Originally published in November 1990. In addition to the stories, Orson Scott Card provided two essays entitled “Foreword: How Lloyd Biggle, Jr., Changed My Life, Part I (The Tunesmith)” and “Afterword: How Lloyd Biggle, Jr., Changed My Life, Part II (The Tunesmith),” both original to this volume.

The Tunesmith was originally published in Worlds of If in August 1957. Erlin Bacue is a composer in a world which has turned a deaf ear to traditional music. The only music that is composed are Coms, short for commercials. What sets Baque apart from his fellow composers is that, while he makes use of the multichord for his compositions, he does all his composing himself, unlike most other composers who make heavy use of what we would now recognize as artificial intelligence. This hive his Coms a depth that others don’t have, but it also means that he takes longer to compose his Coms than other composers do.

Unfortunately,  for Baque and his wife, Val, his style of working means he is constantly employed, but can never make real money, for this society values quantity over quality, a point driven home when Baque has a meeting with Hulsey, his agent, who urges him to churn out the same pablum as other composers so he can make more money, an idea with is antithetical to his work ethic and his articist soul. Rather than give in, Baque resigned from the Tunesmith’s Guild to join the Performer’s guild, where he would be able to make money playing music instead of composing it.

His first assignment is at a club called Lankey-Pank Out, working for a man named Lankey, who merely was looking for a competent multichord player to accompany the scantily clad women singing the latest Coms for the diners and dancers at his club. Skeptical of Baque at first, Lankey was won over when Baque offered to play music while the girls were taking a break. His musical improvisation during that time opened the ears of everyone in the nightclub as Bacque began to rediscover instrumental music and non-commercial music, leading to success at Lankey-Pank Out and the idea that the two men could open a night club together to take full advantage of Baque’s gifts.

However, Coms not only imply commercial in the sense of advertising, but also in the sense that they make money. Baque’s rediscovery of “pure” music and the demand for it is seen as a threat by those who are making money from the current musical scene, not just Baque’s former agent, Hulsey, by entrepreneurs like James Denton. The situation for Baque is made worse by the fact that Denton’s paramour, Marigold, who has a hit talkshow, is also moved by the emotions of Baque’s music.

After determining that Baque’s music needs to be heard live to carry the emotional connection those who hear it feel, Denton determines that Baque is, at worst, a minor nuisance, who can easily be corralled, but need not be completely quashed. Since that action would still ruin the plans Lankey and Baque have, Baque decides to show what he can do.

Although The Tunesmith starts out as an exploration of music and its power, exploring Baque’s transition from an excellent composer of Coms to the founder of a new, more emotionally satisfying form of music (or perhaps the rediscoverer of it). Biggle, however, effortlessly pivots the story to be a takedown of a culture that must monetize everything and is incapable of accepting the value of something that cannot be controlled. He carefully is not attacking capitalism, for Baque is happy to partner with Lankey in an endeavor which will make both of them money, but the key is that Baque would have control over his art with a partner who understands and appreciates the art for what is, as well as for the ability to make money off it.

Biggle has yet another move up his sleeve, and even as Baque faces a moment that will either allow him to continue his endeavor with Lankey or succumb to the greed, and possible jealousy of Denton, the story takes a completely different turn, removing Baque from the story and exploring how Lankey and Denton continue their life in Baque’s shadow, and how Baque’s reputation and the power of his compositions continue on.

Card’s introduction to The Tunesmith discusses his own discovery of literature and his first introduction to Biggle’s story.  He writes about the importance of the story to him and how it stuck with him as an eight year old boy who couldn’t remember the title or author or even very many of the details and how he eventually was able to figure out what the story was with the assistance of a book dealer when he was much older. Unlike earlier works in the Tor Double series in which an author wrote a direct sequel or prequel to a story, Card’s story is, at most, a thematic tie to Biggle’s work. In his afterword, Card more specifically delves into the impact Biggle’s story had on his own works, such as the 1980 novel Songmaster or his story “Unaccompanied Sonata.” Authors often talk about their influences, but in this case, Card is able to directly describe what the connection is.

Eye for Eye was originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in March 1987. It won the Hugo Award and the Seiun Award. It beat Tor Double #13 story The Blind Geometer for the Hugo.

Mick Winger is a seventeen year old orphan who has finally managed to escape the orphanage and is living on his own, working at Mr. Kaiser’s warehouse and trying to control his temper. The story starts with him boarding a bus. When the woman in front of him can’t pay, he covers her, but angers the bus driver, who retaliates by lurching the bus as Mick makes his way back to his seat. Mick’s own anger flares and he realizes the bus driver now has cancer that Mick has caused, a “knack” Mick has learned he has, which is why he tries to avoid getting angry.

Mick has made the decision to leave his home and job in Roanoke, although he has no idea where he’s going to go. When the woman he helped on the bus speaks to him by  name, he realizes something strange is going on, gets off the bus and finds himself walking out of town, eventually running into her again on a hilltop, where she explains that there a many people like him. She intimates that she knows everything about him and has even argued against killing him as a threat to people because she can see the good in him. She also warns him that “his people” want to reclaim him and weaponized him.

Leaving her, he finds himself approached by his parents, who are coming to bring him to their community, where he will be one of many with his power. His journey to their town of “Eden” more resembles a kidnapping than a reunion and as he travels, blind-folded, Card reveals more about his powers, and Mick seems to be coming into even more powers on his own, using what he learned from the woman from the bus to help understand what is happening to him.

Mick can see sparkles around people who have the same powers he does, although most people seem to sparkle less than he does. He can use those sparkles to injure people, but also to track where they are, which helps him when he arrives at Eden and is brought before the town’s patriarch, Papa Lem. He quickly realizes that Papa Lem runs Eden as a Christian cult and oversees a breeding program to ensure those with Mick’s powers are crossbred, resulting in a town made up of people who marry their cousins. When Papa Lem suggests Mick marry Papa Lem’s daughter, Mick rebels, revealing the extent of his power, which, unknown to Mick, is far greater than anyone else in the commune.

What makes the story interesting is that Mick, raised in orphanages by people who cared for him, but whom he injured and killed inadvertently before he understood his own power, has come up with a moral code that mirrors aspects of the religious code the Edenites claim to follow, but don’t. Mick has learned right from wrong and, while he hates himself for what he is able to do, he tries to rein himself in, even when the easier thing is to let his anger have free rein.

While Mick’s powers make the story fantasy, his powers are used to highlight the hypocrisy of those who cherry pick parts of the Bible (or really, any foundational text) to support their desires and quest for power over any group. As Papa Lem controls his cult, sending away those, like Mick, whose powers are seen as threatening, he also divides the world into Edenites, the children of Ishmael, who, in his mind, have no powers, and the children of Esau, who have voluntarily left the cult and he sees as his mortal enemies. Without any guidance or mentors, Mick’s adherence to his personal code becomes even more heroic.

Mark Ferrari provided the cover.

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Steven H Silver is a twenty-one-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference numerous times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.