Reality and Other Fictions by Jeffrey A. Carver

Author:Jeffrey A. Carver [Carver, Jeffrey A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Carver; Science Fiction; short stories
Publisher: Book View Cafe
Published: 2012-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

Seastate Zero

Behind the story:

A few years after "Of No Return" was published, I returned once more to the undersea realm. (Not for the last time. I would eventually write two complete novels set on and under the oceans of distant, alien worlds.)

At the time I was writing "Seastate Zero," I had made a fair start at a career of writing novels. Short stories still interested me, though—partly because I liked to read them and I believe in writing what you like to read, and partly because it was widely regarded as a good career move to keep writing short fiction even while writing novels. The rationale was that short stories put you before a wider audience than you might pick up from sales of your novels. The monthly SF magazines were going strong, and everyone knew it was a good career move to sell, say, to Analog or Fantasy and Science Fiction (a.k.a. F&SF). I was trying to do that, but as I've mentioned, I was a slow writer and seemed to be even slower, relatively speaking, at writing short than I was at writing long.

Still, I returned to the task from time to time. For reasons that seem silly in hindsight, I had a bee in my bonnet about selling a story to Analog. That was the magazine best known for publishing hard SF, can-do stories; it was the magazine with rivets. The thing is, while they published some truly great stuff, they also published a lot of stories that left me disappointed. I won't try to analyze why; maybe it was the writing, or maybe it was just a matter of taste. Nevertheless, I wanted to sell a story there. I was young; I was inexperienced; I don't think it ever occurred to me that the editor of Analog was publishing those stories because he liked them, even if I didn't. I think I wanted to prove to the world that I could do better.

The story you're about to read is the closest I've ever come to writing a true Analog story. It's hard SF; it has some rivets; it's about men and women using their wits and their technical ingenuity to solve a critical problem: oil gushing from a sunken ship. I finished it and sent it confidently off to Analog, sure that I'd cracked the nut this time. It came back in record time, with a note that it was a good story, but it wasn't right for Analog. What?

In due time, I sold it instead to F&SF, arguably the more difficult (or at least unpredictable) market, and the last place I'd expected this story to land. It appeared in the January 1978 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction—thus proving, in case you had any doubt, that it rarely pays to second-guess what an editor wants. Herewith, appearing for the first time since that publication, "Seastate Zero."

_______________

News of the oil spill got around quickly at NorthAtStat Two. Robert Dalton, Diving Chief, caught it in the sonarphone chatter muttering about him in the cockpit of a utility sub.

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