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It may seem superfluous to subtitle a collection with the description of “ambiguous tales”, since any tale that was not ambiguous would not be worth telling. If ambiguity did not exist, fiction—from the humblest one-liner to the vastest epic—would not exist either, because we would not only be able to content ourselves with actuality but would have no alternative. One can elaborate this issue in high-flown academic terms by citing such classic works of aesthetic analysis as Owen Barfield’s Poetic Diction, the Inklings’ Bible, but there really is no need; it is perfectly obvious that if double meanings did not exist, we would have to invent them. (Put simply, Barfield’s argument is that there never was a time when they didn’t, so we didn’t.)
There are, however, degrees in ambiguity just as there are in everything else, and there are also different sorts of ambiguity—seven is the most oft-quoted number—ranging from the commonplace and conventional to the abstruse and tortuous, so some tales are more ambiguous than others, and may be ambiguous in more or less commonplace ways. By the same token, there are writers who merely accept ambiguity as a necessity, writers who cultivate it as a staple crop and writers ambitious to become explorers in search of rare and exotic ambiguity. I have always aspired to membership in the last-named category, although I am not entirely confident that my quests have had as much success as I could have hoped. At any rate, in labeling the items in this collection “ambiguous tales” I am aiming for something a little more meaningful than mere tautology, hopeful that the ambiguities they contain might, at the least, be a trifle odd, even within the context of the routine oddities of science fiction and fantasy.
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“That’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” I said. “Am I right in assuming that your species is not part of the Earth’s Divine Plan, and no evidence of any aspect of the mind of our Creator?”
“We are not native to this planet,” Mary McQueen confirmed, “nor even this solar system—but if you believe in a Creator, you may take my word for the fact that we are far more representative of the common state of his mind and the apparent ambition of his Divine Plan than your own species.”
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