Publication:CLLCTDSHRT2004

Bibliographic notes for The Collected Short Fiction of C. J. Cherryh by C._J._Cherryh but also notes about the collection Visible Light (1986). If you are verifying Visible Light then please read on.

The publications of The Collected Short Fiction of C. J. Cherryh are

• CLLCTDSHRT2004 (hardcover)
• THCLLCTDSH2005 (trade paperback)

As The Collected Short Fiction of C. J. Cherryh is fairly complicated here is a detailed explanation of its contents. It is a both an omnibus and a collection in that it contains two previously published collections, Sunfall (1981) and Visible Light (1986), plus 15 extra stories.

One extra complication is that there’s an extra untitled story embedded within the collection Visible Light. Neither the ISFDB nor Locus listings for Visible Light mention this story and it’s not clear if this is new material or was overlooked. The story is described here so that future ISFDB editors can note if the story appears in the original publications of Visible Light.

In the introduction for Visible Light the author writes as though she’s on a dock waiting to board a ship with her luggage and chatting with a fellow passenger who on learning she’s a writer asks the common question “where do you get your ideas from?” with the answer being you look at someone on a dock waiting to board a ship with her luggage… At the end of the introduction the author queues up to board. Immediately after the introduction is a page headed with I as in the Roman Numeral 1 and it seems to be a continuation of the story that was in the introduction and now the author in an observation lounge and “the moon is long behind us, and Earth is further still.” She bumps into the passenger she was chatting with before and the conversation continues for two pages. Between each of the stories in this collection the conversation in the observation lounge continues in two or three page sections that are titled II, III, IV, V, and VI. After the last story is part VII where the conversation concludes with “We stare at each other then, at the point of farewells. “There is no choice, of course. This is a transfer-point. Our separate ships are already waiting at the station. And they keep their own schedules.”

Within ISFDB this untitled story is represented as a seven part serial titled Untitled: Visible Light. For now, the title records are dated 2004 but if this is in the original publication of Visible Light then please change the dates in the title records to 1986.

This "stuff" is indeed in the 1986 printing. I'll change the records as requested.
Regards...--Dsorgen 22:51, 7 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Table of Contents	Page	Comments
Introduction	ix	This is an introduction to the overall collection and is bylined “CJ Cherryh, Spokane, 2003.”
Sunfall:
Introduction	1	In the body of the book this page looks like a title page in that it has Sunfall in large text across the top and below this is a page of untitled text that is to be the original introduction to the Sunfall collection.
Prologue	3
The Only Death in the City (Paris)	5
The Haunted Tower (London)	21
Ice (Moscow)	56
Nightgame (Rome)	80
Highliner (New York)	95
The General (Peking)	120
Introduction to MasKs	144
MasKs (Venice)	144	This is a new story and was not in the original Sunfall collection. The story title is consistently spelled with the upper case “K.”
Visible Light:
New Introduction	187	In the body of the book this page looks like a title page in that it has Visible Light in large text across the top and below this is a page of untitled text that is the new introduction to the Visible Light collection.
Original Introduction	189	In the body of the book this is titled Introduction.
Frontpiece	197	In the body of the book this is titled I as in the Roman Numeral 1 and is part I of the untitled story that’s mentioned above.
Cassandra	199
	207	This is not listed in the table of contents and is part II of the untitled story.
Threads of Time	209
	216	This is not listed in the table of contents and is part III of the untitled story.
Companions	218
	306	This is not listed in the table of contents and is part IV of the untitled story.
A Thief in Korianth	309
	341	This is not listed in the table of contents and is part V of the untitled story.
The Last Tower	343
	346	This is not listed in the table of contents and is part VI of the untitled story.
The Brothers	348
	404	This is not listed in the table of contents and is part VII of the untitled story.
Endpiece	000	The page number is listed as “000” in the table of contents and probably should be 404 and would be part VII of the untitled story.
Other Stories:		This is on page 405 and is just a title page that says Other Stories in large letters across the top. Page 406 is blank.
The Dark King	407
Homecoming	415
The Dreamstone	418
Sea Change	431
Willow	445
Of Law and Magic	464
The Unshadowed Land	487
Pots	494
The Scapegoat	520
A Gift of Prophecy	564
Wings	580
A Much Briefer History of Time	586
Gwydion and the Dragon	587
Mech	609
The Sandman, the Tinman, and the BettyB	624
	641	This is not listed in the table of contents but is titled Acknowledgements and is two pages that lists the copyright and first appearance information for each story in the collection.