"James E. Gunn - The Witching Hour" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

The Witching Hour
James Gunn
An [e - reads ] Book
New York, NY

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or
mechanical, including photocopy, recording, scanning or any information storage retrieval system, without
explicit permission in writing from the Author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authorтАЩs
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental.

Copyright ┬й 1970 by James E. Gunn
First e-reads publication 2003
www.e-reads.com
ISBN 0-7592-2270-3

To Kit and Kevin, who
would like to believe in witches
and such.

Table of Contents
Introduction

One тАФ The Reluctant Witch

Two тАФ The Beautiful Brew

Three тАФ The Magicians

Biography

Introduction
Fantasy is far older than science fiction. In fact, fantasy may be as old as fiction itself. Science fiction
could not exist until technological and scientific change became a recognized part of human existence and
authors began to speculate about the direction of change and the kinds of change, and the impact of these
changes on people. Fantasy began as soon as story-tellers began to spin tall tales for the entertainment of
their listeners. This may have happened very soon after humans developed speech.

If fantasy is fiction in which situations arise and events happen contrary to everyday experience, then
science fiction can be considered a special case of fantasy, a variety in which the situations and events,
though contrary to everyday experience, can be traced to everyday experience. In another context (тАЬThe
World View of Science FictionтАЭ) I have defined fantasy as the literature of difference, and science fiction
as the literature of change. Fantasy is the literature of the supernatural, science fiction, the literature of the
natural extended in time or space.

I never was much interested in writing fantasy, maybe because I was too fascinated by the fantastic
possibilities of science and technology, but I loved reading it: Edgar Rice BurroughsтАЩs Tarzan novels
captivated me not long after I began to read, and his John Carter Mars novels and Jason GridleyтАЩs