The�rk Intruder & Other Stories Marion Zimmer Bradley

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Marion Zimmer Bradley

ACE BOOKS, INC.

1120Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036

THE DARK INTRUDER AND OTHER STORIES

Copyright©, 1964, by Ace Books, Inc.

Ali Rights Reserved Cover art and illustrations by Jack Gaughan TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction The Dark Intruder Jackie Sees a Star ExilesofTomorrow Death Between the Stars The Crime Therapist The Stars Are Waiting Black & White

INTRODUCTION

A writer's life—glamorous tales to the contrary—consists mostly of long sessions at a typewriter, alternating with long sessions of staring at the blank paper in the typewriter. But there are landmarks where the grind does seem to have a few sparks of glamour about it, after all. The first check from an editor. The first novel to appear on the stands. For me, this collection marks a giant step— the first assembling, under one cover, of my short stories.

The contents of this book rangę, in time, from 1952 to 1962. (I only hope it won't be too painfully evident which is which.) Ten years is a sizable hunk of a lifetime, and in a science-fiction writer's lifetime, those were about the most eventful ten years I could have chosen to write in. W hen that period of time began, people were just getting used to the idea that television belonged in the living room, instead of in Buck Rogers' space ship, under the 'name of a "televisor." A bare ten years later, the space ship itself is history, rather than fiction.

Which begs the question; if life today is so fuli of event and history, why escape into the futurę by means of the science-fiction story? In fixing his eyes on the distant stars, does the science-fiction writer lose his perspectiye on the