Monday, September 07, 2009

Lost Stories

A couple of years ago when I was putting together my short story collection OLD TIMES' SAKE for Ramble House, there were a few stories of mine I simply couldn't find, not the manuscripts or the magazines in which the stories were published. As I mentioned a while back, Livia came across a box of books and magazines at her parents' house that had a couple of the issues with the lost stories. If all goes as planned, I'm going to post the first one of them here tomorrow, which will be this particular story's first appearance in almost thirty years.

In the meantime, there are still two more stories I can remember that are nowhere to be found: a mystery called "Dreams Before Breakfast", which was published in either SKULLDUGGERY or SPIDERWEB (small press mystery magazines that were put out by the same people) in the late Seventies or early Eighties; and a science fiction story called "Bugeyes", which appeared in the Winter 1984/85 issue of SPACE & TIME. (I was able to look that up on the Internet; I had no idea when it came out other than sometime in the Eighties.) If any of you long-time collectors happen to have either of these stories on your shelves and would be willing to photocopy or scan them, I'd love to see them again after all these years, and I might even publish them here on the blog.

I don't have copies of any of my confession or men's magazine stories, either, but it's probably better if they stay lost.

8 comments:

Rittster said...

James,
Here are some issues of Skullduggery and Skullduggery you have written stories for. You'll have to email the sellers and ask if their issues have the particular story you're looking for. Let us know what happens.

http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=Y8z8Gxh7AmSrKxVQz.cQ8rqRQJE_8701301461_1:231:978

and

http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=Y8z8Gxh7AmSrKxVQz.cQ8rqRQJE_5523203046_2:244:987

Rittster said...

Whoops, I meant to say Skullduggery and Spiderweb.

B.Ritt

James Reasoner said...

Thanks, Brian. I didn't even think about that. I'll check it out.

Charles Gramlich said...

I don't have any lost stories, in that I have copies of all of them on computer. I have some lost publications, though, things I've never seen although supposedly my stuff was published there.

Looking forward to the reprint!

Juri said...

Is "Bugeyed" the story that appeared as the other story of a double book, with the other story being by Gary Lovisi?

Rittster said...

J,
Here is a checklist with pictures of six different Skullduggery covers and four Spiderweb covers. Maybe seeing these will jog your memory as to which issue "Dreams Before Breakfast" is in. Very cool looking covers, by the way.
http://www.philsp.com/mags/skullduggery.html
B.R.

James Reasoner said...

Brian,

Thanks for the link. The Fictionmags Index works only intermittently on my computer, for some unknown reason, but I'll keep checking.

Jur,

No, the story you're thinking of is "Terran Girls Make Wonderful Wives", a science fiction/private eye novella of mine. I don't have a copy of that one, either, come to think of it.

Juri said...

Yeah, that's it, now I see the title. I seem to remember someone commenting on it on Fictionmags - you might want to ask Denny Lien. I think it was him, who wrote something about it - it was about a discussion on the double format.