How to Market a Genre that Doesn't Exist: Simak's THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE TALISMAN (1978)

Since I know everyone's been clamoring for a review of an early Del Rey fantasy novel nobody has ever heard of, well, I could hardly refuse.

Besides pure orneriness, though, there's a special reason I'm reviewing The Fellowship of the Talisman by Clifford D. Simak. Granted, this book isn't terribly good ... but that isn't the point. For me, the real question is always one of literary history, and Fellowship serves as a fascinating test case for how Del Rey Books (DRB) managed to achieve success in its earliest days.

Cuz here's the thing: if you're going to create a popular genre from scratch (as Lester del Rey most definitely did), then a useful item to have in your arsenal is, well, fantasy authors.

Except there weren't any. Not then. Sure, you had Terry Brooks and Stephen R. Donaldson in 1977, but both people fell magically into Lester's lap. They found him, not the other way around. Short of sacrifices to the Editorial Gods, however, how's an ambitious young (ahem) editor like Lester del Dey going to find enough writers to help him establish a new category of fiction -- fantasy -- that was historically massively uncommercial?

Easy peasy. Just go out and ask 'em. (A good advance doesn't hurt, neither.)

Cuz Lester, you see, was an old pro in SF circles. If there's one thing professionals know, it's that writing to please an editor comes with the territory. People did it for Campbell. They did it for Horace Gold and Anthony Boucher, and Lester knew they'd do it for him. Looking through DRB's early list, you can see fairly quickly that Lester simply pestered (bribed) several old colleagues to write novels for him. The most successful was Piers Anthony, whom Lester rescued from a quasi-blacklist, but other veterans include Gordon R. Dickson (The Dragon and the George), E. Hoffman Price (two novels), Lloyd Arthur Eshback (Lucifer's Gates series), and, of course, Clifford D. Simak.

And actually, Simak became a full-blown Del Rey author soon enough. Starting in 1978, he published five SF novels for Judy-Lynn, plus The Fellowship of the Talisman (1978) and Where the Evil Dwells (1982) for Lester. (For now I'll ignore that latter novel, but here's a fantastic review of Where the Evil Dwells on Goodreads here; it has even more flaws than Fellowship, showing the danger of going outside one's comfort zone.)

It's been said, though, that the success of Del Rey Books was a "triumph of marketing over content". Alas, for Simak's novel, this is probably true. To me, it seems clear that Simak -- like Piers Anthony -- had no special interest in fantasy when Lester first contacted him. Unlike Anthony, however, Simak didn't have the chops -- or perhaps merely the motivation -- to try producing his best work regardless. Simak's basic fantasy technique is agglutinative. That is, he just throws in fantastic stuff as it occurs to him, but beyond his basic quest structure, he never bothers welding his elements into a coherent whole. 

Nonetheless, Fellowship seems like a perfect test case for what an uninspired and long-forgotten fantasy novel can teach us about the early Del Rey era.

So without further ado ....

Marketing

For us literary types, "commercial" is a four-letter word. We're fatally un-curious about things like marketing, even though that matters to every novel published, even the ultra literary ones. Just like how we once ignored how paratextual materials influence textual meaning, too many modern critics now ignore how marketing does the same thing -- but even more deeply.

So how did DRB -- the acknowledged marketing masters -- tackle a forgettable novel like The Fellowship of the Talisman?

First, the cover, Michael Whelan is an amazing artist, and his cover for Fellowship dazzles even my old cynical academic brain. The big blond club-wielding guy is Conrad, and the skinny elf-looking dude with a sword is Duncan, our main hero. The hermit Andrew has the best action pose of all. Yet you also have a tell-tale castle in the background and a woman, Diana, riding a griffin in flight. Honestly, it's awesome as hell, and if you can't understand the appeal of something like this, you probably don't get the appeal of fantasy, period.

Yet there's more to cover art than simply the painting. Lettering matters too. I've no idea what font this is, but it's tight and semi-archaic looking. Also, notice how the first indefinite article in the title is slightly askew? It draws the eye in a way too subtle to notice explicitly, but it's a masterful touch.

A good cover blurb comes courtesy of Terry Brooks, fresh off his success for The Sword of Shannara. In addition, the back cover copy is damn fine as well. For one thing, it provides setting information merely hinted by Simak himself -- this is medieval England in the 1970s. Here's a breakdown:

• First paragraph: sets the scene (alternate England);
• Second paragraph: describes the fellowship's interesting cast of characters;
• Third paragraph: "Duncan sees his only hope crumble in failure."
• Final paragraph: "He is left with only his courage and his mission....."

Also, finally, nobody can miss how Fellowship directly copies its title from Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring. Maybe this was Simak's idea. However, I'm more inclined to credit Lester, since editors have final say. Yet I firmly admire Lester's boldness. Hostile critics like to sneer at DRB using the same artists, the Brothers Hildebrandt, to illustrate The Sword of Shannara as The Lord of the Rings, but the challenge faced by Del Rey Books was to explain "fantasy" to people who never heard of it. In other words, they had to educate a massive audience on fantasy. 

Even more importantly, you had to educate book buyers at big chains stores such as B. Daltons and Waldenbooks on this new genre. You had to educate the wholesaler distributors who serviced non-trade retailers like supermarkets and airports. You even sometimes -- oftentimes, actually -- had to educate your own sales staff. For the most part, none of these positions would've been occupied by SFF fans. Just to get their books into the hands of potential fantasy readers, Del Rey thus faced a monumental task. They had to explain their new genre by describing it in terms middle-men would understand, and to this end they pulled out all the stops. And succeeded brilliantly.

Is The Fellowship of the Talisman a case of "marketing over content?" Sure. But in a way, that question is misleading ... as my penultimate section will suggest. But for here, here's the deal on The Fellowship of the Talisman.

Literary factors: The Original Stuff

Admittedly, the originality of Simak runs pretty thin. His book counts as an early alternate-history fantasy. That is, what if the Dark Ages never ended? Moreover, Simak decides to punt on the whole "wizard"-trope (his Cuthbert appears briefly but then dies without explanation for plot convenience), and Simak resurrects his trademark interest in religious themes. Notably, his hero must verify the authenticity of an ancient manuscript about Jesus's life by traveling down to "Oxenford" so that Bishop Wise (!), who knows Aramaic, can verify it. So that's cool. Tolkien, meet The Da Vinci Code.

In addition, Simak gives all his wizards Old English names (Cuthbert, etc.). Weirdly, Simak also mentions an "Arthur" (p. 205), even though the early English people had no tradition of Arthurian legend. 

A vaguely SF element also appears. Simak's evil minions, the Hoarde, aren't like Orcs .... they're aliens "from the stars," as he says, and they're the ones responsible for novel's perpetual Dark Ages. So although Simak departs from his favorite SF setting (i.e., Wisconsin in the 1920s), you can still sorta tell that The Fellowship of the Talisman is written by an SF guy.

Simak only scores 13/23 Tolkien tropes.

Literary factors: The Rip-offs

Everything else, however, is pure rip-off. To me, Fellowship seems like Simak was producing a novel-on-demand for an editor upon request. Beyond having read Tolkien, he doesn't seem to have had much interest in this new genre.

Granted, Simak replicates fewer Tolkien tropes than you might think. Indeed, he does far fewer tropes than better writers like Donaldson or Dave Duncan. If you look at my "Tolkien Scores" listing, Simak pulls a measly thirteen tropes. DRB's major bestsellers often did 20 or more. For my part, I think we can attribute that mostly to Simak striving to adhere as closely as possible to Lester's 100k word minimum. By 1978, we haven't yet hit the age of "door-stopper" fantasy.

Nonetheless, Simak directly takes from The Lord of the Rings its quest structure; its important magical artifact(s); and obviously the fellowship format itself.

Indeed, Simak apparently just kept adding fantasy-esque thing as they struck his fancy, without any larger notion of how they would fit together. For instance, let's talk about the Fellowship itself. Simak has 13 named members overall, which is nuts for a 300-page novel. Several of these characters, such as Nan the Banshee and Meg the Witch, are so thin as to serve no effective purpose. In fact, the only party member with any character development is Andrew the hermit, who goes from being a (very) incompetent hermit to a modestly successful Soldier of God (and who, as should be expected, therefore dies "heroically", although in truth Simak kills him off half-heartedly and virtually off-screen). 

But the thinness of Nan and Meg reinforces another unfortunate Tolkienian aspect: the lack of female characters. Only the pseudo-Valkyrie Diana has any significant speaking time, and she becomes the hero's love interest in the end. (Simak -- who makes a special point of saying that women can't be wizards -- does hint that Diana, maybe, is given the sword Excalibur [I think] by some goblins, but if so, I'm not sure why ... this seems like another random fantasy-esque element.)

What else? The prose is blah. The dialogue's  clunky. (Pretty standard, actually, for SF old-timers.) Amusingly, there's perhaps a small dig at Tolkien for allowing Bill the Pony to survive: one "member" of Simak's fellowship, the burro Beauty, dies at a dragon's claws. The protagonist Duncan is your standard, nice-guy hero. Never draws his sword in anger, refuses to be addressed as "m'lord," etc. 

Simak adds some explicit bits of folklore, too, such as the Little Folk and the Wild Huntsman. Mostly, though, Simak applies a kitchen-sink approach. L. Frank Baum does the same thing with Oz, and so does Piers Anthony for  Xanth, but whereas A Spell for Chameleon is a well constructed novel, Simak merely seems like he's aiming for "good enough."

So perhaps the kindest thing we can say about The Fellowship of the Talisman is maybe that it's ... um, almost thoughtful. For a religious writer, Simak treats Andrew the Hermit pretty hard, but I did enjoy a novel that premises its fantasy quest on an issue of scholarship, even if he never explores that theme in depth. That Simak put his quest's destination at Oxford, moreover, seems like a homage to Tolkien. 

However, overall, Fellowship just isn't very good. Perhaps it's an adequate example of critical stereotypes against Del Rey fantasy, but I also wouldn't put Simak's novel in the same rank as The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant or even The Belgariad. Remember, every publisher or magazine editor needs filler. This was especially true for Lester in the early days. You had to put out a certain amount of content, else you'd lose your rack space on bookstore shelves. Simak's novel successfully fulfilled Lester's minimum requirements. But Fellowship was never a best-seller, and whatever moderate commercial success it may have enjoyed, it shows, I think, the brilliance of a publisher doing something with (next-to) nothing.

Well, next to nothing except .....

The False Binary: Marketing v. Content

All too often, critics of Del Rey Books -- particularly their publishing rivals -- accuse them of "dumbing down" science fiction, of selling "trash" to readers too stupid to know any better. Besides the sneering disdain for audiences ("Those idiots! They want the same thing, over and over again!"), this elitist perspective strikes me as self-serving and, honestly, plain sour grapes.

Here's the really interesting question. Let's say you have a ton of widgets. You believe in widgets, and you believe other people would want widgets, too, if only they knew what widgets were. How to teach them, though?

The publishing industry's weird because, at least in pre-Amazon days, publishers wouldn't have needed to educate readers. Not really. After all, they don't sell to readers. Instead, they sell to book stores, so it's the booksellers and wholesale distributers whom publishers -- through their sales staffs -- need to educate. So given that booksellers have no idea what the hell "fantasy" was, how would such enlightenment occur?

Well, bookstores did know Tolkien, so that's one obvious way. Everybody knows Del Rey played up their line's Tolkien connections heavily (even if everyone's less smart about recognizing the difference between readers and booksellers). 

So if you're going to convince bookstores to stock The Fellowship of the Ring Talisman ... (ah ha! See what I did there? Point made.)

How else, though, would you educate booksellers?

Here's one. You see, what most people don't recognize is that the Tolkien-connection was only one-half of Del Rey's equation. The other half? The authors themselves. You need a Big Name. And if you're creating a brand-new publishing category from scratch, which by definition doesn't have any (living) Big Names, you must borrow those Big Names from elsewhere -- in this case, science fiction.

So Clifford D. Simak, meet Lester del Rey.

In the late 1970s, big chain stores were just starting to experiment with tracking sales records through computers. Even without that bonus, however, it's obvious that established authors have in-built audiences already: people willing to try a new novel by an old favorite, even if a funny looking griffin appears on the cover. 

So Del Rey threw its resources behind, among others, Simak. For Fellowship this extended well beyond a snazzy new cover, nice blurbs, good cover copy, and a Tolkien-esque title. It's no coincidence, I think, that Simak's first fantasy novel appeared the same year as his first Del Rey SF novel, Mastodonia (1978). Back in the late 1970s, books and especially paperbacks were still cheap enough that readers would enter bookstores and walk out with 5-6 titles. And those titles might all be by the same author -- so long as they exist, and so long as they're stocked.

So after Simak retired from journalism in 1976, Del Rey converted him into a full-time author. During that time (1978-1986), Simak wrote six novels for DRB during his first five years: four SF, two fantasy. (His seventh DRB novel, Highway to Eternity, wouldn't appear until four years later in 1986.) Del Rey also started reprinting select titles from Simak's backlist.** Thus we had a lot of different books by Simak on the shelves in the early 1980s.

Del Rey therefore wasn't just selling Tolkien. They were selling Simak. And even if The Fellowship of the Talisman isn't particularly noteworthy now, it's still a competently plotted quest fantasy at a time when any fantasy was rare. Although there was Tolkien, of course, and The Sword of Shannara in trade paperback from the previous year, by 1978 Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane and McKillip's The Riddle-Master of Hed were just coming into affordable paperback editions. Not many other original fantasy novels existed. So Tolkienian tropes still felt fresh -- much fresher than they'd subsequently become even ten years later, and there was virtually no competition. Thus Simak's minor variations seemed intriguing enough to maintain readerly interest.

Nor did Del Rey simply rely on Simak's name recognition, his Tolkien borrowings, and the "few other options" approach. They devised another two-pronged promotional attack as well ... neither of which is readily visible to literary critics unless you actually analyze Del Rey's list. 

Cover for 1975 edition. 

First, Judy-Lynn selected a Simak novella, "The Birch Clump Cylinder," as her lead story in her SF anthology of original fiction, Stellar (1974). This provided Simak with more visibility, of course, but Judy-Lynn also --- brilliantly, in my view -- commissioned The Ballantine Teachers' Guide to Science Fiction for publication the following year.

This book attempts to train college professors how to teach SF, a subject near and dear to Lester's heart. (He often complained about know-nothing academics trying to capitalize on SF despite not knowing the field.) Anyway, this teacher's guide -- surprise, surprise -- emphasizes Ballantine authors, and it even has a chapter focusing on Stellar, which, as an anthology, makes Stellar well-suited for adoption to any syllabus. So this teacher's guide not only increases sales through adoptions, it also introduces book-buying, college-aged readers to Del Rey authors like Simak -- the exact same market that turned Tolkien into a cultural phenomenon during the 1960s.

Second, Del Rey took the radical step of putting genre fantasy into a "Del Rey" hardcover.

Although other Del Rey titles had seen prior hardcover publication, these all came via established hardcover houses. For instance, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant first appeared through the prestigious Holt, Rinehart and Winston. But 1978 was DRB's first time dipping its toes personally  into hc publication. Fellowship was among its very first titles, and was Del Rey's first fantasy hardcover, beating Katherine Kurtz's Saint Camber by two months.

Moreover, DRB likewise published Simak's SF fiction in hardcovers under the Del Rey imprint. Not only does this generate additional free publicity through reviews -- many outlets won't review paperback originals -- but it also gave Simak's work the chance of being picked up by the Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC). That's indeed what happened for both Fellowship and Mastodonia.

So at day's end, what can we learn?

Conclusion

Here are the lessons.

1. As far as fantasy novels go, The Fellowship of the Talisman isn't very good ... but in 1978, its (minor) innovations would have seemed much fresher than when Lester eventually retired.
2. Brilliant packaging matters. 
• Too many critics despise packaging as non-essential, a defilement of some mystical notion of "pure literary merit", a position which (I think) can easily be deconstructed in terms of class-based ideology. In this regard, DRB's brilliance lay partly in their lack of pre-conceived notions ... and their lack of snobbery.
3. For booksellers, publishers need to provide them reasons to stock books. Booksellers care about selling books, so that's your "in." Del Rey's successful tactics include:
• Educating bookstores (and wholesale distributers & sales staff) by emphasizing the Tolkien connection.
• Reminding bookstores that a particular author (Simak) has an established audience.
• Keeping your author in everyone's mind by having them constantly produce fresh material.
4. Promotion.
• Oddly enough, standard advertising (other than radio ads, which were cheap) doesn't really happen or work for books. What really works is word-of-mouth.
• So, feature a desired author (Simak) in your SF original anthology series, Stellar.
• Encourage college courses in SF to adopt your books by publishing a teacher's guide that analyzes only Del Rey Books.
5. Finally, enhance your author's prestige and publicity by publishing their fiction in hardcover.
• If you're lucky, those titles will get picked up by the SFBC.
• Even if you're not, you'll generate reviews ...  and also reach a new demographic of readers who don't bother with paperback originals.

So that's one way to do things. Notably, one common critique of Del Rey is that they marketed SFF like one might market bars of soap. My gut response to this has always been: "So what?" But Judy-Lynn really did market her books differently, depending on the virtues of each one. What worked for Simak really wouldn't have worked for many other Del Rey authors. Definitely not for first-time authors like Brooks, Donaldson, and Eddings, but even for another established author like Marion Zimmer Bradley, what DRB did for The Mists of Avalon was completely different.

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**Older titles by Simak that Del Rey Books acquired (each of which originally had SFBC editions, btw) were:

• Enchanted Pilgrimage (Berkley, 1975, hc), a science-fantasy quest novel DRB published -- as per usual -- as straight fantasy with a cockatrice colophon in 1983;
• Shakespeare's Planet (Berkley, 1975, hc) with a DRB vortex in 1982;
• A Choice of Gods (Putnams, 1972, hc; Berkley Medallion, 1973) with DRB vortex in 1982