Imagine an alternate reality where the man who gave the world The Jungle Book and Gunga Din and The Phantom ‘Rickshaw was a science fiction writer – generations before Hugo Gernsbeck and Amazing; before the pulp SF that dominated the thirties; before intellectually prescient Astounding in the forties and sophisticated literary SF magazines like Galaxy and The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction fifties. Think of it: a world where Rudyard Kipling was a science fiction writer, long before SF as we understand it was invented. Well actually, he was. And the book you have in your hands – Actions And Reactions – is a wonderful example of it. It feels a lot like the sort of sophisticated SF – literary without being precious – we all remember from the Golden Age of Galaxy and The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction. Imagine that. We live in an alternate universe.