More Words, Deeper Hole

By an odd coincidence I was talking about Brunner with several other British fans yesterday - the way I understand it happened is that Brunner spent a LOT longer than usual on his big and justifiably famous novels (Stand On Zanzibar, The Jagged Orbit, The Sheep Look Up, etc.) but his earnings from them were poorer than the dozen or so pot-boiler SF novels he could have written in the same period.

So, inspired by John Jakes' success in becoming a historical novelist, he wrote this. Well researched, actually a reasonably good book... but poorly marketed, and came out shortly after George R. R. Martin's Fever Dream. Which was as good or better a book, appealed to SF / fantasy fans as well as the historical / steamboat market, and wasn't a complete break with Martin's existing reader base.

There was a huge initial print run but it sold poorly; for some reason they weren't all pulped, which is why there are still plenty of copies around today.