Spider Star
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
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"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
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Where is the Science Fiction Writer’s Promised Land?
August 30th, 2010
When I was in Manila last month, I was happy to be able to meet fellow speculative fiction writer and blogger Charles Tan. Something he said resonated with thoughts I’d had over the years. Basically it’s this idea: if writers are paid a certain amount per book that depends on the market and their audience size, without consideration for their local cost of living, why not maximize their effective income by living somewhere cheap?
The context of my conversation with Charles was the Philippines, where it’s possible to live very inexpensively if you desire. There are also countries where writers pay no taxes, I’m told (as well as other artists in general). And inside the United States, there are a lot of places to live that are a hell of a lot cheaper than New York or California, but I’m one of only 3 SFWA members in Wyoming, and other states with low cost of living are not overly represented in writing. I suppose I could do an analysis of a group like SFWA, state by state, or even city by city, and see if writers maybe are seeking out cheaper places to live, but I doubt it from taking a glance at the state-by-state listings.
So many cool writers seem to live in expensive places!
I have little doubt that some seek the big, expensive city life for culture and stimulation. And if you’re an English writer and want to interact with others who write in English, you’d be unlikely to move as other English-speaking countries are not that cheap either.
So, if you’re a full-time American writer who doesn’t want to give up too much but does want to maximize that paycheck, what is there to do?
(This is hypothetical for me, as I’m tied to my University job and it outpays the writing — significantly.)
There have been movements by political and religious types to create ideal communities before to maximize their power and make over areas into utopias of a sort. There’s a “Christian Exodus” moving into South Carolina, for instance. For liberals who don’t want to move to Canada, there are the bluest options here. I believe I’ve heard about New Hampshire being targeted specifically by liberals and/or atheists, but I can’t find anything with google at the moment to support that recollection (anyone?).
So, I wonder if there is an ideal place to target for science fiction writers?
How about states without state income tax: Alaska, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Florida, South Dakota, Washington, Nevada, Texas, and Wyoming?
How about cost of living? The ten cheapest are Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nebraska, Georgia, Texas, Missouri, Kentucky, Alabama and Kansas. Cities within these states can vary quite a bit, however.
Probably want at least one decent university in town.
Home prices are also an issue.
Austin, Texas comes to mind as a good option based on the above information, but having lived in Austin I know it’s gotten crowded and expensive. A suburb of Austin, sufficiently far out, might be a good idea. Michael Moorcock and Elizabeth Moon are two writers in that situation, and Howard Waldrop, notorious for living on the cheap (once in an empty septic tank, I’m told), has lived in the Austin area.
Tennessee shows up on both state lists above. Maybe Nashville or Memphis? I don’t know of a concentration of SFWA writers there, however.
Maybe income tax and cost of living aren’t super critical, as long as you’re not in a place like California or New York where they are crazy high.
Someplace not too big, not too small, that is cheap to live, and ideally already has some core of professional writers in the area for critique groups, parties, and science fiction culture. I know a number of great writers in New Mexico, and it’s not too expensive. It’s a state that already hosts some great observatories including the VLA, national laboratories like Los Alamos, covering the science side. Heck, Roswell is there! That’s the state that comes first to mind. How about Albuquerque? Don’t take any wrong turns there, just stop and create a rich science fiction writing community.
Not much going on there? So what? You’re a writer. Get your ass in the chair and get back to work. Take a vacation somewhere exciting.
Well, I’m going to throw out a city near Austin, Texas or in New Mexico as my thoughts. There must be other great choices out there, so what are they? Inside the USA? Outside the USA?
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“You forgot Poland!”
Also, after traveling around India, I could imagine a writer taking some time off to go live insanely cheaply in some tiny village with beautiful scenery and just write full time to finish a book.
The Far East, I suspect, is not an uncommon destination for many writers. Having read several of Robert Charles Wilson’s books, which frequently feature Thailand, one might reasonably suspect he had availed himself of the cheap living to be had there by Western tourists; plus you can stay there for quite a while. I know of at least two other pro UK sf writers who’ve spent time in Thailand for precisely this reason. One of those two now lives in Prague, partly because it’s a go-to destination for writers on the cheap, partly because he’s married to someone from there.
This kind of thing has been on my mind since I recently spent a couple of years living in Taiwan. Most of the expats there are from Australia, NZ, Canada and the US, and nearly all of them teach at the English schools. The quality of living is very high, it’s got some of the best food and night-life in the world, and the natives are ridiculously friendly and easy-going. Myself and my wife have every intention of going back there when the opportunity presents itself. One writer’s experience of being there can be found here: http://bit.ly/dyLvka.
Yes, it’s a long way away from home, but there’s worse places by far to spend a couple of years. Now I’m back in the UK, I’m struggling to remember just how the hell I managed to survive here. Living on the money I made from regularly producing novels wasn’t nearly as hard in Taiwan.
when I started reading the post, I was 100% sure you would mention Arthur C Clarke, who, as we all know, was a sci-fi writer (one of the best ever) that lived in an inexpensive place (Sri Lanka).
I was somewhat surprised that by the end of the post he wasnt mentioned.
Parts of California aren’t terribly expensive, though still not as cheap as other parts of the country. But, to be fair, if you’re not a big time author who either can afford to live wherever he or she wants, or goes on huge tours and probably should live nearer to major cities for convenience…if you’re not that, then you’re either midlist or less and likely have a day job, where it’s less likely to matter where you live unless you’re not making enough money to live comfortably.
I’ve lived in the Bay Area before, though. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have a good job lined up. It’s a lovely area, and probably the best place for a writer in terms of the culture and so on, but it’s not a place for the light of pocket (which is kind of ironic, since the bay area is one of the major liberal havens of the country, and yet is entirely unsuitable for the merge of average liberal-ness and reasonable living costs).
Good ideas and suggestions! Yeah, the Bay Area is nice but stupid expensive (I lived there when I worked at Lawrence Livermore making more than your average novelist).
Forgot Clarke, but it’s not clear to me if he lived in Sri Lanka because it was cheap or that he liked it — he made some real money in his day.
My ex-wife, also a novelist, lived in Taiwan making good money teaching English and was able to save a lot then.
I knew a writer who used to save up a few thousand dollars and then spend 6-8 months in Guatemala living on it. He plan failed finally due to medical issues that forced her to return to the US and spend her money on doctors.
Bah, leaving a dummy comment after selecting “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail”. Is there really no way to subscribe to comments on a blog entry here without leaving a comment? What is this, the 20th century?
I guess a related topic would be frugality in general – given that most people are too rooted to go live somewhere else cheaper, I wonder how many writers consciously try to radically reduce their living expenses where they currently live. Certainly the US lifestyle encourages a lot of unconscious automatic unnecessary consumerist spending.
I live in Kentucky; it’s pretty, it’s relatively cheap, there are bookstores and an art/food scene. (Louisville, actually, so we have a university too.) I just seem to be the only SFF writer in the entire city. Potentially I am not networking well, but honestly, I have conventions for socializing.
I agree with you Brit, regarding the loneliness of trying to write sci-fi in a mid-sized southern city (Knoxville, in my case). Plenty of food, plenty of academics, not so much with the science fiction community. I think there is something to be said for being surrounded with like minded folks. I would have thought that the internet might make living remotely a bit less… um, remote, but at least in my case I’ve never really found the internet as engaging as I’d like in that regard. Sharing a beer with a friend and discussing the minutiae of life has no online parallel in my opinion.
All that said, Knoxville is cheap. I live a pretty comfortable middle class life here and couldn’t dream of doing the same in a major northern city on the money I make.
My Laramie experience is a bit like that. I have a great job, big house, very comfortable…just not a big or sophisticated science fiction crowd around. One of my personal motivations for founding Launch Pad really is to bring that community to me, even if it’s just for a week.
As for the internet, it really does help. Maybe it’s not as much as we’d like, but I can’t imagine living in such a small city without it (the shopping issues as much as the community issues).
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