FOREWORD
Editing this collection was an exhilarating bit of work. On one
hand were the givens – over a hundred and sixty short pieces of science fiction
written by Gordon R. Dickson over the last twenty-eight years. On the other hand
was the book – a finite space to be filled with a small fraction of those
stories. Not a small task.
Gordy, as Spider Robinson has noted in the Introduction, is one of
the quiet giants of science fiction. He hasn't made himself a household name .
. . yet. He's had no Stranger in a Strange Land or Dune to which
the man on the street may look for identification of the man's work. Rather,
Gordy has toiled over the years in his own way, writing stories, novelettes,
novellas, and full-length novels which form an enormous and most satisfying
body of work (and he's not about to slow down for the benefit of historians or
book editors who might want to summarize his entire body of work, which grows
apace).
As I read his stories – and I read them all – I was struck first
by the shocking fact of Gordon R. Dickson's high level of writing excellence.
Some writers have a few stories that stand above all the rest of their work and
shout at the top of their lungs, "I'm the greatest!" Make no mistake,
Gordy has written great ones, and I won't spoil the joy of discovering them,
but the general run of his short fiction is so good that it makes it hard to
pick out a few as the best. Other stories keep leaping out of the stack,
pleading for further consideration.
Perhaps the general excellence is in some measure due to the
experimental nature of his writing. No, Gordy isn't one of the weird ones, but
each time he arts a story, Gordy tries something he hasn't done before, whether
it be a simple horror story, a trick ending, or a new approach to a stock
topic. Given a basic concept, he explores for a new, perhaps hidden, idea. Just
when you think you've got his range figured out he comes up with something that
you'd never expect.
Most of the stories in this collection date from 1960 and later.
It's a shame, because many of the earlier stories are terrifically
entertaining. After all, it was in the fifties that he gained his reputation as
a writer's writer. The hardest part of editing this book was eliminating
stories that were good, even great, but not his best. To list those that almost
made it would take up too much space. The stories that follow are the very best
we could do within the limits of a single volume.
It was almost a year ago at the Minicon 12 convention in
Minneapolis, near Gordy's suburban home, that I presented him with a copy of
the recently reissued paperback edition of Wolfling. He knew then that I
was reading all his short fiction for this collection, and in appreciation of
that he wrote in my copy of Wolfling: To Jim, who is going to wear himself
down to a nub!
The product of that work is here, and if it's worn me down to a
nub, I can only say it was worth it. Besides, there are worse ways to go.
– JAMES R. FRENKEL