Introduction

Those eight years in SF were the first time I could be really real. —Alice Sheldon (to a friend)

For whatever the reasons, we are discontented with the world-as-is. The stories selected here indicate our dissatisfaction with our station in life, our presidents, the assumptions our parents made for us, the nigh insane quest for happiness which may yet ruin our civilization, or indeed a thousand other aspects of life. We are the Steppenwolves of our culture.

Oxford philosopher Mary Warnock believed that the cultivation of imagination should be the chief aim of education.

Eric Russell: Sole Solution 2/9.

Ward Moore: Lot 3/9.

Clifford Simak: Skirmish 4/9.

And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side 4/9.