Osmotic Pressure is the story I had published recently. Along with everyone else in Postcripts 22/23 I’ve been reviewed. Since Postcripts 22/23 contains a lot of stories you have to scroll down a fair way to find the bit dealing with “Osmotic Pressure” which ends with, “It’€™s a good story in terms of character development.”

I sense a “but” after that sentence. I’m happy with it, however. Character development ought to happen in a story. I like to think it’s what I do with my fiction. A strength if you will.

I also recently received my latest mailing from the BSFA which contained their review magazine Vector, wherein was relayed the information that nominations for the BSFA Award are now open.

This is as good a place as any to remind people that Osmotic Pressure is eligible in the short story category.

There is apparently a new rule this year that you ought not to nominate yourself. Would people do such a thing? Tut, tut.

But….

Should any members of the BSFA feel so inclined they know what to do.

Nominations close on 14/1/11.

I’ll shortly start reading some eligible novels with the awards in mind.

Remember that short story I sold a while back?

Well, an unexpected package was delivered by the Post Office on Friday. (Actually the postie left a card and I had to pick it up at the sorting office.)

As I say I had no idea what it was (I hadn’t bought anything from eBay or Amazon for quite a while – and it’s nowhere near my birthday or anything.)

When I retrieved it I saw it was from PS Publishing.

What it contained was the traycased, signed edition of The Company He Keeps, aka Postscripts 22/23, which contains that story, Osmotic Pressure.

As an artefact The Company He Keeps is a thing of beauty, sumptuously produced. The traycase is lined with velvet and comes with green silk ribbon. The dust jacket is sensuously smooth, the hard cover has both back and front illustrations incorporated into it, the paper smells delightfully creamy. (I know another author who always assesses a book’s quality by its paper’s aroma.) I have never before been published in such a beautiful manner.

This is of course the de luxe, collector’s edition but I have no reason to suppose the “ordinary” hardback will be any less carefully produced.

There are several well-known names on the contents page (better known than mine certainly.) These include Lucius Shepard, Eric Brown, Steve Rasnic Tem and Darrell Schweitzer, to name only some.

I’m chuffed beyond measure to be appearing in said company.

In the information bit preceding the story I say, “I had always wanted to write a story with a two word title that was also a scientific concept, preferably Chemistry related. Osmotic Pressure is the result.”

I’€™m delighted it found a publisher.

(Osmotic pressure is the hydrostatic pressure produced by a difference in concentration between solutions on the two sides of a surface such as a semipermeable membrane.)

Partly my inspiration came from James Blish’s Surface Tension, which also has a two word scientific concept as its title.

I must emphasise that I do not claim that my story stands any comparison at all with Surface Tension – which is one of the early classics of Science Fiction – only that Blish’€™s story was one of the influences on its genesis.

In Common Time Blish wrote another famous story with a two word title. So celebrated is Common Time that Damon Knight once published a critique extolling it as an extended sexual metaphor – told in reverse. The metaphor begins (ends?) with a pun. The title, so Knight suggested, is actually Come On Time. His critique was longer than the original story.

Now, if anyone can give me an idea for a story to be called Dielectric Constant; or even Dipole Moment …..