big skY 1 asia Gravitas . Gravitas . No, Don’t Help Me, I’ll Get It In A Moment . 1 contents Emigré Peter Young 3 Fanzines Over Astrakhan Peter Young 7 Mirai-ki: The Forgotten History of Japan’s Early Science Fiction Jess Nevins 11 Science Fiction in Hindi: A Critic’s View Arvind Mishra & Manish Mohan Gore 15 Chinese Space Children pictorial 21 Dop’s House of Anime Antony J. Shepherd 28 Time Zone: reviews Peter Young 37 Cornucopia: reviews Peter Young 51 Feet of Clay S.P. Somtow 60 Distant Barking Dogs Peter Young 65 Hermeto’s Giant Breakfast Peter Young 71 Part-genzine, part-perzine, variable sercon/fannish content. If you are not satisfied with this product please contact your nearest Big Sky dealer. Letters column in the next issue – please be part of it. Send all Letters of Comment, articles and artwork to [email protected]. Cover: Mothership — MRT Expo Station, Singapore, January 2008 Edited and published by Peter Young Page 79: Planet — over Ethiopia, August 2005 Fanzines in trade can be sent to: 2013 136/200 Emerald Hill Village, Soi 6, Hua Hin, Prachuap Khiri Khan 77110, Thailand All photography and art appears under a Creative Commons licence except: or if postage is less: Big Sky cover & page 79 — © 2008 & © 2005 Peter Young c/o 22 Tippings Lane, Woodley, Berkshire, RG5 4RX, England page 2 — © 2013 Sue Jones, used by permission page 64 — © 2012 Loke Inkid, used by permission page 75 — © 2004 David A. Hardy, for the book Futures: 50 Years in Space, Thanks to all contributors for use of their articles, photography and artwork. Sue Jones used by permission See page 77 for full copyright details on the contributed articles. 2 emigré Peter Young O (BECAUSE THIS IS one of those fanzine articles that begins with “So”), what’s with a ’zine that appears out of S the blue like this, with the name that it has? So, going back a bit: Zoo Nation #7 came out in April 2006, and I was planning #8 for November that year in time for Novacon. At which point, roughly, real life took over, and #8 got shelved, then shelved indefinitely, then quietly dropped, so I ought to apologise now to those fen who took the trouble to send a LoC. Fanzines for me aren’t just strung together with whatever material I can throw between two covers; the overall end result has to take some kind of cohesive shape. I think #8 just never had time or space to form in my head: ‘real life’ in this instance involved getting over a knee injury that plagued me for a year, getting hitched, selling house and car, moving 6,000 miles East, buying a new place and having a kid, all while holding down a job 6,000 miles back West. Quite enough to be getting on with, thanks. So, since Zoo Nation #7, things haven’t been completely quiet. Guest editing Journey Planet #3, #7 and #12 was an enjoyable way to keep my hand in, and it was fun working with James, Chris and Claire to produce three great issues I’m genuinely proud of. Plus working on Journey Planet in an A4 format instead of A5 was also a subtly liberating experience, and it’s the single reason I’ve gone A4 for Big Sky. So (again). The name: some background. Whenever I look up at a those impressive cloudscapes in the skies over Thailand, usually before or after some seriously major rainfall, I mentally describe this place as the ‘Land of Big Skies’. I’m pleased to call it home now. Therefore, Big Sky also feels like a good name for a fanzine that focuses on a worldwide genre – a genre that, figuratively, has a sky big enough to contain anything we care to fill it with, and with enough conceptual space to fill a fanzine with all my genre interests. So, I don’t see ‘world SF’ as the focus here so much as the background, populated with some varied 2010 investigations in various directions (such as pulp SF and B-movies, no doubt forthcoming in future issues), plus frequent glances back to Western SF and, most notably, Asian speculative fiction, which I expect I will run with ’til I decide to call it a day. So I’m kicking off Issue #1 with four articles specifically related to Asian SF. HipstA380 HipstA380 So, to fanzines. I actually hope this is not the first science fiction fanzine from Thailand, although I know of no others, and I’ve seen fanzines here connected to other genres, notably football and heavy metal. I’d love to come upon a stash of old mimeographed SF fanzines that were cranked out on an old Gestetner in Bangkok circa 1945, kept in some dusty attic for fifty years in Chiang Mai, waiting for the likes of me to stumble upon them in some equally dusty secondhand bookstore in Chiang Rai (Hua Hin has not so many of those). They probably – Simon Bisson 4 hey, come on, certainly – don’t exist. As a historically rather isolated country, Thailand has a scant science fiction history, although other places in South East Asia are little different . imaginative literary life in these lands has focussed more on myth, legend, demons, spirits and, predominantly, ghosts. So, there may be any number of Western authors setting their novels in this part of the world, although how well these societies are put across to the reader is usually a matter of debate. Homegrown SF in Thailand is much rarer – the former ex- pat Somtow Sucharitkul notwithstanding – and what was put out in the past was probably done within the textus of – or at least in imitation of – Western science fictional ideas. Where’s the early, original, uniquely local stuff? So here’s a potted summary, in a paragraph: there was one Juntree Siriboonrod, the so-called ‘Father of Thai Science Fiction’, none of whose stories appear to have been translated and about whom little information exists in English. In the 1940s Siriboonrod co-published the SF magazine Witthayasat Mahatsachan (‘Magical Science’), in which his fiction appeared. Since 2005 there has been the Juntree Siriboonrod Award for achievements in the field of Thai science fiction. Then, also famed as Thailand’s PM from 1975– 1976, Kukrit Pramoj wrote the well-received SF novel The Cuckoos of Bangphleng – with less integrity than at first thought, as it turned out, and about which more can be read in these pages. In Locus #408 (January 1995), Jaroslav Olsa, Jr. comments that locally produced SF is very rare, and that it’s not understood as a genre. He laments, “Whenever I have asked for such books, I have been shown Japanese superhero comics.” At present there is the estimable Wyn Lyovarin, an author noted for his experimental fiction and the SEA Write Award-winning fictionalised history of 20th century Thai politics, Democracy, Shaken & Stirred. Lyovarin’s speculative fiction is now beginning to appear in English. There is Tew Bunnag, whose socialist fiction is peppered with ghosts and occasional speculative content; an extraordinary SEA Write Award-nominated fantasy novel by Fa Poonvoralak (reviewed in these pages), and a new writer currently well- received at spec-fic venues around the English-language internet, Benjanun Sriduangkaew. Juntree Siriboonrod, These are only a few names: there are indeed more. 2460–2511 (1917–1968) So to the contents here: while the focus for most of this first issue is clearly on Asia, a sub- header – probably appropriate for a first issue – might be ‘Beginnings’. Therefore I’m very grateful to maestro Somtow for permission to reproduce his blog post on his assessment of the origins of Kukrit Pramoj’s novel plus Sucharitkul , Jess and for permission to reproduce here their articles on the origins of early Nevins, Arvind Mishra Manish Mohan Gore 5 Hindi and Japanese science fiction. Jess’s article points at a little known, home-grown Japanese genre that owes nothing to the West. has been writing about Manga and Anime for as long as I’ve known him, so he was the Antony J. Shepherd obvious go-to person when I decided I couldn’t not have that genre covered. Of course this issue isn’t a comprehensive look SF throughout Asia: that’s impossible for one issue of a fanzine, and I’m aware of the gender imbalance in this issue’s contributors. I wish I had space and time for more of everything here, but better will come. So, semi-finally, there’s also an aspect of ‘looking back’ in this issue: some of my articles here had origins on Live Journal over the last few years, and I’ve resurrected them here as they also seem pertinent to this fanzine. I like to see book (and film and TV) reviews in fanzines. I’m not including them here to fill space; there are easier ways to do that, and I expect they’ll be pretty integral to each issue of Big Sky. in Zoo Nation I included a scant few per issue, but in my view they give a fanzine a more direct connection to the subject at hand; whether reviews are by the editor or others is irrelevant, as long as the standard is high enough (caveat: I’m making no claims here as to the quality or otherwise of my own reviewing). What you’ll find here are mostly ‘capsule’ reviews of the kind I prefer: brief, as succinct as possible and to the point, ie.