I was wondering how long it would take for somebody to notice that the copies of The Ursa Major Awards Anthology sold at Anthrocon 2012 had twelve stories, but the copies sold since then have only eleven stories. Anthrocon began June 14 and it's now November 2 -- not quite five months.
When FurPlanet and I started to put together The Ursa Major Awards Anthology, there were thirteen stories that I wanted to include, if the book could fit that many into it. The eleven that are in it now which included all of the Ursa Major winners except the two by Kyell Gold that we had decided were too much Kyell Gold; and five finalists -- the three included in the book, "The Good Sport" by Bill Kieffer from The Metamor Keep website in 2001, and "Niner-Thirteen" by Jim Hayden from Yarf! #61 in 2001. Teiran at FurPlanet said okay.
The first failure was of "The Good Sport". Bill Kieffer had disappeared since 2001, and nobody could find him to get his reprint permission. Chris O'Kane, the Metamor Keep webmaster, was apologetic, but the story was copyrighted by Kieffer and we would have to get his permission. We could not find him by press time, so we regretfully dropped the story. (You can read it on the Metamor Keep website. A couple of months after The Ursa Major Awards Anthology was published, O'Kane found Kieffer's current address and put us in touch with him. We have his permission to include "The Good Sport" in the next anthology that we publish.)
Jim Hayden originally said "yes" to including "Niner-Thirteen", and we announced The Ursa Major Awards Anthology as containing twelve stories. Jim signed the contract for the book, Teiran sent in the order to have 40 copies printed for sale at Anthrocon, and just about a week before Anthrocon we got an e-mail from Jim. He had talked with a lawyer, who warned him that he could get fired from his job as a schoolteacher if he allowed one of his stories to be reprinted in a "mature" anthology. It seemed that Jim was nearing retirement age, and his school was firing its retiring teachers using any excuse to avoid having to pay retirement pensions. We pointed out that if he was fired for such a reason, he would have excellent grounds for a wrongful termination of employment lawsuit; but Jim said that he would rather not be fired in the first place.
Teiren and I felt that, even if we had Jim's signed contract, we did not want to be responsible, and become known, for deliberately getting him fired. The problem was the 40 copies of the book with the story in it. There was not time before Anthrocon to have the book reprinted without the story. FurPlanet had advertised the book as premiering at Anthrocon; it would have a lot of questions to answer if it missed Anthrocon. Also, the 40 copies had already been printed and FurPlanet's printer would have to be paid. Jim agreed to allow the copies with "Niner-Thirteen" to be sold at Anthrocon if all the copies of the anthology printed after the con had it removed. So those attendees of the Anthrocon who bought one of those 40 copies have a "rare collectible". The review copies sent out of the anthology were of the second printing, without the story.
"Niner-Thirteen" is the first story in a series of futuristic anthro-crewed military spaceship adventures. Yarf! published the first three of them and the first half of the fourth story in its final issue. Hayden has at least three more unpublished. They deserve reading, and I hope that he is able to have them published somewhere -- maybe after he retires.
I was wondering how long it would take for somebody to notice that the copies of The Ursa Major Awards Anthology sold at Anthrocon 2012 had twelve stories, but the copies sold since then have only eleven stories. Anthrocon began June 14 and it's now November 2 -- not quite five months.
When FurPlanet and I started to put together The Ursa Major Awards Anthology, there were thirteen stories that I wanted to include, if the book could fit that many into it. The eleven that are in it now which included all of the Ursa Major winners except the two by Kyell Gold that we had decided were too much Kyell Gold; and five finalists -- the three included in the book, "The Good Sport" by Bill Kieffer from The Metamor Keep website in 2001, and "Niner-Thirteen" by Jim Hayden from Yarf! #61 in 2001. Teiran at FurPlanet said okay.
The first failure was of "The Good Sport". Bill Kieffer had disappeared since 2001, and nobody could find him to get his reprint permission. Chris O'Kane, the Metamor Keep webmaster, was apologetic, but the story was copyrighted by Kieffer and we would have to get his permission. We could not find him by press time, so we regretfully dropped the story. (You can read it on the Metamor Keep website. A couple of months after The Ursa Major Awards Anthology was published, O'Kane found Kieffer's current address and put us in touch with him. We have his permission to include "The Good Sport" in the next anthology that we publish.)
Jim Hayden originally said "yes" to including "Niner-Thirteen", and we announced The Ursa Major Awards Anthology as containing twelve stories. Jim signed the contract for the book, Teiran sent in the order to have 40 copies printed for sale at Anthrocon, and just about a week before Anthrocon we got an e-mail from Jim. He had talked with a lawyer, who warned him that he could get fired from his job as a schoolteacher if he allowed one of his stories to be reprinted in a "mature" anthology. It seemed that Jim was nearing retirement age, and his school was firing its retiring teachers using any excuse to avoid having to pay retirement pensions. We pointed out that if he was fired for such a reason, he would have excellent grounds for a wrongful termination of employment lawsuit; but Jim said that he would rather not be fired in the first place.
Teiren and I felt that, even if we had Jim's signed contract, we did not want to be responsible, and become known, for deliberately getting him fired. The problem was the 40 copies of the book with the story in it. There was not time before Anthrocon to have the book reprinted without the story. FurPlanet had advertised the book as premiering at Anthrocon; it would have a lot of questions to answer if it missed Anthrocon. Also, the 40 copies had already been printed and FurPlanet's printer would have to be paid. Jim agreed to allow the copies with "Niner-Thirteen" to be sold at Anthrocon if all the copies of the anthology printed after the con had it removed. So those attendees of the Anthrocon who bought one of those 40 copies have a "rare collectible". The review copies sent out of the anthology were of the second printing, without the story.
"Niner-Thirteen" is the first story in a series of futuristic anthro-crewed military spaceship adventures. Yarf! published the first three of them and the first half of the fourth story in its final issue. Hayden has at least three more unpublished. They deserve reading, and I hope that he is able to have them published somewhere -- maybe after he retires.
Fred Patten