Dan Simmons - Vexed To Nightmare BY A Rocking Cradle

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Vexed to Nightmare by a Rocking Cradle

by Dan Simmons

Introduction

This is another story about televangelists.

Wait! Before you close the book or decide that my only form of recreation is

harpooning this particular brand of helpless sea slug, let me explain.

Some time back, the award-winning writer Edward Bryant approached me about a

project. It seems that a Colorado-based publication wanted four short-shorts for

their Christmas edition. The publication was ... you see it was a ... well, it was a

comic book catalogue. But a good comic book catalogue. Actually, it was much

more than that, since it carried a book review column by Ed and a fine film-review

section by the discerning critic Leanne C. Harper.

Anyway, four of us would do these Christmas short-shorts and Ed would write the

framing tale. (A difficult task at the best of times.) There were no

restrictions—except for length—and the fact that the story had to be about

Christmas and had to include an "overlooked present." The other writers were all

members of the Colorado Mafia—Steve Rasnic Tern, Connie Willis, and Cynthia

Felice. Cynthia had already suggested that her tale would be "upbeat," so the rest of

us were allowed to return to our crypts and release whatever demons waited there.

The results, as one would expect, included a typically brilliant, subtle, and haunting

piece by Willis, a powerful and seriously disturbing story in Steve Tern's inimitable

style, my own offering reprinted here, and a clever framing tale by Ed Bryant that

somehow managed to tie these disparate efforts together. But Cynthia Felice had to

bow out due to other pressing demands, and the result was a trio of tales so

unrelievably dark that the reader would probably ask Santa for a razor blade or

cyanide capsule that year.

The distant publisher of this comic book catalogue was said to have suffered instant

seizure upon reading the first fiction to grace his pages, began spinning and

bouncing off walls like a Linda Blair doll, and reportedly didn't re-spond to

Thorazine until well after New Year's.

The truth is, I'd indulged myself in the story to the point of including a few in-jokes,

one at the expense of my book publisher and another gently poking an editor I

actually thought very highly of. What the heck, I thought, who's gonna read a comic

catalogue?

It seems everybody did. And if that wasn't enough, the trio of tales was soon sold

to Asimov's SF Magazine where it served to darken the next Christmas for a host of

people. And if that wasn't enough, Bryant had sent copies out as Christmas gifts to

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Dan Simmons - Vexed To Nightmare BY A Rocking Cradle

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