Steam Engine Time 10 IN THIS ISSUE: Elaine Cochrane Ditmar Leigh Edmonds Brad Foster Bruce Gillespie Amy Harlib Carol Kewley Michael Moorcock Gillian Polack Barbara Roden Dan Simmons Colin Steele Jan Stinson Ian Watson George Zebrowski and many others MARCH 2009 Steam Engine Time Steam Engine Time No 10, March 2009, was edited by Next editorial deadline: 2 April 2009. Janine Stinson (tropicsf at earthlink.net), PO Box 248, Eastlake, MI 49626-0248 USA and Bruce Gillespie (gandc at pacific.net.au), 5 Howard St., Greensborough VIC Illustrations: Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) (front cover: ‘Glowing Gate’); Carol Kewley 3088, Australia, and published at (p. 8; back cover); Amy Harlib (pp. 12, 30); Brad Foster (pp. 14, 16, 20); Irene http://efanzines.com/SFC/SteamEngineTime/SET10. Members fwa. Pagram (p. 74); John Picacio (p. 84) Website: GillespieCochrane.com.au. Photographs: Eric Lindsay (p. 33); Frank Gillespie (p. 37); Dick Jenssen (and page design), Merv Binns and Lee Harding (p. 39); unknown (pp. 40, 41); Merv Print edition only available by negotiation with the editors; first edition and Binns (p. 42); Capricorn Graphics (pp. 43, 44, 45); Gary Hoff (p. 46); Leigh primary publication is electronic. A thrice-yearly publishing schedule (at mini- Blackmore (p. 47); Beth Gwin/Locus Publications (p. 57); Zone publications mum) is intended. All material in this publication was contributed for one-time (p. 68). use only, and copyrights belong to the contributors. Contents 3 EDITORIALS 47 The tale I was not going to tell: Jan Stinson Gillian Polack’s Guest of Honour speech, Conflux 5, 4 October 2005 Bruce Gillespie 53 Books in my life Colin Steele 5 LETTERS OF COMMENT Michael Moorcock :: Rob Latham :: Leigh Edmonds :: Darrell Schweitzer DAN SIMMONS SECTION :: Greg Benford :: Tim Train :: Martin Morse Wooster :: Steve Sneyd :: 57 The major SF works of Dan Simmons Michael Chabon :: Steve Jeffery :: Brad Foster :: Casey Wolf :: Gillian Polack Elaine Cochrane :: Lloyd Penney :: George Zebrowski :: Ben Indick :: Robert Elordieta :: 66 Barbara Roden talks with... Dan Simmons Matthew Davis :: Cy Chauvin :: Fred Lerner :: James Doig :: John Hertz :: Tim Jones :: Kate Yule :: Philip Turner :: Andrew Weiner :: WAHF SOLARIS AND MACROLIFE: TWO INTRODUCTIONS AND AN AFTERWORD 71 Introduction to Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (new edition) CONFLUX 5, CANBERRA, OCTOBER 2008, PART 2 George Zebrowski 32 A convention report, of sorts 76 Macrolife: Introduction to the new edition Leigh Edmonds Ian Watson 36 Images: My real life as a fanzine editor: 83 Don’t read this first: Bruce Gillespie’s Fan Guest of Honour speech, Conflux 5, 5 October 2008 Afterword to the new edition of Macrolife George Zebrowski 2 If human thought is a growth, like all other growths, its logic is without foundation of its own, and is only the adjusting constructiveness of all other growing things. A tree cannot find out, as it were, how to blossom, until comes blossom-time. A social growth cannot find out the use of steam engines, until comes steam-engine time. — Charles Fort, Lo!, quoted in Westfahl, Science Fiction Quotations, Yale UP, 2005, p. 286 Swimming upstream Editorial by Jan Stinson Discovering science fiction in seventh grade changed my life, and continues to I should spoil all the fun. Go forth, search, discover (remember the local library!) do so as SF itself changes. I’ve lived through the New Wave, cyberpunk, the books that will stretch your mind. Swimming upstream is a good thing. steampunk, the Space Opera revival, and other ‘movements’ within the SF world. For over a decade, I didn’t read anything but Ellison and Cherryh, a self-imposed Then write about them, and send what results to us. We really do want to know isolation resulting from the (to me) vast outpouring of retreaded SF and fantasy what you think. that couldn’t cut itself loose from Tolkien’s magic apron strings. Bruce has said (on p. 4) what needed saying about print copies of SET. Unless But life is change, and there is hope out there. Among the books I reviewed for one of us wins a lottery (of the non-Shirley Jackson kind), that is all there is to publication last year (for other magazines), I recommend Keeping It Real by say. Justina Robson, Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones, The January Dancer by Michael Flynn, All the Windwracked Stars by Elizabeth Bear, and Fools’ Thanks to everyone who sent in articles and locs for this issue. I wasn’t quite as Experiments by Edward M. Lerner. Of those writers, Bear is the only one I was enthused as Bruce about how SET 10 came together, as I was dealing with intense familiar with from reading other of her works. ‘But wait!’ a reader might cry out. personal difficulties, but it now looks like a strong set of articles, a hallmark of ‘You didn’t tell us what genre those books are from!’ SET. My personal life has settled down, my health has vastly improved, but the battle with depression continues (even while I’m on meds for it; there’s no magic They’re from the ‘good read’ genre, folks. Deal with it. pill, friends). At least now, I’m pushing back. It feels good. There are also lots more books of recent vintage to recommend, but I don’t think — Jan Stinson, 10 February 2009 3 Editorial by Bruce Gillespie This issue is dedicated to Earl Kemp, who took the trouble to put me in touch One problem remains: neither Jan nor I can afford all this fanzine publishing. I with Michael Moorcock and Rob Latham; and Kirsten Gong-Wong from Locus sent emails to many people telling them that SET 9 had appeared on magazine, who put me in touch with Michael Chabon. As always, this issue is efanzines.com. ‘Please download the issue, but if you really do need a print copy, also dedicated to Bill Burns, creator and unquenchable curator of efanzines.com. I will send you one.’ In forty years of fanzine publishing I had never made contact with Mike Moorcock, Sucker me. Lots of people want print copies, but they do not want to pay not even in SF Commentary’s heyday, although he had sent letters to John anything, either in time or money. I had to print an extra 50 copies, without Bangsund’s Australian Science Fiction Review during the 1960s. Thanks to Earl’s much to show for it. Respond, people! That’s what fanzines are all about; that’s thoughtfulness, I’ve been able to swap emails with a person I might have found what fandom is all about. You get a print copy if you send a publishable letter of intimidating back in the seventies, but who obviously feels easy with fandom comment, review or article; if you trade paper fanzines; if you send review copies these days. He attended Corflu in Austin, Texas a couple of years back, and writes of books or other publications. Send a $50 note; you’ll be surprised how grateful delightful letters. Exchanging emails with Michael Moorcock, as well as with Rob we are. But I won’t be sending a copy merely because you can’t be bothered Latham, George Zebrowski, and the other people who appear in this issue, has spending the money to print your own copy, or whatever. Times are hard, but given me back much of the excitement I used to feel in the 1970s. with a bit of goodwill we can keep the great conversation going. Jan and I send all correspondence to each other, so I hope she caught my feeling — Bruce Gillespie, 7 February 2009 of excitement as an issue built itself from the accumulated responses to the previous issues. On the other side of the world Jan was rather busy with other matters, whereas I was not busy with paying work. Although work had dribbled in during most of 2008, the flow stopped in the middle of December. The brakes Meteor Inc. were off. Full speed ahead, Steam Engine Time 10. I had never forgotten that the fortieth anniversary edition of SF Commentary Meteor Incorporated was established in August 2007 to accumulate cash should appear in January 2009. For a long time the job was behind me. I had to donations and bequests until enough funds are available to: resurrect a vast sunken Titanic of a fanzine from the depths of electronic and G preserve and manage a collection of science fiction and fantasy memorabilia paper files that had been submerged for nearly five years. The salvage job had (books, magazines, fanzines, and electronic media) by acquiring premises to be done all at once, or the ship would sink forever. As I dived and burrowed and hiring qualified librarians/custodians; and and sorted, the SFC 80 edifice rose to the surface. G provide a resource for research into science fiction and fantasy literature and culture. But SF Commentary 80 is vast. It is not the 40-page issue that Robert Lichtman and I were planning to publish as the final chapter of the Bring Bruce Bayside This is a long-term project requiring ongoing cash donations from SF fans. report. Last I counted, it is 120 pages long. Two large issues. Far too expensive to print and post, so I will have to publish the main edition electronically. But To contribute, or simply learn more about Meteor Incorporated, please visit refloating the Titanic is now possible, even if the official release date of January our website at http://www.meteor.org.au, or 2009 has already vanished. Write to: Secretary, Meteor Inc: Telephone: +61 3 9534 0163 PO Box 260, Flinders Lane PO VIC 8000.