amela Sargent has long been one of the brighter lights among authors of science fiction, with historical novels (Ruler of the Sky [1991], a story about Genghis Khan) sharing space with visions of the far future (the monumental three-book Venus project: Venus of Dreams [1986], Venus of Shadows [1988] and Child of Venus [2001]) and with alternate-history novels on her long and varied resume (Climb the Wind [1998] revisits the Mongols, allied with American Indians in resisting European colonization of the Americas, and imagines how the world would have been changed in the wake of Genghis Khan had he lived long enough to complete his conquests).
Sometimes referred to as a "feminist writer," Sargent has edited the Women of Wonder anthologies and written a novel entitled The Shore of Women (1986). If it is true that Sargent tends to write about "feminine" subject matter (empathy as well as telepathy; the romantic and emotional ramifications of eternal life; the exploration of the human heart's terrain rather than always speculating about "strange new worlds"), it is equally true that her "hard" science fiction is just as grounded in scientific principles as anything the boys have come up with, her comic stories are just as ruthless and biting, and her fantasy is probably better.
Aside from being an accomplished novelist, Sargent is also the author of many fine short stories. In recent years several collections of her shorter work (The Mountain Cage and Other Stories [2002], Behind the Eyes of Dreamers [2002] and Eye of Flame and Other Fantasies [2003]) have boasted some of the finest work from the breadth of her 30-year career, and this month sees the publication of a new collection, Thumbprints.
Pamela Sargent corresponded with Science Fiction Weekly about her work, her life and the stories included in her newest collection.
Your peers in the speculative fiction field make mention—sometimes with a hint of dismay—that you do not spend a lot of time promoting yourself the way other writers might. No one who has read your hilarious story "The Novella Race" can doubt that you have noted and catalogued various ways the "game" of promotion and publicity is played, but you seemingly choose not to partake.
Sargent: I just don't have a clue as to how to go about promoting myself. Oh, I know what kinds of things I'd have to do, and I've actually advised a few of my colleagues on what to do in this regard, but I seem incapable of applying any such knowledge to myself. I'm too insecure, for one thing. Whenever I meet anybody who's truly enthusiastic about my stuff, I keep feeling that I should apologize for being such a disappointment in person. As Kurt Vonnegut once said, a writer is somebody who can revise himself into intelligence. Unfortunately, what you get in person is the first draft.
On top of that, going around promoting yourself isn't going to do you much good if the publisher isn't out there pushing your book, printing enough copies and getting enough of them around for your efforts to be useful. Of course, some people might argue that self-promotion will convince publishers to do more for you.
I used to have a pathological fear of public speaking and public appearances. The first time I was invited to speak before an audience as a writer, I couldn't sleep the night before and ended up in the bathroom vomiting a half-hour before I had to give my speech. My knees were shaking so much that I had to hang on to the podium. I eventually got past that, mainly by forcing myself to confront my fears, and even though it's still a bit nerve-wracking, I am now able to speak in front of groups of people without panicking. But there's something about the whole business of putting oneself out there, of pushing oneself, that seems entirely antithetical to being a writer. Writers are supposed to be the observers, not the center of attention.
So how do you feel about interviews, like this one? Are they a necessary evil? Do they cause anxiety the way public speaking does?
Sargent: Interviews cause me a lot of anxiety. You may say something that you can't take back, or that's hurtful to someone else. You may think you're being clever and come off as a total jerk. Some years back, I violated a rule I'd made for myself never to do an interview in my home, and allowed a newspaper reporter to talk to me there instead of meeting me somewhere else. I was actually flattered that this particular journalist, who is pretty smart and has written a couple of excellent nonfiction books, would deign to interview me. What I forgot was that somebody who regularly interviews far more celebrated and wealthy writers was probably going to find my modest digs a bit beneath him—he actually referred to my house as a "bungalow," which it most definitely is not. On the other hand, any stalker trying to locate me would never be able to find my home by using his published description.
I was a nervous wreck during that interview. Not so devastated that I wouldn't do an interview again—after all, I'm doing this one—but not in my home again! A home should be a refuge, not a damned stage set.
Moving into the topic of your new collection of stories, Thumbprints, the first question that occurs to me concerns a review of Thumbprints I read recently. The book was praised by the reviewer, but then dismissed with "it's unlikely to get much attention from non-fans," citing low sales for other recent collections of your short fiction. Do you see it as true that your recent short story collections have been met with low sales, and is that even a primary concern for you?
Sargent: Almost any short-story collection has low sales, even those by writers a lot better known than I am. Neither I nor my publishers expected my collections to sell huge numbers of copies, and if they sell out most of their print run, which they may very well do, that's good enough. I don't know why a reviewer who was praising Thumbprints even felt it necessary to comment on sales of other books, thus undercutting all of the praise. This is the kind of boneheaded reviewer that makes me want to pick up a tire iron, and I know something about reviewing, since I engage in that practice myself.
Having dealt with the fine art of book reviewing from both sides, what, in your view, constitutes a well-done review? Is there a formula (brief intro of the author, summary of the book at hand, analysis of the book's strengths and failings and summary judgment), or does a well-written review go beyond that?
Sargent: There is no formula, other than that, ideally, the review should be a piece of prose that's informative and worth reading even if you knew nothing about the book or author being reviewed. The vast majority of reviews don't meet that standard, and mine probably don't, either, since they're intended more as pieces to alert readers to books they might enjoy rather than as detailed analyses of works.
There are several Mongolian stories in Thumbprints, I notice, and I wonder about the many stories you have written about Mongolian culture here and elsewhere, both in the days of Genghis Khan (as in "Spirit Brother" and "Erdeni's Tiger") and in contemporary times (in the story "Climb the Wind"). What is it about Mongolian history and culture, and Genghis Khan in particular, that draws your creative attention?
Sargent: That's a hard question to answer. I've been interested in Mongolian history for quite some time, but started pursuing it more intently during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when some primary sources, among them a complete English translation of The Secret History of the Mongols, became more readily available. For a while, I was hoping to write a young-adult novel about Temujin, the boy who became Genghis Khan, because the story of his early years was such a great one, an almost archetypal hero's life. Eventually that grew into Ruler of the Sky.
I thought of writing historical fantasies set in 12th- and early 13th-century Mongolia after finishing the novel, partly to use more of the research I'd done for Ruler, and also out of a desire to revisit that world. But it's also occurred to me that historical fantasy may offer a more accurate depiction of past cultures than does "realistic" writing, especially if that past culture was one in which shamans, spells and seemingly supernatural events were part of the mental landscape.
You called Genghis Khan a hero just now, but in your stories—most particularly in "Erdeni's Tiger"—you have characters describe the destruction and slaughter he brought to the various Mongol tribes. Is that sort of forcible, violent nature a part of the amalgam of qualities that makes a hero?
Sargent: For the Mongols, it certainly was, and I was trying to write about Genghis Khan from the point of view of people in his own culture, without importing more modern views to his story.
Nature, too, is astonishing in its violence—is the hero's role, or human perception of him anyway, that he is an embodiment of nature? If so ... is this why ancient societies saw kings and other heroes as gods?
Sargent: Maybe so. One wonders how ancient people might have regarded George W. Bush in the wake of the hurricanes that have ravaged Florida this year. I read recently that there is some indication in past elections that natural disasters can sway some voters, that at least some of them may unconsciously blame elected officials for the devastation, which is clearly irrational and shows how deeply such notions are still embedded in us. But I also read that Jeb Bush's ratings were up, which may show that all those photo-ops with hurricane victims are working. Interesting that Pat Robertson and other gasbags among the more benighted clergy haven't rushed to claim that God is punishing Florida for all those hanging chads.
There are two stories in Thumbprints involving spirits watching over still-living friends or relatives, and they both seem to involve the theme of ambiguity or uncertainty in some way. In "Spirit Brother," a ghost is trapped among the living partly because he is torn between wanting to watch over an old friend and wanting revenge against him; in "Amphibians," it's the hesitation of a daughter to move forward with her life that keeps her father's spirit stuck. In both cases, you seem to speculate that any afterlife will involve the same sorts of doubt and uncertainty as life on Earth—is it your feeling that life itself, of any sort, is an uncertain proposition?
Sargent: I do think any afterlife may involve some ambiguity and uncertainty. To put it more clearly, I personally don't believe in an afterlife, but if there were such a state, then it seems to me—maybe because I'm an atheist with no spiritual beliefs—that it would have to be part of a natural process, much like that of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.
And of course dealing with the afterlife this way in these stories was a way to illuminate the personal dilemmas of the characters. In "Spirit Brother," I wanted to take an actual historical incident—everything in that story actually happened—and use fantasy to retell it. I tried to keep to 12-century Mongolian views of the afterlife in framing the story, as if a person of that time and culture were telling the tale. "Amphibians" was to a large degree autobiographical, and I didn't realize until I'd finished it that I was writing it almost exactly a decade after my own father's death.
There are cases—as in "Amphibians," as you were just saying—where life sneaks into a writer's work through the subconscious. Reading your hilarious take on the publishing industry, "Thumbprints"—in which you go after various pop writers like Donna Tartt and Thomas Harris—I can't help but wonder how much of your true life and attitudes are incorporated into the story, and how deliberately they might have been included—and whether the fact that the story is a black comedy might have played a role in allowing you some greater degree of unfettered expression.
Sargent: As you put it, life does sneak into the author's work, and basically that's what happened in "Thumbprints." You don't even have to try to work it in consciously, because life will find its way there one way or another. How much of my "true life" is there? Some, but probably not as much as you think. I have been a stringer for a newspaper, and one of my best friends when I was growing up was the child of a funeral director—a creepy Victorian house where you just know there's probably a body downstairs is a great place for a little kid to play—but my character's writing life and her attitudes toward other writers are her own and not necessarily mine.
Like the narrator in "Thumbprints," you occasionally find it necessary to take on work away from your writing. Do these forays into other employment abrade your creative energies? Or do you find fresh material waiting for you in the absurdities of the workplace?
Sargent: Along with most people who end up choosing work, namely writing, that I would do even if I didn't get paid for it, I have ended up having to subsidize my chosen profession with other paid work. The writers who are able to live entirely on what they get for their writing are few and far between. But since nothing is ever really lost on a writer, my day job experiences have provided me with material, and they also get me out of the house. Writing is solitary work, and if you spend too much time in solitude, you are going to get kind of screwy and demented.
Some writers fill in the income gap with work like teaching in workshops, or being fortunate enough to get a creative writing gig in a college or university, but most of my outside work has been completely removed from writing, unless you count doing business correspondence in a corporate office as writing. I did have a job with a lobbying group for a while where I drafted some statements for several politicians that we needed to use and ran them by these guys and their staffs, but that was probably about as close as I've come to actual writing at an outside job.
So I count this outside work as basically constructive and rewarding, but maybe that's making the best of an unsatisfactory situation. The fact is that something is lost, namely all those quiet moments and stretches of time when ideas and stories can grow and develop inside you and begin to inhabit you, when you need to sit still and listen to the voice of your characters. I will never know what didn't get written, which stories of mine I might have told and never got around to, because of having to take on other work.
As a writer of speculative fiction, part of your task is to look ahead at the future of humankind. But when you think ahead to your own future, are you alarmed? Many people who might otherwise have become writers or artists in other fields never summon the courage to do so because they start thinking they need to be "practical"—start 401(k) accounts, establish stock portfolios, and so on.
Sargent: I'll confess that I avoid thinking of this as much as possible, and practice what my mother refers to as "the ostrich philosophy." Some things just don't bear thinking about, unless you want to plunge yourself into complete hopelessness and despair. But frankly, I wonder if people in the arts aren't actually being more practical in the long run by doing what they really want to do. At least that way you have the chance of reaching the end of your life and taking pride in your accomplishments, however few or modest. What's worse is taking the practical road and getting screwed anyway, doing a job you don't like or really hate for years and years and then seeing it eliminated or outsourced and losing what security you had. I've known people who have suffered through that kind of failed bargain, and it's devastating.
Reading "Gather Blue Roses," I was struck by the theme of empathy you employ in the story—not only in the way that you explore the question of what empathy might be like for someone with special sensitivity, but on a deeper level there's a tie between the child who tells the story and her mother, from whom she inherits her talent. Am I correct in thinking the true point of the story is the way that parents regret passing traits to their children they would rather not have themselves? Is this part of the overall parental wish not to see children make the same mistakes and experience the same trials that they have themselves?
Sargent: I can honestly say that I wasn't thinking about any of this while writing the story, but even so, this is plausible. Maybe that was the point, and I just didn't see it. I wrote that story when I was about 20 years old, and it came to me all at once, almost unconsciously. Now that I'm older, I find myself increasingly aware of the many traits I apparently have picked up from one or the other of my parents, many of them ones they probably would have preferred I not inherit.
Another of your early stories included in the new collection is "If Ever I Should Leave You," which is one my favorites. Do you look back now on stories from so early in your career and see new meanings—or possibly see things in them you would change if you were to set about rewriting or re-editing them?
Sargent: Generally, I don't like reading my past work, but assembling a short story collection forces me to do so. I have to admit that I have looked at older work and suddenly thought, "Now I know what this was really about!" As for rewriting or re-editing stories—well, if I could read things written years ago, or even a few months ago, and see nothing to change or edit, I'd feel that I hadn't made any progress as a writer. At the same time, I strongly believe that it's almost never worth rewriting, re-editing or generally messing around with published work, apart from correcting obvious errors, such as typos, and not just because it's guaranteed to make any future bibliographers and book collectors curse your name. To rewrite then is to second-guess yourself, and risks removing what's good about that earlier story along with what's bad. There's a kind of energy beginning writers have, a kind of fire and crazed determination, that can overcome the kinds of flaws an older, more reflective writer might see and edit out. It's a dangerous business, collaborating with your earlier self; better to direct that energy toward new work.
Another story I note with delight in Thumbprints is "Out of Place." Upon re-reading this tale of how the thoughts of animals become inexplicably available to human beings, and the impact it has on human affairs, I was struck by what seemed to me to be a twofold message—first, that human civilization is out of touch with what we like to call "nature," but also that if we were not in some way psychologically separate from the rest of the natural world, our artificial world—our civilized existence—would not be possible. And indeed it seems to me that as the story progresses, this is the more dominant point you make, for you posit people becoming much less sympathetic toward animals once the shock of hearing their thoughts starts to wear off.
Sargent: Maybe this is what "Out of Place" is about. I must confess that when I was writing it, my main intention was to take the idea of people suddenly being able to overhear the thoughts of animals and turn it into a humorous tale exploring the possible implications of that. Psychologically it seemed right for the human characters to grow less sympathetic toward animals as they grew used to this bizarre situation, much as we tend not to think of where our steaks and lamb chops have their origins. At the same time, the animals closest to us—for most of us, it's our cats or our dogs—are almost as separated from the so-called "natural" world as we are. I mean, here we are with our slaughterhouses and concentration camps for cattle and chickens—if you really want to get thoroughly nauseated, reading up on poultry farms or pig farms in this country will do it—but at the same time, almost everyone I know who lives with a dog or cat regards that animal companion as a member of the family.
The supermarket I usually go to now offers free-range chicken and eggs, beef without hormones from grass-fed cattle, and other such products, but I'm not sure which message is the stronger selling point here. Is it that the animals are humanely treated before their demise, or that the resulting food is a lot healthier for the human beings buying it? Seems a mixed message at best.
Your comic story "Originals" would seem to have a serious undertone, in that you undertake a critical examination of a world where society is based not on privation but rather on plenty. As on Star Trek, your characters here have matter replicators that fabricate their every need, converting any sort of mass into requested objects. Unlike Star Trek, however, the people who live in this utopia are just as shallow, vain and dumb as, well, people in any age. Seeing how society in "Originals" remains stratified according to manners and exclusivity, even in a world of unbelievable material wealth, strikes a true chord as well as a humorous one.
Sargent: It always seemed to me that almost all human beings have an innate capacity to be total slackers, and I include myself in that group. I have a built-in talent for indolence. If it weren't for my writing and the spur of needing to make a living, I could easily slack off most of the time. But stories and novels, in my experience, impose themselves on you and compel you to write them, and a low bank balance provides its own inspiration to work harder.
The fact is that a lot of people would not be doing what they do if they had plenty of money. How many lottery winners hang on to their old jobs? Years ago, I read in an article about John Grisham that he often had lawyers come up to him at book signings and congratulate him for being able to get out of that profession. Most writers would keep writing no matter how prosperous they are—Stephen King certainly isn't in it for the money at this point. I suspect that the same is true of most people who have devoted their lives to an occupation they love.
But the rest of us? I want a world where everyone is rich enough and prosperous enough to be as vacuous as Paris and Nicky Hilton, or Jenna and Barbara Bush, for that matter. Now there's a slogan for social change!
I wonder if a society that offered universal wealth, whether in material terms, or by way of long life, or by making other things we want available in massive amounts, would end up being inhabited by dejected, depressed people. Already in our own society we see a people whose standard of living is incredibly high (by most historical and even contemporary standards) and yet as a society we are fearful, crabby, dissatisfied and self-absorbed—given to popping Prozac and Paxil as if they were Pez. Are we really suited to the level of wealth of which we dream?
Sargent: I don't know if we can draw any hard and fast conclusions about the effects of universal wealth from American culture. Many people who might be or seem very well off by any standard are also stressed out as hell trying to hang on to what they've got. I know people who actually fear extended periods of leisure, some because they've basically adapted to being workaholics, others because they deeply fear solitude. We're kind of a messed-up culture in a lot of ways; we sure as hell don't leave ourselves with a lot of inner resources.
As a species, we're certainly capable of creating a utopian society. As a writer, though, I guess I prefer to deal with what you might call the transition to that utopia.
You mention in your afterword to Thumbprints that the events of Sept. 11, 2001, took place even as you were writing the story "Venus Flowers at Night," in which a Mukhtar, or official from a world-ruling Muslim government, makes a tour of North America. In the story's text you reference 9/11, but did you have a feeling that 9/11 would make certain elements of the story difficult to sell? For example, I don't see myself as anti-Muslim, but I would be hard pressed to accept becoming a subject to a world government founded on Islam.
Sargent: Actually, I wasn't thinking about any of the considerations you mention at the time, although I have thought about them since. Given the setting I'd chosen for "Venus Flowers at Night," namely New York City and the Hudson River valley, I had to make 9/11 a part of it, but it took a while to get back to writing the story, given that reality seemed to have blown it completely out of the water.
All I had intended to do was to write a story set against the background of my Venus novels, which assumed increased global climate change, wars over resources, the breakup of many of the nation-states we now have, and the eventual triumph (on Earth, anyway) of a Muslim governing authority that basically ends up inheriting a mess. It gives me no pleasure to note that recent events are now mirroring the future history I constructed for those novels.
From a purely pragmatic point of view, could a world government rooted in a religious tradition be a positive thing?
Sargent: Governments rooted in religious tradition can be a positive thing, as long as they're balanced by edicts that keep the religious sphere from encroaching on the secular and as long as religion is a private matter and not hauled out to use as a club in political campaigns. Our own original American traditions aren't entirely without a religious base. I don't worry about that so much as about public policy being decided on the basis of religion, which leads to such idiocies as the current debate on stem-cell research, a debate that wouldn't even exist in a rational society.
One problem with a possible future Muslim governing authority is that Muslims don't draw the strict lines between religion and the state that we're accustomed to, or at least give lip service to. If anything, the trend in Muslim societies is in the opposite direction at the moment, with religion being the basis for law and public policy. Somewhat optimistically, I assumed in my Venus novels that if Islam triumphed and became the basis of a world government, that if Earth were finally the Dar al-Islam, or "Abode of Islam," that certain strictures would be loosened. There's nothing inherently in Islam that would make such an accommodation impossible. But when a culture feels under siege, it's not surprising that people would hang on to more hardened and extreme views, religious as well as political. A lot of people here reacted the same way after 9/11.
I shudder even to think of it, but is it a reasonable assertion that human beings need to be whipped into some sort of decent conduct by the specter of a god and a litany of religiously imposed rules and guidelines?
Sargent: That seems to be a peculiarly American assumption these days, at least if you're talking about post-industrial countries. Other such societies seem to have gotten past such ideas.
I think it was in a Robert Heinlein story I read a bit of dialogue given to a space marine drill sergeant: "If you don't have a religious faith, the quartermaster will issue you one."
Sargent: Heinlein was a very American kind of writer. I don't know that he was at all religious himself, haven't seen any evidence that he was, but having grown up in the Bible Belt, he had to be aware of religion's influence.
If you had to choose a faith or a god/goddess, which one would best suit you?
Sargent: I would have to say Buddhism, since that doesn't require you to believe in a god.
You had another short Venus-related story in your collection The Mountain Cage and Other Stories called "Dream of Venus." Do you envision a possible "Venus Mosaic" of novels and stories in the style of George Zebrowski's "Macrolife Mosaic?"
Sargent: That wasn't my intention. I wrote these Venus-related stories largely because I felt like writing them and figured that there were plenty of stories still lurking in the background I'd invented for the trilogy. I actually wouldn't mind eventually assembling enough stories for a fourth volume, though, stories that explore the interstices of the novels, maybe even stories that take place after the conclusion of Child of Venus on the terraformed planet. If a publisher wanted to bring all the Venus novels back into print, I'd have a new book to add to the three.
In all honesty, though, I don't think publishers will be beating down my door for such a project.
You have several comic pieces in Thumbprints, including "Originals," "Shrinker" and the title story, "Thumbprints." Although they are comic in tone, each story does address more dramatic issues: power and dependency within relationships are examined in "Shrinker," and "Thumbprints" is a chiller of a horror story aside from being drop-dead funny. Do you set out to write comic stories, or do dramatic ideas sometimes just take on a subversive, irreverent spark on their own?
Sargent: I actually did set out to write comic stories in all these cases. In other words, if something I write comes off as funny, it better damned well be because I intended it to be funny. Being inadvertently humorous is a fate worse than death.
Writing humor is a lot harder than writing more seriously intended fiction, at least in my experience, but I also think there is much truth to be found in comedy. My partner George Zebrowski calls jokes "little ambushes of reason." And you have to ask yourself that as far as current events go, who has more credibility these days, the so-called serious newscaster Tim Russert or the fake comedy anchorman Jon Stewart?
Your Jon Stewart reference points up your acute awareness of politics, and you have allowed your political sensibilities to guide you in writing at least two pointed and poignant political satires, "Danny Goes to Mars" and "Hillary Orbits Venus." What else do you find in the culture at large feeds your muse?
Sargent: Just about everything! I'll admit that the drama of politics has its attractions.
As long as we're talking politics, let me ask you right out—what is your prognosis for the upcoming presidential election? And, beyond that, for the U.S. and the world in the next four years as a result? Should we start buying duct tape and extra water ... ?
Sargent: Disaster is coming no matter who is elected president. The only question is whether things are going to be catastrophic or only extremely sucky. George W. Bush has created a mess, and to give him four more years would only ensure an even bigger mess for just about everyone except Bush's corporate cronies, who are actually benefiting and profiteering from the mess he has made. Whether John Kerry can clean up the mess, or even get started on doing so, is open to question, but at least someone with true physical courage and a brain, along with a new and less ideological set of advisors, would be in charge.
If Bush gets elected, you can probably count on at least one more big terrorist attack, because his regime has done so little to protect the country, a fiscal train wreck and the eventual collapse of many social supports, probably at least one more war, more people without medical insurance, increased anger at us even among the few allies we have left, since they will see our putting Bush back in office as an endorsement of this policies ... I could go on and on. The fact is that I can't think of a single policy of his that hasn't been either a disaster or a potential future disaster. Offhand, I can't think of a single first-rate artist, writer, scientist or intellectual figure who supports Bush. About the only thing we could hope for during a second Bush term is that all the accumulated bad karma comes crashing in on his administration at once, and we end up with hearings and indictments and scandals and resignations that will make Watergate look like a lovefest in comparison, which would probably lead to a solid Democratic and progressive majority for the next 20 years.
When you're writing comedy, are you trying to get at messages that cannot be articulated in drama? Or maybe using comedy as a reductio ad absurdum to illustrate human folly—even celebrate such folly, perhaps? If science fiction is a medium through which to address the sensitive political topics of the day, is humor, sci-fi or otherwise, a way to look at even more painful subjects?
Sargent: You mean that you might as well laugh, because otherwise you'd be crying? I would guess that one characteristic of any utopia would be that its inhabitants wouldn't have much of a sense of humor. A utopia could not produce The Daily Show. But a dystopia would probably produce a laugh a minute—admittedly often a cruel laugh.
Thumbprints is being given a special issue of 100 copies, signed and thumbprinted by yourself. Given the plot of the title story, don't you worry that you might be tempting fate?
Sargent: No, I don't, and want to assure you that my agent, Richard Curtis, a fine agent and a terrific guy, bears no resemblance to the somewhat dubious agent in "Thumbprints." That's one reason I don't worry about tempting fate. The credit for coming up with the idea of a thumbprinted edition of my collection actually belongs to George Zebrowski, and Gary Turner at Golden Gryphon decided to run with it. The thumbprints were made with the aid of a kit bought from a company that supplies such equipment to police and law enforcement professionals. If John Ashcroft wants to get his hands on a print of mine, he'll just have to buy a copy of the special edition of Thumbprints.
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Also in this issue:
Brad Bird of The Incredibles
