Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson Read Online Free PDF Page B

as he had seen it once before on this spot, and then once again in the chapel. Shadow-of-a-Dream’s last gift, coming toward him in a blaze of white light, holding out her long slim hands. Compassionate and welcoming, erasing all illusion of fear.

    AFTERWORD:

    I first read Poul Anderson when I was fifteen. My mother had given me for Christmas the two-volume Treasury of Science Fiction , edited by Anthony Boucher, which I still have (it’s a bit battered from umpty-umpty moves). The volume included Anderson’s “Brain Wave,” in which the Earth in its movement through space moves out of an “inhibitor field” that has been affecting electromagnetic activity in the human brain for millions of years. All at once everyone is much, much more intelligent. So are the animals. This story knocked me out with its inventiveness and scope. So I reread it while looking for a universe to borrow for this anthology story, and it still knocks me out.
    However, for this anthology I chose instead “The Queen of Air and Darkness,” the 1972 Hugo winner. This also is concerned with the human brain. It’s a gorgeous story but, unlike “Brain Wave,” it does not carry its characters’ fates past the revelation of what the aliens have been doing. Even in 1972 I wanted to know more: What happened to Mistherd back in “civilization”? To Shadow-of-a-Dream? And what about the fact that the human civilization Anderson had created for Roland was far less attractive than the alien illusions? It was lovely to have a chance to write this story and thus to create some answers.
    A final note on writing “Outmoded Things”: Gardner Dozois is an experienced editor. I signed the contract for this story in August, 2010. This manuscript was not due until the following June. But Gardner knows writers, and so every single month he sent out a reminder: “Only nine more months until your story is due! Eight more months! Six more months and, oh, incidentally, Harry Turtledove and Stephen Baxter have already turned theirs in! They get a gold star!” It was lovely to have a chance to write this story—and the editorial nagging didn’t hurt, either.

    —Nancy Kress



THE MAN WHO CAME LATE
by Harry Turtledove
    Although he writes other kinds of science fiction as well, and even the occasional fantasy, Harry Turtledove has become one of the most prominent writers of Alternate History stories in the business today, and is probably the most popular and influential writer to work that territory since L. Sprague De Camp; in fact, most of the current popularity of that particular sub-genre can be attributed to Turtledove’s own hot-ticket bestseller status.
    Turtledove has published Alternate History novels such as The Guns of the South, dealing with a timeline in which the American Civil War turns out very differently, thanks to time-traveling gun-runners; the best-selling Worldwar series, in which the course of World War II is altered by attacking aliens; the “Basil Argyros” series, detailing the adventures of a “magistrianoi” in an alternate Byzantine Empire (collected in the book Agent of Byzantium); the “Sim” series, which take place in an alternate world in which European explorers find North America inhabited by hominids instead of Indians (collected in the book A Different Flesh); a look at a world where the Revolutionary War didn’t happen, written with actor Richard Dreyfuss, The Two Georges, and many other intriguing Alternate History scenarios. Turtledove is also the author of two multi-volume Alternate History fantasy series, “Videssos Cycle” and the “Krispes Sequence.” His other books include the novels Wereblood, Werenight, Earthgrip, Noninterference, A World of Difference, Gunpowder Empire, American Empire: The Victorous Opposition, Jaws of Darkness, Ruled Britannia, Settling Accounts: Drive to the East, In the Presence of Mine Enemies, The Bridge of the Separator, End of the Beginning, and Every Inch a King; the