Science Fiction And Fantasy Site Launched By Tor

Patrick Nielsen Hayden--senior editor and manager of science fiction at Tor Books--told SCI FI Wire that he's adding "editorial director of Tor.com" to his resume with the July 20 launch of Tor's new SF/fantasy site. Tor.com will feature original fiction, a group blog, lightweight social networking features and an extensive art gallery.

The site can be summed up by its subtitle: "science fiction, fantasy, the universe and related subjects," Nielsen Hayden said in an interview. "It's essentially an attempt to do a central news and discussion site about science fiction and fantasy [and] ... about all the various subjects that people who are interested in science fiction and fantasy are interested in--and that's a pretty broad range."

It's a subcultural thing, Nielsen Hayden added. "On several occasions I have said--not entirely joking--to my own corporate masters that there will be times when you look at the front page of the site, and you will see that it consists almost entirely of a half-dozen different bloggers having an extended and elaborate conversation about medieval siege engines, and that's fine," he said. "Because that's exactly the kind of geeky subject that tends to be of interest to people who are interested in science fiction and fantasy."

Tor's corporate site--where readers can find the publisher's book catalog--is located at Tor-Forge.com. Tor.com will not replace that site; instead, Nielsen Hayden likened Tor.com to a magazine published by Tor. It's like "Time Warner starting Entertainment Weekly," he said.

The site will launch with an original story by John Scalzi called "After the Coup," set in his popular Old Man's War universe. It will also feature "Down on the Farm," a new story by Charles Stross, set in the same milieu as his novels The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue.

"We have other stuff upcoming that's been already written, edited and delivered, from Cory Doctorow, Elizabeth Bear, Steven Gould--with a story of his Jumper protagonist--Rudy Rucker and Terry Bisson," Nielsen Hayden said. "We are looking at roughly an average of 15,000 original words [of science fiction] a month. Sometimes [we'll] have one 15,000-word story and sometimes [we'll] have three 5,000-word stories."

The science fiction--which will all be accompanied by original artwork--will be posted on no set schedule, so readers will have to check back often for new content. "We don't want the entire world to go to the [site] only on Tuesday or something like that," Nielsen Hayden said. "So we will be deliberately randomizing a little. If a new story goes up, another new story may go up in two days or it may go up in 20 days." The site will also feature original short graphic novels, developed in conjunction with First Second Books.

All aspects of the site will have an open--but moderated--comments section, as well as lightweight, Facebook-like social-networking tools. "Registered users to the site will have various extras available to them, like the ability to start conversation threads independently of blog posts, stories, art, etc.," Nielsen Hayden said. "It will be interesting to see if people will make use of these tools and what they use them for."

In February, Tor started a marketing campaign in which it gave out one free e-book every week to readers who signed up for the company's e-mail newsletter. Each title was available only for a limited time. In the first week of Tor.com's launch, all of the books that were available via the e-mail newsletter will once again be available as free downloads from the site.

-John Joseph Adams