Novel Ideas Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  ENDER’S GAME

  FIRE WATCH

  AIR RAID

  LADY IN THE TOWER

  THE POSTMAN

  BLOOD MUSIC

  BEGGARS IN SPAIN

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  The stories contained in Novel Ideas

  were later expanded into some very special

  novels:

  Anne McCaffrey’s The Rowan

  “In this sensitive portrayal (expanded from the author’s

  first published story, ‘Lady in the Tower’) McCaffrey

  draws a warm and vivid picture of a struggling frontier

  society.”—Publishers Weekly

  John Varley’s Millennium

  “Powerhouse entertainment.”—Publishers Weekly

  Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game

  Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards

  “Intense is the word for Ender’s Game.”

  —The New York Times

  David Brin’s The Postman

  “The Postman will keep you engrossed until you’ve fin-

  ished the last page.”—Chicago Tribune

  Connie Willis’ Doomsday Book

  Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards

  “A stunning novel that encompasses both suffering and

  hope . . . the best work yet from one of science fiction’s

  best writers.”—The Denver Post

  Nancy Kress’ Beggars in Spain

  Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards

  “Superb . . . an exquisite saga of biological advantages.”

  —The Denver Post

  Copyright © 2006 by Tekno Books and Brian Thomsen.

  All Rights Reserved.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Introduction copyright © 2005 by Brian M. Thomsen.

  “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card. Copyright © 1977 by Orson Scott Card. First published in Analog Science Fiction, August 1977. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Fire Watch” by Connie Willis. Copyright © 1982 by Connie Willis. First published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, February 1982. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Air Raid” by John Varley. Copyright © 1977 by John Varley. First published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Spring 1977. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Lady in the Tower” by Anne McCaffrey. Copyright © 1959 by Anne McCaffrey. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1959. Reprinted by permission of the author and her agent, Diana Tyler, MBA Literary Agency.

  “The Postman” by David Brin. Copyright © 1982 by David Brin. First published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, November 1982. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Blood Music” by Greg Bear. Copyright © 1983 by Greg Bear. First published in Analog Science Fiction, June 1983. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Beggars in Spain” by Nancy Kress. Copyright © 1991 by Nancy Kress. First published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, April 1991. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  INTRODUCTION

  by Brian M. Thomsen

  WHERE DO BOOKS come from? Do authors just spin them on looms of pen, ink, and paper from ideas thread-pulled from the flax of their minds?

  Do they spring forth fully grown in chapters and climaxes as Athena did from the head of Zeus?

  Perhaps stories function as a tryout for something better, the literary equivalent of the one-act workshop of the play eventually on its way to Broadway or perhaps the first chapter in an ongoing serial whose major plot elements are meant to be resolved later.

  Maybe the books evolve in the process of the story production, an idea that needs further elucidation, a character who might want to hang around in the author’s domain of creativity for a while longer, or perhaps even a second chance if not to get right, then to do it better.

  All of the stories herein are instances where the authors definitely got them right the first time . . . and the second time as well.

  They were great SF stories.

  They became great SF novels.

  ’Nuff said.

  The stories included herewith, however, gestated into novels in a variety of different manners.

  “The Postman” by David Brin reads like a very successful pilot episode for a TV series. It provides the necessary setup of the world situation, introduces us to our hero, and provides him with his signatory handle. It works as a wonderfully self-contained story/episode but also obviously sets the stage for more adventures, the next of which followed shortly thereafter, then leading to the novel that expanded on the previously published materials.

  The novel succeeded commercially and garnered numerous critical accolades.

  The film based on the book . . . well, the less said the better.

  Decades abounded between McCaffrey’s “Lady in the Towers” and her novel The Rowan. The sheer resilience of the character and the scenario around her demanded that the author revisit her at a later date to allow her a larger stage upon which to shine. This led to several other novels continuing the story, and establishing for McCaffrey yet another world in her literary dynasty, which already included the likes of Pern, Doona, and the Dinosaur Planet.

  Likewise the potential of the history-saving objectives of the time travel team/students of Connie Willis’ award-winning story “Fire Watch” demanded another journey back for a different mission/objective set at another date, this time in a more fully fleshed-out novel form that begat Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog. Once again, critical accolades to rival those afforded the initial story were repeated for the novels.

  John Varley’s “Air Raid” and Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game” demanded more fully fleshed-out versions of the matters initially encapsulated so succinctly in the authors’ short-form presentations before each was able to move on with their work. For Varley, the story worked its way through a screenplay treatment before its return to prose fiction in the marvelous novel Millennium, while Ender’s Game the novel occurred as newly discovered prerequisite for the author who first tried to write its sequel (Speaker for the Dead) only to find that the initial story itself deserved a fuller treatment. This resulted in the opening of an entire “Ender universe” of stories that included prequel background stories as well as side stories that filled in gaps in the larger stories and shed more light on the importance of the supporting cast and their roles in the universe as newly wrought by Ender’s actions.

  “Beggars in Spain” by Nancy Kress and “Blood Music” by Greg Bear, when expanded into their eponymous novel forms, allowed the authors to more fully examine the repercussions of the evolutionary acts that provided the thematic inspirations for their
award-winning short stories (repercussions which Kress further illuminated over three novels). Indeed, the initial short stories functioned as the setting of the premise and the placement of the tipping point; the novels provided the resultant second act.

  Sometimes good things come in small packages.

  Sometimes they serve as harbingers of greater things to come.

  These stories succeed as both.

  ENDER’S GAME

  by Orson Scott Card

  The seeds of the story “Ender’s Game” were first planted when I was sixteen. My brother Bill was in the army, and I remembered clearly his tales of basic training and officers candidate school—and why he dropped out of the latter to remain a noncom throughout his military service. To him, it made no sense that they would break down a soldier’s initiative and reduce him to blind obedience—as part of the training that was supposed to make him an effective leader.

  That same brother and his then-fiancée (now wife) Laura Dene Low gave me, as a gift for my sixteenth birthday, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. I devoured the books and determined, then and there, that I wanted to write a science fiction story.

  For that, I would need a science fictional idea—which to me meant something futuristic. My brother’s military training came to mind, and I thought: How would they train young men to be effective as officers and soldiers in space-based warfare? More specifically, how would they train them for zero-gravity combat without running the risk of losing half their trainees to deep-space accidents?

  The answer: An enclosed space, a hundred meters cubed, in which the trainees would dodge obstacles and practice the kind of close combat that might be required of them in space. The walls would keep them from drifting off; the use of laser-activated body armor that would lock as if frozen, simulating injury or death, would allow them to get the experience of combat without casualties.

  It was a good idea, that battle room, but it remained as nothing more for several years. When I finally wrote it, a lot more went into the mix than that original idea. But it was the first sci-fi story idea I ever had, and I’m still extrapolating from it even now.

  When I did get around to writing “Ender’s Game” in 1975, and Analog got around to publishing it in 1977, I thought I was done with it. The story did well—it came in second for the Hugo Award and, because of it, I won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer of science fiction or fantasy. And it continued to be my best-known, most-anthologized, most popular story for the next few years.

  I was working on an unrelated project, called Speaker for the Dead, when it dawned on me that the story would work very powerfully if the hero—who was merely an observer in the first, failed attempts at outlining the book—were Ender Wiggins, many years after the events in the story “Ender’s Game.” My publisher, Tom Doherty, agreed. And when I found it impossible to write an interesting enough prologue to Speaker to account for Ender’s passage from the story to the novel, Tom shook hands on the deal that substantially made my career: I would rewrite the story “Ender’s Game” into a novel of the same name, and add to it the ending that would bridge the gap between the two books.

  But how do you turn a successful short story into a novel? The standard approach, I knew, did not work. You can’t start with a story that has a powerful ending, and then glue another hundred thousand words onto the end. With my revision of the story “Mikal’s Songbird” into the novel Songmaster, I had learned that it is far more effective to start earlier than the short story and write most or all of the new material as events leading up to the same climax that the short story had.

  Ender’s Game thus required that I go back before the beginning of the story, to the time when Ender was picked for Battle School. I gave him a family and siblings who became important to him; I showed something of what was going on in the world, as his left-behind brother and sister became influential in the political conversation on the nets. And I was able to show how Ender learned from good and (mostly) bad commanders before he ever got to be commander of Dragon Army.

  Yet the core of the book is still the events that took place in the short story. And the climax is still the same one that the short story records.

  WHATEVER YOUR GRAVITY is when you get to the door, remember—the enemy’s gate is down. If you step through your own door like you’re out for a stroll, you’re a big target and you deserve to get hit. With more than a flasher.” Ender Wiggins paused and looked over the group. Most were just watching him nervously. A few understanding. A few sullen and resisting.

  First day with this army, all fresh from the teacher squads, and Ender had forgotten how young new kids could be. He’d been in it for three years, they’d had six months—nobody over nine years old in the whole bunch. But they were his. At eleven, he was half a year early to be a commander. He’d had a toon of his own and knew a few tricks, but there were forty in his new army. Green. All marksmen with a flasher, all in top shape, or they wouldn’t be here—but they were all just as likely as not to get wiped out first time into battle.

  “Remember,” he went on, “they can’t see you till you get through that door. But the second you’re out, they’ll be on you. So hit that door the way you want to be when they shoot at you. Legs go under you, going straight down.” He pointed at a sullen kid who looked like he was only seven, the smallest of them all. “Which way is down, greenoh!”

  “Toward the enemy door.” The answer was quick. It was also surly, as if to say, Yeah, yeah, now get on with the important stuff.

  “Name, kid?”

  “Bean.”

  “Get that for size or for brains?”

  Bean didn’t answer. The rest laughed a little. Ender had chosen right. The kid was younger than the rest, must have been advanced because he was sharp. The others didn’t like him much, they were happy to see him taken down a little. Like Ender’s first commander had taken him down.

  “Well, Bean, you’re right onto things. Now I tell you this, nobody’s gonna get through that door without a good chance of getting hit. A lot of you are going to be turned into cement somewhere. Make sure it’s your legs. Right? If only your legs get hit, then only your legs get frozen, and in nullo that’s no sweat.” Ender turned to one of the dazed ones. “What’re legs for? Hmmm?”

  Blank stare. Confusion. Stammer.

  “Forget it. Guess I’ll have to ask Bean here.”

  “Legs are for pushing off walls.” Still bored.

  “Thanks, Bean. Get that, everybody?” They all got it, and didn’t like getting it from Bean. “Right. You can’t see with legs, you can’t shoot with legs, and most of the time they just get in the way. If they get frozen sticking straight out you’ve turned yourself into a blimp. No way to hide. So how do legs go?”

  A few answered this time, to prove that Bean wasn’t the only one who knew anything. “Under you. Tucked up under.”

  “Right. A shield. You’re kneeling on a shield, and the shield is your own legs. And there’s a trick to the suits. Even when your legs are flashed you can still kick off. I’ve never seen anybody do it but me—but you’re all gonna learn it.”

  Ender Wiggins turned on his flasher. It glowed faintly green in his hand. Then he let himself rise in the weightless workout room, pulled his legs under him as though he were kneeling, and flashed both of them. Immediately his suit stiffened at the knees and ankles, so that he couldn’t bend at all.

  “Okay, I’m frozen, see?”

  He was floating a meter above them. They all looked up at him, puzzled. He leaned back and caught one of the handholds on the wall behind him, and pulled himself flush against the wall.

  “I’m stuck at a wall. If I had legs, I’d use legs, and string myself out like a string bean, right?”

  They laughed.

  “But I don’t have legs, and that’s better, got it? Because of this.” Ender jackknifed at the waist, then straightened out violently. He was across the workout room in only a moment. From the other side he called to th
em. “Got that? I didn’t use hands, so I still had use of my flasher. And I didn’t have my legs floating five feet behind me. Now watch it again.”

  He repeated the jackknife, and caught a handhold on the wall near them. “Now, I don’t just want you to do that when they’ve flashed your legs. I want you to do that when you’ve still got legs, because it’s better. And because they’ll never be expecting it. All right now, everybody up in the air and kneeling.”

  Most were up in a few seconds. Ender flashed the stragglers, and they dangled, helplessly frozen, while the others laughed. “When I give an order, you move. Got it? When we’re at a door and they clear it, I’ll be giving you orders in two seconds, as soon as I see the setup. And when I give the order you better be out there, because whoever’s out there first is going to win, unless he’s a fool. I’m not. And you better not be, or I’ll have you back in the teacher squads.” He saw more than a few of them gulp, and the frozen ones looked at him with fear. “You guys who are hanging there. You watch. You’ll thaw out in about fifteen minutes, and let’s see if you can catch up to the others.”

  For the next half hour Ender had them jackknifing off walls. He called a stop when he saw that they all had the basic idea. They were a good group, maybe. They’d get better.

  “Now you’re warmed up,” he said to them, “we’ll start working.”

  Ender was the last one out after practice, since he stayed to help some of the slower ones improve on technique. They’d had good teachers, but like all armies they were uneven, and some of them could be a real drawback in battle. Their first battle might be weeks away. It might be tomorrow. A schedule was never printed. The commander just woke up and found a note by his bunk, giving him the time of his battle and the name of his opponent. So for the first while he was going to drive his boys until they were in top shape—all of them. Ready for anything, at any time. Strategy was nice, but it was worth nothing if the soldiers couldn’t hold up under the strain.