Six Months, Three Days

Last updated
Six Months, Three Days
Anders Six Months,Three Days.jpg
Author Charlie Jane Anders
Cover artistSam Weber
LanguageEnglish
Genre Science fiction
Published2011;12 years ago (2011)
Publisher Tor.com

"Six Months, Three Days" is a science fiction novelette by Charlie Jane Anders. It was originally published online on Tor.com in 2011, and was subsequently reprinted in Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2011 Edition and Year's Best SF 17. [1] It won the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. [2]

Contents

In October 2017 Tor.com published "Six Months, Three Days" in Anders' short fiction collection, Six Months, Three Days, Five Others. [3]

Plot

Doug and Judy are both precognitive: Doug can see "the future", and Judy can see "many possible futures". They fall in love, even though they both know that their relationship will last exactly six months and three days and end very badly.

Background

Anders said in a 2016 interview that in this novelette "[t]he big challenge for me ... was how to have a satisfying resolution" to the which-future-is-right question: "they can’t both be right, but they kind of both are right, and how does that work?" [4] In another 2016 interview, Anders commented that her decision to make her 2016 novel, All the Birds in the Sky a "relationship story" was influenced by the relationship that she had created in Six Months, Three Days. [5]

Reception

The story was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette of 2011 [6] and the 2011 Theodore Sturgeon Award; [7] it won the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. [2]

Rachel Swirsky described the story as a "philosophical contrast" between determinism and free will. [8] Jim C. Hines said Anders' resolution to the fixed vs. multiple futures conflict was "simultaneously tragic and scary and hopeful", but added that it "felt right for the story". [9]

In 2013, Deadline Hollywood announced that a television adaptation was being prepared for NBC, with script written by Eric Garcia. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ted Chiang</span> American science fiction writer

Ted Chiang is an American science fiction writer. His work has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and six Locus awards. His short story "Story of Your Life" was the basis of the film Arrival (2016). He was an artist in residence at the University of Notre Dame in 2020–2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annalee Newitz</span> American journalist, editor, and author of both fiction and nonfiction

Annalee Newitz is an American journalist, editor, and author of both fiction and nonfiction, who has written for the periodicals Popular Science and Wired. From 1999 to 2008 Newitz wrote a syndicated weekly column called Techsploitation, and from 2000 to 2004 was the culture editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In 2004 Newitz became a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. With Charlie Jane Anders, they also co-founded Other magazine, a periodical that ran from 2002 to 2007. From 2008 to 2015 Newitz was editor-in-chief of Gawker-owned media venture io9, and subsequently its direct descendant Gizmodo, Gawker's design and technology blog. As of 2019, Newitz is a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andy Duncan (writer)</span> American science fiction & fantasy writer

Andy Duncan is an American science fiction and fantasy writer whose work frequently deals with Southern U.S. themes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paolo Bacigalupi</span> American science fiction and fantasy writer

Paolo Tadini Bacigalupi is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, John W. Campbell, Compton Crook, Theodore Sturgeon, and Michael L. Printz awards, and has been nominated for the National Book Award. His fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's Science Fiction, and the environmental journal High Country News. Nonfiction essays of his have appeared in Salon.com and High Country News, and have been syndicated in newspapers, including the Idaho Statesman, the Albuquerque Journal, and the Salt Lake Tribune.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlie Jane Anders</span> American science fiction author and commentator

Charlie Jane Anders is an American writer and commentator. She has written several novels, published magazines and websites, and hosted podcasts. In 2005, she received the Lambda Literary Award for work in the transgender category, and in 2009, the Emperor Norton Award. Her 2011 novelette Six Months, Three Days won the 2012 Hugo and was a finalist for the Nebula and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. Her 2016 novel All the Birds in the Sky was listed No. 5 on Time magazine's "Top 10 Novels" of 2016, won the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the 2017 Crawford Award, and the 2017 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel; it was also a finalist for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aliette de Bodard</span> French-American speculative fiction writer

Aliette de Bodard is a French-American speculative fiction writer.

<i>Terry Carrs Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year 16</i>

Terry Carr's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year #16 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Terry Carr, the sixteenth and last volume in a series of sixteen. It was first published in hardcover by Tor Books in September 1987. The first British editions were published in hardcover and paperback by Gollancz in December of the same year, under the alternate title Best SF of the Year #16.

Rachel Swirsky is an American literary, speculative fiction and fantasy writer, poet, and editor living in Oregon. She was the founding editor of the PodCastle podcast and served as editor from 2008 to 2010. She served as vice president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Liu</span> Chinese-American writer

Ken Liu is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. His epic fantasy series The Dandelion Dynasty, which he describes as silkpunk, is published by Simon & Schuster. Liu has won Hugo and Nebula Awards for his short fiction, which has appeared in F&SF, Asimov's, Analog, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, and multiple "Year's Best" anthologies.

This is a list of the published works of Aliette de Bodard.

"Fields of Gold" is a 2011 fantasy novelette by Rachel Swirsky. It was first published in the Jonathan Strahan-edited anthology "Eclipse Four", and was reprinted in Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2012.

Tina Connolly is an American science fiction and fantasy writer and poet. Her 2012 book Ironskin was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel. Her flash fiction podcast "Toasted Cake" won the Parsec Award for Best New Speculative Fiction Podcaster/Team.

"Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" is a 2009 science fiction novelette by American writer Eugie Foster. It was first published in Interzone, and has subsequently been republished in Apex Magazine, in The Nebula Awards Showcase 2011, and in The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF; as well, it has been translated into Czech, French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, and Hungarian, and an audio version was released on Escape Pod.

Sarah Pinsker is an American science fiction and fantasy author. A nine-time finalist for the Nebula Award, Pinsker's debut novel A Song for a New Day won the 2019 Nebula for Best Novel while her story Our Lady of the Open Road won 2016 award for Best Novelette. Her novelette "Two Truths and a Lie" received both the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award. Her fiction has also won the Philip K. Dick Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and been a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Tiptree Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam J. Miller</span>

Sam J. Miller is a science fiction, fantasy and horror short fiction author. His stories have appeared in publications such as Clarkesworld, Asimov's Science Fiction, and Lightspeed, along with over 15 "year's best" story collections. He was finalist for multiple Nebula Awards along with the World Fantasy and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards. He won the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award for his short story "57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides." His debut novel, The Art of Starving, was published in 2017 and his novel Blackfish City won the 2019 John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

<i>Nebula Awards Showcase 2012</i>

Nebula Awards Showcase 2012 is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel. It was first published in trade paperback by Pyr in May 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brooke Bolander</span> American writer

Brooke Bolander is an American author of speculative fiction.

<i>All the Birds in the Sky</i> 2016 novel by Charlie Jane Anders

All the Birds in the Sky is a 2016 science fantasy novel by American writer and editor Charlie Jane Anders. It is her debut speculative fiction novel and was first published in January 2016 in the United States by Tor Books. The book is about a witch and a techno-geek, their troubled relationship, and their attempts to save the world from disaster. The publisher described the work as "blending literary fantasy and science fiction".

Dexter Gabriel, better known by his pen name Phenderson Djèlí Clark, is an American speculative fiction writer and historian, who is Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University, New York. He uses a pen name to differentiate his literary work from his academic work, and has also published under the name A. Phenderson Clark. His pen name "Djèlí", makes reference to the griots – traditional Western African storytellers, historians and poets.

<i>The Best of Harry Turtledove</i> 2021 book by Harry Turtledove

The Best of Harry Turtledove is a collection of science fiction short stories by American author Harry Turtledove. It was first published in hardcover and ebook by Subterranean Press in April 2021.

References

  1. Bibliography: Six Months, Three Days at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database; retrieved September 3, 2012
  2. 1 2 "2012 Hugo Award Winners". The Hugo Awards. September 2, 2012.
  3. "Six Months, Three Days, Five Others". Internet Speculative Fiction Database . Retrieved November 26, 2017.
  4. "Interview: Charlie Jane Anders". Lightspeed . May 2016. Retrieved January 8, 2017.
  5. Liang, Adrian (January 27, 2016). "'Witch Vs. Mad Scientist': Charlie Jane Anders on Her Novel All the Birds in the Sky". Omnivoracious.com. Retrieved April 6, 2017.
  6. 2011 Nebula Awards Nominees Announced, at Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America; published February 20, 2012; retrieved September 3, 2012
  7. Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award Finalists, at the J. Wayne and Elsie M. Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction; published June 24, 2012; retrieved September 3, 2012
  8. Rachel Swirsky's Novelette Recommendations from 2011, at LiveJournal; published February 1, 2012; retrieved September 3, 2012
  9. "Hugo Novelettes". jimchines.com. Jun 6, 2012. Retrieved January 8, 2017.
  10. NBC Nabs Light Procedural Produced By Krysten Ritter & David Janollari; by Nellie Andreeva; at Deadline Hollywood ; published September 27, 2013; retrieved March 13, 2014