FIXUP

   A term first used by A.E. VAN VOGT to describe a book made up of previously published stories fitted together - usually with the addition of newly written or published cementing material - so that they read as a novel. Aware that fixups are immensely more common in GENRE SF than in any other literature in the world, we borrowed the term for the 1979 edition of this encyclopedia, and continue to use it now; an example is van Vogt's own THE WEAPON SHOPS OF ISHER (fixup 1951). We do, however, recognize that it is not always an easy description to apply with accuracy. It is, for instance, sometimes impossible to know whether or not a series of connected stories has in fact been extracted from an already-written book, which for some would make it impossible to describe that book as a fixup; some readers and authors, in other words, feel that the term can be applied only to novels assembled from previously existing work.We disagree. A book which is written so as to be broken up for prior magazine publication may well, in our view, constitute a perfectly legitimate example of the form, though we do recognize that when we call such a text a fixup we are making a critical judgment as to the internal nature - the feel - of that text. We should perhaps emphasize, therefore, that the term is not, for us, derogatory. In fact, the fixup form may arguably be ideal for tales of epic sweep through time and space. It is perhaps no accident that Robert A HEINLEIN's seminal GENERATION-STARSHIP tale, "Universe" (1941), ultimately became part of Orphans of the Sky (fixup 1963 UK).

   JC