and Rose Beetum
and Lee Whiteside
and Craig Chrissinger
and Patrice Caldwell and Betty Williamson
and SFWA
and all the great science-fiction people I’ve known,
some of whom are here
and some of whom—
Charlie Brown
and Ralph Vicinanza
and Isaac Asimov
and Jack Williamson—
aren’t.
As Meryl Streep said in her acceptance speech,
“The thing that counts the most is the friendship and the love we’ve shared.
I look out here and see my life before my eyes.”
And I do:
—driving all night to the Chicago Worldcon with Cee
—eating chocolate donuts with George R.R. Martin
—and getting thrown out of the Tupperware Museum with
Sheila Williams and Jim Kelly
—and driving Charlie Brown to Jack Williamson’s in Portales
—and getting thrown out of the Grand Ole Opry with Sheila
Williams and Jim Kelly
—and sparring, onstage and off, with Mike Resnick and Bob Silverberg
—and laughing so hard at dinner with Gardner Dozois and Eileen Gunn that I snorted a piece of lettuce up my nose
—and staying up all night eating red pistachios and talking about the Nebulas with Jim Kelly and John Kessel
—and having wonderful conversations about
Star Wars
and Shakespeare
and sangria
and the Algonquin Round Table
and Primeval
and the Marx Brothers
and how e-books are going to kill us
and what happens after we die
and meeting, oh, so many people,
making, oh, so many friends.
Now this is the place where the music starts to come up
and the winner starts talking faster and faster to get everything in before they drag them off the stage,
and I’m going to do it, too,
because I have to thank the people to whom I owe the most:
—Robert A. Heinlein,
for introducing me to Kip and Peewee
and to Three Men in a Boat
and to the whole wonderful world of science fiction
—and Kit Reed and Charles Williams and Ward Moore,
who showed me its amazing possibilities
—Philip K. Dick and Shirley Jackson and Howard Waldrop and William Tenn,
who taught me how science fiction should be written
—and Bob Shaw and Daniel Keyes and Theodore Sturgeon, whose stories:
“The Light of Other Days”
and “Flowers for Algernon”
and “The Man Who Lost the Sea”
taught me to love it.
I wouldn’t be here without them.
Or without you.
As Meryl Streep put it,
“My friends, thank you, all of you,
for this inexplicably wonderful career.”
Or, as Sally Field should have said it,
“I love you.
I really, really love you.”
Thank you for this inexplicably wonderful award.
ORIGINAL PUBLICATION INFORMATION
“All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis, copyright © 2007 by Connie Willis. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 2007.
“At the Rialto” by Connie Willis, copyright © 1989, 2011 by Connie Willis. First appeared in different form in Omni, October 1989.
“Death on the Nile” by Connie Willis, copyright © 1993 by Connie Willis. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 1993.
“Even the Queen” by Connie Willis, copyright © 1992 by Connie Willis. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April 1992.
“Fire Watch” by Connie Willis, copyright © 1982, 2010 by Connie Willis. First appeared in different form in Asimov’s Science Fiction, February 1982.
“Inside Job” by Connie Willis, copyright © 2005 by Connie Willis. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, January 2005.
“The Last of the Winnebagos” by Connie Willis, copyright © 1988 by Connie Willis. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 1988.
“A Letter from the Clearys” by Connie Willis, copyright © 1982 by Connie Willis. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 1982.
“The Soul Selects Her Own Society: Invasion and Repulsion: A Chronological Reinterpretation of Two of Emily Dickinson’s Poems: A Wellsian Perspective” by Connie Willis, copyright © 1996 by Connie Willis. First appeared in War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches, ed. Kevin J. Anderson (New York: Spectra, 1996).
“The Winds of Marble Arch” by Connie Willis, copyright © 1999 by Connie Willis. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November 1999.
Connie Willis was born in Colorado and graduated from university there. Her first story was published in 1971 and she began full-time writing in the early 80s. Her novels and short stories have won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards. She lives in Colorado.
Also By Connie Willis
NOVELS
Water Witch (with Cynthia Felice) (1982)
Lincoln’s Dreams (1987)
Light Raid (with Cynthia Felice) (1989)
Doomsday Book (1992)
Remake (1994)
Bellwether (1996)
Promised Land (with Cynthia Felice) (1997)
To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998)
Passage (2001)
Blackout (2010)
All Clear (2010)
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
Fire Watch (1985)
Impossible Things (1994)
Uncharted Territory (1994)
Even the Queen and Other Stories (1998)
Miracle and Other Christmas Stories (1999)
The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories (2007)
The Best of Connie Willis (2013)
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Introduction and new text copyright © Connie Willis 2013
Introduction copyright © Lisa Tuttle 2013
All rights reserved
Most of the stories in this work have been previously published in Asimov’s Science Fiction. ‘At the Rialto’ was originally published in Omni. ‘The Soul Selects Her Own Society: Invation and Repulsion: A Chronological Reinterpretation of Two of Emily Dickinson’s Poems: A Wellsian Perspective’: was originally published in War of the Worlds’ Global Dispatches edited by Kevin J. Anderson (New York: Spectra, 1996).
Previous publication information can be found at back of book.
The right of Connie Willis to be identified as the author of this work, and the right of Lisa Tuttle and Connie Willis to be identified as the authors of the introductions, has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2013 by Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 13115 6
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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