OtherRealms — Issue 27, Spring 1990
Issue 27, Spring 1990 (part 1)
Electronic OtherRealms #27
Spring, 1990
Part 1 of 11
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
Table of Contents
Part 1:
Editor's Notebook
Chuq Von Rospach
Part 2:
Behind the Scenes: The Quiet Pools
Michael Kube-McDowell
Past Imaginings: SF in the Comics
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Part 3:
From Beyond the Edge
Reviews by Our Readers
Part 4:
From Beyond the Edge (continued)
Reviews by Our Readers
Part 5:
Scattered Gold
Charles de Lint
Much Rejoicing
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Part 6:
Small Press Overview 1989
Evelyn C. Leeper
Part 7:
Small Press Overview 1989 (continued)
Evelyn C. Leeper
Part 8:
Small Press Overview 1989 (continued)
Evelyn C. Leeper
Part 9:
Words of Wizdom
Chuq Von Rospach
Last Call
Alan Wexelblat
Part 10:
No Prisoners!
Laurie Sefton
The Agony Column
Rick Kleffel
Part 11:
Your Turn
Letters to OtherRealms
Editor's Notebook
Chuq Von Rospach
As I write this, it's Earth Day II: the sequel. It is estimated that 100,000,000 people worldwide will become environmentally aware for 24 hours. They will recycle their newspapers. They will write letters about CFCs. They will beat their chest in anger over dead dolphins. They will parade down streets with placards and slogans, and tonight they'll go to bed full of revolutionary fulfillment.
Tomorrow, most of those 100,000,000 people will wake up and go back to their old habits, except that now they'll feel better for having done something for the environment.
That's my grump with Earth Day. Environmentalism is not one day a year. It's not demonstrations and slogans. It's definitely not major corporations spending lots of money on sponsorships and publicity. Environment is a rest-of-your-life commitment towards improving your own life and doing things to improve the life of the world around you. Earth Day will do good things, but it's real purpose seems to be to allow companies a way to talk about how good they are (rather than having the company simply be good and be recognized as such) and to allow people to make themselves believe they're doing good without really having to commit to anything. I wonder if the negatives of giving a large chunk of population a chance to convince themselves they can do environment one day a year will outweigh the advantages that having an Earth Day at all. It reminds me of a Catholic confessional: just because you can go and have your sins forgiven once a week doesn't mean you can go and sin the other six. Some people have never figured out that absolution without a change in attitude is meaningless. If you allow people to absolve their environmental sins without changing the habits that create the problems, are you solving anything? Or are you worsening the problem?
I would rather see year-round efforts than one-day extravaganzas. Being against Earth Day is a dangerous position, because it's guaranteed to get you labelled anti-environment. I'm anything but -- the organizations that are at the top of my charity list every year are the ones that deal with environmental issues every day. But like those who see "pro-choice" as being automatically "pro-abortion", being against Earth Day is the same as going out and personally strangling seals or wearing mink (speaking of hypocrisies: what's the difference between killing a farm-bred mink for fur and killing a farm-bred cow for leather and meat? Answer: you use less of the mink. Trapping fur animals is horrendously inhumane and should be stopped, but people who eat meat but fight farm-bred furs are hypocrites. All furs are not created equal, except in the minds of those who like simple answers). I'm all for fixing the environment and try to do my part; I'm just against palliatives for the guilty conscience or ineffective quick-fixes. Earth Day could have been a good start towards environmental awareness and change. The way it was put together, however, it'll be the entire environmental effort for too many of the participants.
Serious stuff
Now that I've fixed our environmental ills, on to some serious stuff. It's become more and more obvious to me that there are problems with OtherRealms and how it interacts with both my life and Laurie's. The quarterly schedule has become increasingly erratic, and it's obvious that for the second year in a row we're only going to get three issues out in 1990 like we did in 1989. It's not lack of material, or lack of interest or lack of motivation. The reason is simple: no time.
Another problem is space: OtherRealms refuses to fit in the number of pages I want it to, forcing me to (1) find some way to squeeze it in anyway, (2) cut stuff or (3) reduce the type size and pray the repro doesn't turn it into a grey, unreadable mass.
It is time to Do Something about this. I think OtherRealms has gotten complacent because I've gotten complacent. In the last couple of years, my interests have radically changed, but my commitments haven't always kept up.
OtherRealms is not the primary focus in my life as it used to be. Laurie's time is also constrained, since she's taking grad classes at Stanford and studying for the GMAT to (hopefully) enter business school at San Jose State. Together, we still have less time for OtherRealms than I used to spend on it solo two years ago. None of the things taking time away from OtherRealms are things I'm willing to give up or scale back, so I have to change OtherRealms to be viable. The alternative is to do it badly, or end up not doing it at all.
What it comes down to is that we're going to be making a number of changes to OtherRealms in the next year to better match what we want out of the fanzine. We've been working on how to restructure OtherRealms for about six months and the time has come to start the process.
This is an outline of our current plans for the new, improved OtherRealms. First, I'm taking it off of a regular schedule. The tentative schedule is three times a year: Aprilish, Julyish (or Augustish) and Decemberish. If time permits, I'll do a fourth issue. If not, maybe only two. Rather than set up fixed deadlines I won't keep, I'll base the schedule for the next issue on when the current one mails.
The mix of material in OtherRealms is going to change. A typical issue of OtherRealms can be as much as 80% reviews. While reviews are an important part of OtherRealms, it's hard to publish something that is both interesting to read and three-quarters reviews.
This problem is partly historical and partly my fault: OtherRealms started out as a hard-core reviewzine. As the fanzine grew, I committed to publishing columns by people I felt were worth giving special notice. When OtherRealms downsized, though, I still tried to wedge seven columns into a space that only has room for four or five.
To fix this, I'm cancelling three features. First is the Stuff Received column. From talking to readers I've found that only a small percentage of readers make use of it. At 8% of the fanzine, I can't continue publishing all that data, especially since more complete sources for that data -- Locus and SF Chronicle for instance -- exist.
Only the fanzine listings will survive. They'll be back next issue, since fanzines have very small distributions and poor publicity, they need all the notice they can get.
The next cancellation is my horror coverage. There are simply not enough horror readers in my audience. I don't have enough space to handle SF and Fantasy, and adding Horror makes it that much harder. This issue will be Rick Kleffel's last Agony Column. Rick has agreed to keep writing reviews for me and is also doing reviews for Midnight Grafitti, so he won't disappear completely.
I am also, as of this issue, cancelling Alan Wexelblat's column. Even after the other changes I had one column too many. A column requires me to dedicate two complete pages, with one or two extra pages spread between the columns. I also average about five or six pages of reviews in the review section. I also lose 2 and a half pages to overhead: the cover, masthead page and mailing area. On average, then, I've committed to at least 22 pages before I start planning what will go in an issue. The other ten pages are where the Behind the Scenes, the editorials, letter column, essays and all the other features need to go. There's just no room.
It's easy to decide to cut a column. It's tough to decide which column gets cut when you think everyone is doing a fine job. While Alan has lost his column to the changes, he has agreed to continue writing reviews for the review section and, with Dean Lambe, will remain on the masthead as a contributor.
The result of these changes is that the dedicated part of the fanzine will shrink from 22-24 pages to a more reasonable 17-18 (out of 32-34) pages. The total number of pages I'll publish will shrink slightly but the room for things other than reviews will increase.
But wait! There's more!
There's one final change that needs to be discussed. Issue #30, which will also be the first issue of my sixth year of publishing OtherRealms, will be the final issue on the networks. Starting with #31, I'm only publishing the paper version.
This is a very difficult decision to make. There are two conflicting needs here: 99% of my readership is on USENET, but I don't enjoy being on USENET any more. Over the last 5 years, the net has grown significantly (OtherRealms' readership has grown from 2,500 to almost 15,000, for instance). As it has grown the number of messages in the areas I care about have grown to the point where it's impossible to keep track of conversations or find the information I'm interested in finding. Also, the net has attracted a small group of troublemakers: people whose real interest is generating controversy with personal attacks and abuse. As an occasional target of this abuse because of my high profile on the net, I'm sick and tired of putting up with it.
It's not true that the idiots have driven me off the net -- but it is true that they have made the decision much easier. What is true is that USENET and I have grown in different directions, and I've finally decided it's time to overcome the long-ingrained habits and shift the time I'm spending on projects to things that are important to me. I've spent a lot of time on things that were "for the good of the net." Now I'm going to take that time and spend it on things that that I want instead.
Computer networks have been a focus of my life for a long time: I was on the Arpanet in the 70's and wrote my first BBS program (for a CDC Cyber, in Fortran, believe it or not) in 1978. I've been on-line one place or another ever since. In the last two years, though, I've found myself spending more time on the networks and enjoying it less. I kept logs of my time and found I was spending up to 25 hours a week online -- time mostly wasted. I decided it was time to make some changes, and I set a goal of limiting myself to about five hours on-line per week. Since the first of the year I've cancelled all of my computer accounts except the one on GEnie and USENET. Think of how much you could do with an extra 15 hours a week. I'm not meeting my goals yet, but the difference is astounding.
The electronic OtherRealms has been a fixture on the net and my readers are a joy to work with. The support and feedback I get is wonderful, and I like the give-and-take of being in direct, easy contact with my readership. To continue publishing OtherRealms on-line I have to deal with other sections of the net as well and the problems they cause far override any positive aspects of keeping OtherRealms on the net.
So it's time for the electronic edition of OtherRealms to die. I chose issue 30 because it's a milestone -- I'll have finished five years of publishing the fanzine. know a lot of you will miss it. So will I, but there aren't any feasible alternatives. I've delayed it too long already.
The Bottom Line
For a fanzine to survive it has to meet the needs of its owner. If it doesn't, it dies. I've changed and now it is time for OtherRealms to change as well. I want to be as happy celebrating OtherRealms' tenth birthday as I am celebrating its fifth, but that means positioning it so I can enjoy publishing it for the next five years. I can't do that without cutting off some readers and undoubtedly pissing off some more, but the alternative is worse. I want to publish something that's more personal without losing the essential focus on books, that's more fannish without making it an egozine, that's got a wider range of interests without losing the kernel that makes OtherRealms special. There are going to be some rough edges and false starts in the next year or so, but it's time for the journey to start.
Gads, I'm just a bundle of good news this issue, aren't I?
So what are critics worth, anyway?
The other day I got a fanzine, Black Hole #29 (edited by Ian Creasey, Leeds University Union, P.O. Box 157, Leeds LS1 1UH, UK). I mention it only because Creasey wrote a very negative review of OtherRealms. Among other things, he says "tries hard to be an incisive and interesting forum of criticism but ends up being rambling and boring" and "...but a zine devoted to criticism..."
Creasey doesn't like OtherRealms because it's a terrible criticism magazine. He completely missed the fact that OtherRealms isn't, and never has been, a criticism-oriented fanzine. It's a reviewzine, which is another beastie entirely. His entire 'criticism' is that OtherRealms isn't the kind of fanzine he thinks it should be and therefore it's bad -- while ignoring the fact that it was never intended to do what he's claiming I'm doing a bad job of in the first place.
Which is, of course, bad criticism. A bad critic or book reviewer writes in a form of "why this isn't the kind of book I would have written this as" instead of "what kind of book should this have been and how would the author have improved it?"
The majority of reviews of OtherRealms are positive. Of the negative reviews, many are of this type. Sometimes a fanzine critic has some interesting points (I was reviewed in Anvil a while back, and the reviewer there brought up a number of problems, leading to various changes in OtherRealms).
I bring all this up not to argue with Creasey, but to make a few points that seem to need repeating. First, reviewing is not criticism. They're different skills with different viewpoints. Second, critics and reviewers sometimes blow it. Third, while a poor review is worthless, in many cases it's impossible to tell good reviewing or criticism from the bad stuff until it's too late because it might seem reasonable -- until you know the facts.
Which is a cautionary tale for anyone reading reviews and criticism. Even in OtherRealms.
See you all next issue! 2
------ End ------
Issue 27, Spring 1990 (part 2)
Electronic OtherRealms #27
Spring, 1990
Part 2 of 11
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
Behind the Scenes
The Quiet Pools
Michael Kube-McDowell
Copyright 1990 by Michael Kube-McDowell
April 4, 1990, Lansing, Michigan
The Locus containing the first review of The Quiet Pools arrived in today's mail. Bookstore-haunting friends and fans across the country are reporting initial sightings of the Genuine Article, the first Kube-McDowell hardcover. And -- finally! -- there's a new contract coming, a new novel to write. I've been living with this one for a long time, but it looks like it's time to move on.
Time to reshelve these reference books, which have been living on the worried old work-in-progress bookcase for the last two years. There goes Nancy Tiley's Discovering DNA, Helen Fisher's The Sex Contract, Corning's The Synergism Hypothesis, Robert Powers' The Coattails of God. There goes Francis Crick's Life Itself -- hmmm, I really should have made a photocopy of the appendix on the DNA/RNA code, instead of marking up page 173 that way.
Time to pack up the unwieldy stacks of notes, file cards, partial drafts, maps, newspapers, magazine articles, photographs. There go the clippings about the Amazon, the Time article about the Human Genome Project. There goes the pamphlet about the Bonneville Dam, in the Columbia Gorge. There goes the paper plate bearing Dr. Jordin Kare's sketches of the laser-cannon launch complex.
And oh, sweet memory, look at this ancient artifact, hiding at the bottom of the pile -- the file containing the ten-year-old novelette which started it all, and the rejection slip from George Scithers which prompted me to put it away. "A good idea, but awkwardly handled," George advised me, before going on to dissect the manuscript in some detail. "The Quiet Pools" would not be my second Asimov's sale.
Awkward, indeed. "Amateurish" would not have been too strong. At that time, I had written only a dozen stories, and sold but five of them (though I would eventually sell four more from that group, and fold a fifth, "Mothball," into Empery). So perhaps I can be forgiven for not realizing "The Quiet Pools" wanted to be a novel.
The novelette was ten thousand words of explaining in search of a story. The power of its one evocative moment depended almost entirely on a vision I could see, but -- as I realized after George bounced the story -- hadn't written. Reading "The Quiet Pools" was a lot like catching only the last two minutes of a movie -- with the person you sat next to whispering like crazy, trying to tell you everything you missed.
I never submitted "The Quiet Pools" anywhere else. I had a very clear sense that I didn't yet have the tools to tell the story the way it needed to be told. And I didn't want to trash the vision with my own ineptitude. I filed the manuscript, my cut-and-pasted typewritten drafts (I said it was ancient), and my notes, made an appointment with the future, and moved on to other things.
The future took eight years to arrive -- eight years during which I left teaching for full-time freelancing, wrote and sold six novels, became a father, left Indiana and returned to Michigan, suffered through a divorce. By the end of 1987, I had completed work on Alternities, and my editor, Beth Fleisher, wanted to know what I was going to write for the book Berkley/Ace had tacked onto the Alternities contract.
Because it was the "novel to be named later," there was never an outline, or even a formal proposal, for The Quiet Pools. But I knew with some clarity what I wanted to write. At the heart of "The Quiet Pools" was this question: is it really inevitable, as so much SF assumes, that humanity will colonize the stars -- and, if it is, why? And the most interesting time to ask that question is when the deed becomes at least marginally possible, which I projected to be late in the next century.
In January, 1988, I promised Beth (in a letter) "the story of the struggle between those who are fighting to end the starship project and those who are struggling to complete it -- of a few men and women caught between a dimly understood destiny and a dimly apprehended horror -- and of the interface between the conscious and the unconscious, the free will of the mind and the determinism of the body."
And all of that turned out to be true. But it doesn't go far enough. Because it doesn't address the question "Who does it hurt?" -- the answer to which, in my opinion, is what turns an idea into a story, and breathes life into the moments you hope to share with your readers.
When I can clearly see the people who are caught in the pincers, when I've found a place where I can stand to be silent witness to the turns, travails and small triumphs of their lives, then -- and only then -- am I ready to start writing. Because a novel is not about its theme. It's about life as the writer sees it, and ordinary people as the writer understands them. The writer shouldn't sit down at the keyboard to confess, or to invent, but to give witness. And a novel ought not be an essay, or a tract, but a story. Not my story. Their story.
(Enough schizoid writers' workshop pontificating. For now.)
I already had the missing piece in hand, and it didn't take me too long to realize it. Months before, I had become aware that parents in general, and fathers in particular, had gotten short shrift in my novels. I took that as a clue that I might be ducking looking at something difficult, and promised myself that I would tackle a story about fathers and sons as soon as an appropriate idea presented itself.
One night, somewhere in my neural net, that promise ran head-on into the kernel of "The Quiet Pools," and the two fused into one. I suddenly knew who was hurting, and why. So I said good-bye to my friends, retreated to my basement office, and set to it.
For me, the actual writing process is one of a sort of dynamic synthesis. Even when I'm not working on a book, I write down bits of overheard conversations, record idle thoughts and observations, take photographs of intriguing faces, write "sense essays" about interesting places I visit, clip and file news items in thirty or so broad categories. When I begin writing, I cannibalize those resources, pulling them together and finding connections between them. They come together in and around the conflicts of the story in unexpected, often serendipitous ways.
It's this process of synthesis which helps put flesh on the naked skeleton. For instance, I happened to see extended-marriage advocate Stan Dale on the Sally Jessie Raphael show, later found that a friend had attended one of his workshops, and came away from listening to both with a new understanding of how the family had changed by the time of the novel. I went to the Pacific Northwest for Orycon and Norwescon, stayed to explore the woods and waterfalls, and came away knowing where Christopher McCutcheon had grown up, and how it still touched him. And so forth.
I suppose some zealous researcher could take this box I'm packing up and have a field day correlating it with the pages of the novel. ("Ah-hah! So this was the inspiration for page 106.") But doing so would probably miss the point.
When I begin work on a novel, I have to know where it ends -- the moment, the feeling, sometimes the exact words. The first decision I face is where to begin telling the story. Two points define a line, but a story is not a straight line. Past Chapter One, I'm embarked on a journey of discovery, learning as I write how the beginning and the ending are connected. It does not seem to me that I'm "making it up" -- rather, that I'm sorting out what must have happened, like working out one of those letter-substitution puzzles where you have to turn SPURT into CHOKE in five moves.
The Quiet Pools was a vastly more complex puzzle, since it contains five distinct but interrelated threads of conflict. It wrote almost painfully slowly, and took me six months more than I had thought it would to finish -- the first time I've seriously missed a deadline. And when I finally turned it in, in April, 1989, I was so emotionally drained that months passed before I was productive again.
But the result is a novel I'm greatly pleased with and proud of. The narrow sfnal theme broadened in the writing to become a question everyone confronts -- who are we, and why do we do what we do? At the same time, the abstract speculations drawn from Fisher and Crick faded to a supporting role behind an intimate portrait of two troubled families. In short, I wrote the book I wanted to write, told the story I wanted to tell.
Just don't expect me to be able to tell you in two sentences What It All Means. The question I dread most as a writer is, "So, your new book -- what's it about?" I hate it when editors ask. I hate it when other writers ask. I hate it when friends, family, and readers ask.
Because, ultimately, The Quiet Pools isn't about the plot, or the characters, or the setting, or the theme, or the deconstructed analysis of its literary entrails. It's about a place I found to stand, and something I saw from there, and the feelings and thoughts that experience evoked in me. The Quiet Pools, in its totality, is nothing more or less than my carefully worded invitation to come and stand where I stood, and experience it for yourself.
Hope to see you there.
Past Imaginings
SF in the Comic Books
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Copyright 1990 by Lawrence Watt-Evans
Science fiction has been in comics almost from the start. The first monthly comic sold on the newsstands (following a handful of giveaways, one-shots, and tabloids) was Famous Funnies, in 1934, and from the third issue on good ol' Buck Rogers was a regular feature for more than a hundred and eighty issues. These were just reprints of the newspaper strip, but what the heck, you've got to start somewhere.
For those of you who are unforgivably ignorant of SF history, Buck Rogers was a comic strip (and may still be going, for all I know) based on Philip Nowlan's novel Armageddon: 2419, which appeared in Amazing Stories in the late twenties; the Buck Rogers strip did more to create SF's image in the popular mind than just about anything else from 1930 up to 1960 or so, with its spaceships, rayguns, and so forth. The drawing was crude -- even by the standards of comic strips of the time, or the standards of comic strips now, for that matter -- and the writing wasn't anything terribly impressive, either. The original story involved Tony Rogers being put into suspended animation for five hundred years by a mysterious gas in a mining cave-in, then returning to life to help a small band of American rebels defeat the Asian hordes who had conquered the U.S. Once the yellow peril was disposed of, he went on to explore outer space and battle Martians, mad scientists, and the like -- every cliche the field has ever known, in short, many of them already cliches even fifty years ago.
Unimpressive as Buck's adventures were, they were immensely popular; in addition to the strip there was a radio show, and in fact there was a Buck Rogers comic book in 1933, even before Famous Funnies, that was given away by Kelloggs as a radio premium. Everybody knew Buck Rogers -- and therefore everybody thought they knew everything worth knowing about SF. It was full of ridiculous stuff like rayguns and spaceships, badly-written, with stereotyped characters and cliche situations -- and thanks to good ol' Buck most of us grew up hearing SF dismissed as "that Buck Rogers junk".
That image had finally faded by the seventies, though -- and then Star Wars came along, so that now SF is "that Star Wars stuff". The only real consolation in this is that Star Wars was a lot better than Buck Rogers.
At any rate, Buck appeared in, all told, one hundred and ninety- nine issues of Famous Funnies -- there was a break of a year or two between #190 and #208, but he was brought back as the cover feature for a few issues in the early fifties, when SF was a brief fad, ending with #218. A few of the late issues had covers by Frank Frazetta, before he made the jump from comics to book illustration; these can cost over $100 each on the back-issue market, where most of the run are about a tenth as much. Buck got his own title briefly, as well, and turned up in various giveaways, and established SF firmly in the comics.
Comic books evolved out of comic strips; the earliest were simply collections of strips reprinted in a convenient package, often, but not always, with color added.
SF as we know it, on the other hand, evolved in the pulp magazines; despite earlier works by Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and so forth, SF wasn't really a recognized genre, and had no real name, until Hugo Gernsback created Amazing Stories. There are still lingering traces of those pulp roots, including the widespread idea that SF isn't quite respectable.
As comics evolved in the thirties, they grew away from their strip ancestors, however, and began borrowing from the pulps, and even hybridizing with them. Comic strips, intended for consumption in tiny daily doses, just weren't as well suited to use in comic books as were the high-speed, all-in-this-issue pulp stories. The first comic book with a single theme was Detective Picture Stories, and it did everything it could to look like one of the zillions of detective pulps then on the stands (this was in 1936). Adventure Comics, originally following the compiled-strip format, got more and more like a pulp. And the process was accelerated when pulp publishers got into the field -- as many of them did. The comic book superheroes evolved out of the pulp heroes; comic detectives from pulp detectives. Comic book SF, however, took longer to develop. Buck Rogers had been around forever, but the sort of non- series SF that filled the pulps just didn't appeal to the comic publishers of the thirties and forties. I have no idea why they were so reluctant to try it, but they were. There seemed to be an unshakeable conviction that comic books needed continuing characters, and one-shot SF stories therefore weren't tried much.
Ah, but SF series! That was another matter. Fiction House was the great success story in that field. They were publishing a line of pulps such as Planet Stories, Fight Stories, Wings Stories, Jungle Stories, and so forth, and when their first attempt, Jumbo Comics, did well, rather than try to come up with new ideas they simply started putting out Planet Comics, Fight Comics, Wings Comics, Jungle Comics, and so on. Planet Comics ran seventy-three issues, from January 1940 to Winter, 1953, and was one of the more successful comics in the Fiction House line. It's now one of the most sought-after of all titles; even the worst issues in nice condition will run you $50 or more, and a perfect copy of #l can't be had for under $1,000.00. And like its namesake, Planet Stories, it mostly ran space opera and adventure, with little pretext of scientific accuracy or real innovation. Virtually all the stories were in continuing series with titles like "Auro, Lord of Jupiter" (which completely ignored the fact that Jupiter was known, even then, to have high gravity and no breathable atmosphere) or "Mysta of the Moon", and were really little more than superheroes with spaceships and rayguns. That was typical of comic book SF throughout the forties; besides Planet, there were heroes like Spacehawk, Flash Gordon, and Tommy Tomorrow cavorting through various titles, and nothing that we would recognize as decent science fiction -- until 1950, and I'll get to that in my next installment. There were comics that took their titles from SF pulps, such as Marvel Comics (which became Marvel Mystery Comics) from Marvel Science Fiction, and Startling Comics from Startling Stories, but these almost invariably were simply superhero comics that took nothing but the name (though Startling did eventually run a fair bit of space opera and several nifty covers). In short, SF in comics in the forties owed far more to Captain Future than to Astounding -- perhaps because Street & Smith, who published Astounding, never made it as a comic publisher, and never tried an SF comic.
Oh, yes, I should probably mention that the entire Fiction House line, including Planet, attracted a lot of adolescent male readers with the time-honored device of displaying lots of half-naked women on the covers and in the stories. Planet followed the hero/girl/BEM pattern on dozens of issues -- but also had some where the sexy girl was the hero, rescuing somebody else. Some comic collectors figure that what put Fiction House out of business was the introduction of censorship in the form of the Comics Code, which would surely have eliminated the blatant cheesecake covers -- actually, though, it was apparently distribution problems that did them in.
The closest thing comic books ever had to a John W. Campbell, Jr. was the team of Al Feldstein and William Gaines. Prior to their entering the field, SF in comics had been the worst sort of space opera and superhero stuff, despite the fact that several respectable SF writers, such as Edmond Hamilton, Alfred Bester, Manly Wade Wellman, and Gardner Fox wrote for comic books (mostly DC).
William Gaines wanted to be a teacher, but his father, Max C. Gaines, who had invented comic books in the first place, wanted him in the family business. The elder Gaines had packaged comic books for Dell and Eastern Color, then worked for DC and DC's subsidiary All- American, before finally winding up running his own company, Educational Comics. That name didn't sell, so he modified it, adding a second imprint, Entertaining Comics, that used the same symbol -- EC. Then Max Gaines got killed in a boating accident in 1947, and Bill Gaines found himself owner and publisher of EC with no idea what he was doing. He was publisher of such all-time obvious hits as Picture Stories from the Bible and Animal Fables, which did not interest him at all, and a few more ordinary titles, such as Moon Girl.
One of the first things he did was to hire a young man named Al Feldstein, who had mostly worked for Fox (another comic publisher) -- but Fox was going under. Feldstein was a triple-threat writer, artist, and editor, and was promptly assigned to the big fad of the day -- love comics.
Gaines and Feldstein got along well, though, and as EC sank deeper and deeper into the red they got more and more willing to experiment. After all, what harm could it do when the company was going bust anyway? So in March, 1950 they converted five of their titles to genres that interested them, rather than what was traditionally supposed to sell comics; three were horror, based on the radio shows like "Inner Sanctum" and "Lights Out", and were called Haunt of Fear, Vault of Horror, and Crypt of Terror; the other two were based on the science fiction pulps and carried the titles Weird Science and Weird Fantasy.
Despite the titles, Weird Science and Weird Fantasy tried very hard to do serious SF stories, and often succeeded. Instead of heroes with rayguns blasting innocent aliens into dust, the covers would depict Mars rising, as seen from Phobos by Terran explorers (WF #13), or a dog terrified by weightlessness aboard a spaceship (WS #12), all done as accurately as possible. The stories inside had no mad scientists threatening the Interplanetary Police, but instead tales of very sane scientists trying to cope with alien races or strange discoveries. There were rather a lot of man-eating aliens and killer mutants in there, true, but after all, these were comic books aimed at kids from eight to fourteen -- and that's probably why both titles were financial disasters. Kids that age seem to prefer mighty-thewed heroes blasting Martians to dust. After twenty-two issues each, Weird Science and Weird Fantasy were merged into Weird Science-Fantasy, which lasted another seven issues, then became Incredible Science Fiction, which died after four issues -- not because of poor sales (though they were very poor), but because Gaines got into an argument with the newly-established Comics Code Authority about an anti-racist story he wanted to reprint in ISF #33, and pulled out of comic books entirely, switching EC to magazines, of which only one still survives -- Mad.
While they lasted, though, the EC SF mags provided readers with some truly nifty stories, including adaptations of several stories by Ray Bradbury, and some of the finest artwork to ever appear in comic books, so fine that it's hard to believe that it was just for comic books.
And EC's example, together with one of the periodic resurgences of interest in SF in other media, resulted in scads of SF comics, to be looked at in future installments.
------ End ------
Issue 27, Spring 1990 (part 3)
Electronic OtherRealms #27
Spring, 1990
Part 3 of 11
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
From Beyond the Edge
Reviews by Our Readers
Being Alien [***-] Rebecca Ore
This is the sequel to last year's Becoming Alien, one of the better first novels I've read. Being Alien continues the story of Tom, a Virginia redneck (hey, that's how he describes himself) who becomes a cadet in a multi-species space federation. The good news is, if you liked the first book you'll probably like this one, too. The bad news is, you may not like it quite as much. The strength of this book, like its predecessor, is Ore's portrayal of a loose-knit confederation of alien races that feels like it might really work. And Being Alien has one of the same weaknesses as Becoming Alien: poor characterization of the human characters. This is a more severe problem in Being Alien, since half of the book is set on Earth and there are more human characters. Also, this book somehow didn't have the same excitement as the first one; maybe the novelty of the setting has worn off, or maybe the intrigue in this book (lots of aliens spying on the Earth and other planets) was overdone. Overall, Being Alien felt like the stereotypical middle book of a trilogy, where the action sort of coasts rather than building up to anything. Nothing particularly wrong with that (particularly if the next book does complete a trilogy), but I was hoping for something more.
-- Chuck Koelbel
Bio Of An Ogre
Piers Anthony
Ace, 1988, $4.50, 314pp, 0-441-06225-3
This is basically a book-long version of Piers Anthony's normal "Author Notes". Like his Notes, I found the book enjoyable and interesting; I did, however, have 3 main complaints. The first is that the book is very negative. Mr. Anthony seems to have few happy stories to tell about his life. Secondly, I think the book could stand better without the Appendixes, they didn't seem to fit or make sense to me. Maybe if they are read when they are mentioned in the text rather than at the end they would fit better. (Also his bibliography stops at book 50 making it very incomplete.) Finally, he tells his side of many conficts in his life. I would have loved to have seen him take the extra step to let the other person write a page or two giving their side. I always feel an injustice is being done when only one side of a story is given. All-in-all, if you like his "Author's Notes" you should like his autobiography. If you don't like his notes, well you really don't need to know anything about an author's life to enjoy his/her writing, so skip his facts and stick
-- Jim Winner
The Blind Geometer
The New Atlantis [***-]/[****]
Kim Stanley Robinson/Ursula K. LeGuin
This book is a Tor Double, which explains the two titles, authors, and ratings. For those of you not familiar with Tor Doubles, they are basically two independent short (about 100 pages each) novels glued back-to-back. The two sides are upside down with respect to each other so that the spine is on the correct side for both "books". Tor has been using this format for some time now to publish fiction that is too short to be an independent book and too long to fit comfortably in a collection. Overall, I rate the series pretty high. My only real complaint is that most of the Doubles are reprints rather than new work. The fact that some material is old isn't a problem per se; it's just that I keep finding Tor Doubles with one story that I've read and one that I haven't.
Each of the Tor Doubles seems to have a theme linking the two stories.
This Tor Double has two novellas plus a "bonus" story by Robinson. The main stories are linked by the theme of "scientific discovery," but the short story is unconnected to the other two. "The Blind Geometer" is the story of a blind mathematician who finds himself trapped in a web of intrigue. My general opinion of Robinson (based on an admittedly small sample) is that he writes excellent characters, average plots, and muffs the science in his stories. This story didn't change my mind. The title character is well drawn, the intrigue is gripping (if a bit standard), and the mathematician gives an incorrect proof of an elementary theorem. Normally, one missed detail doesn't ruin my appreciation of a story, but in this case the proof was central to the characterization and plot. Robinson's short story, "The Return from Rainbow Bridge," on the other hand, was a big improvement. It is a wilderness survival short story with relatively little SF content. The characters were believable and the plot was well-designed. In this case, there weren't any major flubs on details; everything rang true. The rating of [***-] is sort of an average between the ratings for the two Robinson stories. "The New Atlantis" is a story of scientific discovery in a functionally illiterate society. The background seems to be that Madison Avenue has taken over government completely, running everything by ads rather than any sort of reason. (For example, the US Geological Service's response to a series of major earthquakes is billboards saying "It's not our fault!") As a satire of the marketing mentality, it's great. As a story of scientific discovery, it is not quite as good, but still better than average. To summarize, two out of three stories were good, but they were the shortest two. ("The New Atlantis" and "The Return from Rainbow Bridge" together take up barely half the book.)
-- Chuck Koelbel
The Boat of a Million Years
Poul Anderson
Tor Books, 1989, 0-312-93199-9, 470 pp., $19.95
A gentleman of the old school, Anderson has always delivered stories both thoughtful and entertaining. While he and wife Karen have done broad fantasy works in recent years, Boat returns his focus to science fiction with an epic novel that merits attention beyond the SF community.
In wide brushstrokes and minute detail, over almost four millennia of past and future history, the novel examines a small number of truly immortal human beings. Blessed and cursed with disease-free, rapidly-healing lives which they little understand, ever condemned to watch all they know and love wither and fade, these mutant sports wander rootlessly through civilizations and centuries.
We first meet Hanno, a simple Phoenician sailor, in 310 B.C., as he joins a voyage of discovery into the Atlantic. Next, Tu Shan, a Chinese peasant made wise by his extended years, escapes his Emperor's confinement during the 1st Century A.D. After long searching, Hanno finally finds an immortal partner in Rufus, who he rescues from a howling mob in 4th Century Gaul. A century later, Aliyat of Syria is introduced, as she watches the power of the Prophet convert her culture from Christianity to Islam. Names and lifestyles change, as these survivors adapt to their nature.
In 11th Century Russia, Svoboda escapes rape thanks to Hanno and Rufus, but when she shares Hanno's bed, she misses discovery of their common secret by over 900 years. Later, when Hanno, desperate for an immortal mate, does reveal his age to the whore in Constantinople who he knows to be over 400, Aliyat betrays him. Meanwhile, Yukiko flees her lost status as royal concubine in Kyoto, and after years as a Buddhist nun, she joins Tu Shan in Nepal, where the two discover sadly that their children lack their immortality.
By the end of the 20th Century, only eight Survivors remain, including Wanderer, a Plains Indian, Corinne Macandal, a former American slave, and Patulcius, the ultimate civil servant who prefers to remain in Turkey, apart from the others. But the computer vastened (to use Fred Pohl's term for solid-state personalities), fully nanotech Network future, with its practical immortality for all and its conquered Solar System, offers little for the remaining eight. They realize that only the hint of distant aliens, the challenge of starship travel, offer meaning to their long lives.
Those who may grumble at the pace, at the episodic pattern of this work, are amply rewarded by the last 50 pages. Enough world building creativity may be found as this tale ends to fill a dozen lesser SF novels. Here, too, we find one possibility raised by Vernor Vinge's "human singularity," and the true warning of Jack Williamson's classic, "With Folded Hands." You must not miss this book.
-- Dean R. Lambe
The City, Not Long After [****-] Pat Murphy
For once, a post-holocaust novel that doesn't involve macho men rebuilding civilization from the ashes while fighting off the mean, nasty communists/mutants/whatever. The book is set in San Francisco sixteen years after a world-wide plague. Society has more or less stabilized, at least in a few places. In San Francisco, that stability comes from the artists taking over the downtown; other places have other groups. Life is not terrible, but "idyllic" isn't exactly the word I'd use, either. Then a self-proclaimed general decides to reunite the United States, by force if necessary. Naturally, the artists decide to oppose him using non-violent means, and the battle is joined. The best parts of the book are the descriptions of a post-plague world, and particularly San Francisco. While this may not be how things would really happen, the setting felt right. Strong characterization all around is also a highlight. Another interesting sidelight is the argument among the artists over whether non-violence will win. Weak points include the resolution of the conflict (no spoilers, but it's pretty obvious who's going to win). I was also a bit put off by the offhand mysticism that cropped up occasionally. Most of it was explainable, but one important case was pure deus ex machina. Overall, the book is a nice counterpoint to the usual "We have to reunite the country after this catastrophe" story. Recommended, and highly recommended if you live in or have visited San Francisco recently.
-- Chuck Koelbel
The Color of Neanderthal Eyes/And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees [***-] / [****] James Tiptree, Jr./Michael Bishop
If there is a deep relationship between these stories, I can't find it. The only connection I can see is lasers used as weapons, and that's a pretty minor part of both stories. "The Color of Neanderthal Eyes" is Tiptree's last novella, completed shortly before her death. I wish I could say this was one of her best stories, but I can't. The plot revolves around a spaceman taking a vacation on an unexplored planet who becomes romantically involved with one of the inhabitants. This leads him into defending her race in a genocidal war. Just in case it isn't clear yet, this story is a tragedy. Unfortunately, the prose does not have Tiptree's usual evocative beauty, and the plot is fairly pedestrian. In short, an average story when I was hoping for much better. The cover describes "And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees" as a "classic novel," but somehow I'd never heard of it before. Nevertheless, it is an excellent story. The plot involves a multitalented genius in an essentially lifeless society. Although he only wants to produce plays (in order to breathe some life into the people), he is forced to become a general to repel an invasion. Themes of duty and the relation of genius to society run through the novel. The strange atmosphere of the setting is another highlight. Recommendation: buy the book for the Bishop story.
-- Chuck Koelbel
The Cuckoo's Egg [****+] Clifford Stoll
Definitely not fiction, and little science (as opposed to technology), but this book should appeal to many SF readers. It is the story of how Cliff Stoll, in the course of tracking down a $.70 accounting discrepancy on his computer, caught an international espionage ring. The spies were a group of hackers using Stoll's computer (and others) to break into a network of government computers. Pretty much everything is here, from details of the computer break-ins to the effects on Stoll's personal life. The technical explanations are accurate and understandable to people who don't program for a living. The best part of the book, however, is the author's breezy style as he describes the chase. The reader really gets a feel for what it's like to suddenly find oneself in over one's head in an investigation. The sidelights on trust, security, and computer networks are a nice bonus. All in all, a great book for anyone interested in computer networks, or for anyone who just likes an exciting cops-and-robbers yarn.
-- Chuck Koelbel
The Divide Robert Charles Wilson Foundation; 0-385-26655-3; 249 pages; Jan. 1990; $9.95
This latest effort by Wilson, author of A Hidden Place and Gypsies, concerns genetically enhanced humans; in effect, a variation of the Jekyll & Hyde syndrome.
At a young age John Shaw was given a series of injections to promote cortical growth with the hope of producing a genius. Becoming bored with the mundane aspects of life, an older Shaw invents his alter-ego Benjamin, who does all the routine chores that Shaw can't fulfil including taking a lover, Amelie. The subsequent involvement between Shaw and Amelie's brother, Roch provides the strongest ingredient in The Divide as it shows that Roch is both animalistic and crazy in comparison with superintelligent John Shaw.
The plot is very plausible and well researched. The final confrontation between Shaw and Roch is superb but somewhat contrived, too sudden. The characterizations also spoiled this otherwise entertaining novel. Except for Roch, they were lifeless, just hanging around waving vaguely at you. I will however eagerly await Wilson's next book, since he does have the ability to produce marvelously innovative stories.
-- Richard Weilgosh
Empire's Horizon [**] John Brizzolara DAW, 1989, 320pp, $3.95, 0-88677-365-2
Darkath is the most distant planet of the far-flung empire. The rivalry of its native clans, the Dhirn and the Khaj, has been exploited by the corrupt Terran military governor and the ambitious Church. However, an unlikely alliance of Dhirn and Khaj factions is a growing threat to the Terrans; mysterious aliens from Andromeda may have landed on the moon; and offworld reporter Martin Cain, looking for a story, stumbles into the midst of the confusion.
This book gets off to a rocky start: imagine Zorro and the grandchildren of Dune meet Star Wars, as imagined by Leigh Brackett in an especially fervid mood. The imagery is day-glo; local color is laid on with a trowel; purple similes abound; the author coins the curious adjective "violescent". It's all so ludicrously garish as to be amusing, though probably not by intent. Eventually the book settles down to merely vivid pulp space opera, at which modest goal it succeeds modestly. Doctor Zarkov, where are you when we need you? (I hate to keep harping on this but: another publisher in desperate need of a competent proofreader.)
-- David M Shea
The Eye of the World [***]
by Robert Jordan
Tor, $12.95 670 pg.
Despite its length, this is only the first book of a series. However the book is a properly done novel. The story started in this book is finished in the book. The ending sets the stage for the next book.
In an age long past the Dragon defeated and imprisoned the Dark One. However the Dark One is also the Great Deceiver. He managed from his prison to make the Dragon kill his family. In his anguish the Dragon caused the Breaking of the World. Just as the Dark One was not completely imprisoned, the Dragon did not truly die. The Dark One is forced to wait for the Dragon's reincarnation to complete his triumph.
As the story begins the Breaking of the World is still remembered but much of the details have been lost in the mists of time. This is partly the work of the Dark One. The Dragon is now remembered as the one who broke the world instead of as the vanquisher of the Dark One. Many people believe the Aes Sedai, the Dragon's old order, broke the world.
An Aes Sedai, Lady Moiraine, has discovered an unusual interest by the Dark One in three farm boys (Mat, Rand and Perrin.) She does not know why the Dark One is interested in three ordinary and insignificant farm boys. However if the Dark One is interested in them, so is she and if he wants them, she must take them to safety. This is the story in the book. By the end, the reason for the Dark One's interest is revealed and the revelation is the basis for the sequel. There is also a climatic battle where the power of the Dark One is curtailed again for a while.
In the typical high fantasy, the characters all know who is good and who is evil and what must be done to combat The Evil One. In this book, it is not always clear who is evil and who is good. It is also not clear whether an action is the correct one to take. Even when someone is seemly good, their actions are affected by personal and political ambitions and even religious disputes. Also not all actions bring about the intended result. This complexity and uncertainty makes this high fantasy unique.
The characterization is not up to the same level. The characters are mostly the expected stereotypes. However a few characters, such as Mat, are unique in the sense that they are not usually found in a high fantasy nor are they as well developed. I suspect Mat will turn into a foe in the future books and die tragically. He has that sense of foredoom about him.
The final battle is not as well done as it could be. Jordan did an excellent job of showing this character's development into a mature young man from an naive farm boy but not his development into a major magic user. That ability came too suddenly and conveniently to be quite believable despite knowing who the boy really is.
This series will undoubtedly be compared to The Lord of the Rings. There are many similarities but no more than The Lord of the Rings had to the traditional European myths that inspire it. -- Danny Low
The Great and Secret Show Clive Barker Harper&Row; 0-06-016276-7; 550pp; Jan. 1990; $19.95
This acclaimed British author has done much to raise the level of horror writing above the slasher level and in his new novel, The Great and Secret Show, he even limits the amount of violence found in his previous works.
The story is essentially the getting of one particular power -- 'The Art' -- and with it one will be able to step into peoples' dreams; for dreams are explanations of what it means to be born and to live and to die - a dream explains what 'being' is for.
The usual Barker elements are found in this new novel: vivid characters, a complex and twisting plot and the aura of the supernatural at work. This is slower paced than some of his short stories - much in the vein of Weaveworld. The diverse and needless sexual scenes add nothing to the story; I feel they detract from an otherwise noble effort.
As Barker said in a recent interview in the Toronto Star: "I don't even think I'm writing horror fiction anymore. It's what you could call fabulist fiction -- fiction of the imagination. I say 'fabulist', because it isn't exactly fantasy, which conjures up images of The Lord of the Rings."
-- Richard Weilgosh
Houston, Houston, Do You Read?/Souls [***+]/[****] James Tiptree, Jr. / Joanna Russ
A Tor Double featuring two old novels, one of which I'd read before. The theme linking the two stories is hard to find, although "feminist SF" seems like a good first approximation. "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" is Tiptree's Hugo and Nebula award-winning novella of three astronauts sent 300 years into the future. Of course, the future isn't quite what they were expecting, nor is it quite what it appears. The story, like most of Tiptree's work, is well-written and thought provoking. I wasn't convinced that the future society was workable, or that it would develop from the given background, though. I think there are some glitches in the biology and sociology it implies, but I can't say more without spoiling the story. "Souls" is the story of an abbess in dark ages Europe who tries to save her convent from a Viking raid. It rapidly becomes apparent that this is no ordinary woman, however. Most of the story has a fantasy feel to it, but there is a science fiction twist at the end. I'll admit that the ending caught me off guard; I was expecting a different, more didactic statement. Russ's ending was definitely better than my idea, though. A better-than-average collection of two stories.
-- Chuck Koelbel
The Lantern Of God [**+] John Dalmas Baen, 1989, $3.95, 403 pp
Stranded in an unknown part of space, a ship dumps its cargo of androids in one place on a planet; the crew sets up their own colony thousands of miles away. A millennium later, their descendants return to the androids' continent, ostensibly to re-establish trade, but actually as a prelude to invasion. Hoo boy, are they in for a surprise.
This author, whom I had not read before, was recommended by an acquaintance. Had this been a first novel, I would probably have liked it well enough. Since it is evidently Mr Dalmas's seventh novel, I can only say I was not that impressed. The book is okay and routine and does nothing that hasn't been done before many times. There's no one thing I can point to and call "wrong"; but this just never came alive for me.
-- David Shea
The Last Ship [**-] William Brinkley Viking, 1988, $19.95, 616 pp
The nuclear war has come and gone. As far as they can tell, the crew of the missile-frigate USS Nathan Jones (250 men, 26 women) are the sole survivors. America is presumably a write-off, so they do a Swiss Family Robinson act on a South Sea island. Predictably, the imbalance of genders creates some problems ...
I looked up this book since it is the reputed next project of filmmaker Steven Sonderbergh, the man behind the blistering sex, lies, and videotape (lower case sic). Oddly, I can see this as a film -- if someone with visual imagination and a sense of character can rescue the story from under Mr Brinkley's turgid prose. I started snickering when the author described the "fructuousness" of the breeze on page 14. Somehow I have the feeling a reader isn't supposed to be giggling through an "after the holocaust" book.
Something might have saved this novel: any sort of conceptual originality; some plausible and empathic characters (that the viewpoint character is a raving chauvinist piggie is not a plus in my view); any style other than bombastic purple. Since the novel has none of these, I recommend you wait for the movie. Good luck, Mr Sonderbergh: you're going to need it.
-- David M Shea
------ End ------
Issue 27, Spring 1990 (part 4)
Electronic OtherRealms #27
Spring, 1990
Part 4 of 11
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
Mark of the Werewolf Jeffrey Sackett Bantam Horror; 0-553-28450-9; 323 pages; Feb. 1990; $3.95
This latest novel from Sackett is a highly innovative variation of the werewolf theme, almost like 'The Werewolf Meets Dr. Mengele'. A white supremacist group, The White Homeland Party, headed by Frederick Bracher is devoted to eliminating all non-white trash that does not conform to the Aryan standards of purity.
After his 'storm-troopers' are murdered by a werewolf, Bracher comes up with a brilliant idea, to try and reproduce the invincibility of the werewolf. Laying a trap, Bracher kidnaps Janos Kaldy, a werewolf who for the past 3000 years has been trying to find peace in death. Bracher hopes to isolate the virus or enzyme that causes lycanthropy and thus create his 'lycanvolk'. He then will turn these manufactured werewolves into a conquering army that he can use as a weapon in the race war.
Sackett's use of flashbacks to explain Kaldy's 3000 year old search for death is exceptionally well done. During this time-travel we meet such notable personna as: Nostradamus, Merlin the Magician, Jesus Christ and the Wallachian Prince. The ending is simply superb.
Mark of the Werewolf is filled with plenty of action and adventure. It is well-written thriller with characters that are rich, varied and totally believable. Sackett's greatest skill here is his ability to create a sense of empathy for Kolady's helplessness and sensitivity for what he's about to 'father'. I strongly recommend Mark of the Werewolf as I do his previous novel Blood of the Impaler. His new novel about goblins will be out this summer from Bantam -- look for it.
-- Richard Weilgosh
A Mask for the General [***]
Lisa Goldstein
Bantam, 1987, $3.95, 224pp
2021: A delapidated, computerless America is ruled under martial law by "the General". In Berkeley, one source of passive resistance to the dictatorial regime is the "tribes", young people who wear animal masks and defy curfew to meet and dance. Layla, a prestigious maskmaker, believes her totem, the heron, guides her through dreams; she plans to make a mask for the General to help him rediscover his "soul". Mary, a young runaway, wishes only to survive; but the price of that may be higher than she plans.
This book's basically mystical theme is at odds with a prosaic, reportorial style. It reminds me most of LeGuin's The Eye of The Heron -- presumably a compliment, though I don't see Eye as LeGuin's best work. In both novels there is a superficially Sixties look, but the dispassionate feel of the Eighties. Perhaps this is where the literary perspective of the 1960's is going: a minimalist portrait of a maximal age.
-- David Shea
The Mathematical Tourist: Snapshots of Modern Mathematics [***-] Ivars Peterson
As the title implies, this is a fast tour through some of the more interesting research in mathematics today. The individual topics are covered from a basic, general viewpoint (this is, after all, intended for nonmathematicians) and are very up-to-date (an entry in one table was made in 1988, the same year the book was published). Some of the topics covered are prime factorization of large numbers, four-dimensional (and higher-dimensional) geometry, topological manifolds, Penrose tilings, and fractals. For all of these, the author also includes some explanation of why the problems are interesting, at least to mathematicians. The explanations are surprisingly non-technical; I don't think anything beyond high-school geometry is needed to understand most of the book. While that will probably get the book a wider audience, I thought that assuming a little more background (say, trigonometry or experience with personal computers) might have made some sections much more interesting. There is a bibliography for readers who want to go deeper into some topic, but it only seems to point to other popularizations. If you get seriously interested in fractals, you'll have to look them up on your own. The only reason I didn't rate this book higher was that I had seen all of the material already, either in class or in science magazines; I guess I wanted something I hadn't seen before.
-- Chuck Koelbel
Mona Lisa Overdrive [*****] William Gibson, Bantam
The sequel to Neuromancer and Count Zero is finally out in paperback. Quick review: It's great! The series started with an excellent book in Neuromancer and got better with each volume. Mona Lisa Overdrive ties up all the loose ends from the first two books (some ends are tied tighter than others, but they're all there) and ends Gibson's exploration of cyberspace and the sprawl. The plot involves four parallel threads revolving around the daughter of a Yakuza, an artist, a stim star (Angie Mitchell, from Count Zero), and a prostitute (Mona Lisa). Molly and the Finn (two of Gibson's favorite characters from Neuromancer and other stories) also appear, along with many other characters from the first two books. The plot is complex enough that it can't be summarized here; suffice it to say that there is a lot of action before the four threads finally wind together at the end of the book. Highly recommended, along with Neuromancer and Count Zero.
-- Chuck Koelbel
Only Begotten Daughter
James Morrow
William Morrow, 1990, 321 pages, $19.95 cloth)
The startling jacket copy for Only Begotten Daughter promises "a novel that has something to offend everyone!" -- a boast one wouldn't ordinarily expect to see outside of the horror racks.
But considering the startling story between the covers of James Morrow's new book, that notice can only be considered fair warning. Only Begotten Daughter is not a horror novel, but it is often a novel of horrors -- a discomfiting, chaotic, brutally cynical, rub-your-nose-in-the-dirt story of the Messiah's Second Coming. But this isn't quite the Second Coming the revelationists have been expecting: the Messiah's name is Julie Katz, and she doesn't know why she's here, or what to do with her divine power.
It's probably an insurmountable challenge for a reviewer to try to capture in a few hundred words the captivating delirium of this careening runaway carousel of a book. Only Begotten Daughter is full of jarring, radical images -- the devil smoking Pall Malls and plotting his moves on a portable computer, a bizarre Last Supper of pizza, public executions with hedge clippers, Jesus in Hell and wholly ignorant of his impact on history. In some respects, Morrow seems to have written a manic Satanic Verses for the Judeo-Christian world.
Yet, at the same time, Morrow's novel is suffused with a peculiar innocence, an earnest inquiry into the nature of godhood, and an enduring if battered optimism about the importance of love. These three elements of the tale are embodied most clearly in Morrow's endearing, bewildered heroine, who faces not only the ordinary trials of human existance, but temptation from Satan, persecution as the Antichrist, and a poignant, frustrating search for her Mother's sign and guidance.
Juxtaposing lyrical interludes which could be outtakes from Disney's Little Mermaid with hellish spectacles worthy of de Sade, Only Begotten Daughter defies ready categorization -- neither fantasy nor black comedy, parable nor prophecy. But it is clearly no mere exercise in idol-toppling and totem-skewering. If the narrative makes us flinch, it's only because it is itself so unflinching in its dissection of human foibles and cruelty.
Ultimately, Morrow has given us a frank and fascinating novel which provokes, rather than offends -- a remarkable work of fiction with the power to disturb our complacency, and challenge us to consider anew the thorny questions of life and faith. -- Michael P. Kube-McDowell
The Paladin [****} C. J. Cherryh Baen, $3.95, 383pp, 0-671-65417-9
This is fiction at its best. Cherryh, best know for characterization, raises the art to new heights. While The Paladin is labeled a fantasy, there's no magic, no mythical beasts, no cute elves or dwarves. What there is, is actually a quite simple story of a youth and a teacher -- but told with all the art and skill of a master story teller.
The story is oriental in flavor and revolves around Shoka, former swordmaster to the old emperor. Vowing to fight no more, Shoka takes exile on a mountain top far from the political upheaval surrounding the installment of the old emperor's son. One day a youth seeks Shoka out and demands justice. From here the story grows as Shoka is forced to deal with issues he thought long forgotten. Their relationship is real -- it grows, it flounders, it is fraught with hidden meanings and hidden emotion.
Page after page, Cherryh will amaze you with the way she sets scenes, revealing inner depths to characters that are deep to begin with. It's a story of secrets and revelations, of growth and needs, of revenge, justice and dealing with the hand life deals.
The ending is powerful and somewhat surprising. A fitting conclusion to a powerful work.
-- Steven Sawicki
Pavane [*****]
Keith Roberts
Ace, 1966, 285pp, 441-65430-095
Welcome to England in the Twentieth Century. Cargo is hauled by great coal-burning road locomotives, because the Pope has banned internal combustion. Messages are relayed by chains of giant semaphore stations, since Mother Church forbids electricity. To tame defiant England, the Inquisition is coming, with damnation for"heretics" and indescribable brutality even for the faithful; blocking its path are only a mad monk and a defiant young countess. And here and there, the last remnant of the People of the Hills engrave their mysterious symbol ...
Out of print for too long, Roberts' haunting novel transcends easy categorization. To tag it with a facile label such as "alternate history" would be to define Niagara Falls as a movement of water. Compellingly human at every level, Pavane has a malevolent beauty comparable only to the first volume of Gormenghast. As C S Lewis wrote of Lord of the Rings: "Here is a book that will break your heart." One caution: this intense book is not for the timid reader.
-- David Shea
Pool of Radiance [*] James M. Ward and Jane Cooper Hong TSR Inc. $3.95 316 pg.
This novel has an interesting background. It is based on an AD&D game module that was made into a very popular computer role playing game by SSI. This novel appears to be effort to capitalize on the popularity of the computer game (note the ad in the back of the book.) The game was a long, rich and detailed adventure. This book is an abbreviated digest of some of the highlights of the game. It does not even maintain the premise of the game very well.
Having demolished the novel as a very poor imitation of the game, how does the story stand as a novel? The answer is still very poorly. There are two villains in the story, Lord Cadorna and Tyranthraxus. Cadorna is so transparently a villain that he is not creditable. You know he will not succeed in any of his schemes to kill the main characters and will be killed himself. Tyranthraxus, who is supposed to be the main villain, is a minor character. This is fatal as the climax of the book is the battle with him. The computer game, a medium not noted for good characterization, does a better job of developing the character of Tyranthraxus.
The game is a series of missions that are tied to together by a theme, the reconquest of Phlan from Tyranthraxus. The theme provides rationales for the missions and ties many of them together in a coherent story. There is strong potential for an epic novel in the game. Unfortunately this novel does not exploit that potential. The story emphasis is shifted to the personal problems of the three main characters (Shal, Ren and Tarl.) The reconquest of Phlan is something they do as a side effect of solving their personal problems. The result is a sense that something is missing from the story. This is not a book worth reading even for the hard core AD&D fan. -- Danny Low
Sailing to Byzantium/Seven American Nights [****]/[*****] Robert Silverberg / Gene Wolfe
In this Tor Double, the theme is "fantastic travels". Silverberg's protagonist is a twentieth-century man traveling in a far-future world where anything is possible for the inhabitants. Wolfe's hero is an Arab in a post-holocaust Washington, DC. I liked both stories, despite their very different treatments. Wolfe's story gets a higher rating for a more "real" atmosphere and slightly better characters. Highly recommended for both stories.
-- Chuck Koelbel
Sassinak [****] Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Moon Baen Books $4.95 333 pg.
This is a competently done book but suffers from several serious problems. The first is continuity. There are three distinct stories in this book. There is the origins story, an early career episode and the beginning of the main story. Any of these stories is worthy of a full novel. Cramming all three into one book makes each story sketchy and makes this book a collection of incomplete novelettes rather than a novel. The main story does not end in this book but stops rather abruptly.
The biggest problem is the origins story is rather tame. The horrors are glossed over and Sassinak really does not suffer as much as she could have. The result is her passionate hatred of piracy is not as believable as it could be. This hatred is also not emphasized enough in the rest of the book. The book is the first in a series and is clearly intended to be a female Horatio Hornblower in space epic. Just as Hornblower had Napoleon, Sassinak has her pirate conspiracy. The book reads like a rather sanitized juvenile despite the sex. This is not a bad book but it is no more than average in quality. -- Danny Low
Silent Moon
William Relling Jr.
TOR; 0-812-50708-8; 309 pages; March 1990; $4.95
This new novel by William Relling is a sequel to New Moon and essentially is a mystery story mixed with political treachery and dark fantasy. Not having read New Moon, I thought it wise to start there to gain history in case the stories overlapped.
Over a six month period there has been a 40% increase in the number of missing persons in San Francisco. Television reporter Gillian Woodbury and her boyfriend, reporter Bud Friendly accidently discover that his investigation of political murder and her missing persons study have more in common than they both realized. Apparently these bodies are being taken by a mysterious cult that worships the Dark Gods and in return for these 'offerings' the cultists are promised immortality. The only carry-over from the first story is ex-police Sgt. Len Malecke, who has resigned from the police force and made it his goal to defeat the Dark Gods.
I've been a fan of Relling's short stories for a couple of years now and I thoroughly enjoy the first novel in this series.
Silent Moon was an entertaining, fast paced novel but I found it lacking in a couple of areas. First the characters were rather shallow; they didn't make me care what happened to them. The second point is that Relling explains too much, he doesn't let the reader think for himself. This probably will be corrected as he becomes more proficient with his writing. Relling did however make me squirm in my chair with his vivid depictions of the brutal murders. I like this mans' writing and will be out there awaiting his next book.
-- Richard Weilgosh
Tales from the Planet Earth Arthur C. Clarke Bantam Spectra; 0- 553-34883-3; 320 pages; June 1990; $9.95
Ever since I started reading SF way back in the mid 50's, there have been only four writers for whom I would read everything that they wrote. Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein and this gentleman, Arthur C. Clarke. It's always a joy to read and reread his work knowing that I'd be treated to mellifluous prose, fascinating and realistic glimpses into the future and superb characterizations. Clarke's latest collection Tales from the Planet Earth is no exception. It contains fourteen reprints two of which are collected here for the first time: The Next Tennants and On Golden Sea. Also included is the classic novella: The Lion of Comarre and the equally entertaining The Road to the Sea.
Prefacing each story are introductions by Clarke detailing the history of each tale thus adding a nice touch to this collection. This book is also lavishly illustrated by the Hugo winning artist Michael Whelan.
Clarkes' stories are always highly entertaining and totally convincing, mixed with crisp. wry dialogue. This is one collection that will not disappoint his legions of fans.
-- Richard Weilgosh
The World of Crystal Walls: The Sea Hag [*] David Drake Baen Fantasy, 0-671-65424-1, 334pp, August 1988, $3.95
Drake, best known for his militaristic fiction, ventures here into a fantasy world complete with dragons, knights, robot companions, damsels in need of saving, corrupt and inept rulers and insane magician's apprentices. Yet, where Drake's style succeeds in such books as his Hammer's Slammers Series and his Roman based novels, here it fails. Perhaps it's his selection of the young boy as protagonist, perhaps it's the short, choppy chapters (one of which is only two sentences long), perhaps it's the inclusion of the all-knowing companion. Perhaps it's all of the above.
Blurbed as a "great new series to rival Xanth," this book is little more than a fleshed-in outline. We follow Dennis, heir prince to Emath on his journeys across the land. Well, not exactly journeys since he really only goes to one other place. Encounters sometimes seem contrived and pointless, thrown in during a rewrite of what probably should have been a novella.
It's not Drake at his best, and yet I did find myself drawn in enough to finish the book. It's light entertainment and Drake can do better. Unless you're a Drake fanatic or extremely desperate, pass on this one.
-- Steven Sawicki
Wrath of Ashar [****]
Angus Wells
Bantam Books $4.50 404 pg.
This book looks like yet another high fantasy about a prophecy of a child who will save the world from Evil. However the quality of the writing raises this book above the crowd. This is a book that even some one who normally does not like this type of story might enjoy.
The one element that makes this book so superior is characterization. In a story of this type, there are certain characters whose sole purpose is to be killed early and horribly to show the reader the depth and breathe of the villain's evilness. Most authors would spend no effort on the characterization of these red shirts (as they are known in Star Trek circles.) Wells spends several paragraphs on his unfortunate character so that when he dies, the reader feels a sense of loss. The only flaw in Wells' characterization is that the best developed characters are the minor ones. The main villain, Taws, is totally undeveloped. The hero, Kedryn, is a rather bland character. The best developed character is Borsus who is clearly fated to die and does by the end of the book. Indeed, all the better developed characters are the ones who die in this book.
Another element that makes this book superior is the subtle plotting. Kedryn does not develop superhuman powers nor does it look like he ever will. His role is one that could be accomplished by any normal human being who is in the right place at the right time. Everything that Kedryn does to thwart Taws is logical and the situations are well supported by background material scattered throughout the book. Kedryn's duel with Niloc and the consequences follow naturally from the culture that Wells has presented. The circumstances leading to the duel are logical. The coincidence needed for the two to meet is improbable without the intervention of the gods; but then that is the purpose of Kedryn being the Chosen One. The gods are intervening to place him in the right place at the right time. Kedryn's reaction to the knowledge he is the chosen one is realistic. As a noble raised in noblesse oblige, his reaction is exactly what one would expect. He only wonders "Why me?" very briefly and accepts the obligation as one that someone of his position should take.
The story does have its share of incongruities. One character is clearly a samurai in basically a European culture. Wells had to spent some words explaining that away since there is nothing in Tepshen Lahl's character that requires he be a samurai. The flaws are minor compare to the strengths. This book is highly recommended. -- Danny Low
The Wyvern's Spur [****] Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb TSR Inc. $4.95 313 pg.
This is one of those rare sequels that are better than their prequels. This book is the sequel to Azure Bonds. However it is not necessary to have read Azure Bonds to read this book. The events in that book only set the background for Wyvern's Spur. Necessary background information is presented to the reader as needed in small doses throughout the book.
The two main characters are Olive Rustkettle and Giogi Wyvernspur. Both were minor and unsympathetic characters in Azure Bonds. Rustkettle was immature, whining and irresponsible in that book. Wyvernspur was a pathetic incompetent. In this book, the two have clearly matured as a result of their experiences. Rustkettle is more responsible and competent but still retains her roguish personality. Wyvernspur is no longer pathetic. He is reasonably competent. His main problem is a childlike naivete.
Wyvernspur returns home after his misadventures in Azure Bonds and discovers that the family heirloom, the Wyvern's Spur, has been stolen. The book is his quest to recover the spur and his discovery of the true nature of the heirloom and his heritage. Rustkettle becomes involved when her protege is murdered by someone who might be a Wyvernspur. Eventually certain loose ends in Azure Bonds are tied up as a result of the quest for the stolen spur.
TSR books tend to be adapted from AD&D games or are written to be source material for an AD&D game. This book is written as a novel. The magic and combat is de-emphasized in favor of story and characterization. The characterization in this book is much better than in Azure Bonds. The plotting is tight. The developments are logical. The author's bio implies that Kate Novak is the principle writer of this series. The improvements are strongly indicative of someone who will turn into a major author. This book is highly recommended. -- Danny Low
------ End ------
Issue 27, Spring 1990 (part 5)
Electronic OtherRealms #27
Spring, 1990
Part 5 of 11
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
Scattered Gold
Charles de Lint
Copyright 1990 by Charles de Lint
Escape From Kathmandu
Kim Stanley Robinson
TOR, November 1989; 314pp; 0-312-93196-4
Kim Stanley Robinson has -- rightly or wrongly -- acquired the reputation of being a "literary" writer. Depending on with whom you're speaking, this means that many consider his work to be either Big Think material or stylistically dense, or both, all of which translates into No Fun.
Well, it's true that Robinson is obviously a careful craftsman. His writing has the echo of a man who cares deeply for both what he's writing about and how he puts those words down on paper. But he can also be fun, as witness this new collection of novellas, many of which first appeared in Asimov's and have also appeared as limited edition Axolotl Press hardcovers.
Happily, for those of you who missed those earlier appearances, or those of you like myself who've been waiting for a hardcover collection of the same, the strange and wonderful world of the Himals has now been delivered to us in an easily acquired compilation that no collection should be without.
The fictional view of Nepal will never be the same again. The stories are told from the viewpoints of a handful of American and British trek guides who are constantly getting involved in situations that range from the whimsical to the downright mad. Who can forget the Yeti in a baseball-cap, pedaling a bicycle madly down Kathmandu's twisting streets? The mad climb up Everest, the revelations of the true nature of Shangri-la, the honeycombing tunnels under...never mind. Read about them for yourself.
But fun though Escape from Kathmandu is -- no question about it -- Robinson doesn't eschew more serious concerns for the romp. He deals with many political and social concerns and these remain with the reader as strongly as do all those scenes of mad wonder.
Which is just how it should be.
Dead Air
M. Dalton Allred
Slave Labor Books, 1989; 98pp; 0-943151-08-2
Dead Air appears to collect together four issues of a comic with which I was completely unfamiliar until this compilation showed up in the local comics store. The art's black & white, clean line drawings uncluttered with unnecessary details. Insofar as Allred's storytelling abilities go, the panel to panel sequencing is a little static, but not uncomfortably stiff.
The story itself is a cracker -- at least its opening segments are. The inhabitants of Roseburg, Oregon, find themselves cut off from the rest of the world and fear the worst. Because their town was considered to be the safest place in the world in the event of a nuclear war, they have to assume that when all contact with the rest of the world is cut off, that the bombs have finally fallen. They insulate themselves from the outer world, allowing no one out and no one in -- although the latter's more a consideration than something that actually needs to be enforced, since no one is trying to come in.
But there are those that want out.
DJ Calvin Lennox's wife and child left town to go shopping in Eugene just before the disaster struck and he wants to go find them. When the town authorities won't allow him to leave, he and three friends make a break and find the world...changed.
The mystery of what's happened and Allred's careful build up of Lennox's discovery of the changes and their implications is ably handled until we actually find out the truth, and then the whole thing unfortunately fizzles. My problem isn't with the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of the story -- in fact, I find it refreshing to see such beliefs presented in a positive light in a medium (and this includes prose sf and fantasy as well) in which only the more extreme practitioners of Christianity are usually presented in an unfavourable light. When it comes to TV evangelists and the like, I can't help but agree with their usual depictions, yet as with any religious system, there are as many good elements as bad, and it's rare that we see Christianity presented in such a light.
Unfortunately, the illogic of what we're given here and the spacey New Age mumbo-jumbo style in which it's presented, detracts from the complex and fascinating mystery that Allred has set up, rather than giving the story the powerful conclusion it deserves. Ultimately, it's a valiant failure, but a failure all the same.
Cromm
Kenneth C. Flint
Foundation, March 1990; 400pp; 0-385-26749-5
I was about half way through Kenneth Flint's new novel when I finally realized what it was about the book that bothered me. But let's back track for a moment.
Commercial artist Colin McMahon just likes to take things easy -- whatever comes up, he's got Crocodile Dundee's philosophy down pat: "No worries." But he starts having dreams of a past life and it's when that past life begins to impinging upon present day reality he's soon faced with the uncomfortable knowledge that he's going to have to make a stand. Because people are dying, and more will die, if he doesn't clean up his act and do something. Fast.
Flint's made a name for himself with his Celtic fantasies and while Cromm treads some new waters for him -- those of contemporary fantasy -- he doesn't stray too far away from his major strength, which is bringing ancient Ireland and its peoples to life. What the new book shows is that he's equally at home in present day America and Ireland. But then there's a major flaw, as I mentioned above.
The villains are stupid. And ineffectual. They're only dangerous when it serves the plot for them to be so. If the plot requires that the hero or his friends escape, then the villains suddenly turn into a bunch of stumblebums, tripping all over themselves. Time and again there's no logical reason why they shouldn't have killed McMahon -- except that the plot requires them to do otherwise.
Which is really a shame, because everything else about this book is very good. The characters are interesting; the manner that Flint has chosen to flit back and forth in relating incidents from McMahon's present and past life works wonderfully; the sense of place, both in old and contemporary Ireland as well as the States, is vivid and immediate. He's even opted to make the ancient Christian church (in the person of St. Patrick) stand for a positive force without being preachy.
It's too bad that he couldn't have spent a little more time on his villains and the plot.
Author's Choice Monthly #3
Lisa Goldstein
Pulphouse Publishing, December 1989; 99pp
Pulphouse Publishing continues its fine series of short story collections, the draw for which is that the authors themselves choose what will appear in its pages.
This time around it's Lisa Goldstein making the choices. Except for the introduction, all of this material has appeared previously -- all in Asimov's, I believe -- but even if you have all of those back issues neatly lined up on a shelf somewhere, I still believe this to be a worthwhile addition to your library.
Where else can you have such fascinating character studies such as "Death is Different", "Tourists" and "Cassandra's Photographs" (to name my favorite three of the five stories appearing here) between the same covers, and get Goldstein's thoughts on their origins? And if you're not already familiar with her work (shame on you), then this is an excellent place to remedy just that.
Mythology 101 Jody Lynn Nye Questar, February 1990; 264pp; $4.95; 0-445-21021-4
Jody Lynn Nye's previous credit in the field -- insofar as my own limited knowledge of her work goes -- was her association with that illustrated Pern book published by Del Rey. This time around, she's on her own with a novel.
Mythology 101 is a sweet book that tells about a university student discovering elves living under the college library. Nye's prose has a light, often humourous feel, about it -- well suited to the rambling storylines that lead to various funny situations more often than furthering the overall plot.
If I was to criticize the book at all, it would be for its lack of dramatic content, but I believe that would be critiquing the book for what it's not, rather than for what it is. Nye doesn't appear to have set out to write a thriller; the moments of action in the book tend towards the kind one would encounter in a prime time television show, rather than, say, Tolkien.
As such, a kind of dramacomedy I believe they're calling that sort of a show these days, Mythology 101 is quite successful. It has lots of engaging characters, humourous situations and Nye's prose style captures that sense of fun with just a touch of drama very effectively.
And if you like it, I've read somewhere in the trades that there's a sequel on its way.
Much Rejoicing
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Copyright 1990 by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
A Cult Novel Worth the Cult
Shoot.
I've reviewed books by friends before, and nobody's taken me to task for praising my friends.
But someone's bound to go after me for praising L. Ron Hubbard, so I'd better defuse that right up front:
Being a prize winner in the "Writers of the Future" contest does not, in any way shape or form, leave one beholden either to Bridge Publications or to the shade of Hubbard. As proof, allow me to observe that Battlefield Earth was a basically good story but swollen out of proportion; and that I found Mission Earth frankly unreadable. Written by Hubbard, published by Bridge, and I can't honestly recommend you by either of them. So there.
Which leaves me unencumbered by the ghost of winnings past, to say all manner of good things about Bridge's reprinting of Hubbard's pre-Dianetics novel Final Blackout ($16.95, 0-88404-340-1). It's been out of print for years; and it's attained somewhat legendary status as "Hubbard's best novel."
So: Is it?
It's a damn fine novel, with a protagonist that successfully blends strongly individuated character with cypherhood (we never even learn his name; he's merely "the Lieutenant") -- something nobody would successfully do in this field again until Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius; and very different from Cornelius at that.
The Lieutenant commands the remnants of a corps of British infantry, surviving in the ruins of Europe after a high-tech war that destroyed technology. The War continues, but there are no sides anymore; everyone is just trying to survive. It's a perfect depiction of the power of entropy in the social field.
Though there's no longer anything worth fighting for, the soldiers can't go home. They've been forbidden to go home, because the Government (or the latest in a series of governments; they seem to rise and fall regularly) is afraid of disease. And rightly so; mutation and biowarfare have made Europe a very unhealthy place.
It's hard to describe much of the plot without giving away too much, but perhaps I can say that the Lieutenant does all he can for his soldiers and his country; and it's more than anyone else could have done. Though he does pull off some fairly unlikely maneuvers, they're all plausible by the time Hubbard brings you to them: and the Lieutenant never appears to be a superman or demigod.
Do I Dare to Eat A Peach?
A few fantasy writers have created worlds that seem as real as ours: Tolkien's Middle-earth; Wright's Islandia; Dunsany's little kingdoms.
And Le Guin's Earthsea. For two decades now, some of us have taken repeated brain vacations in this world where a name gives power, where the True Language (spoken aright only by dragons) is power. A Wizard of Earthsea introduced the young wizard Ged; The Tombs of Atuan showed him in his full power; and The Farthest Shore brought him, in his maturity, face-to-face with his greatest enemy.
A year ago, Le Guin and Atheneum announced that there would be a fourth book of Earthsea. Since that time, we who love Earthsea have been waiting. The last time I can recall waiting this impatiently for a book was The Silmarillion.
Now it's here. Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea (Atheneum, $15.95, 0-689-31595-3) is in your friendly neighborhood bookstore.
Was it worth the wait?
Decidedly so. Le Guin has matured so much as a writer since the early '70s that she can not only surpass what has done before, but transform it.
Tenar, the girl from The Tombs of Atuan, is now a widow on Ged's home island of Gont. She adopts a mysterious young girl, Therru, who has been abused and burned. With her charge, she goes to ease the dying of Ged's (and Tenar's) old teacher, Ogion the Silent. Ged returns to Gont on dragonback, a wizard no more, tired and hurt -- at this point we are at the end of The Farthest Shore, but Tehanu is just beginning. To summarize plot would be to do a violence to the book; it has no easily defined central good-versus-evil conflict like the first three.
The original trilogy is -- well, I can't call it sexist; but it assumes extremely traditional sex-roles. In the interim, Le Guin's consciousness has been, as it were, raised, and I was curious to see how she would handle Earthsea society from a female point of view. The way was full of dangers: would she overthrow everything she'd done so far? That seemed unlikely; Le Guin has too much auctorial integrity for an answer like that. Almost as bad would be to have Tenar spend a lot of time bitching about "woman's place," for, while this would be both plausible and legitimate, there would be no reason to set it in Earthsea: it would be, in Le Guin's own terminology, no more than Poughkeepsie called Elfland.
Her solution is simple and elegant. She shows Earthsea from the point of view of a woman who is both of and outside it; and who, by and large, accepts "woman's place," but occasionally wonders why.
This is one of the "points" of Tehanu. Another is Ged's coming to live as a man rather than a wizard. A third is the realization that nothing ever really ends -- there are indeed "evil" characters in the book, and they serve to demonstrate this deeply. And, one more "point": Le Guin shows us how it is possible to live a non-sexist (though non-unisex) life in a sexist society. To explain would be to give away too much plot; and, as I said above, that I will not do.
A Collection of Dreams
Pulphouse Press is the source of a number of interesting projects. One is the recently-launched "Author's Choice Monthly," another magazine with both hard and softcover editions. Each ACM is a one-author collection, apparently selected by the authors to represent some side of themselves that they want represented.
Several of these have been printed, from a collection of good writers -- Lisa Goldstein, Ed Bryant, Jack Williamson, and others.
The second issue is by Karl Edward Wagner. Subtitled "Unthreatened by the Morning Light", it collects stories that were in some way inspired by dreams.
My first response, on reading it, was "Why?" None of these stories was bad -- but none of them was particularly good , either. Truth to tell, at a month's distance, I can barely even remember what they were about.
There may be a lesson here. Dreaming is a personal thing; what moves or disturbs your subconscious mind may be completely opaque to others.
Like, Totally Rad
You may have to search a bit to find Francesca Lia Block's first novel, Weetzie Bat (Harper & Row, $12.95, 0-06-020534-2), but it's worth the effort. This is a dream of Los Angeles come true, where the people and the architecture really are beautiful and everything is incredibly cool.
Weetzie is a right-now girl living in LA's nouveau scene, and she's looking for love in almost the right places. The incredibly hip dude she falls in love with is gay, but that's fine, because now they can look together.
They do.
A genie grants Weetzie three wishes, and they're off.
The language is absolutely stunning; the story is bouncy, episodic, fun, and human. Along the way, the question of Art is dismissed with a bit of handwaving while that of AIDS is dealt with in as human a fashion as I've seen.
It's a short book. You can read it in an hour. Do.
Can Anything Good Come Out of Analog?
Apparently yes.
J. Brian Clarke's series of "Expediter/Phuili" stories in Analog are collected in the "novel" (read: fix-up) The Expediter (DAW, $3.95, 0-88677-409-8). The copyright page doesn't mention the original publication of the stories, which bothers me.
Oh, well. Anyway.
The Expediter is pretty good, as fix-ups go. For non-readers-of-Analog, the basic ideas is that we've found a huge, nifty object called The Shouter, a planet covered with two-kilometer-tall towers that gives off massive EM radiation. (We didn't see it before because the Pleiades were in the way.)
Somebody else found it first, though. A race of sentient bulldogs calling themselves Phuili are already there, and they refuse (at first) to believe that humans are sentient -- they simply can't believe that there's another sentient race in the Universe.
Phuili are peaceful, though, and let humans stay (partly so they can observe them). Together, humans and Phuili discover the purpose of the Shouter; then they discover a third race, desparately dangerous to all life in the Universe.
The Expediter is an upbeat, fun kinda book, not great art, but not the paramilitary Libertarian crud I expect from people who use their first initials and middle names, and definitely worth $3.95 of your beer money.
I anticipate a sequel. As far as this volume goes, they haven't discovered who built the Shouter...
Nonfiction Corner
"I think, therefore I am," said Descartes.
Yeah? But how do you know you're really thinking? Maybe you just think you're thinking! Or maybe we're all figments of someone else's imagination entirely!
Questions like this are the stuff of major cool science fiction.
They are also the stuff of major cool philosophy.
Daniel C. Dennett is a philosopher of mind, whose profession is to address and try to understand -- and maybe even resolve -- this sort of question. If his name sounds familiar, it's because he co-edited the book The Mind's I, with Douglas Hofstadter (of Godel Escher Bach fame).
M.I.T. Press has recently reprinted his collection of essays, Brainstorms (0-262-54037-1), which range from scholarly critiques of other philosophers to a humorous fantasia called "Where Am I?" which debates the location of consciousness in a profoundly dramatic way. Along the way, he vivisects B.F. Skinner's flavor of behaviorism and discusses ways in which free will can arise from deterministic systems.
You won't find the answers to all your questions about Life, the Universe, and Everything here. You won't even necessarily agree with everything Dennett says (I certainly don't; he twists Godel's theorem in a manner I find most inappropriate). But you will find yourself with much food for thought... about thought.
Keep the home fires burning, kids. And remember what Bozo always said -- KEEEEEEEEEP LAUGHING!
------ End ------
Issue 27, Spring 1990 (part 6)
Electronic OtherRealms #27
Spring, 1990
Part 6 of 11
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
Small Press Overview 1989
Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 by Evelyn C. Leeper
In November 1989 I was asked to be one of the seven judges for the Readercon Small Press Awards. (The other six were Thomas M. Disch, John Shirley, Kathryn Cramer, Paul Chadwick, Jerry Kaufman, and Greg Ketter.) As a result, I found myself reading seven novels, three chapbooks, six original collections, five reprint collections, three original anthologies, one reprint anthology, sixteen non-fiction works, six miscellaneous works, and 66 volumes of 29 different magazines from the "small press" -- 113 items in all. Since this area of publishing gets little notice, I thought I would try to provide an overview of what I saw. (Note: This is not an exhaustive list; there were many small press items I didn't see.)
The first thing I found was that the era of proofreading, at least in the small press, seems to have passed. It is the rare book or magazine that does not have two or three glaring grammatical or spelling errors. I would say "typographical errors," but I suspect they were not accidental transpositions, but that the editor/typist who transferred the manuscript does not know better. This does not mean that I think R. A. Lafferty does not know the difference between "its" and "it's," but it does probably does mean that Lafferty never proofread any galleys either.
A comment on ordering: I give ordering information (or at least an address) for everything. Small presses survive on a very small profit margin, so if you are ordering anything, you should probably include some additional money for shipping and handling. (You can always write first and ask how much.) If the press has some special emphasis (e.g., feminist) I will try to point this out.
Novels and Novellas
The one thing most of these novels have in common is their specialized focus. Whether they are feminist, lesbian, or otherwise aimed at a specific group, the authors may very well have had more success selling their work to a publisher that specializes in that area, rather than aiming for the "mass market." In the Blood, for example, is liable to sell better in specialty bookstores which order the entire Naiad Press line than in B. Dalton where it has to compete with the large number of "general" science fiction published each year. (Locus claims over a thousand new science fiction/fantasy/horror books were published in 1989.)
Aakhus, Patricia; The Voyage of Mael Duin's Curragh; Story Line Press, Three Oaks Farm, Brownsville OR 97327-9718; 0-934257-31-0; $12.95.
This did not catch my interest enough for me to recommend it strongly, but it appears to be a well-written novel based on Celtic epic. I may just be over-Celticked these days. Certainly for those interested in Irish myth I would give it a mild recommendation.
Ascher, Sheila and Straus, Dennis; The Menaced Assassin; McPherson & Co., P.O.Box 1126, Kingston NY 12401; 0-929701-03-8; $9.
This "post-modern" novel is a strange combination of literary novel and old movie plots and references. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but it did hold my interest, and I suspect more could be gotten from a second reading (one sure sign of a book worth giving a first reading).
Banks, Iain M.; The State of the Art; Mark V. Ziesing, P. O. Box 76, Shingletown CA 96088; 0-929480-??-?; $16.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Baum, L. Frank; The Sea Fairies; Books of Wonder, 132 Seventh Avenue, New York NY 10011; 0-929605-00-4, $9.95.
On the final ballot (in the reprint category), but not seen.
Bishop, Michael; Apartheid, Superstrings, and Mordecai Thubana; Pulphouse/Axolotl, P. O. Box 1227, Eugene OR 97440; $?.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Columbo, Judith Woolcock; The Fablesinger; The Crossing Press, 22-D Roche Road, Box 207, Freedom CA 95019; 0-89594-376-X; $7.95.
This short novel has its basis in Caribbean religion and legend, an area in general unexplored by fantasists. Unfortunately, it seems either padded out from a short story or condensed from a long novel, with much of the detail of the main character's development glossed over rather than shown. (I also found the shifting point of view distracting, but that is a relatively minor flaw.) The two good people are women and the two bad ones men -- it is not clear whether one can extrapolate from that, but this is from a feminist press.
De Lint, Charles; Berlin; Fourth Avenue Press, 105 Fourth Avenue, Ottawa ON K1S 2L1; 0-9694121-1-8; C$14.95.
This novella is part of the "Bordertown" shared world conceived by Terri Windling. Punk drug addicts in a Soho world that borders on Elfland just do not appeal to me, I suppose, but this story didn't catch my interest.
De Lint, Charles; Westlin Wind; Pulphouse/Axolotl, P. O. Box 1227, Eugene OR 97440; no ; $10.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Dilsaver, Paul; Nurtz! Nurtz!; Ghost Rocks Press, 209 Park St., Laramie WY 82070; 0-936204-65-6; $9.
I found this novel very disturbing and, as with the movie A Clockwork Orange, I can say I think it is very good without actually enjoying it. The setting is a mental hospital, full of people with a variety of odd mental and physical problems. I'm not sure I can actually going to recommend it, but if you enjoy "uncomfortable" novels, you will probably like this one.
Douglas, Lauren Wright; In the Blood; Naiad Press, P. O. Box 10543, Tallahassee FL 32302; 0-941483-22-3; $8.95.
Set in a post-plague southwestern United States, this is an acceptable, if fairly mundane, novel of that genre. There is more emphasis on characters than on plot, as might be expected: the plot can be found many places, but Naiad Press concentrates on lesbian fiction. (References to East Germany as a Communist country along with the U.S.S.R., Nicaragua, and Cuba may date this novel very quickly.)
Glenn, Nancy Tyler; Clicking Stones; Naiad Press, P. O. Box 10543, Tallahassee FL 32302; 0-941483-31-2; $8.95.
This is a New Age lesbian novel, with the main character discovering a "force" which is released by "clicking stones" with someone else. It is well-written in terms of characterization, but the science fiction content is too superficial and the symbolism too obvious to make this a stand-out. Were it not for the explicit sex scenes, this might almost be a "young-adult" novel.
Lafferty, R. A.; The Elliptical Grave; United Mythologies Press, P. O. Box 390 Station A, Weston ON M9N 3N1 CANADA; 0-921322-12-7; C$18
This short novel deals with archaeologists who go to "excavate the air" of an isolated Italian valley, are lured into an anomaly in space, and are transformed into something new. As usual with a Lafferty story, the writing and characters outweigh the plot. Unfortunately, in this case the typos may outweigh both, and provide too much distraction from the writing. Because of the price, this item, even more so than the next, is of interest to Lafferty fans and collectors only.
Lafferty, R. A.; How Many Miles to Babylon; United Mythologies Press, P. O. Box 390 Station A, Weston ON M9N 3N1 CANADA; 0-921322-10-0; C$3.
Someone at United Mythologies Press does not know the difference between "it's" and "its"; "it's" is used for the possessive throughout and on page 8 one paragraph alone has ten misuses! This Lafferty novella is hard enough to follow as it is -- but then Lafferty often is. As a chapbook, this is probably of interest mainly (only?) to Lafferty collectors and fans.
Lafferty, R. A.; Sindbad, The Thirteenth Voyage; Broken Mirrors, P. O. Box 473, Cambridge MA 02238; 0-9623824-??-?; $9.95.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
McKay, Windsor; Little Nemo in Slumberland; Fantagraph Books, 7563 Lake City Way, Seattle WA 98115; 0-930193-??-?; $?.
On the final ballot (in the bookcraft category), but not seen.
Powers, Tim; The Anubis Gates; Mark V. Ziesing, P. O. Box 76, Shingletown CA 96088; 0-929480-??-?; $?.
On the final ballot (in the reprint category), but not seen.
Powers, Tim; An Epitaph in Rust; NESFA, Box G, MIT Branch Station, Cambridge CA 02139; 0-915368-40-4; $16.95.
On the final ballot (in the reprint category), but not seen.
Powers, Tim; The Stress of Her Regard; Charnel House, P. O. Box 633, Lynbrook NY 11563; 0-927389-01-0; $125.
On the final ballot (in the bookcraft category), but not seen.
Reed, Kit; Opera News For the Dumb; Piratical Primrose, ?; $?.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Shepard, Lucius; The Father of Stones; Washington Science Fiction Association, P. O. Box 19951, Baltimore MD 21211; 0-9621725-0-2; $45.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Stetten, George; Weissenbaum's Eye; Zwitter Press, 302 Carlton Drive, Syracuse NY 13214; 0-923056-00-9; $4.95.
I suspect this book is self-published; it is full of pseudo-profundities and poetic turns, with the plot (involving sensory couches, spaceship launchings, and whales) buried under words explaining the feelings of the characters instead of portraying them.
Vonarburg, Elisabeth (translated by Jane Brierley); The Silent City; Porce'pic Books, 4252 Commerce Circle, Victoria, BC V8Z 4M2; 0-88878-277-2; price not listed.
This book seems reminiscent of Phyllis Gotlieb's O Master Caliban!, a bit of a coincidence in that both authors are Canadian. Perhaps the similarity is only in their use of biology as a base for science fiction -- certainly there is much dissimilar about the two books. In any case, there is a fair amount of science fiction being written in French in Canada, yet it appears only in the small press can one find any of it in translation. (There are also two anthologies of Canadian science fiction which have translations of some shorter works. These are, not surprisingly, edited by Judith Merril and are titled Tesseracts and Tesseracts Two.) If this novel is an example, it's a pity more is not being translated.
[One comment on the translation: I found the use of the word "congratulated" in the same paragraph as several sentences about blood clotting confusing, since I first read it as "coagulated." This reminded me of some piece of advice I once read in which someone was advised not to use the words "crucifixion" and "cavalry" in the same paragraph, since the reader would inevitably read the latter as "Calvary."]
Waldrop, Howard; Them Bones; Mark V. Ziesing, P. O. Box 76, Shingletown CA 96088; 0-929480-??-?; $?.
On the final ballot (in the reprint category), but not seen.
Collections and Anthologies
The collections and anthologies of 1989 small presses form a very mixed bag. There are (that I have seen, anyway) six original collections (Ascher/Straus, Carlson, Hood, Nickels, Smith, and Vandermeer), five reprint collections (Cadigan, Matheson, Shirley, Sterling, and Wandrei), three original anthologies (Lansdale, Nadramia, Sturgis), and one reprint anthology (Salmonson). (I hesitate to describe Nickels's two novellas as a "collection," but I have no better category for them.) The collections are from forgotten authors from the past (Wandrei), remembered authors from the past (Matheson), current well-known authors (Cadigan, Shirley, Sterling), and current lesser known authors (Ascher/Straus, Carlson, Nickels, Smith, and Vandermeer). The anthologies have a variety of themes: supernatural stories, feminist stories, horror poetry, and even (God help us) "cowpunk" stories!
Ascher, Sheila and Straus, Dennis; Red Moon/Red Lake; McPherson & Co., P. O. Box 1126, Kingston NY 12401; 0-914232-97-5; $8.
This collection of ten interlocking stories, or at least ten stories with overlapping characters, is an intriguing stylistic exercise but not up to the authors' novel, The Menaced Assassin (see above). If you are interested in structural games in literature, definitely give it a look.
Bendixen, Alfred (editor); The Amber Gods: Selected Fiction of Harriet Prescott Spofford; Rutgers University Press, 109 Church St., New Brunswick NJ 08901; 0-8135-1401-0; $15.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Berry, Shelly Dutton (editor); The Roots of Fantasy: Myth, Folklore & Archetype; World Fantasy Convention; $?.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Blumlein, Michael; The Brains of Rats; Scream/Press, P. O. Box 481146, Los Angeles CA 90048; 0-910-489-28-9; $20.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Cadigan, Pat; Patterns; Ursus Imprints, 5539 Jackson St., Kansas City MO 64130; 0-942681-07-X; $19.95.
This is Cadigan's first collection, containing fourteen stories including the highly acclaimed "Pretty Boy Crossover" and "Angel." Enhanced by introductions to each story by the author, this collection also has a previously unpublished story ("The Power and the Passion"). The stories range from cyberpunk ("Pretty Boy Crossover," "Angel," and "Rock On") to horror ("The Power and The Passion," a wonderful new twist on the vampire story) to off-beat ("The Day the Martels Got the Cable" and "Vengeance Is Yours"). Given Cadigan's standing in the field, and the broad range she displays in this collection, this book must be considered one of the major collections of the year.
Carlson, Larry; Molecular Ramjet; TadAleX Books, P. O. Box 78582, Seattle WA 98178; 0-929301-01-3; $4.95.
This is a collection of "high-tech bedtime stories"; I can see how it would put children to sleep. The stories seem full of the sort of science lectures that books such as Ralph 124C41+ were (in)famous for.
Effinger, George Alec; Author's Choice Monthly Issue One: The Old Funny Stuff; Pulphouse/Axolotl, P. O. Box 1227, Eugene OR 97440; no ; $4.95.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Emshwiller, Carol; Verging on the Pertinent; Coffee House Press, 24 N. Fourth St., Suite 400, Minneapolis MN 55401; 0-918273-57-9; $9.95.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Gorman, Ed and Greenburg, Martin H. (editors); Stalkers; Dark Harvest, P. O. Box 941, Arlington Heights IL 60006; 0-913-165-47-6; $19.95.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Hood, Robert; Day-Dreaming on Company Time; Five Islands Press, Box 1946, Wollongong N.S.W. 2500 AUSTRALIA; 0-9587972-2-6.
This collection from "Down Under" gives the reader well-written, literary stories. My only (minor) objection is that the stories are at times a bit diffuse and pointless. This is the sort of writing that I describe as "reality off by 10 degrees" -- perhaps it is in some sense magical realism, though I don't profess to understand completely what is meant by that term. (Definitely write ahead for ordering information on this; I know neither the price nor what forms of payment are accepted. Also available from Mark V. Ziesing and other specialty dealers.)
Lansdale, Joe R.; By Bizarre Hands; Mark V. Ziesing, P. O. Box 76, Shingletown CA 96088; 0-929480-12-0; $25.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Lansdale, Joe R., and LoBrutto, Pat (editors); Razored Saddles; Dark Harvest, P. O. Box 941, Arlington Heights IL 60006; 0-913165-49-2; $19.95.
This original (in more than one sense) anthology is described by the editors as "The Cowpunk Anthology," though they deny this is the start of a movement. To which one can add only, "Thank God!"
But seriously, folks, this anthology contains seventeen stories by authors well-known and not so well-known. Some stories (perhaps more than my tastes would prefer) are horror stories, but many -- in spite of the title -- are not. Some of the stories I would also say are not really Westerns; they seem more like "Southern red-neck" stories, if such a genre exists (for example, Lansdale's own "The Job"). There are even two alternate history stories (my particular weakness): one about a very different fight for "the rights of man to be free from persecution" at the Alamo ("Thirteen Days of Glory" by Scott Cupp), the other about how the movies showed how the West was won ("The Passing of the Western" by Howard Waldrop, who probably could not write a normal story if he tried). There's also a dinosaur roundup ("Sadalia" by David J. Schow) and the very haunting "Empty Places" by Gary L. Raisor.
Whether this anthology will succeed is a good question. My understanding is that the Western as a genre is not thriving, and certainly not enough to support a hardcover anthology such as this. But whether the fantasy market (fantasy in its broad sense here of non-realistic, encompassing fantasy, science fiction, and horror) will buy a book of Western stories remains to be seen. However, in this time of interchangeable fantasy trilogies and cyberpunk copies, at least it's a new concept. As Dan'l Danehy-Oakes asked (see the review of Mindscapes below), at least we see "writers doing something new."
Matheson, Richard; Collected Stories; Scream/Press, P. O. Box 481146, Los Angeles CA 90048; 0-910489-10-6; $39.95.
What can I say? Matheson is one of the great science fiction short story writers and this collection includes 85 of his stories (another ten are excluded as being non-science-fiction or for other reasons). In addition to the stories, you get wonderful block-print black and white illustrations by William Stout. Kudos to Scream/Press for publishing this. (It's actually published under their "kinder, gentler" Dream/Press imprint.)
Nadramia, Peggy; Narcopolis; Hell's Kitchen Productions, P. O. Box 370, Times Square Station, New York NY 10108-0370; 0-962328-61-8; $4.00.
Too many of these poems seem incoherent to me. (I find myself thinking of the phrase, "It appears vague but is in fact meaningless," but perhaps that's being too harsh.) I did like this excerpt from "Prophetic Dreams":
A killer stalks the halls of my high school. Innocent cheerleaders die by knife. Teachers lock the classroom doors. I must find him, or I'll flunk.
Some of the interior illustrations are also intriguing, in a Giger-esque sort of way.
Nickels, Thom; Two Novellas: Walking Water & After All This; Banned Books, Number 292, P. O. Box 33280, Austin TX 78764; 0-934411-22-0; $8.95.
The novella form has all but died out except in magazines and reprint anthologies (yes, I know there are exceptions), so it's encouraging to see that some people are still publishing them. "Walking Water" is a surrealist tale not unlike a modernized Divine Comedy with a gay protagonist and Thomas Merton as the Virgil figure. "After All This" is a post-(non-atomic)-holocaust story of relationships under transformation. Both have more emphasis on the characters than on logic (not surprising in surrealistic fiction) and both are recommended -- in fact, I nominated "Walking Water" for a Hugo. (I believe that Banned Books is a gay/lesbian press, but I'm not sure.)
Rusch, Kristine Kathryn; Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine Issue 5, Horror; Pulphouse/Axolotl, Box 1227, Eugene OR 97440; $20.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Salmonson, Jessica Amanda (editor); What Did Miss Darrington See?; The Feminist Press at City University of New York, 311 East 94th St., New York NY 10128; 1-55861-006-5; $10.95.
This is a feminist anthology that avoids the stridency of Sturgis's book (see below). Salmonson presents a collection of highly literate, highly literary fantasies, understated and gentle rather than the splatterpunk that has become (alas!) the norm these days. (Even such an academic press cannot seem to produce a book these days without at least one typographical error -- in the case, the most glaring one was "Charles Riving" for "Charles River.")
Shirley, John; Heatseeker; Scream/Press, P. O. Box 481146, Los Angeles CA 90048; 0-910489-26-2; $25.
This nineteen-story collection contains three previously unpublished stories; the rest appeared between 1975 and 1988. That many of the laudatory quotes on the back cover are from "cyberpunk" authors is not surprising, and should give the reader a fair idea (or fair warning, depending on your point of view) of what is inside. If you like Shirley, then this collection will be a must-buy; if you don't, it will be a must-pass-up; it is unlikely there is a middle ground. I must admit that Shirley is not on my list of favorite authors (for that matter, I find most "cyberpunk" unpleasant to read and hard to follow, and haven't really liked any since Marc Laidlaw's "Nutrimancer"). This may mark me as a barbarian, but at least you have some idea where this review is coming from.
I also found the illustrations unpleasant. I'm not sure why, because they are very reminiscent of J. K. Potter's work, which I do like. But there you are.
Skipp, John & Spector, Craig (editors); Book of the Dead; Mark V. Ziesing, P. O. Box 76, Shingletown CA 96088; 0-929480-??-?; $?.
On the final ballot (in the bookcraft category), but not seen.
Smith, Clark Ashton; Strange Shadows; Greenwood Press, Inc., 88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881; 0-313-26611-5; $39.95.
One technique used in this book of the unpublished works of Clark Ashton Smith which would make it of interest to would-be writers is the indication of the changes Smith made to the included items. The typography takes some getting used to: "^xxx^" indicates an insertion, "[yyy]" a deletion, and "^xxx^ [yyy]" a change. But it adds a whole new dimension to the works, which can be read as exercises in writing as well as finished products. Of course, there are only eight complete fantasy stories. The rest are either non-fantasy, non-fiction, or fragments and synopses, which goes to prove that plots are easy, writing is hard. But because there is so little of Smith's writing, average readers will find this unrewarding and would do better to haunt the used bookstores and dealers' rooms for Smith's works in Lin Carter's "Adult Fantasy Series" for Ballantine Books.
Sterling, Bruce; Crystal Express; Arkham House, P. O. Box 546, Sauk WI 53583; 0-87054-158-7; $18.95.
This collection of twelve stories (all of which have appeared previously elsewhere) is important in that it is the first collection of a major author's short works, but the availability of the contents elsewhere makes a hardcover edition of this more for Sterling collectors than for the average reader. (Well, I suppose that's one function of the small press.)
Sturgis, Susanna J. (editor); Memories and Visions; The Crossing Press, 22-D Roche Road, Box 207, Freedom CA 95019; 0-89594-391-3; $9.95.
I found this anthology to be on the whole extremely strident feminist fiction, too busy attacking men to worry about good writing. (The introduction states: "Here were writers who imagined women grappling with the logical conclusions of patriarchal culture: violence against women, ecological collapse, nuclear holocaust, christian [sic] fundamentalism, state repression." I will admit that an introduction like that may have biased me against the book.) There were a few bright points, but on the whole Memories and Visions was extremely disappointing.
Vandermeer, Jeff; Book of Frog; The Ministry of Whimsey, 7701 S.W. 7th Place, Gainesville FL 32607; no ; $3.95.
This chapbook consist of stories about frogs (and toads). Printed in 8-point type (9 lines/inch), it is hard to read from a physical standpoint, and I found the stories are in general only so-so (though a couple were good, and others have liked them more). Still, if you have a friend who is into frogs, it's a cute gimmick gift, and much better than giving yet another ceramic Kermit.
Wandrei, Donald; Colossus; Fedogan & Bremer, 700 Washington Ave. S.E., Suite 50, Minneapolis MN 55414; 1-878252-00-3, $28.
Donald Wandrei is not one of the better known science fiction authors, in part because after World War II his output dropped considerably and he never reached the younger generations of readers. This collection shows him as in many ways a typical 1930s author, more interested in stylish writing than in straightforward ("Campbellian") prose or in scientific accuracy (he has beings living on Antares, even while saying it is a radiating star!). Yet he was obviously influential -- one scene from "Something from Above" was reproduced almost exactly in the film This Island Earth, for example. For readers who like mood pieces, Wandrei's writing will be enjoyable. (And they managed to misspell his name in the first sentence of the preface!)
Waldrop, Howard; A Dozen Tough Jobs; Mark V. Ziesing, P. O. Box 76, Shingletown CA 96088; 0-929480-01-5; $16.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Wiater, Stanley (editor); Night Visions VII; Dark Harvest, P. O. Box 941, Arlington Heights IL 60006; 0-913165-50-6; $19.95.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Wolfe, Gene; Slow Children at Play; Cheap Street, Rte. 2, Box 293, New Castle VA 24127;
On the final ballot, but not seen.
------ End ------
Issue 27, Spring 1990 (part 7)
Electronic OtherRealms #27
Spring, 1990
Part 7 of 11
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
Small Press Overview 1989
(continued)
Non-Fiction
Braude, Anne (editor); Andre Norton: Fables & Futures; Niekas Publications, 380 Morrill St., Gilford NH 03246; 0-910619-04-2, $5.95.
This look at Andre Norton is more adulatory than some of Niekas' other special issues (see the Arthur issue below), but this may be because the object of its study is still alive. I found this of less interest than some others will because, unlike many science fiction readers, I did not get my start reading Andre Norton books, and in fact have to this day read no more than two or three. But I realize that many have a fondness for her works and for them I would recommend this collection of articles.
Brown, Charles N. & Contento, William G.; Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror: 1988; Locus Press, P. O. Box 13305, Oakland CA 94661; 0-9616629-6-4; $50.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Corrick, James A.; Double Your Pleasure: Ace SF Doubles; Gryphon Books, P. O. Box 209, Brooklyn NY 11228; 0-936071-13-3; $5.95.
I don't believe anyone has done an exhaustive list and description of Ace science fiction doubles before this. (Dick Spelman did issue a list of Science Fiction and Fantasy published by Ace, but that included non-doubles and was not as thorough in its descriptions. In any case, many people collect Ace doubles without having any special interest in the rest of the Ace line.) My one complaint is that it is not as complete as it might be; for example, there are no page counts for the novels, and no indication of which had the blue half of the binding and which the red (or white). The introductory material is of interest historically, particularly Wollheim's observations on some of the business problems involved. Some of the other introductory sections are a bit dry, unless you are fascinated by descriptions of exactly how the format changed and in which month the changes took place.
Cummings, Michael S., and Smith, Nicholas D. (editors); Utopian Studies II; University Press of America, 4720 Boston Way, Lanham MD 20706; 0-8191-7305-3; $12.75.
While it is fitting that a book of Utopian studies begin with a look at H. G. Wells's works, I find Robert Shelton's suggestion that the Time Traveler's hostility to the Morlocks is based in homophobia to be a ludicrous attempt to be trendy and politically correct, though God knows why the poor Time Traveler should bear the brunt of this. (I note in passing that Shelton notes that Wells dedicated The Island of Doctor Moreau to Oscar Wilde. Make of all this what you will.)
The other fifteen essays range from the incomprehensible ("Fallacy and Deception: The Discourse of Equality in Denis Veiras' L'Histoire des Sevarambes" by Lise Leibacher-Ouvard, which I'm sure I would have had a better understanding of if I knew the original work at all) to the ridiculous ("Utopia Through the Looking Glass: Lewis Carroll as Crypto-Utopian" by Alex MacDonald). There are several articles on feminist utopias, and one on computers in utopian fiction (Micharl Orth's "The Computer in Recent Utopias: A Transcendental Teleology"). Of interest no doubt to the student of utopias, this collection is probably not of great value to the reader who has not already done serious research in the subject.
Delany, Samuel R.; The Straits of Messina; Serconia Press, P. O. Box 1786, Seattle WA 98111; 0-934933-04-9; $19.95.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Dick, Philip K.; The Dark-Haired Girl; Mark V. Ziesing, P. O. Box 76, Shingletown CA 96088; 0-929480-??-?; $?.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Ellison, Harlan; Harlan Ellison's Watching; Underwood-Miller, P. O. Box 1707, Novato CA 94948; 0-88733-067-3; $19.95.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Fandata Computer Services; Fandom Directory #11; Fandata Computer Services, 7761 Asterella Court, Springfield VA 22152-3133; 0-933215-11-8; $12.95.
This is a computerized not-very-complete listing of fans, clubs, and conventions. It would be useful to dealers, clubs, and conventions interested in enlarging their mailing lists (it is arranged by state and ZIP code), but not useful for locating specific people or organizations (several major fans were simply not listed -- no doubt because they did not send in the form Fandata sends out to fans whose names are culled from various places). Still, it's all there is of this sort of thing.
Lafferty, R. A.; True Believers; United Mythologies Press, P. O. Box 390 Station A, Weston ON M9N 3N1; 0-921322-06-2, C$4.
When most people in science fiction fandom want to comment on the state of science fiction, they do a fanzine of their own reviews and commentary. Lafferty, being Lafferty, has a chapbook issued by United Mythologies Press, which appears to specialize entirely in his work. Lafferty is not afraid to take aim at recognized authors in prose and in verse, and is more than willing to review Harlan Ellison as an institution rather than as an ordinary author. If only the publisher would proofread better! When "Aldiss" is spelled "Aldis" and "Budrys" is spelled "Budris" you know someone is asleep at the tiller -- and I'm sure it's not Lafferty.
Lefanu, Sarah; Feminism and Science Fiction; Indiana University Press, Tenth & Morton Sts., Bloomington IN 47405; 0-253-33287-7; $29.95.
Not for the casual reader, this assumes you have read all the books discussed. Among those who have, this may generate some controversy; Lefanu seems to claim, for example, that LeGuin is more a male chauvinist than a feminist.
McCarthy, Patrick A. (editor); Legacy of Olaf Stapledon; Greenwood Press, Inc., 88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881; 0-313-26114-8; $37.95.
I'm probably the wrong person to ask about this since I am such a Stapledon fan, but I think this volume comes closer to actually analyzing an author's work than many of the other critical works listed here. For one thing, a plot summary of a Stapledon novel would look ridiculous. (You can't even tell what are novels and what are philosophical works; The Opening of the Eyes falls nicely in the crack between them.)
I will say that I find Stapledon more readable than I find some of the authors in the anthology. For example, in her thesis that Stapledon is a "Modernist" writer, Cheryl Herr says, "Another way to state this distinction is to observe that Stapledon is a Modernist writer who shares the teleological preoccupations of his era, which were variously construed by fellow Modernists like D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forester, and Ford Madox Ford. Delany writes out of a science fictional post-moderism that is postapocalyptic; his writing sympathizes more with the techno-assumptions of cyberpunk than with the specific philosophic dichotomies that exercised Stapledon."
Huh?
Before you read this book, read Stapledon -- all of his works you can find, not just the best known. I was surprised to find that the panelists on the Stapledon panel at Conspiracy had read only his four major novels (Last and First Men, Star Maker, Odd John, and Sirius), and perhaps Nebula Maker and Last Men in London. As far as The Darkness and the Light, The Flames, or his other less available works, they had no comments because they hadn't read them. If you cannot find some of these, try to get the collection Far Future Calling, issued in 1980 by Oswald Train Publishers. Then this will make more sense.
Mann, Jim, ed.; The NESFA Index to Short SF 1987; NESFA, Box G, MIT Branch Station, Cambridge CA 02139; 0-915368-41-2; $12.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Meskys, Edmund R. (editor); The Once and Future Arthur; Niekas Publications, 380 Morrill St., Gilford NH 03246; 0-910619-03-4, $5.95.
This excellent NIEKAS publication is a top-notch collection of articles on Arthur and Arthurian legend. The articles are well-written and present some new ideas instead of re-hashing the old ones (though "Patterns" does attempt to answer the question discussed at a recent convention: "Why Not Charlemagne?"). One author points out, by the way, that the Arthurian mythos now forms a sort of "shared world," which leads to a lot of authors re-writing the same story instead of writing a new story. In addition, Don D'Ammassa provides a list of ten classic horror novels and ten modern horror novels that he thinks form a basic horror reading list. As Robert Bloch says in a letter of comment, "Niekas commits the sin of literacy."
Go thou and do likewise.
Pierce, John J.; When World Views Collide: A Study in Imagination and Evolution; Greenwood Press, Inc., 88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881; 0-313-25458-5; $39.95.
This is the third of a trilogy (honest!) of which I have not seen the first two. A series of articles on modern science fiction authors, it is not presented that way -- rather, it is composed of chapters which attempt to group the authors by philosophical attitude. In this it is not always successful, and the book as a whole lacks focus, although the individual articles are informative.
Rickman, Gregg; To the High Castle Philip K. Dick: A Life 1928-1962; Fragments West, 2705 E. Seventh St., Long Beach CA 90804; ?; $19.95.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Riemer, James D.; From Satire to Subversion; Greenwood Press, Inc., 88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881; 0-313-25569-5; $35.
This study of James Branch Cabell's works consists in large part of plot analyses, and in general reads like a Ph.D. thesis -- not surprising, I suppose, from an academic press. Fans of Cabell will be interested, naturally, but the average reader can pass this by. (This is not an entirely negative review. This is one reason why the small press exists: to provide a medium for books that are not going to make the New York Times bestseller lists.)
Schweitzer, Darrell; Pathways to Elfland; Owlswick Press, 4426 Larchwood Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19104; 0-913896-16-0; $25.
This is an oddity in the criticism field, a book about an author, written by someone who obviously likes that author's work, which is not wholly positive. In fact, there may be more negative than positive in this book, but at least when Schweitzer recommends something, you feel he's being honest rather than slavishly recommending everything Dunsany ever wrote. (Schweitzer's offhand writing style, very much like his talking style, makes this book very readable in both its positive and negative modes.) Much of what he recommends is out of print, unfortunately, though you may be able to find some in used book stores or convention dealers' rooms. (Perhaps not so coincidentally, Owlswick has issued several Dunsany volumes recently.) Nice Tim Kirk cover and interior illustrations, though the cover is reused as the frontispiece and there are only three or four illustrations.
Slusser, George E. and Rabkin, Eric S. (editors); Mindscapes; Southern Illinois University Press, P. O. Box 3697, Carbondale IL 62901; 0-8093-1454-1; $29.95.
Having read this book, I am no more enlightened as to what "mindscapes" are than before I started. I did find it interesting that I read Poul Anderson's description of "world-building" in this the same day I found the following on an electronic bulletin board:
Some of us are sick of Generic Fantasy Adventure Trilogies, sick of authors endlessly cranking out the Nth book in the Kludge the Klumsy series, sick of repetitive fictional demonstrations of the superiority of good old American rightwing militarist values, sick unto death of dragons, mercenaries, amazons, cute furry aliens, barbarian swordspersons, and insanely improbable solar systems set up to show how clever the author's celestial mechanics are.
Some of us want to see writers doing something new. -- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Mindscapes seems more a series of unconnected essays/lectures on science fiction than a coherent presentation on "mindscapes." It has its moments, but in the total is disappointing.
Stephensen-Payne, Phil, and Benson, George, Jr.; Frederik Pohl: Merchant of Excellence; Phil Stephensen-Payne, P. O. Box 40494, Albuquerque NM 87196; 1-871133-09-2, $6.50.
This publication uses those manila term paper covers instead of a fancy binding, but is invaluable for the collector or scholar. The fact that it is not more elaborately bound just means it's more affordable by more people. This is one of a series of several dozen such bibliographies.
Stephensen-Payne, Phil, and Benson, George, Jr.; Theodore Sturgeon: Sculptor of Love and Hate; Phil Stephensen-Payne, P. O. Box 40494, Albuquerque NM 87196; 1-871133-07-6, $4.
See comments on the Pohl bibliography (above). This is cheaper than the Pohl because it is shorter -- the Pohl is long enough to require two volumes.
Sullivan, C. W., III; Welsh Celtic Myth in Modern Fantasy; Greenwood Press, Inc., 88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881; 0-313-24998-9; $42.95.
Sullivan covers the field sufficiently but in rather a dry fashion. The author's love of the topic at times makes the presentation less than even-handed (at least to me), and it seemed to me that a fair amount of time was spent touting the superiority of Welsh myth over the better-known mythologies such as Greek and Roman. Though at times awkwardly written, for those interested in the field it will be an informative guide.
Thorner, J. Lincoln; A Guide Through the Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein; Gryphon Books, P. O. Box 209, Brooklyn NY 11228; 0-936071-17-6; $5.95.
Thorner has set himself a difficult task, given that Panshin has written what may be the definitive work about Heinlein already (though it is, of course, somewhat outdated now, not covering Heinlein's later works). Unfortunately, Thorner's scholarship does not seem to be up to this formidable job, and he manages to get some basic plot details wrong. While there is some appeal in reading people's opinions on Heinlein, I cannot recommend this book as a basic reference work.
Veeder, William and Hirsch, Gordon (editors); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde After One Hundred Years; University of Chicago Press; ?; $?.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
------ End ------
Issue 27, Spring 1990 (part 8)
Electronic OtherRealms #27
Spring, 1990
Part 8 of 11
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
Small Press Overview 1989
(continued)
Magazines
Australian Science Fiction Review; ASFR, c/o Cy Chauvin, 14248 Wilfred St., Detroit MI 48213; A$3 each, or US$20 for six issues.
On the final ballot (non-fiction), but not seen.
Dreams and Nightmares, #29; Dreams and Nightmares, 4801 Cypress Creek Dr., #1004, Tuscaloosa AL 35405; $1 each, or $5 for 6 issues.
The poetry here is a mixed bag of styles and qualities and the artwork unfortunately detracts from rather enhances the works. On the whole, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry (see below) is far superior.
Edge Detector, #2 (Summer 1989); Glenn Grant, 1850 Lincoln Avenue #803, Montreal, Quebec H3H 1H4 CANADA; C$2.50 each.
Well, it contains a Sherlock Holmes story -- of sorts. "The Adventure of the Microscopic Gear" by Sebastian Hassinger is about a current-day teenager who fancies himself Sherlock Holmes, and investigates a case involving nano-technology. Most of the rest of the magazine, however, seems to be written in pseudo-stream-of-consciousness (sentence fragments, no discernible sentence structure, etc.).
Eldritch Science, #3; Greater Medford and Suburbs Science Fiction Society, 87-6 Park Avenue, Worcester MA 01605; $2.50 each, or $10 for 4 issues.
Though this is fan fiction, it is a notch above the usual sort one sees. Unfortunately, the artwork is below average. For its format, this publication is very well-presented.
Eldritch Tales, #18 -- #21; Eldritch Tales, 1051 Wellington Road, Lawrence KS 66049; $6 each plus $1 postage and handling, or $24 for 4 issues.
The publisher of this has decided to concentrate on high-quality black-and-white covers instead of flashy colors -- and does a good job. (Ted Turner, eat your heart out!) The fiction concentrates on mood, but the mood is of the "splatter" variety, with graphic sex and violence. It may be well-written, but it's not my cup of tea. Fans of the new horror authors may want to check this one out, but be warned.
Fantasy Tales, Volume 10, #2 and Volume 11, #3 (Spring 1989, Autumn 1989); Robinson Publishing, 11 Shepherd House, Shepherd St., London W1Y 7LD, GREAT BRITAIN; 99p each, or $15 for 4 issues.
This British publication may be called Fantasy Tales but it carries the full range of fantasy, horror, and even science fiction, with a preponderance of horror. At under 100 pages (many ads or letters), it doesn't deliver very much in the way of actual fiction. (And while it's nice to see such forms as the sestina revived, Neil Gaiman does cheat in his rhyme scheme.)
Foundation, #46; SF Foundation, Polytechnic of East London, Longbridge Road, Dagenham RM8 2AS GREAT BRITAIN; $6 each, or $17 for 3 issues.
Not for the casual reader, Foundation is very much a publication for literary scholars. Because of this, I am probably not the most qualified person to judge it. However, I did find Darko Suvin's article "On Gibson and Cyberpunk SF" insightful. On the flip side, I found the article on Stapledon frequently incomprehensible, though the drawing of parallels between Star Maker and Dante's Divine Comedy was a new and provocative concept to me, and some other observations were also thought-provoking.
Green Pages, May, August, October 1989; Hatrack River Publications, P. O. Box 18184, Greensboro NC 27419-8184; no price indicated (sent with Short Form).
The May issue contains the wonderful (and infamous) "Secular Humanist Revival Meeting," but otherwise this is not very interesting. The pages are not green. (Reprints of the SHRM are available from Hatrack River Publications for $1 each; audio cassettes are $8.95.)
Grue Magazine, #10 (Fall 1989); Hell's Kitchen Productions, P. O. Box 370, Times Square Station, New York NY 10108-0370; $4.50 each, or $13 for 3 issues.
Grue Magazine provides, not surprisingly, horror stories (this seems to be the trend in small-press magazines), this time mixed with sex. The introductory warning says that they are meant to be disturbing rather than erotic. I have to agree. This is not necessarily a recommendation.
Hardware, #1 (Spring 1989); Hardware, 710 Adeline St., Trenton NJ 08611; $3 each (no subscription rate quoted).
This reminds me of the clubzine we put out twenty years ago at the University of Massachusetts. Though the physical product is much more polished, I found the contents immature.
Haunts, #17 (Fall/Winter 1989); Nightshade Publications, P. O. Box 3342, Providence RI 02906; $3.50 each, or $13 for 4 issues.
This is different from many of the current crop of horror magazines in that it doesn't rely on explicit gore, but has more of a "Twilight Zone"/"Outer Limits" feel to it. There is a limit to how many horror magazines the market can support -- I hope -- and this does not seem above average, yet the fact that it has lasted seventeen issues indicates someone likes it.
Ice River: A Magazine of Speculative Writing, Contemporary Music, and Fantasy Art; Ice River, 953 N. Gale St., Union OR 97883; $4 each, or $9 for three issues.
On the final ballot (fiction), but not seen.
Interzone; Interzone, 124 Osborne Road, Brighton BN1 6LU, GREAT BRITAIN; L1.95 each, or $22 ($26 airmail) for 6 issues.
On the final ballot, but not seen.
Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Volume 2, #3 -- #4; Magazine of Speculative Poetry, P. O. Box 564, Beloit WI 53511; $2 each, or $7.50 for four issues.
The poetry in this magazine is far more "accessible" to the average reader (in my opinion) than that in such works as Ballentine's Poly: New Speculative Writing (see below). As such, I would recommend it for those interested in starting out in speculative poetry. It also contains reviews and pointers to other poetry publications (including Poly) for those who wish to proceed further. Nicely laid out in a slim 18 pages per issue, it entertains and educates without intimidating.
Mage, #11-#12 (Sprint -- Fall 1989); Student Association, Colgate University, Hamilton NY 13346; $2.50 each, or $6 for 2 issues.
This college publication is well-presented with a professional look, but the contents are only average -- not bad, mind you, but nothing to get excited about either. The one item I found interesting was Michael Kube-McDowell's rebuttal to a negative review of his Alternities -- this is not the first such rebuttal I have seen, and given that authors do not generally take the time to "defend" their works, I wonder why Kube-McDowell seems to feel obliged to counter all the negative reviews for this one.
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, Volume 2, #1 -- #2; Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, P. O. Box 11095, Oakland CA 94611-9991, $3.95 each, or $14 for 4 issues.
One of the few outlets for straight fantasy (no horror), this magazine is still starting up but seems to be spreading in availability. (When it stops listing every store where it is available in the back of the magazine, you'll know it has succeeded.) I am not a big fantasy fan, but the works here are better than those found in the few other magazines that carry fantasy.
Midnight Graffiti, #3 -- #4; Midnight Graffiti, 13101 Sudan Road, Poway CA 92064; $4.95 each, or "$24 per year."
The book reviews in this are mostly market reviews and plot summaries, with no in-depth reviews or analyses. The covers are striking, but the interior is amateurish looking (some pages have column lines, some don't). There is a bit too much emphasis on "splatterpunk" for me. (Is splatterpunk just another name for "hack" work?)
Since this seemed to have only two issues in 1989, I am not sure how many issues the "one-year" subscription covers. Like many other small press magazines, the publishing schedule seems to be running perpetually behind.
Mystery Scene, #23 -- #24; Mystery Enterprises, 3840 Clark Rd. S.E., Cedar Rapids IO 52403; $5.50 each, or $35 for 7 issues.
This seems to be the Locus of the mystery world, with columns, reviews, news, etc. There is some science fiction and horror coverage (also westerns), but on the whole would probably be worthwhile only to mystery fans. But I would encourage serious mystery fans to give it a try.
New Pathways; New Pathways, c/o MGA Services, P. O. Box 863994, Plano TX 75086; $4 each, or $12 for four issues.
On the final ballot (fiction), but not seen.
New York Review of Science Fiction, #5 -- #16; Dragon Press, P. O. Box 78, Pleasantville NY 10570; $2.50 each, or $24 for 12 issues.
This magazine has generated much comment. Most people seem either to love it or to hate it. I will take the middle ground: I like what it seems to be trying to do, but I find many of the articles "pretentious" and the "Read This" sidebars of authors recommending books totally useless. (One can argue that if you enjoy a particular author's work, you may enjoy the books s/he recommends, but I don't think that follows at all.) And far too much of 1989's column space was devoted to reprinting large sections of the Panshins's World Beyond the Hill. People who have bought the latter could reasonably feel cheated of part of their subscription price for the former.
Niekas, #39; Niekas Publications, 380 Morrill St., Gilford NH 03246; $3.95, or $15 for 4 issues.
The "non-special" issues of Niekas are as literate as the special ones (see comments on The Once and Future Arthur and Andre Norton: Fables & Futures in the non-fiction section above). In what other science fiction magazine would an article toss off references to the Eutychians and the Monophysites without explanation? Yet throughout, the articles are readable and comprehensible in an era when many "serious" magazines seem to tend toward obfuscation. Highly recommended. (Since special issues are cover-priced at $5.95, this makes the subscription rate a very good deal.)
Nova Express, Volume 2, #3 -- #4, Volume 3, #1 (Spring, Summer, and Fall 1989); Nova Express, P. O. Box 27231, Austin TX 78755; $3 each, or $10 for 4 issues.
Though this is overall only an average non-fiction magazine, it does have in-depth interviews with, and good bibliographies of, featured authors.
Other Worlds, #3; Gryphon Books, P. O. Box 209, Brooklyn NY 11228; $4 each, or $15 for 4 issues.
It is not a good sign when the first page of the first story contains four typographical errors. And it was typical -- this magazine is full of typos, bad fiction (of the sort written by high-schoolers and college freshmen -- and I should know, because I wrote my share!), and mediocre articles. Buck Coulson's reminiscences on his early conventions, for example, are acceptable, but this topic has by now been done to death in magazines and at cons. (At least at conventions, one may be speaking to a lot of neos; in a small press magazine such as this one, you are preaching to the choir.)
Pulsar, #12 -- #15 (Winter 1989 -- Fall 1989); Pulsar, P. O. Box 886, Evansville IL 47706-0886, $3 each, or $12 for 4 issues.
This is a fanzine by its own admission, and as such it is not fair to compare it to professional publications. As a fanzine, it is ambitious, though I found much of the artwork mundane. It has a mix of fiction and non-fiction, with a few worthwhile pieces (some recycled from elsewhere -- not necessarily a bad thing, as I sometimes do it myself).
Science Fiction Guide; Charles Platt, 594 Broadway, Room 1208, New York NY 10012; $1.50 each.
On the final ballot (non-fiction), but not seen.
SF Eye, Volume 1, #5; Science Fiction Eye, P. O. Box 43244, Washington DC 20010-9244; $3.50 each, or $10 for 3 issues.
This professional-looking magazine provides more thought-provoking articles than most. For example, this issue has "Beyond Cyberpunk" by John Shirley, a conversation between Lewis Shiner and Howard Waldrop (different from your run-of-the-mill interview feature), and Charles Platt explaining how Judy-Lynn and Lester Del Rey, Isaac Asimov, Roger Elwood, Byron Preiss, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Charles Brown, J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert Asprin, Vonda McIntyre, Joan Vinge, and L. Ron Hubbard have ruined science fiction. Its production values and subject matter certainly raise it above the run-of-the-mill reviewzine.
Short Form, June, August, October 1989; Hatrack River Publications, P. O. Box 18184, Greensboro NC 27419-8184; $4 each, or $24 for 6 issues.
The format of this is two columns with articles running in their column until they end. So the left column and the right column are independent of each other, and it drives the reader crazy! The editor claims he wants to "challenge" the reader, but as several have said, they want to be challenged by the content and see no need to be challenged by the format. (Why not write it in Latin and challenge the reader that way?) The content is at times boring, at times thought-provoking, though many of the arguments made by the columnists (Sterling, Shiner, etc.) do not bear close analysis. This was supposedly a magazine devoted to the field of short fiction, but it has drifted into the subjects of children's books and chain stores, as well as other more general topics.
Space & Time, #75 -- #76; Space and Time, 138 West 70th St. (4B), New York NY 10023-4432; $5 each, or $18 for 4 issues.
Fiction magazine, at the fan level of writing -- good for amateurs but not up to professional standards in most cases.
Strange Plasma, #1; Edgewood Press, P. O. Box 264, Cambridge MA 02238; $3 each, or $8 for 3 issues.
A promising first issue of a new fiction magazine, if a bit slim. Only time will tell whether this lasts or not.
Tales of the Unanticipated, #5 -- #6 (Spring/Summer 1989, Fall/Winter 1989/1990); Tales of the Unanticipated, P. O. Box 8036, Lake Street Station, Minneapolis MN 55408; $2.50 each.
This is a mixed bag: some good items, some just so-so. Because it is so reasonably priced, I would say pick up a copy if you can find it.
Thrust, #33 -- #35; Thrust Publications, 8217 Langport Terrace, Gaithersburg MD 20877; $3 each, or $8 for 4 issues.
This is a non-fiction magazine, with good analyses and articles, and with reviews of some controversy and depth.
Two AM, #11 -- #14; 2 AM Publications, P. O. Box 6754, Rockford IL 61125-1754; $4.95 each plus $1 postage and handling, or $19 for 4 issues.
This is mainly a horror fiction magazine, though with a substantial amount of non-fiction. The stories are, in general, quite predictable, and the book reviews section consists of only positive reviews.
Weird Tales, Winter 1989 (#293), Fall 1989 (#294), Winter 1990 (#295); Terminus Press, 4426 Larchwood Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19104; $4 each, or $18 for 6 issues.
Weird Tales has just broken out of the semi-professional category into the professional category of the Hugos, having achieved a 10,000 circulation. And it is a welcome addition -- the fiction is top-notch, with a higher percentage of good stories (for my tastes anyway) than any other magazine I have seen. Each issue features a particular author (e.g., Avram Davidson, Karl Edward Wagner, Brian Lumley), but has a wide range of other authors. It seems to be unique in the field in that it also features a single artist per issue, giving the artist a chance to illustrate a variety of stories and the reader to judge the range of the artist's abilities. Its fiction seems to concentrate more on style than on graphic gore, and covers a range of horror, fantasy, and even some science fiction. The book reviews and non-fiction pieces are also quite good. And it is printed on good quality paper in a very readable typeface.
Miscellaneous
This is a catch-all category for graphic novels, art books, poetry, and anything else that doesn't really fit anywhere else.
Ballentine, Lee (editor); Poly: New Speculative Writing; Ocean View Books, P. O. Box 4148, Mountain View CA 94040; 0-938075-05-5, $16.95.
The introduction to this is extremely pretentious while making several errors (incorrect titles, grammar errors, the usual). It claims "poetry is a science, an exact science, akin to astronomy" [italics theirs] and "scientists are also poets.... If you doubt it, open any good Topology text at random, and read a theorem or two" [all italics theirs].
The Bradbury and Disch pieces are good, but for the rest.... Well, here is one sample from "a series of poems engendered in that textual space where certain image systems of one Canadian poet intersect certain image systems of one SF & F writer" by Douglas Barbour:
Gwendolyn Macewan & Vonda Mcintyre
listen this shadow on black synthesis image reversed i will ride you o loving darkness into a new light dark light
Right. If you enjoy this, this is the book for you.
Cherkas, Michael and Hancock, Larry; The Silent Invasion 1-4; NBM Publishing, 35-73 70th St., Jackson Heights NY 11372
This graphic novel by two Canadians was originally published by Renegade Comics. Done in black-and-white, the artwork is extremely stylized (the introduction calls it "cartoony" -- it reminded me of something like "Little Lulu"). As a result I had difficulty telling who the characters were from the drawings. The Silent Invasion has a good story, but I didn't find the graphic novel a particularly good way to tell it.
Disch, Thomas M.; Yes, Let's; Johns Hopkins University Press, 701 West 40th St., Suite 275, Baltimore MD 21211; 0-8018-3851-1-7; $8.95.
Most science fiction readers know Thomas Disch for his novels and other prose works. (These days it may be true that most people know him as the author of the story they based the movie The Brave Little Toaster on, but maybe I'm just becoming cynical.) At any rate, this collection, if you can find it, will show you another side of Disch. This is really a collection of collections, being excerpts from The Right Way to Figure Plumbing (1972), ABCDEFG HIJKLM NPOQRST UVWXYZ (1981, and yes, the 'P' does come before the 'O'), Burn This (1982), Orders of the Retina (1982), and Here I Am, There You Are, Where Were We (1984), as well as several previously uncollected poems.
Though not necessarily representative, I have to say the following struck home the most with me:
It was hot -- we knew it would be --
And the beach was black with tar;
And we weren't all that we should be
At the fabled Sol e Mar.
Of course, I had recently returned from a less than ideal vacation which included the Costa del Sol, so this may have just been a poem in the right place at the right time with me.
Ellison, Harlan and Corben, Richard; Vic and Blood; NBM Publishing, 35-73 70th St., Jackson Heights NY 11372; 0-312-03471-7, $8.95.
I would call this a "graphic novel," but it is really three short stories instead. In any case, I did not find it any improvement over the original stories, though occasionally the artwork was striking. The drive-in anecdote in the afterword was obviously false -- who goes to a drive-in during the daytime? -- but I'm sure Ellison would give the same excuse he always gives when confronted with a factual error in his writing: literary license. Strange that if anyone else takes literary license he gets all up in arms about it....
Giger, H. R.; Giger's Alien; Morpheus International, 200 N. Robertson Boulevard, Suite 312, Beverly Hills CA 90211; 0-9623447-0-2; $39.95.
Of course the art work is gorgeous. But Morpheus has chosen that black paper that shows every single fingerprint, meaning you will be afraid to read this without gloves on. (I also wonder about the appropriateness of this book for a "Readercon" award -- yes, it has text regarding the illustrations and the film, but it is still a film tie-in rather than "literature.")
Petersen, Sandy; Ferrari, Mark J.; Willis, Lynn; and Sullivan, Tom; Petersen's Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands; Chaosium, Inc., Box 6302, Albany CA 94706-0302; 0-933635-53-2, $15.95.
This book is absolutely gorgeous! Done in "field guide" style, it describes and portrays two dozen creatures from H. P. Lovecraft's writings. If you liked such works as Dougal Dixon's After Man, you will enjoy this work of "speculative biology." Chaosium specializes in gaming materials and this (and another work, Petersen's Guide to Creatures of the Cthulhu Mythos) were issued in part as supplements to role-playing games. But even if you never do any gaming, you will enjoy these books. In fairness let me give Mark Ferrari credit, since the artwork is mostly his; Petersen wrote the text. The text is well-done also, but the artwork, done in colored pencil and absolutely wonderful, is what makes this book special.
(And you can handle it without worrying about every fingerprint showing.)
And the Winners Are...
Novel -- No Award
Short Work -- A Dozen Tough Jobs, Howard Waldrop (Mark V. Ziesing)
Single-Author Collection -- Richard Matheson: Collected Stories, Richard Matheson (Scream/Press)
Anthology -- What Did Miss Darrington See?: An Anthology of Feminist Supernatural Fiction, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, ed. (Feminist Press)
Non-Fiction -- The Dark-Haired Girl, Philip K. Dick (Mark V. Ziesing)
Reference/Bibliography -- No Award
Reprint -- The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers (Mark V. Ziesing)
Jacket Illustration -- J. K. Potter, The Anubis Gates (Mark V. Ziesing)
Interior Illustration -- Mark Ferrari & Tom Sullivan, S. Peterson's Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands (Chaosium)
Value in Bookcraft -- Richard Matheson: Collected Stories, Richard Matheson (Scream/Press)
Magazines (Fiction) -- Interzone, David Pringle, ed. (Interzone)
Magazines (Criticism) -- Science Fiction Eye, Stephen P. Brown & Daniel J. Steffan, eds. (Science Fiction Eye)
Magazines (Design) -- Science Fiction Eye, Stephen P. Brown & Daniel J. Steffan, eds. (Science Fiction Eye)
------ End ------
Issue 27, Spring 1990 (part 9)
Electronic OtherRealms #27
Spring, 1990
Part 9 of 11
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
Words of Wizdom
Chuq Von Rospach
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
Dragondoom
Dennis L. McKiernan
Bantam, February 1990, 485pp, $4.50, 0-553-28337
What's the stuff of High Fantasy? Elves and Dwarves and Men and Evil Dragons and Quests and Good People Forced Into Bad Situations. To many people, it's Fantasy with a Tolkienesque slant (not that Tolkien invented High Fantasy, but Tolkien is likely the first one many have read, which is more or less the same thing). It's also, in many cases, highly predictable, formula stuff -- good entertainment but interchangeable with its brothers and sisters.
Enter Dennis McKiernan and Dragondoom, a new, independent story set in the same universe as his Iron Tower trilogy. While Iron Tower is a classic example of the interchangeable formula (Which is not to be considered the same as 'bad' -- the worst word I would use for Iron Tower is unmemorable), McKiernan has stretched his wings and flown off on his own with Dragondoom. The story is independent of Iron Tower, so people who haven't read it won't be left out with unknown information; in fact, the Mithgar of Dragondoom is different enough from his other works that it might as well be a new universe. New and much more alive.
Dragondoom is somewhat difficult to review, because while it follows the formulas defined by Epic High Fantasy, it refuses to be bound by them. Epic works require Hero and Villain, for instance. Dragondoom has characters that become heroes for a while, then screw up royally and get their tails whomped. Sometimes they die, which is another change: Heroes aren't allowed to fail. No matter how difficult the task, they win out in the end. In Dragondoom, they succeed in their task, but do they win? No, they don't, nor do they live happily ever after.
McKiernan has built a lot of complexity into the book. He doesn't follow the safe paths, and while it doesn't always work, it keeps the reader off-guard and involved in the work. It's not safe to assume what's going to happen next -- because you're likely to be wrong. There are problems with the book: McKiernan's style sometimes falls into the purple froth and his characters are sometimes unnecessarily melodramatic, but it's the best work he's done to date and it's a lot more intelligent and thought-provoking than the average formula piece. It's also troubling and ambiguous, without clear winners or losers and, just like real life (and unlike much Fantasy) it shows that bad things happen to good people (and vice versa) and, sometimes, things just fall apart. But it's well worth the time needed to work your way through to the end of the journey. [***+]
Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille
Steven Brust
Ace, January 1990, $3.50, 0-441-11816-X
We now turn to the latest Spider Robinson book in the Callahan's Bar series. Except, unfortunately, that it isn't a bar, it's a restaurant, it isn't Callahan, it's Cowboy Feng and it isn't Spider, it's Steven Brust.
Now, I really like both authors, and I really like Callahan's Bar, but the whole premise (a restaurant travels through time and space to save the universe from the big blue meanies) is a bit too absurd to play straight and doesn't quite work. It also hurts that Steven Brust is, when you come down to it, a really great writer of Steven Brust books but a pretty so-so writer of Spider Robinson books. This could have been a better book if Steven had written like Steven or done typically Brustian things with it. It could have been a better book if Steven had sent the draft to Spider and collaborated. It probably could not have been more than an okay book, but as it stands, it's simply disappointing -- it's not good Brust, it's not good Robinson, but it's a mish-mash of concepts and styles sitting somewhere in the middle.
And part of me wonders if Steve writes hungry, or if he's just read a little too much Hemingway. [***-]
Second Contact
Mike Resnick
Tor, March, 1990, $17.95, 0-312-85021-0
Mike Resnick has turned out two complex, emotionally intense, draining books in Ivory and Paradise. There's only so long you can keep topping yourself without killing yourself in the process, so in Second Contact, he doesn't even try, choosing instead to let his hair down and write something a lot lighter and less challenging.
Second Contact is a SF/mystery mix, with Max Becker, a military lawyer, given the charge of defending a starship captain who walked out of his cabin one day and shot two crewmen in cold blood. His defense? They were space aliens spying on his ship.
What's funny, though, is how when Becker looks into it witnesses disappear, people start to die and then start shooting at him as well. That sort of activity has a tendency to make you wonder what's going on, so Becker goes underground and starts digging.
What he finds is a fun romp through the world of the almost-unbelievable, but Resnick has firm control of the situation. He knows exactly how to keep a reader wondering what in the heck is going on while still planting all the clues needed to come up with an answer that the reader will not feel cheated over.
It's all a lot of fun, well-written and intriguing by one of my favorite authors. [****]
Dying of the Light
George R.R. Martin
Baen, February, 1990, $3.50, 0-671-69861-3
I normally don't talk about reprints, and because my reading time tends to be limited I rarely re-read old favorites (that many old favorites aren't quite so favored after re-reading has something to do with it, too). So when Baen re-issued Dying of the Light, I jumped at the chance to re-acquaint myself with it and spend some time with a personal favorite.
This is Martin's first book, a very powerful story of love and honor amid conflicting societies. This is one of those books where you really can't point at a character and say "good guy" or "bad guy" because everything is in shades of gray. Even the really nasty people are really nasty because they honestly believe they're doing the right thing.
There's one flaw that really doesn't show up until re-reading, and it's the only thing that bothered me about the book. There's a question that one of the characters should be asking but doesn't, for no really good reason -- except that it puts the author in a bind and really screws up the story. Martin seems to recognize this, because occasionally he has the character agonize over it a bit without ever really convincing anyone that he's doing what he's supposed to be doing.
I'll give Martin a bit of author-authority, though, because the rest of the story is detailed, complex and alive enough to make you not really mind having a character blatantly manipulated for the sake of the plot. The plot, for once, is worth it. [****]
Howling Mad
Peter David
Ace, November, 1989, $3.50, 0-441-34663-4
When a dog bites a man, that's not news. But when a man bites a dog....
How about when a werewolf bites a wolf? Peter David writes an extremely funny (and sometimes hilariously anti-mankind) book about the story of a wolf that's been bitten by a werewolf and becomes a man during the full moon and has to learn how to be human and while coming to grips with his new reailty. To try to explain it further wouldn't do it justice, and would likely simple devolve into incomprehensibility, but suffice it to say this is a very amusing piece of escapist entertainment with enough philosophical commentary on the human condition to keep you on your toes. If you're looking for a few hours of chuckling to yourself, it's hard to beat. [***+]
Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three Don Sakers, ed. Baen, March, 1990, $3.95, 0-671-69864-8
And now for something completely different. An anthology about a ghost in a space station, based on a filksong by fan-singer Leslie Fish. Don Sakers has put together an anthology that deserves the "really weird idea of the year" award. It's strange, and it almost works. It's got some good stories (especially "Confessional Booths" by Susan Shwartz and an even-stranger-than-usual "In the Can" by master-weird-writer Esther Friesner) while having very little in the way of clinkers. It doesn't, however, have anything that stands out significantly and the concept wears rather thin after a while. It's a good romp, and it's probably better suited to reading a story here and a story there for a break rather than straight through, but while the authors meet the challenge of the concept, the concept is a bit on the shallow side. [**+]
Last Call
Alan Wexelblat
Copyright 1990 by Alan Wexelblat
If you've read Chuq's editorial, you already know this is my last appearance as a regular columnist in these pages. It's been a lot of fun -- the fan mail always outweighed the hate mail. I might do it differently, but given the chance I'd do it all over again.
Last time we looked at new efforts by old favorites, and that's as good a way to finish off as any other. If by now you haven't followed my recommendations to Cadigan, Crowley, Powers, Shiner, or Sterling, I'm probably not going to convince you to check out this issue's fave, K.W. Jeter, even though you should. So here's what topped my reading list this time around.
Brothers in Arms [****-] Lois McMaster Bujold Baen, 1989, 0-671-69799-4
I enjoyed reading Miles Vorkosigan's adventures at novella length, so I picked up this Vorkosigan novel. Like Borders of Infinity, it is a 'neat' book. It tells a convoluted story concerning Vorkosigan's two identities and the stresses they impose on his personal and professional lives.
It starts out simply enough: the Dendarii fleet puts in at Earth for some rest and relaxation. Almost immediately, the payroll goes missing, which means that the Barrayaran embassy is compromised in some way by enemies unknown. The fleet is in hock up to its ears and several someones are trying to kill both Admiral Naismith and Miles. Which is unfortunate, as one or both of these personalities is falling in love with Elli Quinn who clearly loves the admiral but can't deal with the Miles identity. Superman and Lois never had it this bad.
Bujold handles all these complications and more with seeming ease. As with much of her work, she manages to keep the climax of the book from depending totally on the plentiful action. Instead, it is the dynamics of the characters' emotional tensions that keeps the reader on the edge of her seat. Love, loyalty, and identity crises are resolved in logical fashion.
Unfortunately for new readers, Bujold appears to be writing the Miles stories in timeline order: Brothers in Arms depends on, and refers to, events in Borders and previous stories. This is not the book with which to start learning about this character, but it should definitely be read in its proper place, after you've enjoyed the others.
The Barsoom Project [***-] Larry Niven & Steve Barnes Ace, 1989, 0-441-16712-8
I've never written about a Niven book before -- goodness knows the man gets enough publicity without my chiming in. Nevertheless, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to review this sequel to Dream Park.
The story revolves around two major characters: Alex Griffin, head of Dream Park security, and 'Eviane.' Eviane is the Gaming name of a woman who was set up to kill a Dream Park actor eight years ago and who has now returned seeking to mend the damage that the incident did to her psyche. The story proceeds along two threads -- in the outer story, Alex tries to figure out why Eviane is there and what the current plot is against Dream Park. In the inner, Eviane and her compatriots participate in the Fimbulwinter Game, a Dream Park adventure.
Along the way, the authors pile on lots of 'in' jokes for and about science fiction authors and stories. They are also pretty merciless in shredding the typical, grossly overweight, SF fan. The Dream Park Game is designed as a "fat ripper special," an adventure that supposedly not only causes people to shed some pounds, but helps them become aware of and modify their eating behaviors.
Unfortunately, neither the inner nor outer story is all that satisfying. Alex's attempts to solve the mystery involve unfolding a lot of events that occurred years in Dream Park's past and in which the reader has no stake and for which one feels no sympathy. The "mystery" is solved by the characters in a workmanlike fashion with no chance for the reader to figure it out, since important clues are withheld.
The Fimbulwinter game has some high points. Niven and Barnes work in the Inuit mythology, a rich area that is still unexplored by most fantasy authors. But two hundred pages of someone else's D&D adventure gets a bit dull. Both the inner and outer stories are also hurt by Niven and Barnes' inability to deal with the number of characters. Only one or two attain any personality beyond stereotype. Even at the end of the book I was confusing two who had similar names.
I know many people will buy this because they loved Dream Park; I wish I hadn't.
Falcon [***]
Emma Bull
Ace, 1989, 0-441-22569-1
Bull's second solo novel is a foray into far-future science fiction, a far cry from the contemporary fantasy of War for the Oaks. Unfortunately, she's even less successful here than in that first novel, but not for lack of interesting ideas.
The story is mostly about Niki Falcon, the last of the living star pilots. Niki, to become a gestalt pilot, has been genetically modified to live in symbiosis with his ship. Together the two can "Cheat" space and time to go from place to place. Unfortunately, part of Niki's transformation included an addiction to a time-sense-altering drug needed for the Cheat. This drug, and the other modifications to his system, are slowly destroying him. Before he dies, though, he has the chance to save a world from destruction by smuggling someone past a planetary blockade.
Bull puts in a number of interesting secondary characters. As with War, her characters are easier to hate than to like, including Niki. The writing is competent throughout, though the twist at the end should be obvious to anyone with more than a passing familiarity with nanotechnology.
The major problem is with the book's structure: the novel starts off with a hundred-twenty-page lump about Niki on his home world before he becomes a pilot. It involves a lot of ultimately-disposable characters and a lot of aimless running about. Its main point seems to be to provide people and incidental facts which can pop up again at the end of the book. None of it makes any difference, since neither the facts or the people are that important to what goes on. I can't tell if this section was tacked on as an afterthought to lengthen a short novel or is the vestigial remains of something more significant. Either way it almost ruins a fairly good book.
Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille [****] Steven Brust Ace, 1990, 0-441-11816-X
If you're looking for another Taltos-style book from Brust, you're not going to get one here. Feng's is wilder, more mysterious and, ultimately, less complex than most of what Brust has done before. Cowboy Feng's is indeed a bar and grille, but it's nothing like the now-familiar Callahan's Saloon, to which some people have compared it. First off, it appears to have the unusual property that it travels forward through time whenever an atomic bomb goes off nearby. Those who happen to be lucky enough to be inside when it hits are carried along.
Feng's meager staff of four seems to know what's going on, but they aren't telling. This leaves the four part-time Irish musicians who've been carried along by accident to puzzle things out for themselves. They do, piece by piece, with the reader going along for the ride. Much of the book works because Brust is able to sustain just enough mystery to keep the reader interested but not frustrated, so I won't spoil things by saying more about the plot, except to promise you that there is a Feng.
There are several things going on in this book that are worth commenting on. On one level, Brust seems to be saying, 'Look at these neat characters!' but the mystery and action keeps drawing us away from them. On another this is a simple but classically powerful story about love in the face of an impossible situation. And on another it's a strong commentary about AIDS and the stupidity of some peoples' reactions to it.
My only real complaint with the book is that Brust paints the major characters with such a fine brush that some of the minor ones are slighted and when they pass from the story it affects us less than it should.
The Stress of Her Regard [****]
Tim Powers
Ace, 1989, 0-441-79055-0
Byron, Shelly, Keats and vampires. What the Sphinx was really asking. Why you should never put your wedding ring on the finger of a statue and should be careful whom you invite into your home. What more do you need to know about a Powers novel?
The Stress of Her Regard is the story of Michael Crawford, a doctor ahead of his time because he takes "women's medicine" seriously. At a drunken bachelor party he places the wedding ring intended for his bride on the hand of a statue in a garden. The morning after his wedding night he wakes to find his wife brutally murdered. He embarks on a journey that leads him into and out of the arms of vampires and into the lives of the aforementioned poetic greats, who draw their beyond-human inspiration from intimate contact with the race of vampires.
Powers is at his usual good form. The historical research is impeccable, the action is exciting, the prose is good, and the magic has the trademark gritty realism that I've remarked on in earlier reviews of his books. Powers even manages to do new things with the standard vampire legends, even to the point of blending in the classical Sphinx in a way that makes sense.
So what's the problem? Well, it's old hat by now. Powers has done all this before. Stress is stylistically identical to Anubis Gates and On Stranger Tides. Even the science-fictional Dinner at Deviant's Palace shared many of the same elements. I like each book for itself, but I don't see Powers growing as an author through these books. I'd like to see him try something totally new and, from what I hear, I shouldn't have to wait too long.
Infernal Devices [****+] K. W. Jeter Signet, 1987, 0-451-14934-3
This is without a doubt one of the strangest books I've read in years. It's subtitled "A Mad Victorian Fantasy," which is an understatement. The cover picture shows, among other things, a man with a piranha face -- which is an indication of how weird things get inside.
The protagonist, George Dower, is a proper Victorian gentleman. He has inherited his now-deceased father's clockworks business. Unfortunately, the senior Dower possessed amazing abilities in creating mechanical automata of all kinds. George, despite having access to his father's workshop, does not have the skill to do more than replace worn-out parts on most of the odd things people bring in for repair. Nevertheless, he manages to survive.
One day a mysterious Brown Leather Man brings George a device that is completely outside the realm of his experience. In payment he leaves George with a gold sovereign which, having a fish-faced man on one side, was clearly never minted by her Majesty's coiners. This token serves as George's ticket into a shadowy London underground and involves him in plots his father set in motion decades ago, including an apparently-mad effort to destroy the world for the purpose of attracting the attention of extra-terrestrials.
The writing is extremely well-crafted. George narrates most of his own story and the author remains true to the Victorian style, including the elliptical descriptions and colloquialisms. Jeter is, of course, parodying that style, as well as most of the traits we associate with the Victorian period: their attitudes towards women, their romance with the mystical, and their adoration of inexplicable scientific complexity. The parody perfectly fits the structure of the book.
Jeter also handles his characters masterfully. He keeps the cast small and develops even the minor players into believable persons. He also mixes in just enough science to keep the pseudo-science working. The result is an enjoyable, if thoroughly bizarre, fantasy.
Dr. Adder [*****-] K. W. Jeter Signet, 1984, 0-451-15197-6
Dr. Adder, Jeter's first novel, is completely different from Infernal Devices. This is hard SF with teeth and a gut-twisting ethos.
Dr. Adder is the virtual lord of future L. A. He is a street doctor who probes the mind of his patients to discover their innermost desires and then modifies their bodies to enable them to achieve what they most deeply want. Many of these modifications involve amputations, but the whores and thrill seekers who come to Adder have no complaints. His antagonist is Mox, an influential television preacher on a jihad to end Adder's reign and life, all as part of a grand plan for salvation of the faithful in L. A.
Caught between them is Allen Limmit, a newcomer to L. A. who happens to possess the last working flashglove. The flashglove is an artificially-intelligent limb, programmed to kill and to protect the person to whom it is grafted. Adder wants the glove; Mox wants to catch Adder with it. The collision of these two forces brings an entire city to its knees.
Jeter's writing in Dr. Adder is blindingly hard-edged. The pace is full-throttle throughout, and Jeter pushes through dozens of ideas any one of which would be enough for a story in itself. He also deals with things that would make most authors balk; the fantastic sexual perversions are only a sidelight compared to some of the social perversions described. At another layer, the book is allegorical commentary on science fiction itself. Jeter shreds the hackneyed ideas of post-holocaust sf, epic-quest fantasy, and several similar old formulas. One of the minor characters, an aging radio personality, is named KCID -- an obvious reference to Philip Dick. The Dr. Adder character also seems to be based on some of the wilder Dick stories that have circulated.
If this all seems familiar to you, if you're sitting there saying: "yes, but the cyberpunks have already done the sf-self-critique; they have already dealt with themes like the invasion of machine into the body, the pervasive brainwashing influences of television, and the uses technology finds in the street," then check out when Dr. Adder was written. It was first created, according to the afterward by Dick, in 1972. But for almost a decade no publisher in the US, England, or France would take it. Science fiction had ossified and only major pushy authors like Ellison and Spinrad could get through. The book was finally bought and first printed in 1979, in part due to Dick's efforts.
It is a fair question to ask whether Dr. Adder is indeed cyberpunk. Jeter was reportedly quite upset when Signet put "The Cyberpunk Sensation" on his 1985 novel, The Glass Hammer. That book, the thematic sequel to Dr. Adder, is also worth the effort of tracking down a copy. It is my opinion that Dr. Adderis not cyberpunk. I think this because even though Jeter's L.A. makes the Sprawl look pleasant, it is less rooted in today's reality. Jeter's future is only tenuously connected to the postmodern present.
In the end, though, labels matter far less than what is inside. Even eighteen years later, Dr. Adder's contents say more than ninety percent of published science fiction. You make up your own mind.
------ End ------
Issue 27, Spring 1990 (part 10)
Electronic OtherRealms #27
Spring, 1990
Part 10 of 11
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
No Prisoners!
Laurie Sefton
Copyright 1990 by Laurie Sefton
If you ever want top find out exactly how much spare time you really have, take my advice -- go enroll in graduate school. I'm in my third quarter at Stanford University, allegedly studying Engineering of Economic Systems (you can all get over the grimace now). Graduate school is very sneaky. They lull you into a state of well-being by giving you an easy class, and then, when you least expect it, you find yourself in the Class From Hell. Or it's at least from another dimension. You've all had classes like this; the homework has nothing to do with either the lecture material or the assigned reading, and it appears that the teaching assistant and the professor are mutually antagonistic, if not completely hostile. You now get to spend your time slogging through large chunks of reading, especially right before the mid-term and the final. No, it's not your fault that you haven't read the material, it's just that the TA didn't bother to hand out the reading list until 5 days before the exams. And the homework -- ah yes, the homework. You thought you'd never have to work out those nasty word problems again, and here they are, back to invade your subconscious, and twist your perceptions.
Beyond this, 5-10 hours of homework a week, and another 5-10 hours of hard core reading destroys any hope that you're going to get any other reading done. You want to read something else, anything other than the infinite number of case studies you've been trying to decipher. However, good sense, and the fear of a bad grade prevails, and you save up all those books you've been wanting to read for one large literary orgy after you've finished the final.
And after you've had some sleep.
Sun-Runner's Fire [***] Melanie Rawn DAW Books, 1990, 479 pp.
Sun-Runner's Fire is the third in the Dragon Prince series. You do need to read the first two books in the series, Dragon Prince and The Star Scroll, if you hope to keep track of who is doing what to whom. The high prince and princess of the desert, Rohan and Sioned find themselves the fulcrum of a number of intrigues, the most obvious is that of Andry, the leader of the Farahd'im, the Sun-Runners who act much as a telecommunications system among the principalities, as well as an intelligence gathering agent for both the High Prince and the Farahd'im themselves. Not so obvious is the Diarmadh'im, the old-blood sorcerers who were defeated 500 years past, and now want to reclaim their kingdom.
The theme of Sun-Runner's fire is that secrets kept to hurt others, or to gain power will surely come back to haunt you. Secrets are kept from all the characters in the book, some to ease what the keep may think would be unbearable pain, some for selfish reasons on the keeper's part, and some for just the sake of keeping a secret. When the secrets are revealed, some on purpose, some inadvertently, tenuous relationships are broken. While the 'good guys' still win the battle, you feel that all involved will have decide who is an ally, and who is just a less dangerous enemy. Sun-Runner's Fire drags a bit in the middle, but picks up at the end and foreshadows much more to come.
A Candle for d'Artagnan [****]
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
TOR Horror, 1989, 485 pp
A few hundred years and a couple of lifetimes ago, I joined a collegiate fencing squad. Wherever you have a fencing squad, and have more than four romantics, you're going to have the four musketeers. Which musketeer I was is left as an exercise to the reader.
I read all of Dumas' books on the musketeers, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Viscount of Bragelonne. The central character in the three books, is d'Artagnan, the Gascon who arrives on a "buttercup yellow" nag and proceeds to work his way through the royal courts of France.
Yarbro also has d'Artagnan as her central mortal character in the story. Olivia, the ageless vampire from imperial Rome returns for her third, and final, saga. Olivia is sent to the French court, as much as a noble hostage as a clever solution to ridding the Papal lands of a wealthy widow. Olivia is drawn into the web of intrigue at the court of Louis XIII, and finds d'Artagnan as her savior and then her lover.
d'Artagnan is a different character from what is portrayed by Dumas, who appears to have candy-coated the life of the musketeers, hiding the pain, the dirt and the drudge of everyday life. Those who have subscribed to the Dumas version of the musketeers may feel as if they've been betrayed, but the portrayals the Yarbro provides are much more true to character than the sometime archetypes that Dumas provided. Be assured, though, that the French court, and the Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin are just as sneaky and two-faced as ever.
The Stand [***] Stephen King Doubleday, 1990, 1153pp
If we shift forward 350 years, we find that humanity hasn't improved their lot, from either a moral or viral view. Stephen King's The Stand takes a look at both, and delivers a rather nasty sermon on the nature of mankind at the same time. I didn't read the original version -- this is the current, uncut version, so I don't have a frame of reference of what the first version was attempting to get across to the reader. I did get two points from the book:
1. Mankind is pretty nasty
2. The judeo-christian version of God isn't much better
Talk about 'created in His image'. I suppose I should have been horrified, both at the plague, and then at the destruction of society, and then the "you can't win the war against evil, just the battle" moral. Then again, I spent my childhood years growing up on the periphery of the Chicago political machine. The dark man is sort of the end result of a number of politicians I've known; someone who can go through life trashing out everything around him, and just when you think he's finally out of the picture, he pops back up with a new story and a new constituency.
God isn't offering any help to the good guys in this story, either. Enough minor miracles pop up for a good chunk of the people there to go off blindly trying to take the dark man out. They don't do very well. There are a number of biblical references in the book, among them the story of Job. The trouble is, instead of being the respected opposition, as Lucifer is portrayed in the story, we have the later, Christian (or more accurately, the Zoroastrian) version of the evil entity, who takes up a role of duality of power.
Theological issues aside, this is a very large, very long book. King spends a lot of time setting up the characters, and then not a lot leading them to their final destination. This isn't literature, but if you're on a long flight, or just need something to read which isn't taxing, this is it.
The Hawk's Gray Feather [***]
Patricia Kennealy
RoC, May 1990, 400 pp
If we skip ahead another 100 years or so in our time, but 1500 years ago in legendary time, we're in the worlds of the Keltiad, with Patricia Kennealy's latest, The Hawk's Gray Feather. Be warned, this is the first book of a trilogy, and if you tend to read trilogies like I do, you'll want to have all three books in hand before you start.
The Hawk's Gray Feather is another telling of the legend of Arthur, who does exist in the historical timeline of the Keltic worlds. The story is told from the viewpoint of Taliesin, Arthur's foster-brother and Keltia's greatest bard. This has much of the feeling of the other stories of the Keltiad; there are definite enemies and friends, and it takes no time to decide whose side each character is on. And as with the other stories of Keltia, the people of Keltia are very strong, brave, beautiful, intelligent and talented. This will either enchant you or enrage you -- some readers have a very low tolerance for the good guys being truly good.
Lunar Activity [***+]
Elizabeth Moon
Baen Books, April 1990, 278 pp
Lunar Activity crosses times, worlds and categories. A lot of readers will buy the collection of stories by Elizabeth Moon solely for the fantasy story at the end from the Deed of Paksennarion venue and will miss out on some good science fiction. I especially enjoyed the stories with a medical/biological viewpoint -- it had never occurred to me the problems with inserting an IV under zero gravity until I read about what Moon had to say on the subject. Science fiction has a tendency to ignore the biological story, in favor of high-tech, and biology and medicine have as many possibilities. I'd like to see more exploration of these areas, and I hope that Moon continues to do so.
The Agony Column
Rick Kleffel
Copyright 1990 by Rick Kleffel
This is my last OtherRealms column. It's been a very fruitful experience for me, and I'd like to thank Chuq for the opportunity to tread on the toes of the wide-eyed and innocent. I can understand his need to focus his efforts, but for those who enjoyed the horror coverage, let me recommend some publications that offer what you won't be finding here any more.
First is Midnight Graffiti. Excuse the shameless self-promotion, but I'm doing reviews for them and you'll also get fiction by many of the top names in the field: King, Schow, Ellison and others. (Those interested in my horror should keep an eye out for stories in upcoming issues of Deathrealm and Thin Ice, too. But I digress).
Other magazines of interest are The Scream Factory, Mystery Scene, which carries quality criticism by the best reviewers around, Rave Reviews, Fear, especially for horror movies, Weird Tales and 2AM magazine, especially recommended for the J.N. Williamson column.
Like most genre fiction, horror tends to get caught up in trends. Since I've been writing Agony Column, we've seen the coming of the Vietnam Veteran, the advent of Splatterpunk, and the serialization of horror. Now a new trend is rearing its ugly head -- "real life horror". After years of living in a supernatural world, horror writers are not chronicling the terrors of everyday life. Not that this is a totally new idea. From "The Telltale Heart" to Psycho to Misery, the twisted human mind has been fertile ground for invention by horror writers, but in the last few years, the supernatural forces really seemed to have taken over -- until now. Last year Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs won the World Fantasy Award. This year, we're seeing a proliferation of more realistic novels -- Ray Garton's Trade Secrets and Kate Wilhelm's The Dark Door, to name just two. Dean Koontz, in The Bad Place, features a husband and wife detective team as his protagonists. Mystery writer Ruth Rendell continues to make inroads into the horror genre in her Collected Stories, and even court psychiatrist Ronald Markman manages to horrify the reader in his true crime collection Alone With the Devil. For instance:
Meat [****] Ian Watson Headline, $6.00 (UK), 246pp
If ever there was a pristine, pure example of the axiom "Never judge a book by its cover," then it's Meat by Ian Watson. Behind what must certainly be the worst meat-cleaver cover of the 80s hides a book that is full of good prose, excellent characters, an imaginative horror premise, and a social and political conscience. This last ingredient makes alone makes the novel worth reading, since it is all too rare in the horror genre.
Meat revolves around vegetarianism, animal experimentation, social rebellion and, and class structures in modern-day, middle-class England. Saul and Diane Cobbett are struggling members on the fringe of England's work force. Diane has a chip on her shoulder about eating meat, and it's getting harder and harder for Saul, her husband, to deal with it. She demands that they free their pet rabbit, because keeping it is unnatural. This leads them to make the mistake of rescuing another rabbit from a carnivorous, savage weasel, thus setting in motion a surreal supernatural force that undermines their marriage and their lives. When Diane demands that Saul finds her a way to join the Animal Liberation Forces, we know they're on a one-way street to big trouble.
What we don't know is the exact nature of that trouble. Watson goes to great lengths to keep us in suspense and succeeds admirably. When the crux of the problem, is finally revealed, we're set adrift in a world colored by a power not unlike that of Peter Straub's Ghost Story, one that exposes the weaknesses of the characters in overt, horrifying events. The interpersonal forces unleashed in the foundering marriage of the Cobbetts are amplified by their involvement in a social and supernatural force they can neither control nor understand. Despite the ugly cover, Meat is a book you can proudly recommend to your sensitive friends as a long, hard look at life in these carnivorous times.
Alone With the Devil: Famous Cases of a Courtroom Psychiatrist [****+] Ronald Markman, MD and Dominick Bosco Doubleday, 0-385-24427-4, 368pp, $18.95
According to Ronald Markman, the true face of horror in the 90s will be the face in the mirror. In Alone With the Devil this Los Angeles-based court-appointed psychiatrist presents a persuasive argument to support this theory. Venturing into territory even the splatterpunks haven't touched, this book is a must-read for horror fans who think they want to know what happens in the minds of people who kill. Be forewarned: this book describes some very horrific crimes.
Rather than dwell at length on one incident, Alone with the Devil tells the stories of about two dozen killers and mostly limits itself to Markham's examinations of them. Markman returns again and again to his central thesis: that the thought processes that cause killers to kill exist in every human being. It's circumstances that bring them out -- circumstances that he describes in elegant but horrifying detail. The most terrifying case is the Sacramento Vampire, Richard Chase. This young man developed a psychotic delusion that he needed fresh blood to survive and satisfied those appetites, first with animals, then with humans. The most horrifying aspect of the case is the ease with which he entered houses -- you'll never leave your doors or windows unlocked after reading this book.
Markman, who is both a psychiatrist and a lawyer, has no axe to grind. He's not writing the book as a soapbox to espouse his views, but rather to clarify the relationship of the medical profession in the legal process.
Read this book -- if you can -- and take a lingering look in the mirror. You're a horror fan. You know what the face of horror looks like.
Songs of a Dead Dreamer [*****] Thomas Ligotti Robinson Publishing, $12.00 (UK Import), 1-85487-022-X
Thomas Ligotti's contributions have seen growing acclaim in the small press world. He's contributed to both Ramsey Campbell's Fine Frights and Doug Winter's Prime Evil anthologies, so it's especially nice to see his Songs of a Dead Dreamer, previously only available in an extremely limited Silver Scarab Press edition available as a British trade paperback. It may not be easy to find, but it's worth the effort.
Ligotti combines a gothic writing style with modern sensibilities. The result is some of the most beautiful, haunting, horrific prose you'll ever read. In "The Frolic" a psychiatrist at an asylum for the criminally insane is confronted by a killer he cannot cope with, a man who claims to be something other than human who takes his victims frolicking to "...the black foaming gutters and back alleys of paradise...". Other stories -- "The Dream of a Mannikin" and "The Greater Festival of Masks" -- are so musical they seem closer to poetry than prose.
Don't let the beauty of the language fool you. Ligotti uses his lovely language to wrap the foulest, most disturbing images I've seen. He is a master at the Lovecraftian ideal of showing only part of the horror and letting the reader's imagination fill in the rest. Many readers will be thankful that he doesn't show them the whole picture. In "Les Fleurs", when the narrator accidentally lets a woman friend see something he's rather not have her see, she is confused as to what it is. "It has little teeth on these big tongue things....You might have better luck passing it off as an animal than a plant, or a sculpture of a plant. It's got a velvety kind of fur and looks like it might crawl away."
Not content with simple stories, Ligotti also experiments with two pieces of metafiction in the style of Stanislaw Lem, "Notes on the Writing of Horror" and "Professor Nobody's Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror". These two are among the most successful pieces in the collection, and emphasize an undercurrent of humor that runs through his writing. This is a classic collection, different than anything that has come out recently, and all the better for it.
The Dark Door [***+] Kate Wilhelm Tudor, $4.50, 343pp
Kate Wilhelm is an award-winning SF writer who is probably unknown to most horror fans. The Dark Door should correct that error. Its packaging alone should sell a few copies to those who gravitate towards those garish grocery store specials, but the content proves to be rewarding. Reminiscent of both Lem and Dean Koontz, this is a taut, thoughtful, mystifying thriller.
The main characters are a married couple, Charlie Meiklejohn, former arson investigator, and Constance Leidl, a working psychologist on the lecture circuit. As Charlie is trying to retire and settle down, he is asked to look into some apparently random cases of arson occurring in hotels around the country. His wife is drawn into the investigation as well, and their experiences as they uncover the truth are truly horrifying. Horror readers should be aware that there's a talky SF intro and exit in the book which destroys the mood created by the main narrative, but beyond this we're in page-turning terror country. Wilhelm is able to inject some strong imaginative speculations into typical situations, setting the book apart from the rest of the SF Horror pack. This isn't a whodonit, instead, it's a whatdonit.
Charlie and Constance make excellent guides for this tour and horror readers will be impressed by Wilhelm's willingness to put her main characters in mortal danger. While it's not overly bloody, there are passages of this novel that will chill even the most hardened hearts. That's an especially tough trick in the post-splatterpunk era. Aided by better-than-average characters, the clever premise and a very tense mystery, The Dark Door should be opened by lovers of SF, Horror and Mystery as soon as they can find it.
Dark Fantasies [***+]
Chris Morgan
Legend/Century Hutchinson Ltd, 319pp,
Horror has recently become a house divided, and perhaps that's good for the genre. The controversy created by the splatterpunks has caused members of that group to stretch the boundaries of the field and become better writers in the process. Conversely, the reaction to the splatterpunks has caused the writers of the so-called "quiet horror" to push the quality and elegance of their work further, also. Chris Morgan's anthology Dark Fantasies is to quiet horror what The Book of the Dead was to splatterpunk -- a calling card, signed, sealed and delivered from some of the major writers of the movement.
The title of the introduction says it all -- "No Slime, No Chain Saws." True to the quiet horror sub-genre, Morgan doesn't say much. He simply notices the trend towards graphic horror and states that the writers of this anthology will manage to scare you without resorting to the dripping blood and extreme violence. He does point out, correctly, that most people are more scared of losing their jobs or their spouses than they are of getting dismembered by a mad chainsaw murderer. He also provides a brief postscript to each story that gives an author biography and a list of their recent work.
The stories cover a wide range, but seem to fall into two styles, the mysterious, open-ended story and humorous, satiric tales of woe. The first type emphasizes character and atmosphere over action and gore -- sometimes too much. One surprise is that the American giant of quiet horror, Charles Grant, is absent. he's an expert at this and his absence is conspicuous, accenting the bias towards British writers in this collection.
The bulk of the stories are in the mysterious vein. In Brian Stableford's "The Will", a woman is held by her guilt and father's power over here, even after he dies. The prose is very evocative, but the atmosphere stifles the story and the ending may seem to some too inconclusive. This is one problem many mainstream horror writers have with this sub-genre, but it doesn't crop up often in this book. The best stories are open-ended without being confusing: Stephen Gallagher's "Lifeline", for instance, in which the feel of lower-class London is expertly conveyed. He tells a story of a young man's obsession with an elusive phone service that might connect him with his dead lover. It has excellent characterization and prose, framed by a beautifully described urban setting.
New writer Nicolas Royle, who contributed one of the best stories in The Book of the Dead, here sits squarely on the other side of the fence with "Archway". Again, characterization and atmosphere rule as a woman takes up new lodging in the Archway. Her desperation when she loses her job drivers her towards the perfectly foreshadowed end of the story.
Ramsey Campbell checks in with "Being an Angel", a disturbing story that is a tension-ridden tale of the mother-son relationship gone very bad. You might guess the ending, but that doesn't detract from the power of the work.
The humorous stories are a welcome addition to an otherwise dreary tone. Chris Morgan's own "Interesting Times" is one of the best in the collection, preying on an interesting fear -- the fear felt when your daily routine begins to break down. When Keith Elder sends half of an unexpected pay raise to a newspaper ad promising "interesting times" for those who feel their lives are in a rut, he is promptly and rudely informed by those who cashed his check that the whole thing's a scam and that he's wasted his money. From that point things fall apart until Keith's life reaches a breaking point. While being an enjoyable read, the story is also bleakly horrific.
Ian Watson's "Tales from Weston Willow" follows the traditional "bar room tall tales" format, stringing together three ironic short-short stories. Finishing off the collection is the hilarious "Three Degrees Over" by Brian Aldiss, the story of Alice Maynard's unfortunate return to England after a lecture tour of the States. She's sitting next to Felicity Paiva, a large,pushy woman who admits to being a writer of sex novels. From there, the story slowly escalates to a disturbing, absurd climax with a killer punchline.
While not everyone will like every story, everyone should find something of worth in this fine collection. Even if it isn't the definitive collection of quiet horror, it's a good indicator that there's a lot of worthwhile material to be had here.
The House of Doors [****] Brian Lumley Tor, $4.95, 474pp
Following the direction he established in Necroscope III: The Source, Brian Lumley once again offers a unique mix of SF, heroic fantasy and horror in his latest work, The House of Doors. This book is not another entry in the Necroscope series, but a standalone story that emphasizes the SF-Fantasy themes. It's thoroughly enjoyable and a good way for would-be Lumley fans to find out what all the shouting's about.
The protagonist is Spencer Gill, a man with psychic empathy -- with machines. Given any machine, he can figure out what it doesn't, how it works, how to take it apart and how to put it back together again. This comes in handy when he and several others are trapped in The House of Doors, a mysterious castle that suddenly appears on the English moors. This attracts worldwide attention, but nobody is able to penetrate its secrets until the day Spencer and the others are enveloped by the thing (yes, it's a machine) decides to sample its new environment. The group finds themselves inside a seemingly endless series of unfriendly worlds, all manipulated by a malign intelligence. In true Ten Little Indians fashion, one by one the numbers start to shrink as Spencer tries to determine how the thing works.
Lumley is a prime example of the fun that can be had in the art of storytelling. The House of Doors is written in an exaggerated, almost tall-tale style. Lumley is a skilled writer in his prime. Like the Necroscope series, The House of Doors demonstrates Lumley's writing skill by its ability to entertain the reader and hides a wealth of invention beneath the pure entertainment value. Ostensibly a portal to the most hellish terrains a person can imaging, The House of Doors in reality manages to offer the reader everything they could ask for.
The Bad Place [****+] Dean R. Koontz Putnam, 382pp, $19.95
Koontz outdoes himself in this latest outing, combining some of the best good and evil characters he's ever created and sending them out for a series of terrifying collisions. Those who found Midnight a bit on the light side will be more satisfied by The Bad Place. While there are elements of the supernatural and SF involved, it's basically a mystery.
Trade Secrets [****+] Ray Garton Mark Ziesing, 292pp, $25
Here's a book that defines hard-boiled for the 90s by the man that shocked and depressed you in the 80s. A tense, well-written thriller about slavery, kidnapping, torture and murder, with enough of the latter to make Garton's splatter fans smile as they cringe. The absence of supernatural elements makes this book even more horrific than his previous works. This is Garton's best book to date and, despite the gore, his most accessible.
Collected Stories [*****] Ruth Rendell Pantheon, $19.95, 536pp
Readers of this column will recognize the name and know what I think of the author. This meta-collection has four of Rendell's previous collections inside a single volume and is a wonderful way of getting your hands on some really fine but out of print fiction. For those who'd like to see horror return to its Edgar Allen Poe roots, this is the place to start. Rendell can make you jump out of your skin without resorting to blood or gore. In "An Outside Interest", an otherwise normal married man decides to take up frightening woman as a hobby. He waits in the park late at night and followed them until they flee. Unfortunately, his exploits have an unforeseen side effect.
"Thornapple" features a boy who decides to start a poison collection, building a level of tension that could tear you apart. For palpable evil, read "The Fallen Curtain", which has the reminiscences of a man who was kidnapped for eight hours as a boy. He doesn't remember what happened, and his mother will only hint. All he knows is that he was taken by The Man.
All of these stories have the clear-cut characterizations and beautiful prose of Rendell. It's the one book this issue you don't want to miss.
------ End ------
Issue 27, Spring 1990 (part 11)
Electronic OtherRealms #27
Spring, 1990
Part 11 of 11
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
Your Turn
Letters to OtherRealms
Alexei Panshin
Thank you for your review of The World Beyond the Hill. But how strange it rings in our ears ot have you suggest the book is personal and subjective. We took twenty years to examine author statements, read and re-read stories, research lives and times, and put down what we saw, including exceptions and paradoxes. We include quotes that demonstrate our points, and we carefully note our sources. We don't understand how this careful work could seem like unrigourous belief statements to you. It is true that we labored to avoid academic language and presented our materials narratively rather than argumentatively...but surely this can't have led you to think it wasn't critically rigorous, can it?
David Thayer
The computer gremlins strike again -- Torrocici is a great transliteration of Phil Tortorici's last name. Perhaps you should make a game of it -- "Find the name typo in this issue!"
I disagree with Dean R. Lambe's assessment of Bimbos of the Death Sun. The subject alone is what sold the book. It hit many of its targets. But it was two dimensional. Behavior at conventions is cartoony, but much of it goes on beneath the surface.
[[If I ever catch that name gremlin, his toes are toast. -- chuq]]
Cathy Howard
I liked the articles, particularly the one by Lawrence Watt-Evans. I also enjoy having authors talk about their work. This issue was especially helpful, since I was doing crazy trying to remember the name of a book I wanted, and lo and behold, it showed up in #26. Thanks!
I'm afraid I'm one of the people who don't see anything wrong with your layout. Just don't let the type get too small.
Eric Sassaman
I'd like to mention that receiving your magazines is definitely one of the highlights of the month! I am using your magazine reviews for about, oh 70% of my purchasing decisions. My only minor gripe is reviewers that don't use the *'s when rating - just a verbal review. I know, sometimes it's hard to pigenhole a book like that, but I want to use the magazine to tell me what books to buy; it's just that simple. And the stars me decide. If something has 4.5 or 5 stars AND the verbal review looks interesing, I put the book on my "list of books to buy sometime in the next millenium". I'm really hesitant to put a book on my list that has no star rating. Sometimes a book can have a high star rating but the verbal review does not really rave at all, so I'm never sure with just a verbal review. I tend to trust the star rating more than the verbal part. Just a minor gripe! Can't please everybody, I know!
On the other hand, you have a great magazine, and you've almost never steered me wrong! I really depend on your magazine to tell me about the great books out there. Thanks a zillion!
[[For a while I tried to enforce the use of the star rating, but some reviewers are uncomfortable with it and others submit material without it, and tracking them down was an amazing hassle. I think it's more important for the review to be published than it is to hold it waiting for the missing information and make it so late it's useless. -- chuq]]
Lisa Thomas
I have just finished reading OtherRealms #24.
I wish I'd had a chance at the survey you mention in Editor's Notebook. I buy lots of used paperbacks and hardbacks. Occasionally I buy a new paperback. Recently (about the past three months) I've bought three new ones and am waiting for a fourth I special-ordered to come in. I read anything except Harlequin romances but usually will be found reading SF, fantasy or nonfiction on any of the many subjects which interest me. I read more of the fanzines than the prozines.
Regarding Watt-Evans' column, nothing, well almost nothing, could tempt me to part with my copies of Born Leader and One in Three Hundred. To me, these books are irreplaceable. Only once have I seen another copy of Born Leader.
David Shea
The Of Taste There Is No Disputing Department: My impression is that your taste and mine don't overlap much. For instance, you apparently liked Phases Of Gravity, which bored me to tears. Here's a thought: Bantam has recently re-issued Richard Grant's Rumors Of Spring, one of my favorite books of the last several years. (See my review in Lan's Lantern #25.) I would really find it interesting to get your reaction to it. If you have an opportunity, perhaps you might consider reviewing it in an upcoming issue.
The This Is A Comment, Not A Complaint Department: I thought we were in general agreement that any rating system is probably more help than no system at all. However, I notice that in #26, only one of my reviews carried the [asterisk ***** system] rating I had proposed. Mr De Lint also seems to have dropped the practice. Is this being de-emphasized generally? Would you rather I not bother? Just curious ...
[[Our tastes do differ, sometimes radically. Which is good: I like to encourage other views in OtherRealms where I can, since I know that my perception of good isn't the only valid one out there. That's one reason why I'm sorry to see Alan leave with this issue -- he and I tended to disagree, sometimes strongly, on books and on other issues. But that kind of spirited discussion makes for a good sanity check: once in a while you realize you're wrong. Lots of the time I find, even if I don't change my mind, I learn something from the exchange.
The reason none of your reviews had star ratings last issue was because they got inadvertantly left off while I was doing data entry. But at least I spelled your name right (I think) -- chuq]]
Arthur Hlavaty
A follow-up to the discussion you & B. Ware had on "spell checkers." Shortly after I read that, I was in the computer lab, where a classmate was word-processing a report on Young Adult fantasy books. She remarked, with some surprise, "The spell checker recognizes 'mage.')" Thanks to you, I was able to point out that it must be a spell checker, rather than a spelling checker.
Martin Morse Wooster
Many thanks for OtherRealms 26. I think you are wise to shift the format away from reviews to features, if only because many of your reviewers seem to be practicing compression for compression's sake. Dan'l Danehy-Oakes has now shown that he can review 24 books in three pages, but I would much prefer it if he reviewed fewer books in more space. Saying that Man from Mundania in a "new Xanth book" and "does anybody really need to know more than that" says nothing, since it is a critique that can be mindlessly applied to any novel for any reason. Why did Danehy-Oakes bother to mention it? Granted, Piers Anthony is not one of my favorite writers, but he deserves more than to be slammed in one sentence.
Danehy-Oakes also misunderstands the cuts in The Puppet Masters, as I recall from Grumbles From the Grave, Heinlein's juveniles from the 1950's were heavily edited for political and ideological reasons, but his adult novels were simply sliced because they were too long. None of the Doubleday sf novels from this period were over 60,000 words, and, at approximately 85-90,000 words, The Puppet Masters had to be pruned drastically to fit the Doubleday format. I suspect the revised editions of The Door into Summer and Double Star will not be dramatically longer than the published versions, since by that time Heinlein had learned to prune his plots to fit Doubleday's rigid format.
Chuq Von Rospach makes many sound critiques in his editorial. There really isn't any reason for publishers to be in New York save for inertia; none of the specialty publishers, for example, is in or near New York. But automation will not necessarily mean that jobs can be farmed out. Electronic transfer of novels by modem or disc will save a great deal of inputting time, but is it worthwhile for publishers to make a second copy of the disc, send it out for copyediting, and then have someone check the revised disc with the original to make sure that the copyeditor didn't monkey around with the text too much? As for sharecropping, the idea is not new; the Futurians in the early forties shared a wide variety of names, and a great many hack bylines in some of the cheesier Fifities sf magazines were shared among many writers. (Bibliographers are still puzzled over which sf writers were "Ivar Jorgenson" at any given time.) Granted, these ancient practices were not sharecropping in the way we now use the term, but the purpose and function was the same. I agree with you that sharecropping will survive, provided the shared worlds created do not obviously derive from existing models. Thieves' World, for example, was a fairly blatant imitation of the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series; people will be reading Fritz Leiber fifty years from now because of his originality, but Thieves' World will have a hard time remaining in print.
[[Dan'l and I talked over the format of his column before he wrote it last issue. It was an experiment, and it was, I think, a mixed success. Will we do it again? Probably not.
Some authors would probably choke on the thought of a copy-editor having an electronic version of their manuscript to play with -- some feel they already do too much monkeying as it is [sometimes they do, also. Check out Piers Anthony's But What of Earth [Tor Books] for a few giggles]. I know, from experience, that working from text given to me electronically (by disk, by E-mail, or whatever) saves me a lot of time in getting it edited and ready for OtherRealms.
There are some downsides, though: I have to be careful to keep originals around in case I do something stupid -- not just deleting the entire file, but deleting paragraphs instead of words or simply hacking the text into insensibility. it is also fairly difficult to get a good feel for how badly text has been munged from the original: diff (on Unix) helps in some cases, and there are programs like DocuComp on the Mac, but I think sending back an edited version of a book-manuscript on disk to an author and asking them to find and verify all of the changes can be a real problem. Worse, imagine a scenario like this: Editor gets a manuscript on disk, sends a copy to the copy-editor. Copy-editor does the copy-editing and sends it back. Editor sends a copy of the edited book back to the author, who hates the editing job. She goes in and re-edits the copy-editing and makes some other, incidental changes. The editor now has THREE significantly different versions of the manuscript to sit down and figure out how to merge into a cohesive manuscript. Better, I think, to give the copy-editor paper and have someone verify and enter the changes than to do things completely by disk at this point. -- chuq]]
Gene Wolfe
Thanks for the zine, for running Dan'l's review of Soldier of Arete and for the plugs. You say you really want to be an editor, so I won't inflict my certain cure for writer's block on you; but if you're ever blocked again and truly want to be cured (most blocked writers don't), write me and I'll provide the secret formula. It's only a little rough, and it takes four days tops.
Typos: The possessive of it is its; it's means it is. Sorry you didn't like Arete as much as Dan'l did. No more of those, I promise, unless something changes radically.
Paperback returns: All pb publishers realize that it's a stupid system. But any one publisher who changes is dead, and if they all change together it's restraint of trade. Possible a few may be able to nibble away at it. maybe.
15% agents: They should have a mask and a gun. I have before me a letter from someone who sold two pb originals with a 10% agent. The writer has not gone with a 15%er. This letter makes me want to cry.
Real Estate: It does make some sense for publishers to be in New York, because that's where everyone expects them to be; when the guy from Walden's goes around to the pb houses, he expects to do it by cab. There are some publishers elsewhere, however. Philadelphia was the first U.S. publishing center, then Boston. New York won't last forever. Beth flies to New York once a month.
Too many books: This one's been around since before I was born. If you cut your output from thirty-six to thirty, I'll raise my own from thirty-nine to forty-five and more. Do it again. Go ahead. Each title is a brand, and the brands fight for shelf-space, just like soap. Why does one company market four or five different brands of soap? For the same reason that a publisher puts out ten titles a month. If they got together and agreed to have everybody cut, it would be restraint of trade again.
Trade paperbacks. I'm not crazy about them either, but they go over very big in Europe, like soccer.
Now the tough question -- what I'd like to see in the next ten years: To start with, a hard ruble and the USSR open to U.S. books. Second, schools that would actually teach reading in place of merely teaching the kids how to read (or less). Third, I'd like to see better books from every writer, including me.
[[Its and it's are a specific blind spot of mine. I've gotten much better at keeping them separate, but I've got a long way to go before I do them consistently correct. Sigh.
You're right about writer's block. When you are ready to be cured, you will be. Not many magic secrets. Most writer's block seems to be a message from your Muse -- either that you're ready to write what you're trying to write (because of lack of research, lack of experience, lack of a good concept to write, or whatever) or it's telling you that you aren't ready to be writing. In my case, it was a lot of the latter, since there were a lot of complexities in my life that needed to be dealt with before I could sit down and deal with the problems involved in writing. The block, long as it was, was also a learning process, and I now feel I'm capable of writing publishable material, something that (in retrospect) wasn't true four or five years ago. OtherRealms has been a fascinating self-directed class into the techniques of SF and Fantasy, and I've had some of the best teachers in the business helping me along by giving me material worth studying. -- chuq]]
Richard Brandt
Thanks for OtherRealms #25; I found many of the reviews useful this time around, especially the sections on horror fiction, which gave some idea of the impressive diversity of the field.
Your Pagemaker is pretty nice overall, except that the combination "rn" tends to come out looking like "m."
Lawrence Watt-Evans' "find" (Charbonneau's Sentinel Stars) has enough similarities -- the system of nomenclature, the illicit romance -- to make me wonder if George Lucas had it in the back of his mind while writing THX-1138.
I agree with your position on who's to blame for the Hugo mess this year. After the story broke, I was kidding to my friends about what a waste those eleven supporting memberships I bought were. As it turned out, I could have accomplished a like result with a bit less outlay, and it's already been pointed out to me that such rash statements are likely to get me into trouble someday...
Jane Yolen
Now I have had several cups of tea and a complete read through of OtherRealms. Some thoughts: Though you have a scattered approach to children's and YA fiction (at least it appears scattered, I've found no rhyme or reason to it), it would be wonderful if you could enlist someone involved in the newly forming SFWA-YA-SIG (that's an awful lot intials for a simple interest group willing to read hells of stuff and give out a sort of Not Quite Nebula award) to review for you. I have a little list -- and no, my name is not on it! -- I could offer you if you were so minded.
As a lover of short fiction, I was disappointed in the short story collection reviews for the most part. Guess I have to continue with Short Form for in depths there. OtherRealms seems happiest and most comfortable when dealing with novels.
I'm glad to be getting your magazine now. Don't know what took me so long....yes I do. Time. And honor. Time which I don't have and honor which, alas, I do and means that I feel honor-bound to read what arrives in my mail.
[[I would love to do more YA material, but the age-old question of "Where can I stick it?" comes back to haunt me. I wish I was the size of Locus, because then I might be able to start dealing with the things that really need to be better covered in the publishing field. -- chuq]]
M. Elayn Harvey
OtherRealms 26 arrived today, and as usual, I read it cover to cover immediately. I don't feel you should change the format. The three-column look is neat, easy to read, familiar as our daily newspapers. So, don't agonize over it. I'd rather you spend your fiddling time on your novel, it sounds intriguing. This is the fourth work-in-progress I've heard about, mine included, dealing with pagan/biblical themes, god and goddess stuff, technologizing myths. My current effort, Gates of Eden, deals with what the first world might have been like before and after the Garden, another version of what happened. Is this preoccupation with myth a trend? Has Joseph Campbell caught on with everybody? (We should be so lucky.) Anyway, just an interesting coincidence?, or collective unconscious?
A cheer for Lawrence Watt-Evans. He let the readers know about Engine Summer, my personal favorite. I read it every year, just as spring turns the pages toward summer. That sense of the unique he mentions is also why I love it. And why I read SF and F; that experience of being other and far away. Lawrence sets the time as "long-after-the-holocaust", but it would be insightful to explain there was no holocaust. This is another of the book's charms. In Crowley's vision of the future, we didn't destroy ourselves, we grew Up; we stopped playing with toys. I think it's a valid scenario because I often find myself growing tired of it all, longing for something simpler, quieter, saner. Humm, it's almost spring; I think I'll read it again.
Your comment about needlepoint struck a cord; I cross stitch to relax and think. In fact, and why I mention this, is that I wore out the cover to Engine Summer and stitched a beautiful cat in crystal for my hardback. Now, if only I could corner John for a signature.
Alas, I must use the remainder of this letter to respond to Martin Wooster's criticism of my essay, "Thoughts on the Classics". I must take exception to his remarks on three counts.
First, and most important. At no place in the article did I say, or mean to imply that Bester, Heinlein, and Kuttner were not serious writers. I do not feel it is a discredit to their talent to say they were products of their times. We are all products of our times. The very fact that Mr. Wooster is aware of sexual stereotyping is proof.
Second, I did not say, or mean to imply their works were failures. I don't believe that. Yes, I did say they failed as classics, in my estimation. That was a bit too harsh; I've had second thoughts, after reading a few more from that time period. The books mentioned do have lasting value and significance; in comparison with contemporary SF are of superior merit. A more careful reading of my essay will reveal I said the characters failed to convince me, personally, that I was reading about the future because they were psychological products of the '40's. Mine was a gut-level reaction to the alchemy of personality, and a 'tap on the shoulder' to other writers, saying, simply: "Hey, this insight could be useful."
And third, how do I know people in the 21st century will not act as people did in the '40's? Do I have a time machine? Yes, in a way I do; it's called, THE PAST. There has been a steady, if somewhat erratic evolution in our enlightenment. Our attitudes have changed. I don't dispute there are among US throwbacks of the Barbarian Age, and there probably always will be, but we don't hold them Up as models of acceptable social behavior.
Will there come a time when we do? It's possible we could revert, again. But, will that be any kind of world you or I will want to live in, much less read about?
Thanks, Chuq, for letting me get that out of my head.
We Also heard from: Ray Feist, Arthur D. Hlavaty, Boris Zavgorodny, Sheryl Birkhead. Dennis Virzi, Robert Lichtman, joan hanke-woods, Bruce Bethke, Gael Baudino.
Subscriptions
OtherRealms is available for The Usual or by arranged trade. You can also spend money on it: $2.85 each or $11 for a four issue subscription. We do not currently offer paid subscriptions outside of the United States.
Artwork
Submissions are welcome, but we generally use only one or two pieces per artist in an issue. I am looking for genre oriented at at every size from clip art or filler to full pages or covers. I prefer to work with a good copy instead of the original, but originals will be returned if requested after use.
Submissions
OtherRealms publishes reviews of Horror, Fantasy, Science Fiction, and related books.
Authors are solicited to discuss their work 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.
SF, Behind the Scenes, author interviews and special items should be submitted to Chuq. Fantasy, and Science Fact articles should be submitted to Laurie.
Please query on everything except reviews. Please include a SASE if you want a response.
Letters
We solicit your feedback and comments for the letter column. Letters will be considered for publication unless otherwise requested.
To contact us
Chuq Von Rospach
chuq@apple.com
GEnie: CHUQ
Laurie Sefton
lsefton@apple.com
CompuServe: 74010,3542
Delphi: LSEFTON
35111-F Newark Blvd.
Suite 255
Newark, CA 94560
OtherRealms is published three or four times a year. Next deadline: July 30
OtherRealms Science Fiction and Fantasy in Review
Issue 27, Spring 1990
Editors:
Chuq Von Rospach
Laurie Sefton
Contributing Editors:
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Charles de Lint
Rick Kleffel
Dean R. Lambe
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Alan Wexelblat
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
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