For decades, newspapers have provided the public with book coverage in the form of reviews, author interviews, and features. Over time, there has been a steady decrease in this print coverage. And most recently, we have witnessed a frightening decline across the entire newspaper industry coupled with a growing trend toward obtaining news and opinion from digital sources rather than in print.
Are we entering a world where book reviews (not to mention reviewers) are an endangered species? Are authors at risk of losing exposure to general readers? What’s ahead for SF and fantasy, in particular? To look at these questions, Suvudu has brought together five science fiction & fantasy book reviewers from across the USA for a Q&A on this important topic. These reviewers and the newspapers they have reviewed for are:
Mark Graham (Rocky Mountain News)
Jim Hopper (The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Nisi Shawl (The Seattle Times)
Robert Folsom (The Kansas City Star)
Michael Berry (San Francisco Chronicle)
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• How long have you been reviewing science fiction and fantasy books?
Mark Graham
I started reviewing books at the Rocky Mountain News in February 1977. I’m not sure what the first SF/Fantasy title I reviewed was, but it may have been William Kotzwinkle’s Dr. Rat or Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late the Sweet Bird Sang, both in 1977, I think. I began reviewing SF/Fantasy almost exclusively in 1988 when my column, “Unreal Worlds” began appearing on a regular basis. The column ran in one form or another until February of this year when the paper went out of business.
Jim Hopper
Since 1987; Harlan Ellison’s Angry Candy was my first pro review. Arthur Salm gave me an opportunity a few months later, for a regular column, “Eccentric Orbits’ (my title, his blessing), which was every five weeks or so. During a regime change, when the Evening Tribune merged into the San Diego Union, becoming the Union-Tribune, the interim editor of the book section didn’t believe in SF or fantasy; she didn’t think anyone read it. After enough protests, she picked up Michael Berry as a regular. I was on hiatus for a few months, until that editor found a more suitable position.
Nisi Shawl
My first professional book review was published in Gnosis Magazine in 1996. I reviewed a few books for a local weekly here in Seattle, The Stranger, in 1999. In 2000 I began reviewing books regularly for The Seattle Times, and I’m still doing so despite the trend toward cutbacks in that area in the journalistic world. It was while I was at the Times that I was first asked to review science fiction.
Robert Folsom
I’ve been reviewing science fiction and fantasy books for nine years, notably for The Kansas City Star, where my column ran monthly. Within the past year, budget dictated it run every six weeks. I’m now a freelancer since I was recently laid off from The Star as part of a cut-into-the-bone workforce reduction.
Michael Berry
I began reviewing for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1987, and my regular column now appears at six-week intervals. I think that may make me the nation’s longest-running newspaper reviewer of science fiction and fantasy, but I’m a little scared to confirm that suspicion.
