Once upon a time, I published a bizarro love story about a man and a low-gravity spider in the most dangerous parking lot in the galaxy. It was called “Love Nwatta-Nwatta-Nwatta Style.” It was in Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, Issue Two: Winter 1988. I wonder if anybody ever read it. Now it’s available to read online at Metastellar: Speculative Fiction and Beyond for those of you who are curious.
It was originally a sequence of my first, unpublished novel Nwatta-Nwatta-Nwatta. With Tezcatlipoca as my witness, in my countercultural youth, I thought that a cross between Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy would be my key to success. The book publishers who dominated science fiction back then disagreed, though one editor told me, “it could revolutionize the field” but it was “too zany.”
Not to be daunted, I cannibalized scenes and sequences and tried to sell them as short stories. The editors of the science fiction magazines recoiled in horror. More than one of them begged me to stop sending them these awful Nwatta-Nwatta-Nwatta stories. Maybe “zany” wasn’t a strong enough word.
“Love Nwatta-Nwatta-Nwatta Style” was the only one I could sell. Kristine Kathryn Rusch was only editor perverse enough for the dirty deed. I wonder whatever happened to her? Was it my fault?
I hope a lot of people read and enjoy it now. I still fantasize about publishing it and it becoming a bestseller. Talk about perverse.
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