Preface
This is the eighth anthology of stories from the electronic magazine The Grantville Gazette that Baen Books has published, and the first one since Walt Boyes replaced Paula Goodlett as the editor of the magazine. (Paula had edited the Gazette for over eleven years and wanted to concentrate more on her own writing.)
As has proven to be true with every Baen edition of the Gazette since we shifted to a “best of” format beginning with the fifth volume, the number of issues from which we select stories continues to expand. Grantville Gazette V contained stories selected from issues 5–10, Grantville Gazette VI contained stories selected from issues 11–19, and Grantville Gazette VII contained stories selected from issues 20–30.
This eighth volume has stories which Walt and I selected from issues 31 through 45 of the electronic magazine. The reason for the expansion was the same in each case: The magazine has been so successful that we’ve had to scramble to catch up.
As of the publication of this anthology in June of 2018, the magazine is up to 77 issues. Or, to put it another way, we’re still more than thirty issues behind the magazine with these follow-on “best of” Baen paper editions. At the rate we’re going, we’ll need two more anthology volumes to catch up.
Except we won’t, even then. Here’s the publication history of the Baen Books editions of the Grantville Gazette:
Volume I November 2004
Volume II March 2006
Volume III December 2006
Volume IV June 2008
Volume V August 2009
Volume VI January 2012
Volume VII April 2015
Volume VIII June 2018
That’s eight volumes in twelve and a half years, or an average of about once every year and a half. And for the last four volumes, the average has been more like once every two and a half years. (Why the slowdown in the production rate? Basically, because we’re producing more novels in the series and there are only so many available slots for new hardcover titles.)
So…by the time we catch up to Volume 77 of the electronic magazine, it’ll be about five years from now, at which point we’ll be up to Volume 107, thereabouts.
That assumes nothing changes, of course. Which it may—series do go belly-up from time to time. But, so far at least, the Ring of Fire series has continued to enjoy commercial success and there’s no indication that’ll change any time soon.
Granted, I may be whistling as I walk past a graveyard. But cemeteries hold no fear for me. Why should they?
Because of ghosts, ghouls, wraiths, spectres and suchlike?
Be serious. We’re talking about stories here. That’s what I do for a living.
Eric Flint
November 2017