Nova 4

Afterword

When choosing a title for this series of anthologies of original science fiction I hit upon Nova for all the obvious reasons. In one short word it identified the anthology with science, therefore with science fiction, and also indicated that all of the stories were new. That should be enough of a burden of content for a four-letter word but it has since been pointed out to me that there is another meaning as well. It was during a late night session with Bruce McAllister, who assists me with the annual year's best SF anthology, that the conversation came around to the Nova series. I mentioned that I greatly enjoyed finding and printing the works of new writers and he said that fitted, Nova standing for new writers as well.

A nice idea and I checked the record. In Nova 1 there was one first story, none in Nova 2, and two in Nova 3. Not much to hang the "nova" label on there—but things are about to change. In a big way.

This volume of Nova contains the first stories of no less than six writers. In alphabetical order they are:

Michael Addobati

Richard Bireley

Jeff Duntemann

Bill Garnett

Gerard E. Giannattasio

Tom Reamy

The interesting thing is that this crop of nova Nova stories was not obtained by any deliberate effort on my part. I have a single standard for all stories—they must be good. Nor do I seek any publishing bargains by underpaying newcomers; all income from these anthologies is divided equally among all the writers. The explanation must be found elsewhere and is, I feel, a very simple one.

Science fiction has become a respected form of literary endeavor. Not respected everywhere of course, an odor of the pulps must still adhere to it in certain places. The New York literary circles, The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books crowd, either ignore it or scorn it as buck-rogerish nonsense. That's their loss. They will discover SF some day, which fact I look forward to with mixed emotions. It is also true that science fiction, when labeled as science fiction, cannot be a best seller or be taken by a major book club as a selection. That too will change, I am sure. In the meantime more and more people are reading this particular kind of literature, SF courses are taught in universities across the country, while an even greater number of science fiction classes are held in high schools. The teachers find it an invaluable teaching tool because students voluntarily read the stuff. The obvious result of this is a complete acceptance of science fiction by young writers as an established part of literary life. An up and coming writer will consider SF as a viable form of fiction and will work in that medium if he thinks he has an idea worth writing.

With two exceptions the "first" stories published here came over the transom or were found in the slush pile, those none too flattering publishing terms for unsolicited manuscripts. Bill Garnett, who has been writing in other fields for years, had a first science fiction novel that I greatly enjoyed. I wrote and asked him if he had any short stories as well and he sent the one you will find here. Richard Bireley was in my SF course at San Diego State University picking up some credits for his MA. After an entire term of my nit-picking his stories he handed me a manuscript, nostrils flared in anger, and dared me to complain about this one because he had put in everything I had been talking about and had left out all the things I had been complaining over. I read it and gave it back and told him that if I were buying for an anthology at the time I would have bought the story. I thought it a highly marketable piece of fiction and why didn't he send it to Damon Knight who was looking for this kind of material for his series, Orbit Damon Knight bought it. So the Bireley story here is really his second sale, but for publishing and inventory reasons it will appear in print here first. Damon has kindly consented to my taking credit for first publication.

And just to prove something or other, Tom Reamy had two letters of acceptance for his first two story sales that arrived in the mail at the same time. Just by chance mine was the one he opened first. The other one was from—that's right —Damon Knight.

But Damon is the kind of person who will only chuckle over this kind of thing. Chuckle from on high as he remembers the first story he bought years ago from an underfed comic artist by the name of Harry Harrison

—Harry Harrison