The year f984， from which the stories in this book come，<br >was a time when science fiction became the subject of a very<br >large tmmber of feature reticles in newspapers and magazines.<br >The motivation for these was of course George Orweli .，，<br >~ovel 198，~，: .jo~mlalists by the score contacted science ficti，.m<br >wciters in their areas to ask<br > ~)redicficns" now that the<br >what they ttvmght about ()rwe~! s<br >time had arrived.<br > Fe.~: of . .hose )oemalists knew m~ach about science fictio~ (y~，~ <br >ca~ always teil immediately， becanse they say %ci-fi")， >:)<br >almost a!l of us in the sf field were ban-aged with question:~<br >a>out why we felt that we knew more about what wou}d<br >happen in the future than anyone else did. We had ~.o explain<br >many times about science fiction being a literature of specula-<br >tion， not prediction: sf writers tell of futures they think possi-<br >bte~ not necessmqly inevitable. This was news to most of<br >them.<br > So was the fact that most science fiction is optimistic rather<br >than pessimistic in its extrapolations. Most people who don t<br >nommlly read science fiction think we re all Cassandras，<br >writing stones to warn people about futures in which this or<br >that dreadful thing will happen if we aren t careful. They ve<br >gotten this idea front past science fiction novels like 1984，<br >Huxley s Brave New WorM， Stewart s Earth Abides， and<br >B:.-:adbury s Fakrenke# 451; these are the sf novels that have<br >been read b) m~st people who seb:~om read science fictior~，<br >And cv:~，~ ~ho~，，~: who i~ave detved into ，~.cience fiction more<br >coi~: ~!~e other ~ide gives u~ r~，:commended inr~ovatior~s and<br >~he advar~tages to N: gained from them. Any reg-t~lar reader of<br >