Рич Ларсон - Tomorrow Factory - Collected Fiction

Well, this is it. I remember two things about writing “Innumerable Glimmering Lights”: the endless gymnastics I had to do in order to avoid pronouns, and how organically the title drop arrived, as if it had been there all along. Aquatic aliens have always been one of my favorite varieties, and the characters’ overlong names take inspiration from K.A. Applegate’s Remnants series.

I also have one very clear memory linked to this story, and it’s from a conference weekend in Orlando. It was a beautiful warm night, and I was sitting on the edge of the pool with a friend, both of us dangling our legs in the water. The editor of Clockwork Phoenix 5 , Mike Allen, showed up, introduced himself and handed me a copy to sign for a special edition. It was the first time I signed something I’d written, and I got this thought, like, yeah, this writer thing is really happening .

I hope it keeps happening for a long, long time.

First off, I want to thank the excellent Cory Allyn and the whole team at Talos Press, without whom Tomorrow Factory would still be a pipedream. I’m also grateful to the wide variety of editors who loved these stories enough to publish them the first time around, and to the friends and family who read them in their earliest forms.

Big thanks go out to James Patrick Kelly, a hell of a writer who writes a hell of an intro, and to two other mentors who passed too soon: Gardner Dozois and Kit Reed, both of whom gave me invaluable career advice and brought my work into the spotlight whenever they could.

Lastly, I want to thank all the readers who have supported my work and who helped determine, directly or indirectly, which stories made it into Tomorrow Factory . So long as you keep reading them, I’ll keep writing them, and there’s plenty left in the tank.

“All That Robot Shit,” originally published as “All That Robot…” in Asimov’s Science Fiction , September 2016. Reprinted in The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 (Ed. Rich Horton, Prime Books). Winner of the 2017 Asimov’s Readers’ Poll Award for Best Short Story. Longlisted for the 2017 Sunburst Award for Best Short Story.

“Atrophy,” originally published in Descant (2014). Second Runner-up for the 2013 Dell Award.

“Every So Often,” originally published in Birdwell Magazine , 2011. Reprinted in Datafall: Collected Speculative Fiction (2012, self-published).

“Ghost Girl,” originally published in War Stories: New Military Science Fiction (2014, Ed. Jaym Gates, Andrew Liptak, Apex Publications). Republished in audio form by StarShipSofa (2017, narrated by Elie Hirschman). Translated into Italian by Future Fiction .

“The Sky Didn’t Load Today,” originally published in Daily Science Fiction , February 2015. Reprinted by The Fulcrum (2017).

“You Make Pattaya,” originally published in Interzone #267 , November-December 2016. Reprinted in The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 2 (2017, Ed. Neil Clarke, Night Shade Books), and The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume Eleven (2017, Ed. Jonathan Strahan, Solaris). Translated into Chinese by Science Fiction World , 2017, and Polish by Nowa Fantastyka , 2018.

“Extraction Request,” originally published in Clarkesworld #112 , January 2016. Reprinted in The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 2 (2017, Ed. Neil Clarke, Night Shade Books). Translated into Chinese by Future Affairs Administration .

“Meshed,” originally published in Clarkesworld #101 , February 2015. Reprinted in The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 1 (2016, Ed. Neil Clarke, Night Shade Books), The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection (2016, Ed. Gardner Dozois, St. Martin’s Griffin), and The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 29 (2106, Ed. Gardner Dozois, Constable & Robinson). Translated into Polish by Nowa Fantastyka.

“The Ghost Ship Anastasia,” originally published in Clarkesworld #124 , January 2017. Translated into Czech by XB-1.

“Chronology of Heartbreak,” originally published in Daily Science Fiction , October 2013.

“Dreaming Drones,” originally published in AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review , 2014.

“Let’s Take This Viral,” originally published in Lightspeed , March 2013. Reprinted in Great Jones Street . Translated into Italian by Future Fiction.

“Brute,” originally published in Apex , November 2014.

“Your Own Way Back,” originally published in Futuredaze: An Anthology of YA Science Fiction (2013, Ed. Erin Underwood, Hannah Strom-Martin, Underwords Press). Translated into Italian by Future Fiction .

“I Went to the Asteroid to Bury You,” originally published in Abyss & Apex , 2015.

“Capricorn,” originally published in Abyss & Apex , 2014.

“Edited,” originally published in Interzone #259 , July/August 2015. Reprinted in Wilde Stories 2016: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction (2106, Ed. Steve Berman, Lethe Press).

“Circuits,” original to this collection.

“Razzibot,” originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact , 2018.

“Datafall,” originally published in poem form in Strange Horizons , November 2013. Revised and published in its current form in Datafall: Collected Speculative Fiction (2012, self-published).

“Motherfucking Retroparty Freestyle,” originally published as “M.F.ing Retroparty Freestyle” in Escape Pod #514 , December 2015.

“An Evening with Severyn Grimes,” originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction , July-August 2017. Reprinted in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection (2018, Ed. Gardner Dozois, St. Martin’s Griffin), The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 3 (2018, Ed. Neil Clarke, Night Shade Books), The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume Twelve (2018, Ed. Jonathan Strahan, Solaris), and The Year’s Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction 10 (2018, Ed. Allan Kaster, Infinivox).

“Innumerable Glimmering Lights,” originally published in Clockwork Phoenix 5 (2016, Ed. Mike Allen, Mythic Delirium Books). Reprinted in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection (2017, Ed. Gardner Dozois, St. Martin’s Griffin) and The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 (Ed. Rich Horton, Prime Books).

Rich Larson was born in Galmi, Niger, has studied in Rhode Island and worked in the south of Spain, and now lives in Ottawa, Canada. Since he began writing in 2011, he’s sold over a hundred stories, the majority of them speculative fiction published in magazines like Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Lightspeed, and Tor.com .

His work also appears in numerous Year’s Best anthologies and has been translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, Polish, Czech, French, and Italian. He was the most prolific author of short science fiction in 2015 and 2016, and possibly 2017 as well. Besides writing, he enjoys travelling, learning languages, playing soccer, watching basketball, shooting pool, and dancing salsa and kizomba.

His debut novel, Annex , was published by Orbit Books in July 2018. Tomorrow Factory is his debut collection. Find more at richwlarson.tumblr.comand support him via patreon.com/richlarson.