tc@amd.UUCP (Tom Crawford) (05/09/85)
***REPLACE THIS LINE WITH A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE LINE-EATER*** I just bought a copy of "The Faces of Science Fiction". This is a book of photographs (taken by Patti Perret) of "eighty-two of the best known science fiction writers alive today. Each writer has also contributed a personal statement". There are several authors conspicuous by their absence (RAH for one) and a few I have never heard of. The photographs are (in my opinion) tasteful and very nicely done. The blurbs by the writers vary widely. Here is part of what Clifford D. Simak has to say: For fifty years, as a newspaperman, I sought to write the truth. In the beginning I tended to believe there could only be one truth - if all the facts were pulled together, all opinions weighed, then the truth would stand revealed. As time went on I came to know there was no single truth, but many truths. Truth was not all black and white; there were many shades of truth. Finally knowing this, I continued, as newsmen still do today, to strike as close to truth as one man might be able. Tom Crawford ...amdcad!amd!tc
donn@utah-gr.UUCP (Donn Seeley) (05/15/85)
I, too, recently got a copy of THE FACES OF SCIENCE FICTION by Patti Perret ($11.95, Bluejay Books, c1984), and I'll gladly second Tom Crawford's recommendation. It's true that not every one of your favorite writers will be included in the collection, but Perret managed to find most of mine, including Gene Wolfe (who also wrote the introduction), Kate Wilhelm & Damon Knight, R A Lafferty, Theodore Sturgeon, Roger Zelazny, Alice Sheldon (aka James Tiptree, Jr.), George Alec Effinger, Tom Disch and many others. Notable omissions are Robert A Heinlein, Robert Sheckley, Jack Vance, Harlan Ellison, and Stephen King in the U S, and almost no one from across the pond appears to have been represented -- no photos of Clarke, Brunner, Aldiss, Priest, Ballard, etc. Many of the pictures are amazingly good and all are competent; and many of the authors' notes are a joy to read. Don't miss Disch's 'Ode to a Toaster', Donn Seeley University of Utah CS Dept donn@utah-cs.arpa 40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W (801) 581-5668 decvax!utah-cs!donn