Author Introduction: Marjorie B. Kellogg
Feb. 26th, 2009 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jpskewedthroneSo, back in the 80s, I was part of the Science Fiction Book Club. I don't remember why, but I had them send me a book called Lear's Daughters
by Marjorie B. Kellogg and William B. Rossow. I read it, loved it, and immediately went looking for other novels by Marjorie B. Kellogg . . . and found none (at the time). Disappointed, I moved on. Decades later, I noticed some books appearing on the shelf by Marjorie B. Kellogg again and immediately bought them. And now, through the miracle of fate and the publishing industry foibles, Lear's Daughters is back on the shelves.
I invited Marjorie B. Kellogg to talk about her book and she agreed. First, the cover copy, to get you excited about the book. Then, below, the story of how the book came to be rereleased after nearly 30 years, in her own words. Check out the new book, as well as some of her others!
***********
Cover Copy: The year is 2073. Earth's climate is faltering and her eco-systems are breaking down. Her burgeoning populations now rely on food and energy supplies imported from colony worlds.
A routine exploratory mission to the planet Fiix finds conditions radically different from the initial probe data: a world seemingly at war with itself. Instead of a sunny desert climate, the planet is deep in an arctic freeze. A precipitous thaw soon follows, then a sequence of murderously unpredictable weather events. When storms and flooding devastate the Terran base camp and destroy their power and communications links, the pressure is on to figure out what's going on, not just for the sake of science but to ensure the expeditions success and survival.
One explanation comes from the local inhabitants: the Sawls' seemingly primitive society is shaped entirely by the needs of survival under the planet's harsh conditions. The Sawls claim that twin Sister-Goddesses wield the natural elements as weapons of war, taking the entire planet as their battleground. Sorting out the local language and myth, the expedition's young linguist, Stavros Ibia, finds himself drawn into Sawl culture, and increasingly convinced that these bizarre beliefs are true.
But local culture is of no interest to the expedition's prospector, Emil Clausen, whose mining-giant employer has funded the survey in the first place. He is in search of new sources of lithium, which has become a crucial component of energy production back home. If he makes a big strike on Fiix, the Sawls will only be in his way. So sides are drawn within the expedition in the fight to save the Sawls and their planet from exploitation and development. But growing evidence suggests that the Sawls are not such simple primitves after all, and that their history is far deeper and more sophisticated than was first assumed.
Then, Clausen finds his lithium, and the battle begins in earnest. . . .
Originally published more than two decades ago in two volumes, The Wave and the Flame and Reign of Fire, Lear's Daughters was a novel that sounded a clarion call about the dangers of global warning, pollution, exploitation of resources, and disastrous climate change at a time when few people wanted to listen. This new edition has been completely revised and updated to include the most cutting edge knowledge and research. Lear's Daughters is a book that should be read by anyone concerned with the greatest crises facing our world today.
***********
So . . . here’s the true story of the revival of Lear's Daughters.
It’s a DAW Books Rocks sort of story.
The editor at New American Library who originally bought the book, way back in the early 1980’s, left NAL soon after for greener pastures. We were, as they say in the publishing biz, "orphaned." And abruptly assigned a new editor.
That editor was nice, but didn’t last more than six months. Orphaned again.
The third editor didn’t like the book. He hadn’t bought it, and it wasn’t his sort of thing. The book was published in two volumes, as THE WAVE AND THE FLAME and REIGN OF FIRE, but we might as well have been orphaned a third time.
I should explain who “we” are.
I am Marjorie B. Kellogg, a.k.a. M. Bradley Kellogg (taken to shorten the name on the spine and because there was an older Marjorie Kellogg out there writing novels, but soon accused of being an attempt to masquerade as a MALE science fiction writer, horror or horrors!) Anyhow . . . I am the author of A RUMOR OF ANGELS, the above mentioned "duology," HARMONY and, as Marjorie B. Kellogg, THE DRAGON QUARTET, a fantasy series. In my copious free time and to support my writing habit, I design scenery for the theatre and teach at Colgate University.
I do the writing.
The other member of this team is my science advisor/collaborator, William B. Rossow. Bill worked, until a few years ago, at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, a NASA think tank run by Dr. James Hansen, who testified before Congress on the inconvenient truth of global climate change and was later regularly censored by the Bush Administration. Bill is now the Distinguished Professor of Remote Sensing at City College of New York, but continues much of the research he was involved with at GISS.
As you can no doubt guess, Bill provides the scientific research, background and speculation that support my tale-spinning. As a life-long reader of SF, he’s also a great editor/critic.
Now, this book of ours takes, as its theme and inspiration, climate. Specifically, global climate change, of a mysterious and rather violent sort.
In the ‘80’s, the world was in serious denial about climate change. That is, the part of the world that had even heard of it.
Cut to 2007. My DRAGON QUARTET had gone into fat omnibus editions (still available!) at DAW Books, under the editorship of Sheila Gilbert.
Now . . . who was that editor who first bought Lear's Daughters, way back when?
Sheila Gilbert.
What goes around, comes around. And it was Sheila’s idea that, thanks to Al Gore and Hurricane Katrina, the book’s true time had finally come. My collaborator and I agreed.
So what you have now is a totally rethought, rewritten (stem to stern) and updated version of the story that conflates the original two volumes into one, and reflects a new world-wide awareness of global climate change as an ongoing and frightening reality on Earth. (Even though it doesn’t take place on Earth.)
You can read the plot snippets on the jacket at Amazon (available for Kindle!) or in your local bookstore. What you can read only here is how wonderful it was to have the chance to rewrite what was only my second novel, bringing to the revision the added experience and insight of five books in between. I always loved this story, this setting, these characters, and now I feel they’ve at last gotten their proper due.
Thanks to Sheila Gilbert, and DAW.
****************
If you're going to order the book through Amazon, click through the link below. I use this to help fund the free books I giveaway here and at the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
dawbooks community. The Dragon Quartet has four books (obviously) called The Books of Earth, The Book of Water, The Book of Fire, and The Book of Air. They were rereleased in 2 omnibus editions called The Dragon Quartet, Volume I and The Dragon Quartet, Volume II. I could not find a listing for The Dragon Quartet, Volume I at Amazon.com, but did find each of the individual books listed.
by Marjorie B. Kellogg and William B. Rossow. I read it, loved it, and immediately went looking for other novels by Marjorie B. Kellogg . . . and found none (at the time). Disappointed, I moved on. Decades later, I noticed some books appearing on the shelf by Marjorie B. Kellogg again and immediately bought them. And now, through the miracle of fate and the publishing industry foibles, Lear's Daughters is back on the shelves. I invited Marjorie B. Kellogg to talk about her book and she agreed. First, the cover copy, to get you excited about the book. Then, below, the story of how the book came to be rereleased after nearly 30 years, in her own words. Check out the new book, as well as some of her others!
***********
Cover Copy: The year is 2073. Earth's climate is faltering and her eco-systems are breaking down. Her burgeoning populations now rely on food and energy supplies imported from colony worlds.
A routine exploratory mission to the planet Fiix finds conditions radically different from the initial probe data: a world seemingly at war with itself. Instead of a sunny desert climate, the planet is deep in an arctic freeze. A precipitous thaw soon follows, then a sequence of murderously unpredictable weather events. When storms and flooding devastate the Terran base camp and destroy their power and communications links, the pressure is on to figure out what's going on, not just for the sake of science but to ensure the expeditions success and survival.
One explanation comes from the local inhabitants: the Sawls' seemingly primitive society is shaped entirely by the needs of survival under the planet's harsh conditions. The Sawls claim that twin Sister-Goddesses wield the natural elements as weapons of war, taking the entire planet as their battleground. Sorting out the local language and myth, the expedition's young linguist, Stavros Ibia, finds himself drawn into Sawl culture, and increasingly convinced that these bizarre beliefs are true.
But local culture is of no interest to the expedition's prospector, Emil Clausen, whose mining-giant employer has funded the survey in the first place. He is in search of new sources of lithium, which has become a crucial component of energy production back home. If he makes a big strike on Fiix, the Sawls will only be in his way. So sides are drawn within the expedition in the fight to save the Sawls and their planet from exploitation and development. But growing evidence suggests that the Sawls are not such simple primitves after all, and that their history is far deeper and more sophisticated than was first assumed.
Then, Clausen finds his lithium, and the battle begins in earnest. . . .
Originally published more than two decades ago in two volumes, The Wave and the Flame and Reign of Fire, Lear's Daughters was a novel that sounded a clarion call about the dangers of global warning, pollution, exploitation of resources, and disastrous climate change at a time when few people wanted to listen. This new edition has been completely revised and updated to include the most cutting edge knowledge and research. Lear's Daughters is a book that should be read by anyone concerned with the greatest crises facing our world today.
***********
So . . . here’s the true story of the revival of Lear's Daughters
.It’s a DAW Books Rocks sort of story.
The editor at New American Library who originally bought the book, way back in the early 1980’s, left NAL soon after for greener pastures. We were, as they say in the publishing biz, "orphaned." And abruptly assigned a new editor.
That editor was nice, but didn’t last more than six months. Orphaned again.
The third editor didn’t like the book. He hadn’t bought it, and it wasn’t his sort of thing. The book was published in two volumes, as THE WAVE AND THE FLAME and REIGN OF FIRE, but we might as well have been orphaned a third time.
I should explain who “we” are.
I am Marjorie B. Kellogg, a.k.a. M. Bradley Kellogg (taken to shorten the name on the spine and because there was an older Marjorie Kellogg out there writing novels, but soon accused of being an attempt to masquerade as a MALE science fiction writer, horror or horrors!) Anyhow . . . I am the author of A RUMOR OF ANGELS, the above mentioned "duology," HARMONY and, as Marjorie B. Kellogg, THE DRAGON QUARTET, a fantasy series. In my copious free time and to support my writing habit, I design scenery for the theatre and teach at Colgate University.
I do the writing.
The other member of this team is my science advisor/collaborator, William B. Rossow. Bill worked, until a few years ago, at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, a NASA think tank run by Dr. James Hansen, who testified before Congress on the inconvenient truth of global climate change and was later regularly censored by the Bush Administration. Bill is now the Distinguished Professor of Remote Sensing at City College of New York, but continues much of the research he was involved with at GISS.
As you can no doubt guess, Bill provides the scientific research, background and speculation that support my tale-spinning. As a life-long reader of SF, he’s also a great editor/critic.
Now, this book of ours takes, as its theme and inspiration, climate. Specifically, global climate change, of a mysterious and rather violent sort.
In the ‘80’s, the world was in serious denial about climate change. That is, the part of the world that had even heard of it.
Cut to 2007. My DRAGON QUARTET had gone into fat omnibus editions (still available!) at DAW Books, under the editorship of Sheila Gilbert.
Now . . . who was that editor who first bought Lear's Daughters
, way back when?Sheila Gilbert.
What goes around, comes around. And it was Sheila’s idea that, thanks to Al Gore and Hurricane Katrina, the book’s true time had finally come. My collaborator and I agreed.
So what you have now is a totally rethought, rewritten (stem to stern) and updated version of the story that conflates the original two volumes into one, and reflects a new world-wide awareness of global climate change as an ongoing and frightening reality on Earth. (Even though it doesn’t take place on Earth.)
You can read the plot snippets on the jacket at Amazon (available for Kindle!) or in your local bookstore. What you can read only here is how wonderful it was to have the chance to rewrite what was only my second novel, bringing to the revision the added experience and insight of five books in between. I always loved this story, this setting, these characters, and now I feel they’ve at last gotten their proper due.
Thanks to Sheila Gilbert, and DAW.
****************
If you're going to order the book through Amazon, click through the link below. I use this to help fund the free books I giveaway here and at the
dawbooks community. The Dragon Quartet has four books (obviously) called The Books of Earth, The Book of Water, The Book of Fire, and The Book of Air. They were rereleased in 2 omnibus editions called The Dragon Quartet, Volume I and The Dragon Quartet, Volume II. I could not find a listing for The Dragon Quartet, Volume I at Amazon.com, but did find each of the individual books listed.
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Date: 2009-02-26 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 04:05 pm (UTC)Great news!
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Date: 2009-03-02 02:25 am (UTC)