Ganglion and Other Stories by Wayne Wightman

	Available as a trade hardcover for $21.00 (without dustjacket, as issued.) The leather-bound signed, boxed limited-edition for $35 is sold out. Coming in Spring of 1998, the second edition hardcover, pictured above. Find out how to get a copy on our order information page. Introduction by Elinor Mavor Jacket design and illustration by Michael Dashow Read one of the stories from the collection, "Pardon My Extremities." Wayne speaks about himself: In Missouri, in the late 1940's and early 1950's, I grew up on a farm without electricity or running water. We were poor, but I never knew it. I remember tornadoes, copperheads, spiders as big as fat grapes, crop-devouring swarms of grasshoppers, sun baked farmers raving about their visions of Jesus, and Baptist preachers promising the end of the world. But, surrounded by bright fields of corn and watermelon and thick strands of dark untouched forest, I wandered in the company of my two dogs, feeling as safe and as privileged as any kid on the face of the earth. We moved to California, and there I lived a life like other Californians until I moved to San Francisco in 1966 to attend San Francisco State College. I arrived in time for the "Summer of Love," violent anti-war protests, school bombings, mass arrests on campus, the tactical squad roaming the hallways, and I left shortly after Altamont and the Zodiac and Zebra multiple murders. It is difficult for me to watch documentaries of those years. Nonethless, I took a BA in English with an emphasis in world literature and an MA in creative writing. Since 1970 I have taught composition, literature, and creative writing at Modesto Junior College in Modesto, California. If I had it all to do over again, I would become an architect, or a neurologist, or perhaps a veterinarian. The last twenty-one years have been less dramatic than the first twenty-some, but they have been more rewarding.I teach, I read, I write, I do carpentry, I listen to French and English music and silence, and I enjoy my family. I can't recall better times. I am here, you are here, and it is now. What more could a person ask? (Copyright 1995 by Wayne Wightman)

	. . . Full of manic energy, rich in colors and odors and emotions. - Lewis Shiner author of Deserted Cities of the Heart More evidence that the small press is alive and well. This collection of Wayne Wightman's excellent, very warped short stories is drawn mostly from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and includes such top notch tales as the title story, "Pardon My Extremities," and "The Tensor of Desire." Wightman's characters are frequently bizarre, though in a likable sort of way, his situations always interesting, and the prose itself is of excellent quality. - Science Fiction Chronicle . . . a strong case for boosting Wayne Wightman's reputation in the field. - Nebula Awards 31 Wayne Wightman is agreeable company, both in person and via the printed page. As to the former, I'm afraid you will have to wait the chance to make his acquaintance like everybody else. As to the latter, however, now's your chance: read Ganglion & Other Stories, and enjoy. - John Brunner Hugo Award-winning author of Stand on Zanzibar Unlike most genre writers, Wayne Wightman has more than one move. He writes top quality SF and fantasy, humor and horror, and he never forgets to tell a compelling tale. - Ed Ferman Publisher of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction . . one of the names I've learned to look for . . . a romantic whose stories confess his belief that individuals can be larger than life, that their decisions can change the world around them. - Orson Scott Card Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead One of Wightman's great strengths is his willingness to go to the edge. He pulls no punches, whether the story is serious and violent or manic, wacky, and funny. You can count on him to take you places other writers shy away from. - Richard Paul Russo Author of the Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel Subterranean Gallery The name and talent of Wayne Wightman deserve to be far better known. Perhaps the publication of Ganglion and Other Stories by Tachyon Publications will bring him the deserved attention. Ganglion is like an all-star classic issue of Galaxy in book form. Not tht there's anything old-fashioned about Wightman's stories. It's simply that he writes in the grand tradition of Dick, Sheckley, Tenn, and mid-period Silverberg. Modern angsts and ironies are embodied in SF parables laced with that brand of humor best characterized by "the bubble of blood at the end of the laugh." And when an understated change of pace is needed, Wightman is eminently capable of delivering a delicate sturgeonesque love story such as "The Face at the End of the Mind," or a spooky Leiberesque "Life on Earth." One motif that spans the stories is a kind of "body anxiety" verging on disgust, a potent archetypical source mostly for horror fiction. Wightman's characters have a tendency to mutate, to lose body parts, and contain aliens within. But it's all in a day's work for the Missouri-born Wightman, who has a stand-in character say, "I grew up in Missouri, see, so weirdness doesn't affect me like it does most normal people." - Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine

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Last updated February 14, 1998.
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