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Some of the Greatest Science Fiction Novels Are Fix-Ups
HughPickens.com writes: What do science fiction classics like Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, Van Vogt's Voyage of the Space Beagle, Simak's City, and Sturgeon's More Than Human have in common? Each of them is a "fix-up" — a novel constructed out of short stories that were previously published on their own. "This used to be one standard way to write a science fiction novel — publish a series of stories that all take place in the same world, and then knit them together into a book," says Charlie Jane Anders. "Sometimes a great deal of revision happened, to turn the separate stories into a single narrative and make sure all the threads joined up. Sometimes, the stories remain pretty separate but there are links between them."
The Golden Age science fiction publishing market was heavily geared toward magazines and short stories. And then suddenly, there was this huge demand for tons of novels. According to Andrew Liptak, this left many science fiction authors caught in a hard place: Many had come to depend on the large number of magazines on the market that would pay them for their work, and as readership declined, so too did the places in which to publish original fiction. The result was an innovative solution: repackage a number of preexisting short stories by adding to or rewriting portions of them to work together as a single story. This has its advantages; you get more narrative "payoff" with a collection of stories that also forms a single continuous meta-story than you do with a single over-arching novel — because each story has its own conclusion, and yet the story builds towards a bigger resolution. Fix-ups are a good, representative example of the transition that the publishing industry faced at the time, and how its authors adapted. Liptak says, "It's a lesson that's well-worth looking closely at, as the entire publishing industry faces new technological challenges and disruptions from the likes of self-publishing and micro-press platforms."
The Golden Age science fiction publishing market was heavily geared toward magazines and short stories. And then suddenly, there was this huge demand for tons of novels. According to Andrew Liptak, this left many science fiction authors caught in a hard place: Many had come to depend on the large number of magazines on the market that would pay them for their work, and as readership declined, so too did the places in which to publish original fiction. The result was an innovative solution: repackage a number of preexisting short stories by adding to or rewriting portions of them to work together as a single story. This has its advantages; you get more narrative "payoff" with a collection of stories that also forms a single continuous meta-story than you do with a single over-arching novel — because each story has its own conclusion, and yet the story builds towards a bigger resolution. Fix-ups are a good, representative example of the transition that the publishing industry faced at the time, and how its authors adapted. Liptak says, "It's a lesson that's well-worth looking closely at, as the entire publishing industry faces new technological challenges and disruptions from the likes of self-publishing and micro-press platforms."
Some days the sky is blue! Other days, it's cloudy.
Don't forget Burning Chrome. Shouldn't it be on the Wikipedia list for Fix-Ups?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
Movie adaptations went from one to many and then to series. The edges blur and soon we'll complete the full batch of movie remakes into series.
And in this case it's also a matter of medium rather than story. A theater may need two hour long movies, but Netflix can sell thirteen chapter series just as easily.
"If I have seen further than some, it is because I have stood upon the shoulders of giants."
I know a lot of the ancillary and similar stories around it were lash-ups meant to add to it (and to make a continuum for Daneel and suchlike), but wasn't the original Foundation trilogy meant to be written together, Mule and all?
Maybe it's just the distance of time since I read it, but I could have sworn that the three original Foundation books were written together intentionally.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The first, ummm, say two-third's of David Brin's Existence is a mix of short stories (altered a bit since their publication) and a new framework that ties it all together. It works pretty well.
The last third takes place many years after the intrigues of the first part, using a subset of the initial large cast. It is threaded around an updated version of a very old story, "Lungfish," which is arguably the keystone.
They are turning into series that are meganovels.
Lord of the Rings, I don't of as an example of this phenomena, but mnore a precursor.
Lois McMaster Bujolds Vorkosigan series does seem to be one of the major ones.
The prototypical ones are the Harry Potter series.
One of many excellent sci-fi books by Spider Robinson.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
He even published a time line for all the events in multiple short stories and full novels. See Future History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_History_(Heinlein)
He did have 3 different universes which is why he wrote "the cat that walks thought wall" to pull them all tighter in the end - boy that was bruising!
Joe Haldeman's excellent "The Forever War" was (is) a fixup. There was even a story left out of the novel because it was 'too depressing.' I was reading these as they came out, and remember that story. Yeah, depressing. Similarly, Stephen King's first Dark Tower book had a number of sections first appear in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science-Fiction. F&SF also published "The Forvelaka" (title?) and a few other stories that became the core of Glen Cooks first Black Company novel.
If you've ever read 'Beggars in Spain' by Nancy Kress, you'll see the first book is mostly short stories combined. It made for an interesting story told over time. 'Beggars and Choosers' was a novel, and it seemed to hurt the narrative.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
Clarke's The Sentinel was the fore-runner to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
If you are unfamiliar with the work of Clifford Simak I strongly suggest that you give him a try. What I have always loved is that there is so much that is just unknown going on in his stories. No great hero's, no great battles, just a lot of "what the hell is going on here?"
His last book "Highway of Eternity" is great and "Ring around the Sun" has always been a favorite as well. Most of his stuff is a short quick read abd us easily found in your favorite used book store (you do have one I hope).
At a minimum read the novel synopsis over at Wikipedia to get a glimpse of a very interesting author.
Average Intelligence is a Scary Thing
A Canticle for Leibowitz was originally three novellas as well.
Interestingly, though this is fantasy rather than sci-fi, but Brandon Sanderson's recent epic, "Words of Radiance", was written as a trilogy with interstitial short stories - but meant from the beginning to have been published as a single book. (As per this interview.)
Then books started taking over. They made more money for several reasons.
Now a book is not profitable, at least not first ones. It takes time for authors to become famous enough to get enough readers.
So the only way to make money writing a book is to do it in series. First one creates a market, the second one makes small profit, the third or greater one makes the real money.
I can't see the trend continuing - having to write multiple series before you make a profit seems extreme. Or worse, not making any profit until it moved to video would be ridiculous.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Although this isn't news, it does make me realize that it is very similar to a style of TV show I rather like: episodes that can stand on their own, but with a strong story arc that plays out over a set of shows. Typically arcs run over a season or even several, though I would like to see them run over say a half dozen episodes so a given story arc is re-watchable in a reasonable amount of time.
The Illustrated Man?
There are plenty of places to get readership for a serial these days. BOFH is but one example of a short short serial series. Lots of long-story web comics have a one-page comic out once or twice a week. Many people do a weekly tech blog, business blog, news blog, or politics blog, many of which are multiple case studies or ongoing case studies. Serialized fiction works great on TV. Serialized short stories could definitely find a nice niche again.
If you look at the Wheel of time, it generally had 3-5 story lines running along the same time line. Just like Game of Thrones does now. This is not a new idea and its already improved on and successful for authors. The issue is how many authors can do a complex time lined parallel story without making crap?
Andy Wier's The Martian started life as a chapter at a time blog. It only became a novel later when people started asking for a version they could put on their Kindles. One advantage of this format is that the author gets feedback after each chapter and can fix things on the fly.
I read the internet for the articles.
I read every sci-fi short story I could get my hands on, usually in collections or anthologies. Once I ran out of short stories, I stopped reading science fiction. It just doesn't make it in novel form, with many great exceptions.
Cities in Flight by James Blish, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...
and Catacomb Years by Michael Bishop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
I was just scanning the comments to see if this point had already been made. Thanks!
Perhaps the most obvious example of this was Babylon 5. In many ways that woke up television producers to the option of strong story arcs across seasons or even the entire show instead of the old rule that everything had to end back in the same state where it started. Sure, there are plenty of other examples, even before B5, but I think that is what really changed the market.
Now it's standard practice for lots of shows: 24, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, and many others.
Of course, other factors now support this model that weren't really a factor with Babylon 5. Namely streaming video, DVRs, and DVDs. It's no longer a big obstacle to expect fans to not miss any episodes. Fans will stream the old episodes to catch up, record them, or buy the DVDs. In fact, the DVD market encourages strong arcs; I think people are more likely to want to own a complete story than a collection of independent episodes.
The preface to the collection "Killer in the Rain" discusses how Chandler repurposed plot, character and description from these short stories to create "The Big Sleep," "Farewell My Lovely," and "Lady in the Lake." The stories were originally published in pulp magazines and most were not republished until after his death. Short stories can help a writer discover her/his voice, develop characters, and possibly an audience.
Including famous authors like Dickens and Hawthorne. You'd get a new chpater in every monthly magazine.
Some of the short stories (like Dickens magazine publication) were carved out from novels to be able to be published in magazine format. And some novels (Farmer's Riverworld) were carved out of even larger manuscripts.
And now on Amazon, authors have found the payment plan encourages them to write many really short e-books rather than one novel.
The major advantage of a first time novelist weaving together a bunch of short stories is that the learning mistakes can be gotten out of the way quickly and then revised as the pieces are stitched together.
...and the Internet pedants will pillory you for "self-plagiarism." (Unless they agree with your politics :-))
Other examples -
James Blish: Cities in Flight "series"
James White - Sector General novels
all the Perry Rhodan books (how many of you have heard of let alone read these?)
E E Smith - Triplanetary
Randall Garret - Lord Darcy (technically a fantasy, but damned interesting in the use of logic and magic)
John W Campbell - take your pick
Despite different origins, there's a screenwriting theory that forces this process. The mini-movie method asks writer to create eight "stories" that as a whole are supposed to result in a satisfying movie. In brief:
I suppose it results in formulaic movies
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
From the encyclopedia - a theme entry on fixups (I love the encyclopedia's theme entries)
"'fixup' was a term created by AE Van Vogt
"picked up and popularised by SFE in 1979
"fixups more common in sf than any other English literature
IMHO its a key part of the case for novella length as being the ideal form for sf stories.
can't post links or direct quotes as Windows 520 mobile cutandpaste defeats me
Many classic SF novels are knit together from previous short stories -- I thought everyone knew this.
When Fantastic Voyage was being made into a movie, Bantam Books asked Isaac Asimov to write the story as a book. From the Wikipedia article, "Because the novelization was released six months before the movie, many people mistakenly believed Asimov's book had inspired the film." Asimov made some changes that he thought had to be made, but he kept to the movie's plot as much as possible.
A rule of thumb is that one page of a screenplay is about one minute of screen time. Interestingly, this works whether the page is dialog, description, action, or some combination. So if a 120 page screenplay means a movie of about two hours, most novels need to be drastically cut to be turned into practical screenplays.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Not just SciFi, but Fantasy too! Thieves World FTW!
Just because a novel was published as a series of short stories doesn't mean that it was written as a series of stories then lashed to gether later. The author may have intended it to be a single novel all along.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
What a pile of utter tripe. It's a frikkin SERIES.. that always belonged together. This is a non-sequiter for a /. post, IMHO..