The Periodic Table of Science Fiction possibility not normally open to a writer." The print edition was published in 2005, in two signed limited editions: one slipcase hardback edition with a print run of 200, and one hardback edition with a print run of 500 books. In 2009, Swanwick posted the stories on a weblog dedicated to the purpose. The theme of each story in the collection is inspired by the element it is named after. The book also includes an afterword by the author, and a foreword by Theodore Gray who was awarded the IgNobel Prize for Chemistry in 2002. The Periodic Table of Science
The Periodic Table (short story collection) The Periodic Table (short story collection) The Periodic Table () is a collection of short stories by Primo Levi, published in 1975, named after the periodic table in chemistry. In 2006, the Royal Institution of Great Britain named it the best science book ever. The stories are autobiographical episodes of the author's experiences as a Jewish-Italian doctoral-level chemist under the Fascist regime and afterwards. They include various themes that follow a chronological sequence: his ancestry, his study of chemistry and practising the profession in wartime Italy, a pair of imaginative tales he wrote at that time, and his subsequent experiences