Ian Daniel Stewart

I feel bad for Thomas F. Monteleone. It’s not just that his 1981 novel, Ozymandias is available for one cent at Amazon that gets me – although that’s pretty sad. It’s everything else.

When I search in Google for “Ozymandias + Thomas F. Monteleone” a non-Amazon page pops up first. Pretty surprising, right? Amazon usually has the first page of Google locked up for anything book-related. But then, when I click on that page it’s essentially blank. An essentially blank page, with no information about the author or his book, is Google’s number one search result.

So moving on down the list I come to Wikipedia. A great site for finding information on obscure authors. It’s a place where fans can give their favorites the due they feel they deserve. It’s kind of nice actually. Unfortunately, Thomas F. Monteleone doesn’t come off well when one of the few things that can be said about him in his intro is, “He is in no way related to Chicago Outfit mobster Tom Monteleone.”

Thomas F. Monteleone’s first novel, Seeds of Change, was published by Harlequin books in an attempt to move into the Sci-Fi market – Laser Books! Here’s what happened with Thomas F. Monteleone’s initial efforts:

Seeds of Change was Laser Books’ inexplicable choice of lead-off title. It was Monteleone’s first novel, and while it wasn’t terribly good, neither the book nor the author deserved what came next. Laser Books issued Seeds of Change in vast quantities in a free promotional “collector’s edition” that was shipped by the carton to anyone who asked. Small regional SF conventions were sent enough to give several copies each to everyone in attendance. Come Sunday morning, copies would be scattered like popcorn on the consuite floor. This unwanted manna provoked a great deal of derisory comment, as did the book itself. Normally, weak first novels vanish without a trace, or are never published at all. Young Thomas Monteleone suffered the mortification of having his first novel publicly mocked and scrutinized in detail, in a blaze of publicity. (Demonstrating considerable strength of character, he continued to write, and has gone on to become a respected author of supernatural thrillers.)

Wow, that’s terrible. Maybe the leftover mojo from that event explains why no one at LibraryThing has favorited Thomas F. Monteleone. The long tooth of geek-wrath, maybe?

Oh well, that last bracketed-bit in the Laser Books! entry sounds hopeful, right? It still needs a citation, though. Someone, please, find evidence for this and tell me about it. And make sure Wikipedia knows about it too. I need to feel better about the sci-fi publishing world.