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USk Cy Chauvin, 14248 WIifred Street, Detroit, Ml 48213, USA Peter James 3 Tailor-Made
An Interview with Peter James
by Martin R Webb
here can be fe.v British writers who can boast "I was trying to get into the fil m industry - it the experiences of Peter James during his was then, as ii is now, I suppose; pretty near bank Tvaried and adventurous tile: from domestic (he ruptcy. I had an uncle in Canada who suggested I tr y once cleaned house tor Orson Welles' family) to my luck there globe-trotting in a second-hand hearse, from "When I got to Toronto I gal a job with a TV scriptwriter to film maker (his most well-known being station working on a programme for pre-school Dead of Night), from apprentice glove-maker to one children {Pork-a-Dot-Dor). lt was a thirty minute show of Britain's best-selling writers of suoernatural thrillers. going out five days a week.·· While being hailed as one of the most literate write,s of the genre, he is certainly one of the easiest he day the scriptwriter fell _i ll was a lucky day to talk to. On the drive to his secluded home (said to for Peter. He ended up wr1tmg the show for be haunted) we talked of our favourite authors and the Teighteen months before moving on to make publishing business in general. films like Children don't Play with Dead Things Over lunch he told me how his career began. For the ten years he was in films he didn't write one 'I started writing at Charterhouse, winning a word for a novel. He wrote to his agent. pointing out poetry prize (the kiss of death for anyonffwho wants his achievements. The initial reply cannot be printed to be a commerc ial writer) ·· here, but some sound advice was to follow: "If you Peter then worked on the school magazine want to write books, got to work 1n a library o r a which despie its cute name - Petal - was banned factory." DI the school authorities. He went on to write The While Peter was working on Spanish Fly {about Great British Bubble " ... which is still silting in a which Barry Norman is said to have commented: "This trunk in the attic some.vhere, but it got me an agent. has to be the worst British film since the Second 4 Vector
World Wai. and the least funny ltlm eve, .... Peter's 1n 1967 some of Peters friends anended a 001,a fathe, was laken 111 and the family was thinking of board expenment - Pete, had been mv1ted but went selling lhe business (Cornella James - gkwe makers to a party instead. During the expe11ment 58'\le!al to the Queen) 1f Pete, didn't want 1t. p1edict1ons were made and came t1ue w1th1n a week, .. I desperately wanted to wnte and decided to and all involved a death Were these events the onty take sanctuary at home - almost hke laking a sabbal1 1nsp1rat10n tor the book? cal, really My lather said that 11 I wanled to come mto "All my hie I've had coincidences. none of them the business I would have to stall at the bottom. So. all that rema1ka~. bul I've always quest10ned them. at twenty-eight, I became an apprentice glove-culle, I 1'd be somew-here 1n 1he world and l'd meet someone was stdl 1,y1ng to get Biggies off the g,ound - l'd I was 1h1nk1ng about IIJSI bought the film rights. For lh1ee days a Vveek · 1 ,emember bemg al a ma1ket stall m Maua clocking 1n at the lacto,y, and lo, the other two I was kesh, 1n '67; I was J0998d and stepped back onto donning a suit and gomg up to London lo lry and someone's foot. When t turned 10 apologise I saN 11 ,ruse C3m tor Bigg}es," was someone I was at school w11h and han1 seen !or years It was about that time that he read an article saying that lhe1e was a shor tage of spy-thrille1s. he ee,iest coincidence happened while he was "So I decided to wnte a spy story (Dead Letter wntmg Prophesy. He had ius1 w11tten the Drop). I had no real Idea whal I wanted to wnle. It was Tchapter 1n which someone falls 10 hlS death a Chandleresque past,che about finding a mole m down a hft shaft lhal same day he heard a news 11em Ml5, and II got published." ,n which 11 actualty happened. The next mormng's post contained the second d1aft of the f1lmscnpt ol Two ITIOfe similar novets were to !<>"ow (Atom Possesstan 1n which the w11ter had, w11hout consult• Bomb Angel and Billionai1e) belOfe Peter found hlS 1ng Peter, included that ve,y scene. niche. Possession was. he says, based on personal In Twilight. his lhird novel. Pete1 used a experiences w1lh lhe supernatural Dreamer, his leas! 811ghton-based journalist (Kate Hemmingway) as his favounte book, !allowed by a year later. Sweet he101ne. Her brief reappea,ance in Prophesy led me Heart. a disturbing tale of 1e-1ncarnat10n established to ask if we might nol be seeing he, in another novel. him as, 11 nol the leader 1n the fiek:I of houor fict10n, a "When t 111st started writing, somebody gave me good second. In Sweet Heart, Charley's bets lnend the advice: · never kill your best characters. because 11 and par t-t1me employer. Laura, suggests a custome, upsels your readers•. I liked Kale, and I thought it buys a Cornelia James scad, the company of which would be fun 10 bring he, back in a cameo 1ole. In peter is a dlfeclor. Considering his position, I asked if l w il1ghl she was working on a small ru,al pape,, and \here were nay plans to base a novel 1n the clothmg the books all have dates in them. She wanted to industr y. progress to a bigger paper. Her boy friend had moved "Yes, I've 901 something on the back burner. I've on to the Daily Mail, and because there had to be always thought the best rag trade seen was in Klute. someone from a London paper In It. I included her to You know there is a killer aboul as Jane Fonda folla,,vs show she got her promotion. I have thought about Pat1 ick Machia between ra11S and ,ails of clothes in brmgmg her back. plastic bags, and she finds a body in one of the bags.~ Like most of us, Peter works regular hours, Tw ilight clearly llluslar led Peter's progressive lhough his week often includes Satu1days and quality while Prophesy 1elurned to the Iheme of Sundays. 1e1ncarnat10n. "When I'm actualty wntfng which is seven or eight months of the year, I guess. I stick to a ngid hile researching Prophesy Peter d1SCovered rou tine. I run about two miles fN8ry morning to many coincidences that suggest there might cha,ge up my brain, then have breakfast. About W be mo,e to ,t than pure chance: the stiong querier to nine I light my pipe (he quite cigareltes a est betng the Lincoln and Kennedy assassmatK>ns. couple of years ago) and SIi down to work. Lunch IS Both were shot in the back of the head; Lincoln m the around ooe o'clock, then I walk the dog (Jessie. a Ford theatre, Kennedy ,n a Ford Lmcoln ca1. Wilkes Hungarian sheepdog who has smce died). I'm back at Booth ran from the theatre 10 a bam. Oswakf ran from my desk t:,; fourand work 1111 e.ght • a warehouse to a theat1e. Netthet hved to stand tnal. the v1Cl1m·s names have the same number of letters Where lone,:!? as do the killers' names. As ,f that was not enough, ~A, llficial intelhgence? Oyomcs?· both preseldents were succeeded by vice p,esic:lents Johnson Hard SF 5 How Hard
by Paul Kincaid ~ Vector
Rev,ew of Science F,ct,on, and that debate has finall'; engendered a massive anthology, The Ascent of Wonder The Evolur,on of Hard SF. The three Inlro duc1tons, by Ha1twell, Crame, and Gregory Benford, were all rehearsed in the pages of the New 'rork Review, many of the sto11es teatured (especially Godwm·s 'The Cold Equa110ns') have been dlSCUSS8d f - -· there at length. As a result this huge volume must be seen as p,ovidmg some defm11rve p,ospectus on the natwe, cha,acter and cons11tut10n of ha1d SF.
a labou, of 10\le, a massl\le ente1pnse, bnng1ng ogether key science lict10n lexts fr om the las! 150 l: rs. Whalevel the CfJIICISmS Iha! must follavv, lhe book stands 01 falls bj lhe value of these slo11es. And the value IS high. Here a1e 67 stones from fi7 wute,s. good stones that are not widel'; anlhologlSed (John M Ford"s ·chromatic AbeHallon· {1994), Hilbert Schenck's 'The Mo rphology of lhe Kukham Wieck" ( 1978), Michael F. Flynn's 'Mammy Mo1gan Played the O,gan; He, Daddy Beat lhe D,um' ( 1990)). and ClaSSICS that belong tn the hb,ary of every SF fan (F\Jdya1d Kipling's With the Night Mail' ( 1905), Henry Kullner & C.L MOOfe's "M1msy Were the Borogoves' ( 1943), Tom Godwtn"s 'The Cold Equa- n the late 1950s, P. Schuyler Miller coined the term 110ns' ( 1954)). There are stones not worth the eflorl ol 'hard SF In his book review column in Asroundmg. reprI ntIng , where the w rItIng limps, the ideas crumble I11 is a term that has never been adequalely defined before your eyes. stones which demonstr ate why SF (much hke ·science fic110n') but 11 is generally recog was consigned lo the ghetlo for so long (Raymond Z. msed to be that branch of SF burn around the hard Gallun's 'Davy Jones' Ambassador' ( 1935), Raymond sciences (physics. chemcstry. astronomy, bdogy) as F. Jones's 'The Person from Porlock' (1947) and {lo opposed lo !he 'sofl' sciences that 'Nefe then creep pro.,e 11 ISO't connecled Wllh betng called Raymond) ing mto SF (psychology, soc10logy). The term arose Jules Veme's 'In the Year 2889' ( l889)); but m such a out of John W. Campbell's Astounding, and is most monumental anlhafogy, they are mercilulty tew. In closely associated with Campbelhan w riters, Asimov, shor 1, this 1s an aKcellent collection of good science Heinlein, Clement, Clarke, and 1hei, natural descend fi chon. ants, Nrven, Varley. Forward, Sheffield, Benfo,d, Brin. By the lime the term was corned, what 11 rep,esented Here, then, as the sub-11118 advtSeS us, we w1U was already under threat. Astounding was decllmng ,n find the stars of !he ha1d SF fllmament Nalhamel influence as The Maga211'18 of Fantasy and Science Hl:r.v1home and Edgar Allan Foe. J.G Ballard and F1e110n and a cote11e of wri1e1 s and ed1tOfS such as Ursula K. Le Gu,n. James T1p11ee, Jr and Gene Pohl, Kombluth, Beste,, Knighl and Merril rnlloduced I.Nolfe newe, and mo,e vaned htera1y styles and devices mto the genre. The New Wcr.1e of the 1960s didn't actually sweep fNVay hard SF. but 11 did nudge ii mto a back he,ein lies the problem. We are p1esent~ with wale, whe,e, with occasional e,upt10ns, 11 has re a radicalty dillerenl view of hard SF lhan any we mamed eve, Since. There are shll devoted readers ol Tmighl have felt comfo, table with before. By my Analog, there are still works which are ldentrliabl'; hard count, 101 instance, fewer than half the stones are Sf and which have a s,gnrlican! impact on the genie whal I would descnbe as hard SF. Under the gwse of (the most recent has p,obably been Kim Stanley the WOid ·evo1ut10n' they have brought together Robinson's Mars trilogy), but even that has changed st0fl8S that predate hard SF and sto1Ies that have beyond anything that Campbell might recognise as eme,ged, changed, from 11; there are stories that hard SF. contr adict and argue with hard SF, and sto11es !hat appea1 to have nothing whatever 10 do w11h the Th1ough 11 all, the nature, the Identity of hard SF subtee1. Never theless. 11 is tnte,esltng to see how !hey has hardl'; been questioned We know whal 1t is, or bring hard SF forward, if ooti; because, publishing we assume we do. Ei.Jt m the last couple of years economK:S being what they a,e, we are unllkel'; to see David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer have orches11ated a S1m1la1 such enlerpnse for some lime, which means a debate about ha,d SF m the pages of The New 'tbrk Hard SF 7
that this characterisation of hard SF is going to stand revelations of inner life and his central characters tend unchallenged as the hard SF canon to be losers. anti-heroes, figures lost within the sweep of events. He maintains that: 'The implied argument of the Ballardian stream of hard SF, written 1n reaction to t is, _of_course, all a matter of definition. At one point the main tradi11on, is: Campbellian hard SF said that if m his introduction David Hartwell says: ·Devoted you know, you may survive; Ballard says, knowing is Ireaders of hard SF know the real thing when they not enough to survive.' This argument drives a coach see it.' This is a deliberate echo of Damon Krnghl's and horses through both the two previous attempts to famous and (intentionally) inadequate definition of put a frame around hard SF. However much Hartwell science fiction as ·what we point to when we say it,' may puff Ballard's scientific background {he was and it seems, if anything, an admission of failure, for medically trained), this is still to change the nature of Hartwell has already accepted that readers of hard SF hard SF and of the argument. If hard SF is so fluid in will not recognise it in the works of Le Guin Of Ballard. intent, in style, in conten1, then we are hardly dealing If this is how he has to define his subject, then despite with one clearly defined subset of science fiction, we the title this is no coUection of hard SF are dealing with a number of subsets which may share some characteris!ics, and which may huddle close to each other, but they a,e not the same thing. he thre.e introductions_ are. inte1esti~g. Benford The argument works if we are talking about the core provides the perspective of a working scientist of science fiction, it is a multiform genre after all, but Tand writer of ha1d SF while Cramer gives us an it has to fail if Hartwell is presenting just one branch, historical lit. crit. approach: both assume that we know one aspect of SF which stands central to SF but is what hard SF is. It is, therefore, left to Hartwell in his somehow clearly distinct from all its other forms. main introduction and in the individual story introduc tions which appear to be mostly his work, to provide the agenda for the anthology. to define hard SF and rying to pull atl !hese statements and counter p!ace !he disparate stories within that definition s!atements together we are left, therefore, with Unfortunately, he presents no one coherent argument, Tno straightforward, easily graspable account of but a series of conflicting perspectives. what hard SF actually is, as opposed to SF in general. But do the stories help? Al one point, 'Hard SF is about the beauty of truth'; a position amplified by Cramer who says: 'Hard lf we assume that hard SF is as various as all of science fiction is about the aesthetics of knowledge SF then, taking Hartwell's finger-pointing definition, at its core [ii is] beyond questions of optimism and there is still a heartland which alt readers 1eadily pessimism, beyond questions of technology and recognise as hard SF, and which is probably congru- application. Hard SF recognises wonder as the finest human emotion.' Yet this 10mantic vi8'N sits ill with Hartwell's later claim that ·Haid SF embodies the fantasies of empowerment of the scientific anrJ technological culture of the modern era and vali dates its faith in scientific knowledge as dominant ove1 other ways of knowing.'
gain he claims that 'Sf readers ... expect to be surprised at some point t:Yy a sudden A perception of connection to things they know or observe in daily life. If the revelation is of the inner hie, as in ... Flowers for Algernon, then the story is not hatd SF; if the revelation is of the functioning of the laws of natu1e, as in Arthur C. Clarke's "Transit of Earth" or Isaac Asimov's "Waterclap"' then the story is hard SF.' Elsewhere he points out that 'Generally the central characters of hard science fiction are winners (the competent man, !he engineer, the scientist, the good soldier, the man who transcends his circumstances, the inventor... ).' These would seem reasonable enough. were it not for Hartwell's repeated attempts to recruit Ballard into the ranks of the hard SF writers, despite the fact that all Ballard's fiction hinges upon 8 Vector
( 1979) one minor accident on a space station leads, step by inexorable step, to the point where the entire station is threatened with destruction. Bu t the competent administrator joins forces with an engi neer who is living with tt1e down and outs in the interstices of the station, and disaster is averted. The scientific and technical knowledge of the engineer raises him from the lowest in society to his tr ue worth. 'The Hole Man' by Larry Niven (1973) shows a different way in which the scientific man will triumph through his knowledge. in this case using a quantum black hole as a murder weapon_Ouan1um black holes may be a discarded notion nowadays, but that is not important, what matters is the central under standing of some scientific 'truth'. Hard SF is hard in the sense of being rigid, unbending. The key hard SF stories involve rules that are not made by man, rules that cannot be broken. Hard SF is often portrayed as being right wing (and the apparently more liberal attitudes of the editors of this anthology makes for some <"NJkward moments in the individual story introductions) but the political angle in 'The Cold Equations', for example, revolves not, as is popularly supposed, around the fact that the victim is a gi,I (though hard SF is overwhelmingly male in its authors, its heroes, its characters) but around the ent with what Hartwell further defines as 'Campbellian harsh l<"NJ that everyone must obey. As soon as you hard SF'. Such stories might show a common charac introduce character, or man-made rules, you introduce teristic which will help to provide a measure of hard ambiguity: so much hard SF, particularly early in its SF for the rest of 1he anthology. Perhaps the arche history, is schematic in formula and cardboard in its typal hard SF sto1y is Torn Godwin's 'The Cold characters. When Hal Clement says he doesn 'I need Equations' ( 1954) in which a girl slO\NcNl/ay has to die human villains because the universe is opponent because her weight would add to the fuel consump enough, he is saying that his hard SF is about men tion of the landing craft just enough to make ii burn coming up against the rules of the universe. Those up on re-entry and destroy the precious cargo of rules are neat and predictable (this SF is not about medicines. We can leave aside for the moment the change), so a human opponent would upset the countless calculations which show that if Godwin had apple-cart by introducing the possibility, nay the really wanted to save the girl, he could have done so necessity, for change. development, other interpreta What hard SF is doing here is presenting a set of tions. implacable rules that are dictated by the very nature of the universe; the little man in the face of a huge galaxy must come to te1ms with those rules or die. right-wing political stan_c~ may, therefore, Philip Latham·s "The Xi Effect' (1950) presents a be a defining characteristic of hard SF. similar argument: scientists discover that the universe A Even when a story or a writer attempts a is shrinking but wavelengths rema in constant. so more liberal stance, as James Blish did in 'Beep' gradually the different means of communication are ( 1954), it comes up against the inflexibility of the rules taken av-ray from mankind until even the visible and ends up, at best, as libertarian. In ·seep' there is, spectrum slips <"NJay into blackness. Again we see how in effect, an elite who rule the world on the strength cold and unmoving the universe is out there, how man of privileged, if partial, knowledge of the future. They is humbled before a pa,,ver as mighty as former try to rule by liberal principles, but there is sti!I an generations would have imagined God. (And there ls a elite, there are still all-powerful, secretive masters, and strong religious, or at least transcendental element there are still rigid codes which must be obeyed. running through hard SF, which I w1!1 come to later.) When the authors deny the rigidity and inevita bility of the rules, when they admit human frailty and f course, not all hard SF leads to inevitable fault. when they entertain ambiguity, then you get a tragedy. By understanding the physics, the story which, however much it follows scientific notions Ochemistry or the maths, the competent man and principles, cannot be hard SF. Which is why can comprehend the rules and see the way to salva writers like Ballard, with 'Pr ima Belladonna· (1956) and tion. In 'Down and Out on Ellfive Prime' by Dean Ing ·cage of Sand' ( 1963), are out of place in this anthol- Hard SF 9
ogy. The dead astronauts endlessly circling Earth in story, and hD'N much a sad little tale about love and 'Cage of Sand' are theie as a sign of failure, are liable loss which happens to employ a science fictional to burn up (as one of them does), are open to misin• device to set it on its way? In this case the answer is terpretation, and are generally symbols to highlight probably a bi1 of bolh, and in so far as the anthology the frailty and ambiguity of the human watchers represents the spectrum of hard SF the story belongs coming to terms with their awn failures amid the here. But there are other instances in which the Martian sands of Florida. So much does Ballard deny presence of SF devices bulks far too large in the inevitability that the very landscape of the story is in editors's perceptions of whether the story is hard SF constant flux. Similarly H.G. Wells may have exulted or not. that the tank warfare of the First World War was engendered tty his story 'The Land Ironclads' (1903) but, a poor example of his work though it is, the story n the introduction to Gene Wolfe's 'Procreation' itself is one of defeat not victory. And Wells, with his (1984), for in~tance, we are told that his acclaimed abiding interest in Darwinian evolution and social Inovel, The Fifth Head of Cerberus was ·set on an criticism which imply a focus on change, even the alien planet. featured robots, colonists, a mysterious desirability of change, in his work, was no hard SF alien race. But it was constructed with so much writer . sophisticated literary ambiguity that it was not appre hended as hard SF.' This is a curious notion, tor it suggests yet another definition of hard SF as that o how does this approach to hard SF sit with which uses certain devices from a prescribed list (and the more borde!line inclusions in t~is anthol judging from the stories in the anthology, that list Sogy? Anne McCalfrey has always insisted that includes time travel, robots, computers, space ships, her dragon stories and novels are science fiction, not alien worlds and many more devices which are readily fantasy, and that certainly holds true of their progeni associated with SF of any stripe). A similar point is tor, 'We-tr Search' (1967), even though the wmld made in the introduction to the second Wolfe story, building is confined to a brief scene-setting introduc 'All the Hues of Hell' {1987): 'his stories ra rely have the tion. The story itself is straight, old-fashioned medieval overt affect of hard SF. It is therefore often a chal fantasy of lords and heroes and a quest for the lenge to the reader to perceive the scientific ideas of saviour. What betrays the hard SF antecedents is the which the characters in the text are unaware.' This s1rict, rule-driven attitude of the story. After centuries seems to suggest that if you search a story hard in which the threads have not returned to Pern, human enough, if you ignore the literary characteristics m society has not evolved, has not changed one jot order to discover some SF device or scientific notion Within the scheme of things it cannot be allowed to buried however deep in the text, then that story change, to develop ne.v weapons, ne.v defences. automatically qualifies as hard SF. Salvation can only come by strict adherence to the old, imp!acable, unchanging rules; rigid, unques tioning obedience is good, ignoring the (aw (eads only and inevitably to death. Certainly there is an element of SF in 'Weyr Search', certainly the underlying political attitudes of the story reflect the attitudes of hard SF - but that doesn't mean the story actually is hard SF.
hen you consider Bob Shaw's 'Light of Other Days' ( 1966) you come up against W another problem with the editors' selec tion policy. This is a genuine classic of the genie, a simple story of slow glass in which the passage of light through glass is slowed to a matter of years, so city dwellers use it to give themselves windows shawing the unspoilt landscape where the glass was 'farmed'. So far, so hard SF. But what makes this a story is the recognition that light passes both ways through glass. and the slow glass farmer uses it to gaze into his home to glimpse his wife and child who have since been killed, with the added unstated poignancy that there has to be a known, predictable ending to the vision. The question that must be considered is: how much is this a hard SF 10 Vector
of the accident the scienltsl comes to understand the characters and drrves ol his colleagues. Yet. 'the underty1og belief 1n the power of SCIElnce (physics) and SCIEIOIISIS (physiCISIS) IS still here'. We seem lo be moving towa,ds yet another definition of hard SF: any story in which scientists do science. Ger tainly that is what we must gather horn the introduction to Theodo,e Slurgeon·s ·Occam's Scalpel' ( 1971) which "is on the edge of bemg not SF at all ... yet ii mme cent,ally concems science than a ma,01Ily of Stu,. geon·s genre works: 11 is about scientists .. :. It IS, in fact, about model makers and businessmen: when the world's most power lul businessman dies, his corpse Is presented to his chosen successor as betng that of an ahen 1nvade1 in orde1 to change the course of the business to more ecologically fri endly direc tions. There are no a!iens, there are no scientists, this is not even a science fiction story, let alone hard SF. But 11 we a,e to believe !hat the presence of a scien t1St is enough to rende, a s101y hard SF, then we may presume that. for example, John Banvdlo's historical novels Kepler and Doctor CoperntCUs are hard SF. Ferhaps 11 is not even necessary to be SF m 01der to be hard SF?
In fact. the belief in science, the exploration of ut does the pa1aphernalia al SF qualify a sto1y 'metaphorical and emotional reverbera!ions' of as hard SF? George Twner's 'tn a Petri Dish scientific endeavour, are common currency In the BUpstairs' ( 1978) might seem like hard SF if domain of science nc tion. but are not congruent wI1h devices are what count, there is, afle, all, an 01bital the rule-driven practicalities of hard SF. If you want to space slat10n. However, the main locus of the story IS shovv man's place withm the slriclures of a vast and about the way the two societies have gro.vn apart, ,n unbending universe, as hard SF does, then you orbit people a,e uncouth, forward-looking, agg18SSN8 cannot do so !:JV metaphor, which opens other mean and unpleasant, on Earth they are over-sophisticated, ings, other possibililies. The editors are much nearer double-dealing supporters of the status quo. The lhe mark in their int1oducl1on to Robert L Forward's result is not so much hard SF as a comedy of man 'The Singing Diamond' ( 1979) when they say: 'The ners, very like a Henry James story of gauche Ameri wondelful ideas are the whole point, the foreground cans and their cultured [uropean cousins, but with o interest for the hard SF reader. The fiction exists to nasty twIsl. A genuinely hard SF ve1s10n of the same display them.' Nothing here about metaphor, or hichng sort of story, Robert A. Heinlem's 'It's Great lo be lhe science beneath v\lolfe's ·soph1Sticated lite,ary Back' ( 1947), has less actual hardwa1e than the Tumer ambiguity'. story yet ,ts attitude IS totally diffeient. Would-be luna, colontsts 1eturn lo Earth lhmkmg themselves unsuited to the Moon, but as they encounter Ear th society they o often, in fact, lhe ed1to1s seem to change realise hovv well they have actually adapted to the the11 notion of hard SF in 01de1 to fit anolher Moon. The sto,y Is full of the rightness. the inevi1ab1l Tstory into the pteture. tn the 1ntroduc1ton to ity. ol th e outward urge, the step into space. There is Frederik Pohl's 'Day Million' ( 1966), for instance, they none of the doubt, the unsettled ambiguity about the ask directly: 'What's so hard about it? The attitude is future In space as well as on Earth that Is expressed fight ... It is written fo r the reader who understands 1n the Turne, story. It is mo,e than pa1aphemalia, the hopelessness of a umverse without physical therefore. which makes a slory hard SF constraints.' Thts is understandable: rules, physical constraints, are the be-all and end-all of the hard SF 'Heal of Fusion' !:JV John M . Fo,d (1984) is. universe, so that a universe without them would be according to the muoduct10n, interested mrne m 'the hopeless to the hard SF reader. Except thal this metaphorical and emoI1onal reverberaI10ns of the descr1p110n of 'Day Mill10n· must 1efer to a completely sc1enl1St's wo,k': It tells of a scient1St dying as a 1esult different story than the one p11nled here. The attI1ude of an accident which killed most of his cotleagues is satirical, which hard SF almost nave, is (except in The location, the nature of their research and the stories such as James P. Hogan's 'Making Light' details of the accident are all hidden amid sugges (1981) which crudely saIInse those who do not sub tions and hints, but as he thmks back ove, the causes scribe lo the hard SF behef). 'Day Million' IS not about Hard SF 11
'hopelessness', rather it deliberately confronts modern in hard SF . As Edgar Allen Poe's p1otagonist says in attitudes with an overtly fanciful future in order to 'A Descent into the Maelstr6m' ( 1841 ). 'how foolish it challenge those attitudes. (t is sexually, socially and was in me to tt1In k of so paltry a consideration as my politically liberal. In directly addressing the reader and own individual hfe, in view of so wonderful a manifes foregrounding the fictionality of the story, it uses tation of God's powe1.' Substitute science or the postmodern techniques in contrast to hard SF, which universe for ·God' and you have the sensibility of Hartwell is at pains to point out is resolutely modernist much hard SF. Where religion actually teatures in the in manner. 'Day Million' may be the best thing that story ii is either belittled, as in Arthur C. Clarke's 'The Pohl has eve, written, and it can be described in an Star' (1955) or shown as the only recourse for human sorts of ways, but it is nol hard SF. ity unable to face the enormity of the universe, as in Poul Anderson's 'Kyrie' (1969).
his attempt to bend stories lo the will of hard 'The Star' tells of an expedition to a one-time SF is highlighted in one of the rare but signifi supernova where the explorers find evidence of a Tcant factual enors in the book. Ursula K. Le flourishing civilisation destroyed when the sun ex Guin's 'The Author of the Acacia Seeds' (1974) is ploded. The astrophysicist, a Jesuit, works out that described as anthropological notes by an intelligent the supernova was the Star of Bethlehem. How could ant. In fact the first part of l he story features a transla God allow one advanced civilisation to be destroyed to tion of a possibly rebellious statement by an ant, but herald the birth of his religion on Earth?, is the the translator is a human anthropologist {a soft question posed t,y the story. And the implicit answer scientist) and the piece is just one extract from an is that God is as nothing beside the raw nature of the academic journal. (It is signifi cant, also, that the story universe. Much the same response is implicit in Ian is not given its full title, 'The Author of the Acacia Watson's 'The Very Slow Time Machine' ( 1978) in Seeds and Other Extracts from the Journal of the which religion is explicitly linked with madness. A time Association of Therolinguistics', either in the contents travelle1 appears in a laboratory, and it becomes list, at the head of the sto1y or even in the copyright obvious that he is living backwards through time to notices, so removing the sense that the story is, at the point of his appearance. He is also progressing (east in part, parody.) The revised view of the story steadily and inexorably into insanity, which the observ• makes it more alien and allows the 'science' to be ers from outside his time-frame know all too well, but considered less 'soft', so making it fit more nearly into this doesn't stop them making the time traveller the the hard SF category. focus for a new religion. Religion does not mix with a hard SF universe that has wonders enough of its own, though in 'Kyrie' religion can at least provide consola he alien, the other, is important in hard SF. tion when those wonders prove loo awesome. A even 11 the story does not take us off Earth or T introduce any character other than human. Much of the direction of hard SF, a positive step forward into the future, man taking his place on the universal stage, has a transcendental element. The brave, the competent, the knowledgeable, the arche typal hard SF hero is the man most able to under stand the rigorous laws of nature, and so doing find a way around. And this way transforms us into beings g1eater than we are. This may be simply the better society of competent people on the Moon in Heinlein's 'It's Great to be Back' or the Stapledonian progress of our progeny in Isaac Asimov·s 'The Last Question' (1956), or the literal transformation in Clifford D. Simak's 'Desertion' (1944). In this story a human base on Jupiter has been unable to survey the planet because the human explorers sent out in the shape of the native inhabitants have all failed to retum. Finally the station commander and his dog unde1go the transformation and step out onto the surface of Jupiter to discover a glory that was unimaginable to their meiely human (or canine) senses.
It is a religious awe at the majesty of what the future holds for us if we obey the commandments, the rules of the universe, which crops up lime and again 12 Vector
so that each hesh book or stmy isa fu1the1 explo!a• hem of that system, mental play 1llummated DJ all the reader has d1SCOYe1ed before ... With learned geme competency rome the pleasures of c1oss-lalk lhe books speak to each other In an ongoing debate over big tsSUes, such as our place In c1eatIon, the nature of consensus reality, etc .. Hard SF mirrors science itself in tho importance of cro&.-ta!k.' This IS picked up in a number of the story introductions, especially to those w11ters not nmmally associated w1lh hard SF, such as Ballard, Le Guin and Wolfe, wh1ch talk of them being m dialogue with 01 oppoSl hon to hard SF It ,s a valid point. but 11 Is unfor lu nately loo broad a point to wo,k without greater flQOUI than IS emplojed here. For all SF Is m constant d1ak>gue as Ideas. themes, devices aie picked up from varK>Us sources and carried forward In different directions. In Wolfe's ·Procreat10n', for instance. the children who wander into the dyrng of a different unrverse are witnessing a scene which carries echoes of the Ima! moments of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, while Watson's 'The Very Slow Time Machine' echoes that same novel in a very different way young \oVOman on a ship exploring Ihe effects of a o trace mlluences, therefore, and sho.v !hem nova, tha1 mamfestatlOfl of the glofy of the universe. IS to be speclf,cally hard SF In character OJ intent telepathically linked to an ahem space creature who Trequires something more than lhe vague provides a deeper and more understanding 1elat10n hnk1ng of Nathantel Hawthorne's 'Rappaccim's Daugh sh1p than she has ever achJ8V8d Wtth othe1 humans. ter' ( 1844) with JG Ballard's ·Prima Belladonna' The alien d1S8ppears into the black hole at the hea1 I ( 1956): 'ThtS Faustian-Oolhic strain, Wt!h its echoes of of the nova. and because of the 1Ime dilation effects the sublime, is persistent In twenheth-<:entury science she Is permanently telepath1eally plugged in to h1S fiction ... and re.emerges, full-blown, m the early work endless dying scream. She ends up m a rehg10us of J.G. Ballard'. It is especially galling since the editors retreat on the Moon. have not established the hard SF c1edent1als of either story (so they have not established the evolutionary development Into or out of the subyi,mrl:i), tiave not hen a wuter Is genuinely religious. as Worre pmpomted the precise points of Influence, and then IS In ·AU the Hues of Hell', in which a survey separate the stones t)/ some 250 pages. W ship scoops up dark matter and a c1eatu1e which may be a devil, th1S IS not JUSI another mamles taI10n of the same Iheme. For Wolfe IS expr0SS1ng the n fact, the evolut10nary theme seems 10 have hoc! importance of rehgion. of behef In general, in I1s effeci no ,nnuence whatsoever on the 01gamsation of this on htS very human characters. ThlS alfi1mat10n of Ibook . None of the stones is dated (except In a 1elig10n goes duectly against the hard SF positlOfl, for copy11ght hst1ng which IS 1ncomplele Poe, Hav,,thome, tl cannot conform with the hard SF subs11tut10n ot Verne, Wells and Kipling are all mlSSlng and inaccu science for rehg10n. ra te 'Prima Belladonna' has a copy11ght dale of 1971 though ii was one of Ballard's first published stories m 1956). The stories are divided into three sections ut Is Wolfe In dialogue with hard SF? This though no reason is given for the division and no link co!lecI1on IS. after all, subtitled 'The Evolution Is apparent belween the stories In any of the group Bof Hard SF', and its intent must therefore be ings; no, does the orde, In which stones are printed laken to include lhe lichen from which hard SF do anything to p1ov1de a thematic 01 a chronological emerged. and that In10 which 11 developed or which II sequence. The l1rsI four stones, 101 example, are influenced Benford, in hJS mlroduchon. makes an Ursula K. Le Gu1n's ·Nine LIV8S' (1969), Bob Shaw's important point about the development of Ideas: 'Like 'Light of Other Days' ( 1966), Nathaniel Ha..vthorne's other subgenres of fantashc hterature, hard SF works 'Aappacc1m's Daughter' ( 1844) and Allhur C. Clarke's m part because 11 IS an ongoing dlSCUSSIOn Genre 'The Siar' ( 1955); an order which follows no logic 1eaders immerse themselves in a system of thought. whatsoew,. And though Kathryn Cramer. In an Hard SF 13
Appendix, p1ovides a thematic grouping of the stories, this does not include all the stories in the collection, but does include others ('Nightfall' by !saac The Ascent of Wonder: Asimov) which are not published hem. To derive any evoluliona, y pattern from this collection, the reader The Evolution of Hard SF needs to do a lot more work than the editors have David G. Hartwell & Kathryn done. Cramer (Eds) Orbit, 1994, 990pp, £25.00 he reader must als.o contend with .stories whic.h T are not only not hard SF, they are not SF at all Poe's 'A Descent mto the Maelstrom· ( 1841) shows a pattern of pmblem-sotving which does indeed seem like the precursor of hard SF's heroic competence, while Sturgeon's 'Occam's Scalpel' n other words.' if this collection _is to be seen as in ( 1971) reflects SF sensibilities that do throw an inter Iany way defm1tive, then the definition of hard SF esting sidelight on the subgeme. But other stories, has undergone a sea change. The way it stands, such as John M. Ford's 'Chromatic Aberration' (1994), Ascent of Wonder suggests that hard SF evolved out seem to have no part to play in tt1is anthology whatso of SF in general, at its height was distinguished O)' its ever. It is, as the introduction makes clear. a form of use of typical SF devices, and has evolved back into magic realism which tells of a revolution In the old, SF. There is little here, in other words, to say that hard biutal, military sense so complete that the new order SF is in any way dirferent from any other form of can even dictate that colour is different. The introduc science fiction. This reads like a collection of hard SF tion tries to justify its inclusion with some froth about put together by peop(e who don't reaUy like hard SF paradigm shifts as proposed Dy Thomas S. Kuhn, the and are therefore looking for excuses to include philosopher of science, in The Structure of Scientific stories they do like but which aren't really hard SF. Revolutions. But that is not what the story is about. A brief nod is tossed in that di1ection to set up the How hard is SF? If this collection is anything to narrative, but in the series of vignettes that introduce go by, not very. the new colours the strength and point of the story is the persistence of human nature, the way that the change of political c ider, even the change of percep tion. doesn't alter the essential love, duplicity, heroism and cruelty of mankind. This does not come close to SF in character, and in affect (a word drastically and ludicmusly over-used in the introductions) it ru ns directly counter to everything that is hard SF.
et while we are presented with a host of stories Y(Cordwainer Smith's 'No, No, Not Rogov\' ( 1959), Bruce Sterling's 'The Beautiful and the Sublime' (1986), James Tiptree Jr's 'The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats' (1976)) which are at best tangential to hard SF, 01 even (Ford's 'Chromatic Aberration', Ballard's 'Prima Belladonna') irrelevant to it, much that is central to hard SF is absent There are no stories Dy A.E. Van Vogt (despite repeated refe,ences to the notion that 'fans are S!ans') or L. Sprague de Camp, nothing Dy Ben Bova or John Varley. Heinlein and Clement, two of the central figures in any reckoning of hard SF, are represented Dy only one story apiece (as opposed to two apiece by Ballard, Le Guin, Ford and Wolfe), while a leading contemporary hard SF writer, Michael F. Flynn, is represented only O)' one atypical ghost story, 'Mammy Morgan Played the Organ; Her Daddy Beat the Drum' ( 1990), which imposes a periodicity on ghostly appearances but otherwise features none of the typical. ru1e--dr1ven hard SF characteristics M. Vector Science Superstition and Strange things like Yeast Graham Jo ce
The following text is taken from Graham's Guest of Honour speech at Novacon 24 Graham Joyce 15
've been a fan of Science F1Ct10n and Fantasy for as you trust? An overwo1ked, and probably exhausted long as I can remember. without ever feeling a nu,se on mght•sh1fl to whom midwifery has become a Igreat need lo make much of a distInc110n belween btl like lhe taSk of shelling peas? Or a shallered, the two. BJI I see before me an audience wllh pethachne-doped mothe, Wllh a dUblOUS claim lo seemingly a desue to refine the palate and define !he keeping her ete on the clock? Perhaps you don't savour of 11s Epicurean appellles. I'm about to try lo actually ca,e, but let me say, to me 1l's 1ather exP'3m that tixat10n w11h SF and Fantasy, bt.Jt rH also ,mpoflant Every Octobe, for fOfty years I've had a 1,y to explain why I'm p,euy much AC/DC in genre sneaking - and growing - susp.c10n thal I've been terms. It may get messy. Fo, example, I happen to celebrating the wrong fucking bnthday. thmk Science Fiction IS not aboul Science; on the contrary 11's about breaking rules rather lhan making Worse shU, !here's f!N8ry probab1hty Iha! l've them. l:l.Jt aheady I'm geltmg ahead of myself, so been 1ead1ng the wrong Star Sign eve,y day. The more about !hrs later. wrong Star Sign. On a daily baSIS, since reading age, that's about 12,0C>O information l:)IJtes. all wrong. First I want to pay tribute to bookshops like Forget whether you have the slightest belief in Andromeda, Forbidden Planet and Magic Labyrinth. astro logy - I don't care about that. It may w ell all be Why? Because they seem to be the only shops that childish and simplistic balde rdash. What concerns me stock my books. And lhey all have something In is that alt these years I may have been reading the common, which 1s that as you go into these shops you wrong ch11d1sh and simplistic balderdash. It's m1nd go dO'Nn several steps, llte,ally and socially. In Magic blowmg in its insignificance. Labyrinth, as you browse through the books you 1nev1tably risk being stung l:)IJ Dave Holmes' escaped So there I am, right al the commencement of tarantulas or attacked l:)IJ a baby scorpion; features he the great miracle and adventure of lrfe, and the first assures me he inlloduced 1010 his shop to generate recorded mfo,mation up 101 scruhny IS seriously trade. Similarly Forbidden Planet, where most of the ques110nable. I put II to }OI.J lhat all thlS cnsis, slaff seem lo go for txxfy pie,cmg on a surglCal scale. ambiguity and doubt IS mo,e than any mnocent, three Thank God we say, !Of the restrained and mmute ok:l baby should be aSked 10 endure. conservatrve precincts of Andromeda, where a quamt, reassuringly Victonan sign says .Roger ~on, No, did the CIIS8S, the ambiguities, the doubts purveyor of h,gh-quallty Science Fiction. Followed eve, d1mmish. On the conlrary, the prospect of life underneath, in smaller script, the words Fuck Olf If actually became even more prov1S10nal. Before I was 'rbu Like Fantasy. twelve months old I developed serious whooping cough . But SCIENCE was there with an answer, How is ii that a write, comes to find his books coming at me out of the sky hke a winged god. there on a shelf in c lose prolumity to badly painted was a new vaccine available from Amenca, as yet not Terminator dolls and Salman regalia for people with fully tested, bul it would be FL.OWN IN FROM 10s so high they AMERICA. A deus ex obviou sly can't function machIna even before in normal society. To the play had properly get the answer l o that begun. There was a you have to go back a risk of bram damage - long way; but al every ··\Yhen _\OU arl' giH·n no JOkes, I'm ahead of stop on !he journey you - bul the you'll lmd, glistening g]a,-;,-e,- at ag·e tin•. the whooping cough was like lhree foreign coins life-threaternng. My In a fountain, crislS., \l"lffld i,- aln·ad_Y mediated. father had to make a ambiguity and doubl:. decision. Can you ;1 You ha\l' iil•t'()Jlll' c_Ybnrg. Imagme the choice? CnslS. ambig.J1ty of admitted I_\ I"\' -tl'C'h It's 1955 and we still and doubt. have every reason to clwrncter. hut ,-;till a be optIm1Shc about This is how my Science and the life started. I was born c_dim·g. Technol"g.\" ha, Future. cars are being three minutes after manulaelured with Ia1I• midnight. If you beheve l'llhancl'd _\our inll'raction fins like science flct10n the nurse who rocket-ships. Juke recorded ii all. O r three \\· it h the out,-;icle \\·nrld ... boxes are like scaled• minutes before down futuristic robots. midnight, 1r you believe T he tulure is In full my Mothe1. Who do colour good-order, 16 Vector now, do you want Now it seems to me this drug? But that spectacles are wen watch out because represented in fandom. IT MAY D<\MAGE As I look across the HIS BRAIN! ··When I reali,-ecl the audience at this optician's hinterland, ! make no What a Daleks coulcln "t get me. I claims about the choice. But to have relationship between this drug FLDWN IN got so close to the T\" ,;et to wearing glasses and FROM AMERICA. Science Fiction, but what I the very word inspect the Blnck Dalek I will say is that when you America in 1955 are given glasses at age probably seemed can still rem em lwr the five. the world is already flesh enough to disconcerting clink a,; the mediated. You have come off on your become a cyborg, of hands like wet lenses of lll\ ne\1 ,;pectacles admittedly low-tech paint. Imagine the character, but still a scenario: An collided \1·ith the g];i,;,; uf cyborg. Technology has American scientist enhanced your interaction in white lab--coat, the screen.·· with the outside world. and my father, a But it's not enough to Midlands miner with have to endure the ritual a muffler and a name-calling and whippet and a ferret humiliations of the school In his top pocket. playground, no. To be Meanwhile I'm on a life-support machine, existence given glasses you have to be traumatised AND have hanging by a thread. your already shaky faith in science dented forever SCIENTIST: Mr Joyce, if you give this drug to your boy, we have to tel! you he may go on to become a At the Coventry and Warwickshire e,;e hospital I fantasy writer was bullied by a fat, pissed off nurse into declaring DA.D: Just turn off the support machine that Mickey Mouse was in a cage when in fact he wasn't. Let me explain. At the e-,e hospital you were But finally the drug was FLDWN IN FROM seated on a high stool and made to squint through AMERICA, with Science as I say cast like a winged some heavy binoculars. The far end of the binoculars god, and the threatened brain damage appears to disappeared into a kind of TV screen. As she selected have been only minimal, or at any rate manageable different lenses, or black-out lenses, the nurse could But would we, l wonde1, treat this with the same make an image of Mickey leap inside a cage-like box optimism today? and out of it again. A perspective test, basically. My AMERICAN SCJENTIST: Welt, we got a drug here for problem was I could always see two images. A strong ya. Course, we didn't test ii on our own kiddies, Mickey and shadowy Mickey, one in the box, one out maybe you'd like to try it out, heh heh heh. of the box.
Am I being too cynical? After all I owe a debt of NURSE: NOW, FOR THE LAST TIME, IS gratitude don't I? But the future today is not as good MICKEY IN THE BOX OR OUT OF THE BOX? as it was in the old days. And where SCIENCE was TERRIFIED BCJY: ERRA. .. once a stately, high-tech, inter--galactic spacecraft NURSE: (SCREAMING) FOR GOO'S SAKE? calmly cruising through steady space, now it's an YOU'RE NOT AN IMBECILE! IS MICKEY IN THE BOX escape pod with a distress-bleeper, buffeted by solar ? OR OUT OF THE BOX? storms, all knowledge-systems in a state of entropy. You may have picked up that Big Nurse is a Crisis, ambiguity, doubt. But then I was always metaphor for Science. I didn't knDIN then that life was slightly suspicious of the exact sciences. going to go around resolving itself into metaphors, but Big fat Nurse had reduced me to such a state of At five years old I was given a nm-v way of quivering terror that I started giving her the answers looking at life. Literally. I was given spectacles. ( I had that I thought she wanted to hear. It worked. I was out snow-while hair and was made to suffer agonies of there in ten minutes, with a pair of NHS glasses. because I looked like the Milky Bar Kid. How could I explain to her the duality of the universe, SCHOOLBOY: Hey, he looks like the Milky Bar Kid. the plural nature of reality? How could I? I was five Punch him in the mouth) years old, I'd only just learned to tie up my shoelaces. How could I account to her for a universe in which Graham Joyce 1 7 Mickey was simultaneously In the cage and Out of the been dangerous and duplicitous. Double-dealing cage? confidence tricksters. they change before your eyes. they switch character the moment they've left your Crisis, ambiguity, doubt. there was so much of it tongue. One of my early memories was being sent to floating around my formative years, no-one could the co-op ( 14901 - I can still remember my dividend persuade me that this world was ever going to yield number. You'd go up to the shop on some errand up a single, scientific, rationally-demonstrable principle repeating ii over and over in your head and by the that was worth dying for. Everything was always going time you got there you'd forgotten what you came for) to be other than empirical evidence might suggest. by my father to ask for some yeast. Not knowing exactly how much he wanted, he told me to use my But while I was having National Health glasses 'discretion'. A teacher that day had told us of the need strapped to my face, probably for no good reason, to be more disc1eel, and I managed to conflate the other things were happening on television. things from two things as usual. ·1 want some yeast,' I whispered outer space wem trying to conquer the Earth. They to the woman on the till. 'What's that?' she bellowed. were called the Daleks. I watched my first episode ·1 can't hear what you're saying!' I didn't know why from behind the sofa. When I 1ealised the Daleks Dad wanted the yeast, but I was certain his reasons couldn't get me, I got so close to the TV set to were either sul:Nersive or faintly perverse. I didn't inspect !he Black Dalek I can still remember the know what a banana-f!avowed condom was in \hose disconcerting clink as the lenses of my new days, but if I had I could have said, ·Forget it, I'll take spectacles collided with the glass of the screen. There some banana flavoured condoms instead.' I still feel was another interesting factor about that programme my cheeks naming as all the early morning shopping The hero, played by William Hartnell, was unlike other ladies with curlers in and teeth out turned from the heroes. He scared me almost as much as the Daleks. bacon-slicer to look at the boy who'd lost his voice but wanted some yeast. The Jesuits say: give me the child, and at seven 1 will give you the man. there I was at seven, in a world Thank God 1corrected the misapprehension, or in which nothing was certain, fat eye-nurses were I might still be whispering the word now. Point is that capable of behaving like prototype Orwellian words, like birth-limes, and star-signs, and American interrogators from the worst room in the world, and vaccines and Science itself disguised as a fat nurse in even time and space were capable of infinite infolding an eye-clinic, were totally unreliable, double-dealing, inside a police box. I was seven, I was cooked. Where apt to humiliate you if you ever tried to get a grip on else could l have gone but the world of Science them Fiction and Fantasy? Not too surprising then ,to develop an interest in When other people say, as they do, that their dreams, where things have such a protean form, favourite genre is Romance or Crime or Westerns or shifting and swirling, a place where if there are any whatever, I want to words, they're only half say: But didn't you formed, and reality is so see Dr Who when provisional that its not even you we,e 5? Or I considered to be reality at look for an au. Yet dreams are real explanation and things. They are empirical say, well, you ··Dreams are real rather than theoretical, yet ol:Niously didn't things. The.,· are empirical because we can't gel them have to wear to repeat in any observable glasses rather than theoretical. way, like a well-behaved experiment, science backs You make an yet bee a u:-e \l·e can ·1 get r:iway from them and assumption that they're consigned to a writers are people them to repeat in any misty, semi-occult who, ever since basement of knowledge. childhood, were obsen·able "a_,·. like a Except that this is where charged by words, \\'ell-beha\'ecl experiment. writers of Science Fiction, or who enjoyed Fantasy and Honor come wielding words or :science lmck:- a\\'a.\' from ,n. indeed who had an easy facility with them·· 'Hey! Don't go down words. You'd be lhere. There could be a wrong. Words, for psychopath with an axe me, have always down there!' 18 Vector
·souy. 1 ,ust love What If the unexplored normal rules of life basements" were suspended on this island and our One of the h1s1 ··Teehnologie.il ach·am·L•:• heroes had to books I started wnhng, encounler a Sorceress. unhmshed after !WO are making the 11111ml li,1:-e a Cyclops. a bevy of chapte,s. was about Sirens who sang so dreams. Havrng thtS to much ::-F 111on· ,lllcl m11re sweetly tho hero might obsessK>n or even oh,·iou:- be lured to hlS death? interest 1n dreams to peoplt• 11ut,Yit h And what 11 the only wasn't easy when you the genre. \\"hat ii'. the., way our heroes could were from a mining get out of these !amity Enler Dad again, lit•gin to a:-k. \\"hat if.' magical and cloth cap, muffler. dangerous &1tuat1011s whippet. \\"h,1t ,,oulcl our eharaet('l': was through eminenlly FATHER: What human resou,ces. of are you on about, what clo if teehnolog, e,111 offrr 1ntellectual cunning, ol do youi dreams mean? 11()\\' l'\'l'l1 thi,-•) courage, of creative They mean you're "" response? What would asleep.' we learn about the 'tOUNG WAITER: strength and beauty of 'No lather, !here's a humanity? And what of world of the its weaknesses and unconsc10US m,nd. and failures. Freud and things, which peop'8 like you working down the p1I don't understand. And so the mo1rt, of tsland as d1eam, Is so FATHER: Freud? What' s he on about? You hate strong 11 its message that is replicated th,oughout the your father? That's what you1 father's there for . I hated history of literature. By Petronius in his Satyricon. In my father; didn't hurt me. He hated his lather. didn't the actventures of Simbad. ,n lhe AraOOn Nights. In hurt h1m' Shakespeare's The Tempest. In Gu/liver's Travels. So on and on, until sc10nce and technology stmnk the But the wonderful thmg about dreams IS that, planet and the Seven Seas. and space becomes the althOogh they refuse to stand still and be counted, new ocean. Homer was altracled to the motif of measured or 1nde11.ed, they s1111 have thetr own internal islands because it was possible to behave that beyond coherence, and a logic which transcends lheu inner every island, lay another one, and then another one. contrad1ctions and absurdi ties. Crisis. ambiguity, Just as we believe about space. Only instead of doubt. all over again, but as pt ope, ttes which reveal islands we have planets. forbidden and otherwise. So somelhIng aboul lhe nature ol our humamty rather mfimle tn possibility, that whe1e the ummtiated s1111 than dislorl ii. Over Delphi was written Kno.v Thyself. think of Science Fiction as something to do with Everyone in this room knoNS that to see one's darkesl ·outer space·, lhe lnsder to the field knows that whal amoetteS and greatest expectatlOOS, you only have to Science Fiction is really about cs INNER SPACE. In consider hOIN you behave m a dream. which questions can be asked, such as whal If the normal scientific conditions we,e suspended on this And somehmes the answe r seems unspeakable. planel. and our heroes had lo encounler, say, &.it speak about It we must, and storytellers were absence of sunlighl, altered gravity cond1t10ns. domg 11 long before Homer committed the dreams of dilat10ns in Time itself. and the only way !hey could the Od}ssey to paper, and w11ters have been domg 11 gel through these dangerous concht1011s was through eve, since. Because each dream, and each new the human verities of 1n1el1ectuat cunmng. and hct10n. IS an island In the long, long quest for home. courage and the creative response? the ISiand as dream the ISiand as an 1nter1ude in the cause-and-e ffect percephon ol the passage of lime. And we became more c,eative about the we can lnve, t the normal image ry and see the dream possibility of our islands. They don't have to be sea as an island m the endless and opp1ess1VO seas of girt cslands anymore, or even planets in ouler space. necessary (for survml) rat10nahty Because what These ISiands can be alternate universes; near Homer and his forbears were doing when they fulures; mythago woods; anywhere ,n which the invented each new ISiand cond1hon was 10 ask the normal rules can be suspended and cha1ac1ers can golden question: what If? be exposed to what socK>logcsts call the ·11m1nal zone·; a place m whteh the conscK>Usness of the protagomst Graham Joyce 19
IS 1a1sed by the condIhon of 11lual In a ve,y special rile fo1 the SF fan IS hackneyed mateual) One of my of passage. favourite writers, Denn1S Poue, who died recently, has lefl us with two screenplays lorthcommg. one about So when I wrote my first pubhshed book, Virtual Reality and one about Qyogemcs. the reason Dreamstde, 1t was about an ISiand which characte,s thlS IS happemng rs that technok>gical advances are created fo, themsehles out of the ability to have lucid makmg the moral base to much SF more and more d1eams. Jn other words, an ISiand within a dream. I obvlOUS to people ourw11h the genre Whal rf. they happened to be hvmg on a Greek ISiand while I was begin to ask. What 1f? What would ou, characters do rf wrtlmg lhrs book, so life began lo take on a technology can offer now even this? (Philip K Dick IS satisfyingly concentnc form, in which theones about the exemplar here, of course, but who amongst the a, I, life rtself, form and content all enpyed a hitherto marnstream knows it? Would he even gel published une,,;pe11enced pattern. Perhaps there was order lo today? I doubt 1l.) Our SF mterests have already been the universe after all. This momentary 1llus10n was colonised, and unfortunately given a new language - shattered when I came home lo England and my new but this has long been the late of SF? publishers said to me: We like this novel. We want lo pubhsh this novel. there's only one problem: can you Perhaps this is because never before in history tell us if it's science fiction, fantasy or horror? have we felt so close to the future. Or is It that the future keeps seeming to fail us? Let's be honest. CriSls, amb1gu1ty, doubl G iven my background, l When we talk about the fa ilure of the future, what we mean the agonies I've confessed to you about mean IS loss of faith m SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY. birthdays and the ,est, was I honestly expected to I suppose the failure of science was inevitable when It provide lhe answer? Here we go again. ls Mickey in attempted to - or we asked 11 to - 1eplace a the box? Or our of rhe 00)(? Well, Mickey's fucking d1scred1ted religion It has, 1n rls turn become a about somewhere m the middle, so what. d1scred1ted faith.
I don't know lhe answer. All I know IS lhlS - that Stephen Baxter last yea, lamented the I've been lucky enough to have the Science Fiction stereotype of the mad sc1ent1SI, fhal fond old rmage of community pay serious attentlOfl to these novels. early SF books and films. Doctor Morbeus on the whatever label gets slapped on them by marketing Forbidden Planet and a thousand direct descendants. people in publ1Shing houses. It's true that there are a But this distrust is e,:phcable. If we still fear the few fossilised SF fans who don't want SF to go archetype of the mad scientist today, ,rs because beyond anything that was offered in 1959. but the experience has taught us to look closer. And as we do ma1011ty of enthusiasts for the genre a1e so. there is something strangely rubbensed about the extraordinarily generous in the scope of their expression on the mad scientist's face: and the strings attentions. The publishing houses tell us that the operating his hands and manipulating his j8'N become market for SF is in decline. I'm not sure about that. I as jarringly obvious and as appalling as in those earty think that SF has episodes of been appropriated, Thunderbirds. It's not ann8J Vvest. What other way continue lo dream in IS offered. our beds at nighl SF, SupershllOUS Fantasy, Horror, oh for Millennium Fever? ln God's sake literature 1n lhe West al least, Our book:-- han· got general is !he point at religion is even more to ,-;;1_, thnt pl'ople arl' which dreams and the d1SCred1led than external world science. The answers more important than interface. The best will only come from old among them are human verities, like money. that hunrnn books which delonate with Odysseus, after the act of 1eading 1n1etlactual cunning and relation,-hip:-- :ire· mol'l' them. Science is not courage and the the hero of science c1eattve response, and important th:111 thing:--. flchon. It never was, from difficult ones like and th,H hunwn and ii nave, will be. compassion and co Human bemgs are, operation. Afle, re,-ourre:- mu,-;t m;1tl'h and Sctence IS only the spending so much time beauhful penumbra of talking about dreams :--cil•nt ifir progn•:--:--. !he human psyche, !he and islands it would be human dream. the tempting to suggest mos! polenl of the that all we must do is artifices ol these ,ow, roN, tC'/'N our boats literatures are those gently dow-n the which don't exactly stream. But life 1s so much more serious than that. explain the dream (for an explained d ream is after all a Our books ha,.ie got 10 say that people are more dead dream, a fossil of a dream); on the contrary, the ,mporlant than money, that human rela110nsh1ps are most powerful are lhose which lead us from the more important than things. and that human dream to the very portals of int8fpretation, and leave resources must match scientific pmg,ess. Personally, us to take the next slep ourselves. -=oOo=- I'm ready to be called naive. It's never hurt me in the pas!. Graham's fourth novel, Requiem, is availab]e in Hardback and Paperback from Penguin in May. Crisis, Ambiguity, doubt: they come fo seem like old friends. You wouldn't want to be without ·em. The \\II!"\ 1>1 \Ill I'-', I \I\\\)", 1111 1 "\ 11 real meaning of the word Crisis, by the way 1s not about a house in flames. It means choice. Science Ficlion might flicker, but it w ill never go out of fashion. We're hooked now, in that cybernetic loop to the futu,e which keeps changing as it feeds back. We're addicted to the enterprise of lrying to pinpoint the course of the human heart. and that after all, IS the grand purpose behind all these f,ctions. Writers and the11 readers are like VOfagers on an odyssey trying to find answers to 1hese questions. I say writers and their 1eaders, because one man or woman alone is adrift, lost in a search with no meaning, whe,eas a ship full of fellO'N trwellers is a quest. This Convention is such a craft. Writing books for an audience as well havelled as this audience - you've been to so many strange islands, you've seen the Cyclops and the sirens and the flying fish - it's not easy to come up with new maps and you might have been this way before. One always hopes that people don'! gel jaded by the search. But the Point of all this ts to say that I don't think we w111 ever get jaded by the search for as long as we GRAHAM JOYCE Reviews 21 Reviews Ma,vin Kaye (ed), A Classic Colteclion of Haunt- First Impressions ing Ghost Stories 36 Romulus Barbulescu & George Anania, Nemira William H. Keith, Jr, Warsl11ders: Jackers 36 '94. Romanian SF Anthok>gy 22 Jack Kelchum, Road Kill 37 E11c BrOW'n, Eng,neman 22 Slephen Lawhead, Pendragon 37 Gregory Benford, FurK>l.Js Gulf 23 Stephen A. Lawhead, The Endless Knot 37 Allan Co'8 & Chns Bunch, The WatrlOf'S Tale 23 Richard Laymon. Beware! 37 D.G. Compton, Justice C11y 24 Ben Leech, The Bidden 37 Samuel R. Delany, The Mad Man 24 Mark Leon. Mind-Surfer 38 Phil Ferrand, The Nitpicker's Guide for Classk: Slaven Levy, Insanely Great 38 Trekkers 27 Sam Lewas (ed), Ear lhdawn: Tahsman 38 David Gemmell, Bloodslone 25 Jane Undskold. B1olher lo D ragons. Companion Phillip Mann, A Land Fil for Heroes 2: Stand to Owls 38 Alone Slan 25 Char~ De Lint, Spmtwalk 39 Maureen F. McHugh. China Mountain Zhang 25 Bentley L1tlle, Evil Deeds 39 Terry Pratchell, lnleresllng Times 26 Brian Lumley, The Second Wtsh and Other Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Alien lnlluences 27 Exhalations 39 Wilham Shalne, with Chris Kreski, Star Trek Pau1 J. McAuley, Red Dusi 39 Mov1e Memor1es 'Zl Anne McCallrey, The Chronicles of Pern: Firs! Bruce Slerhng, Heavy Wealher 28 Fall 40 Ian Watson, The Fallen Moon 28 Vonda N. McIntyre, Siar Wars: The Crystal Star Janny Wu, ts, The Ships of Merior 23 40 Victor Milan, Ballletech: Close Quarter 40 Paperback Graffiti Maureen McHugh, China Mountain Zhang 40 Roger MacBride Allen, Sta r Wars: Ambush at Simon Maginn, Virgins and Ma,tyrs 41 Coretlia 30 Jim Murdoch. Rise of The Robols 41 Kevin J. Anderson, Star Wars: Champions of The Steve Perry, Slella1 Ranger: Lone Sta, 41 Force 30 Tony Richards, Night Feast 41 Poul Anderson, Harvest ol Stars 3 1 Larry Niven, Jerry Pournolle & Michael Flynn, lain M. Banks, Against A Dark Background 31 Fallen Angels 41 Ma,tin Burnell, Freak 3 1 Jett Noon. Vurt 42 Arthur C. Clarke, Rama Revealed 31 Andie No, ton, Brother lo Shadows 42 Peter Crowther ( ed), Touch W ood: Narrow Te11y Pratchett, Men at Arms 42 Houses Volume 2 32 Robe1 I Rankin, Raiders o l the Lost ca, Park 42 John Deehancie, MagicNet 32 Leah Rewolinskt, Sta, Wreck: I he Series 42 Alan Dean Fosler, Greenlhl8Ves 32 Roberl J. Sawyer, The Ouintaglio Ascension: 1 Gordon Eklund, Star Trek Adventuies: Devil Far-Seer 43 World 32 David 8 . Sftva, The Presence 43 Raymond E. Feist. ShadOW" of A Dark Queen 32 John Slonczewsk1, Daughter ol ~lyS1um 43 Christopher Fowler, Spanky 33 Michele Slung (ed). I Shudde1 al Your Touch 43 Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean, Mr Punch 33 John E. Stith, Manhattan Transfer 44 David Gam el!, Stargonauts 33 Roger Taylor, WhisUer 44 William Gtbson, Virtual Light 34 Melanie Tem, Revenanl 45 Ed Gorman, Blood Red Moon 34 Ian Walson, Harlequin 45 Lee Grimes, Dinosaur N exus 34 Howard Weinstein/ Rod Whtgham & Gorden Edward Gross & Mark A. Ah.man, Great Birds of Purcell & Arne Slarr & Cark,s Garzon, Star The Galaxy 34 Trek: Tests or Courage 45 Wendy Haley, Thts Dark Parachse 34 Simon Welfare & John Fairkry, Arlhur C. Clarke"s Andrew Harman, 101 Damnations 35 A-Z or Myslenes 45 Harry Harrison, The Stainless Sleel Rat Sings Robert Charles Wilson. Mystenum 46 The Blues 35 Leonard Woll (ed). J"he Essential Frankenstein 46 Gary Haynes, Camon 35 Bridget Wood, Sorceress 46 Douglas Hill, The Lighlless Dome 35 William F. Wu, Isaac Asimov's Robots in Time: Douglas Hill, The Leafless Forest 35 Invader 46 Alexander Jablokov. Nimbus 36 Jack Yeovil, Beasls m Velvet 47 Bnan Jacques, Mattimeo 36 Timolhy Zahn, Conqueror's Prtde C 22 Vector Reviews of Hardbacks and Paperback Originals edited by Paul Kincaid women who powe1ed the ships, 1he,r$0U1cethat ,tis not that $p,nrad in tu Afterword. and In the process became Romulus BamulNcu easy to trust them as we need doesn't haw much of. chance add!Cledtocontactwiththe & GMwgeAnanMI todo. to come tt-rough. It II llones Nada-Conlll"IUum. are nr:M Nemlrll'!M: That .. Dari of the problem with lin'ated arnotrta of dnften1andhas-beens, Romanian SF Anthoklgy withlhlsarfl'IOlogyofRorra Strangef'e$5 and a law1y Slttlng despe,alelo'flux.'again. Nemira, 1994, 22iw run Sf stonfl. Despite the narralNe drive, Danut TheMlrfenbrolherswete etlthu$iast>e ~ tvanescu•s 'Tl-e Land of Ewry P;UKincaid d lee both EnglN!l'l"lln on::e. Ralph IS Wood., the p,qect. they have Opportunry' which comes nr:M an atheisl. depressed and not been -11 translated. Even acrossa~t!ielikeTerryBISson's canng for no-one. no1 even his s=-~=-~playit the OOf1YT10I'\ words between 'The Coon Suit', Of Cmtian ex...m'eandcnld. Bol:Jbtlilles wilhwordsthal, ht81110y,denote the SF ,rnages seem to have l..Azarescu•s ~$h 'The constantly wdh the effects of nothing. E1.it!he!rcullural been dl'JOfced from 81'¥ real Symbiotic Milf'I', wtichwork Black's Syndrome - the disease references allow them to refer&nee. Add to that the fact besL Though sometimes an which kilted the hem of 'The conjure worlds we have ne'o'er that they have been typeset and au thentic su rreal madness does Time Lepsed M an': all of his seen. machines we hBw ne.oer proofread by people who are, at emerge, notably In 'Some senses. except touch. are a day 1mag1oed, beings we have best, not native English Ear thlings' ADVENTURES In behind reality. Vet of the two, it ~met.exP8f1e('Ceswe speakers, at worst not English the EXTERRIOR' boJ Lucian is Bobo( who has transcended have r,eyer sharecl. You have to speakefs111ah,andtheresu1tls Menscawh!chdoestakea t.s day{O .--.,...... ---:...... ,--:---,----.. ---,----:-,.-, o1"'"~- ~---,-:-oo-,-~-,-,.-- ,,.-:,cc,.,,-,cc,,-m--, of throwaway detail which Furioul; Gulf already done and the relative pausir,,g repeatedly in order to thoroughly corn,rices GoJ/ancz. 1994, 290pp, steadiness of income which contemplate the eerie Thehumancharacte,sare £ 15. 99 multi-book contracts can spatiotemporal landscapes into compjex and flawed 1nd,v1duals Brian Stableford produce. It is. of course. which he has been delivered with histories and futures, while inevitable - given the hectic (somewhere 1n the ·ergosphere' thealiensare ... well, al1en.l pace ol staff turnc,,er in of a mass1...e black hole) and to adm1tthatattirst llound,tha,d l ~/:::~:zd~i:~ky publishing and the fact that pose the all -important question to feelsympathylorthe River,whichwasadVertisedas writers sometimes find grand of wt'r( a little pr,ck like him. ,ntrospectIve and selhsh Ralph the first volume of a trilogy. This designs far more d•llicult to insignificant even by the M1 rren, but someho.v Brown projected three- 1s also known as the Bane of Mortenhoe. After the small the tensioo further. Here Samuel R. Delany Desh-Thiem and as Master of press Scudder's Game. the te nsion is dissipated, atthough TheMad Shadow. He Is the villain of the collaboration with John Gri bbin, the climax is mercifully Richard Kasak. 1994, book. using dark arts and Ragnarok, and the poorly unexpected if clumsily 506pp, £10.99 cunning against his halt received Nomansland, executed. Paul Kincaid brother.lhe Lord of Light. This Compton has produced a near• Compton's viewpoints l1tter is also entitled Bane of future thriller.Justice City. become confused in the first Desh-Thiere. although his real Just1ceCityisahigh--tech. chapter. which is OYerloaded T ~~;~;s1:t~~~~:i::,s nameislysaers'llessid.He 1s high security prison where wi th information. We are also a philosopher. There is a handsome, chansmat1c and inmates are punished with a introduced to 'Margaret (Peggy) youngbjackmale. There 1san dedica\P-d to justice. but, bent variety of neurological and Landon' and 'Chief Inspector eroticobsess1onnotw1th on the destruction of Anthon. electrical devices. Th1shas Alexander (Alec) Duncan·, with fingernails but with toenails he raises armies to shed the satisfitld the pubjic's demand 'Chief Inspector Duncan. Alec,' There is a write,. who appears blood of inr,ocents for the saKe forcost-effeclJWretnbution. but repeated on the nex t page in br' iefty to comment uoon a of lasting peace. So. perhaps the whole system Is at risk ot case we have forgotten. collect1on of SF stories. whose Lysam 1s really the villain and being brought Into disrepu!e Duncan 1sstill 1n Liverpool at name is a close anagram of Anthon the good guy, after all? when one prisoner 1s murdered thrs point of the ptot, but Peggy Delartt's lmustsaythattheonly bf one of the four attendants Landon's desk is described in In o ther words this charactflr l leltcertainabout on duty. Deciding to cOYer up terms of how Alec Duncan will accountofobsess1on. was Dakar. the Mad Prophet. themurde1untilthekillerhas see1twhenhearrives, ata point homosexuality and the Hissolea1rnisselt-preservat10n been lderdied, the gOYernor when there is no need for ant hovering shadow of AIDS IS Yet though he has been alive bringsinabjackdetective policeinvest1gat1on. full of the resonances that forsevera!centuries, he has r.ot based in L!Wrpool to solve the In fact, there is a sense that have ru n through all De lant's yet lec1rnedto avoid the caseassoonaspossible this istoornuchofaptot,that fiction.and in pa rticular his temptation of alcohol. nor has On theplusside.Compton despite his neutral position most recent Neveryon tales he yet devised a magic charm has set upa series of ethi cal Compton is a presence 1n the Bo t despite a final step one against hangovers dilemmas which admit no easy book. We are told: 'Descriptions m1 nuteintothefuture,thisis Apart from Dakar, I needed so!utions: the rights of victims m books of getting up on a notaworkofscience!iction, frequent recourse to the map aga1n.stthenghts of villains. workday morning are boring ... st1lllessoffantasy. and to the glossary of people, retribution or rehabilitation, Accordingly this story doesn't JohnMarrisabjack places and things - and still huma~tyorefficiency. The Join Peggy Landon on graduate student researching found ITTfSetf contused murder victim. Albert Beech. is Wednesday morning until she's the life and work of Timothy The Ships of Merior is aconv,cted rapist and leaving her quarters'. There1s Hasler while wo,king as a wnttenasanepic,incontrastto murderer.andh1sdeathis no need for this: the chapter temp: living in a small New The Warrior's Tale whkh, as its perhaps desirable in the eyes of could begin with Peggy at work York apartment 1n the same name implies. is related in the hisvictimsorevensocietyasa without there being a sense of building where, coincidentally, hrst person. Thus, although whole. But the carefully something, however boring. Hasleralsolived:and there are epic adventures, they monitored fai rness of the being missed. Such a engaging in a variety of are described ins1rnple punishment. the scientific postmodern tactic is not homose~ual adventures with language bf Caplain Rali Emilie correctness of the procedures. necessarily wrong 1n itself, but the down and outs who live 1n Antero. The background to the can all be undermined Di th4s particular grasp at Central Park. Hasler was a novel is the war between v1g1 lante-styleacts metafiction 1s pointless. Korean American who was [¥canth and Orissa. Antero's Compton's characters are JusticeCity1spotent,aJlya killed a decade before when Maranon Guard spearheads the carefully drawn, ii a little too good book, with its political onthevergeofabrilliant capture of Lycanth and ki!ls one schematicaHy arranged. The relevance signalled bf philosophical career. His work of the two ruling Archons. The suspectsareafemalewhite Compton's choice of John was groundbreaking, he wrote other escapes. pursued bf the nurse,alemalebjacknurse,a Major speaking on punishment acclaimed sf stories, and he Mar anon Guard in a neet of gaynurseandanelderly1arntor to be his epigraph. There is a was a homosexual who ternporarit)o.frierdlypirateships who was formerly a prisoner glimpse of the politics of 'just became involved with the After the resulting na,,,al battle, Through their attitudes- ten minutes into the future', but down and outs of Central lhestoryreallybeQ1ns.w1th together with those of detective the bool(s twin settings of Park, The more Marr discovers Captam Antero's band Alec Dur.can - Compton can Livrpool and Justice City form about Hasle,. the more the+r wandering across uncharted explore1ssuesofsexism.rac1sm too narrow a canvas to make a lives collide, until his final seas. encountering magic. and homophobia, whilst sat1sfactorypolitical thriHer.The understanding of the demons, Sargasso sezNeed a-..oiding having to take a side real wrong-Ooers in the boo!< shocking and g1uesome and a variety of monsters and himself are regrettably off-stage in circumstances surrounding hostile humans But Compton's use of Whitehall and Westminster. At the murder of Hasler coincides As for who Captain Antero several viewpoints. which he the same time, this political withanalmostidenticalevent is. the opening paragraphs are had mastei-ed in h4s novels of edge means that Justice City in his own life composed in su-ch a manner as the earl')- 1970s, backfires for has pretensions higher than This pa,t of the book is to keep the reader guessing - once. In g1Ving the thoughts of being a simple detective novel. ab5olutely fasc1nat1ng, as two but it doesn't take long to find his characters ii 1s obviously lwrite thisreview1nthe lives entwine within a New oot impossible to keep the identity wake of Frederick West's York twilight world separated of the killei secret from the suicide in his cell being only bf the onset of AIDS. But D.G. Compton reader. There are precedents for trumpetted as iustice in the along the way fully two thirds Justice City this, o! course. bi.JI Compton tabloidsandafterriotsat ofthebookisgivenoverto GolJancz, 1994, 288pp, has not got the skill to repeat Everthorpe Prison. Compton's detailed, repetitive, not to say £14.99 the cat-and-mouse games of subject matter is certainty ob5essivedescript>Onsof Andrew M. Butler detective and criminal played in timely. and questions of law Marr'sse,i: lifeas1tprogresses Dostoevsky's Crimeand and order remain relevant. But rapidlyfromoralse,cto ~~~ Punishment or even in unfortunatetythis is not enough d ri nking urine and beyond. Ar,':/s~~ ~~";o~: Columbo. Justice City is toallow'JusticeCityto This is not pornographic - it is nc:m returned to writing sf, even perhaps doses! in tone to OYercome its flaws. not gratifying and it is certainly if he has not yet approached Stephen Gallagher's horror/ not amusing - and ii is the qualities he displayed in polic1er novels where early essent;al totheplot,tothe The Continuous l Maureen F. MeHugh himthesack;jobsarescarce characterisation and espee1ally The story is highly China Mountain ZMng sohehasnochoicebutto tothestunningcl1max (1fyou'II refe1ent1altoprev1oust,tlesm Orbit, 1995, 313pp, £5.99 work at a research centre on pardon the word) of the book tlie senes,butit 1s perfectly possible to read this asa stand Barbara Davies Baffin Island in the Arctic Circle Nevertheless, thebalance1s Bu t what looks like a dead end <1Wry, too often the enigma of alone (though r>o doubt much proyestobeanopportunity. Haslerseems tohavebeen of the sense of the thing is W1~~::ci,~~,~~nt because hazardous postings forgottenandthedrivm gforce lost'). T h,s Is because the book isessent,al~awesternwith was first published in the USA carry a special bonus: the oftheplotislost.Thesex fantasy tr1mmir,gs and we all in 1992,togreataociaim- it chance to ,ace~ education in scenesfeelas ,ftheyaretoo mainland China itself. long, and certainly too recognise. and feel comfor table won the Locus Award /Of Be!I! with.thestocksituationsand First Nc,vel, theJ~ T1ptreeJr Zhang's ambitions to learn repetitive. to carry the narrative characters Gemmell portrays. Memorial Niard and the organis (Daoist) eogineenng weight they are given. and they Lambda Literary ""'3rd as well involve him ,n travel and new do not compensate for the L1ke mostwesterns.action1sto the forefront; I lost count o!the as being nominated for both a e;,;periences. both pleasant an weakeni ngofthecentralplot shoot-outs mthenovel,let Hugo and a Nebula. Perhaps unpleasant. including an Moreover. there Is a moral alonethevastnumbersof UK publishef3 were wonied bf encounter with near fatal thrust to the book which makes theabsencaof'isthistheend disease.Ewntuallyhereturns me uneasy. Delall)'quotes1n 1ts peoplek,lled.Armsmanufactur• ofcivitisation as wei,c,nw,it?' to B,ookfyn, older and a little entirety a 1987 paper on the ersdon'tstrugglefororderson action, or pemap5 they weren't wiser, and with the real vectorsofHIVinfectionwhich Gemmell's world Great literature Bloodstone loo keen on a gay prolagonst. possibility of at last rind1r,g love suggests that there is no certa1nlyain't-butdoubtless it Whoknc:w!I? and fulfilmoot 1n his Me. indication that oral sex leads to This is an absobing st01'y This is primari~ China infection,I1.asOelall)'suggests, wasnevermeant tobe. lt's an of ordinary people leading Mountain Zhang's story. but thisistheonlyresearchonthe undemanding, excIlIn<;J (but ordinary lives- people with the tlienc:Nelalsothrowsalighton sut,iect to have been con violent)read. l! youcansur,,,ve be,ng seen1npubhcw1ththe same needs as us, who face the others whose lives have ducted. or at least oublished. same d,mculties and make the touched his, some on~ !lien it Is an appallir,g reflection garishcover,youmayflnd it same mistakes. And in !lie marginally. McHugh shows the on the state and nature of AIDS su1tablefortheoldtram Iourney, where there'sr>oneedtag1vea process of detailing the reader their dilemmas and their research throughout the wmld personal. the author conveys, attempts, some more success· Even so, to build uoon this as book your full a1tent1on almost subliminal~. a clear and fulthanothafs,todealwith both the author and the tliem. There's ugly San-xiar,g, narratorapPeartado. the Phillip Mann fascinatingpictu~ofhei-future A Land Fit f0f Heroes 2; society. This is intentional.to who could have had a new lace conclusion that oral sex is in her t&erlS if on~ her proud hencesafesexseemstometo Stand Alone Stan judge bi the Camus quote at father hadn't spent the money be not only logically flawed but Gollancz, 1994, 288pp, the SHIii oftlie book: 'A simple f 15.99 way to get to k!'ICW the town is trying to get back to China also morally outrageous Ian Sales to see haw the people work. instead. Whef1 she can final~ afford the necessa1y gene how they love end how the)' David Gemmell theraDV,her~prettiness die.' Bloodstone A :~nna:e causes people to react s~:~:~t:~ :';:tr~ McHugh'slutureisvery Legend, 1994, 298pp, £ 15.99 recentyearnhasseensome much like our present, with differently, and the reactions are Artt:fyMiUs thing of a revival: Christopher significant and convincing sometimes confusing and hard Evans won the BSFA Award for differences-aMarscololl)'for tocopewith.There'sAr,gel,the AztecCentury,Allernale one, and tlie worldwide hes-beenlli&rwhosekiteseems 1 T~~~r~::1 ::~:;~n~k Worlds, a magazine dealing (excluding Canada and likeanext!HlSionol herself: can cover proclaims it as being 'the exclus1ve~withaltemate Australia) sp1ead of Maoist she somehow get back into the new Jon Shannow noYel'). Tlie history, was launched; not to Marxism and all things Chinese bigtime withoutk1\linglierse~ fourth in the sequence. The mention the mainstream for another. in the procesi,? Tlien there's Last Guardian, came out in success of Robert Harris's Zhong Slian {meaning Martine Jarn;ch, ex-.arIT11 officer 1989; the appearance of this Fatherland. Despite all this, it 'China Mountain') Zheng !ive5 f'lf:NJ expert bee keeper, goat book would appear to be the stillcameasabitofasurprise in Brooklyn. He seems to haw farmer and detector of a,.ygen resu~ofdemandsfiom to see Phill;p Mann lea~ng on ewrything going for him: youth, leaks, whose solitary life in a Gerrvnell'sfans to the bandwagon w,th A Land good looks. an American Born commune on Ma,s looks likely It was interesting to FilforHeroes.Mann hashardly Chinese (ABC) apPearance, lo be changed~ Alexi Dorrnov in-.,;,stigateaworkt>jlthis carvedoutacareerasawnter and he has a good job as an andt-isdaughl&r,rieo,ylyartived popular fantasy author. but not w ith a finger sensitive~ poised an9irteefing tech. a.it Zhang from a resettlement cemp ln beingfamiliarwiththeseries over tlie pulse of the SF also has secrets. His mother Nevada. does make all)' detailing of the community was actual~ Spanish, and he China Mountain Zhang is a somewhat tortuous plot. w,th its lnthisseries,Mannhas was gene-spliced to look like a chronological sequence of large cast of characters and folkiwedtheBritishtradition of pure ABC. He is also gay and presenltenseepwdes,each links and references to previous alternate h•story: pick a point still looking forthe loveolhis told b')'adifferantcharacter. works, Pf!ltty well impossible, at some time in the d,m and lije_ MostcanbereadperlectJywe+I least in a form which ii would distant past then extrapolate Zhang spends mo9I of his ontheirown-theeuthorsubtly make 1t comprehensibje_ likernadtothepresent.(For days working as foreman on a recaps arl/ previous infomiation Sufficetosaythatthelegen some reason, most American bu,kling site, and ~t of hi, where needed - but they also dary'JeiusalemMan',Jon alternate history is either based nightt'I cruising for casual sex blend into a satisfying whole. I Shannow. who had slipped out around an event 1nthe recent under the broadwalk:s of Coney was impressed with McHugh's of the world's Vlf!oN b')' renounc past or set immediate~ after the Island or jacking into the prose,whichisaslucidas Ing violence and becoming a point of change.) Mann's systemtosharathasensationl! all)'lhing I have read, yet rTIOYeS preacher,isforcedtotakeup chasen histoncalfulcrum1sthe of the kite flyers racing in the pacily and irtormative~ along. arms again. Fir.;t ot all he battles end of the Roman Empire in skies above The Swathe. This Her characters are reaJ and evilzealots.tlienamore Bntain.lntheun,verseofA routine is 01191'lumed when s-,mpathetic. and It was with fantastical enem;. culminating Land Ar tor Heroes the Romans Zhang's status-conscious boss reluctance that I had to leave In a show-down with the r.e-1erleft B1 itannia,rather!hey decideshewouldmakethe them at the end. Bloodstone.a creature which conqueredtlierestoftlieworld perfect sol'Hn--lllW. Refuse I to A thoroughly enjO)'!lb!e and sucksmen's livesandsouls. and are still m place two marry the boss's daught&r gets COl1Yincing book. thousand years later. It's riot the 26 Vector mos1 NOtenc attempt at Judg,ng bf the pace ol ------iewr,ting history bt 30/ meaos. ~lflSlandAloneSran,I bt.ilMarwl'1Ceks,who~., WOOJld guess tha1 A land Fit ,o, TERRY me neratJCeS ol Roman rule .., Heroes 1$ QOlflQ fO fnsh up al Bn1111n. possess a certalrl around !Ne volume$ - cer~ 11"118fesuogoog,nality. nolless.pos$1bl'fmore.lt1&well ,.B.ATCHET~ Stand None sran. the wntteo, an allradNe react and MOOnd "°"1me 111 the sanes. is in no way suites Mann's ltke most rnd4etles books: 11 reputation as a wnter of CIOesn'tdorn,chorgo thoughtfulllllellgen:Sf.A an,,wtiere ,n oartJCular. Our land fit fo, 1-feroes IS bulidlng three heron. Col (Viti as was~ uo to being an excellent Angus arc Mranda. hae mace ttuveme) Sfsenes. lhetr way !rom the e,,oen1s of Terry Pratchett the Escaoe to Wild Yroodto rm ln1etesting Times YO!ume', epol'lflTlOUs town, a Goltancz. 1994. 283pp, Celt,c 1earn1no centre and f14.99 mag,cal place named !or the L.J. Hurst dirty great dolmen around wnlch It Is sited. Once there. Ar,gus goes to learn at the feet E~~~·::~~;~: of a d1salf&aed Roman who e,cpenmert w,th an ot:iser'-'E!f IUf\S a naarb( thnklank...... n change the observer. Mlfanda becomes a rn,suc;;, and though,,, pract,ce row rruch becomes • hennt. Col he IS changed oeoe,lOS on lhe The l'l&rnllNe I~ tour mag1Strateo,whethertheJIJCIQe IUands Col 1Un11YeS his fwsl _. to a good Put.: School Angus Wirt« as a hetm:L pocks 811d ,s undersl.-.;ilflg. lrtentSi uPlhllrudirnertsold>alealcal ing Tmes begins lfl !he Unseen mat.-iahsm. aria Moranda ooes ~tyWlthan uncerrany en rrvstical meanoenngs n pnnclpill-wtB'lno-OnewanlS """"'.,__, to ad!nt to OOWlg a G Kristine Kathryn Ruach useless. And when John does reminder tor the complacent fan have tremendous enthusiasm A.Oen tnttuences manage to track down the other thatwhatwasdestmedto for all that goes into the mal<.1ng Millenium, 1994, 424pp, members of the Dancer Eioht become one of the most of afilm:the irntialbrein• £15.99 they are all dead ... yet not totally successfulSFsenesofalltime storming sessiorn to produce a Garol Ann Green 0000 wasorio,naHypulledofla1ralter script that doesiustice tothe Kristine Kathryn Rusch three seasons and no-one whole concept of Star Trek. the weavesamagicaltalethat expected 1tloreturn toTV,let setting up of difhcult shots to T:~i~:;:1~:~ ~a:e who explores the relationship alone 1n a new c1nemat1c achieve just the right FX and, in share the planet Bountiful and between humans and aliens. incarnation.Having read this thecaseoftheactors,the the manulacture of the norr and pc,nders whether humans book, it seems even more portrayal of characters for addictivedrugSaltJuicewith can be so mlluer.ced t¥ aliens ir.cred1blethatthe Star Trek whom they have developed real humans. The Dancers have no that they become alien films did get made, for the ·no affection. The death of Spock concept of the past, they live themselves. But Rusch pr heCCl" helPS things along when the maiches the Firvuh poem's bncle becomes 1n Sar,ola ntual oeoicted past Of al settings. ep!SOCIIC l)k)lting makes metocalclosenesstothe a lo,eptay veenn,;i between the Wht-re greeracaled. blg-eat'ed demancb on memory. trochaic tetrameter. senwal.., the anticlimactic. c:uckoos cackle of and ttTeaten That bnel outline conveys r•rn.Donnsts.,,heft Again, Jack FrosfS chlllng ITTIO war late. 'the tnld--morrlng was little of the pleasures to oe ngid11yolthel Roger MacBride Allen Siar Wars: Ambush at Corellia Bantam, 9/3195. 309pp, £4.99 Max Sexton A~~:o::~o;:~/ a opera with the usual srar \!Vars characters now in middle.age. Han Solo is married to Leia and has a family. Leia is economically the more successful, but Han stiU wears the pants. Han is invited by the New Republic intelligence to go on a mission to the planet Correllia with the rest of his family, but only with the solemn assurance thal his family will be sare. The planet is inhabited by three races of creatures. humans. Seleonians and Drallan and their peaceful co.existence is threatened by an unknown source. Han must discover the source. but at the same time protect his !amity when the planet eJ1plodes into violence and they become cut off from Signposts outside help. The custom of the two Christopher Fowler Jane lindskold praise that has been alien races for symbiOlic Spanky Brother to Dragons, heaped upon it." marriage is compared to "Christopher Fo.vler is a Companion to Owls Max Sexton the human cuslom of very English writer... He "This newel combines SF marrying for money. The writes tight, fast paced and fantasy wi th a Joan Slonczewski book takes the theme of novels which are novels, not perceptive portrait o1 Daughter of Elysium marrying for security and film scripts with adjectives. society today. This is truly a "Many SF no..els describe a comfort to its logical He is very enjO'/able, so remarkable book." technologically advanced absurdity in its description enjot." Martin H. Brice future - this nc,.,,el takes of the Seleonian life-witch. Martyn Tay10f into account the effects of We are invited to mcoil Paul J. McAuley technology; it is thoughtful from her and value the Char1es De Lint Red Dust SF and recommended." family values based on lc,.,,e, Spiritwalk "The story charges aloog Lynne Bispham rather than material gain "Spiritwalk is well thought energetically... it's an re presented by Han and out and well-written, an invigorating additioo to the Leia. Ro,r~siitlor unusually convincing blend subgenre: · The book's apple pie of mythologies which Colin Bird "Taylor has the rare gift of family values are at the core thoroughly enjcyed being able to balance ol this space opera but are reading. " Maureen McHugh tension and le'lity, without not too sugary and 1emain Sue Thornasoo China Mountain Zhang ever losing his grip on the entertaining. making it "McHugh's eloquent dire predicaments of his much more bearable to Alexander Jablokov portrayal of a "normal" characters. In Whistler. He read than comparative srar Nimbus existence makes for delivers an object lesson in Trek nOYels. "Its dense use of compelling reading: ooe is just how good fantasy can neologisms and truly in sympathy with be.'" Vikki Lee Kevin J . Anderson uncompromising scatter of Zhang and the other Star Wars: Champions of technical camouflage make narrators such that one is Timothy Zahn The Force ii unwise to recommend left both satisfied yet at the Conqueror's Pride Bantam, 1994, 324pp, Nimbus to new SF readers. same time wondering what "Zahn has a feel frn £3.99 but those who survive the happens next." Benedict S. dialogue and the trappings Sue Badham pace will find these traits Cullum of space opera (including among the many virtues of some very silly acronyms). :r:j~a this literate and thought Jeff Noon The plot is compelling and T~ou~:~~ prOYOking newel." Vurt the characters do come series is that your world is Andy Sawyer " Vurr is a book that is alive, add this to sleek not your own. The fact that difficult to read quickly descriptions of the milieu, it says srar Wars (TM) on because of its complex and you have a fun, swift the cc,.,,er of this novel will plotting. but give it time react This is not the last we undoubtedly help its sales and it wiU grow on you. and will see of these characters and I'm sure that Kevin J . justly deserves the critical - watch this space."' Anderson is a fan of the Chris Hart series and enjOJ0d writing Paperback Graffiti 3 1 about Luke, Lesa and the Guthrie and Kyra flee relates her entire histo,y. long) discussions that fail lo rest HONeYer it does mean fran Earth to LS in an thus saving Banks from tackle 81'Pf ol the issues that he is nol free to (say) attempt to outwit the having to shoN it ,n a more salisfactorily. particularly kill oll ar1'jlxx:ty lmponant go.,et"nmenl of the North interesting way. My feelings the lack of an>/ lebglOUS 1n1toduce surprising pkt American Union. The UniOn on this book varied as I was dimension to Christian's twists that will change lhe has sequestered Fireball's reading IL I star led oil expenences. despite the way the Characters relate to assets in an attempt to enjoying it. and hked the sllgmata he develops when each other in the lutu1e. Of destroy them. They have characters. bUt found Iha! he heals. The satirical do anything else that will revived the second copy ol while the main female portrait of media hysteria mess up the cohesive Guthrie, reprogramming it characlers are distinct, the ShONS that Burnell thinks mythology that George to their way of thinking. three or four leading male about what he writes and Lucas and his collaborators Kyra and the jofc {Guthrie's characters arc pretty may go on to write bettor have designed. do.vnload) have to think Interchangeable until >Nell novelS. This book, hoNever, As Alan Dean Foster hard and last in order to into the book. I lost interest is fatally flawed shONed in Splinter of The out'Nit the doppelganger. altogether around the Mind's Eye (admittedly al a who kno.w eo.,ery mo,,e middle. but persevered and Arthur C . Clarke time when the mythology of they might make. This found things picking up Rama Revealed the Star \.'\afs unrverse was makes for a terase and again - Banks being Orbit. 17111/94, 477pp, still developing), all these acllOO packed pie( line, unafraid to kill off a major £9.99 restnctions do not which kepi me turning CMlf charact.E!f - and on the Sue Badham necessarily mean !hat }'UtJ the pages to find out how whole enjo/ed ll have to write a dull book. they would finally outwit the Unfortunately Anderson Is Martin Burnell ~~n, Uni~gine rT1'/ T~t~-~! just not as good a write as Freak just write this book to Foster. He writes like a disappointment when I go( NEL . 1613/95, 306pp, supplement his retirement mOVle scriptwriter. n01 like to the lhitd part of the novel £4.99 fund. He obviously wrote It an author, rushing from set and the action left this solar Colin Blrd because he was fascinated picc:o scene to set pioco system tor Alpha Centauri OJ tho various societies and scene without a!tONing and the planet Demeter. T his is a first novel which species which he had time for characterisation or The pace slowed dcmn, but uses the Dean Koontz created within the giant description. His work is time sped up. The first two method - take a science imaginary spaceship, very derivative of the film parts .....ere fast paced and fiction or supernatural Rama. The story gives him background and he doesn't took place in no more than concept and work it into a the chance to lulty explore inlroduce any particular a couple of weeks. In conventional thriller their interactions and work o,ig1nal conceptS. The contrast. the last part drags narrative. Don't waste any out some of his ideas about characters ate restricted to along and spans sewral time explaining }'Ut.Jr central human society. as well as the kind of synthesized hundreds of years. My Idea because the coostant -ngthephys;csand emwons you get in enjoyment °' the no,g action will divert the asllonom/ ol such a American main.stream definitely waned at this readefs aUention. conslnJCt. television and as a result point. In this case the Unlortunately, while don1 really come to life. There are many rich praagonist, commodity Clarke is ob.-iously an ideas In short this book is like details in the third part. but broker Christian Flo,id, junkie who is having a lot of a mCMe in words. If }'Ut.J're I beliel.e Anderson would finds he has the po.Yet to fun describing the happy to be reading this have been better to leave hoal when ho hclpe the onvironment of the ship, his tour through the Star \Nars this to a sequel. or scrap it female victim of a vicious writing remains fairty stuck universe you could have all together. The dichdomy attack. After this talent is in the fifties before done with a better was too noticeable. I witnessed, when he cures a concepts Uke conductor. If not, you enjo;ed the n0YE!l, though, blind man. the tablokl press characterisation and probably won't enjo{ this and was Intrigued by goes into a frenzy, believable protagonists had tx>okat all. Anderson's future society. ptastering his picture on the become widespread in SF. front pages and offering Reading an Arthur C. Po ul Anderson laln M. Banks cash ..-.centiYes to dlsco. naturally. If it stays there, 11 novel, fast•moving and prerogative ... The House and grammatical errors will not be missed. exciting, which is well Budget Committee hastily annoting: a pity that as worth adding to your called hearings" when the much attentioo wasn't William Gibson shelves dinosaur-OeriYed Heesh given to the text as to the Virtual light arrive from a parallel appearance. Penguin. 6"10/94, 296pp. Ed Gorman dimensijoo of evolutioo. I should like to see a £5.99 Blood Red Moon where females are more serious study of Star Andy Mills Headline, 1211195. 372pp, dominant Trek, either from a £4.99 The nexus in question historical point of view as a Stephen Payne is the time si,i;ty-five million cultural phenomenon, or a Y ~~~e~~;gh~~gton years ago. when most of literary analysis of the has made her delivery life on Earth was destrOy'Cd scri pts, to find out what it is when she finds herself in a R ~nsr:re~.ti1 rela by a comet strike. Going about this apparently party. Accosted by ooe oi criminologist, a hero-for back, a scientific crew unpromising mate1ial that the guests. she leaves. but hire. Nora Connors turns discover a team have has given so much not before nicking the up, rather dramatically, one arrived at the same lime pleasure to so marry drunken slob's sunglasses. day to hire Payne to track from a parallel dimension people. This isn't the book. I Uh oh. Bad mo;e, dONn the kille1 of her when dinosaurs survived want: to be fair, it was never Ch0'Jette. These are Virtual daughter. Simple enough and went ooto evolve into intended to be. As I said Light glasses, and the bad you might think, but the sentient reptiles. What Lee before. fans will love it guys want them back, ·cos story soon relocates to a Grimes forgets is that while they contain information place called New Hope to matriarchal rule means you Wendy Haley they donl want making trace its convoluted course. have to keep your bedroom This Dark Paradise pub!ic. Chevette quickly and all manner of tidy, at least you get your Headline, 8/12194, 342pp, regrets her capricious complications foUcm. dinner on time and your £4.99 action when she finds New Hope is (from clothes washed. His Heesh Andy Mills herself hunted by a here) typical small tcmn matriarchs whipping up a psychotic ki!lerwho America. containing the triceratops to run you do.-,,n casually wastes her friends usual wife beaters, might make you forget this. rsim~ ~r:t~~~ when they attempt to come incestuous relationships. Wendy Haley, starts to her aid. bent religious zealots and. Edward Gross promisingly enough. Alex Enter Berry Rydell. perhaps to complement & Mark A. Altman Danilov, a thousand year Things aren't going too well each other. a serial killer Great Birds of The old vampire, returns to the for Berry either. His shOft and a precocious. local Galaxy place he thinks of as home, police career of eighteen policewoman. Here, Payne Boxtree, 27/10/94, 143pp, a mansion in the southern days was follo.ved by a unravels the granny knots £9.99 United States. DanilCN is a spell with a pi-ivate security of the plot to the story's Cherith Baldry wealthy, handsome firm, but again he loses his ultimate conclusion - the sophisticate and is job. NCYI he's emplOjed by identity of the killer who is immediately engaged in a Mr Warbaby, who has a described throughout in the T :i~~o1i=~~of pcwer struggle for his contrac1 to reca.,er t he first person. with people who were family's fortunes with glasses More thriller than horror, influential in the making of Barron DanilCN. Virtual Light is an SF the horror. when it does Star Trek. including Gene So far. so good. The thriller set in a future which come. seems to have been Roddenbury, William no.-cl's a mildly interesting looks for the most part a tacked on the end to add Stiatner and Leonard cross between an Anne feasible visi011 . Surprisijngly, bite to the clima,i; - and Nimoy. as weH a.s less well Rice creation and Dallas; perhaps. Gibson's leading bite it certainly does (heh, kno.-,,n figures who have Haley's vampire is definitely players are neither heh) worked on the shON's more the good guy · he resists computing whiz.z kids nor recent incarnaliOflS. As the urge to kill to survive · cool dudes. Chevette and Lee Grimes such, it will be essential even if he irritates by being Berry are both ordinary, Dinosaur Nexus reading for all fans. but rm chased by every female in likeable people struggling AvoNova, 10/94, 215pp, not sure it has much to the book! But then the to make their way in the $4.99 offer to anyone else. author loses her cootrol and world. They are surrounded L. J. Hurst Perhaps because most the story begins its spiral by an outrageous of the book is the directly into sheer silliness. Alex is supporting cast. including a his will giYe you morn reproduced speech of the hunted by Lord Suldris, an refugee from The /IAan in Tthan yow money's interviewees. the style is evil sorcerer he thought the High Castle. a private worth. combining time personal and anecdotal. he"d despatched centuries policeman who is travel, the theory of Ideas and theories about ago. In the course of their hyperallcrgic, bent Russian evolution. FTL travel, and the shON appear but are contest so many daft things cops working for the San sexual politics as ii does, never discussed in any happen it's impossible to Francisco police, Mr but it 'NOl"l't give them to depth. There is no clear list them all; my favourite Warba.by and Loveless, the you very well. I am not sure authorial "voice' and no absurdity is When Alex calls aforementi011ed killer. about the purpose ol the apparent sense of direction. upon "the Ancient One·· ol Gibson's world is. as you AvoNova imprint - does ii However, as a series of the marshes to protect a would expect, carefully mean that the authors are portraits the book works child and an enormous realised, with some classy new, or that its titles are reasonably well. Although it alligator with glo,ving touches (for instance, the intended for new readers? co.-ers ground which has yeUo,v eyes appears and police computer Dinosaur Nexus reads like a been covered elsewhere. acts just like a guard dog. programme used to trace juvenile in the way it particularly in relation to the There are also demons missing persons which squashes so much in, original series, it also lrom hell, magic crystals. compares the subject to the Rather tellingly, when the includes new material, and journeys to heaven. and that celebrities they most Earth crew return from the the attitude is not as irritating trick vampires resemble). time of the dinosaurs the profoundly and irritatingly have of transforming when It has to be said that the one thing they have not worshipful as some earlier clothed into other living VL glasses are pure learned is a political system fan writing. creatures McGuffin, and when their to replace the USA, so you The book is well A book, then, which is secret is revealed you do get bizarre sentences like. produced and looks reminiscent of those wonder at what the fuss "Congress, although aware attractiYe, with masses of incoherent horror films was about. Nevertheless. that the conduct ol foreign photographs. I found the which are only released on this is an accomplished affairs was a presidential large number of spelling video. A pity really. because Paperback Graffiti 35 surely with docent M1n1 and sentenced to those horror no,els based the name of Aurillia guidance Imm an editor death. on the nightmare of running Ouamari , of course, is Haley could have done N. the vmy last minute and na escapmg. Ten--year- undef lh1eat lrom the usual something Wllh her herOIC ou, hero iS offered reprieve old T1molhy has had these ~111calculabty ev~. vampire. by a QCM!fnment atto,ney, dreams befOfe. but he immeasurably old" stirring 1n return lo, locating kno.vs he's g,o,,,.,n out of something or other. The Andrew Harman something that has gone !hem. Then he IS an SWOl'd used to belong to a 101 Damnations missing In a quatantlned unwil6ng witness to a hero of the past named. Legend. 19/1195. 293pp. P,ISOl'l colony. Just to make hornfic mu1der. and by the COll'lCldentally, Cofodel, and £4.99 sure, he is dosed with a time his father (an ageing Red finds himsetf na only Norman Beswick thlfty day delayed potSOll. hippy) has responded to hts falling 1n IOJe with. but wilh the antidote prom.sod cry for help, Timothy is fighting beside Aurillia, 1 1 tor his re1urn. locked inside his ONO head, against said evil. l~:=~~is waH Since only criminals get screaming to get out. None This plol isan old 1n exasperation=. A:~fle. in (and nobody gets out) of this.of course. is chestnut in fantasy writing, getllng th1ough most ol 11, I dJGnz decides lor some appruenl to his gnevmg and Hill does very little wilh gave up, examining the odd reason to slip in with a pa1ents; it takes the arrival this story that has not been remaining pages. but m1Slil bunch of undercover of reclusive v.,eirdo Nathan done before, and bette,. It avoiding close detail. agents posing as an Trooper to IYing Timothy starts w r y slON!y, and even The SIDf y, if that's the o.-erhyped pop group. out of his coma - and to familiarly, getting very word, is set among the Laydeez and GennTmen, I realise that something slowly better towards the thaumaturgical magicians give you (you guessed 11...) nasty is loose. end. The evil that threatens of Los Llamas, who creat e The Stainless Steel Rats. Nathan, psychic since never really gets off the vi r tua) creatures. Chrei,o They anive. to huge the age of ten {when his ground until the closing Mancini, Alchemist and adulation, at a strangely axe-wielding fat her sequences when Hill does Virtual Ecology Technician. divided city, with a waif performed an impromptu finally encourage the reader is emplc,,,ecl to produce a running straight through ii operation on him) has a to take sides and actually virlual dragon. Buried in the and oxtonding for mites roputation IOI' interfering 1n boliovo there is some evil to lext are qu11e a te,v gocx:t either Side. Men live on one other people's traumas. He be defeated. Before lhe comic ideas. They are sde. IUled o,, are. feature New Amenca King', equlll8lent to the (guess who?) \l8fSUS the '&e!walda' ol the Stephen A. Lawhead Richard Laymon Ear th (now ruled by the Saeosens. The Endless Knot Beware! Japs~ Jap.bastung IS a . All the Arthunan names AvoNova. 11/94. 416pp, Headline, B/12/94, 279pp, popuJa, sport 1n Amefica at are there. but ltansposed S4.99 £4.99 the moment. l hlS book IS rnto Celt.IC. Say them aloud, Alan Fraser Andy Mills ruined DJ too much and lhey are recognizable. anentJon to the senal Gaius (shoftened to Gai) T he scene:. a telephone numbers on lhe weapons and BedwY' are obvious, Ir:=~ ~•~:~da~ conversation beTween and not enough on the but not quile so Llen!leawg, happy to say 11 got me an authOI' and his editor. characters. the warrior trom Leme. through a 4+ hour enforced ten years ago. Equally prnficienl in stay at Brussels Aiq:x:,rt in "Zack? Dick Laymon Jack Ketchum belligerent practicalities, 1s December. The Endless here: Road KIii Gwenhwyvar. Togethei with Knot is the linal pert of the "Dick• Great to hear Headline, 19/1/95, 245pp, Artor, they form a po.yerful Celtic fantasy lli1ogy by from you1 Whal've you 901 £4.99 politlCal lflUrTMrate, With American Lawhead, no,,v !or me this l ime. pa.1r Stephen Payne Myrddm Emrys as the11 resKient 1n Oxfo,d, lhat "A goocf one. Zack. Ifs eminence gr,se. Slatled with The Paradise about 1h15 invisible man .· Hey, listen, two wrongs The,e IS a map, ~ and conbnued With "Hold on there, buddy! don't make a nghl. When although noc all the places The &her Hand. neither of Hasn't that been done Garole and he! lo.'ef. Lee, ate sho.vn. Again. say them wtuch I haYe previously belo,e? And I kind of murder her VIOient and aloud. use a little logical read. The Endless KncJ'. remember that 1fs abusive ex-husand by lmaglMtlOfl, and you can completes the Slory ol SCtenflflcaily lmp::)SSible 10 lossing him o.e< a c)ifl, they locate them. Gaer Edyn Scotsman Lewis Gillies, a be illVISible.· hOpe that that's lhe end of wllh lts gieal moonlain bachelol Oxford don, who "Zack, you knCM' me! the matler. N CC a chance. where lhe High King musl has been transpor1ed to the This imnsible guy's a tCCal Wayne, who 1n addition to be proclaimed, can only be Celtic "otherworld" ol nutcase - a psychopath being just as violent and Edinburgh and Arthur's Albion, acquired a magical who 1oYOS raping and !hon abusive, is alSo a seat. Uv1ng silve1 hand to 1eplace killing women. This !oooy's psychopath to boot (in the This book 1s well• his weakness for ciassy women more like a rl(M!iisa!)Of'I Sam lewis (ed) (nduding his super than a no.,el, with it's Steven Levy Earthdawn: Talisman efficient Gtt1 Fnday, Thoo reliance on stock Insanely Great Roe, 1112194, 282pp, Vines~ Parco takes on a charactcrs and scenarios.. Penguin. 23-2195. 312pp. £4.99 case from Eleanor van I won't spoil the ending £7.99 Lynne Bispham Allen, who believes her unduly. but you've all seen Stephen Payne husband, Director of 1he Game... Calverton Museum, is no l:r=ri!.~~ ~ =i~r longer lhe same man. He Mark Leon B~:~:,~puter process occurs when a role finds himself caught in a M ind-Surfer there was nothing but a playing game is turned into strange case that links to a AvoNova, 1/95. 262pp. black void headed by the fantasy fiction. Eartndawn is bloody and disastrous $4.99 cryptic annotation that is apparently an RPG: In its rObbery of a Calverton Jon Wallace 'C:\>_ '. People who other incarnation it is a height yard, a smuggled operated compute, were series ot books set in a Codex stone and an ON best 10 descnbe this egg-heads who 'NOl'e white ITT{lh1cal ·age of myth and anctent h0r1or. It haS all the Hbook? 'v\lell, rn start coats and carried clip legend". When horrors t10m ingredients of a typleal with that old stand-bf, the boards. The computers the 8:Sl ral plane enter the horrorno,el,sowhydKft plot synOJ)S6. A computer they operated were world, lhe mages ol the l,nd it so hard to like? programmer with an supported by banks of Thefan Empire lflS!rUC! lhe SeJeral reasons. One: 11 atlllude probtem hits a mid enigmatically flashing people lO hide themsetves plays on allll06I every life crisis. He IS shaken out lights, ,n underground kaets, stereotype rn the book. of 11 b)' the sudden Then came the hghl: warded O, magic against lrom the hard-bitten Pl and reappea,ance of an old the Macintosh was born. !he horrors. Only alter mal'Jj hlS classy secretary / lriend and t,v a crystal The saeeo looked like a genera1100S are the people girlfriend; the suave, rieh handed to him bf a while sheet of paper on a able to re-emerge. Tahsman master criminal and his haired old man in the desktop and had windCM"S is a book of short stories an IS'Wlling homosexual street. What follONS IS and menus and icons and a featuring an amber amulet assistant: tho Insane, strango beyond belief, for mouse ja son o1 hand in 1n which a windling {small, psychotic killer and the the crystal is.. . cyberspace) to control it all. winged humanoid) has distraught. revengeful cop. · crystallised thought It was something we could been magically imprisoned Then there's a forensic pure nous. the all relate to. It was p::,rtable. in order to make a spell pathologist 'Nho appears to philosophers' stone!" easy to set up and easy to that will warn against the have seen too many SF / And there is where this use. And the people presence of Horrors or the horror m magician attempts to Brian Lumley The Second Wish and --=--pc~ ;~~ril~~ ensure Other Exhalations Spiritwalk is well NEL, 1911195, 350pp, thought-out and we/1- £4.99) written. an unusually Chris Amies coovincing blend of mythologies which thOl"oughly enjOyed reading. T ~h~ i!tiri~nci1~~~oo; Bentley little from a fifteen-year period Evil Deeds since 1980. These arc Headline, 1911195, 436pp, stories written in a fairly £5.99 m 10unds at the moment. Red d1opped OUI; other flocked Side of the Force. and bung OfganisatJOn known as the Dust has 5e11eraJ intefesting back lot fTIOfe of the same: back the Empi,e. yakuza and lhe dread ISf features to distinguish 11 and some became cunists Meanwhile. Han and lorm an alliance to bnng from the rest, not least it's and complensts. and who Luke. IOoking 11.Y a lost down "'-' m01her is Hispanic and so vo,,eur of Daniel's machines. there is n01h1ng The plol is not particularly he IS not a "more equal excoriatlOfl. After all, hON really SF aboul this no,,el_ engaging: and the sexual than others" 100% Chinese. can you care for an The plol IS a Sl!atghl angst theme wiH not be Ahhough thcs sets up a few auctonal construct? ·co,rupt local polltteian neN to anyone who has lef'ISIOl"IS one feels Iha! he is Feelings are !or real wammg to th1a.... the natl'J85 read Slephen King; but not extraord111a1y 1n thtS people. somelhmg Simon off their land' 10b. The the sparse sentences and milieu, we all haYe out MagJM didn't give me in action could Just as well suspenseful pacing secrets alter all. McHugh's this book. Maybe )'Ot.fll find have happened ,n lhe ok:I creales an atmosphere eloquent portrayal of a them where I couldn't. west ... in fact 11 westerns !hat is genuinely aeepv ·normat existence makes were still the vogue, this This Is only Richards !or compelling reading: one ncNe1 would be being second no.oel, we should IS t1ul'; m sympathy with Jim Murdoch 1oYICWCd 1n ·RangeRider' look forward to him Zhang and the Olher Rise of The Robots instead of \.t?dor. Still, like I emploting his talent 1or nanatOfS such that one is ROC. 1995. 3 10pp, £4.99 always say. go::xl writing is horror writing on lett boeh satisfied yet at the Colin Bird good 'Nfiting, no matter something morn same ume 'NOOdering what where you find ii. substantial in the future. happens next. M urdoch usually writes Unfonunately ... (or translates) those The action seQuences Larry Niven, Jerry Simon Maginn little sto11 es you get in a,e not very well presented, Pournelle & Michael Virgins and Martyrs computer game boxes, the corrupt politician is Flynn Corgi, 912195. 316pp. giving 1he background really too much of a dich8 Fallen Angels £4.99 behind the game scenario. these days, and the taken Pan, 2/12/94, 394pp, Martyn Taylor Here he gives us a whole sex scenes really do seem £4.99 damn no.iel telling you why to have been added later to Joseph Nicholas T he horror genre. alma.I your cha,actm, in the add spice. more than any other, is smash hit game, is trying to It used to be said. 'This ,A new ice age begms dependant upon character. beat the crap out of you, book Is a pot-boiler. buy ii Oh, 10 be sure, the author's opponent. Does any ooe to read on lhe !rain". This lhe next century. ingenuity in crealing ghosts comput01' gamer realty one isn't H you can't tx>rro.v sparking conflicts !or and ghoulies and things care? it. don't read it. res01.. 11ces ~around the that go 'Aaarggh' in lhe The story couldn't be world. The USA is ruled night IS imJX)rtant but the sunp6er. Colon's smac;hed Tony Richards by Greens who have inherent parametefS of the body IS rescued from a Nigh! Feast barred technologies genre are all but crashed lander and used to Pan, 1311195, 537pp, consKtered inescapable. We know create the planet T1 £5.99 ·1nappropnate· . In orbit. ghastly things will be O eda's firsl cyborg. Chris Hart the space habitats put up inflicted oo characters Meanwhile the ~lul by the former us and created by the author. rotx)( superVISOf at the Auss,anspace Some wdl escape, some ElectrOCOfp tower has A~=~~ :r~~1ihethis programmes struggle to WIii not, bul what is of broken her programming IUIOl8 o.'ef lhe pros and keep going. A spacecraft inescapable significance is and is starring a revolt cons ol Neil Jordan's film is shot dONn o.ier the lha1 we - the readers • must amongst the droids. Coton adaptation of An Interview USA, and its !WO crew care 'Nhat happens to those is enlisted to battle past the With The Vampire. There rescued Of an characters. If \IVC don't ca,e security droids and take on are many similarities underground of science then all authorial ingenuity the supervisof. between this book and fiction !ans. Pursued Of goes to waste. We arnn't Perlunctory characters, Rice's; 11 is an epoch gc,.,emment forces, the Interested in the monsters. unconvincing scientific spanning tale about the fans resurrect a but in the people. jargon and a surprise human embodiment of an mothballed spacecrall This is, of course, the ending given fl\Nay by the immortal evil that has a and put the spacemen first law ol all story telling, blurb. Just terrible. I thirst for bkxx:I, writ large back into Ol'bit with a but there are arenas where understand ll's a great and bold with a sharp cargo ol seeds to a lack of reader empathy game though. cinematic style. replenish the habitat wrth the characters is not HONEIV8f, it is perhaps a There are several fatal - Sf is notoriously one Steve Peny HIile diSingenuous to make common-sense such. Stellar Ranger: Lone Star the comparison. Richard's obfect1ons to this. The NON Simon Maginn·s AvoNova, 1/95, 262pp, protagonist. Tharman • the current weight of horrors are wel1 crafted, $4.99 human embodiment of the evidence points to global logical and distinctly Jon Wallace Egyptian god Thoth · does warming rather than unpteasam in the 'house ot not haVe time lo, the navel ~ . so isn't it rather horrors' sub genre. He c inch Carston is a SteUar gazing that Louis lhe 1ash to predict a new ice certainty knows hoN to Ranger and Stellar vampire' engages in. He age so soon? Since any structure a story and keep Rangers take trouble 1n wanders from tONO lo gcHOfnment wants to a reader !urning the page. their stride. When villages tONO.age to age, killing perpetuate itself, wouldn't He al:so has an attractNe are raMled on the jungle incl.tscnm,nately. releasing 8Y80 a Green one use any lac1hty wilh the language. world ol Mlizito. the the latent sexual powefS of technology it thought Why, then, did I find Virgins Q(Nelnor sendS for a Stellar his vlcllms through a necessary to do so? II and Martyrs such a laboUr Ranger to round up the powerful hypnotic: stare. the gowmmen: is as :o complete? rebel leaders. Small ta,,m commurnties rep1"0ss1ve as the !ans That's right. AH the sluU Yes, this is Co.•.'00',-s and PQA'Or crazed cops claJm, 'l'my has it allowed couldn't make me give a and Indians ln space! The begin to implode with them so much freedom damn about the late of hero carries a sixgun for rottenness that is eating at !or so long? ts it likely that Danie!. He isn't a character goodness sal pounds. Its clear black Afsan's gradual realisation in the final graveyard they and time. Coming from a typeface will be a boon for of the truth behind the discCNer that the source of culture which values family the visually challenged. myths and rituals that the slime is literally a colour life and elevates 'NOfllen to Sadly, it does not open Hat: govern the '"dine-society"" out of space. the status of reading ii requires strong Scholar and hunter. he Anyone who knew the "goddesses".the Windclans wrists and hands. There are undergoes several rites of 1<:M'n o1 Kingston Mills are in a unique position in line drawings by Harry passage and learns bitter would la.,e songs at both Elysium, where T,umlxlre. A title-page lessons concerning politics Morrissey. and they would reproduction is a function of blurb reads: "The spacey and religion which ar e sing "This is the town they the state. and on Urulan. spoofs who bo!d!y dare to partly balanced by the forgot to close do.vn··. The wtiere woman are an whP.m nnho attention to detail the Church al lshrythan. Both precise mechanics of hON are dedicated to the words the characters cut through of ttie Santyth, which, like such.and-such obstacle, or our ONn Bible, is very much surmount such-and-such open to interpretation problem are described. At Cassraw's interpretations length. what I suppose are have often led him Into meant to be character dispute with the Church deepening expositions are hierarchy, and it is after made about the character's another heated theological pasts. but these arrive in debate that the angry chunks bearing no relation cassmw stomps off up the to the ptot or the feel of the slopes of the Evrin Mallos. lx)ok_ and emerge as the highest peak in canal artificial and contrived Madreth with Vredech in Some of the aliens are pursuit. This happens on a interesting, but the day when dark and humans, bizarrely, find ominous ctouds have themselves able to make settled menacingly around decisions abou1 alien the peak biology and psychology on Although Vredech practically no evidence. initia ll y does not follON implying an author who can Cassraw all the way up. he think of no other way to becomes worried when his present such information, friend fails to return and and who anyway does not leads a rescue party to wish to in depth. These !etch him back. Both men human characters arc not are ·touched' by something cardboard, but they radiate in the cloud. Cassraw an extraordinary anonymity. believes this to be a as il they have been revelation from tshrythan devised by a computer himsell. and Vredech program called 'Character'. eventually believes it to be You just knON. for example. Ahmral, ahas Satan. without any doubt. that NON that he has seen Matt and Abby will fall in the light and become the lo.e. Two characters doing Chosen of lshrythan, this is not a bad thing. of cassraw·s po,verful course, but it is the oratories begin to unite predictability that is so Madren society against the dreadful. 11 only they had forthcoming doom and found one another destruction that his vision reaclln\glef'Y~~ incompatible. If only bloody has revealed is coming tm~UlWious? You exercise in problem-solving Bobby Joe (aargh! That Vredech can see the evil reacQiCQll~~tery SF. with the accent weirdly name) was not a computer coming. and also what's s~cityr,mt:iBd a mix on feats of engineering: the wizard able to answer and causing it oh~Meld,'fi~ blurb goes on about "old o.ercome plot details with The book abounds with school"" SF and doing only mild effOJt. WOflderful characters: Privv ~M.IWrnatsttndiliUrese things '"the hard way". If you like books tr,, the Sheeter (newsman) and All really quite predictable. One day in 2014 authors such as Larr y Niven his telepathic cat, Leck: The Rendell stOJy fits Manhattan is lase1•beamed and Hal Clement, if you are Vrndech's adopted --exactly into this- mould, and off the Earth and a graduate of mechanical physician sister. Nertha: should never have been transported via a black - engineering, Of if you are Skynner, the Sarjeant of the included. as the horror {if hole-using alien space ship into SF by Americans (for city guard, and of course horror there is) is to a vast plain. A bubble this nCl'llel radiates the Whistler himself. an telegraphed early on. and co.ers it. Bubbles CCNer lots American psyche like no enigmatic guide through the se,: is minimal and of other places. presumably other that ! have read), then the world ol dreams !Of certainly not erotic wrenched from the home buy it. Otherwise, Vredech. So. in the end what planets. creating a zoo cootemplate the idea that Having read all of have we here? A thematic environment. The main John E. Stilh suddenly Taylor's books to dato. he collection of stories of characters - clean-cut Matt thought what a great thing just gets better and better mixed quality. the well the military man, computer it would be to rip for me. His tales are getting kncwn writers usually wizard Bobby Joe, Abt,,, Manhattan lsland off the much darker. and yet they delivering, the less well• the EnglfSh journalist - Earth. thereby isolating it are still peppered with kno,yn wavering a bit. On spend the first third of the and thus subliminally incidents that make you the whole it tries hard to no.el coping with their implying what a great, smile, if not laugh out loud. stick to its theme but. in the essential supplies, such as special, fantastic place it is. He has the rare gift of end it doesn't always electricity. water and food; being able to balance succeed. There are too led by black woman Mayor Roger Taylor tension and levity, without many stories like the Dorine Underwocxl. Later Whistler ever losing his grip on the Rendell. not enough gems they escape their bubble, Headline, 1211195, 570pp, d ire predicaments of his like Stephen King's find aliens in other bubbles: £5.99 characters. In Whistler. meet them, and then ... Vikki Lee Taylor delivers an object John E. Stith Well I'm afraid I can't lesson in just ho,y good Manhattan Transfer tell you hem it turns out fantasy can be. Tor, 10/94, 381pp, $4.99 because \ just couldn't S~i1~ ~;,~a:[_ld Steve Palmer finish it. !t"s not that itisa Whistler is the story ol two bad novel. rather it is lifelong lriends, Cassraw entirely without soul. It is and Vredech. who are T~!s~:~:a~ 't~~ blank. With ruthless preaching brothers in the John E. Stith. In essence it Paperback Graffiti 45 Melanie Tern Ian Watson thlS IS a umverse In wtnch Simon Welfare Aevenant Harlequin othe1 aulhoi"s worlds are & John Fairley Headline, 8/12194. 374pp. Boxtree, 27110/94. 246pp, colliding - Moorcock. Arthur C. Clarke's £4.99 £15.99 INolle, probabty more. A·Z or Mysteries Mat Coward LJ. Hurst I wonder how many HarperCollins, 24111/94, wargamers will see all thal 250pp. £12.99 evenant is a ghost (ONO :::;:·s lhird in these pages of Steve Palmer RIn lhe Cotorado T:!: lnterslellar conltict. Rockies, inhabited by real Vik>rkshop's \.¼fhamme,- ghosts. and by Mathe, Gnef 40,000 series and is a Howard Weinstein F:;.. ~:!~~:. ~C::35· • the mother Of aM gr1e11ers. sequel to lnqu,stor. / Rod Whigham 1he 1mpr8SSIOO that this is so lo speak who take her inherihng the same & Gorden Purcell tho worst kind of sus1enance horn the refusal protagonist, Jaq Draco. &Ame Sta" sensat1onahsm. when 1n lac! of bereaved people to The publisher's ltye, & Carlos Garzon 11 is a hol:ch-pot:ch of the release the people they quotes the descnption from Siar Trek: realistic (Blue Moons. Harl, !Ole and get on with then The Encyclopaedia of Tesls of Courage The Great Wall of Chtna) ONn hves. In Revenant. to Science F,ction. which says Titan, 13/10/94, 150pp, and the completely silly which they a1e summoned Watson IS "The most £9.99 (crop circles, Bigfoot, tr,., trapped ghosts of their impressive synthesizer of Tanya Brown Spiritualism, Life after lost ones, they get a last modern SF", but I don't Death). At thirteen pounds I chance to "let go". think they realise how suppose it is a diverting I didn't find this a cleverly he does it. This r~::~~:~~y~e read that can be left on the particularly compelling book reads like nothing command 01 his c:mn ship, callee table, for those who react All but 7 of the lirst elSe of Watson·s that l"ve the ·Excelsior'. Captain Kirk such articles of furniture. 244 pages are taken up react but reads fast - he and his old shipmates from but. reading through. the W!lh what is essentially an has succeeded in moving the 'Enterprise' are there to impression is gained that uncoonecting series of into the domain of mark this auspicious this book is aimed at the sho! t stories. describing gratuitous violence and occasion - and to 1n1elligent credulous readei, hON the vanous characters amorality that is the WOfld accompany Sulu on his hrs1 those who want to believe come to Revenant; and, of of all these parallel texts to mission as Captain. to so much in Atlantis and the course, having read the RPG1ng. investigate a crisis in the Bermuda Triangle. Introduct0fy chap:er and So, Ian Watson is an Tabukan system. The Some of the articles are the first slay, we know hoN Ideas man - jUSI think of labukans "devaed so 8Jlcelient. particularty lhose all the olher.. are going to one his earty books Hke much effort to building devoted to historical or end. Oeathhunter. which is more and more poNer lul archaeological events, but So there are no act~ a concert (an weapons lhat they never the silty ones stand out surposes and no tension in elaborate I11erary game), deYeloped interstellat and you knoN that they are the o.-eraM plot which based on the refusal to flight~ - llON, however. the daft and that there ts little belongs more to the disllnguish belween death warring planets have joined ol lact to be said because romance than lhe horror and dying, like a poem. by forces to destroy their ot the number of rhetorical genre. Instead, there is a lot John Donne written on a stockple of Extremely questions that emerge: of good, readable. vaster scale. Yet even that at Dange10us Weapons. "Was there, then, an unostentalious sincere the time was criticized as a Unfortunately. the unsc1ent1fic 8Jlpianatiorl?", writing. unusual and even thritlor, but now Harlequin Romulans - with their now •was the hotel's west wing amusing insights, and a contains tine like "Nothing found a!lles, the Maroans - haunted?", "Could it have very interesting idea of could extinguish the fire have discCNered the plan been (the) ghost that the what constitutes "loss": not which ate into his flesh and and seem to regard It as a airmen sensed in their only death but. tor instance. his nerves - consuming prime opportunity to rooms?"" a little girl lost to he, ever so slo.vty, like lingering Increase their own This book is incestuous brother simply sticky acid" and "'Sergeant,' megatonnage. It's up to recommended to those because she grew up. ordered Lex, 'use your las Captain Sulu and his crew people who think Michael This is a book so scalpel al:::loJe the elbow. to stop them: Su!u must Aspel's paranormal shc:m is fundamentatty American Stice through the also pro,.,e that he's worthy interesting, to those who go Iha! you can almost smell humerus. · • and the heroine of the responsibility, while oul at night UFO hunlfng the burge, lat. For most ol Meh"lindi gets a complete cementing old friendships and actually think they the world's peoples, I operation without and earning the respeci ol mighl see something, lo suspect. berea-.ernent is anaesthetics. his new crew. !hose who buy The jusl something terrible that In a world of ntuaJ In among the space Cereolog1s1. and to tha.'5e happens to everyone at barbensm what could offer battles and lurid aliens, who. with their friends least once in their IMlS; but some hope ol something thOrc·s a strong down the pub, dreamity the USA is a country else? F1rstty, some sense ol undefcu«ent of morality wonder whether they will founded - p:>liticalty, religion, so an objection and psychology - simple be ,euicamated as a mole cultu,alty and can be met ··1 grieve for the enough, for the most part, or an elephant psychok)gically {albett loss of Goethe's but not thrown in JUSI for IHusory) - on a refusal 10 progenolds. sir.' 'User your the sake of it. Basic cormc accept things ·iust scalpel for this lesser fare, which WOJks weff at happening• to you. purpose'". Fru <'tN3Y the several levels. EV8fything, including griel emperor is sullering even (or grieving, as they say in more, however, there is ve1t>mad America). has lo doubt about the nature ol be turned Into some sort of that pain. In fact the whole People Business. If book is riddled with doubl Revenant realty existed it and on some pages several would be a kind of tears 'n' paragraphS in a rem coosist hugs Disneyland. of nothing but questions, moo11y ncvo1 to be answered. This Is not just Descarte's world, he would be proud of this universe. And lastly. with a characte, called Zephro Carnelian. 46 Vector Aober1 Charles Wilson Leonard Wolf (ed) Journal shows her to have lewl'tle pagan. Celtic ITTjlhs Mysterium The Essential beefl reading. ,n a 1igorous and, at times, NEL. 19/1195. 345pp. Frankenstein lntmspersed among painfully VMd manner IS f4.99 Plume. 1983. 357pp. text and footllO(es arn becommg rnae and more Chris Amies £8.99 soloted bnef o, longer shruply focusied. She K. V. Bailey 1ecollecfions and dispenses QUICldy 'Mlh lhe appreciallOr'IS of lhe no,,el l11esome l?XpOSIIIOn lhal T~,:.:~'= ~~~ T h•ee-quarters of the and Its ,nlluence bf dOgged some ol her ea.lief Northwest of the USA book compnses the modem authors; and al work and plunges (W11sOn's usual locale lo, complete 1818 text of ~J\ar y chapU!r headings and headlong ,nto a last paced his no.oeb: halfway Shelle-{s no.-el: this lfl elsewhere a,e relevant narra1rve - a difficult task in belwcen hlS nallVC prolerence to the usually 1Hustrat,ors. To some those a ooYOI of this length, but Cah1omia, and Ganada seen ffiOfe polished but mIm-essays may appear a she manages to sustain the where he no.v lives) wakes less spontaneous 1ex1 ol 1he dlSHactlOO, bul others may momentum. up one momIng to find that 1831 ed1lron The welcome the va11at1on 1n II has Slipped from the remainder contains. first. an type, layout and content. William F. Wu familiar 20th-century world lntroduct1011 devoted to the Among the contributors are Isaac Asimov's into a parallel world where literary background, to Br1an Aldiss, John Brunner Robots in lime: Invader technology rs about 50 contom!X)fary science and and David Brin. Most of the Avon. 9194. 245pp, $4.99 years behind and America its popular manifestations, 1llusIrat1oos. sombrely Martin H. Brice is unde1 the rule of a and to the intellectual, atmospheric (but brilliant), despotic Gnostic Church. a domestic and romantic are by Chrr8topher Bing: w ay back In the Heroic theocracy reminiscent or circumstances surrounding others lrom contempornr y Age of Science that In Margaret Atwood's the INOIIS!oncrolt-Oodw1n• pubhcallons !tlumlnate Fiction. Isaac Aslma., The Handmaid's Tale. The Shelley•By100 complex; locales (e.g. the Alps, considered the poss1bhIy novel follows a small then 1heie ,s a substantial lngolstadl, Edinburgh) and of ttme-travelhng androids. number ol the tcmn·s belch of Appendices, there are reproductJOOS of lnanima1e and subject to 1nhabtan1s as they adjust 10 IncludIng a blbhog1aphy. a anatorrncal engravmgs and the Throe Laws of the new order and In some lilmography. a chronology ol paIntIngs by Fuseb. All In RobOhCS. they could cases attempt to challenge of the ac11on of the no,,el, all. then. a welcome l0de neither create human life Il. and. commendably. examples of the kind of mecum. bc:(h for the no, destrcy 11; lhey could presents the VteN of the -ieno, stmes· read by the general 1eadef and lo, al1'f only ob&erve hlSto,y colomsts alSo. Given Its Shelley-Byron circle, and researching the subfecl. IM!hOul altering IL conceJns and the chosen several rev,ews of the Thus was conc81VE!d the residence d its author. the pe,lcxl, one of wtuch. by Sir Bridget Wood Idea of the Robots m Time now! is perhaps a fable of watter Scocl docusses ,he Sorceress series. gJYen literary ltfe by Ganadian wanness ciass Of marvellous Headline. 15/9194. 600pp. William F. \IIAJ. regarding the USA, laced romances· and its CS.99 In ptEMOUS volumes. With all thal religious "subdivisions" - and early Chris Hart fiw out of SIX 1Ime-roong fundamentalism backed up foray into defin111on of robols have already been Wllh the world's best· genre reco,ie,ed from penods of equipped armed forces JUSI Leonard Wolf IS an A=.r::=~ puaIes and panzers. o,,er the bo(der. American academic. the verge of chaos in thi.s centunons, Chinese Although Mystenum is novclisl and literary hor fourth no. to rnarr y the up-and-coming of the utopian his son Is alive and well and which involves stepping on Chief ArtOl'iUS. Common1rVBalth is in the hands of the aliens a few toes and breaking I enjoyed th~ book. It threatened by an He is prepared to rncwe hell rules. had a cheerfulness about impending invasion from and high water 10 J)lo;e that Zahn has a feel tor it; the characters have hope aliens, The Conquerors. In his son was not k illed and dialogue and the trappings 1n the future. an opening salvo against to launch a posse to ensure o t space opera (including the humans, the aliens his sate return some very silly acronymsj. Jack Yeovil anack a task lo1ce of The m.J1u11 really begins The µlot is com µclhrig arid Beasls in Velvet Commonwealt~1 fighters, w~1en he assemb!t:s ~,is th€ c..hara(..11:<1s do c..ome Boxtree. 27110/94. 269pp. destr0yIng all the hardware more passive younger son. alive, add H11s to sleek £4.99 and apparently killing and Adam Quinn. a former descriptions of the milieu Graham Andrews Commander Phey!an member of tho elite and you have a fun. swift Cavanagh and his crew Copperheads \fighte, pilots read. This Is not the last we ~~~er However, the who are mentally linked to will see of these characters I~;!lt:!tr~~~d \..cxnm,mrler·s father Is H their machines.) They adopt - watch this space to read the whole of any commonwealth bigwig a high risk strategy to modern nc,;el. One reads a who hears intelligence tt1a1 Irnplernent the rescue bit, and knCM-'S the rest: or else one doesn't want to know a[¥ more (D . 11 Lawrence). l"ve been keeping !hat quotation for just such an occasion as this review of Beasts in Vel""'r by Jack (No.v / Always Kno.vn To Be Kim NEWman) Yeovil. I didn't expect much, if anything. from a nCNeloid based upon the Warhammertl>) game - ,c, Games WQ(kshop Lid. - so I wasn't disappointed. Just slightly cheesed off. '"Tell me the old, old star y"" sums ii all up Nevertheless. I sensed auctorial tee-hees behind many otherwise blah scenes. For example- "He tried to remember the night before, but could not "Water was dripping somewhere, and the 1100! was shifting. He wondered if he were oo a boat "There were questions he would have to ans1rVBr. Where was Trudi? Where was he? What had he done last night? "And why was he CCNered in blood?"' (p.155). 11\arhammel® fans, in their undoubled dozens. will buy this latest marketing ploy. no matter what anyone says. But I can't see it appealing to most people who've read Howard / Leiber / Moorccx:k. Or - even - Robert Jordan. Timothy Zahn Conqueror's Pride Bantam, 6/10/94, 389pp, £4.99 Chris Hart Zahn is a prolific author of space opera science fiction. most famously. the recen1 best-selling Star Wars trilogy. In this nc,,,cl he is on familiar ground, but he has created his