The Fiction Factory [Hardcover]

Jack Dann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 28, 2005

First dates with Jesus, dinosaurs falling out of the sky, and a famous painting that eats art critics are among the quirky stories found in this collaborative collection. Each piece was written by Jack Dunn and one or more coauthors, and the joint creations are 18 highly entertaining and cutting-edge genre stories, many of them award-winning or award-nominated. Employees are drafted by corporations in the Nebula Award–nominated story "High Steel," and the first manned landing on Mars is imagined in "The God of Mars," just two examples of the futuristic flavor of the collection. Short, clever essays by the coauthors, among them Susan Casper, Gardner Dozois, and Gregory Frost, introduce each story and provide insight into the friendships, conflicts, and story conferences involved in collaborative writing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Eighteen stories with Jack Dann (The Memory Cathedral) as coauthor fill a collection that runs the gamut from humor to action-adventure. Headnotes by the coauthors (who include Gardner Dozois, Gregory Frost, Michael Swanwick and five others) and by Dann himself provide an engaging, informal, often laugh-out-loud look at the impetus for each story. Though all the tales contain an element of the fantastic, they range widely in subject and tone: a story of a salesman doing whatever it takes to sell useless computers in Faërie ("Golden Apples of the Sun") sits next to disturbing metaphorical explorations of love and the eternal struggle between Heaven and Hell ("Ships"), a yarn about an American Indian pressed into space-station construction service ("High Steel") and a perhaps tragic, perhaps celebratory first Mars landing, with a bow to Barsoom ("The Gods of Mars"). Classic science fiction themes of estrangement, other worlds and time travel satisfyingly inform recurring themes of the Jewish experience, love relationships, sex and childhood.
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Review

"A poet of the dark side of the human soul, perhaps the best we've seen since the vintage Bradbury."  —Gardner Dozois, author, Morning Child and Other Stories 

"Jack Dann's stories are vivid, passionate, and eloquent."  —Robert Silverberg, author, Phases of the Moon and Roma Eterna

"A strong collection....Put so much talent together, and good results can only flow."  —Locus

"[Jack Dann is] a reality magician."  —Roger Zelazny, author, The Dawn of Amber series

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Golden Gryphon Press; First Edition edition (October 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930846363
• ISBN-13: 978-1930846364
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,018,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some fantastic stories here., April 29, 2008

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fiction Factory (Hardcover)

Jack Dann, The Fiction Factory (Golden Gryphon, 2005)

I first encountered the work of Jack Dann and his frequent collaborate Gardner Dozois on a stifling summer day in 1982. A friend of mine had a contraband porn stash, and I was leafing through an issue of Oui, reading a Motorhead interview. I wasn't the speed-metal devotee I later became at the time (and I have often wondered if that interview played any part), but it was interesting, and contained pictures of really ugly guys with naked girls. (This is why every kid dreams of being a rock star.) Then I turned the page, and saw "Bruckmann first discovered that Wernecke was a vampire when they went to the quarry that morning." And I was lost. I took some flak for actually reading the words in a porn mag, but I would not be distracted until I had finished the entire story (which appears in this volume on page 151; else I would not be relating the tale). Fast-forward twenty-odd years, and I wanted to read the story again, so I picked this up. And it turns out it's not even the best story in the collection--while it's still great, and holds up well after all this time, nothing could have prepared me for "The Clowns". I mean, jeez. Everyone knows clowns are evil and must be destroyed, right? Dann nails that here. Almost as wonderful is "High Steel"; I'm not a huge fan of science fiction most of the time, but this is a story that really works. And there are a bunch more to be found here, too. There are collaborations not only with Gardner Dozois, but also Michael Swanwick, Janeen Webb, Jack Haldeman II, and a bunch of others. If you like short stories, and are unfamiliar with the work of Jack Dann, this is an excellent place to start. ****

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun Stuff, November 22, 2005

By 

Jerry Wright "Mr. Bewildered" (Moses Lake, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fiction Factory (Hardcover)

Although the stories in this compendium are quite good, what brings the whole thing up to a 5 star rating are the remembrances for all stories for the various writers (Jack, of course, and primarily Mike Swanwick and Gardner Dozois).

Well worth your money.