Introduction
Science fiction has a more intimate relationship between authors and fans than any other genre. Every weekend of the year, all across the United States and even around the world, you can find numerous conventions ranging from small gatherings of fans to gigantic pop-culture expositions, such as Dragon Con in Atlanta or the San Diego Comic-Con. Passionate fans have a chance to meet their favorite authors not just to get an autograph, but to have discussions or spirited debates.
In fact, many of the most popular authors in the genre sprouted from the ranks of fandom itself. I know—I’m one of them.
I grew up as a SF fan, comic book aficionado, and unabashed nerd, which at the time pretty much meant social ostracization. I didn’t know other people who were fascinated with the same sorts of books, comics, and movies. When I was a sophomore in high school in the small town of Oregon, Wisconsin, I met a man who became a mentor of sorts, James Andrew Cox. He had a new operation, the Midwest Book Review, and his house was just down the street.
When he found out I was an avid reader and fan, he recruited me to review some of the numerous books that he received, and my reviews were actually published in his newsletter. I jumped at the chance. Free books! I was only fifteen years old, and even so I became part of his stable of reviewers. I read and reviewed as many titles as I could grab, new novels by Stephen R. Donaldson, Anne McCaffrey, Doris Lessing, or John Crowley. A review wasn’t much different from a book report, right?
I was an aspiring writer then, too, and I even had a few small press short stories under my belt. I was busy pounding away on my stereotypical first novel, Book 1 in a fantasy trilogy, complete with magic swords, dragons, ogres, and a quest across the map.
Cox also had a home-grown science fiction talk show on WORT, a very tiny public radio station in nearby Madison, Wisconsin. Since he was always looking for guests so he didn’t have to fill the entire hour himself, he brought me on (as soon as I had my driver’s license and could get to the station). I read some of my new short stories aloud, live on air. I couldn’t say how many people were actually listening, but it was great for my confidence.
Jim Cox encouraged me to go to an upcoming science fiction convention in Madison, WisCon 4, in March 1980. I was a freshman in college, and Cox even offered to pay my registration if I couldn’t afford it. WisCon was a relatively small gathering, with a strong emphasis on feminism in science fiction. It was the first actual group of fans I had ever seen, and I was like a kid in a candy store and a dust mote in a storm. Here I was surrounded by hundreds of people who also loved SF! Until then, the idea of knowing other science fiction nerds was as much a fantasy as the novels I read. And there, at one convention, I met prominent editors David G. Hartwell and Jim Frenkel, authors Octavia Butler and Joan D. Vinge, who read from a manuscript she was just finishing called The Snow Queen (which later went on to win the Hugo Award).
At the next WisCon, in 1981, legendary editor and publisher Donald A. Wollheim from DAW Books was the guest of honor. By that time, I had completed the manuscript for my fantasy quest novel, and Cox introduced me—in person, face to face!—to Wollheim and handed him my novel manuscript to consider. (He didn’t accept it.)
Since that time I can’t even imagine how many science fiction conventions I’ve attended. I began to appear on panels, I talked about my short story publications, and eventually my first published novel (Resurrection, Inc. from Signet Books).
After my Star Wars Jedi Academy trilogy appeared, I was suddenly invited to an entire new category of pop-culture conventions, the first of which was also, ironically, in Madison, Wisconsin, even though I had moved out of state more than a decade earlier. I was dazzled to be a guest author being interviewed and signing autographs alongside Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), and Kenny Baker (R2-D2).
In 1998, I set the Guinness World Record for the largest single-author book signing, where I signed thousands of books for what seemed to be an endless line of fans clutching copies of my books in their hands. In 2016, I did 22 science fiction or pop-culture conventions, being seen by approximately 1.5 million fans in a single year. I have appeared at conventions all across the United States as well as Canada, England, Scotland, Germany, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, the Czech Republic, Mexico … and I still feel like a fanboy at heart.
My love for science fiction is reflected in all the stories in this collection, from space adventures, to time travel, to technological advances, to Twilight Zone tales. Some needed only a few hundred words to tell, while others are ambitious test runs for possible novels. I hope you enjoy them, and I hope you have a chance to see me at one of my upcoming appearances.
—Kevin J. Anderson, October, 2018