CHAINS OF THE SEA: The Movie

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Strange and delightful news!

My late friend Gardner Dozois' novella, "Chains of the Sea," has been optioned for a movie. I know that there were nibbles on various works when he was alive, but I believe this is the first story to get this far in the process.

The back-story of how the novella came to the attention of the filmmakers after being discovered by the UFO Disclosure community would certainly have made Gardner laugh. You can read all about it here.

Gardner's story is delicate, haunting, and beautifully written. And it has aliens. You can find it in any of his short fiction collections.

And for those who are interested in literary footnotes . . .

The title for my novel, Stations of the Tide, did not come easily. It had the unfortunate working title of Sea-Change, and I and everyone I knew put a lot of work into coming up with possible alternatives--dozens and maybe even hundreds of them--before coming up with one that made me happy. (All the seasoned writers reading this are right now nodding their heads in wry sympathy.) At one point, while I was writing it, I told Gardner that Chains of the Sea would be the perfect title if it wasn't already his.

"Go ahead, use it!" he said. "It's not doing me any good."

I didn't, of course. But that was so typically Gardner. However, in my novel, in the background of the main plot, there are snatches of a telenovela that everyone is watching while they wait for the sea to swallow up the Tidewater. I never gave the name of the show, but in my mind and in my notes as well, it was called Chains of the Sea. 

I told Gardner that but, of course, he wasn't impressed.

Above: photo credit: Ellen Levy Finch, distributed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.2

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