Space War Blues

Space War Blues is a science fiction novel by American writer Richard A. Lupoff. It is a fixup of several previously published pieces, the longest of which, "With The Bentfin Boomer Boys On Little Old New Alabama", (afterwards “WTBBB”) first appeared in Harlan Ellison's 1972 anthology Again, Dangerous Visions. In his introduction to the novella, Ellison wrote: "It is so audacious and extravagant a story that it becomes one of the three or four really indispensable reasons for doing this book. Frankly, had no other story than this one been written for A,DV — the book would be worth reading." The story appeared on the final Nebula Award ballot for Best Novella of the Year.

Lupoff wrote the book over a period of almost eleven years. He began writing “WTBBB” in 1967, submitting the first three chapters of the 36,000-word novella to Harlan Ellison. With Ellison’s encouragement, Lupoff expanded it to the 38,000-word version he turned in to Ellison in February 1969. Henry Morrison, Lupoff’s agent, submitted this version to Dell, which became interested in publishing “WTBBB” as a possible stand-alone “slim” novel. Lupoff’s contract with Ellison prohibited any prior appearance of stories slated for Again, Dangerous Visions, and along with the delay in ADV’s publication, the deal with Dell fell through.

In 1973, Lupoff wrote a pair of stories which, while directly related to each other, were tangential to the main storyline of "WTBBB". These stories, "After the Dreamtime" and "Sail the Tide of Mourning", were published in two sequential volumes of Robert Silverberg’s original anthology series New Dimensions. Both stories were on the final Hugo Award ballot of their respective years, and "Sail the Tide of Mourning" was on the 1975 Nebula Awards ballot. Another story, "The Bentfin Boomer Girl Comes Thru", closer in style to "WTBBB", was published by editor Ted White in Amazing Stories magazine. These pieces are intertwined throughout the novel (see Contents below for a chapter-by-chapter breakdown.) After a succession of editors at Dell, a 70,000-word version of the novel was finally published in paperback in June 1978, with a hardcover reprint two years later by Gregg Press, aimed primarily at libraries.

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