A collection of chilling and prescient stories about ecological apocalypse, artificial intelligence, and the merging of human and machine in an effort to survive.
David Roosevelt Bunch (1920-2000) was born in rural western
Missouri. After serving as an army corporal during World War II, he
worked toward a PhD in English literature at Washington University
in St. Louis and then transferred to the Iowa Writers' Workshop,
where he studied for two years before dropping out. He married
Phyllis Flette in 1951 and they had two daughters, Phyllis and
Velma. While working as a cartographer for the Defense Mapping
Agency in St. Louis, he began publishing stories in sciencefiction
magazines, two of which were included in Harlan Ellison's landmark
1967 sci-fi anthology, Dangerous Visions. In 1971, Bunch published
Moderan, a collection of stories set on a future earth devastated
by war and environmental exploitation. In 1973, he retired from
cartography to pursue writing full-time. A poetry chapbook, We Have
a Nervous Job, followed in 1983, and Bunch! (1993), another book of
short stories, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award. Bunch's
last book, the poetry collection The Heartacher and the
Warehouseman, came out in April 2000. He died of a heart attack the
following month. In 1965 he told Amazing Stories, "I'm not in this
business primarily to describe or explain or entertain. I'm here to
make the reader think, even if I have to bash his teeth out, break
his legs, grind him up, beat him down, and totally chastise him for
the terrible and tinsel and almost wholly bad world we allow."
Jeff Vandermeer is the author of the Southern Reach trilogy
(Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance) and, most recently, of
the novel Borne, which was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke
award. His nonfiction has appeared in many publications, including
The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Los Angeles Times. He
lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife, the editor Ann
VanderMeer.
“Great writers do two things at one and the same time: they bring
us more fully into the world around us and they open worlds behind
that visible, everyday one. They make us profoundly uncomfortable.
I still approach these stories with a singular mix of anticipation
and apprehension. No writer has ever made me more uncomfortable
than David R. Bunch.” —James Sallis
“A mean treat. I’ve long felt [Bunch] was one of the most undersung
and ill-known landmarks in sf...oh what intensity at the focus,
what idiosyncrasy, what a one roaring diamond glimpse.” —James
Tiptree, Jr., Letter to Ursula K. Le Guin
"This collection gives Bunch's cybernetic vision of the future new
life for a new generation of science-fiction readers. Almost a
half-century after these stories were originally released, the
thematic power of Bunch's vision still resonates, the narrative
equivalent of a new-metal alloy punch to the gut. A disturbing,
stark, and deeply thought-provoking collection of stories
chronicling humankind's demise into heartless automatons. "
—Kirkus
“[Bunch’s] lasting influence stems in part from his grandiloquent
and oft-absurd narratives, but more directly from his playful and
impressionistic language…. A fascinating amalgam of existential
reflection, social critique, and a boundless wonder at the foolish
extremes to which men will turn in their quest for macho
certainty.” —A.V. Club
"Jeff VanderMeer’s perceptive introduction, couched in Bunchian
idiom, offers valuable insights. This is a steely view of a
robot-dominated future." —Publishers Weekly
"Bunch is possibly the most dangerous visionary of all those
assembled here." —Conceptual Fiction
"A writer whose work I admire vastly. And a writer who has, oddly
enough, barely received the acclaim due to him." —Harlan Ellison
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