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Home , Berserker (novel series), Blood Music (novel), Charles de Lint, Ellen Datlow, James Patrick Kelly, Joe Haldeman

SCIENCE FICTION FALL T>T7V\ 7TT71TT7 NUMBER 56 1985 IaJ-J V IIL VV $2.50

3 ALIEN THOUGHTS By Richard E. Geis LETTERS A.J. Budrys Leah Zeldes Smith Joel Rosenberg Interview: ROBERT SHEA Pat Mathews 6 Bruce D. Arthurs By NeaT~Wilgus Bev Clark Allen Varney Orson Scott Card Stephen P. Brown Kerry E. Davis Ian Cove11 NOISE LEVEL Alexander B. Nedeljkovich H A Column By Alan Dean Foster Forry Ackerman Janrae Frank & Hank Stine 1 n RAISING HACKLES Ted White ID A Column By Elton T. Elliott J.R. Madden

1 Q NOT NECESSARILY REVIEWS COVER BY BRAD FOSTER lO By Richard E. Geis

-J Q ONCE OVER LIGHTLY -LBook Reviews By Gene DeWeese

RACISM IN THE MEDIA AND SUBTLETY AND THE FAITHFUL DOG SYNDROME Qrv OR IS MR. T A WOOKIE? By Alan Dean Foster

C\cy YOU GOT NO FRIENDS IN THIS WORLD CiBy Orson Scott Card

Q-i SMALL PRESS NOTES O J. By Richard E, Geis

qq Interview: iJA By Peter Strupp

a -I OTHER VOICES 4 J. Book Reviews By Stephen P. Brown Andrew Andrews Dean R. Lambe Bill Winans Stuart Napier Neal Wilgus John DiPrete Joel Rosenberg Paulette Minare' Steve Miller Paul McGuire

Ar% AN ALIEN IN L.A. 40 By John Shirley SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW (ISSN: 0036-8377) P.O. BOX 11408 AUGUST, 1985 - VOL. 14, NO. 3 PORTLAND, OR 97211 WHOLE NUMBER 56 PHONE: (503) 282-0381 RICHARD E. GEIS—editor & publisher PAULETTE MINARE', ASSOCIATE EDITOR

REVIEWS- INTERIOR ART- PUBLISHED QUARTERLY IN SEARCH OF SCHRODINGER S CAT TIM KIRK—2,3,3L‘43 FEB., MAY, AUG., NOV. ORION DOWNTIMING H£ NIGHTSIDE SINGLE COPY - $2.50 THE MESSIAH CHOICE w^iam^tsler—4,9, j1,13,14,17,32, ARTIFACT THE GAPE OF EMPIRE bp^foster—4,7,10,17,18,23,27,38, THE 1985 ANNUAL WORLD'S BEST SF SUBSCRIPTIONS mark bondurant—12 TIE BEST SCIENCE FICTION OF THE YEAR SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW THE SCIENCE FICTION YEARBOOK DAVID TRANSUE-15734 RICHARD BRUNING-21 P.O. BOX 11408 BRAINZ, INC. PORTLAND, OR 97211 TIE BERSERKER THRONE WADE GILBREATH-21 ^ THE WILD ONES ALLEN KOSZOWSKI—724,26, 32, FOR ONE YEAR AND FOR MAXIMUM 7-ISSUE TOM O'BEDLAM GRANT CANFIELD-25 SUBSCRIPTIONS AT FOUR-ISSUES-PER- —A PERSONAL MEMOIR RANDY MOHR-29 YEAR SCHEDULE, FINAL ISSUE: NOV.’86. AN EDGE IN MY VOICE STEVEN FOX-47 EMPRISE UNITED STATES: $9.00 One Year SINGULARITY $11.25 Five Issues BLOOD MUSIC ORBITSV1LLE DEPARTURE ALL FOREIGN: US$9.50 One Year THE COPY SHOP US$11.80 Five Issues THE WORLD OF FANTASTIC FILMS: AN All foreign subscriptions must be ILLUSTRATED SURVEY paid in US$ cheques or money orders, /BEYOND THE BLUE EVENT except to designated agents below: HORIZON7HEECHEE RENDEZVOUS UK: Wm. Dawson & Sons MILENNIUM Cannon House STAR HEALER Folkestone, Kent, CT19 5EE PDKS NEWSLETTER TIE INN OF THE HAIRY TOAD AUSTRALIA: Space Age Books RANDOC^WRITINGS 305-307 Swanston St. Melbourne, 3000 Vic. THE METAPHYSICAL REVIEW #3 PLEASE MAKE ALL CHECKS, CHEQUES, OR A MEASURE OF CALM MONEY ORDERS PAYABLE TO RICHARD E. NIGHT OF POWER GEIS. harlan's world SHADOWEYES IF YOU MOVE WE NEED YOUR FORMER ZIP- SCIENCE MADE STUPID CODE AND YOUR NEW COMPLETE ADDRESS-!- THE ADVENTURES OF TERRA TARKINGTON THE WORLD ENDS IN HICKORY HOLLOW NO ADVERTISING WILL BE ACCEPTED ALL SUBSCRIPTIONS, NEW AND OLD, ARE GHOSTS AND GOBLINS HONORED AND FULFILLED ON AN ISSUES HE TWILIGHT ZONE: HE ORIGINAL NUMBER BASIS. STORIES Second Class Postage Paid BOOK FIVE at Portland, OR 97208 eastman's and laird's teenage MUTANT TURTLES SCIENCE FICTION MOVIES Copyright (c) 198S by Richard E. PANDORA'S GENES Geis. One-time rights only have Next Issue. DOMAIN been acquired from signed or cred¬ ited contributors, and all other HOMECOMING rights are hereby assigned to the THE FACES OF FEAR, a profile HE SCIENCE FICTION WEIRD contributors. of Charles Grant by Douglas HERO MAGAZINE CHECKLIST E. Winter. NIGHT S DAUGHTER SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW is published SCIENCE FICTION BY THE NUMBERS at 1525 N.E. Ainsworth, Portland, By Robert Sabella OR 97211 OATH OF FEALTY: NO THUD, SOME BLUNDERS By Sheila Finch POSTMASTER: Send address changes to SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW And other stuff you all expect POB 11408 every issue. Portland, OR 97211

2 ouew THOUGHTS I RICHARD E. GEIS |

A RADICAL FORMATECTOMY HOWLING FOR BLOOD and how these Asians are working like is roughly what you 'Now forming a writers beavers, saving money, starting business- see before you. I mentioned in THE NAKED organization--Horror and Occult Writers es... ■ that Mike Glyer? SFR no I manfully resisted. But me item longer pays for its material (has not Congratulations, all. And especially of info was dropped in my lap: Mita makes since the beginning of 1985), does not to Brad Foster. His cover on this issue the Gestetner copiers. make a profit (as of now, this issue, for of SFR shows you why he won; great style I will eventually be interested in a sure!), and is definitely not a major con¬ and humor. copier, but not at Gestetner's inflated tributor to my income (say rather outgo), prices. They habitually sell machines and though its print run is declining by NEBULA AWARDS to corporations and assume corporations about 100 copies per issue, it does still Best Novel: by will pay any price_ And these high- mi higher than 1000. Unless I misrememb- Best Novella: [] by John Varley powered corporations like Gestetner and er, however, the Rules say a fanzine can Best Novelet: BLOODCHILDby Octavia Butler IBM have high overhead and high violate at least one of the four yard¬ Best Short "Story :NDRNING CHILD by G.Dozois salaries to pay. sticks for determining its status as a But when the time comes. I'll check pureblooded, blessed by Yngvi,amateur Remarkable agreement among the two out Mita copiers to see if they sell sets of voters; one set the readers, and cheaper that the same machines under the Of course, SFR isn't a faanzine (that the Nebulas are voted by professional Gestetner nameplate. is, a zine devoted to fans and fan egos Gh, reality. Well, I've come to the and fan doings), but is instead a fanzine Since SFR is sent to the printer in conclusion that if I continue SFR past devoted to (horrors!) science fiction and mid-July, it is unlikely (as it is every #62, it cannot be 8 pages. The needs fantasy. year) I'll get word of of material, balance, departments, etc. I do so state. Let the revelry be- for this issue. Sorry. Keep watching require at a minimum 16 pages. And the SF CHRONICLE and LOCUS. price would have to be $1.50 for first class mail. But if my novels sell well enough, and if the noney is good enough, maybe that will tenpt me to not continue SFR. WAfeirte fi lOH&iT Yet I love it so... No, no...yes, yes. Maybe, maybe- Shit, shit! 6t0 ffl/OS So to WtAMQK tmucauei... IN CASE YOU MISSED T1€M..,, My three self-published sf novels will soon be available in microfiche editions fr0ra: MICRO INFORMATION CONCEPTS P.O. Box 2163 Dallas, TX 7S221 The titles are: CANNED MEAT STAR WHORES THE CORPORATION STRIKES BACK STAR WHORES and CORPORATION are erotic sf novels. CANNED MEAT is less erotic. I have no information at this time as f\tor you mean, 4. "CMANJU Kr"'? E~H? TOM SAWYER IN TROUBLE WITH LONDON THE CENSORS 'THATS \ By Joseph Grigg (Cox News Service) HOflKY, \ London. 8th April. TOM SAWYER, the stupid. ) NAKED Mark Twain classic on which tens of H-o-N-x-r'j thousands of American children have been raised, is in hot water. ID A century or more after it was written, left-wing education offic¬ ials in London have ruled it "rac¬ ist" and "sexist" and ordered it re¬ THE PERSONAL JOURNAL moved from school libraries under their control. HUCKLEBERRY FINN, OF RICHARD E. GEIS banned by some local school author¬ ities in the United States, so far has escaped this fate in London - The goal here is total honesty possibly because the officials here and disgusting self-revelation. have not heard of it. The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) Alas, I often don't have the has also banned many other classics guts to attain that...very oft¬ for similar reasons. They include:- en. Four issues of THE NAKED ID have been published so far. I'm spilling my guts now in #5. Some of the things in #4 were: Self-rage at my failure to write as much as I should. Sloth, sloth, thy lure is endless... ly Headmaster of St. Charles Prim Proposed novels I should write 5chool in the Kensington district the partials of...when I get (Vest London, said. "I was flabber the time. Doing THE MASTER FILE NOW (sold). My opinion of Bernard Geotz, subway shooter extraordinaire. My opinion of Scientology... and all religion. The exploitation of sex—by the government. Good Old Ronnie and his tax reform con game. This guy is

Movie Reviews: RHINESTONE, DECEPTIONS, SIXTEEN CANDLES, ANDROID, FOOTLOOSE, REPO MAN, other.

My thinking on abortion and why some women think X should have been aborted.

THE NAKED ID is published whenever eight pages have been completed. $1.00 per issue. (US$1.60 for overseas airmail) All issues sent first class. Subscription limit: 10 issues. Please make all checks payable

Church interview: robert shea

PROLOGUE "The Playboy Forum.” Together they wrote above-mentioned line from Flaubert and ILLUMINATUS!, published by Dell in 1975. several odd-looking photographs without The son of a doctor, Robert Shea was The three volumes of ILLUMINATUS! have captions clipped from newspapers. Oi bom in New York City on St. Valentine's been described as "the anarchist/acid some shelves the books share space with day, 1933. He attended Manhattan Col¬ rock answer to THE LORD OF THE RINGS*by what Shea calls "my collections of tacky lege, where he worked on the college David Harris, one of the editors who souvenirs," cheap, gaudy objects purchas¬ newspaper, yearbook and literary magazine worked on itk ed in gift shops in various parts of the and helped foizid a fraternity that dis¬ world. There is a gilt replica of the pensed with blackballing and pledging. ILLLMINATUS! is still in print, unusual Eiffel Tower, a China pig from Louisville, Drafted in 19S4, he spent irost of his for a paperback original; it has been Kentucky, a Space Needle pencil sharpen¬ two years in the Army doing public rela¬ produced on the stage in England, the er from Seattle, a dinner bell from the tions writing. After earning a master’s Netherlands, Germany and the U.S. and Sherlock Holmes Hotel in London, a pin degree in English literature at Rutgers a small, antic cult has grown up around cushion from St. Louis, Missouri, and a University and writing the first draft it. It was republished in a one-volume replica of New York City in a bottle. of an autobiographical novel (as yet un¬ trade paperback edition in 1984 and has The centerpiece of Shea's workroom is an published) about his college years, Shea since appeared on a couple of science Applw //e computer which he calls "Mr. returned to New York, where he tried fiction and libertarian best-seller Chips." free-lance fiction writing for a time. lists. His first professional short story was Shea is about six feet tall, slightly published in FANTASTIC UNIVERSE by Hans Shea continues his career as an edit¬ overweight, and has a full head of wavy, Steffan Santesson-, who invited Shea to or by getting out his own amateur maga¬ greying hair and a brown mustache that join the Hydra Club. At a Hydra meeting zine, NO GOVERNOR. He claims it has a droops over the comers of his mouth. He Shea met Larry T. Shaw, editor of INFIN¬ circulation of a little over a hundred. wears -framed bifocals. His manner ITY, who hired Shea to work on CUSTOM Shea's next novel, SHIKE (pronounced is calm and pleasant. He speaks with a RODDER and CAR SPEED 6 STYLE. (Shea was she -kay), set in medieval Japan, was slight New York accent in a nasal voice not to pass a driver's test for another published by Jove Publications in June, that tends toward loudness, he says from seven years.) In 1963 he joined the ed¬ 1981. It has come out in eight foreign years of trying to talk above subway itorial staff of TRUE magazine and in editions and is now in its seventh print¬ 1966 he was appointed editor of CAVALIER. ing. In 1967 he was asked by PLAYBOY to be¬ come one of the editors of "The Playboy His newest novel, ALL THINGS ARE • Forum" letter colunn. As a "Forun" edit¬ LICHTS, a novel about a troubadour and or he represented PLAYBOY in many lectur¬ the women he loves in the time of the es, panel discussions and debates. By Crusades, will be published by Ballan- SFR After the publication in 1975 of 1977 he was solely responsible for edit¬ tine Books in the simmer of 1986. He TUlminatus ing "The Playboy Forum." He lost his teaches part-time for the Department of job at PLAYBOY in an economy drive in Goimunications at Loyola University, Chi¬ September, 1977. cago. SFR; After the publication in 1975 of Shea lives with his wife, Yvonne, and ILLIMNATUS!, which you wrote with Robert Throughout his career as a magazine Anton Wilson, your opus enjoyed a remark¬ editor, Shea continued to write. His his son, Michael, in a small yellow house surrounded by evergreen shrubs in a sub¬ able career on the stage. How did that work included occasional science fiction urb of Chicago on the shore of Lake Mich¬ come about? short stories and a couple of novels (he tends to be vague about how many there igan. It is a surprisingly conventional setting for a man vdio writes science fic¬ SFEA: A mad English showman by the name were) that never saw the of day, tion and calls himself an anarchist. The of Ken Campbell discovered the ILLUMINAT¬ as well as other pieces that did. He choice is possibly explained by a quota¬ US! books and decided to try to produce had better success with non-fiction, his tion from Flaubert Shea has tacked to the a theatrical version. Campbell's Science articles and essays appearing in iraga- bulletin board of his office: "Live like Fiction Theatre of Liverpool production zines as diverse as TODAY’S HEATH and a bourgeois and think like a god." He of ILLLMINATUS! opened on November 23, the LOS ANGELES FREE PRESS. In 1968 he 1976 in a coffee shop called the Liver¬ was one of a group who put together LAW says, "We bought this house because we needed room and it was cheap and pretty, pool School of Language Misic Dream and AND DISORDER, a one-shot magazine spon¬ Pun on Mathieu Street, almost next door sored by the American Civil Liberties and now the price of houses has gone up so much that it's even cheaper to live to the site of the Cavern Club, where Union in the aftermath of the 1968 Demo¬ the Beatles got their start. After that cratic National Convention in Chicago. here. In fact, we probably couldn't af¬ ford to move." it played the National Theatre in London, The publication attacked Mayor Richard J. and later in Amsterdam and Frankfurt. Daley and the Chicago police and support¬ Shea works in a room in the back of Then the Empty Space in Seattle got wind ed the peace demonstrators. Shea writes the house which has a pleasant view of of the British production and arranged mostly about subjects related to the be¬ green fields. Crammed with books, the havioral sciences, such as psychology, room is papered with a black and white sex, religion and politics. As his nov¬ design of heraldic lions. The walls are el-writing schedule gets heavier, his decorated with framed posters advertising articles became less frequent. An im¬ performances of the stage version of IL¬ portant article was his "Women at War," LUMINATUS! There is also a small picture a critique of the women's anti-porno¬ of Shea and Robert Anton Wilson side by graphy movement published in the Febru¬ side, each with his head enclosed in a ary, 1980 PLAYBOY. Lately he has taken pyramid surmounted by an eye, the symbol to doing travel pieces on hotels and res¬ of the sinister Bavarian Illuminati. taurants in the Midwest for TRAVEL 8 There is a bulletin board on which, Shea LEISURE. His most recent published art¬ says, he changes the items once a month. icle was "Nobody Else Can Do It For You," This month's items include a calendar of in THE WRITER, November, 1984. his own devising (the weeks begin on Mon¬ During his years at PLAYBOY Shea met day) , a schedule of the editing course Robert Anton Wilson, also an editor on he is currently teaching at Loyola, the

CONDUCTED BY NEAL WILGUS to do their owl, halfway around the SHEA: I've always been pretty skeptical world, which ran from Septenber to Decem¬ about the occult and the paranormal, but ber of 1978. Canpbell and his co-play¬ in an open-minded way, if you take my wright, Chris Langham, an illuminated meaning. I think magick, witchcraft and comedian who used to write for the Muppet paganism have value as alternative path¬ Show, originally set up ILLIMI NATOS!' as“ ways to what the mystics call illumina¬ a cycle of five plays, one to be perform¬ tion. I am willing to believe that oc¬ ed each weekday night, followed by a cult or paranormal phenomena really exist, Saturday marathon performance of all if ever I'm presented with conclusive five plays lasting from noon to midnight, evidence. I think that it is a betrayal with pub breaks at suitable intervals. of science that some so-called scientists For the National Theatre they trimned are trying to use institutional sanctions There is also the tradition of philo¬ that to eight and a half hours. The to discourage research in these areas. sophical research whose initiates are Empty Space turned it into a cycle of But I don’t think anything has been prov¬ sometimes known as Illuminati, a tradi¬ three plays, and their marathon perform¬ en yet. And dcn't ask me to take things tion that includes the heretic-martyr ances lasted about ten hours. on faith. I was a believing Catholic Giordano Bruno, the magician Aleister until I was thirty, and it was difficult Crowley and Robert Anton Wilson, my co¬ SFR: What did you think of the stage enough to get away from that. No no re author. But members of this tradition productions? spooks for me, thank you. Meanwhile, have not tried to take over governments however, in ILLIMINATOS and elsewhere or the world economy, only to turn on SHEA: What greater delight can a writer I'm willing to use such concepts as sto¬ more light in their own---and others'--- experience than to see real people taking ry material without worrying about wheth¬ heads. the trouble to bring his work to life? er they're real or not. When what began as a vague shape in the SR: So you wrote ILLUMINATOS! purely mind takes on solid form in a theater SR; What about the Ancient Illuminated as political satire? before an audience, it's a thrill that Seers of Bavaria? Don't you believe in can't be duplicated. It was one of the them? SHEA: Out intentions kept changing all most sublime experiences in my life, the time. At first we saw it simply as second only to being with Yvonne when SHEA: At the time the book was written, an international espionage thriller, with she gave birth to our baby. Novelists I thought the legend of the Bavarian Il¬ the Illuminati as arch-villains, giving are often displeased with adaptations of luminati was a silly, paranoid myth. We us, as I said, an opportunity to satirize their works to other media. But Wilson were simply using the Illuminati legend current paranoias. As the book develop¬ and I were delighted with both the Brit¬ and the related plethora of conspiracy ed, it rolled along like a blob-monster, ish and Seattle productions. They were theories about the sixties' wave of pol¬ absorbing everything in its path. We ingenious in handling problems of staging itical assassinations as a launching pad came to consider it what the literary and special effects, and they vere faith¬ for an extended flight of black humor critic Northrop Frye calls an anatomy, a ful to both the text and the meaniing of and political satire. In the years dur¬ long work of prose fiction that incorp¬ the books. The actors were passionately ing which we wrote ILLUMINATOS! the orates everything that interests the dedicated and gave brilliant performanc- country was awash in paranoia, and we author---ideas, opinions, curious facts, were hoping to exorcise some of it by canny stories. MDBY DICK is a good ex¬ poking fun at it. It had not been that ample of an anatomy. We wanted to out¬ SFR: How were the plays received by the long since Senator Joe McCarthy had the rage authoritarians of left, right and public? Did people have trouble sitting whole country in the grip of Conrnunist center, so we made the book subversive, there for eight to twelve hours? conspiracy mania. It was not that long blasphemous and pornographic. We threw since a harmless couple named Julius and in generous helpings of anarchist propa¬ SHEA: Audiences at the marathon perform¬ Ethel Rosenberg were sent to the electric ganda and our notions about the theory ances seemed even more enthusiastic than chair as atomic spies. The evidence a- and practice of mysticism. Eventually, those who saw only one play at a time. gainst them was pure shit, if you look we dared to hope that ILLUMINATOS! might ILLIMI NATOS! achieves some of its best at it today, but it was convincing at be a more-than-literary experience, effects through sheer size and all-inclu¬ the time because of the prevalent hyster¬ might actually have psychotherapeutic siveness. In Liverpool, London and Seat¬ ia. At the time we were writing the or mystically enlightening value, make tle the house was always full for every John Birch Society had magnified that readers feel as if they were participat¬ marathon performance. conspiracy mania by connecting the Com¬ ing in some magical or religious rite. munist conspiracy to the Illuminati con¬ Only, the aim of this rite would be to SR; What did the critics have to say? spiracy, which Robert Welch had now dis¬ liberate people, rather than confirm covered, and they were blaming that con¬ their current programning. I think the SHEA: There were dozens of reviews of spiracy for sex education, fluoridation, stage versions of ILLUMINATOS! really the various stage versions, nearly all rock nusic, the peace movement and the did have this magical quality. The mara¬ of them favorable. The few negative re¬ popularity of marijuana. And they were thon performances reminded me a bit of views were invariably aimed at the mater¬ being believed. It was in that climate the long Catholic services for Holy Week ial rather than the actors. I'm glad we that Wilson and I took up our pens to that recapitulate the trial, crucifixion got at least a few hostile reviews. tilt at the windmills of political mad- and resurrection of Jesus. Of course, ILLUMINATOS! is a good deal more enter¬ SR: Why? taining than any religious ceremony I've ever sat through. Maybe this is what SHEA: ILLUMINATOS! was intended to out¬ SR: Have you changed your mind at all religion was like before somebody decid¬ rage, disgust, disturb and bewilder many about the existence of the Illuminati ed it had to be boring to be good for sorts of people. When two anarchists since the book was published? your soul. write a long novel full of satire aimed at everything from conspiracy theories 9£A: You, yourself, having written and SR; You wrote ILLUMINATOS! while an ed¬ to government and organized religion, researched TOE ILLUMINOIDS, which I con¬ itor at PLAYBOY. Did you find working somebody better be offended, or the au¬ sider to be a very sane and scholarly there an enjoyable or a stultifying ex¬ thors are not comnunicating very well. study of the Illuminati myth, are in a perience? The novel is replete with favorable ref¬ better position to say whether they ac¬ erences to drugs and rebellion, it pre¬ tually exist than I am. I still think Sf£A: It was a very lively, creative sents a series of pornographic scenes of the Birch Society picture of the Illum¬ place to work, especially during my earl¬ progressively increasing complexity and inati—which is now also being put about ier years there. My vrork on "The Play¬ perversity and it is peppered with ob¬ by a Birch-like group led by an extreme boy Fonm" gave me lots of material for scene and blasphemous imagery and lang¬ authoritarian named Lyndon Larouche— ILLUMINATOS! Later on, though, the cor¬ uage. If nobody is turned off, it means is sheer nonsense. Of course, there are poration started to run short of money, nobody is paying attention. secret deals among world leaders and so the staff got smaller, and I had to dastardly criminal acts are conmitted take on nost of the work that had form¬ SR; In addition to its science fiction covertyl by government agents. Still, I erly been done by a group of people. It and anarchist aspects, ILLUMINATOS! dis¬ don't believe in a single, worldwide, took all my time just to do the "Fonm" plays a strong preoccupation with the age-old conspiracy that explains All of well, and there was nothing left over to occult and the paranormal. Has your in¬ the Bad Things That Are Happening. develop new ideas or new directions, so terest in this area grown, or are you the job became something of a treadmill. more skeptical these days? Then there was an economy drive. Cn a single day in September, 1977 about ISO SHEA: As a kid I constantly drew and H.L. Gold published a story of mine call¬ employees were axed including several made models of dinosaurs, space ships, ed "Mutineer" in the July, 1959 issue of editors, and I was one of them. robots and horrible monsters. I made IF. I wrote fiction and articles fre¬ my own toy soldiers out of paper. They quently during my years as a magazine SR: Was that traumatic for you? were usually supposed to be Martians. I editor, but it wasn't until 1975 that built fleets of paper rocket ships. I Bob Wilson and I came out with ILLUMINAT- SHEA: No m atter how much they tried staged great battles on the living room US!, which was the first time I had my to tell me I was a swell person and my rug. At the same time, I was making my name on a book. wrk was first-rate, I couldn't help but own newspapers. Before I knew how to feel I had been weighed in the balance write I would fold pieces of paper and SFR: Can you remember the first novel and found expendable. Also, Yvonne and decorate them with regular rows of you ever read? I had some family tragedies at the same squiggles, which I would then "read" to time that made things worse. Less than any interested adult, making the news 9£A: Not for sure, but the most ijiport- two months after I was fired my mother, stories up as I went along. I made up a ant was THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS. One of who died in 1979, became an invalid, and long epic about my teddy bear, which I the great books of all time. Yvonne and Yvonne's 22-year-old brother was killed told in daily installments to my mother. I took turns reading it aloud to each in a motorcycle accident. So the end of As I grew older I developed the ambition other a few years ago, and I recently 1977 was a bad time for us, not just to write and draw my own science fiction read it aloud to Michael, and I still because of my being kicked out by PLAY¬ comic strip. This grew out of ray fascin¬ think it is a beautiful and delightful BOY. ation with BUCK ROGERS, which I began book. SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON was another reading in 1938. I felt about BUCK ROGERS favorite. I read M3BY DICK and HUCKLE¬ SFR; How did you get through it? the way my son now feels about STAR WARS. BERRY FINN when I was seven or eight I drew my own comic strips and passed years old, but I didn't understand them SFEA: I was buoyed up by Yvonne’s un¬ them out to friends. very well until much later. shakable confidence that I'd find worth¬ while work to do. Years of studying Zen SFR; How did you get started as a writ- SFR: What books did you like most when helped a lot, too. It's a bounce-back you were a teen-ager? philosophy. When fears of not being able to support my family plunged me into anx¬ StEA: Just as reading BUCK ROGERS made SHEA: I read more magazine science fic¬ iety or depression, I reminded myself me want to do my own comic strip, read¬ tion than anything else. When I was in that ray family needed someone who could ing sf made me want to write the stuff. ray teens there were no publishers regu¬ stay calm and cheerful more than they I started reading science fiction---a larly bringing out sf books. I was en¬ needed someone who had a job. That CAPTAIN FUTURE story called "Magic Moon" chanted by Leigh Brackett's SHADCW OVER helped me out of a lot of funks. Besid¬ —when I was eleven. Since the maga¬ MARS and by Asimov’s FOUNDATION series. es, PLAYBOY didn't exactly cast me adrift zines didn't come out fast enough for Among novels I loved Robert Penn Warren's without a life raft. There were 15 weeks' me, I started patronizing a back-number ALL THE KING'S MEN and Ayn Rand’s THE severence pay, ray profit-sharing and sev¬ magazine store in my neighborhood, and FOUNTAINHEAD. I also liked big gaudy eral free-lance editing and writing as¬ pretty socm I had built up a big collec¬ historicals like GONE WITH THE WIND and signments. tion of sf magazines. About the time I ANTHONY ADVERSE and the many novels of got the urge to write sf stories myself, Frank Yerby and Thomas B. Costain. SFR: How did you manage to strike out I discovered that this store had stacks on your own as a free-lance writer? of back issues of WRITER’S DIGEST, THE SFR: You nust do a lot of reading as WRITER and AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST. These part of your vrork. Do you read for SHEA: I'd always intended to leave PLAY- magazines fed my ambition, and they also pleasure as well? B0Y---on my time-table, of course—and taught me that there are principles in try to write for a living. I didn't feel the construction of fiction, techniques SHEA: A writer who doesn’t read for the ready to do that when I was unexpectedly for telling a story, methods of going sake of reading is doomed to lose all fired, but while I was job-hunting a sub¬ about writing. I started reading how¬ sense of what writing is all about. I stantial amount of free-lance writing to-write books. Those by Jack Woodford do most of my leisure reading either for work came my way. At the same time, I were among my favorites. By the time I pleasure or for self education. Recent¬ gave some short outlines for novels to was in high school I was turning out ly, for pleasure, I have read LINCOLN by my agent, A1 Zuckerman. die of them short stories pretty regularly. As a Gore Vidal, HERETICS OF by Frank turned into SHIKE, the medieval-Japanese senior in high school I wrote a long Herbert, THE WARLORD by Malcolm Bosse, novel which was published by Jove in pseudo-history of the future, which I THE GATE OF WORLDS by , 1981. That's a publishing company, not called THE MARCH OF THE MARTIANS. It THE TCMB by F. Paul Wilson, and PET SEM- a Roman god. Chce A1 landed a writing leaned heavily on a book I loved, THE ATARY by Stephen King. For enlighten¬ contract for me that vrould pay enough to MARCH OF THE BARBARIANS by Harold Lamb, ment, in the last few months, I've read support us, there was no question about a history of the Mongols. I had a cou¬ THE TIME FALLING BODIES TAKE TO LIQfT by going back to the old office-job-and- ple of short stories published in THE William Irwin Thompson, THE C ZONE by paycheck routine. MANHATTAN QUARTERLY, the college liter¬ Robert and Marilyn Kriegel, INTIMATE ary magazine. I had finished college CONNECTIONS by David D. Bums, THE HOLO¬ SFR: What is life like out on your par¬ and done two years in the army and was GRAPHIC PARADHM edited by Ken Wilber, ticular limb? in graduate school when I had my first THE TURNING POINT by Fritjof Capra and professional publication, a short story PROMETHEUS RISING by my good buddy Rob¬ SHEA: When I had a regular job I used called "Brave Feast," which appeared in ert Anton Wilson. to observe the free-lance writers I knew the January, 1958 issue of FANTASTIC UNI¬ and say it mist take nerves of steel to VERSE, edited by Hans Stefan Santesscm. SFR: What contemporary authors do you live like that, but I had no bone-deep get the most out of reading? mderstanding of how frightening it real¬ ly is until I started to do it myself. AH... I MVE To SHEA: The list is continually undergoing It is very difficult to be creative while IkiFOEM YOL'K. revision as my taste changes and my reas¬ worrying about when my next check is go¬ MAJESTY THAT ons for reading change, but John Fowles, ing to come in. I've learned to put AS OF THE FlfcT/J Remain Gary, Norman Mailer, Yukio Mishi- thoughts of money firmly out of my mind, OF THE ma, Vladimir Nabokov, George Orwell, as much as I can. It helps a great deal MdMTH/J Thomas Pynchon, J.R.R. Tolkein and Robert now that Yvonne now has a full-time job I'VE -&EEN Penn Warren seem to have taken up perma¬ and I can ditch that old Tule, so de¬ TAKEN CVFP- nent residence in my literary pantheon. structive to mm, of being the sole sup¬ ffr a port of my family. Work is nuch more of Mul-Ti NA77onal|| SR; As a former magazine editor, you a pleasure than it was when I was a maga¬ probably read a lot of magazines. zine editor. It's hard at times and lonely at times, but what could be more SFEA: Dozens, though I don't have enough fun than spending all day in a quiet room time to read as many magazines---or books watching and recording the doings of the for that matter—as I'd like to. creatures of my imagination? favorite is THE NEW YORKER, which I think is the best magazine being published in SFR: Have you always had a creative the U.S. today. I also love NATURAL bent? HISTORY, especially the column on evolu- tion by Stephen Jay Gould. THE NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE and SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN are other fav o rites. SFR: Could you describe your working habits? SFEA: I'm always experimenting with new ways of going about w riting. The habits of the moment are not the habits I had la st year and may not be those I 'l l be using next year. Right now, though, I try to follow a routine th a t varies l i t ­ tle from one day to the next. Monday through Friday I get up a t six a.m. I s ta rt w riting between eight and nine. I eat a lig h t lunch and go for a long walk. Then I continue working t i l l six . Those may seem lik e long hours, but there are interruptions, because I have to be a- vailable to our twelve-year-old Michael, though ne doesn't need me as much now as he did when I started free-lancing. From six to eigjit is free time, then I read t i l l around ten, and so to bed. That's my ideal schedule, you understand. The re a lity is punctuated by a ll sorts of I see and hear. The words and sentences is a lo t easie r. I ju s t c a ll up the old vicissitudes. come to me without much e ffo rt on my d ra ft on the screen, type in my changes, p a rt. Sometimes, though, I have to take punch a couple of keys and turn out a new SFR: I s n 't i t boring to follow a daily a more active role in shaping the scene, d raft on my Apple le tte r quality p rin te r routine? asking myself what the characters would a t the ra te of about a page a minute. As probably do or say, what would the de­ you can see, I'm an Apple lo y a list. I SHEA: I lik e i t . Many teachers of mys­ ta ils of the se ttin g probably be. Al­ got the computer in 1983, and a ll those ticism reconinend a daily schedule. By though I lik e my sto rie s to develop spon­ la te r drafts of ALL THINGS ARE LICHTS not having to worry about what you're taneously, I'm not above manipulating were done on i t . going to do next, you keep your mind on characters and events to push the story a higher plane. T hat's why monks the in the direction I think i t should go. SFR: What do you think is the strongest world over follow a regular routine. I t point in your w riting? encourages the growth of the inner lif e SFR: Do you find th a t w riting dialogue and of c re ativ ity . is e asie r than stra ig h t narrative? StEA: Story structure. Keeping the sto ­ SFR: How nuch planning do you do before SHEA: So nuch so that i t ' s a problem. ry moving in a defin ite direction without sta rtin g to write a novel? Chee my characters s ta r t talking to one wandering away from i t and without losing another i t ' s hard for me to get them to track of the various plot threads. I'm StEA: To get an advance from a publish­ shut up, so we can get on with the story. also good a t imagining and describing er you have to submit an outline of your You know those monologues in Ayn Rand's pageantry and spectacle, big scenes, e- proposed novel. So I w rite an outline novels th a t go on for pages and pages? vents on an ijipressive scale. of forty pages or so. But I don't neces­ Well, I could e asily w rite dialogues sa rily follow that outline when I w rite, that would go on ju s t as long^ Usually, SFR: Do you think a work of fictio n can and I plan the fin er d e tails of a chapt­ I le t my people ta lk as nuch as they want sa tisfy the demands of an in te lle c tu a l, er or scene only when I'm ready to w rite to in the f i r s t d ra ft, then cut back on educated e lite and the larger, general that p a rticu la r section. Also, I welcome the conversation when I'm revising. public simultaneously? • changes of direction th a t depart from the original outline. I go along with SFR: How nuch revision do you do? SHEA: F irst of a ll, the vast majority John Fowles' rule, "Follow the accident, of people in th is country don't read fear the fixed plan." I try to look a t SEA: I try to keep i t to a mininum. I books a t a ll, so as soon as you w rite a my original idea as nothing more than a try to avoid what I c a ll "overfuss,” book you are already appealing to an in­ springboard, with the real creative pro­ which means tinkering with a piece for te lle c tu a l e lite . Within that book-read­ cess happening as I work along. seven years or so before submitting i t , ing audience, I think, i t is possible to something I have been known to do from achieve both popular and lite ra ry suc­ SFR: Do you work through a piece of time to time. I think two drafts is cess. If y o u 'll go back and look a t my w riting from beginning to end, then, or best. My f ir s t d raft w riting usually l i s t of favorite ccntenporary authors, do you hop around, w riting sections as needs th a t much revision. I did SHIKE y o u 'll notice th a t they are a ll respect­ they occur to you? in three d rafts for the most p a rt, typ­ ed a r ti s ts and they have a ll w ritten ing several pages of f i r s t d raft mater­ best s e lle rs . My ideal is to w rite about SHEA: I've trie d hopping around, but the ia l, then rew riting th a t, then typing a people and events th a t have popular ap­ resu lts are confused and don't seem to fin al draftand moving on to the next peal, yet te l l my sto rie s with a richness f i t together too w ell. For me, the roost clunp of pages. I don't lik e to w rite a th a t w ill sa tisfy discrim inating readers. natural way to w rite is the way I read whole d ra ft of a novel, then go back to most novels, stra ig h t through from s ta r t the beginning and s ta r t over. But the SFR: Do you have an imaginary reader in to fin ish . But I often do get ideas for novel I ju s t finished, ALL THINGS ARE mind when you write? parts of the book other than the one I'm LICHTS, was tougher to do than SHIKE. I t working on. I make notes of those ideas took me six complete drafts over four SHEA: Much of the time I'm not thinking and use them when I'm ready. years before I fin ally got i t done. This of any reader a t a ll, ju s t doing my best is s t i l l not the way I p refer to work. to put the rig h t words on paper in the SFR: When you're w riting fic tio n , do Of course, I could go on revising ray rig h t order. At other tim es, a ll sorts whole scenes appear in your mind, or do w riting endlessly. There are always im­ of readers invade my mind. I imagine my you have to make yourself figure out what provements th a t can be made. But I agent or my e d ito r, or some friend or happens next? think the best way fo r me to develop as acquaintance reading a passage I've ju st a w riter is to get a lo t of practice by w ritten. These readers over my shoulder 9EA: I s ta r t by rereading what I wrote producing a large quantity of work, ra th ­ tend to make negative conments. I would yesterday and looking a t ray notes or out­ e r than by p e rfe c tio n is tic a lly polishing lik e to have an ideal reader to whom I line for the scene I'm w riting. This a few pieces. could address my work, but I haven't gets my mind back into the story. The Now th a t i do my w riting with an Ap­ been able to develop such a character scene sta rts to unfold in my mind as i f ple //e computer and a word processing system atically in my mind. In lie u of I were reading i t in a book or watching program called Apple W riter I I, revising an ideal reader, I try to use myself as i t on a movie screen. Sometimes I'm a the touchstone. I try to write the sort passive observer, and I simply w rite what of thing I rayself would lik e to read. I try to write as my favorite writers do. fectionism. Aside from listening to too ed that the samurai, whom we look upon I figure, if my writing pleases me, many other opinions, the factor that more as the epitome of militarism, were just there must be some other people out there than anything stifles would-be writers that, private . They were not whom it will also please. is an overactive critical faculty. The official government troops. They were people who tell you that writing is agony armed retainers protecting the private SR: Do you think it's true that a writ¬ for them are usually criticizing their property of local landlords. The word er is never the best judge of his or her work even as they try to turn it out. I samurai means "one who serves." But on¬ own work? try to avoid that. When developing sto¬ ly a few hundred years after the class ry ideas or doing first draft work, I first appeared, they became the govern¬ SHEA: Cn the contrary, the writer is the try to ignore the voice of my critical ment. Government is based on the power only judge whose opinion is important. faculty. Get something on paper first. to coerce, and as long as that power ex¬ In order to work at all, I mast be able The critical faculty is more useful to ists, there will be government. to judge my own work and to assume that me later, when I'm revising and polish¬ I am a good judge of it. I have to know ing, but I need momentum when I'm try¬ SR: Your outlook is both anarchist and when something I've written needs more ing to come up with ideas or get a first pacifist. Did you have trouble writing work, and when it's okay and I can leave draft on paper. with sympathy about authoritarian mili¬ it as it is. If I couldn't make such tarists like the samurai? decisions, I'd be writing in a vacuum. SR; Could you describe ALL THING ARE It is tme that writers often can't pre¬ LI (UTS for us? SHEA: Any writer of fiction who sympa¬ dict how their work will be received by thizes only with characters whose ideas others. Others may praise work of mine agree with his or her own is going to that I am unhappy with, or dislike some¬ SHEA: The title comes from a medieval run out of material fast. I've always thing I think is fine. But other peo¬ philosopher, Scotus Erigena, who said, "All that are, are lights." The main admired Japanese culture, and in particu¬ ple's opinions are not really the import¬ lar the samirai. The samurai ideal is ant thing for a writer. Writers can't characters have an outlook that is as mystical as that statement, only their to develop oneself as a whole human be¬ ieam from what others think of their mysticism is not of the orthodox variety. ing, to be an artist, poet and philoso¬ The main character is a troubador who pher as well as a fighting man. The samurai often studied under Zen masters, achieves illumination in an adulterous and some who lived long enough retired SR: Isn't it important for writers to affair with a countess through the rites follow editors' directions? and became monks themselves. I find this of courtly love, viiich I poTtray as a cultivation of aesthetic sensitivity side Westernized version of tantric yoga. The SHEA: If you encounter an editor who by side with martial ferocity to be most troubador is also in love with a woman attractive. You have to go back to the deosn't like your work, it's best just minister of the heretical Cathar sect. to go looking for another editor. The Nowadays they tell women they can't be knight-troubadors of Provence, the Vik¬ publishing business abounds with sto¬ priests; in those days they burned them ings or the pagan Celtic warriors to ries of writers who had a manuscript at the stake for trying. These people find anything similar in Western culture, rejected by twenty-two publishers, only get caught up in the disastrous Seventh yet as recently as World War II Japanese to have it accepted by the twenty-third Crusade led by King Louis IX, known to¬ officers were still writing poems in and become a best-seller. A high-rank¬ day as Saint Louis. The crusaders are beautiful brush-and-ink calligraphy be¬ ing editor at PLAYBOY once stated cate¬ eventually defeated by the Egyptian Mame¬ fore charging into battle waving their gorically at a staff meeting, "Isaac lukes. The survivors, including the beautiful, obsolescent swords. Asimov can't write." Now, Isaac has a King, are held as hostages by the Moslems As far as my being a pacifist goes, strong ego and a huge following, and he and try to save their lives by paying an paradoxically the martial virtues are could care less what any one editor enormous ransom. not antithetical to pacifism. Gandhi thinks of his writing. But I wonder how remarked that many of his most steadfast many potential Asimovs may have been cut SR: Sounds strangely familiar. What nonviolent campaigners were men with off at the beginning of their careers be¬ are you working on now? military training and experience. In cause they took some asinine editor’s fact, both Gandhi and the Buddha were word for it that they couldn't write. In SHEA: It's in the formative stages and bom into the Kshatriya, the Indian war¬ fact, when I was making my adieus at I don't want to say too nuch about it, rior caste. In the ANGUTTARA NIKAYA, a PLAYBOY another high-ranking editor ad¬ but it seems to be a sequel to ALL THINGS Buddhist scripture, we find, "Warriors, vised me to look for another editorial ARE LIGHTS. It will be a continuation of warriors we call ourselves. We fight job rather than try free-lancing because my dyspeptic view of the Crusades and of for splendid virtue, for high endeavor, in his opinion I wasn't that good a writ¬ the Middle Ages generally. for sublime wisdom, therefore we call er. Thank God I didn't listen to him. ourselves warriors." Bob Wilson had a The editor whose word you take as gospel nice little essay in NEK LIBERTARIAN sev¬ today may be a public relations account SR; Let's talk about SHIKE for a mo¬ eral issues ago on the need for an effec¬ executive---or a free-lance writer---to- ment. How did that novel fare in the tive pacifist to have the heart of a morrow. The only teacher you can rely marketplace? on over a lifetime is yourself. SHEA: Quite well, though it wasn't a SFR: Isn't historical fiction a rather SFR: Are you very critical of your own best seller. That is to say, it didn't drastic switch from science fiction? make the NEW YORK TIMES or PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY best seller lists. But it did SHEA: Well, SHIKE started out as a pro¬ SHEA: I try to be neither too severe make the best seller lists of several posal for a science fiction novel which nor too lenient. You can't fool your¬ book store chains, such as B. Dalton's, borrowed its plot from certain histori¬ self, and when you are a writer, you're Waldenbooks and Kroch's and Bretano's. cal events---the Wars of the Roses in working for yourself. You know when It was listed as a best seller by the England and the Mongol invasion of Europe you’re goofing off and not getting the Toronto STAR. And reprint rights have in the thirteenth century. An editor ex¬ work done, spending too nuch time sharp¬ been sold in eight foreign countries. pressed interest in the story, but asked ening pencils. You know when you're do¬ It has gotten good reviews and gone back if I could set it in medieval Japan, ing belew-standard work. So there isn't for seven printings. All in all a res¬ since he was in the market for historic¬ really much danger of a person who is pectable performance. And the people al romances, bot science fiction. This derious about writing being too lenient who like it, love it. That's the most is not, by the way, the editor or the with himself or himself. The greater important thing. publishing house that ended up buying danger is paralyzing oneself with per¬ the book. Anyway, I did a little quick research and discovered that there was a Japanese civil war like the War of the SR; Did you learn anything in research¬ Roses. The parallels were startling, ing Oriental history for SHIKE that might even to the opposing sides using red and be of interest to us in the twentieth- white as their official colors. I knew, century Occident? of course, that the Japanese had suffered a Mongol invasion. Since the novel was SHEA: Many things. For instance, right- in an embryonic state at that point, it wing libertarians often talk about pri¬ was possible to do a little genetic eng¬ vate armies and private police forces as ineering and program the organism to fe- a necessity for a free society. I leam- velop into a historical novel rather than 10 a science fiction novel. This new novel is connected to my other work in other started psychotherapy in 1963, when my ways as well. My hero belongs to an first marriage was falling apart, and I order of warrior monks whose resemblance went into full-scale psychoanalysis be¬ to the Illuminati is not coincidental tween 1967 and 1973. Before all this and whose teachings suggest many of the professional help I had a lot of problems ideas about mysticism, philosophy and with sticking to projects that I start¬ politics expressed in ILLUMINATUS! There ed, with meeting writing conmitments, are similar threads connecting ALL THINGS with figuring out what I really wanted ARE LIOfTS with ILLUMINATUS! to do. Psychoanalysis taught me how to Generally speaking, there are many be productive. similarities between science fiction and historical fiction. A lot of science SR: What else besides writing are you fiction is historical fiction set in the working at? future. In both genres the writers must create in their imaginations a society SHEA: I'm teaching, among other things. and a way of life that they cannot know I give courses in magazine editing and firsthand. Many science fiction stories magazine-article writing at Loyola Uni¬ describe future societies obviously mod¬ versity in downtown Chicago. It's great eled after societies that existed in fun pulling all my experience together the past. Asimov, for example, drew on and trying to make sense of it. In my the history of the Roman Empire for the writing course I stress self-criticism Foundation series. and self-development as opposed to seek¬ ing answers from writing gurus. SFR: What other writing have you done recently? Then, I irregularly publish an anarch¬ ist magazine called NO GOVERNOR. I let this lapse between 1977 and 1984, but SHEA: The last piece published was an then I doing a magazine for Arthur Hlava- article in THE WRITER for November, 1984 ed by discouragement than it wouid have called "Nobody Else Can Do It for You." been if I'd just figured out my own way ty's Golden APA, and that got my editing- In it I said at greater length what I've of doing things and kept on writing and and-publishing motor started again. just told you, that a writer has to be writing and writing. The kingdom of Lately my apazine has turned into a re¬ writing is within you. vived NO GOVERNOR. The magazine is now his or her own teacher and critic. less purely anarchist and has strong mys¬ tical and fanzine components. SFR; Would you like to write more SF? SFR: Then you agree with the people who say it's impossible to teach anyone how I write for other anarchist and far- SHEA: Oh, sure, but I could never be to write? out publications when time permits. I exclusively or even primarily a science give talks when asked and occasionally fiction writer. There are too many other SHEA: Even that notion is misleading, attend meetings of anarchist and related kinds of writing I want to do. if it is taken to mean that writing is a groups I'm a menber of the Social- Rev¬ mysterious ability that can't be studied olutionary Anarchist Federation, an um¬ SFR: Do you have any advice for aspiring rationally or developed methodically. brella organization for a number of an¬ authors? People who believe so, if they're not archist individuals and groups. Several happy with their first efforts at writ¬ years ago I engaged in some anti-draft SHEA: Write the sort of thing you your¬ ing, may conclude that they don't have activity. For the past few years I've self prefer to read. Use your own taste genius or talent or whatever it takes, been nuch involved in the Freeze move¬ as a guide to what to write and how to and may give up. What I'm saying is that ment, working at the connunity level here write it, and you are more likely to find you have to leam writing by yourself. in Glencoe. I write publicity and propa¬ a market for your work and to be happy You can be quite rational and conscious ganda for them and do occasional comput¬ doing it. Don't write what you consider about it, or you may just practice and erized mass mailings. At the moment the trash just because it seems like a way allow your skill to develop—whatever Freeze isn't getting much publicity, but to make a lot of money. Don't, on the suits you. You can leam a few things I still think it's the on ly practical other hand, try to write belles lettres from other writers, but you have to be alternative to the extinction of humanity because such writing confers prestige, very selective. You have to invest your if reading such literature puts you to own ideas about writing, your own methods sleep. Take as your models, not the I'm deeply interested in the study and techniques, your own goals. The and practice of mysticism, particularly writers who make the most money or those kingdom is within. Zen. I meditate. I try to regulate my who rank highest with literary journals, life in ways reconmended by mystical but the writers from whose work you pers¬ SR: Have you yourself followed this onally derive the most satisfaction. teachers. I have built up a large lib¬ advice? rary devoted to mysticism. I sit now There's another word of advice I con¬ and then with the group at the Zen Center sider equally, maybe more, important: SHEA: Not all the time, and that's how of Chicago. Don't listen to people who give advice I've learhed that the advice is good. to aspiring authors. As it says in the Whenever I've tried to do some sort of SR: What do you do for fun? painting aboard the Lief Erickson, writing I despise or dislike I've been "Think for yourself, schmuck." OD'ing miserable and the result has been poor. SHEA: Everything I do is fun. on advice produces confusion, stultifica¬ Whenever I've uncritically adopted some¬ tion, discouragement. I mentioned read¬ body else's writing theories or practic¬ SR: Does your fiction have a political ing how-to-write magazines and books es, my development as a writer has been purpose? when I started writing. After a while, held back. though, I reached a point where too iaich 90: Naturally my writing reflects my reading about how to write messed me up. SR: Looking over your writing career, ideas about politics, religion and what¬ I was forever changing my methods to fol¬ you seem to have had more work published not. But I do not write to advocate ray low the latest how-to article or profes¬ in the last ten years than you did before ideas. Not the way Ayn Rand---whose id¬ sional tip that impressed me. I even that. Why do you think you are accom¬ eas and work I admire in many ways—did followed advice from writers whose actual plishing more lately? in THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED. novels and short stories I had never prirary purpose in writing is to be a read. I kept fantasizing that I would SHEA: I've been gaining experience and storyteller, not a preacher. The ideas discover the Secret and feeling depressed I've learned my way around the publish¬ in my stories are just more material out because my writing didn't seem to get any ing business. The fact that ILLIMINATUS! of which the story is built. A story, better. When you are trying to leam to was a collaboration helped me get that to be any good, must honestly embody the write, you usually go through a period book done, too. I had Bob Wilson's en¬ writer's values and beliefs. But the of having your work rejected by editors, couragement and example to spur me cn. better writer you are, I think, the more and during this painful time you're Before ILLIMINATUS! I produced several those ideological elements will be ab¬ tempted to listen to any plausible char¬ novels which I never finished. sorbed into the creative process and be¬ acter who comes along. All this advice Perhaps most important is that I come invisible. For over four hundred hunting made my approach to writing much years people have been arguing about the more erratic and inconsistent and hamper- 11 meaning of various characters and events sity, th leading factory expl extinction. We this educating by around me and my place in it, to sel minds. By i____ „_„ _ whatever means ilable: Talking to values that will help me chart my co ties I was meditating regularly and had people on tnethe jodj( or inn thetne local tavern. I want a philosophy that will do for adopted a nunber of mystical practices. Making speeches. Writing paaphlets and what religion does for a person, but I started to treat my work, everything songs. Drawing cartoons. Producing an¬ in my life, as a Way. I started to archist paintings, novels and symphonies. treat everything that happens to me as a SFR: How is your philosophy turning out? lesson or problem presented to me by life, SFR: Wait a minute. You previously the true sensei. To me, mysticism has praised writing that doesn't have any St£A: It’s a mixture of mysticism, an¬ nothing, necessarily, to do with theolo¬ message. archist individualism and scientific gy or morality. It's simply a means of materialism, elements that are somewhat making direct mental contact with the SHEA: True, but Blake said that all po¬ difficult to blend. Che of my key con¬ ultimate, indescribable reality, thereby ets are of the Devil's party, whether victions is that we have to cease to be achieving a state of peace and euphoria. they know it or not. I would say that guided by the ideas of good and evil. This is an utterly inadequate descrip¬ all novelists are anarchists, consciously The origin of hunan misery, as the BOOK tion of wiiat mysticism is. or mcansciously. All art that affirms OF GENESIS tells us, lies in our adoption life encourages anarchism. of the ideas of good and evil. Oddly e- SFR: So you are both a mystic and an nough, no preachers seem to have drawn the lofical conclusion that we ought to stop thinking in terms of good and evil. SFEA: Yes. Che of the important threads However, that is what both mysticism and in my thought derives from the existen¬ tialism of Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir who teach that the universe is not ruled by a god and is meaningless and amoral in human terms, that there is no here¬ after and that life on this planet is a chance event which has no significance. This is, so far as I know, what science appears to have learned about the human condition. Nevertheless, the existen¬ tialists assert that it is possible for human life to have value, meaning and dignity, if we realize that we can cre¬ ate these things for ourselves. The mi- AT THE KuBAM KAFE''.. - that people have a sense of who they are and where they are going, have mellowed out somewhat and have the matured values that enable them to enjoy parenthood. Parenthood is like any other task--- you’ve got to enjoy it to do well at it.

SFR: Many vital and creative people ex¬ tol the virtues of will power in making life more than just one darned thing aft¬ er another. Is will an important part of your approach to life? SHEA: For a long tinE I dismissed will power as an obsolete Victorian notion. I thought Freudian psychology had estab¬ lished that people have no control over the way they act, that it's all determin¬ ed by the structure of their subconscious. Then I learned that Freud never held any such view. He, and modem psychoanalysts, SFR; I'm curious about your outlook cm hold that people can direct their behav¬ lifestyle as it affects long life and ior rationally and should try to. Freud vitality. Do you engage in activities even admired those great exponents of like jogging or running? Yoga or T'ai will power and character the English Oii? Is nutrition important in your Puritans, so much so that he named one daily life? Are such concerns likely to of his sons Oliver, after Oliver Crom¬ help us extend our life spans and enjoy well. All the important varieties of life more? psychotherapy, even the non-Freudian on¬ es like behavior therapy, agree that for SHEA: I used to lead a determinedly m- the therapy to be successful the patient healthy lifestyle. I was a heavy smoker, must have a strong will to change. This drinker and eater. I preferred high is a precondition of therapy. Psycho¬ cholesterol foods like beef and cheese. therapy doesn't replace will power, it I got no exercise. I liked to stay up depends on will power to be effective. half the night and often worked or play¬ In my own case, I thought my bad habits, ed through two days straight without smoking and the like, were neurotic syn?)- sleeping at all. Sounds like fun, does¬ toms that would go away automatically n't it? Gradually I got the message that when I completed my analysis. Not it's a fun way to shorten your life. So so. I still have the same struggle to I've been whittling away at these self- direct my behavior rationally that I did destructive habits. Studying and emula¬ before. The only difference---and it is ting the practices of mystics has helped. a crucial difference—is that I'm a more I try to follow the Buddha's rule of walk¬ together person and can struggle more ing a middle path between harmful asceti¬ intelligently with my self-defeating ten¬ cism and self-indulgence. I have to say, dencies. There is no substitute for though, that I am repelled by fads. A will. We must take responsibility for couple of the things you mention have be¬ our lives. We can't just go on blaming come fads to the point where I wouldn't the silly things we do on our parents or do them even if they would double my the economic system or the devil. Un¬ life span. When I see a jogger coining fortunately, this doesn't seem to have down the street in his hundred-dollar gotten through to the public at large, Adidas warm-up suit, I want to reach for which is still looking for miracle cures. my revolver. All that being said, please understand that I don't consider myself a very SFR: I note that you and I share the strong-willed person. I try to use the This unique distinction of having become power of habit. I'm very conscious of my Publication.... fathers for the first time at forty. habits, and I try to strengthen the help¬ Isn't it great? Do you think it's bet¬ ful ones and gradually chip away at the ter than becoming a father in your twen¬ self-defeating ones. I also think that ties? will depends a lot on attitude, and that one's attitudes can be improved—and SHEA: Fatherhood is rather like its one’s will strengthened---by constantly necessary precondition, sex, in that the reminding oneself of the attitudes one older you get the more grateful you are wants to have. For instance, if you that something so nice can still happen like to smoke, you have to keep remind¬ to you. And, as with sex, parenthood is ing yourself that tobacco is a poison an area of life in which our cultural and smoking is slow suicide. This is evolution has outstripped our biological what is meant by reprogramming yourself. evolution. Though it is physically pos¬ In this connection I also like Gandhi's sible for us to become parents in our advice, that you should never give some¬ teens, the cultural tendency seems to be thing up just for the sake of giving it to put off actualizing this potential up, but only make a sacrifice when you is Available in until later and later in life. The fact can see it as a way of gaining something that we tend to live longer and to be in else that you value more. Good health, MICROFORM better physical shape in middle age mak¬ say, or mystical illumination. That is es this postponement of parenthood prac¬ what will is, in a sense---a zeroing in For Complete Information tical. Women are also putting off on what you value most. Through a pro¬ motherhood until later in life. In their cess extending over many years I've be¬ twenties, and even in their thirties, come a somewhat more disciplined person. people are still finding themselves. In I behave more intelligently than I once the old days, if you hadn't found your¬ did. But I still have a long way to go. self by the age of sixteen, you were dead. But now people have more time and SFR: Thank you, Robert Shea. need more time, because life is more com¬ plex and there are more options. So it's often not until their thirties or forties 13 NOISE LEVEL

A COLUMN BY JOHN BRUNNER

IN RE BEING COMMISSIONED AND CHALLEN(£S al opportunity to write as well as I AND SUCH So for a period of several years I REG reviewed my novel THE TIDES OF deliberately set myself an annual task: TIME on the strength of uncorrected page- to take a standard SF theme and see what proofs. I know that because he was puz¬ I could do with it that would bear my zled by cryptic letter-groups in large exclusive stamp rather than being merely type, such as UUMAAB, at the start of derivative. I hope and believe that every chapter. some of these exercises are still known to the contemporary readership; the I was pretty puzzled, myself. Those first was , in are the automatic system references gen¬ which I set out to convert a master erated by my word processor, and I never chess game into a novel that could be expected a printer to add to his work¬ read regardless of its underlying struc¬ load by setting them and then having to ture, while another was , strike them again. in which I tried to say something fresh both fields I greatly admire. Unfortun¬ about telepathic powers, and yet anoth¬ ately it was caviare to the general; er was QUICKSAND, in which I attempted both B. Dalton and Waldenbooks rejected However, this allegedly experiment¬ to create a tragic hero in the classic it as a mass-market best-seller, and ac¬ al device did have one beneficial ¬ sense of a person doomed by forces be¬ cording to Chip Delany it had five days' off. It prompted Dick to send me a let¬ yond his control, while working within exposure at his local bookstore in mid¬ ter coimissioning a specific column, the a format that might or might not be sci¬ town Manhattan, being put on show on Mon¬ first time -- to my recollection -- that ence-fictional. (Someone told me just day and on Saturday sent back to the he's ever done so. In it he said I was the other day that he didn't like the warehouse. Not nuch, to be candid, for "seemingly breaking away from the safe book because he found the ending ambig¬ a book into which I sank more than five ways to tell SF stories in novel form" uous and never learned whether Urchin years' hard graft... and asked me to explain why. really was a visitor from the future, or had merely ensnared Paul Fidler in an I did at least leam one lesson from Cue for still further puzzlement (I that venture. It's easier to write SF baffle easy). After being told in the exceptionally elaborate fantasy. But that was the whole idea, and I felt like than historical novels. If you paint late sixties, when I published STAND ON yourself into a comer in an SF story, ZANZIBAR, that I'd invented a wholly saying so, only for once I managed to bridle my tongue. I regard QUICKSAND, you can conjure up a space-warp through new way of writing book-length SF -- I the wall. If you're writing a histori¬ think it was Norman Spinrad, bless him, by the way, as a trailbreaker for such recent novels by Christopher Priest as cal you have to make do with what was who said that, in AMAZING -- I confess available in the real past -- that is, I wasn't accustomed to the way I told THE AFFIRMATION -- which I cordially com¬ mend -- and 1HE GLAMOUR, about which I if you take your job seriously. But I've my stories being called "safe." Had my written about this elsewhere (FOCUS, AN then unorthodox techniques now become scarcely have call to say anything in view of its deserved success.) SF WRITER'S MAGAZINE, *8, Autumn 1983: so nuch a part of the field’s standard "Researching THE GREAT STEAMBOAT RACE") vocabulary as to warrant the term? I The time when I needed to break so I won't repeat myself. duly said as nuch, and REG came back loose from the demands of peddling a with the following: maximal quantity of wordage duly passed I will, however, add one further point, to illustrate the impossibility "...it seems to me that THE TICES and nowadays I aim to write one book a year. But I haven't given up my exer¬ of distinguishing nowadays between what OF TIME and the novel about the aliens I set myself as an exercise and vdiat I who developed through catastrophic cises; I've done two in the past seven years, one not entirely successful (THE simply want to write. A couple or three changes in their planet" (THE CRUCIBLE years ago I was at a NovaCon, and I rea¬ OF TIME) "were risky novels: TIDES OF INFINITIVE OF GO, which tackled the full implications of a form of matter trans¬ lized after talking to a handful of stim¬ TIME because of the plot structure, and ulating people that one of the projects the aliens because they really were al¬ mission I'd exploited in sundry earlier books) and one tolerably so, to the point I'd never tackled was a novel without iens and there was nary a human in sight any human characters whatsoever... and ... Maybe you could write about why you where it gained me a Porgy Award from The West Coast Review of Books (PLAYERS virtually nobody else had tried it, chose those structures and techniques either! and what reaction you got... That sort AT THE GAME OF PEOPLE, a contemporary of thing fascinates me -- the challenges recension of the Faust legend using al¬ "Fine."' I said to myself, and went a writer accepts, and why." iens in place of devils). home to see whether I could bring it off The result is . Okay, Mr. Editor sir: you're on... Whether it's an exercise or not, I leave But I’m no longer sure that I can you to judge. (Please read it -- I need separate my exercises from the rest of the royalties!) my output. You see, after so many books All my working life I've done my -- about eighty if you include short- A related point: Since the outset best to devise challenges for myself. story collections but discount revisions of my career I've now and then felt the When I first turned freelance in 1958 and expansions -- I have to make every need to do something totally out of my I was getting $1000 a throw from Ace book a challenge if I'm to convince ray- usual run, because if I didn't I could Doubles, and I had to sell four or more self it's worth writing at all. That's too easily fall into the trap where sun¬ books a year simply to avoid going back why I spent so nuch of the late seven¬ dry of my colleagues have wound up, to a job in an office. ties on my first-ever historical novel, mechanically rehearsing ideas that just¬ THE GREAT STEAMBOAT RACE. It earned me ified a single book and letting them Pretty soon, however, I realized excellent reviews, plus some of the nic¬ sprawl into a trilogy or even a series. that writing as much as I could, though est fan-letters I ever received, includ¬ In some cases this makes a lot of money, it brought me a living, was likely to ing a few from colleagues whose work in admittedly. But to do that would remind gain me a reputation as a hack and no¬ me too acutely of the plight I was in thing more. I also needed the occasion¬ 14 all those years ago when I wrote for the Ace Doubles. I've been struggling to self. But in my contribution to that avoid a recurrence ever since. volume I enshrined --or hope I did -- everything I know about telling a str¬ And if moving into a different aightforward story to maximal effect: field -- the Max Curfew thrillers, THE in other words I set out what I believe DEVIL’S WORK, THE GREAT STEAMBOAT RACE -- to be the rules one has to understand didn't solve the problem for me by pro¬ the reason for before one dare start viding the financial independence I've breaking them. It's a bit like learning always dreamed of, videlicet the re¬ to play an instrument in only one key; sources I'd need to cease relying for to progress, one has to Inowwhy such a income on what I write during any given concept as "key" exists... then what year, a goal that even now eludes me... the other keys are, and which of them will be most useful... and so forth. Well, at any rate such adventures broadened my skills. I've shown I can Coming home to the blues is very tackle an immense variety of themes, much like writing a good plain novel in and out of SF. I've enjoyed experi¬ with a sequential narrative whose chap¬ menting -- not in the sense of pioneer¬ ters succeed one another in real time ing at the frontiers of contemporary fic¬ and the characters interplay with one tion, but of turning my hand from the another in strict chronological order plain narrative of THE PRODUCTIONS OF (stress on logical)...as they do in THE TIME to the subtleties and indirections TIDES OF TIME, bythe way. Dick, I'm of QUICKSAND to the first-person bitter¬ surprised at you. I'm astonished how ness of black spy Max Curfew to the cal¬ you missed the point that this is a story culated pyrotechnics of STAND ON ZANZI¬ eventuating in real time, one day per BAR to the Victorian panorama of THE month being singled out during the prog¬ GREAT STEAMBOAT RACE to the... ress of Stacy's pregnancy until the birth, whereupon one extra day forms a You name it! I have great respect coda. I might add that my British agent, for versatility. I vastly admire Anth¬ Leslie Flood, caught on. Furthermore, ony Burgess, for example. I try to cul¬ I'm very proud of the fact that he sent tivate something of the same kind in my me a fan letter saying it's rare for him own work. Above all, I want to be ec¬ to be emotionally moved by a science fic¬ lectic in my craftsmanship. I want to tion novel but in this case it had hap¬ match style to subject, as best I can. pened. Agents are tough; one doesn't In other words, I try not just to often penetrate their armour. tell a story, but to tell it in the I can't help wondering whether the most suitable manner. book might not have done more business Yet and still... Hang on; I just than appears likely had my original choice and second choice of title not TEN YEARS AGO IN SCIENCE FICTION -- hit an analogy from a totally different SUWER, 1375 field. I used it before, but never mind. both been discarded by the publishers. I called it CONTINUUM and was told I BY ROBERT SABELLA couldn't use that because allegedly the name had been spoiled by a series of an¬ died at the age of 54. Since I was about fifteen, I've been thologies published by Roger Ellwood. One of the most important writers in pretty much of a jazz fan, mainly of the My second-favorite title, then, was AN science fiction, he published his first traditional and revivalist ISLAND LIKE A SPHINX. (I wish I'd been story in 1940. He was best known for style but with a lot of time for thir¬ able at least to tie that on the British his "Okie" series (collected in book ties jump bands, early RSR, boogie-woog¬ edition! It's a pretty good name, don't form as CITIES IN RIGHT) and the Hugo- ie and the like. you think?) But that was rejected, too, award winning novel . and I suspect the outcome is that quite I don't follow jazz the way I used Rod Serling died at age 50. He to, but I still listen and enjoy when a lot of buyers have been misled into imagining has some con¬ achieved widespread recognition as a there's a retrospective on BBC Radio 3 nection with THE CRUCIBLE OF TIME... leading television dramatist in the Fif¬ -- there was a recent month-long series which of course it doesn’t. ties, his most famous work being "Re¬ on Benny Goodman, for example, and we quiem For A Heavyweight." Later he just had another on Bill Evans -- and no At all events: THE TIDES OF TIME is created, hosted and wrote many episodes matter who you name who's made it in for me a good plain narrative in sequen¬ of and its short-lived that field... tial time. But you might say it's like successor NIGHT GALLERY. He or she, instrumentalist or sing¬ a blues by Charlie Parker rather than The Hugo Awards were announced at er, keeps coming home to the blues. In one by Johnny Dodds. Aussiecon, the first worldcon held in that brief sequence of twelve bars there Australia. Professional winners includ¬ is an infinity of possible variation. ed Ursula K. LeGuin’s This is despite the fact that, with the All the foregoing goes partway to¬ (giving it a sweep of every major award passage of time, hundreds of alterna¬ ward answering one segment of REG'S in¬ for 1974), George R.R. Martin's "A Song tives have opened up. quiry, that concerning "why you chose For Lya," ’s "Adrift Just In exactly the same way, a writer those structures and techniques." There Off The Islets of Langerhans," Larry keeps caning home to the narrative form¬ remains the matter of "what reaction you Niven's "The Hole Man" and Mel Brooks' at that has its roots in the oldest kinds got." You really want to know? "Young Frankenstein" as Best Dramatic Presentation. Two fan winners were Best of story-telling: the folk tale, the Well, someone in KLIATT (February legend, the ballad, the ILIAD and the Fanzine, THE ALIEN CRITIC, and somebody issue, Vol. XIX #2), hiding behind the named Richard E. Geis as Best Fan Writer. ODYSSEY and GILGAMESH. [Blast you, Sil- initials DAH, gave a kindly review to verbob! I've had Gilgamesh on ray list THE TIDES OF TIME, but said I'd written Important publications included the of "jobs to be tackled" for not less "fifteen" SF novels and called me a Robert Silverberg-edited anthology THE than twenty years! My own fault for "rather pedestrian writer with no real NEW ATLANTIS, containing the title procrastination or not knowing the right style." stOTy by Ursula K. LeGuin and James Tip- buyer. I_ wanted to write the film tree's "A Momentary Taste of Being." script, not the novel.) DAW Books published Marion Zimner Brad¬ ley’s THE HERITAGE OF HASTUR, the most In our times the said narrative mature Darkover book to date which set form has become marvellously flexible. the tone for those to follow. THE MAGA¬ If you want my full views concerning it, ZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTICM pub¬ please consult THE CRAFT OF SCIENCE FIC¬ lished Richard Cowper's "The Custodians" TION AND SCIENCE FANTASY edited by Reg¬ which earned a Hugo nomination and cata¬ inald Bretnor, published by Harper 6 Row pulted a vastly-underrated writer to in¬ in hardback and Barnes 5 Noble in paper¬ stant fame in tte science fiction world. back. Again, I don't want to repeat ray- 15 On an ontological and epistemologi¬ cal level this book is marvelous. Es¬ pecially fascinating is the Everett Many Worlds (or Parallel lliiverses) Interpre¬ tation of quantum reality: the notion that for every possibility cn a particle level (subatomic) a new universe is cre¬ ated. Thus this universe is in the con¬ tinual process of branching off into an infinite number of alternate universes. Everything is real as opposed to the Co¬ penhagen Interpretation (which Einstein rebelled against) which says that nothing is real.

But by far the most exciting idea in the book comes out of the paradox which gives the book its title: Schrodinger's BY ELTON T. ELLIOTT cat, the observer interaction and the limits of knowing the action of subatom¬ ic particles. In one of the gTeat theo¬ retical leaps, noted physicist John Arch¬ ibald Wheeler (the man who coined the term Black Hole) reasons that due to It sounds as if civility and good tions around the country; a Second and the infinite regression of cause and ef¬ manners were at a minimira for a few less obvious problem is that the violent; fect "the whole universe may owe its "gentlemen" at the Nebula Awards Cerenony unruly and generally churlish behavior 'real' existence to the fact that it is and Banquet. The gathering of members might turn off fans to the extent that observed by intelligent beings" (p. 208). of the SFWA and various professional they will, in larger and larger numbers, Thus, in quantum terms, intelligence acts hangers-on was held the first weekend in cut down on conventions or stop going as a wave function making Newtonian real¬ July at the Warwick Hotel in New York altogether. As an example of the latter, ity possible. If this interpretation of City. there are many friends of mine who are quantum reality is true, and the univer¬ readers of SF and are delighted to find As usual, awards were presented: se needs awareness or self-awareness to out about SF conventions. Most go to exist, it opens up many philosophical William Gibson won Best Novel honors for one or two, are turned off and never go and religious doors. A "maker" might his compelling and powerful NEURCMANCER; back. These are good people, the kind be necessary, whether from the beginning, John Varley won for his paranoid vision of attendees SF cons need. What turns middle or end or -- somewhere else -- of conputers in "Press Enter#;" Octavia them off the most is the violent atmos¬ is problematical. I suspect that Wheel¬ Butler won for the splendid novelette, phere: the omnipresence of weapons with er might not like my interpretation of "Bloodchild;" and for his costumes in hallways and the swaggering his Interpretation. Just as Science sup¬ arresting short story "." behavior and attitude of some members of posedly put the kibosh on deistic crea¬ But imfortuiately, the highlight (or low- the SCA. tion and seemed to make atheism or agnos¬ light) of the weekend was violence. The solution as I see it boils dowi ticism more in tune with reality than Harlan Ellison slugged Charles Platt to a number of varied items. A "no wea¬ simple faith --so Wheeler's’Interpreta¬ in what was apparently another in an on¬ pons policy” for hallway costumes would tion seems to introduce the concept of going and highly personal feud between certainly help. I for one am tired of awareness and a "creator" at some level the two. But vdiat was surprising was dodging poorly-secured swords and open as necessary for a discernible, causal Thoms Disch's unprovoked attack on Wil¬ spears and knives. Next, limiting num¬ Newtonian everyday universe. In any liam Gibson. According to various ac¬ bers of people might help (although the case, the notion of our landscape cir- counts in the SF media, Disch spotted SFWA banquet was certainly limited). cunscribed by a surrounding quantascape Gibson walking down a hallway with his This could be dene by eliminating items which is affected by the future presents Nebula cradled under one arm. Disch nut- that attract kids with little or no in¬ not only the most bizarre but tered something to the effect of "there terest in SF, such as video programs and might be allowed by Wheeler's delayed- goes my Nebula" and then either pinched "hallway persona games" like Logan's choice double-slit experiment (p. 211). or shoved Gibson (reports vary). Run. (Generally board and role-playing Buy this book. Unless you're dead, These churlish acts are but the lat¬ games are fine because the participants stupid or hopelessly bored it’ll freak est in a long line of boorish behavior are not underfoot causing a racket.) you out. Who needs drugs when reality at various and sundry SF events. At Also, less free booze would greatly help. is this weird! this year's one author's life I for one am tired of seeing drunken was threatened, another writer stomped buffoons lurching arouid with assorted off a panel after calling a panelist "a lethal weapons, but at this point just stupid fool" and telling two other pan¬ a greater awareness of the problem would ORION By elists to "shut up." Other events re¬ be a desirable first step. TOR, 1984, 432 pp., $3.50 cently have included one fan berating Tha answer might be, take two Neb¬ ORION is a collection of short sto¬ Robert Adams at a recent Orycon and at ulas and call me in the morning. ries tied together into a novel. Most last year's Westercon some unruly fans of the stories appeared in WEIRD HEROES, trashed a hotel room, destroyed a fire alarm and raised enough havoc that the (where they were the highlight of that '84 Westercon committee is offering a Byron Preiss experiment for Pyramid IN SEARCH OF SOfiODINGER'S CAT Books). The title page also gives pub¬ $500 reward for information that would By John Gribban lead to their identification. lishing credit to "Floodtide" which ap¬ Bantam, 1984, 303 pp., $8.95 peared in ANALOG. These incidents taken in isolation Space limitations necessitate a Despite the necessarily episodic na¬ might seem to be evidence of nothing briefer review than I'd like of this ture of the book, ORION hangs together more than mere lack of manners at best or fascinating book. Gribbon does a splen¬ individual and random acts of violence beautifully as a novel. It is similar did job of making the conplex world of in tone to Bova's marvelous short story, and vandalism at worst. Taken together quantum mechanics and the bewildering they add up to an unhealthy trend that "Stars Won't You Hide Me." Bova seems number of theories proposed to make sense to be at his best when he's dealing with might spell danger down the road to SF of it come across in a smooth and dis¬ material which has strong mythic over¬ conventions and SFWA meetings. cernible manner to the reader. This is tones. I've enjoyed his other material The danger is twofold: that some¬ an invaluable reference guide for SF but ORION has the magic. The narrative body might get injured and sue the con¬ writers: FTL connunications, tine trav¬ deals with a man, John O'Ryan, who at¬ vention and the hotel or that the hotel el and parallel universes are looked at tests to save the hunan race from death will sustain such damages that it will along with some scintillating theories at the hands of its most hated enemy, sue the convention if it is unable to and how these SF notions could happen. Ahrinan. He is aided by a god-like be¬ find the perpetrators and the result ing, Ormazd, and a woman who helps him might be the blackballing of SF conven¬ 16 through the ages. Bova fuses the time-travel notion THIS YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION: SECOND with a revenge motif, adds a touch of ANNUAL COLLECTION Ed- by Gardner Dozois ancient Persian mythology, and all in Bluejay, 1985, 573 pp., $10.95 all has created quite a delightful, Once again, cudos to Dozois for the smooth, yet intense novel. most complete "Best” anthology. With ov¬ er 250,000 words in which to play around, Dozois has chosen many of 1984’s memorable stories. Foremost among these is John Varley’s brilliant novella, "Press Enter which should sweep all the major aw¬ T>£ reSSIAH CHOICE ards this year. It is a chilling tale Bluejay, 1985, 380 pp., $16.95 about computers and crime, with a delic¬ By Jack L. Chalker iously paranoid ending. Varley is SF’s premier writer at shorter lengths and in Here are two more novels from the case anyone had forgotten, this Nebula prolific Mr. Chalker. DOWNTIMING is a Award winner provides an ample reminder. time-travel novel with a twist using Chalker's frequently-used notion of body- Incidentally, all three of the trad¬ switching. A secret U.S. project has itional "best" anthologies included "Press learned how to travel backwards in time. Enter A group of Marxist terrorists take over the installation (an abandoned nuclear Bluejay is to be conmended for allow¬ power plant) and travel back in time to ing Dozois enough room to show off all warn Karl Marx of a plot against his the facets of the SF short fiction field, life. From there things get weird. It in particular the novella length. is a pleasant read and Chalker includes Other stories include the Nebula some interesting notions on the physics award-winning novelette, "Bloodchild" by of . Octavia Butler and top-flight material by Robert Silverberg, William Gibson, , and twenty THE MESSIAH CHOICE is a horror/oc¬ cult novel which still gives me shivers. It is dedicated in part to August Der- leth. Fans of Derleth and H.P. Love- THE 1985 AffJUAL WORLD'S BEST SF craft and his Cthulhu Mythos will enjoy Edited by Donald A. Wollheim this dark tale of a multi-national cor¬ DAW, 1985, 302 pp., $3.50 poration and the strange creature of force that lurks on a Caribbean island This ten-story best-of-the-year has owned by the company. The company's been consistently superb over the years. founder and owner is mysteriously murder¬ 1985 is no exception. In addition to ed and a detective is called in. What characters and scientific interplay in a the Varley and Butler award winners, he finds endangers his life and the smooth understated style that was highly this volume also includes the memorable world, for what is brewing is high-tech successful. In ARTIFACT he adds the Berserker story, "What Makes Us Human" occult evil of the worst kind. Read spice of the international thriller to by Stephen R. Donaldson, Ian Watson's this in the daylight with all the doors that list. Benford is already cne of marvelous and overlooked "We Remember Ba¬ shut and a passel of people in the house; Auerica's best novelists and ARTIFACT bylon" and George Alec Effinger’s "The do not read it at night alone. A marvel¬ shows he's growing and improving even Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything." ous chiller -- this book scared the shit out of me. I'm getting nervous just typ¬ ing this review. THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION OF H£ YEAR Edited by TOR, 1985, 384 pp., $3.50 ARTIFACT By Gregory Benfbrd is cue of my favorite This anthology, number 14 in the TOR, 1985, 533 pp., $16.95 writers. I have practically every book series, contains all three Nebula winners. I enjoyed this novel of archaeology, he's written and have enjoyed them all, It once again confirms that Terry Carr suspense and science ficticn imnensely. but my favorites are his stories about has a superb insight into vhat stories I think it's Benford's best novel since the dashing agent of The Terran Empire, are likely award contenders as well as TIKESCAPE. The narrative concerns a Dominic Flandry. selecting other noteworthy material. In this years anthology, "Fears," a quiet discovery made while uncovering some My¬ In TOE GAME OF EMPIRE Anderson in¬ cenaean ruins. It is the near future, but superb story by Pamela Sargent, de¬ troduces Flandry's illegitimate daughter serves special mention. Also included Greece is sliding further to the left Diana, in vhat I hope will be the first and anti-American sentiment is at an all- are "Slimier Solstice" by Charles Harness of many adventures. In this book she and "Instnicticns" by Bob Leman. time high. Politics intervenes when a tries to foil the plans of a military headstrong Greek radical tries to close conmander out to save the empire for its down the dig. Intrigue, suspense and a own good. Included are the exotic lo¬ fair amount of gunplay result as the Am¬ cales and characters Anderson specializ¬ ericans attempt to steal the artifact. TFE SCIENCE FICTION YEARBOOK es in. His lush poetic style is per¬ Edited by Jerry Poumelle with Jim Baen fectly suited to the decaying worlds of The novel is also a detective story and John Carr the Enpire, and Diana Flandry is a wel¬ Baen Bks, 1985, 352 pp., $15.95 involving science and the very strange come viewpoint character: Dominic Flan¬ properties of the artifact. Benfbrd dry has grown increasingly tired and cyn¬ THE SCIENCE FICTICN YEARBOOK is the brings all the various elements of the ical over the years as the adventures least traditional of the four best anth¬ story together for a thrilling climax. take their toll. ologies. It contains four essays and In TIMESCAPE he proved he could handle stories picked for ideas as nuch as fad. There are several sidekick charac¬ It contains fiction by , ters of whom the most enjoyable is a Robert Silverberg, William Gibson and Da¬ Wodenite philosopher (a Jewish Catholic) vid Brin. "" by Brin who is looking for the existence of presents an original notion for why aliens Christ. It's a good mix and Dominic aren't already here. Of the essays I Flandry does make more than a cameo ap¬ particularly like Benford's on hard SF, pearance. (I also found the political which I believe was recently printed in coranentary valid and revealing.) I want SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW. I hope this year¬ to see irore involving Diana Flandry. book becomes an annual event. Highly Read and enjoy; this one's special. reconmended. 17 NOT NECESSARILY REVIEWS

I READ BOOKS AND THEN DON'T REVIEW THEM, SOhETIMES, UNTIL THE WILD ONES By A. Bertram Chandler You have to decide. And it will make MONTHS LATER. A SAD, SORRY STATE DAW, #623, $2.95, 1985 your head hurt. It will make you think. OF AFFAIRS. We're not supposed to speak ill of It will make you look at yourself. % SO THIS COLUMN IS THE RESIDUE the dead, and A. Bertram Chandler died God, Bob, how could you do this to us? AND DETRITUS OF MY THOUGHTS ON THE a few months ago. This is the last John BOOKS IN QUSTION. NOT NECESSARILY Grimes novel. REVIEWS. It is also the first John Grimes novel I've read all the way through. It MERVYN PEAKE—A PERSONAL MEMOIR is a bad novel: it takes forever to get By Gordon Smith to the telegraphed action, it has no sur¬ Victor Gollancz, $19.95, May, 1985. prises, it has John Grines having a vision Gordon Smith, Peake's life-long which robs the high point of the novel of friend, here provides a personal remem- rance of Mervyn Peake, whom he calls a BRAINZ, INC. By Ron Goulart most of its tension and suspense, and for 80$ of its length it is a plonking series genius. There are boyhood incidents, DAW #629, $2.75, 1985. many quotes from letters, but rare in¬ Up to his usual satire and inventive of 'development' scenes. The religious extremists of New Salem are puritanistic sights into Peake's soul, and no real mockery, Ron uses his lively Hildy and analysis. Gordon is too courteous and Jake Pace, operators of Odd Jobs, Inc. idiots who are set up for their just des¬ gentlemanly to let us look at the real to solve a murder. Kell, at least bring serts (which are fed to them off-camera Peake he mist have known. to justice them as did it. The fun is¬ by a vengeful robot.) Mervyn Peake died of "premature n't in the mystery, it is in the jokes, Give it this, though: the novel is senilty" in 1968 at age 57. He had suf¬ characters, and acute japery of the soc¬ definitely anti-religion, anti-fanatic fered nervous breakdowns in the Army dur¬ ial body of America. and pro-sex, pro-life, pro-rationality. ing the war... Plainly, this talented Ron's robots and androids are marvels It's a good morality tale for teenagers. man had severe emotional problems, but of studied insult and rational stupidity, Smith does not reveal or describe them. mirroring the humans they deal with and The book—large-size (8^x11) is filled TDM 0*BEELAM By Robert Silverberg out with irany of Peake's pencil and ink There is some delicious Tuckerizing Donald I. Fine, $16.95, July, 1985. drawings. A few poems. in this novel, too: a lecture room named Bob has a literary religious yen. He The book is available from David 6 after Harlan Ellison, and there is a dread loves to explore the basics of religion, Charles, Inc., North Pomfret, VT 05053. disease called Malzberg's Syndrome which and loves to throw the suspecting and causes increasing lugubriousness in its unsuspecting reader into the jaws of De- helpless victims. AN EDGE IN MY VOICE By Harlan Ellison Ah, but I love the character names: Now here in 22nd century America, Donning, $12.95/$9.95, 1985. Barf McBemie, Professor Zuleika Pater¬ after a traumatic war which has left the Here is Harlan on the attack. He noster of Kansas Pop College, consult¬ midwest a radioactive dust bowl, with a rages, snarls, cajoles, purrs, satirizes, ing editor of THE SCHOLARLY JOURNAL FOR fractured society and anarchy just around savages... And not only his favorite THE APPRECIATION OF MASS MARKET TRASH, the comer, with a spreading new psychos¬ hates like the Moral Majority, but his Felony Fulsom, Sheldon Sickmann... is plaguing the land. Bob shows us a man readers as well, as he jabs and slashes Every page is rife with sly digs and who is apparently a crazy, a man who has with argument, with data, with quotes, blatant witery. Ron Goulart is not ap¬ vivid, detailed, repetitive visions of in his endless, frantic, determined, ang¬ preciated enough. far planets and alien peoples. And he ry effort to shake his readers to full tells us that these identical "dreams” attention, to make them think and know THE BERSERKER THRONE By Fred Saberhagen are spreading among the peoples of the and act! Fireside Books (Simon 6 Shuster) 1985. West coast states. He vrrites with his throttle stuck $6.95 (paper), $14.95 (cloth) And Bob shows us a bastion of scien¬ flat on the floor. He writes his fascin¬ This time a Berserker control unit, tific mental technology, the Nepenthe ating, discursive, parenthetical, conver¬ a highly intelligent Berserker leader, Center, where a kind of selective lobot- sational Harlanesque prose which is so attenpts to bribe/lure humans in a stra¬ omy, a mindpick, takes away the previous distinctive and uniquely Harlan that no tegic ploy to use two human leaders (one day's memories, including dreams. one could match him--or perhaps wish to. an exiled Prince, another a rapacious And Bob shows a religious movement He's a fucking dervish! He feels so conspiratorial would-be emperor) to be¬ building tremendous momentum based on strongly, is so idealistic and realistic tray entire planets of humans to the Ber¬ these utterly real identical visions at the same time_ Wow. He knows serkers single-minded aim of destroying which are shared by all the followers. where bodies are buried, digs them up, all life in the universe. In an utterly inevitable series of and throws them in the faces of the But the Prince is a Good Guy and only events, all these people come together at murderers. He takes no prisoners. pretends to be Goodlife [intelligent life the Nepenthe Center during the climactic I can't read these collected coluims willing to help the Berserkers]. final chapters of the novel, and Bob in¬ of his from and L.A. WEEKLY This story, set in the Tenplar Ra¬ sists on asking the reader questions in¬ for very long. I dip in and emerge reek¬ diant, a vast, spherical fortress con¬ escapable: ing with his intensity. structed around an ancient, benign, star- Are these alien planets real? Sometimes a small voice in my mind like source of inverse gravity, is rife Does the human soul exist and can it whispers that Harlan's ego is behind all with plot, counterplot, mystery, suspense be transported to these heavenly places? this up-front rage, and whispers that and violence. Or—is Tom O'Bedlam a psi-cursed this man is too noble and right-thinking Predictable, with a few surprises at psychotic who is spreading these hallu¬ to be real (though many would dispute his the end. Well done. cinatory "dreams" wherever he goes? Is rightness). And Harlan admits to feet This series can go on as long as Sab¬ he actually killing people when he "sends" of clay and admits to being driven and erhagen is willing to write it. Indeed, them to their favorite alien planet of flawed and sometimes... But he puts his it could be handed down from one genera¬ their visions, or is he really sending body and his guts and his money where his tion of writers to another... to a new life, a new, wonderful mouth is...on the.line,..and I admire that more than a lot. Harlan Ellison has tremendous drive, courage and talent. That combination is magnificent and a target. Sometimes, after I’ve read things he has written, I'm surprised he's still RICHARD E. GEIS BOOK REVIEWS BY GENE DEWEESE

EMPRISE THE COPY SHOP 3y Michael P. Kube-McDowell By Evelyn E. Smith Berkley, $2.95 .An irresponsible biotech researcher Doubleday, $12.95 In a near future where atomic fis¬ creates intelligent microorganisms and, This book is, to say the least, un¬ sion no longer works and scientists are when ordered to end the experiment, usual. Not imich really seems to happen, largely pariahs, a startlingly simple smuggles them out of the lab by inject¬ even though the exceedingly self-posses¬ message is received from the stars. It ing them into his own bloodstream. The sed narrator gets involved with New-York- says, in effect, "We are on our way," result is the ultimate plague -- or is based aliens, a disembodied glow that and the world finds it has only a few talks to him through his computer and years to get ready. Just what "get rea¬ identifies itself as his father, and dy” means, however, is another matter. The reviewer has already called BLOOD MUSIC the "CHILDHOOD'S END for the several episodes of subway cannibalism. To one paranoid, militaristic nation, However, even if nothing happened, the it means setting up an impenetrable de¬ eighties," and in a way, it's true. The mystical conclusion, with mankind being narrator's rambling monolog about New fense. To a world-wide religious cult, York and its denizens ("The Indians it means preparing to greet either the transformed into "sonEthing else," is certainly comparable to Clarke's master¬ hunted and camped and fished ((on Man¬ new Messiah or possibly God himself. hattan)), but never lived there. They To the scientists responsible for the piece. However, where Clarke's story of the next step in human evolution was were a lot smarter than we.") would be contact, it means years of suspense hard to put down. As it is, the clever while they wait to leam the true nature both spine-tinglingly awesome and grand¬ and leisurely narration grabs you on the and motives of the aliens. And no one, ly inevitable, BLOOD MUSIC with its ac¬ first page, and by the time you reach including the reader, gets quite what he cidentally created microorganisms and echoes of the mindlesslv euphoric vic¬ the end, you realize that a lot of things really did happen, and you enjoyed ev¬ tims in INVASION OP THE BODY SNATCHERS, Subtitled "Book One of the Trigon is awesome enough but not all that grand ery one. Disunity," EMPRISE is apparently only or spine-tingling, and certainly not in- the beginning, and that's fine with me. It's one of those rare books where the ideas, the plotting, the writing, and Such comparisons, however, aren't the characters are all first rate. really fair, since CHILDHOOD'S END is TEE WORLD OF FANTASTIC FILMS: AN IL¬ arguably the best SF book of the last LUSTRATED SURVEY By four decades, and BLOOD MUSIC is merely Dodd, Mead, Paper, $14.95 one of the best books of 1985. If there's one thing that's as much fun as going to the movies, it's reading SINGULARITY about them and seeing how often you dis¬ By William Sleator agree with the author or, even better, E.P. Dutton, $10.95 how often you can catch him in an error. Sixteen-year-old twins Harry and This book, simply because its 200+ very Barry, alone for two weeks on a Love- large pages cover 700 films, a couple craftian midwestem farm inherited by DEPARTURE hundred of them in fair detail, can sup¬ their mother from an eccentric uncle, By ply many weeks of happy browsing. It find a spot where time virtually stands DAW, $2.95 certainly has more information and anal¬ still and where things, both living and After several years' wait, we find ysis than most such books, and I'll prob¬ non-living, are coming through from an¬ out what Orbitsville (a Dyson sphere ably still be dipping into it next year other universe. The narrator is a trif¬ around a distant sun) really is and who at this time, even though (or perhaps le annoying now and then, and the explan¬ built it. Not up to the original, ORB¬ because), on page 32, the author appears ation for the spot plays a little fast ITSVILLE DEPARTURE is still a great book to have totally mis-heard Klaatu's clos¬ and loose with the science of singular¬ to skim through rapidly, pausing for ing speech in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD ities, but from the first page on, it more thorough reading when you get to STILL. was hard to put down. According to the the parts directly involved with the mys¬ publisher, it's aimed at "12 and up” tery of Orbitsville. That way, with its readers, but a lot of adults, especially multiple-viewpoint, easy-to-follow build¬ dimensional-door fans like myself, will up to the final revelations, it's hard to put down. GATEWAY, BEYOND TEE BLUE EVENT HORIZON- EEECEEE RENDEZVOUS By Ballantine/DelRey, $2.95, $2.95, $3.50 These 900+ pages make up HEECHEE [SAGA. The Heechee are a superscientific |race that ruled much of the known uni s in the distant past, but they tot¬ ally vanished, leaving behind countless mystifying artifacts, including a plane¬ toid full of spaceships, each with a specific but unknown and possibly fatal destination programed into it. Even¬ tually, we find out where and why the Heechee went and what they're up to now, and it is indeed all very mind boggling. The problem, at least for me, is that Robinette Broadhead, the primary narra- in the first and third books, spends

CONTINUED ON PAGE 30 19 RACISM IN THE MEDIA AND SCIENCE FICTION

SUBTLETY AND THE FAITHFUL DOG SYNDROME

OR IS MR. T A WOOKIE?

BY ALAN DEAN FOSTER

All my life I heard about something duce booze on demand and (this is most called "unconscious racism." I grew up important) inherently unable to harm his wmdering what it was, since the pieces master. on the evening news on racism illustrat¬ Which leads to the rule of thumb I ed attitudes that seemed to me anything have devised for deciding if any cine¬ but unconscious. It took me a while to matic minority role arises from genuine¬ realize that unconscious racism actual¬ ly thoughtful casting and writing or from ly existed, that it was something more unconscious racist attitudes. It's sim¬ than the invention of a facile journal¬ ilar to one propounded years ago by Da¬ ist. It's that kind of racism that mon Knight. If the role in the film these ruminations and rumbings are con¬ could largely be carried out equally well cerned with, the "White Chly" and "No by a well-trained mitt, you know from Indians Allowed" signposts along the whence it arises. roads of the American consciousness. Jim Brown's role in THE DIRTY DOZEN Specifically, that particular and pecul¬ the same set as a scene cnmcher like iar offramp we call speculative fiction. certainly qualifies. And of course he sacrifices himself at the end to save Mirphy. This is Hollywood's way of I first became aware of the rncons- his buddies (masters?). Because he’s a cross-collateralizing one of its few cious variety of racism through what good dog, stronger and faster than any minority superstars. Beverly Hills might be called racism by omission. In of the others, and stupider, the proof Starship. many ways it's the most onerous kind of of the latter being that his character Maybe the reason this all bothers all because it's so thorough. You can't doesn't even ask to draw straws to see me so nuch has to do with my all time discriminate against what doesn't appear who gets to make the suicidal grenade favorite book (which I believe is Luc¬ to exist. Instead of a Stepin Fetchit as's as well). A. Conan Doyle's THE to laugh at or a blood-thirsty Indian to LOST WORLD, of which three film versions hiss, you eliminate minorities altogeth¬ It can be argued that there are worse things than being stereotyped as have been made, each one worse than its er. When you grow up regarding yourself predecessor. The best was the 1925 si¬ as one of the underdogs, as I did, you big, strong and tough. What this does, however, is limit the public perception lent version starring Wallace Beery as become especially sensitive to their Professor Challenger. absence in films. It's hard to root for of your ethnic group, just as jews are the underdog when there aren't any. In limited by being perceived as smart and Among the exceptionally veil-defined this respect SF films are among the clever with money, or Indians as stoic cast of characters in the novel is a most grievous violators. and quiet. Brazilian servant named Zambo, "a black Television is often pointed to as a Hercules, as strong as a horse, and Consider what is still my favorite about as intelligent." That line hurt SF film, MM's classic FORBIDDEN PLANET. leader in changing the way the public the first time I read it. It hurts Takes place in the real far future. perceives minorities. No doubt it is, still because it mars an otherwise joy¬ Chock full o' super science and special even when it's leading in the wrong way. ful book. Zambo was superstrong, just effects and production values. But is Or does anyone think Mr. T of THE A TEAM intelligent enough to obey orders, sex¬ there a place in this wcndrous future for is an advance over Bill Cosby's pioneer¬ ually unthreatening -- racist stereo¬ anyone but wasp males? Sure -- one fe¬ ing role in I SPY? types go back a long ways to take many male type love object, decorously placed. Way back about 1976ish, the well- forms. Translating them from black skin Not that FORBIDDEN PLANT was unique known actor Raymond St. Jacques penned to polished metal does nothing but a in this respect. It was typical of all a letter to the Calendar section of the disservice to the field of SF. Los Angeles Times in which he decried SF and fantasy films until fairly recent¬ There were exceptions. My favorite ly. You admire FORBIDDEN PLANET as a the fact that so positive a film as STAR WARS used no minority performers film of all time is still GUNGA DIN. film, enjoy it as an SF fan, but there Fantasy, if you want to stretch the de¬ are no underdogs to root for. The Krell (not entirely true: one black extra finition (the India of the Raj was never are dead, a reflection of how Hollywood does take a walk through a scene when quite like this). You could call it the at large treated all minorities. Luke and Obi-Wan arrive in the desert town). Shortly thereafter THE EMPIRE most anti-racist film Hollywood made in Trouble is, we expect more from an STRIKES BACK appears and introduces us the thirties. Because for one thing, SF film. We expect SF to be on the to Lando Calrissian. it actually shows white heroes as rac¬ leading edge of sociological and politi¬ ists. Watching the film, you sympathize cal as well as technological change. Lando gives us problems. In creat¬ with Gunga Din (the underdog's underdog, When it isn't, we're left disappointed ing the role for Billy Dee Williams, a minority among his own people) and de¬ and let down. The racism of omission Lucas was demonstrating his sensitivity cry the attitudes toward him as expres¬ glares out at you in an SF film. to St. Jacques and others (I am convinc¬ sed by such white stalwarts as Victor ed George Lucas has not a racist bone in McLaughlin and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Ah, but there's not only racism of his body). But in so doing he screwed Even his "friend" as portrayed by Cary omission in FORBIDDEN PLANET, there's up his storyline. Because there's noth¬ Grant treats him as one would a faithful also overt unconscious racism. Very ing really for Calrissian to do. In Bl- dog. carefully disguised, as it had to be in PIRE and JEDI he pretty nuch stunbles Director George Stevens manages to all SF films. The black man as faithful around taking up cinematic space. This dog and obedient servant. get away with this because this is India, is because his character arose from a not Indiana he's portraying. I'll never In case you've forgotten, the black need to film a sociological need, not a forget the impact one scene had on my servant in FORBIDDEN PLANET is named fictional one. His presence in the lat¬ childish self. It showed an Indian gen¬ Robbie. ter two films does not serve so nuch to eral leading Indian mounted troops in a advance the tale as to decorate it. charge against the bad guys. Name anoth¬ A case can be made for Robbie as Now we are to have Eddie Mirphy in er film from the 1930s that shows us a the ideal Hollywood darkie. Superstrcrg, member of a foreign minority (and an old responsive to his master's wish, intel¬ IV. I'll believe it when I see it. For one thing, William Shatner man to boot) leading a cavalry charge on ligent enough to obey orders but unable the side of righteousness. It was tant¬ to think or make suggestions on his own, is far too savvy an actor to appear an amount to giving Paul Robeson a role as sexually unthreatening, able even to pro¬ 20 a captain of horse soldiers. perhaps signi Maroto. Nor does this attitude in publishing extend only to covers. The two most re¬ nowned BSD artists of the past thirty years were Eric Stanton and Gene Bilbrew (better known as Eneg). Bilbrew studied at the National Academy of Art in Wash¬ ington under, , Burne Hogarth of Tartan fame. Few know that Bilbrew was black. He was compelled to draw mostly white characters for his audience. Buck Brown has to do the same thing to¬ day in his cartoons for PLAYBOY. I dimno. Sometimes the lines is clear and sometinES they isn't. But this I do know. It's up to SF to lead the way, and when we turn out stories that deal only with white characters we shirk a certain social responsibility. Sure, it's just "entertainment." Enter¬ tainment is what you use to change peop¬ le without turning them off. If STAR TREK can do it in television, we should strive to do it in print, and insist whenever possible that the covers of our books fairly reflect their contents. You Got No Friends In This World

abort stories, nor slats, and novellas pub¬ lished mostly from June to August 1985. (I went back and picked up the January Aaaxing and the February Twilight Zone, which I missed in the last column) Out of nearly

Group' that Thomas Disch conjured out of thin several years ago, you really are a group. You all interconnect; you read each other's stories, collaborate in various concatenations, recommend

BY ORSON SCOTT CARD The audience has to cooperate w ith The so lu tio n to a problem may the s to r y te lle r. They have to pay a t ­ fin a lly be something completely off the tention from beginning to end: they have wall—something th a t works only for th a t to comprehend th e sto ry ; and they have sto ry . In th a t ra re c ase , th e re i s no to believe the story. This represents a choice but to do som ething e c c e n tric — major investment of time and a tten tio n , but the re su lt is so wonderful th a t the and the audience pu ts i t s e l f a t ris k : ecc en tric ity is quickly absorbed, over­ the a c t of rec eiv in g a sto ry can and looked. usu a lly does change th e person who re ­ ceives and b e lie v e s i t . So, w hile the For i n s tance, the movie 2001: A audience is hungry for sto rie s to stru c­ SPACE ODYSSET moves incredibly slowly. ture th e ir universe and give i t meaning, I t is , in fa c t, boring. There were rea­ they a re re lu c ta n t to give th e ir tr u s t sons fo r th i s , which I won't go in to to any p a rtic u la r s to r y te lle r , fo r any here; enough to say th a t the movie could not p o ssib ly have t r o t t e d a lo n g as ABBREFIATItWS and ISSUE KEIHfBD p a rtic u la r story. b ris k ly as STAR WARS. To do what Ku­ Every s to r y te lle r fac es th e same b rick wanted to do, th e movie had to Amz = tatting StcrleB (Scithers) Jan, Jul, problem w ith every story you care about v io la te convention and be almost as slow Sep enough to t e l l . You must win and keep as evolution. Once the audience surren­ Anlg = Analog (Schmidt) Jun, Jul, Aug the au d ien c e's in te r e s t; You must t e l l dered to , tru sted the film , and slowed Av's = 's (McCarthy) Jun, Jul, the ta le in such a wav th a t the audience down enough to stay w ith i t , i t offered Aug can understand what’s happening; you an experience th a t was a v a ila b le in no F4SF = Fantasy 4 Science Fiction (Ferman) must persuade people to believe you. other way. Jun, Jul, Aug NCry = Night Cry (Rodgers) Sum, Fall No sto ry te lle r can present exactly Does th i s mean th a t slow-moving the same sto ry in e x a c tly th e same way Omi = Omni (Datlow) May, Jun, Jul film s a re somehow " b e tte r" than f a s t ­ SwSs = Svcrd 4 Scrareas (DAW; Bradley) to everybody, and win them a ll into your moving film s? Of course not. F a st­ TZ = nrlllgbt Zone (Klein) Feb, Jun, Aug audience. I t c a n 't be done. The b est moving sto rie s engage and keep the audi­ you can hope fo r i s to win a c e r ta in ence's a tte n tio n much more e a s ily than p o rtio n of the p u b lic as your audience. slow ones (up to the point where they're Most readers go through a n a tu ra l pro­ too fa s t to be comprehensible). Most of gression. At f i r s t we can handle only the tim e, th e fast-m oving ta le w ill be the plainest, most unadorned ta le s , with th e s to r y te lle r 's b e st choice. Anybody would make most of the boring introspec­ naked mythic elements repeated over and who refuses to make a fast-moving film tiv e passages completely unnecessary. over w ithout d isg u ise . As we become because i t 's so vulgar and popular is an In o th e r words, 24 VIEWS has j u s t f a m i lia r w ith th o se s to r y m o tifs , id io t. They'll get exactly the audience about everything wrong w ith i t th a t can though, most of us become jaded or skep­ th a t they d eserve, because in ste a d of go wrong with an a rtsy -fartsy story. tic a l—"That again?" we say. The sto r­ working to make the story as accessible Except one th in g . The p la in ta le ie s a l l sound the same. So we look fo r as p o s s ib le , u n til th e sto ry i t s e l f th a t Zelazny i s try in g to t e l l is very sto rie s th a t spend more tim e on d iffe r ­ fo rc es an e c c e n tr ic ity , they nave l e t much w orth te llin g . If he had to ld i t e n tia tio n . Their c h a ra c te rs ' m otiva­ some theory of film -m aking introduce a nother way, had to ld i t p la in ly , then tions are more complex and contradictor- e c c e n tr ic itie s th a t th e sto ry does not i t would make a com pelling romance. y, th e ir s e ttin g s more s p e c ific and Kind of lik e most of Zelazny's e a rly detailed. Almost alw ays, th e b e st way to stu ff. As the sto rie s become more d iffe r­ t e l l a s to ry is the p la in ta le , p la in ly But in re c e n t y e ars, Zelazny has entiated, they continue to keep our in­ to ld . You s t a r t where th e te n sio n be­ been groping fo r som ething e lse . Like te re s t. But th e reader who is ju s t be­ g in s; you sto p soon a fte r th e te n sio n Samuel R. Delany, he proved early in his ginning, who s t i l l believes the sim plest ends. You w rite i t in th e most tra n s ­ c a re e r th a t he could do th e p la in ta le ta le s , fin d s a l l th a t d iff e r e n ti a ti o n parent, common voice—th ird person past p la in ly to ld . Like Delany, he began to b o rin g , and he r e je c t s i t ; w h ile we, te n se w ith a stro n g p o in t of view —and reach out to tr y to get c o n tro l of an too, are bored by sto rie s th a t are s t i l l you generally confine yourself to t e l l ­ a rt th a t he had performed instinctively. more d ifferen tiate d than we need them to ing what people said and did, and why. Like Delany, the re su lt is been p a rtia l be. And so audiences p ro g re ss, from But sometimes the story is so d if­ f a il u re much or most of th e tim e. In l e v e l to l e v e l. F o r tu n a te ly , each f i c u l t — spread out in tim e, involving fa c t, th is is the most complete Zelazny reader finds plenty of fic tio n w ith ex­ too many c h a ra c te rs , depending on com­ sto ry I'v e seen in ye ars. This tim e he a c tly th e degree of d if f e r e n ti a ti o n he plex emotions—th a t the straightforw ard a c tu a lly achieved c lo su re , which has needs. And only a fo o l would sneer a t techniques don't work. Sometimes, too, been m issing for a long tim e. the sto ry te lle rs who feed the hunger of you want th e s to ry to have stro n g p er­ Zelazny was trying to do more than the newest audience—they are doing the ipheral e ffec ts, and so you decorate the same work, feeding the same need, as the t e l l th e p la in ta le . I t was th e h e art p la in t a l e or r e o rd e r i t ( lik e th e of th e s to ry , y e s, but he wanted to do w riters whose ta le s are most d iffe re n ti­ "tw ist" ending, where key inform ation is ated. som ething e ls e , too. Perhaps i t began withheld u n til the end, when i t s revela­ w ith a s e rie s of p a in tin g s or draw ings Some layering is unavoidable. But tio n changes th e meaning of ev ery th in g of Mt. F u ji; Zelazny wanted to w rite a the b e s t w rite r s tr y to d e fe a t th is th a t went before). story that could duplicate the e ffec t of la y e r in g p ro c e s s by w ritin g h ighly Then the s to ry te lle r departs from rep e ate d ly p a in tin g th e same m ountain d iffe r e n tia te d ta le s th a t a re s t i l l the plain ta le plainly told. The eccen­ from d iffe re n t p e rsp e c tiv e s, w ith d if ­ accessable to audiences th a t don't need t r ic itie s of the story are there because f e re n t foregrounds. Perhaps th e "24 so much d if f e r e n tia tio n . This i s most th e w rite r b e lie v e s they a re the only views* idea was i t s e l f a s o lu tio n to e a s ily achieved by p rese n tin g th e d if ­ way, or the best way, to solve the s t a ­ another problem—how to create an assas­ fe re n tia tio n in sm all doses, lik e tin y y's problems or achieve the desired ef­ s in of com pelling com plexity, a loving flecks of spice, which can be ignored by fec ts. (Usually the w riter is wrong, of murderer. those who devour sto rie s in great mouth­ course, and i f he had worked a l i t t l e f u ls , and savored by those who lin g e r. W hatever th e s ta r tin g p o in t, 24 harder and been a b it more resourceful, VIEWS i s not e x h ib itio n ism or dazzle. The d ifferen tiatio n is never allowed to th e sto ry could have been b e tte r p re­ slow or sto p the a c tio n . Shakespeare sented p lainly. But sometimes you have There is n 't a l i e in th e whole sto ry . did i t . Dickens did i t . Twain did i t . to w rite i t th e wrong way b efo re you There a re even moments of g re a t power, does i t . discover th a t i t doesn't work. And some­ lik e the story-w ithin-the-stocy to ld in Ideally, sto ry te lle rs should never tim es, having w ritte n i t the wrong way, section 9—a moment that would nave been erect b a rrie rs that make i t innecessari- an e d ito r buys i t anyway and then a le s s p o s s ib l e had Z elazny chosen a ly d iffic u lt to understand a story or to whole lo t of readers s i t there scratch­ d ifferen t form. become in te re s te d in i t . On th e con­ ing th e ir heads and wondering what the 24 VIEWS do e sn 't work. I t 's a tr a r y , we should make g re a t e f f o r t to h e ll is going on.) f a il u r e , a s a whole. But i t ' s s t i l l strik e down b a rrie rs of clumsy d ifferen­ w orth reading, i t ' s s t i l l w orth the tia tio n th a t unnecessarily drive novices This kind of w ritin g fe e ls a rts y patience of wading through some stic k y out of our work, even as we fin d oth e r because the e c c e n tric itie s d istr a c t the and te d io u s se c tio n s, because Zelazny ways to in c re ase the d iffe re n tia tio n to audience from th e e v en ts of th e p la in th e t a l e - t e l l e r i s s t i l l a liv e in sid e ta le . Sometimes th e s to ry i s so good the cocoon, developing wings th a t, when make the s to ry more com pelling and be­ th a t i t works anyway. And sometim es lievable to sophisticated readers. not. he f in a l ly g e ts i t a l l under c o n tro l, Sometimes, though, the sto ry i t ­ w ill rea lly be sanething to see. s e lf , the e vents we b e liev e in and care DISHtACHCNS T here's som ething to be sa id fo r enough about to t e l l them, don 't e a s ily Take, fo r in sta n c e , Roger Z elaz­ w rite r s lik e L arry Niven and Isaa c f i t into the c lea re st, most common, most ny's 24 VIEWS OF MT. FUJI, BT HOKUSAI Asimov who, being excellent a t te llin g a e a sily grasped form s. Every w rite r I (Av's J u l) . The sto ry i s about a s a r t - c e rta in kind of t a le in a c e rta in way, know has tim es when he has a s to ry in s y -fa rts y a s i t can be: P re se n t-te n se c o n tin u e to t e l l th o se t a l e s to an h is head but c a n 't think of th e rig h t fir s t- p e r s o n (by a n a rra to r who d ie s a p p re c ia tiv e audience. I adm ire both way to approach g e ttin g i t down on pa­ before the end of the storyl), w ith long those w riters, and have long loved th e ir per. Where to begin; whose voice or passages of a lm ost m eaningless in tr o ­ work. p o in t-o f-v iew to use; how to s tru c tu re spection. Worse, Zelazny withholds in ­ I have a d iffe re n t so rt of admira­ i t : With some s to r ie s th e answers a re form ation which, i f he to ld i t e a rlie r, tion, however, for a w riter lik e Zelaz­ obvious, but w ith others they are agoni­ ny, e a s ily th e equal of Niven, though zingly elu siv e. 23 not as lucid as Asimov, who nevertheless g e t used to i t and l e t i t have i t s pow­ vagueness, p a rtic u la rly in the ending. is trying (consciously or not) to change e rfu l e ffec t on you. Time a fte r time I have put down a story and grow. Niven today w rites lik e Niven Derek i s a country boy from a and thought, What th e h e ll ju s t hap­ always has; Asimov has changed l i t t l e ; fu tu re L ouisiana who has gone in to pened? And then, when somebody explains but Zelazny is taking risks. And I, for m ilita ry tr a in in g under a ty ra n n ic a l i t to me, I th in k , W ell, why d id n 't you one, am encouraged th a t he seems to be d r i l l in s tru c to r . Derek seems to be a getting closer to w riting complete, suc­ "ty p ic al" so uthern b ig o t, only in ste a d For instance, take James S a llis's cessful sto rie s again. of being a w hite sup rem ac ist, he i s a IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BCTLRE BREAKFAST (Av's THIS CNE'S SIMPLY BATO TO WRITE flesh-supranacist. His DI is Alpha 430, J u l). This very sh o rt sto ry is to ld in A l o t of the s to r ie s w ith d is ­ a "9 7 -p e rc en ter," w hich means th a t 97 the voice of a young c h ild , who re p o rts trac tin g "artsy" elements are a w riter's p e rc en t of Alpha 430's body has been on a w orld gone mad, as i f the c ity a ttem p t to t e l l a seemingly u n tenable replaced by machines, including most of around her had been destroyed and only h is personality. h er c a t comes to r e p o r t on e v e n ts s to r y . U su a lly th e s to r y re m a in s o u tsid e . As the sto ry p ro g re sse s, we untenable; sometimes, though, i t turns The obvious idea would be to t e l l out th a t the untenable story was t e l l ­ see th a t in fa c t th i s i s her way of a s to ry of a b ig o t g e ttin g h is come­ "destroying" a world th a t has abandoned able a fte r a l l , but a t a p ric e — i t w ill uppance. G otschalk i s n o t th e obvious be a c c e ssib le to few er rea d ers. One her as she l i e s , p araly zed , in her bed. so rt of w riter. Alpha 430 is exactly as Her c a t i s dead; y e t, dead, i t rem ains such story is 's SOL­ inhuman as Derek thinks he is , and Derek STICE (Av's Jun). th e only liv in g th in g in her w orld, i s c om pletely v in d ic a te d a t th e end, w hile a l l th e liv in g people around her I t 's not a s i f Jim s e t h im self a when he re tu rn s to th e o rganic l i f e of a re, to her view, dead. simple task. Tony Cage is a designer of th e swampland of L ouisiana. The irony re c re a tio n a l drugs who made i t b ig ; a - th a t he, to o , has some nonorganic im­ I th in k th a t's what th e sto ry is long the way, he stepped on (or could be plants does not undercut but rather en­ about. S a llis 's manipulations of re a li­ seen as having stepped on) a man who hances the power of the character's lif e ty , the rep e ate d s h i f t s , got to me ju s t once was h is mentor, who once saved his th e way he wanted them to . But i t was lif e . one sentence s h o rt of p e rfe c tio n — and I can t e l l you th e sto ry . What I th a t once sentence made a ll the d iffe r­ That's one story. The other story c a n 't t e l l you i s th e c u r i o u s , ence. Give us one more sentence, one in is that Cage is so self-obsessed th a t he compelling e ffe c t of Gotschalk's highly which c la rity is achieved, and the story has cloned h im self, though he had the idiosyncratic language. I t is not ju s t would work. clone X'd in ste a d of Y'd, so she i s a a m a tte r of word c hoice, though the d a u g h ter (tw in ? ). He has l e f t h er d ic tio n and vocabulary a re unusual and Of c ourse, S a lli s m ight f a ir ly "free ," but w ith o u t r e a liz in g i t has e lev a ted . G otschalk n a rra te s c lo se ly answ er, " In te llig e n t people don't need c o n tro lle d her l i f e to an amazing deg­ from D erek's p o in t of view , and in so th a t sentence you're asking fo r, and I ree. He f e e ls p o sse ssiv e . She f e e ls doing we see Derek experiencing his own don't w rite for stupid people." possessed. body in a way th a t we never experience But th a t's so u n fa ir to us stu p id o u rs , r e jo i c in g c o n s ta n t ly in th e people. T ied in w ith t h i s i s a t h i r d o rganic n a tu re of h is body, and y e t elem ent—Cage's o bsession w ith Stone­ e x p re ssin g i t in m ech a n istic language. My guess is th a t S a lli s , and the henge, the s i t e of an annual s o ls t ic e By the end of the sto ry I f e l t lik e a many other w riters who publish sf stor­ celebration th a t Cage is drawn to. And s tra n g e r in my own f le s h , or r a th e r, ie s plagued by vagueness, are not really a l l th re e s to r ie s come to g e th er in a lik e a newcaner ju s t s e ttlin g in . e l i t i s t s ; they simply don't want to in­ clim ax th a t is d e sp erate and pow erful. s u lt the inte llig en c e of th e ir readers. The sto ry ends w ith Cage s e ttin g h is The stra n g en e ss of th e language They d o n 't want to o v e r-ex p lain . They clone-daughter free—but d e s tru c tiv e ly , w ill throw you out of th e s to ry a t don't want th e ir readers to think, OK, I by abandoning her completely, because he f i r s t . But sta y w ith i t . I t w ill take know, I understand already. you places you can't get any other way. s t i l l can't get control over him self. The f a c t i s th a t a s to ry c a n 't The sto ry is tr a g i c , and alm ost T hat, in a n u ts h e ll, i s the only amount to anything i f your readers don't religious: I ts strongest current is the valid reason for using d istra ctin g l i t ­ know w hat's going on. Yes, i t 's p o ssi­ way th a t Cage knows what i s r ig h t and e ra ry techniques. ble to over-explain—but over-explaining wrong, but s t i l l c a n 't fin d a way to be LEST WE urrii© d o e sn 't k i l l a s to ry the way under-ex- a com pletely good man. And Jim K elly plaining does. There's nothing shameful has a w hitefire ta le n t th a t can sear you One of th e most fre q u e n t com­ in spelling i t out so th a t any id io t can with a touch. p la in ts about lite ra ry sto rie s is th e ir understand i t . Us id io t s need good But the e f f o r t to b ring a l l th re e sto rie s, too. s to r ie s to g e th er in to one s h o rt ta le IS THE HSC TRAGIC, CR JUST UGLY? would have strained any w rite r's a b ili­ ty . The r e s u l t i s t h a t SOLSTICE about a rts y -f a r ts y s to r ie s is th a t the definitely fee ls a rts y -fartsy : frequent hero i s a je rk . And i t ' s a v a lid com­ interruptions with seemingly irrele v an t p la in t. S t i l l , th e je rk hero i s a n a t­ passages from accounts of the history of ural reaction against the p ristin e Gala- Stonehenge; flashbacks galore; an a n ti- had of th e pure romance. To make the hero as obnoxious and y e t p a th e tic as hero b e lie v a b le and in te r e s tin g , the any that ever aroused Jerry Pournelle's w rite r has to vary the hero to some de­ contempt; a m ilieu of people whose p ri­ gree from perfection. mary p le asu re is s e lf-d e s tru c tio n and whose primary a ttitu d e is cynicism. T his can range from Hercule Poi­ r o t's annoying v a n ity and Nero W olfe's At f i r s t g lance, the sto ry seems invariable habits to the painful intro­ to be "typical" e x h ib itio n istic w riting. spection of Spenser and Fletch's cheer­ But i t is n 't. The " irre le v a n t" Stone­ fu l opportunism-verging-on-amorality. henge passages q uickly become deeply re le v a n t, lik e a second in stru m e n t re ­ I t's no accident th a t my examples peating, without embellishment, the mo­ a re drawn from m ystery f ic tio n . The t i f th a t another in stru m e n t has j u s t most d e lica te and d if f ic u lt task for the p la y ed w ith d a z z lin g d e c o r a tio n s . c re a to r of a m ystery s e rie s i s to come Cage's gradual c o n fro n ta tio n w ith h is up w ith a protagonist who is interesting own flaw s begins to ennoble him, as he and y e t whose l i f e i s u n stru c tu re d e- tr i e s to fin d ways of undoing the harm nough to allow him to get involved in an he has done. The m entor's revenge adds endless se rie s of adventures. This task tension ju s t when i t ' s needed. of d iffe re n tia tin g the protagonist from And, though the story is not e asi­ a l l other protagonists gets more in ta i® ly accessible the way a straightforw ard the farth e r the w riter removes himself romance is , I b e liev e K elly has to ld i t from th e p la in ta le w ell to ld . U ntil the only way i t could be to ld , and th a t som etim es th e hero g e ts to be so ugly­ i t was w ell worth te llin g . He attem pted looking and loathesome-of-soul th a t Jack a labor of Hercules, and brought i t off. Nicholson can be cast in the part. I t 's not a p e rfe c t sto ry by any means, Sometimes, though, the ugly hero but i t works. c ro sse s an in v is ib le lin e and becomes, instead, the tra g ic hero. Macbeth is as A WHOLE NBT UNGUNZ v ile as any a rts y -f a r ts y a n ti-h e ro you F e lix G otschalk's VESTIBULAR MAN could ever hope to find, and yet we have (F&SF Mar) i s a p e rfe c t s to ry . I t i s seen him become a murderous ty ran t with­ a lso very hard to read. T his i s be­ out ever r e a lly w ishing to , and w ith cause, to be p e rfe c t, th e sto ry had to te rrib le remorse and self-loathing. The be w ritte n in a very stra n g e d ic tio n , r e s u l t, ir o n ic a lly , is an ennobling with an almost alien point of view. I t story instead of a debasing one. is very d iffic u lt to get in to the story. I t takes tim e both to understand why the ___I d is l ik e W illiam G ibson's novel language of i t sounds weird and then to NEUROMANCER fo r th e very good reason 24 th a t i t never passes from ugly to enno- believe in it. But for whatever reason You can have it all. You can give (and I suspect, with no justification it all. That's what they've done with whatsoever, that the reason is that Gib¬ DOGFIGHT, and it makes all the artsy- son was sucked into fashionable existen¬ fartsy writing look foolish by compari¬ 14 STUDOOT STOHIBS tialism just enough to pervert his book) son. You can't get around the fact that Gibson chose to make his book say some¬ even when your writing is artsy for the For the powo- ctf the plain tale: thing he doesn't believe. In literary most compelling reasons, it cannot match 4 William Gibson DOGFIGHT terms, I call that a lie, and I think the power of a story that erects no bar¬ (Omni Jul) it's just about the worst thing a story¬ rier between storyteller and audience. Michael Ku be-McDowell IB HUB! BDS teller can do. That is the end of Orson's essay (F4SF Jul) I include this gentle criticism of for this issue. Now I can get down from Garry Kllworth THE THDBDEH CF IB CAPTAHS NEOHOMANCER so that you'll know that I the soapbox and do some good old-fash¬ (Av'a Jun) am not an uncritical fan of William Gib- ioned bloody-handed reviewing. John Barnes FINALITIES BIHTMBS IB GIBE (Amz Sep) » D. A Is 2) So when I attended Mike Swanwick's reading at and learned that he For the Idea at the stay's heart: was reading a story that he had written Wayne Wlgbtman IE THE REALM GF IB BABT; B with William Gibson, I was deeply disap¬ THE WORLD (F IB HIFE (Av'a Aug) pointed. Swanwick, too, has canmitted All storytelling endlessly James Gunn HU (F PARTS (FASF Aug) artsy-fartsy writing before; surely, certain motifs. Even history and-" 5? Richard Grant PAGES FBGM GCLD HABGB thought I, Gibson and Swanwick will nalism, which pretend to nave* Itheir (Av'a June) bring out the worst in each other. roots in reality, emphasize the same Eric a Iverson BCHIRTEHFBBHKX (Anlg Jul) motifs because they are the elements in My prejudices can't be right all Christopher Gilbert THE ULTIMATE DIAGNOSTIC a story that make it feel important (Amz Sep) the time. The story Swanwick read was enough to be worth retelling. DOGFIGHT (Omni Jul). If there's a bet¬ For the may they're written: ter story written this year, it will In romance, from medieval times to the present, these motifs are more na¬ THE FOUR STBffiT STDDT have to be damn near one of the best (FASF Jun) stories ever written. kedly expressed than in the realistic novel or history or news 6tory. Let's Susan Pal wick THE EKIGHWITS WIPE (Amz Jul) DOGFIGHT, you see, crosses the take a look at how some of this quar¬ Felix C. Gotachalk TBHBX11 MU (FASF Mar) line. The ugly hero becomes a tragic ter's stories deal with the time-honored Sharon N. Farber BILLS KB, LUG CF CABS hero. No lying here—Gibson and Swan¬ and inescapable nyths. (Amz Sep) wick tell the truth, and tell it magni¬ ficently. Deke is a loner, on his last bit 25 Yolen. Alas, she mars i t with a vague stantly changing identity is one of the who does not want to know anything about ending; s till, A FRIENDLY GAME OF CROLA techniques of his trade, but i t is also the child born from her womb, who does (Amz Sep) is worth reading, as i t takes the hero's greatest dilemma; he was born not want i t to be human. The story a phantom on a passage into the world of in America, was an outcast, is at once a sometimes gushes, but i t s till works. mortality, where, as is usual with this tra ito r and a savior. He trie s to un­ Robert F. Young shows compassion­ motif, he is captured by the experience mask himself many times, but always ate humans adopting the long-preserved and does not want to go back. finds another mask beneath. I t is not children of an ancient Martian race. (■MASKING because of these motifs that FINALITIES The way the Martian children return the is a outstanding story—their very prev­ favor makes MARS CHILD (Amz Jan) that Another motif so common that i t alence means th at they are in good and rare thing—a genuinely horrifying hor­ shows up, in one form or another, in bad sto ries alike. I t is what Barnes ror story. And in LEGACY (TZ Feb), most sto ries, is the unmasking of a did with the motifs th at makes th is so Leigh Essex shows us a child learning character, the revelation that somebody good. (If this is how well he does with a l l too w ell how to be a parent. was not who others thought he was. his firs t published sf story, we subsis­ Perhaps because Twilight Zone looks for Sometimes he was in disguise; soiretimes tence-level writers have got to get to­ the "twist" ending, Essex withheld the he himself did not know who he really gether and shoot th is guy before he information that Marisol is a doll, not was ("I'm the heir to the throne? Gol­ pulls another routine and a human child. I te ll you th is because ly!"). The moment of unmasking is often leapfrogs all of us.) the story reads much better if you know; the climax of the tale. the twist merely cheapens an otherwise Paul di Filippo te lls th is story excellent tale. in its simplest form, but does i t very well, in STONE LIVES (F&SF Aug). A boy MAKING FRIHDS finds out the real reason why he was BCIDING A good kid who's in to magic forced to grow up blind and alone in the Telling sto ries is a pro-social befriends the new boy in school, who vicious society of the Bronx Jungle; act. In a world where people are con­ knows some really neat tricks in FRIGHT even when I see i t coming, i t s t i l l demned by nature to perpetual isolation, NIGHT (NCry Fall), by Vincent McHardy. feels as exalting as i t did in CITIZEN story tellin g provides one of the few I t's a good, solid story, with fa ir OF THE GALAXY. occasions where someone can guide us foreshadowing instead of a twist ending; The unmasking is much more painful into sharing the same experience. It the characters and setting are well e- in Karl Hansen's DREAMS UNWIND (Omni creates a community. nough realized th at i t could have gone May), in which the hero discovers that on—and I wish i t had. And William R. he is really the thing he most loathes Besides being a resu lt of story­ T rotter's BAGMAN (NCry Fall) is a good in a ll the world. If you know Karl's telling, the creation of ccnmunities is portrayal of the decay of a down-and-out work, you won't be surprised to discover also a frequent theme. musician in New York City, who gets a LOYALTY VS. BETRAYAL constant companion who's a l i t t l e more that th is story is exciting to read but demanding than he expected. What wrecks set in a milieu so cruel that at the end Communities are b u ilt by shared i t is an unbelievably offensive intru­ your grateful to have escaped. In C.J. experience; they survive by mutual sion. Believe i t or not, here is what Cherrvh's THE UNSHADOWED LAND (SwSs 2), tru st. Bruce D. Arthurs' UNICORN'S appears a t the bottom of page 18: "But the heroine is fle e in g from the BLOOD (SwSs 2) examines people who have wait, reader! All is not yet lo st for knowledge of who she is and what, by her been betrayed in their trust. The hero­ our desperate young hero! Turn to page nature, she does. I thought i t was ine is a woman who was sexually abused 194 for our tale's exciting conclusion." impossible to te ll an interesting story by her father—the ultimate betrayal of I don't know if i t was the author's idea about a goddess. But everybody knows trust, I believe—and has grown up to be or the ed ito r's; whoever i t was should Cherryh can do the impossible. that rarest of creatures: a virgin who be forced to watch old episodes of The Rolaine Hochstein's NEIGHBORS exploits the instant affin ity between Flying Nun for a year. (F&SF Aug) is a strange circular ta le , virgins and unicorns in order to k ill in which a couple moves into an apart­ the trusting creatures and take th eir ment building and, by studying their horns. The story goes much deeper, into neighbors' garbage, transforms them­ layer after layer of trust and betrayal, selves into people of taste and breed­ as a crippled former prince engages her HSCES ing. Then they discover who the neigh­ in a quest to avenge h is in ju ry by bors really are, and how they have de­ k illin g a black unicorn. I'm sick of cayed—a small but unforgettable stcry. unicorn sto ries, too. This one? Read Nature abhors a vacuum, and ro­ Richard Grant's LYRIC FOR THE DARKMASS i t anyway. mance abhors a committee. The great (Amz Ju l), set in the same universe as James Patrick Kelly shows us the deeds of sto ry tellin g are a ll done by his novel SARABAND FOR LOST TIME, shows invasion of a small town by a group of the Chosen Hero, who is at once isolated a young man who is, of course, changing vandals who turn out to represent an fran and savior of his community. Even as he grows up; but only when he comes ancient enemy. In THE LAST (F&SF Jun), though Literary Authors try to disguise to the house of an instrument-maker and Hester Pickworth bears the burden of the hell out of it, a ll th eir heroes are hears a particular song is his new iden­ leadership: the community's survival de­ bigger than life, too. tity clearly revealed to him. It's as I DIDN'T LOCK FCK THIS JOB haunting as if you could actually hear pends on'her wielding their only weapon. the music. I t's a wonderful story, and my only In Sharon N. Farber's ROLLS REK, quibble is th at i t ends too quickly. I KIK OF CARS (Amz Sep), B illy Jean is A story that epitomizes all these guess when a w riter develops a novel's ju st a curious l i t t l e g ir l—she isn 't motifs is John Barnes's FINALITIES BE­ worth of character and situation, I want looking to be anybody's savior. But she SIDES THE GRAVE (Amz Sep). The hero is a novel's worth of story afterward. The ends up inadvertently liberating the a Monitor, sent by outside nations into same sense of community duty is a t the long imprisoned Rolls Rex, a magical his native America to eliminate anyone heart of the very short verse story THE automobile that bestows on her the abil­ who is trying to develop any high tech­ NEIGHBOR'S WIFE (Amz Jun). Susan Pal- ity to hear the speech of cars. I'm nology. I t is obvious that th is is a wick's story is so short I don't dare don't often enjoy whimsy, but then, descent into hell—America is a place of synopsize i t , except to say that i t whimsy is almost never done th is well; punishment. It is also a passage from shows a community dealing most tenderly Farber never le ts up and it's a wonder­ the shadowy but safe outside world to with the madness of a g rief-strick en ful ride the whole way. the peculiar rules of fairyland. Con- neighbor. Otherwise, they'd cheerfully be as bigoted against their alien visi­ Andrew M. Greeley's GABY (Amz Jan) tor as any other small town. is also a b it whimsical, with a nubile guardian angel of the most desirable sex Loyalty is completely discarded in who makes Professor S.S. Desmond's trip TIP OF THE SCORPION (TZ Aug), by Steven to co llect his Nobel Prize more in ter­ Popkes, in which a new breed of electri­ esting than he expected. The story is city-generating plants gives more than going along quite well un til Greeley the usual satisfactio n to the farmers. cops out and wraps i t up with a com­ His wife is not crazy when she fears pletely irrelevant Nazi plot finish. that the fields are seducing her husband Having Adolf H itler as the bad guy is away from her. what writers do when they don't want to I MACE TOD, HOT ARE YOU MINE? There are many ways in which par­ WE1UHT OF ZERO (TZ Feb), by John Alfred ents can create a child. Richard Grant Taylor, the "chosen hero" is selected to may have marred PAGES FROM COLD HARBOR be the physical incarnation of the anti- (Av's Jun) by writing i t in firs t person Christ; and doesn't seen to mind. present tense, but i t 's s t i l l a strong THE GREAT LTBStAODR emotional story of a man who manufac­ Moses is n 't the only hero to say tures an a r tif ic ia l child th at is a ll "Let my people go." Following a long too human—Pinocchio without the fairy trad itio n of heroes who free a captive to save things a t the end. Jennifer people, Rand B. Lee brings a dangerous Swift's MARIE (Av's Jun) tackles almost intruder into a small community of tele­ the opposite problem—a surrogate mother paths long kep* isolated during a deadly plague. In CH SHUMS'IUD MOCKDUN (Amz 26 Jan), despite occasional over-sentimen- tality, we join the community in gradu­ An almost identical dilemma is JUSTICE, REVBCE, AM) HKISMBiT ally coming to trust him, until he gives faced by an alien v isito r who has come his life to save them. to judge the Earth in RESPECT (Anlg Stories of getting even are some Jun), by B ill Johnson (an obvious pseu­ of the most delicious in all literature. Jayge Carr's protagonist in CATA­ donym if I've ever seen one). Knowing Augustine Funnell's WORMS FROM MARS COMBS (Amz Jul) really doesn't want to they can't show him the "beauty" of hu­ (NCry Sumin) is a viciously amusing story s tir up trouble in his unbelievably op­ manity, the people struggling for survi­ of how a persecuted black man uses alien pressive underground society. But a val in a perpetual border war show him invaders to get even with his tormen­ kind-hearted outsider saves his life and humanity's pain—and he comes to share tors. I t is matched by Lori Allen's gives him a g ift that transforms f ir s t i t and, eventually, take part in th eir FAMILY OBLIGATIONS (TZ Feb), in which him and then his people. Carr apparent­ war. The story would be flawless except a woman keeps revenge and punishment for ly didn't like the story as well as I for a tendency to repeatedly explain the Aunt Bessie's death deftly within the did, since i t was thrown away with a meaning of the story, as if one clear family. And in Raul Reyes comic CHOSQi la st line that only a the most fanatic exposition weren't enough—a frequent MAIDEN (SwSs 2), the designated virgin cat-fancier would think was not stupid. problem in Analog stories of late. preempts the sacrifice bv striking a Vera Nazarian's THE WOUND IN THE MOON prior deal with the dragon herself; as a (SwSs 2) s u ffe rs from some of the SACRIFICE resu lt, the p riests who were running over-heightened language that is common The hero is often called upon to th is virg in -sacrifice racket get just in sword-and-sorcery sto ries, but i t s a c rific e in order to save others. does come together with an elegant fin­ Three of th is quarter's best sto ries What do you do when the person who ish in a duel in which the city is freed deal with this theme. James Gunn's MAN must be punished is yourself? The pro­ from the heartless rule of the son of OP PARTS (F&SF Aug) carries the idea to the Moon. tagonist of Roger F. Dunkley's SIDE revolting but magnificent extremes in TRACKED (TZ Aug) finds the hideously MAKING A DIFFSiaKX IN HISTCKY his best work of late. appropriate answer in the Bible. Self­ Michael Kube-McDowell's firs t nov­ Wavne Wightman, about whom I gush punishment is also the theme of A.R. el, EMPRISE, proves th at he can handle at length elsewhere, has dealt with the Morlan's story FOUR DAYS BSURE THE 9UW the vast sweep of historical events with opposite kind of sacrifice in IN THE (NCry Summ), in which a woman is not a sk ill th at few other w riters can REALM OF THE HEART, IN THE WORLD OF THE sure how i t 's being done, but she knows match. He does i t also with WHEN WINTER KNIFE (Av's Aug). Unlike Wightman's she is being punished for having an a- BIDS (F&SF Jul), in which some people TENSOR OF DESIRE (part of a series that bortion; the babies she sees are dreams, are hired to prepare something that will will continue with a story in F&SF next but the b ottles of Gerber baby food on outlast the coming nuclear winter and month), th is story doesn't have much the porch are real enough. te ll the few remnants of humanity some­ action. I t is played, instead, in a thing of our own time. Kube-McDowell single room, where a man who is regarded THE BHHt BIT, THE EHSl EAOHt w rites his characters with compassion as the savior of mankind carefully ac­ In THE BLUE GULARIS (F&SF Jul), and understanding, so th at even the counts the cost of his great deeds; and Robert C harles Wilson gives us a contemporary sections ring true, but he he has made certain, over the years, wonderfully horrid story of a l i t t l e really shines when he creates a far- that the sacrifices were a ll made by g irl afflicted with a nasty family, who future society, s t i l l crippled by the others. A powerful, chilling story with gets some help from her piano teacher to some unforgettable characters. get rid of them all. The piano teacher, lingering effects of nuclear war, as however, has his own motives. Much more they try to receive the g ift th at th eir And i t is only Christopher Gil­ complex is Ian McDonald's SCENES FROM A ancient ancestors prepared for them. b ert's second published story, but in SHADOW PLAY (Av's Ju l), in which Dorn Harry Turtledove, in one of the THE ULTIMATE DIAGNOSTIC (Amz Sep) he Perellen seeks vengeance against the man la st sto ries to be published under his does an excellent job of showing us a who stole away the woman he loved. The old pseudonym "Eric G. Iverson," deals hero who can diagnose any disease same devices he used are turned against with a similar idea of trying to make a through the ultimate empathy: actually him in the end. McDonald's City of Man difference in a society you can never inhabiting someone else's body. But to milieu is haunting, and th is story is belong to. With NDNINTERFERBiCE (Anlg stay alive and keep saving people, at beautiful, but the voice is so strange Jul), however, the society is alien, ana one point he had to permanently take at the beginning (and, alas, unnecessar­ the hero is an observer who can't bear over someone's healthy body and leave ily so), that the story is almost impos­ the thought that in this newly develop­ them in his own dying one. He trie d to sible to get into, such a shame when ing civilization, the queen who has done choose someone who "deserved" to die, the writer erects a barrier at the door­ so much to enlighten her people is going but i t 's always tricky when you have to way into a very fine tale. to die of a disease that ne could easily make someone else perform the sacrifice. Magic doesn't work out the way cure. It's the journalist's dilemma—do i t 's supposed to in Stephen Gallagher's you report or prevent the disaster? The good story THE PRICE (Av's Jun). The question is raised cleanly and answered members of the rock band are only trying believably. BAD GUTS to help their leader; if they had under­ stood him b etter, he might have lived The good guys may be the ones we through th e ir helpfulness. But nobody root for, but the bad guys usually seem does i t like Gene Wolfe, whose THE WOMAN to be the ones who get things moving at WHO WENT OUT (F&SF Jin) shows what hap­ M TERRIBLE HILES CM OCX® STORIES M the beginning of the story. pens when a husband and wife both seek Titling is a different art fran story­ OOPS. IT WAS ME. magical help in th e ir effo rt to get a telling, and just because you're good Four sto ries th is quarter depend l i t t l e action on the side. I t's the at one doesn't mean you'll be good at on the same technique—the gradual or kind of perfect l i t t l e story that Boc­ the other. sudden revelation that the narrator, a caccio would have put into the Decamer­ seeming hero, is actually a monster. on, if only he'd been good enough to FQJLITIK3 nietiiasi THE GRffB w rite i t . . . It may be a quote from Frost, but it Barry Malzberg's REASON SEVEN (Omni May) still doesn't make any sense, before gives us a bureaucrat whose job is mak­ Irony is taken to its fin al deli­ or after you read the story. ing up lies, faking documents purported­ cious extreme in Robert F. Young's IB THE B O V THE HEttT, IB THE HOLD V ly stolen from foreign powers to T>rove" 1SRS-MILE SIHIUHE (F&SF Aug), in which THE m m their menace to America. But, as we a ll people dying of an inexplicable plague When the story is a melodrama (albeit do, he has found a way to take pride in are kept in time stasis until i t is dis­ an excellant one) it's a good idea not his work; Malzberg at his best. Charles covered, the hard way, that the plague to have an over-dramatic title. S h e ffie ld 's n a rra to r goes w ith his was nature's way or preparing human Nil CF PUTS friends on an African trip , where they beings to liv e in a radioactive world. The story is so grisly that the cute discover the survivors of an alien land­ I t was enough th at the main character title goes far beyond black humix—all ing. But the alien, which looks lik e a was a to ta l son-of-a-bitch; i t hurt an __ the way to bad taste. simple tunicate, has a way of ensuring otherwise excellent story when, a t the TDUCUX, TDDCATE, WILT INOU BE MOE? its own survival in TUNICATE, TUNICATE, end, he needlessly turns out to be Luci­ This wins the award for Hirst Title of WILT THOU BE MINE (Av's Jun). fer. In W. Jon W illiam s's SIDE EFFECTS the Year—and the year's only half SNOW BLIND (TZ Aug), by Peter (F&SF Jun), an unethical doctor combines over. Sone titles are so bad It would Heyrman, shows us a woman trapped in her the testing of two differen t drugs in be better to publish the story without house with her murderous husband—and order to more e ffic ie n tly rip oft the also provides a good example of what a pharmaceutical companies. It turns out PIGS PHOM COLD HABOI twist ending can do when i t works. Gene that the combination is actually a foun­ LYRIC FOR THEDlRnUSS O'Neill's THE WHITE QUETZAL (F&SF Jul) ta in of youth—but everyone in a posi- SARJBBD V LOST ID® is the story of a man recognizing the The award for Consistency in Mis-titl­ hideous thing th at he is —and seeing a ing goes to Richard Grant, who teals solution to it. I t is psychologically to put moody oollege-wrltlng-class ti­ fully realized, with all ends tied. The tles on stories that are powerful e- only thing that bothered me was what the nough to deserve titles that Invite stupid Quetzal had to do with i t. I t the reader In, rather than put the could have been an albino lizard or a reader off. blown head gasket for a ll the difference i t made in the story.

27 serious is Gary Kilworth's unforgettable THE THUNDER OF THE CAPTAINS (Av’s Jun). in which two friends in military school •• LOCK OF 1BSE ULBOED I B V1QTEBSI M invent th e ir own gods to help them survive an unbearable childhood. This Jia Mid a Last issue I praised hie MX LIFE intense and passionately written story I l THI JUWLE, but considered i t so never quite decides whether the gods are artsy that I doubted it would find e real or not; i t doesn't m atter, for the large readership, To my surprise, his character lives as though i t 's real, as first novel, WALI THE MOOMS ROAD, is he becomes obsessed with the idea that wonderful swashbuckling adventure with he has sacrificed the great love of his Blood and Leonardo da Vinci. Forgive lif e to his god. e boring firs t chapter end e tacky cover, because the rest of the book is one of the best this year. Richard Grant, Not only are his stories FtnURES PAGE BOI COLD 1UBCR and LIUC FOR THE DARDUSS first-rate fiction, his There are two kinds of future in firs t novel, SARABAID FOR LOST TIME science fiction, ugly futures and pretty (Avon), is surprisingly mature, with futures, and on the whole, I'd say that an intensity of characterization evoo- the ugly futures allow for the best etlve of Dickens end Wolfe. If the stories. ending disappoints, it's only because S till, there's something incongru­ the rest of the book is so good that I ously old-fashioned about John Shirley's do ri't think anybody could have written ugly-future story, THE INCORPORATED cape. (And someday sh e 'll have to ex­ (Av's July). He w rites of a future in plain how a large mountain can be in the Other Good tar Writers to Look h r which pollution is institu tio n alized , middle of a small town.) • Bruce D. Arthurs OrSs 2) big nasty corporations run everything, The August Analog had two good ■ John Barnes (Amz Sep) and a ll in a ll i t has the quaint feeling sto rie s set in much brighter futures. Leigh Essex (IZ Jan) of those earnest social-change movies Not perfect ones—sf writers have a way • Karen Joy Fcwler (F&SF Jun) made in the 1960s, or the anti-Communist of wiping out large sections of the ■ Christopher Gilbert (Amz Sep) sf sto ries from the 1950s. Doesn't he world as background—but futures in Rand B. Lee (Amz Jan) know th at there are fish in Lake Erie? which mankind survives present p erils V era Nazarian (SrSs 2) I t's quite a good, suspenseful story of and makes the best of things. TRADER'S Raul Reyes (SrSs 2) a man whose memories are being stolen SECRET, by , is a Jennifer Swift (Av's Jun) from him with the cooperation of his plausible ta le in which a man and a (• Wrote one of this quarter's best stories) less-than-loyal wife, but I couldn't woman from different and sometimes com­ shake the fe e lin g th a t S hirley got peting so cieties are able to overcome caught in a time-warp in 1972 and s till th eir rivalry to promote the good of hadn't noticed. humankind. I t sounds pretentious, but Tom Purdom has a rather uncomfor­ i t works as a simple mystery/adventure tion to notice is so incompetent or table solution for city crime in EYES tale. Likewise a mystery is Harry Tur­ drugged up that they never make the con­ (Anlg Ju l)—cameras are in stalled to tledove's ("Eric G. Iverson") LES MORIES nection; the tests are discontinued, and watch all the back alleys, and citizens D'ARTHUR, in which an unknown assassin a b rillia n t chance is missed. I t's un­ can watch the monitors for entertain­ has murdered several contestants in the fortunate that such a wonderful story ment. A l i t t l e boy is n 't sure what's low-gravity Olympic events. Maybe idea is buried in such a tedious mass of real and what is n 't, but even though he sports fans would not find the long ex­ d etail. Surely there's a way to w rite manages to save a lif e , the author is position of the off-Earth games as tedi­ competently about incompetmce. uneasy about a ll that watching. ous as I did, but as is usual in myster­ SATIRE ies, once people s ta rt dying, the story picks up. Ugly futures are often introduced as sa tire —exaggeration of fa u lts in DEME IS THE CNE SURE THING order to call for correction. Unfortu­ Most of us take the future quite nately, sa tire is one of the hardest personally—I'm not half so interested S to ries th a t speculate on the arts to do well. I t takes surgical pre­ in the settlement of other planets as I nature of reality have a tendency not to cision to get the tone exactly right; am in my net worth in 1990. And no be stories a t a ll, but rather essays. too many w riters think they're using a question of our personal future in­ Certainly that trend is not broken by scalpel, when in fact they're using e i­ trigues us as much as death. Oliver Jerry Oltion's THE BASIC UNIVERSE (Anlg ther a bludgeon or a noodle. Norman Lowenbruck's LONESOME COYOTE BLUES (TZ Aug)—but story or not, i t 's s t i l l fun Spinrad is never one to err on the side Feb) is a wistful story in which people to speculate. What if the present uni­ of the noodle—it 's d efin itely a blud­ who are about to die get to hear the verse, with its speed-of-light lim its, geon he's wielding in WORLD WAR LAST radio station playing a ll the rock tunes is like a computer program w ritten in (Av's Aug). I won't bother with the w ritten by the legends of rock 'n' ro ll BASIC, and if we only knew how, we could plot, except to te l l you th at i t 's so sin ce they died. Roger F. Dunkley's get a universe th at functioned a t ma­ outrageous that i t w ill leave you either TWISTED SHADOW (TZ Feb), a reprint from chine-language speed? Kate Wilhelm's laughing helplessly or staring in utter an English publication, brings together haunting 0 HOMO, O FENINA, O TEMPORA bafflement at the page. Most sa tirists visions from an ancient and a future (Omni May) is much closer to being a are hampered by a secret desire to main­ disaster, both of them haunting—and story, as a physicist becomes obsessed ta in some connection w ith reality . perhaps causing—the nuclear accident with the untestable idea th at time is Spinrad, knowing no such lim itations, that destroys the little English garden. slowing down. Alas, it retains a frus­ blithely sets about offending just about The best of the waming-of-death stories trating fragment. every human being in the world. I would is the genuinely thrilling, in the old- Normally, I d is lik e science have enjoyed i t more if the authorial fashioned sense of the word, THHlffl THE fictio n sto ries about science fictio n stance did not imply so clearly the au­ SAFETY NET (TZ Jun), by Charles Baxter, writers, but I 'll make an exception for thor's contempt for everything th at he in which a psychic who is generally re­ Jerry Oltion's and Kevin Hardisty's ALL doesn't understand—and everything that liab le keeps trying to get a fix on a YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE (Ania Jun), in he does. rather vague warning. which an sf writer wakes up from frozen Ian Watson errs, alas, on the side I t's probably ju st sour grapes, sleep to find himself the most important of noodledom in the clever but ultimate­ but we do enjoy sto rie s in which lif e man in the universe—since all his sci­ ly ineffective satire SKIN DAY, AND AF­ afte r death turns out to be worse than ence fiction stories have come true dur­ TER (F&SF Jul). The premise is a ttra c ­ l i f e before death. Larry Brown's ing his sleep, except the one on which tive: in a world crowded with causes NIGHTMARE (TZ Feb) gives us a man who the Earth's survival depends. The story and special interests, everybody gets to refuses to except that he's really dead, ends up as a pretty standard time-travel sign up for a lim ited number of causes even though the other corpses are doing bootstrap story, but what the heck, it's and they're given only one day a year to th eir best to encourage him to accept s t i l l a lo t of fun. And in Geoffrey be obnoxious and offend everybo^ else. reality. George Alec Effinger, with his Landis's pleasant little story DINOSAURS Then they have to shut up about it. customary madness, gives us two versions (Anlg Jun), a group of psychics turn out 'S FLYING TO BIIMTIUN (TZ of lif e a fte r death. In UNFERNO (Av's to be America's only working defense Jun) is the most deft of the sa tire s. July), Morton Rosenthal gets to hell—by system during a nuclear attack. They That's why, I suppose, i t offended me mistake—just when Lucifer gets readmit­ handle the attack, not by destroying the most of a ll—because i t was so well ted to heaven, so th at the position of incoming missiles, but by sending them done. Her protagonist is a one-time Chief Tormentor is open. He takes nat­ back in time—where they cause the ex­ nerd who fin a lly escaped nerd-dom and urally to the job. Effinger's serious tinction of the dinosaurs. became a famous fantasy w riter; but, side emerges more clearly in his verse In MENTAL BLOCKS (Amz Jul), Steven trapped among fans as a guest of honor story MY FIRST GAME AS AN IMMORTM. (FAST Gould asserts, to hilarious effect, that a t a convention, she is relen tlessly Aug), so th at what could have been a if you act like i t 's true, i t becomes driven back to nerdhood and can't es- triv ial comparison of heaven to a foot­ true. He wasn't sure how to end it, but b all game becomes instead quite haunt­ i t 's fun along the way. Much more 28 ing. A more pleasant view of l if e after Washington. And Gary Kilworth t e ll s tne this case, I suspect he just didi't make death comes in Tina Rath's THE LADY WHO story of s t i l l another magic place in i t absurd or intense enough. RODE THE CENTRAL LINE (Amz Jun), whose IMAGE IN A DARK GLASS (TZ Aug). The Tanith Lee's AFTER THE GUILLOTINE protagonist discovers how the next lif e discovery of Narcissus's pool might have (Amz Jan) begins b r illia n tly , with an is handled when she keeps noticing dead been more effective if the archaeologist e x p lic it account of exactly what the Russians on the subway. And in LAUGHS! somehow deserved to f a l l victim to i t s g u illo tin e f e e ls lik e to three of it s THRILLS! ROMANCE! (TZ Feb), Ron Wolfe sp ell of permanent self-contemplation. v ic tim s in the French Revolution. But The a ssa ssin heroine of Rachel i t p eters out in an account of a d u ll, i s a carnival ride, and sometimes the Pollack's THE RED GUILD (SwSs 2) fin d s entropic a f te r l ife . I t may be Lee's machinery breaks down. But never mind; th at m agical power i s w ith in her: she point that the a f te r l ife i s d u ll, but if you dich't get your money's worth the is an assassin because murder brings her there must be a way to w rite about i t fir s t time, you can go around again. the g r ea test pleasure in her l i f e , far without making us want to watch another AUBE greater than love. She cannot help but guillotin ing. Perhaps the most common vision of k i ll; a l l she can choose i s the target Perhaps it 's premature to give the future i s contact w ith a lie n s , and in th is powerful, b itte r story. Much Lucius Shepard his debut here while he's no moment is as compelling as the f i r s t more fun i s P h y llis Ann Karr's A NIGHT s t i l l new enough to be e lig ib le for the contact. P.M. Fergusson r a ises the be­ AT TWO INNS (SwSs 2), in which her Campbell Award, but a fte r being the lievable possib ility that the fir s t con­ continuing characters Frostflow er and f i r s t human in history to place three tact may be between utterly incompetent Thorn are forced to choose between two s to r ie s on the fin a l Nebula b a llo t in representatives of both species, in BODY magical inns, one of which w ill be very the same year, he can't claim novices' LANGUAGE (Anlg Ju l). Alan Dean Foster p le a s a n t, the oth er o f which w i l l immunity anymore. Shepard is a ter r ific is much more serious in BATRACSIAN (Amz destroy them. (And the anthology that w riter; THE MAN WHO PAINTS) THE DRAGON Sep), in which a c o lleg e student f a l l s presents both s to r ie s , Marion Zimmer GRIAULE was the b est story published in love with an a lie n who i s a lso about Bradley's SWORD AND SORCERESS 2, w hile la st year. THE FUNDAMENTAL THINGS (Av's to "graduate." I t i s predictab le, but i t contains the p redictab le bunch of Jul) was a real departure for him, how­ produces the bittersweet feelin g Foster clumping formula s&s stories, also has a ever—an attempt at the kind of mad hu­ was tryin g for. Foster i s a talen ted surprising number of excellent stories. mor that i s R.A. L afferty's trademark. w riter, but h is characters never seem I t's worth a look.) It begins very w ell, with a deep person­ able to hold onto more than one desire a l r ela tio n sh ip between a man and h is at a time; I wish he would try some of g o lf b a ll. But th is kind of thing is the m isdirection and complexity that very hard to write;, i t may be im possible makes characters interesting. to write i t at great length. Shepard is in FERGUSSEN'S WRAITH (F&SF Aug), not an exception. Very quickly the Mike Conner giv e s us a good l i t t l e sf Many th e re are who try to be story stops being funny; soon a fte r , i t mystery that involves an alien who, lik e funny, and few who succeed. So here's a stops being in te re stin g . No doubt i t Ulysses' sir en s, lu res human p ilo t s to round of applause to the ones who made was fun to w rite i t ; no doubt the whole their death; unfortunately, the narrator i t th is quarter. Besides her ROLLS REX, thing could be read aloud at a party and turns out to be a complete incompetait, reviewed above, Sharon N. Farber a lso break everybody up with laughter, espe­ without any sign that the author rea­ had a humor piece in the January Amaz­ c ia lly i f they’ve been drinking. But in liz e s the nothing the guy does works. ing: MS. FOUND IN A CRUET SET. Sher­ cold print, i t just doesn't hold up. My In THE LIGHTS (F&SF Aug), Robert Onopa's lock Holmes's morphine stupor keeps him guess is that when Shepard puts together main character is not o ffic ia lly quali­ from taking part in some really wonder­ his f ir s t story collection, he w ill con­ fie d to contact a lie n s , but he's the ful cases—I only wish I were well-read veniently overlook th is story, which is b est a vailab le on the transport sh ip enough to get a ll the allusions. what I recommend the rest of us do, too. that happens to notice the strange pat­ R.A. L afferty is even b etter than The story which earns the Stinker terns of ligh ts. Once there, though, he usual in MAGAZINE SECTION (Amz Jul), the Award for th is issu e— and perhaps for becomes fascinated and then transformed ta le of a w riter of those in cred ib le t h is y e a r — i s a c tu a lly very w e ll by the lig h ts . I only wish that Onopa Sunday supplement stories—but a writer written, very powerful, just what we've had not triv ia liz ed the transform ation with imp^xable standards, who w ill only come to expect from Oonnie W illis. ALL at the end by having i t give the guy w rite those in cred ib le s to r ie s i f they MY DARLING DAUGHTERS, in her collection more of a knack at picking up g ir ls. are true. Firewatch, i s a ta le of the abuse and molestation of l i t t l e g ir ls, and i t has What i f the a lie n s come w ith And here's a r e a lly o ff-th e -w a ll exactly the excruciating emotional e f­ ir r e s is t ib le power? Reginald Bretnor recommendation. In the July issu e of fect that W illis intended. shows us a lie n s who are absolu tely Computer B itertainm ent magazine there arrogant, even though th e ir o ffe n siv e appears the story FUN CITY, w ritten in weapons are nothing much. But when the form of a computer te x t adventure humans v io la te a truce in order to try game. I t's only s f in the sense th at to wipe them out, they find out what the there ain't no computer game th at good; Tar Baby story was a ll about in THE but the story is delightful from begin­ PROUD FOOT OF THE CONQUEROR (F&SF J u l). ning to end. The author i s lis te d as 's ROADSIDE RESCUE (Cmni Jul) Randi Hacker. Certain that such a name i s much more powerful, a fin e story in in a computer magazine had to be a pseu­ which a passing a lie n helps a stranded donym, I telephoned, and was assured by motorist—and then takes repayment in a the editor that Ms. Hacker's parents had way that leaves both the m otorist and th e ir fam ily name long before the fun the reader feelin g raped. guys at MIT gave i t a different meaning. The b est of the s to r ie s about She's a wonderfully talented w riter, and a lie n s t h is qu arter i s Karen Joy I hope she w rite s more fic tio n . I a lso Fowler's THE POPLAR STREET STUDY (F&SF think there are real p o s s ib i lit ie s in Jw ). Hie aliens are studying mankind, writing fictio n as i f i t were a computer but they must maintain a control group tex t adventure. So I sh a ll r ip o ff her that continues to liv e in a "natural* idea as soon as I think of a story good hab itat. The people are frigh ten ed , d isorien ted, but they fin d ways to It also succeeds in being the most su rv iv e .in th is hauntingly b eau tifu l NOT THEIR BEST KRK o ffe n siv e piece of s e x is t trash I've Generally i f I don't lik e a story, read in a long time, and i t is ten times I don't review i t . But in the case of more culpable than the i^iorant sexism ______MAGIC______writers whose work is usually wonderful, of thousands of stories in decades past, There are holy p laces, places of I make a g le e fu l, blood th irsty excep­ because a major point of the story is to magic and power, regardless of what tion. attack sexism. This writer is supposed p r ie sts try to explain what the power Ed Bryant's THE MAN WHO ALWAYS to be aware. means. So says Kate Wilhelm in the WAHIS) TO TRn/S. (Omni Jun) is the story You se e, a l l the male characters excel 1 ent mystery/adventure GCRQQi FIBD of a f a ilin g ph ysics teacher who g e ts in ALL MY DARLING DAUGHTERS are depict­ (Av's Aug), in which a pair of p rivate turned down for a tr ip on the sh u ttle , ed, not merely as e x p lo ite rs of women, d e tec tiv es, m arried to each o th e r, then happens to go to a carn ival where but as w illin g m olesters of children. in v estig a te the meaning of a natural he happew to meet a r ea l alien creature Every male character who i s given the labyrinth of ste la e in the western who happens to communicate w ith him. opportunity is depicted as preferring American desert. I t works both as a Then his lawyer brother helps him fina­ sexual intercourse with small helpless mystery and as a fantasy. Equally g le the a lie n 's freedom, and the a lie n creatu res th at cry out in agony during successful, but with a lighter touch, is helps the ph ysics teacher r e a liz e h is the act. Not just the major characters, Charles Harness's GEORGE WASHINGTON dream of travel to faraway places, plus but the minor characters and the back­ SLEPT HERE (Anlg J u l), in which some doing a v au d eville a ct. This story has ground characters as w ell. And only contemporary bridge-builders run into a a ll the su p erficiality and unbelievabil­ females are victims—none of the molest­ tough l i t t l e lady who has been around it y of humor w ithout ever being funny. ed children or animals are male. the Washington, D.C., area a long time— Ed has proven before that he knows how long enough to have been worshipped by to w rite th is kind of absurd ta le ; in If W illis had w ritten a story in the Indians and to have struck up more which every black male had a secret de­ than a passing acquaintance with George 29 sir e to rape white women, and only while look at the Heechee them- lot more about Bioadhead's otional failings.

John Varley

; of the awards Varley has 5 other books, MILLENNIUM avorite, simply because it 1 to read. If you want check my review in SCIENCE V #48 of the original trade r better yet, rush out and mass market edition. PKDS NEWSLETTER #6, April, 19B5. $6. Yr. 'As a good citizen, obeys even bad olas who in a naked idish way says: Box 611, Glen Ellen, CA 95442. laws while waiting and working for their "...I’ve lost interest in fiction, This issue of the Philip K. Dick News¬ repeal. Or may violate a bad law openly, and thus no longer care to read detailed letter has some choice items in it: the seeking maximum publicity, to bring to criticism of it. • This mist be a pretty revelatory letter from Ted White concern¬ court a test case, or to make a political awful admission, coming from someone who ing WE CAN BUILD YOU; the chilling, re¬ or moral statement.1 edits a reviews magazine for the BSFA, vealing items about Phil from two women Type 2 libertarian has this attitude but the dreadful truth is that I just vho had been close to him, Grania Davis don't bloody care any more. Once upon a and Tessa B. Dick. 'Despises laws and lawmakers. Ignores time sf mattered a great deal to me, and Was he a disturbed, tormented genius? their edicts and does what he pleases, the desire to write lengthy and intelli¬ Or was he a crazy vho could write, and but quietly, on the sly.1 gent criticisms of it arose from that who became worse as time went by? To me, what Jim is describing in his fact; but after two or three years of The major item in this issue is the Type 1 listings are phoney libertarians who this I began to realise that I was essen¬ second part of an interview with Phil are really ‘shudder* Liberals. They are tially wasting my time. A very small bv D. Scott Apel and Kevin Briggs from double-thinkers like the young women who proportion of ((sf)) is very, very good, June/July, 1977. join protests against capital punishment but the rest of it is absolute rubbish; while simultaneously maintaining the right and no matter how mich you cajole the THE INN OF T>£ HAIRY TOAD to legalized abortion. Human life is authors and rail at the readers that's By . $3.75 sacred except when it is inconveniently he way it always will be. To pretend Published by John W. Guidry, One Finch St., in their wombs. otherwise is to waste your time; better New Orleans, LA 70124 . If future issues of RANDCM WRITINGS are to get on with the things that really mat¬ Ah, ha! A very funny sword and sorcery as interesting and provocative as this one, ter, on which you can actually have some story by a very clever, funny writer. Jim has a superior personalzine here. I effect. Never mind the Utopian ideal of The hero is Cretin the Beggar, and he is wish he'd use both sides of the paper, reforming an entire literature, just get beset and threatened by a Djinn of the though, and thereby double the wordage. on with remaking the bits you can!" Fourth Order name of Kakkab Komir Khastu, also self-named Steeljaw. Ah, soured idealism, soured ego, There are deals to be nade. Tasks to be soured ambition. I understand Nick's FILE 770 disappointment, but I don't labor under performed, freedoms to be earned...a wiz¬ Edited and published and largely writ by ard to be killed. It's all hilarious. the same illusicns or delusions; I never Mike Glyer, trufan. Five for $4. 24 pgs. felt I could change sf, don't really want I honestly never thought I'd like any 5828 Woodman Av., #2, Van Nuys, CA 91401. kind of S6S, but Resnick is a master of the to. SFR has continued because it was in Fandom's news .and reviews zine, ably the fun/entertainment business mostly, craft...of humor. done, fairly done, mimeographically done. This is a very small press, limited ed¬ with a few idealistic jabs here and [With a little humor and satire on the there, a few more realistic recognitions ition: 199 copies printed, with only about side.] 100 copies still available. of the true nature of writers and readers and editors and publishers. It all comes RANDOM WRITINGS By Jim Stunrn, Box 29, THE FETAPHYSICAL REVIEW #3 down to the old, old realization that 100 Hiler Branch, Buffalo, NY 14223. Edited, published, printed by Bruce Gil¬ $1.00 cash [or $2. by check]. lespie, GPO Box 5195AA, Melbourne, Victor¬ This is *1, and coincidentally is is¬ ia 3001, Australia. sued whenever 5 pages are completed [simi¬ Available for letters, fanzines, ar¬ lar phrasing to my THE NAKED ID, which is ticles, reviews, phone calls... and money published whenever eight pages are complet¬ donations and advertising. [That's a ed]. Jim discusses the concept of inalien¬ metaphysical approach to subscriptions, I able human rights (do they really exist?), suspect, or something due to Australia's but the major item of interest is a very tax laws or postage laws, or...] perceptive listing/conparison of two types This zine used to be SF COMMENTARY, of libertarian by 22 attributes, from but Bruce is having trouble getting a class origin to lifestyles, attitudes, and wider variety of material from sfy con¬ morals. A devastating contrast. tributors, so SFC may come back. For instance, Type 1 libertarian is es¬ Whatever, he's still talking to his sentially a false libertarian, as shown by friends. his position on laws: Interesting letter from Joseph Nich¬

RICHARD E. GEIS 31 Interview With STEPHEN KING

dmi\ damn! WHY CAN A WOMAM IfAAftec i.U€A

$FR: You seem pretty adept at both. When you get an idea, do you have prob¬ SFR: What's in the works? lems deciding if it will be a short sto¬ ry or a longer work? KING: I've always wanted to do a story about a killer toilet, but I don't think KING1 °h, no, I know imnediately which anybody would publish it. I think it it will be on the basis of the idea. could be pretty good, if I could find a SFR. Any examples come to mind? way to do it. After all, you're so vul- _ nerable when ... oh. never mind. SFR: Thank you, Mr. King. to the bathroom, and discovers that **************************************** Conducted By Peter Strupp to judge his writing as writing as best I can (which means finding the IMMti- /k time to read his output). As a kind ffroct OF of maverick and non-conformist and libertarian, I can even admire his com COt Dianetics/Scientology efforts, even if I am, as are you, an atheist and DUe fiZzsoJT'iO>(r in some ways anti-religious.)) LETTERS ft LETTER FROM LEAH ZELDES SMITH 1 2007 W. Howard St. Evanston, IL 60202 Ifey 20, 1985 propensity. It persists under the most 'Recently I arrived in my new city unlikely circumstances, and is, like it with my new husband and was greeted by or not, among the dearly held things an unpleasant surprise: A fanzine, con¬ that must be defended if we are to de¬ taining malicious and insulting material ft LETTER FROM A. J, BUERYS fend humanity for what it is, rather about many of my friends and acquaint¬ 824 Seward St, Evanston, IL 60202 ances and some Complete strangers, had May 2, 1985 than, paradoxically, for what some ethi¬ cal system says it ought to be brought been circulated in my name, marked with 'Please don't fold SCIENCE FICTION my return address. I was shown a copy, REVIEW. by friends; none was sent to me (al¬ ' In our community, Hubbard is widely though a few, sent to people at incor¬ 'Cn another important topic; on be¬ rect addresses, hdve been redelivered half of us who worked on the Writers of reported to have once remarked that the way to get rich is to found your own re¬ by the post office to the address in The Future anthology, I'd like to thank the upper left -- mine). Orson Scott Card for his detailed en¬ ligion. I imagine that, being an entre¬ dorsement of this project's results so preneur by nature, he did say it or 'As it seems there are still a few far. I was very worried that the writ¬ something very much like it; it wouldn't people left who are still so idealistic ers -- alnDst all of whom I have met, have been an original thought in this about fandom that they believe the name and every one of whom strikes me as a culture, or in most others. But that in fanzine's colophon must be the auth¬ human being entitled to due considera¬ as far as I know is the only "evidence" or's, I am compelled to explicitly dis¬ tion -- might suffer from reviewers who anyone can cite for a specific charge claim responsibility for "Aunt Leah's could not separate some opinion of Sci¬ that Hubbard doesn't believe in the pro¬ Big Thing," mailed May 3 from Niagara entology from their ability to appraise cedures that Scientology teaches, and I Falls, New York. I did not write, edit, talent. It's been an enlightening ex¬ don't really see a sequitur there. If publish or distribute it; I had no know¬ perience to discover that with a few in¬ that's all the data Scott can cite to ledge of it until roughly a week later significant exceptions, the many conmen- support his specifically calling Hubbard when friends asked me if I had lost my tators on the book have been able to ac- a liar on that point of belief, or if caoplish that piece of restraint. he doesn't rely even on that, then I think he has in effect declared a belief 'I am hurt and saddened. If it was 'I have begun to be troubled, how¬ that being the founder of any religion the intention of the perpretrators to ever, by the appearance of a proposi¬ creates a conclusive presumption of cause me pain and upset during what tion that saying good things about the fraud per se. That's delicate reasoning should have been a most happy time, to writers and their stories, and about prevent me from enjoying the first weeks Hubbard's specific contest project, then 'Ihe question of how to regard Hub¬ of my marriage, I regret to say they confers a license to go to extremes in bard is going to have to be thrashed have succeeded. If this was someone's characterizing Hubbard. I think it's out before the definitive history of idea of a joke, I confess I do not find possible to dislike someone -- even twentieth-century SF is writable. He it funny. While to purvey anonymously someone one does not know and has nev¬ looms among us and will not just go a- a pack of vicious lies and insults is er met -- and yet come a little short of way; those who wish he would are expect¬ cowardly, to attribute them to another calling him a liar, a cynic, and only ing totally uncharacteristic behavior of is despicable. one remove from a mirderer, a child mol¬ him. If they wish him gone, they are 'The ridicule of myself I do not ester, a rapist and a torturer. That going to have to provide a legitimate mind, but the derision of others in my is a pretty hefty bill of (non)partic- and effective push, if they can. name fills me with outrage. Frankly, ulars, and apart from being a peculiar 'Having made the decision to re-en¬ I believe the culprits are so foul that echo of what was being said about Jo¬ ter the SF comunity, he leaves himself they will make themselves known to me, seph Smith not all that many generations open to legitimate resistance from other when next we meet, by the smell. To ago, is a way of unintentionally tar- comnunity menfcers who sincerely cannot those who have also been maligned in brushing the writers while with all good abide his presence for whatever reason. this piece of ordure, I offer ray pro¬ will attempting to say nice things to That's the sort of chip-falling that found regrets and sympathy.' them. goes on in all the arenas, and no one 'No one in SF who ever met Hubbard can take credible exception to it. But has ever characterized him as a shrink¬ I would be happier if the reasons for ing violet. Restraint is not his style objecting were documented and the argu¬ and many who knew him did not like him ments were well foinded ... and if what he is demonstrably causing to happen for one specified reason or another. If LETTER FROM PAT MATFEWS (S ome did, or at least were favorably well were not being mitigated by asser¬ 1125 Tcraasita NE, Albuquerque, N impressed; Heinlein reportedly declared tions of what he is reported to have 87112 Hubbard was the one man he wanted at 1985 his back in a dark alley.) Being self- assertive and/or being unliked by many ((Most of the problem is Hubbard's 'DEAR MR. L. NEIL SMITH: (Letter people except Robert A. Heinlein is nev¬ inaccessibility. Given the lawsuits SFR #55) ertheless at more than one remove from extant involving (or wishing to in¬ 'Let me disagree with you about the being a pedophile. volve) him, I can understand his reasons for the failure, if it is fail¬ 'Conversely, many of us -- myself desire to remain inconnunicado. I ure, of your Lando Calrissian books. among them -- have very little use for also admire his tremendous produc¬ 'When the first one came out, I any fonn of organized religion, consid¬ tion of fiction and his desire to rushed to buy it. I had read THEIR MAJ¬ ering that the age-old track record encourage young and new talent in ESTY'S BIOETEERS and fomd it funny and speaks aaply for itself in every lang¬ science fiction. I will continue interesting; I had seen STAR WARS and uage ever graven. But personal religi¬ Lando was one of my favorite characters. ous belief is an ineradicable human 33 The nice, rather wooden youth I met in your book was nothing like the Lando of bad? Or is it simply a natural re¬ WALK in the earlier SFR article: it’s either the movie or the novelization. action? Should readers of fiction masterfully told, beautifully paced and I could picture one of TV's cloned hero¬ frightening. The ending is creepy. es playing the part, but not Billy Dee be made to feel guilty because of an unconscious, gut-level resistance to The allegory isn't carried off well, Williams, who has been compared to the but it hardly matters. young Clark Gable. (I don't know. I being/identifying-with a black (or don’t remember Gable in his youth. But a really slimy alien with dripping 'RDAIWORK takes the beginning of it's very plausible.) goo and green tentacles)? I don't THE HITCH-HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY and plays it straight: This poor sod's 'He lacked, for all your trying, think so. Reader/hero linkages in house is about to be demolished to make the true, heartfelt dash Lando did in fiction are often very intimate, way for a highway bypass, so he buys a the movie-and-book. One line from the private, sensitive. And the choice load of weapons and barricades himself novelizaticm stuck in my mind, in which of which novel to buy and read is in it. The psychology is unusually good Lando is musing how nice it would be to bedded in deep unconscious needs. for King, as the guy (who manages a com¬ go back as a general and rub the Empire'! The reader's choice is still acutely mercial laundry) watches the times pass nose in his status. Not good Libertar¬ him by and waxes nostalgic. ian thoughts, alas, but pure Lando. private. This kind of unconscious Your version was far too straight-arrow racism is part of it. I cannot for that. condemn it or lament it. It is 'Write a novel in which you can im¬ part of our make-up.)) side table even now). It's the old Rob¬ agine a real rogue -- young Gable, for ert Sheckley story of a deadly game show example -- in all his Not-Niceness, and played straight. This poor sod has to I'll try another. In short, too much get money to cure his infant daughter's milk chocolate in your version of the sickness (no, really) and goes on the recipe; not nearly as nuch spice as in show of the title. If he can evade ev¬ the original. Sorry.' erybody in America for a month, he wins a million dollars. It's easy to forget the limp premise early on, as the pace

loi/ c. uitorr, »j tf LETTER FROM BtV CLARK 10501 8th Avenue, NE, *119 Austin, TX 78741 Seattle, WA 98125 1985 May 31, 1985 'Thanks for SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW 'So there you are. I told you so. 'It's discouraging to report, in re¬ *54 (Spring, 1985), and for printing my Nyaah.' sponse to L. Neil Smith's conntents about review of Howard Chaykin's AMERICAN FLAG, the fate of his Lando Calrissian books, comic book. Did you know it received that I too suspect the reason is that three nominations for the the protagonist was black. I say this preliminary ballot? Of course, it did as someone who is a Star Wars fan as not make the finals, but I suppose that is only a failure of publicity ... well as an SF fan, and active in SW fan¬ # LETTER FROM STEPHEN P, BROWN dom. It's not just the Lando Calrissian 'I write regarding the article in 1621 Wisconsin Avenue, NW books that didn't go over, it’s the SCIENCE FICTItn REVIEW awhile back about Washington D.C. 20007 character himself, even among "active" Richard Bachman, author of THE LONG WALK, May 11, 1985 SW fans. These are people who write er¬ ROADWORK, RAGE and THE RUNNING MAN. The otic about Darth Vader, apolo¬ new Bachman novel, THINNER, has just 'By now you have probably heard the gize at interminable lengths for anything been published in hardcover by NAL. rumor that Stephen King wrote five nov¬ Han Solo might conceivably have done You'll recall that the SFR article dis¬ els under a pseudonym (Richard Bachman). that was the least bit questionable, and cussed the possibility of Bachman being Well, I was the guy that found that out form distinct fandoms around every char¬ a pseudonym for Stephen King; as a King (copyright research). I interviewed acter with enough lines to be more than fan, I pronptly searched out the Bach¬ King, Kirby McCauley and Elaim Koster a spear carrier. Except Lando Calris¬ man books and came to the same conclus¬ (King's long-time NAL editor) on the sian; SW fans’ reactions to him ranged ion. When I wrote to SFR to spread the subject. My results appeared in the from lukewarm to outright hate. No ero¬ new gospel, you said (rightly) that WASHINGTON POST. King told me repeated¬ tic fantasies, although he is (to ray stylistic similarity was not enough to ly that my article was to be his only taste) far more appealing than Solo. No base my conclusion on, and that you'd statement on the subject. I send it defenses of his actions even in the nav¬ gotten letters from people who had ac¬ to you because of the nature of newspap¬ ies, let alone of hypothetical ones. tually met Bachman. ers, the article has appeared only here No stories, no portraits, and so on. in DC and in Minnesota. I am trying to The subject of racism was raised once, 'Enclosed is a clipping from the peddle it to other papers right now (in¬ delicately, in a SW letterzine, ignored, February 11, 198S, AUSTIN AMERICAN- cluding the good ol' OREGONIAN). But the and quickly dropped. We like to think STATESMAN: A news service story reveal¬ bulk of King's fans still don't know this. ing that King really is Bachman, and of ourselves as enlightened and liberal 'I am selling the article to Chuck in our attitudes, media fans as well as quoting him to the effect that he used Bachman because there is "too nuch stuff' Miller for a new Underwood-Miller book, SF fans, but sadly. Smith is right. We INDER COVER OF DARKNESS. It is, at the are not ready for a black protagonist; on the market under his own name. (An incredible reason; King was the bestsel¬ core, a pretty sad story. King is, as ling author, bar none, at the bookstore I state, a great pulp writer. It is his ((Ah, yes, unconscious racism. The where I used to work --no matter how misfortune (millions in the bank notwith¬ editors and publishers know it ex¬ many books came out at any given time.) standing) that he has become trapped in¬ to his mega-event publishing pattern. ists and rarely publish sf or fantasy 'So the question arises: Who did He writes twice as fast as he publishes. novels with black protagonists. Yet, those people neet vdien they claimed to consciously, most sf and fantasy and have met Bachman? And who's the guy in 'I mist disagree slightly with John Star Wars fans would loudly deny they the inside jacket photo in THINNER? Shirley's letter. Perhaps it is true, that hardcore SF is the only true SF. are racist. Yet when entering into 'In lieu of reviews of the books, I Perhaps it is true that the work of Le- the world of identifying with the would like to pass along some brief com¬ Guin, Bishop, et al is "something else." hero...they reject being a black. ments on the Bachman material I’ve read: But to me this just points out the idio¬ RAGE, the first written, is pretty prim¬ They "vote" with their basic instinc¬ cy of categories at all. Fiction is fic¬ itive though veil paced, a short novel tion, man, and who ultimately gives a tual racism. They don't feel com¬ of a high school kid who shoots his fortable "being" a black in reading shit whether or not a new novel fits in¬ teacher and takes the class hostage -- to anyone's pigeonhole? a novel. (And does that explain why and then the class begins to come around there are so few black sf fans and to his way of thinking. It holds the 'Like most of your readership, I am readers?—They don't like being interest. somewhat disturbed at your coming hiatus. wh ite, bl onde, bl ue-eyed...) It would be tough to get along without 'I'll echo the comments on THE LONG a regular infusion of Geis (thus I en¬ ((But is this kind of racism 34 close some cash for THE NAKED ID. includ- ing back issues, please). But 1 am not ((Hardly a day goes by that I don't not dead: It's just gone from semi- going to insist that you reconsider. conjure up scenarios, formats, opt¬ to full-automatic. Ghod knows you've given more of yourself ions, for the continuation of SFR to the SF field than any ten writers, 'I will miss SCIENCE FICTIOJ REVIEW and you deserve to do whatever you want after #62. It is said a man needs and heartily second Orson Card's com¬ to do. The inevitable outcry of "Geis! an obsession in his life to keep him ments. Why not try raising your price Don't do it! Give me more, and more, going, to keep his juices flowing, before you give it up? Or send out a feed me! Feed me!" is ultimately sel¬ to give him a reason to go on living. questionnaire with the next issue or so fish at the core. You do what is right and see how much your present subscrib¬ And yet...I resent the schedules, ers would be willing to pay for a quar¬ for you, and we'll follow along. I am the bookkeeping, the mailings, the reminded by something Bill Gibson told terly fix? Remember, SFR will get you me at the Nebula banquet. After he had letters to write... through times of no controversy better won his lucite cube, he was surrounded ((Daily, I swerve from wanting than controversy will get you through by earnest pros giving him sage advice to continue SFR and to do it full¬ times of no SFR --to paraphrase Shel- on how to conduct the rest of his career. time along with THE NAKED ID. And "Okay, you've gotta get a hardback out not have to write novels for the ex¬ as quick as you can, to keep the critics tra $$ needed....to a wanting to be happy. Then shove out three paperback free of SFR and only do TNI as I originals in a row, and hit them with the trilogy in '88." Bill was mostly write best-selling novels. amused at this, and said, in effect, ((And the life of pure sloth "Fuck ’em! I'll finish the one I'm do¬ comes to mind—throw out all the # CARD FROM ROBERT BLOCH ing now, maybe do another one, then I'll typers, the addressing machine, and 2111 Sunset Crest Dr. take three years off and do something just play chess and cards and Los Angeles, CA 90046 May 12, 1985 completely different." watch TV and eat ice cream_ You 'It isn't SFR that created your fan¬ see the problems I face? Could I 'I flew over you two days ago while dom, it isn't Elton Elliott, or O.S. live for long in pure sloth? Do I returning from France. Why the airline Card or D. Schweitzer, or the interviews merely need a nice, long vacation? chooses a course which does a right-angle or the letters (well, sometimes it's at Seattle and then cones down the coast Do I want to take on all those pub¬ via the Rockies seems incomprehensible, the letters), or any of that . It is lishing obligations again? All Richard Geis. And I look forward to but I suppose foreign craft get diverted THE NAKED ID. those deadlines? And how will the from more direct routes. economy be in two years? How will 'All of which has nothing to do with 'P.S. A note about my new, more my health be? formal byline. There are many Steve SFR #55—except to let you know that al¬ Browns at work today. Last year, I ((I'm thinking. I'm thinking! though it took jib two solid hours just to wrote 1,000 words of book review for I'll let you all know. I'm gather¬ open the waiting mail, I zeroed-in on the WASHINGTON POST. A week before they ing information. Right now I feel your latest issue and, as usual, was not ran, I picked up that paper and read a like Resting for a year. But...)) disappointed. For some time now I've review of a TV movie about hookers, im¬ found that your reviews are better than probably starring Debbie Boone. The most of the books and films they cover. POST's TV critic, Tom Shales, wrote two My thanks to you, and a happy Mother's paragraphs about the sins of the screen Day! ’ writer, one Steve Brown. He accused the guy of every known writing sin. So I ((You remembered!)) called up the POST and had them change the byline to what you see, Stephen P. Brown, and am forced to use it hence-

ft LETTER FROM FORRY ACKERMAN 2495 Glendower Avenue Hollywood, CA 90027 June, 1985 # LETTER FROM ALEXANDER B TCCELJKOVICH Jankovic Stojana 35, 11090 Beograd 'AN AMERIFAN TRAGEDY Rakovica, Yugoslavia 'On the occasion of my 50th birth¬ June 4, 1985 day, in front of a couple hundred ban- queteers, the late Henry Eichner stood 'I want to admit publicly that I did up and declared that upon his demise his make a mistake and under-represent the (not inconsiderable) collection was to extent of Philip K. Dick's praise for go to me. He also put it in writing, letter's book, DR. ADDER. Not by nuch, LETTER FROM ALAN DEAN FOSTER 4001 Pleasant Valley Drive with witnessing signatures. But he died I think, but I did under-represent it. not too long afterward and left a widow But my analysis was (I hope) in every Prtscott, AZ 86301 May 6, 1985 within 3 weeks of being destitute. I other way accurate. didn't have the heart to take books off 'P.S. Mr. Geis, I will be sorry to 'For his "amazement" in re ray humor¬ her shelves, bread out of her mouth. permanently lose your excellent TAC-SFR, ous comnent on the Doles being the Re¬ the amassed knowledge, good judgment, ex¬ publican candidates for President and ' For years I gave the late Sir Alvin perience ... Are you really gafiating? Vice-President in 1988, Elton Elliott is Germeshausen the privilege of raiding Perhaps Silverberg's "80 million year hereby sentenced to an evening of lis¬ my Garage Mahal and helping himself to rule" is getting to you -- the feeling tening to Mark Russell records and read¬ any duplicate books he wanted for his that whatever we do or are, it won't ing Art Buchwald. Perhaps I should (fantastic) collection. The understand¬ matter in the slightest, eighty million have included a reference to them as the ing was that if he died first, I would years from now? We do not know what true candidates of the pineapple party, have first dibs from his library. He things and forces are in what kind of but I thought the reference as I made may have had an intimation of death, be¬ balance, on what sorts of crossroads -- it was perilously near delivering the cause a few months before he passed away so, just perhaps. it might matter vast¬ comnent with a bludgeon as it was. he called me over one day and had me ly what we do and are. For instance, C'mon, Elton. Speaking of grass-roots pick out what I would eventually want. politics, you ought to try taking them It was less than 100 books (out of well seriously when you live in the same over, I should imagine, 10,000 hardcov¬ 'If you really are folding THE ALIEN town as ex-cowboy actor Ty Hardin and ers) and a few jackets. I'll never know CRITIC -- SCIENCE FICTICN REVIEW, shall his "Arizona Patriots." Hardin and his why he didn't have me take them then and I have to subscribe to some naive, gosh- bunch like to plan the assassination of there; instead, he set them aside for me. wow, wide-eyed short-living fanzine, or judges and so forth. The wild west is When he died, before I could collect read just this serious LOCUS and noth¬ them a book dealer had made off with ing else?' 35 them. 'Four days before he died, Walt Lieb- thought of himself as a punster although ft LETTER FROM J.R. MADDEN scher reiterated in front of two witnes¬ his puns lacked much wit) simply saw his PQB #18610-A, University Station ses vdiat a dozen people had heard him latest coinage as an inspired bit and Baton Rouge, LA 70893 say repeatedly for years: that he want¬ never looked beyond that to notice eith¬ May 11, 1985 ed me to have his collection. (It took er the effect it had within the field or 4 days to enpty it out of his apartment.) outside. And when people tried to bring 'In his letter of 30 January in SFR But in the end, only a 25-year-old will it to his attention that "Sci-Fi" had #55, Darrell Schweitzer "sympathized with could be found. We had been friends cheap connotations, when people tried to Forry Ackennan and Buzz Dixon in their since 1940 and it was my intention to tell him how it was being used, he be¬ complaints of how fandom has changed and incorporate his collection within my own came -- and is still -- defensive about how current fans have no sense of the (as I have done with Arthur Louis Joquel it. And that's a shame. past." And, how most fans today discov¬ II's fabled Atlanteana) with a photo of er SF through the paperbacks, are casual 'I sympathize a lot more with his Walt and a writeup about his accomplish¬ readers, are familiar with only what is ments, as a memorial. Instead, the re¬ unhappiness with LASFS's 50th Anniversary currently in print. Even if they discov¬ Meeting. It's entirely too true that a er clubs and conventions, they remain cipient auctioned it off to the highest lot of current-day fans have no sense of bidder (a local dealer), having no inter¬ only casual readers with little sense of time-binding -- and this extends well history and conmunity. est but a monetary one in Walt's life¬ beyond LASFS -- and couldn't care less time accimilation. I recently had the about anything which occurred before 'There are also those fans who do pleasure of sitting in my office and their own advent in fandom. not even bother to read science fiction, listening to a dealer from back East, they watch it on the movie screen or on using my phene, quote prices to a well- the television tube. In one sense, I known LA SF pro (he despises the term 'Human nature being what it is, I'm do not think we can exclude these "media sci-fi) as to what he should expect to sure there were always some fans like fans" from the ranks of total fandom be¬ have to pay for Walt's Finlay, Cartier this, but the proportion seems greater cause, to sane small extent, they too and -- his pride and joy -- Powers' now. Perhaps it's due to the size of share the "sense of wonder" we fans have painting ($2000, if I recall correctly). current-day fandom -- especially club- in common with each other. Gad, stroke-victim 66-year-old Liebscher and con-fandom -- which has led to in¬ could have used the money himself had he formation breakdowns. It was a little 'The "sense of wonder" is the common chosen to sell his collection rather strange to read the history of LASFS in thread which binds fandoms however loose¬ than will it to Posterity via me. What the LACon II Program Book, with its odd ly. Of course, some have more of this a tragedy. omissions. Charles Burbee, although re¬ "sense of wonder" than others and, as a result, the level of fan activity can 'I hope someone out there feels sorry presented by a photo, was not mentioned in the text, to give one notable examp¬ vary widely from individual to individ¬ for me, a triple loser. And especially ual. Also, one should consider how much for Walt.’ le. I'm told he was in Fred Patten's original article, but was arbitrarily time these various levels of activity cut by editor John Hertz. can require on the part of the partici¬ pant. A fellow who pubs one issue of ((Yes, Forry, building the world's 'John Hertz is another jerk -- I his twenty-five page zine a year as his greatest collection of sf, fantasy shared one program panel with him and total contribution to fanac may not work and horror books and memorabilia is called him to account when he delivered as hard as some convention chairmen. In an often difficult, disappointing, himself of an amazingly arrogant and regards to con chairs, they have to deal frustrating, tragic, messy job— erronious characterization of me, whom with mundanes more than do fan pubbers but somebody's got to do it!)) he knew not at all -- but I can't help and that may result in more severe cases wondering if he even knows vdio Burbee is. of burnout.. To me, and to nony other fans, Charles Burbee is the most important fannish (as 'I do not think there are any less opposed to proish) talent ever to emerge "fans" in fandom today than back in the from LASFS. But then again, if Patten’s thirties. And, by "fans," I mean those unflattering portrait of F. Towner Laney folks Darrell considers to be trufans: in that Program Book article is any letterhacks, zine pubbers, fan artists, ft LETTER FROM TED WHITE columnists, etc. I.E., fanzine fans. 1014 N. Tuckahoe St. guide, perhaps Hertz cut nothing impor¬ tant when he snipped Burbee out. Their numbers are about the same as they Falls Church, VA 20046 have always been; they are just buried Feb. 15, 1985 'I doubt Patten was a fan before La¬ within a larger number of fringe fans: 'What sparked ire to write this let¬ ney died (1958), but he compared Laney con fans, media fans, casual readers. unfavorably with that great bag of wind, ter was Fony's. It's sad to see a man 'Here in Baton Rouge, I started a whom I admire, and whose achievements Walter J. Daugherty, surely an egregious fanhistorical error.' club back in 1979. A nice bunch of peo¬ I've admired since I first became a fan ple but who mostly fall into the casu¬ thirty-four years ago, so proprietorial- al reader category. We have attended a ly hraig up on that ugly coinage, "Sci- ((You're going to have to learn to few conventions together including some Fi." I wonder if Forry ever realized be more tolerant, Ted. WE know what WorldCons. We publish a small, bimonth¬ how the term read to non-SF people, vhat ly newsletter. Some of the members ev¬ a term of derisicn it was and still is? SF means, but damn few others out¬ side fandom know, so Sci-Fi does its en read a few of the fanzines we get in You're quite right in your response: trade for the newsletter. But, beyond "Sci-Fi" was always used by the mraidane job. A shame it is associated with schlock sf films, bit maybe time will myself and one other member who have ac¬ press to put SF down, either covertly or tually vrritten Iocs to some of the zines overtly, and for obvious reasons: it bring it respectibility. Is Sci-Fi and contributed articles, the rest of contains an implicit sneer. Can Forry any worse than Stf?)) the membership is really not interested truly be ignorant of the way in which in fanzines. "Hi-Fi" lent itself to a variety of sneering adaptations by the press in the 'Personally, I stumbled into fandom fifties? The other variations are long in 1976 through the WorldCon in Kansas gone: "Sci-Fi" remains with us as a City (where everything is up to date) visible sigi of the contempt in which via the events calendar in ANALOG. Fan¬ SF was for so long held. Even today the zines came along slowly later. Somehow, literati of the mass media hold SF in I discovered more and more about fandom disdain: We are still being laughed at, and was very intrigued with the various if less openly (money success breeds histories of fandom by Sam Moskowitz, some respect, but not a lot; no one Harry Warner, etc. Reading these re¬ thinks STAR WARS ranks with CITIZEN counts of fandom's earliest days, I of¬ KANE); SF is still regarded as a toss- ten felt cheated for being bom too late. off. (And, sadly, that’s what it usual¬ But apparently, I am alone in this int¬ ly is, too...) erest for a radius of several hundred 'The rally way I can figure it is that Forry was too close to the trees to 'I don't know if it will make Darrell see the forest (no pin intended there): feel any better but I, a latecomer to a nan who for much of his life wrote in fandom, have a copy of the Willis ish of neoligisms and simplified spellings (and WARHOON. I know who Mark Clifton is and David H. Keller. I’ve met John Brunner popular opinion these days. Which ex¬ to buy from whoever they want, as long though I think his politics rather plains it, I guess. as whoever it is, if they're a newcom¬ strange at times. And, I read the old 'Then again, the sinple explanation er, joins the Guild promptly. and new . (Though at one that "Two Dooms" is a novella, and that 'Anyone can join the Guild; all you club meeting, I talked about Brunner and Aldiss books and no one had ever heard novella space in anthos is in short sup¬ have to do is sell your first script. of them.) ply might work, too. Expensive? Sure -- but look at how nuch 'As to Kim Smith's feeling that "any even a treatment pays. The word I've 'And then there is Garth Spencer up wordprocessing system will be obsolete gotten is that if you go to Hollywood in British Columbia who has begun his in a year, if it isn't already"... well, with a trunk full of good professional climb in the ranks of fanzine production. if by "obsolete" she means "not near as spec scripts and the ability to write Marty Cantor did not get involved with more, you're going to, albeit after nuch fandom until 1975-6. Heck, even Mike powerful as as what's available to any¬ effort, find yourself rich. one with a checkbook" then of course, Glyer ain't that ancient! There is hope 'This is doom?' for fanzine fans as there has always she is right; progress marches on. been. We will just have to adjust to 'On the other hand, I can't see that the changing situation regarding fandom as an argument against buying a word ((Okay, I’ve been Thinking Serious¬ as a whole. Fanzine fans started fandom processor or getting by with a toy sys¬ ly about buying a computer which after all. We were just too nice about tem forever; I've got too imich to write would: it and it got out of control along the before the Last Trump. Conputer prices way.' will continue to drop by at least 10* a) be a great word processor per year -- but every year you wait to b) allow me to keep small busi¬ buy one is a year you spend back in the ness records and such ((I felt like a johnny come lately, Stone Age with your chisel and tablets c) keep an updated mailing too—-in 1953 or so. The Great Days or Smith-Gorona and Liquid Paper or Cor¬ list or lists of sf fandom seemed past. Yet there recting Selectric or whatever. d) let me do layouts and head¬ was Willis, Grennell, Nydall, Hoff¬ 'Shudder. ings and such for SFR, THE man, Sneary, Boggs, others, others, NAKED ID including Silverberg and Ellison... 'Even if the new Ataris will be "out¬ e) allow me to keep reams and I can't remember them all. There performing the Apple Macintosh for 1/3 reams of notes, stories, was even Geis in that era. That the money," that doesn't impress me; when you add in the cost of the software novels, etc. And especial¬ was a Golden Age. This period will ly (using a text scanner- be considered a Golden Age someday. and the second disk drive, the Mac is overpriced by a factor of about four. are those good enough to I'll bet. )) Steve Jobs' desire to save on chips by "read" newspapers and book having the same one both crunch the num¬ pages?) files of special in¬ bers and handle the pretty video display terest categories of infor¬ was fundamentally flawed, as was the mation. idea of building an expensive system # LETTER FROM JOEL ROSENBERG with closed architecture (which means And I'd need a printer to do 1477 Chapel St. *B-4 that you "upgrade" by buying a new sys¬ all of the above. So I'm throwing N. Haven, CT 06511 tem, not by unplugging an old board and myself onto the Readership for ad¬ May 14, 1985 plugging in a new one). vice: WHICH ONE?)) 'Orson Scott Card: (P. 23) "Silly 'This may work out well for Apple, Season" is a C.M. Kombluth stoiy; it’s but not likely for Apple buyers. The not one of his better ones. Heinlein's Mac is the prettiest Etch-a-Sketch I've term is "The Crazy Years." A silly ever seen, though. Right now, the big¬ season passes quickly, at the slow-news gest bang for the buck is in CFM-80 end of simmer, if I remember correctly; systems. the Crazy Years don't. 'My friend Darrell doesn't know 'Speaking of Kombluth, I'm curious when he's well off. Damnit, the increase as to why you haven't speculated that of the population of both SF fandom and the lack of reprintings of "Two Dooms" SF readership is good for everycne in¬ -- both one hell of a good story and a volved. Many people who love the field powerful statement that dropping the and who would have expressed that, in bomb on Hiroshima was the right thing to the olden days, by writing endless let¬ do, as a way of making dam sure that ters to fanzines are writing stories and nobody would have any question about books instead, to the betterment of us who won the war (yeah, I know -- but all. part of the reason that WW II happened 'Darrell's nostalgia reminds me of was that Germany surrendered too early Sholom Aleichem rhapsodizing about in WW I, before there, was enough des¬ shtetl life. truction on German soil; a versicn of Sherman's March would have been good 'Eltcn Elliott ought to leant that for the German soil) -- is the result of it's lightning that causes the thunder, some sort of conspiracy. not the other way around. flf '"Two Dooms" is at least as powerful 'It's hard to break into TV and as "The Mindworm" which I've seen re¬ movies because producing either a tele¬ 0M4I Publications International Ltd. printed over and over, although not vision episode or a movie costs a lot of 1965 Broadway, New York, NY 10023- quite as powerful as "The Little Black money, and producers don't like risking May 8, 1985 5965 Bag." The trouble with "Two Dooms" is serious money on people of unknown and unproven ability. 'Orson Scott Card has the mistaken that while it can be accurately accused Digression (SFR *55) that there is same of being almost rabidly anti-Imperial 'Hie reason that there are powerful kind of fiction conmittee at CMJI through Nippon and pre-VE day Deutschland, the and effective writers' unions in TV is which I have to submit stories I want to various and sundry sins Kombluth accus¬ that there's a lot of serious matey buy. This is completely untrue. I am es Imperial Japanese and German society floating around TV, and it pays the the only one at OMNI who buys and edits of are understatements, historically. writers to band together and get their the fiction (in fact, I'm the only one (The sins of the Germans are well known; share. While -- in theory -- the deal for a few words on pre-1945 Japanese to see it aside from an assistant, un¬ in Hollywood is a closed shop arrange¬ til it's being prepared for an issue) foreign policy, try asking any Chinese, ment, nobody has to hire a present mem¬ and I accept full responsibility for ev¬ Korean or Filipino -- doesn’t matter ber of the WGAwr or ask anybody's permis¬ ery piece of fiction I've bought since what age; we in the U.S. are about the sion to hire anybody. The deal -- ent¬ only nation with no sense of history.) I took over as Fiction Editor. I sug¬ ered into by adult parties at both sides gest that next time Card writes a non¬ 'But that Tnman was right to drop -- is, roughly, that producers are free fiction article, he check his facts be¬ the bomb on Hiroshima is not exactly a 37 fore publishing it.' # LETTER FROM BRUCE D. ARTHURS lished form. I think it's often '"As soon as we abandon our own rea¬ 3421 W. Poinsettia shit in ms, and would like to redo son, and are content to rely upon auth¬ Phoenix, AZ 85029-3227 most of it. But even in ms. there ority, there is no end to our troubles. May 5, 1985 are sections, scenes, bits and Whose authority? The Old Testament? The New Testament? The Koran? In prac¬ 'Orson Scott Card's "On Sycamore pieces that I think are really fine. Hill" was for the most part interesting, tice people choose the book considered I congratulate you in being able to sacred by the community in which they informative and amusing, but there was see flaws in your work after it's one passage that just gave me the heebie are bom, and out of that book they jeebies. That’s the bit an page 9 where seen print. I don't remember if choose the parts they like, ignoring the he's describing his discomfort with the anyone has reviewed SWORD AND SORC¬ others ... And so, even when we have a other people in the Sycamore group, and ERESS II, and I’m too tired now to sacred book, we still choose as truth says, in part, "Only when we get with bother to look.)) whatever suits our prejudices." fellow Saints are we tTuly at home. If "'Plato, in his REPUBLIC, laid it it had been a group of ten tonnons, I down that cheerful views of the next wouldn't have had any problem." world must be enforced by the state, not because they were true, but to make 'I'm aware that the Mormons tend to soldiers more willing to die in battle." be insular, that Mo men families tend to # LETTER FROM ORSON SCOTT CARD have almost all, or mare, of their time 546 Lindley Rd '"Many a man will have the courage to filled with church and church-related Greensboro, NC 27410 die gallantly, but will not have the and church-sponsored and church-affilia¬ May 22, 1985 courage to say, or even to think, that ted and church-approved activities, but the cause for which he is asked to die are Mormons really so different (with 'I was not surprised when you told is an unworthy one. Obloquy is, to most the indication of "better1') than a me that 'On Sycamore Hill" had brought men, more painful than death; that is cross-section of Americans in general? some negative response from people who why, in times of collective excitement, Are they (or perhaps we) really so alien? believe that it is somehow morally wrong so few men venture to dissent from the to feel uncomfortable among societies prevailing opinion." ("Death" being a 'A round of applause to Card, again, nebulous concept.) for the effort and work expended on the where you are a stranger. What they overview of *gasp* 123 short stories in fail to recognize is that their nega¬ "'But probably 2,000 years hence "You Got No Friends In This World." Un¬ tive response onlv reconfirms the anci¬ many beliefs of the wise of our day will fortunately, since I've read less than ent legend that when we Mormons venture have come to seem equally foolish. Man a handful of them, I merely skinned his forth into American society we invariab¬ is a credulous animal, and must believe lengthy article. What I did gamer from ly meet with misunderstanding, rejection, something; in the absence of good grounds it, though, was a desire to start trying hostility, ridicule and contempt. In for belief, he will be satisfied with to catch up on what's being published in fact, we would be disappointed if people bad ones." (emph. in original.)' the short fiction markets again. fully accepted us, since the foundation of our coimunity epick is the stOTy of 'I thought at first that Darrell how our forebears were persecuted, driv¬ ((Himm. Let's see. I believe in Schweitzer's "Creating Frivolous Liter¬ en from their homes, raped and massacred orgasms, ice cream and self-knowl¬ ary Theories" was going to be yet anoth¬ at the hands of freedom-loving Americans er of his boring attacks on the New Wave edge. I believe in winning, feeling and its successors. Glad I kept on 'I look forward to reading the crit¬ superior and "knowing the score." reading it anyway, chuckling most of the icisms of "On Sycamore Hill" and I rel¬ I believe having the use of lots of way. One genuine FLT I recall was that ish the hope that they might be truly money is good. I believe there is Robert Cham Gilman (author of THE REBEL vicious, unfair and abusive; such com¬ no God. I believe there is no Devil. OF RHADA) was actually a pseudonym for ments would only rebound to my credit I believe I can find the ideal fan¬ in my own conmunity, where my relative Arthur C. Clarke. Hey, and here's one zine format (for me). And I believe that just cane to me: How can one real- success as a "worldly" writer is viewed l£ account for the drastic improvement with suspicion; and if they are cruel there will be another Great Depress¬ in Heinlein's last several books over enough I may even taste soiiething of the ion.. .Real Soon Now.)) the ones for years before that? My FLT rapture of the martyrs. Publish them is that FRIDAY and JOB were actually all, Dick.’ -- or at least the most written by Mrs. Heinlein.' Take the ball thick-headed and bigoted of them. We from there, Darrell. fanatics only grow stronger under the lash." # LETTER FROM IAN COVELL 'Enjoyed the interview with Varde- 2 Cosgrove Close, Berwick Hills man even though I buy his books more from friendship than because they're Middlesbrough, Cleveland TS3 7B7 such great literature. They're fast- England paced adventures, frequently inventive, April 13, 198S but his characters just don't come to 'I have read three L. Neil Smith life for me. books and ... well, basically, didn't 'Vardeman once coined a lovely react to them in a pjositive way (I keep phrase, during a conversation about being criticized for 'not liking' things creative writing classes: "It's not so I'm rephrasing myself) ... If this creative unless it sells." I later interview proves anything, it proves wrote that on the blackboard of a CW that my brain neglects all but the most class I was in, just before the instruct¬ rabid political stances; I can abide the or came in. "Who wrote THAT crap?" he # LETTER FROM KERRY E. DAVIS wolvish Heinlein, I can't stand Poum- 250 NF. Tomahawk Isl. Dr. elle; Smith's work seemed to teeter on asked. It was the mast interesting ses¬ Portland, OR 97217 sion that class had all semester. the edge of the right wing, but this in¬ May 5, 1985 terview proves I didn't take the note I '(Anyone turned in a review of SWORD 'It all comes down to what people should have. I like the way Neil Wilgus AND SORCERESS II yet? I'm anxious to want to do. Truth has nothing to do laced into him; I've grown a trifle tir¬ see what outsiders think of the story I with it, and never has. People use re¬ ed of apathetic questions to even acre have in there. When I sent it in, I ligion to make themselves feel good, apathetic respoonses; nice to see some¬ thought it was really swell; visions of and to justify persecuting, torturing one stand up and say "Now, watch it Hugos, World Fantasy Awards, groupies, and warring with others. Bertrand Rus¬ there, mister ..." whai confronting an danced through my head. Now that I've sell said it best, particularly from amazingly solid position. Like Wilgus, seen it in print though, I find I can several angles, in "An Outline of Intel¬ I'm puzzled by Smith's belief that vio¬ see too many bad choices of words, poor lectual Rubbish: A Hilarious Catalog of lence is denigrated; if anything, the pacing and limping characterization to Organized and Individual Stupidity:" avenger-hero has become the norm again really be apeshit about it. Is this a (don't you now have a prime time series comnon letdown for writers?)' based on DIRTY HARRY?) and in essence he never left (in ray opinion); having had opportunity of recent to directly con¬ ((As for me. I'm always astonished front someone who is offended by the de¬ that my stuff reads so well In pub¬ 38 piction of sex ("...it's embarrassing to see them acting out something I think is tem. . . So, we are constantly reminded Dean Ing or , some of the SF a private pleasure but excuses the of the threat of foreign invasion from writers who participated in a long-term excesses of Husky and Starch unless they our juvenile comic books through to re¬ planning session some weeks ago. really humilate or cause pain to people makes of remakes of war films...... I 'm now prepared to state definitely 'As President you've been hearing that people pet off on violence, and are 'Intersting to compare Schweitzer's from the Citizens' Advisory Council for upset by sex because it arouses feelings review of STARS IN MV POCKET with yours. a National Space Policy for some years. they don't like showing (desire, tender¬ I gave up on Delany after TRITON when I That's my house, and Jerry to do the ness, vulnerability). It would be easy totally failed to understand a single yelling, and 30 - 40 people involved to lace into Smith for what I feel are sentence in the Afterword, and fared somehow in the space industries. You sentiments specifically designed to pro¬ only marginally better with the so-cal¬ call Jerry Poumelle. led fiction. My problem with Delaney mote fear in others; maintaining social 'Based on sales, anyone in the mil¬ stability (in his eyes?) by the threat has always been that I always thought his mention of homosexuality was the itary -- particularly the Navy -- would of reprisal for transgression "armed ... send you to Robert Heinlein, or Jerry. (and so) non-violent"; I presume this side-issue of a liberal; it isn't, it’s means he carries a gun with him wherever Delaney's real way of how life should 'Any reasonable avenue gets you the he goes, because of course, you can't be lived ... and not agreeing with that Dreamer Fithp. And who else do you ask stop a fight in a bar by threatening to has meant I drew further and further about aliens? Politicians? The U.S.A. go outside for your gun. Of course, away from emotional involvement while embassy in Moscow? We think the Threat that a man permanently carries a weapon not being sure why I was doing so. Team is very reasonable. (And self-in¬ does raise the question of when he re¬ dulgent FUN!) 'Agree totally about Bob Shaw’s FIRE veals possession to damp down a possibly PATTERN. I really do not know why he 'You say we coped with Footfall too violent situation. I think, looking at leaves the real story behind and launch¬ easily. Remember: the foot was smal¬ the first paras on p. 12, that Smith's es into a redundant ... but ler than Lucifer's Hamner. The fithp books failed -- and I'm sure they did -- perhaps it might be explained if it have to move it; they're stomping ter¬ because they don't have sustained oppos- turns out the book was being written ritory they want for themselves; and ite views; Smith is so sure which side they have the option of doing it again the "right side" is that he never gave while Shaw was revising GROUND ZERO MAN into his new book. GZM failed -- I am and again. You still don't cope with his "bad people" a justifiable stance; Footfall too easily' if you're standing they are simply opposite to his heroes. told -- because its publishers knew it wasn't SF-y enough, and didn't push it; in India, or Iran, or Perth, or any South All in all, an excellent interview that African city. Why didn't we deal with will probably make a cool relationship could it be that Bob has realized that the more SF-y something is, the better these in the book? Because obliterated between the two speakers for a long places contributed nothing to the theme long while. it sells? (Sadly, ORBITSVILLE DEPART¬ URE is another odd mess, sad sequel to a of war; and because we'd already written great book; a friend of mine, a Shaw fan similar scenes for HAKNER. ((No, sex is a problem for people for years, says he hasn't Tead a good 'The survivalists: We wanted them, because it reminds them of their own Shaw book since about 1976; I wouldn't and they do contribute. Make your own inadequacies or unmet sexual needs, like to argue the point.) Shame, be¬ list of what we'd lose, or have to shove their own sexual hang-ups, guilts, cause Shaw is one of the finest writers in some other way.' sexual rage. Sex-in-the-media con¬ around, he just seems to have lost track stantly torments these types because of what made the early books great: emotional depth. it is a carrot they cannot have, be¬ cause it arouses envy, lusts-they- 'I reviewed DRAGONROUGE for another dare-not-admit, and fears and shames magazine. It's a sendup (as it says in the notes at the end), and it's "adult" they don't want to remember.)) to the extent that only adults will un¬ derstand all the jokes and references; 'Re Alan Dean Foster: I will read children will only get some; one person a future for you, the future of British reacts to the princess's nakedness. satellite dishes. Before they can be¬ What the book is, is a fairy tale for come widespread, this government will adults, a gentle rollicking tender ex¬ # LETTER FROM DARRELL SCHWEITZER ban them, license them or make them pro¬ pression of Carter's knowledge about 113 Deepdale Road hibitively expensive via tax -- maybe fantasy worlds and fantasy writing. I Strafford, PA 19087 it will even demand they get certifi¬ liked it but I can see why you didn't. May 3, 1985 cates from a department it will estab¬ (MY objection to recent DAW books is 'Nowthen, you are quite correct when lish in about a decade. Our government the inmensely increased type size, and you say that SFR's typography stinulates in its treatment of CB radio (legal on¬ hence page length, and hence price; all me to write letters. There are, again, ly to a range of about one hundred yards the recent ones I've got should have because "it might interfere with impor¬ serious errors. "Creating Frivolous been about 201 reduced...)' Literary Theories" has suffered a trans¬ tant transmissions"), of Cable TV (all adult channels banned by its charter, position error, three lines from colum ((I prefer large type, since my two on page 27 having drifted into colum all channels to conform to the satndards 3. Now I'm not going to pull a Harlan of our tvro national networks), and so eyes are shifting from near-sighted¬ ness to far-sightedness, and I seem Ellison act and insist you reprint it on ... Satellite dishes are too good and pay me twice, but I would like it to be allowed ... watch. unable to get used to bifocals. And known that the last two sentences of 'Dean R. Lambe: While I do think when my eyes are tired they lose a paragraph 3, colum 2, page 27 should Orwell is didactic, I'm also sure that degree of focus. One hour my glass¬ his lesson in 1984 is correct: a gov¬ es are okay, the next they are too '"They came to a patriotic, if ernment that keeps its people on a read- fuzzy... )) Freudian end during World War I, iness-for-war footing (in this case by when they tried to spirit away a constantly emphasizing the dangers of top secret German cannon known as the past; celebrating forty-year-old 'Big Bertha.' The German crew victories, hinting that our "opponents" had left the safety off." today would do the same thing given a # LETTER FROM LARRY NIVEN chance) can control behavior and social 3961 Vanalden Ave, Tarzana, CA 91356 'The paragraph breaks off in mid-sen¬ change to their own advantage (i.e. the June 2, 1985 tence as it now stands, the missing status quo). Everything in recent court lines being at the end of the following cases has emphasized the "need for nat¬ 'Your review of FOOTFALL was highly paragraph. flattering, yet I suffer from the im¬ ional security," even in those instances 'And, in the same affected paragraph when revealing military knowledge (say, pulse to talk back. So: (middle, coluim 2), I think it should about the General Belgrano) is consider¬ 'If you were the President of the read "maybe a pneumatic drill" rather ed still harmful, not because our (then) U.S.A., and a giant alien spacecraft than many a pneumatic drill, which would enemies don't know precisely what hap¬ pened (it was their ship, being monitor¬ appeared in the sky, who would you call be a bit mich, even for a Victorian pet- ed by Russian satellites), but because on for help? The Air Force would put revealing what really happened might be you in touch with me or or 'Further, someone, either you or me, too mich of a shock to the political sys¬ 39 screwed up the correction line about the Saxon grandmother from the review of being unable to make money with two Mar¬ 'So it is with fandom today. We've the Parke Godwin book. It should read ion Zimner Bradley fantasies, at the come out of the catacombs. SF is no (Let's get it right this time "In¬ same time that THE MISTS OF AVAEOFTTs on longer ridiculed. But it is also no cluding, even especially, a cranky old the NY TIMES bestseller list? There's longer the special property of the fer¬ Saxon grandmother." something very wrong there, and I don't vent few. There is much to be lost. think it's Marion's fault. 'If anything of mine is ever reprint¬ The sense of history seems to be going. ed from SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW (and ac¬ 'I do know that most of the Star- Many of the old traditions have faded. tually something has been; the article blaze/Donning SF titles have been re¬ Fanzine fandom has declined to the sta¬ on archaic language in fantasy is in my maindered. I know this because I saw tus of a minor special-interest group, book EXPLORING FANTASY WORLDS) it will them all listed in a remainder wholesale certainly smaller than game-playing fan¬ need heavily copyedited. I don't know catalogue at a buck a copy (with a mini¬ dom. But this is merely the logical if it's just me, but sometimes my SFR mum order of $100.00). In fact, here outcome of decades of missionary output texts seem to be sailing under a curse. is the address, for the benefit of the on the part of SF people. So we've con¬ authors, fan dealers, etc: Book Sales verted everybody. Now what? 'As for the Donning affair, I am no Inc., 110 Enterprise Avenue, Secaucus longer an insider, and so have little 'Like everyone else, I'm hoping you NJ, 07094. It would be best to query will want to continue SFR when the Time more information than most people do. first, to make sure the books you want I know, certainly, that Donning has con¬ draws nigh. The field would seem empty are still available. But that’s where without it. I don't know that anyone tinued to publish books. A new ELFQUEST they went. and a new MYTH book have appeared al¬ else could really replace it. Certainly though the Asprin doesn't seem to be in 'Actually, I have no hard feelings there is no other publication presently stores. I have known people who've had toward Donning. I wish them well, but going which could take its place as gen¬ to ask their friends to pick it up for at the same time I think they have a eral free-for-all think tank and show- them at conventions, since it can't be great deal to leam about the basics of place for ideas. If it's money you need, had anywhere else. However, the day has publishing. I bet the readers could start a mission¬ not yet come when Donning has had any¬ ary Save SFR campaign and make it profit¬ thing like a coherent publication sched¬ 'By the way, I should mention that able. Really, if a third of the readers ule, and books have appeared in the I am still peddling copies of both my sold ten copies of each issue, as I do, right month. Rarely in the right year. Donning titles, WE ARE ALL LEGENDS and where would that leave you?' This of course wreaks havoc with orders. THE SHATTERED GODDESS. They are $S.9S each, plus $1.00 postage 5 handling. When I had Donning books in print, I ((We apologize for the typing errors, would often ask bookstore owners why Some of the rare, unsigned copies are they didn't stock Donning titles. (In¬ available... the goofs, and etc. We'll do better. evitably, they didn't.) The answer usu¬ We are always rushed. ally was that it was too nuch of a fight ((If n\y memory serves, there are as to get them, and they could more easily 'Sane further thoughts on the sub¬ many fanzines being published now as sell something else. Sometimes I was ject of Whithering Fandom.... It is told that the bookseller didn't really true that very few people who go to con¬ in the '50s, and there are probably believe Donning was going to publish ventions would have been considered fans as many or more hardcore fanzine what they announced, since delays were by the standards of fifteen years ago, fans. The special people now are the rule, not the exception. (In my but to some extent this is merely be¬ those who read, write and draw for own case, WE ARE ALL LEGENDS was about cause SF has become an accepted part of and publish fanzines. As in the a year late, THE SHATTERED GODDESS about the general culture (except in some aca¬ fifties, sf is the usually unmention¬ 8 months late, and none of the other an¬ demic and New York literary circles, ed sun we around. SFR is now nounced books were ever published.) which are now too isolated to matter), While the recent rumors have no doubt so that, in order to have a lively in¬ the one great serconzine around in done harm, this is a company which has terest in seme form of SF these days, fandom. It might be called the pros' had credibility problems for a long time. you no longer have to be special. Maybe fanzine. I'm positive this inner SF in general and fandom in particular core of Trufans will survive for as 'My own impression of them is that have become the equivalent of the little they are well-meaning incompetents, who long as the prozines survive, includ¬ restaurant that is "discovered" and sud¬ ing LOCUS. couldn't screw writers even if they denly doesn't seem so unique anymore. tried. They're not that well organized. Checks and royalty statements were usu¬ 'But I have a better analogy. Old ally late. (I got the last half of the Fandom will probably die out within a advance on GODDESS six months after pub¬ generation, unmoumed by thousands of lication. But the royalty statements convention attendees and hundreds of JAMTAE FRANK & HANK STINE were model, until the end, when the size thousands of readers who never suspected of the print runs got mysteriously down- its existence. Perhaps there will be # LETTER FROM JAFRAE FRANK & HAfK STINE scaled.) All I could count on would be no participatory fanzines left because 8033 Suiset Blvd., that if I was told anything would be there aren't any special people left to Los Angeles, CA 90046 done by a certain date, it almost cer¬ want them or have any use for them. tainly wouldn't. Donning has never oper¬ Ted White will probably write the obitu¬ June S, 1985 ated in the same time-flow as the rest ary for our sub-culture. He seems to be 'Che of the things that perished when of the universe. the chief defender of the Trufannish toy bio-parent destroyed Hank's and my faith these days, for all he is preach¬ 'I used to order my books by the stuff was our clippings file and copies ing to convention audiences which under¬ of our published work. I would really crate, charged against royalties, and stand him less and less. then I sold them at conventions. This appreciate it if anyone out there who has worked out to be a happy arrangement, 'I warder if the surviving Old Fans copies of our fiction, articles, reviews because I not only made more than the (that is, those who remember, or are vre have written or have been written a- advances that way, but I assured the still a part of traditional fandom; I bout our work, pihlished letters and books some distribution, at least in suspect the youngest ones are around small mentions, or knows tdiere to find East Coast fandom. Where they might thirty) aren't like the early Christians them would get in touch with us. have sold a dozen copies, I pushed sev¬ who survived all the persecutions and Many of this has been in very obscure eral hundred. I will say this: Donning were able to come out in the open, but sources, including girly magazines. Al¬ puts out a great package. The books found themselves secretly longing for the though we've been trying ot make a list, really sell, if anyone can find them. catacombs, because in the old days every¬ it is impossible to remember where and one was a strong, true believer, forged 'When I was being published by Don¬ vhen each piece was published---especial¬ in the fires of the faith, devoting their ly Hank's work since he has 20 years of ning, for all the aggravation, I always lives entirely to the cause. But when felt in good coup any. I even got re¬ published work behind him. And many of the cult became legal, why, anybody caild the publications are no longer extant." maindered in good company, along with become a Christian. It was no longer Lafferty, Ray Nelson, Sprague de Cajip special. The people in it were no long¬ ((Interesting description--"bio-par- and Marion Zimner Bradley. These books er special. Some of them didn't care a ent"—and no doubt a sad, desperate were all canned because the company whole lot. story behind it. I'm sure the SFR read¬ couldn't irake money with them. This is ership will help all they can.)) something any publisher has the option of doing. But don’t you really wonder about a publisher who publically admits 40 any woman to read th is book without throwing i t into the trash compactor and leaning on the lev er hard enough to whi- OTHER VOICES ten the b u c k les. This novel could rad­ ic a liz e P hyllis Schlafly. As a s ty l is t, Robinson keeps the book zipping along in h is breezy, wide- eyed fashicn. But he has two serious problems. He cannot re stra in himself from in te rjec tin g bad puns into the nar­ OTHER VOICES rative a t every opportunity -- tir e and again what dramatic tension he had man­ aged to build was thus drained away. His second problem is Robert Heinlein. Robinson, the most infamous of apolo­ NiGIT OF Pt>ER g is ts for H einlein's Seventies a tro c it­ By ie s, has steeped himself so deep in the Baen Books, May 1985, $13.95 robes, and a h ila rio u s penchant for ta tte re d dregs of H einlein's once-bril- k n ittin g h is brow in anguish whenever R£V[EV£D BY STEPhEN P. BRCMN anything unpleasant occurs -- the author Many SF w riters im itate Heinlein, only Fbst bad novels are e ith e r the bor­ carpares him to Lincoln. The re s t of Robinson im itates Heinlein a t his worst. Thus we have a grandfather speaking of ing excrescences o f a known bad w riter the book's blacks are divided into what h is granddaughter as being "nusband- o r the earnest e ffo rts of a new and un­ can only be termed "jiv e -a ss n ...... " sk illed w riter. E ither way, they are and paragons of sa in tlin ess who speak high" and the lik e . not worth the expenditure o f c ritic a l exclusively in Basic White English. But the clim actic scene, where Jen­ capital. But when a new novel, publish­ With the exception of the father, n ife r solves her contrived problems and ed in hardcover by a major SF house and the daughter, and a few family members, becomes a woman complete, is the worst. w ritten by a w riter who has been awarded a ll of the white characters are psycho­ This is the scene th a t propels th is nov­ both the Hugo and the Nebula in the past, paths. The father is a further embar­ el into the realms of the Great Bad tasks. a w riter who has been a well-known and rassment. He is a cipher named Russell I t is a scene th a t transcends awful in ­ infamous c r it ic , and the book is as o f­ whose function is to demonstrate White to a whole other category that h a sn 't fensive and wretched as is NISiT OF POW­ G uilt, which he does to such tiresome been named yet. Jennifer is captured by ER, then several consents are called for. lengths th a t the reader w aits in vain a couple o f brutal (white, of course) The la te s t opus by perpetual gadfly fo r the b u lle t w ith h is cringing face New York cops, one of which takes her in ­ and unreconstructed hippie Spider Robin­ painted on i t . to a bedroom with Bad Intentions ("You don't understand: when I hurt you, that son is not o ily a bad book, i t is a book URBAN IECAY: This novel is also a is when i t ' s good for me."). What she so stunningly awful that i t is a morbid­ fa ilu re on the most basic of SF grounds. does to th is hapless sad ist to free her­ ly fascinating read. For those (lik e my­ Although the calendar reads 1996, there self) who have a ta ste fo r the Truly s e lf is so casually b ru tal, so graphic­ Terrible, there hasn’t been a new SF nov­ a lly , appallingly described, th a t i t was actu a lly painful to read. By then, com­ el th is deliciously bad since Tom Montel­ ic though Robinson probably intended eone's iitnortal SEEDS OF QiANGE. Robin­ New York th a t fee ls lik e 1969 o r 1970. scene o f the scene to be, even th is lover son's book is such worse. Leaving aside the Night of Power its e lf , o f T errible Fiction no longer found any­ Years of exposure to Robinson's pen there are only slig h t cosmetic touches thing a t a ll funny in th is man's rep el- te lls me that he is not re a lly a bigot, to indicate future. One such touch is la n t words. nor does he harbor the active hatred to ­ the system by which th e blacks involved ward women that th is novel in p lies. Ap­ in the uprising keep in contact. There Please, don't buy the dam thing. parently, i t is a combination of an in­ are these video games, see, and they're Check i t out of your^local lib ra ry and credible naivete with an overblown ego rea lly computer term inals. There are see for yourself. NIGiT OF POWER is a l­ that led him to w rite th is b it of f ilth these keen red sunglasses, see, th a t on­ ready becoming a book where people at fo r a ll the rig h t reasons. There was p a rtie s or conventions read passages a- probably a moment, a year or two ago, going on cn the screen between zapping loud for the amusement of th e ir friends. when Robinson sa t himself down and de­ a lien s . There are hundreds of these I t is a novel destined to liv e in infamy cided to w rite a tough, unconpromising machines, in every arcade in the c ity , and one th a t may well ruin Robinson’s book about rac ial tension, urbane decay and no one lotows about them except tfie and female adolescence (p articu larly blacks d ire c tly involved. So those neat th a t biological r ite o f passage, the on- sunglasses become lik e , th is Heavy Sym­ bol, a n d ...o h , never mind.' c re ativ ity in him, Robins® bravely de­ I ran a lin e from the book (about cided to avoid shying from graphic happy blacks in Times Square "shucking FCCEA: HARLAN'S WORLD scenes of sex and violence. and jiv in g and breakdancing in the Edited by Harlan Ellison Those are a ll strong worthy themes. stre e ts) p ast a black friend. We decid­ Bantam, 1985, 532 pp., $10.95 In the hands of a superior w riter, an ed th a t i t has been a t le a s t forty years REVIEWED BY ANDREW ANDREWS unsettling and powerful novel could re ­ since any urban black actually "shucked," su lt. But Spider Robins® has fa ile d , whatever th a t means. But f i r s t I had to Once upon a time there was a Fletch­ miserably, embarrassingly, on a ll counts convince my friend th a t the novel w asn't e r P ra tt collec tio n tit le d THE PETRIFIED RACIAL TDJSI®: The t i t l e refers to the w ritten by a p o tb e llie d Aryan Brother­ PLANET. I t was the e d ito r’s intention central event in the novel •• the night hood fan a tic , but by an adult lib e ra l to c re ate , by conuittee, a planet, and in 1996 when a ll the blacks in New York white male from Canada, a grown-up who w rite sto rie s within the defined stru c ­ rise as one, blow up the bridges and s t i l l c a lls him self Spider. tu re of the planet. tunnels, and shut down the c ity . They Yet in NEEEA, e d ito r Harlan Ellison inpose a shoot-cn-sight curfew on whites. FEMALE ADOLESCENCE: Jennifer, a has done b rillia n c e far in excess of the Their demand: New York s ta te and Pen­ thirteen-year-old repeatedly described P ra tt c ollection. nsylvania to be se t aside as a sovereign as a "genius" (in tru th , she v a cillate s country for blacks, to be called Equity betw en being nerely smartass, and talk* E llison explains how MEDEA was bom: (they planned cn dickering for New J e r­ ing and acting lik e an adult white male), "A dream come tru e. For ten years I'v e sey la te r). This versicn o f "send them trie d to s e ll the idea of th is evening to a ll back to Africa" is presented as a viable solution to rac ial s tr if e . The of a rock ccncert (no other party was in ­ sheer ignorance of ju st what a black volved, she lik e , re a lly got in to the person is , and how he thinks is respots- nusic, y'faicw?). Je n n ife r's maturation ib le for an idea th is preposterously process, as she turns from g ir l into wo­ stupid. That ignorance is also a t work man within eig h t bru tal hours, is a tr a ­ in the book's portrayal of it s black vesty of epic proportions, p a rtic u la rly characters. There is a Big Daddy stereo­ in her "rela tio n sh ip " with Jose, her type named Michael: sp iritu a l and li t - sto ic P ierto Rican bodyguard. I dare the comnittees that program science fic¬ that Chato Del-Klinne is an Apache High points include clear instruc¬ tion conventions. To build a world, to neither enhances nor detracts from tions on building your own backyard nu¬ build a series of interrelated stories the story. Where it could have clear reactor and a gauge for detecting around that world, to build a book con¬ added the aforementioned depth and the probability of rainfall. The con¬ taining those stories, in front of a resonance to the book's supernat¬ troversy between Special Creationists live audience, for better or worse ... ural element and Del-Klinne's char¬ and Darwinists is laid to rest with only to try and make an attempt at under¬ acter, it serves no real purpose a little monkeying around. standing what special creative linkages beyond the fact that he was con¬ are formed in the very special minds of veniently tutored by a shaman un¬ Pester your local bookstore to stock professional fantasists. til his seventeenth year, thus al¬ SCIENCE MADE STUPID. Warning: Keep lowing him to understand the men¬ out of reach of children's school prin¬ "For ten years I was told by conven¬ ace and subsequently move against cipals. They are already especially tion committees that it was too diffi¬ stupid about science, and are unlikely cult, too many problems, too logistical- to find anything funny in this book. ly fallible: couldn't be done. But to¬ That complaint aside, SHADOW- night we are doing it!..." EYES is still a quickly-moving, "Tonight:" April 15, 1985. The well-paced horror novel. The characters interact as real people, place: Department of Humanities and THE ADVENTURES OF TERRA TARKINGTON Communications, Department of the Arts, the menace is suitably horrific, and Ptacek shows a real strength By Sharon Webb UCLA Extension. The participants: Rob¬ Bantam, 1985, 204 pp., $2.95 ert Silverberg, Frank Herbert, Thomas in her handling of the various Disch, and many mem¬ scenes involving the shadow creat¬ REVIEWED BY BILL WINANS bers of the large audience. Creating a ures. Had she only given us more background on the Apache culture This is a delightful romp through World precis specifications were complet¬ and legends from which the menace a galaxy strange and alluring as Terra ed beforehand by authors , springs, this would have been an Tarkington, interstellar nurse, travels Poul Anderson, Larry Niven and Frederik excellent book, standing well ab¬ to the farthest reaches of space to Pohl. From then on, it was entirely up ove the other offerings that have bring the best in medical care to all to the imagination, and the contributions appeared so far this year. As it beings. In her travels she encounters of the crowd, to "dream up" stories set is, SHADOWEYES is still a very many strange aliens, an interplanetary in the world of MEDEA. good book -- not so much flawed, spy ring, stranger aliens, and the man What have they done? as falling short of great. of her dreams. Imagine what it is like to bear a The book is great fun whenever the child. A beautiful child. The birthing story centers on Terra. No matter what process: Exhausting, then serene, at danger she encounters she finds a sur¬ once dignified. This is the effect mir¬ SCIENCE MADE STUPID prising solution that saves the day. rored with startling erudition and orig¬ Written 5 illustrated by Tom Weller The novel bogs down, however, when the inality with the help of "straw-boss" Houghton Mifflin, 1985, 78pp., $6.95 spy ring takes center stage. Though Ellison. What began as a seminar has played for fun, the spy ring plotline is been transformed into a thing of beauty. REVIEV£D BY DEAN R. LAMBE overly complex, has too many characters and is difficult to follow. Worst of There are those that may review this Sure to become a classic with THROUGH THE ALIMENTARY CANAL WITH GUN AND CAMERA all, it takes the reader away from the book, with stories by , delightful Terra! Portions of the book Larry Niven, Harlan Ellison, Frederik and HOW TO BECCME EXTINCT, Weller's slick-magazine size gem will tickle the were previously published in ISAAC ASI- Pohl, Hal Clement, Thomas M. Disch, MDV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE. Over¬ Frank Herbert, Poul Anderson, Kate Wil¬ funnybone of anyone who knows that pi_ doesn't come with vanilla ice cream. all it is a good fun read, and is rec- helm, Theodore Sturgeon and Robert Sil¬ omnEnded. verberg as an intellectual exercise, a From the opening table of geological historical curiosity. And there are ages, wherein we find that the "Lister- those who will see a strange magic in ine epoch" of the "Cretinous" contained what these forward-thinkers have wrought: "animals who don't understand about tar An attempt to push your imagination to pits" to the "backispiece" where we dis¬ "IFE WORLD ENDS IN HICKORY HOLLOW the limits, and further. cover that the work "... is set in 12- By Ardath Mayhar **************************************** point Monotone Bimbo, with chapter head¬ ings in Basketball Overextended," Wel¬ Doubleday, 1985, 182 pp., $11.95 ler sets science on its ear. Although REVIEVtD BY STUART NAPIER a short book, the coverage is complete, The question has been posed many SHADOWEYES from macro-cosmic to microscopic, with excellent illustrations drawn by a non- times: What would you do if you woke up By Kathryn Ptacek one morning and learned that the world- TOR, 1984, 314 pp.,$3.S0 sober hand. Scientific puzzles are ex¬ plained with a clarity unrivaled since as-you-knew-it was over due to a nuclear REVIEWED BY CHARLES DE LINT Mr. MaGoo first changed a light bulb. war? Everyone's answer would be differ¬ Fundamental concepts leap from the page ent but Mayhar's tale of what the Harde¬ Over the years, the culture with the insight of Newton's fondness man family -- recently iroved back from and character of the Native People for cookies made of figs. With justifi¬ the city to the east Texas scrubland -- of America's Southwest have played cation, the Appendix is uncertain about did proves once again our unending fas¬ a strong role in various genre Heisenberg's Principle. cination with stories of human survival. books. Some of the best examples The author seems to be echoing what have shown up in the Navajo of To¬ singer Hank Williams, Jr. said a few ny Hillerman's mysteries and Roger years ago that "a coimtry boy will sur¬ Zelazny's EYE OF CAT, the Hopi in vive." Only the briefest of narrative Martin Cruz Smith's horror/thril¬ is used to explain what happened and ler NICHTWING, and even the mythol¬ even less to try and specifically just¬ ogical background to Steve Engel- ify the setting's fortuitous avoidance hart's COYOTE series from Epic Com¬ of any significant radiation. Instead, ics. When such material is integ¬ the reader is rapidly drawn into a fam¬ ral to the story, it enhances the ily's struggle as they prepare for their book with underlying resonances first winter in this "after the bomb" at the same time as it allows the non-Indian reader a glimpse into cultures as exotic as anything a Perhaps too conveniently, the family good SF writer could dream up, is already somewhat prepared: wood with the added attraction of them stove, oil lamps, you name it, the whole being real. back-to-the-earth catalog. And yet, as they soon learn, life will be permanent¬ In SHADOWEYES Kathryn Ptacek ly different. has chosen a disenchanted Chirica- hua Apache as her principal protag¬ Hie locale is strictly rural and not onist. Unfortunately, the fact prone to suffer the problems of roving scavengers turned barbarian which usual¬ While many view the short anthology fact: Ntich of Frazetta's distinguished ly is a stock cliche of most post-bomb a dying venture in publishing, you can later works -- while appearing to form a novels. So the author felt he had to only linger on a project such as this "progression" in style -- were actually invent some human predators. In this with joy: How can editors select from just more carefully-rendered pieces, ow¬ case, the Ungers, a motley crew of hook¬ numerous classics and clinkers, and man¬ ing to the fact that he took more time ers and female tramps living near the age to put together stories that ring on them. (Some of the stuff he really river in a little shanty town. Already beautiful and true? Editors Greenberg, labored on stands head-and-shoulders warped from the constant inbreeding of Matheson and Waugh should be conmended above his latter-day output.) the offspring of their profession, they for some fine efforts. If you're a Frank Frazetta complet- are as unlikly a group of antagonists as ist, then here's your latest edition. I have ever encountered. If they were Carol Serling dubs this anthology "a tribute to the fine writers whose im¬ If you've never heard of Frazetta, then really as ignorant as Mayhar depicts buy this book (or a few old copies of them it's hard to see how they survived aginative ideas and talent made TZ a before the bomb, much less after. reality." From the introduction, Rich¬ Creepy, Eerie, or the Howard titles) to ard Matheson reminds all of us that see what the craze is about. Much of Despite these flaws -- serious what makes the long-syndicated and soon- modem fantasy art owes its present em¬ though they are -- the author has a good to-be rejuvenated TV series so popular bodiment to his now-famed masterpieces. feel for language and clearly understands "are the stories. The STORIES ... which and is sympathetic to the rural tradi¬ intrigue and excite and amuse and ter¬ tion of self-sufficiency. The best rify and half a dozen other wonderful prose and most moving scenes are ones emotions." All that, because television that deal with the interaction of the was able to fulfill its promises. eastman’s and laird’s teenage mutant family members as they learn they must NINJA TURTLES, $1.50 + postage, Mirage let go of the past and live in the pre¬ For those of you who have forgotten, Studios, POB #1218, Sharon, CT 06069. sent. Not bad advice. or for those fresh into this avenue, this 550-page anthology is worth your REVIEWED BY JOEL ROSENBERG As a text on what to do and how to "...We made a wrong turn some¬ plan for the unthinkable this book makes **************************************** where. Now we're caught, our good reading. However, you still have backs to the wall in this trash- to figure out for yourself how to avoid strewn alley.. Barring the way out radiation -- and don't count on luck. are fifteen members of the purple FRANK FRAZETTA BOOK FIVE dragons, the toughest gang on the Edited by Bantam, 1985, 95 pp., $12.95 '"You're dead, freaks I! Nobody GHOSTS AND GOBLINS trespasses on purple dragon turf Selected 5 illus. by Tim Kirk REVIEVCD BY JOHN DIPRETE and gets away with it ... especi¬ Platt 5 ttJnk, hardcver, 1982, $6.9S BOOK FIVE has recently appeared in ally when they're wearing stupid Betty Ballantine's hugely successful turtle costumes!" REVIEWED BY NEAL WILGUS (over tvro million copies in print) Frank This is a very short review because Frazetta art series. "He's wrong ... the important thing can be quickly point¬ "We're not wearing costumes." ed out -- 45 pages of lush Tim Kirk paintings in full color. It's beauti¬ And so it begins. TEENAGE MJTANT ful! NINJA TURTLES is, sinultaneously, a cut¬ ting send-up of Marvel Comics in gener¬ Incidentally, there are eight ac- al -- particularly their preoccupation companying stories and poems by the with three out of the four concepts in likes of Charles Godfrey Leland, Andrew the title -- and a heartfelt tribute. Lang, Margaret Widderaer and Joseph Ja¬ cobs, which Kirk selected to illustrate. I don't know how they did it -- oth¬ They are typical ghost and goblin sto¬ er than marvelously. The book should ries, great for kids and amusing for have been as preposterous as the title. grownups too -- but they are only incid¬ It should have been ... ental . And yet ... the script, except for If you've oily seen Tim Kirk in two or three slow moments, has punch and black-n-white (as I had), you're in for snap, reminiscent of the best hardboil- a wonderful treat if you can track this ed Marvel characters -- Daredevil and 10 X 12 collection down. I picked up Wolverine -- when scripted by someone who understands how to write violence so GHOSTS AND GOBLINS (and KEFMIT'S GARDEN Despite the fact too many brief, OF VERSES) remaindered at Safeway (!) at that it courts, for reader and protagon¬ free-style black-and-white sketches pad ist. The artwork shows the influence of about 40% of the original price --so out the volume, there's still enough in they may be out of print soon (or al- Jack Kirby and Frank Miller ( to whom these ninety-five glossy-type pages to the comic is dedicated), and perhaps sate the massive hunger of lustful Fraz¬ more than a little to Vaughn Bode’. Limerick lovers alert -- the two etta hordes. Case in point: the nude While the human characters occasionally "Limer-eeks" by Ann McGovern are well on page 91. The artist's sensual, "soft lack conviction, the turtles are just turned and Kirk does them full justice. focus" lighting dramatizes the physical wonderful. Great stuff. effect. Here and elsewhere, Frazetta's handling of flesh-tones and yellow-dark The plot, while typically Marveles- shading exudes an extraordinary, larger- que, accepts and then glosses over the than-life quality. absurdities: it seems that the same gar¬ bage can of radioactive wastes that, as No one can outdo the Master when it it fell from the truck, cost Matt Mjr- TFE TWILIGHT Z0t€: TFE ORIGINAL STORIES comes to showing a barbarian's "mighty dock/Daredevil his sight and gave him Ed. by Martin H. Greenberg, Richard thews." An average Frazetta-drawn vein his radar sense also slopped on four Matheson and Charles G. Waugh. bulges and crawls over arms and legs like baby turtles and a rat named Splinter, Avon, 1985, 550 pp., $8.95 a swollen, snake-vine. Indeed: if you giving them all extra size and intelli¬ were to scratch open the artery of a gence ... REVIEWED BY ANDREW ANDREWS typical Frazetta hero, you'd probably let loose a mile-high geyser of...yechh! Yeah; I know. Leaving many of them to rust to an¬ Matter fact, something like this seems tiquity, so many of the original "Twi¬ But it works, dammit. And yes, I to have occurred on page 53: this col¬ know that you're probably not going to light Zone" stories never made it to a or oil portrays a crucified, four-armed short-story collection before, not to mail off your hard-earned to some POB in alien -- suspended from a double-beamed a dinky little town like Sharon, Connec¬ mention syndication. It is with delight cross. (Oh, Crimson Tide!) that I got to re-experience such classics ticut for a comic book called TEENAffi as Charles Beaumont's "The Howling Man" An overly-brief (especially in light MJTANT NDUA TURTLES. and 's "Steel:" THE of the artist's lucid self-expression) But let me tell you something: SonB- TWILIOIT ZONE: THE ORIGINAL STORIES make interview brings out an interesting day, somehow you're going to bump into a copy of this comic, and you're going to 43 s ta rt to glance a t i t , and then your jaw is going to drop, and you're going to fight an internal way between savoring each page slowly and rap id fire turning . .. PAULETTE'S PLACE- . . . and you're going to be bloody sorry you waited so dam long. You're not going to be able to re s is t four teen­ DOMAIN age mutant ninja tu rtle s named Leonardo, By James Herbert while Kate writhed, her scream­ Donatello, Michaelangelo and Raphael -- Signet, March 1985, (c) 1984-85, $3.50 ing descending to shocked agon- who could? REVIEWED BY PAULETTE MINARE' Remember, I to ld you so. clung. Culver realized the Ctily p a rtia lly destroyed by poison, teeth were bound into the bones large mutant ra ts have gone underground of the hand -- what was le ft of to breed among the sewers and other tun­ the hand -- and nothing would nels which honeycomb subterranean Lon­ don, many of which provide access and even death...Kate was moaning ve n tila tio n to secret government bomb repeatedly, her eyes closed in sh e lte rs. When nuclear explosions in London from side to side. Her hand begin thundering and rocking th e ir king­ dom, the monster ra ts believe th e ir grotesque queen, The Mother Creature, is pulled, s t i l l tugged, s t ill under attack -- for the main government gnawed at the bloody remnants, undergroind sh e lte r had been b u ilt above crackling frag ile bones."... the Mother C reature's l a ir . In th e ir (P. 332 and 333) rac ial memory is the lingering knowledge of the sweetness of soft hunan flesh with it s fresh, warm running blood, so FELL HOUSE superior to cold food which does not By Richard Matheson struggle. Warner, June 1985, (c) 1971, $2.95 Only a fraction of London's humanity escape into the tunnels, avoiding the REVIEVED BY PAULETTE MINARE' searing heat waves of the b la s ts , le th ­ Is the Belasco house, se t in a fog- a l flying debris, gas main explosions, boind Maine valley, haunted by many vehicular crashes, slow suffocation be­ ghosts of former residents and guests neath rubble and other rela te d cata s­ controlled by the former owner, Emeric trophes. The ferocious, rad ia tio n -re ­ Belasco, or is i t haunted only by the s ista n t vermin gain ready access to an powerful, demonic Belasco him self, im­ ample supply of th e ir preferred food, personating the other specters? not only through the sewers and v e n tila ­ tion systems, but via the u til ity and Lionel B a rre tt, physicist and para­ maintenance tunnels which connect with psychologist, is engaged to go to Hell the underground sh e lte rs. House and e stab lish the facts on whether or not there is actually survival a fte r While in the main sh e lte r waiting death. His two a ssista n ts are Reverend out the disintegration of the fa llo u t SCIENCE FICTION MOVIES Florence Tanner, a s p ir itu a lis t medium By Gregory B. Richards and Benjamin Fischer, the only survivor 1984, Gallery Bks, 80 pp., hardback tia l destruction must cope with th e ir of a previous investigation. B a rre tt's in ju rie s and radiation sickness in ad­ wife, Edith, accompanies him. REVIEWED BY BILL WINANS dition to problems of human rela tio n s within th is re s tric te d space. B a rre tt's sc ie n tific approach which This 9 X 11" book, available for $4 does not harbor b e lie f in ghosts but or so a t some bargain book ta b les, is a contends that certain phenomena occur by good one for younger readers. I t has the central sh e lte r -- only three liv e means of the subliminal se lf and by the over 110 photographs, many in fu ll c o l­ through the many traumas and p itf a lls action of residual energy, is a t odds or, is indexed, has a filmography and to fin a lly be rescued by helicopters: with the religious approach of Rev. Flo­ b rie f bios of the major sta rs and d ir ­ Steve Culver, a p ilo t, Alex Dealey, rence Tanner, whose a b ilitie s as a med­ ectors. The book, however, is too M inistry of Defense employee, and Kate ium include the production of teleplasm b rie f, omitting a number of films and Gamer. during the trance sta te . presenting only b rie f descriptions of most others. The author, James H erbert, te lls B arrett intends to use h is EMR mach­ th e ir story so graphically th a t the ine (Electromagnetic Radiation Reverser) A ttractively packaged and with lo ts reader is tom between an urge to rush to reverse and d issipate the toxic pow­ of infoniBtion in i ts too b rie f te x t, I through succeeding pages to learn what e r stored up in Hell House, therefore think many youiger readers w ill value i t . new macabre sights and h a ir-raisin g pe­ cleansing the house of it s e v il. If suc­ r i l s they w ill encounter, and an eerie c essfu l, th is w ill prove there is no dread, a shrinking reluctance to exper­ survival a fte r death. ience further grueling events along with them, to feel th e ir trauma, th e ir hor­ The twenty-seven former guests of PANDORA'S GENES Hell House, led by Belasco, were extreme­ ro r, th e ir pain. By Kathryn Lance ly sensual, engaging in a ll forms of de­ Popular Library, 1985, 279 p p ., $2.95 bauchery, including drug addiction, ne­ REVIEWED BY DEAN R, LAFBE H erbert's de scriptive realism w ill c ro p h ilia, m utilation and cannibalism. ’ lead you to feel th is could well be hap­ This sensual aura a ffec ts the four in ­ C ivilization has vanished with a pening to you, for he does not spare the v estigators in unexpected ways. Flor­ whimper, and mutants are abroad in the msavory d e ta ils as you are there walk­ ence is k ille d in a most macabre way by land. In th is fam iliar a fte r-th in g s- ing beside the survivors in th e ir con­ the huge p h a llic c ru c ifix in the chapel. stant struggle for domain: fe ll-a p a rt te rrito ry , Lance points at I t appears th a t Richard Matheson the contemporary Luddite fears of recom­ "The older man blanched when he has researched m aterial for a great num­ binant INA research (remember when i t ber of occult novels which could be w rit­ was "atomic mutants"), with her ta le of Kate's mangled hand. Even as he ten in more d e ta il without quite as much riv al factions and intertw ined egos in watched, a rat snipped o ff two emphasis on s c ie n tific explanation. If the ruins of Washington, D.C. you lik e occult m ysteries, you w ill be For a novel of biological speculatiai in te reste d in reading the works of Rich­ the premises are a l i t t l e shaky. Sever­ Blood flowed from the wounds, ard Matheson. al generations back, a Petrophage gen- covering the rats' heads, smear­ engineered to clean up o il s p ills went wild, and gobbled a ll the o il and petro- 44 leum-based products. When the seals who are the real "innocents;" they The checklist is the product of ex¬ wait on the containment labs, other "wild have little conception of war, oth¬ tensive research, much of it from the deenas" began to change the world. A er than from extremely old record author's personal collection, and the particularly nasty molecular bit snagged books, and they are unused to phys¬ quality of the research and quantity of the human X-chromosome for a Rhesus fac¬ ical and political styles of pres¬ information makes it well worth the tor-like autoinrune sensitivity, and now sure and violence. They come to price. Reconmended. most women die upon bearing a second fe¬ study and in short order a number male child. The sex ratio has shifteH- of their crew members are captured drastically, women have become property and held for ransom by clans in con¬ again, and polyandry is the social norm. flict with each other, all of whom This post-disaster story alternates see the outworld technology as a among the viewpoints of three people. means of defeating the enemy and Will, Principal of the District, has de¬ establishing their own particular posed the previous President, and strug¬ gles to rebuild with the aid of his bro¬ The Yngling wanders into this ther, Zack. When Zack is sent to procure situation walking alone as he fre¬ Ewy, a lovely peasant girl, for Will's quently travels. The New Home col¬ personal misuse, Zack betrays his leader onists have force fields and some and conveys the frightened teenager to minor esper talents: the ESP tal¬ the distant Garden, a secret enclave of ents of those on Earth have improv¬ female scientists. Years later, still ed to the point that many of them mourning the disappearance of his broth¬ have mind readers working for them; er, the Principal forces the women of it doesn't take long before the Yng¬ the Garden to re-locate in the face of ling is himself involved through barbarian attack from religious fanatics his special talents. Will suspects Ewy's true background, but the old Mistress of the feminist An enjoyable, readable book, scientific order protects the girl's se¬ though not a good read for the cret. As the anti-research Trader fan¬ faint of heart as the northern atics manace Will's efforts toward a tribes tend to scalp their foes. New Renaissance, however, fear, pride, The solutions to the problems caus¬ and love in all three characters clash, ed by the complex situations are and threaten the future of the entire believable and the characters, if more than human at times, are in¬ Despite ample opportunity, this teresting and worthy. If the out- first novel is refreshingly free of the of-body experiences are a bit too sound of grinding axes; plot and people much "occult" for an occasional move along realistically; and a sequel reader I'd refer them to the fine would not be unwelcome. Popular Lib¬ tradition of such things in Space rary's new Questar imprint is off to a Opera: I have a feeling that if good start. Dalmas keeps on with this series we're eventually going to see the Yngling or his children traveling night's DAUGHTER By Marion Zinner Bradley Del Rey/Ballantine, $2.95, 245 p The only real quibble I have HOKECOMING with the book is the editorial de¬ REVIEVED BY PAUL MCGUIRE By John Dalmas cision which left several exposi¬ Quick, what is the last MZB TOR, 1984, 247 pp., $2.95 tory sections ostensibly lifted novel you can think of which had a Cover by James Gurney from other books in the same style male character who was not either REVIEWED BY STEVE MILLER and size type as the rest of the a bozo, a homosexual, or a fiend? book. The result is confusing from Along with the title character, HOMECOMING, published in Sep¬ time to time: You have no idea the main character of NICHT'S tember, is a sequel to THE YNGLING, what or whom is being quoted, nor DAUGHTER is a likable and intelli¬ published by Tor in October. If even the fact that some other gent young man, and Ms. Bradley this sounds a little strange you source is being quoted until you does a fine job portraying all four should know that Dalmas' YNGLING reach tKe end of that particular qualities. The young woman is just came out in the early seventies by small chapter or excerpt. as engaging. Yet it is a ioc. ish another publisher and that HOMECOM¬ bird-man who almost steals the show. ING stands alone well enough to HOMECOMING, and as I recall, make it a worthwhile book without THE YNGLING, are worth reading, in Based on Mozart's THE MAGIC knowing the first book of the ser- whatever order. If Dalmas can keep FLUTE, the novel has a deceptively up this level of output his name simple plot. The son of the Emper¬ will be gracing the cover of quite or of the West journeys across a Dalmas has combined several a few books in the years ahead. wasteland to undergo a series of genres in this book. The basic ordeals in order to win the hand of idea is that the colonists of New a princess. The princess is the Home have sent a ship back to Earth daughter of the King of Light and after a separation of some 700 the Queen of Darkness. Her parents years. Thus we have the savage- TEE SCIENCE FICTION FANTASY VEIRD KERO are enemies. Raised in seclusion, Earth, slowly building itself back MAGAZINE CKECKLIST by Ray Wysocki it is only recently that she has after a plague, so slowly that most 96 pp., $6.00 Available from Ray begun to leam the truth about her technology has been lost. This is Wysocki, 28895 Fall River Rd, Westlake evil irother. Perhaps because the combined with a "superman" type of OH, 44145 Emperor’s son is the first young man bom to the depopulated world: REVIEVED BY BILL WINANS man she has ever seen, it is love the Yngling of the earlier book. This is the most complete checklist at first sight for the princess. His talents include both physical Perhaps because she is the most feats and mental powers far beyond I have seen, a conplete list of all ap¬ plicable magazines from 1919 to the pre- beautiful woman he has ever seen, mortal "normal" men. Fortold in a ditto the Em*ror's son. They can legend, the Yngling has been shep¬ ssit. That means there are over 7,300 separate issues of over 320 magazines only be united if they both survive herding his people from the north the ordeals of air, earth, fire as they move away from a slowly er¬ listed here. Magazines are covered in alphabetical order, giving the date, vol¬ and water. The true purpose of oding northern climate toward a the ordeals is to bestow enlighten¬ gentler south. ume and number of each issue, along with other pertinent informatics, including ment. If your true purpose is to The complications Dalmas man¬ title changes, first and last issues, be entertained, this is a reason¬ ages to derive from this situation and more. ably smart and stylish way to go are enormous. To begin with it is about it. the colonists returning to Earth 45 AN OCI0W IN L.A.

JOHN SHIRLEY HAS JUST MOVED FROM NEW who looks vaguely apologetic for being profusion here. Roach motels for people YORK TO LOS ANGELES, AND THINKS THAT IN alive as he wanders, hands awkwardly in with insectsized self-esteem for people the pockets of his jeans, through the who "Feel like you're going nowhere?" on A FEW DECADES HE MAY GET USED TO THE landscaped grounds. The writer reflect¬ PUCE. BUT HE DOESN'T THINK HE'LL EVER the endless circuit of freeways and bill¬ ing, as he wanders, that he may be in board-encrusted boulevards. FIT IN. danger here, since he is in a part of L.A. that condones "Bum Bashing." Bum I went to a dinner party thrown (or Bashing is a recreational pastime of After the palm trees, the first maybe I should say "pitched") by a song¬ things I noticed in Beverly Hills were well-to-do and, presumably, bored people writer friend who's plagued by mystic who resent having to look at the home¬ revelations almost daily, poor chap. the walls, and the warnings. The walls less. So they get a few friends togeth¬ around the houses were about six feet A number of his frieids were there, all er and drive around in their BNWs and in the The Business in one end or anoth¬ tall; sometimes they're wood, sometimes Porsches and terrorize homeless people they're hedges backed with a spike-top- er, and the subject of UFOs came up. ped black steel fence. They're there to who've wandered into affluent neighbor¬ EVERYONE there but me had seen a UFO and discourage burglars [not because they hoods to beg or because there's a shel¬ had comnunicated with them in some way. would stop a burglar but because their ter nearby. Beat them up, threaten "Ooooh," one young woman cooed, "it was, presence implies that beyond the walls them. And this is real. This is L.A. like, soooo heav-eeee, because I was are further security measures) and for A few long, luxuriously verdant, im¬ driving late at night and -- like I was the sake of privacy. Privacy, because maculately clean blocks away are some of not stoned, hardly -- and these two every so often a tour bus rolls by these the costliest stores in the country; lights rose up from the other side of houses, the tourists rubbernecking so places on Rodeo Drive that'll cheerful¬ the hill and came together and then assiduously you anticipate a bonanza for ly sell you a single tie for two hundred split up again and flew in a pattern, the chiropractors. and fifty dollars. But Beverly Hills you knoooooooo?" I pointed that the isn't the real L.A., man, no. This is lights could have been mirage refrac¬ Often, the houses and grounds are tions from carlights or any number of much bigger than they seem from the the carnation in the buttonhole of its ratty suit. other atmospheric optical effects. She front. There's usually a little apron looked at me with amazement. Aghast. of front-yard lawn visible through the Most of L.A. is cars, and things How could I even imagine? I mean, re¬ iron gates, and on the lawn is, invari¬ for cars to feed on, and park near, and fractions?'. What a Weeeeirdooo, you ably, a little metal sign, about a third a great big blue bowl for the cars to the size of a real estate for sale sign fill with poisonous fumes. knooo? ... So then the subject of life and shaped like a cop's badge. Hie after death came up and the book purport¬ signs say things like: WARNING.' PREM¬ ing to collect empirically consistent ISES PROTECTED BY IRONFIST SECURITY CO! In the Help Wanted section of the Afterlife experiences from people who'd Or WARNING: ELECTROWATCH ARMED SECUR¬ L.A. papers there are ads like: died and returned and when I said such ITY. And the word in the bars on Sun¬ things could be hallucinations obtaining set is: If you're a black guy in a beat- SINGLE WOMEN! from sociological mindsets they all look¬ up looking car, you don't even drive (Age 23 to 30 only) ed at me like Catholics who'd seen me Check out the LOVE CONNCECTICN.' through Beverly Hills. Because if you throw a tomato at the Pope. Bullshit look like you don't belong, the real HIT TV SHOW ABOUT VIDEO DATING Trendy-Mysticism Hype is the religion life Beverly Hills Cops will pull you NEEDS YOU! in L.A. over and the chances are fifty-fifty as We send you an a date, But it’s lazy religion: the real to whether you get your ass kicked or You tell us (on TV) devotion goes into success, the more just ticketed for some imaginary in¬ What happens on your date.’! Call for interview... material the better. Same, yeah, as in fraction. New York, only here it's expressed in I'm in Beverly Hills a few months and NEWLYWEDS WANTED FOR TV'S NEWLYWED cars, houses on stilts in "the canyon," staying in the guest house owned by my GAME... and ARE YOUR KIDS TALENTED? gold chains and the best drugs. girlfriend's parents. I know: I don't FREE TV-COMERCIAL SEMINAR AND EVALUA¬ Appropos to sniffing out success I belong here. The guy who owns this TION (ages 4 and up)... talked to a producer at the party about place has a Platinum American Express Look in the magazine ads for weight TV and film writing. The producer -- card. Before I came here I never even reduction you see: who shall remain nameless, and who runs heard of a Platinum American Express FAT SUCTION I! IT REALLY WORKS! a rock video show that’ll remain name¬ card. On these ElectroWatched-over pre¬ less -- told me something about Angelin- mises -- in a 7,500-square-foot main The self-improvement section of the os that made me think of the Japanese. house and a large two-bedroom guest L.A. Weekly contains page after page of Because I'd heard that the Japanese have house -- is a fortune in jade and an¬ ads for cottage industry mysticism like a word that literally means "maybe" or tiques, an enormous satellite TV dish, "Feel like you’re going nowhere? Go to "quite possibly" -- but when they use five expensive cars, solar-power-heated the Oneness Celebration 6 Wholistic Self it, it may well mean "no" or "absolute¬ swimming pool, hot tubs, saunas, thor¬ Improvement Center.'" and "sexuality/ ly not." Or it might mean "it might be oughbred dogs, tennis courts, computers spiritualit/' workshops and "Soul Trav¬ possible in certain circumstances" or (gathering dust), electric, massage tab¬ el Techniques" and "Radix Neo-Reichian "let's see how things pan out" or it les, an arsenal of kitchen appliances, Bodywork" and "Rolfing: restore body might mean "Yes:," all depending on how game room, four VCRs, a nautilus room energy flow!" and "FLOTATION TANKS - they shade it, and in what context it's with several arcane "fitness" devices Altered States Float Center (Call for said. People working in the film and that check your pulse and blood pressure recorded message)" and "Caring/Attention TV industry here, ray producer friend in¬ as you exercise, various servants, sculp¬ -- emphasize your personal beauty as a formed me, "...are plagued with kneejerk tures, and one rather battered science human being." What a great idea: a positivism. So they're affirmative even fiction writer in a ripped Clash t-shirt vanity workshop. Claptrap like this in when they don't mean to be. They say by iohn shirleY 'Sounds g re a t!' but you have to learn happens is th is : The producer s e lls producer's movie wasn't going to win any when that really means 'G reat!' and when the video cassette rig h ts before the major Oscars 1 told him there was per­ i t means 'Maybe' or '.Might be good for film d istrib u tio n rig h ts, and sometimes haps some small consolation in the fact someone but not for us'or 'th is rea lly finds i t ' s more lucrative not to se ll th a t i t might ^ 1 1 win the . sucks, don't call us w e'll c a ll you.' I theater d istrib u tio n a t a ll. W riters He looked a t me blankly. "Hugo?” I mean, you 'll have meetings with people get th e ir money from theater d istrib u ­ told him about the WorldCon and he said, who'll te ll you yeah th e y 'll commit five tion; th e ir cassette percentage is min­ "Oh, yeah, the Sci-Fi award." He shrug­ m illion dollars to a project and they uscule. So they struck for higher p e r­ ged. "Doesn't mean dick." shake your hand and the next day you' centages on c assette rentals and sales, So much for the Hugo in Hollywood. call their office and the secretary not so much for what th e y 'll get now, won’t put you through and they never re ­ but for a few years down the road when turn your c a lls and you never hear from the cassette market is expected to be them again. The in sin ce rity here is a between five and ten times what i t is disease, and you come out here hating i t YOI/ but you find yourself acting the same But I also talked to a movie pro­ He produced one of 1984's major Gossip is rife in the constantly- science fictio n film s. A good film and shifting currents of network TV, and reasonably successful. His theory was, i t exposes the ruthlessness behind the the studios had encouraged the strik e network's glossy, friendly "Hey Gang in some underhanded way because i t "en­ Look At Our Fall Season Line-up.'!" I abled them to get rid of the deadwood heard from a number of w ell-placed peop­ around the studio." He explained that le that a number of "young wasp types" there are a lo t of w riters working under a t one network have a "a hard-on for" contracts to do projects the producers the country's most successful TV produc­ and studio heads have decided won't pan er, Aaron Spelling. These young new ex­ out. To avoid paying o ff the w riters, ecutives are allegedly firin g S pe lling's the studios encouraged the strik e so the supporters in an attempt to undermine w riters would be in violation of th e ir him right out of the network "and to contracts, rendering the contracts void. break the back of the Jewish Mafia” that supposedly controls Hollywood and TV. He also complained of having had to The consensus on SF films among the "fork over ten grand” in payola to "a Hollywood agents and w riters I've spoken guy in New York who takes care of these to is th is: Despite the embarrassing things." The "guy" evidently acts as a financial failu re of DUNE, disappointing liason between the stu d io 's P.R. people showings on 2010, and ST.AFMAN ju s t break­ and the "veejays" who play rock videos. A great many people in L.A. are ju st ing even, the success of THE TERMINATOR One of the hassles of making a movie as th e ir stereotypers would have them. and THE RETURN OF THE JEDI demonstrate these days is having to extract m aterial The cliches are true. Everyone you meet the fie ld is s t i l l viable. "But big, from i t to use in a rock video to pro­ has a screenplay going -- dishwashers, mote the film , which also means having bagboys, p rie s ts, everyone -- or "a dyn­ maybe a George Lucas Production .. . to buy a lo t of pop nusic for the sound­ amite idea for a p ilo t .” And, yeah, lo t; What we're looking a t here," 1 was to ld , track -- nusic you maybe wouldn't oth e r­ "is formula S c i-fi, and modest budgets." wise use i f not for the new reliance on already been told to "mellow out" once; There are a lo t of theories as to rock videos for movie pub licity . Once a friend advised me, "This is n 't New what was rea lly going on with the W rit­ the video is made you've got to persuade York. Here you don't ta lk so aggressive­ e r's Guild strik e . The video show pro­ people to play i t on the various s ta ­ ly. And you b e tter cut back on those ducer, who also w rites, told me: "A lo t tions and for a lo t of them th a t means morbid jokes of yours. Talk po sitiv e." of i t was boredom and fru stra tio n , since simply, out-right bribery. You give I met some producers from Loremar. They 751 of the w riters in the WGA a re n 't them cash or cocaine. " I t 's part of rea lly do wear gold chains. People in working. I t was a way of asserting their the budget for the promotional video,” Beverly H ills take th e ir kids to Tran­ rea lity as w riters. The grievance i t ­ he said resignedly. Because payola is scendental M editation, self-expression se lf was the w rite r's percentage for vid­ an integral p a rt of the rock industry. groups, even Tae Kwon Do and Karate as eo cassette rights. Lots of times what When i t became obvious th a t th is early as four years old "for the s p iri­ tu a l discipline of i t . ” 1 went with a pie b e lt. I t 's an eerie thing to see forty kids from four to seven years old, a ll wearing white karate o u tfits and moving through a series of incredibly complex and exacting maneuvers with su­ perhuman precision. Afterwards we went out for Sushi and watched the Sushi mas­ te r ritu a lis tic a lly cut and shape fish fle s h ...w ith superhuman precision.

Maybe the fads, the fascination with m artial a rts , health foods, bodybuilding (1 mean sinply EVERYONE belongs to a health c lu b ), mass market mysticism, pseudoreligions.. .Maybe i t 's a ll an a t ­ tempt to infuse a sprawling, amorphous, n a rc is s is tic life s ty le with shape and substance. This is a c ity without a c lear moral center, and i t wallows in disorientation. And in fact I'm disoriented myself, now. 1 had a c lear sense of mission when I came here. But now, now with my eyes burning from the smog...My jaw muscles aching from trying to maintain an insincere sm ile... Now I'm not at a ll sure why I've moved to Los Angeles. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #27: Ben Bova, SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #51: David , Forrest J. Ackerman, Kingsbury, Charles Platt, Barry BACK ISSUES ONE IMMORTAL MAN-Part Three. Malzberg, Bob Shaw. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #28: C. J. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #53: Algis Cherryh, , ONE IMMORTAL Budrys, Avram Davisdon, Bob Shaw, THE ALIEN CRITIC MAN-Conclusion. 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