3 Reasons Why We Launched 'Heroes of the Desert Books'
Welcome to the adventure!
I'm very excited to welcome you to the official launch of Heroes of the Desert Books, an imprint of
, and to our Substack supporting it.We're going to have a lot of fun here exploring stories in the fantasy, science fiction, and adventure genres. We hope that you'll join us if you're eager for the kind of classic escapism of the twentieth century that so many of us grew up cherishing.
Here's why we've launched this Substack and how we plan to accomplish our goals.
Why
1. Heroes of the Desert Books is the home to titles by , , and . Alec's science fiction novel Perdicion: The Other Blue Planet is now available for pre-order in ebook form here. We're in the production process now for Fred's and Oren's books. These first three titles from these gifted storytellers will also be the beginning of ongoing series.
2. We want to offer a home for our readers who may not be interested in our other offerings. It's self-evident: most of the readers who want to read fun escapism with a retro vibe are not going to care for the literary books of our imprint or my histrionic polemics on our main Substack page. So here is a place where these readers can subscribe and come just for the kind of books and Substack posts that they like.
3. Through this imprint and our Substack, we will advocate and promote the sorts of heroic escapist genre traditions that have most inspired our books. All of us publishing through this imprint are 40 or older. We're much more interested in the books of the 20th century - the stuff we grew up reading! - than we are in most of what's going on in these genres today. So you can anticipate more traditional stories that call back to decades long gone, which we'll try and supplement with illustrations in the style of periods past.
How
1. The structure and plan of Heroes’ publishing will be the same as Oasis of the Desert Books, just with a shift in style, genre, and themes. We'll have some short, regular posts promoting and highlighting authors and fiction from the past. And as of January, books published in 1929 and before will come into the public domain. That means you can anticipate some excerpts from classic books in these genres as well as audiobooks. There's plenty of incredible stuff on YouTube here, and we'll share videos that fit these themes which we think you will enjoy.
2. Given our "old man aesthetic" and biases, don't expect a whole lot of commentary about new, just-released books and movies in these genres. We really want to offer an escape here in which our readers don't really need to think about contemporary culture and its problems, which are often reflected in books that are often deeply mediocre. That doesn't mean that nothing new will ever be worthy of discussion. I plan to write about the two new “Dune” movies and the HBO Max TV series based on it. But in this case, we're dealing with a distinctly retro sci-fi franchise, rather than some new creation. (We'll see, though, about this TV series debuting on the 17th. I'll be very annoyed if they infuse it with contemporary, obviously-transparent political concerns.)
3. Given our exploration of both fantasy and science fiction, we're particularly interested in the crossing of the two, both in fiction and in the real world.
One of Arthur C. Clarke's most well-known aphorisms is “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
As I wrote in October about how we'll explore AI's applications in all sorts of fields and problems, we're going to look at these matters from both sci fi and fantasy perspectives. What humans once dreamed of as supernatural acts, science produces today as seemingly miraculous acts. In this same sense, we're going to try and bring some spiritual, transcendent values to these discussions about our technological future. It's easy to think that technology will eventually make our religious traditions obsolete. But I don't think that's the case at all. Try asking ChatPGT to help you find Bible verses on a particular theme, or to analyze your tarot cards. There's much fun and strangeness coming.
4. While more traditional sci-fi and fantasy authors from the 1910s through the end of the 1970s will take priority in our studies of these genres here, we’ll make an exception for author Alan Moore, who I regard as the greatest of sci-fi and fantasy-oriented fiction.
Over the last 25 years in particular, Moore has shifted away from the superhero comics that made his career, often toward more "retro" themes - notably, his series such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Tom Strong. These books draw on the classic Victorian and Edwardian era themes which we'll focus on here and show how to employ them in creative, modern contexts. Moore also provides great thoughts on this fantasy-sci-fi crossover, with his newest book The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic filling me with boundless inspiration on these themes since I acquired the textbook-style tome a few weeks ago. He's also written novels, and he just published a short story collection, too. Here I'll explore these. And our authors will also dig into the authors and titles who most inspire them.
5. One final point that seems worth making explicit: Just as Moore grew tired of superheroes and the conventions of mid-20th century American comic books, so have I. This doesn't mean comic-based stories will never be discussed, or that superheroes will be banned outright from this space. But we're not going to obsess over this stuff like so many men, young and old, continue to today. Certainly by the time you hit 40, it's time to move on and stop thinking so much about the plastic toys we once used to play pretend.
I hope this style and approach in both our books and in this Substack sounds like fun to you! If it does, please click that subscribe button below this sentence and pre-order Perdicion: The Other Blue Planet.
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