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Article: Tor's worlds without death or taxes: when is a mainstream publisher also an anti-authoritarian propagandist? When it publishes science fiction.(Culture and Reviews)
- Article from:
- Reason
- Article date:
- December 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Reason Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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HIGH IN Manhattan's famous Flatiron Building you'll find the headquarters of Tor Books, the most successful science fiction publisher in the world. The Flatiron is a monument to mad Belle Epoque futurism, with a wedge shape that makes right angles rare. Inside Tor's cramped office, drifts of books cover every horizontal surface and most of the vertical ones. The mind boggles at the destruction that could be wrought here by a dropped match, let alone a misfired laser gun.
Tor publishes between 110 and 120 new original rifles each year, routinely topping the science fiction bestseller list compiled by the industry magazine Locus. For 20 years running, it also has ...