And . . . that's it.
Well, not quite. There is still one more story to go, in this reissue of the complete writings of James H. Schmitz. That, of course, is The Witches of Karres. We will be reissuing that novel a few months from now, as the seventh and final volume of the Baen edition.
But leaving aside The Witches of Karres, and the one (and only) collaboration Schmitz ever wrote"Operation Alpha," with A.E. Van Vogtthe publication of this volume puts every story James Schmitz ever wrote back in print. And this is the first time, ever, that they've all been in print simultaneously.
I began this project almost three years ago, as the culmination of what had been a lifelong daydream to see James H. Schmitz restored to the place I believe he deserves in SF's roster of great writers. The fact that he fell almost completely out of print for so many years after his death in 1981 was, in my opinion, the single most outstanding "injustice" of this sort in the science fiction genre. (Though by no means the only onethere are many other fine writers who have suffered the same fate.)
It was my hopeand certainly my intention and goalthat with this Baen edition the so-called historical verdict might be overturned. Of course, I doubt if it will happen again that everything James Schmitz wrote will be in print at any one time. But if this edition revitalizes his reputation, and gains him a generation of new fans, that'll be enough. Sooner or later, as they always do, this edition will also start fading away into the used book stores. But . . . someone, perhaps Baen Books itself, will do another edition of some kind. Someone always does, with those few authors who gain a permanent place in SF's pantheon.
Was I successful in my aim?
I don't know, and I never will. These things can only be measured in decades, not years. I'm fifty-five years old, and (sad to say, but there it is) I won't live long enough to find out.
So be it. For me, the project is now over, and that's sufficient. There is a satisfaction in doing a job as well as you can, whether or not you ever learn its final result. Just as there is a satisfaction in paying a debt forward because you can't pay it back to the man, now long gone, who did so much to introduce a teenage boy named Eric Flint to the joys of science fiction.
That was forty years ago. If, forty years from now, something of James H. Schmitz is still in print, somebody can wake up my ghost and give me the good news.
How?
I don't know. Ask Telzey. Or Pilch. Or track down Trigger and see if her on-and-off husband, Heslet Quillan, has run into another odd monster-that-isn't. Maybe they'll understand how to talk to a ghost.
If all else fails, consult the witches of Karres.
That might be a bit difficult, I admit. Forty years from now, they'll probably have moved their planet again.