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August 31, 2000 - Chatham, NJ - In what has become an amazing prediction of the future, Kate Wilhelm's brilliant short story, "Ladies and Gentlemen, This is Your Crisis" accurately depicts a "Survivor" type reality-based TV show AND the obsession it became for its audience.

Perhaps even more remarkably, the story was written almost 25 years ago!

Wilhelm's story, which is available at Fictionwise.com (http://www.fictionwise.com/?kw=1) for 69 cents in various eBook formats (Palm, Rocket, PDF, MS Reader), includes many of the elements that made the TV show "Survivor" a runaway hit. Some of the spooky coincidences include:

· a remote wilderness location
· a cast of unknowns competing against each other
· a one million dollar prize
· a single winner (and an unexpected winner at that)
· a heavy guy (no, he didn’t get naked in the short story although a rather stout woman did)
· fans addicted to the show

“There was no such thing as reality-based television shows when this short story was written,” commented Stephen Pendergrast, co-publisher at Fictionwise.com. “But that is part of Wilhelm’s genius. Her fertile imagination doesn’t just create remarkable worlds and stories. She understands the human element and the result is, in this case, a work of short fiction that literally became reality.”

Kate Wilhelm commented: “I submitted this story to a writers' workshop and was told that, one, no insurance company would underwrite it and the networks wouldn't dare go ahead without insurance; and, two, that no technology would be able to keep track of the different contestants off doing different things.”

The old saying -- “reality is stranger than fiction” - is not quite true in this case. Fiction got there first.

Kate Wilhelm has won the Nebula Award three times for her short fiction, and also the Hugo Award and the Locus Award. She has published numerous short story collections. The largest collection anywhere of Wilhelm short fiction eBooks is available at Fictionwise.com at: http://www.fictionwise.com.

About Fictionwise.com

Fictionwise.com (http://www.fictionwise.com/?kw=1) focuses on selling award-winning and high quality short fiction eBooks by top authors in multiple formats, including Acrobat, Rocket, Palm, and Microsoft Reader. Most Fictionwise.com eBooks cost between 39 cents to two dollars. Fictionwise.com has hundreds of inexpensive titles from leading contemporary fiction authors, including Robert Silverberg, Nancy Kress, Damon Knight, Mike Resnick, Michael Swanwick, James Patrick Kelly, Pamela Sargent, Tom Purdom, and Kate Wilhelm, amongst others. In most cases, Fictionwise.com has the largest short fiction eBook collections available for its authors. Fictionwise.com currently has rights to nearly 400 short fiction eBooks, with an estimated 500 available by the end of this year.

Contact: Scott Pendergrast, Scott@mindwise.com, 973-701-6770