Fix-up

A fix-up (or fixup) is a novel created from short stories that may or may not have been initially related or previously published. The stories are edited for consistency, and sometimes new connecting material—such as a frame story—is written for the new novel. The term was coined by the science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt, [ [http://home.earthlink.net/~icshi/Interviews/Weinberg-1980.html Interview with Van Vogt at Icshi] ] who published several fix-ups of his own, including "The Voyage of the Space Beagle", but the concept (if not the term) exists outside of science fiction. (Cf. clip show.) 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 creation of the term.

The name comes from the modifications 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 interlarded throughout the book. Contradictions and inconsistencies between episodes are usually worked out.

Fix-ups first became an accepted practice in the 1950s, when science fiction and fantasy were making the transition from being published mostly in pulp magazines, to being published mostly in book form. Many authors went through old stories, creating new manuscripts and selling them to book publishers.

Mainstream fix-ups:
*"Winesburg, Ohio" (1919) by Sherwood Anderson
*"Go Down, Moses" (1942) by William Faulkner
*"Dandelion Wine" (1957) by Ray Bradbury
*"Crowned Heads" (1976) by Thomas Tryon
*"Green Shadows, White Whale" (1992) by Ray Bradbury
*"Hearts in Atlantis" (1999) by Stephen King
*"Stop That Girl" (2005) by Elizabeth McKenzie
*"Haunted" (2005) by Chuck Palahniuk

Science Fiction and Fantasy fix-ups:
*"The Voyage of the Space Beagle" (1950) by A. E. van Vogt
*"The Dying Earth" (1950) by Jack Vance
*"The Martian Chronicles" (1950) by Ray Bradbury
*"Foundation" (1951) by Isaac Asimov
*"I, Robot" (1951) by Isaac Asimov
*"The Illustrated Man" (1951) by Ray Bradbury
*"City" (1952) by Clifford D. Simak
*"Foundation and Empire" (1952) by Isaac Asimov
*"The Mixed Men" (1952) by A. E. van Vogt
*"More Than Human" (1953) by Theodore Sturgeon
*"Mutant" (1953) by Henry Kuttner (as Lewis Padgett)
*"The Black Star Passes" (1953) by John W. Campbell
*"Second Foundation" (1953) by Isaac Asimov
*"The Weapon Shops of Isher" (1954) by A. E. van Vogt
*"Earthman, Come Home" (1955) by James Blish
*"Hell's Pavement" (1955) by Damon Knight
*"Lest We Forget Thee, Earth" (1958) by Robert Silverberg (as Calvin M. Knox)
*"The Outward Urge" (1959) by John Wyndham (as John Wyndham and Lucas Parkes)
*"The War Against the Rull" (1959) by A. E. van Vogt
*"A Canticle for Leibowitz" (1960) by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
*"Pilgr
Zenna Henderson
*"The Joy Makers" (1961) by James Gunn
*"The Great Explosion" (1962) by Eric Frank Russell
*"The Immortals" (1962) by James Gunn
*"Hothouse" (1962) by Brian W. Aldiss
*"Times Without Number" (1962) by John Brunner
*"Alpha Centauri or Die!" (1963) by Leigh Brackett
*"Savage Pellucidar" (1963) by Edgar Rice Burroughs
*"The Beast" (1963) by A. E. van Vogt
*"The Million Year Hunt" (1964) by Kenneth Bulmer
*"The Universe Against Her" (1964) by James H. Schmitz
*"Davy" (1964) by Edgar Pangborn
*"Dune" (1965) by Frank Herbert
*"The Star Fox" (1965) by Poul Anderson
*"The Sundered Worlds" (1965) by Michael Moorcock
*"Rogue Ship" (1965) by A. E. van Vogt
*"The Eyes of the Overworld" (1966) by Jack Vance
*"To Open the Sky" (1967) by Robert Silverberg
*"The Silkie" (1969) by A. E. van Vogt
*"Nightwings" (1969) by Robert Silverberg
*"Barefoot in the Head" (1969) by Brian W. Aldiss
*"Strangers in Paradise" (1969) by Christopher Anvil
*"The Ship Who Sang" (1969) by Anne McCaffrey
*"Quest for the Future" (1970) by A. E. van Vogt
*"Half Past Human" (1971) by T. J. Bass
*"Operation Chaos" (1971) by Poul Anderson
*"Puzzle of the Space Pyramids" (1971) by Eando Binder
*"To Your Scattered Bodies Go" (1971) by Philip Jose Farmer
*"The Fabulous Riverboat" (1971) by Philip Jose Farmer
*"The World Inside" (1971) by Robert Silverberg
*"334" (1972) by Thomas M. Disch
*"The Listeners" (1972) by James Gunn
*"The Burning" (1972) by James Gunn
*"Conscience Interplanetary" (1972) by Joseph Green
*"Other Days, Other Eyes" (1972) by Bob Shaw
*"To Ride Pegasus" (1973) by Anne McCaffrey
*"The Sun Destroyers" (1973) by Ross Rocklynne
*"The Lion Game" (1973) by James H. Schmitz
*"The Forever War" (1974) by Joe Haldeman
*"Farthest Star" (1975) by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson
*"A World Out of Time" (1976) by Larry Niven
*"In the Ocean of Night" (1977) by Gregory Benford
*"The Mercenary" (1977) by Jerry Pournelle
*"All My Sins Remembered" (1977) by Joe Haldeman
*"If the Stars are Gods" (1977) by Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund
*"The Time-Swept City" (1977) by Thomas F. Monteleone
*"Born to Exile" (1978) by Phyllis Eisenstein
*"Space War Blues" (1978) by Richard A. Lupoff
*"Ship of Strangers" (1978) by Bob Shaw
*"Lifeboat" (1978) by Stanley Schmidt
*"Catacomb Years" (1979) by Michael Bishop
*"Kinsman" (1979) by Ben Bova
*"The Spirit of Dorsai" (1979) by Gordon R. Dickson
*"The Incredible Umbrella" (1979) by Marvin Kaye
*"Starfinder" (1980) by Robert F. Young
*"The World and Thorinn" (1981) by Damon Knight
*"" (1982) by Stephen King
*"The Crucible of Time" (1983) by John Brunner
*"Icehenge" (1984) by Kim Stanley Robinson
*"In the Drift" (1984) by Michael Swanwick
*"The Years of the City" (1984) by Frederik Pohl
*"The Book of the River" (1984) by Ian Watson
*"Emergence" (1984) by David R. Palmer
*"Freedom Beach" (1985) by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel
*"The Postman" (1985) by David Brin
*"The Remaking of Sigmund Freud" (1985) by Barry N. Malzberg
*"Saturnalia" (1986) by Grant Callin
*"Tuf Voyaging" (1986) by George R.R. Martin
*"Life During Wartime" (1987) by Lucius Shepard
*"The Day the Martians Came" (1988) by Frederik Pohl
*"The Lively Lives of Crispin Mobey" (1988) by Gary Jennings (as Gabriel Quyth)
*"Prince of Mercenaries" (1989) by Jerry Pournelle
*"To the Land of the Living" (1990) by Robert Silverberg
*"The Spiral Dance" (1991) by R. Garcia y Robertson
*"The Ragged World" (1991) by Judith Moffett
*"Distant Friends" (1992) by Timothy Zahn
*"High Steel" (1993) by Jack Dann and Jack C. Haldeman II
*"Sam Gunn, Unlimited" (1993) by Ben Bova
*"Crashlander" (1994) by Larry Niven
*"Alien Influences" (1994) by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
*"Wildlife" (1994) by James Patrick Kelly
*"Fairyland" (1995) by Paul J. McAuley
*"Amnesia Moon" (1995) by Jonathan Lethem (fix-up of all previously unpublished stories)
*"Vacuum Diagrams" (1997) by Stephen Baxter
*"Earthling" (1997) by Tony Daniel
*"Kirinyaga" (1998) by Mike Resnick
*"Rainbow Mars" (1999) by Larry Niven
*"Minions of the Moon" (2000) by Richard Bowes
*"From the Dust Returned" (2001) by Ray Bradbury
*"Coyote" (2002) by Allen Steele
*"Sister Alice" (2003) by Robert Reed
*"Roma Eterna" (2003) by Robert Silverberg
*"Coyote Rising" (2004) by Allen Steele
*"Crux" (2004) by Albert E. Cowdrey
*"The Carpet Makers" (2005) by Andreas Eschbach
*"Accelerando" (2005) by Charles Stross
*"From the Files of the Time Rangers" (2005) by Richard Bowes

References