Veteran writer Tom Purdom takes you inside the writer’s mind and tells you how he wrote some of his science fiction stories and novels—how he got the idea, how he developed it, why he did certain things. Along the way, he throws in tidbits about his dealings with editors, relevant aspects of his personal life, and the social and technical ideas behind his stories. He starts by telling how he became interested in writing and made his first sale. Then he discusses his first half dozen sales and moves on to later works such as his Ace Double novels and his stories for Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. Readers have called the memoir charming and informative. Beginning writers have found it useful. Creative writing teachers have even urged their students to read it.
Part One covers his early stories, his four stories about a future Casanova, his return to writing magazine SF after a long absence, and the origins of his odd sideline as a classical music critic. Part Two discusses his three “military brat” stories and the three novels he wrote for the Ace Double series: I Want the Stars, The Tree Lord of Imeten, and Five Against Arlane.
Tom started writing this memoir for fun and you can still read it for free on his website. It’s also been reprinted in the New York Review of Science Fiction. This edition puts it in a handy form you can read on your ereader. And what could be more satisfying than the warm feeling you’re contributing to a writer’s old age fund?
Tom Purdom has been writing science fiction for over fifty years. For the last twenty years, he has mostly been writing short stories and novelettes that have ended up on the contents pages of Asimov’s. Jeffrey Ford has called him the most underrated writer in the field. Michael Swanwick has called his Asimov’s stories “an astonishing string of first-rate stories... Purdom’s humane take on the future, his willingness to imagine worlds in which people treat each other better than they do now, makes his work distinctive.”
