Kirinyaga

  Golden Pagoda Award Winner

  Science Fiction Chronicle Poll Winner

  HOMer Award Nominee

  HOMer Award Winner

  Years Best SF—8th Annual Collection, Honorable Mention

  The sixth story/chapter was “Song of a Dry River.” It was not nominated for a Hugo, but I think the reason was technical rather than because of a lack of quality. When I was the Guest of Honor at a science-fiction convention called Boskone, the convention published a hardcover collection of my African stories and articles, and asked if I would contribute a brand-new Kirinyaga story to it. I wrote “Song of a Dry River” and it appeared in the book. I then sold it to Asimovs, but due to scheduling problems it did not appear in Asimovs during the same calendar year, so that by the time most readers encountered it, it had already used up its eligibility for most of the major awards. Its various nominations and awards were:

  HOMer Award Winner

  HOMer Award Nominee

  Hayakawa SF Award Finalist

  Years Best SF—10th Annual Collection, Honorable Mention

  The seventh story/chapter was “The Lotus and the Spear,” and by now Koriba's solutions were less elegant and his long-term prospects less reassuring. Its various nominations and awards were:

  Hugo Award Nominee

  Nebula Preliminary Ballot

  HOMer Award Nominee

  Year's Best SF—10th Annual Collection, Honorable Mention

  The eighth story/chapter was “A Little Knowledge.” It dealt with one of my favorite subjects—the difference an artist finds between facts and truth—and I really thought it had a shot at a Hugo. But that was the year I wrote “Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge,” which ran off with the Hugo and the Nebula and just about every other award in the field, and the voters evidently thought that was honor enough for one year. “A Little Knowledge's” various nominations and awards were:

  Hugo Award Nominee

  Nebula Preliminary Ballot

  HOMer Award Nominee

  Years Best SF—12th Annual Collection, Honorable Mention

  In the ninth story/chapter, “When the Old Gods Die,” the inevitable comes to pass, and Koriba and his Utopia reject each other. I was afraid the readers might be getting tired of Kirinyaga, but “When the Old Gods Die” obviously hit a responsive chord. Its various nominations and awards were:

  Hugo Nominee

  Nebula Nominee

  Nebula Preliminary Ballot

  Locus Award Winner HOMer Award Winner

  HOMer Award Nominee

  Science Fiction Weekly Poll Winner

  Years Best SF—13th Annual Collection, Honorable Mention

  I had been waiting for nine years to write the “The Land of Nod,” which had been plotted out back in 1987.1 took a much longer time with it than usual, because the ongoing Kirinyaga fable had already won more honors than any other science fiction in history and I knew that the final story—which became an epilogue for the same reason “One Perfect Morning, With Jackals” was a prologue: they are each set in Kenya, and form literary bookends around the eight episodes that take place on Kirinyaga—would be subject to considerable scrutiny My wife, Carol, who has been my uncredited collaborator for close to a third of a century, thinks it is the best Kirinyaga tale of them all. I still prefer “For I Have Touched the Sky,” but Ko-riba's final story did exactly what I wanted it to do, and I am well pleased with it. I am writing this in early June of 1997, and many of the awards haven't been determined yet. Thus far, its various nominations and awards are:

  Hugo Nominee

  Nebula Preliminary Ballot

  HOMer Award Nominee

  Year s Best SF—14th Annual Collection selection

  And what, I hear you ask, ever became of Eutopia? Well, the fact of the matter is that, for various reasons, it is still awaiting publication a full decade after it was contracted—but I'll be forever grateful to it, and to Orson Scott Card, for without Eutopia there would be no Kirinyaga.

  —Mike Resnick

  About the Author

  MIKE RESNICK'S outstanding work has won numerous awards—including three Hugos and one Nebula—and has been nominated for dozens more.

  Resnick has traveled extensively in Africa, the setting for Kirinyaga. He divides his time between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Orlando, Florida.

  A Del Rey® Book

  Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

  Copyright © 1998 by Mike Resnick

  The stories in this work were originally published in somewhat different form in

  Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,

  and Stalking the Wild Resnick.

  Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of

  Random House, Inc.

  www.randomhouse.com/delrey/

  Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 99-90319

  eISBN: 978-0-307-55725-4

  v3.0

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE: ONE PERFECT MORNING, WITH JACKALS

  KIRINYAGA

  FOR I HAVE TOUCHED THE SKY

  BWANA

  THE MANAMOUKI

  SONG OF A DRY RIVER

  THE LOTUS AND THE SPEAR

  A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE

  WHEN THE OLD GODS DIE

  EPILOGUE: THE LAND OF NOD

  AUTHOR'S AFTERWORD