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 (you could tell this is where I was going, couldn't you?) actually, he was. And the book you¿re holding 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.