Orwell, Bradbury, Stephen King And More: 15 Classic Science Fiction And Fantasy Novels That Publishers Rejected

io9.com:

Science fiction's greatest authors have brilliant ideas, storytelling mojo... and plenty of stubbornness. Many of the field's greatest writers were buried in rejection slips, before they finally broke in.

Read the whole story: io9.com

Comments

[kareemachan]

11:22 AM on 10/23/2010

Damn, I hadn't even heard about 'Farthing'. Guess I'll have to check it out now.

[Lisa Shields]

03:59 PM on 10/22/2010

You just GOTTA know someone got fired over the whole Harry Potter thing...no WAY you make a come back after that.

[santiago sherwood]

11:08 PM on 10/21/2010

I wonder with electronic publishing and ebooks more books will get published.

[Schweik]

01:39 AM on 10/25/2010

Dunno about books, but certainly more junk.

[powerhuff]

06:54 PM on 10/21/2010

i like the one that tells you how to go potty

[PathofTotality]

04:25 PM on 10/21/2010

WOW!!
Dune was turned down by 23 publishers!
I have read all the Dune books written by Frank twice. Now I feel the urge to do so again.

[Vinlander]

11:56 AM on 10/21/2010

The British rejections of Animal Farm are pieces of sheer brilliance compared to one Orwell received from an American publishing house, ‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA’

[c-tom]

10:12 AM on 10/21/2010

You notice that Dune and Fahrenheit 451 had no trouble getting published. Dune was a serial in Analog at a time when people still read science fiction magazines. It had a harder time being re-issued as a book because of its size. And 451 had been published as a magazine story and a novel before it had "problems" getting published.

[Schweik]

01:23 AM on 10/21/2010

"Dune" by far and the way the more interesting and well written of the list.
None of these are my favorite.
MY top three faves;
"Solaris" (Lem)
Roadside Picnic (Strugatskys)
Neuromancer (Gibson)
"War of the Newts" as a retro-fourth favorite.

[Angelus2007]

08:03 PM on 10/20/2010

What is funny, Hefner believes Farenheit 451 is about censorship and book burning; it wasn't. It was about TV destroying interest in literature. According to Bradbury, TV is useless and compresses important information about the world into little factoids, contributing to society's shrinking attention span.

What is funny, Bradbury was a guest speaker at a UCLA class and discussed that Farenheit 451 was about TV destroying interest in literature and students told him directly that he was mistaken and the book was about censorship. He obviously walked out figuring there is no way to convince them otherwise. If you don't take the word of the author, what is the point.

[Tyrione]

12:14 AM on 10/21/2010

Or for the simple fact that the author's focus was much narrower, in scope, then what turned to be true for his audience of readers.

[olddognewtrick]

12:54 AM on 10/21/2010

The lessons of Farenheit 451 were not lost on me. I was able to convince a harassing telephone caller that unless he stopped calling...I would send the fire department over to his house to burn it down...

[NoraHuffposter]

07:23 PM on 10/20/2010

At least these authors received rejection letters. Today's manuscripts from an unknown receive no response from major publishers. Even an eternity in a slush pile or a letter from an intern.

[Ayn Ranaway]

07:19 PM on 10/20/2010

My favorite? Ann Coulter's "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans"...wait, what do you mean it's nonfiction?