Piers Anthony writes about 20 Years: "This story is a mystery. As I set up to write the introduction, I checked for the story's history: When did I write it, where was it published or rejected, what have I had to say about it before? But I couldn't find it in my records. I remember writing it, and I remember it getting rejected, but my records didn't. What was going on, here?

"The answer seems to be that I wrote this story when my literary agent was handling my marketing, and he didn't give me reports on it, so it never got entered in my records. Had it sold, there would have been a monetary record. But it didn't. So it was lost. Perhaps for up to twenty years. Until this moment."

Actually Piers later found his folder for the story (he creates folders for each story he writes) and the date on the folder was May, 1972. Since this story was finally published in Alien Plot in 1992, it was lost for twenty years!

And the Story Begins ...

"The Dragon reared up on its hind four legs, beat at its armor-plated belly with steel claws, snarled horrendously and snorted fire. The Nymph screamed and yanked pitifully at the silver chain that fastened her nude body to the boulder."

Summary ...

Sounds like quite a story, eh? At least an interesting start! The story is set far in the future, where our Hero, with the physical body of a 25-year-old, but close to 80 years in reality, has won a contest against the Dragon, and rescued the fair Nymph. This is sort of a virtual reality scene ... something that is rather amazing since Piers wrote this in 1972.

In the tradition of Logan's Run, people reaching the age of 80 would be euthanized. Our Hero's reward is to have up to twenty years excised from his life and the severed ends bound back together ... as if he never lived those twenty years. This would indeed give him a new lease on life ... at least a longer one. But which period to eradicate? Which twenty years would you choose? Read it and find out!

Notes of Interest ...

Interestingly enough, this story has a brief reference, via the Hero's deceased wife, to an undiagnosed diabetes condition. For years Piers suffered from fatigue, depression, and other unusual symptoms. Until, in 1972, a doctor visit and a test diagnosed that he had diabetes! Hence the reference to it in this short story.

BUT ... as doctors sometimes are ... they were WRONG!! In the Spring of 1992, Piers wrote the following in Vol 2, # 2A of the Piers Anthony Personal Newsletter.

"My life has been changing, not in its daily routine, but in its underpinnings. For example, when I was writing Killobyte, the doctor with whom I consulted about my diabetic character suggested that I should be retested for my own diabetes, because the test under which I had been diagnosed is no longer considered valid. So I got retested—and lo, twenty years of diabetes have been erased, and I'm back to square one, my malady undiagnosed. I'm definitely not diabetic."