User:DoctorWho42/We're Coming Through the Window

"We're Coming Through the Window" is a short story by American author Barry N. Malzberg as K. M. O'Donnell. It was first published in the August 1967 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.

Background
"We're Coming Through the Window" was written in December 1966. Malzberg said he "wrote this story, in one hour, out of the blackest despair I have ever experienced." It was his first sold science fiction short story. He sold it to Galaxy Science Fiction January 11, 1967. The editor Frederik Pohl sent him $36.00 which after an agent's commission was $29.94.

Publication history
"We're Coming Through the Window" was first published in the August 1967 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. In 1969, it appeared in the book Final War and Other Fantasies. In 1980, it was republished in Science Fiction Review. In 2003, editors Martin H. Greenberg and Steven H Silver included it in the book Wondrous Beginnings.

Plot
William Coyne writes directly to Mr. Pohl about his predicament. He believes his problem can be used as the basis for a short story. Initially, he offers 50% of the proceeds to the author or 40% to another writer if he is too busy to write it himself. Coyne then elaborates his crisis. He is 29-years-old and lives on the West Side of Manhattan. He has built a time machine. It runs on 85% undistilled water. He notes the unlikelihood since the only science courses he has ever taken were for his high school equivalency diploma. He says the machine is very limited in that it can only send him back four months or forward seventeen minutes and its range is five square feet. Last Tuesday, he first used the machine when he sent himself back three months and found himself asleep in bed. When he arrived to the present, Coyne ran into his double who tells him to send himself back four minutes. He does just that and then tells his past self to do the same. He remarks the idea itself is rather cliched, but it is nonetheless true. He woke up one morning to find notes on how to build a time machine on his dresser table hence its creation. Coyne then goes into his present difficulty: the time machine is off by a few seconds and minutes either way. The more he tried to correct this problem the worse things got. In so doing, there are presently 300 versions of himself at the time of his letter. They all are famished since there is not enough money nor food to sustain any of them in the household. They plead with Mr. Pohl to take up the offer of the short story idea.

Reception
In its 1969 reprint for Ace Books's Barry N. Malzberg collection Final War and Other Fantasies, the author said "I am assured by people I respect that it is very funny." In 1980, the author remarked We're Coming Through the Window was "that clean, polished, contained, neatly-put-together as it is, the story gives absolutely no indication of a significant career ." In 2018, Rich Horton reviewed it as "a cute short-short, about a time machine that goes a bit wrong."