where anyone interested can find their work.

If you’ve read this far, thank you.