The Year's Best Science Fiction 11

Ten years ago, when the first of these Annuals was being prepared, I delighted in writing about the authors: There were only five (out of eighteen) whom I did not know personally, or at least by fluent correspondence. And they were, generally, fascinating people.

Within a few years, half the entries were by writers with whom my only contact was in the formality of securing permission—sometimes that was done through an agent or previous publisher. With many, I did not have even the previous acquaintance of reader-and-writer. (Some had written in other fields, but often as not I did not get around to the back-reading till after the anthology was finished.) There was more to discuss in what was happening to science fiction as a whole: the change in range of interests, the broadening area of publication, the refinement of techniques.

Over the last two years, certain patterns began to appear in what I did know about the backgrounds and special interests of the new names. (Comparatively few were “new young writers” in the usual sense; a good many were journalists, teachers, and writers already established in other fields.) It occurred to me that the motivations and objectives of writers newly attracted to the field might offer some insights into the overall direction and form of (what used to be “science fiction” and is now) whatever it is to which we apply the loose label S-F.

This year I made a point of asking for as much information— personal and professional—as I could get.

Certain things are immediately evident. Many of the new people are British. (The reasons for that—beyond the two already obvious— will appear later.) Once again, although there are a large number of “Firsts” (first published fiction), there are comparatively few really “new young writers,” and few even of these are primarily genre writers. Most of them have concurrent ambitions or established activities, not only in other areas of literature, but in the other arts and sciences—particularly the life sciences.

These are the generalities. The specifics, as far as was practicable, I have included here as they came to me, in the authors’ own words, or those of their colleagues and/or critics.