Cover for Home Is the Hangman by Martin Andrews Cover for We, in Some Strange Power’s Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line by Wayne Barlowe
The twenty-first Tor Double is the first time both of the authors in a collection are repeats. It includes the second (and final) Samuel R. Delany story, We, in Some Strange Power’s Employ, and the second of three Roger Zelazny story, Home is the Hangman. Delany first appeared in Tor Double #4 and Zelazny in #12. It is also unique in that it is the first time one of the stories (Delany’s) includes a dedication to the other author (Zelazny).
We, in Some Strange Power’s Employ, Move on a Rigorous Linewas originally published as “Lines of Power” in Fantasy & Science Fiction in May, 1968. It was nominated for the Hugo Award and Nebula Award.
Cover for The Star Pit by Tony Roberts Cover for Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo by David Lee Anderson
Originally published in January 1989, the fourth Tor Double included John Varley’s Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo and Samuel R. Delany’s The Star Pit. Printed in the a tête-bêche format, David Lee Anderson provided the cover by Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo and Tony Roberts was the artist for The Star Pit.
The Star Pit was originally published in Worlds of Tomorrow in February, 1967. It was nominated for the Hugo Award. It lost to Philip José Farmer’s “Riders of the Purple Wage” and Anne McCaffrey’s “Weyr Search,” which tied each other. Coincidentally, McCaffrey and Delany share a birthday.
Vyme, a mechanic at the titular Star Pit, serves as Delany’s narrator. Rather than start with the present day action, however, Vyme opens his narration with memories of his own childhood and his life from several years earlier. Born on the backwater Earth in New York, he talks about his childhood and the ant farm he had as a child, which would eventually break.
Delany won back-to-back Nebula Awards for Best Novel for Babel-17 and The Einstein Intersection. The second year also saw him winning a Nebula for Best Short Story for “Aye, and Gomorrah.” In 1970, his novelette “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones” won both the Hugo and the Nebula Award and he won a second Hugo for The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1957-1965.
His novel Dhalgren received a Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame Award and he received a Lambda Lifetime Achievement Award and a Pilgrim Award. Delany was the Guest of Honor at Intersection, the 1995 Worldcon. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2002, received the Eaton Award in 2010, and in 2014 was named a SFWA Grand Master.
“High Weir” was first published in If by Frederik Pohl in the October 1968 issue. Delany included it in his collection Driftglass and Robert Hoskins reprinted it in the anthology Wondermakers 2. Brian Attebery and Ursula K. Le Guin selected the story for the collection The Norton Book of Science Fiction: American Science Fiction, 1960-1990 and Ellen Datlow published it on Sci Fiction on May 7, 2003. Delany included it in his 2013 collection Aye, and Gomorrah. The story was translated into French in 1970 for inclusion in Galaxie #76 and into German in 1982 when Delany’s Driftglass was published as Treibglas.
“High Weir” features a team of scientists and academics exploring a dead Mars and a ruin that indicates a high level of ancient Martian civilization. The story is told from Rimkin’s point of view. As the team linguist, there is little for him to do since the Martians did not appear to have any sort of written language. Furthermore, Rimkin exhibits signs that would now be recognized as autistic. He is a brilliant linguist, but his interpersonal skills are completely lacking to the point where he can’t identify his teammates when they are in their space suits, nor can he distinguish between their voices on the radio. Part of the team, he is entirely separate from it.
