The following is probably not entirely true. —The Editor
To say that authors of speculative fiction are agents of the future is to state the obvious. Sufficiently compelling ideas generated in the mind of a reader will most certainly influence his or her individual outlook to some degree, perhaps his or her future, and even more the world in which these readers live and have the power to change. Works which deal in alternate worlds, unimagined technologies, fantastic civilizations, and the magic of human possibility can’t help but be persuasive.
This agency of which I speak however does not – as we authors most hubristically believe – arise merely from sparks of insight triggered within our own meager brains. No. I say we are not the freethinking creators we imagine ourselves to be. Ladies and gentlemen, we have been infected.
Yes! The brains of speculative fiction authors are infected by quantum entangled microbes teleported from the future itself. And not just from one future, but from the multi-versal future worlds that are spawned by humanity’s random moment to moment choices here today. Into our writer-brains are targeted Planck-size wormholes, through which are conveyed synaptic viruses, which cast within us visions of these disparate possible worlds. We are infected with the stories of yet unborn creatures, of what could have been, and of what might be… teleported into us by beings beyond our comprehension.
No tinfoil hat can stop these implants, since teleported wormholes have no regard for matter in this universe. We have no choice but to write the stories these microbes compel us to dramatize.
And who or what is targeting us? Whence in the multiverse do these synaptic viruses come? It is not for us to know. Are they trying to warn us? To show us the way? Or do they wish to enslave us as their creative puppets, delivering their stories to hungry Earth-readers, and thus influencing the very futures in which these ineffable beings themselves reside?
I for one welcome my femto-wormhole-implanted synaptic virus from the multiverse. I plan to nurture it, feed it as much blood plasma is it demands, fulfilling its goal for me to be its voice here in this present… that many others may hear its words and take appropriate action.