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SIR ARTHUR CHARLES CLARKE, CBE, FRAS, Sri Lankabhimanya, (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008) was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Clarke were known as the “Big Three” of science fiction.
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PHILIP K. DICK (1928 – 1982) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states. In his later works Dick’s thematic focus strongly reflected his personal interest in metaphysics and theology. He often drew upon his own life experiences in addressing the nature of drug abuse, paranoia, schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences in novels such as A Scanner Darkly and VALIS.
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NANCY KRESS is the author of 31 books, most recently Flash Point (Viking, 2912), a YA about a future reality show. Her work has won four Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial award. She frequently teaches writing at various venues around the country and abroad. Kress lives in Seattle with her husband, SF writer Jack Skillingstead, and Cosette, the world’s most spoiled toy poodle.
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HENRY KUTTNER (1915 – 1958) was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror. He was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915 and grew up in relative poverty following the death of his father. As a young man he worked for the literary agency of his uncle, Laurence D’Orsay, in Los Angeles before selling his first story, “The Graveyard Rats,” to Weird Tales in early 1936.
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JAY LAKE is a science fiction and fantasy writer. In 2003 he was a quarterly first place winner in the Writers of the Future contest. In 2004 he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction. He lives in Portland, Oregon and works as a product manager for a voice services company.
Lake’s writings have appeared in numerous publications, including Postscripts, Realms of Fantasy, Interzone, Strange Horizons, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Nemonymous, and the Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. He is an editor for the “Polyphony” anthology series from Wheatland Press, and was also a contributor to the Internet Review of Science Fiction.
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FRANK BELKNAP LONG (1901 – 1994) was a prolific American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including early contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos. During his life, Long received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (at the 1978 World Fantasy Convention), the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement (in 1987, from the Horror Writers Association), and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award (1977).
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JERRY OLTION (born 1957) is a science fiction author from Eugene, Oregon, known for numerous novels and short stories, including books in the Star Trek series. He is a member of the Wordos writers’ group and also writes under the pen name “Ryan Hughes.”
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PAMELA SARGENT has won the Nebula and Locus Awards and is the author of the novels Cloned Lives, The Sudden Star, Watchstar, The Golden Space, The Alien Upstairs, Eye of the Comet, Homesmind, Alien Child, The Shore of Women, Venus of Dreams, Venus of Shadows, Child of Venus, and Climb the Wind. Ruler of the Sky, her 1993 historical novel about Genghis Khan, was a bestseller in Germany and in Spain, where she was invited to speak at the Institute of American Studies, the University of Barcelona, and the Complutense University of Madrid. She also edited the Women of Wonder anthologies, the first collections of science fiction by women, published in the 1970s by Vintage/Random House and in updated editions during the 1990s by Harcourt Brace. A short story, “The Shrine,” was produced for the syndicated TV anthology series Tales from the Darkside.
Tor Books reissued her 1983 young adult novel Earthseed, selected as a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association, and a sequel, Farseed, in early 2007. Farseed was chosen by the New York Public Library for their 2008 Books for the Teen Age list of best books for young adults. A third novel, Seedship, was published in 2010. Earthseed has been optioned by Paramount Pictures, with Melissa Rosenberg, scriptwriter for all five Twilight films, set to write and produce through her Tall Girls Productions.”
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JERRY SOHL (1913 - 2002) was an American scriptwriter for The Twilight Zone (as a ghostwriter for Charles Beaumont), Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Outer Limits, Star Trek and other shows. He also wrote novels, feature film scripts, and the nonfiction works Underhanded Chess and Underhanded Bridge.
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Mary A. Turzillo is an American science fiction writer noted primarily for short stories. She won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 2000 for her story “Mars is No Place for Children,” (published originally in Science Fiction Age), and her story “Pride,” (published originally in Fast Forward 1), was a Nebula award finalist for best short story of 2007. Her first novel, An Old Fashioned Martian Girl was serialized in Analog magazine in 2004.
She was formerly a professor of English at Kent State University, where she wrote articles and several books of science fiction criticism under the name Mary T. Brizzi, including Reader’s Guide to Anne McCaffrey and Reader’s Guide to Philip Jose Farmer. She attended the Clarion Workshop in 1985, and she founded the Cajun Sushi Hamsters writing workshop in Cleveland, OH.
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ALAN EDWARD NOURSE (1928 – 1992) was an American science fiction author and physician. He wrote both juvenile and adult science fiction, as well as nonfiction works about medicine and science. His SF works generally focused on medicine and/or psionics.
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CYRIL M. KORNBLUTH (1923 – 1958) was an American science fiction author and a notable member of the Futurians. He used a variety of pen-names, including Cecil Corwin, S. D. Gottesman, Edward J. Bellin, Kenneth Falconer, Walter C. Davies, Simon Eisner, Jordan Park, Arthur Cooke, Paul Dennis Lavond and Scott Mariner. The “M” in Kornbluth’s name may have been in tribute to his wife, Mary Byers; Kornbluth’s colleague and collaborator Frederik Pohl confirmed Kornbluth’s lack of any actual middle name in at least one interview.
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SAMUEL R. DELANY, JR. is an American author, professor and literary critic. His work includes a number of novels, many in the science fiction genre, as well as memoir, criticism, and essays on sexuality and society.
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HOWARD WALDROP writes about his and A. A. JACKSON IV’s story: “The new stuff in my life is The Moone World, forthcoming from Small Beer Press (and Easton Press), and The Search for Tom Purdue (forthcoming from Subterranean). Al’s getting more and more respect as an astro-physicist. Among other things, he was the guy who trained the astronauts on the shuttle simulator, and had to teach them to keep their hands off the stick, unless something went wrong. He put a command in the readouts that said, ‘Bite the Biscuit’ so they’d klnow when it was real.”
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HARRY WARNER, JR. Harry Warner, Jr. (December 19, 1922 – February 17, 2003) was an American journalist. He spent 40 years working for the Hagerstown, Maryland, Herald-Mail. He was also an important science fiction fan and historian of fandom, known for his non-fiction books All Our Yesterdays and A Wealth of Fable.
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LAWRENCE WATT-EVANS is the author of about fifty novels and over a hundred short stories, mostly in the SF, fantasy, and horror fields. He won the Hugo award in 1988 for his short story, “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers,” and was president of the Horror Writers Association for two years. His most recent book is Mind Candy, a collection of essays on pulp culture. His most recent fiction book is T
ales of Ethshar, a collection of short stories set in the same universe as The Misenchanted Sword and many of his finest fantasy novels.
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GEORGE ZEBROWSKI is an award-winning novelist, story writer, essayist, editor, and lecturer. He is the author of the novel Empties (Golden Gryphon Press) and the editor, with Gregory Benford, of Sentinels in Honor of Arthur C. Clarke (Hadley Rille Books). A new short story will appear in Nature this fall.
Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT INFO
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
OUT OF ALL THEM BRIGHT STARS, by Nancy Kress
THE HANGING STRANGER, by Philip K. Dick
WALKING JOHN AND BIRD, by Neal Asher
THE SYMPHONIC ABDUCTION, by Hannes Bok
THE NINE BILLION NAMES OF GOD, by Arthur C. Clarke
HILLARY ORBITS VENUS, by Pamela Sargent
MAYBE JUST A LITTLE ONE, by Reginald Bretnor
THE ULTROOM ERROR, by Jerry Sohl
REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS TO COME, by Lawrence Watt-Evans
THE ASTRONAUT FROM WYOMING, by Adam-Troy Castro & Jerry Oltion
PRIDE, by Mary A. Turzillo
CAT AND MOUSE, by Ralph Williams
THE RECORD, by Forrest J Ackerman and Ray Bradbury
THE NEW REALITY, by Reginald Bretnor
WHAT HATH ME? by Henry Kuttner
BRIDGE OF SILENCE, by George Zebrowski
SUN’S UP, by A.A. Jackson IV and Howard Waldrop
CONSIGNMENT, by Alan E. Nourse
THE SYNDIC, by C.M. Kornbluth (Part 1)
THE SYNDIC, by C. M. Kornbluth (Part II)
AFTER BONESTELL, by Jay Lake
THE JEWELS OF APTOR, by Samuel R. Delany (Part 1)
THE JEWELS OF APTOR, by Samuel R. Delany (Part 2)
THE MISSISSIPPI SAUCER, by Frank Belknap Long
MEMBERSHIP DRIVE, by Murray F. Yaco
CANCER WORLD, by Harry Warner, Jr.
EGOCENTRIC ORBIT, by John Cory
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT INFO
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
OUT OF ALL THEM BRIGHT STARS, by Nancy Kress
THE HANGING STRANGER, by Philip K. Dick
WALKING JOHN AND BIRD, by Neal Asher
THE SYMPHONIC ABDUCTION, by Hannes Bok
THE NINE BILLION NAMES OF GOD, by Arthur C. Clarke
HILLARY ORBITS VENUS, by Pamela Sargent
MAYBE JUST A LITTLE ONE, by Reginald Bretnor
THE ULTROOM ERROR, by Jerry Sohl
REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS TO COME, by Lawrence Watt-Evans
THE ASTRONAUT FROM WYOMING, by Adam-Troy Castro & Jerry Oltion
PRIDE, by Mary A. Turzillo
CAT AND MOUSE, by Ralph Williams
THE RECORD, by Forrest J Ackerman and Ray Bradbury
THE NEW REALITY, by Reginald Bretnor
WHAT HATH ME? by Henry Kuttner
BRIDGE OF SILENCE, by George Zebrowski
SUN’S UP, by A.A. Jackson IV and Howard Waldrop
CONSIGNMENT, by Alan E. Nourse
THE SYNDIC, by C.M. Kornbluth (Part 1)
THE SYNDIC, by C. M. Kornbluth (Part II)
AFTER BONESTELL, by Jay Lake
THE JEWELS OF APTOR, by Samuel R. Delany (Part 1)
THE JEWELS OF APTOR, by Samuel R. Delany (Part 2)
THE MISSISSIPPI SAUCER, by Frank Belknap Long
MEMBERSHIP DRIVE, by Murray F. Yaco
CANCER WORLD, by Harry Warner, Jr.
EGOCENTRIC ORBIT, by John Cory
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
The Sixth Science Fiction Megapack Page 73