Space War Blues

It is a fixup of several previously published pieces, the longest of which, "With The Bentfin Boomer Boys On Little Old New Alabama" (hereinafter “WTBBB”), first appeared in Harlan Ellison's 1972 anthology Again, Dangerous Visions.

Lupoff's contract with Ellison prohibited any prior appearance of stories slated for Again, Dangerous Visions, and along with the delay in ADV's publication, the deal with Dell fell through.

After a succession of editors at Dell, a 70,000-word version of the novel was finally published in paperback in June 1978, with a hardcover reprint two years later by Gregg Press, aimed primarily at libraries.

A manuscript reader for Dell described the book as "unutterable bilge" and claimed the only intelligible part was a little prefatory note by an imaginary "Uncle Dudley."

For example: ’nifykin look outha portole sreely pretty, sreely pretty, lookna Port Upotoi swinging roun thole mudball, thole goodole place, it’s maybe not the prettiest place na whole universe but nobody ever said it was, it was home though m that counted frole lot that swat Leander Laptip saw outha portole:[4]These divergences are apparently an attempt to represent (orthographically) vernacular English of the southern states of the US.