Interesting. I had forgotten all about that edition of MASKS OF TIME and the introduction I wrote 35 years ago. But the introduction, though it certainly expresses negative views of a lot of my early pulp stories (CHALICE OF DEATH and other Ace novels are not mentioned), does not say that I "regretted" writing that stuff, only that it led science-fiction critics to think of me as nothing more than a producer of pulp material, and I had to work hard to overcome that reputation in later years. I have never repudiated that material -- indeed, I have had much of it reprinted, always with an introduction warning readers that this is early stuff and they should not expect the kind of writing for which I later became known. So: no regrets, only a clear-eyed appraisal of what I was writing in the early days of my career. My objection to the sentence stands, I think.
The comment about "a history of dubious additions" on Wikipedia's user talk page is the blogger's, not mine. I have no idea whether or not it is true.
Interesting. I had forgotten all about that edition of MASKS OF TIME and the introduction I wrote 35 years ago. But the introduction, though it certainly expresses negative views of a lot of my early pulp stories (CHALICE OF DEATH and other Ace novels are not mentioned), does not say that I "regretted" writing that stuff, only that it led science-fiction critics to think of me as nothing more than a producer of pulp material, and I had to work hard to overcome that reputation in later years. I have never repudiated that material -- indeed, I have had much of it reprinted, always with an introduction warning readers that this is early stuff and they should not expect the kind of writing for which I later became known. So: no regrets, only a clear-eyed appraisal of what I was writing in the early days of my career. My objection to the sentence stands, I think.
The comment about "a history of dubious additions" on Wikipedia's user talk page is the blogger's, not mine. I have no idea whether or not it is true.
RS