Guide to Science Fiction Literary Agents

The Holy Grail for aspiring writers is to find a literary agent who will transform the endless hours spent on the keyboard into the ultimate prize for the author with a dream. A publishing contract! The role of the agent is crucial to the success of any novel and science fiction writing is no different. Finding an agent who will handle your science fiction project should prove to be a little more difficult than for other writing genres such as Romance or Mystery.

That said, science fiction literature is still in demand and with a good quality work, you have every chance of landing that publishing contract you dearly want. The same principles apply in finding agents in the science fiction field as with any other.
There are good and bad agents representing every style and genre and you can be absolutely sure that a bad agent will be as useful as your granny in landing you that contract.

CREDENTIALS.
Considering the time and effort you have put into your SF novel, you would be very naive to push ahead with the first agent who accepts you as a client without first checking their credentials. There are agents out there who are very much like the writers they represent, they are also looking to hit the jackpot. Agents who take on clients in volume hoping that one or two of them will make the big time are really just using writers rather than representing them.

The agent/writer relationship can easily be blurred by desperate authors who jump at the first sign of interest shown by an agent and allow them to exercise control over them and their writing project. While the agent you eventually choose to represent you has to exercise a measure of control, at the same time you have to remember you have a precious writing project you have worked on for some time and must keep control of it to some extent.