Back in the spring of 1988, about a week or so after Orphan of Creation came out, I got a phone call from Harry, whom I had never met. Still, it was plain even from the tone of a stranger’s voice that something had thrown him for a loop. Harry told me that he had just published A Different Flesh, which was his science fiction novel about humans encountering another hominid species. The novel was based on stories he had published (in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, as I recall). Since my novel had not been serialized, Harry had no idea it was coming. This meant I was at a slight advantage, as I had known about his stories—at a distance. As with many writers, I try not to read something that’s too similar to what I’m working on, for fear of being unduly influenced, and/or demoralized. As I recall, I read part of the first of the stories, and then backed off because the stories were based on a theme that was a little too close to home.
Little did I know how close. What Harry was calling to talk to me about was the quotation from Stephen Jay Gould that appears at the front of the book you are reading at present. Harry, it turns out, had been inspired by precisely the same words. Gould’s work had set both of us off to explore a fascinating what-if. At the same time, Gould’s work had produced as striking an example of divergent evolution as one could wish for. Harry and I, starting from precisely the same jumping-off point, had told two totally different stories. And Harry had just opened up a book by a total stranger, and there read the paragraph that had set him thinking hard enough to produce a book. No wonder he sounded a bit spooked.
I suggested to Harry that we both sue Dr. Gould for incitement to fiction—and hence the new dedication. The lawsuit never came off, but that was how Harry and I met. It was the start of a longtime friendship—one that, I have no doubt, will continue to evolve as the years roll by.
Roger MacBride Allen
Takoma Park, Maryland
November, 2000
About The Author
Roger MacBride Allen was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut on September 26, 1957. He graduated Boston University in 1979 with a degree in journalism, and published his first novel in 1984. From that time to this, every work of science fiction that he has completed has been published. He has written over twenty novels to date, (three of which were New York Times bestsellers), two extremely obscure technical manuals, and a modest number of short stories. He is also the co-author (with his father, Thomas B. Allen) of Mr. Lincoln’s High-Tech War,
In 1994, he married Eleanore Fox, an officer in the U. S. Foreign Service. In March 1995, they moved to Brasilia, Brazil, where Eleanore worked at the embassy. In August, 1997, Eleanore’s next assignment took them back to the United States. Their son, Matthew Thomas Allen, was born November 12, 1998. A posting to Leipzig, Germany, made that the birthplace of their second son, James Maury Allen, born April 27, 2004.
At least one more posting is likely to take them out of the country again, but when in the United States, they live in Takoma Park, Maryland, just north of Washington, D. C.
FoxAcre Press
Visit foxacre.com for more great titles
from authors like
Stanley Schmidt,
Robert Silverberg,
Nancy Kress,
Edward M. Lerner,
Lawrence Watt-Evans,
and many more.
More print book and ebooks coming soon!
www.foxacre.com
Table of Contents
Orphan of Creation
Books by Roger MacBride Allen
Dedication
Epigraph
Prelude
November
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Interlude
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Interlude
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
December
Chapter Nine
Interlude
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
January
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Interlude
February
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Interlude
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
March
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
April
Chapter Twenty-Three
Summer
Chapter Twenty-Four
December
Chapter Twenty-Five
Postscript
Author's Note
About The Author
FoxAcre Press