INTRODUCTION
Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Oxygen
A few anthologies ago, I went into detail in the introduction to The Baen Big Book of Monsters about why giant monsters, from Kong to Godzilla to The Amazing Colossal Man, have lots of scientific problems. There are many reasons for not taking them seriously. But against this is the fun factor. Giant monsters are fun! The introduction was a lot longer, but this sums up its argument well enough.
And space pirates? Come on, now.
All sorts of arguments can be advanced about how unlikely they are. Time was that the seas thronged with cargo ships that a well-armed, but lighter, faster sailing ship could overtake and plunder, but would such be true of space commerce, if space commerce ever comes into reality?
Well, it might, in the not-so-near future, if technology keeps advancing. New energy sources and new methods of propulsion, perhaps based on scientific discoveries we cannot even foresee, might make space travel easy and not as costly as it is at present. It might become profitable to mine the Moon (will environmentalists object?), or the other planets, and in particular the asteroids, which are not at the bottom of a deep gravity well or even a shallow one, like Luna’s. If space travel becomes cheap enough to make a more or less honest buck, it would be cheap enough for less honest (dare I say scurvy?) individuals to hijack it. And besides, with government being inherently scurvy, there might even be space privateers. (While pirates are private contractors, privateers do the same dirty work, but as more or less official agents of a government.)
And even if the Solar System is uninhabited by anyone but those ape spawn from the third planet out, so that there will be no trade in valuable Martian or Venusian works of art and relics, if interstellar travel becomes possible (and cheap enough), maybe wealthy collectors will pay fabulous sums for Vegan or Altairan artwork, providing a stimulus for third parties (call them “pirates” for lack of a more dignified term) to intercept it en route and offer it to yet another wealthy collector.
This is, of course, all supposition, but in the meantime, while we’re waiting on somebody, possibly Elon Musk, to found a Moon or Mars colony, we can still ride paper spaceships for fun. However many objections can be raised against space piracy becoming a reality, the idea is undeniable fun.
I think another objection that might have been raised in the past is a dead issue now. Once upon a time, space opera, the classic adventure story of SF, akin to the shoot-em-up western known as “horse opera,” was regarded as an embarrassment—something that was keeping SF from being recognized as a valid literary form, not real cultchuh, er, culture. If that was the case, then stories of space pirates (the horror, the horror) had to be a prime offender.
In 1970 I was attending a Pittsburgh SF convention, and the very famous, somewhat notorious guest of honor was chairing a panel discussion on Women’s Liberation (the term “feminism” was not back in use yet). The writer was a torchbearer for the New Wave, which was being hailed as the wave of the future, sweeping aside all that trashy pulp stuff of past SF. He took a moment from denouncing a recent story collection, for not having strong women, to also berate it for having (wait for it) space pirates.
Well, that was five decades ago. The fiery writer chairing the panel (who, I should say, was undeniably talented, even if I rarely agreed with his polemics) is no longer with us, and we’ve had Star Trek (which the writer disliked, particularly after they bought a script from him and actually changed it!) come back from the dead and all but take over the world. Star Wars (b. 1977) is also threatening to take over the world. SF-based games are threatening to take over the world, at least virtually. SF and fantasy dominate the bestseller lists. With all these threats to the world, who needs pirates? But they are there.
And there’s also Doctor Who, for which that writer expressed admiration in a paperback cover blurb. I wonder if he ever saw the Whovian installment that involved space pirates?
Maybe space opera isn’t SF’s most dignified face, but it’s standing astride the public conscienceness like a colossus (I steal from the best). Why not space pirates? And if you’re reading this (unless you’re looking at it online) you hold in your hands, whether or not a skull and crossbones is tattooed on either of them, a plump package of space adventures, involving space buccaneers of all sorts: from one-man operations to whole pirate fleets; from pirates fighting against tyrannical governments to the scum of space who may or may not get what they deserve.
I’m also glad to say that several stories herein by Leiber, Blish, Robertson, and others are being reprinted for the first time since they appeared in magazines and then walked the plank into pulp oblivion. A number of other stories appear for the first time anywhere. Carysa Locke’s is a short adventure from the universe of her bestselling telepathic space pirates series. There’s also a story from another bestselling writer, Sarah A. Hoyt, accompanied by her talented son. And one from the co-editor who deserves all the credit and none of the blame for this anthology: Christopher Ruocchio.
There are, as usual, unfortunate absences. I particularly regret that circumstances wouldn’t permit including stories by the King and Queen of space adventure, Edmond Hamilton and Leigh Brackett. Maybe if there’s a sequel to this book, it might still come to pass. Write your congressman!
And a very recent space pirate tale by William Ledbetter, “Broken Wings,” might be here, except we were beaten to it by a colleague. You can find it in David Afsharirad’s Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF #6, also from Baen, a book I heartily recommend, and not just for that story.
Finally, we had to reluctantly pass over a trio of good novellas: “The Man from the Big Dark” by John Brunner, “Galactic North” by Alastair Reynolds (look for it in his story collection with the same title), and a true classic, “Piracy Preferred” by the legendary John W. Campbell (1930). All good, but too long. At least we managed to include Leiber’s bordering-on-novella length “They Never Come Back.”
There was, alas, never any question of including Murray Leinster’s terrific novel, The Pirates of Zan. It was originally serialized at the end of the 1950s as The Pirates of Ersatz, but began in Astounding Science Fiction, the cover of which had a Kelly Freas painting of a pirate boarding a spaceship with a slide rule in his teeth. (If you’ve never heard of slide rules, consult Wikipedia).
But enough of what couldn’t be included, and enough of my babbling. Adjust your scarf and eyepatch before donning the space helmet, put that robot parrot on your shoulder, make sure your trusty blaster is charged (cutlass, regular, or laser optional), and set forth on the black sea of space for adventure, mateys!
—Hank Davis,
February 2020