Science Fiction & Rock and Roll

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One of the first lessons I learned as a science fiction writer was that it was extremely hard to sell a SF story about rock and roll.  Editors didn't want it.  Worse, they'd rather condescendingly lecture you on the absolute lack of overlap between people who read science fiction and people who listened to rock music.

That was in the early 1980s -- late enough, one would have thought, for the message to have gotten through that rock music was a popular art form.

And things got better . . . approximately never.  There have been either one anthology in the English language ( Rock On!  edited by Paula Guran) or two ( In Dreams , billed as a celebration of the 7-inch single and edited by Paul J. McCauley & Kim Newman, may or may not limit itself to rock and roll; plus, it included horror stories) of science fiction stories about rock and roll and that's it.

So I'm particularly pleased that "Touring,"  a tale of Elvis and Buddy Holly and Janis Joplin getting together for one last concert, which I co-wrote with Gardner Dozois & Jack Dann, is included in Alternative Rock, an honest-to-God sci fi rock'n'roll anthology.  Published in France by Editions Gallimard.  In French, of course.

The other stories are:

"The Twelfth Album" by Stephen Baxter
"Red Elvis" by Walter Jon Williams"
"A Dead Singer" by Michael Moorcock
"Snodgrass" by Ian R. MacLeod

So it's a good selection of stories.

In the meantime . . .  How long has rap been around?  Have you noticed that there aren't many science fiction stories about rap music either?


Above:  The book with and without a promotional wrapper.  Looks great either way.


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