The Dated Essay of the Month comes from the June, 1996 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which I used to edit. As I tried to pick which dated essay I was going to choose this month, I looked at all of my June editorials. Some are REALLY dated and should remain in the issue in which they were published. But this one caught my fancy. I had forgotten that we did a new writers issue of F&SF. I kind of remember now, but mostly because the editorial itself refreshed my brain. After I finished reading the essay, I looked at the June, 1996 issue, hoping to see that all of the new writers contained within had become familiar names. They hadn’t. A … Read entire article »