James Alan Gardner, Writer

Welcome to my somewhat refurbished web page. It's still not fancy, but it now has a semblance of graphic design, not to mention navigability.

The Ray-Gun wins the Sturgeon!

I'm thrilled to say that my novelet, "The Ray-Gun: A Love Story" is this year's winner of the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award! I had a great time picking up the award at the University of Kansas, and would heartily recommend the Campbell Conference to anyone interested in science fiction.

Will there be more Festina/League of Peoples books?

I get asked this question a lot. I wish I could answer it.

I no longer have a contract with Harper-Collins, the publisher that has the rights to the existing League books. It isn't likely that another publisher would want to handle new books in the series, given that they don't have the rights to the books that already exist. Never say never, but the odds aren't good for Festina to fly again.

On the other hand, I'm still writing. I'm working on novels that I really like, and that I hope will find a home in the near future. The publishing industry is going through dire times (how many industries aren't going through dire times?) but I'm determined to have more books on the shelves sooner or later.

Fingers crossed, let's hope it's sooner. Watch here for news.

A Word about Me and the Web

I have, of course, considered doing a blog. For the moment, though, I've decided against it. My experience with the Net goes back to 1981 with the original SF-Lovers Digest—the email version, because Usenet hadn't quite penetrated the University of Waterloo (where I was working as a technical writer). Soon it took up a lot of my spare time...not just the time I spent reading and writing to the digest, but the much more significant time I spent brooding about how people reacted to what I said.

As a writer, I care deeply about expressing myself clearly and being understood. As a long-term citizen of the Net, I realize there will always, always, always be people who twist one's words into something unrecognizable. So whenever I become active on the Net—which has happened over and over again in the past quarter century—I end up obsessing over the disconnect between what I say and what a few people end up hearing.

It drives me nuts. I can't stop thinking about it. In the end, I always decide that the only way to get my mind on other things (like, say, writing stories and novels), is to take a step back. I love the online world; I read a number of blogs and other sites; but if I actively enter the fray by writing a blog of my own, I won't be able to think of anything else.

Like writing science fiction and fantasy. I love writing. It's my vocation—not just a job, but a calling. So that's what I'm going to do instead of blogging. I hope readers will think I've made the right decision.