And he was out of town a lot, so it gave me a fair amount of time while I was stuck waiting for him to get back into town with not much to do, so I started writing as kind of a hobby." In 1978, when he sold "Ernie," his first story, he considered taking a year off upon completion of his degree in order to write fiction full time. Zahn's plans changed completely in mid-1979, when his thesis advisor died unexpectedly. The then-graduate student was faced with the prospect of beginning a new project with another professor, and decided to take time off to write instead. The nine stories he sold that year convinced him to stick with writing science fiction.
Initially, Zahn limited himself to short stories, publishing many of them in the early 1980s. He became one of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact magazine's regular contributors. In one of his early stories, "Hollow Victory," an alien ambassador has fallen seriously ill and two human biomedics must discover the cause of his sickness. To do this, they use clues about the Thrulmodi physiology and the Thrulmodi planet, where the first human-Thrulmodi conference is taking place.
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