{"id":33361,"date":"2023-02-14T10:25:07","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T15:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=33361"},"modified":"2023-02-14T10:25:07","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T15:25:07","slug":"collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2023\/02\/14\/collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Contemplating a new science fiction collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven’t published a short story collection dedicated solely to science fiction since What We Still Talk About <\/em> in 2010, and because I’ve written so many stories since then featuring time travel, deep space, transhumanism, the post-apocalypse, and other tropes central to the genre, it’s time to start thinking about pulling one together.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My first collection, These Words Are Haunted<\/em><\/a>, focusing on horror, came out in 2001, and was followed by What Will Come After<\/em><\/a>, spotlighting zombies, in 2010. Then came that SF collection What We Still Talk About<\/em><\/a>, also in 2010. In 2018, I published Tell Me Like You Done Before<\/em><\/a>, a collection honoring the writers who helped mold me, a mix of multiple genres. My most recent collection from 2020, Things That Never Happened<\/em><\/a>, was a dark fantasy collection, though horror bleeds into it as well.<\/p>\n

But so much has happened since that 2010 SF collection — including the publication of my two Analog<\/em> stories, the first of which only occurred after 44 years of trying<\/a> — that I’d like to gather them together for you in a more permanent form.<\/p>\n

Here are the possible candidates for inclusion, along with their word counts, presented in the chronological order of their original publication, with no attempt to order them as they might appear in such a project —<\/p>\n

“The Man Without the Blue Balloon and the Woman Who Had Smiles Only for Him” <\/strong>— 5,660
\noriginally published May 2016 in Postscripts<\/em> 36\/37<\/p>\n

“101 Things to Do Before You’re Downloaded”<\/strong> — 5,850
\noriginally published in 2016\u00a0 in the anthology You, Human<\/em><\/p>\n

“After the Harvest, Before the Fall”\u00a0<\/strong>— 11,600
\noriginally published in the January\/February 2017 issue of Analog<\/em><\/p>\n

“Pity This Busy Monster Not”<\/strong> — 6425
\noriginally published September 2017 in the anthology Adam’s Ladder<\/em><\/p>\n

“How Val Finally Escaped from the Basement”<\/strong> — 9,425
\noriginally published in the November\/December 2017 issue of Analog<\/em> <\/p>\n

“Opossums and Angels”<\/strong> — 5,350
\noriginally published in my 2018 collection Tell Me Like You Done Before<\/em><\/p>\n

“The Stranded Time Traveler Embraces the Inevitable”<\/strong> — 2,730
\noriginally published March 2019 in the anthology If This Goes On<\/em><\/p>\n

“Five Years Later”<\/strong> — 6,700
\noriginally published August 2019 in The Unquiet Dreamer: A Tribute to Harlan Ellison<\/em><\/p>\n

“I Shall But Love Thee Better”<\/strong> — 10,600
\noriginally published March 2021 in the anthology Prisms<\/em><\/p>\n

“Lost Out There in the Stars” <\/strong> — 9,150
\noriginally published published in the Spring 2022 issue of Parsec<\/em><\/p>\n

“What Tomorrow Has to Say<\/strong>” — 5,000
\noriginally published in the Summer 2022 issue of DreamForge<\/em><\/p>\n

“The Time Traveler\u2019s Assistant Discovers What Could Have Been”<\/strong> — 5,100
\noriginally published on the 2022 summer solstice in Underland Arcana<\/em> #7<\/p>\n

“Learning to Accept What\u2019s to Come”<\/strong> — 6,350
\n originally published in the November 2022 issue of Apex<\/em><\/p>\n

“The More Loving One”<\/strong> — 6,950
\noriginally published December 2022 in Proton Reader<\/em> #2<\/p>\n

“The Letters They Left Behind”<\/strong> — 7,450
\nforthcoming in Lightspeed<\/em><\/p>\n

“The Lessons Only a Jelly Bean Can Teach”<\/strong> — 2,600
\nforthcoming in Pulphouse<\/em ><\/p>\n

That’s just under 107,000 words, not counting any previously unpublished story which should be tossed into the mix, always a fun feature of a new collection. And even if I kick out \u201cOpossums and Angels,\u201d to avoid duplicating anything from a previous collection, that’s still plenty to work with.<\/p>\n

As you can tell by the fact two of the stories above have yet to appear, I’m in no hurry to make this happen, for I believe six months would have to pass from their original publications before I’m allowed to repurpose them. But it’s definitely something I’d like to make happen in 2024 if possible.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven’t published a short story collection dedicated solely to science fiction since What We Still Talk About in 2010, and because I’ve written so many stories since then featuring time travel, deep space, transhumanism, the post-apocalypse, and other tropes central to the genre, it’s time to start thinking about pulling one together. My first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33361"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33375,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33361\/revisions\/33375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}