Welcome

Welcome to the Scattered Worlds, the major science fiction universe of Don Sakers.

Don't know where to start exploring? Try the headings up top (People, Places, Things, Timelines) or the list of eras on the right.

Please Read

If you'd like an account, please email accounts at this domain name  to ask for one. Include your email address and an explanation of why you want an account.

this is just a formality, to weed out spammers.

Navigation
User login

PostHeaderIcon Are Saggers the New "Long-Haired Hippies"?

Sagger in NYCAmong people my age (and even younger), there's an amazing moral indignation about saggers. It's not just that people dislike the fashion -- no, they get vehement about it. Saggers are disrespectful, thugs, criminals. There's an urban legend that claims sagging began in prisons, among men signaling their receptivity to anal sex. [Have you noticed that for some people, it always comes back to anal sex?]

There should be a law, people scream. Nobody wants to see your underwear, they rage. [Not true...I've seen a number of cute boys very artfully sagging, and fully appreciated the sight.] It's disgusting, they claim.

Yes, it's amusing to hear the folks who object sounding exactly like my mother and father (and, no doubt, their own parents) raging against long hair and bell bottoms on men in the 1960s and 1970s. However, I have to wonder at the vehement hostility. I mean, if aesthetics were the only criterion, the same folks would be raving just as vehemently against purple polyester...not to mention the attire of most folks who shop at Wal-Mart.

A moment ago I said "I have to wonder," but I don't, really. I know exactly what's behind the vehemence, and it's far more ugly than any sagger could ever be.

Why were our parents so mortally offended by long-haired hippies? Say it with me: "It makes them look like girls." If you take a few moments to unpack it all...long hair on guys, bell bottoms and psychadelic-colored ponchos, the counterculture's talk of peace and love...it comes down to sexism. It makes them look like girls.

Similarly, if you unpack attitudes toward sagging...with its roots in hip-hop, the public display of sexuality, the spirit of rebellion...you'll find racism at the base. It's not polite for people to say it as bluntly as our parents expressed their sexism, but it's certainly there.

But (the objection goes) it's not racist...I hate sagging no matter what the race of the person doing it. I hate it just as much when white guys do it. That proves it's not racist.

Sorry, no. When it's considered "disgusting" for a white guy to adopt stereotypically black fashions or mannerisms, then you're talking racism.

The overclass is always disgusted at anything that breaks down social barriers between themselves and the underclass. Anything that "pollutes" the overclass is disgusting. Men with long hair were "disgusting" in the 60s because they broke down the accepted distinction between men and women. (Hovering in the background was always the unspoken -- and unspeakable -- fear that a man might romantically approach someone he thought was a woman, only to find out it was another man!)

When the person sagging is a person of color, then the overclass person is affronted and disgusted by the fact that the offender is allowed to contaminate a safe, normal, overclass environment with the "disgusting" underclass behavior. (As you might imagine, many of the anti-sagging people I hear sooner or later get around to "...and in a library, of all places!") More simply, it's not acceptable to spread black cooties all over white peoples' space.

When the sagger is white, it's even worse. Not only is he exuding black cooties, but he's also blurring the lines. If white guys dress and act like black guys, then there's the possibility of treating a light-skinned sagger as a fellow human being, only to find out that he's really an octoroon...or worse. (To avoid this horrid possibility, it's safest just to treat all saggers as subhuman to begin with.)

"But it's not racist, because I'm black, and I still object to sagging." Right, because there are never black people who buy into the overclass propaganda....

But How Do You Really Feel, Don? Don't Keep It To Yourself...

I don't have any visceral, vehement reaction to sagging. When it's done badly, yes, it can be unattractive. (Not as unattractive as not-so-subtle racism or sexism, though...I'm just sayin') When it's done well -- on a cute guy, or with gravity-defying apomb, or with  a stunning command of the layering principle -- it becomes a minor artform. I've seen guys displaying three layers of boxers and pants worn and buckled well below the gluteus maximus, so that it makes me gasp at the wonder of it all.

I've seen saggers cavorting on skateboards, doing flips and jumps, all without losing their pants or showing anything indecent, and I can only applaud.

But then, I also have this weird belief that what's inside people's minds and souls is more important than their outside appearance...and that a kid who wears his pants low enough to display clean underwear and treats everyone with respect, is a hell of a lot more beautiful than a supposedly-grown adult who tries to conceal racist intolerant rage behind a smokescreen of indignant aesthetics.


Image by Tom Evil (Flickr: sagger in NYC) [CC-BY-2.0 ()], via Wikimedia Commons

PostHeaderIcon Celebrate Shore Leave with Free E-books

To celebrate Shore Leave, two of Don's Scattered Worlds titles will be free in Kindle format on Sunday August 4,Monday August 5, and Tuesday August 6.

 

A Voice in Every Wind is a "novel about alien culture that echoes LeGuin" (SFRevu).

Weaving the Web of Days is good ol' space opera.

Enjoy!

PostHeaderIcon Cat Rambo Interviews Don Sakers

Cat Rambo interviewed Don for the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA). The interview is posted here.

PostHeaderIcon October Reference Library Now Available

The October issue of Analog is out, and my Reference Library column is online here.

This month's essay talks about how to keep up with the changing availability of science fiction. Reviews include the latest by Connie Willis, J.E. Mooney and Bill Fawcett, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and L.E. Modesitt, Jr. as well as the new Nebula Awards Showcase.


Check out the index of my reviews, which is available here, or through the Beyond link above. You can search by author, title, year and month, and even by genre.

PostHeaderIcon The Zimmerman Verdict

Bad verdict. Bad law.

Florida declares open season for privileged straight white men to kill anyone who's different, as long as they do it in private and claim self-defense.

This is important: This particular type of straight white male views difference as something threatening, something that should be eradicated. Difference scares them...and in their view, that's reason enough to eliminate it.

This is the moral dead-end to which conformity leads. This is Madeleine L'engle's Camazotz. This is one of the faces of evil.

PostHeaderIcon The Shock of Sudden Death

Our hamster, Corflu, died suddenly a few days ago. We'd had him for about 4 months, and he was about a month old when we got him. In terms of human lifespan, he was the equivalent of an adolescent.

With hamsters -- which usually live about two years -- we're used to a gradual decline, a slowing down followed by a few days of lethargy and then the end. With Corflu it was different: within three days he went from fully active to rapid breathing and death.

PostHeaderIcon September Reference Library Now Available

The September issue of Analog is out, and my Reference Library column is online here.

This month's essay talks about the changing availability of science fiction. Reviews include the latest by Jason M. Hough, Pamela Sargent, Steve Proskauer, and Robert Silverberg & Damien Broderick.


Check out the index of my reviews, which is available here, or through the Beyond link above. You can search by author, title, year and month, and even by genre.

PostHeaderIcon Genesis of the Scattered Worlds

When I was 13 years old, I started on a writing project that would become life’s work and magnum opus: the Scattered Worlds Mosaic. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that it would be such a great work. I just wanted to write a science fiction novel.

 

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, psionics was the fashion in science fiction. (Four decades years later, psi and other paranormal elements would become the fashion in mundane fiction -- which just goes to show that the mundane world usually lags sf by about forty years.) My second novel, which I titled Stepchildren of the Sea, was mainly a story of political revolt in the year 2042 -- in it I introduced a character (then named Penny Norton) with powerful psi abilities. She was the fiancée of the hero, one Marc Hoister.

My first novel was a mostly-rambling story with no coherent plot; My second, Stepchildren of the Sea at least had a plot (of sorts) and some rudimentary characterization. It was certainly the best work I could do at 13-14 years old. Even so, it was old-fashioned, reading like a pastiche of a 1960s Gordon R. Dickson or Poul Anderson potboiler. (Analog’s editor, Ben Bova, kindly rejected the manuscript with the comment that it was “a little old-fashioned for our readers.”)

At the end of the book, Marc Hoister and Penny Norton were married, and Penny was pregnant. It seemed such an adult thing to put into a book.

My next project was another novel, but I didn’t forget Marc and Penny and psionics.

PostHeaderIcon Cutest Couple

You've probably seen this already: Dylan Meehan and Brad Taylor were voted "Cutest Couple" at Carmel High School, and this adorable picture of the two was in the school's yearbook.

In 1986, when my gay young adult romance novel Act Well Your Part was published, quite a number of reviewers commented on how unrealistic the story was. (The book is set in a then-alternate universe in which being gay is unremarkable.)

Publishers Weekly said: "In this pat treatment, potential conflicts are small: the characters don't experience school and neighborhood bullying or violence; their biggest fear is group ostracization because girls are jealous that Keith gets Bran." Another reviewer lamented the lack of "...angry families, persecution, and a 'strange' love unrequited, or at least misunderstood."

Well, thanks to Dylan & Brad, and the students of Carmel High, I'm glad (even at this late date) to be able to say the following to those reviewers:

Nyaah, nyaah!

cheeky

 

P.S. Act Well Your Part is available in print here and in Kindle format here.

PostHeaderIcon Balticon Wrapup

The Balticon Launch Party was a huge success, mostly due to the extraordinary efforts of our helpers:

  • Sharyn Eirich
  • Eta Hack
  • Zach Perkins
  • Joanne Walker and her friend Robin

We sold lots of books, and more important, we got a lot of people spreading the word about our books. 

Thanks to all!

PostHeaderIcon Free Ebooks for Balticon (promotion over)

This promotion is now over, but don't worry...the books are still pretty affordable in Kindle -- all four will set you back less than $9.00. I'm listing the prices next to each one below.


To celebrate publication of The Eighth Succession, Kindle editions of these Scattered Worlds titles are free from May 26 through May 28, 2013.


A Voice in Every Wind ($1.99)


All Roads Lead to Terra ($1.99)


Weaving the Web of Days ($1.99)


Dance for the Ivory Madonna ($2.99)


 

PostHeaderIcon Down to the Wire

With less than a week to go before the launch party, it's time for some reminders:

  • Sunday through Tuesday (May 26-28), four Scattered Worlds books will be free on Kindle. Watch this space.
  • Launch party for The Eighth Succession (as well as Melissa Scott's Death by Silver and Steel Blues) will be on Sunday, May 26 from 5:30-6:30 pm in Parlor 1041 at Balticon. Books will be for sale and there will be door prizes.

 

PostHeaderIcon Children of the Eighth Day

In the midst of all the hoopla surrounding publication of The Eighth Succession, I have made some time to get started on the follow-up book, Children of the Eighth Day.

I hesitate to call this a "sequel," because that connotes a continuation of the story. I hope readers feel that the story of The Eighth Succession came to a satisfactory conclusion.

If anything, I'd consider The Eighth Succession a prelude to Children of the Eighth Day. We'll be rejoining the Hoister Family 8th generation about a decade later, when all the kids are grown up and moved out into the galaxy. If you think Rikk and Yewanda caused some trouble for the Empire, just wait until you see what 36 Hoisters can do!

I'm hoping to have the book done in a year or so. Stay tuned!


P.S. You may have noticed a similarity of titles here: The Eighth Succession, Children of the Eighth Day. I have a couple more novels on the drawing board starring the Hoisters, and it's my intention to use the word "Eighth" in all the titles. My apologies if you think this is absolutely too cute to bear.


P.P.S. My apologies in advance to all the poor suffering librarians out there whose patrons are asking for the order of the books. I toyed with the idea of making the titles alphabetical, but it didn't happen. This site will always be the best source for chronological order of the Scattered Worlds works.

PostHeaderIcon Launch Party Preparations Continue

We're just over two weeks out from the launch party at Balticon, and preparations are continuing. Melissa Scott has selected the teas for the event: our black tea will be Upton's Robert Fortune Blend 41, a Darjeeling/Yunnan blend. The organic teas will be Blood Orange Pear and Evening Comfort. We'll also have some iced tea selections.

We've also had a great time picking out some of flourishes, such as star-shaped sugar cubes (with edible glitter!) and some of the nibbly things (most of which I will leave as a surprise, but remember this is Baltimore, home of the Berger Cookie).

We're also making the rounds of thrift stores to pick up secondhand teacups and saucers -- Melissa and I will both sign these so partygoers can take them home as a unique bit of memorabilia. If turnout is heavy, we may not have enough -- so if you have your heart set on an autographed teacup, make sure you get there early.

Of course, it's all about the books, and there's progress on that front, too. Here's what I received on Thursday: A box of 50 copies of The Eighth Succession. Some of these have already gone out as review copies, but I'll have plenty to sell at the launch party.

(I'll also have some copies of my other books, and Melissa is bringing some of her books as well.)

And, of course, we'll have door prizes too.

All in all, it looks like this is going to be a truly memorable event.

Just as a reminder, here are the particulars:

When: Sunday, May 26, 2013, 5:30 - 6:30 pm

Where: Balticon, Parlor 1041, Hunt Valley Inn, Hunt Valley, MD 21031 

PostHeaderIcon Gay Pride Month Free Ebooks

To celebrate Pride Month, I'm making a different LGBT-themed Kindle ebook available for free each weekend in June. Click on the titles to go to the Amazon page.

June 1 & 2: "The Centaur Child"

When a child born to a Human mother and a Centaur father is orphaned, both Humans and Centaurs claim the boy. The threat of war between the two peoples looms...unless the Mistress of the Flying Mountain can find a way out of the dilemma.

June 8 & 9: Act Well Your Part

Since its original publication in 1986, Act Well Your Part has become a classic, an unabashed teenage love story set not in the world that was, but in the world as, perhaps, it should be.

June 15 & 16: "Parental Discretion"

A lesbian couple struggles to survive and thrive on the colony world Hylggra, where their only friends are the outcasts of the Frontier -- and the non-gendered alien natives.

June 22 & 23: Lucky in Love

When his best friend Keith moved away, he left a big hole in Frank's life. Then a car crash put him in the hospital. While there recovering, he got a visit from the star of his high school basketball team, Purnell Johnson. It wasn't long before his luck started to improve.

Bonus Title: The Curse of the Zwilling

Patapsco University: a small, cozy liberal arts college like so many others -- except for the Department of Comparative Religion, where age-old spells are taught and magic is practiced.

June 29 & 30: "The Mauzy Broadway Show"

"The Mauzy Broadway Show" has just about everything you expect from a Don Sakers story: cool aliens, kids in danger, drag queens...and neat ideas about gender, identity, and sexuality.

Bonus Title: The Eighth Succession

Clone paranormal geniuses against the galactic empire.

 

Check back each Saturday and Sunday during June to get that weekend's free ebook(s).

PostHeaderIcon Not Yet Publication Day...

It's not yet Publication Day, but The Eighth Succession is already available if you know where to look.

Specifically, the trade paperback is available here (for $12.50) and the Kindle edition here (for $2.99).

If you buy a copy of either edition, please post a review on Amazon. Reader reviews really, really help a book to find new readers. Posting a review is the single most useful thing you can do for me.

So if the book is available now, what's with the official publication date of September 2013? Here's the scoop:

The publishing industry is accustomed to working on a positively glacial timescale. Three months is about the shortest interval anyone in traditional publishing can conceive. Traditional review outlets -- such as Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Kirkus -- ask for review copies at least four months before publication.

At Analog, I'm currently working on my book review column for the November 2013 issue...which will probably appear in August.

Amazon, however, works on a timescale measured in hours and days. They see no sense in having a finished book sit around for an arbitrary couple of months not earning money. I submitted the Kindle edition of The Eighth Succession yesterday afternoon, and by the evening it was available for sale.

But I have to get copies to review outlets. So the official publication date is four months from now.

So...officially, these current sales are pre-publication sales. If you don't tell Publishers Weekly, I won't either.

wink

PostHeaderIcon Kindle version submitted

Today's job was creating and submitting the Kindle edition of The Eighth Succession.

This is actually a fairly straightforward process, albeit one with a lot of back-and-forth.

Unfortunately, I don't have any tools for editing a Kindle-format book directly (I don't even know if they exist). So the process goes like this:

  1. Edit in Pages on my MacBook Pro.
  2. Convert to epub format with Pages.
  3. Convert epub to Kindle format with Amazon's kindlegen app.
  4. Open in Kindle for Mac and inspect for problems.
  5. Open in Pages and correct the problems.
  6. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Most of the problems are relatively minor ones involving spacing, page breaks, and tabs.

Eventually I got all the problems cleaned up. I also created a new version of the front cover -- the book cover is a little dark for online use, so I lightened it up using the indispensable Graphic Converter app. This will serve as the cover of the Kindle version.

After that it was a matter of logging onto my Kindle account, answering all the questions, setting prices, and uploading my files.

Pricing

I set the US price at $2.99. Have you ever wondered why so many Kindle books are $2.99? No, it's not collusion between publishers.

Amazon has two levels of royalties for Kindle books. Books priced at less than $2.99 earn a 35% royalty, while those priced at $2.99 or above can earn 70%. At $2.99, it's the difference between earning $1.04 and $2.06. And small publishers aren't stupid.

(Incidentally, for non-US sales there are two pricing options: convert the US price, or use a set price in the local currency. For Canadian and UK markets, which are the bulk of my foreign sales, I set the price at $2.99 (Canadian) and £1.99 (UK). For all other markets, I use converted prices. So if you've after a (slight) bargain on my Kindle books, move to Canada.

A Secret

The official publication date of The Eighth Succession isn't until September 1, and the street date comes after our launch party at Balticon. However, when poking around today, I noticed that Amazon hasn't really paid any attention -- right at this moment, The Eighth Succession print verison is available at this link. I don't know if this will last, but for now, if you want to get a jump on everyone, you can order a copy.

(Just don't tell anybody official, okay?)

PostHeaderIcon Another Quote

This new quote just came in. Needless to say, I'm ecstatic.

Remember when science fiction used to be filled with galactic intrigue and bigger-than-life heroes? The wonderful Don Sakers certainly does! The Eighth Succession is a rip-roaring yarn, impossible to put down. If John W. Campbell's Astounding Stories had been published in an LGBT-friendly era, this is the cover-story serial you'd have been waiting anxiously for each month. What a ride! 

--Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Red Planet Blues

 
The Eighth Succession will be available soon; if you're at Balticon, come to the Launch Party.
 

PostHeaderIcon Proof Arrives!

Despite the usual mix-ups with UPS, my proof copy of The Eighth Succession arrived today.

There was a minor goof -- somehow, I managed to get an extra blank page at the very beginning of the text. The result was that all the left-facing pages were now facing right, and vice-versa.

Otherwise, the printed book looks great. I quickly submitted a corrected interior block, and the final book should be ready to go real soon now.

Meanwhile, I'm keeping this proof as the ultimate collector's edition. smiley

PostHeaderIcon June Reference Library Now Available

The June issue of Analog is out, and my Reference Library column is online here.

This month's essay addresses young adult science fiction. Reviews include the latest by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Ben Bova, Chris Howard, Karen Lord, and Robert J. Sawyer.


Check out the index of my reviews, which is available here, or through the Beyond link above. You can search by author, title, year and month, and even by genre.

Have you read?
The Book That Predicted Google Glass
The final battle of the Empress
Clone paranormal geniuses against the galactic empire
Two Tales of the Scattered Worlds
Visit a world in which scent and taste are as important as vision and hearing
Opening a new chapter in the Scattered Worlds Mosaic
How would intelligent, long-lived trees judge the Human race?
Classic gay teenage romance
The Fey vs the Galactic Empire
A Datebook Like No Other
Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three
Lucky's Life is Turning Around
An anthology in celebration of queer speculative fiction.
An anthology celebrating queer speculative fiction.
The PsiScouts: X-Men meet Buck Rogers
collection of sf & fantasy stories, essay, and poetry by Maryland-area writers
A Scattered Worlds Omnibus
a Scattered Worlds omnibus
Psi-gifted teens tackle theocracy & a threat to history itself
A collection of sf/fantasy diversions
Search
Eras