The first thing to share is this: every piece in this collection stands alone, and nothing after this brief introduction presumes that you’ve read these opening remarks. But if you’re curious how this collection came to be, or why particular stories came to be included, well, the next few pages are for you.
Among the common topics when people first meet is, “So, what do you do?” And the typical follow-up when people discover they’ve met an author (not to imply authors, even science-fiction authors, aren’t people) is some form of, “Which of your books should I try?”
This is like asking a parent, “Which is your favorite child?”
Okay, not exactly alike, although the gestations periods are often comparable. There’s no expectation any random new acquaintance might rush out to purchase either of my literal children. Still, I feel each of my literary offspring is unique.
My interests are eclectic, and so also my authoring. How, then, can I answer, “Which book?” Should I suggest a near-future, Earth-centric technothriller? A far-future, deep-space adventure? A science-fictional mystery? Something with time travel? Alien invasion? Artificial intelligence? Nanotech? I’ve written at least one novel of each of those types. Leaving me, when confronted with that dreaded question, tongue-tied.
Till today.
The stories in The Best of Edward M. Lerner pretty much run the gamut of my interests (this seems the place to mention degrees in physics and computer engineering, plus a first career spent in high tech), writing styles, and authorial moods. Are you curious how I approach any particular subgenre within SF? If I do humor? How my writing has evolved in the almost three decades I’ve been at this?
This book has you covered.
It contains some of the best from among my short stories, novelettes, and novellas.1 Many of these tales evolved into multi-story arcs and even entire novels. What you won’t find here are excerpts from novels. Every item in this collection—however extensible it may eventually have proven itself—is self-contained. Each is followed by a few words of context. How a story came about, perhaps. What it grew from. What it grew into. Why it’s special to me.
You’re probably wondering: what determines “the best,” because these things don’t have official rankings. Fair enough. To select stories for this collection, I gave weight to: awards and award nominations. Editorial interest—which strives to mirror reader interest—in seeing a storyline continue. Reviews. Reader feedback. Republications in new markets. To a minor degree, my (purely objective, of course) opinion. On that personal-judgment basis I’ve included two stories, commissioned by and for small-press anthologies, of which I’m particularly proud. As much fun as such venues can be, they seldom get the reviews or award consideration afforded to stories in the major SF magazines or major-publisher anthologies.
Pieces chosen for this book were first published between 2001 and 2020, scattered across four SF magazines and the aforementioned SF anthologies. Given staff turnover at magazines and a pair of editorial dynamic duos, these selections reflect the tastes of eight editors.
Seven of my choices first appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact (hereafter, in most instances, just Analog), but these were accepted by the magazine about equally by successive editors. Also worth a mention: Analog invites its readers annually to rank their favorite stories and science articles, and six of the seven Analog pieces I’ve included in this collection were finalists in their respective annual polls. (The exception was a work of flash fiction, arbitrarily defined as 1000 words or fewer, a story category inexplicably ineligible for the annual poll.)
Having done the math, you may also be wondering about the absence from this collection of anything from my first decade as an author. As with most skills, writing improves with practice—but that’s only a small part of the, ahem, story. Most of that initial decade overlapped with a demanding day job. The longest chunk of that period, seven years working on NASA endeavors while employed by Hughes Aircraft, offered tons of grist for the authorial mill—and precious little opportunity to turn the authorial crank. The Nineties did see publication of my first novel (Probe), two short stories, and... that’s it. (Being fair to myself, in that era I also managed to start a few other projects, most notably what became my second novel. Moonstruck didn’t achieve a complete first draft, however, till 2001.) Given my I don’t tease readers with excerpts philosophy, there’s good reason why the earliest story from this collection is from 2001.
So: which book do I recommend to anyone expressing curiosity about my writing? As of now, this book.
—Edward M. Lerner
April, 2022