Introduction 3
by Dave Wolverton
If you’re familiar with Brad R. Torgersen’s stories, you’ll probably just want to skip this introduction and get right to the good stuff. That’s what I’d do.
If you’re not familiar with him, then maybe I can convince you to quit reading this now.
Brad is an unusual author. Not only is he very popular with other authors, vying for respected awards like the Hugo and Nebula, he’s also hugely popular with fans, consistently winning awards like the Analog AnLabs.
That isn’t easy to do. There are people that we might call “writer’s writers,” people whose storytelling skills are so stellar that other writers gaze upward in awe, as if at a fireworks display.
Then there are authors who are more “of the people,” writers whose homespun simplicity charms us and delights us and fills us with warmth.
Rarely do we see an author who can captivate both audiences.
So Brad writes the kind of tales that science fiction readers love, with earthy heroes who remind us again and again what it is to be human, all the while writing about tough people facing impossible situations, in worlds that rigorously conform to scientific principles.
In looking at his stories, he reminds me most strongly of Robert Heinlein, yet in making that comparison, I would be doing a disservice to Brad. Somehow, Brad’s characters are more likeable and human than Heinlein’s. So if you set two stories in front of me, I’d grab the Torgersen.
In that way, he reminds me of another of my favorite authors, Lois McMaster Bujold, who also writes about ordinary people facing monumental challenges.
As an editor, I’ve read tens of thousands of stories—or at least the first few pages of tens of thousands of them. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve read too many of them. There aren’t many authors these days that I will pick up and read for my own personal enjoyment, and there are even fewer that I will go search out to read. My weary eyes feel over-worn.
But Brad has made my short-list. If I see a magazine with his name on it, I want it.
And an anthology full of stories with his name on them? Ah, now there is a treasure indeed.
Brad R. Torgersen is quite simply one of the finest science fiction writers alive.
If you haven’t read Brad R. Torgerson before, I envy you. You’re about to discover something wonderful!
— Dave Wolverton, June 2014
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