Best Of Sfinx - Editorial

The room was dark, lit only by a dimly guttering pile of rejected manuscripts coated in soya oil. The corners seemed full of nameless scuttering things, and a few that were all too nameable, all busily scribbling away at their next multi-volume submission. In the centre of the lighted area was the only clearly discernible figure; a haggard, wizened dwarf bent over an equally ancient envelope on top of a rusty metal desk, laboriously writing on it with a 2mm. long stub of charcoal. Around his ankle a careful observer would note a thick and rusty chain which snaked out to clasp one of the desk legs in a manner normally indicative either of extreme passion or of rigor mortis. Suddenly, a deep and booming voice spoke, seemingly from the empty air,

YOU'RE LATE.

I know, I'm sorry, the photocopier ran out of ink, we couldn't find a photocopier, the wordprocessor was down, I can't find enough envelopes to to write all these copies on when they've each got eight mind-blowing, world-view-expanding, ideologically sound but exciting too... umm... stories in...

SHUT UP.

Yes, I'm sorry, so sorry, I know I talk too much, please accept my apol-

SHUT UP.

YOU HAVEN'T INCLUDED MY FAVOURITE STORIES. ANY OF THEM.

Well you see that's because the editor's tastes may differ ever so slightly from... and anyway, we wanted to include both well-known and not so well-known authors... a representative selection of fifteen issues and eighteen years of great achievement... issue 4 (new series) now on sale... no, please, not the leeches! Aaagh!

BUT I MIGHT HAVE FORGIVEN YOU THAT. DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT IS THAT SEALED YOUR FATE FOR ALL ETERNITY?

Ah... you checked the originals for one of the promotional quotes?

YOU DIDN'T REPUBLISH MY STORY! DID YOU??

Umm... Oh, yes, must have lost it in the back fi-

WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?

Ah, we're always ready to accept new submissions for the new series, no need to be a member of Oxford University past or present, just send them to the edit-huch, ugg, oog...

DON'T WORRY, I'LL GIVE YOU YOUR HEAD BACK WHEN YOU NEED IT. JUST WAVE YOUR HANDS WHEN YOU'VE THOUGHT OF SOMETHING USEFUL TO SAY. OH, YOU HAVE. WELL, THEN...

Have you noticed that all the unpublished authors in this collection have names starting with the letter `r', the same letter as rejection. It has to mean somethi... no, not the cheese grater, I'm begging you...

Contents

  • The Ghosts of Luna by Ian Watson (Sfinx 8; old series)
  • Mindsinger by Diana Reed (Sfinx 2; old series)
  • The Vestal Factor by Colin Greenland (Sfinx 10; old series)
  • Necessary Measures by Barbara Mascetti (Sfinx 3; new series)
  • To Lay The Piper by Robert P. Holdstock (Sfinx 7; old series)
  • It's A Free Country by Diana Reed (Sfinx 6; old series)
  • Supernova by Ian Watson (Sfinx 9; old series)
  • In My End Is My Beginning by Niall Ross (Sfinx 1; new series)
    • Stories copyrighted to individual authors, 1988.

    Acknowledgements

    EDITOR (ordinary)
    Neal Tringham.
    EDITOR (technical/extraordinary)
    Ivan Towlson.
    TYPING
    Mo Holkar, Robert Sadler, Tommy Wareing, John Bray, Lynn Allinson, Neal Tringham, and Tim Adye.
    ART
    John Grandidge, Barbara Mascetti, Debby Hickenlooper, Jon Langford, and Allan Scott.

    Neal Tringham