Introduction
to
STILL-LIFE
"Still-Life," and its thirty-two-year-old author, "K. M. O'Donnell," represent several very special things for you, me, and Again, Dangerous Visions. They represent, for openers, what may well be an extraordinary new kind of fiction: fantasy that becomes reality by inference. And they represent the almost pathological integrity of the typical sf writer.
On the latter matter, let me do a fast mea culpa. Due to the length of time it has taken to assemble this book properly—five years in the making, cast of thousands, all-singing, all-dancing, all-talking—a number of writers have suffered some rather substantial inconvenience. Dick Lupoff, whose story appears toward the end of the anthology, has suffered the most, and I'll comment on that in his introduction. But Mr. "O'Donnell" has suffered second most. He sold me this story on 11 August 1969. As I write this preface to the story, it is two full years later, and this book will be published over six months beyond that point. Mr. "O'Donnell" subsequently wrote a fine novel titled Universe Day (Avon, 1971) which I urge you to locate and purchase and read. He wanted to include "Still-Life" as a portion of that novel. Because the anthology was not yet published, and because every story in this book is an original that has never appeared anywhere previously, in any form, I was compelled to turn down Mr. "O'Donnell's" request that the story be included in the novel prior to publication of A,DV. I felt like a monster, but the rationale for my monstrousness was inescapable.
A,DV—like DV before it, and as TLDV will be—is a joint project. Every man and woman involved is responsible to, and benefits from, every other man and woman in the book. There will be many who will buy this book because it has a new Bradbury herein, or a new Vonnegut, or a full-length Le Guin. That clout will help Jim Hemesath and Ken McCullough and Evelyn Lief and all the other kids whose names are not—as yet—box office. The name "K. M. O'Donnell" is a name with which to contend. His short story, "Final War," missed winning a Nebula by only six votes, and has become very well known. Universe Day will make him many new fans. We needed the clout that could be obtained from a previously-unpublished "O'Donnell" yarn. I had to say no. He and I are responsible to forty-two other writers and artists, even as they and I bear that responsibility to him.
It is to his credit, and an example of the high-principled good faith that is the constant rule among sf writers (though not always the case with their publishers), that Mr. "O'Donnell" understood and revised his plans for the novel so "Still-Life" could appear here first. To our greater glory. This is hardly an unusual case, where a sf writer will suffer loss of money or prestige or convenience, rather than break his word to another member of the sf fraternity. I cannot think of many other lines of work—or other kinds of writing—where such uprightness exists. I can't think of many sf writers who'd cop to the term "gentleman," but if states and governments acted half as well toward one another, this would be a much less twitchy world.
In case you haven't caught on, this is a deep and sincere thankyou to Mr. "O'Donnell."
And so I can stop using them, you may wonder why there are quotation marks around the name "O'Donnell." Well, it's because the name is Malzberg. Barry N. Malzberg. Under his own name he wrote Screen and Oracle of the Thousand Hands for Olympia Press in 1969, but under "K. M. O'Donnell" he has written The Empty People (Lancer, 1969), Final War and Other Fantasies (Ace, 1969) and Dwellers of the Deep (Ace, 1970). Why he uses the pseudonym, only Barry can say, but had I worked as an editor for a certain publisher whom shall go nameless whom, I'd change my name, too!
Mr. Malzberg was born and lives in Manhattan, married Joyce Zelnick in 1964, spawned a daughter (Stephanie Jill) in 1966, and has appeared in such prestigious collections as Best SF: 1968, Best from the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction: 18th Series, Nova 1 and most of the top periodicals in the field.
Messrs. Malzberg and O'Donnell are presently full-time freelance writers (an occupation rapidly going the way of the auk, the passenger pigeon and the Rational Man); there are a couple of writing fellowships in his background, six months in the Army, somewhat longer than that working in city and state civil services, and stints as editor of a number of magazines.
"Still-Life"—as I noted earlier—seems to me a new kind of fiction. I wish I could invent a term like "neorealistic" or "fabulorooted" the way the literateurs do, but frankly I cannot even devise a category. It is one of those stories that you read and find yourself thinking, "Jesus, I wondered about that at the time, thought what if Michael Collins up there in the Command Module got pissed off that Armstrong and Aldrin got all the glory walking on the Moon and just said, to hell with you guys, and took off." It's the kind of story that becomes reality even as it's written, that somehow carries all the past, present and future, plus future possibilities and alternate time-tracks of the now within itself. It is a strange and oddly unforgettable piece of fiction, and in its own special way it is the most dangerous vision in this book.