Event Horizon by Steven E. McDonald5/12/2023 ![]() ![]() I never saw a copy on bookstore shelves in 1981, and I assume that’s due to poor distribution. But even if I had, I doubt I would have bought it. I was 17 years old in 1981, already spending a good chunk of my disposable income every week on science fiction paperbacks. I’m sure there’s plenty of reasons for the failure of the The Janus Syndrome, but chiefly I blame science fiction fans - myself included. There were no more novels featuring “the outrageous hero” Kevven Tomari from Bantam Books, or anyone else. The Janus Syndrome did not usher in a new era of color diversity on SF paperbacks, and that’s a pity. ![]() It’s the first time I remember seeing a black hero so prominently on a cover, anyway. ![]() Busby published Zelde M’Tana, featuring a black heroine on the cover, in 1980, and John Brunner wrote the first of his Max Curfew spy novels, A Plague on Both Your Causes, way back in 1969, but they weren’t science fiction.) As far as I know The Janus Syndrome broke the color barrier, at least among mainstream paperback SF publishers. I’m sure there were other SF or fantasy novels featuring a black male protagonist on the cover by 1981, but I can’t remember any. His first novel, The Janus Syndrome, was published in 1981. ![]() McDonald is a Jamaican author who published a couple of stories in Analog and Asimov’s in the late 70s and early 80s. ![]()
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