YW Short Stories

[Peter Murray]

JustMe asked:
I'm confused about the different titles/collections. In the US, what titles am I most likely to find these books published under?

In bookshops, the combined title (The Sword and the Dragon). In libraries, with inter-library exchange, you might still find older copies of them, under the three original Door titles. (And the second combined volume is... pending.)

[Lady Rhiannon]

Uh, Two questions (still off topic) XP, VC's lil Sis. Chime chat area I'm assuming? And, Midnight in what time zone?

[Peter Murray]

Originally posted by Peter Murray:
If W@W is delayed to October 2005 (that _was_ what DD said might happen in the chat, wasn't it?)

In the chat on Saturday, DD said that, as far as she knows, it's still due in July, so don't bother panicking .

[LughTheOne\'sChampion]

Originally posted by 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.


Wizards at War was supposed to come out October 2004? Ok, I'm a little peeved. What happened there?
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]

Errr. Lugh? You can always delete a posting, if you change your mind later, or you made a mistake. The little icon of the pencil eraser over the folder ( ) will let you edit/delete a post.

Just out of curiousity, if a DD short story anthology came out, but only one or two of the stories were YW-related and YA, would/could you buy it? I mean, I'd be there with money in hand to get one, just to have them all in one convenient volume. But I'm not a typical member of this board.

[alla]

I would, kli. Or dad would probably buy it any way . hehe, over the past few years the collection of DD stuff has expanded. At one stage we only had SYWTBAW - and then dad started getting the others . I might only read the YW ones to start with though. Especially if the others were attached to some of the other books whose charries I wasn't familiar with, but I'd read them sooner or later.

[Ankaa]

I was just wondering how good the stories would be if DD didn't have much space to develop them, and she did a lot of them. Not that she can't write short stories or anything, it's just that if you didn't want to "connect" any of the short stories, so you'd have to read them in order (that would make the collection like another book)...well, they don't go anywhere. after a lot of stories that might get...repetitive.

[Kathy Li]

Ankaa, space/length doesn't necessarily mean limiting the subject matter. In fact, short stories often let writers go farther than they would in a novel, simply because the idea has to be more streamlined.

I'm not sure I understand why you think you'd have to read them in order, or why their being unconnected would naturally lead to repetition. Can you explain a little more? To me, anthologies are like a buffet, where you can pick and choose, and usually the range of what's on offer is wider than what's in a novel.

Among DD's short stories, you'll find romance, science fiction, fantasy (high, low, dark, and urban), humor... I don't find them repetitive at all.

[Ankaa]

It just seems like after a while of having to use completely new subject matter it would start getting redundant or predictable. maybe, maybe not--some authors are better than others at this; DD is one of the good ones. (at not getting predicatble or repetitive, that is!) there wouldn't be room for the subplots, only the plots, and I think that because short stories are, well, short, you wouldn't get as much background information as usual and I think they'd be harder to get into. I'm not opposed to a short story anthology, just saying it'll be tricky.

[RhyanonSorenson]

<span class="ev_code_PURPLE">I still haven't read many other DD works...hm...that's something I need to look into!

The book where dinosaurs are mentioned to Nita's mom is Wizard's Dilemma. (I'm currently re-reading the entire series. )</span>

[Nathan]

For those who haven't noticed, DD has started work on a new YW short story! As mentioned on Out of Ambit (at the bottom of this post), it is slated for publication "in an anthology of wizards-in-business stories coming out next year". The story's title is "Source Material", which she just arrived at yesterday&mdash;see the link in the above post, where she also mentions that the 'source material' here is chocolate. (No word as yet as to which, if any, previously established YW characters are appearing in the story&mdash;perhaps something to ask about during the next chat if DD hasn't revealed anything before then.)

Also, with regard to The Door Into Starlight, it may not just be DD's other work that has prevented her from completing it by now; she has mentioned several times that it is a difficult book for her to write: In a 1998 USENET post, she said that Starlight "remains recalcitrant", and, in a slightly later post, that it is one of those books that has "been waiting, it seems to me, for their writer to acquire enough experience to write them properly. And as for the fourth and last book of this group [i.e., Starlight], in which, well, a lot of things happen, I want to make sure that everything turns out right. Otherwise I will kick myself right around the block. (And I suspect I'll have a lot of help.) ". More recently (September, 2005), she has still stated (near the end of a long post with some highly interesting YW tidbits) that "It [Starlight] really is about to be at the top of the workpile. However, this is just one of those pieces of work that, now that it's finally in hand, can't be rushed. (Yeah, I know, I hear the screams now. "Twenty years, how the $%&# is that rushed??!!")"

[Nathan]

Originally posted by 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"...

Hah! I found it! (And hadn't hallucinated this at all&mdash;Google seems to have finally managed to index all of Out of Ambit.)

For those who are interested, this is the pertinent Out of Ambit post. I was slightly off in that she was referring to an (at least then) untitled short story about a game show and not "Herself" as the possible candidate, but otherwise seem to have remembered the quote fairly accurately&mdash;the original is, "The brain is ticking over on this one [the game show short story], which I suspect will be another candidate for an eventual, putative Duane short-story anthology called New Gods for Old. (Assuming the thing ever happens.)"

I'm curious as to what became of the game show short story: Is it still in progress (about two and a half years later)? Or is it "Cold Case" (the only new short story in DD's bibliography)? (Alternatively, she could have either had to abandon it or it could have not yet made it into her online bibliography.)

[Nathan]

For those who are following this discussion (is there anyone?) and haven't noticed these tidbits already, here's some more information on "Source Material" from the Concordance: First, its name has changed to "Theobroma", making the importance of chocolate explicit in the title. Second, we now know (from the "Uptown Local" Concordance entry, of all places) that it features "adult characters"&mdash;still no word as to whether these are adult characters to whom we have been previously introduced. Finally, it is slated to appear in early 2007, but no publication details are given. (Presumably it is still going to press as part of the "wizards-in-business anthology", but any details, such as the editor or title [though the latter may still be in flux] have not come to my attention.)

[Peter Murray]

I didn't ask what characters will be in it, but DD did say this in the chat:
Diane Duane: The anthology is called "Wizards, Inc.": the publisher is Daw -- I think it'll be out next spring.

Both "Source Material" and "Theobroma" give me this mental image of adult Nita and Kit chasing Carmela to stop her chocolate pushing activities. But somehow, I doubt it'll be anything like that .

[Birdhead]

Both "Source Material" and "Theobroma" give me this mental image of adult Nita and Kit chasing Carmela to stop her chocolate pushing activities. But somehow, I doubt it'll be anything like that.

Although that would be extremely amusing. Possibly it will showcase the work of wizards working against Carmela and her fellow interplanetary chocolate criminals? She could guest star with the eggbeater.