Best Selling science fiction. An understanding!

Best Selling science fiction. An understanding!

Best selling science fiction books. That is what we mostly search whenever we want to read a sci-fi book. And the phrase, “Best Selling” prompts the search, but the reader within us, filters the search further as he/she lands on the search result pages of Google or Bing. Because in the end, we as a reader want to decide what actually suits and meets the requirements of our taste and our style. 

It is like visiting a forest and deciding to rest and breathe easy for a moment. And nobody other than you shall be able to decide the moment in which you wish to relax and take it slightly easier than usual.

Similarly, when one wants to identify the right science fiction book, from the long list of best selling science fiction books, it is important that as a reader we find the right scifi book that we would enjoy reading; and gain some literary, scientific and recreational satisfaction from it. If it does not fulfil any of these abstract vocations associated with reading, then maybe we are examining the wrong list of best selling science fiction books. And it brings us to the main question.

What defines a best selling science fiction book?

Before I share my views on this, you may enjoy reading my blog post on a similar topic.

Please refer to this link

It also defines how NewYorkTimes arrives at this list and finally publishes them with gradings that are specific to NewYorkTimes’ internal rating system used to define best selling science fiction books, or best sellers in any other genre.

A best selling science fiction book! 

Yes, I have read a few and I do not want to share this list with you because it may not bear any book that meets your style and taste. And if you must have noticed, so far I have used the words “style and taste” a couple of times, and there is a reason I did this. Because it is the writer’s style that either appeals to your taste or does not appeal to your taste at all. 

Therefore, it will not be incorrect to say that for a science fiction novel to be a best seller sci fi novel, it has to meet two primary benchmarks if it wants to attract a larger reader base.

First of all it needs to have a style that appeals to the taste of the reader. It is very simple and at the same time extremely complicated. Because style is palpable. 

Secondly, it should not be distasteful. And that too when we all know taste is a non-palpable experience.

With so many science fiction readers out there, knowing individual tastes is almost impossible. Yet, many writers achieve this impossible milestone. It is this list of writers who actually appeal to the reading tastes of all readers, with the same intensity. 

They seem to have access to some secret glue formed from words, orientated in such a way, that it bonds with the intellectual and recreational thirst of the readers. And it is this glue that helps these science fiction writers to gain appreciation from every thirsty reader. And trust me, these studious writers do not resolve to hoodwinking the innocent readers looking for that right, best selling science fiction book. For which they already possess a subconscious propensity.

Their talent lies in identifying the taste of the readers at a larger scale. And creating a plot with words that clads their writing, in a style that compliments the reader’s urge to feed on something capable of satisfying his/her hunger for the best selling science fiction book.

It is enough about style and taste. But what actually helps a science fiction writer to develop it and refine it in his/her every new release? This is something that the blog post will attempt to address. And it is quite likely that many readers may oppose my proposed explanation, but here it is needless to admit that many would find it helpful, if not 100% applicable. Because at the end of the day, everyone has his/her own writing style and evolving it based on a general explanation would be like seeking peace in hell. 

It is about being honest to one's own style of writing, one's own beliefs, one's own convictions, and most of all true to one's own imagination. If as a writer one can retain continuity in these true assets of an author, then he/she surely will evolve into a writer whose style impresses everyone’s taste. And gradually he/she shall gain self assurance that he/she is on the path of becoming a writer whom every reader seeks as an author of choice in the science fiction genre, or any other genre as well.

It is for this reason, I suppose, Mr. R. G. Collingwood wrote: 

“There is no truer and more abiding happiness than the knowledge that one is free to go on doing, day by day, the best work one can do, in the kind one likes best, and that this work is absorbed by a steady market and thus supports one’s own life. Perfect freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his own work and in that work does what he wants to do.”

And it is true for scifi writers, who want to be the authors of best selling science fiction novels. As a writer he/she has to first convince himself/herself that this is what he/she wants to do, and it is easy to establish. 

When someone is working and yet feels free, then this person is indeed doing what he/she ought to be doing. And for science fiction writers who work on very complex stories and scientifically complex plots, it is something that as writers they owe their subjection to.

Without complicating it and putting it in simple words. The best and acceptable writing style is never ostentatious or self vaunting. It is sublime and should feel like an ease that allows itself to flow through the mind of the reader as a fluid that is willing to attain any form as required by the taste of the reader.

And just remember this: A pure style in writing results from the rejection of everything superfluous. 

If you attain this style you will certainly be the author of a science fiction novel that readers enjoy reading because it is worth reading. Then it automatically becomes a best selling science fiction novel. However, for a writer this career centric remittance takes place after he/she has suffered the sacrilege of his/her beliefs at the hands of critics who express adulations if the work is good, but sound appallingly insidious if they come across concepts or plots, that they find depraving for the community of serious and non-superfluous readers.

To know more about best selling science fiction novels and how to be the writer of the best selling science fiction novel, please refer to one of my older blog posts specified below:

Quoting a paragraph from the blog post.

And it is pure magic. Do you know why?

Because now your thoughts are a mix of writer's imagination, his/her knowledge fused with your imagination and your knowledge. And towards the end it makes you believe it was all your imagination. It is then that a famous science fiction author like Mr. H. G. Wells is born or an immensely gifted science fiction writer like Mr. Isaac Asimov, appears as the most brilliant star on the horizon of best selling science fiction novels; and thus is born that priceless and invaluable league of most famous science fiction writers of all times.

The actual blog post

And I believe, honouring and learning from the old masters of science fiction e.g. Mr. H. G. Wells and Mr. Isaac Asimov, should not be ignored. Because when you enter a temple, not offering one's respects to the central deity of the temple, will be ignorant, if not outrightly blasphemous. 

In India we have a Goddess devoted to the faculty of knowledge and learning. Before undertaking any writing assignments most of the writers still seek her guidance. Even Nobel laureates. And there is nothing more humbling an experience than this. Because it keeps you grounded no matter what your stature might be as a writer. This gesture allows you to seek more, and thus receive more!

Why? 

Because faith is a small thing, but it makes all the difference, in fact a lot of difference. And in India we still hold these values close to our hearts.

I have no reason to believe that it is not the same with Muslims and Christian communities as well. Including people who practice other faiths: Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism etc.

( One of the old Muslim sayings : Seek knowledge even if that means you have to venture where nobody has ventured before. Because only when you seek knowledge, shall you be able to seek true enlightenment. And know God. )

( Being inspired by the Holy Bible someone once said: One monarch to obey, one creed to own; that monarch God; that creed His world alone! Simple, brilliant, and so deep and meaningful!)

You might be wondering, what do religions and Gods have to do in a blog post wherein the aim is to explain what makes a science fiction book a bestseller and its author so widely accepted? Well there is a deep connection.

Every writer is an individual as well, and is therefore a representation of his/her beliefs, culture and tradition. However, to be the author of the best selling science fiction book, one has to break free from this stigma of individualism and then write a masterpiece that is meant for the entire creed of readers, the entire world. And for any best selling science fiction writer it is necessary to write without violating the sensitivities and emotional accreditations of every reader. 

And by quoting from religious scriptures, I just tried to showcase how beautiful every faith can be, provided we look at them with a lens that is seeking beauty and not macabre sights.

Hence, for a science fiction writer, who is writing about science and scientifically driven story lines. Respecting the Gods of science fiction will only make this science fiction writer think more like the minds of the readers. And to be a devoted scifi writer, the author has to accept science fiction as his/her religion, and then have faith, and believe.

Once you believe, anything is possible. Because in belief lies the secret of all valuable exertion. 

And when I wrote the science fiction novel, They Loved in 2075, I too believed and had faith in the religion called science. As for my style, it is a style that I believe is universal. Because it does not pretend, it does not attempt to be superfluous or hankering after adulations. All it seeks is an enriching interaction with the readers’ minds and motivate them to seek scientific imagination with a deep sense of earnestness.

This science fiction novel, They Loved in 2075, is about how humans will experience love; and how human societies will evolve in 2075. This science fiction novel navigates through the possibility of men and women falling in love with machines, without knowing they are robots imitating human emotions. Will you still dare to fall in love in 2075 or will you strive to tell the difference between a human lover and a robotic lover?

This romance packed Sci-fi novel tells the story of a man who falls in love with a real woman in 2075. And how he struggles to feel human and keep his emotional composition intact.This Sci-fi story also aims at revealing why the man chose to love a real woman and not a never ageing and always beautiful woman with synthetic feelings. In 2075, this might be a choice we all will have to make. Especially our children!

And I believe you as a reader shall enjoy it. Maybe being its author, I have no choice but to believe. And it is easier to believe when one hopes for something earnestly.