MANY OF THE ideas incorporated in this book are drawn selectively from the fanzines, reviews, and editorials of the last seventy years, and often from the decades of speeches and panel discussions at SF conventions and late-night personal conversations with most of the names mentioned in the text. Particularly important to the evolution of my thoughts on science fiction have been my continuing discussions with Gardner R. Dozois and Charles N. Brown over the past fifteen or twenty years. I wish to acknowledge their special contributions.
Most of all, however, for the past thirty-two years I have been in intense and continuing discussion with Paul Williams about the SF field. It was our joint idea to embody our thoughts on SF in this book, and Paul was present to comment on every page as it came from the typewriter. As special editor and collaborator, this is Paul’s book as much as mine. It still surprises us that I was the one to put the words on paper. Thank you, Paul.