Though too modest to toot his own horn himself my co-editor and very dear friend Scott D. Danielson has made his very first professional sale and I think it is very newsworthy, even though it hasn’t yet been adapted to audio (yet)! Scott sold his first ever short story to none other than the new online magazine Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show!
Adrift
By Scott D. Danielson
Publisher: Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show – Issue 2
Published: March 2006
“He was floating in dark space, stars all around. Then he noticed a dark patch of space, as if a dark hole had opened. The hole grew larger and larger, the stars disappearing, until he realized that he was looking at another ship. An immense, completely dark craft approached.”
The print edition of Adrift appears today in issue #2 (that’s the March 2006 issue). This also happens to be the same issue as Middle Woman (the story I REVIEWED back on March 1st – which was a story read by SFFaudio reviewer Mary Robinette Kowal). Adrift has a setting not unlike that of the H.P. Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos, but is also influenced by the likes of Anne McCaffrey and William Gibson, if you can imagine that. Scott’s prose is polished, shiny, poignant – had I known he had it in him I’d have been way too intimidated to email him all those years ago – this guy’s a natural writer, talented quick and full of great ideas. Now as to the inspiration, were I to guess, I’d say Scott was inspired to write Adrift in particular for two main reasons:
1. Besides running SFFaudio Scott is working on another big site. His personal blog, SFFreader has primarily been a project in which he reads and comments on ALL of the Hugo and Nebula award winning short stories, novellas and novellettes. This neo-Hurculean task has already vastly deepened his already substantial knowledge of SF&F in the short form.
2. Additionally, a few months ago Scott and I had some discussions about what makes an SF story resonate with one person and not with another. When I asked Scott in a private skype conversation to “name a favorite Science Fiction story”, he named The Star by Arthur C. Clarke – a very good story but one that didn’t resonate with me the way it resonates with him. He then asked me to name one of mine and I named The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin – a story Scott hadn’t read at that time. Scott got a hold of a copy of The Cold Equations, read it and felt the same way I had about The Star. There was a distinct gap between the two tales as well as a gap between our two feelings about the stories. In my estimation, the gap was the difference between a meaningful universe and a meaningless universe. I think Scott agreed, because in my view Adrift bridges the gap between The Cold Equations and The Star quite effectively. Now I ask you is this mere coincidence? Or is it meaningful to you?
Do yourself a favour and find out, Issue #2 of Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show is only $2.50 USD and is available now!