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Foundation Review of Science Fiction 122 Foundation the International Review of Science Fiction The InternationalFoundation Review of Science Fiction 122 Foundation The International Review of Science Fiction In this issue: Leif Behmer interviews fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle Bettina Beinhoff asks ‘why are alien languages inherently human?’ Andrew M. Butler destroys London in postmillennial sf fi lm Frances Foster visits the land of the dead with Ursula Le Guin and Rick Riordan Foundation Caitlin Herington explores sexual protocols in fantasy fi ction by women Patricia Kennon unpicks the gender binaries in David Levithan’s Every Day M. Irene Morrison makes gender trouble with Samuel R. Delany Paul March-Russell hangs out with cosmonauts and M.C. Escher 44.3 No. 122 2015 Vol. Conference reports from Rachel Fox and Nick Hubble In addition, there are reviews by: Kanta Dihal, Emma Filtness, Andrew Hedgecock, Paul Kincaid, Anna McFarlane, Joe Norman, Chris Pak, Patrick Parrinder, Andy Sawyer, Allen Stroud, Alison Tedman and Michelle K. Yost Of books by: Jack Adams, Iain Banks and Ken MacLeod, Susan M. Bernardo, Eric Brown, Arthur B. Evans, Garry Kilworth and Robert Holdstock, Barry B. Luokkala, Libby McGugan, Philip Mann, Nicholas O. Pagan, Justina Robson, Jad Smith, Gary Westfahl and Ian Whates Cover image/credit: Boris Saris, ‘The Fairy Tale Became Truth’ (1961) Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics. Foundation is published three times a year by the Science Fiction Foundation (Registered Charity no. 1041052). It is typeset and printed by The Lavenham Press Ltd., 47 Water Street, Lavenham, Suffolk, CO10 9RD. Call for Papers Foundation is a peer-reviewed journal. In More’s Footsteps: Utopia and Science Fiction Foundation #124 (summer 2016) Subscription rates for 2016 Individuals (three numbers) United Kingdom £20.00 EXTENDED DEADLINE Europe (inc. Eire) £22.00 Rest of the world £25.00 / $42.00 (U.S.A.) Student discount £14.00 / $23.00 (U.S.A.) Next year marks the 500th anniversary of Sir Thomas More’s seminal work, Utopia. Although the text has been of importance within Renaissance Studies and political Institutions (three numbers) philosophy, it has also occupied a special place within science fiction for helping to popularise the notion of ‘the Great Good Place’ to which society should strive to perfect. Anywhere £42.00 / $75.00 (U.S.A.) Whether directly or indirectly, More’s text has been of huge significance for the utopian Airmail surcharge £7.00 / $12.00 (U.S.A.) strand that runs through much science fiction. Single issues of Foundation can also be bought for £7.00 / $15.00 (U.S.A.). We invite contributors to submit 6000 word articles on any aspect of More’s text and its relationship to modern and contemporary science fiction. All cheques should be made payable to The Science Fiction Foundation. All subscriptions are for one calendar year; please specify year of commencement. Topics might include (but are not limited to): Address for subscriptions: The Science Fiction Foundation, c/o 75 Rosslyn Avenue, Harold Wood, Essex, RM3 0RG, U.K. Email: Roger Robinson, [email protected] – all messages should include ‘SFF’ in the subject line. • The political organisation of utopias • Utopia and language Back issues can be obtained from Andy Sawyer – see contact details below. • Travel and exploration • Economics and social organisation Editorial address (for submissions, correspondence, advertising): • Utopia and religion Dr Paul March-Russell, [email protected] • Utopia and sexuality • War Articles should be up to 6000 words in length, double-spaced and written in accordance with the • The private versus the public style sheet available at the SF Foundation website (www.sf-foundation.org). Books for review: Please send to Andy Sawyer, Science Fiction Foundation Collection, Sydney Jones Library, All submissions should meet the guidelines to contributors University of Liverpool, PO Box 123, Liverpool, L69 4DA, UK. Please clearly mark ‘For Review’. as laid out on the SF Foundation website. Reviews (up to 1500 words in length) should be sent to [email protected] The deadline for submissions is 6th March 2016 and should be sent (with a note on university affiliation if applicable) to the regular email address: All contents copyright © 2015 by the Science Fiction Foundation [email protected] on behalf of the original contributors ISSN 0306-4964258 We will confirm our choice of articles by April 2016. Foundation The International Review of Science Fiction Editor: Paul March-Russell Book Reviews Editor: Andy Sawyer Editorial Team: Cait Coker, Dean Conrad, Andrew Ferguson, Heather Osborne, Maureen Speller Contents Volume 44.3, number 122, 2015 Paul March-Russell 3 Editorial Bettina Beinhoff 5 Why are Alien Languages Inherently Human? Andrew M. Butler 20 Disfigured Myths: The Destruction of London in Postmillennial SF Film Frances Foster 33 Visiting the Ancient Land of the Dead in Le Guin and Riordan Caitlin Herington 44 Would You Like to Violate Rule Nine with Me? Patricia Kennon 58 ‘If inside was the outside’: Gender, Heteronormativity and the Body in David Levithan’s Every Day M. Irene Morrison 68 Making Gender Trouble in Early Queer SF: Samuel R. Delany’s ‘Aye, and Gomorrah’ Conference Reports Rachel Fox 80 Locating Fantastika Nick Hubble 83 From Manland to Womanland: Gender in SF/F PB 1 Book Reviews Kanta Dihal 86 Barry B. Luokkala, Exploring Science Through Science Fiction Andrew Hedgecock 88 Jad Smith, John Brunner and Gary Westfahl, William Gibson Patrick Parrinder 93 Arthur B. Evans, ed. Vintage Visions: Essays on Early Science Fiction Andy Sawyer 95 Nicholas O. Pagan, Theory of Mind and Science Fiction Alison Tedman 98 Susan M. Bernado, ed. Environments in Science Fiction Emma Filtness 100 Justina Robson, Glorious Angels Paul Kincaid 102 Iain Banks & Ken MacLeod, Poems and Garry Kilworth & Robert Holdstock, Poems, Peoms & Other Atrocities Anna McFarlane 107 Libby McGugan, The Eidolon Joe Norman 109 Eric Brown, Satan’s Reach Chris Pak 112 Philip Mann, The Disestablishment of Paradise Allen Stroud 116 Ian Whates, Growing Pains Michelle K. Yost 118 Jack Adams, Nequa, or The Problem of the Ages Features Leif Behmer 120 The Unicorn Run: Interview with Peter S. Beagle Paul March-Russell 130 In Other Worlds: Review-Essay 2 3 Editorial Paul March-Russell This issue features an interview with Peter S. Beagle which I hope you will find interesting in terms of what he has to say about genre, creative writing and the representation of female characters. Inclusion of the interview, though, ignited an intriguing discussion within the editorial team – not quite a Christopher Priest ‘talking horse’ moment, but bordering upon it. Despite some sf work, Beagle is primarily a fantasy writer and his best-known novel is The Last Unicorn (1968). Maybe it was that word, ‘unicorn’, which did it but, whatever the cause, we had a fascinating conversation about the boundaries between fantasy and science fiction, and what Foundation’s place should be within that contested territory. Could it be that, in some respects, the matter of genre was a lot simpler when the journal started in 1972? Darko Suvin, in the essays that would become Metamorphoses of Science Fiction (1973), had ruled fantasy out of court, whilst New Worlds, under the editorship of Michael Moorcock, had dismissed epic fantasy as a ‘literature of comfort’ (views more firmly articulated in Moorcock’s 1978 essay, ‘Epic Pooh’). It is not insignificant that a number of ex-New Worlds writers, including Priest, became early contributors to Foundation. This antipathy towards fantasy persisted well into the 1990s and did not perhaps change until the ‘Marxism and Fantasy’ issue of Historical Materialism, co-edited by Mark Bould and China Miéville, in 2002. But, for writers themselves, the distinctions were not so clear-cut. Authors like Samuel R. Delany, Ursula Le Guin, Joanna Russ, Gene Wolfe and even Moorcock switched between sf and fantasy or, as in Russ’ ‘Picnic on Paradise’ (1968), combined them. Canons were shifted, replacing J.R.R. Tolkien for Mervyn Peake for instance, rather than exploded altogether. Other traditions, most notably the Weird, were reclaimed by writers like M. John Harrison. And, as for the next generation of authors – and here I am thinking of names like Neil Gaiman, Gwyneth Jones or Kim Newman – fantasy and sf were consumed as one. Until eventually we arrive at the current state of affairs, most clearly expressed by Gary K. Wolfe, of genre markers that have evaporated into thin air. This is all very well but where does that leave a journal like Foundation which, perhaps more than any of its counterparts, was founded with the belief in science fiction as a revolutionary literature (see George Hay’s article in Foundation 5 (1974))? Does that mean this founding principle has been overtaken by events and is now anachronistic? I think not, although it is notable that at least half of the articles in this issue are more fantasy rather than sf-oriented. For critics, who take either a classificatory or genealogical approach to the definition of science fiction, tropes such as magic tend to be a sticking-point. Unless the 2 3 magic can be rationalized, it can’t be science fiction, can it? But where would that leave, for example, Robert Heinlein’s ‘Waldo’ (1942), Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife (1943) or Justina Robson’s Glorious Angels (2015) reviewed in this issue? Equally, do magic-less fantasies such as Peake’s Gormenghast appeal more to sf-inclined audiences, when novels like Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004) seem to appeal to both constituencies? And, then again, where do we place Priest’s own novels, such as The Prestige’s (1995) brilliant meditation on stage magic, performance and science? Perhaps unicorns are just a step too far – but then I have a grainy, black and white image in my mind of a unicorn bearing down upon Patrick Troughton’s Doctor (‘The Mind Robber’ (1968)).
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