"James Alan Gardner - Gravity Wells" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner James Alan)

the piano and played the whole piece again.

I agree with Beethoven on this oneтАФsome things ought to speak for themselves. That's why I
decided not to clutter up the stories themselves with forewords or afterwords. Instead, I'm putting all
the chat right here in the preface, and it's up to you to decide if or when you want to read my
commentaries.

A Note on the Text: It turns out short-story collections aren't magically assembled by pixies.
This particular collection was put together by yours truly, starting with the story manuscripts as I
originally wrote them, not as they finally appeared when published. In my experience, editors
sometimes make tiny cosmetic tweaks before stories go to print... which only makes sense,
considering these people are called editors. Anyway, I didn't want to go through the slogging
dog-work of comparing my original text to the final printed version in order to make faithful copies of
what was actually published. Instead I went through the slogging dog-work of perusing all the original
texts and making my own cosmetic tweaks. In other words, I've lightly edited every story in this book
to tighten up the language, make a few points more clearly, and so on.

That's the nice thing about being a writerтАФyou can keep working on stories until you get them
right.

And now for the commentaries...



"Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large": This is my most reprinted story,
based on an idea I'd had for years before I finally found the right way to put it together. Believe it or
not, the first time I tried to write a story on this premise, it was a sordid tale about a shipwrecked
sailor and a dockside whore. I won't even try to explain how the one story changed into the otherтАФI
like Muffin too much to sully her reputation.

Incidentally, this was the first story in which I decided to have fun with the title. Science fiction
stories typically have terse no-nonsense titles... and for a long time, I thought titles like that were
absolutely necessary if you wanted to be taken seriously as a writer. Finally, of course, I realized what
a ridiculous notion that wasтАФnot only did many great stories have out-and-out florid titles, but one
doesn't always want to be "serious" anyway. Therefore, I chucked out my preconceptions on what
titles "must" be and have felt better ever since.



"The Children of Cr├иche": Once upon a time, there was a thing called gonzo journalism. It's
not entirely deadтАФI still stumble across delightfully over-the-top pieces of supposed reportage that
are really just an excuse for mouthing off in extravagantly purple proseтАФbut I fear the glory days of
gonzo are gone, gone, gonzo. Readers of "Cr├иche" have told me they're sure I'm imitating someone,
but they can't tell who. Sigh.

(The answer is I'm not imitating anyone specifically; I'm simply having flashbacks to Hunter S.
Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Harlan Ellison in Tick-Tock mode, and a whole bunch of other writers who
fed my gonzo cravings in the late sixties/early seventies. Hee-whack indeed.)

By the way, this is my earliest story featuring a scalpel. Don't ask me why, but scalpels keep