Harlan [Ellison] liked the story but felt that it did not fit the portrait of Australia that the anthology sought to create. I gathered that on his visit here he had been impressed by cave paintings, Ayres Rock and the vast open spaces, so that my urban portrait of animal despair was out of kilter with what he and Terry [Dowling] required. So I wrote him another tale, which cannot appear here, and he rang me from San Francisco to say how much he liked it. That's the way a writer yearns to have his ego stroked!
--George Turner, introducing his story 'the Fittest' in A Pursuit of Miracles.
Isn't that just great?
In other news, I finished The Sea and the Summer (or Drowning Towers, for the Americans), and it held up nicely until the end. Nothing is really tied up in the end, and the bookend pieces, ultimately, add nothing. But overall, the book was really fine, and if you're one of those people who read Geoff Ryman's Air this year, I think you'd dig the book.
Maybe someone will reprint it. Anyone reading this blog paying attention?
