Everything's Coming Up Harmony

By Nick Mamatas January 31, 2011

Harmony has received another accolade—this time making critic Adam Roberts' best ten SF novels of 2010—the list is explicitly international and unusual, and we're quite happy! In the old days of publishing, back before inventory was considered nothing but a burden and the midlist an evil to be destroyed, an editor could work to slowly build up a book's reputation. It might take months to find the right reviewers, the proper bookstore buyer, the best way to get some media attention for the title, but it could happen. Then came the miseries of the 1980s and 1990s—we had more books than ever to choose from, but good luck keeping them on the shelves for more than ninety days, or in print for more than a year or two. If a book wasn't a hit, it was toast. Plenty more where that came from, after all, and tons of authors suffered. These later days of the Internet do seem to be changing the game once again. Ebooks don't involve inventory, and online booksellers can keep millions of titles more or less active, even if the brick and mortar stores run out of or return their titles. And word travels so fast—one good review can excite dozens of other people to not just read a book, but then blog about it, Tweet it, or tell their friends in a dozen different countries. And months after initial release, a book can find new life, as Harmony is doing. So please, if you