The future isn't what it used to be. Remember the days of bug-eyed monsters who eyed the virgin Earth with unwholesome corporate greed? Remember the high adventure of blond, blue-eyed swashbucklers supposedly idolized by introverted adolescents?

I'll tell you the truth: I never liked those heros. Even in the third grade, when I discovered Robert A. Heinlein, I knew a jock when I saw one; and I took it as an early lesson on the fundamental unfairness of the universe that jocks would dominate even a literary niche devoted to the geeky kids who knew science.

They wanted us to identify with the strong, blond heros who out-thought the big rubber bugs who wanted to take over the world and make off with the beautiful woman: but for my part, I never did. They had zero appeal.

I always identified with the big rubber bugs. They fit my self-image; their interactions with the hero fit my interactions with jocks; their desire to cart beautiful women off to their hidden abodes struck me as refreshingly straightforward. They always lost their bid to change the status quo, thanks to the heroic efforts of the heroic hero: and that I could understand, too.

Growing up, I came to realize a lot of kids read scifi the way I did; the only ones who didn't seem savvy to it were the guys who ran the industry. And the magnitude of their misunderstanding truly astounded me. Identify with that blond, blue-eyed, perfect-teethed, muscle-bound twit? When there's a bona fide weirdo onscreen? C'mon!

(I've recently learned many women read romance novels in this way: holding the heroine at arm's length, they want to get inside the hero's head. We all are fascinated by that which is alien.)

These days, that kind of scifi pulp is tough to find, alas. The masters of the industry, having misunderstood for decades why we were reading it, have gone on to mangle scifi beyond recognition. We have now soap-opera sf: a vaguely feminized, utterly diluted type of narrative hell-bent on assuring us that aliens are just like us; that nobody wants conflict; that all truth is a matter of opinion; and that all those who fail to respect the god Diversity shall be punished somethin' terrible.

For those of us who grew up on sf that amounted to cold war propoganda, this new flavor of propoganda sticks in the throat. Peace and diversity are great: we can always use more. But in fiction? Romance is great: we can certainly use more. But as a substitute for an evil, interdimensional plot to take over the world?

Kinda like Shakespeare with no sexual innuendo, no violence, and no poetry.

So, I'd like to introduce this issue's stories as harking back to an older, purer style of sf -- but I can't, because they have almost no relation with anything I've written.

We have a dynamite line-up of stories this issue: Joy Smith brings us To the Last Drop - a story about life, death, and coffee in deep space; Dr. Garrick Fincham with Our Regularly Scheduled Famine introduces some strangely disturbing ideas about human nature; Intellectual Property Rights is my little tale of privatization gone mad; and M.C.A. Hogarth brings us cheap thrills, explosions, and a pure cause in her first-rate, front row adventure Stormfront.

So sit back, clear your mind, and prepare to go someplace truly strange.