Last week I was at one of Durham’s excellent used-book stores and found a copy of Devil’s Engine, the second in Mark Sumner’s trilogy set in an Old West where the bloodshed of the Civil War has ripped open the boundaries to the spirit world and magic now works.
In the first book, Devil’s Tower, Jake Bird must master his own magic to serve as sheriff for the small town he calls home. In this sequel, Jake is tentatively excited when the railroad heads toward his town, only to discover backer Jay Gould has a scheme to use the railroad to steal and monopolize the country’s magic.
I read it last night and it’s good … but sales weren’t. According to Sumner, they flatlined (he’s doing fine, though, currently a contributing editor at the Daily Kos blog) and volume three never materialized.
Which as he pointed out in an account I read once, shows how there are few sure things in the writing game. What looked like a successful trilogy wasn’t; another series, News of the Weird, died after a few books (though it gave birth to the TV series The Chronicle, which likewise folded after a season).
Even more sobering is my copy of Lords of the Psychon, by Daniel F. Galouye. This early sixties novel about Earth under the control of monstrous, mind-warping invaders isn’t as entertaining as Sumner’s Old West fantasies, but it does make for good reading … and until I saw it, I never heard of the author before.
This is why I concentrate on just telling a good story rather than any shot at eternal fame. I can tell a good story, but much as I’d like my stuff to be read in a hundred years, I’m not going to bet on it.
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