Is the science-fiction field incestuous? Yes. Is that a bad thing? I’m not entirely sure. If editors are buying substandard stories from writers merely because those writers are their friends, I believe that to be a bad thing. But if what is happening instead is that writers and editors who like each others’ stories develop a friendship as an outgrowth of that, then that seems more like serendipity to me. Which is the cause and which the effect? We can never be sure.<\/p>\n
The anthology Once Upon A Galaxy<\/em><\/a> seems to be a prime example of this to me. Back when I was editing Science Fiction Age<\/em><\/a> magazine, I published a number of stories by Wil McCarthy, including a novella titled “The Collapsium.” That story, a hard-SF tale told in a fairy-tale tone, was nominated for a Nebula and later expanded into the novel Collapsium<\/em>. Time went by. Later, when I was editor of Science Fiction Weekly<\/em><\/a>, I no longer bought Wil’s fiction, but he wrote a science column for me every four weeks.<\/p>\n When I heard that Wil was editing an anthology of hard-SF stories with a fairy-tale voice, a la the story I had bought from him years before, I completed the circuit by selling him a story, our roles suddenly reversed. Once Upon a Galaxy<\/em> hit bookstores in September 2002.<\/p>\n