Policy matters

My November (!) Astral Weeks is finally up at the L.A. Times—a review of William H. Patterson Jr.'s biography Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century (Volume I: Learning Curve, 1907–1948)[!]. Here's the first bit:

"I am submitting the enclosed short story 'LIFE-LINE' for either 'Astounding' or 'Unknown,'" Robert A. Heinlein wrote to editor John Campbell in 1939, "because I am not sure which policy it fits the better."

The former magazine published science fiction, the latter fantasy. Heinlein's short story — the first he had attempted professionally, at age 31 — concerns a machine that can predict when a person will die. That he sold this neophyte production, on first submission, to a top pulp editor (kicking off an intense friendship and correspondence) is exciting in and of itself. Heinlein's uncertainty about to which slice of genre this story belonged is an ironic and humanizing detail, given what a titan Heinlein would become as the author of everything from juvenile SF in character-building mode to the counterculture touchstone "Stranger in a Strange Land" (1961).

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While we're on the subject of openings—I just re-read the opening of the October Astral Weeks; kind of funny, non?!

Not a short story, not quite a novella — wasn't that a Britney Spears song? — the oxymoronic long short story is an underemployed literary form.

More on Ted Chiang

I had more to say about Ted Chiang's collection than could fit in the column. I found myself writing a line that felt like a last line, even though I'd only discussed three of its eight stories. (I should note that Chiang's stories tend to be long.)

Chiang's book originally came out in 2002; since then, he's published a short story ("Exhalation") and two longer pieces ("The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" and "The Life Cycle of Software Objects"). I might still write about "Exhalation," which I listened to on the Star Ship Sofa podcast, and which is included in an ambitious and very satisfying SF anthology I plan to cover soon. I'm currently listening to "Merchant" as well (via SSS). "Lifecycle" was published as a book by Subterranean Press, which has also made the full text available online.

Less-is-more-ism

For my latest Astral Weeks column, I look at the fiction of Ted Chiang:

In a genre brimming with more-is-more-ists, Chiang is notable for his sparse publication history. The first story in this book [Stories of Your Life and Others] appeared in 1990 (remember Omni?), the last in 2002, with only three additional fictions appearing since then. In fact, he has more awards (including multiple Hugos and Nebulas) than published works, suggesting he's that rare writer who waits until a story reaches its ideal state before releasing it into the world. (Chiang's even rarer than that: He actually turned down a Hugo nomination for the final story in this volume, the polyphonic "Liking What You See: A Documentary" because he wasn't satisfied with how it came out.)