® S F COMMENTARY the independent magazine about science fiction No.52 JUNE 1977 S F COMMENTARY

Australia: $1.00 USA/Canada: $1.20 or equivalent

J1 3 THE NOVELS OF D.G. COMPTON

"...courage and honour and hope and compassion and pity and sacrifice...” By Andrew Whitmore

h 7 1977 WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

A murmuration of Starling or An Exaltation of Lark? By George Turner

Jo 12 CRITICANTO

Reviews by Rob Gerrand Philip Stephenson-Payne

^P 15 I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS $

Editor Brian Aldiss Ursula K. Le Guin , Lee Harding Bob Tucker Patrick McGuire Angus Taylor Dave Piper Syd Bounds Robert Bloch John Brosnan Terry Carr

Cover: Irene Pag ram Illustrations pages 8, 9, 11: Chris Johnston Art Director: Stephen Campbell ( & all other illustrations)

Editor and Publisher: Bruce Gillespie

Typesetting: Melbourne Typesetting 41 4502 Printer: Copyplace, 150 Queen St., Melbourne

Editorial Address: GPO Box 5195AA, Melbourne, Victoria, 3001 , Australia. Phone: (03)419 4797

Subscriptions: Australia: S5 tor 5 or $10 for 10. USA & Canada. $6 for 5 or $12 for 10 from Hank and Lesleigh Luttrell, 525 West Mam. Madison. Wl 57303. All other countries: Remittances already converted into Australian currency.

2 . .COURAGE AND HONOUR AND HOPE AND PRIDE AND COMPASSION AND PITY AND SACRIFICE . .

EDITOR: Andrew Whitmore has been attending meetings of the Nova Mob for several years now. He was a member of the Australian S.F. Writers' Workshop held in August 1975, has contributions in The Altered I, and has since finished a novel. After completing his honours degree in literature at Monash University, he is currently training to be a teacher.

This paper was prepared originally for the Nova Mob meeting of June 1976. It was not, and was never intended to be, a com­ plete assessment of Compton’s work. The books that are dealt with are not examined in the detail that they deserve, and I am all too well aware of the inadequacies of this paper. Books such as Synthajoy, The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, and The Silent Multitude (the last of which I had not read at the time of writing this paper) all deserve essays of their own. All I have hoped to do here is to raise some general points about Compton's work and to indicate why, in my opinion, they deserve more detailed attention In the Nova Mob circular preceding the June 1976 meeting, D.G.Compton was de scribed as a “curiously neglected writer". Although I would argue with the word "curiously", there is no doubt that Compton has been "neglected" for a long time In the space of twelve years (his first book was published in 1965), Compton has published nine novels. This may not be as prolific an output as that of some others in the genre, but it is still a significant pro duction. At the time of writing this paper, five of the novels are out of print, including Synthajoy, his best work None of Compton's work has ever appeared on the final ballot of a Hugo award. In 1960, The Electric Crocodile (its American title) reached the final ballot of the Nebula award (The Science Fiction Writers of America displayed unaccountable good taste that year: Tucker and Lafferty were among the other nominations. But it was Ringworld that took out the award ) Chronocules (1970) and The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe (1974) were both nominated in the preliminary ballot for the respective Nebula awards, but proceeded no further. Given the peculiar nature of the Andrew Whitmore voting system, their appearance in the pre­ liminary ballot was no great achievement. A book entitled Cliff Notes: Science Fiction/An Introduction (1973) contains a "Bibliography of Science Fiction" which, although it is admittedly "select", runs for some 18 pages and contains no less than 115 different authors Not one of Comp­ ton's works is included. These three separate pieces of infor­ mation, when added together, rather suggest that Compton is a "neglected writer" More than half of his novels have been allowed to go out of print, on both sides of the Atlantic. He has, with one exception, been totally ignored by those strange and ambiguous creatures, the Hugo and Nebula award voters. He has been excluded from a book that is aimed at supplying all that a student in one of America's many science fiction courses needs to know about the subject and which, one would assume, reflects adequately the content of the courses themselves. 3 Compton is by no means unique in this 5. The Missionaries — religious emissaries directly related to the "alieness" in way. During the Nova Mob discussion where from outer space. The Electric Crocodile. In fact, the this paper was presented, the point was 6. The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe societies in the two latter novels are al­ made that Brian Aldiss would not have ob­ (The Unsleeping Eye in USA) — death most identical in ,the way in which tained many nominations in either the Hugo in a (near) deathless society — tv eyes. privacy is being destroyed: by the or Nebula awards during the period that Of course, these are not what any of the government in one, by the media in the Compton was publishing. Nor would J.G. novels are "about". They are merely what other. Ballard or Stanislaw Lem. Chauvinism is a would be gleaned from the novels by some­ 3. The action takes place over a short major ingredient of these awards. But Aldiss one wholly concerned with technological period of time: eight days in The Con­ has won his Hugo and Nebula awards, and gimmicks, or "extrapolations". tinuous Katherine Mortenhoe, and about Ballard has become a major figure in the With the possible exception of Fare­ the same in The Electric Crocodile science fiction world (thanks to the enthus­ well, Earth's Bliss (and Compton's Mars The action in Synthajoy is spread over iastic PR work of Michael Moorcock and isn't really all that exotic), all the novels six days, although Compton uses flash­ Co), and Lem seems to be doing quite well have rathermundane backgrounds. In fact, back techniques to cover a much larger for himself on his own. It is also true that Compton has established his own little time span there are other glaring omissionsis in the "postage stamp of native soil", merely Compton concentrates on only a few Cliff Notes — for example, there is no extending it slightly into another dimension. characters in each book, one in Syntha­ mention of Thomas Disch. But Disch has The Missionaries is set in a virtually con­ joy, two in the others. This is not to say also received his fair share of promotion temporary society, while the others are that the other characters are merely from New Worlds located around 1980. All four are set in cardboard props or spear-carriers. Comp To my knowledge, only Compton has England. Synthajoy is one invention re­ ton is adept at drawing character with a been so comprehensively ignored by all moved from present-day society. Chrono­ minimum effort, and many of the sections of the science fiction world escape from contemporary reality in Comp­ characters who dominate the books are all science fiction readers. The first remark is a ton's work. We see our own world all too isolated figures, with few outside contacts rather odd one: clearly in Compton's "futures", and things usually a family, but very few friends. . . . too often his (Compton's) books are never much different from what we have This is the sort of person that we come seem to be devoid of all emotion on the to deal with every day. across time and again in Compton's part of the characters. books. I am not quite sure what is meant by It is extremely difficult to say in a few this statement, although it does suggest that words what these books are about. Comp­ the subtle presentation of character is not I have attempted to point out a few of the ton, unlike most other science fiction always appreciated by the readers. The things that the reader will not find in Comp­ writers, does not have the characters on one second remark is rather more useful: ton's books, and I think that the neglect level and the meaning on another, and so . . . Compton's persistent avoidance that he has suffered at the hands of the the two cannot be separated without dis­ of a "sense of wonder". In throwing science fiction world is due to these torting them both so much that they are out the bathwater of pulp s f, Compton omissions. no longer recognisable. It is because of this has thrown out the baby of visionary Now I want to look at what the reader that Compton's novels seem to be ambig­ qualities as well. will find in Corrt^bton. The answer is quite uous. It is difficult for the reader to know I think it was James Blish who said that simple: people. how he is supposed to judge what is going the appeal science fiction has for its readers We are not used to finding people in on, and to decide where his allegiances lie is its strangeness. I think this is very much science fiction novels. They seem to be lie. But, to put it extremely crudely, these the case, and it helps to explain why Comp­ vaguely out of place, an inconvenience three books all seem to be about people ton does not appeal to many s f readers. He really, getting in the way of all those who are trying to retain their humanity in does, indeed, display a "persistent avoidance wonderful ideas. Compton doesn't work the face of relentless de humanising forces. of 'sense of wonder’ " In fact, Compton is that way. In S F Commentary 48/49/50, perhaps the least strange science fiction in the transcript of the Aussiecon panel on writer to be found within science fiction. criticism, George Turner says that very few SYNTHAJOY The Disch of 334 is perhaps as close as we science fiction books are involved purely Of the three, I find Synthajoy the most can find, and it is significant that he is also with the characters, then goes on to cite satisfying on an emotional level, and the a "neglected" writer DG. Compton as the only example that most ambiguous on an intellectual level. It seems to me that a new breed of comes to mind of somebody who does. He It is an extremely self-contained book, in academic now springing up in America has caught the emphasis exactly. that all the issues raised lead back into the and elsewhere, discovering science fiction Compton is solely interested in the character of Thea Cadence rather than out for the first time and seemingly bent on characters. Background and gimmicks are into the world at large. I will come back to displaying their ignorance to as large an used to supply an area of interaction and this point later and attempt to make my audience as possible, also finds this "strange­ conflict, but are unimportant beyond that. meaning more clear. ness" to be the genre's main attraction. Also, Compton's: characters exist as people, Thea Cadence herself is one of the most These academics regard science fiction as a rather than as pawns to be moved arbi­ fully realised characters to be found in a playground for technological gimmicks, set trarily around to work out some "grand science fiction novel. I can think of no against exotic scenery, and displaying a design". They are not symbols either other novel where the author's attention basic detachment from contemporary real­ (people never are), which is probably (and that of the reader) is so concentrated ity. Thus we find them fascinated by Le another reason why academics find Comp­ on the character rather than on the story Guin, Delany, Dick, and Ballard (to name ton unpalatable. that is being told. This is hardly what we only a few). Even Herbert provokes com­ So I want to look at three of Compton's have come to expect from science fiction. pletely serious essays. It is just these novels in some detail to demonstrate what I Synthajoy seems to me to be the kind of qualities that Compton does not possess. have said about his use of character. novel that you would have expected from The three novels that I have chosen are: someone like Doris Lessing. All the style is Technological gimmicks are virtually Synthajoy, The Electric Crocodile, and The there, the restraint, the enormous non-existent in his works. They are of no Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe These sympathy. interest to him at all Whenever he does use are, in my opinion, Compton's best novels, As I have said, I regard Synthajoy as them, he appropriates stock s f cliches. He and there are certain similarities which are Compton’s best book. In it, there is little indulges in no exciting "extrapolations" of apparent after even the most cursory read­ effort wasted on building up the back­ a technological nature A list of what is to ing: ground: it is merely the everyday world be found in his novels gives ample evidence 1 They present women as the major with one slight modification to it. The of that: characters. "Sensitape" process (whereby emotions can 1. Farewell, Earth's Bliss — exiles on Mars. 2. The societies in which they take place 2. Synthajoy artificially induced em­ be recorded on tape and then played back contain similar elements: "Karstacks" when required) is not rationalised, as Thea otions. appear in Synthajoy and The Electric does not understand it herself. It is merely 3. Chronocules time travel Crocodile; the "fringies" in The Con­ 4 The Electric Crocodile — computer there, and provides the area of conflict in tinuous Katherine Mortenhoe seem to be which Thea operates. messiah

4 The other reason for the novel's strength process itself? Or both? On one level, Cassa is, I think, Compton's concentration on one vetes is a jealous old man and Thea is a forgiveness of her own neglect. Then she character There is a simplicity in this novel sexually repressed neurotic (this is pre was cheerful again. (page 61) that is not found in Compton's other works, sented quite forcefully in the novel). On Thus her arguments against Matthew no matter what their own strengths might another level, they are both merely people, often seem to lack strength, as they are be human beings who deserve our sympathy rooted in her faith In a way, we can Synthajoy is perfect in itself, wants and respect, even heroic in their resistance sympathise with his point of view (he is nothing and I think this is something that is to Edward and what he stands for. I think no monster, and his reasons for doing what found only in a few books. We do not need there is no doubt on which side Compton he does are sincerely held) when he thinks to know anything more about Compton or stands, but his justification for that stand that Abigail's faith as being merely "react his works to read it and take all that it exists only within the characters of Thea lonary" and illogical, while his own argu offers us. The book exists on its own, and Cassavetes This is what I meant by ments are quite logical and apparently removed completely from the man who saying that the novel is self-contained. valid But Compton shows us to be wary wrote it. I can think of only two other of logic, and when we find Abigail "thinking novels for which I could say the same. now with her whole body" (page 119) Take, for example, Thea’s distaste for we are back on firmer ground Deeper than "sensitape". This is hard to rationalise, THE ELECTRIC CROCODILE faith, this is the instinct we see in Thea A similar situation occurs in The Electric Cadence, the recognition of humanity as the because it is so intensely personal (as is Crocodile, which is, I think, a lesser book. over-riding factor in existence. everything in the novel). It is most clearly The background is more complex, and However, Abigail reacts quite differ expressed on pages 159 160 intrudes more on the novel itself than is the ently than Thea She does not stop loving “You've always been against Sensi case with Synthajoy. On some occasions, Matthew, she merely believes that he is tape, haven’t you, Thea? Right from the I had the feeling that Compton had forced wrong, rather than evil. She does try to very beginning." himself into the position where he had to betray him, however, but without success. A remark as stupid as that could have spend time describing his future world that only one purpose — to bait me. At the climax of the novel, she takes no “If I'd thought about it properly, he would much rather have spent developing positive action Edward, I would have been. Not that it his characters. Also, the book is told from a For she who at that moment had would have made any difference." split viewpoint, and so is somewhat less of the power to betray, to shout into the “People's needs, Thea, they're not an a piece than Synthajoy, even though the microphones what she knew, would do absolute laid down by gods or philos shifting from viewpoint to viewpoint allows nothing, decide nothing, would he con ophers. We're stacked high and we're for some interesting effects novel is fused, insufficient. She had cultivated going to be stacked higher. Unnatural one that I found to be much better on a subjection according to the canons of second reading, as Compton's attitude her faith. She would be passed over, conditions produce unnatural needs. The towards Abigail (the central character) is would passover herself, in what had to world must be dealt with as it is, not as rather more ambiguous than is his attitude you'd like it to be. If we can't change be still a man's world. Ultimate respon towards Thea (This might also happen be sibility, even for herself, was not hers. the conditions, at least we can do our cause the split viewpoint allows us to see (page 199) best to satisfy the needs." Abigail through her husband's eyes, as well In light of this, how are we to read the . . . Against his rationalisations I as vice versa.). concluding lines of the book7: could only range a deep, instinctive The mam interest in the novel is focused repugnance. "My solicitor. . ." on Abigail’s faith in yGod. Against the "This is not a legal matter, Mrs Oliver. This "deep, instinctive repugnance" is background of government manipulation of central to the book The female characters You're not a criminal. You have a society, and the lack of personal freedom, schizoid personality. Please come this in all three of these novels display this kind Abigails forced to stretch this faith to the of intense, irrational feeling way Mrs Oliver." limit, and yet, it holds. The ambiguity “I am not sick." This attitude towards “sensitape" is lies in the question as whether Abigail's shared by only one other character in the "Please come this way, Mrs Oliver." faith is a strength, or mere delusion, the Mrs Oliver. Wife of Matthew, widow book This is Paul Cassavetes, an aged abrogation of all responsibility for herself pianist, whom Thea's husband wants to of Matthew. She began to cry. Grief and her actions. For example, this exchange was that long overdue, an inward bleed record on "sensitape" so that the public between Abigail and her husband: can share what the pianist feels while play­ ing, secret. But God loved her and she'd "It might mean jail." survive. Nobody was tested beyond what ing his music. Cassavetes also ranges a "!'d wait for you." (Abigail) "deep, instinctive repugnance" against he could endure. (pages 220 221) "You romanticise. ' Is there savage irony in Abigail's state­ Edward Cadence’s impeccable logic (this "God loves me. We're never tested incident also forms the basis for the only ment that "nobody was tested beyond what beyond our strength." he could endure"? Is Abigail's thinking piece of short fiction by Compton that I Matthew thought of the millions in have come across, "It's Smart to Have an indicative of just how irrational her faith mental hospitals. God loved them too. is (we must remember that her brother has English Address”): Unfathomably. (page 19) “My soul is my own. Dr Cadence. just been shot dead, her husband killed in an One thing not for giving away. Another Abigail seems to be detached from explosion and she herself is about to be is that I feel, that I know, when I play." reality for much of the book. She is aware committed as "mentally ill", no doubt to "Your greatest strength is Beet of this, but that doesn’t make any differ suffer the same fate as Thea Cadence), or is it a measure of its strength? hoven. . .** As if the old man hadn't ence Through her husband's eyes we can I think that Compton means us to take spoken. “I suggest something popular. see her as a woman whose faith is basic­ ally out of touch with the world, something this statement seriously, and it is because of The Moonlight Sonata, perhaps. Issue this that I think the novel needs to be read the Sensitape and record together. To that gives her a divine authority for her views (see page 159). She is a person who at least twice In light of the ending, Abigail’s hear what you hear, Mr Cassavetes. To remark on page 19 can be seen as something know what you know. Or perhaps you appears to be childishly optimistic, as she is more than the complacent aphorism of a think ordinary humanity is not worthy." when she displays such utter confidence "You pretend to serve humanity, that Matthew will reject the Colindale (a person who had never known real adversity. you doctors. Your real hope is to be top-secret project that is manipulating It is the expression of a faith tha* gives her God." (page 45) what advances will or will not be made in the strength to resist the tremendous forces and the world by means of a giant computer that are raised against her at the end of the "Like Claxton, you too are an old complex) because it is obviously the "right" novel Abigail endures. She is not free, but man." Edward spoke as from a long way thing to do at least she is intact off. "You have a unique gift." Thus she saw Matthew's quietness Few science fiction writers will have “And it shall die with me." Painfully over tea in bed and then at breakfast anything at all to do with religion in their vehement. He allowed a long pause. as proof that her prayers were being work Miller and Blish have used it well "As is the nature of unique gifts." answered. He was being helped to do and gained strength from it, but they were (page 46) what was right. It might not be easy very much the exception. Science fiction and: for him, his niggardly reason might fight writers appear to distrust religion, possibly “Dr Cadence, your talk is like a sick all the way, but the outcome was a seeing it to be m some way antithetical to ness." He muttered to himself for sev foregone conclusion. (page 138) science, and thus to be avoided How many eral seconds, unheard. “I must have The irony here is that the reader already futures have been represented in terms of nothing to do with you ever again. knows that Matthew has no intention at all religious dictatorships? Quite a number, I Your talk is sin. Sin. I have no words of leaving the Colindale. Abigail’s faith also would say, but this conception of religion for my horror at what you are doing." appears naive, even ridiculous, in its cer is basically silly and merely an opportunity (page 47) tainty: for the select few to terrorise others This is where I think that Compton is When she had rung off she stood by into subservience. This is just about as far difficult Is it Edward that Thea and Cassa­ the telephone and said two prayers, as science fiction ’writers are prepared to go. vetes are objecting to, or is it the "sensitape" the first for Grandpa and the second for However, Compton takes religion

5 seriously, and realises that it is an important The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe I left that pub even soberer than I part of man's relationship to himself and to doesn't require Compton to spend as much had entered it. Colder and soberer. And his world. This seems to be something that time justifying his technological back­ wiser too. . .You see, beauty isn't in has developed slowly through Compton's ground as he does in The Electric Crocodile, the eye of the beholder.Neither is com work. In Farewell, Earth's Bliss, the Martian and so it seems to me to be less strained. passion, or love, or even common human prison colony is ruled by a system that de The dual narrative is handled easily and decency. They're not of the eye, but the pends heavily on religion as a sanction for without distracting effects, so that the book mind behind the eye. I had seen, my its brutalities. The system is corrupt and moves smoothly. It is also often quite funny : mind had seen, Katherine Mortenhoe, hypocritical, without humanity at all, so with love. Had seen beauty. But my that the religious views espoused by the "Harry?" eyes had simply seen Katherine Morten colony are no more than a hollow sham, "Kate? Where are you?" hoe. Had seen Katherine Mortenhoe. like so many of the so-called Christian soc "Are you all right, Harry?" Period. ieties of the Western world. Farewell, "Of course I'm all right." I couldn't even blame Vincent. He Earth's Bliss is Compton's most bitter book, "I wasn't vpry nice.” hadn't cut the footage for shock effect. the most pessimistic. "You couldn't help it." He hadn't changed the emphasis. He In Synthajoy, Thea Cadence attends the "Of course I could." hadn't even cheapened it with sob stuff "sensitape" recording of a priest who is "It's not a very nice situation." narration or music over. The soundtrack dying, and who has allowed himself to be "Harry — I'm sorry." was mine also. It was Katherine recorded so that others might experience "What was I supposed to do, though Mortenhoe as my eyes had seen her. the same peace when they are dying. Thea — dance a jig?" And my eyes had seen a dribbling, cannot understand how the priest can be so The plastic telephone mount had palsied wreck. My eyes had seen a calm in the face of death. She sees the numbers scrawled on it, and obscene ponderous, middle aged woman capering strength that faith gives him, but she cannot comments. She began to lose interest in unsuitably about a beach. My eyes had understand it. Harry. seen her filthied clothes. My eyes had Abigail, as we have seen, experiences "If you were Chinese you might." seen her lumpy, graceless body lumber this faith directly, draws strength from it "If I knew what you wanted, then . ." naked out of a pretty-pretty stream and It is significant, I think, that Compton "They dress up in white and dance stop for her towel so that her breasts dedicates The Electric Crocodile to "Anne through the streets. Or they used to, long swung like pale, water-filled bladders. Marie,/who showed me faith." Compton ago, in the year of the four blue dragons. The sarcastic wolf whistles of my fellow seems to have progressed from pessimism "What are you on about, Kate?" drinkers are still with me. This is how to some kind of guarded belief in the "Chinese funerals." they saw her. When she wasn't repulsive strength of humanity to endure even the "If only I knew what you wanted." she was pathetic. I knew her to be most tremendous destructive forces. Part "Harry, it says here Have cunt, will neither. of this is due, I think, to his growing aware­ grovel. I think that's sad, don't you?" But it was I and I alone who had ness of the part that "religion" (in quota­ (page 188) assembled through the medium they tell tion marks: in the purest essence) plays in Nearly all of Compton's other women us cannot lie definitive evidence that life. This awareness is to be found in all are very restrained, typically middle-class, she was just that, either repulsive or good writers, from Faulkner to Baldwin (at not at all the sort of person to say, "Have pathetic, and often both. Evidence that least in Go Tell It On The Mountain), and it cunt, will grovel" to their husbands on the had been seen and believed by maybe is what sets them apart from other, lesser telephone Katherine has a spark of life sixty million people. I loved her. If that talents. about her that is lacking in the other novels. was the word. And there was no other. Like Thea Cadence, Abigail is the victim She is both serious and comic, as in the Perhaps all that Compton is talking of a system where humanity is expendable, above quote, and very much alive. There is about in these novels is dignity, the dignity if not openly discouraged. But, unlike Thea, no excessive sentimentality. There is that belongs to a person simply by virtue she has something to oppose it with, her humour all through the novel, in fact. In of the fact that she or he is a human being. faith in a merciful god. Thea would not the sections narrated by Roddie (the man Something which is not amenable to logic, have understood it, and I'm not sure that I from the televigon studio who follows but which can only be expressed in human understand it, but Compton has made it Katherine around and films her through terms, and can only be perceived by certain exist, not as an easily detachable moral cameras surgically implanted in his eyes) people, those who open themselves up to to the novel (tear along dotted line and it can be quite concise it. The mistake that Roddie makes is the discard container), but as an integral part of A quarter of an hour later the police same as that made by the other main male a person, of a human being. We see Abigail had the students' car in sight. An arrest characters in these threenovels. He persists as she is, self-deceptions, weaknesses and was expected afiy minute. "That's quick," I said to the joe. in treating people as if they were merely all, but this in no way detracts from her objects which can be understood without faith. He shrugged his shoulders. "Com puters," he said, as if that explained taking into account their humanity. Roddie everything and without computers he'd sincerely believes that he can present have been a master of crime himself. Katherine to the world as she is, and it is (page 108) not until he sees the results of his efforts THE CONTINUOUS The best thing about Katherine that he comprehends his mistake. Directly Mortenhoe is that she is so human, so un­ after this passage, he destroys the cameras in his eyes, rendering himself blind. KATHERINE MORTENHOE importantly human. This is Compton's strength She is alternately weak, childish, But it is important to remember that The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe is noble, cunning, naive, brave, vindictive, Katherine is no larger-than-life caricature somewhat different from the other novels, stubborn, proud, impatient, compassionate, of nobility amidst suffering. When Roddie in that there is no real justification avail and a dozen other things. The important tell sher about working for NTV (who able for what is done to Katherine. Where­ fact is that her faults do not detract from have been hounding her), her reaction is as "sensitape" and the "Cohndale Project" her strengths. As in all of Compton's works, suitably complex. She is an ordinary human could be justified on humanitarian grounds, the main thing is that she is a human being, being, not especially noble or forgiving. the invasion of privacy by the media can and that she does not deny her humanity Likewise, Roddies is not the great, self only be considered with cynicism by those The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe is sacrificing? martyr. He is quite capable of taking part in it. However, when Katherine also different from the other novels in that weakness, selfishness, and stupidity. is taken to see some patients at the hospital it presents a male character who can appre The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe kept in a state of euphoria by artificial ciate the humanity which seems to come seems to me to be the most optimistic of means, her reaction is the same as Thea's: naturally to Compton's female protagonists. Compton’s books. Even though Katherine "Every one of these patients is If we exclude Paul Cassavetes (a very old dies, she does achieve some kind of justifica­ happy, busy and — as their concentra man), the only male characters to achieve tion for her life, and she has proven her tion permits — interested. Would you a "state of grace” in Compton's books are humanity. And Roddie survives. Compar­ rather we left them to empty vegeta Mark (Farewell, Earth's Bliss), a homosex ed to the other books things appear tion?" ual, and, perhaps Roses Vargo (Chronocules) bearable, at least. There appears to be some Yes. Yes, she would rather they had a congenital idiot. Even Rod doesn't come kind of progression from Thea to Abigail to Katherine, an increasing optimism, a be­ left the patients to empty vegetation. by this humanity easily: only Katherine's lief that man can not only endure, he can But she couldn't say so. She couldn't death can bring this about. (This causes me also prevail. justify. She could only feel. (Page 114) to wonder just how significant it is that the Once again we have this instinctive action of the nov^l takes place over Easter revulsion to anything that reduces a person's I am not, however, prepared to look at the humanity, to treating people as things, no novel that closely in this article.) The forces I think that this is a fair summary of matter how fine the motive. In this way, of dehumanisation that are brought to some of the things that Compton is doing Katherine is similar to the women in the bear on Katherine are presented powerfully in his novels, and why I think he is deser­ other two novels on pages 223-224 of the novel: ving of more attention. The conflict

6 between man and a society that is apparent­ ly bent on making him something less than a man is, I suppose, one of the most import­ George Turner on the ant themes in modern Western literature. Compton is one of the very few writers in science fiction who is continually worrying at this theme. 1377 WRITERS’ The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe was published in 1974 and, since then, there has been silence. Whether or not Compton is finished with science fiction remains to W9RRSH0P be seen. In 1970, he published a mainstream novel. The Palace, which has disappeared almost without a trace, proving that readers outside of science fiction are just as lacking in perception as the majority of those with in it. It is quite possible that Compton has decided to confne himself to the more lucrative occupation of producing radio plays, leaving science fiction to the likes of Clement Pyke, who appears in The Contin­ uous Katherine Mortenhoe, boasting of how he produced 130 books in 20 odd years, and who can say: “If SF's on the map today, you know who put it there." (page 102) A man who "couldn't bear for his daughter to have anything, even a rare and fatal condition", and who killed himself after watching his daughter dance on a gray pebbly beach". I am not sure whether this figure is presented as a good natured jibe at some contemporary science fiction writers, or whether it represents some bitterness on Compton's part about the way in which he has been overlooked by science fiction readers and critics, while the Clement Pykes of this world have been occupying centre stage. If this pathetic old man is Compton's image of the successful science fiction writer, then there is little doubt how he feels about the genre. I hope that Compton continues to publish. I think that he is the best of the science fiction writers, and the only one who has comparable with that of the best writers outside the field. There is a great deal of sentimentality in science fiction, but :seldom any real sympathy. There is much foot-stamping, but little genuine outrage. There is certainly melodrama, but hardly anything that approaches an authentic tragic vision. Compton is the exception; and there can be no greater praise. a murmuration Andrew Whitmore April 1977 EDITIONS OF BOOKS REFERRED TO: 1. Farewell, Earth's Bliss, Ace Books, 1971 of starling 2. Synthajoy, Hodder and Stoughton, 1968 3. Chronocules, Ace Books, 1970 4. The Electric Crocodile, Arrow Books, 1973 5. The Missionaries, Ace Books, 1972 6. The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe or Arrow Books, 1975 Also: "It's Smart to Have an English Address", ■ in World's Best S.F. 1, edited by Wollheim and Carr, Sphere Books, 1971. an exaltation of lark?

7 A MURMURATION apparent simplicities to discern what is several speakers voiced the possibility that wrong and why it is wrong, within the this surge of effort harboured a seed of OF STARLING OR parameters of the tale, is more than can quasi-hysterical motivation and that the AN EXALTATION OF LARK? reasonably be asked of beginners. result might be a crippling letdown of For one thing, it requires that the critic enthusiasm once the breakneck course was have a literary philosophy which allows the done. When the subject of literary workshops major relationships — plot, characterisation, was discussed at a 1976 convention in theme, etc. — to be observed in their Melbourne I was surprised at the number of complex interaction so that a weakness can speakers, who registered doubt about the be detected with the direct ease of a Von efficacy of these affairs and equally Karajan pin-pointing a single wrong note in surprised at the nature of some of these a Wagnerian ensemble. (Since there is no doubts. Having at that time little faith in single received literary philosophy, no two the ultimate value of such training runs, critics will agree in toto, but this is not very though for reasons very different from those important. What matters is that each must offered by the convention attendees, I have a set of efficient literary tools which was in two minds when Kitty Vigo suggest­ will allow him to move rapidly and cleanly ed that I should participate in the sf to the source of a problem. A happy few workshop at Monash University in February are born with insight; it takes most of us 1977. years of reading and writing to achieve it.) I accepted for what seemed to me a This proved less of a problem than I had good enough reason: that the only way feared. That I did not have to deal with to justify or overcome my distrust was to criticism of the generalising, basically insen take part. So I became whatever it is one sitive kind was probably due very much becomes under such circumstances — to the ground-breaking of Vonda, who moderator? dutch uncle? ring-master? — for turned out to be a no-nonsense lass of one week, sandwiched between Vonda much practical application and no little McIntyre and Chris Priest. ability as a moulder of individuals into a group. And also to the influence, showing Here, for what they are worth, are the very strongly in discussion, of such experi­ observations of one who saw himself as a enced workshoppers as Pip Maddern and sort of senior guinea pig in a very experi­ Ted Mundie, who could bring both classical mental maze-run. method and inborn literacy to bear and do much, by their attitudes, to prevent group 1 criticism degenerating into superficialities. Taking the second week of the course So I was able to move into fairly esoteric suited me well. I reckoned that Vonda, as areas without courting misunderstanding — an old alumnus of the Clarion workshops, except in the matter of "characterisation", would operate in much the same fashion as which is and always has been one of the Ursula Le Guin had done eighteen months great hurdles over which both critics and earlier, and would hand over to me a reason­ writers tumble in heaps. After one grumble ably cohesive group properly grounded in of discontent from the workshoppers I discussion techniques — to the point, that is, shelved it as impossible to sort out in a few of being able to criticise frankly without short days, and filed in my mind the idea being merely offensive and to accept critic­ that a workshop devoted solely to the ism without the twin ego isms of resentment problems of characterisation (they are or despair. And that is exactly what she did, immense) might pay dividends. for which heaven be praised. Which brings me to the first tripstone of my distrust. . . 2 For those uncertain of how a typical It is worth noting at this point that plain workshop is conducted, the basic procedure workshopping of, each others' work, day is this: after day, exhibits a decreasing intellectual Stories are written by the workshoppers, hold on all but the uncritically enthusiastic. Something of this in fact happened after xeroxed so that a copy is provided for every At the end of the first week the Monash both Ursula's workshop and the Monash member, and then exposed to the mass group was feeling the need for a change of period, but not in any total sense. For one criticism of the group. Members may choose pace or the introduction of novelty. It was thing, Ursula's group made some effort to rewrite workshopped stories on the basis not that they felt the workshopping tech­ to keep in touch with each other and with her, of the criticisms given or to use the know­ nique was unsatisfactory but that, having which says something for the spirit of the ledge and insights gained in the production developed it to a point of routine, some new operation; for another, several of them of new work. The moderator may require thing was needed. turned up again at the Monash classes (if certain types of stories to be attempted (I Since I had some experimental ideas of "classes" is the word), which argues that remember with glee the crash of jaws my own, this indication suited my purpose, the letdown was only temporary. hitting the pavement of dismay when Ursula the more so in that my purpose arose in My feeling is that the real writer, the one demanded an sf love story) or may suggest part from consideration of the second of my whose only diet is red-black ribbon, cannot specific "exercises". Quoting Ursula's tripstones of distrust — enthusiasm, far too be deterred, crushed, or blown out by any­ example again, she required a story solely in much of it. thing short of the collapse of civilisation. dialogue and obtained some interesting and I was horrified at the way in which Even then they’ll be found elaborating new ingenious results. The idea of exercises stuck Ursula's group tore into the work, pro­ alphabets on cave walls. But dedicated writers are not the sum in my mind, to emerge later in a different ducing fiction like those Hoe presses which total of literary effort, or even the whole of guise for a different purpose. print about 120,000 newspapers an hour. the best of literature, and the more sober Back to my distrusts: "It can't last," I thought then, but by God talent is the one which may come to harm. The matter of mass criticism was the it did. To this day I have a suspicion that first. Those who have read The Altered I These blindingly enthusiastic sessions can some of them took no sleep at all but produce good work for only a limited will recall the record of the workshopping zombied through their mass-production on period; on the other hand they now and of Ursula's own story, and so do I, with the incantations and psychokinesis. Certain it is then bring to the surface of of those tours feeling that the book might have been a that they beat hell out of their typewriters de forces which spring to life on the page better impression had it been omitted. until the wee hours were themselves Literary criticism, even of the most exhausted, yet turned up next morning not and are inexplicable in their issuance from obvious nature, is no simple area for learn­ only on time but with completed stories the worst writers as well as the best. ers, and most, though by no means all, of and claws freshly honed for the opposit­ With all this in mind I wished not to our workshoppers were learners. It is easy ion. make too many demands on the physical to decide that you like or dislike a story; (This may be defensiveness on my part. endurance of my group, and was in con­ for anyone with fiction in his writing fingers My habits of work are so slapdash that John sequence greeted early on with a wail of it should be easy also to discover not only Iggulden once cried out, "But nobody can incomprehension, as though the brutes what he likes or dislikes but why he does so. write a novel like thatl" I had by then wanted to be lashed and beaten. But they So you would think, but read a few fanzine written five — which doesn't mean that he realised before all was done that I had my reviewers to discover the number of quite wasn't, in a deeper sense, right.) own bastardries to offer and that there are intelligent people who handle the why less I was not the only one who felt a danger literary brutalities other than mere drudgery than competently. In fact the penetrating of in this. At the '76 convention in Melbourne into the dawn hours.

8 3 My approach to the job of moderator, Oh, no, you couldn't. In this exercise The test of creativity and ingenuity was wearing my other hat as ringmaster, was an it had to be your own backyard, the one at not popular with the class, and I did not all out assault on the problem of the in­ home, outside your back door. (How could labour the point that most of them had dividual "voice”. anyone be expected to write sf about that been found wanting in a matter basic to Those Australians who have written dreary dump?) Furthermore it had to be the art of writing — the appreciation and saleable sf have, with few exceptions, presented alive. It was the ambience of the management of simple reality. Not even adopted the standard styles of the American story to-be, that backyard, and I wanted to fantasy can exist on dreams alone; the or English magazines for which they were be able to see it, smell it, almost touch it — appeal of The Lord Of The Rings is rooted designed. This is true also of the work done cats, woodheap, vegetable patch, dustbins, in the fact that its wildest flights are always at Ursula's workshop — the tales were rusty iron gate and all. Nobody would get tied to the commonplaces of everyday life. original, often highly so, but the voice of away with "it was winter on the beach" or That the class took the point without the prose belonged overseas and too often "autumn in the park" on the ground that reminding was shown by their approach to the strain of imitation showed. everybody knows what the beach and the a later variation on the exercise. In a country with too little indigenous park look like (They don’t, you know. It is But where, anecdote aside, does the sf this is perhaps inevitable among the surprising how many people have never seen "personal voice” come in? It comes in with younger writers, who are mostly (they'll the things they are looking at.) the selection of a real backyard as thematic hate me for this) still in the uncritical- To make it worse, this description had centre. You simply cannot describe your admiration stage of their literary exper­ to be integrated, not just a "descriptive bit"; own Australian backyard with an English or ience. But it is unfortunate amongst the it had to be essential to the meeting. Sf is American accent and remain honest — and older ones who, if their eyes are too firmly overloaded on the one hand with "descrip­ the writer who isn't honest in his work is fixed on the adventurous stars to observe tive bits" that don't assist the story a pre-destined tenth rater. As soon as you the realities around them, will remain self- (Clifford Simak, for example) and on the begin the description you are assaulted by indulgent second-raters catering to a cul­ other with neglected, barely implied back­ the need for truthful rather than borrowed turally poverty-stricken public. (For some grounds which don't exist for the reader expression; you are yourself, looking this is satisfaction enough. Neither work­ because the writer has never envisioned through your own eyes instead of through shop nor other stimulus can do anything them properly. eyes blinkered by the prose of Silverberg there; we can only regret and ignore.) The integration problem defeated at or Vance or Heinlein. Instead of a waste­ Before my week began I read some least half the class. Imagination put to work disposal chute (which you lifted from thirty stories from the twelve workshoppers; on a practical problem instead of being somebody's story and never bothered to most of them belonged in the stream of allowed to roam free suddenly showed as visualise) you have a plain old dustbin. typical American or British sf, with a less than the effervescent talent sf loves to Instead of the "gorgeously tinted blooms" leaning towards the blandness of the English. claim for itself. (It has always been my of the high priestess's garden (which you unpopular opinion that the average sf couldn't describe because you've never There were exceptions. Two of these, thought about it except as a bit of cheap crying aloud their individual notes, were by writer is singularly unimaginative; ninety percent of sf is cannibalisation of a few exotica) you have those bloody sunflowers the oldest and youngest in the group. that look as though a hungry goat has been The oldest, Ted Mundie, had published basic ideas.) However, Pip Maddern solved the pro­ at them and the nasturtium patch by the before and had plainly learned from models back gate, which you remember because other than sf; he was not the best stylist blem in the simplest and most direct way by making her alien look like a piece of Mum insists the leaves make good salad of the group, but his work, sometimes sandwiches. And were Gar Funkel would patchy, was at its best the freshest pro­ washing on the clothesline, while Petrina have sixth-sensed the alien presence and had duced at the workshop; in fact he turned tied it all up in a single bundle by making the entire yard an alien presence. But his laser finger ready extended against out one story, not sf, which was not only trouble, you have only you, without even uncriticisable in its own right but wholly Bruce Barnes cried opt bitterly that his place didn't have a Backyard. This was five senses fully used let alone a sixth for unlike anthing else I have read anywhere. aliens, and not even a peashooter for pro­ Sharon Goodman, the youngest, is the very nearly true (I know that block of flats) but we were not in the sympathy tection. fifteen-year-old daughter of a country You are back to telling the truth. And minister of religion, not very interested in business so I put on my "unrelenting" look — which children and small puppies that is where a personal style begins. The sf or fantasy as such but passionately deter­ personal style is your individual way of mined to write and to be among writers; tend to see through at once — and left him with it. So Bruce put ingenuity to work seeing and reporting, the one thing that her "voice”, not fully formed and not makes your work truly yours. (If you are flattened by imitation, was a small literary and had his protagonist locked out of the house and at the mercy of an alien. The satisfied to plug along the paths worn by music. She didn't turn out anything mar­ a thousand other pulp magazine twits, do vellous, but "marvellous" is not the touch­ attempts to find a way of escape showed just how much there is about the apparently so. But stay away from workshops, particul­ stone; it is the spark that one watches for, arly mine; you will only be taking up the caught flying sometimes out of bad work featureless backwall of a block of flats that can be used to further both action and time needed for the writers.) whose very errors are its signs of promise. In general, this aspect of the exercise It was not necessary to tell Sharon she had atmosphere in the right situation. And the back wall is part of the yard, isn't it? was a failure on this first occasion. At it; in her heart she already knew. least half simply did not know how to Then there was that sophisticated Pip describe familiar things. Maddern, far and away the best stylist to But even the failures were in a sense a surface in these workshop sessions, whose success. To learn that there is something work is already personal and recognisable. essential which you can't do is more use­ She will know what I mean in saying that her literary voice is not finally "placed" ful than attracting praise for something you yet; but it is new and strong. do easily. So, out of twelve there were nine to be chivvied into writing something neither American nor English; not necessarily 4 obviously Australian either, but something For the second exercise I forsook sf not conditioned by previous reading. altogether. (And why not? Does anybody To this end, after some harmless dis­ really imagine that the principles of good cussion to establish an amicable atmosphere, writing change from genre to genre? To necessary because Micheline Tang had been write sf you must first be able to write.) What I required was a description, a section freezing everybody's blood with tales of of a story, telling of a man or woman on the how this ferocious critic ate little writers run (for whatever reason the writer chose two at a time before breakfast, I set an to dream up) through that part of Monash exercise which convinced some of them that University in which we were living and Micheline was right. working i.e. from the diningroom to the It was this: There is an alien in your sleeping quarters via a large partially backyard. Write me the beginning of a story, enclosed garden court. showing how you encountered him/her/it. You will spot the essential difference, Aliens, of course, are meat and drink that the first exercise was in static descrip­ to the sf writer; anyone can create a dozen tion, requiring integration of background a day without breathing hard. But the and theme, whereas the second was plainly backyard bit was peculiar, no? Ah, well, concentrated on the running man while the you could always invent a suitably sf/ background could be used only as it affect­ fantasy backyard. . . ed his movements. The first was an exercise 9 in integration, the second in selectivity. In Dealing with creativity is very much a wary and sometimes irritatingly vaguely, to write both cases the writer was limited by reality, progress through the dark — in psycholo­ — was the personal interview. (Whether or which was my method of pointing out that gical terms we don't even know what creat­ not Vonda and Chris conducted such pri­ the strange is always with us, that we don't ivity is — and few of us feel our ways along vate probes I did not ask; I see nothing to be have to travel for synthetic kicks to the the same paths. All we have in common is gained by dithering over the methods of emerald cities of Polaris 3. the sigh of relief when we find we have others while still concentrating on the Again, of course, the personal "voice” shoved someone else a little closer to the rounding out of your own.) I called each of was a built-in requirement, because none light. the workshoppers in for private discussion, of the workshoppers was going to believe 5 starting on the third day, when I felt I had in an "imported" treatment of the sur­ One side issue to this exercise is worth sufficient information for the meeting roundings they could observe by opening noting. Ted Mundie restricted his "man in to be productive. their eyes. flight" to the diningroom, from the cash These sessions do not rate the privacy (Digression: When at the 1976 Bofcon desk to the exit door, and offered a care­ of the confessional but were in a couple I raised this question of the Australian fully re-created vision of the whole scene. It of cases conducted in sufficient depth to "voice" in a national sf, together with the was visually effective, but his escapee wasn't preclude any detailed report here. And necessity of using the real world as a means moving fast enough, was being halted every there were a couple whose course was so of adding a dimension of reality to fan­ few steps with a foot in mid-air while his plainly set that the meeting was a formality. tasy, Bruce Gillespie supported me but in next barrier was painted in with proper Suffice it that there were two people general we were treated to the peculiarly realism The failure was, of course, in select­ whose manifest destinies required neither resentful silence of people who suspect that ivity; there was too much detail, too total reassurance nor guidance, one whose destiny you are trying to take something from a realism of background for the action to was also manifest but did need reassurance, them, when in fact we were trying to tell struggle through. three who will become professional writers them how much they were missing. Readers Now, Ted is professional with some if they are prepared to persevere despite still want to escape to Old Barsoom when quantity of publication behind him and is inevitable rejections, and three more who they never really looked at the world they capable of very good work indeed. I there­ will surely write successful stories even are trying to escape from. As for the fore decided to do something with him though they treat fiction as an occasional Australian "voice", they simply couldn't which I would not have attempted with any activity rather than one for dedication. see the point; they preferred even their of the others as being too extreme a crit­ That leaves three, the half-handful one dreams with a foreign accent. What’s more, icism. Instead of discussing his exercise finds in every aspiring group, the little they saw no dishonesty in accepting the with him, I edited it by the method I use clique of inturned visionaries who recog­ Australian Literature Board's financial with my own work when the length needs nise the function of limitations in art, a support, then diverting the money to the trimming. Rather than try to telescope determination to follow personal aims second-rate imitation of a foreign culture. scenes into each other or eliminate inci­ which defy workshop pin-pricking, a liter­ Sometimes I wonder about fans. . .) dents, which can involve very extensive re­ ary style owing much to symbol and obliqu­ Faced with this exercise, it would never writings, I go over the copy and erase every ity but little to syntax and clarity, and an have occurred to me to go further than my paragraph, sentence, clause, and single opaque attitude to criticism which leaves desk and, with the total ambience in mind, word which can be removed without affect one unsure whether it has been heard, let concentrate on the dramatic requirements ing the sense of a passage. The result is alone absorbed. They know from the be­ of the task. I was surprised, though perhaps almost always a tightening of the prose and ginning that their work will not be approv­ I should not have been, to see how many of a more effective direction of the reader's ed by the others (but are treated with a the class actually had to go out and rec- understanding to precisely those things I genuine interest which tends to disconcert connoitre an area they had been living in wish him to concentrate on. them a little); they know better than to for about ten days, to examine it as though By this means I reduced Ted’s exercise claim that you don't understand what they they had never seen it before. And, of to about one-third of its original length are trying to do, but little things betray the course, they hadn't really seen it before (no changing of Ijis words, mind you, only feeling (and in fact you don't understand (And perhaps the backyard exercise had removal of the fall and set his man running well enough to take a positive stance); undermined the confidence of some; it instead of merely progressing, meeting, and they do your obviously useless exercises certainly should have done.) This matter assessing obstacles in almost subliminal in highly individual but obviously useless of lack of adequate visualisation of one’s flashes and surmounting them in the ways, produce stanzas of verse when you own surroundings troubled me, but it was moment of recognition. All I did was bring have asked for a story in prose and items obviously not possible to attack it or even to the surface wha't was already written into of private literary philosophy in place of give it proper thought in the couple of days the prose, waiting to be let out. workshop criticism. remaining to me; but if I ever again operate I returned it to him without much Reading their productions is the in a workshop it will be included somewhere comment, having no intention of making sweated-labour aspect of the job as you turn in my plan of campaign. such a rough handling public in the work­ them over word by word, hoping a clue will The recconnaissance produced some shop. Nor would I record it here save that scuttle from beneath. Occasionally it does, unexpected results. The level of realism was Ted was sufficiently impressed to hand it but in the long run you don’t know what much higher this time, though the idea of round the others himself, which pleased me to say to a private vision which must erupt conveying speed of action by using "speed­ a great deal. in its own fashion. You know from exper­ sounding" words in stead of words which Cutting to essentials is a procedure ience that most of them will wear out their simply mean "speed" (i.e. "ran like a which should be familiar to every writer. interest or turn to some other medium of rabbit" is faster-sounding than "moved at It is not until you have the carcass spread, expression, but you know also that among a terrific speed") was disappointingly vague. so to speak, on the disserting table with all them is possibly the unclassifiable talent The immediacy of observation was also waste removed that you know fully what which may one day burst through as a better, though I recall a complaint levelled you are about. Then you can judge with Lafferty or a Ballard, a Bradbury or a against Bruce Barnes's exercise, that no­ some accuracy how much decoration, Cordwainer Smith. So you move quietly body could take a certain flight of steps in a atmosphere, and sidecomment the work can and carefully, aware of a possible talent single stride, even with all hell on his fleeing stand. Usually, if your statements have been obscured amid the sound and tumult of tail. But Bruce is over six feet and about properly made, little addition will be nec­ talent perverted. five-nine of that is legs; he not only could essary, and indulgent addition will be e step The final summing-up must be that the but did take the flight in a stride while backwards. class of Monash '77 contained six people researching his flight plan. This also is a point worth thinking about who will be professional writers if they Another happy memory is of Micheline for future workshops. genuinely wish to be and six others who being widly surprised that she could manage probably can be if they are prepared to it at all, and that physical description 6 drudge at the learning of the trade. actually could be partly integrated and , I did nothing unexpected aside from As for those whose dedication includes partly implied in her heavily internalised thdse two exercises, which I think suc­ but also transcends professionalism, there style, which tends to lean almost complete­ ceeded in their intention and succeeded were two present and a possible third. ly on the protagonist's view of his or her also with the workshoppers once they They know who they are and it is not yet own "inner space”. Her exercise was indeed caught on to the unaccustomed idea of my business to hold them up by name as one of the better ones. Other productions imagination within limited parameters - so the people to whom an Australian science suggested that she was not alone in recog much more difficult that the "anything fiction may one day be indebted. I must nising an introduction to possibilities pre goes" mode of creation and so much more watch and wait and wonder (a little smugly?) viously unconsidered. satisfying to the intelligent reader. if I had any significant hand in their begii That last is, I think, very much part of Aside from some routine workshopping, nings. what Vonda and Christ and I were there for. my only other chore — one undertaken Probably not. Chris, as it happened, didn't approve of my mainly for my private purpose of trying to The real writers take what they want of exercises; but then, I never approve of what uncover the literary attitudes of these workshops, critics, admonitions, and praises anyone else does in these affairs either. people who wanted, sometimes definitely and discard the rest without a backward 10 opportunity to lead young writers right into glance or a thank-you. And go their way, So the dreary round of superficial com­ the deep waters they must eventually having used you and others, sucked you dry. ment goes on: The characterisation is flat, navigate. Ungrateful ? Graceless? there's a flaw in the plotting, you've used a I see no reason why in the second week Of course. wrong word on page 3, the end doesn't (by the end of the first week they will But gratitude is the abasement of slaves, seem right somehow, the bit where the have mastered basic workshop technique and grace should be reserved for the art robot's head falls off is ambiguous, no and, as experience showed, be ready for rather than for its meddling missionaries. sensible girl would have fallen for that new things) moderators should not broach They go their own way, and that is as it line, if the alien had sucker-discs it wouldn't these subjects in order to lead to deeper should be. have been able to use the typewriter, and understanding of the real instead of the so on. superficial problems of their fellow writers 7. All these criticisms are usually accurate — and of themselves. The $64 question remains: Are literary and need to be made if the details of the Lecturing is regarded as anathema at workshops worth while? story are to be set right — which is equiva­ workshops, but this, like all other stock My personal answer is yes/no with a lent to sweeping the rubbish under the attitudes, should be periodically recon whole slew of qualifications. Not very carpet. The story will still be a failure be­ sidered to see if it has outlasted its useful­ satisfactory. cause no one has had the literary experi­ ness. I feel that a fifteen minute lecturette If you ask the workshoppers was it ence to perceive that the trouble is not in followed by a free-for-all discussion of the worth while, theanswer will surely be "yes". the details but in the overall conception, in points made could inculcate a damned sight If you ask in what way was it worth while the writer himself rather than the work, more of the basic facts of fiction writing you may not get such clear cut responses and that it is his total understanding of his than a dozen workshoppings. (The Melb­ Well, what does the workshopper get craft that requires bolstering. ourne Nova Mob uses this form successfully out of it? These things: Meanwhile the moderator would dearly in literary discussion.) Didacticism must, 1 A whale of a good time talking and love to bellow just once, "Can none of you of course, be avoided as the plague; every fraternising with people whose cranky so-and-sos see that the twit has got halfway writer must feel totally free to accept or orientation is similar to his/her own. A through the story, realised his plot won’t reject, so long as he recognises the exis­ sense of group-belonging. work and gerrymandered a fake ending tence of the depths of the subject. 2 A full attention paid to his/her literary rather than rewrite that scene on page 2 Following this, by the middle of the output, an attention much more under­ that he’s so proud of?" third week (assuming three weeks as a mini­ standing and sympathetic than the kind He daren't do it. Within minutes he mum useful course) criticism in depth but perfunctory interest of friends and would be swimming in the murky depths of should be possible; not criticism of individ­ family. symmetry, balance, artistic integrity, ual stories but of the writer himself as 3 A surge of communicated enthusiasm, symbolic parallels, thematic continuity, and revealed in the sum of his work presented God wot, while the stone-faced workshop a reinforcement of the private belief that during the course. By this time his attitudes pers waited politely for him to drown — and and approaches, insightfulness and blind literature is the glory of life. let them get with their happy nit-picking 4 A perception that other writers, includ­ spots, technical weaknesses and verbal It seems to me that somehow we must habits, constructive and evocative strengths ing the professionals, are wholly human try to introduce the basic concepts of with faults and blind spots — that one is, and ability to organise his material should criticism; we must get round to discus­ be familiar to everyone present, with per­ after all, not a mere literary minnow trying sion of theme and plot, background and to ape a rainbow trout — that self-confid­ ceptions deepened by the critical consider­ foreground, the uses of such techniques as ations opened up in the second week. Such ence is not only necessary but justified. first person narrative and internal mono­ (3 and 4 are probably the most important discussion of the generality of a writer's logue and all the other tricks of apparatus work, as distinct from simple correctable L >efits as we run our workshops at pre­ that seem so simple but aren't and, above sent.) details, should send him home with a far all, characterisation. more comprehensive view of the business of 5 Informed criticism. The last has always been the bugbear of That last requires qualification. The literature and of his problems within it than he can possibly achieve under the present criticism given at workshops is informed, sf and only in recent years have a few sat­ method. He may well have discovered not useful and mostly correct. . . It is not isfactory solutions to its problems begun only what he did wrong but how and why sufficiently informed or sufficiently useful to appear. And how can you achieve useful he did it and where within himself the or as far-reaching and effective as it could criticism from people who are (for the most part) almost certainly unaware that there capacity for betterment lies. be. (With underhand cunning I omit discus­ It is amateur and superficial and deals are half a dozen basic characterisation tech­ sion of the selection of suitable moderators. with bits and pieces of individual stories niques available and that these can be fused That could be a headache for someone. instead of with the writer's problems. This and manipulated into hundreds of individual Kitty Vigo, perhaps?) is inevitable, given the present-day work­ methods, that character grows from within I am well aware that what I suggest is shop method whereby the moderator guides the story instead of being imposed upon discussion but must refrain from dominating it, or even that there is a vast difference open to controversy. Si what? There are still people prepared to prove that the it. And of course he must not dominate; he between characterisation and a list of Earth is flat. must not appear to be the teacher of a personal traits? subject whose true and personal essence Our workshoppers are neither unintel I am also aware of the difficulties of cannot be taught. To a degree he is limited ligent nor pig-ignorant — far otherwise — personnel selection, and for the moder­ ators in preparation and presentation. But to letting the workshoppers have their say but we must not expect them (particularly and doing his best (by suggestion and the younger ones) to come equipped with life wasn't meant to be easy, was it, Mai? question) to head off obvious errors and the weapons whose use has taken the rest George Turner critical dead ends. of us a lifetime to learn. We should take the April 1977 II DELANY'S LANGUAGE PROBLEMS Rob Gerrand EDITOR: Rob Gerrand is an infrequent film scenario. Or rather, a transliteration of contributor to, but enthusiastic support of a film — which is not the same as writing SFC. His efforts on behalf of this magazine fiction. There is an obsession with detail, and Norstrilia Press' The Altered I have been detail which often has no bearing on any welcome. When not grooming himself and thing else. Sure the detail is there in a film the electorate for a promising political (but not in the film's script), yet when you career, Rob has been known to read science watch a film and see, for example, a cha fiction, talk about it, play piano, and lead racter putting on a pair of pants, you as a hectic social life. He is a contributor of viewer merely retain, "He put on a pair of fiction to The Altered I, and hopes to add pants" You are not interested in how he puts them on. Every detail of how he does s f writing to his list of achievements. it is there on the screen, but you don't care and don't remember that, unless it is Rob Gerrand discusses: a film in which the manner of dressing has Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delaney some relevance, for example, in a comedy (Bantam Y8554; 1975, 879 pages, $US1.95) of a drunk trying to dress. In fiction we dispense with unnecessary There is little doubt that Samuel R. detail. It is distracting and misleading. We Delany is a serious writer, less that he con are used to the writer, by careful selection, isers himself to be an artist, and no doubt at making a pattern out of chaos Yet Delany all that he is deeply committed to writing writes (page 6): "Grabbing his pants, he His essays on apsects of fiction are powerful stuck foot and foot in them ...” Why? and stimulating, and indicate a man who has Everyone knows that that is how you get thought about the problems of commun­ into pants The answer is that Delany has I ication. He is familiar with a lot of the a habit — perhaps it is his design — of ground gone over by the linguistic phil­ relating everything his attention catches. osophers. This habit tends to give equal weight to But intellect alone does not a poet make the significant and the insignificant. Con­ And much of Delany's fiction is bad because sequently meaning is lost. In observing the it is wrong headed. Dhalgren, for example, trees, he obscures the wood. strikes me as being pre-eminently an intellec It might be objected that the quotation tual exercise. Delany has demonstrated in of not even a full sentence is hardly fair. the past that he can make connection with Unfortunately the book abounds with the poet in himself: in "The Star Pit", for the cancer, so that the whole thing is example. In Dhalgren, however, he is overwritten to buggery On top of this tackling such a mammoth task that the indiscriminate inclusion of detail comes poet has been smothered and has no chance a compounding annoyance: impression of to escape. observation. Let me explain. What is this task? Well, Delany has spent Delany relies often on the description of 879 pages trying, to expalin it; and it seems the external, the physical, to convey the to me that tha^whole thing is so beyond emotional states of his characters, which is analysis, rational articulation, that all I as it should be. If handled well, it is an can say is the task of facing up to art, extremely effective way of involving the creatively, self-consciousness that sort reader. Philosophically, the technique is of thing. You know? Exactly. attractice to those who wish to deny that What I wantzto talk about in this brief there is such a thing as an inner emotional examination is not the novel as a whole, state. Even a behaviourist can convey what but Delany’s use and mis-use of language ever. it is that gave rise to the term "emo what I see as his language problems. tional state". In Robin Scott Wilson's text book for Delany's observation, while it is often budding writers and students of s f, Those pointed and effective, too often lapses into Who Can (Mentor, 1973) Delany writes: carelessness, so that the whole picture, ) Here is an admittedly simplified even if not obscured by unneccary detail, description of how (the act of) writing becomes muddied by that worse writing strikes me. When I am writing I am fault, imprecision. Here is an example from J trying to allow/contruct an image of early in the novel (page 11). The protagonist what I want to write about in my has just hitched a lift, or rather just been mind's sensory theatre. Then I describe given a lift, and climbs into the cabin of it as accuraately as I can. The most a Mac: interesting point I've noticed is that The driver, tall, blond, and acned, the writing down of words about my looking blank, released the clutch . . . imagined vision (or at least the choosing/ Approaching lights spilled pit to pit in arranging of words to write down) causes the driver's face. the quality of the vision to change . . . Now it is night, plenty of shadow around First — the vision becomes clearer . . . and the driver is sitting down. How could he (What was vaguely imagined as a green be seen as tall? Big, perhaps What does dress, while I fix my description of the "blonde" mean? A word so vague and light bulb hanging from its own cord, overexposed as to be nearly meaningless becomes a patterned, turquoise print I mean, in the dark, what makes the hair with a frayed hem). The notation causes blonde? Why would the protagonist notice the imagination to resolve focus. it at all, rather than, say, its shape or texture? Second - to the extent that the' Answer: because Delany had an image of initial imagining contains an action, the his truck driver — a vague image and notating process tends to propel that plugged it in, rather than go through his action forward (or sometimes backward) own process (as quoted from Eilson's book) in time. (As I describe how Susan, both and have his protagonist really see him. hands locked, side-punched Frank, I see What does he mean by "looking blank"? Frank grab his belly in surprise and The protagonist is meant to be a poet And stagger back against the banister — which if Delany says that he has reverted to third will be the next thing I look at closely person perspective — though this might be to describe). Notating accurately what the poet writing in this notebook later on happens now is a good wag to prompt a then in either case he, too, should know CRITICANTO vague vision of what happens next. better Well put But you also have to know And how does light spill? Pit to pit? It when to cut Delany seems to be writing a sounds nice, doesn't it, light spilling from 12 gay, light hearted romp, but now, as the pit to pit. That is perhaps what seduced story begins to grind towards its distant but Delany to use that verb rather than the inevitable climax, the story takes on a more accurate one. It came first to mind; he was PRIEST'S sombre note. Amelia and Edward discover in a hurry; and, anyway, people will know LONG STEP BACKWARD that the "human” Martians they have met what is meant. But he should write what are only slaves to other, grotesque, ten is meant. □y Philip Stephensen-Payne tentacled creatures with fiercesome tripedal Mere pedantry, mere nitpicking? I think fighting-machines and smaller, multi legged not, naturally enough. Unless these basics Philip Stephensen-Payne reviews: worker-machines. Worse still, they learn that are clear in the writer’s mind, then any The Space Machine these monsters are planning an immediate edifice he erects on them becomes bery by Christopher Priest attack on Earth in projectiles to be shot shaky indeed. (Faber & Faber; 1976; 363 pages; Three from a gigantic cannon. Smuggled aboard I will conclude by quoting from Delany's pound 50/SA10 most recent novel, Triton, and making some one of these, Edward and Amelia return to comments. In fact I’ll quote a quotation Harper & Row; 1976; 363 pages; SUS8.95) their home planet, where they fall in with a that Delany himself has quoted (Bantam Mr Wells. With his aid, they build a new edition, 1976, page 345): With the current craze for nostalgia that is space machine, and start destroying the Utopias afford consolation: although sweeping the Western World, it is inevitable Martians from the air, until it becomes they have no real locality there is never­ that its effects should be felt in the realms apparent that the Earth has her own defences theless a fantastic, untroubled region in of s f. Novels and anthologies have appeared against the invader. which they are able to unfold; they open looking back to the Golden Age and beyond, After his previous three novels. Priest's up cities with vast avenues, superbly to the Victorians. And it is in this vein that The Space Machine comes as a great dis planted gardens, countries where life is Christopher Priest has produced his fourth appointment. He seems to have foresworn easy, even though the road to them is novel. The Space Machine — "A Scientific his talent for inventiveness and abandoned chimerical. Romance" of Victorian England. his competent character studies. The book Heterotopias are disturbing, probably The date is 1893. Commercial traveller starts as parody, continues as drama, and because they make it impossibl to name Edward Turnbull learns of a lady com­ ends as plagiarism. The result is a somewhat this and that because they shatter or mercial traveller, Miss Amelia Fitzgibbon, confused book, unclear as to where it is < tangle common names, because they staying in the same lodgings. Anxious to going. destroy "syntax" in advance, and not show her his Visibility Protection Masks, Yet, ironically, much of this could have only the syntax with which we construct Edward waylays her outside her bedroom been negated if Priest had stayed his hand sentences but also the less apparent one evening. Amelia, equally anxious to see and finished the book at about page 270 syntax which causes words and things his samples, invites him into her bedroom to (when Amelia and Edward have just landed (next to and also opposite one another) talk. Sadly, the landlady — misinterpreting on Earth). Until then the book has been a to "hold together". This is why utopias the pure commerciality of their conver­ patchy, but competent combination of permit fables and discourse: they run sation — evicts Edward from the house, but parody of and homage to H G Wells (to with the very grain of language and are not before he has fallen madly in love with whom the book is dedicated). In particular, part of the fundamental fabula; hetero­ Amelia. the depiction of the enslaved Martian race topias . . . dessicate speech, stop words Thus an invitation from her to show his is one of grim yet poetic beauty: in their tracks, contest the very possibility masks to her employer the famous inventor. The aura of despondency was pres­ of grammar at its source; they dissolve Sir William Reynolds, is immediately ent in the room as Amelia and I first our myths and sterilise the lyricism of accepted. However Reynolds,absent-minded entered it, and it was probably this that our sentences. at the best, hardly notices Edward or his was our eventual saving. The typical Michel Foucault, The Order of Things wares, and soon vanishes towards London, Martian I have described would be ob­ This quotation is, I think, Delany's way leaving Amelia to entertain their guest on sessed with his internal miseries to the of saying that Triton is a heterotopia. More her own. Enraptured by her company, virtual exclusion of all other factors. To significantly, it illustrates Delany's essential­ Edward loses track of the time and realises no other reason can I attribute the fact ly intellectual even academic approach suddenly that he must dash to catch the last that Amelia and I were able to move so to fiction. He is a great one for theories of train home. Amelia only laughs at this, art, and for producing examples to prove freely about the city without attracting saying that Sir William has an invention to attention. Even in those first few mo­ the theories. The fact that I think he is cure even such a problem — a time machine. ments, as we stood in anticipation of fundemamentally misguided will cut no ice Somewhat intoxicated by the evening's the first cry of alarm or excitement at with him. Why should it? He will require drinks, the pair decide to take a trial ten-year our appearance, few Martians so much as a far greater nudge to get him to realise trip into "futurity" — and then take Edward glanced in our direction. that truth, meaning, whatever it is that to catch his train. In 1903 the laboratory The despair of the "human" Martians makes art, that keeps people returning to seems deserted but, just as the machine colours the whole middle third of the book certain creations over the years, and never begins its return journey, a figure bursts in bleak contrast to the gaiety of the opening returning to others, is something that comes through the laboratory door. A gigantic chapters. As Edward puts it when they face from the whole person, not from a theory. explosion follows and Edward, untouched the desolation of Earth after the Martians 4 As I say, Delany won’t be convinced by physically but shaken mentally, is left with have landed: my contribution here. But, in the meantime, the image of a tattered and bruised "future" On Mars I had dreamed of greenery I wish the theories he chooses to take on Amelia, apparently just consumed by fire. and wild flowers; here on the blighted had more substance then Foucault's empty Horrified at the thought of this happening heath we saw only charred and smould­ categorising. Examining the literature will to his beloved, Edward wrestles with the ering grasses, with blackness spreading show immediately the inadequacy of such time machine's controls in an attempt to a facile attempt at saying something about in every direction. On Mars I had hung­ sent them further into futurity — to prevent ered for the sighs and sounds of my the nature of fiction and language. The the scene he had witnessed by "passing it world is divided inot porridge eaters and fellow Earthmen; here there was no one, by”. only the corpses of those unfortunates porridge leathers, too, and with good However, the machine cannot stand the reason. who had fallen foul of the heat-beam. strain; the control rod breaks and Edward On Mars I had gasped in the tenuous Rob Gerrand and Amelia are sent speeding helplessly atmosphere, yearning for the sweet air April 1977 through space and time — for the machine of Earth; here the odour of fire and doubles as a "space machine". After what death dried our throats and choked our seems like ages, the machine stops abruptly, lungs. /NEXT ISSUE: catapulting its passengers into a mass of red Mars was desolation and war, and weed. Before they can struggle free and just as Amelia and I had been touched re-enter the time machine, its "automatic by it when there, so Earth now felt the Angus Taylor, Lesleigh Luttrell return" is activated and it vanishes. Finally first tendrils of the Martian canker. and Claudia Krenz on the managing to free themselves, they begin to For once the narrative pauses, and we Hot Line to the Absolute. realise that they have strayed further than see the real emphasis of the story in Priest's they realised — this surely cannot be Eng­ Philip K. Dick;Barrington Bayley eyes. While on Mars, Amelia and Edward land! The air is thin, the nights are cold, and had been able to survive the desolation and the only human beings they see are of a depression around them, confident in the George Turner’s long-awaited curiously red hue and speak a totally un­ knowledge that this was another world and revised guide to familiar language. But it is not until the that somewhere, although they might never Writing About Science Fiction couple see the two little moons speeding reach it, the Earth was still inviolate. As in across the sky that they realise they are Priest's Fugue for a Darkening Island and not on Earth at all, but on the planet Mars. John Christopher's earlier The World in I Lots of reviews, wit and wisdom , At this point the tone of the story Winter, the narrator is forced to the con­ changes abruptly. The first 120 pages are a clusion that "it can happen here" — that no 13 country or world is an island any more. rose Hill that day. Wells: But, unfortunately for Priest, this par­ The torment was over. Even that day ticular story has been told before, many the healing would begin. The survivors years ago and in a much better book. By of the people — leaderless, lawless, food­ Editor: I would echo all of Phil's objections telling a parallel story. Priest inevitably de­ less, like sheep without a shepherd — the to The Space Machine and sum up my own scribes scenes identical to those in The War thousands who had fled by sea, would objections in this way: of the Worlds, and a comparison of the two begin to return. The first section of the book is quick­ books shows how weak is the writing in And Priest: witted and complex sexual comedy. This The Space Machine. For example, the de­ I kissed her passionately, and, with a tone of playfulness disappears when the scription of the final scene on Primrose joyous sense of re awakening hope, we travellers reach Mars. The Martian section Hill. From Priest: sat down on the bedstead on wait for is almost exclusively narration of move­ There was a second battle-machine at the people to arrive. ment. The two main characters hardly seem the foot of Primrose Hill, and here the Without the sombreness of the middle to react to each other again. This narration birds had finished their work. Splash- section, the book could have been a light therefore needs to be independently inter­ ings of dried blood and discarded flesh parody of Wellsian s f. Without the last esting. It isn't, because we know "what lay on the grass a hundred feet below the sections it could have been a pointed story happens next"; we know how it will all end. platform. — and a reasonable "prologue" to The War And it does — and Priest never quite returns And Wells: of the Worlds But the three section to­ to that interreaction between Amelia and At the sound of a cawing overhead I gether leave the reader with a bad taste in Edward which makes the first section so looked up at the huge Fighting Mach­ the mouth, and an unrelenting memory much better than the rest. After one reading ine, that would fight no more for ever, of all the other smaller faults, the plot in­ of The Space Machine, I would have to say at the tattered red shred of flesh that consistencies and the character irrationalities. that the book is about 100 pages too long, dripped down upon the overturned With The Space Machine, Priest has and has no independent viewpoint — or seats on the summit of Primrose Hill. taken a long step back in his writing career. throws away the originality with which it And again, in their last thoughts on Prim­ Let us hope it is not a permanent move. begins. Readers' discussion welcomed.

HUTCHINSON GROUP (AUSTRALIA) PTY LTD

THE BEST OF ARTHUR C. CLARKE THE BEST OF ROBERT SILVERBERG Arthur C. Clarke, one of the This is the definitice collection world's foremost writers of' of Robert Silverberg's most ingenious Science Fiction has consist ­ shorter fiction, including his ently anticipated in his Nebula and Hugo Award winning writings the actual achieve ­ masterpieces and one story so ments of science. His technical bizarre, it shocked the fifties. knowledge is equalled only Included in this superb collection, by his skill as a writer hand-picked by the author, are and these companion volumes 'Road to Nightfall', 'Hawksbill of short stories together Station', 'Passengers' and 'Nightwings'. chart his development in $12.20 both areas. Vol. 1 1932 - 1955 Published by Sidgwick and Jackson Vol. 2 1956 - 1972 $10.70 each. Hutchinson Group (Australia) Pty Ltd VIC P.O. Box 2031, Ricmond South 3121 recommended retail prices. NSW P.O. Box 151, Broadway 2007

SCIENCE FICTION A Review of Speculative Literature ENIGMA: $2 per issue The magazine of the Sydney Seeks to bring together criticism All enquiries for University Science Fiction and creation under the same cover, ENIGMA and SCIENCE FICTION Association. $1 per issue. covers. Criticism, short stories, Van Ikin, Department of English, First class production combine interviews, SF art, with top reviewers and critics. poetry, reviews. University of Sydney, Also new fiction;book guides etc. FIRST EDITION OUT SOON. NSW 2006.

14 I must be talking to my friends

Still Crazy After All These Years — Ishtar, Solomon, Apple Blossom and has been left in peace in a spare room. Julius. And the only place in Melbourne Most other items protestedI at going up * This year SFCcelebrates its 8th birthday, fandom where you could find five cats is the staircase. We would lug each item half­ and "goes offset". I must have gone crazy 10 Johnston Street, Collingwood, where I way up the stairs, then tip it up over the at last. now live. banister on the upper landing. We had a There's nothing crazier than spending Which is one way to introduce the sequel problem with my heaviest book-case. $400 an issue in printing and layout costs to Crushing Blow 2: describing what hap­ Charley was at the top of the stairs. We (and postage is extra), but with a lot of help pened after I had to leave the house at swung the bookcase, he grabbed the other from SFC's friends, the venture might Carlton Street. end, and we ran flat out up the stairs to ■* succeed. All we need is: I received the final final notice to quit help him with his end. The banister swayed. 4 (a) Lots more subscriptions — so tell Carlton Street in late January. I decided Charley swayed; he held the entire weight. your friends how much they would like to that I did not want to move into the house If the banister had collapsed then, three or receive this magazine; which was available to me, mainly because four members of Melbourne fandom would t (b) Enough advertising bought (and paid I would have been fairly isolated. After a, have been wiped out. We grabbed the other for) to fill up a few pages, relieve the layout, series of fortunate coincidences, Elaine end of the bookcase in time, Charley sank and pay for the umpty-umpteen printing, Cochrane and Frank Payne decided that to the floor, and the banister now jitters layout, postage costs, etc. they could put up with me and my cat, my each time we walk past it. If/when we must Lots of people have helped already books and records and record-player and move again, some items of furniture can with their time and skills. Most important is type writers, at 10 Johnston Street. This just stay upstairs. We are less expendable Stephen Campbell, who is also still crazy place is already well known as a fannish than they are. after all these years. You might remember residence: Charles Taylor and Ken Ward The rest of the year has been an anti­ that he drew covers for SFC and helped to lived here with Frank and Elaine for several climax. collate way back in 1969 and 1970. Now years; Roger WeddalL moved in when * Elsewhere, things have been happening. Steve is exercising his skills at Village Charlie moved out; arifi it was only after Vonda McIntyre and Christopher Priest Cinemas, and providing all the know-how both Ken and Roger moved out that I could visited Melbourne in order to take part, and exciting layouts which make it worth fit in. with George Turner, in the 1977 Australian me going offset. Stephen Campbell did In geographical terms, Johnston Street S F Writers Workshop. (Kitty Vigo was the almost everything for SFC 51, and he is the is hardly a substitute .for Carlton Street. Administrator, nicely letting me off the Art Director for this issue. Carlton Street runs along the north edge of hook.) Micheline Cyna-Tang also helped a lot. a park, and all the houses facing the park are Vonda and Chris arrived in time for Irene Pagram and Lee Harding gave a lot classy Victorian villas. Johnston Street is Monaclave (a convention held at Monash of helpful advice when I was first thinking one of the busiest roads in Melbourne, and University during the last weekend of of this venture. Lesleigh and Hank Luttrell quite narrow. No trees around here; only January), and stayed during the time of the are my hard-working agents in America. wall-to-wall pollution. We have the only Workshop. The air-conditioning was rum­ Bruce Barnes' financial help made it pos­ residence in the area; all the other buildings oured to be working at Mannix College, sible. Rob Gerrand's help makes it a lot are small shops, small factories, or other where Monaclave was held, but I could not more possible. The offset version also businesses. The house is strange - solid notice it. After one day of heat and sweat, depends on the help of Suzy Cassio, who is bluestone, narrow staircases, an upstairs I disappeared from the convention. Those responsible for the typesetting, and Euen laundry and clothes-line. who stayed had a great time. I'm sorry that Crockett and the other people at Copyplace, But somehow we are making a home I missed the first full scale Paul Stevens who seem to be the best printers for the job. here. I did not think I would ever share a Show for some year, starring such lumin­ Back to the bad news. The offset issue house with other people, but Frank and aries as Chris Priest (as the psychiatrist), of SFC can last only another three or four Elaine are tolerant. Also, we have the Leigh Edmonds (as himself), and Ken Ford issues if subscriptions (at least 300 new subs combined task of protecting the cats and (as everything else). needed) or advertising do not come rolling protecting ourselves from them: unity in Vonda McIntyre was the Writer in in. And I have no idea what effect new post­ adversity. I’ll let you know if anything else Residence for the first week of the Work­ age increases, promised for June, will have. ever happens. shop, George for the second, and Chris for If you have any ideas, or can help directly, the third. I’ve had favourable reports from or want to make large donations to the IS ANYTHING HAPPENING? everybody (especially from George, whose Floating Fund, the phone number is (03) article appears in this issue), and it was 419.4797. * 1977 is not likely to be an exciting year. I've written a lot, and read a lot, t>ut other good fun meeting Chris for the first time in three years, and meeting Vonda for the BEFRIENDED wise life pivots on my job, SFC, and this house. first time. Both our guests stayed nearly a * This is the sequel to the first bit of SFC month in Australia, mainly around Mel­ 48/49/50. Yes, the bit about the Crushing Moving day was 12 February. It was the hottest day of the summer. We had moved bourne, and I hope they have recovered by Blows. Crushing Blow 1 left me permanent­ now. ly smasherooed. Crushing Blow 3 was most the books and records the weekend before, but we filled a large truck, twice, with * A slew of fans, most of them from the easily mended. I now have what is still Melbourne University Science Fiction Asso the most interesting of the various jobs I've objects from my flat. The Don Ashby- Carey Handfield moving team went into ciation, visited Adelaide for Unicon 3. taken during recent years. As half time There was a convention in Brisbane at New assistant editor of The Secondary Teacher, action, helped unstintingly by Henry Gasko, Charles Taylor, Ken Ford, Frank and Elaine Year (very successful. I'm told), and a the magazine of the Victorian Secondary convention in Sydney, also at Easter (no Teachers Association, I can barely pay my The first load arrived at Johnston Street in mid-afternoon. Most items fitted through reports yet) A Con, the national convention bills and have a bit of free time. It's good to is due to happen 29-31 July 1977, at the be back with subject matter — education the narrow dorrways and up the narrower staircase. The only exception was the table Pier Hotel, Glenelg, South Australia. Atten­ and politics — which interests me. Crushing ding membership is $8 until 30 June, $10 Blow 2? See below.- which I had used as my work-table at Carlton Street. It would not go up the thereafter, c/o PO Box 51, Thebarton, SA But the unkindest blow of all came on 5031. April 28 this year, just six months to the stairs. Somebody had a great idea - why not lift it up the outside wall to the upstairs * Don Ashby has been threatening to day after all the other Crushing Blows. My produce a super-rinky dink fanzine ever best friend, Flodnap, the famous grey tabby balcony? Which we did. The table went through one door, then another. Then it since I've known him, but he never has. cat, was hit by a car and killed. He was only Instead, he has discovered his true editorial 17 months old. stuck. It refused to go further — its legs stick out at the wrong angles, the wood talent by producing The Australian Radio For the last few months of his life Flod­ Science Fiction Review for 3ZZ Access nap had the company of four other cats bevelling is the wrong shape. So that table Radio in Melbourne. Two "issues" of this 15 "review" have been broadcast so far — on * The two current Australian competitors Epsilon Eridani Express 1 is printed 11 April and 19 April, with more to come for SFC are Enigma and Epsilon Eridani offset, typed with an IBM Selectric, and is during May and June. Maybe we can do Express. I don't know how Van Ikin (De­ a pleasant magazine to hold and read. some programs with 3CR (Community partment of English, University of Sydney, I was most interested in Heber Decknam's Radio) as well. The first two programs had NSW 2006) manages his fine visual effects beefs about s f conventions as they are run the Workshop at their theme, and I heard with his magazine, but the system certainly in Australia. Neville Angove is the editor two stories read from The Altered I, with works. The contents of Enigma should and chief writer, and his review of Michael interviews of Micheline, Randal, and Rob. interest anybody who is interested in SFC, Coney's Rax (Hello Summer,Goodbye) is Fine radio voices they have. although you will need to put up with here if you missed in in SFC 48/49/50. I * Fanew Sletter continues to be more or amateur fiction as well. Van's own reviews like Neville's reviewing temperament a lot; less the centre of fannish publishing activity are the strongest section of the magazine. I hope is successful. ($4 for 4, from Neville in Australia (20 issues for $4.40, from Leigh ($4 for 4) J. Angove, Flat 13, 5 Maxim Street, West Edmonds, PO Box 103, Bruswick, Victoria Ryde, NSW 2114). 3056). Recent issues mention that Void and Boggle have been published. Void is the first attempt for many years to publish a professional magazine of science fiction in Australia. It appears on lots of newsstands, and sold very well while S FC BREAKTHROUGH I it had good distribution. (The distribution monopoly in this country is a perpetual problem.) Despite an uncertainty about She universe pigeonholed outlets, Paul Collins (PO Box 66, St. Kilda, Victoria 3182) has gone ahead with Void 5. The layout ha simproved a lot compared easy to put off reviewing any book. with earlier issues, and the fiction might * Angus Taylor's pithy note-of-comment I keep meaning to write two articles, have improved. (I'm not too sure; I'm four on SFC 48/49/50. "It’s not possible to read one to be called, "The Best Science Fiction years behind on reading any of the fiction and pigeonhole the whole universe." Novels of 1973", and the other, "The Best magazines, so I haven't caught up with This is a challenge which must be met. Science Fiction Novels of 1974". Then I Void yet.) Void is available on subscription: Not the entire universe, of course. said to myself — so what? There hasn't $4 for 4. Better, that nice, neat, now-you-see, now- been anything worth reviewing in 1975 and I don't know what to make of Boggle. you-don't universe called science fiction. 1976, has there? 1973 and 1974 have not Neither does Leigh Edmonds. As he points And I hand-pick my galaxies, stars, and dated at all, have they? 1974 is still the out in the Fanew Sletter, the layout of the planets to suit myself. most recent year which had a "best". typing is very odd, with hyphens breaking A bit of piegeonholing has become I decided to test whether my suspicions words at the most unexpected places. Peter necessary. On my "Urgently To Be Re­ were correct. How interesting have the s f Knox (PO Box 225, Randwick, NSW 2031) viewed" shelf are books like Frankenstein novels in each of the last four years been? is the publisher, and he is trying to foster Unbound and Rendezvous With Rama. Thev And how do my assessments compare with Australian s f writing talent. He does not have been gathering dust for 4 years. I still what Hugo and Nebula voters regard as "the seem to have a newsstand distributor, and mean to review them properly, and still I best"? I went through the list of the s f is relying on subscriptions: $5 for 4. Good have not done so. novels I have read during the last few years. luck to Peter. I have relied on subscriptions The reason is simple, of course. To I sorted them into year of first publication, fo ryears, and have lost money consistently. review a book "properly", usually I take a then classified them according to my four- Peter must be rich, or have access to a cheap week to do the notes, and another week to star ratings (plus various half stars). Here are printer. write first, second and third drafts. It is the results:

1974 MY LIST

1973 The Cyberiad, by Stanislaw Lem (Seabury) MY LIST Memoirs of a Survivor, by Doris Lessing (Picador) The Eighty-Minute Hour, by Brian Aldiss (Jonathan Cape) The Inverted World, by Christoper Priest (Faber & Faber) The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin (Harper & Row) Hard to be a God, by Arkadi and Boris-Strugatski (Seabury) Ice and Iron, by Wilson Tucker (Doubleday) (First English translation) The Unsleeping Eye, by D.G. Compton (DAW) Frankenstein Unbound, by Brian Aldiss (Jonathan Cape) Strangers, by Gardner Dozois (in New Dimensions 4, Signet) The Embedding, by Ian Watson (Gollancz) Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, by Philip K. Dick Rendezous With Rama, by Arthur C Clarke (Gollancz) (Doubleday) Malevil, by Robert Merle (Simon & Schuster) Winter's Children, by Michael Coney (Gollancz) Syzygy, by Michael Coney (Ballantine) 1 1 • • » 2 ■ " ‘2 Total Eclipse, by John Brunner (Doubleday) The Dream Millennium, by James White (Sidgwick & Jackson) Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Delarcorte) There Will Be Time, by Poul Anderson (Smget) Cemetery World, by Clifford D Simak(Doubleday) OrbitsviUe, by Bob Shaw (Gollancz) Fire Time, by Poul Anderson (Doubleday) ACTUAL HUGO NOMINATIONS HUGO NOMINATIONS The People of the Wind, by Poul Anderson Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke (winner) The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin (winner) The Man Who Folded Himself, by David Gerrold Fire Time, by Poul Anderson Time Enough For Love, by Robert Heinlein Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, by Philip K. Dick Protector, by Larry Niven The Inverted.World, by Christopher Priest The Mote in God's Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle ACTUAL NEBULA NOMINATIONS NEBULA NOMINATIONS Time Enough For Love, by Robert Heinlein Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur Clarke (winner) The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin (winner) Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, by Philip K. Dick The People of the Wind, by Poul Anderson The Godwhale, by T. J. Bass The Man Who Folded Himself, by David Gerrold 334, by Thomas M. Disch

16 1973 Hard to be a God, Frankenstein Unbound, With this book, Ian Watson reintroduces 1974 The Embedding, and Rendezvous With fervour and passion into s f. The book has Ah! What a year 1974 was I can remem­ Rama dominate the list for 1973. real anger in it — an unusual quality. I still ber visiting Chris Priest at the beginning of I've reviewed Hard to be a God already find it a bit hard to pinpoint what the 1974. He showed me The Inverted World, in the "Eurovision" section of SFC 44/45, anger is about, which is why I must take another longer look at the book sometime. which I liked very much. I doubted if so you know how good I think that is. If anything better would come along that Between them, reviewers in other any justice had been done, it would have year and Chris told me of all the exciting magazines have described just about all that won both the Hugo and the Nebula. books that were already scheduled for can be said about Rendezvous With Rama. So should Frankenstein Unbound, but publication. As 1974 proceeded, the fine It is an exploration trip through a myster­ it was published in England only during books kept pouring onto us. ious micro-universe, and the scenery is the 1973. As we know, the Hugo and Nebula There were at least two reviews of whole book. As long as Clarke sticks to Awards go to books published in USA on The Cyberiad in SFC 44/45, and I've scenery, he is great. (In Imperial Earth, two the designated date, but the rules of the raved long enough about it for people Hugo limit books to "year of first English- years later, Clarke tries to show people as willing to sit and listen. Perhaps The language publication". That's just part of well. He does not succeed.) Cyberiad did not win kudos within the s f the American chauvinism which rules such Malevil is notable mainly because it world because it seems a book for people contests. takes the characters, and the readers, who don't like other science fiction. I've Frankenstein Unbound is literate and through an experience of what it would be heard two world-famed astronomers talking literary. It is about a time traveller who like to survive an atomic attack. Of course. on the radio about Lem as if he is accepted meets not only the creator of Frankenstein Merle has to put his characters in the automatically as the major s f writer. but also her creation and his monster. And deepest cellar of a solid castle for the (These were American astronomers, too.) then he discovers that the monster is really experience to have any plausibility, but I But the fans still don't want to know about him. This tends to suggest that we are really think he succeeds. It is worth reading the him. Philosophers are the people most the products of the minds of some philan­ book for the first half alone. The second likely to get their kicks from these funny dering nineteenth-century aristocrat who half is interesting, but only just. fables, which, in their inverted way, describe dabbled in crazy literature. I'll look into And Syzygy is light, firm Coney We such an idea if and when I ever get around the full range of humanity's intellectual talked about Coney in SFC 48/49/50. foibles. This is a perpetually amusing book, to The Review of Frankenstein Unbound. Compare this list with the "heavies" The Embedding is about that latest full of puns, word games, classical referen­ for the year: the actual Hugo and Nebula branch of magic-fiction — linguistics. That ces, etc. And most s f books are left for nominations. I must admit that I was so is, the type of linguistics which postulates dead by the sheer number and range of ideas discouraged by reviews in other magazines that the roots of our thinking are common in this book. that I never quite had the energy to read to all of us, forming a sort of giant tele­ Still, in my awards for 1974, I would be pathic chain around the globe, if only we The People of the Wind, The Man Who temped to give Equal 1st to Memoirs of a could find it. In this book, there is a crazy Folded Himself, Time Enough For Love Survivoi None of Lem’s playfulness here; ^scientist who keeps children separate from (which I avoided on principle), and Protec­ this book's wit is concentrated in two or the rest of humanity to see if they will tor (which I might still have time to read in three metaphors which control the flow of develop a language, and what form it might order to prepare a sequel to this article). language Memoirs of a Survivor is about take. Then there is the crazy traveller from Gravity's Rainbow looks enormous, and people attempting to stay alive in a citv the Amazon who finds the secret of the obscure. I still have it on my shelf, and I where the power has been turned off. universe among a group of Indians who are still mean to read it. John Brunner showed Lessing does not "explain" the catastrophe; about to be drowned by the Brazilian some courage in taking the trouble to she concentrates on the experience of government. And nobody's madder than review it for Foundation. surviving it. (This is the way I wish all Brazilian governments, it seems. &

1975 MY LIST

Hello Summer, Goodbye . by Michael Coney (Gollancz) 1976 The Stochastic Man, b« Robert Silverberg (Harper & Row) MY LIST Charisma, by Michael Coney (Gollancz) The Futurological Congress, by Stanislaw Lem (Seabury) The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman (St. Martins Press) The Star Diaries, by Stanislaw Lem (Seabury) The Clewiston Test, by Kate Wilhelm (Farrar) Shadrach in the Furnace, by Robert Silverberg (Gollancz) The Jonah Kit, by Ian Watson (Gollancz) 1 The Hollow Lands, by Michael Moorcock (Sphere) * * *2 Deus Irae, by Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny (Doubleday) A Wreath of Stars, by Bob Shae (Gollancz) A World of Shadows, by Lee Harding (Robert Hale) The End of All Songs, by Michael Moorcok (Harper) 1 * * 2

Imperial Earth, by Arthur C. Clarke (Gollancz) The Space Machine by Christopher Priest (Harper) The Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner (Ballantine) Floating Worlds, by Cecilia Holland (Gollancz) The Exile Waiting, by Vonda McIntyre (Fawcett) Man Plus, by Frederik Pohl (Gollancz) Stations of the Nightmare, by Philip Jose Farmer (in Continuum Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, by Kate Wilhelm (Harper) 1^1) 1 * *2 HUGO NOMINATIONS Brontomek!, by Michael Coney (Gollancz) The Computer Connection, by Alfred Bester The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman (winner) Inferno, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle The Stochastic Man, by Robert Silverberg And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees, by Michael Bishop (Harper) Doorways in the Sand, by Roger Zelazny NEBULA NOMINATIONS NEBULA WINNERS Man Plus, by Frederik Pohl From a very long list of nominees, the winners were Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, by Kate Wilhelm Inferno, by Larry N-ven and Jerry Pournelle 1. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman Shadrach in the Furnance, by Robert Silverberg 2. The Mote in God’s Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle Triton, by Samual R. Delany 3. Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany Islands, by Marta Randall

17 science fiction were written — as felt exper­ but it does not stay in the memory, like It sticks in the memory — firstly, for that ience, not as chalkboard diagrams.) The so many of Dick's other books. There is image of the ultra-cold, ultra-deadly planet main character of the book stays in touch something a bit too cut-and-dried in the where the space troopers do their training; through close relationships with a few of book. At the same time, it is diffuse, prob­ and then for the glimpses of a successively the other survivors. And she experiences ably because Dick changes his emphasis more alien Earth to which Mandella returns a remarkable insight into the nature of the from one main character to another half­ during the centuries. There is a real tragic city itself. And then we wonder, when we way through the book. George Turner, in concept here, a concept which Haldeman read the end of the book — is the main Philip K. Dick: Electric Shepherd, discussed carefully avoids facing. I cannot understand character a "she"? Is he or she even a this book much better than I can. So does why both the fan and pro voters lavished person? Or something more implacable, a Barry Gillam , in SFC 41/42. their largesse on this particular book. spectator to the whole of life? Chris Priest agrees with me that Winter's The Jonah Kit almost got the "" It’s unfair to include Memoirs of a Children is a funny book. It's downright rating. I've thought about its various Survivor. I suspect that no more than a absurd. We seem to be the only people, strengths and defects, but in the end, I few handback copies were released in except Coney, to see this. Winter descends cannot take its ending as anything but Australia in 1974; it became widely avail­ onto the world. In a village now buried cosmological farce. I don’t think Watson able in paperback only in 1976." It is one under snow, a small group of people tries meant it to read that way. George Turner of those books from outside the s f ghetto to survive. The members of the group are gave an excellent treatment of this book in which are much deeper and more moving ludicrously ill-equipped to survive a trip on SFC 47. than anything inside it. a suburban train, let alone the rigours of In 1976, there are almost contenders for I've become annoyed by the general winter, hunters, weird beasts, and every­ kudos. Even The Star Diaries is a somber attitude of distaste shown by s f reviewers thing else which Coney dumps on them. book compared with The Cyberiad. I could to The Eighty-Minute Hour. It is certainly They survive anyway. Coney keeps tipping excuse people who cannot rouse much as funny as The Cyberiad, if not as packed. up readers' expectations, so the book is as enthusiasm for it. As in The Cyberiad, The One day — spit on the ground and hope to much a joke on the reader as about the main Star Diaries has an endless variety of pro­ die — I will write a great review which will characters. Reaction to books like Winter's vocative and delicious ideas, and Ijon Tichy redeem this fine book. Real soon now. Children and The Eighty-Minute Hour is as innocently bothered and brow beaten In his review in SFC 44/45, Gerald shows that it is all too easy for an s f writer in The Star Diaries as Trurl and Klapaucius Murnane said most of the things I would to be cleverer than his/her audience. were in The Cyberiad. Perhaps the differ­ want to say about The Inverted World. ence is that the robot inventors where in The crawling city becomes as much a part ACTUAL AWARDS 1974 there kicking; Ijon Tichy just gets kicked of the cipher as does Helward Mann, one of It's remarkable that either list agrees around. The Star Diaries has some pieces Chris Priest’s unrepentantly misanthropic as closely with mine as it does. According which degenerate into grotesque catalogues. characters. There is an irony and implacable to my records, 334 was released first in In SFC 48/49/50, I commented on the strength in Inverted World which will draw England in 1972, and therefore does not difference between Kate Wilhelm’s two me back to it time and again. feature on any of my lists. If I followed the 1976 contenders, Where Late the Sweet I still like Inverted World better than Nebula rules (first version available to Birds Sang and The Clewiston Test. The The Dispossessed because the former book American readers), 334 would be top of my Clewiston Test has the tang of a good thrill­ is more of a piece than the latter. Ursula 1974 list. Yes, even ahead of The Cyberiad. er and the intensity of closely felt experi­ Le Guin said on stage at Aussiecon that I read Fire Time. It was tedious; it ence. The surface of the prose is apt to be The Dispossessed is "the story of a mar­ should not have read an award list anywhere. threadbare, yet the whole book remains riage". Yes; when it is the story of a mar­ I do not have the courage to read 500 pages memorable. riage, it is a great book. When it is about of Niven and Pournelle. I cannot read the I hope to have at least two reviews of collective human organisations, its focus works of T. J. Bass. Shadrach in the Furnace in future issues of goes cloudy. A lot of the social stuff sits SFC. This book shows more clearly than on the page and defies you to enjoy it. I 1975 AND 1976 „ any other that the one quality which will remain fascinated by this book because 1975 and 1976 ^re both years in which Silverberg still lacks is self-knowledge. I cannot make up my mind about it. I'm you really need to look around to make up There are ways in which Silverberg does not certain to read it again — and add my own any lists at all. For 1975 and 1976 together, know what he is doing. For instance, his review to the many others. I don’t think I would award a defininte work, no matter how well-done, has an I summed up Ice and Iron as well as I winner except, perhaps, to Hello Summer, oppressive quality which. I'm sure, Silver­ could in SFC 43, the Tucker Issue. In its Goodbye (Rax in USA). berg does not realise is there Shadrach original version (Gollancz/Doubleday), Ice In SFC 48/49/50, Neville Angove works because Silverberg has no illusions and Iron is all exoerience and very few described the virtues of Hello Summer, about his main character who is, after all, explanations.. (I still have not read the Goodbye better than I can. It's a very nice in a ghastly line of business. He won't take "explained” version, from Baliantine.) As in ending, but I have a question about it. personal responsibility for his position, until all Tucker books, the experience is both Randal Flynn says that the meaning of the the end of the book, when he becomes harsh and tender, a meticulous observation ending is that the lorin will resurrect every­ what he hates most. Silverberg seems set to of real people trying to live as best they body after the long freeze ends. My inter­ make a breakthrough in self-perception at can. I would have been pleased if Ice and pretation was that the lorin would rescue the end of the book and doesn't quite. I Iron had won an award. only the main character and his girlfriend, don't think it matters to us if Silverberg Andrew Whitmore talks about The because they were the only people who never writes another s f novel; I think it Unsleeping Eye (The Continuous Katherine accepted the lorin as legitimate fellow matters very much to Bob Silverberg that he Mortenhoe) in his article in this issue of creatures. write some more. SFC. I don’t catch Compton’s "humour", At any rate, this is very satisfying fable if it is there, which is why I find most of about life and love and growing up and ACTUAL AWARDS 1975 Compton’s work stodgy and melodramatic. political ecology, and almost everything The Forever War sweeps both awards — Compton has a neat way of pushing his else. And not a word wasted in the telling. but I think there is more to s f than that characters towards disaster in every book. This is the wort of book you give to people book. I doubt if I will ever get around to (If disaster and dissolution are fore ordained when you want to show then how good-but reading Inferno. Nothing I have heard about as in a Dick novel, then the path down­ different s f can be. it has made me eager to read Doorways in wards needs to be paved with some humour I talked about The Stochastic Man in the Sand. Rob Gerrand’s piece on Delany and a few twists and turns, but Compton SFC 51. (this or next issue of SFC) convinces me lets 'em drop straight down, every time. Van Ikin reviewed Charisma in SFC that I can leave Delany for a few more You can only take life as solemnly as 48/49/50. Another very satisfying book, years yet. Compton does if you believe there is a for either people like me who appreciate chance of redemption — which does not Phildickian metaphysical high-jinks, or for ACTUAL NOMINATIONS 1976 appear in any Compton book I have read.) people who like science fiction as only the The Nebula nominations for this year But The Unsleeping Eye has fine detail English can write it. point to a severe decline in the state of and a sense of personaland social complexity The Futurological Congress also has the genre. S f has been through such de­ which compensates for the book's soft much in common with Phil Dick, but I clines before, but voters still give awards. centre. Like Andrew Whitmore, I cannot like it less than some other recent Lem What about a lot more years with "No understand why Compton remains unread, releases. Perhaps it is because the humour Award”? when really dull writers pick up the awards and the horror strain too much towards I hope to run a review of Man Plus in every year. each other so, in the end, the reader is no a future issue of SFC. I think it is a woeful I talked about Strangers in SFC 48/49/ longer willing to ride along with Lem. book, including everything that is worst 50. It's another work of intense experience Maybe I will when I read it again. about s f. It is merely a report of events; and commitment. It shrieks too much to­ Little can be added to what others have no real experience. The thrills of the book ward the end. said about The Forever War. Certainly, it's are connected with the technology of creat­ Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said is an excellent book within the severe limi­ ing a human biologically altered so he can un-put-downable while you are reading it. tations which Joe Haldeman sets himself. live on Mars. The "human interest” is every­ - 8 thing that such a cliche implies a bit of the story of their encouner with Snook; and the monastery of Hautaire itself contretemps between husbands and wives to of his encounter with them, the inhabitants The other stories are less interesting, but fill some pages. The ending is ridiculous, of Avernus, and himself. not for lack of trying. "Piper at the Gates repellant, etc Its literary function is to This book has everything a complex of Dawn" is set in one of those future his­ make a "happy ending" of the most facile story-line, interreactions between believable tories in which everything has definitely kind. characters, and some breath taking visual! fallen apart. Very Pangbornian, this. Inev Shadrach in the Furnace is the only sations of s f concepts. But this book does itably, it seems, Cowper resorts to a book on the list which I have read and like not have and the same can be said of society where wizards are important, and The main fault of Where Late the Sweet Shaw's other books - that kind of fervour where fear of the unexpected is expressed Birds Sang is that it simplifies its message. which is needed to carry an s f book into in cruelly rigid social rules The young man, The message is that, no matter what ecologi the "memorable” category This book is all Tom, has a power to influence people and cal and other disasters happen to the Earth, too nice The story is anything but predic animals with his magic whistle He becomes all will be okay as long as one person with table, but it sounds predictable while you a side-show item, and then a sacrifice The the True American Spirit of Individuality are reading the book. The characters have story makes a rather obvious reference to a survives the catastrophe. Anybody who individuality, but they could have stepped crucified Christ. I suspect this developed as survives any other way, say by collective out of any one of a number of other s f a secondary theme in the story, but it took effort, doesn't deserve to. books. And Gilbert Snook is one of those s f over. Cowper's original theme, I suspect, So s f is going through one of its periods people who is provided with A Character was the relationship between the artist and of decline. I might be wrong, of course. I cannot quite imagine him existing before society Cowper lost his way, and so does But if excellent books are sprouting on the or after the events of the novel ... It is the story bookshelves all around me, they are not easy to forget him altogether, although he is "The Hertford Manuscript" is Cowper's labelled as science fiction, and I might not centre-stage through the book. contribution to a growing sub-genre: the ad­ catch up with them for a year or two. So I have misgivings about this book, ventures of Wells' Time Traveller after the Most of the books that other people are without being able to pin down the diffi­ ending of The Time Machine. Cowper de- talking about (especially in fanzines) are culty precisely. Snook is so much of the psits this Time Traveller in 1665, the year only in my also-ran list. Publishers send traditional boy scout character of 1940s, of the Great Plague. The author recreates me books so I read some of them. I enjoy yet he pops up in a world of near-future the era in great detail, but does not let the quite a few of them, but I would not power politics. Snook is too tentative a Time Traveller return home. A very readable recommend them to anybody else This character upon which to rest the weight of story. even applies to Deus Irae, which lacks the the other events. (Bob Shaw would have "Paradise Beach" isn't much What there real Phil Dick flare. It's a series of more-or- been more successful if he made Snook into is emerges only at the end. less funny, erudite, or obscure religious an Evelyn Waugh ror.iic innocent who jokes. I’ve sniped at The Space Machine falls into success by hilarious mischances; Science Fiction at Large elsewhere in this issue. An author who has Shaw is a funny writer but not in his edited by Peter Nicholls been going as well as Priest has to have a fiction.) (Gollancz; 1976; 224 pages; 5 pounds 95; flop sometimes. Floating Worlds is long. I don't like the bits of s f business which $17.60). And it has short sentences. If you keep weaken the book. Snook just happens to Science fiction may be "at large" - but reading it, you find interesting things in it. have telepathic abilities — and that cliche book prices have escaped altogether The If you stop reading after page 20, you don't weakens the other, more believable bases local distributors want to charge $17 60 miss a thing. for the story. Too many of the events are for a quite ordinary-looking book of 224 * And A Wreath of Stars should be bril­ solved by melodramatic confrontations pages! Nobody has that sort of money at liant, but somehow isn't: (plus the completely unbelievable conver­ the moment — not even libraries. But since sations between members of the Barandi I have been sent a review copy (which A Wreath of Stars cabinet). Snook doesn't get the girl — but would cost me no more than $A10 if I by Bob Shaw this girl is a bit snooty anyway. bought it directly from England), I will (Gollancz; 1976; 189 pages; 3 pounds 50). Minor weaknesses — IJut they add up to make a few remarks, someone else will A Wreath of Stars intertwines several a pallidness of tone whrch takes away ex give it a proper review soon. interesting s f themes in a consistently lithe citement from the rest of the book. Shaw In his Introduction, Peter Nicholls writes, and organic way. There is Thornton's takes no chances; he dove-tails all the pieces; "This book results from a series of lectures Planet, an anti-neutrino world which passes he takes short-cuts so that everything comes delivered at the Institute of Contemporary close to Earth A few people on Earth can out right for the reader. Not even the som­ Arts in London, from January to March see its motion only because they wear bre, ambiguous ending gives the bite which 1975 The lectures were part of an elaborate magniluct glasses (" 'When a neutrino enters this book needs. festival of science fiction which also invol a lens of your magniluct glasses, it interacts But, all that aside, A Wreath of Stars ved a film/discussion series, a drama series with protons and produces neutrons and is still better than all but one of this year's for children, an art display and even a sec­ beta-plus particles which excite other atoms Nebula nominees. tion devoted to futuristic fashion design." in the material and in turn produce emissions The seres must have been exciting to in the visible region.' ") An invisible planet The Custodians and Other Stories attend and participate in, but I wonder in an alternate, invisible universe can now be by Richard Cowper what to make of them as a single document. seen. (Gollancz; 1976; 191 pages; 3 pounds 40). Take Thomas Disch's lecture ("The Embar­ Not that the book is about the stray The stories in this collection also tend rassments of Science Fiction"), which is planet. Instead, it is about an anti-neutr.no to be tentative, but it does not matter so based on the thesis that science fiction is planet which lies "inside" Earth, but usually much. Cowper throws away the endings of a branch of children's literature (not so cannot be detected. The passing of Thorn­ three of the four stories, but still retains much the current sprightly genre of "child­ ton's Planet causes great disruptions to the much power in them. ren's literature", but books which could movement of Avernus, as it comes to be "The Custodians" is compact and, like appeal only to some children): called, and aspects of its surface begin to so many stories of this type, should not There are, here and there, children intersect with isolated spots on the Earth's have the ending revealed beforehand. The bright enough to cope with the Scientific surface. People who happen to be wearing story scurries through several centuries in American or even the Times Literary magniluct glasses watch the ghostly figures only fifty pages, but it gives the impression Supplement, but crucial aspects of adult of anti-neutrino people float by. of happening all in one scene. experience remain boring even to these One of these people is Gilbert Snook, a Various visitors come to the monastery prodigies. At the cinema children fail to shy fellow at the best of times, who finds of Hautaire which "had dominated the lx see the necessity for love scenes, and if himself held virtually a political prisoner in valley for more than twelve hundred years” a whole movie were to prove to be the small East African country of Barandi. In the thirteenth century the notable visi about nothing else, then they would He holds the position of supervisor in a tor was Meister Steinwarts. In 1923, it is just as soon not sit through it . . . mine which, it seems, provides more-or- Marcus Spindrift, who appears at the gates Other subjects . . . are also presumed not less the only foreign-exhcnage-earning item of the monastery as a researcher into the to be of interest to s f readers, such as for Barandi. The workers in the mine, who life of Steinwarts He is shown the secret of the nature of the class system and the wear magniluct glasses to see underground the monastery the grotto which Steinwarts real exercise of power within that without lighting, object when the inhabi­ had built. Spindrift never leaves the monas­ system . . . tants ot Avernus appear as ghosts under­ tery again In 1981, a girl named Judy Har­ . . . Evil is seen as intrinsically exter­ ground. They go on strike. The rulers of land sneaks into the monastery, disguised as nal, a blackness ranged against the un­ Barandi do not take well to striking miners, a boy. Nearly fifty years have passed, and it varied whites of heroism. Unhappy so they put pressure on Snook. Snook re­ is time for the next person to go into the endings are the outcome of occasional taliates by attracting the attention of the grotto and find out the secrets of the future. cold equations, not of flawed human world's press, and UNESCO, and the rest of I found the ending convincing, partly be­ nature. There can be no tragic dimen­ the scientific community. cause it fits my own prognostication for the sion of experience. Ambrose Boyce, a scientist, sneaks into near future of the world, and mainly be Which sums up much of what I and Barandi before the rulers close the border. cause Cowper has an intense power to make other writers have been trying to say in S F Prudence Devonald, of UNESCO, demands us live in and see through the eyes of his Commentary for the last 8/2 years, and in that they let her in. A Wreath of Stars is main characters. One of these characters is ASFR before that However, these things 19 need to be said inside the field, rather than as a lecture to people outside it S F Commentary for the last 8% years, and :i MUST BE TALKING in ASFR before that. However, these things need to be said inside the field, rather than TO MY FRIENDS as a lecture to people outside it. Brian Aldiss The best writers in the field, like Tom would have grabbed world rights of the Disch, are embarrassed by such that appears Heath House, Southmoor, nr Abington, Oxon 0X13 58G, England book they published, just because I was a as "science fiction", and rightly so. But I new young writer. I know that other Faber would guess that many of his listeners at the The debate you publish ("Plumbers of the Cosmos") between George Turner and authors, and my friends at Faber, would ICA Conference would not have been wish to see this impertinent piece of slander familiar enough with the field to know Peter Nicholls is very instructive. One sees the different qualities of the two men, one nailed immediately. It is without found­ whether or not to agree with him They ation. (Christ, it’s no secret that last year I would expect a guide to the s f game, devoted to principles, one only interested in personalities. was GoH at Eurocon III at Poznan, and was and instead receive the referee's current able to travel there with my family because thoughts on how the teams line up. (The It is foily to speak of Amis, Conquest, Ballard, and me as "elegant slummers" the Poles were paying me in zlotys for their same can be said for Peter Nicholls' own translation of Non-Stop. essay ) Among all my friends, I hardly know of two A guide to the thrills of the game is more inventive and compelling conversation * I heard this rumour when I first entered needed. Robert Sheckley provides a humor alists than Amis and Conquest; the flow of fandom about ten years ago: the rumour their talk is perpetually enriched by fan ous guide ("The Search for the Marvellous") that Non-Stop had been signed away for but gives little sign that science fiction is as tastical s f ideas. They like the s f they like ever. But I heard the reference to Digit good as he would like it to be. People like and are totally unselfconscious about it. Anybody who knows Ballard knows what Books. Not that I’ve ever seen a Digit Edward de Bono call science fiction a edition of Non-Stop (but there was one of literature of "provocation", but really his his talk is like; his talk is a battleground of armoured paradox. All I can say for myself Equator, is this the source of confusion?), lecture is just another excuse to tout his or even know for sure whether Digit ever "lateral thinking" is that I have written s f for a long while and intend to continue so to do. published it God knows where the rumour Fortunately, the book begins with started, but it had been going a long time Ursula Le Gum ("Science Fiction and Mrs Nicholls calls my affection for Frank R Paul’s paintings another bit of slumming, before Peter Nicholls heard it and repeated Brown"). She is as sceptical about science it in public. fiction as Disch is, yet she holds up for talking of tears running down my face. inspection thse features which are worth Nonsense. I rather slighted Paul in Billion looking at Year Spree, remarking on how those gaudy A sort of rejoicing took me as I read the Scepticism first with an examination covers were "totally divorced from all the new polysaturated fat SFC 48/49/50 of why it is difficult to let a science fiction exciting new movements” of art in our Reading it is like finding oneself in a pop story grow out of a character rather than century. However, I do respect Paul. The ulous market town; people come and go concept. Still, Ursula Le Guin believes that taste may be perverted, but I defend it in with great bustle; they don’t all see eye to human s f is possible and who can blame rational terms in Science Fiction Art (that eye and they sometimes quarrel, but they her for showing her point by tracing the big floppy volume which I hope reached recognise that they are fellow-citizens, and genesis of some of her own novels? If there Australia), whereas Nicholls dismisses Paul that their accent differs slightly from the is despair here, it is for a contemporary as "kitsch" and "a kind of camp” Even if strange city only nineteen kilometres down civilisation which crystallises people, robs one dislikes Paul, surely one can’t call his the road them of life, and makes nonsense of the work "kitsch”? The word is often misused, There is science fiction; there is fandom. idea of "character" in science fiction. but doesn’t it mean something like "pre You operate in an area inbetween, where If there is hope, it is in the books she tentious nonsense of an imitative kind”? opinions pass like cats in the dark. Much of discusses at length The Man in the High Paul is given to the grandoise, yes, but his your material, or much of what most caught my eye, is about, not s f, but s f criticism. Castle (Dick) and Synthajoy (Compton) in work it£ colours, its softly moulded particular. And when she talks about her figures hThe Light at the End of the Universe, up this issue and the next if I printed it, up with the likes of Robin Johnson, Peter is currently available in Melbourne book­ and I do not know which to choose from Darling, Ken Ford, Lee Harding, etc? And, shops. * it. Thinks Phil 23 Patrick McGuire sent several more Eileen Lanigan (Yorks, England), who David Griffin (London, England); letters, including a long one about SFC sent me a card at Christmas showing a Alan Sandercock (formerly Adelaide; 48/49/50. picture of "Echo and Narcissus”; recently London; now in Braunschweig, Other letters are from: Roman Orszanski (Adelaide), who pro­ West Germany), who is enjoying his travels Mae Strelkov (Argentina), who includes mised to write about his exciting summer, in Europe, and who quite spoiled my week an essay about happiness and getting along but never got around to it, and also gave by confiding that he is travelling with an in life, which refers to my review of View hints about pasting up offset magazines; American young lady companion; From Another Shore (SCF 44/45) I'm Jon Noble (Broken Hill, N.S.W.), who Warren Nicholls (Burwood, N.S.W.); pleased to say that there will be a paperback says that "wearing one's heart upon one's Petrina Smith (Glebe, N b W.), who told of View From Another Shore, which should sleeve I can understand, but wearing it me all about the recent Writers' Workshop be on everybody's bookshelf ; upon Leigh Edmonds’?" (Leigh Edmonds (the same one that George discusses in this Don Ayres (Hollywood,California), who has a strong sleeve); issue) and various attempts to hold a sequel draws my attention to several major errors Richard McKinney (Fack, Sweden), who in Sydney; (according to Don) of Stanislaw Lem; says lots of nice things about cats; Andrew Weiner (Montreal, Quebec), who Patrick Balckburn (Hamilton, N.Z ), who Terry Green (Toronto, Canada), who had this odd idea that, just because I was finds it disappointing that SFC uses space to keeps in touch; conducting a'Silverberg Forum” in SFC, discuss Larry Niven at all; I might have come around to liking most Don D'Ammassa (Rhode Island, U.S.A ) Doug Barbour (Alberta, Canada), who of Silverberg's fiction (he's a great antho who says that he had a relatively low opin­ defends some aspects of Heinlein against logist, Andrew); Peter Nicholls'attack (SFC 47); ion of Poul Anderson’s fiction until last Paul Harwitz (California, U.S.A.), year "when a re-reading of virtually all of Bernd Fischer (Koeln, West Germany) his fiction led me to conclude that I had who sent some more interesting lists, includ­ been misunderstanding him”; ing Films: 1 Nashville (Altman), 2 Duets (J. IMichael Shoemaker (Virginia, U.S.A ), Rivette), 3 A Day at the Races (Marx Bros ), who sent a very long letter, most of which he would not want me to quote or allude add . . . that's the letters I had received 4 Fantastic Planet (Topor), 5 Black Moon by early May, and which had reached my (Malle); Books (General): 1 Die erdabge- to, and who makes lots of interesting com­ ments about non-s f books and music; Letter-of-Comment file. There has been wandte Seite der Geschichte (Nicholas a strike which has grounded all air traffic Borne), 2 Blue Hammer (Ross McDonald), Don Boyd (Mosman, N.S.W.), who has lots of ideas about the shape of the future, into the country, so perhaps your letter 3 Der Stower (Liam O'Flaherty); Books has been stuck in mid-air. Also, this column (S F): 1 Dr Bloodmoney (Dick); 2 The the possibilities for Australian s f, and other topics which don't fit into this issue of the will be set some weeks before being printed. Simulacra (Dick), 3 Imaginary Magnitudes magazine; and who also offered hints about It's not the old free-and-easy way of doing (Lem), Music: Z Desire (Dylan), 2 Man of setting up an offset magazine; things (type a stencil and stick it on the the 20th Century (Kevin Johnson), 3 The Ian Williams (Tyne and Wear, England), duplicator), but it looks good in black Pretender (Jackson Browne), 4 Chicken who had some really interesting comments and white. See you in September. • Skin Music (Ry Cooder), 5 T-Shirt (Loudon about the development of Bob Shaw's Bruce Gillespie Wainwright); and, beside the lists, lots of fiction; interesting stuff about his recent trio to 12 May 1977 U.S.A.;

ucIb build its owfi future, each generation must leani both to utilise its past and escape it. " Herman Summers

Spend some time at the Post Office Museum. 90 Swan St., RICHMOND (Near Richmond station) „ OPEN-Weekdays (except Tuesdays & Public holidays) 10am-4pm. Sunday1~5pm.

We do not print 4500 copies as the back page of No. 51 seems to indicate. SFC runs to 1200 copies, with an estimated circulation of 3600. We were wrong!.. Inquire about our advertising rates: (03) 419 4797