In the Field of Fire

This is a book of dreams, of terrible nightmares, of sweet memories of times long gone, of bitter regrets, passionate beliefs, of lost innocence. Sometimes it is only within such dreams that we can approach the truth...find the true meaning of those years we call "the Vietnam Era". This is a collection of stories created out of the fire that seared a generation, that heated the crucible where our present reality was forged, that smolders still in the memories of everyone who lived through those turbulent years: Twenty-two brilliant offerings from the finest fantasists writing today--statements from the heart, bitingly honest, born in a genre that specializes in the creation of dreams, but reaching far beyond it with a perspective and a message that more conventional fiction cannot deliver. From the Central Highlands to the streets of Saigon to the refugee enclaves of Philadelphia, from the mid-60s to the mid-80s through a decade of denial, these are war stories from a war that was unlike any other--a war that in many ways has never ended.Contents: Introduction (In the Field of Fire) • essay by Jack Dann and Jeanne Van Buren Dann The Memorial (1987) / short story by Kim Stanley Robinson Delta Sly Honey (1987) / short story by Lucius Shepard The Game of Cat and Eagle (1987) / novelette by Craig Strete [as by Craig Kee Strete] Letters from Home (1987) / short story by Karen Joy Fowler Across Those Endless Skies / short story by Robert Frazier The Sheeted Dead (1987) / short story by Charles L. Grant In the Season of the Rains (1987) / short story by Richard Paul Russo Shades (1987) / novelette by Lucius Shepard The Village (1973) / short story by Kate Wilhelm Goats (1987) / novelette by Dave Smeds Brothers (1987) / short story by Ben Bova A Dream at Noonday (1970) / short story by Gardner Dozois The Queen of Lower Saigon (1987) / short story by Barry N. Malzberg Deathtracks (1982) / short story by Dennis Etchison The Heavenly Blue Answer (1987) / short story by Ronald Anthony Cross Dream Baby (1987) / novelette by Bruce McAllister Covenant With a Dragon (1987) / short story by Susan Casper The War at Home (1985) / short story by Lewis Shiner Credibility (1987) / novelette by John Kessel Basilisk (1972) / short story by Harlan Ellison My Country 'Tis Not Only of Thee (1986) / novelette by Brian W. Aldiss DX (1987) / poem by Joe Haldeman Further Reading (In the Field of Fire) • essay by Jeanne Van Buren Dann and Jack Dann Glossary of Acronyms and Selected Terms • essay by the editors