OtherRealms — Issue 30, Spring 1991
Issue 30, Spring 1991 (part 1)
Electronic OtherRealms #30
The Parody Issue
Science Fiction and Fantasy in Chaos
Spring, 1991
Part 1 of 4
Copyright 1991 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
Dramatis Personae The people who really did all this
Inexpensive Rhetoricisms
Much Rejoicing Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Part 2
Acerb An Advertisement
Fear and Loathing in F&SF Hunter S.M. Key
Pissed Imagining Lawrence Watt-Evans
Part 3
A Writer's Day Melanie Rawn
Miz Maneurs
Jakes, Jacks, and Johns: An Analysis of Elizabeth Moon's Use of Waste Technology as a Metaphor for Feminist Survivalist Philosophy, or "Why So Many Jacks and So Little Shit?" E. Sophia Burks
Part 4
From Beyond the Edge Reviews by our Readers
Just Looking Helen Arlinson
Letters
Masthead -- subscription and submission info, plus all the administrivia
Editor's Notebook
Comments and Ramblings from Chuq Von Rospach
This Page Is True. Really.
Welcome to the OtherRealms Parody issue. This issue has been in development for eighteen months, and something I'd been thinking about for two years. I wanted to do something very different--give people a chance to let their hair down, perhaps burst some bubbles and mostly have some fun. Last year, I sent out about 100 letters to regular contributors, fans, authors and artists requesting material for this issue. The groundrules were simple: no libel or slander--except against myself and OtherRealms (I'm happy--no, thrilled--to note that nobody took me up on that).
The results are here. When I started the Parody issue I had no idea whether it'd be hilarious or a complete bust. Now that I have all of the pieces in place (this editorial is the last piece to be written) I'm happy with the result. I hope you are, too.
This is issue #30, which is a minor anniversary as far as issue numbers is concerned, and the beginning of my sixth year of publishing OtherRealms (issue #1 was issued in January of 1986, so issue 29 finished out my five years). It is also an end of an era, since this is the final issue that will be released on the networks. In the future, it'll only be available in the printed version. I know this is an unpopular decision and will be making OtherRealms unavailable to a large number of my current readers--all of which is true, but as I continue to distance myself from the networks (and their ability to act as an infinite timesink) and my need to focus my time and energy towards other projects, I still feel that this is a necessary, if regrettable step. I'm sorry to those I'm disenfranchising--but it's been the situation for a while that the needs of OtherRealms and my own personal needs have been in conflict, and this change is necessary to try to put my various priorities in their proper place.
The ability for OtherRealms to survive this long is reason for celebration--it is a tribute to everyone involved, especially the people who have supported it with their submissions and their feedback. This issue is an attempt by me to say thanks with something that is a little different and, I hope, a little special. The celebrations are muted, though, because for many of you this is the last issue of OtherRealms you'll see. This issue is both an ending and a new beginning.
So enjoy. I hope this issue is as much fun to read as it was for me to put together.
The on-line aspects of OtherRealms--rec.mag.otherrealms and the back-issue archives on apple.com--will continue to exist until June 15. At that point, I'll delete the group and the archives and they will no longer be available.
It's been a long and varied journey we have traveled together with OtherRealms. I'm happy to have been able to share what I have with you, and I hope you enjoyed it.
For those of you getting this on paper, OtherRealms continues as usual. The next issue should be out sometime in the fall (hopefully in time for Chicon), with a deadline of July 15. Next issue we return to our normal format of reviews, commentary and interesting stuff. Hope to see you there.
In a few other things, Laurie and I will be in Chicago for the Worldcon (and the pizza); other than that, we're not planning on going to any conventions for a while, since we're a little burnt out on using all of our holidays on the convention circuit.
See you next issue!
Dramatis Personae
Acerb Kevin O'Donnell, Jr. Al Turnafraze and Biff Bock Katherine Kerr Bored Sirs Stephen Sawicki E. Sophia Burks Elizabeth Moon Helen Arlinson Steve Sawicki Hunter S.M. Key Charles de Lint Julie Barr Judith Tarr Miz Maneurs Marge B. Simon Narry Liven Larry Niven
Inexpensive Rhetoricisms
The official and semi-anonymous house organ
of the ClonePunk movement.
Inexpensive Rhetoricisms is brought to you by the Plaid Warlock, a pseudonym for someone who's decided he'll never be as good a writer as Gene Wolfe or as rich as Piers Anthony, so he's going to try to get on David Letterman instead. [editorial note on the on-line version: this was a special one-page fanzine included in OR#30 and should be read as a separate publication. It still loses something in the translation, but if you don't realize that at the beginning, I think you'll be completely lost -- chuq]
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Inexpensive Rhetoricisms. We have a new Movement to flog, and we are here to flog it until is squeals. Accept no clones--only IR will do.
How this all came about: During a discussion on GEnie about Kate Wilhelm, I made what I thought was an innocent remark. On her book Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, I said that with genetic engineering becoming a common topic in the news that I expected to soon see a trend towards SF books involving cloning and genetic engineering. This new Movement, which I called ClonePunk, would be a lot like Cyberpunk, with a few really good books, a lot of hype and a realization that when all was said and done, people would realize that Kate Wilhelm did for ClonePunk what John Brunner did for Cyberpunk with Shockwave Rider: do it better than 95% of the Movement and do it ten years ahead of them.
I thought it was a harmless joke. I woke up the next day to find myself the father of a Movement. I tried to deny it. I tried to kill it.
Then I realized that the Father of the Movement gets to do all sorts of neat things. He can do the definitive theme anthology, and nobody even cares if the stories don't fit in the Movement. He can write lots of articles about how his Movement is going to save the field and how everyone else's work is obsolete (he might even get paid for these articles). He can write books and use the Movement as a marketing wedge.
It's not just a Movement! It's a source of income! Sign me up! Stay tuned for BlueGenes, the definitive ClonePunk anthology. And my new ClonePunk novel If I were my sister, would I let me marry myself?
But first, and most important, a Movement must have a vehicle, a fanzine where the movers and shakers of the Movement can gather and define themselves and shape the Cause for the future of all fiction. These speakers, these few bold individuals willing to sacrifice their writing careers for the Cause must, of course, speak out anonymously -- the better to write reasoned, intelligent puff pieces about their own work and slander and libel their friends and neighbors.
Not one above a little slander and libel in good fun, I follow this time honored tradition here in Inexpensive Rhetoricisms. Our cast of characters include (remember, these are all anonymous pseudonyms -- nobody is using their real names):
Coito Ergo Sum: the up-and-coming father of the ClonePunk movement and
occasional fanzine hacker.
Harry Silvershades: a second-rate hanger-on of the CyberPunk movement,
Harry figures that as well as the coattails of Cyberpunk worked
for him, this time he's SURE to earn out on that book.
Tinius Moronus: Not really a writer and not really interested in
either SF or ClonePunk, Tinnius sees a great opportunity in the
Movement as a place where he can hone his abuse and slander
techniques.
Charles Platt: obviously not his real name, but we figure that if
someone can steal a pseudonym and raise hell with it, the least
we can do is return the favor by stealing his real name.
Soon to be a major motion picture! ClonePunk. It's not just a movement! It's a great way to make a buck!
Much Rejoicing
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Episode 284
In Which We Take A Close Look At The Best
Fantasy Series Ever Written
Piers Anthony:
From Del Rey books:
On a Pale Horse, 0-345-33848-8, $4.95
Bearing an Hourglass, 345-31315-1, $4.95
With a Tangled Skein, 345-31885-4, $5.95
Wielding a Red Sword, 345-32221-5, $5.95
Being a Green Mother, 345-32223-1, $4.95
From Avon Books:
For the Love of Evil, 0-380-75285-9, $4.95
And Eternity, 0-380-75286-7, $4.95
Regardless of our hypothetical extension of semiosis beyond the boundaries of the biological community -- whether, that is, we wish to stick with the firmly established levels or wish also to consider the possibilities of a physiosemiosis in nature antecedent to and subtensive of the later and more restricted phenomena of biosemiosis -- what is clear at this point is that semiotics is the name for a distinctive series of investigations, distinctive for the same reason that any investigation is distinctive, namely, by reason of what it studies, in the present case, semiosis. But how is such an activity as semiosis possible in the first place?
-- John Deely, Basics of Semiotics
Fantasy, when wielded by the hands of a master, is often nothing less than an exploration of the fundamental philosophical questions that face humankind; by its distortions of reality, fantasy permits the author to isolate, dissect, exaggerate, remove, or alter any aspect or all aspects of the world- that-is-the-case and create an arbitrary universe-of-discourse, in which -- unlike the pseudorealistic world of bourgeois/mimetic/literary (BML) fiction, where all objects are significant primarily as subjective emblems or allegorical symbols and only secondarily as objective objects -- the ding-an-sich rules supreme; the object is an object primarily, to be evaluated for its own being prior to and indeed in preference to any attempt to interpret beyond the surface.
This paradox -- the objectification of the subject tied willy-nilly to the subjectivity of the object -- lies at the heart of fantasy, and it is therefore often necessary to understand this if we are to understand how certain books, while their subjectively-objective content bears little or no resemblance to the world-which-is-the-case and with which we all deal daily when we dally duly, nonetheless address issues vital to the human enterprise: issues such as death, time, fate, war, nature, and the problem of good and evil.
The problem with discussing such issues, of course, is that they are essentially abstract quantities, for, since there is no thing you can point to and say, "this is good, this is evil, this is time;" they in fact exist solely because and to the extent we have names for them. The linguistic and metalinguistic distortions fantasy not only permits but requires, then, allow the writer of such texts (ignoring the problem of intentionality) to objectify such abstract quantities, permitting them to be examined as if there were such a thing as, say, the web of fate, which a scientist could hold in his hand, examine, and so on.
The great strength of SF (in the fantasy-inclusive sense of the term, "speculative fiction") over BMLF is that this can be done at all; while its greatest weakness is the danger of this technique, a more intense form of the danger that inheres in all metaphorical explanative activity: the immanent danger of category-confusion, of mistaking the map for the territory, of believing that because we have a name for a thing it exists. Heinlein, in Stranger in a Strange Land, pointed up this kind of confusion with admiral precision: Jubal Harshaw asks Michael, "Who made the world?" and Michael responds that "I do not see that this is a question." In logical terms, the mere fact of being well-formed [grammatical] does not give a formula [question or statement] meaning.
To tread this very dangerous line, then, of objectifying the abstract phenomenon, examining its essence while neither granting nor denying its existence, is a feat no hack writer should have the temerity to attempt, while, contrariwise, to attempt it with even marginal success is to demonstrate that the fantasist in question is a master indeed, and no hack. That it has been done occasionally in the history of SF is undeniable, as the best works of C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Ursula K Le Guin, Mervyn Peake, Patricia McKillip, and a select few others (though not JRR Tolkien, who, for all his virtuosity, was not at his best with this sort of fantasy: see, for example, Smith of Wooton Major or "Leaf, by Niggle") adequately demonstrate; but a brief look at the proliferating masses of pusillanimous pseudo-fantasies cluttering up the bookshop racks (and even the airport racks) will convince even the hardiest optimist that the attempt fails far more often than it succeeds, and that when it fails, the results are simply miserable.
The proper function of a critic and book reviewer, then, is to help the reader wade through this miasmic morass, hacking with a verbal machete at the undergrowth, warning against poisonous beasts and generally acting as guide. The average reader, after all, doesn't know what he really wants; it's up to us to show the poor slob. A high and lonely calling it is, you may be sure. And do we get one bit of appreciation for it, I ask you? Do any of you ever write to thank us for pointing out a really good book you might have missed, or for warning you away from a twenty-dollar turkey? Hah! Not bloody damn likely, you ungrateful pissants! Here we are, reading and staring at VDTs until all hours till we go blind, getting paper cuts in all our fingers, our hands permanently stained black from the ink; reading terrible book after terrible book until we feel ready to go insane from the amount of verbal shit we've ingested, and you can't even be bothered to thank us! Oooooh nooooo, ask the average man on the street what he thinks of critics and he'll tell you it's some kind of cushy job where you watch one or two movies a week and give a thumbs up or thumbs down on them. Hah! You call that criticism? Siskel and Ebert? That's not criticism, that's television, that's entertainment.
And you authors, who think you're so damn smart and get all offended if we bumrap one of your books. Has it ever occurred to you that if you wrote better books we might have something nicer to say about them? Have you ever seen me say anything nasty about Gene Wolfe, or Samuel Delany? No? Well then, maybe I'm not just out to slime on my betters, eh? Maybe your books just aren't up to the standard they set. Maybe every time a page of your pathetic puling prose sees print the massed shades of Robert Heinlein, Philip Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, and Alice Sheldon wring their hands and wail. Maybe trees are going to the axe, despoiling the planet when there's already an atmospheric crisis due to those numbnuts in Brazil who keep slashandburning the rainforests, and we just can't afford to keep chopping them and making paper for books that just aren't fucking worth it. Maybe the average reader only has so much money to spend and we're trying to help them get the most out of it.
And then again, maybe I was just having a bad day when I reviewed your book. You never know. It was probably some combination of the above.
Excuse me. I've needed to get that off my chest for a while. I feel much better now. Shall we get on with discussing the books that areclearly the capstone of Mr. Anthony's long and intermittently distinguished career?
Yes. Let's.
Consider, for example, Death. Death has traditionally been portrayed -- at least in Western cultures -- as a male figure, possibly skeletal, usually covered in dark robes that hide most or all of his features. Often, death is shown riding a horse.
Now, how could such an archetype arise? Since it's clear that (setting aside the distortions of fantasy) such a figure does not exist, that death is not a thing, but an event -- or, rather, the simultaneous cessation of a number of semiperiodic and highly mutually interdependent events -- what biological, psychological, or cultural process of semiosis allowed this (image of man with sickle) to "stand for" (whatever "stand for" finally turns out to mean) this (simultaneous cessation of biological processes)?
One can conjecture about some stages of the process. The first, the creation of a label for this simultaneous cessation, is fairly clear; that which came to be called "death" is a phenomonologically common occurrence, is in fact frequently, if not universally, regarded as the sole certain phenomenon common to any life: its ending. Similarly, one can easily see the category-confusion arising in a people who have not yet developed any sophistication concerning the use and abuse of language.
The growth of grammar, of course, intensifies this objectification of the abstract, at least in western cultures: by creating a category of word called the noun, and including "death" with terms like "rock" and "tree," the earliest grammarians helped to fix the idea that "death" had the quality of existence in common with "rock" and "tree," whereas death, as we have seen, does not exist, it occurs; in this sense, "death" should, perhaps, be regarded as a verb: or perhaps abstract nouns, which refer to processes rather than objects, should be assigned a separate grammatical category from the noun: things which have essence but no existence.
Once "death" was fixed in the cultural overmind as a thing, it was inevitable that some sensory images would become associated with it. Paleness, skeletality, are both easily associated with the dying and the dead: so it was little more than a metonymy to associate the qualities of the dying and the dead with Death. The robes, of course, hide Death's face, emblematic of his proper invisibility -- for, since he doesn't exist, nobody has ever actually seen him. The sickle may be interpreted in various ways, ranging from the idea of reaping human lives like grain to a more abstruse but equiplausible association with the ever-dying and revenant Grain King central to so many cults. And the horse, which was once the ultimate in speedy transportation, was necessary if Death was to be everywhere at once and un-out-runnable.
All of which goes a good long way to explaining the quality of Anthony's books. I do hope I've convinced you.
------ End ------
Issue 30, Spring 1991 (part 2)
Electronic OtherRealms #30
The Parody Issue
Science Fiction and Fantasy in Chaos
Spring, 1991
Part 2 of 4
Copyright 1991 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.
Acerb
(an advertisement)
READ LESS--REVIEW MORE!
You're a book reviewer. You have devoted your life to achieving renown as an arbiter of literary excellence and a shaper of popular taste.
Much to your dismay, the publishing industry pumps out more new titles in an hour than you care to read in a year.
You can stay current, of course. Just cloister yourself, and abuse your eyes with cheap fiction day after endless day. Unfortunately, that entails giving up all that makes reviewing worthwhile: the lectures, the conferences, and the scintillating chats with your fellow literati. Clearly unacceptable. And yet... if you don't read, how can you review?
Once, that deadly dilemma haunted all reviewers everywhere.
No longer. Acerb, the world's first Computer-Aided Review Processor, has arrived.
When it's time to fill column inches, running Acerb is easier than cribbing from jacket copy:
1) Connect your modem. 2) Load Acerb 3) Key in the book's ISBN 4) Hit <Enter> 5) Acerb searches every online service for other reviews of that work, and downloads all that it finds. (Setting the /PW flag gathers reviews of the author's previous work. Superb for career analysis!) 6) Acerb's awesome expert system then analyzes what it has collected, and synthesizes that into an insightful, hard-hitting critique tailored to YOUR specifications: 7) Set a length from 25 to 25,000 words 8) Select one of nine: opinions (rave to evisceration) stances (bandwagoneer to voice in the wilderness) styles (colloquial to academic) subtexts (adulation to contempt) 9) Choose: standard American standard British your own vocabulary (requires optional MyVoice module)
Or simply let Acerb make the most appropriate selections for you! It's that good.
When the review spits out of your printer, it's done. Just sign your name and mail it off! (Setting the /AP flag automatically posts the completed review on as many as 65,536 pre-selected network(s)/bulletin board(s)--with no need for you even to glance at it.)
Acerb: You may never need to read a book again!
(Available for 80586 MS-DOS and OS/2, 68050 MacIntosh. Requires 40 MB RAM, hard disk, modem. Windows 4.7 compatible. Dealer inquiries welcome.)
Fear and Loathing in F & SF
Hunter S.M. Key
[[Hunter S.M. Key is the pseudonym of horror writer Samuel M. Key, who urges you to buy his books, even if it means you've got to go without a couple of beers to cough up the cover price. His hobbies include nit-picking and haranguing, but mostly he can be found lounging around his desk in a Hawaiian shirt, shades and straw hat while listening to loud music and sporadically typing a word or two of deathless prose.
He's not normally this cranky; you just caught him on a bad day. {editor's note: he made me say that. Normally, he's worse}]]
It all starts with me minding my own business when this guy who shares my house -- let's call him Bozo -- comes rapping on my study door late one night. I consider ignoring him, because the thing with Bozo is, he always wants something, and it's usual a major pain in the, you know, let's be polite, the derriere, but I'm feeling generous, so I stagger over to the door and let him in.
So there's Bozo standing there, looking sheepish (and well he should, considering how he shamelessly steals all my best ideas, if you want to know the real truth), and he starts right in on it, whining about how he's got this column due, but he's got no time to write it and could I, maybe, do it for him, like I haven't got better things to do with my time. But what the hell, I can be an accommodating kind of a guy, if you catch me in the right mood, and it was the holiday season, so here I am.
Trouble is, I don't read this stuff much. You know, spaceships and spells and aliens and the like. I've got enough weirdness going down in my life, without needing to read about it, but like I said, I was in an accommodating mood, and I said I'd do it, so the first thing I did was I went out and bought a couple of six-packs, a carton of smokes and some other peripherals. Then I grabbed a mitt full of books and magazines from Bozo's library and sat down to check it all out.
Here's what I managed to get through:
The Little Country Charles de Lint Morrow, Jan1991; 544pp; $22.95; 0-688-10366-9
What's with these big books anyway? It seems like you either get some gargantuan volume that crushes your chest while you're lying down trying to read it (not to mention the way the lines of type in a fat paperback always seem to bleed into the spine) or you have to go out and buy a half dozen skinny installments in a series just to be able to read the whole story. And this guy's name. How're you supposed to take a writer seriously when he sounds like something you'd find in the bottom of your pocket?
Okay, so the book's not so bad. It's got a bunch of people running around in it, trying to find this and do that, and it's a little confusing because every other chapter you're someplace else, having to deal with a whole new set of characters and stuff, but it moves along and its got a couple of pithy lines in it--most of 'em being the chapter epigraphs that the writer cribbed from other writers, but hey, at least he gives them credit.
But he really ought to change that name. And write shorter books. I just about got a hernia lugging around this one and Tigana by that other Canadian guy which has maybe more characters and just as much switching around. But at least that guy--just a sec' while I look up his name. Oh yeah. Guy Gavriel Kay. At least Kay's pithier moments are his own.
The Stress of Her Regard Tim Powers Ace, Sept 1989; 392pp; $17.95; 0-441-79055-0
I never got past the flap copy on this one. Look, if I want to read about the lives of nineteenth century British poets, I'll check out some biographies by reputable scholars. Like what kind of insights are we going to get from some guy living in twentieth century California? I could tell just by nipping through a few pages that he'd made it all up. What's the deal? We're supposed to believe that this is how it all really went down? Or maybe he collaborated with Shirley MacLaine to get the real scoop?
Gimme a break.
Cold Fire Dean R. Koontz Putnam, Jan 1991; 384pp; $21.95; 0-399-13579-0
I met this guy once and there's no way he writes these books. I mean, I don't want to badmouth a basically nice guy, but he's got a vocabulary of about three words and as for class--you call taking people out for dinner to a place with a cowboy motif class? Yeah, right.
But the books are hot stuff. Good guys up against bad guys, lots of neat ideas and real smooth prose. I figure his wife writes them. Now she's one smart cookie, bright without being obnoxious about it (you know how some people like to parade how much they know because they think it'll give 'em a few extra points in your estimation of them?) and obviously patient as hell, since she married him.
What's patience got to do with writing books? You try writing one sometime.
Pulphouse #9: Dark Fantasy Edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Pulphouse Publishing, Fall 1990; 259pp; $20.00
Let's get a couple of things straight, right off the bat: A magazine is something you can buy at the check-out counter of your local supermarket. You can fold it up and stick it in the back pocket of your jeans. It's got, you know, columns and eye-catching ads for stuff you could never afford, or wouldn't want, but are kind of neat to look at, and it's got pictures. The more pictures the better. Nobody wants to read about, say, Patrick Swayze or Claudia Schiffer. They just want to look at them.
So what've we got here? A thick hardcover with some green embossed lettering and a sketch on the cover and no, I repeat, no, pictures inside. No columns, no ads. Just lots of stories.
Okay, so the stories are pretty good, but I was looking for a break from all these fat books I found in Bozo's library. I wanted gossip and reviews and stuff like that and what did I find along those lines? Nada.
Oh yeah. And maybe the folks at Pulphouse should give a thought about the frequency of their publication. A magazine comes out monthly, or even weekly, not just a few times a year. And it's, like, eight-and-a-half by eleven-and-a-half, saddle-stitched and-- oh, just go down to your drugstore and check 'em out. (Want to lay bets that no one's brought this to their attention before? And five-to-one says if they do change their format and frequency of publication, they'll never give me credit for suggesting it. Like I care.)
The Last Coin James P. Blaylock Ace, Nov 1988; 328pp; $17.95, 0-441-11381-8
Bozo told me that this Blaylock guy won the O'Henry, which is, like, high stakes class, the way I see it, so I figured I'd end off this column by giving his book a try. Well, I've read it twice and I still don't know what it's about.
It's got something to do with carp, and the thirty pieces of silver that I guess Judas lost because everyone's running around trying to find them, and lots more to do with setting up an inn, but going about it all assbackwards, and old ladies and cats and possums and pig spoons and, well, I guess you get the picture. Right now you're probably thinking !?! Yeah, that's what I thought, too.
I let Bozo look this all over before I printed it up and he says I haven't made a single valid criticism or properly discussed one of the items reviewed here. Hey, you want epigrammatic, insightful critiques, check out one of the other columnists in this rag. It's not like I got paid for this.
On Boobs
Reviews by Bored Sirs
Cousin Kzin Man-Kzin Wars Vol. MCMXII Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle & Dean Ing Ben Books, $6.95
Despite complaints that this series has gone on just too long, Niven & Co., here serve up a fresh dish of unknown origins from the Known Universe. The book consists of three novelettes loosely connected by a plot device centering on the politics inherent in Human-Kzin peace talks.
Niven's "Cooking For Mr. Goodbar," deeply delves into the background and struggles of Kzin pastry chef Chutz'pah as he tries to ignore his warrior past and please the various delegations who come to eat at the restaurant in the hotel in which the peace talks are being held. Niven's snappy dialogue, especially between Chutz'pah and his human boss, Chef Tom Mouser as the two--joined by their love of cooking, must come face to face with their almost instinctual hate of each other. Additionally, Niven's vivid descriptions of Kzin eating habits and cultural basis of food preparation go a long way to filling this too-long-left-blank piece of Kzin history.
Equally entertaining and illuminating is Pournelle's "Is There A Dentist In The Den?" a rousing adventure dealing with a human dentist captured by the feared Hoc'k Phooe legion of the Supreme Kzin Military Forces. The Doctor, one Reginald Altinor Fitzwafer, is at first shocked and denying when confronted with the decayed and badly infected incisor of the Hoc'k Phooe Legion Commander. Reggie's struggle against cultural bias and propaganda generated images is slowly overcome by his love of dentistry as well as his code of ethics. It may be an alien tooth in need of repair, but _t is a tooth none-the-less. Of course, Pournelle's vivid imagery, particularly of the drilling, lancing of the infection and eventual extraction is first rate. Once again, Pournelle shows he is a master at building tension and the final confrontation is nothing but first rate.
Finally, Dean Ing's contribution, "Kitty Litter," if the lesser of the three is so only due to the strength of the first two. Ing's detailing of life on the Kzin home planet through the eyes of a lovable, laughable pair of disgruntled waste management engineers is a fitting addition to the Kzin myth. His two over-the-hill garbage collectors, Fweet Fwoo & Chunn Kee, dream of being warriors in the worst way. Ing's decision to follow the pair on an average day gives the reader an opportunity to get deep within the Kzin psyche. Ing also takes full advantage of the opportunity to get deep within the Kzin culture through descriptions of their waste products.
So, for all of you who thought this series had gone too far, Niven, Pournelle and Ing show that is has not yet gone far enough.
Robbing the Blind The Shade of Shaharazzad L. Sprague DeCamp Hey Dey $5.97
Occasionally an author will call upon past works in order to expand a story often thought finished. Occasionally the later version greatly overshadows the first. This is the case here as DeCamp expands on a little known but greatly loved short story (Shaharazzad's Closet) which was published in the short lived but greatly loved Fantasticly Weird Stories in 1952.
Where in 1952 DeCamp was wild, here he is wildly outrageous. As the title suggests, the setting is middle eastern and takes place in the same mythos as the Arabian Nights. The blind in question is a magical artifact that will only operate when the correct window is found. Decor plays a large part in the plot here as DeCamp moves his hero from room to room in his sometimes dangerous, sometimes romantic and sometimes clashing search. There are djins, princesses in peril, evil emirs and a frantic interior decorator which only serve to add to the plot twists. The fact that the story is ultimately quite predictable does not detract in the least from its enjoyment.
Pissed Imaginings
Forgotten Treasures
Lawrence Watt-Evans
It's a funny thing--the greatest writer science fiction has ever known is mostly remembered as an editor.
Seriously.
I mean, his memory is revered, awards are named after him, he's called the Father of Science Fiction, but most people (if they've heard of him at all) will tell you his claim to fame is that he founded Amazing Stories and invented the genre of science fiction.
The truth, of course, is that he also wrote the greatest work of fiction--not just science fiction, but any fiction--that a human being has ever yet produced!
I refer, of course, to Hugo Gernsback, and the immortal Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660.
"So if it's so great," you say, "Why has it been out of print all these years?" Because it's been suppressed, of course--and with good reason! If you could actually go out and buy a copy and read it, you'd see how everything written under the label "science fiction" since is just cheap and shoddy imitations. Hundreds of authors and a dozen publishers would be put out of business, because anybody with half a brain would rather re-read Ralph than waste time on some silly bit of fluff like Dhalgren. Consider the utter brilliance of this passage, in which Ralph converses with an unknown girl:
"That's a long way from here," she said brightly. "I wonder if you know where I am?"
"I can make a pretty shrewd guess," he returned. "To begin with, before I rectified your speech you spoke French, hence you are probably French. Secondly, you have a lamp burning in your room although it is only four o'clock in the afternoon here in New York. You also wear evening dress. It must be evening, and inasmuch as the clock on your mantelpiece points to nine I would say you are in France, as New York time is five hours ahead of French time."
"Clever, but not quite right. I am not French nor do I live in France. I am Swiss and I live in western Switzerland. Swiss time, you know, is almost the same as French time."
Both laughed.
What subtle mockery! What wit! And notice the sneaky way Gernsback lets us know that this is a world where scientific advancement has made possible a return to the leisure of yesteryear, bringing back evening dress and mantel clocks, and where national borders have been restored to their natural places--where time itself has been reshaped!
Throughout the novel, Gernsback pulls off similar feats of literary legerdemain--for example, when the Swiss girl is endangered by an avalanche, Ralph simply cranks up his ultra-generator and melts the onrushing snow before it can harm anyone.
And to an inattentive reader, it's just another thrilling exploit, but to the alert student--Ralph's ultra-generator is in the middle of New York City, yet he casually throws around levels of power sufficient to obliterate the entire city. His ultra-generator sucks the ether itself from the surrounding environment, making the transmission of light and heat impossible for a radius of several blocks.
And nobody objects! He isn't arrested, or even questioned! Nobody sues him!
Gernsback had clearly envisioned a whole new sort of society, where details like wanton endangerment and public nuisances are not permitted to interfere with personal freedom.
And in fact, it's implied that nobody is in those several blocks--which is clearly impossible unless New York City has been largely depopulated by some unnamed catastrophe.
And then there are the Accelerated Plant Growing Farms, where any possibility of famine is prevented by the simple expedient of glassing over Connecticut and turning it into giant hothouses.
What wiped out everyone in Connecticut and allowed this miracle to take place? We're never told.
These little hints of forgotten horrors add a whole new level to the story--particularly when all the characters studiously ignore them.
No modern author has ever approached the spine-tingling chill that hits the reader when all this first sinks in; what unspeakable evil lies beneath the surface of Ralph's gleaming world?
Unfortunately, we never find out. I'm sure that all would have been explained in the sequel, had the forces of darkness not suppressed the book.
And perhaps that suppression wasn't merely jealousy or an attempt to protect a degenerate publishing industry.
Perhaps Gernsback was trying to warn us.
So read this book now, while you still can!
------ End ------
Issue 30, Spring 1991 (part 3)
Electronic OtherRealms #30
The Parody Issue
Science Fiction and Fantasy in Chaos
Spring, 1991
Part 3 of 4
Copyright 1991 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.
The Writer's Day
Melanie Rawn
People who don't write for a living often ask people who do about "discipline" and "the writer's routine." Having heard this from friends and relatives for some years now, I've decided that they don't mention it because they're interested. Not really. They mention it because it's a polite way of asking, "What the hell do you do all day?"
I suspect this curiosity has much to do with the fact that I work at home, set my own hours, and the nearest approximation to a boss (my editor) is three time zones away. Hey, who's to know if I spend the day watching rented tapes of Bugs Bunny? (Well, my publisher will know, of course, once the deadline arrives and the manuscript doesn't, but why else did I go to college except to learn how to pull all-nighters?)
Every writer works differently. My method (though I'd hardly dignify it with that term) won't apply to anyone else. But my ideal writing day goes like this:
8:30 a.m. Read L.A. Times over breakfast
9:30 Sit down at processor and write four
chapters of deathless prose
12:30 p.m. Mail delivery brings royalty check
12:45 Eat lunch while reading (book, Time, etc.)
2:00 Domestic chores
3:00 Energetic hour at health club
4:00 Review day's writing
5:30 Short nap (restorative to brain-burn)
6:30 Eat low-calorie dinner while watching Dan Rather
7:30 Answer all "Jeopardy!" questions correctly
8:00 Write four more brilliant chapters
12:00 a.m. More reading
1:00 Bedtime
Real Life is like this:
10:30 a.m. Stagger blearily from bed (didn't get to sleep until 3:45,
or got to sleep at semi-reasonable hour but got
awakened by a faultline hiccup at 4:52 a.m. I love L.A....)
11:00 Realize that laundry, dishes, letters, bills,
marketing, house plants, phonecalls to
accountant/agent/editor, and 500 other professional
and domestic details have not been dealt with in at
least a month. There goes what's left of the morning.
1:00 p.m. Mail brings more bills, plus book club purchases and latest
issue of Time. Haven't read previous purchases or
last five issues of Time. Have lunch and take early nap.
3:45 Remember that checks will bounce moonward unless there is
immediate transfer of funds; hasten to bank, which
locks up at 4:00. Also recall that laundry is
still in dryer, late bills have not been mailed,
library books are three weeks overdue, last saw the
gym five pounds ago...et cetera, et cetera, et
cetera (as the King of Siam was wont to say).
6:00 Discover fridge contains tray of ice cubes and
absolutely nothing else.
6:05 Discover that total cash on hand is one leftover
quarter from laundry and scant contents of piggy
bank (all pennies).
6:45 Write check for pizza delivery and swear to spend three
hours at gym tomorrow.
7:30 Watch "Jeopardy!" in hopes of reassurance that I am not
in fact brain dead. Phrase every answer in form of
question--and get 73% of them wrong.
8:00 Sit down to work for the first time that day. Phone
rings. Wait for answering machine to kick in and
recall on fifth ring that I forgot to hook it up.
First call is computer-generated sales pitch.
Second is friend. Third is relation. Fourth leaves
message because it's now 10:00 and I finally pushed
the right button.
10:30 Neighborhood felines begin utilization of my outdoor
plants as catbox. Spend 20 minutes in vigorous
attack with water spritzer and resolve to buy truly
vicious cactus.
11:00 Remember that Harrison Ford, Kevin Costner, Scott
Bakula, or other major heartthrob is scheduled to
appear on Arsenio.
12:10 a.m. Review notes of what was supposed to be written today.
Correct typographical error in notes.
12:15 Go to bed.
5:12 Parrots vacationing in local palm trees begin vigorous
discussion of flight plan back home to Mexico.
5:40 Fellow tenant who owns brand new fire-engine red
Corvette and works two jobs to keep up payments
opens car door without having first turned off
alarm system.
5:45 Seriously consider phoning agent and editor in NYC to
say "I quit!" and find honest work.
8:30 Get hot idea for solving plot problem.
5:30 p.m. Two chapters later, decide not to peruse Help Wanted ads.
MIZ MANEURS
HELLO AND WELCOME ALL! I've gotten a massive pile of mail recently, and I was most happy to handle it all in the form of this column, on request of Mr. C. Rospach. So much to do, and so little time....
Do write in with your questions, you'll always receive some sort of response if you include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. That is, unless I need the stamps for something myself.
Dear Miz Maneurs:
I receive over 60 submissions/week. Though I've attempted bravely to advertise what I am looking for, writers continually send me material unrelated to my publication, which is basically fantasy. How can I deal with (l) religious nuts (2) horror writers and (3) writers who sign their name with initials, thereby giving me no option in addressing a proper response?
Concerned Fantasy Editor
Dear Concerned:
Forget the stuff you get unrelated to the tripe you are looking for. Make a form note, stick it on to your response if they provide an SASE, and take a Tylenol. Your form reject needs to say "Sorry, I can't give you a cigar for this submission." You don't need to explain further. If no SASE, burn it and enjoy. As for initials only--I think this is just wonderful. You should praise the Lord that you have initials instead of a proper name, which implies sexist origins. Nobody cares if you want to be nice. You are an Editor, silly fool.
Dear Miz Maneurs:
I've been starving in Albuquerque for seven months and am down to only 245 lb., trying to find work as a poet. My last girlfriend threw me out, and has tried to have me blacklisted, only I'm white. I write lots of offensive things, and wonder if the SF/F genre is best suited for my talents. If so, how can I redeem myself and get money to afford an apartment? This box is too small for me and my seven cats.
Franz K. Albuquerque Alley
Dear Franz:
You deserve what you ask for. Poets are students of the mind and never will make any money because they write short stuff. Everyone knows it's only for filler, and you can't get anywhere if you say something that is too short. Even if it is, indeed, time-saving. I suggest you find a nice old lady who likes cats, move in with her. Then convince her you need a typewriter and write novels, like anyone with common sense does.
Dear Miz Manneurs:
I need yor help despritly. I a woking posin who is allso writtting to sel my storys. I rite sience and ficton. Somtimes i get no respons frm editrs. Well, I rite relly well, so i can not figur what si wron.
P.S. Du you gt any kikbakcs? Alma Mae of Crossover, Tx.
Dear Alma Mae:
You are doing just fine. You need a spell-check and a computer and all that sort of thing, so I'm sending you my free brochures on what equipment to purchase with the money you'll get for appearing in my column. And yes, I do enjoy the residuals of my occupation.
Dear Miz Manneurs:
How many pages is a short story supposed to be? I have a ROYAL, with elite type and I single spaced it so how come they won't accept my story because it was a really great story, and only cost $.95 to mail? Oh, I also used the back of the pages, so as to save money. I think this is a great idea. What do you say?
Frustrated Author (Omaha)
Dear Frustrated:
A short story? Well, we don't like short stories too much. That is, I wouldn't go public with them except in the very very small press. Mostly, they are used for filler just as poetry is, but I wish you luck. A tip: buy some of the equipment listed in my brochure and see if that helps. Also, if you MUST save paper, be sure you stamp "recycled" all over your pages before typing your stories. This really grabs the editors nowadays. Most editors are into saving the Earth, all that. A short story is about four pages, but you seem to be headed in the right direction for a really long one.
Dear Miz Manneurs:
I am a science fiction artist who has tried time and again to have my works published. I can't find any listings of anywhere to send them except the ones that ask for an S.A.S.E. I think this is quite rude. Do you think I have to cater to editor's whims?
Down and Out Artist in Boulder
Dear Down:
In a word, yes. Don't forget to read my brochure.
Jakes, Jacks, and Johns: An Analysis of Elizabeth Moon's Use of Waste Technology as a Metaphor for Feminist Survivalist Philosophy,
or
"Why So Many Jacks and So Little Shit?"
E. Sophia Burks
Several reviewers have commented on Moon's apparent fascination with lowtech sewage treatment facilities; some believe this enhances the realistic "feel" of a low-tech setting, which they assume to be medieval. But careful analysis of the entire corpus of this writer reveals that human excreta has in fact a metaphorical significance so far not appreciated.
In the first place, her choice of the word "jacks" for the privies, outhouses, garderobes, and latrines might seem to be related to the traditional "jakes" or the more modern "johns," as "Jack" is often a nickname for "John" She herself has claimed this derivation (J.T., personal communication). It is only necessary, however, to consider the setting in which these "jacks" appear to realize another, more ominous, significance in the name.
The first use of "jacks" is in the military-adventure novel Sheepfarmer's Daughter, in which recruits are set to dig a trench, Trenches, of course. are traditional military defensive emplacements. And the military form of "jacks" is the caltrop (children's jacks are merely miniature caltrops), used defensively against cavalry (originally) and later against vehicles, whose tires they puncture.
So it is obvious that "jacks" has a military significance unrelated to any previous term for latrine, and that Moon linked (consciously or unconsciously) the defensive concepts of trenches and caltrops in her use of that term. When one considers the Freudian theories of character formation, in which defensiveness of a certain type is associated with the anal stage of development, one cannot doubt that the use of the term "jacks" implies absolute defensiveness of the most entrenched (or embedded) type. Throughout the novels, one finds repeated instances of compulsive or obsessive acts which support this hypothesis.
It would be easy to dismiss the existence of so many defense images as required by the military setting of the story, were it not that the writer is a woman who has chosen the pen name of "Moon." Male writers of military fiction usually make much more use of phallic-aggressive images; the concentration on trenches, jacks, and cooktents (the characters eat several times during the book), and the number of walled cities (whose meaning is obvious to the least instructed!) suggested an overwhelmingly female approach (or defense) to the conventions of military fiction. The name "Moon" suggests a fixation on rhythmic fertility cycles, and a tragic subconscious conflict in this writer's mind between the desire to compete safely in a male arena (and this is even more strongly borne out in Divided Allegiance where the arena is explicit) and a deep female need to reproduce and express nurturance.
More evidence of such conflict comes with understanding that the protagonist's name might as easily have been spelt "Pax"--meaning "peace"--and that the first military mentor this poor peace-loving girl met was named "Stammel"--an almost Joycean neologism combining "stammer" and "trammel" to reveal the basic conflict. She was "trammeled" or trapped (the metaphoric linkage to the spider demon called the Tangler is powerful) by someone whose goals (again) were subconsciously confused--hence the "stammer" converting "Trammel" to "Stammel." The mercenary commander's name also bears such reinterpretation: "Kieri Phelan" can be pronounced (in what I presume to be Moon's native southwestern dialect) as "Keer he Fay-lin" or "Care(s) he, (is he) Feeling?" In other words, as a poignant query to the destroyer (commander) about his motivation in pursuing war. (One can almost imagine this as the refrain of one of those wailing nasal country-western songs the writer must have heard so often in her youth.)
Throughout this first novel, the author's emphasis is on the character's survival; the minutiae of techniques used to survive a few days of walking across country with friends reveals the link between defense (recall that the characters sheltered behind a thorny bush--again, caltrops, or "jacks"--and slept in hollows [= trenches]) and survival. More deeply, of course, these hollows and thorny bushes represent the vulnerability and defenses inherent in female anatomy. Compulsive elements abound, additional indication of psychological (as well as military) defenses.
Divided Allegiance, the second novel, presents more evidence that for this writer survival as a female involves elaborate and difficult defenses. Paks, or Peace, repudiates the cruelties of the mercenary life, and chooses to become a caravan guard--again, a defensive position. But she bears a secret message to the north (the North, of course. signifies the intellect) from--not her own commander, Cares-he?--but Aliam Halveric. Halveric is immediately familiar to anyone who is conversant with the rather limited literature of Upper Boglund (annexed in the 13th c., of course.) One knows instantly that the short bald husband of a tall dark-haired archer is none other than Fierdi Loppleggin, the "low-father" of his race. The significance of "Cares-he?" not having children. and of the maiming of Halveric's (Loppleggin's) eldest son is thus shown forth. Peace has chosen fertility (again) over the uncaring destructive force represented by the Red Duke (red signifying not blood but fire, in this instance.) But the price paid becomes clear only in the third volume (a complete analysis of which will appear later in a scholarly journal. For interim analyses of Divided Allegiance and Oath of Gold, see also Burks, Jamerson, and Norris: "Verse and Perverse: Poetry in Modern Fantasy", "Arachniphobia in Women Writers of the 20th Century," and "Color Analysis as an Aid to Interpretation of Metaphoric Intent in Women's Writing.")
Surrender None, overtly a tale of a peasant revolt, shares many of the same elements. One of the first things the young boy taken for guard training learns is to put ashes (mourning) on the jacks. This has several possible interpretations: the ashes may mourn the "gift" of fertility which rests in the jacks, or the "gift" of life which soldiers must expect to lose as involuntarily as they eventually contribute their nitrogen load. The boy's mother (highly significant) is repeatedly shown to be a fanatic about cleanliness, even to claiming that "demons" inhabit dirt and cause disease. As one would expect, a concern with cleanliness is shown to be a female trait, which the male protagonist has taken in and failed to expel. His associates express surprise at his attitudes, and chide him for it.
But what a writer omits is often as important as what he or she includes. In the first three books, one might have suspected a difficulty with fertility and reproduction, since the main character never had a sexual relationship or a child. Concentration on excretion rather than reproduction suggests deep-seated conflicts in the writer's own psychology. Surrender None, however, is rife with reproduction and sexual encounters, although many potential relationships and births are truncated by violence (again, a very female approach to this issue, since many male writers present war as a sexual excitant.) Moon also seems to have some bias against small domestic animals, since there are few dogs or cats in the books, and no major character has a pet.
Yet the most highly significant omission in Moon's books is that of the common word for human excreta. Now quite acceptable in print, this word is surely known even to the writer; in fact (S.S., personal communication) she is known to have used it verbally. Why, then, does it not appear where one would expect it to be moat common? Why so many jacks, and so little shit?
The omission cannot be accidental, which means that it offers another opportunity to probe the writer's intent. The moat obvious clue comes from the word itself, which can be seen as a compression of "she" into "it." Again, in the southwestern dialect, the common pronunciation is "shee-it!" If one returns to the protagonist of the first three books, the young girl Peace, who in the process of militarization acts against her own feminine nature of fertility to become a neuter (note that she never takes a lover of either sex), then "she" has become "it" by engaging in repeated acts of survival-oriented defense, involving trenches (anatomically significant!) and "jacks." And the result is precisely that "shit" which is then preoccupies the author through not only a trilogy but a prequel!
Survivalists, especially right-wing survivalists, are often perceived as being rigid, defensive. and anal...so the link to survivalism is also quite obvious to the trained mind. Commonly such persona are assumed to be male, but in recent years women have begun expressing an interest in survival as well. One well-known group of religious survivalists is even led by a woman, and although Moon's first novels were written before that group was organized, it is conceivable that she was influenced by this changing attitude among women. Yet the path to feminist survivalism is beset by many dangers, which this author recognizes (consciously or not) and espresses as concern for traditional female responsibilities (fertility and cleanliness) and by denying (in the avoidance of a common English word) that women survivors have changed from "she" to "it," even when all other evidence would make that precise conversion obvious.
------ End ------
Issue 30, Spring 1991 (part 4)
Electronic OtherRealms #30
The Parody Issue
Science Fiction and Fantasy in Chaos
Spring, 1991
Part 4 of 4
Copyright 1991 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
A Brawl of Sphinxes Judith Tarr Taurus Books, 1991. V.5 of the Abraxas Falling trilogy, 666p, $29.95 Reviewed by Julie Barr
I came to A Brawl of Sphinxes expecting it to be the conclusion of the worst schlock-fantasy trilogy I've seen in years. Well, I was wrong. It's the worst fantasy trilogy I've ever seen in my life. Worse than A Blizzard on Mirthsea. Worse than Floored in the Rings. Even worse, if any such thing is possible, than Tarr's own earlier trilogy, the thirteen-volume multigenerational elves-and-unicorns family fantasy saga, The Dog and the Bird.
So what's this latest bow-wow about? People who, like me, can't resist reading books this bad because we can't believe they can be this bad, will know that the story so far is completely irrelevant. Tarr, who claims to have made a career of flunking out of PhD programs, and who is well on her way to flunking out of the one at Harvard, not only couldn't sustain a point of view in a scene if she had a gun to her head; she can't keep her characters or her plot straight for longer than a page. When she isn't ripping off historical personages right, left, and center, and then forgetting which ones she ripped off when, she's piling together a farrago of literary allusions, obscure academic in-jokes (the one about some weirdo named Umberto Eco and the vat of pigs' blood--pigs' blood?--is particularly feeble), and pseudo-Shakespearean stylistic tricks ("Yea verily and forsooth, I shall go check it out, babe"). By page 5, she's so confused, she doesn't know where she's going. By page 10, the reader is as confused as she is. However, your intrepid reviewer persevered to the bitter end, and managed to distill the following essence of story--if so dignified a word may be applied to so hopelessly muddled a work.
The Little Shit is a little shit who also happens to be the lately-lost heir to the obligatory fantasy empire. It's supposed to be an evil empire, but its rulers persist in being good, kind, somewhat spineless worshippers of Muchamora, the goddess of blancmange. What's an author to do? Why, bring in The Hunk, the not-yet-lost heir of the other obligatory fantasy empire. This is supposed to be the good empire, the Empire That Saves the World For Imperialism, and Never Mind Democracy, except that its rulers keep turning out, shall we say, a little bit psycho, but sexy as hell. Naturally the L.S. and the Hunk fall in love. But wait--aren't they both male? I thought so. Apparently Tarr didn't; or she just forgot. Suddenly the L.S. is a she, and she's pretty insipid, but the Hunk likes insipid blondes. They look so good next to his bronzed muscles. They get together, they do what comes naturally considering that the Hunk's muscular development is not equaled by his development in another salient area, they go on the usual quest. What they're questing for, I can't tell and Tarr obviously doesn't know, but by the time we start to wonder what all the running around is about, Tarr suffers another amnesic attack. Suddenly the L.S. is bit on the small side but perfectly hunky and male out to here--and the Hunk is suddenly the Bimbo, brains of a retrograde flea, body of a Kama Sutra heroine, and what's more, she's pregnant. Daddy is not amused. Daddy, remember, is psycho. Daddy is also the Great Good Emperor, except by now he seems to be the Big Bad Wolf, and everybody is fighting against him, except the Great Bad Emperor, who's really the Little Nice Sheep, and he's actually quite pleased that he's about to be a grandpa. What the goddess Muchamora thinks, Tarr doesn't say.
Everything comes to something resembling a conclusion. There is a magnificently inept hommage to Indiana Jones in the middle of the Obligatory War Between the Mages: all the bad guys drop their grimoires and pull out laser cannon and start blasting away. Laser cannon? Don't ask. Do the good guys win? First you have to figure out who the good guys are. Do the bad guys Get Theirs? Depends on who the bad guys are. Since Tarr doesn't have a clue, it's hardly surprising that the rest of us have a little trouble figuring it out.
Reviewers are supposed to come down heavy on originality. Union rules. Well, this is original. I've never seen anything like it. I hope I never see anything like it again.
Rating: Bow-wow-wow-wow-wow+
Dodgerspell Katharine Kerr Green Dwarf Books, book 107 of the Deverry saga. Reviewed by Al Turnafraze
Although the latest entry in this popular if interminable fantasy series sounds all of Kerr's familiar keynotes--gruesome violence, Elvish profanity, weird sex, and obscure poetry--it does mark a new turn to her work. It gave me a turn, anyway. For some time now Kerr has been threatening, in her stories themselves as well as in a recent interview in the British magazine Loathing, to bring the saga of Jill, Nevyn, Rhodry, and their whole howling barbarian pack into the modern world or at least into some alternate universe's equivalent of the modern world. Well, folks, she's done it, by having them all reborn into the technologically advanced city of Dinas Dewi, (David's City,) a town that looks suspiciously like San Francisco in a landscape suspiciously like our own Bay Area. The only conclusion we can draw from this location and name is that the Deverrians have discovered not only California but the Old Testament as well. As she usually does, Kerr has given her characters and places remarkably consistent Deverrian names (except for the ones in High Elvish, Low Dwarvish, Middle Bardekian, New Dragonese, Old Trollish, and Sheer Nonsense), but rather than type all those "W's" and "Y's," and to spare you all the trouble of thinking while I'm at it, I've worked out the English equivalents from a twenty-three volume dictionary of the Welsh language[1] and The Dialects of Ancient Gaul by Joshua Whatmough.[2] Here, then, is the clef for the roman under review.[3]
The book opens with a prologue set in the 1850's when we find Nevyn reborn as Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown. (Oh yes, it seems the Deverrians have also discovered upstate New York.) He's just about to invent baseball when a beautiful blonde damsel in distress (Jill reborn, of course) seduces him into inventing the British magical order of the Golden Dawn instead. However, his disciple, Rhodry reborn, invents baseball in his place and restores the time continuum to its intended course before disaster strikes. Meanwhile, off in a town called Lyndyn[4] (but looking suspiciously like London,) Nevyn prevents an evil genius, Herr von Gizmo, from inventing the atomic bomb in the wrong century, that is, before Bertrand Russell exists to lead the protests against it. At this point Jill reveals that stopping von Gizmo was her real motive in luring Nevyn to Lloegr[5], not founding the Golden Dawn at all--but too late! The cipher manuscript has already been placed in the fatal bookstall for Wynn Wescott to find[6]. In a vision Nevyn sees that his ill-considered action will later lead to the downfall of William Butler Yeats[7], tying yet another karmic knot for the dweomermaster to untie--in yet another volume, though, since Yeats himself never does get into the one under review here.
With the Prologue disposed of, Kerr takes us to the main story, for about three pages, anyway. We find ourselves in the dugout of a major league baseball team whose Deverrian name translates to the Very Big Men, which for convenience I'm rendering as "Giants." Just when we realize that Nevyn's been reborn as Roger Craig, there's another damned flashback, this one set in Bardek in the year 899, one of Nevyn's "missing years" in those islands. While curing a bad case of boils for a wandering beggar (who's really a prince in disguise but that's another story, though mercifully Kerr lets it lie instead of adding more flashbacks,) Nevyn sees a group of boys playing with a stick and a leather ball. "You know," he remarks to a convenient gnome, "that gives me a cursed idea! What a cursed pity that I've no cursed time to think of cursed innocent diversions now, what with my cursed Wyrd hanging over me and cursed all."
When we return to the main story, we find that the Giants are about to start the National League West play-off series against a team whose name can be translated, given the references to vermin trying to avoid wicker rat-cages, as the "Dodgers." In supremely dramatic fashion, we meet the beautiful blonde daughter of the Dodger manager, Jill reborn again,[8] and a secret Giants fan, although since she's awfully young for Roger she's in love with his star power hitter, Rhodry. (The descriptions of their midnight meetings in the Will-call booth at Candlestick Park are particularly steamy; "hitting the long ball" doesn't even begin to describe this guy.) Back in her Los Angeles[9] mansion, Jill's just about to steal the Dodger line-up cards from her father's study when he waddles in and discovers her. We realize at once that this Tommy Lasorda[10] is the reborn soul of the evil Herr von Gizmo. Although Kerr does tell you exactly how Herr von Gizmo's soul got tangled up with Nevyn in the first place, she restrains herself to a footnote rather than a flashback, (a two and a half page footnote, true, but the print isn't all that small.)[11] Here, though, we must leave our summary. Not only would it be unethical in the extreme for me to give away the suspenseful twists and turns of the rest of the plot, but Kerr breaks off in the middle of the fourth game of the series with the Dodgers ahead by a single run. We can only hope that she'll eventually get us to game seven and, come to think of it, that she finally finishes off the Deverry civil war while she's at it.
Besides, in a work of this depth, mere matters of plot and character are only trivial distractions. If we look hard enough into Kerr's Celtically convoluted prose, we see baseball take its place as a grand metaphor not just for Life itself, as it has been previously used by incalculable hordes of American writers[12], but for the Progression of the Soul through Many Lives. Consider the deep symbolism of the three bases, those temporary stops on our grand journey Home, or the heartbreaking frustration of a .200 batting average--an apt parable for the struggles of the Soul as it seeks Eternal Fulfillment. Kerr, though, is especially good at portraying the Big Innings of Life. Every now and then, when faced with a great challenge, the Soul girds up it metaphoric loins and strides to the plate of Life. The pitcher of Fate winds up and prepares to throw the baseball of Chance while the Soul holds high the bat of the Will.[13] What will be the result? An ignominious strike-out or the grand slam of Ethical Action? Kerr makes us feel, usually at great length, the inner agonies of the soul screwing up its courage to the sticking point.[14]
All in all, Dodgerspell is one of those books that makes me glad to be a book reviewer. I've got so many charts of incarnations and historical details, lists of symbols, and notes on significant themes, to say nothing of all those Deverrian\Welsh\English translations and coordinations, that my future in grad school is assured. Thank god for semiotics[15] is all I can say. Of course, I wouldn't be a real reviewer if I didn't say something nasty about the book, so let me point out that you really won't understand Dodgerspell unless you've read all of the hundred and six previous volumes. It's here that we find the benefit of believing in reincarnation. You can start the series in perfect faith, knowing that even if you don't finish it in this life, you've got a lot of time ahead of you.
Notes:
[1] Don't laugh. This is a real set, published by the University of
Wales, Cardiff.
[2] Harvard University Press, and this one's real, too. Oneupped you
again, didn't I?
[3] You should have paid more attention in high school French.
[4] Well, the occasional Y won't hurt anything.
[5] If you can't figure that one out, what are you doing reading
fantasy literature anyway?
[6] Real manuscript, real person, real magical order--fooled you
again, didn't I? We reviewers have access to sources beyond the reach
of the common herd, you know.
[7] Dan Simmons isn't the only one who gets to drag British poets into
his books.
[8] So you maybe expected Kerr to waste her time inventing another
female lead or something?
[9] I'm calling it Los Angeles, that is. The Deverrian name has six
W's, four Y's, and two pair of double D's.
[10] Did you know that "la sorda" means "the mute" in Italian? This
has nothing to do with the story, but I know it, and so I 'm
putting it in.
[11] Besides, there's nothing wrong with footnotes. They make a review
look properly Literary.
[12] Well, by George Will anyway.
[13] The spiritual will, that is, not Will Clark. See Madame
Blavatsky's writings if you don't believe me.
[14] That's Shakespeare, and if you thought it was a dirty joke,
you'll never be able to write real science fiction.
[15] If you don't know what that is, why don't you consider a career
in flocked Christmas trees or something else equally suited to your
mental talents?
(Originally published in the New York Review of Sciatic Function, republished by permission of the author)
Dodgerspell Katharine Kerr Green Dwarf Books, book 107 of the Deverry saga. Reviewed by Biff Bock
There is a lot of baseball in this book. That is good, because baseball is clean and pure and masculine and American. There is also a lot of romance, which is okay, because romance is dirty and complicated and feminine, but you can skip over those parts, and besides, the author's a girl, so what do you expect. However, there are a whole lot of foreign names, which is really bad, because. . .well, because they're foreign. European. Weird. Old. Not American. Science fiction is supposed to be the people's art, and that means the American people, and we don't need any weird old European stuff in our books.
There are also flashbacks in it, but flashbacks are okay because Frank Capra used them in movies. The real trouble with this book is that it's too long. Long books aren't American, either. What the people's art needs is short books, to fit our American minds.
(Originally published in Fun and Stranger Fun. Republished with the permission of the author)
N-Space Larry Niven Tor Books Reviewed by Narry Liven
This novel disappointed me. Niven usually keeps his story lines tighter. Here they wander all over the place. Characters appear once and vanish offstage; they number in the hundreds, and are very hard to keep track of. There are several Tuckerizations (I think I recognized Hal Clement under the name "Robert Forward".) Basic assumptions change from chapter to chapter. Style varies from clumsy to polished, from lovingly detailed to mere notes, from prudish to graphic to obscene cartoons. Often the auctorial voice falls lnto blatant lecturing.
Loose ends thrash about the ending. I would not be much surprised to see a sequel.
Helen Arlinson's Just Looking
Commentary by Helen Arlinson
Episode 44
Dangerous Visions Have I
A number of years ago as I lay lounging in true Holyworld style, waiting for the phone to ring and wondering what tripe my agent would try to plead for me to write next, I had a vision of the future, so sharp as to steal your breath, so poignant as to raise a tear, so true as to now be scary. You, of course, now have the opportunity to share my vision.
I saw small, oblong, darkened rooms, sprinkled full of glazed eyed zombies, their cuds working on fat sprinkled vegetable matter while a veritable orgy of destruction flickered above them. I saw bankers crying with joy as slovenly producers of nothing wheeled bag after bag of money into the vaults. I saw concentration camps of writers--individuals shackled hand and foot to the corporate guide to profit. But worst of all I saw the movie.
Little did I know then that all this indeed would come to pass, nay would come to the forefront of society and ingrain itself into the lives of nearly every common man, woman and child. If I had known, I would have been hard pressed not to end it all right then and there.
The shocking credulity of this vision remained buried beneath some sub-strata of grey matter--just above the place where I keep respect for corporate managers who have so ruined the movie industry--until I happened upon a screening of Predator II. Within minutes of becoming seated on the slightly sticky seat in this coffin sized viewing room it all came back like the sharp slap of a final re-write done by some hack in Illinois. As I struggled to maintain attention of a sequel to what was a less than literate creation to begin with and one in which the main star remained absent while those behind the scenes scrambled to kiss the butt of higher ups demanding profits and by my guess and judgement to receive them, the parallel seemed obsequious if not downright eerie.
Gasping for air, I rushed out into the lobby, hoping that by drowning myself in cardboard Milkduds I might be able to reintroduce my internal equilibrium. Imagine my surprise when upon my arrival at the candy counter I found the scraggly teenaged critter who so customarily inhabits such places writhing on the floor and covered with popcorn. Angry candy indeed! And if even the inanimate now rose in revolt, responding to the drivel produced so regularly by individuals whose heads rarely leave the rarified air of the bank vault, was not change soon to follow? Sadly, this has not come about.
And so, we add one more piece to the slice and dice volume of film noir gore. Another tribute to the bread and circuses mentality gripping not only this country's leadership but most of the major corporations--film making included and leading the way in "give-'emwhat-they-want" as long as it makes a profit. This sad state of affairs is only worsened by the multitude of cud-chewing attendees who slaver and drool over body counts and body parts--a hint the butchers of this country should take, opening up their slaughter houses to public admission. Perhaps a dose of messy reality is what's needed to return to at least a semblance of quality, craftsmanship and vision. As it is, plot becomes relevant only as a place to dump the gore, story is reduced to brief respites intended to let the audience out to the bathroom between blood baths and art is left to those selfsame bathroom walls. This is "if-it-moveskill-it" theater at its lowest and one wonders if soon audience participation will become mandatory.
My vision ended with a scolding, a dressing down by the celluloid god, who shook his fingers at me, made faces and thundered in pestilence breathed anecdotes "might makes right," "the many shall be served," "let them eat cake," and "get off your high horse."
"Wait," I railed against this proletarian onslaught, "are you trying to tell me the people get what they deserve? That the mass should be allowed control? What about art? What about quality? What about film as an echo of life, an adjustment of the uncommon in common terms?"
"Fool, get with program. People are lemmings, waiting to be led. They don't want complications. Nor do they want visionary work unrelated to the lowest common denominator. They want entertainment."
"But who," I cried, "should be allowed to make those decisions? Bankers, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs? What about emotions? What about character development? What about issues transcending the common plain?"
"It all means nothing. Theater is but the little screen in bigger dimensions and with the commercials better hidden in the product. You wail in the wilderness for things no one cares about. Stop beating your head against rocks. You weren't such a great writer yourself you know."
With that final utterance, the great being dissolved in one of those slow fades to black, and as the music--some common theme sampling stolen from a dozen films--welled up, I awoke, shaking and shivering though full California sunshine, at least what made its way through the smog, beat upon me. In that instant I knew I had to share this with you, to tell you I have seen the future and that it is bleak indeed, to tell you what others think of your ability to think and to hope you will respond with a resounding no to future drek pumped out for your consumption. And when they approach you with their latest product, still dripping with gore and festering with pustules, beseeching you to buy into yet another round of blood, guts and cardboard, stare them straight in the face, give them a broad smile and say, "no thanks, just looking."
Your Turn
Letters
Judith Tarr New Haven, Connecticut
1 April 1991 Chuq Von Whatever Whatever That Stupid Fanzine Is Somewhere in California
Sir:
I have had word of the review of my latest masterpiece, A Brawl of Sphinxes. To say that I am not; amused is to put it mildly.
First of all, I am not about to flunk out of Harvard. I am about to flunk out of Yale. Please make the correction. Second, Abraxas Falling is not a trilogy. A trilogy consists of either four, ten, or thirteen volumes, depending on the publisher. Abraxas is an Endless Series. Your reviewer would be well advised to get her definitions straight. And finally, while she can be forgiven for her confusion as to the sexual, political, and theological alignments of the characters--they are complex, although they should be obvious to anyone who is not functionally illiterate--if she had read past the third page of the second introductory note she would have seen in footnote 433b a reference to the fact that this novel should be read exclusively as subtext. The point of the entire exercise is not to read what the author says, but what the author meant to say. It is not the author's fault if the reviewer fails to display an adequate level of clairvoyance.
I hope that, when my next work of genius appears (Farce Plastica, Phantom Plectra, later this year), your reviewer will have learned to appreciate my genuine and unparalleled brilliance. Or, better yet, that she may have taken up a more congenial occupation. My colleague, Professor Montresor, is now interviewing candidates for an experiment in high-stress sherry-tasting. Would this be of interest to your reviewer?
Starchily yours,
Judith Tarr,
BA3, MA3, PhD (failed)
Helen Arlinson
Chuqie Rospach
OtherRealms
Newark, CA (NJ?) 94560
Dear Chuqie;
Mr. Sawicki informed me that you would be interested in seeing one of my columns. To that end I have written one especially for you. Mr. Sawicki did not say whether you paid your writers or not but I am assuming that at this point you do not--given the economy and everything and the current state of publishing. In fact, Mr. Sawicki informs me that there are fewer and fewer paying markets and that even some of the established magazines no longer pay. I mean, who would have thought that Analog would end up paying only in copies. And just after they purchased three of my stories! Still, as Mr. Sawicki says, the experience is well worth it and perhaps some day I will make more money at this. Mr. Sawicki has been great, subsidizing my career. He also handles my accounts as that is one of the few things they do not allow in the places I occasionally stay.
I hope you enjoy the column and that you will soon become a paying market and will once again want to see some of my work. By the way, are you dutch? I knew some Dutch sailors once and the memory is quite good. Perhaps we could get together sometime and have some cheese.
In any case, if there is money to be had here, please send it to Mr. Sawicki and he will send it on.
Until we meet again, I remain,
Helen Arlinson
The Masthead
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OtherRealms The Parody Issue
Science Fiction and Fantasy in Chaos
Issue 30, April, 1991
Editors
Chug Von Rospach
Laurie Sefton
Contributing Editors
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Charles de Lint
Dean R. Lambe
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Copyright 1991 by Chuq Von Rospach
All rights reserved.
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All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
OtherRealms is published three or four times a year.
Next deadline: July 15, 1991.
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Choq Von Rospach
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