YW Short Stories

[Kat]

Does anyone else think this is a good idea? It's just there is a long gap between some of the books and it would be cool to see what happend then.

[Peter Murray]

But where would they be published? After a recent attempt to find SF magazines locally, I know that I'd have trouble finding any YW stories in print. (I have to get the books from either Amazon or places like Forbidden Planet in London.)

I can't see DD writing something just to be "published" on this site since, basically, she can't earn any money from it that way, and that's how she makes her living.

[nitafan211]

She could write little inbetween storys that she can publish, inbetween the main books. Like in Wizards Holiday when Nita is talking to Quelt about the Hurrican 'she and Kit did that obe time.' I would have liked to see a story made out of that. Maybe even have a lot of those kinds of storys in one publishing. I think it would be cool.

[Peter Murray]

Oh, yes, a book collecting YW short stories together could be good; but I suppose that many short stories would take longer to write than a novel would. It could be interesting to catch up with all the offhand references the characters have made - like some of Dairine's alien work, or the visitors Tom and Carl have.

[Kat]

I was thinking of the referance to dinosours in centeral park (or somewhere. I haven't read WD in a while) There must be plenty of gaps as the first four books take up 2 and half years.

[Peter Murray]

Yes, the dinosaurs were in Central Park; but she doesn't need to write a short story to explain that. I suppose this is a spoiler, so:
<span class="ev_code_WHITE">I'll spoiler-protect the revelation that Nita was talking about something that happened in the first Feline Wizards book, Book of Night with Moon. Now you have to read that .</span>
and back to normal with a puzzling gap in my post.

[Fox]

PM is right!!! Dino's are explained!!! but a short collection of stories is a nice idea! sort of like 'get off the unicorn' by Anne McCarrfrey. which is her version of a collection of short stories from all off her series books! though the bad side to a book like that is the short stories always end up being too short and instead of answering questions tend to creat more !! thats what i think anyway!
Fox

[Birdhead]

A short story collection would be aweomse, with all the hard-to-find stories plus some new ones.

But, well, somehow I don't think it will happen for a while. If ever DD feels like she wants to write a book of short stories I will fall on my knees worshipping- along with, I expect, the rest of us. Giant slugs on the carpet would be a wonderful backstory, for example. But it won't hapen unless she suddenly has eight ideas for short stories, plus her publisher buys into it to make it worth her while.

So: it would be nice. *shrug* but probably won't happen.

I'm really depressing today. Sorry.

[Kathy Li]

Yup, I think Tui's right. Usually a short story collection happens because an author writes a lot of short pieces, normally, and then they get collected in one place to make them easier to find. Like Connie Willis always writing a Christmas story for Asimov's December issue, and thereby leading to the Miracle collection.

However, collections and anthologies are notorious for not selling as well as novels, so there's a pressure from publishing houses not to do them. Obviously, this doesn't mean they don't occur, just that they're rarer.

In DD's case, she's so busy writing YW, Star Trek, movie scripts, and the like, that adding short stories to the schedule probably isn't realistic. However, it would be way nice to have a bunch of her existing short stories (non-YW and all) in a single collection. Maybe Meisha Merlin would be amenable to the idea if the Door books sell well?

[Nathan]

I remember DD mentioning somewhere that one of her recent short stories (I believe it was "Herself") was an excellent candidate for inclusion in "a putative Duane short story collection entitled New Gods for Old", indicating that she has obviously had thoughts along the lines Kathy was mentioning. However, while I remember reading this on Out of Ambit, I couldn't find it while browsing through the archived entries (and the PicoSearch function doesn't appear to have been re-indexed for almost a year), so there's always the possibility that I hallucinated the whole thing. (However, if I did, then it's an extremely vivid hallucination, as I have a distinct memory of having read the quote I gave above almost verbatim.)

Nathan

[nitafan211]

Saving as well...

*battles poot in nvr ending struggles of one liners*

[Peter Murray]

Oh rats. I just had an idea.

See, with Wizards at War being delayed, wouldn't it have been a good idea to take already-existing short stories and publish a collection of them instead? They could have taken the October 2004 "slot" which W@W was supposed to have had.

Of course, the right time to suggest that would have been about April, not a month after that publication date passed! It still takes time to produce a book, even if the stories already exist.

Phooey.

[Kathy Li]

Not to mention that if it were sorta kinda taking W@W's place, it would have to be all YA-suitable. Which would then require her writing new stories. :-)

BTW, did I mention? I got the Cockrum-thingie, and DD's two pages are an appreciation of the man and his work, not a story.

[Peter Murray]

Oh, that's true. Since I was already in my 20s when Door Into Fire came out, I tend to forget about such things.

Yes, you mentioned that about the Dave Cockrum tribute, but I wasn't expecting it to be a story anyway. I suppose the appreciation is interesting, anyway? Neil Gaiman had a page too, didn't he, meaning you just had to buy it?

[Birdhead]

*clucks* Nothing un-YA about Door Into Fire. I know they're classified as "adult," probably because of, well, the sex, but seriously I have read a lot more graphic that's been classified as YA. A LOT more graphic, and often it's written specifically for teenagers or youth or whatever. Dear Miffy, or a lot of John Marsden stuff... The Great Gatenby... even The Amber Spyglass, although admittedly that has enough issues all on its own to be a negative argument.