The Winter Beach

by Kate Wilhelm

Kate Wilhelm explores concepts ranging from truth to immortality in this novella. A young woman is duped into quitting her university teaching position, and finds that she is entwined in a cloak-and-daggar investigation with implications she can hardly fathom. Action packed science fiction from master story teller Kate Wilhelm.

82 pages, Unbound

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Kate Wilhelm’s first short story, “The Pint-Sized Genie” was published in Fantastic Stories in 1956. Her first novel, MORE BITTER THAN DEATH, a mystery, was published in 1963. Over the span of her career, her writing has crossed over the genres of science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy and magical realism, psychological suspense, mimetic, comic, and family sagas, a multimedia stage production, and radio plays. She returned to writing mysteries in 1990 with the acclaimed Charlie Meiklejohn and Constance Leidl Mysteries and the Barbara Holloway series of legal thrillers.

Wilhelm’s works have been adapted for television and movies in numerous countries; her novels and stories have been translated to more than a dozen languages. She has contributed to Quark, Orbit,  Magazine of Fantasy and ScienceFiction, Locus, Amazing Stories, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine,  Fantastic, Omni, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Redbook, and Cosmopolitan.

Kate Wilhelm is the widow of acclaimed science fiction author and editor, Damon Knight (1922-2002), with whom she founded the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and the Milford Writers’ Conference, described in her 2005 non-fiction work, STORYTELLER. They lectured together at universities across three continents; Kate has continued to offer interviews, talks, and monthly workshops.

Kate Wilhelm has received two Hugo awards, three Nebulas, as well as Jupiter, Locus, Spotted Owl, Prix Apollo, Kristen Lohman awards, among others. She was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2009, Kate was the recipient of one of the first Solstice Awards presented by the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) in recognition of her contributions to the field of science fiction. 

Kate’s highly popular Barbara Holloway mysteries, set in Eugene, Oregon, opened with Death Qualified in 1990. Mirror, Mirror, released in 2017, is the series’ 14th novel.

Reviews

[Phil Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although gripped from the start, about half-way through, I began to think that the book may have been one of the authors non-SF stories - though I did not know if she had made forays outside the genre.
I think **** is a good rating - even though I've just finished it and know that I am still quietly enthusing about it, but it is unquestionably an intelligent book and the descriptions of the Oregon coast really make me want to visit.

Slight misgiving, though wrongly misgiven, I'd say: perhaps there are characters who might seem 2D, but I see no reason to think that there are not actual people who are 2D and who would fit into the story exactly as written. There is violence that is subtly understated.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novella is one of my all-time favorite science fiction works. It's the first part of the less-good novel "Welcome, Chaos", but stands alone. It's not an action thriller, even though there are spies and a rugged coastline. It's not really a romance, even though the female protagonist is enmeshed in the lives of two rather dashing men. The science is only sketched in*. Historian Lyle Taney is enticed/manipulated to leave her teaching job and work on a second book after the surprise success of her first. The shadowy people doing the enticing use various lies to manipulate her at various points. Lyle becomes more and more suspicious of the manipulator, and less and less interested in betraying her two new friends. The darned thing just works, even though it probably shouldn't.

*In a short work, sketchy science is the best kind. I suspect, if there was more detail, that one would walk away, WSOD destroyed. That's one (minor) problem with "Welcome, Chaos".

[Thannasset · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novella can be found as part of 'Welcome, Chaos' if nowhere else. Worth searching out the unbound printing!

[Christine]

This book has been made into a great German SciFi TV movie filmed in Maine. I was hoping to find an old hardcover copy.
Does anybody know the title of the sequel?