Alien Contact

by Marty Halpern

  In addition, Mike has won a Nebula Award, and many other major awards in the US, France, Japan, Poland, Croatia, and Spain, and is, according to Locus, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short science fiction. He is the author of more than sixty novels, more than 250 short stories, and two screenplays, and is the editor of forty anthologies.

  Recently, Mike sold a movie option on all the John Justin Mallory books and stories—Stalking the Unicorn, Stalking the Vampire, Stalking the Dragon, plus six novelettes and a short story—to Heath Corson and Criminal Mastermind Entertainment. Website: mikeresnick.com.

  “The 43 Antarean Dynasties” was nominated for the Locus and Theodore Sturgeon awards, and won the Hugo Award, the Asimov’s Reader Award, and the Spanish Premios Ignotus (given at HispaCon, Spain’s national SF convention) for best short story.

  In 1949, Robert Silverberg started a science fiction fanzine called Spaceship, and made his first professional sale to Science Fiction Adventures, a nonfiction piece called “Fanmag,” in the December 1953 issue. His first professional fiction publication was “Gorgon Planet” in the February 1954 issue of the British magazine Nebula Science Fiction; his first novel, Revolt on Alpha C, was published in 1955.

  The best known of his many novels and stories are Dying Inside, Lord Valentine’s Castle, Nightwings, “Born with the Dead,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” and “Passengers.” He has won five Nebula Awards and five Hugo Awards, and in 2004 was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. In 2007, Bob was elected President of the Fantasy Amateur Press Association, and currently serves as President Emeritus.

  He and his wife Karen, also a writer under the name of Karen Haber, live in the San Francisco area. Website: www.majipoor.com.

  Amanda and the Alien was filmed in 1995, directed by Jon Kroll, and starring Nicole Eggert, John Diehl, Michael Dorn, and Stacy Keach.

  Jack Skillingstead was one of five winners in Stephen King’s 2001 “On Writing” contest. Two years later his first professional sale appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction: short story “Dead Worlds” went on to be short-listed for the Theodore Sturgeon Award, and Gardner Dozois reprinted it in his annual Year’s Best Science Fiction anthology series. Since then Jack has sold thirty short stories, published critically acclaimed collection Are You There and Other Stories (2009), and debuted as a novelist that same year with Harbinger. His stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, and a number of other publications, including Lou Anders’s acclaimed Fast Forward series. His fiction has been described as “brilliant” by famed critic John Clute, and has been translated into four languages, podcast, and dissected in university classrooms from Rutgers to San Diego State.

  Jack lives in Seattle with his wife, fellow writer Nancy Kress. Website: www.jackskillingstead.com.

  Bruce Sterling, author, journalist, editor, and critic, was born in 1954. Best known for his ten science fiction novels, he also writes short stories, book reviews, design criticism, opinion columns, and introductions for books ranging from Ernst Jünger to Jules Verne. His nonfiction works include The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier (1992), Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years (2003), and Shaping Things (2005).

  Bruce is a contributing editor of Wired magazine and writes a weblog. During 2005, he was the “Visionary in Residence” at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. In 2008 he was the Guest Curator for the Share Festival of Digital Art and Culture in Torino, Italy, and the Visionary in Residence at the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam.

  He has appeared on ABC’s Nightline, BBC’s The Late Show, CBC’s Morningside, on MTV and TechTV, and in Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Fortune, Nature, I.D., Metropolis, Technology Review, Der Spiegel, la Repubblica, and many other venues. Blog: www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond.

  “Swarm” was nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards in the novelette category.

  Born in darkest Yorkshire, Charles Stross currently lives in historic Edinburgh, capital of Scotland, with his wife, cats, carnivorous plants, and a herd of senescent computers. His first published short story, “The Boys,” appeared in Interzone in 1987; his first novel, The Atrocity Archive, was originally serialized in the British magazine Spectrum SF, number 7, November 2001, through number 9, November 2002.

  He holds degrees in pharmacy and computer science, and is the author of The Web Architect’s Handbook (1996). Charlie has worked as a technical author, freelance journalist, programmer, and pharmacist at different times. He is now a full-time writer.

  In 2005, he was nominated for three Hugo Awards: one nomination for best novel and two nominations for best novella; he won the Hugo Award for best novella for “The Concrete Jungle,” included in The Atrocity Archives (2004).

  Charlie has written several series of novels, including the Eschaton series, the Merchant Princes series, the Halting State series, and the Laundry Files series. Much of his work concerns the singularity, but he writes near-future speculations and stories that incorporate Lovecraftian horror.

  Michael Swanwick is one of the most acclaimed and prolific science fiction and fantasy writers of his generation. He has received a Hugo Award for fiction in an unprecedented five out of six years (1998–2003) and has been honored with the Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Award, as well as receiving nominations for the British Science Fiction and Arthur C. Clarke awards.

  His first novel, In the Drift (1985), was published as part of the New Ace Science Fiction Specials series, edited by Terry Carr. Michael’s new novel, Dancing with Bears, featuring post-Utopian confidence artists Darger and Surplus, was published by Night Shade Books on May Day, 2011. He has also written photo-story “October Leaves,” available online on Flickr.com.

  Michael has written about the field as well. He published two long essays on the state of science fiction (“A User’s Guide to the Post Moderns,” 1986) and fantasy (“In the Tradition...,” 1994); both essays were collected together in The Postmodern Archipelago (1997).

  He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Marianne Porter. Website: www.michaelswanwick.com.

  “A Midwinter’s Tale” was nominated for the Locus Award, and won the Asimov’s Reader Award for best short story.

  Mark W. Tiedemann attended Clarion in 1988 and, shortly thereafter, began publishing. He has sold over fifty short stories, to Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Science Fiction Age, Tomorrow SF, Tales of the Unanticipated, and anthologies such as Universe 2, Vanishing Acts, Bending the Landscape, War of the Worlds: the Global Dispatches, and others.

  In 1999 he was invited to write in Isaac Asimov’s Robot City universe and subsequently published the Robot Mystery trilogy: Mirage, Chimera, and Aurora. In 2001 the first book of his Secantis Sequence was published: Compass Reach was shortlisted for the Philip K. Dick Award. Two more novels followed, Metal of Night and Peace & Memory. In 2006, his standalone novel Remains was shortlisted for the James Tiptree Jr. Award.

  While all this was going on, he joined the board of directors of the Missouri Center for the Book, the Missouri affiliate to the Library of Congress Center for the Book, an institution that works to promote and support the state literary heritage and the culture of the book. In 2005, he was elected its president. Though retired now, during his tenure, the Center advocated for and achieved the establishment of the first Missouri State Poet Laureate.

  Mark has lived in St. Louis all his life, for the past thirty years with his companion, best friend, and first reader, Donna. He occasionally plays piano and guitar, doodles in idle moments, and is somehow, according to friends, still sane after all these years, a condition which could change at any moment.

  Harry Turtledove received his PhD in Byzantine history from UCLA in 1977. His dissertation was entitled The Immediate Successors of Justinian: A Study of the Persian Problem and of Continuity and Change in Internal Secular Affairs in the Later Roman Empire
During the Reigns of Justin II and Tiberius II Constantine (A.D. 565–582).

  In 1979, he published his first two novels, Wereblood and Werenight, under the pseudonym “Eric G. Iverson.” Harry later explained that his editor at Belmont Tower did not think people would believe the author’s real name was “Turtledove” and came up with something more Nordic. He continued to use the “Iverson” name until 1985, when he began publishing under his real name. In the 1980s, Harry also worked as a technical writer for the Los Angeles County Office of Education. In 1991, he left the LACOE and turned to writing full-time.

  Harry has been dubbed “The Master of Alternate History”: he is known both for creating original alternate history scenarios such as survival of the Byzantine Empire or an alien invasion in the middle of the Second World War, and for giving a fresh and original treatment to themes previously dealt with by many others, including the Confederacy winning the Civil War and a Nazi Germany victory in World War II. He is married to mystery writer Laura Frankos; they have three daughters. Website: www.sfsite.com/~silverag/turtledove.html.

  “The Road Not Taken” was nominated for a Locus Award and an AnLab (Analog) Award in the novelette category.

  Marty Halpern is a two-time finalist for the World Fantasy Award–Professional for his work with Golden Gryphon Press. His career with GGP began in 1999, and in the next 7 years (while working a full-time, high-tech job through half of those years), he edited 23½ hardcovers, 4 limited edition chapbooks, and 4 reprint trade paperbacks. The “½” hardcover is original anthology The Silver Gryphon (marking the press’s twenty-fifth book in 2003), which he co-edited with publisher Gary Turner.

  Marty now freelances, working directly with authors to prepare their manuscripts for publication, as well as working primarily for independent publishers Night Shade Books and Tachyon Publications, for whom he has edited a combined 20 titles (and copyedited far too many more to count), and other publishers including Ace Books, Damnation Books (Realms of Fantasy magazine), and Morrigan Books UK.

  In addition to his work as an editor, Marty has written a series of columns entitled “The Perfect Sentence,” published in The Valley Scribe, the newsletter of the San Fernando Valley Chapter of the California Writers Club. And was a guest faculty at the 2004 East of Eden Writers Conference in Salinas, California.

  Marty Halpern currently resides in San Jose, California, and occasionally emerges from his inner sanctum to attend conventions. Blog “More Red Ink”: martyhalpern.blogspot.com; SF Editors Wiki entry: sfeditorwatch.com/index.php/Marty_Halpern.

  “Introduction: Beginnings...” © 2011 by Marty Halpern. Originally published in a somewhat different form as “Alien Contact, the Anthology: Beginnings...” on the editor’s blog, More Red Ink, on April 25, 2011.

  “The 43 Antarean Dynasties” © 1997 by Mike Resnick. Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 1997. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything” © 1984 by the Estate of George Alec Effinger. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 1984. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of George Alec Effinger.

  “Amanda and the Alien” © 1983 by Agberg, Ltd. Originally published in Omni, May 1983. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Angel” © 1987 by Pat Cadigan. Originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, May 1987. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Exo-Skeleton Town” © 2001 by Jeffrey Ford. Originally published in Black Gate, V1 N1, Spring 2001. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Face Value” © 1986 by Karen Joy Fowler. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November 1986. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The First Contact with the Gorgonids” © 1992 by Ursula K. Le Guin. Originally published in Omni, January 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author, and the author’s agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.

  “The Gold Bug” © 2007 by Orson Scott Card. Originally published in Intergalactic Medicine Show, July 2007. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song” © 1989 by Ernest Hogan. Originally published in Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, Issue Four, Summer 1989. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” © 2006 by Neil Gaiman. Originally published in Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders, HarperCollins/Morrow, 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “If Nudity Offends You” © 1988 by Elizabeth Moon. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1988. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Kin” © 2006 by Bruce McAllister. Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, February 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Lambing Season” © 2002 by Molly Gloss. Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 2002. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Last Contact” © 2007 by Stephen Baxter. Originally published in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, George Mann, editor, Solaris Books, Oxford, UK. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Laws of Survival” © 2007 by Nancy Kress. Originally published in Jim Baen’s Universe, December 2007. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “MAXO Signals” © 2005 by Charles Stross. Originally published in Nature, August 25, 2005. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “A Midwinter’s Tale” © 1988 by Michael Swanwick. Originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, December 1988. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Recycling Strategies for the Inner City” © 1990 by Pat Murphy. Appeared in substantially different form as “Scavenger” in Omni, April 1989; this version originally published in Points of Departure, Bantam Spectra, 1990. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Road Not Taken” © 1985 by Harry Turtledove. Originally published as by Eric G. Iverson in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, November 1985. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl’s” © 2001 by Adam-Troy Castro. Originally published in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, June 2001. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Swarm” © 1982 by Bruce Sterling. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1982. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Texture of Other Ways” © 1999 by Mark W. Tiedemann. Originally published in Science Fiction Age, September 1999. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Thought War” © 2008 by Paul McAuley. Originally published in Postscripts, Summer 2008, Number 15. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “To Go Boldly” © 2009 by CorDoc-Co, Ltd. Originally published in The New Space Opera 2, Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, editors, HarperCollins/Eos, 2009. Reprinted by permission of the author. Some Rights Reserved under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

  “What You Are About to See” © 2008 by Jack Skillingstead. Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 2008. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Please note that due to contractual limitations, Stephen King’s “I Am the Doorway,” which appears in the Trade Paperback of Alien Contact, does not appear in this e-book.