Introduction to
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

Though I've spent at least two weeks in Burt Filer's company, he is one of the most enigmatic men I have ever met. I know he was married to Ann, I know they are now separated and perhaps divorced, and the last I heard of him he was in Philadelphia. Beyond that I know only that he grew up in upstate New York, received a degree in 1961 in Mechanical Engineering at Cornell, he is an inventor—having devised among other items a new type of motor, transmission and coupling—and has published speculative fiction in such magazines as If, Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. His short story Backtracked" is one of the finest short pieces I have ever read, and it should have won the Nebula in 1968. (For those curious enough to seek it out, it appeared in F&SF for June of that year.) (Ann's excellent story Settle" appeared in the same issue.)

"Eye of the Beholder" raises some pointed questions about the nature of art and the nature of the human condition, and does it in terms fresh to speculative fiction.

In many ways it is as enigmatic a piece of work as its author.

If you are out there, Burt, get in touch.