Stable Strategies and Others

Clawing our way into the 16th century

Introduction to the electronic edition, 2011

You could ask why it took so long: Michael Hart invented the first electronic book in 1971 and, forty years later, writers and publishers all over the world are still trying to master the form.

The answer, I think, lies in the fact that books are more than just words. What books look like and feel like is vitally important, and has been so since the time of clay tablets and papyrus scrolls. The printed books that we read now have evolved over hundreds of years, achieving a Cambrian diversity of form.

Ebooks are not yet so highly evolved, which, no doubt, is why many are a bit awkward-looking. We have an idea of how books are supposed to look and function, but we haven’t yet got the technology for easily implementing that idea in electronic form.

Which brings me to why it’s taken so long to create the digital version of Stable Strategies and Others. I’ve had a plan for implementing optimal ebook design that has taken some thirty years to effect. It is admirably simple: marry a superb book designer and get him to design my books, physical and virtual. So far, it’s working. Thank you, John D. Berry!

I owe Jacob Weisman of Tachyon Publications an enormous debt of gratitude for persuading me in 2003 that I had enough stories to put in a book, and for guiding me through the process. Thank you, Jacob!

After its print publication in 2004, Stable Strategies and Others was nominated for the Philip K. Dick and World Fantasy awards and shortlisted for the James Tiptree, Jr. award. The Japanese translation, 遺す言葉、その他の短篇, received the Sense of Gender award from the Japanese Association for Gender, Fantasy, and Science Fiction. The two previously unpublished stories in the collection, “Coming to Terms” and “Nirvana High” (the latter story written with Leslie What), also received recognition: “Coming to Terms” was given the Nebula Award for best short story, 2004, and “Nirvana High” was a Nebula nominee for novella the next year. Thank you, readers!

Eileen Gunn

Seattle, 2011