"Foster, Alan Dean - Smart Dragons, Foolish Elves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

grand quest or a tiny afterthought. The humor can be
contained in a quick punchline or an elaborate buildup. A
story can make us laugh out loud or simply smile know-
ingly. Humor can be light, dark, and every shade in
between, depending on what setting the toaster has been left
on.

I like to believe that in addition to making us laugh or
smile, each of the stories in this collection has something to
say to us. Laughter lingers longest when it also makes a
point. We usually remember the stories that cut deeper than
those that merely anesthetize.

Some of the authors in this collection are noted for their
humorous fiction. Most are not. Quite the contrary, they are
famed for the dark and serious, or expansive and adventur-
ous, or the biting, or the poetical. But not humor. Not for
making the reader grin and chuckle. Those are the ones I
particularly prize.

Because there's laughter in all of us, even in long-faced,
somber authors charged with explaining the Meaning of It
All to desperate readers. Sometimes it's a little slow
manifesting itself, is all. The reason is that genuinely

INTRODUCTION

XI

amusing fiction is the toughest kind to write. Succinctly
put, "Funny is hard."

Keep that in mind as you put aside your casual evening's
reading of Proust or Solzhenitsyn and dig into something
really serious. Like this book. If it makes you smile, then
it's done its job. If it makes you think, you've received a
bonus. Take two stories, drink plenty of liquids, and stay in
bed.

That done, have you heard the one about . . . ?

-- Alan Dean Foster
Prescott, Arizona

How nice to be able to open a collection of the
extraordinary with a quite ordinary tale. After
all, what could be more ordinary than buying a
car? Cars are unremarkable utilitarian objects
that we deal with every day of our lives.