Unicorn Variations

Unicorn Variations is a collection of stories and essays by author Roger Zelazny, published in 1983. The title story, "Unicorn Variation", was written as a result of Zelazny having been asked to contribute to two different upcoming anthologies — one collecting stories set in bars, and one collecting stories about unicorns. When Zelazny mentioned these requests to his close friend George R. R. Martin, the other told Zelazny of a third upcoming anthology — one which would collect stories about chess — and jokingly suggested that Zelazny write a story about playing chess against a unicorn in a bar, so that he could sell the story three times. Zelazny did just that and then went on to win a Hugo Award for the story.

Contents

• "Introduction"
• "Unicorn Variation"
• "The Last of the Wild Ones"

  (A follow-up short story to the earlier story "Devil Car")

• "Recital"
• "The Naked Matador"
• "The Parts That Are Only Glimpsed: Three Reflexes" (essay)
• "Dismal Light"

  (A follow-up short story to the novel "Isle of the Dead")

• "Go Starless in the Night"
• "But Not the Herald"
• "A Hand Across the Galaxy"
• "The Force That Through the Circuit Drives the Current"

  (A short story that plays with themes developed in the novella "Home is the Hangman")

• "Home is the Hangman"

  (Initially published in the collection My Name is Legion)

• "Fire and /or Ice"
• "Exeunt Omnes"
• "A Very Good Year"
• "My Lady of the Diodes"
• "And I Only Am Escaped to Tell Thee"
• "The Horses of Lir"
• "The Night Has 999 Eyes"
• "Angel, Dark Angel"
• "Walpurgisnacht"
• "The George Business"
• "Some Science Fiction Parameters: A Biased View" (essay)

References

• "The Locus Index to Science Fiction". http://www.locusmag.com/index/. Retrieved 2007-03-12. 

• Entry in ISFDB