Part 1 (1/2)
REDs.h.i.+FT.
edited by al sarrantonio.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
I've said this before: No book is an island; and this particular one owes much to a few special people. My thanks to:Beth, always there, who put up with another one; Julie Kristian, who hunted (and found!) gold; Laura Anne Gilman, editor supreme; Kathleen Bellamy, who gently persevered; Dan Simmons, for reasons within; Joe Lansdale, who wrote one tood.a.m.nlong-and for duty above and beyond; Larry Niven, for making me think; Ralph Vicinanza, who, again, piloted the agent's s.h.i.+p; And editors, the quiet heroes of the field who, almost always unheralded, got or get it done: Terry Carr, David G. Hartwell, Ellen Datlow, Damon Knight, Bob Silverberg, Gardner Dozois, Gordon Van Gelder, Pat LoBrutto, Susan Allison, Ginger Buchanan, Sharon Jarvis, Melissa Singer, Amy Stout, Harriet McDougal, Jennifer Brehl, John Douglas, Scott Edelman, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Stan Schmidt, Jeanne Cavelos ...
Too many to name.
INTRODUCTION.
Reds.h.i.+ft: Doppler effect evidenced by a move toward the red end of the spectrum, indicating motion away from Earth-as in an expanding universe.
An expanding universe: that's what this book is about. To put it as simply as possible, what you now hold in your hands (we hope and pray) is the finest original sf anthology of the last twenty-five years-and the future of speculative fiction.
PART ONE: WHAT.
In 1998, while a.s.sembling my last anthology, 999: New Stories of Horror and Suspense, I set myself a new goal: to put together, at the turn of the millennium (the real new millennium which began in 2001) a huge original anthology of speculative fiction stories. My initial inspiration was Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions, the publication of which in 1967 changed the science fiction field forever. Much of what Ellison codified in that book-the pus.h.i.+ng of envelopes, the annihilation of taboos, the use of experimental prose-had been in the air for some time (after all, this was the sixties), but he was the first to nail it between two hardcovers* with a force and will that made it irrefutable. Science fiction (Ellison used the term ”speculative fiction” to describe this blossoming mutation that, by its very nature of openness, contained elements of fantasy, horror, and brush strokes of just about every other genre, as well as the techniques of conventional and experimental so-called ”literary”
*”Mike Moorc.o.c.k, of course, put the phenomenon between two soft magazine covers in the mid-sixties with New Worlds magazine in the U.K., which gave sustenance to the New Wave movement that fomented this whole revolution. fiction) had been evolving; after the publication of Dangerous Visions, the new monster stood on its hind legs roaring, fully born.”
The monster continued to roar; in 1973 there came a second volume from Ellison, Again, Dangerous Visions, and throughout the next decade and beyond, numerous other anthologies-as well as whole series of anthologies, such as...o...b..t edited by Damon Knight(the first numbers of which actually predated Dangerous Visions), New Dimensions edited by Robert Silverberg, and Universe edited by Terry Carr-continued to nurture this melding of the hard and soft sciences in fiction, as well as its literary maturity of style. There were many others. Even into the eighties and nineties, venturesome editors, such as Ellen Datlow, with her fantasy-inspired, s.e.xually liberating anthologies, and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, with his Starlight series (three volumes, as I write this) continued to elevate the field.
The magazines, too, absorbed the new gestalt, and, over the years, have continued to evolve.*
*”For much better, deeper, and finer discussions of these developments, there are far better sources than me. Start with Clute and Nicholls's Science Fiction Encyclopedia, either in print or on CD-ROM as Grolier Science Fiction: The Multimedia Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, which includes video and audio clips.”
Given this history, was there really a need for another ”cutting edge” original sf anthology, here in 2001? What would be the reasons for putting together such a book?
I had one d.a.m.ned good reason for jumping into such a project. Two, actually.
But one's a secret-for now.
PART TWO: WHY.
The ”Ellison Revolution,” it seems to me, had four goals: the breaking of taboos, the presentation of new ways of telling stories, the expansion of the sf field, and-well, I'll keep the fourth one in my back pocket for now, since it happens to dovetail with one of my own reasons for doing this book.
As for taboos, someone asked me: What taboos are left to break in an era when the media discuss the president performing s.e.x acts in the oval office? There do seem to be, even in science fiction, precious few taboos to break these days.+ +”I do think there are a few pieces in this book that would have had a hard time finding a home, specifically due to content, even in this day and age. Even though there have been numerous original anthologies devoted to all kinds of former ”taboo” subjects, the magazines, in particular, which still publish the lion's share of sf short fiction, are still averse to certain types of stories. Then again, as I've been told, taboos do change with the times, don't they?
What's political incorrectness if not a new taboo? ”And as for new ways of telling stories, there's also really little left to discuss. By now, just about every style from Ulysses to Ulysses S. Grant has been tried in sf-with mixed results. To my mind, there are plenty of ways to tell a story. If what you have in the end are pretty words that make no discernible pattern or narrative, well, that ain't a story, even if you call it ”experimental.” The truth is, whatever works works-as long as it works.
Those two goals were pretty much reached-and, as you already realize, a long time ago.
What about the third goal of the ER (Ellison Revolution): the expansion of the sf field?
Ah, finally, something to work with in the year of 2001.
The question must be asked: Now that it's pretty much absorbed the soft sciences, the literary avant-garde, and the humanities, is the sf field so staid, so settled, that there's nowhere left for it to be pushed to?
Of course not.
Never.
The sf field is by its very nature the luckiest of literary forms-its basic subject matter, the sciences, whether soft or hard, are always themselves evolving. Even though the ER brought in all kinds of new subject matter, there is a built-in factor in sf that ensures that it will never get old. The sciences-soft or hard-are continually providing the field with new ideas.*
*”And vice versa-as someone once said: ”First come the dreamers.” Need I mention any name beyond that of Jules Verne?”
Science fiction has built-in forward momentum.
My first reason for putting this book together-the continued revolutionary expansion of sf-is not only valid, but also vital. Hopefully this project will present a blueprint for the future.
What about my second reason-the secret one?
Well... I think I'll keep it a secret for just a bit longer.
First we need to find out the most important thing: how the writers reacted when Iapproached them with this nutty idea of mine.
PART THREE: HOW.
Thus girded and armed with my idea for a huge new book of speculative fiction stories that would expand the field and possibly change its future, I stumbled forth into the world to present it to the only people who mattered: the best sf writers in the world.
How did they respond?
Quite frankly, they knocked my socks off.
To anyone who asked (few needed to), I said: ”If you could influence the course of sf for the next twenty-five years, show me that story!”
I ended up with, I think, not only a blueprint for the future, but also a primer of the changes that have taken place since the sixties-a summation of how sf has expanded in the last twenty-five years.
And not to dwell on this, but the number of submissions I received from women-especially new writers-was remarkable. This is not something we would have seen a few decades ago, for the simple reason that there weren't many women writing this stuff.