I’ve been sending this one around for a while, but it finally got published. It’s on a free internet site.
The story is A Light so Brilliant and Wondrous, and you can find it here:
It’s a retelling of the story of Frankenstein – with one small change.
I sent it in to Analog, who held it for a long time. They rejected it, but said that
a.) It was the best thing I’d sent them so far
b.) Even though they hold up “Frankenstein” as an example of early science fiction, they implied that there just wasn’t enough science in this one.
In any event, read it for yourself.
I have another story, The Game of Hare and Hounds, coming out soon in 20,000 Leagues Remembered, an anthology published in honor of the 150th anniversary of the publication of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I don’t know the date yet, but it’s being published by Pole-to-Pole Publishing.
That sig line doesn’t need to be part of an SF story, because it already is a story. It’s about as short as a short-short can get, but it’s still self-contained.
I imagine this story will be more readable than Shelley’s. I tried to read that, but eventually shifted from wondering “When is the action going to start?” to realizing that it already had, and this was it.
This was held even longer than they normally do, to the point where I broke my usual rule and asked them about it. I think it slipped through the cracks.
You’ll be happy to know that, although I tried to copy her style*, I had to cut down the long description and padding and get to the action quickly, because I wanted this to be novella length.
*Try doing that, sometime. As I’ve noted before on this Board, early 19th century writers tended to be pretty wordy. I actually cribbed directly from Shelley near the beginning, although stripping it to essentials. In the later part of the story, where it diverges from hers, I had to rely on my own devices.
