The World in the Middle
“Tuning in to the Electromagnetic Specter”
“Rock and Roll Death Machine”
Originally, I sketched out the main story idea with Mike Olsen one day early in 1999 during coffee break.
Then I wrote the following to Shannon Hurley 1999–10–06:
I have this fairly sick idea for a mystery story. (A friend and I sketched this out over a thirty-minute coffee break at work!) A fading or defunct rock group goes on a comeback tour and dies on stage in a spectacular accident; the video of that last concert is a best-seller, and sales of their previous releases go through the roof. Something similar happens to a couple of other has-been bands.
Now the promoters are deliberately organizing “Take a Chance” or “Racing to Heaven” tours, the concerts draw sell-out crowds, and there’s no shortage of bands signing up to (1) go out in a blaze of glory and (2) make a fortune (only about half the tours end in sudden death). Okay, the first killer concert or two might really have been accidents; but it’s obvious that somebody is now arranging the deaths.
The story follows some luckless detective or journalist or insurance investigator who’s trying to figure who’s doing the arranging. Luckless, in that nobody else, including the bands who die, has much incentive to want the Rock ‘n’ Roll Death Machine to stop.… (Ooh, I think I just got my working title!)
During December 1999, I decided to set the story in the Minneapolis area of Minnesota. During my Christmas vacation, I discussed some story ideas with friends in Minneapolis, then started writing a plot outline. In January 2000 I wrote the story.
“Deathwatch on Earth”
“Christmas House-Hunting Trip”
Since at least the early 1970s, I’d toyed with the idea of a ‘realistic’ story about Santa Claus. One key point is that his Workshop is located, more sensibly, on land, not out on the Arctic ice pack.
Then I wrote the following to Shannon Hurley on 2001–09–11 (Leslie is her daughter, and was three years old at the time.):
In your email of 25 June, you report that how much Leslie enjoyed the toy miner’s headlamp you gave her. I can believe it. I’ve seen how much little kids enjoy playing with flashlights, and you gave her a flashlight to wear.
<Begin fevered writer mode>
Toy miner’s headlamp. A headlamp for a miner of toys. Perhaps Santa’s been mining his toys all these years, and it’s gnomes or dwarves that work for him, not elves. (Perhaps he’s an elf, and he’s enslaved dwarves to mine toys for him. (But why?) Do the dwarves revolt or go on strike, threatening Christmas?) Perhaps the vein of toys is giving out, threatening Christmas and forcing Santa to seek a new source of toys. Does he turn to Outer Space?
This goes in my notes! It’s a little late for a Christmas story for this year, but there’s always next year.…
How much’ll you give me if I don’t give you credit for this idea? :-)
<End fevered writer mode>
A headlamp for a miner who is a toy? Nah, no story potential there.
Lever of Archimedes
“Cold Contact”
Cruithne Story
Lowport Story
I saw the following entry in “The Market Maven” section of Speculations #43, October 2001:
3k-10k words. LowPort is that section of the harbor, the spaceport, the city or the spacestation where the scrapin-by folk live, not the star captains in their glittery tradeships, or the merchants in their silks, but the people who work on the docks, or who steal, or whore, or who dream of getting out. This is not a shared Liaden Universe antho, each author runs what they brung, if you regularly work in your own universe feel free to submit a story that fits there, open to cross-genre stories, but not splatterpunk. Deadline: July 15 ‘02. 5–8 c/word OA.
Almost immediately, I decided to create an economically beleaguered fishing village on Blefuscu Strait in Laputa, the Belter capital habitat in my Solar Society universe.