V-S Day: A Novel of Alternate History (26 page)

V-S Day
is a novel that goes back to the beginning of my career as a science fiction author and is preceded by several different versions.

I came up with the story over twenty-five years ago while I was researching and writing my first novel,
Orbital Decay
. During that time, I’d moved to Worcester, and it wasn’t long before I discovered that it was the hometown of Robert H. Goddard. That led me to examine Goddard’s life and work—including visiting the site of Goddard’s first rocket launch in nearby Auburn—but it was when I stumbled upon a mention of Eugen Sanger’s antipodal space bomber in an appendix of Willy Ley’s
Rockets, Missiles, & Space Travel
that I realized all this could be the basis for an alternate-history story. I originally conceived it to be a novel, but once I sold
Orbital Decay
to Ace, my editor, Ginjer Buchanan, encouraged me to write and publish some short fiction to introduce myself to readers before the book came out. I therefore decided to reduce the novel to a short story, which could be written and sold more quickly.

The first version, “Operation Blue Horizon,” was published in the September 1988 issue of
Worcester Monthly
, a city magazine to which I was a regular contributor. Its publication preceded both “Live from the Mars Hotel,” my official literary debut in the mid-December 1988 issue of
Asimov’s Science Fiction
, and
Orbital Decay
, which came out a year later. That’s because
Worcester Monthly
’s editor, my good friend Michael Warshaw, wanted to scoop both
Asimov’s
and Ace by pushing the story into print. I didn’t mind. Like this novel, “Operation Blue Horizon” had its roots in Worcester, so it was only appropriate that the story be published there.

I wasn’t completely satisfied with the way “Operation Blue Horizon” turned out, though, so when Gregory Benford approached me a couple of years later to contribute a story for the What Might Have Been series of alternative-history anthologies he was coediting with the late Martin H. Greenberg, I rewrote and revised it as “Goddard’s People.” Gardner Dozois bought the same piece for
Asimov’s
, where it was published in the July 1991 issue, and I later included it in my first collection,
Rude Astronauts
, first published by Old Earth Books in 1992.

I suppose I should have let it go at that, but deep down inside, I considered it to be an unfinished work. In 1995, I published
The Tranquillity Alternative
, an alternate-history novel that used “Goddard’s People” and its companion story, “John Harper Wilson” (
Asimov’s
, June 1989, and also
Rude Astronauts
), as pseudohistorical background. By then I’d realized that the original story was flawed by historical errors: some my fault, others the inevitable result of later research by historians uncovering facts that contradicted what had been accepted truth at the time I wrote the first two versions. However, there wasn’t much I could do about it; “Goddard’s People” had been reprinted several times by then, and in that pre-ebook era, I couldn’t easily revise that which was already in cold print.

In 1997, though, I got a chance to set things right when an independent filmmaker, John Ellis—with whom I’d previously worked in an effort to turn
Orbital Decay
into a movie—optioned the film rights to “Goddard’s People.” John was working on the HBO miniseries
From the Earth to the Moon
at the time, and it was his intent to pitch “Goddard’s People” to them as a made-for-cable movie. I wrote the screenplay adaptation, during which I added, expanded, and revised many scenes. John also brought aboard illustrators and spaceflight historians Scott Lowther and my friend Ron Miller to act as technical advisors and concept artists, and they contributed their knowledge and insights to the multiple drafts the screenplay went through over the next couple of years.

Unfortunately, HBO took a pass on “Goddard’s People,” and John was unable to find another studio that was interested in the project, so my screenplay went into a file cabinet. In 2005, a young Worcester impresario and Goddard buff, Robert Newton, bought the film rights and wrote a screenplay of his own, with the intent of pitching it to The History Channel, but nothing came of that, either. My involvement in the latter effort was minimal, and after it failed, I became convinced that a movie would never be made of this story.

A couple of years ago, while fishing through my file cabinet in search of something else, I found the screenplay I’d written a dozen years earlier. Out of curiosity and perhaps nostalgia, I pulled it out and reread it, and realized that my original idea had been the right one: The story really should have been a novel all along.

That screenplay gave me a rough outline for a much longer story. However, there are several places where the novel departs from the original story and my screenplay (Rob Newton’s script was not used as a source). A close reader may also find a couple of instances where
V-S Day
is inconsistent with
The Tranquillity Alternative
or “John Harper Wilson.” This is because I tried to stick as close to historical fact as I could, taking advantage of information I didn’t have in the eighties and nineties, and therefore decided that this was more important than trying to maintain consistency with material I wrote decades ago.

As before, I had considerable help from my friends. Both Ron Miller and Scott Lowther returned as advisors, letting me bounce ideas off them and also contributing new illustrations of
Silbervogel
and
Lucky Linda
. Larry Manofsky, fellow high-school alumnus and former member of NASA’s astronaut training staff, reviewed the original Sanger-Bredt study and gave me a technical analysis that answered many questions I still had. Dr. Christopher Kovacs, MD, came to the rescue when I needed to find a way to kill someone in a training centrifuge. Rob Caswell acted as first reader, often making suggestions that resulted in even more rewrites but also helped the novel become stronger. If there are any mistakes this time around, it’s not because we didn’t try.

For their encouragement many years ago, I’d like to thank Mike Warshaw, Greg Benford, the late Marty Greenberg, Gardner Dozois, John Ellis, and Rob Newton, all of whom were the original story’s godfathers at one point or another.

Finally, special thanks to my editor, Ginjer Buchanan, and my agent, Martha Millard, for making it possible for me to take care of unfinished business, and my copy editors, Sara and Bob Schwager. As always, my greatest appreciation goes to my wife, Linda, who served at different times as muse, research assistant, travel agent, and ambulance driver.

—WHATELY, MASSACHUSETTS
JUNE 2012–APRIL 2013

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