MABFAN's Musings - March 24th, 2008

For those of you helped me out when I was trying to determine a final Table of Contents for "I Remember the Future," thank you. Apex Books has posted the ToC on their blog at Apex Book Company » Final ToC for “I Remember the Future”. I repost it here:

“Kaddish for the Last Survivor” (Analog, November 2000)
“TeleAbsence” (Analog, July 1995)
“TelePresence” (Analog, July/August 2005)
“Broken Symmetry” (Analog, February 1997)
“Absent Friends” (Analog, September 1998)
“Reality Check” (Analog, November 1999)
“Empty Spaces” (original to the book)
“Spaceships” (Analog, June 2001)
“Decisions” (Analog, January/February 2004)
“Time Ablaze” (Analog, June 2004)
“Seventy-Five Years” (Analog, January/February 2005)
“Sanctuary” (Analog, September 2005)
“I Remember the Future” (original to the book)
“Cosmic Corkscrew” (Analog, June 1998)
“Paying It Forward” (Analog, September 2003)

There is a possibility that I might switch the order of the stories "I Remember the Future" and "Paying It Forward," but for the moment, the order you see above is the one I expect to use.

My reasoning is as follows. I'm opening with my most well-known and highly regarded story, then following with my first published story and its sequel, which appeared exactly ten years later. The four "Broken Symmetry" stories come next. followed by four "unthemed" stories in chronological order.

The last three are recursive science fiction stories, that is, science fiction stories about science fiction. In particular, they're stories about science fiction writers.

Each story will have an afterword; and Apex Book is going to start taking pre-orders in just two weeks, on April 7th. Furthermore, there'll be a little surprise in store for those of you who choose to pre-order the hardcover, which I'll announce in two weeks time.

Tags: books, i remember the future, personal, science-fiction