"Legions in Time" is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

novelette by

Michael Swanwick Michael Swanwick (born 18 November 1950) is an American fantasy and science fiction author who began publishing in the early 1980s. Writing career Swanwick's fiction writing began with short stories, starting in 1980 when he published "Ginungaga ...

, originally published in the April 2003 issue of ''

Asimov's Science Fiction ''Asimov's Science Fiction'' is an American science fiction magazine which publishes science fiction and fantasy named after science fiction author Isaac Asimov. It is currently published by Penny Publications. From January 2017, the publicatio ...

''. It won the

Hugo Award for Best Novelette The Hugo Award for Best Novelette is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novelette award is available for works of fiction of ...

in 2004. The story was reprinted in ''Science Fiction: The Best of 2003'' and in several other collections and anthologies. It has been translated into Spanish, French and Italian. Swanwick wrote that his story was inspired by A. E. Van Vogt's "Recruiting Station", "which just speeds along like a racehorse afire, and thought I'd try to write something similar." There Is No Escaping . . . Legions in Time!
July 1, 2013

Plot summary

A widow with the strange job of sitting in an empty office and guarding an empty closet, decides to take action and steps through—and falls into a cosmic, time-spanning adventure that ends with her becoming an entire organization spread throughout time with a goal of destroying the evil Empire of the Aftermen.

References

External links

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"Legions in Time"
Asimov's, April 2003 Short stories by Michael Swanwick Hugo Award for Best Novelette winning works 2003 short stories Works originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction {{2000s-sf-story-stub