I’m running late this month – I should have posted the May “Author’s Notes” last week – so I’ll forego any attempts at cleverness. Our first note this time is from Robert J. Sawyer, author of our Main Selection Rollback:

One of the most interesting panels I ever saw at a science-fiction convention had Larry Niven and Mike Resnick on it. The moderator asked them each to describe the kind of SF they wrote. Larry said he writes things that remind him of the stories that hooked him on the genre when he was a teenager. Mike said he writes stories that appeal to him as a middle-aged man. Of course, I immediately thought of counterexamples: Nivenesque stories by Mike, and Resnickish tales by Larry—but I’ve often wondered how one might do both, combining that grandly cosmic sense-of-wonder with the down-to-Earth and intimately human. I don’t know if it’s possible to succeed on both levels, but I do know that there’s no other genre that even tries to be fractal—to be fascinating and beautiful at scales large and small. That’s one of the many reasons I love being a science-fiction writer.