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Who says the gods haven't a sense of humor?
Does anyone on my friendlist know Dorothy J. Heydt and why her Cynthia stories were never collected? They are some of my favorite short classical fiction and they are impossible to find and read in order unless you have access to fourteen Sword and Sorceress anthologies, which I almost do.
I grew up with the original Sword and Sorceress (1984) on my parents' shelves. It was my introduction to a whole bunch of authors, including Heydt, but "Things Come in Threes" never made that much of an impression on me as a child. I got the rock-paper-scissors punch of the ending, but the historical in-jokes eluded me until my first or second year of college when I could read Greek as well as Latin and I was learning classical history and all of a sudden the story was hilarious. After that I foraged through used book stores for the last sixteen years of Sword and Sorceress and bought all the ones that contained stories of Cynthia, daughter of Euelpides. Evidence of this box I just unpacked suggests that this process maxed out in 2000 with "An Exchange of Favors" in Sword and Sorceress XVII, leaving me with eleven anthologies. The Internet Database of Science Fiction tells me there are three further Cynthia stories I've never read. I don't know if they form a full cycle or if they break off. I hope they stay good. As late as 2005, I was hoping the author would put out some kind of collection or mosaic novel—the Cynthiad, maybe?
It's ten years later and there is still no collection and this makes it very difficult to recommend the stories. At this point I would accept an e-book, and I hate reading off screens. Was there some weird copyright issue? I can't believe there wasn't enough of an audience for beautifully written, wry, well-researched, correctly estranging and intelligent third-century-BCE history plus magic to make publication worthwhile. Does anyone have any idea what happened?
[edit] I have been informed that the editor who bought the stories individually rejected the collected cycle on the grounds that it lacked a plot. I disagree with this profoundly, factually as well as morally. Self-published edition? I'd throw money at it.
[edit edit] The author provides an explanation for the absence of self-published editions in comments.
I grew up with the original Sword and Sorceress (1984) on my parents' shelves. It was my introduction to a whole bunch of authors, including Heydt, but "Things Come in Threes" never made that much of an impression on me as a child. I got the rock-paper-scissors punch of the ending, but the historical in-jokes eluded me until my first or second year of college when I could read Greek as well as Latin and I was learning classical history and all of a sudden the story was hilarious. After that I foraged through used book stores for the last sixteen years of Sword and Sorceress and bought all the ones that contained stories of Cynthia, daughter of Euelpides. Evidence of this box I just unpacked suggests that this process maxed out in 2000 with "An Exchange of Favors" in Sword and Sorceress XVII, leaving me with eleven anthologies. The Internet Database of Science Fiction tells me there are three further Cynthia stories I've never read. I don't know if they form a full cycle or if they break off. I hope they stay good. As late as 2005, I was hoping the author would put out some kind of collection or mosaic novel—the Cynthiad, maybe?
It's ten years later and there is still no collection and this makes it very difficult to recommend the stories. At this point I would accept an e-book, and I hate reading off screens. Was there some weird copyright issue? I can't believe there wasn't enough of an audience for beautifully written, wry, well-researched, correctly estranging and intelligent third-century-BCE history plus magic to make publication worthwhile. Does anyone have any idea what happened?
[edit] I have been informed that the editor who bought the stories individually rejected the collected cycle on the grounds that it lacked a plot. I disagree with this profoundly, factually as well as morally. Self-published edition? I'd throw money at it.
[edit edit] The author provides an explanation for the absence of self-published editions in comments.
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See? Audience!
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http://pcwrede.com/why-theres-no-plot-sometimes/
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I have several reactions, so I think in order:
1. WHAT THE HELL, BETSY WOLLHEIM.
2. There is very much a plot; "Things Come in Threes" stands alone, but from "The Song and the Flute" onward, the stories are tightly linked, first by Cynthia's learning of magic and acquiring the patronage of the nymph Arethousa, later by the arc with Komi and Tanit, finally by her Orpheus-journey toward Eleusis and her interactions with the Olympian gods, which is as far as I got. The later stories feel like chapters. What the hell, and also I disagree.
3. Since when do short story collections need plots, anyway?
4. I take it nowhere else Heydt tried to place the collection took it?
5. Does she know I would buy a copy if she self-published the cycle?
Thank you for the information; I'm sorry that was the reason!
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Not every rose in a bunch needs to be off the same bush.
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Textbook "She wrote it, but..."
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Alas, I don't remember them at all, and I don't think I own them any more :(
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It was for many of them! Or, if not technically armor, then at least "completely reasonable clothing for a person who carries a sword and doesn't live in a pin-up calendar."
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http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/8118kjP23DL.jpg
(Was there a Heydt story in that one, do you remember? That's the one I have the fondest memories of).
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Well, she had just single-handedly routed the enemy commander and his really fancy siege machinery. You want to remember moments like those.
(Was there a Heydt story in that one, do you remember? That's the one I have the fondest memories of).
Yes! That's "The Gift of Minerva," a murder mystery set aboard a Roman ship. It may be the only story in the cycle without explicit supernatural action, unless you count the possibility of divine inspiration; it's also one of my favorites.
The stories I had remembered best since college were "Things Come in Threes" (Sword and Sorceress), "The Song and the Flute" (S&S III), "The Noonday Witch" (S&S IV), "The Gift of Minerva" (S&S X), "The Curse of Tanit" (S&S XIII), and "Honey from the Rock" (S&S XVI). Some of the ones I'd forgotten, however, were just as good.
The protagonist of the series is a twenty-two-year-old Alexandrian Greek widow, a physician and later magician—"the witch of Syracuse"—traveling around the Mediterranean shortly before the First Punic War. Some of her exploits include an encounter with the last of the Sirens, several confrontations with the goddess Tanit, turning into a cat, rescuing a man from the underworld, doctoring an ailing Artemis, and breaking a curse stitched into a wedding dress. I can't really think of another series like them; there are classical detectives aplenty, and historical fiction around famous figures, and more fantasies than I can name that draw in some way on the ancient world, but a series protagonist making her way through the interstices of history with matter-of-fact gods and magic? Maybe Gene Wolfe's Soldier of the Mist (1986) and sequels, but half the point of those narratives is the interaction of the fantastic with the protagonist's retrograde amnesia. Cynthia has a long memory and knows exactly who she is. Seriously, if you like her, I'm not entirely sure what else to recommend.
[edit] This is going to lead to me putting together a post about my favorite fiction with classical settings, I can tell. Just not right now, because I need to leave the house for a job!
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I'm going to start searching used book stores again, but I'd still want the collection!
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What an interesting question. I don't know! Their FAQ looks like authors themselves need to apply. I am at a disadvantage, being third-hand to this situation no matter what angle it's from.
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The author herself has appeared farther down the chain of comments (which I was not expecting, at all; the internet is a very small place), so all the information I can get feels useful to me. Thank you.
How is advertising/promotion handled at Book View Café? If that is also not saying too much.
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I really think there's a market for it! I wish I knew how the author herself felt.
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I'm sorry to hear that: I believe there is a market and I know it would make a variety of readers, including myself, very happy. I was hoping it was more the case that she hadn't really considered e-publication/POD or didn't see how it could be successfully done.
Since you work with Book View Café: in the hypothetical universe in which Heydt was interested in e-books, would you consider them a good publisher for her work?
(But if you do ask, also ask about her novels!)
Do you have contact information for her? I'll take pointers to a website; I do not wish to be a stalker. I just like these stories so much and they are undeservedly obscure.
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Book View Cafe requires writers to do some work for the collective. I kind of doubt she'd be able/interested.
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Thank you; that's another thing I didn't know about.
I appreciate all of this information.
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P.
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Also good to know.
May I ask who you and Pat Wrede published Points of Departure with? That seems the closest analogous situation, collecting a long-out-of-print cycle of short stories that effectively forms a novel (and a really good one, I should mention).
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P.
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Thank you! As of this reply, both Meg and Dorothy have come by to comment. You are a very helpful facilitator.
Cynthia Anthology
Dorothy is... a bit scared about self-publishing. She thinks that if her books are not good enough for a regular publisher, they shouldn't be published.
This is despite all the evidence (not to mention the audience) to the contrary. I'm hoping to convince her that e-publishing the collection is not the stigma it used to be when she started, but it's an uphill battle. There has also been discussions about making The Interior Life available, but she still has her reservations. Still, best way is to email her. Her old email at kithrup still works, and she checks it daily.
She would like to get her stories out there, including some which have never seen the light of day (her Star Wars novel, The Flower of Alderaan, for instance) which may not be sold but could be read for entertainment.
Re: Cynthia Anthology
Hello, Meg! Thank you for commenting and enabling your mother to comment as well; I came home to messages from both of you and I really appreciate the time and care. I would love to see her work more readily available, as seems to be the consensus in comments on this post—I've been multiply recommended The Interior Life at this point and I didn't even know she had written a Star Wars novel. It is my hope that enough people's input on this problem can figure out a means of publication that is comfortable for everyone, author included. Her work is very definitely good enough.
Um, hello...
In answer to why don't I consider e-publishing, it's been suggested, but the problem is there would be no marketing. I am unable to say "Hey, I wrote this, you should buy it." I grew up in the 1950s, when tooting one's own horn was generally discouraged, especially for girls.
I bet everybody on this group has had the experience of being the bright kid in a class of normal kids. Some of you may even have read _Children of the Atom_, though it's been out of print for a long while. Group of ultra-intelligent kids who have to hide among the normal. I met the author once and she told me how she'd had many letters and conversations boiling down to "That story was about ME!"
Trouble was, I took a long time learning to act normal, and it never really worked.
So if I e-published anything I would be unable to market it, so it wouldn't sell, so it would be wasted effort.
But I'm delighted to see that so many people liked the Cynthia stories. I can summarize the final three that none of you seem to have copies of, if you like. And yes, the story definitely *does* come to an end. I read it to a party at Greyhaven and had Diana Paxson practically in tears. :)
Dorothy Heydt
Re: Um, hello...
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Um, what Sovay said, on all counts except for loving "Things Come in Threes" the first time; I continued S&S anthologies for years specifically for those stories.
The advantage of e-editions is that if it takes twenty years for everyone who needs to find them to do so, they don't have to go out of print in the mean time.
Re: Um, hello...
Dear Dorothy,
I left the house this afternoon having replied to all comments and did not expect to return to the author herself. Thank you very much for taking the time to create an LJ account and comment. I really appreciate the information.
Would you be comfortable with me making some suggestions for publication that would not require you to be the only person stumping for your work? If not, I will repeat only that the Cynthia stories are some of my favorite short fiction about the ancient world and I am a classicist by training, so I care very much about this sort of thing.
My mother used to give copies of Children of the Atom to the parents of smart children, to explain what it was like. I read it as a child myself.
Thank you again for coming here!
Re: Um, hello...
Re: Um, hello...
Update!
www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
The two versions of TIL (EPUB for most e-readers, and MOBI, for Kindles) are at the top of the page, right under the PayPal instructions. Note that the EPUB version will not yet work for Apple e-readers, but apparently a modification can be made and we'll post it as soon as a USENET friend figures it out and sends it to me.
Next spring, The Witch of Syracuse, with all the Cynthia stories including one they haven't seen yet 'cause Marion didn't buy it.
Sometime after that, A Point of Honor.
After that, maybe I'll but up my Ahseron's Call 2 fanfic, but it will need some explanatory notes
Re: Update!
This is wonderful news! I will repost it and I look forward. I don't normally buy e-books (I much prefer reading in print), but for this one I will make an exception. Thank you for letting me know!