of something by him.
I think, more than anything, that Schmitz fell victim to a profound shift in the science fiction market. Because of the nature of the market in his time, and his own natural talent and inclination, Schmitz was basically a writer of short fiction. He wrote only four novels, and, except for The Witches of Karres, none of them are the length associated in today’s world with the term “novel.” The Demon Breed, for instance, may well be a perfect short novel—SF’s equivalent of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. But, although its length (50,000 words) officially qualifies it as a “novel,” there isn’t a commercial publisher today outside of the young adult market who would accept that short a manuscript.
Today’s world is the world of the Novellus Giganticus. It is a science fiction market dominated by thick novels—more often than not, massive multi-volume series. In that new land of behemoths, the supple charm of Schmitz’s multitude of short stories, novelettes, novellas and short novels quickly gets trampled underfoot.
The one exception, of course, is The Witches of Karres. But that novel, although it is respectably long even by modern standards and is generally considered his masterpiece, is not enough to keep Schmitz afloat. With rare exceptions, “one-work” authors do not stay in print.
As it happens, however—this is my opinion, at least—The Witches of Karres is not James H. Schmitz’s masterpiece. As delightful as it is—and Witches is perhaps the greatest example of a successful picaresque novel in all of science fiction—it takes second place to something else.
That “something else” is Schmitz’s universe of the Federation of the Hub, taken as a whole.