Beta Universe - posted May 19, 2002
The idea for Beta Universe came to me one night as I was slipping off to sleep. I immediately thought it was the most brilliant story idea I had had and set to scrawling down everything I could before heading back to bed.
It seemed so original and funny that I felt it couldn't possibly miss being a great story that was sure to be published. Well, it missed.
I sent it off first to Asimov's offices in Manhattan on September 10th (yes, the day before the WTC attacks in New York), and three or four months later I received a generic rejection letter.
Not completely discouraged, I next tried a Canadian publication called On Spec and sent it off on February 14th (which happened to be the day before my Dad passed away), and two months later I received another rejection letter, this time
with details as to why they weren't interested. Here is a scan of the letter. Ouch.
In the time since I had first written Beta Universe I had received a few other letters for different stories that said much the same thing,
so it wasn't altogether shocking. The fact that I don't read very often was beginning to hold me back. When I start working on a story idea I tend to avoid all other fiction for fear that
I will be inspired by it and somehow replicate ideas or themes in my own work. The feeling of creating something truly unique and new (which is how I felt when I wrote this story), is truly thrilling.
The problem is that by simply putting blinders on to what has already been written I set myself up for this type of result. I've changed my ways this year and am always reading at least
one novel at a time now, no longer sheltering myself from other work. Eventually I hope this pays off and I end up creating work that stands on the shoulders of other writing rather than redoing what's
been done thousands of times before.
I re-read Beta Universe again after receiving the On Spec rejection letter and I do agree with most of their points. Not to mention the fact that, like usual, the quality of writing
is fairly weak. The bright side of that is that I continue to get better with each story I complete.
Anyhow, hopefully some bit of the original inspiration for the story gets through to you when you read it. I laughed on quite a few occasions when I watched Rodek go about his business, but
it looks like some more practice on translating brain to print is needed ;)
Read it!
There are three ways to read the story:
1) E-Book format, read with  or  .
2) PDF format, read with  . (this format is printable)
3) On the web page in applet form .
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