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Stars
Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian.
tars is a truly unique undertaking, and an intensely personal one as well. It
was born at the 2001 World Science Fiction Convention, but it was a birth that
might never have occurred if not for a series of fortuitous events. The first was
Janis Ian's visit to her friend Anne McCaffrey. It was there that she heard about
the existence of Worldcon, the annual science fiction convention at which authors,
editors, artists, and dedicated readers gather every year. Anne insisted that Janis,
an avid science fiction reader since the age of seven, had to attend a Worldcon.
But it was not until Janis began an e-mail correspondence with Mike
Resnick that Stars became as inevitable as the fact that the sun rises each morning.
It was Mike who lured Janis to the 2001 convention, and Mike who began
introducing her to many of the writers whose work she had adored for decades.
When Janis discovered that these writers were as enamored of her music as
she was of their writing, what could be more exciting a creative venture than to
meld these two universes into one?
Perhaps the best way to explain Stars is in Janis Ian's own words:
"For me, science fiction is the jazz of prose.
"My criteria for asking a writer to participate was simple: their work had to
have affected my own work. It some cases, I could even trace a visible line from
this story or novel to that song. I can tell you that Jan Yolen's The Devil's
Arithmetic influence my song 'Tattoo,' that Orson Scott Card's Tales of Alvin
Maker brought me to the fire imagery in 'This House,' that John Varley's Press
Enter brought me smack into the computer age. I told each writer how they'd
affected me as I invited them, and to my astonishment, many of them said, 'Yes.'
Not only that - they said yes with a vengeance. Howard Waldrop pulled out his
old Janis Ian records and picked a song I hadn't thought about in years. John
Varley did the same.
"Many people in the field have been saying, 'How on Earth did you get this
stellar cast?' Between them 'my' writers have won dozens of Hugo and Nebula
Awards, and awards from pretty much every other country on Earth. . . . I
approached everyone truthfully, as a fan, and they responded in kind. . . . I only
knew that I loved their work, and hoped they'd be part of what I was beginning to
think of as my Grand Adventure.
"I am immensely proud of this book, and exited to be a part of it. . . . The
variety of stories and ideas in this book is huge, and I do hope everyone will find
something to appeal to them. . . . I do know that the stories are true, in the way
only a work of fiction can be true. They have heart. They have life. They have
truth. They move me. As an artist I can ask for nothing more."
JANIS IAN burst on the music scene at the age of fourteen with her controversial
saga of interracial love, "Society's Child." Since then she has never looked back,
selling millions of copies of her seventeen albums, becoming a multiple Grammy
winner, creating title tunes for numerous movies and television series, and
spending much of her year performing live, both in the United States and around
the world. Her songs have also been performed by many other famous recording
artists. Janis and her partner make their home in Nashville.
This anthology fulfills a cherished dream for Janis. She has been an avid
science fiction reader her entire life, and when she discovered how many of her
favorite science fiction writers were equally dedicated fans of her music, Stars was
the result. Janis herself has recently begun writing science fiction short stories,
one of which appears in Stars and several of which will be appearing in
anthologies this year.
MIKE RESNICK is the winner of four Hugos and a Nebula. He has sold more
than forty science fiction and fantasy novels, over 150 stories, a pair of
screenplays, and has edited thirty anthologies. His work has won major awards in
the United States, France, Japan, Spain, Poland, and Croatia, and has been
translated into twenty-two languages.
Copyright © 2003
Published by DAW Books
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