Fantastic Trio

These three completely disparate tales of science-fictional imagination are the outcome of an unusual experiment in creativity and chronology. The customary procedure with fiction is for an author to conceive and write a story, which is then given to an illustrator for visual interpretation. In this experiment, we first commissioned a sculptor to create a weirdly futuristic work, more humanoid than human, then sent photographs of it to three masters of the sci-fi genre, who were asked to use it as an inspirational launching pad, letting their imaginations roam through space and time, and with each writer thinking of the picture as if it were conceived for his story--and his alone--and none of them consulting with the other two. They--like you --are seeing all three of these stories for the very first time, accompanied by a reproduction of the sculpture that initiated this unique and uniquely successful melding of graphic and literary artistry.