Henry James, This One's For You

by Jack McDevitt

• Word count: 3209

• Page count: 10

Henry James, This One's For You is a science fiction short story by Jack McDevitt. Nominated for the 2006 Nebula Award for Best Short Story it is about an editor of a small press publishing company who discovers the next big author and an amazing manuscript.

Henry James, This One's For You follows Jerry and his publishing company, Tempus Publishing. After receiving an absolutely amazing manuscript he contacts the author - only to discover an even more amazing secret.

Sometimes we get lucky. We published a couple of self-help books last year that did extremely well, and a novel about Noah's ark that became a runaway bestseller.
Anyhow, the day it arrived was cold and wet. The heating system had gone down again so I was wrapped in a sweater. I'd just opened the office and had turned on the coffee when Myra came in, carrying an umbrella and a manuscript. That was unusual. She doesn't usually take these things home. "Hey, Jerry," she said, "I think we've got a winner."
"Really?"
She was beaming. "Yes. I was up half the night with it." She trooped over to her desk and sat down in front of what I thought was a second manuscript, but which turned out to be the rest of the submission.

Where you can find Henry James, This One's For You:

• Henry James, This One's For You was originally published in Subterranean #2, November 2005.

• You can read a nice HTML version of Henry James, This One's For You online for free at the Internet Archive of sfwa's web site.

After reading Henry James, This One's For You you may be surprised to learn that the author, Jack McDevitt, is a former English teacher. You can learn more about him at an archive of his website.

(This is a revised version of a post which was originally published on BestScienceFictionStories.com on Feb 5th, 2008.)