Pat LoBrutto

Patrick LoBrutto (born 1948) is an editor, author, anthologist and a recipient of the prestigious World Fantasy Award for editing.^[1]

Early life

LoBrutto was born in Brooklyn, NY. His father was an attorney, and he grew up in a home with over 7,000 books. The walls were lined with popular fiction and non-fiction; Greek and Roman classics; beautifully bound volumes from the 19th Century; complete sets of Shakespeare, Dickens, Thomas Wolfe, Mark Twain, and Edgar Allan Poe.^[2]

Publishing career

LoBrutto's publishing career began while in graduate school, where he was studying Urban Planning. He took a summer job in the mailroom of Ace Books - but the summer job became a calling, and LoBrutto has worked for Ace Books, Bantam Books, Doubleday, Stealth Press, M. Evans and Kensington, among other publishing houses.^[3]

He has held the position of Editor, Senior Editor and Editor-in-Chief, working with authors such as Isaac Asimov, Stephen King, Eric Van Lustbader, Spider Robinson, Walter Tevis (the author of The Hustler andThe Color of Money), the Louis L'Amour estate, the Star Wars novelizations, Don Coldsmith, F. Paul Wilson, Joe R. Lansdale, the Dune novels of Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, and Loren Estleman.^[4]

Best-selling authors

LoBrutto has edited New York Times best-selling authors;^[5] legendary authors in the science fiction,^[6] western,^[7]and other genres; and first-time authors.^[8][9] Amongst the hundreds of books he edited and brought to successful publication, are the following:

The Little Book

The Little Book was written by first-time novelist Selden Edwards over a period of thirty years. With LoBrutto as editor, the book was published by Dutton Books and became a New York Times best-seller.^[10][11]

Publishers Weekly called it "a sweet, wistful elegy to the fantastic promise and failed hopes of the 20th century." ^[12] Playboy Magazine declared it "a work that feels effortless...part mystery, part meditation on the marriage of past and present, part love letter to a bygone era, the novel moves fluidly through time and place, belying its three-decade creation."^[13]

The Christian Science Monitor said "if you like time travel, romance, and fin de siecle Vienna, this is your summer book."^[14] The Louisville Courier-Journal hailed it as "the product of a writer in full command of his gifts."^[15]

The San Francisco Chronicle wrote “The Little Book is presented with undeniable brio. Enthusiasts of Vienna and narratives of time travel are in for a thrilling adventure.” ^[16]

Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, the long-awaited sequel to the classic A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), was completed from instructions left by Walter M. Miller, Jr. before his death in 1996.

LoBrutto worked with author Terry Bison to harmonize this 30-years-in-coming sequel, with the powerful literary and philosophical antecedents of the original novel.

The book's reception was strong. The Washington Post Book World declared it "a remarkably affecting novel...vividly imagined...Superb."^[17] The New York Times Book Review said it "pulses with life."^[18] Publishers Weekly wrote "Bisson's prose is a wonder of seemingly effortless control and precision."^[19]

Time Magazine called it "an extraordinary novel...chillingly effective."^[20]

The Chicago Tribune hailed it as "an extraordinary novel...Prodigiously imaginative, richly comic, terrifyingly grim, profound both intellectually and morally, and, above all, is simply such a memorable story as to stay with the reader for years."^[21]

The Butlerian Jihad

The Butlerian Jihad is an essential prequel to the legendary Dune trilogy. It detailed the terrifying war between men and machines, that generated the Dune universe.

With Lobrutto as editor, and based on the comprehensive notes left by Dune creator Frank Herbert, the new storytellers Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson introduced the families of Atreides, Harkonnen, Corrino, and traced the evolution of the Fremen on Arrakis.

The book became an integral part of the Dune legacy. Publishers Weekly declared that "the sands of time have not diminished the impact Dune has had on the evolution of SF, and this new prequel by Frank Herbert's son and bestseller Anderson...offers the kind of intricate plotting and philosophical musings that would make the elder Herbert proud. Key revelations regarding the Zensunni Wanderers and their fight for freedom and other historical Dune elements lend an air of discovery to this fast-paced tale."^[22]

Library Journal wrote "this compelling saga of men and women struggling for freedom is required reading for Dune fans and an essential purchase for libraries."^[23]

May There be a Road

May There be a Road is a collection of stories by the master of Western literature, Louis L'Amour. It was an Alternate Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, The Literary Guild, and the Doubleday Book Club.^[24]

Edited by LoBrutto, the book introduced a new side of Louis L'Amour – one that extended beyond the boundaries of the Western – and the book found its audience.

Booklist called it "an eminently readable and enjoyable collection of 10 previously unpublished short stories by the late L'Amour."^[25]Publishers Weekly noted that "Louis L'Amour is the quintessential writer of westerns; among his 118 published volumes are stories set far from sagebrush country. In this volume of 10 previously uncollected short stories written early in his career and issued now, 13 years after his death, with an afterword by his son, Beau, L'Amour's broader interests are on display...the Book-of-the-Month Club, the Literary Guild and the Doubleday Book Club are making his latest posthumous offering an alternate selection, and sales should be strong." ^[26]

A Room for the Dead

A Room for the Dead was a genre-bending shocker by New York Times best-selling author Noel Hynd. With 4 million of his books in print, Hynd was ready to push the boundaries of his story-telling, with LoBrutto as his editor.

The result was frighteningly effective. Publishers Weekly said "the chills come fast and hard in Hynd's latest, a riveting blend of ghost story and police procedural...A tangle of right-wing state politics, skinhead thieves, a mysterious young woman and, increasingly, dialogues between O'Hara and what seems to be Gary's ghost lead the cop through past police corruption and malfeasance to a shattering conclusion."^[27]

Booklist wrote "fans of Stephen King, John Saul, Dean Koontz, and the like will give Hynd a thumbs up for his latest shivery ghost story. Detective Frank O'Hara, a New Hampshire cop anticipating early retirement, has to rethink his plans when a case he closed six months earlier comes back to haunt him--literally...Hynd (is) good at macabre, mind-bending plots with plenty of grotesque details, and he effectively blends the horror and mystery genres."^[28]

Farmers & Mercenaries

Farmers & Mercenaries won the 2009 Moonbeam Fantasy Award for Excellence in Literature, and was named Dragonroots Magazine's Best New Fantasy Saga of 2009.

Written by Maxwell Alexander Drake and edited by LoBrutto, the Las Vegas Review Journal announced that "the characters in Farmers & Mercenaries are well-developed. Their stories are told in alternating chapters, and readers easily become invested in the fate of each. The pace of the book is quick and the story lines solid. Readers will turn pages late into the night just to find out what will happen next. With Farmers & Mercenaries, fans of the fantasy genre have another group of characters to get to know and love."^[29]

Paper Dragon Ink wrote that "by the end I was mesmerized so that I could not put it down till I had finished it. Drake does a good job of developing the characters and melding their paths throughout the book." Amazon.com announced that "readers of the Genesis of Oblivion Saga will immerse themselves in the depth of a unique world culture, the grandeur of its civilizations, and the sheer awe of more than ninety-six thousand years of history!"^[30]

Respect for craft

Amongst his contemporaries, LoBrutto is known for a strong sense of craft, and a love for the process of bringing a book to life. He has gone on record in agreeing with Isaac Asimov that "a book turns on when you open it, and automatically turns off when you close it. When I was a child, first learning to read, I believed that books were living things, that they slept when closed, awakened when open." ^[31]

In writers' conferences and his own essays, LoBrutto also stated that "books are our gospels, and through them our lives are changed, informed, diverted, charged. At the best, a book selects from the growling, grumbling collective wisdom that the human race has gathered through much difficulty, with great and tearful strife." ^[32]

Current work

LoBrutto received the World Fantasy Award for editing in 1986.^[33] He is currently an acquiring editor for Tor Books, the world's leading publisher of science fiction and fantasy titles. He is also the editorial director of Goldminds Publishing, and a scout for the Trident Media Group.^[34]

LoBrutto is on the National Advisory Board of the Writer's Hall of Fame of America. He also lectures at writers' conferences and works as an editorial consultant to publishers, agents and authors.^[35]

External links

• Patrick LoBrutto Editorial Services

References