Invasion

INTRODUCTION by Barry Malzberg

The world is a madhouse.

Death is real and final.

Somewhere between these two poles where the narrative of Aaron Wolfe's novel occurs something else happens: it becomes a vision.

This is Aaron Wolfe's first novel. Thirty-four years old and successful in another artistic field he has asked for compelling personal reasons that his real identity not interfere with his fiction and therefore "Aaron Wolfe" is a pseudonym. He is thirty-four years old, married with one child and lives in the midwestern United States.

Aaron Wolfe's work has appeared in Escapade, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and the Virginia Quarterly; fiction and poetry. He was the recipient of a North American Review writing fellowship in 1965 and one of his stories published that year appeared on the Martha Foley Roll of Honor of distinguished American short stories. INVASION, nonetheless, is his first novel and his first work of science-fiction.

"I've always loved to read science-fiction," he says, confessing to owning a "large collection" of old pulp magazines and anthologies, "and even have a passion for it. I've been addicted since I was ten and when I sit down with a science-fiction novel I'm like a child again. Who could react otherwise to this marvelous stuff?"

INVASION gives some indication of what a literary writer of the first rank can do when he essays fiction for a wider audience. It is simply one of the most remarkable first novels, in any field, that I have ever read.

Other comments relevant to my role in the Laser Book series, how it came about and what I take my own role to be may be found in my introduction to K. W. Jeter's SEEKLIGHT, the first of this group of novels published recently, and I refer the reader, gratefully, to that.

Barry Malzberg

New Jersey.