Bears Discover Fire

Somehow, these visits home always seem to start with an old fellow returning to space. “Shadow,” my longest story, and “Meat,” one of my shortest, both deal with the same venerable SF theme: first contact.

It was in the midst of writing these stories that I found “George” in the files of my literary ex-mother-in-law and read it, for the first time in years, with some trepidation. I was pleased to find that though I wouldn’t write it again, I wouldn’t change a word in it. Since it was noticed (if never published) by Whit Burnett of Story magazine, it is my connection with another era in literature; that also pleases me. And it is reassuring to me in another way.

I have sometimes felt that I was a gate-crasher in the world of SF, passing off odd mainstream works as fantasy and science fiction in order to get them published. “George” assures me that I have, in fact, for better or worse, been a fantasy writer from jump, engaged in a long process of coming home.

I hope you like these stories, the contrivances of my heart.