OtherRealms — Issue 24, Spring 1989
Issue 24, Spring 1989 (part 1)
Electronic OtherRealms #24
Spring, 1989
Part 1 of 10
Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
OtherRealms may not be reproduced without permission from Chuq Von Rospach.
Permission is given to electronically distribute this
issue only if all copyrights, author credits and return
addresses remain intact. No article may be reprinted or re-used
without permission of the author.
Table of Contents
Part 1
Editor's Notebook
Chuq Von Rospach
Part 2
Scattered Gold
Charles de Lint
Fantasy in the Mainstream The Fiction of Italo Calvino Chuck Koebel
Part 3
Much Rejoicing
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Behind the Scenes: A Look at Paradise Mike Resnick
Part 4
Past Imagining
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Stuff Received
Part 5
Words of Wizdom
Chuq Von Rospach
Part 6
The Contrapunk Manifesto
Bruce Bethke
The Agony Column Rick Kleffel
Part 7
No Prisoners!
Laurie Sefton
Part 8
Lots and Lots of Reviews -- Part 1
Lots and Lots of Readers
Part 9
Lots and Lots of Reviews -- Part 2
Lots and Lots of Readers
Part 10
Your Turn -- Letters
Masthead: Submission, Subscription and Publication info.The Fine Print
Editor's Notebook
Chuq Von Rospach
Changes, always Changes
Lots and lots of changes this issue! All of them, I believe, positive. Since we last spoke, I've left Sun Microsystems for a new job at Apple. This changes the e-mail addresses for submissions and letters. I am now chuq@apple.com, as well as CHUQ on AppleLink. The other networks ("CHUQ" on Delphi and "73317,635" on CompuServe) don't change. Unfortunately, the archive server for back-issues I maintained on USENET has been turned off, and it won't return for the foreseeable future. Except for some back-issues available on Delphi, this means that you won't be able to get older issues electronically any more.
At Apple, I'm working with both MacOS and A/UX. So I'm still hacking Unix, but I can start seriously learning how to program the Macintosh like I'd wanted to for a long time. I also have access to lots of nifty hardware now, too.
Other changes: Laurie's left Amdahl for NeXT. Her new address is Laurie_Sefton@NeXT.COM. Her accounts ("LSEFTON" on Delphi and "74010,3542 on CompuServe) don't change.
Working for competitors is interesting, since we sometimes can't talk about the things we're working on. This is fairly common in the Silicon Valley, and we find it helps us focus our evenings on our outside interests. I don't know how the people who only have computers in common survive. Also, Alan Wexelblat has left MCC and is now working for Texas Instruments. Because the job search and new position have eaten up all his time, he's decided to take a break from the column this issue.
Additions to the fold
I want to acknowledge two additions to the masthead. Lawrence Watt-Evans joins us as a contributing editor. He's the author of numerous books, including The Wizard and the War Machine, With a Single Spell and The Misenchanted Sword. I'm happy to be reprinting some of his pieces from his "Rayguns, Elves and Skin-Tight Suits" column in Comics Buyer's Guide.
I've also added Dean R. Lambe to the masthead as contributor. He is co-author of The Odysseus Solution and one of the most incisive and interesting reviewers I've been lucky enough to snag. Dean's been writing for me for a while, but I felt he deserved some extra recognition for the caliber of reviews he's been writing. Both of these writers are strong additions to OtherRealms and I'm glad to have them on board.
Layout changes
There were many changes to OtherRealms last issue. The main change, of course, was the smaller typeface. While OtherRealms is down to 32 pages, I only lost about 15% of the text. That's a lot less damage than I'd expected, and the switch to the new typeface seems to be a success. I don't think the new typeface is quite as casual as the old one, but it doesn't seem to impact readability, which was my main concern. I've done some more minor tweaks this issue to increase the white space a little, which should improve readability a little more.
Also, I've switched my headline typeface from Univers to Helvetica because of a technical problem (read 'bug') in the printer driver involving downloadable fonts. Since Helvetica is always in the printer, I don't run into the problem. Hopefully this will be resolved soon, but until it is I have to limit the number of downloadable fonts I use. Sigh.
I've also made two significant layout changes. I've combined the regular reviews and Pico Reviews into a single large review section. The makes layout easier and also removes an artificial barrier between Pico reviews and 'real' ones. I'm looking for a good name for this section, since 'Pico Reviews' doesn't apply anymore. Suggestions are welcome, and if I adopt your suggestion I'll give you a one-year subscription.
I also restructured the Stuff Received section. After talking to many of you, it was clear that breaking the section down by publisher was the wrong format. Starting this issue, I'm now breaking books down into major categories: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Other. After that, everything is being sorted by author, which should make finding your favorite writer's much easier.
Reader's Survey
After the last issue, I released a reader's survey to the USENET readers of OtherRealms. I ended up with 153 responses. It would have been higher except my E-mail account disappeared for a couple of weeks when Sun opted to give me a paid vacation between jobs rather than having me work out my tenure. For the people who tried to respond and got their mail bounced, my apologies -- I left Sun on three days notice and a few loose ends didn't get tied up cleanly.
Survey responses were returned from ten different countries: The U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Netherlands. I also know that the electronic OtherRealms reaches both Japan and West Germany, although neither are represented in the survey.
One thing that the survey allows me to do is estimate my electronic readership. It's difficult to get accurate numbers on the networks -- depending on how you count the readership ranges from 1,500 to 9,000. By looking at sections of the network where I do know the readership size and seeing how many responses come from those areas, I can guess on the size of the entire readership. One area of about 200 people had three responses (1.5% return) and another of 150 addresses had 2 responses (1.4% response). If we assume a 1% response from the entire network, this puts the readership at 15,000. A 2% return puts the readership at 7,500. Based on this, I'm willing to say that OtherRealms' electronic readership is around 10,000 on the Internet/USENET network. This doesn't include the printed edition (275-300 copies) or other networks that OtherRealms goes to. As a sanity check, SF-Lovers, which is an unstructured mailing list on the same networks, has between 25,000 and 35,000 readers at last count, so the the numbers I'm seeing aren't outrageous. Not bad for a fanzine.
On to the survey itself. I was amazed at the ingenuity of the answers -- even on the yes/no questions. Not only did people go into long essays, some went so far as to rewrite the questions to represent what they thought I ought to have asked. That's an interesting aspect of doing things electronically and it made tabulating some of the surveys an interesting exercise. When I was given a range of numbers I took a number in the middle of the range .
The first questions looked at buying habits. 103 (67%) of you buy hardcover books at least occasionally. 150 of you (98+%) buy paperbacks. Yes, three people did say they bought hardcovers and not paperbacks. Those people who buy hardcovers purchase, on average, 14 per year, or about 1.1 a month. The range of responses went from 1 or 2 a year to four a month. Paperback readers purchase an average of 5.9 paperbacks a month, or 70 books a year. The most voracious readers in the survey averaged about 30 books a month. What do you read? 146 of you (95%) read SF. 120 (78%) read Fantasy and 43 (28%) read Horror. For other reading, the numbers were: 70 (45%) mainstream, 64 (41%) mystery, 56 (36%) thriller, 12 (7%) western, 7 (4%) romance. A few people wrote in and asked me to define mainstream -- half of you read it, whatever it is.
The next category looked at the genre magazines you read. Of the professional magazines, the numbers are: 43 (28%) Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine; 40 (26%) Analog; 32 (20%) Fantasy & Science Fiction; 28 (18%) Omni; 12 (7%) Amazing; 7 (4%) Aboriginal SF; 5 (3%) Twilight Zone. There are couple of interesting twists in these numbers. While Analog has significantly more subscribers than anyone else (except Omni, which is really a fringe magazine with a large audience), IASFM is more widely read by OtherRealms readers. Both Amazing and Aboriginal placed better than they should have, while Twilight Zone, which has since died, placed much worse. Overall, there's a larger percentage of magazine readers in the OtherRealms population than in the general reading public.
The responses for the semi-pro and smaller magazines were as follows: 17 (11%) Locus; 6 (3%) SF Chron; 5 (3%) Weird Tales; 2 (1%) New York Review of SF; 1 (0.5%) SF Eye. Nobody would admit to reading either Thrust or Extrapolation. I didn't cover fanzines this time, and few people volunteered any. The only real surprise here for me was the big difference between Locus and SF Chron. SF Chron is the smaller of the two, but that can't explain the difference in the survey. There is a strong bias towards Locus in my readership somewhere, and I don't know why. Weird Tales places well out of proportion with the size of its readership base.
On to OtherRealms itself. I asked everyone to rate each regular feature on a scale of 1 [strongly dislike] to five [strongly like]. People who left a field blank weren't included in the ratings for that field, so these numbers are the average for those people who rated each item: 4.25 Pico & Short reviews, 3.95 Behind the Scenes, 3.90 Scattered Gold (Charles de Lint), 3.84 Words of Wizdom (Chuq Von Rospach), 3.74 Creme de la Creme (Alan Wexelblat), 3.72 Editor's Notebook, 3.67 Much Rejoicing (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes), 3.57 No Prisoners! (Laurie Sefton), 3.46 Letter column, 3.27 Stuff Received, 3.10 Agony Column. (Rick Kleffel). Since Laurie only covers Fantasy, some of the readers who don't read Fantasy rated her column down. The same went for non-horror readers and Rick's column. When you take the average for Laurie's column only from those people who read Fantasy, the number changes to 3.63. When you do the same for horror readers and Rick, the number changes to 3.50. And, just as a control, I did the same thing with the other columns and none of them changed by more than about three one-hundredths of a point, so I think it's fair to use the higher numbers for both of the specialty columns.
Basically, rating OtherRealms serves as a sanity check for me. I better know what people think of the magazine or I'm not going to keep my readers happy. All of the regular features got good scores. Every reader has their preferences in OtherRealms, but there isn't anything in the magazine that is generally disliked, which means that my mix of material is right. Every feature and column got at least one 5 rating and at least one 1, which I expected. The only real surprise for me was that the Stuff Received column rated as high as it did. While a number of people rated it low, many more let me know they found it was very useful.
The next area was future priorities. I asked people to rate both current features and proposed features to get some feeling about what people were interested in seeing in OtherRealms. The current features got rated almost exactly the same as in the previous section, which, in retrospect, shouldn't be a surprise. The items people were interested in were, in order of interest, interviews, a review index, industry news, industry futures (books to come, etc.), reviewing classics, features on publishers, short fiction reviews, convention reports, covering mass-media and convention listings.
The top two items, interviews and a review index, far outstripped the rest as far as number of people requesting them and how strongly they wanted it. I was considering bringing back interviews, and I'll definitely return them in an issue or two. The index is something I've planned on doing for a long time, but never have time to do. I'll try again, but no guarantees.
Most of the other items are things that other publications are already doing quite well, and rather than duplicate them, I think you should read the other magazine. Both Locus and SF Chronicle have strong industry sections, book futures, major convention reports and exhaustive convention listings. Fanzines like File 770 and Lan's Lantern print convention reports. Mass-media fans have a wide range of publications -- starting with SF Chronicle and Locus and going to Starlog. I'm not a big mass-media fan and watch very little television, so this simply isn't something I'm interested in. Locus has a column covering short fiction. So does Comics Buyer's Guide. The last attempt to cover short fiction, Short Form, has died. OtherRealms won't cover short fiction for one reason: I just am not interested enough to want to support a column on it, and there isn't enough interest in the readership base to convince me to do it anyway. People interested in short fiction should read Locus. If anything more comprehensive comes along, I'll let you know.
As far as features on publishers go, I'll see what I can do. I had a query about doing a series of in-depth interviews of book-editors. I may also try to find someone on the east coast willing to go and write short features on various publishing houses and how books get published. Nothing's final yet, but there are some interesting possibilities. Finally, reviews of classic books. I like the idea. If people want to write 500-1000 word reviews of classics, I'll be happy to include as many as I can handle and flag them as classic reviews in some way. Classics shouldn't be forgotten but in the rush to cover new material, it's hard to remember that. When I talk to people on the nets and at conventions, I'm always amazed at how many haven't read the classic in the field -- usually because nobody has told them what they are. This is a good way to help rectify that.
The final section of the survey was open comments. I want to thank you for filling them out, some at great length.
The most common question was "Why Horror?" Horror is a genre that's closely related to Fantasy. I feel strongly that Fantasy readers that refuse to venture into Horror occasionally are limiting themselves. You don't need to read Clive Barker and the Splatterpunks to read Horror. I'm willing to bet that there are very few Fantasy readers that wouldn't enjoy Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain and Olivia books. When I get tired of those surgary-sweet unicorns and pointy-eared obnoxious elves, a couple of horror books are a great way of putting everything back in sync. I'm waiting for someone to write a book where all those cutsey Fantasy archetypes get horribly munched up and chomped in wonderfully gruesome ways.
Another common question was "Why isn't OtherRealms bigger (or more often)?" -- the answer is that I have only so much time for OtherRealms. Other things, like sleep, get in the way. The only way I could make OtherRealms either bigger or more frequent would be to make it less structured and more informal. All that would do is turn OtherRealms into another SF-Lovers mailing list, and I don't see any real purpose in duplicating what is already happening.
A number of people asked me to distribute OtherRealms in PostScript format, so that people with compatible printers could print out a copy that looks like the printed version. I won't do this for a number of reasons. For one thing, the PostScript needed to generate OtherRealms is huge. What is 250,000 to 300,000 bytes of text becomes between 1.5 and 2 megabytes. Distributing that much data electronically isn't practical. OtherRealms also uses typefaces that aren't standard in PostScript printers -- ITC Garamond. Unless you have this font, the output would be exceptionally ugly. I would still have to publish the straight text as well for everyone without a compatible printer. None of the art is handled electronically -- it is all laid out and pasted in manually. Making the fully formatted version of OtherRealms available electronically isn't practical.
Here are the winners of the free subscriptions for turning in surveys. They are: Kevin Routley (routley@tle.dec.com), J.J. Sager (cbdkcl!jjs), Joe Herman (dzoey@terminus.umd.edu), Mike Monte (monts@quicksilver.sun.com), Per Westerlund (perw@holtec.se, Sweden) and Matthijs Peters (bagron@cs.vu.nl, Netherlands). Thanks to everyone for taking the time to respond.
Updates on Previous Issues
In issue #22, I ripped into Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine as a classic case of why Desktop Publishing is a danger in a novice's hands. A few people wrote in complaining that I was too tough on it, but considering how many problems there were, I don't think so. The good news, however, is that issue #2 and #3 are now out, and the magazine is improved. The fiction is improved, the layout is better and the production values are up. According to Locus, starting with issue #4, George Scithers will be taking over production and printing and Bradley will just do the editing. All of this is very good news for the Fantasy market, and based on the second issue, I'm dropping my warning -- in fact, I'm subscribing.
Also, last issue I was very negative about the semi-prozine Thrust, which I feel died a long time ago, but hasn't noticed. While OtherRealms was at the printers, the latest issue of Thrust (issue #32) arrived, and I have to say it's the best issue I've seen in two years. Significantly improved over other months, and with many fewer typos as well. Whether this is an anomaly or a trend I don't know, but it was heartening to see a magazine I have given up for lost show at least a glimmer of what it could be again. Time will tell.
Unfortunately, that's all the good news I have. Two magazines I've mentioned recently have folded. Twilight Zone, the only mass-market horror magazine around, has announced it's departure. Argos, a digest- sized fantasy fiction magazine that I really liked, has also closed its doors after three issues. As popular as fantasy and horror is in book form, it seems that packaging shorter versions of these is still an uphill battle.
Back issues
I've had a number of requests recently for back issues of OtherRealms. Many of the issues are out of print, but if people want back issues, they are available for the cover price. The following are available at $2.50 each: April, 1987 (#14); May, 1987 (#15); June, 1987 (#16); July, 1987 (#17); Winter, 1987 (#19); Spring, 1988 (#20). The following issues are available for $2.85 each: Summer, 1988 (#21); Fall, 1988 (#22); Winter, 1989 (#23). Some of these are in rather limited supply, and when they're gone, I'll have an empty closet.
Until next time!
------ End ------
Issue 24, Spring 1989 (part 2)
Electronic OtherRealms #24
Spring, 1989
Part 2 of 10
Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
OtherRealms may not be reproduced without permission from Chuq Von Rospach.
Permission is given to electronically distribute this
issue only if all copyrights, author credits and return
addresses remain intact. No article may be reprinted or re-used
without permission of the author.
Scattered Gold
Charles de Lint
Copyright 1989 by Charles de Lint
Installment 7: In which we say hello to a last few 1988 titles.
Expecting Someone Taller [***+] Tom Holt St. Martin's/Thomas Dunne, 1988; 218pp; $15.95 , 0-312-01426-0
Tom Holt's spoof of Wagner's Ring Cycle, Expecting Someone Taller, is one of those books that runs out of steam about two thirds of the way through; what's different about it, however, is that it manages to pick itself up for a fairly satisfying conclusion.
When Malcolm Fisher (no accident that name -- think Fisher King) accidentally runs over a badger on a back road in the West Country, he finds that the beast is actually Ingolf, Master of the World. With his death, he gifts Fisher with the ring that gives its bearer wealth and mastScattery of the world, the Tarnhelm, a helmet which lets the wearer change shape or become invisible, and the ability to understand the speech of birds. But with these gifts, Fisher also inherits the enmity of Wotan, the sulfur-dwarf Alberich, the Rhinemaidens....
In short, he's cursed. An unpleasant prospect for a fellow who's already made a complete botch of his life.
Holt runs with the material very nicely -- the story flows well, reminiscent of, say, a contemporary Thorne Smith at times, and the humor is both silly and genuinely amusing. But then there comes an overlong section where the various characters begin to expound upon the nature of Love and the book bogs down.
Happily, Holt gets back on track and brings it all to a suitable close, but it's unfortunate that he couldn't have pared down that one section to retain the overall briskness and gentle good humor of the novel as a whole. It's still worth reading, though, and stands head and shoulders above much of the other so-called humorous fantasy that's currently on the stands.
Catspaw [***] Joan D. Vinge Warner Books, September 1988; 392pp; $17.95, 0-446-51396-2
Joan D. Vinge's Catspaw is the sequel to Vinge's earlier YA novel Psion, but where the latter had the feel of one of Andre Norton's early books, Catspaw is an adult novel -- a convincing blend of space opera and (dare I say it) cyberpunk.
The story brings back the telepath, Cat. In Psion, Cat discovered he had telepathic powers, only to sacrifice them for the good of humanity. It was a coming-of-age novel, deftly handled and enjoyable, even if it didn't break any new ground.
In Catspaw, Cat is blackmailed into becoming the bodyguard of a highborn Lady, his telepathic powers returned to him through the use of drugs. At first he doesn't much care for anything but getting the job over with, but he soon gets caught up in the politics and intrigue that surround the Lady and her peers. As in the earlier book, Vinge's prose and storytelling are smooth and enjoyable, but she's still not breaking any new ground.
Catspaw, entertaining as it is, is still a brew of standard sf icons and contemporary techniques. It holds the reader's interest, but the characters, while well-rounded, seem overly familiar, and the plot pretty much goes where one would expect it to.
If this all seems rather negative, it's not meant to be so. I think Vinge meant to produce an entertaining space opera, not a big think book, and considered in that light, the book's both a success and a lot of fun.
The Dark Door [***+] Kate Wilhelm St. Martin's, October 1988; 248pp; $16.95, 0-312-02182-8
Kate Wilhelm's The Dark Door marks the third outing for her investigators, psychologist Constance Liedl and her husband, ex-NYPD cop Charlie Meiklejohn, the first two being "The Gorgon Field" (Asimov's, August 1985) and The Hamlet Trap (St. Martin's Press, 1987).
After the straight mystery novel that The Hamlet Trap was, the new book returns the pair to an overt sf setting, plainly stated with the bookends of a prologue and an epilogue from an alien creature's point of view. Those bookends are the weakest part of the book -- mostly because there's no real reference points for the reader to grab so that he or she doesn't care one way or another about the creature as it sends its probe out into space.
It's not until we leave the alien perspective (which only takes a very few pages) that Wilhelm's particular strength has a chance to stretch its muscles: her characterization. The alien probe, we learn, takes up residence in deserted hotels from which it exerts a terrible influence on most humans who come into contact with it, driving them into a murderous rage.
Mostly we follow Meiklejohn, Liedl and one of the early survivors, Carson Danvers, as they try to deal with the menace. Along the way there's lots of action, but also time for superior character development and some fascinating insights into psychiatry and the behavioral sciences.
Wilhelm is one of the field's real treasures. Over the span of her career she has tackled every kind of story imaginable -- and many that only she could imagine -- with the only carry-over similarities being her polished prose and insightful characterization. Ignore her at your own risk.
Ursula's Gift [***] Roger L. DiSilvestro Donald I. Fine, 1988; 220pp; $16.95, 1-55611-108-8
Ursula's Gift by Roger L. DiSilvestro is the latest entry into the swelling ranks of humorous fantasy, although, unlike Stasheff, Asprin, Shas, etc., it takes place in a contemporary setting.
When overweight Stanley Merriweather attempts to rescue a hooker from being beaten by her pimp, said hooker gifts him with a bite on the shoulder that turns him into a werewolf. There's good points to it all -- Stanley starts to lose weight and his unrequited love for his secretary becomes a bit more physical, but there's a down side as well. It seems that werewolves are duty-bound to kill and eat people. And then there's Stanley as Great White Hunter of a father who wants to kill him -- although he's vying with a mad psychiatrist to get the job done.
It's all in good fun and DiSilvestro keeps the story rollicking along quite nicely. He has a tendency to jump ahead in the narrative and then go back and fill in events, and we've seen this kind of story before -- from Thorne Smith through Peter Beagle -- but all in all, Ursula's Gift makes for an engaging quick read. It's not as successful as the Holt title discussed above, but better than most humorous sf/f attempts.
The Changeling Sea [****+] Patricia A. McKillip Atheneum, 1988; 137pp; $12.95, 0-689-31436-1
The Changeling Sea marks a return for Patricia McKillip. After brief forays into science fantasy with Moon-Flash and The Moon and the Face, and her own blend of cyberpunk with Fool's Run, she has returned to the dreamy fantasies of The Forgotten Beasts of Eld with a vengeance.
This isn't a big book -- neither in length, nor in its themes. Instead, it's the quiet story of a scruffy young woman who scrubs floors in a pub for a living and her involvement with a pair of princes and a magician. Vast threats don't loom above our heroes. Worlds aren't saved. But through a lyrical prose that defies description, and a small cast of quirky characters -- who are both down-to-earth and fey -- she has illuminated facets of the human condition that will remain with her readers for many years to come.
The Changeling Sea is a return to a kind of work which McKillip made her own years ago, but the writer she is now brings to it a sensitivity, a maturity and a polished prose than the younger writer she was then could not have hoped to achieve.
Sleeping In Flame [****] Jonathan Carroll Legend, 1988; 244pp; L10.95, 0-7126-2357-4
Jonathan Carroll's Sleeping In Flame puts to rest the fears I had when I first heard that his previous title, Bones of the Moon (1987), was to be the first in a five-book series. Bones of the Moon needed no sequel -- none of Carroll's books do. But happily, while characters from it do appear briefly (Weber Gregston), or are mentioned (Cullen James) in the new novel, Sleeping in Flame remains very much its own story.
It's the contemporary retelling of a well-known fairy tale -- which tale, I'm not going to say, for fear of spoiling its surprises. In fact, it brings into consideration the whole question of fairy tales -- how they came to be, how they've been changed through the years, whether they have any basis in reality, and if so, what?
Walker Easterling, actor and scriptwriter, falls headlong into the above questions when he first begins his romance with model-turned- artist, Maris York. As is usual in a Carroll novel, reality and the fantastic mingle in such a way that both are completely natural, while taking away neither the grittiness of the former, nor the sense of wonder inherent in the latter.
Carroll is one of a growing number of new writers who is exploring our world through the exaggerated lenses of fantasy. No matter how bizarre or fey the fantasy elements become, they never stray from their principle purpose of illuminating our world. That Carroll remains a wonderful stylist, that he is gifted with the ability to convey to the reader his affection for his characters and blend it all with the excitement of a thriller, are merely bonuses.
Fool On The Hill [****] Matt Ruff Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988; 396pp; $19.95, 0-87113-243-5
Matt Ruff's Fool on the Hill is a novel of organized chaos that takes place in the author's own alma mater of Cornell University.
It shouldn't work.
There's an intruding Greek Storyteller who steps in to manipulate the storyline when a deus ex machina is needed. There are talking animals, bands of sprites tiny enough to do a Victorian proud, various madcap fraternities, mysterious beings that come and go as the plot needs them, a dragon (well, sort of), a joint-smoking retired factory worker... everything but the kitchen sink.
But it does work.
There's something about Ruff's youthful optimism that imbues the book with a vigor and sense of believability even in its most outrageous moments. The writing is mature, frivolous, serious, innocent and bawdy in equal measures. His characters are both larger than life, and very down to earth.
The plot is (plots are) not easy to summarize, and one can't help but find a few quibbles in amidst the brouhaha that fills the novel's pages, but for those readers willing to travel to a place that's reminiscent of a young Peter S. Beagle meeting a young John Crowley, yet definitely contains the invigorating spirit of the author's own particular talents at all times, then this is the book for you.
Fantasy in the Mainstream
The Fiction of Italo Calvino
Chuck Koebel
Copyright 1989 by Chuck Koebel
Traces of science fiction and fantasy have been seeping into mainstream literature For a long time. Spy novels often use a new computer program, laser gun, or other technological whiz-bang as a plot device. Many novels include dream scenes, a technique borrowed from fantasy by way of Sigmund Freud. Retellings of legends in modern settings are common. But it is still rare for a major mainstream author (say a Nobel Prize-winner) to concentrate his or her efforts on fantasy. Rare, but not unknown: this article is about Italo Calvino, the Italian Nobel Prize-winner for literature. Fantastic touches run all through his work; this review will only scratch the surface of what is there.
One of Calvino's most popular books, as well as a good illustration of his sense of fantasy, is Cosmicomics. This collection of short stories might be called science fiction if you used a very literal definition. Each story is based on a single scientific fact or theory. The stories do not use this science in a traditional way, however. Instead of a character using science to solve a problem, the characters are often personifications of the scientific principles themselves. Instead of everything being precisely calculated from physical formulas, the forces may be magnified many times for effect, or secondary influences may be used instead of primary ones. As you can see, we are not talking about hard science fiction here. Any quantities you might use to check the stories' accuracy are likely to be wrong by several orders of magnitude. But as pure entertainment, the stories are wonderful. Their fantastic atmosphere gives them a sense of fun not found many other places.
All of the stories start with a short paragraph explaining the scientific theory being used. Then the real story begins. The stories are narrated by Qfwfq, a being who is apparently immortal and able to change bodies at will. He always remembers an incident of his life that illustrates the theory, either directly or tangentially. For example, in "All at One Point" it is given that the universe is expanding from a single point. Qfwfq, of course, remembers how crowded it was back at that point; he also remembers the lady who triggered the expansion. "Games Without End" starts with the Hoyle's continuous creation theory (a theory which has since been disproved). Qfwfq and a friend play a version of marbles with the hydrogen atoms being created. Similarly, "The Aquatic Uncle" handles evolution, "How Much Shall We Bet?" takes on determinism, and other stories play with other theories. My personal favorite is "The Light Years," which involves an astronomer, an extremely powerful telescope, and a sign saying "I SAW YOU."
It is probably worth considering what the point of these stories is. Obviously, Cosmicomics is not a serious attempt at scientific accuracy like some of Niven and Pournelle's work. But on another level, the stories can be viewed as folk tales for the modern age. Like traditional folk tales, what happens in the story could never happen in real life, but there is a grain of truth in it. We know that Snow White's wicked witch doesn't exist, but we also know it isn't a good idea to take apples (or candy) from strangers. Similarly, "The Aquatic Uncle" could not evolve from sea creature to land animal in his own lifetime, but species do change. Maybe Calvino's stories can slip scientific ideas into our subconscious, just like we learned right and wrong from kindergarten stories. Of course, there is another interpretation of the stories -- Calvino just wanted to write some fun fantasy stories. It is hard to argue that the stories are not entertaining, and that alone may be justification enough for the book. So, read the book for sheer entertainment or for deep meaning, depending on your point of view, but do read Cosmicomics. It's too good to miss.
t zero is a sequel to Cosmicomics. The first section of the book is entitled "More Qfwfq" and lives up to its title. The stories are less lighthearted than the earlier ones, but still good. The second section, "Priscilla," contains three stories about a friend of Qfwfq. The biological themes are obvious from the titles: "Mitosis," "Meiosis," and "Death." All three stories are excellent. Finally, the last section contains several stories dealing with infinity in one way or another. The story "t zero" is a meditation on an infinity of alternate universes made while an archer watches his last arrow fly toward the lion springing at him. The situation is similar to "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Bierce or "The Secret Miracle" by Borges, but the meditation itself is very different. Other stories include "The Chase," which features an infinite series of hit men pursuing each other. Anybody who enjoyed Cosmicomics will probably like t zero as well.
Seemingly infinite regresses also appear in Calvino's later novel If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. The surface plot begins with you buying a book from your local bookseller. (The word "you" is intentional; the book is written in second person, not the normal first or third person.) When you get home, you start reading the first chapter, which also appears in the (real) book. That chapter ends in a minor cliffhanger, but when you go on to the next chapter you discover that there is a problem -- your copy of the book has no second chapter. In fact, the entire book consists of copies of the first chapter! The next day, you try to exchange the book for a good copy, only to find that the chapter you read was not from the book you intended to buy; it was from another novel entirely, mistakenly bound in the wrong cover. Intrigued by the story, you buy a copy of that novel, but the new book is also incomplete, and so on. The complete plot of the If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is much too complex to describe here. Suffice it to say that chapters from no less than ten books are included in this novel, and that the trials of the reader reach heroic proportions. Self-reference plays a large part in unraveling the plot. Also present is an implicit question of how the reader should interact with a book; should the reader be passive, simply absorbing the words, or actively involved in acting on the ideas contained there? If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is highly recommended for readers who like unusual fiction.
Fantasy of a completely different kind appears in The Castle of Crossed Destinies. Here, the fantasy comes from the tarot deck and from travelers' tales. The book consists of two sections, "The Castle of Crossed Destinies" and "The Tavern of Crossed Destinies," each with the same structure. Travelers escaping some unnamed tragedy gather at a table with a tarot deck. Unable to speak, they attempt to tell their stories using the pictures on the cards. Only the pictures on the cards are used; the common interpretations of tarot reading are ignored. As the tales are told, the cards are laid down in patterns on the table, the patterns crossing each other as the same card is needed in more than one story. Black and white illustrations of the cards and patterns are shown in the book. The cards form a complete tableau when all the tales are told; this tableau is also illustrated. The stories are then contained in the tableau; the travelers' destinies are crossed on the table as their paths have crossed at the castle and as their plans are crossed in life.
The stories told by the travelers show a wide variety. Most have some fantasy element, from ghosts to magicians. There are many tragedies, since the travelers have been forced together by disaster. Quests are common, as are ill-fated loves. Some are retellings of famous stories, such as the tales of Roland, Hamlet, Faust, and Parsifal; others are original with Calvino. Even the retellings have changed considerably from their original sources, however. All are told in a simple, straightforward style that meshes with the circumstances. The mood of a dark castle or tavern and the shock of recent loss by the travelers are captured by the descriptions of the hesitating characters and the subjects of their stories. The Castle of Crossed Destinies is worth reading both for its stories and as an example of formal style.
Many of Calvino's other books contain elements of fantasy. Perhaps the best-known is Invisible Cities, a series of conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. Polo describes cities, many quite fantastic, to the Khan, who silently draws conclusions about the state of his empire. The descriptions themselves are gems of clarity, reminding the reader of Oz or other wonderful locales. The Baron in the Trees, which some Europeans consider Calvino's best work, tells the story of a hereditary baron who leaves human society for an existence living in the trees. This is not an Italian Tarzan of the Apes, although Calvino was certainly aware of Burroughs. Calvino's book is an allegory more in line with The Tin Drum. The Nonexistent Knight and The Cloven Viscount contains two stories with a strong fantasy flavor. Finally, Italian Folktales is exactly what the title implies: a collection of traditional stories, all retold by Calvino. It belongs on the shelf with Grimms' Fairy Tales.
Calvino's essays are not fantasy per se, but may shed some light on why it is so powerful. The Uses of Literature is, of course, literary criticism. Six Memos for the Next Millennium is a posthumous collection of six lectures he was preparing at the time of his death. Both books offer a better insight into one of the best authors of our time.
Most of Calvino's work was translated into English by William Weaver. His translations read almost as if the books were written in English.
------ End ------
Issue 24, Spring 1989 (part 3)
Electronic OtherRealms #24
Spring, 1989
Part 3 of 10
Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
OtherRealms may not be reproduced without permission from Chuq Von Rospach.
Permission is given to electronically distribute this
issue only if all copyrights, author credits and return
addresses remain intact. No article may be reprinted or re-used
without permission of the author.
Much Rejoicing
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Copyright 1989 by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Episode 9: Not Yet a Vast Wasteland
Molly Dear: The Autobiography of an Android Stephen Fine, St. Martin's, 1988, 0-312-02254-9, $18.95
Helen O'Loy never had it so good.
Science fiction is often a powerful medium for social comment. This is why non-genre writers frequently step into the genre briefly to write their own visions of utopia, dystopia, or what-have-you: and, depending on the writer, the results can be as good as Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Sentimental Agents or as bad as The Terminal Man and Shikasta.
Similarly, many genre writers, from Philip K. Dick to Fredrik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth by way of Robert A. Heinlein and Joanna Russ, have taken advantage of the genre's built-in ability to mess around with the reader's perception of society.
Science fiction is also a powerful tool for examining fundamental questions, and particularly the question of an operative definition of humanity. Examples of this examination abound, from The Caves of Steel to A Case of Conscience.
Alas, the two rarely mix. This is, perhaps, the signal flaw in Stephen Fine's first novel. The book is entitled Molly Dear, to which my mind keeps trying to append an -EST, and is frustrating from start to finish. It promises much; and while it delivers what it promises, the goods delivered are damaged and muddled.
The story is an old one, what you might call "robot picaresque." An android or robot comes to full sentience; its innocent actions are taken for rebellion; it has a series of adventures and misadventures, including capture for reprogramming, contact with the genuine rebel underground, interludes with the highest and lowest levels of human society, etc., etc. The implementation of the story is rather more original. The rebel underground are actually a bunch of zoned-out space hippies trying to bring about the perfect human-android world through interbreeding -- between humans and sentient fungi, ferchrissakes; might as well have them fucking rutabagas -- and, believe it or not, meditation and tantric yoga.
The story's science is rather more wonky. I've already glanced off the biological problems with Fine's idea of androids; to that, I'll add only that he seems deucedly unclear at times whether they're living things or machines. (I don't mean that the narrator seems unclear on this issue. She is perfectly well-versed in the science of her own creation. It's the science itself that's so pseudo that my brain hurt.) Fine also treats us to a ship that can handle an Earth-to-Mars trip in three days without smooshing its passengers. Implicit in such an arrangement is either gravity control or the infamous inertialess drive; but no other sign of either of these technologies is to be seen anywhere. Indeed, the ship itself is mentioned for the first time only a few seconds before Molly Dear boards it, and its presence at that moment is more in the lines of a failed deus-ex-machina than logical extrapolation from the culture at hand.
Molly's focus is her treatment by her human masters/creators. As such, it might be an interesting social-commentary novel on the treatment of subject groups by society as a whole, whether blacks (hispanics, women, subject group of your choice) in America or Arabs in Israel. But the actual relationship between humans and androids in Fine's postulated society is so lacking in any analogy to any real human society that it loses all bite, and degenerates into mere flailing.
Similarly, Fine has some fine moments of focus in which Molly is clearly more human than her human intimates. But these fail to gel into an examination of humanity, in large part because they keep getting mixed up with the political issues of the novel.
In all, Molly Dear is a failure, but a failure more interesting than many writers' most successful works. Stephen Fine has an excellent sense of language (Molly Dear reminded me of an abnormally well-written 19th century "confessional novel") and vision that may lead him to create some excellent work in the future. I'll be looking forward eagerly to his next book, and hoping he learns from the experience of Molly Dear; but I fear I can't in good conscience recommend Molly Dear to you.
There Are Doors Gene Wolfe, TOR, 1988, 0-312-93099-2, $17.95
Happily, I can recommend Gene Wolfe's latest, There Are Doors, without reservation. It's a romp, a frolic, a sheer pleasure, and it's also the best novel Philip K. Dick never wrote.
Doors has a lot of the same something-is-going-on-outside-the-frame weirdness that made Free Live Free such a treat. Our hero, unnamed (or, rather, given a series of false names by other characters. His real name may be Mr. Green), meets a woman and falls in love. She leaves unexpectedly. He follows her as best he can, and finds himself in a world so much like ours that it takes him a while to understand the differences. (Indeed, "Green" is rather an innocent; the reader is generally three steps ahead of him in understanding his circumstances.)
This world-shift leads to the sort of disorientation Dick was famous for. At one point, "Green" reflects on his encounter with Sheng, a Chinese-born American citizen who acts exactly like a '40s stereotype of a "Chinaman." In the world he knows, he thinks, Chinese folks simply do not act like that.
To reveal much more would be to spoil the book. Let me simply say that "Green" does indeed find his love -- indeed, finds her several times over -- and that the ending, while ambiguous, is quite pleasant. Justice is done, virtue is rewarded (or is its own reward), and villains get exactly what they deserve.
Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places Ursula K. LeGuin, Grove Press, 1989, 0-8021-1105-X, $19.95
What can you say about a collection of essays on topics ranging all over the map, from menopause to book reviews to travelog to the making of a TV movie?
The easiest thing to say, I suppose, is to say "it's by Ursula K. LeGuin and you should go and read it right now." For an awful lot of people the name LeGuin alone is sufficient cause to go and toss $20 on the counter at their local B. Walden chain bookstore and demand a copy.
For the reader who simply refuses to be intimidated by the mere name of one of the finest craftspeople and artists in American letters today, then, I added the second half of that statement. This is LeGuin's selection of her essays and book reviews from the past decade (more or less). Even if you don't agree with everything she has to say, and I don't always, her saying it makes it worth listening to: both because she has thought long and deeply upon the topics at hand, and because the essays themselves are a pleasure to read.
If you're not convinced, at this point, there's simply no hope for you, and I suggest you go read a novel by Piers Anthony.
Memories of the Space Age Ballard, J.G., Arkham House, 1988, 0-87054-157-9, $16.95.
I think I've mentioned J.G.Ballard in these pages once or thrice before. Yes, Carroll & Graf are still at it, and, no, this isn't a review of one of those.
Memories of the Space Age is a new book, but of old stories. Most of them -- I'm tempted to say all but I'm not certain about two of them -- have been collected in some of Ballard's previous collections.
Therefore, I can't really say the Ballard fan should go out and buy Memories. I'd recommend it highly to someone new to Ballard, however, and the utter hard-core Ballard fan (me) will buy it anyway, if only for the artwork. Arkham have outdone themselves, with a Max Ernst wraparound cover and gorgeous interior illustrations by J.G. Potter, he of the peculiar camera, the man who invented photo-surrealism.
So I suppose I'm addressing myself here to those who don't often read Ballard.
Much of JGB's work deals with decadence and decay. There is a charm to decay that has fascinated science fiction writers all the way back to H.G. Wells with his Morlocks and Eloi; the concept was picked up right away by the pulp writers, notably the Don A. Stuart version of John W. Campbell.
Ballard, then, is working in a well-established tradition, one that grows out of the very heart's blood of "hard sf."
Still, the "hard sf" reader generally has no use for Ballard, an attitude that ceases to puzzle only when you realize that "hard sf" has become, in the past few decades, a haven for unreasoning optimism -- usually right- wing optimism, at that. Ballard, while not by any means a pessimist, doesn't paint lovely pictures of the glittering future. He writes psychological tales with a language of sheer power that leads some more braindead readers and critics to regard his work as the ultimate triumph of style over content, sizzle over substance.
Memories of the Space Age is all substance. It is Ballard's first thematic collection since The Atrocity Exhibition, combining into one volume Ballard's many visions of the final end of space programs. Beginning with "Cage of Sand" in the '50s, Ballard seems to have understood far better than anyone the true significance of man's, and especially America's, reach into space.
The US space program has been a megalithic process. Megaliths are generally ruins; it was Ballard's genius to equivocate the two megaliths and see the space program as a ruin. So we are treated to repeated sights of Cape Canaveral buried in sand, endlessly orbiting capsules containing the remains of their pilots, scavengers living on the ruins of old craft. Ballard's obsessive characters live full lives in such landscapes, and they and it illuminate each other.
Perhaps the most powerful story in the book is the most quiet, and one of the oldest, "A Question of Re-Entry." A UN representative travels up the Amazon in search of a crashed capsule, the first to successfully land on the Moon and return. The interaction between space-age and primitive man is, by itself, worth the price of Memories.
The space age may well be over. The US government talks of building the equivalent of a wall between us and the Universe, ostensibly to protect us from Russian missiles; but, as their own most optimistic estimates indicate that the Space Defense satellites if completely successful would allow massive numbers of warheads to detonate on US soil, the true motivation for this system must be sought elsewhere. Looking back from this vantage, a memorial to the time when humans walked, so terribly briefly, on another world, is not at all a bad thing.
Closet Classic: Cinnabar Ed Bryant, Bantam 1977, 0-553-10599-X
Like I said about decay. You can't live with it, you can't live without it, so you may as well learn to love it.
Edward Bryant did, and wrote a series of strange and wonderful stories about a city at the center of time, known (as is the collection of these stories) as Cinnabar. In Cinnabar nearly anything can happen, as long as it doesn't take too much energy; the people are very old (though forever young) and time takes its toll on them.
Bryant acknowledges his debt to the history of decay in science fiction, both by mentioning Ballard's Vermillion Sands in his introduction and by reference in the stories. But the debt is historical and his stories are his own.
The imagery is stupendous. From the first page, the reader is shown a world where things have fallen apart; the road to Cinnabar is lined with the hulls of burned-out school buses. The city's architecture, ever vague, is something between Gotham City and the topless towers of Barsoom.
Most of the action in Cinnabar is at parties and in laboratories. The people are all artists and scientists; drudgery is (or seems) eliminated. In a sense, Cinnabar is more of a resort than a city.
If you find a copy, read it and treasure it. Cinnabar is an ore of quicksilver, rare and beautiful; when heated it transforms...
Behind the Scenes
A Look at Paradise
Mike Resnick
Copyright 1989 by Mike Resnick
[[Editor's note: this is a change of pace for the Behind the Scenes series. Mike has passed along some background material on his book Paradise (Tor Hardcover) and the Universe in which it and most of the books he writes exists. There is no particular theme to this article, just a collection of information Resnick fans should appreciate.-- chuq]]
Birthright was the first book I sold to Sheila Gilbert at NAL, though it wasn't the first one she published. When she bought it, she suggested that I set all my novels in that future, which covers 17,000 years and a couple of million worlds. I agreed to do so IF the stories could fit in; so far 11 of my 13 NAL novels and 4 of my 6 Tor novels have fit in comfortably, and the next major piece of work I'm planning to do -- a trilogy tentatively entitled Soothsayer, Oracle and Prophet -- will also be set there.
I've divided the galaxy into major sectors. The civilized portion, usually ruled by Man, is known, depending upon the era in which the story is set, as the Republic, the Democracy, the Oligarchy, and either the Monarchy or the Commonwealth (depending on who is using the term). Then there is the Inner Frontier, that section of unexplored and frontier worlds toward the core of the galaxy; the Outer Frontier, that section of unexplored and frontier worlds out on the Galactic Rim; and the Spiral Arm, our local environs.
I refer to so many worlds and races in passing that I can't keep them straight at this late date, so every time I complete a manuscript I give a copy to local fan Jackie Causgrove, whom I then pay to find all references to races and worlds and add to the Concordance she has been keeping on all my books. It runs to about 50 pages, single-spaced, these days, and without it you would see one hell of a lot of contradictions from one book to the next.
Universe Timeline
Year Era Story or Novel
1885 A.D. "The Hunter" (Ivory)
1898 A.D. "Himself" (Ivory)
1982 A.D. Sideshow
1983 A.D. The Three-legged Hootch Dancer
1985 A.D. The Wild Alien Tamer
1987 A.D. The Best Rootin' Tootin'
Shootin' Gunslinger in the Whole Damned Galaxy
2057 A.D. "The Politician" (Ivory)
2908 A.D. 1 G.E.
16 G.E. Republic "The Curator" (Ivory)
264 G.E. Republic "The Pioneers" (Birthright)
332 G.E. Republic "The Cartographers" (Birthright)
346 G.E. Republic Walpurgis III
367 G.E. Republic Eros Ascending
396 G.E. Republic "The Miners" (Birthright)
401 G.E. Republic Eros at Zenith
442 G.E. Republic Eros Descending
465 G.E. Republic Eros at Zenith
588 G.E. Republic "The Psychologists" (Birthright)
882 G.E. Republic "The Potentate" (Ivory)
962 G.E. Republic "The Merchants" (Birthright)
1701 G.E. Republic "The Artist" (Ivory)
1813 G.E. Republic "Dawn" (Paradise)
1859 G.E. Republic "Noon" (Paradise)
1888 G.E. Republic "Midafternoon" (Paradise)
1902 G.E. Republic "Dusk" (Paradise)
2154 G.E. Democracy "The Diplomats" (Birthright)
2275 G.E. Democracy "The Olympians" (Birthright)
2469 G.E. Democracy "The Barristers" (Birthright)
2911 G.E. Democracy "The Medics" (Birthright)
3004 G.E. Democracy "The Policitians" (Birthright)
3042 G.E. Democracy "The Gambler" (Ivory)
3286 G.E. Democracy Santiago
3324 G.E. Democracy The Soul Eater
4375 G.E. Democracy "The Graverobber" (Ivory)
4822 G.E. Oligarchy "The Administrators" (Birthright)
4839 G.E. Oligarchy The Dark Lady
5461 G.E. Oligarchy "The Media" (Birthright)
5492 G.E. Oligarchy "The Artists" (Birthright)
5521 G.E. Oligarchy "The Warlord" (Ivory)
5655 G.E. Oligarchy "The Biochemists" (Birthright)
5912 G.E. Oligarchy "The Warlords" (Birthright)
5993 G.E. Oligarchy "The Conspirators" (Birthright)
6304 G.E. Monarchy Ivory
6321 G.E. Monarchy "The Rulers" (Birthright)
6400 G.E. Monarchy "The Symbiotics" (Birthright)
6599 G.E. Monarchy "The Philosophers" (Birthright)
6746 G.E. Monarchy "The Architects" (Birthright)
6962 G.E. Monarchy "The Collectors" (Birthright)
7019 G.E. Monarchy "The Rebels" (Birthright)
16201 G.E. Anarchy "The Archaeologists" (Birthright)
16673 G.E. Anarchy "The Priests" (Birthright)
16888 G.E. Anarchy "The Pacifists" (Birthright)
17001 G.E. Anarchy "The Destroyers" (Birthright)
Peponi Character Kenya Analog
Fuentes F. C. Selous
Jonathan "Johnny" Ramsey Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt
Catamount Greene John Boyes
Ephraim Oxblood Nicobar Jones
Amanda Picket Karen Blixen/Elspeth Huxley
Buko Pepon Jomo Kenyatta
Commodore Quincy Lord Delamere
Caleb Crawford youthful L.S.B. Leakey
James Praznap Deedan Kimathi
Bago Baja Ogingo Odingo
Sam Jimana Tom Mboya
Nathan Kibi Tonka Daniel arap Moi
Joseph Buchanka Frederick Ndirangu
Mike Wesley Sam Weller
Ian Masterson Ian Henderson/Perry Mason
Stan Gardner Perry Mason
Location Kenya Analog
Berengi Nairobi
Balimora Isiolo
Maracho Nakuru
Capatra Mombasa
Mount Hardwycke/Mount Pekana Mount Kenya/Kirinyaga
Lamaki Nyeri
Greenlands White Highlands
Bzenzi Hills Ngong Hills
Sabrehorn Inn White Rhino Inn
Royal Hotel Norfolk Hotel
Thunderhead Bar Lord Delamere Lounge
Equator Hotel New Stanley Hotel
Equator Hotel's Message Tree New Stanley Hotel's Thorn Tree
Dalliance Club Muthaiga Club
Lake Jenapit Lake Bogoria
Villa Hotel Sparks (now Lake Naivasha) Hotel
Mount Pekana Lodge Aberdares Country Club
Keringera Game Park Buffalo Springs Game Park
Siboni Plains Park Masai Mara National Park
Independence Highway Uhuru Highway
Bukwa Enclave Lado Enclave (Uganda)
Bakatula Salisbury, now Harare (Zimbabwe)
Sentabel Game Park South Luangwa Valley
The Impenetrable Forest The Ituri Rain Firest (Zaire)
The Great Southern Desert The Kalahari Desert
Tribe Kenya Analog
Bogoda Kikuyu
Siboni Maasai
Sorotoba Wakamba
Korani Samburu
Kia Luo
Dorado Wanderobo
Braggi Meru
Begau Tigen
Kandabera Nandi
Bal Fosi El Molo
Kalakala (primarily Bogoda) Mau Mau (primarily Kikuyu)
Sentabels Mtebele (Zimbabwe)
Baroni Makonde (Tanzania)
Animals Kenya Analog
Landship Elephant
Sabrehorn Black Rhinoceros
Thunderhead African Buffalo
Demoncat Lion
Bush Devil Leopard
Silvercoat Wildebeest
Nightkiller Hyena
Treecrawler Colobus Monkey
Treetop Giraffe
Dust Pig Wart Hog
Dasher Zebra
Chatterbox Vervet Monkey
Wilken's Wildbuck Grant's Gazelle
Ngana's Wildbuck Thomson's Gazelle
Hardwycke's Wildbuck Peter's Gazelle
Water Pig Hippopotamus
Millipede Snake
Willowbuck Impala
Beefcakes Cattle (imported)
------ End ------
Issue 24, Spring 1989 (part 4)
Electronic OtherRealms #24
Spring, 1989
Part 4 of 10
Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
OtherRealms may not be reproduced without permission from Chuq Von Rospach.
Permission is given to electronically distribute this
issue only if all copyrights, author credits and return
addresses remain intact. No article may be reprinted or re-used
without permission of the author.
Past Imagining
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Copyright 1989 by Lawrence Watt-Evans
Forgotten Classics:
The Lani People
by J.F. Bone
Everybody knows the great authors of SF's "Golden Age" -- Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Van Vogt, and so on. The greats of the thirties are still remembered almost as well -- E.E. Smith, Clifford Simak, Edmond Hamilton.
However, nobody seems to remember some of the authors who appeared in the sixties who I loved just as much as the greats when I was a kid -- authors like J.F. Bone, Daniel Galouye, Louis Charbonneau, and J.T. McIntosh. This forgetfulness may be in part because their work was usually published as paperback originals, especially by Bantam and Ace, and most if it has never been reprinted. In this series I intend to point out some of my favorites, in hopes you can find them in libraries or used book stores.
First off, so far as I know J.F. Bone produced only one novel worth mentioning; I'm told he also wrote some short stories that saw print in Analog, and I know he wrote a novel or two for Laser Books during their brief disastrous existence, but as far as I'm concerned he's worth remembering for his first novel, The Lani People.
The Lani People probably sold pretty well, and some old-timers remember it, because of the lurid cover that depicted it as being a tale of perverse sexuality and slavery in outer space. In fact, the female lani are kept as pleasure objects, but that's by no means central to the story, which is about the nature of humanity. The lani are discovered on a distant planet in the far future; they look human, save that they have tails. A lani with her (male lani are too violent to be any use) tail removed is indistinguishable from human.
The law says, however, that the key is interfertility; anything that humans can breed with is human, and anything they can't breed with is just an animal. The lani, therefore, are animals, and the story follows the adventures of the young veterinarian hired to tend a lani herd as he gradually discovers the history and true nature of the species. It has got adventure, romance, excitement, and a dose of thought-provoking questions as well. worth reading, definitely.
Stuff Received
Fantasy
Adams, Robert. Monsters and Magicians, Baen, January, 1989,
311pp, $3.95, 0-671-69797-8. Stairway to Forever book 2.
Anthony, Piers, Robot Adept. Ace, March, 1989, 341pp, $4.50, 0-441-73118-X.
Book five of the Apprentice Adept series.
Bradley, Marion Zimmer. Stormqueen, DAW, March, 1989, $4.50, 0-886677-310-5.
Re-issue.
Burroughs, Edgar Rice. A Princess of Mars, Carroll&Graf, April, 1989,
159pp, $2.95, 0-88184-462-4.
Clayton, Jo. A Gathering of Stones, DAW, April, 1989, 368pp, $3.95,
0-88677-346-6. Book three of the Drinker of Soulls Trilogy.
Cook, Rick. Wizard's Bane, Baen, February, 1989, 310pp, $3.50, 0-671-69803-6.
Coville, Bruce. The Dark Abyss, Bantam, February, 1989, 310pp,
$3.50, 0-553-27640-9. Volume 2 of The Dungeon.
de Camp, L. Sprague & Pratt, Fletcher. The Complete Compleat
Enchanter, Baen, March, 1989, 532pp, $4.50, 0-671-69809-5.
DeChancie, John. Castle for Rent, Ace, April, 1989,l 195pp, $3.50, 0-441-09406-6.
Sequel to Castle Perilous.
Deitz, Tom. The Gryphon King, Avon, June, 1989, 405pp, $3.95, Galley.
Dickson, Gordon R. The Earthlords, Ace, January, 1989, 311pp,
$3.95, 0-441-18044-2.
Douglas, Carole Nelson. Seven of Swords, Tor, March, 1989, 408pp,
$18.95, 0-312-93142-5. Sword & Circlet #3.
Drake, David. Vettius and his Friends, Baen, February, 1989, 304pp,
$3.95, 0-671-69802-8.
Edgerton, Teresa. Child of Saturn, Ace, 276pp, March, 1989, $3.50, 0-441-10400-2.
Book one of the Green Lion Trilogy.
Gardner, Craig Shaw. A Disagreement with Death, Ace, February, 1989,
185pp, $3.50, 0-441-14924-3. Verse the Third in The Ballad of Wuntvor.
Goldin, Stephen. Crystals of Air and Water, Bantam, 292pp,
February, 1989, $3.95, 0-553-27711-1. The Parsina Saga, Vol. 3.
Huff, Tanya. The l=Last Wizard, DAW, March, 1989, 288pp, $3.95, 0-88677-331-8.
Sequel to Child of the Grove.
Marks, Laurie J. Delan, the Mislaid. DAW, March, 1989, 252pp,
$3.50, 0-88677-325-3. First Novel.
Martine-Barnes, Adrienne. The Sea Sword, Avon, March, 1989,
292pp, $3.50, 0-380-75456-8.
Moon, Elizabeth. Oath of Gold, Baen, January, 1989, 501pp, $3.95,
0-671-69798-6. Book 3 of The Deed of Paksenarrion.
Moorcock, Michael. The City in the Autumn Stars, Ace, April, 1989,
357pp, $4.50, 0-441-10630-7.
Randall, Neil. Lord of Cragsclaw, Bantam, April, 1989, 392pp, $3.95, 0-553-27462-7.
Guardians of the Three Volume 1; series created by Bill Fawcett.
Roberson, Jennifer. Daughter of the Lion, DAW, February, 1989,
$3.95, 372pp, 0-88677-324-5. Book six of the Chronicles of the Cheysuli.
Rohan, Michael Scott. The Anvil of Ice, Avon, February, 1989, 354pp,
$3.50, 0-380-70547-8. Vol. 1 of The Winter of the World.
Smeds, Dave. The Schemes of Dragons, Ace, March, 1989, 246pp, 0-441-79559-5.
Sequel to The Sorcery Within.
Springer, Nancy. The Hex Witch of Seldom, Baen, March, 1989,
276pp, $3.50, 0-671-69808-7.
Tarr, Judith. A Wind in Cairo, Bantam, March, 1989, 261pp, $3.95, 0-553-27609.3
Van Scyoc, Sydney J. Feather Stroke, Avon, March, 1989, 264pp, $3.50, 0-380-75438-X.
Weis, Margaret & Hickman, Tracy. Rose of the Prophet, Bantam,
January, 1989, 444pp, $4.50, 0-553-27638-7. The Will of the Wanderer
Volume 1.
Wurts, Janny. Sorcerer's Legacy, Bantam, April, 1989, 246pp, $3.95, 0-553-27846-0.
Wylie, Jonathan. Dreams of Stone, Bantam, March, 1989, 297pp,
$3.95, 0-553-27974-2.
Horror
Boyll, Randall. After Sundown, Charter Horror, February, 1989,
299pp, $3.95, 1-55773-190-X. First novel.
Grant, Charles L. In a Dark Dream, Tor, February, 1989, 310pp,
$17.95, 0-312-93159-X.
Greenberg, Martin H & Greenberg, Rosalind M. Phantoms, DAW,
April, 1989, 270pp, $3.95, 0-88677-348-2.
Horlak, E.E. Still Life, Bantam, January, 1989, 200pp, January,
1989, $3.95, 0-553-27656-5.
Lovecraft, H.P. The Horror in the Museum,Arkham House, May, 1989,
450pp, $18.95, 0-87054-040-8.
McCammon, Robert R. The Wolf's Hour, Pocket, March, 1989, 603pp,
0-671-31161-1. Galley.
Olson, Paul & Silva, David. Post Mortem: New Tales of Ghostly Horror,
St. Martin's Press, February, 1989, 290pp, $16.95, 0-312-02631-5.
Skipp, John & Spector, Craig. Dead Lines, Bantam, January, 1989,
310pp, $3.95, 0-553-27633-6.
Other
Cawthorn, James & Moorcock, Michael. Fantasy: The 100 Best Books,
Carroll & Graf, 216pp, $15.95, 0-88184-335-0. Non-Fiction.
Goulart, Ron. The Great Comic Book Artists, Volume 2, St. Martin's
Press, 123pp, January, 1989, $12.95, 0-312-0168-5. Graphic Novel
format. Non-fiction.
Jones, Stephen & Newman, Kim. Horror: The 100 Best Books. Carroll
& Graf, 256pp, February, 1989, $15.95, 0-88184-417-9. Non-fiction.
Peel, John & Nation, Terry. The Official Doctor Who & the Daleks
Book, St. Martin's Press, April, 1989, 212pp, $12.95, 0-312-02264-6.
Wagner, Matt. Mage: The Hero Discovered Volume III.
Donning/Starblaze, February, 1989, Color Graphic Novel, $14.95, 0-89865-616-8.
Science Fiction
Adams, Terry A. Sentience, DAW, February, 1986, 381pp, $3.50, 0-88677-108-0. Re-issue.
Adams, Terry A. The Master of Chaos, DAW, April, 1989, 496pp,
$4.50, 0-88677-347-4. Sequel to Sentience.
Aldiss, Brian. Last Orders, Carroll&Graf, April, 1989, 223pp. $17.95,
0-88184-458-6. Collection.
Anderson, Poul. Space Folk, Baen, February, 1989, 303pp, $3.50, 0-671-69805-2.
Collection.
Asimov, Issac & Greenberg, Martin H. The Great SF Stories: 19, DAW,
February, 1989, 350pp, $4.50, 0-88677-326-1.
Asimov, Issac. Prelude to Foundation, Bantam, April, 1989, 434pp,
$4.95, 0-553-27839-8.
Asimov, Janet. Mind Transfer, Ace, January, 1989, 296pp, $3.95, 0-441-53306-X.
Banks, Ian. The Players of Games, St. Martin's Press, February, 1989,
309pp, $16.95, 0-312-02630-7.
Benford, Gregory & Eklund, Gordon. If the Stars are Gods, Bantam, January,
1989, 229pp, $3.95, 0-553-27642 Revised reprint of 1977 book.
Benford, Gregory. Tides of Light, Bantam, 368pp, February, 1989,
$17.95, 0-553-0532201.
Brentnor, Reginald. Orion's Sword, Baen, February, 1989, 311pp,
$3.50, 0-671-69807-9. The Future at War, Vol 3.
Brummels, J.V. Deus ex Machina, Bantam, April, 1989, 277pp,
$3.95, 0-553-27977-7. First novel.
Bujold, Lois McMaster. Brothers in Arms, Baen, January, 1989,
338pp, $3.95, 0-671-69799-4. A Miles Vorkosigan Adventure.
Carver, Jeffrey A. From a Changeling Star, Bantam, January, 1989,
355pp, $3.95, 0-553-27639-5.
Crowley, John. Aegypt, Bantam, March, 1989, 390pp, $8.95, 0-553-34592-3.
David, Peter. Strike Zone, Pocket, March, 1989, 275pp, #3.95, 0-671-67940-6.
Star Trek: The Next Generation #5.
De Lint, Charles. Svaha, Ace, January, 1989, 275pp, $3.50, 0-441-79098-4.
Dickson, Gordon R. None But Man, Baen, January, 1989, 308pp, $3.50, 0-671-69800-1.
Drake, David. Time Safari, Baen, March, 1989, 258pp, $3.50, 0-671-69812-5.
Egan, Doris. The Gate of Ivory, DAW, February, 1989, 319pp, $3.95, 0-88677-328-8.
Fontana, D.C. Vulcan's Glory, Pocket, February, 252pp, $3.95, 0-671-65667-8.
Star Trek #44.
Gerrold, David. A Day for Damnation, March, 1989, $4.50, 0-553-27765-0.
The War Against the Chtorr, Book 2.
Gerrold, David. A Matter for Men, Bantam, February, 1989, 435pp,
$4.50. New edition is significantly revised. Highly recommended.
Gerrold, David. A Rage for Revenge, Bantam, April, 1989, 517pp,
$4.50, 0-553-27844-4. The War Against the Chtorr #3.
Gottlieb, Phyllis. Heart of the Red Iron, St. Martin's Press, March,
1989, 235pp, $15.95, 0-312-02583-1.
Herbert, Frank and Ransom, Bill. The Ascension Factor, Ace,
February, 1989, 359pp, $4.50, 0-441-03127-7. Conclusion of The Jesus
Incident and The Lazarus Effect.
Hogan, James P. Mirror Maze, Bantam, March, 1989, 439pp, $4.95, 0-553-27762-6.
Hughes, Edward P. Masters of the Fist, Baen, February, 1989, 281pp,
$3.50, 0-671-69806-0.
Ingrid, Charles. Alien Salute, DAW, 256pp, July, 1989, $3.95, 0-88677-329-6.
Book 4 of the Sand Wars. Galley.
Ingrid, Charles. The Sand Wars, DAW, March, 1989, 252pp, $3.95, 0-88677-329-6.
Alien Salute #4.
Jennings, Phillip C. The Bug Life Chronicles, Baen, January, 1989,
304pp, $3.50, 0-671-69801-X.
Jeter, K.W. Farewell Horizontal, St. Martin's Press, February, 1989,
$16.95, 0-312-02574-2.
Laumer, Keith. Reward for Retief, Baen, February, 1989, 340pp,
$3.95, 0-671-69804-4.
Lorrah, Jean. Survivors, Pocket, January, 1989, 253pp, $3.95, 0-671-67438-2.
A Star Trek: The Next Generation story.
Marks, Laurie J. Delan the Mislaid, DAW, 256pp, March, 1989, $3.95,
0-88677-325-3. Galley.
McDevitt, Jack. A Talent for War, Ace, February, 1989, 310pp, $3.95,
0-441-79553-6.
McIntyre, Vonda N. Starfarers, Ace, April, 1989, 280pp, $3.95, 0-441-78053-9.
Norton, Andre. Four from the Witch World, Tor, March, 1989, 272pp,
$16.95, 0-312-93153-0.
Pournelle, Jerry. Prince of Mercenaries, Baen, March, 1989, 338pp,
$3.95, 0-671-69811-7. A Falkenberg Legion novel.
Scithers, George & Schweitzer, Darrell. Another Round at the Spaceport Bar,
Avon, April, 1989, 248pp, $3.50, 0-380-75650-1. Anthology.
Shiner, Lewis. Deserted Cities of the Heart. Bantam, March, 1989,
335pp, $4.50, 0-553-27975-0.
Sprull, Steven. The Paradox Planet, Bantam, February, 1989, 229pp,
$3.95, 0-553-27922-X. A Kane and Pendrake adventure.
Sterling, Bruce. Islands in the Net. Ace, March, 1989, 396pp, $4.50,
0-441-37423-9.
Weaver, Michael D. My Father Immortal, St. Martin's, February, 1989,
228pp, $16.95, 0-312-0261-7X.
Wolfe, Gene. Endangered Species, Tor, March, 1989, 506pp, $19.95,
0-312-93154-9. collection.
Fanzines Received
Thyme. LinC, ed. From box 4024, University of Melbourne, Victoria,
Australia, 3052. The Australian Newszine.
Abyss #42. David Nalle, ed. $7/six issues from 3716 Robinson
Avenue, Austin TX 78722. A gaming oriented fanzine.
The Dillinger Relic 60 . Arthur D. Hlavaty, Box 52028, Durham, NC
27717. $1 or the usual. Arthur experiments with desktop publishing.
Fosfax, $20/year from FOSFA, Box 37281, Louisville, KY 40233-7281
Hardwired Hinterland. Rick Jervis, ed. From Box 743, Notre Dame, CA 46556.
The Insider. Clubzine of St. Louis S.F. Society, from Box 1058, St.
Louis, MO 63188
Light in the Bushel #6. Richard Brandt. 4740 N. Mesa #111, El Paso, TX 79912.
Mad 3 Party. Leslie Turek, from MCFI, Box 46, MIT Branch PO, Cambridge, MA. 02139.
Phlogiston #18. Alex Heatley, ed. Box 11-708, Manners St. Wellington,
Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Rune 79. David Romm & Jeanne Mealy, ed. For the usual or $2.00
from Box 8297, Lake Street Station, Minneapolis, MN 55408.
Scavenger's Newsletter. Janet Fox, ed. $9/yr (12 issues) from 519
Ellinwood, Osage City, KS 66523-1329. Small Press market report
newsletter. If you're looking for the smaller magazines, either as a writer
or a reader, this is indispensable.
YHOS 45. Art Widner, ed. 231 Courtney Lane, Orinda, CA 94563
Magazines Received
Aboriginal SF. Charles Ryan, ed. Bi-monthly. Subscriptions: $14 for
six issues to: Box 2449, Woburn, MA 01801.
Extrapolation. Thomas D. Clareson, ed. The Kent State University
Press, $15/year (4 issues) from Kent State University Press, Journals
Department, Kent, Ohio, 44242.
Locus. Charlie Brown, ed. $28/yr (12 issues) from P.O. Box 13305,
Oakland, CA 94661. The SF trade magazine.
New York Review of Science Fiction. Kathryn Kramer, ed. $24/yr (12
issues) from Dragon Press, Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570.
SF Chronicle. Andy Porter, ed. Monthly trade magazine. $27/year (12
issues) from Box 2730, Brooklyn, NY 11202-0056.
Thrust #32. Douglas Fratz, ed. $2.50/$8.00 yr (4 issues) from 8217
Langport Terrace, Gaithersburg, MD 20877.
------ End ------
Issue 24, Spring 1989 (part 5)
Electronic OtherRealms #24
Spring, 1989
Part 5 of 10
Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
OtherRealms may not be reproduced without permission from Chuq Von Rospach.
Permission is given to electronically distribute this
issue only if all copyrights, author credits and return
addresses remain intact. No article may be reprinted or re-used
without permission of the author.
Words of Wizdom
Reviews by Chuq Von Rospach
The War Against the Chtorr [*****] A Matter for Men, January, 1989, 435pp 0-553-27782-0 A Day for Damnation, February, 1989, 324pp, 0-553-27765-0 A Rage for Revenge, March, 1989, 517pp, 0-553-27844-4 David Gerrold, Bantam paperbacks, $4.50.
After a five year wait, Chtorr is back. One of the common questions I get is "Where is book three of Chtorr?" and the answer is, finally, "It's here!" Caught in the painful demise of Timescape books and orphaned midstream, David Gerrold has rewritten much of the series (over 50% of the material in books 1 and 2 is new or changed) and Bantam has published the series with the fanfare it deserves.
The story is a twist on a fairly common SF theme: terraforming a planet to make it habitable for future colonists. Unfortunately, it's the Earth that's being terraformed, and it's humanity that is being adapted out of the system to make room for the new owners. In the first three volumes, you have 1300 pages of some of the fastest paced action- adventure you could hope for. A Matter for Men opens as the infestation is beginning. You follow along as the first plagues hit, taking out large chunks of the population. The first Chtorr arrive -- a Chtorr being a large, pink hungry worm. Chtorr (the sound the worms make, hence their name) shows Gerrold's storytelling technique at its prime. These books will hold their own against any work. They remind me of Heinlein -- on one level, they read like a juvenile, but there are many levels that the books work at and as much detail and complexity as you want to go searching after. While the worms start out as mindless eating machines, Gerrold keeps building up detail and complicating matters until you aren't quite sure what to think about them.
The first two books are primarily burn-the-worm action-adventure stories with a number of sub-plots woven in. Rage for Revenge, however, shifts gears away from the battle (which Earth is losing horribly) and takes a much closer look at the impact of the invasion on parts of humanity -- a tribe of humans who have chosen the Worms as a "God" and started serving the cause of the invasion, and a group of military people chosen for "Mode" training to help them work towards humanity's ultimate survival. Rage for Revenge is by far the best book in the series (so far). It's also likely to be the most controversial. It's a strong, intense (likely too intense for some) book that takes a very close and not always flattering look at humanity. Many people are going to be uncomfortable or angry at what he says, which is, I think, part of the reason for the book's structure -- to make you uncomfortable with what he is saying, to make you think about it.
Chtorr gets my highest recommendation. All three books kept me up until the early morning hours. My inability to put a book down is rare these days. That Chtorr was able to do that, and to convince me to clear out a number of other books so I could read all three books as they came out, says a lot about how much I enjoyed Chtorr. The only problem is that book 4 isn't due until 1990, and I don't want to wait.
Who's Afraid of Beowulf Tom Holt [****] St. Martin's Press, December, 1988, 206pp, $16.95, 0-312-02669-2.
This is a tough book to review. If the title doesn't tell you this is a humorous book, the cover (a portrait of one of the funkiest Vikings you'll ever meet) will clue you in. Holt's previous book, Expecting Someone Taller, was listed as one of the 100 best Fantasy novels by Michael Moorcock, and in this book Holt continues with his tongue-ripping-holes- in-his-cheek writing as he tells the story of Beowulf waking up from a long sleep in a Scottish moor to do final battle with the Powers of Darkness in modern London.
This is a book for the Monty Python and Douglas Adams fans (although frankly, I think Holt on a bad day writes better than Adams anytime). If you can enjoy twelve-hundred-year-old Viking heroes swapping seagull recipes and complaining about how far civilization has regressed since the good old days, this book is for you. This book had me loudly chortling and reading passages at Laurie (whether she wanted to hear them or not). You've got to be somewhat warped to appreciate this book, but if you qualify, you'll kick yourself if you miss it.
The Schemes of Dragons [****]
Dave Smeds
Ace, March, 1989, 246pp, $3.50, 0-441-79559-5.
The Schemes of Dragons is the follow-on to Smeds' first book, The Sorcery Within. It continues the story of the fight to destroy Gloroc, the dragon that has taken over the lands of Elandris.
The Sorcery Within was one of the best first novels I've read since MacAvoy's Tea with the Black Dragon. I'm happy to say The Schemes of Dragons avoids the sophomore letdown. Smeds has built a complex society into the book, with many things happening in different areas at the same time. While this book is technically a sequel, the story it tells stands alone, so there's no need to read The Sorcery Within to enjoy it to its fullest. The only weak spot of Schemes is that, while it stands alone from the previous book, the story it tells is incomplete -- so you'll have to wait for the third book to find out everything that happens. The ending, while at a decent stopping point, is a cliff-hanger. Astute readers will notice an OtherRealms blurb on the back of this book for Sorcery. I'm happy to say I recommend this one as strongly.
Delan the Mislaid [***] Laurie J. Marks DAW, March, 1989, $3.95, 0-88677-325-3
Delan the Mislaid is an original Fantasy that isn't part of a trilogy. It doesn't require a sequel. It's set on a world that doesn't include humans (or things that act a lot like airbrushed humans in Latex). A book that sets out on its own path to tell an original, interesting story without being derivative or generic.
A non-trivial task, and one which Marks mostly succeeds. What we have here is a world with multiple sentient species, from humanoids to intelligent bears to gossamer winged angels, all (more or less) co-existing (more or less) peaceably, except for a few bad apples. The bad apples, however, can, and do, cause a bit of trouble. The Aeyries (the angelic, peaceful group) has some knowledge that Teksan, a humanoid sorcerer, wants. He is willing to go to any lengths to take it. The Aeyries would rather not be massacred, so they're going to defend themselves. Thus are we set up for a major fight and the successful defense of the Aeyries.
Unfortunately, the ending just seems to fizzle. Part of this is caused by the author's decision to change gears at the end of the action and step back for a bit of hindsight philosophy. Suddenly we're reading a history text. "...and that is why I chose to write down this story" endings leave me flat and unsatisfied, and that's what this turns into, with no hints or warnings until the very end. Another problem was Marks' decision to develop a new set of pronouns. With the exception of formal names, this was the only significant variation of the language she wrote with, so while I think the intent was to create a sense of alienness, all it did was confuse me and make it hard to keep track of who she was talking about -- frankly, I thought for the first chapter or so that it was a typesetting error in the galley, and I never did get the pronouns straightened out. That seems like a lot of problems for a three-star book. Balancing it out, however, is a writer who's built a fascinating world with some really interesting species and some strong characterizations. There's a good, if somewhat too laid-back story. My reaction to the book was not negative but a sense of disappointment. The book isn't bad, but it could have been much more. And something tells me that Marks' next book will be.
The Labyrinth Gate [not rated] Alis A. Rasmussen Baen, December, 1988, 345pp, $3.50, 0-671-69793-5
The Labyrinth Gate is another first novel, and I wish I could say I liked it. I wanted to like it. Unfortunately, I found myself unable to read past page 100. There are some common first-novel flaws. Technically, there's nothing wrong with the writing. There are, however, a couple of plot holes that drove me crazy, and that's why I finally gave up.
The first is the magic cookie. This is the supernatural tornado (in this case, a magical tarot card) that gets the lead characters from Kansas (modern suburban Northern California) to Oz (a parallel universe that's a dead ringer for Regency England). The magic cookie then conveniently disappears, forcing our heroes to go on a quest to the (generic) Wizard, so they can get the (obligatory) second magic cookie that has the powers to take them home. There are, of course, the evil, nasty people who also want the second magic cookie for their own nefarious deeds. The plot is obvious and well-worn. Many people, from L. Frank Baum forward, have made it work. Here, it doesn't. Why? Because the place we're taken, which is supposed to look like Regency England, feels an awful lot like where they came from -- instead of Oz, they're in Los Angeles and haven't figured it out.
I have a major problem with magic cookie plots, and Gate brings out all of those reasons in a nice, clean, easy to discuss package. If we assume for a moment that the alternate Universe is Regency England (making the magic cookie a time machine instead of a parallel universe translator) think of some of the problems you're going to encounter. You're going to be in a strange land speaking a strange language (at the very least, a very noticeable accent), counterfeit money from a land nobody has heard of, strange clothes and no explanation of how you got there.
In Gate, everyone speaks modern English -- down to the slang. Immediately after arrival, our heroes are picked up by a couple of mentors. Almost before you know it, they're ensconced in a home, befriended, have new clothes, have money, have jobs, for goodness sake! Imagine how you would do if you woke up tomorrow morning in the dockyards of Liverpool. Or the slums of Krakow, for that matter. This isn't a trip to another time, this is a trip to visit the relatives across town. All of the potential plot conflicts that are endemic to bringing outsiders into a situation are dissolved and done away with as quickly as possible, so that we can get on with the quest with a minimum of outside interference.
Which brings me to my other problem with magic cookie stories. There's a great attraction in taking a "modern person" and plonking them down into a strange society. It gives you the ability to use a context to compare against without having to build it from scratch. Unfortunately, a "modern person" speaks modern English. When you plonk them down into your alternate reality, speaking modern English, and they have no problem communicating, what you have just done is told the reader that everyone in this alternate reality is also speaking modern English, because you've just built a hook into the language. There's a suspension of disbelief between author and reader that the story is written in English, no matter what language the characters are really using. When you toss in a couple of characters that are speaking English, that suspension is broken, because you now have said, explicitly, that everyone is speaking that same language -- unless you write the language problems into the story.
Now that I've successfully eviscerated The Labyrinth Gate, let me back off a little bit. I've left this book unrated. While I couldn't finish it, and while it pushed a few of my buttons, Rasmussen is a good writer and there's a lot here of interest to some people. If you like Regency novels, or if you're more tolerant of the kind of plot elements that I've been talking about, you ought to take a look at this. Me, I'm waiting for her next book. If she avoids a few of the glitches in Gate, it should be a really enjoyable read.
Brothers in Arms [****]
Lois McMaster Bujold
Baen, January, 1989, 338pp, $3.50, 0-671-69799-4.
Bujold is back with another Miles Vorkosigan adventure. The fleet is in for repairs, the payroll check is missing, and peace has broken out on the planet, making finding work problematical. Not a good position for a mercenary to be in.
Worse, as Lt. Vorkosigan, he has to do duty at the Embassy to try to protect his identity as Miles Naismath, captain of the Dendarii. And then, of course, there are the assassins. But which version are they trying to kill?
Vorkosigan is one of the most interesting characters I've come across in recent years. Bujold has built an exceptionally complex person for her lead character -- literally a man running three separate, distinct lives with very different personalities and traits. He does this in a situation where a single mistake could mean his death. No wonder he wakes up and sometimes wonders who he is. Or which one..
Brothers in Arms is a frenetically-paced not-quite-farce. It's written very seriously, but the situations Bujold writes are so twisted and complex as to defy explanation -- yet she somehow keeps the whole thing straight and moving forward and avoids having the whole thing collapse around her ears. As a character study, a solid action-adventure novel, Brothers in Arms is a good read and highly recommended.
The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [**]
James Gunn, ed.
Viking, 524pp, $24.95, 0-670-81041-X
I originally hadn't planned on discussing this book at all. Unfortunately, the more I browsed The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, the more unhappy I was. I wasn't sure why, but I knew I didn't like what I saw.
I should preface this with a comment that what I'm really looking for is an updated version of Peter Nicholl's Science Fiction Encyclopedia (Doubleday/Dolphin, 1979). Gunn's encyclopedia, for all the similarity in title, isn't in the same league.
It took me a long time to understand why I was reacting so negatively. There isn't any one item or bias I can point to in the book that bothered me, but a bunch of little things all coming together. One was the excessive material on inferior or obscure films. Does Meteor really deserve an entry in any book, except perhaps a Golden Turkey collection? The review of Disney's The Black Hole, arguably a finalist in the "worst abuse of the most spectacular special effects" award, actually tries to convince us that this movie is under-appreciated. Anyone who's tried to sit through Black Hole knows how accurate this entry is.
It's my belief that, with a few notable exceptions, SF Film and SF Literature should be documented separately. What goes on in the publishing field and what happens on the screen rarely intersect, and jamming these two disparate (if remotely related) areas together causes the book to lose its focus. After a while I began to feel that the film material was added as padding -- as though it was easy to generate rather than being especially interesting.
Another problem I had was the amount of material dealing with Cyberpunk and Cyberpunkish authors. I still strongly believe that it's too early to tell if Cyberpunk is really anything more than some magical marketing hand-waving -- calling it a Movement is, at best, premature. Yet the Cyberpunk entry is longer than the New Wave Movement entry -- even though Cyberpunk isn't close to being played out. The Cyberpunk entry, for that matter, is longer than both Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. That's completely out of proportion with the importance of Cyberpunk in comparison with the rest of the field, and it bothered me. This pro-cyberpunk bias also reflects the choice of authors in the book. As one example, Pat Cadigan is given an entry, but Lisa Goldstein is not. Without suggesting that one author is more deserving than the other, Cadigan has a number of short stories and one novel published. Goldstein has stories, three novels -- and some major awards to her credit. On balance, if one of the authors should be noted and not the other, I would think that it makes sense to expect it to be Goldstein. Except that Cadigan is generally considered Cyberpunk and Goldstein isn't. To me, that's a clear example of a bias in the book -- not in the entries, but in the choices of what material did and did not go into the book. If you're interested in research material on SF, I can't recommend this work. Rather, you should spend your money on Brian Aldiss' Trillion Year Spree (Atheneum) or track down an old copy of the Nicholl's work -- and send a letter to the publisher requesting that they bring out a new edition.
Short Takes: George Scithers and Darrell Schweiter bellied up for Another Round at the Spaceport Bar (Avon, April, 1989, $3.50, 0-380- 75650-1), the second volume of SF stories set in or around the taverns. If you read the first volume, many of the locales will be familiar to you now. Depending on how well read you are, this volume is a remembrance of old friends or exploration of new territory. [***]
The second issue of Pulphouse (Box 1227, Eugene OR 97440) is out, and this time it's Speculative Fiction. It's just as good as volume one, with authors like Spider Robinson, Charles de Lint, Mike Resnick, A.J. Budrys and Michael Swanwick inside the covers. It's a small-press, limited edition, beautifully produced hardcover, so you'll have to go find it. It's worth it. [****]
The third Wuntvor book, A Disagreement with Death (by Craig Shaw Gardner, Ace, February, 1989, $3.50, 0-441-14924-3) is out. While I panned the previous volume as simply not being funny, Gardner's back on track again, as Wuntvor has to fight Death itself in an attempt to get his master, Ebenezum, free from Its clutches. If you're into this sort of stuff, it's a great way to spend an evening. Definitely mind-candy, but someone who can write this funny this consistently is rare. [***}
The Comic Book Killer (Offspring Press, 75 Milthwait Drive, Martinez, CA, 94553, also Bantam) is by Richard Lupoff, who writes SF as well as Mysteries. He's also a long-time comics fan, and in this book writes a straight mystery that starts with a burglary in a comics book store and gets progressively nastier and grittier from there. It has nothing to do with SF or Fantasy, but it's good enough (and by "one of us") that I wouldn't let arbitrary genre restrictions stop you. Highly recommended -- and it might just lead you to a whole new world of reading material. [****]
------ End ------
Issue 24, Spring 1989 (part 6)
Electronic OtherRealms #24
Spring, 1989
Part 6 of 10
Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
OtherRealms may not be reproduced without permission from Chuq Von Rospach.
Permission is given to electronically distribute this
issue only if all copyrights, author credits and return
addresses remain intact. No article may be reprinted or re-used
without permission of the author.
The Contrapunk Manifesto
Bruce Bethke
Copyright 1989 by Bruce Bethke
Hi. I'm Bruce Bethke. You may not know me, but I can guarantee you know the name of a story I wrote eight years ago: "Cyberpunk".
Actually, I've started this three or four times. Once at Joel Rosenberg's behest; once after spending a miserable hour listening to Tom Maddox call me a "semiotic accident;" once after spending an equally miserable hour listening to Douglas Fratz tell me I was a freak of history who had nothing at all to do with the etiology of the term ("Don't you mean etymology?" I kept wanting to ask, but no, we midwesterners are too polite for that).
And now, on looking at the latest edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction a full two years after Gardner Dozois said he read the word "somewhere," a full two years after Bruce Sterling blamed it all on Gardner Dozois, a full two years after John Shirley accused me of renaming the story in order to exploit Gibson's success (which suggests an interesting theory of circular time flow) -- Hi. I'm Bruce Bethke. I thought you'd be interested in a little something I whipped up one day in a fit of pique and named, "The Contrapunk Manifesto" (I don't know what got into me; just one too many pompous essays by Sterling or Shirley, I guess). Here it is. There are some things in here that, in a later, saner moment, I will probably regret having said -- but use what you can. Only, credit me, okay?
Speaking of credit: Okay, one more time for the record, here's the litany. I wrote "Cyberpunk" in the spring of 1980. I kept a handwritten journal at the time; the earliest dated entry that refers to the story by that title is 24 March 1980.
On 1 June 1980 I sent the story to Asimov's. George Scithers, then editor of Asimov's, liked it but wanted me to make it longer. I complied, but he rejected the rewrite. ("There's no point to it," he said, an apt critique of much of the subgenre.) From there it bounced around all the majors, winding up in spring of 1981 at Amazing, where an assistant editor named Britton Bloom lost it for a year. After several months of increasingly frantic queries, during which time Amazing was bought by TSR, I resubmitted it in spring of 1982. The new editor, George Scithers (surprise!) still liked it, but wanted some changes. We worked out the bugs, and in September 1982 Amazing bought it. It was published in the November 1983 issue, which following TSR's standard practices, was actually released in September of 1983.
Brad Denton claims he immediately gave it a Nebula rec. I can't verify this, since I was not a member of SFWA at the time, but I do know that shortly after it appeared in print Kiel Stuart wrote the very first hate letter about the story.
That's history. All of the above is documented, annotated, audited, verified... As for the story itself? It's been picked up for Jerry Pournelle's Silicon Brains anthology, which I have been told by several Registered Cyberpunks is proof that is not true idealogically correct cyberpunk. (Although now that the story is being translated into Russian, I would like to get a second opinion.) At the same time, Scithers asked me to write a lot of sequels: I tried, but I write slowly and to be honest I had more interesting ideas to chase. "It Came From The Slushpile", most recently seen in the Best of Aboriginal anthology. "Worms!", also picked up for Silicon Brains, and most recently mentioned in the Washington Post (y' see, the story was about some asshole kid who turns a virus lose in ARPANET).
Other stories which have appeared in Hitchcock's, Espionage, Easyriders, Amazing ... The first sequel to "Cyberpunk", a novelet titled "Elimination Round", is slated to appear in the May issue of Amazing (which will actually be on the newsstands in January or February.) The second sequel kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
It's a novel now. 110,000 words in rough draft. Inquiries welcome; contact my agent, George Scithers. The title? Why, Cyberpunk, of course.
I will tell you, we're having the very devil of a time proving ownership of that name, though.
Any questions, comments, requests for further data exchange? You can write or call me via OtherRealms.
Y'see? That's half my trouble with cyberpunk. Reality is a lot more interesting.
The Contrapunk Manifesto
THEY: Use SF as a medium for serious discussion of important social,
political, and economic issues.
WE: Write books that people read.
THEY: Want SF to assume its rightful place at the forefront of
speculative thinking, thereby becoming a serious, literary art
form suitable for review in the New York Times and use in
college literature classes.
WE: Think that academic acceptance is akin to fossilization, and that
SF should stay in the gutter where it belongs.
THEY: Write lots of incestuous, self-congratulatory essays for Thrust,
SF Eye, and other fanzines.
WE: Try to be honest about when we're writing fiction, when we're
writing non-fiction, and when we're writing marketing copy.
THEY: Are indiscriminate nippophiles; if the Japanese animated it, it's
got to be good.
WE: Think Japan in the 21st Century will be like England today; a
bankrupt island nation living on dreams of past glories.
THEY: Think technology is cool, like drugs; got erections the first
time they saw the MacIntosh "1984" commercial; and take a
shamanistic approach to computers, building complex unseen
worlds peopled by great, mysterious powers.
WE: Stopped experimenting with drugs about the time our zits cleared
up, have no desire to crawl into bed with Teddy Ruxpin, and
think evil computers are about as credible as evil toasters. We
believe that somewhere in Gibson's world there is a $4.50/hour
drone who could blow all cyberspace to flinders by accidentally
reversing two punchcards.
THEY: Are due to start doing the Barry Malzberg any day now; that is,
making loud announcements that they are leaving the field, with
beaucoup parting shots at everyone who has failed to appreciate
their collective genius and frequent call-backs to see if
anyone has noticed they've left.
WE: Actually like and respect the older professionals in our field, and
will still be writing science fiction long after THEY have moved on to
newer, more fashionable revolutions.
The Agony Column
Rick Kleffel
Copyright 1989 by Rick Kleffel
Necroscope II: Wamphyrii! [*****] Brian Lumley Grafton Paperback, $7.95, 0-586-20000-2 Next, After Lucifer [****+] Daniel Rhodes Saint Martin's Press, $16.95, 0-312-00567-9 Adversary [****+] Daniel Rhodes Saint Martin's Press, $17.95, 0-312-02148-8
Night Visions 6 [****+]
Introduction by Dean R. Koontz. Stories by F. Paul Wilson, Sherri S.
Tepper, Ray Garton
Dark Harvest, $19.95, 0-913165-35-2
The Year's Best Horror Stories XVI [***] Edited by Karl Edward Wagner DAW Paperback, $3.95, 088677-300-8
Unlike science fiction and fantasy, the horror genre has never proved to be a fertile breeding ground for the seemingly endless series. This is probably because the most successful writers in the horror field have never felt compelled to crank out a series of books -- something we can thank Stephen King for. But with the appearance of Anne Rice's Vampire Trilogy, now being extended into the Vampire Chronicles, more and more horror writers are adding sequels and prequels in hopes of writing the Lord of the Rings of the Horror Genre. No, the "definitive horror series" has not yet (and may never) appear, but a number of horror writers are using the form to stretch even further the boundaries of horror fiction's playground.
Perhaps one of the most exciting examples of this is Brian Lumley's "Necroscope" series. In Necroscope II: Wamphyrii! (upcoming from Tor, and now available as a British paperback from Grafton). Lumley applies a master's touch of plot and character development to his thoroughly enjoyable mutation of Hammer-Horror-meets-Alien material. Don't be put off by the lurid covers -- this is first class writing, and an original version of the time-honored vampire theme. Lumley uses every aspect he can to flesh out his characters and drive the intricate wheels of his plot. Especially interesting is the early history of the "Master Vampire," stretching back to the year 900. But most importantly, Lumley does not lose sight of his characters in the midst of the slime and blood. And while each novel advances the overall story of Harry Keogh, they function well as works within themselves. They leave the reading wanting more, but not hanging off the edge of a cliff. Horror fans who like their scares complex but told with a smile can look forward to the next installment of the Necroscope series.
At the other end of the spectrum we can find the sinister, understated writing of Daniel Rhodes, whose Next, After Lucifer and Adversary exemplify the very best of what is known as "quiet horror" in the series form. The first novel details the resurrection of Guillame de Courdeval, a 13th century Templar Knight who sold his soul to the devil, and sets the scene for a conflict between good and evil. What makes these novels outstanding is the controlled prose and the evocation of both the psycho- sexual and intellectual allure of evil. It's not unusual for evil to be portrayed as sexually appealing. But it is unusual for evil to be portrayed as intellectually appealing. In Adversary, this is the dominant theme, as Valcourt lures the characters into a trap bounded by their own emotions and understandings. It's an imaginative way to detail the fears and hopes of these characters, but don't let this fool you into thinking that these books aren't frightening or gripping reading. Here's that rare series that readers won't want limited to a trilogy.
The concept of a series can extend beyond the boundaries of the novel. Take for example Night Visions 6 and The Year's Best Horror Stories XVI. In these series horror has found a stable showcase for the best talents to exercise their considerable powers. Night Visions 6 is another fine volume of all-original horror, featuring F. Paul Wilson, Sherri Tepper, and Ray Garton. F. Paul Wilson offers four well-crafted mainstream-style stories, the best of which tells the story of the "Facelift killer" -- a name the reader will never forget. "The Gardener," Sherri S. Tepper's contribution has an interesting premise, but is the least successful of the offerings. The best is Ray Garton's intensely personal "Monsters," which takes his own personal experiences with the Seventh Day Adventists into the realm of the horrific. It's a fine example of a story that might not have been published because of its almost confessional nature, but has found a home in Night Visions.
The Year's Best Horror Stories XVI is another fine edition of this series reprints the best horror stories of the past year. It lives up to its promise, with "Popsy" by Stephen King, previously available only in the small press publication Masques II, and Brian Lumley's humorous "The Thin People." And just when you thought that the Cthulu and his cohorts were dead, Michael Shea powerfully resurrects them in "Fat Face," a story literally dripping in low life atmosphere. With the classic J.K. Potter illustration "Evil Twin" on the cover, it's a class act at a paperback price.
Those Who Hunt the Night [*****] Barbara Hambly Del Rey/Ballantine, $16.95, 0-345-34380-8
The Wolf's Hour [****+]
Robert R. McCammon
Berkley, $4.95, 0-671-66485-9
Then there are the books that could, in a very good world, become part of a series. In this class we have Those Who Hunt the Night, by Barbara Hambly and The Wolf's Hour Robert R. McCammon.
Those Who Hunt the Night is a first class combination of mystery and horror set in Victorian London. The mystery at first seems to be "Who is killing the vampires of London?" This in itself could provide the material for a decent thriller, but Barbara Hambly gives her detectives, James and Lydia Asher, a much more interesting problem: just what are the vampires of London? How a writer defines a vampire is often the measure of how good a vampire novel is, and Hambly's imagination is unbounded and inventive as James and Lydia explore the nature of the beast. The Victorian atmosphere is authentically recreated with well-written prose that stops one step short of being self-consciously artistic. Vampire novels are not noted for startling innovation, but Those Who Hunt the Night is crammed with delightful invention, and propelled by the tense, whodunit plot. It's more than enough to make readers hope that the Ashers will be given more problems to solve.
The premise of Robert R. McCammon's The Wolf's Hour does not seem nearly so promising as that of Those Who Hunt the Night. It's a tribute to this writer's skill then, that Michael Gallatin -- Allied spy and werewolf -- comes alive as a character, and that The Wolf's Hour seems rich and detailed, an exquisitely entertaining history weaved with an elaborately imagined fantasy. The novel alternates between Gallatin's childhood as a member of family of werewolves in the Russian forest and his first mission as a spy for the Allies deep in the heart of Nazi Germany, trying to find the secret behind the Nazi "Iron Fist" project. This structure allows McCammon to keep the narrative tension high while simultaneously creating a complex, traditional romantic hero. It's mainstream horror with an almost Dickensian epic quality, and a main character who is left alive to have further adventures -- something most readers will certainly look forward to.
Midnight [***+] Dean R. Koontz G. P. Putnam's Son's, $19.95, 0-399-13390-9 Nighteyes [***] Garfield Reeves-Stevens Doubleday Foundation, $18.95, 0-385-24755-9
Not every writer has decided to start a series. Dean Koontz's latest effort, Midnight is yet another variation on the werewolf theme, this time given Koontz's high tech SF-horror treatment. As usual, it's a tense exciting novel, and the scientific core of the horror is extremely clever. It's hard to say, then, why this novel is a disappointment. Perhaps it's because he's already covered this exact same territory before, writing as Leigh Nichols in Shadowfires; maybe it's the lack of an authentic Orange County location, or maybe he's stacking the odds by giving us two heroes who are Vietnam vets. Whatever the reason, this novel, while it is a compulsive page-turner, does not succeed in being more -- in the same way Watchers and Lightning did. There are some of the touches that make the reader care, but in the end this is pretty much just another techno-thriller.
Much in the same vein is Nighteyes by Garfield Reeves-Stevens. If we do need another writer in the techno-horror vein, at least Stevens has the decency to have a rather original vision, in this case, of extra-terrestrial visitations as the source of numbing horror. But behind this is a optimistic and well-thought-out theory as to the source and reason behind these visits. The author has obviously done a great deal of research, and it makes for interesting reading. Add to this a talent for the surreal and an absolutely killer first sentence, and you have the makings of another shade to haunt the bestseller lists.
Heatseeker [*****-] John Shirley Scream/Press, $19.95, 0-910489-26-2
John Shirley's Heatseeker, from Scream/Press, is a welcome exception to the "techno-thriller" trend in SF horror. This collection bears a great resemblance to the "horrific" work of Philip K. Dick, particularly The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch- or Ubik. It's "reality gone soft" horror, expertly written and extremely imaginative. For example, in "What Cindy Saw," we simply experience a homecoming from a paranoid schizophrenic's point of view. It's disturbing, poetic, and often hilarious. In other stories, Shirley's uses the power of his ideas to scare the reader; witness the almost numbing description of what death is and how we can harvest it in "Under the Generators." Most importantly, every story has a great sentence, a great idea, and a memorable character. Add to this the usual fine design of Jeff Connor and the surreal illustrations of Henry Morris, and you have another fine example why Scream/Press can lay a claim to producing "the best of the best."
Post Mortem [****+] Edited by Paul Olson and David B. Silva Saint Martin's Press, $16.95, 0-317-02631-5 Women of Darkness [**+] Edited by Kathryn Ptacek Tor, $17.95, 0-31293096-8 The New Girl Friend and Other Stories of Suspense [****] Ruth Rendell Ballantine, $3.95, 0-345-32879-5 Live Flesh [****] Ruth Rendell Ballantine, $3.95, 0-345-34485-5
With theme anthologies crawling out from every bloodied bodily orifice, it's not surprising that Post Mortem, an anthology of ghost stories, should make an appearance. It's edited by David B. Silva, editor of The Best of the Horror Show, and Paul Olson, the editor of HorrorStruck Magazine. They have managed to gather a collection of original ghost stories from familiar and unfamiliar names. Ramsey Campbell contributes "The Guide," which contains one of the most horrifying single paragraphs ever written; P. W. Sinclair, a humor columnist, offers "Coming Home," a moving, achingly realistic story; and Robert R. McCammon bring us "Haunted World," an apocalyptic SF story written that begs to be read out loud. Consistent beyond compare, this is a quintessential collections of ghost stories for the oh-so-hip world we think we live in.
Horror is often thought of as a field of writing dominated by men. Disproving this notion Women of Darkness, edited by Kathryn Ptacek, which features a complete coverage of today's woman horror writers. Lisa Tuttle's "The Spirit Cabinet" is the top entrant in a collection that is long on psychological suspense and devoid of monsters. These stories are a refreshing break for those inundated with Stephen King and Clive Barker wanna-be's.
Readers who want to read the top flight woman horror writer won't find her with the horror novels, and won't see her in the SF section. That's because Ruth Rendell is pigeonholed with the mysteries, due no doubt to the popularity of her Inspector Wexford novels. In between these novels, you'll find her novels of "suspense," which wickedly resurrect the psychological elements found in the stories of Edgar Allen Poe. Live Flesh takes the reader into the mind of Victor Jennings, who is certainly the creepiest rapist-murderer since Norman Bates. The title refers to a disease Victor, the narrator, possesses characterized by "crawling flesh or a nervous tic." Despite the low-key setting, this novel builds tension beautifully until the teeth grinding, terrifying climax. And finally, her short story collection The New Girlfriend is an all out feast of torment and twisted psyches. The title story alone will send the reader for a laughing loop-dee-loop to land on a rusty nail. In every instance, she uses a crystal-clear controlled prose that carries the reader effortlessly away from the sea of sanity with a smile on his face. They're good enough to make the reader want to read her series, the Inspector Wexford novels, each and every one of them.
------ End ------
Issue 24, Spring 1989 (part 7)
Electronic OtherRealms #24
Spring, 1989
Part 7 of 10
Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
OtherRealms may not be reproduced without permission from Chuq Von Rospach.
Permission is given to electronically distribute this
issue only if all copyrights, author credits and return
addresses remain intact. No article may be reprinted or re-used
without permission of the author.
No Prisoners!
Reviews by Laurie Sefton
Copyright 1989 by Laurie Sefton
Let's explore a kind of book that has been popping up in increasing numbers. It's the "this happened previously to the story in the first novel I wrote in the series" book, or prequel. The prequel is not bad or ugly by its very existence, as many times it gives a good explanation of how past events may have affected the future. Good examples of this are Darkover Landfall by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Dragondawn, by Anne McCaffrey. However, the prequel can be abused, used as sales fodder for series fans. To be successful, the prequel must follow some rules. Therefore, here are Sefton's Laws of Temporal Linearity:
1) There must be a good reason for the prequel to exist.
2) Money is not a good reason.
3) The prequel must answer questions raised in the "future" books. If there are differences between actions in the past and how they are remembered in the future, a good explanation must be provided.
There are obvious problems and pitfalls to the prequel novel. For example, a character may be newly dead by the time the "future" novel occurs. The writer must then be able to keep the reader's interest while planning to do away with the person who might be the lead character. Also, when genealogies are provided in the original book, the writer has to keep to the schedule of births, deaths and events. A hastily provided past is a deadly trap, while a well thought our past provides a framework for prequels.
The Harrowing of Gwynedd [****+] Katherine Kurtz Del Rey, 380pp, 1989
Katherine Kurtz's The Harrowing of Gwynedd is a case in point. Anyone who has kept up with the Deryni novels knows the timetable of deaths after the "death" of St. Camber. Especially evident is the death of Evaine, Camber's daughter. Also, the scope of Deryni persecutions has been alluded to in the "future" novels, while the groundwork for these persecutions has been laid in Camber series. Kurtz is able to work within these restrictions and still deliver an enthralling story.
The storyline starts immediately after the "death" of Camber. Camber's work, the stability and trust between human and Deryni in Gwynedd, has fallen apart under the pressure provided by a few evil men. These men feed off of the fear of Deryni power, and they use their power as regents to mold the minds and hearts of the young princes left in their care. More horrifying than the physical torture is the use of psychological and temporal means to destroy Deryni resistance. By using the medieval Church, the cornerstone of society and ultimate authority, they destroy Deryni by convincing them that they are evil. The Church is held out as the wielder of punishment and tool of salvation to the Deryni. By removing the Derynis right to exist, they have done much worse damage than mere physical slaughter.
The Harrowing of Gwynedd is not an easy book to read. Kurtz ties you so tightly to the fortunes of the Deryni, and the MacRories in particular, that every transgression against them is twisted knife in the gut. Because of the unbridled jealousy of a few evil men, an entire race of people are tortured and destroyed. The "good guys" don't win in the story, but from the struggle comes the power of the book.
The Silver Branch [***] Patricia Kennealy New American Library, 442 pp, 1989
A less successful attempt at the prequel is The Silver Branch, the latest in the Keltiad series, and the prequel to the Copper Crown diptych. The books attempts to give a background for the future war between the Kelts, the Fomorians, and the Coranians. Those who have read the Copper Crown diptych will be familiar with the characters, and those who have read Celtic mythology will be familiar with the three nations. Each fled to the stars from the encroachment of Christianity on their lands and kept the enmity they had on Earth alive through the ages.
Into this venue, we have the story of Aeron, who we first met in The Copper Crown, and how she became the empress of Keltia. This is where the prequel goes wrong. Too little attention is paid to Aeron's parents, who actually have much more to do with the state of affairs in The Copper Crown than anyone else. Aeron's early life, while providing answers to questions raised in The Copper Crown, eats up too much of the story that should rightly be shared across three generations. A better treatment of the time immediately preceding The Copper Crown would have used two books, rather than subjecting the reader to a Celtic roller coaster ride. Even better, a book about Aoife Aoibhell, the Old Queen, who appears at the beginning of The Silver Branch, would have been an excellent place to start. The character is bursting with stories to be told -- anyone with her ability to strike fear in the hearts of her court must have been a very interesting person.
I also have a small quibble over the extensive foreshadowing; there is entirely too much of "we know what is going to happen, since we've already been there." The most blatant example of this is the vision of the space crew that will show up at the beginning of The Copper Crown. Granted, The Silver Branch segues nicely into The Copper Crown, but it segues almost too nicely.
On The Seas of Destiny [****]
Ru Emerson
Ace, 280 pp, 1989
Reversing the time flow, lets take a look at the third book of the Nedao trilogy, On the Seas of Destiny. One of the aspects of Emerson's work that I especially enjoy is the style of warrior and war she presents. Many fantasy novels have great effortless battles in which the only people who manage to be killed are the 10,000 nameless peasants who were in the way. In the style of warfare in the Nedao trilogy novels, people get hurt. And people die in rather unpleasant ways. And sometimes, innocents get caught in the crossfire.
Another aspect is the training that occurs for battle. Anyone who thinks that they can immediately become proficient in either sword or bow and arrow ought to pay a trip to the local fencing or archery club for a lesson. Make sure you have a copious supply of your favorite painkiller for the next morning -- you'll need it. It's nice to see someone who realizes that the use of a sword or bow and arrow takes time and practice and incorporates it in her novel.
Emerson also show that the climactic battle, while nice in theory, doesn't always happen. Ylia, the warrior queen spends some time after said "climactic battle" cleaning up loose ends. As some have found, warriors can die as easily in the mop-up operations as they can in "glorious battle."
I have reconciled to, if not started to enjoy the ruminations of Nisana the cat, who provides a short description of the chapter to follow. Nisana's explanations reminded me of Dumas' chapter titles in The Three Musketeers, which instead of spoiling the chapter, give clues of what is ahead.
On The Seas of Destiny is a satisfying end to the Nedao trilogy, and a welcome relief to the post-Christmas reading drought.
Prentice Alvin [****+]
Orson Scott Card
Tor, 342pp, 1989
Change the battleground from the physical to the spiritual, and you have the theme for Prentice Alvin, Orson Scott Card's latest in the The Tales of Alvin Maker. I've had a special interest in the series, since I lived a few miles from BattleGround Indiana, the site of the slaughter in the previous book, Red Prophet.
Alvin's story moves from the Wobbish territories to Hatrack River, where he begins his apprenticeship as a blacksmith. Alvin's growing ability as a blacksmith is nicely paralleled with his growing ability as a Maker. As a concurrent subplot, the flight and return of Peggy, the torch in the first book, is chronicled.
The use and misuse of power is also covered, from Peggy's running away from her destiny, to Alvin's spiteful misuse of his power, and the brush with the Unmaker that follows, to the slave trackers from the Appalachee nation, who misuse their "knack" only to further human misery. The reaction of those who find out about Alvin's knack, particularly his master blacksmith, closely parallels the feelings towards the Deryni in Kurtz's work. You can change the setting, and change the timeframe, but human foibles stay the same.
Once again, Card has mixed allegory, lessons in morality, and an insight into human psychology into a very entertaining story.
The Sarsen Witch [***+] Eileen Kernaghan Ace, 217 pp, 1989
Finally, a book, while a part of a series, stands on its own. The Sarsen Witch is the latest by Eileen Kernaghan. Instead of Celtic Ireland, she uses Celtic Britain as her venue. Naeri, the main character, is a geomancer -- she can use and control the power of the ley lines and stone circles left by the original inhabitants of the isle. She is swept up in the building of a great stone temple for the benefit of the local warlord by her cousin, who wants the building for his own ends. In fact, most of Naeri's trials can be traced to the manipulations of her cousin, Daui, who forces her into marriage to the warlord, against her wishes, and takes her away from a small colony of her distant relatives, once again, against her wishes. Her cousin is the only off-note in the story. There are times he comes across as an over-played Iago, and for some reason, no one seems to notice his constant manipulations.
Other than Daui, The Sarsen Witch is an excellent treatment of an underutilized place and time.
------ End ------
Issue 24, Spring 1989 (part 8)
Electronic OtherRealms #24
Spring, 1989
Part 8 of 10
Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
OtherRealms may not be reproduced without permission from Chuq Von Rospach.
Permission is given to electronically distribute this
issue only if all copyrights, author credits and return
addresses remain intact. No article may be reprinted or re-used
without permission of the author.
Lots and Lots of Reviews
by
Lots and Lots of People
Part 1
Alternities
Michael P. Kube-McDowell
Ace Books, 1988, 0-441-01774-6, 383 pp., $3.95.
With the death of Robert A. Heinlein, we lost one of the best pragmatic and predictive political scientists of this century. With Alternities, Kube- McDowell amply demonstrates that the torch has been passed. Alternities is nothing less than a political science tour de force, an exercise in alternate history and sociology, set against the dramatic countdown to a different America's first-strike nuclear Armageddon.
In 1966, a Walter Endicott stumbles through a gate between his own America and what comes to be called the Home Alternity, to find himself no longer in Philadelphia, but in Boston, and no longer in a world where the U.S. is winning the Cold War. By 1977, the secret Tower Guard of the National Resource Center, as administered by Albert Tackett for President Peter Robinson, robs the other seven Alternities thus far discovered. Technology, especially weapons systems stolen from worlds where the U.S. did challenge the communists in Korea and in Viet Nam, seems the only hope for a besieged Fortress America where Eisenhower never became President and paranoid McCarthyite isolationists prevailed. The perverse Endicott, now a powerful U.S. Senator, urges President Robinson to think the unthinkable, to plan a nuclear first strike against the Russians. For those in power, for the Alpha List, Robinson orders Tackett to prepare an escape from nuclear madness, a wholesale transfer of the leadership and their families through the gate to the gentler, kinder Indianapolis of Alternity Blue.
For the grunt in the trenches, Rayne Wallace, little of the powerplays in his Home Alternity is apparent, as he shuttles from one Alternity to another as a Tower Guard runner. Wallace is more concerned with his disintegrating marriage to Ruthann in Boston, and his blossoming love for Shan Scott, once he is transferred to mole status in Alternity Blue. As Wallace and his fellow Guardsmen use the gates, they also become aware of a darker force at work, perhaps the very Gatekeeper itself.
While many have patrolled these paratimes before, Kube- McDowell's version -- an apparent twist of Klein-Kaluza spacetime -- paves new and intriguing ground. With a 1950 branching point, and a setting ten years in our past where tantalizing glimpses of many other geopolitical settings credibly portray what might have been, the novel is both cautionary tale and history lesson. Turn off the TV and read this one now; it's a keeper.
-- Dean R. Lambe
Brothers in Arms
Lois McMaster Bujold
Baen Books, 1989, 0-671-69799-4, 338 pp., $3.95.
Bujold's space romping wimp with mind of steel, Lord Vorkosigan of Barrayar -- alias Admiral Miles Naismith of the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet -- takes a rest and refit on the sod of Earth. With more buckle than swash this time, the adventures of Miles and his merry band continue in a battle with evil Cetagandans, bureaucratic twits, grogshop wenches, and the odd clone.
Fresh from his triumphant POW camp rescue on Dagoola IV, and scarred from encounters with Cetagandan ships, Admiral Naismith expects repair of both ships and crew as he enters Earth orbit. When Miles, as his alter ego Lt. Vorkosigan, checks in with his secret masters in Barrayar Intelligence at the embassy in old London, however, he finds that by-the-book Captain Galeni has neither new orders nor much needed payment for the Dendarii mercenaries. Forced into busywork with his indolent cousin Ivan Vorpatril, Miles chafes under Galeni's command. Continuing delays in orders and payment push the mercenary fleet near bankruptcy, and Miles begins to suspect the motives of Galeni, a son of Komarr, the planet whose rebellion was crushed by Miles' powerful father.
When a few of his troops get drunk and disorderly, Miles' dualistic identity is threatened by a nosy vid reporter, and he invents a not very convincing clone. Just as he finally overcomes his shyness with the comely Commander Elli Quinn, a real clone appears, and even Quinn and cousin Ivan are fooled by this new Mark, the pseudo Miles. The whole future of Barrayar, not to mention the Dendarii Free Mercenaries, is threatened by old foes and new woes.
With this sins of the fathers, wins of the sons sequel, Bujold scores more goals for her series characters. If Earthbound fear of financial ruin while threatened by advancing tides seems strange venue for space opera, it is the '80s thing to do, and solid entertainment lurks within.
-- Dean R. Lambe
The Dark Door Kate Wilhelm St. Martin's Press, 1988, 0-312-02182-8, 248 pp., $16.95.
Back in stride as master of the psychological suspense division of SF, Wilhelm's latest offers an entertaining variant on "The Thin Man" theme. Unlikely husband and wife detectives, Charlie Meiklejohn and Constance Leidl -- he a former New York cop and arson investigator, she a psychologist -- take on the case of the blazing inns, and risk more than first-degree burns.
The story opens as Carson Danvers, his wife and son inspect the old River House inn outside of Washington D.C. Danvers intends to reopen the old place as an upscale restaurant, but encounters horror instead as an alien interstellar probe malfunctions. Wounded and disfigured, Danvers is mistaken for insurance adjuster John Loesser, and as Loesser he embarks on a cross-country hunt for the alien entity, a dark presence which causes only some to go violently insane. Danvers discovers that fire will remove his version of the devil from its preferred locus in high doorways of old buildings without electricity.
After a six-year multi-state swath of fire, Danvers' crusade comes to the attention of Charlie and Constance, when underwriters seek Charlie's expertise. After the terror and death strike a Northern California boarding school, Constance brings Byron Weston, a crisis intervention psychotherapist, into the investigation. Gradually, the informal team comes to realize that Danvers may not be the public menace and crazy firebug he appears to be, and when Charlie's mind is affected by the entity at a ghost town in Nevada, Constance has to take drastic action.
While the reader may suspect that Wilhelm's agent is pushing this hard in Hollywood, for it would make a fine edge-of-the-chair movie, plotting and characterization far surpass the usual Tinseltown cliches, and it merits your attention in the original vernacular.
-- Dean R. Lambe
The Dark Lady [****-] Mike Resnick
This is the first book I've read by Mike Resnick, but it won't be the last. The basic plot involves a search for a woman who appears as the subject of several artworks. Since the paintings span about 8000 years of human history, this is obviously not your average model. There are also some mythic overtones surrounding the search that are well handled. In short, I picked the book up for what looked like a decent concept, and was hooked. There were also some side currents that seemed to tie in with other books by Resnick set in the same universe. This is one time I don't mind having a bunch of books set in the same universe; it looks interesting and well thought out. The only thing I really disagreed with were the stock aliens who acted too human. But that's a relatively minor blemish on a otherwise very good story.
-- Chuck Koebel
Dragonsdawn [***] Anne McCaffrey
The latest Pern book tells the story of the original human landing on the planet. This has everything you expect from a Dragonrider book: threadfall, dragons, fire lizards, spunky young heroine and hero, etc. The society from the earlier (later, chronologically) books hasn't developed yet, but McCaffrey does plant the seeds for it. Not much real suspense, though, since we do know how Pern eventually turns out. Avid fans will probably rate the book [****]; readers looking for deep meaning or hard science might rate it [**]. For the rest of us, it's just a good, entertaining read.
-- Chuck Koebel
Dreams Of Dawn
Marti Steussy
Del Rey 1988 313 pp $3.95 345-35233-5
On the planet Karg, the human colony had been permitted to remain by the crustacean-like native sentients, against the recommendation of Circle Dawn, a multi-species, socio-ecological investigative team. Now, however, the Kargans have appealed for help from the Circle. The young of the Kargans are dying at an appalling rate, and they blame it on the humans. Can the Circle team find a solution to this biochemical mystery that will satisfy both Kargans and humans?
This is pretty much your standard issue Del Rey novel, a reasonably well crafted, carefully middle-of-the-road adventure tale with minimal literary or thematic ambitions. For my taste there's rather too much expository backfill slowing down the plot, especially in the first half; and the author's habit of changing viewpoint characters every few pages soon becomes annoying. However, both the pace and the story improved in the second half of the book. A fair read for those who do not approach this book with too high expectations.
-- David M. Shea
My Father Immortal Michael D. Weaver St. Martin's Press, 1989, 0-312-02617-X, 228 pp., $16.95.
Cry the beloved genre! I tried with Mercedes Nights, Weaver's first SF effort, but gave it up as unreadable. This time, I gnashed teeth past the Prologue (the middle of the story) and all the way to the end, only because the confused, disjointed, semiliterate muddle was a marvel of ideas last fresh when written by Jules and Herbert George.
Product of the second TV generation -- with science and English grammar to match -- this rehash of When the Sleeper Wakes pits the cryogenic, matriarchal Grant family against a rock band (pun alert!) of gengineered human mutant troglodytes some 4000 years after the red balloons went up. Mother Grant, megacorporate nastiness incarnate, froze the family and a small army as a savings deposit for a later brave new world. Unfortunately, Stigg, that fun-loving cave guy, was out playing with still-functional, 4000-year-old hand grenades one day, and his game of boom-ball unearthed Tiffany from her cold sleep chamber. Tiffany's brother Philip, in cooperation with the dumbest Artificial Intelligence a computer programmer (Weaver's day job) ever created, wakes the whole family, and a small war ensues.
The mutants, when they're not playing 4000-year-old rock music or discussing equally elderly video programs, shrug off bullets, antitank rockets, and nuclear weapons with Godzilla-like ease. Happily, these indestructible immortals, inhabitants of a razed planet that couldn't possibly have a breathable atmosphere, remain fertile with mere Grant girls. Tiffany and her cousins get knocked up, just in time for the great starship finale.
But wait, that's not how the story goes. The story, in a "multiple POV within a letter within a letter to siblings" framework pioneered by Mary W. Shelley, is told by Tiffany's kid, Daniel, as the child's escape pod drifts back to Earth. Daniel writes Mom's tale on toilet paper tubes that he exchanges somehow with the pods of three other kids who survive the belt with asteroids. Did I mention hair and fingernails that continue to grow throughout those millennia of cryogenic suspension? Well, let's throw that in here -- a model of Weaver's smooth transitions.
Control seems the major theme, yet Weaver and his editor clearly have none. Those of us who know that "Rubicon" is a proper noun are made cross by the random sprinkling of names like Cocteau, Coleridge, Aristotle, and Satre, while the really heavy references are to contemporary movies. Avoid this derivative pretension.
-- Dean R. Lambe
------ End ------
Issue 24, Spring 1989 (part 9)
Electronic OtherRealms #24
Spring, 1989
Part 9 of 10
Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
OtherRealms may not be reproduced without permission from Chuq Von Rospach.
Permission is given to electronically distribute this
issue only if all copyrights, author credits and return
addresses remain intact. No article may be reprinted or re-used
without permission of the author.
Lots and Lots of Reviews
by
Lots and Lots of Readers
Part 2
Great Sky River Gregory Benford Bantam Spectra, 1987, ISBN 0-553-27318-3, 340 pp., $4.50.
Those of us with acquaintances who teach the humanities have difficulty explaining a Benford. A physicist who writes, literately, lyrically? they exclaim. How can that be? Easily, I reply, the true wonder is those who profess literature but cannot create same, let alone integrate a function.
Which brings us to Benford's expansive far future history of humanity, a broad galactic spacetime canvas where people aren't limited to fleshed genes and machine intelligences aren't always what they seem. Yet for all the grandeur of this backdrop of battle between biolife and mechlife, for all the diamond sparkle of science well presented, Great Sky River sings a tribal lay of trusting son and father, loner and lover.
Deep in toward the galactic center, a few hundred people, all who remain of the once mighty clan Citadels on planet Snowglade, scramble though the ruined landscape of a world now dominated by machines. While the Mechs were ignored at first by the human colonists, descendants like Killeen, Clan Bishop, and his young son, Toby, wage a seemingly futile war of attrition against a Mechciv that treats humans as rats within the walls.
The Bishop Cap'n is killed by a Mantis, a new hunter mech able to electromagnetically manipulate the brains of its biological prey, and Killeen's self confidence shatters -- as well as the reliability of his implanted chip ancestral Aspects, Faces, and Analogs. Only through further losses to the wily Mantis as the Bishops join first with remnants of Rooks, then with resettled Kings, does Killeen regain stature. The mad Hatchet, Cap'n of Kings, demands more of Killeen, his son, and his new friend Shibo, last woman of Knights, however. In meeting Mantis in its lair, Killeen confronts Hatchet's Mephistophelian bargain with his own integrity, and discovers ancient secrets about Mantis, and Man, and the black hole in the sky.
Part of a greater whole, yet a novel that stands alone with a clear and satisfactory conclusion, this story moves the reader through many layers and levels. While I might quibble with a few nits of electrophysiology and ecology, I have no qualms about a strong recommendation.
-- Dean R. Lambe
The Loremasters Leslie Gadallah Del Rey Books, 1988, 0-345-35576-8, 280 pp., $3.50.
Our sermon for today, good friends, is Product. Yes, Product, that which is stamped from molds, displayed on racks, and save for minor details of design and advertising, remains indistinguishable from dozens of similar widgets, gizmos, and -- alas -- novels spread before the consuming public.
With her second novel, this Canadian writer offers yet another After Things Fell Apart Product. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years after the Bush Wars and the Separation, tired old Earth holds only technophiles in their energy-starved Enclaves and technophobes in their pseudo-feudal squalid villages. Reese, a thoroughly inept Phile anthropologist from the Mid-American Enclave, bumbles around the Phobe town of Monn on what may be the Mississippi River. Reese searches for weapons-grade fissionables left conveniently by Old People. In the process of delicately scouting the hostile, superstitious, and ignorant Phobes with all the subtlety of a wounded bear, Reese offends some noble louts and attracts a teenage thief.
Meanwhile, back at the Enclave, Reese's lover, engineer Cleo, watches a tokamak nuclear fusion reactor explode. She remains equally unimpressed by the challenge that an actual discovery of ancient plutonium would create for the fuel rods of their failing fission reactor, but she does worry a lot about Reese. So Cleo drops in on the Phobes too.
To the surprise of only the sophisticated characters, Reese is taken for a witch, captured by the True Church, and locked up in the inept Governor's prison. Sarah, the teenage thief, leads her riverboat friends in a Keystone Kops rescue, which ultimately succeeds despite the Enclave's parallel mission to deliver Reese from the forces of confusion.
For those who measure their lives in TV commercials, this tepid warmed-over stew might appear digestible. To be sure, it evinces better command of English than most new novelists, an obvious benefit of an unamerican education, but it remains pablum for the eyes. So why is it on the racks, you wonder, rather than a book by a more experienced, credible, and fact-conscious SF writer? Product, my friends, product. Bought cheap and sold dear. Product.
-- Dean R. Lambe
Men Like Rats
Rob Chilson
Questar, 1989, 0-445-20763-9, 212 pp., $3.95
Philip Klass, who the SF world knows as "William Tenn" for his wonderfully zany, satirical stories from the late '40s to the early '60s, retired from college teaching recently. This, please note, is not the same Philip Klass who writes about aerospace issues and debunks UFO nonsense. We can but hope that William Tenn will return to writing fiction.
Why mention Tenn in a Chilson review? Only because Rob's rat tale is much the same Klass act that was so memorable as "The Men in the Walls" when it originally appeared in 1963 as a Galaxy serial. Chilson gives no indication that he was ever aware of the Tenn classic, but the similarities are striking in plot and theme. In both works, giant aliens have all but extinguished human life and have remodeled Earth to their needs, yet a few primitive bands of humanity survive, like rats in the walls of an extraterrestrial warehouse.
The Chilson novel concentrates on one lone outcast, Rick, and his young friend, Loy, as they scurry through the vast alien transport system, raiding huge Cans, Bales, and Boxes in a technology that -- true to Clarke's Law -- is so advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic. Rick and Loy make an odyssey from High to Low, Freeplace to Outside, in a constant attempt to avoid capture by rival human groups or death from the alien's increasingly sophisticated people eating machines. Throughout, Rick seeks a simple haven with reliable food and a few cooperative females, true heaven for any rat.
While the Tenn original and the Chilson version differ enough that I can recommend both, Men Like Rats has a number of niggling problems. In attempting to show the ET constructs as truly alien, Chilson often falls into murky confusion. Perhaps much of the difficulty comes from "cut to fit" copyediting. And the "prochronism" problem -- my term for the opposite of "anachronism," the use of contemporary terms inappropriately projected into the future -- gives us cedar trees and philosophy that are hard to swallow. Still, this novel deserves your attention, especially if it inspires another look at an old master like Klass.
-- Dean R. Lambe
The Observers
Damon Knight
Tor, 1988, 0-312-93074-4, 281 pp., $16.95.
I do not go gently into this good Knight. It is, after all the middle book of a trilogy. Were it a world where Candide wouldn't have to cultivate his garden, the work would have been published as the one single novel it seems to be. In our world of megacorporate publisher greed, however, we get a thin gruel of piecework writing -- cliffhanger nonendings and all.
The near-future story of the giant floating city "Sea Venture" and her original passengers, opened in the novel CV, continues with some familiar and a few new characters. Dr. Wallace McNulty, now married to his nurse Janice, has a quiet California practice. However, McNulty's Disease, the invasion by a tiny alien life force parasite discovered (and thought destroyed) by "Sea Venture" personnel during mid Pacific drilling, suddenly reappears in American cities. President Draffy and CDC epidemiologist Dr. Harriet Owen are more than a little paranoid about a potential epidemic, for among the subtle symptoms of recovered McNulty's "victims" is a resistance to political propaganda and bureaucratic BS. Owen succeeds in organizing a quarantine, and thousands of "infected" people, including Dr. McNulty, marine scientists Randy Geller and Yvonne Barlow, and retired assassin John Stevens, his wife and newborn daughter, are imprisoned. Site of this vast Medical Detention Center is -- what a coincidence -- the old "Sea Venture," now anchored in San Francisco Bay.
Along comes a tsunami and wipes out much of the Pacific Coast. Never mind, though, because that's not important. Petty details like a wrecked California and a rampaging mob of "It's 2000, He's Coming Again" religious nuts are ignored once mentioned. Truly important matters, apparently, include kneejerk anticommunism by cardboard politicians, the fact that "Sea Venture" still floats, and a sudden yen by alien parasites for lab rats. Stay tuned, there must be an end in sight. Meanwhile, check out Knight's brilliant earlier work in the library.
-- Dean R. Lambe
The Seekers David Dvorkin Franklin Watts, 1988, 0-531-15088-7, 283 pp., $16.95.
Second time at bat, and Dvorkin pops one across the foul line into the stands. Budspy, his first effort, was a solid hit, despite the shopworn nature of its "what if the Nazis won?" plot. The invention and characterization that carried the first novel are absent from The Seekers, however.
Two thousand years after the fall of the first galactic empire (hohum), Planetary Administrator Melkorn Ayerst of the backwater planet Davner (yawn) confronts the militaristic new religion, The Church of the Quest, which seeks to take over his world (zzz). Ayerst and his daughter Rikki are further troubled when it turns out that the commandant of the Questor base is none other than Ayerst's ex-wife, Ellis Davner (surprise!), who abandoned kin, clan, and kid ten years back when she got religion. Ellis kidnaps her daughter and Rikki's nerdy fiance, and tries to kill her ex-husband. Just in time, Ayerst is rescued by the legendary killers of Davner, the thunderbeasts. Of course, the mighty forest beasts turn out to be atheistic, telepathic brontosaurus lookalikes, who wouldn't bruise a butterfly (giggle). Together with his pet human, Ayerst, Thor the thunderbeast hijacks a Questor ship to the ruling planet, Lark, where Ayerst gets laid and political deals get made. And the girl gets the boy at the end, as darkness falls on daffy Davner (sigh).
You have better things to do with your beer money than wade through this sophomoric set of "Is there a God?" arguments. Let's hope Dvorkin gets back in center field with his next one.
-- Dean R. Lambe
There Are Doors [****]
Gene Wolfe
Tor, 0-312-93099-2
Here are some of the ways to interpret this book: an adventure hopping between alternate realities; an extended dream by a man in love; the delusional system of a patient in a psychiatric hospital; or an experiment in style by one of science fiction's master stylists. Trying to explain this book to someone who hasn't read it is impossible in a short review, so I won't even try. I will highly recommend it, though, as a first- class contemporary fantasy. It's an entertaining, fast-moving story with some interesting undercurrents. And don't be put off by the mention of dreams and delusions above. By the end of the book, everything has been rationally explained, and the explanation can be worked out by the reader before it's revealed.
-- Chuck Koebel
Those Who Hunt The Night [*****] Barbara Hambly Ballantine Books $16.95 296 pg.
Hambly has always written fantasies with a mundane touch. Magic in her stories is not magical but a part of everyday life. With this book, she has created a story that matches her style. It is magical while being very mundane. This is mainly due to the subject, vampires. Even the strictest skeptic will concede that psychotics who think they are vampires can exist so the threat of vampirism is not totally fanciful. In vampire stories, a mundane style can heighten the horror by increasing the sense of reality. This is what Hambly has done in this book.
Someone is killing the vampires of London. A vampire, Ysidro, forces Professor James Asher to search for the killer. Ysidro is a classic sexually attractive vampire but all the other vampires Asher encounters have realistic personalities. It is easy to believe that they were once real people. The cause of vampirism is only hinted at and there is some hand waving about the psychic powers of vampires. On the whole, Hambly sticks by the traditional vampire myths with some original twists. For example, vampires do not need to sleep in a coffin lined with their native soil but they do sleep in coffins because coffins are light tight and not likely to be disturbed when found.
The story is superbly plotted. The groundwork for all the plot developments are laid beforehand. No one acts like an idiot. If they go off on the wrong path, it is because that is what an intelligent person would do given so little facts to work with. While the form is that of a mystery, the story is not a proper mystery in that the reader is not expected to solve the mystery. The style is more like of a Sherlock Holmes story where the reader goes along for the ride and watches the Great Detective at work.
John Asher has a definite resemblance to Holmes. His wife, Lydia, is a medical doctor and helps him in the case just like Dr. Watson helps Holmes. However, Asher is a distinctly different character. He is more human than Holmes. John Asher is someone that the reader could expect to meet in real life where as Holmes is clearly larger than life. As a character, Asher is equal to Ysidro which is a sign of very good character development. It is easy to make a vampire, such as Ysidro, an interesting character. He is an archetypical sexually attractive vampire. It is much harder to make a hero such as Asher interesting without making the hero larger than life but Hambly has succeeded.
Hambly has done her research well since the novel takes place in 1907 with references going back over 300 years. Despite the fantasy elements, this story is more a hard science fiction story than a fantasy. It could also be straight fiction. It is very well done and is recommended even for those who dislike vampire stories. This book should easily make the awards lists.
-- Danny Low
Twistor John Cramer William Morrow, 1989, 0-877-95967-6, 250 pp., $18.95.
Professor John Cramer of the University of Washington Physics Department believes in the adage "write what you know." With his debut novel, Cramer gives us a varied bunch of UW physicists, a lesson in how science is done, and a painfully accurate tour of Seattle.
When young postdoc David Harrison and comely grad student Vickie Gordon stumble upon six other universes while researching the implications of superstring theory, their senior professor, Allan Saxon, sees only dollar signs. Saxon, who finds himself more than a pawn for the unscrupulous Martin Pierce of the Megalith Corporation, seeks to exploit the "twistor effect" for personal fame and power. Pierce has an even more nefarious agenda, however, and orders Saxon kidnapped and tortured.
Almost too late, as Pierce's armed henchmen arrive to steal the twistor apparatus, Harrison twists himself and the equipment into a giant tree on an alternate Earth. Unfortunately, Melissa and Jeff Ernst, children of a physics department colleague, are carried along to the multidimensional tree house, and the police and FBI join the search. With a handy tool kit and a convenient supply of batteries, Harrison builds a tiny twistor on his new world while Vickie Gordon and her hacker brother, "Flash," plunder the Megalith computer files. Forces of good and evil race to a breakneck finish, one of the most creative alien birds in SF history craps out, and a typical academic department chairman falls behind the world's largest eight-ball.
OK, so the work has a few first novel faults, some almost as large as the big hole in the middle of Seattle that Cramer forgot to mention. It's still a lot of fun, a whole lot of valid scientific speculation, and well worth your time. New hard SF writers are rare; encourage this one with your beer money.
-- Dean R. Lambe
------ End ------
Issue 24, Spring 1989 (part 10)
Electronic OtherRealms #24
Spring, 1989
Part 10 of 10
Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
OtherRealms may not be reproduced without permission from Chuq Von Rospach.
Permission is given to electronically distribute this
issue only if all copyrights, author credits and return
addresses remain intact. No article may be reprinted or re-used
without permission of the author.
Charles C. Ryan
Editor, Aboriginal SF
Welcome to the real world of publishing. Your cost anxieties are the same ones we face every day... keeping the price in line while keeping up the quality of the product. You probably made the right decision.
I'm glad you think Darrell Schweitzer and Janice Eisen are both good solid reviewers for us, but I see you are still referring to us as a "semi- prozine."
We've been a prozine since March of 1988 and passed the circulation of Amazing sometime last summer. Our circulation now is about 20,000. We tripled our circulation last year and hope to triple it again this year.
Er ... again while I appreciate our listing under magazines received, the sub rates you cited were incorrect. It's $3 per copy, or $14 for 6 issues/1 yr., or $24 for 12 issues/2 yrs. I'd appreciate it if you could clarify this as we'd never get any subscriptions at the higher rate you cited. Thanks.
Gary Farber
10 Fairview Ave., #4F
New York, NY 10040
I've had some post office trouble. Could you print my current address and tell people that if they've had mail to me returned, please resend it.
[[Consider it done. -- chuq]]
Brad W. Foster
POB 165246
Irving, TX 75016
First of all, some very important bookkeeping here - please note my New Address up top there. Toss out the old street address, I've long moved from there, and please use this new PO Box from now on. Thanks.
Sorry to hear about the financial doings of last few months. You bring up a point that I still haven't quite worked out -- that is, the idea that "taking advertising means that OtherRealms becomes responsible to its advertisers instead of its readers" and that since you'd be reviewing books advertisers publish, it would create "a potential conflict of interest". How so? I've seen this line before in other magazines, and it didn't make much sense. If they don't like what you're doing, they are certainly free not to advertise, but then that would put you no worse off than you are now, with no advertising anyway. Right?
[[The key phrase is "free to not advertise" -- when you start taking advertising, it starts paying the printing bills. Generally speaking, the cost of a page of advertising should pay for four pages of magazine (more or less). When the advertising disappears, you have 40 pages of magazine and 18 pages of money. Suddenly the magazine's in deep trouble. If the advertising leaves, you can't publish, because the advertising was paying for it. On a normal magazine, subscription money is essentially the overhead and profit -- advertising pays for the printing and postage. It doesn't even have to happen. All you really need to do is start worrying about the advertising leaving. "Gee, if I say this they may get mad, and if they pull their advertising I lose 12 pages of material. So I'll say it this way instead, just to be safe". The reality is, when you take advertising, your loyalty has to be to keeping the advertising there, because if the advertising leaves, the publication goes away.
The way OtherRealms is structured now, I may get kicked off a review copy list, but I don't depend on those anyway [OtherRealms has been kicked off of one publisher's list three times. It always seems to show up again a few months later, for some reason. It comes down to this: I never want to be in a position where I have to worry about killing or toning down a review to keep a publisher happy. I want my loyalty to be with the reader. I never want people to think I'm pushing a book because there's an ad in the magazine, or avoiding a publisher because there isn't. All that matters is the book, and that's the way I want to keep it. -- chuq]]
Jeremy Crampton
On David Hartwell. The inevitable problem for someone who takes his position is that he is bound to be accused of elitism or ghettoization. Don't you think that what he is trying to do (separating that from what he is doing) is worthy? If his message is "less crap, more good stuff" who can disagree? Of course, the obvious objection then becomes "well, my good stuff is your crap" or, "why is my opinion inferior to yours?" It is a long-standing problem; on the one hand you don't like such people to denigrate your reading as trivial, and on the other he doesn't like the proliferation of throwaway books.
[[[What Hartwell is trying to do is worthy. And I support it. Pushing for higher standards and requiring more out of the field and its authors is the only way we'll continue to improve the craft.
At the same time, however, there's no way I can support an attitude of "you don't know what's good for you. Here, let me tell you." That was the primary opinion I was arguing with. Let him show me the way towards greatness. Don't, however, remove the alternatives -- there are many of us who love reading purely for entertainment, and Hartwell would get rid of most of the fiction that is set up primarily for that. He's forgotten that fiction can be fun. Me, personally, I get headaches when people start shoving Meaning and Messages into my head.
If he wanted to show me what was good for me and enlighten me as to why it was good, I'd be up there pushing with him. What he wants to do, though, is force me to only read what he defines as "good" and not give me alternatives. That's called censorship. Even for the best of intents, I can't support that.]]]
James Harris
My biggest disagreement is your passing statements on the fanzine Thrust. I do not find it boring. The material in Thrust appeals to me. Things like George Alec Effinger writing about his book When Gravity Fails or Kim Stanley Robinson writing about Philip K. Dick, add to my sense of history about SF.
Your conflict is between your personal finances and producing the magazine you envision. My conflict: I've only got so much money to spend on magazines, with only so much time to read, and it's time to send you eleven dollars and renew my subscription. You said in the past that $2.85 would cover your cost of sending out one issue. Now that you are half that size, are we paying extra?
By the way, what would happen if you only mailed OtherRealms to those people who paid for an issue, or had something published in that particular issue? (I'm just being curious about the business of publishing a fanzine.) I can understand trading with selective fanzines that might interest you - but don't you get a lot of stuff you don't want to read? And is a LOC really that important?
[[See my comments in the Notebook on Thrust. The reality was, up until last issue, people were paying $2.85 for a copy of a magazine that cost about $5.00. When OtherRealms was small, I happily ate the difference. Unfortunately, there comes a point where you start choking on your success -- 'donating' a couple of hundred dollars an issue is a lot different than 'donating' a couple of thousand. In reality, I found what seems to be a good compromise. I was able to get OR down to the size it needed to be (costs last issue ran about $2.80 each, but paper prices have continued to spiral. sigh) by reducing page count by about 50% while only removing about 15% of the actual material -- a small chunk from each column, a little more judicious editing and the interviews. In all, that's not as bad as I expected it to be. I've also done a number of other things to get costs down, including drop many of the "quiet" readers from the list.
Why trade fanzines? It's a form of contact that I enjoy. The total number of trades I have is reasonably small, especially now after the purge. And yes, occasionally I get a fanzine that I don't care for. And occasionally I get something like Renaissance Fan (which is beautiful and enjoyable to look at even if I don't care about the writing), or YHOS which is guaranteed to make me think. I get fanzines from Australia and England and Sweden and Norway -- which gives me a perspective on the world I wouldn't have, otherwise. Fanzines aren't everyone's cup of tea, but I find them fascinating. That's why I trade fanzines.
And are LOCs important? Definitely, for three reasons: LOCs are the things that tell me how I'm doing -- when I screw up, I hear about it; when I do good, people tell me. it's how I decide what material I want to put in OtherRealms and what I don't, because LOCs tell me what the readers want.
LOCs are also egoboo. LOCs make me feel good -- even negative LOCs tell me I affected you enough to want to write. They tell me that OtherRealms is being read and appreciated -- and that makes me feel good. Finally, LOCs are an alternate form of subscriptions. If you can't/won't send me the money, I'm giving you an alternative. Spend a chunk of your life and fifty cents, and tell me you care enough about OtherRealms to want to see it again. If you can't afford the $11, buy the stamps and envelopes and paper and take the time to say hi. Subscriptions pay part of the bill. LOCs tell me it's all worthwhile. That's why LOCs are important. Besides, they're fannish! -- chuq]]
Elizabeth Moon
Thanks for sending me the copies in which Laurie Sefton's reviews of my books appeared. I've been impressed by the overall approach of OtherRealms -- both the quality of individual reviews, and the generally helpful tone. Of course I'm glad that Laurie enjoyed my books -- any writer loves a good review -- but that's more valuable when I can see how selective all your reviewers are. Your concentration on the positive is a definite plus (pun intended.)
Your new format is quite readable, although it's too bad you've had to give up some of the columns you'd planned -- I was looking forward to Laurie's comments in biology & other areas of often-mangled science. This has been one of my pet peeves for years -- basic ignorance of fairly low-level biology, medicine, agriculture, etc. It seems incredible that we still find writers who don't know where the lungs in humans are, or what a bruise is (as in one book I read recently: the doctor assured someone that the patient had no bleeding in the brain, just bruising.)
[[We hope to revive the science column -- it's more been lack of time than anything else that's kept it from happening (job changes will do that). If we find we can't squeeze it in here, it's also possible it can end up in Dan'l's Optimistic Sturgeon. -- Chuq]]
One point to consider in comparing reviewers is their consistency (or, more commonly, lack of it) in dealing with subgenres and different writers. This shows up not only in ignoring or putting down a type of work or a writer, but also in glossing over major problems in books of a "favorite" sort. I am thinking, at the moment, of a reviewer who prefers hard SF, and who recently praised a book which was full of errors of basic science -- the very kind of thing he fulminates against in soft SF or fantasy. If it's bad to mess up on the speed of light, it's just as bad (if not worse) to do it in hard SF.
You're certainly right that the reason for reading is pleasure. What the present literati don't understand is that reading for pleasure includes reading complex, intellectual works as well as froth. Thinking is fun, too. That's heresy, of course, but a foundation of science fiction: thinking is fun, and you don't need anyone to explain it to you. An excellent essay on the origins of this whole row is C.S. Lewis' "High and Low Brows", printed in a book called Rehabilitations. He saw this coming decades ago, and described it brilliantly. Basically, what's happened is that "difficult" has become a literary virtue in the eyes of the literary establishment. This justifies their existence as interpreters -- if any intelligent reader can understand it by himself, English faculties are reduced to explaining work old enough to be obscure for that reason alone. They'd rather read the new stuff. So they insist that good writers write for the few who can understand, and then teach the rest (or at least those docile enough to listen.) They insist that good writing demands more from a reader, rather than giving more to him.
But I'm with you: good work is not hard, although it may be complex and richly textured. A young or inexperienced reader can follow it well enough -- and as the reader grows in experience, in wisdom, the good work still offers satisfaction. It can be re-read, year after year, without seeming stale. Science fiction and fantasy both offer such reading experiences -- experiences that depend not on a reader's erudition, but on experience and human growth. Some excellent work is nearly inaccessible in adolescence -- one reason schools err in pushing the less narrative classics to young -- but it should not require a college degree for a reader of the right age to appreciate.
The challenge for a writer is to create something that entertains at more than one level ... the 15 year old who wants a good adventure story, the other 15 year old who wants a good character to idolize, the college student who is just making the connection between the fantasy he reads and the reality he lives, the middle manager who wants to escape the corporate jungle, the historian who loves created histories and societies (but is critical of them), the elderly lady who has never read a fantasy but will spot a character flaw in a flash, and so on. No one can do it all; no book ever satisfies all readers. But we can try ... and the way to more depth is not by trying to be difficult and obscure, but by digging deeper with the same simple tools.
We also heard from: Baird Searles, Susan Shwartz, Donald Franson, David Dunham, Peggy Ransom, Sheryl Birkhead (not Sheila! blush) and Ken Meltsner.
OtherRealms
Science Fiction
and
Fantasy
in Review
Issue #24 -- Spring, 1989
Copyright 1989 by
Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
Editor
Chuq Von Rospach
Science Editor
Laurie Sefton
Contributing Editors
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Charles de Lint
Rick Kleffel
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Alan Wexelblat
Contributors
Dean R. Lambe
OtherRealms may not be reproduced without permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Permission is given to electronically distribute this issue only if all copyrights, author credits and return addresses remain intact.
No article may be reprinted or re-used without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
OtherRealms is published in January, April, July and October by:
Chuq Von Rospach
35111-F Newark Blvd.
Suite 255
Newark, CA 94560
Usenet: chuq@apple.com
AppleLink: CHUQ
Delphi: CHUQ
CIS: 73317,635
Deadlines
Deadlines for all material is the 15th of the month prior to publication. Publication date is the 30th of the month. Next deadline: June 15.
Subscriptions
A single copy of OtherRealms is $2.85. A one year (4 issue) subscription is $11. OtherRealms is available on a returnable basis to bookstores. Please contact me for details.
Complimentary subscriptions are available for arranged trades, at the whim of the editor or "the usual."
Submissions
OtherRealms is looking for reviews on Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and related non-fiction. We cover book-length material only.
Authors are solicited to discuss their books in the Behind the Scenes section. This series allows you to describe the background and research that went into your book and the things that make it special to you.
OtherRealms is also interested in a variety of feature material about the field and its authors. Please query all material except reviews.
Submissions can be made in either Macintosh or MS-DOS disks, via electronic mail, or the old-fashioned ink-on-paper format. Please include a SASE.
Unless otherwise agreed upon, OtherRealms uses first serial rights.
Art
I'm always looking for good genre-related artwork, from small clip-art pieces to covers. Art will be returned after use if you request it. I request non-exclusive one-time rights to the artwork.
Letters
OtherRealms solicits your feedback. We want to know what you think about the magazine and about the SF field. Letters will be considered for publications unless otherwise requested. Letters may be edited for space or content (but not context!) as necessary. Addresses will not be published unless you permit it.
Is this your last issue?
The number on your mailing list is the issue your OtherRealms subscription dies. Negative numbers indicate a complimentatry subscription. If the number is zero, this is the only time you'll see OtherRealms unless you Do Something About It.
Book Ratings
[*****] One of the best books of the year
[****] An above average book
[***] A good book. Recommended
[**] Flawed. Has its moments
[*] Not recommended
[] To be avoided
------ End ------