At long last, Hub!

I’m happy to report that I can finally announce another upcoming fiction project. Analog Science Fiction and Fact has bought, not just one, but three new stories in my “Hub” series of comedy SF tales! That’s right, after five years, Nashira Wing, David LaMacchia, and Rynyan Zynara ad Surynyyyyyy’a are returning to the pages of Analog for a whole trilogy of new adventures. Since the original three stories formed a loose story arc that I collected in the e-book Hub Space: Tales from the Greater Galaxy, I decided to write and submit the next three novelettes back-to-back, with an eye toward a second collection. Each story stands on its own, but there are character arcs that evolve through them, as with the first trilogy — though perhaps they’re somewhat more integrated this time.

Nashira, Rynyan, and David – art by Vladimir Bondar

The first story, “Hubpoint of No Return,” is thus a “season premiere” of sorts, introducing new characters and a new status quo for the returning cast. It’s scheduled to appear as the lead story in the May/June 2018 issue of Analog, going on sale at newsstands on April 24 and probably reaching subscribers even sooner. I would’ve announced it earlier, but I wanted to wait until I knew the fate of the other two stories, which took longer than expected.

The second story, “…And He Built a Crooked Hub,” is a four-dimensional bedroom farce involving the Hubcomplex’s tesseract hotel rooms, and by far my zaniest story yet. (Yes, that is a Heinlein nod.) And finally, “Hubstitute Creatures” will wrap things up with an adventure that takes our heroes to the heart of Hub civilization and puts them through some major changes, in more ways than one. These two have yet to be scheduled, as far as I know. Once I find out, I’ll let you know.

In retrospect, it might have made things easier for Analog‘s editor Trevor Quachri if I’d sent the stories one at a time — I thought that submitting them as a set would speed up the process, but if anything, it probably slowed things down by making the decision more complicated. Still, all three stories are finally sold, and it was an immense relief to get the contracts, just when I was really getting worried about my financial situation and desperately needed some good news. I immediately printed out and signed the contracts and hastened to the post office to mail them back ASAP, barely even noticing the below-freezing temperatures. (I walked because it takes my car a long time to warm up and start moving in cold weather, and I was too impatient to wait.)

Money matters aside, I really got invested in these stories, so it’s very satisfying to make the sales. In these new tales, I got to flesh out the Hub universe and delve deeper into the main characters’ personalities and relationships; I got to expand the cast with some fun new characters; I got to amp up both the comedy and the drama to new levels; and I finally got to realize a couple of story ideas I’ve had in mind since the early development of the Hub premise. (Ironically, the first story of the three has the newest concept behind it, though it incorporates a character I created more than a decade ago for a different project.) There’s something really satisfying about getting to develop a cast and a world over the course of an ongoing series, and this is only the second time I’ve been able to do that, the other being Star Trek: Enterprise — Rise of the Federation. So I’m really glad Analog‘s readers will get to see these stories — and that I’ll be able to release them in collected form once they’ve all seen print in the magazine, though I don’t yet know how long that will take.

 

I’ve also got a couple of other Hub-related things on the horizon — one that’s already in the works but not quite finalized yet, and another that’s more tentative but should be really cool if it happens. I’ll announce them when and if they finally come together. So stay tuned. After years of being just a lonely little e-book collection, the Hub lives again!