In Darkness Bound

It took far longer than I ever imagined to achieve my goal of getting In Darkness Bound into print. The many years between inception and completion have made for a better novel, without doubt; but it’s equally true those years have often been filled with a good measure of bitterness and despair. There were times when I thought I would never realize my dream, when I felt that all the time I had spent had been in vain; for there’s nothing so painful as to have put so much of yourself into a project and have it languish unread. As much as I enjoy writing for the mere pleasure of conjuring other worlds and breathing life into new characters, there can be no denying that when all is said and done I very much want other people to see the fruits of my labor. Of course, I could have gone the vanity press route, but that was always a last resort for me. There’s no validation to be had in paying to have a book published. It may well be that you can make it into a profitable enterprise, but for me there would always rest the knowledge that I had no certainty as to the worth of the work in terms of artistic merit.
      These days anybody can publish a book if he or she has the money or the inclination. Heck, you don’t really even need the money if you’re willing to make it available electronically. In that respect the Internet has been a boon to those wishing to express themselves; and it would be disingenuous to contend that works offered in this manner (or through vanity presses, for that matter) are wholly without merit. The fact is that getting published the traditional way is no easy matter and is no reflection upon the inherent value of a particular manuscript. The industry is rife with stories of books that became monster bestsellers after having been rejected countless times by publishing houses that were no doubt later kicking themselves for having let those profitable works elude their grasp. The editors at those esteemed establishments are not gods. They aren’t prescient. Nor are they, judging by some of utter drek on the shelves, arbiters of good taste and excellence. If you're rejected by them it will hurt, but rest-assured that it does not immediately follow that your work is unworthy.
      Even if your manuscript does manage to weather the inequities of the slushpile and a contract is forthcoming, the delight can be short-lived when you soon discover that most publishing houses these days put little effort into promoting nascent authors. And forget about those six and seven figure advances you may once have dreamed about. In fact, most authors can forget about making more than pocket change when all is said and done.
      There are over 200,000 books published each year in the United States and Canada. If you just consider that market alone, you’re looking at a lot of competition. Even the biggest of the big box store book retailers couldn’t possibly hope to carry but a fraction of that number. What they do carry is mostly from the traditional publishing houses, and mostly the works of already established writers. Rarely will they offer self-published works. When they do, it is usually only because of the popularity of the local personage seeking to have his or her books sold there.
      If you’re of the type who can sell yourself to others, who can confidently present yourself – the type who could ‘sell coal to Newcastle,’ as my mother was wont to say – you may be able to generate enough interest in your book, locally, to turn a modest income. Maybe even a comfortable one. But a great many writers (myself included) are rather insular people, and not given to flogging our wares. We’re good at the creating part, but when it comes to selling, well, that’s best left to someone else. That’s probably why you should, if at all possible, get an agent. It’s certainly something I intend to look into. I’d have done it earlier, actually, but most agents I looked into required that I be published first before they would consider taking me on as a client. Of course, the irony there is that one of the reasons I wanted an agent is so that I could get published. But then, who ever said logic prevails in the world?
      In some respects it couldn’t be a better time to be a writer. The Internet affords innumerable possibilities for those who want to say something. But in other respects things couldn’t be worse. Despite the Harry Potters and the Da Vinci Codes that sell millions upon millions, fewer people seem to be reading now than in the past. Is it any wonder? There are so many other distractions, so many other ways in which one can entertain oneself. Video games. Surfing the Internet. DVDs on the home theater system. iPods. A plethora of gadgets and technologies that are for many so much more exciting than sitting down and reading the pages of a book. That’s ‘old school’ and ‘boring.’
      There will come a time when the ability to read will go the way of Latin, an arcane art the province of academia. Technology and the cultural evolution of our society will supplant the need to read. To dismiss the notion as preposterous is to ignore the fact that many people already live quite successful lives while being illiterate; and one only has to look at diminishing math skills – partly as a consequence of the prevalence of cheap and sophisticated calculators – to see the writing on the wall. Moreover, there are millions of people throughout the world (probably billions) who cannot read or have but the barest grasp of the skill, yet they continue to function. Granted, most of these are in Third World countries, but there’s no reason to suppose that in a contextual sense so-called Western society won’t, at some point, transition to a state where people can and will live comfortably and ably without many of the knowledge-based skills we now take for granted and assume to be an essential component of the well-balanced, functioning individual.
      Some will argue that playing video games and surfing the Internet requires a degree of literacy. But most people I know who play video games don’t bother reading the instructions; they’re so comfortable and familiar with the technology that they intuit the control systems and other factors. As for the Internet, well, the most popular uses for it are porn, downloading music and videos, and viewing oddments of celebrity -- which isn’t to say that everybody is doing that. If you’re reading this, then obviously you number among those who are literate and still take joy in the simple pleasure of reading. I applaud you; and I fervently hope my prognostications are wrong and that in a century there will still be many like you around who think the written word an essential fact of life.
      Sadly, I’m not an optimist. Not, at least, when it comes to this. In my novel, In Darkness Bound, of which you will find more on this site, I paint a future in which the simple skill of reading has become the purview of but a select few – and they more often out of necessity rather than desire. In that future most people are given bio-electronic implants almost from the moment of birth. Implants that are essentially living and meld and grow with their brains, connecting them to one another and into the Community within the Virtuality. It’s in this place where most people work and do much of their living. Ironically, the outcasts among them, the ‘cripples,’ are those without the permanent links who are more dependent upon ‘old’ skills like reading and writing. This is only alluded to in the novel, but it is a critical underpinning to the sense and sensibilities of many of the main characters.
      While some contend that we now live in a ‘science fiction’ world, the fact is that science fiction writers have been rather bad predictors of the future. Read a lot of the stuff from the forties, fifties, and sixties and you’ll see little mention of computers thousands of times more powerful than ENIAC that can fit in our pockets, nor will you find mention of anything like the Internet. You will find much about space and space exploration and living on other worlds. Of course, living on other world was always one of the central themes of SF, mainly because other worlds served as great metaphors for our own and allowed SF authors to examine current societal issues from a unique perspective.
      As for space exploration, well, the wheels sort of fell off that cart. Apollo promised so much, and when the shuttle first came along it seemed a space station, a moon base, and a trip to Mars couldn’t be far behind. But the exigencies of politics interfered with all those dreams. Governments just did not have the courage, the will, or the political capital to push forward such grandiose and expensive schemes. So now we live in a society that has things of which SF never really dreamed, while at the same time bereft of so many of those things that at one time seemed practicable.
      Our world is one of home computers linked to one another, cell phones by which we are seldom ever out of touch with anyone, iPods, DVD players, big screen TVs, video games, smart appliances, and a vast array of other gadgets and technologies that many could not imagine being without. (Just for the record I should point out that I don’t currently have a cell phone, an iPod, or big screen TV, and I don’t play video games. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have these things if I could afford them. I happen to be a bit of a technophile, and love gadgets.)
      According to the SF writers of yore, our world should have been one of flying cars, rockets lifting off on a daily basis and flying hither, thither, and yon, moon bases the size of cities, colonies throughout the solar system, generation ships voyaging to other stars, etc. The thing is, in the past science fiction writers tended to focus on the big stuff, on ‘brute’ technology rather than the small things that it might fairly be argued have had a far more transformative effect on our society. It’s those small things that will continue to change us, to force an evolution upon us that I’m sure many will resist, but to which in the end most will acquiesce.
      There will be greater changes between 2007 and 2037 than there were between 1977 and 2007. I wouldn’t even dare posit what the world will be like in 2107 or 2137.  And by the time of the twenty-seventh century in which In Darkness Bound takes place? It would be hopeless to speculate. Nothing I could imagine would likely come close to doing the truth (or what will be the truth) justice -- which is why my novel is not so much about the future as it is a metaphor for events of today. It is within that context that I hope you will read and enjoy it. But when all is said and done, it is first and foremost entertainment, the sort of story I sincerely hope will have you turning the pages eagerly until the end, at which point I hope you will sit back and feel satisfied that your time and money were well spent.

Lindsay H.F. Brambles, Ottawa, 2007