L. RON HUBBARD PRESENTS WRITERS OF THE FUTURE: Volume XX

The human element remains at all times paramount in the 15 SF stories gathered in the 20th edition of L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future series, at this point the most enduring forum to showcase new talent in the genre. Standouts include Eric James Stone's eerie "In Memory," whose hero, a brilliant mad physicist, exists as a disembodied computer image; Joy Remy's poignant "Sleep Sweetly, Junie Carter," in which a bedridden woman feels helpless in her near-immortality; and Jonathon Laden's disturbing "Monkey See, Monkey Deduce," in which a multibodied monster is actually a tribe of chimps, with an imposed common memory, at the mercy of human researchers. Brief essays on writing by Hubbard and contemporary giants such as Robert Silverberg and Kevin J. Anderson round out the volume. The cartoonlike artwork, one drawing for each story, is less successful. The series, however, continues to be a powerful statement of faith as well as direction in American science fiction. (Sept.)