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fix-up

{{Short description|Novel created from published short stories}}

{{about|the literary form|the real estate concept|Fixer-upper|fixup in the context of executable formats on computers|Relocation (computer science)|other uses|fix-up (disambiguation)}}

{{Lead rewrite|date=January 2023}}

A fix-up (or fixup) is a novel created from several short fiction stories that may or may not have been initially related or previously published. The stories may be edited for consistency, and sometimes new connecting material, such as a frame story or other interstitial narration, is written for the new work.

The term was coined by the science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt, who published several fix-ups of his own, including The Voyage of the Space Beagle, but the practice (if not the term) also exists outside of science fiction. The use of the term in science fiction criticism was popularised by the first (1979) edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, edited by Peter Nicholls, which credited van Vogt with the term’s creation.

The name “fix-up” comes from the changes that the author needs to make in the original texts, to make them fit together as though they were a novel. Foreshadowing of events from the later stories may be jammed into an early chapter of the fix-up, and character development may be interleaved throughout the book. Contradictions and inconsistencies between episodes are usually worked out.

Some fix-ups in their final form are more of a short story cycle or composite novel, rather than a traditional novel with a single main plotline. Examples are Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, both of which read as a series of short stories which may share plot threads and characters, but which still act as self-contained stories. By contrast, van Vogt's The Weapon Shops of Isher is structured like a continuous novel, although it incorporates material from three previous van Vogt short stories.

Fix-ups became an accepted practice in American publishing during the 1950s, when science fiction and fantasy—once published primarily in magazines—increasingly began appearing in book form. Large book publishers like Doubleday and Simon & Schuster entered the market, greatly increasing demand for fiction. Authors created new manuscripts from old stories, to sell to publishers. Algis Budrys in 1965 described fixups as a consequence of the lack of good supply during the "bad years for quality" of the mid-1950s, although citing The Martian Chronicles and Clifford D. Simak's City as exceptions.

Examples

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See also

{{Portal|Novels}}

References

{{reflist|25em|refs=

{{cite book

|last=Bruccoli |first=Matthew J. |author-link=Matthew J. Bruccoli

|year=1979

|title=Raymond Chandler: A descriptive bibliography

|series=Pittsburgh Series in Bibliography

|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press

}}

{{cite magazine

|last=Budrys |first=Algis

|date=October 1965

|title=Galaxy Bookshelf

|magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction

|pages=142–150

|url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v24n01_1965-10#page/n141/mode/2up

}}

{{cite book

|last=Ingersoll |first=Ralph

|year=1940

|chapter=Publishers' foreword

|page=v

|title=Report on England, November 1940

|publisher=Simon and Schuster

|location=New York, NY

|chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/ReportOnEngland#page/n9/mode/2up

|via=Archive.org

}}

{{cite book

|last=Latham |first=Rob

|year=2009

|chapter=Fiction, 1950-1963

|page=82

|editor1-last=Bould |editor1-first=Mark

|editor2-last=Butler |editor2-first=Andrew M.

|editor3-last=Roberts |editor3-first=Adam

|editor4-last=Vint |editor4-first=Sherryl

|title=The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction

|publisher=Routledge

|isbn=9781135228361

|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y7CNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA80

}}

{{cite magazine

|last=Liptak |first=Andrew

|date=2013-08-05

|title=A.E. van Vogt and the fix-up novel

|magazine=Kirkus Reviews

|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/e-van-vogt-and-fix-novel/

}}

{{cite book

|last=Luscher |first=Robert M.

|year=2012

|chapter=The American short-story cycle

|editor-last=Bendixen |editor-first=Alfred |editor-link=Alfred Bendixen

|title=A Companion to the American Novel

|series=Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture

|volume=80 |page=370

|publisher=John Wiley & Sons

|isbn=9781405101196

|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5WyidbsLaxQC&pg=PA370

}}

{{cite book

| first1 = Peter | last1 = Nicholls

| first2 = John | last2 = Clute

| year = 1999

| title = New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

| page = 432

| publisher = Orbit

| location = London, UK

| isbn = 1-85723-897-4

}}

{{cite web

|title=Fixup

|website=Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

|edition=Third

|url=http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/fixup

}}

{{cite web

|last=Weinberg |first=Robert

|year=1980

|title=A.E. van Vogt

|type=interview

|website=Icshi.net

|publisher=Isaac Walwyn

|url=http://www.icshi.net/sevagram/interviews/weinberg.php

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201115125318/http://www.icshi.net/sevagram/interviews/weinberg.php

|archive-date=2020-11-15

|access-date=2016-12-27

|url-status=dead

}}

}}

Category:Writing

Category:Novel forms

Category:Short stories

Category:Science fiction terminology