Book Cover

There's always something slightly embarrassing about writing an introduction to one's own short stories: What does one write? Received wisdom says - correctly - that the stories should speak for themselves. Modesty says - also correctly - that one cannot write "This author is terrific!" Prudence says that one should not announce that now, in the time that has passed since their writing, all the stories' flaws have become glaringly obvious to the author, who sits wondering why she didn't strong-arm a friend into writing the introduction in her place.    But, in this case, I actually do have something I want to say. Not directly about the stories, which should speak for themselves (see above), but about the context in which they were written. The context is the last decade of the twentieth century, when strange and wondrous things are happening in science labs around the world.    Scientists in Scotland clone a sheep from an adult cell.    Researchers decipher the entire DNA sequence, every last gene, used by the bacterium Escherichia coli.    Pharming - the practice of genetically engineering animals to produce pharmaceuticals for human use - becomes a burgeoning industry.    A research group in Japan discovers that large fragments of human chromosomes, with up to one thousand genes, can be incorporated into the mouse genome.    Human genes are identified for man inheritable tendencies, including breast cancer.    The twenty-first century, it's often remarked, will transform our knowledge of biology the same way that the twentieth century transformed physics. With knowledge, of course, comes application. And with the application of all we are learning about genetic engineering come social and ethical questions, some of the knotty.    This is where science fiction enters, stage left. Scientific laboratories are where the new technologies are rehearsed. Science fiction rehearses the implications of those technologies. What might we eventually do with our newfound power? Should we do it? Who should do it? Who will be affected? How? Is that a good thing or not? For whom?    Of the thirteen stories in this book, eight are concerned with what might come out of the beakers and test tubes and gene sequencers of microbiology. Not everything in these stories will come to pass. Possibly nothing in them will; fiction is not prediction. But I hope that stories at least will raise questions about the world rushing in on us at the speed - not of light - but of thought.    And, oh yeah . . . I hope you enjoy reading the stories as well. Without that, there's really no point, is there? But you'll be the sole, best judge of that. Nancy Kress March 29, 1998

Copyright ©1999 Nancy Kress