Introduction by Jonathan Maberry
|
Every now and then you stumble on a writer whose works speak with such clarity that you don’t know why everyone isn’t already reading them.
Like a lot of professional writers who are also unrepentant book nerds, I tend to browse all over for the “next thing.” We book nomads tend to haunt bookstores, download audio samples, and skim through webzines in hopes that we’ll discover something that we can’t anticipate. We don’t just hunt for good writing, but for writing so fresh that it reignites our love of a genre, sub-genre, or trope, while at the same time making it clear this is new. That was P.A. Cornell for me a few years back. I was coming out of a long dalliance with horror and mystery and wanted to blast off into the worlds of science fiction. A fan at a signing recommended I check out a new anthology called A Punk Rock Future, edited by Steve Zisson, and that sounded like my kind of fun. I read the stories and enjoyed them, but one story stood out. It was a blend of a couple of my go-to themes—punk rock and rebellion. More than the theme, though, was the style. Prose with a lyrical underpinning in both phrase and substance. The lyrical quality elevated the story and made it and the characters come alive. I could feel it and hear it even though I was reading a paperback copy on the beach in Del Mar, California. Since then I’ve pretty much lunged at any piece of short fiction by P.A. Cornell. Pieces like “Splits” in Cossmass Infinities, issue 6; “Into the Frozen Wilds” in Galaxy’s Edge, 11/2022; and a personal favorite “The Collective Memories of Dogs and Robots,” published in Augur Magazine. Actually there are a bunch of her tales that enchant me even after multiple reads. That’s why I’m delighted that so many of her short stories have been gathered together in this Stars and Sabers collection. Cornell doesn’t have a conventional approach to either science fiction or fantasy. She seems to circle those worlds but then come at it from unexpected angles, or through unusual points of view. As a result, each tale exists strongly as an island in an endless sea of quality speculative fiction, yet still carries her individual style and voice. The stories here are grouped into four meta-themes: Artificial Minds, Unusual Circumstances, Time Distortions, and Visions of the Future. The tales in those clusters are not bound together either by genre cliché or reader expectation. Cornell is clearly having fun playing to some classic tropes in order to then hang a sharp left into the unexpected. They’re quick reads because her approach is accessible, yet at the same time they tend to linger in the mind. Planting seeds. Whispering suggestions but withholding easy answers. Encouraging stream of consciousness post-reading thought. They also don’t need to be read in the order presented. I tend not to do that anyway with collections, often preferring to pick randomly and allow the book to guide me. I finished the complete collection this morning on the beach and the story I read last was actually the first one in this book, because it was the first one of hers I’d ever read. “Vinyl Wisdom.” My disorderly approach only served to verify what I believed going in, is that each story can not only stand on its own, but comes to life that way. Funny, sitting on a sunny beach, with dolphins and a seal cavorting in the blue water and squadrons of pelicans on patrol in the sky, while reading stuff that is bizarre, disturbing, and often a million miles from sun and sand. Juxtaposition is a fine thing. Like any connoisseur I have my favorites among her stories. “A Fall Backward Through the Hourglass,” “The Bullet in My Pocket Has Your Name on It,” and “The Astronaut Among the Flowers” are ones I hadn’t read before and know I will want to revisit. Maybe while traveling in the autumn—to allow a different time and place so that place and setting informs my perception. Short stories have that kind of magic, and the best short stories can become old friends who age and change and say different things in unusual ways the next time we meet. It was Ray Bradbury—a boyhood mentor and friend—who introduced me to short science fiction tales. One Christmas he gave me a copy of a collection by William F. Nolan, a book Ray had done the intro to. Nolan’s writing always had that humanism beneath the science and the fiction, and Cornell’s stories give me the same vibe. One other fun thing is a kind of essay at the back of the book, in which Cornell gives some background on how and why she wrote each story. That’s gold for dedicated readers, just as good liner notes in the old days of vinyl were gold for music fans. I found them fascinating, amusing, and insightful. So I am thrilled that you saw this book, bought it, and are about to create your own relationship with a true rising star in speculative fiction. These stories are special. They are alive and they want to be read. And deserve to be. Happy reading! Jonathan Maberry Del Mar, California May 2026 Pre-Order The Astronaut Among the Flowers and Other Stories |
