Get off the Unicorn

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"Lady in the Tower" and "A Meeting of Minds" are really logical extensions of the concept found in "To Ride Pegasus," in which parapsychic powers are combined with machines in a gestalt that gives the mind enough power to reach the stars. They both predate Dai op Owen and the Eastern Parapsychic Center.

"Lady" is the story I prefer to acknowledge as my first; it appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in April 1959, in the distinguished company of Daniel Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon." Algis Budrys was a reader for Bob Mills at the time and he brought the story to Bob's notice. They both felt that it needed some reworking and asked my permission, which, needless to say, I immediately and ecstatically gave. (Someone wanted to publish a story of mine? Leap, grab, say YES!) I don't remember all the changes Algis made, and I've made a few myself with the wisdom and expertise of twenty years of writing and publishing. But basically, it's the same story.

Ten years later, "A Meeting of Minds" was published by Ed Perman, the new editor of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I have also done a good deal of rewriting on it, since that story had appeared so long after its parent story.

Both are unashamed love stories. That's what I do best: combining either science fact or fantasy with heterogenous inter'reaction.

These two stories were supposed to be part of a novel I'd tentatively entitled The Bitter Tower. But, when I got started on the story "A Womanly Talent," I got involved with Dai op Owen and wrote the four stories which comprise To Ride Pegasus. So these two stories never became part of a novel. But the Raven women are good strong characters, and who knows when I'll write about that third generation of Ravens.