Introduction
These stories were first printed in magazines or anthologies over a thirty-year timespan. The earliest of the stories, “War Bride,” appeared in the anthology Alien Sex (Dutton, edited by Ellen Datlow) in 1990 and the most recent, “Today is Today,” appeared first in Stonecoast Review in July of 2018. Four of the other stories first appeared in various issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, and another appeared first in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. One story appeared in Gulf Stream Review, and another in the anthology of original stories Adventures in the Twilight Zone (Daw Books, 1995, edited by Carol Serling).
You will find here the Sidewise Award-winning story, “Something Real,” which offers an alternate history take on famous baseball player and World War II spy Moe Berg, and you will find in “Today is Today” an alternate universe take on parenthood, professional football, and Down syndrome that was recently reprinted in The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2019 (Prime Books, edited by Rich Horton).
Much of the science fiction and fantasy that I’ve published is about relationships, both good and bad. Often, these relationships are between two human beings, and sometimes they are relationships between humans and aliens because I am, at heart, a science fiction writer, and aliens serve as wonderful examples of the “other” in stories, allowing writers the latitude to consider all sorts of odd relationships, as you will see.
Being a science fiction writer at heart doesn’t mean that I’ve abandoned things here on Earth. I grew up in a family immersed deeply in sports. My father played major-league baseball and was a minor-league manager and major-league coach and scout for many years. I played high school and college baseball myself, though not all that well, and I was also a football and basketball player of dubious quality in college. I sat on the bench for all three sports, but enjoyed being on the teams and practicing and playing the games. I enjoyed it all so much that I continued to play at the amateur level in those sports and soccer, too, well into my fifties. To readers new to me and to my short fiction, this will help explain how sports in general, and baseball in particular, keeps cropping up in these stories and, indeed, all my fiction and occasional poetry.
This immersion in sports has prompted my use of women characters as often as men, and this collection reflects that. My extended family includes women who played high school and college basketball, ran cross-country and starred in high school soccer and track and more. Today, several of these talented athletes are still active, running everything from 5K fun runs to ambitious marathons.
In my own immediate family, my wife is one of those athletes, running half marathons now and again just to stay in shape for the heavy-duty thinking required of a full professor of finance. Our daughter is a talented, athletic biologist and zookeeper, who runs for fun these days, enjoying the exercise just as much, I think, as she did on her high school track and soccer teams. My son, now in his fifties, is a wonderful Down syndrome person who’s happily made a liar out of all the experts who told me when he was young what he wouldn’t be able to accomplish, even as he was growing up to accomplish those very things. He’s an avid bowler and, back in the day, found great joy playing basketball and soccer in the Special Olympics. I have dedicated this book to him and our daughter, for all that I’ve learned from them both.
In all cases, the characters in these stories are inventions, though I sometimes borrow historical figures for purposes of storytelling. I greatly appreciate the fine advice of my agent, Robert G. Diforio of the D4EO Literary Agency, and the support and advice from Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta, who together founded WordFire Press. Thanks, too, to Marie Whittaker and the rest of the WordFire Press publishing team, which has done an outstanding job in all regards. All errors in editing and storytelling are mine.
—Rick Wilber, St. Petersburg, FL, June 2019