DAW 30th Anniversary Fantasy Anthology

490 Pages·2005·1.32 MB·English

by  Wollheim Elizabeth R

th
DAW 30 Anniversary
Fantasy Anthology

Edited by
Elizabeth R. Wollheim
and Sheila E. Gilbert

DAW Books, Inc.
Donald A. Wollheim, Founder
375 Hudson Street,
New York, NY 10014
Elizabeth R. Wollheim
Sheila E. Gilbert
Publishers
www.dawbooks.com
in cooperation with
SEATTLE BOOK COMPANY
www.seattlebook.com
Produced by
RosettaMachine
www.rosettamachine.com
Copyright © 2002 by Elizabeth R. Wollheim and Sheila E. Gilbert.

All rights reserved.
DAW Books Collectors No. 1222.

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Putnam Inc.
Microsoft LIT edition ISBN: 0-7420-9217-8
Adobe PDF edition ISBN: 0-7420-9219-4
Palm PDB edition ISBN: 0-7420-9220-8
MobiPocket edition ISBN: 0-7420-9218-6
Ebook editions produced by
SEATTLE BOOK COMPANY
Ebook conversion and distribution powered by
www.RosettaMachine.com
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

With special thanks to the folks at Tekno Books for their help in seeing this
project to fruition.
Electronic format made
available by arrangement with
DAW Books, Inc.
www.dawbooks.com
Elizabeth R. Wollheim
Sheila E. Gilbert
Publishers
Palm Digital Media
www.palm.com/ebooks
We dedicate these volumes in loving memory of our founders,
Donald A. Wollheim
and
Elsie B. Wollheim,
and of our resident curmudgeon,
Mike Gilbert.
And for all DAW authors, past, present and future.
Acknowledgments
SOW'S EAR— SILK PURSE ©2002 by Andre Norton
THE REBUKE ©2002 by Michael Shea
PERSIAN EYES ©2002 by Tanith Lee
CORONACH OF THE BELL ©2002 by Christopher Stasheff
ENDING AND BEGINNING ©2002 by Jennifer Roberson
AFTER MIDNIGHT ©2002 by Mercedes R. Lackey
NIGHTFALL'S PROMISE ©2002 by Miriam S. Zucker
WE TWO MAY MEET ©2002 by Tanya Huff
THE SACRIFICE ©2002 by Melanie Rawn
HEART-HEALER ©2002 by Deborah J. Ross
A PERFECT DAY IN VALDEMAR ©2002 by Larry Dixon
DRACONIS EX MACHINA ©2002 by Phyllis Irene Radford Karr
THE HAMLET ©2002 by Marjorie B. Kellogg
MOONLOVER AND THE FOUNTAIN OF BLOOD ©2002 by Jane S. Fancher
THE MEMORY OF STONE ©2002 by Michelle West
THE HUNTSMAN ©2002 by Fiona Patton
LINKED, ON THE LAKE OF SOULS ©2002 by Kristen Britain
IT'S ABOUT SQUIRRELS… ©2002 by Lynn Abbey
Introduction
M
Y father never told me that he was planning to leave his job at Ace Books. It
was 1971, and I was in college. I can only assume that he didn't want to
distract me from my studies— that he wanted to shelter me for as long as he
could. So I found out after the fact, with the rest of the science fiction world.
It was as much of a shock to me as it was to anyone else. Actually it was more
of a shock to me than to anyone else— for my dad, the most responsible and
loyal man I knew, had just picked up and walked away from his job! It was
simply unimaginable but it had happened, and it rattled my world down to its
deepest foundations.

Don had been continually employed in editorial positions since 1941 when he
had his first (unpaid) job editing pulp magazines. He continued to edit
magazines, compiled numerous anthologies, worked in editorial positions at
some of the very first paperback book lines ever produced, and in 1952,
convinced A. A. Wyn, owner of Ace Publications, to let him initiate a line of
paperback books for Ace.
The one thing he hadn't been in thirty years was unemployed.

My dad took his responsibility to our family very seriously. He also took his
work very seriously. But something monumental had begun to happen to the
publishing industry. Publishing was becoming "big business" and was no
longer the intimate, eccentric, personality-driven industry it had once been.
Don, who had been present during the birth of the paperback book, didn't like
what was happening. He was Editor-in-Chief of Ace Books for nineteen and a
half years and eventually became the Vice President as well. He considered
Ace his list, his creation, and for most of our field at the time, the name
Donald A. Wollheim was synonymous with Ace Books. But Ace wasn't really
Don's company, and with the death of A. A. Wyn in 1968 that became
glaringly obvious.
As Ace became more and more "corporate," passing from the hands of one
owner to another, the situation became less and less tolerable for Don. By
1971, he had come to the end of his rope— so he did the unthinkable. With no
1971, he had come to the end of his rope— so he did the unthinkable. With no
concrete prospects for the future, and no warning to his employers, he left his
office at Ace Books, never to return.

It was a very tense time for our family, for although Elsie, my mom, had been a
professional woman before my birth, my father had been the sole support of
our household since 1951. Don wasn't entirely sure what to do. What he was
sure of was this: he would never again work for years building an editorial list
only to lose it. There was only one way to avoid that: by founding his own
publishing company. But how could he? As a long-term employee of a
notoriously frugal publisher, he had never been able to amass the money
necessary for such an enterprise. All Don had was his reputation.
Luckily, it proved to be enough.

In the fall of 1971, Don met with Herb Schnall, one of the chief executives of
New American Library. After several brief meetings, Herb made a statement
which would change publishing history: he told Don that New American
Library would take him "any way [he wanted] to come." Don could write his
own ticket.
It was an offer Don couldn't refuse.

Elated, Don came home to think about his options. My dad, my mom, and I sat
at the table in our narrow galley kitchen in Queens, and tried to define Don's
dream. He wanted the strong national distribution which only a big company
could offer— hence his meeting with NAL— but unlike most independently
distributed lines, he also wanted the professional production and promotion
facilities of a big publishing company. He wanted his company's list to be sold
aggressively with the strength of a big corporate imprint, yet he wanted total
artistic freedom, not only inside his books but in relation to the cover art and
design as well, and he did not want to share the ownership of his company.
Basically, he wanted to form a private corporation and enter into a contractual
arrangement with New American Library to provide the services that he
needed.
But corporate parameters were not Don's only concern.
But corporate parameters were not Don's only concern.

For thirty years Don had edited all types of fiction. He had edited not only
literary books but most of the genres— from westerns to crime to thrillers to
mysteries to detective and horror novels. He had put the light into the window
of the ever present mansion on the cover of the Gothic romance, had
published William Burroughs' first work, and had introduced J.R.R. Tolkien's
The Lord of the Rings to the American paperback audience. He even edited
nurse novels and cookbooks. But since the age of eleven he had had only one
real love— science fiction. He had waited a lifetime for this opportunity, and
he decided to dedicate his new company to the books he loved the most. He
wanted to found the first publishing company devoted exclusively to science
fiction and fantasy.
In November of 1971, NAL agreed to Don's proposal, and DAW Books, Inc.
was born.

My father had signed a contract, but he was still a long way from fulfilling his
dream. As we sat in the kitchen— our traditional spot for family discussions
— and Don thought aloud about possible employees to help him in his new
venture, I noticed my mom, Elsie, becoming more and more agitated. Finally,
she exploded: "Don, what about ME?" My dad looked quite stupefied. It was
clear that he had never even considered that his wife would join him in this
enterprise, but Elsie was the logical choice: she had legal experience, and had
run her father's company. The obvious solution was staring him straight in the
face.
Bringing Elsie into the company may very well have been Don's shrewdest
business decision. Elsie embraced her new position as Corporate Secretary-
Treasurer of DAW with all the fervor of a mother grizzly defending her
young. Every aspect of DAW and all DAW authors were sheltered under her
huge protective wing. And for a petite woman, she had enormous wings
indeed! Marion Zimmer Bradley once said, "Elsie has the spirit of a lion in the
body of a sparrow." And it was never more true than when she took up her
position as Champion-Of-All-Things-DAW.

The next six months were a nightmare.
The next six months were a nightmare.
With liftoff scheduled for April 1972, Don was under the gun to purchase, edit,
and package six months' worth of titles in thirty days to catch up with NAL's
production schedule. Elsie had to set up accounts payable, accounts
receivable, royalty reports, bookkeeping, and an entire subsidiary rights
department. Together, they wrote the first DAW boilerplate contract. For my
father, himself a published author with eighteen books and numerous short
stories to his credit, it was important to formulate a writer-friendly contract.

My parents were nervous wrecks. Don couldn't sleep or eat— I remember more
than one occasion when Elsie or I had to run to the kitchen to get Don
something sweet because he was feeling light-headed. Don and Elsie were
exhausted, but it was with the excited exhaustion of new parents. It was a
frightening and exhilarating time.
The following spring, the first DAW books were due to debut at the 1972
Lunacon, but the night before the convention started, they still hadn't left the
warehouse in New Jersey. Elsie and Don were up the entire night collecting
their very first DAW books and hand delivering them to the dealers at New
York's local convention. Lunacon was thereafter a very special time for my
folks.

As for me, I went back to college and graduated with a degree in English Lit,
while serving a simultaneous four-year stint in art school. My parents had kept
me apprised of the goings-on at DAW, and sent me occasional manuscripts to
read and comment on, particularly when Don had discovered someone he felt
was noteworthy. I especially remember Don's excitement in 1974 when he
sent me Gate of Ivrel, C. J. Cherryh's first novel, and The Birthgrave, Tanith
Lee's first full-length fantasy novel.
Although I was Corporate Vice President of DAW from the get go, and had
always been involved on a certain level, Don never pressured me to come
home to New York right after graduation. He thought it would be healthier for
me to find my own sea legs in the business world. With my experience
working as a freelance copyeditor for Ace Books (under my father's stern
tutelage) during high school, I landed a job in one of the last hot-type printing
houses in Cambridge, Massachusetts as a proofreader, then later, a dual
position as proofreader and darkroom technician for one of the very first