"Spider Robinson - By Any Other Name" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

the only reason I even took the manuscript out of the envelope was so it would burn better in the fireplace. But my
own opening sentence caught me. I ended up reading the damn thing all the way through one more timeтАФ
тАФand by God, I still liked it. All thirteen of those editors, I decided on the spot, were wrong.
So I rejected the rejections. I mailed the story, unchanged, to Ben Bova at Analog a second time. It was a perfect
act of irrational optimism, of benign delusion.
You guessed it: he bought it this time.
But it wasnтАЩt just a sale. тАЬBy Any Other NameтАЭ was my first Analog cover story. (Jack GaughanтАЩs splendid
painting for that cover hangs in my home today; God rest his generous soul.) It won my first AnLab, the monthly
Analog readerтАЩs poll. A year later it won me my first Hugo Award from readers worldwide. It was a career-maker. It
became the nucleus of my first novel, Telempath. Most important of all, it was one of a pair of stories which
persuaded a young woman named Jeanne, in spite of her better judgment, to let me court her . . .
So maybe thatтАЩs one reason why IтАЩm optimistic by policy. It seems to be working for me.
(Epilogue I canтАЩt resist: over a decade later, I got up the nerve to ask Ben if he realized heтАЩd rejected a Hugo-
winning story the first time he saw it. Oh sure, he said, I had toтАФno choice. How come? I asked.
(He gave me a pitying look. тАЬSpider, that was an election yearтАФremember? And then you expect me to buy a
story where the alien villains are basically giant killer farts, named тАШMuskyтАЩ?тАЭ He shook his head emphatically.
тАЬNixon that.тАЭ)

In that spirit of reckless optimism, IтАЩve adulterated this collection of short fiction with a pinch of non-fiction.
One evening in 1996 Jeanne and I were strolling through town with our friend Shannon Rupp, then the dance
critic for VancouverтАЩs alternative weekly The Georgia Straight, and as is my custom, I was shooting my mouth off.
An airliner had just fallen into the sea, and all the media believed it had either been terrorist sabotage, or just possibly
a covered-up accidental missile launch from a U.S. Navy destroyer. I was pontificating on why both theories had to
be hogwash . . . and Shannon interrupted. тАЬWrite that all down,тАЭ she said. And do what with it, I asked. тАЬSend it to
The Globe and Mail,тАЭ she said. тАЬIтАЩll bet they buy it.тАЭ
Well, that was just silly. The Globe and Mail was CanadaтАЩs national newspaper, its journal of record, the Grey
Lady of the North. What would they want with the unsolicited opinions of an American-born science fiction writer
who lived about as far from Toronto as a Canadian resident can get, and whose most recent journalistic credentialsтАФ
lame onesтАФwere almost thirty years old?
But Shannon finally bullied me into trying it. And Warren Clements bought the piece, and asked for more, and
thatтАЩs how I became an Op-Ed columnistтАФlike nearly everything else IтАЩve accomplished in my life so far: by
accident.
IтАЩve provided herein some samples of the column that ran in The Globe and Mail every three weeks from 1996тАУ
99 under the running title, тАЬThe Crazy Years.тАЭ If you donтАЩt care for factтАФor at least, for opinions about factsтАФwith
your fiction, by all means skip over them. If they do catch your interest, as of this writing IтАЩm still producing a
column a month for The Globe and Mail, and two columns a month for David Gerrold and Ben BovaтАЩs new cybersite
Galaxy Online (www.galaxyonline.com).

And now on to the fiction. After all this talk of optimism, naturally the first story in line, which won the 1983
Hugo for Short Story, is one of the gloomier prognostications IтАЩve ever made. Oh well. The year тАЬMelancholy
ElephantsтАЭ is set in has not arrived yetтАФmaybe this time the real future will turn out brighter than the one I dreamed.
One can hope . . .

тАФBritish Columbia
18 September, 2000
 Melancholy
Elephants

This story is dedicated to
Virginia Heinlein