American Science Fiction

by Gary K. Wolfe

  In the summer of 1962, setting aside what he had intended to be his first novel (The Torch, eventually published in 1968), Keyes sketched out a plan to extend “Flowers for Algernon.” Doubleday, in New York, offered him a contract, and a year later he submitted a first version of Flowers for Algernon, which the publisher rejected on numerous grounds. Keyes undertook revisions for Doubleday, but “only what I felt Charlie and the story demanded,” and the firm finally rejected a second version on June 5, 1964. Keyes continued to revise, and received rejection letters from at least two more publishers, one in December 1964 and one in March 1965. The next month, Dan Wickenden at Harcourt, Brace & World wrote to accept Flowers for Algernon for publication. He too sought changes to the novel (suggesting, among other things, that its early “Progress Reports” be shortened and that one scene be moved); Keyes considered his suggestions perceptive, and he happily delivered a revised final typescript before his September deadline. He made further small changes to galley and page proofs.

  Harcourt, Brace & World published Flowers for Algernon on March 9, 1966; it shared the 1967 Hugo Award with Samuel R. Delany’s Babel-17. The novel has subsequently been published in numerous editions in the United States and the United Kingdom, but Keyes is not known to have further altered it in any way. The text of Flowers for Algernon in the present volume has been taken from the Harcourt, Brace & World first printing.

  . . . And Call Me Conrad [This Immortal]. In a letter dated October 27, 1964, the editor Edward Ferman at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction informed Roger Zelazny that he would be happy to accept Zelazny’s first novel for publication. He asked for two significant revisions: a “page or two of exposition” would need to be added toward the beginning of the novel so as to “involve the reader completely” as early as possible, and “about 5,000 words” would need to be cut. He also recommended Robert P. Mills, a fellow editor at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, as a potential agent for the novel: “I think he’d be able to place this with a book publisher.” Zelazny promptly supplied an expository page and shortened the text as he had been asked to. On November 30, Ferman wrote to tell him that “some more cutting” was necessary, a task he would be “glad to handle” himself, without Zelazny’s involvement. “. . . And Call Me Conrad” appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in two parts, in October and November 1965. On the basis of this serial publication, the novel shared the 1966 Hugo Award with Frank Herbert’s Dune.

  As Zelazny’s agent, Robert P. Mills had some difficulty finding a publisher for his new author—at least seven firms declined his submissions—but on September 16, 1965, Terry Carr at Ace Books sent a contract. Editorial correspondence about the novel between Carr and Zelazny is not known to have survived, but the typescript from which Ace Books prepared it for publication is now among Ze­lazny’s papers at Syracuse University. Neatly marked up in Carr’s hand, with infrequent and minor emendations, this typescript provides evidence about the most prominent difference between the magazine text and the first book edition, retitled This Immortal. In later interviews, Zelazny noted that he preferred his original title, “. . . And Call Me Conrad,” though he did not seek its restoration in subsequent editions of the novel. His typescript bears this original title in an unknown hand, without the ellipsis, on an otherwise blank opening page; above its first chapter, the novel is titled “The Reluctant Immortal,” with “… And Call Me Conrad” as a subtitle beneath Zelazny’s byline, both title and subtitle stricken through and replaced in pencil with “This Immortal.” The typescript also shows that Ze­lazny and Carr, in preparing the novel for book publication, began with the version that preceded the revision made for magazine publication: it lacks the expository material added for magazine readers and contains numerous passages not printed in the magazine. These passages no doubt include some or all of the deletions made for the magazine, but they may also include some additions made for book publication.

  This Immortal was published by Ace Books on June 9, 1966. Ze­lazny is not known to have further revised the novel on the several occasions when Ace reprinted it, or when it appeared in new editions during his lifetime, among them four published in the United Kingdom (Rupert Hart-Davis, 1967; Panther, 1968; John Goodchild, 1984; Methuen, 1985) and three in the United States (Garland, 1975; Easton Press, 1986; Baen, 1989). Interviewed in Phlogiston in 1995, Zelazny expressed regret that Ace Books had “kept some of the cuts” made for the novel’s prior serialization: “I didn’t know for years that I was missing some scenes, until it became an SF bookclub choice and the editor there told me that after looking at the magazine version and the book version that a bunch of stuff was missing and then asked me to go over the text and produce a definitive version.” But this “definitive version,” containing scenes not present in the first edition and restored either from the abridged magazine text or from an earlier typescript no longer known to be extant, has not been located among the printings and editions listed above, and may never have appeared. An Ace/Science Fiction Book Club edition, bearing no publication date but issued in 1988, does not substantively differ from the 1966 Ace Books edition.

  Apart from its altered title, and in the absence of a textual source for scenes reportedly missing, the first book edition contains the most complete text of Zelazny’s work known to be available and one over which he appears to have exercised significant control. In the present volume, the text of the novel has been taken from the first Ace printing of This Immortal, but its original title, . . . And Call Me Conrad, has been restored. The expository paragraphs Zelazny added for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction are printed in the Notes.

  This volume presents the texts of the original printings chosen for inclusion here, but it does not attempt to reproduce nontextual features of their typographic design. The texts are reprinted without change, except for the correction of typographical errors and the restoration of Roger Zelazny’s preferred title . . . And Call Me Conrad. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often expressive features and are not altered, even when inconsistent or irregular. The following is a list of typographical errors corrected, cited by page and line number of the hardcover edition: 77.16, halt,; 89.23, he had soon; 99.36, representives; 108.4, I I were; 111.21, than; 128.39, lain; 157.29, pre-Colombian; 314.39, suffrance; 318.38, greed been; 372.14, doing?; 375.19, means; 379.33, hand turns; 383.9, becauce; 409.7 excitment; 465.1, seems; 476.14–15, performace; 499.31, world.; 515.10, lamp shades; 534.19, completely.”; 552.32, coiff; 574.37, stilleto; 576.2, grimmaced; 576.25, stilleto,; 596.4, or some; 597.10, unpasturized; 626.16, that I; 638.31, not an; 641.17, caption.; 652.27, it that; 654.24, richocheted; 674.11, samuri; 683.20, kilo; 701.13, Indeed,.

  Notes

  In the notes below, the reference numbers denote page and line of the hardcover edition; the line count includes titles and headings but not blank lines. Quotations from Shakespeare are keyed to The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), and biblical references to the King James Version. For further information on the lives and works of the writers included, and references to other studies, see Robert J. Ewald, When the Fires Burn High and the Wind Is from the North: The Pastoral Science Fiction of Clifford D. Simak (San Bernardino: Borgo Press, 2006); Daniel Keyes, Algernon, Charlie, and I: A Writer’s Journey (New York: Harcourt, 2004); Christopher S. Kovacs, “‘. . . And Call Me Roger’: The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny,” in The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, vols. 1–6 (Framingham, Mass.: NESFA Press, 2009); Theodore Krulik, Roger Zelazny (New York: Ungar, 1986); Jane M. Lindskold, Roger Zelazny (New York: Twayne, 1993); Sandra Miesel, Against Time’s Arrow: The High Crusade of Poul Anderson (San Bernardino: Borgo Press, 1978); and Carl Yoke, Roger Zelazny and Andre Norton: Proponents of Individualism (Columbus: State Library of Ohio, 1979).

  THE HIGH CRUSADE

  5.19 enfeoffed] Given in exchange for a pledge of service.

 
18.14 wadmal] A coarse woolen fabric produced in England and Scandinavia during the Middle Ages.

  18.27 lemans] Mistresses.

  26.18 Albigensian.] Adherent of a dualistic, anti-Catholic sect that flourished in southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

  29.3 the Jacquerie.] A 1358 peasant revolt in northern France.

  32.5 the New Forest.] A hunting preserve in southern England, near Southampton, proclaimed by William the Conqueror around 1079.

  38.34 chine] Backbone, spine.

  38.35 redes] Advice.

  40.27 the Nine Worthies.] A pantheon of chivalric heroes first described in the Voeux du Paon (1312) of Jacqyes de Longuyon; it included King Arthur, Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon, Joshua, David, Judas Maccabeus, Hector, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar.

  43.5 cap-a-pie] Head to foot.

  48.25 morris-dancing] A form of traditional English folk dancing.

  51.2–3 “Sumer is . . . cucu.”] Opening lines of “Sumer Is Icumen In,” a thirteenth-century English round.

  53.5 vair] Squirrel fur used for lining and trimming garments.

  74.23 abatis] Field fortification made of sharpened tree limbs.

  75.15 caitiff] Cowardly, despicable.

  78.21 locum tenens] Substitute; temporary professional.

  91.16 Oberon] Legendary elf king.

  94.32 Wâes hâeil!] Be in good health!

  137.14 in partibus infidelium] Latin: in the lands of unbelievers.

  WAY STATION

  161.20 pasimology] The study of gestural communication.

  187.38–188.1 a great man . . . Union general] Ulysses S. Grant.

  227.1–2 In my Father’s house . . . told you . . .] See John 14:2.

  FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

  366.3 ringo-levio] A children’s game, one of the variants of tag.

  . . . AND CALL ME CONRAD [THIS IMMORTAL]

  544.1 Ben Jason] Benedict Paul Jablonski (1917–2003), chairman of the 1966 World Science Fiction Convention and codesigner of the Hugo Award trophy.

  546.28 I found out only five days ago.] When Zelazny submitted . . . And Call Me Conrad to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, where it was published in two parts in October and November 1965, his editor Edward Ferman asked that he supply “a page or two of exposition,” at an early point in the narrative, “in which Conrad’s background and the Radpol-Vegan-Return conflict are spelled out more clearly.” Zelazny complied, and the following text was added for magazine readers:

  And the long-dormant Radpol was stirring again, but I did not know of it until several days later.

  The Radpol. The old Radpol . . .

  Once chief among the stirrers of disruption, the Radpol had lapsed into a long quiescence.

  After the departure of its sinister half-man founder, Karaghiosis the killer (who strangely resembled me, a few very old timers have said—tut!), the Radpol had weakened, had slept.

  It had done its necessary troubling, however, over half a century ago, and the Vegans stayed stalemated.

  But Vega could buy the Earth-office—which runs this blamed world—and sell it many times over for kicks from out of the Petty Cash drawer—because Earthgov Absentia lives off Vegan droppings.

  Vega hadn’t been too eager to try it, though.

  Not since the Radpol led the Returnist Rebellion, melted Madagascar, and showed them that they cared. Earthgov had been busy selling pieces of real estate, to Vegans; this, via the Office, Earthgov’s civil service infection here among the isles of the world.

  All sales ceased, Vega withdrew, and the Radpol dozed, dreaming its Big Dream—of the return of men to Earth.

  The Office went on administering. The days of Karaghiosis had passed.

  547.27–28 Rodos dactylos Aurora] In the Iliad and the Odyssey, dawn is formulaically described with the epithet rhododaktylos, or rosy-fingered; Cassandra substitutes the Roman name of the goddess of dawn for the Greek Eos.

  584.16–17 “Death comes on swift wings to he who defiles . . .”] The beginning of a malediction allegedly inscribed on or near the entrance to the tomb of Tutankhamun, according to subsequent newspaper accounts of “King Tut’s Curse.”

  585.9–10 James Joyce said about Rome?] The narrator may refer to a remark Joyce made in a letter to his brother Stanislaus, dated September 25, 1906: “Rome reminds me of a man who lives by exhibiting to travelers his grandmother’s corpse.”

  587.21 Charles Fort] Fort (1874–1932) was a popular American writer on occult, paranormal, and supernatural phenomena.

  591.41 “I am dying, Egypt, dying.”] See Antony and Cleopatra, IV.xv.41.

  592.30 “Ozymandias . . . and despair.”] See the sonnet “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), first published in 1818.

  619.12–13 Thomas Carlyle . . . hero-worship.] See On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History, a collection of lectures Carlyle (1795–1881) published in 1841.

  624.38–625.2 some lines . . . nor yours either.”] See “Mythistorema,” section 9, by George Seferis (1900–1971).

  625.14 klephtes] Anti-imperial bandits; guerrillas.

  627.19 narantzi] Possibly nerántzi, bitter orange.

  628.29 Pausanius] Greek traveler (c. 110–180) known for his Description of Greece.

  629.28 tenemos] Area reserved for religious observance; sanctuary.

  660.3 Heart of Darkness] Short novel (1899) by Joseph Conrad (1857–1924).

  660.26 The Golden Bough] See The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (1890) by Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer (1854–1941); originally published in two volumes, the work has subsequently appeared in several abridged editions.

  680.17–19 A quarter ton . . . Albert Payson Terhune wrote about.] Terhune (1872–1942) published more than thirty novels, most featuring collies.

  684.9 Prometheus Unbound] Verse drama by Percy Bysshe Shelley, first published in 1820.