L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume 33 by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Galaxy Press
Published: 2017-02-17T05:00:00+00:00

Gator

written by

Robert J. Sawyer

illustrated by

Joshua Meehan

ABOUT THE STORY

Although most science fiction and fantasy short stories are written on spec—without a contract, and, indeed, usually without even a specific market in mind—there’s also a vigorous trade done in commissioned stories. These are most often created for anthologies devoted to a specific theme.

Some in the industry have tried to denigrate these—rarely, if ever, does such a story make a year’s best anthology or the Locus recommended reading list. But, in fact, lots of innovative, creative, and entertaining work is done in this way. After all, almost every novel you’ve ever read by an established writer was commissioned—contracted for before it was written—and no one ever pooh-poohs those works.

One of the joys of short story commissions is that authors are often asked to write stories that they’d never produce otherwise. All my novels are hard SF, but I’ve been invited to write both fantasy and horror at short lengths. I’ve even been invited to contribute to libertarian SF anthologies; as I quipped (while accepting the commissions!) to those editors, “I don’t think it’s technically possible to be both a Canadian and a libertarian.”

Everybody else in this anthology wrote a story hoping it would place in the Writers of the Future Contest—but our Contest winners have a strong history of very quickly starting to receive story commissions, like the one I got for this story. The late Josepha Sherman—who was one of my favorite people in the SF world—asked me to contribute to an anthology she was editing with Keith R.A. DeCandido of tales based on urban legends, like those described in the nonfiction books of Jan Howard Brunvand, such as The Vanishing Hitchhiker. Jo and Keith loved the story, and used it as the lead piece in their anthology Urban Nightmares—and I’m proud to have it reprinted here.

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