Rodzher ZHelyazny - Unicorn Variations [Anthology]

TIMESCAPE BOOKS Distributed by Simon and Schuster New York

Here is another collection of things written by me, drawn from various points over the past two decades. Some I recall fondly; others I had all but forgotten.

In reviewing the stories included here, I was surprised by the number of tales written to order, i.e., to go behind a magazine's cover painting (of which more anon) or to qualify for inclusion in a theme anthology.

I pause to reflect upon the phenomenon of the theme anthology: In the Old Days (circa forties and fifties) collections of science fiction stories were just collections of science fiction stories, none of them necessarily resembling any of the others in major particulars. In recent years, however, collections of stories possessed of a common theme have become the rule in the science fiction anthology. I cannot look upon writing such stories as a bad thing. Some very good work has appeared in theme anthologies. But such volumes might fairly be viewed as something of a constraint upon writers.

And thinking back, I began writing for magazines in the days when they were considered family publicationsmeaning that one did not use profanity beyond occasional hells and damns, describe sexual acts, have one's characters discuss politics in any but the broadest terms or indulge in religious speculation.

Earlier this year I visited the Soviet Union in the company of some other people connected with science fiction. We met with a number of Russian and Ukrainian writers and editors. When we were told that they preferred to publish stories with happy endings, stories containing a minimum of violence, our first reaction was a knowing nod. Really.

There are always restrictions. I do not feel any imposed upon me now in the sense of editorial censorship. But there are restrictions in the form of my own limitations as a writer, and there are self-imposed restrictions having to do with story structure and matters of my temperament and taste. I am free to work within these limits. When I write the first sentence to any story, though, I surrender a lot more freedom. I have set a course. I have restricted myself even further. Freedom of expression must also bow to the necessity for clear communication, as many of science fiction's failed experiments of the sixties demonstrate.

Gore Vidal has suggested that a writer has a limited cast of charactershis own repertory company, so to speakand that, with different makeup, they enact all of his tales. I feel he has a point there, and that this constitutes yet another limitation (though I like to feel that over the years one can pension off a few, and I do try to seek out new talent).

All of these things considered, it is not surprising that one can detect echoes, correspondences and even an eternal return or two within the work of a single author. The passage of time does bring changes, yea and alas; but still, I would recognize myself anywhere. In this sense, any writer's total output might be looked upon as a series of variations. . .

All of that to justify a title.

I want to thank all of those people who've offered me employment in hardware stores, but I'd really prefer to keep on writing.

This story came into being in a somewhat atypical fashion. The first movement in its direction occurred when Gardner Dozois phoned me one evening and asked whether I'd ever done a short story involving a unicorn. I said that I had not. He explained then that he and Jack Dann were putting together a reprint anthology of unicorn stories, and he suggested that I write one and sell it somewhere and then sell them reprint rights to it. Two sales. Nice. I told him that I'd think about it. Later, I was asked by another anthologist whether I'd ever done a story set in a barroomand if so, he'd like it for a reprint collection he was doing. I allowed that I hadn't. A week or so after that, I attended a wine tasting with the redoubtable George R. R. Martin, and during the course of the evening I decided to mention the prospective collections in case he had ever done a unicorn story or a barroom story. He hadn't either, but he reminded me that Fred Saberhagen was putting together a reprint collection of stories involving chess games (Pawn to Infinity). "Why don't you," he said "write a story involving a unicorn and a chess game, set it in a barroom and sell it to everybody?" We chuckled and sipped. A few months later, I went up to Vancouver, B.C., to be the guest of V-Con, a very pleasant regional science fiction convention. I had decided to take my family on the Inland Passage Alaskan cruise after that Now right before I left New Mexico I had read Italo Calvin's Invisible Cities, and when I read the section titled "Hidden Cities. 4." something seemed to stir. It told of the city where the inhabitants exterminated all of the vermin, completely sanitizing the place, only to be haunted then by visions of creatures that did not exist. Later, during the convention, things began to flow together; and on my way down to the waterfront to board the Prinsendam, I stopped at a number of bookstores, speed reading all of the chess sections until I found what I wanted, two hours before sailing time. I bought the book. I sailed. I wrote "Unicorn Variation" in odd moments during what proved a fine cruise. My protagonist is named Martinany similarity to George (who is a chess expert) is not exactly unintentional. (I'll include a note on the game itself as an afterpiece to the tale.) Later that year the Prinsendam burned and sank The story didn't. I sold it a sufficient number of times to pay for the cruise.

Thanks, George.

A bizarrerie of fires, cunabulum of light, it moved with a deft, almost dainty deliberation, phasing into and out of existence like a storm-shot piece of evening; or perhaps the darkness between the flares was more akin to its truest natureswirl of black ashes assembled in prancing cadence to the lowing note of desert wind down the arroyo behind buildings as empty yet filled as the pages of unread books or stillnesses between the notes of a song.

Gone again. Back again. Again.

Power, you said? Yes. It takes considerable force of identity to manifest before or after one's time. Or both.

As it faded and gained it also advanced, moving through the warm afternoon, its tracks erased by the wind. That is, on those occasions when there were tracks.

A reason. There should always be a reason. Or reasons.

It knew why it was therebut not why it was there, in that particular locale.

It anticipated learning this shortly, as it approached the desolation-bound line of the old street. However, it knew that the reason may also come before, or after. Yet again, the pull was there and the force of its being was such that it had to be close to something.

The buildings were worn and decayed and some of them fallen and all of them drafty and dusty and empty. Weeds grew among floorboards. Birds nested upon rafters. The droppings of wild things were everywhere, and it knew them all as they would have known it, were they to meet face to face.

It froze, for there had come the tiniest unanticipated sound from somewhere ahead and to the left. At that moment, it was again phasing into existence and it released its outline which faded as quickly as a rainbow in hell, that but the naked presence remained beyond subtraction.

Invisible, yet existing, strong, it moved again. The clue. The cue. Ahead. A gauche. Beyond the faded word SALOON on weathered board above. Through the swinging doors. (One of them pinned alop.)

Pause and assess.

Bar to the right, dusty. Cracked mirror behind it. Empty bottles. Broken bottles. Brass rail, black, encrusted. Tables to the left and rear. In various states of repair.