Steam Engine Time

Everything you wanted to know about SHORT STORIES ALAN GARNER HOWARD WALDROP BOOK AWARDS HARRY POTTER

Matthew Davis Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) Bruce Gillespie David J. Lake Robert Mapson Gillian Polack David L. Russell Ray Wood and many others

Issue 7 October 2007 Steam Engine Time 7

If human thought is a growth, like all other growths, its logic is without foundation of its own, and is only the adjusting constructiveness of all other growing things. A tree cannot find out, as it were, how to blossom, until comes blossom-time. A social growth cannot find out the use of steam engines, until comes steam-engine time. — Charles Fort, Lo!, quoted in Westfahl, Science Fiction Quotations, Yale UP, 2005, p. 286

STEAM ENGINE TIME No. 7, October 2007 is edited and published by Bruce Gillespie, 5 Howard Street, Greensborough VIC 3088, Australia ([email protected]) and Janine Stinson, PO Box 248, Eastlake, MI 49626-0248, USA ([email protected]). Members fwa. First edition is in .PDF file format from http://efanzines.com, or enquire from either of our email addresses. In future, the print edition will only be available by negotiation with the editors (see pp. 6–8). All other readers should (a) tell the editors that they wish to become Downloaders, i.e. be notified by email when each issue appears; and (b) download each issue in .PDF format from efanzines.com. Printed by Copy Place, Basement, 415 Bourke Street, Melbourne VIC 3000.

Illustrations Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) (front cover); David Russell (p. 3).

Photographs Covers of various books and magazines discussed in this issue; plus photos by Cath Ortlieb (p. 7); Helena Binns (pp. 20, 23); New York Review of Science Fiction (p. 38).

A big thank you The print editions of Steam Engine Times 6 and 7 have been made possible by a very generous donation by Thomas Bull, Melbourne.

THIS ISSUE’S COVER 30 HOWARD WALDROP: 3 Fair combat The music of the spheres is Frankie Lymon Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) Matthew Davis

4 GUEST EDITORIAL: 33 Waldrop: Three short story collections: contents Book Awards Ray Wood 34 LETTERS OF COMMENT 6 EDITORIAL: The state of the fanzine editor Cy Chauvin Bruce Gillespie Joseph Nicholas David J. Lake Yvonne Rousseau ALAN GARNER’S CAREER Remy Lechevalier Tim Marion 8 Inner stars: The novels of Alan Garner Darrell Schweitzer Bruce Gillespie Ben Indick Jeff Hamill 11 ‘turning, tapping, knapping, shaping, twisting, rubbing and Greg Pickersgill making’: Steve Jeffery The novels of Alan Garner since Red Shift Greg Benford Robert Mapson John Baxter John Purcell E. B. Frohvet THE ICEBERG SYMPOSIUM Martin Morse Wooster and many more 15 Imagination and science fiction Ray Wood 35 ARTICLE OF COMMENT: Why I don’t like Harry Potter 20 The appeal of the short story by David J. Lake Gillian Polack

25 Back to the short story Bruce Gillespie

28 Enjoy a good short story Bruce Gillespie

2 This issue’s cover: Fair combat

Once in a while I find myself pulling down an old and much-read SF work— novel or collection — in order to relive the feeling of the initial experience. Call it nostalgia, or, probably more appropriately, the reversion of an ever-aging and inefficient mind towards the remembrance of halcyon days. And every so often what I read stirs me to create an image. So it is with this issue’s cover illustration. The stories were from collections by Poul Anderson, Eric Frank Russell and, especially, Henry Kuttner. I say especially because of these three authors he (or rather, he and C. L. Moore in collaboration) is (or rather are) by far the best. Recent collections of Kuttner and Moore may be found in The Last Mimzy by Kuttner (from DelRey), Two-Handed Engine by Kuttner and Moore (from the SF Book Club) and Major Ingredients by Russell (from NESFA Press). There may be a recent Anderson collection, but I don’t know of it. These authors, presumably to cater to John Campbell’s insistence that aliens are almost always beaten by (read are ‘inferior to’) Earthmen, wrote a number of stories in which rigid other-world societies were brought to their knees by the quick-wittedness of humans — the galactic tricksters — and by a reliance on exposing the dangers of having closed minds. Russell excelled in such stories. When I first read these stories, oh so many years ago, I delighted in the humour that was a prime, necessary, hallmark of these tales. They are still, even now, very amusing, but rather unreal, despite their insistence on the power of the Earthlings’ logic. For they set up a basic situation that is usually a straw man, and run with it and the humans’ ‘logic’, to a desired end, which could at almost any plot moment have been thwarted by the aliens’ use of commonsense. Nonetheless, as I say, these stories are marvellously entertaining provided they are approached as fantasies. The cover is an attempt to portray the basic situation of power technology (alien group A) being thwarted by poor technology and trickery (alien group B). So we have two alien cultures in the illustration — one which is essentially at a comic-book level of science, the other at a much more advanced and sophisticated level. But, true to the fairytales, it is the apparently weaker group that is triumphing over the apparently stronger. Oh, did I forget to mention that many of the stories I have referred to seem to be wish-fulfillments in which the school bully is trounced by the wimp? Perhaps this is why I liked the yarns so much then. And still do... And if you are as much of a Kuttner fan as I am, and if you a lover of books, of beautifully produced books, and if you have money to spare or have but slight regard for money, you may be interested in the special edition of Two-Handed Engine from Centipede Press (at US$225) (http:// www.centipedepress.com/). The Kuttner/Moore collaboration was responsible for what I consider to be the finest short SF work I have read — ‘Vintage Season’ — and the finest SF novel — Fury. You'll find the first in Two-Handed Engine, together with Clash By Night, which is the prequel to Fury.

— Ditmar (Dick Jenssen)

3 Guest editorial

Book awards

Ray Wood

Jan Stinson, co-editor of Steam Making awards to books seems odd to There are so many awards for writing Engine Time, has kindly given up her me. Consider the Nobel Prize for these days that winning them has editorial space this issue to make Literature, which you’d expect to be become something like little boy superbly judged. scouts collecting rows of badges on way for the Guest Editorial by Ray their sleeves. Wood. Jorge Luis Borges Only the other day I checked the James Joyce author’s biog in a Minette Walters Ray Wood used to post emails on Bertolt Brecht book I was reading.1 And I found that Eidolist, but no longer does so. He D. H. Lawrence her first novel, The Ice House, won the admits to little more autobio- Anton Chekhov John Creasy Award; her second, The graphical detail that that he is a Vladimir Nabokov Sculptress, won the Edgar Allan Poe retired academic who still lives in the Joseph Conrad Award; and her third, The Scold’s city in which he taught for many George Orwell Bridle, won the CWA Gold Dagger years: Quorn, South Australia, which F. Scott Fitzgerald Award. I couldn’t help wondering, is situated north of the Iron Triangle, Marcel Proust How many bloody awards are there for Maksim Gorky the mystery genre? at the head of Spencer Gulf, South August Strindberg And then a few days later I read Australia. Graham Greene Elliot Perlman’s author biog,2 which Leo Tolstoy told me that he’d won: Ray’s Guest Editorial is followed by Thomas Hardy an actual Editorial, by Bruce Mark Twain the Age Book of the Year Award, the Gillespie. Henrik Ibsen Betty Trask Award (UK) and the H. G. Wells Fellowship of Australian Writers Henry James Book of the Year Award for his Virginia Woolf novel, Three Dollars. His second Emile Zola book, The Reasons I Won’t Be Coming, won the Steele Rudd I think most would agree that that list Award for the best Australian short includes some of the twentieth cen- story collection. tury’s finest writers. However, not one of them was awarded the Nobel Prize. Not one but three awards for just the It’s easy, too, to make another list of one book! And how many readers twenty writers who did win it, but who would know the parameters of all most people have never heard of. those seven awards? They’d be no How can you miss out giving the more than meaningless names to most. prize to writers like Tolstoy, Joyce, Soon there’ll be so many awards in Proust and Woolf? (The Nobel has the world that no writer will have a been awarded since 1901, and there book published without getting one. were ten chances to give it to Tolstoy Surely awards amount to little else — and Mark Twain, too. They both but a marketing exercise for writers, died in 1910.) agents and publishers? Well, there It’s awarded for a writer’s lifetime may not be too much wrong with that, achievement, yet so many of the best if readers know that that’s all they are. writers still didn’t win it, despite its But I imagine that most of them don’t. judges having all those years to reach a mature decision. If you can’t judge a Great writing is seldom recognised as writer’s lifetime output any better than great for quite a time after it’s pub- the Nobel’s judges, what chance do lished. As Hemingway says:3 you have of judging books accurately in the same year that they’re pub- lished? Yet that’s how most book Almost no new classics resemble awards are made. other previous classics.

4 It’s usual that great writing is seldom Barbara Hambly has been a high they’ve even sacrificed the usual kinds judged to be anything much when it school teacher, a model, a waitress, of human society to the society of cats. first appears, because it so often breaks a technical editor, a professional Awards are part of the hype, too. As new ground. And critics, reviewers graduate student, an all-night clerk soon as a book wins an award, what do and awards judges rarely see that it’s in a liquor store and a karate you see on the front covers of all its great until many years later on. The instructor. writer’s books? Something like this: figure sometimes quoted for how long Barbara Hambly, Dragonsbane ‘By the Hugo Award-winning author it takes to arrive at a mature judgment (1986) Harq al-Ada’. It’s usually worded in of writers’ work is fifty years after such a way that you think this book is they’ve died. I think it was Stendhal Mr L’Amour enjoyed a wide the one that won the Hugo, though who once dismissed critics tearing one variety of jobs, including seaman, those words now appear on every one of his books to pieces by saying that lumberjack, elephant handler, skin- of his books. Worse, how often do pub- it’d be a classic fifty years after his ner of dead cattle, assessment lishers capitalise on al-Ada’s award by death. And it was. And it did take that miner, and officer on a tank hastily issuing his juvenilia and long, too. destroyer during World War II. He ephemera that they’d originally So what hope do judges of book also circled the world on a freighter, rejected? awards have of getting it right, when sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was If you have more than one set of they’re judging books published as shipwrecked in the West Indies and awards within a genre, and each set recently as during the last twelve stranded in the Mojave Desert. gives its awards to different books, months? Louis L’Amour, Passin’ Through that in itself makes the whole thing a (1985) joke. At the least it suggests that a hun- Does anyone else see this plethora of dred sets of awards might come up Sharleen Cooper Cohen worked as awards as one reason why people turn with a hundred different winners. a story editor, a model, a swimming away from reading? To have both a Hugo and a Nebula instructor and a secretary . . . she Consider the extreme hype on the for SF has long seemed a problem to also ran an interior design company covers of books. me. Now I do know that their judges for many years with designs To start with, look at their jacket are different, but when different appearing in many national screamers. Publishers seem to share a judges choose different winners, you magazines. standard dictionary of adjectives for end up with awards for judges instead Sharleen Cooper Cohen, of for books. them. It includes: chilling, classic, com- Love, Sex & Money (1988) pelling, enchanting, enthralling, epic, You might criticise my list of great writers who never won the Nobel explosive, gripping, heart-stopping, Clearly the more varied and exotic the heart-wrenching, irresistible, monu- Prize on the grounds that Alfred professions, the greater a book this Nobel’s will5 stipulates that it go to mental, nerve-shattering, powerful, guarantees. provocative, scorching, searing, shat- Authors seem to favour a minimum tering, sizzling, soaring, spell-binding, list of four jobs (or do publishers invent the person who shall have pro- stunning, sweeping, terrifying, time- them?) that show physical, intellec- duced in the field of literature the less, towering, turbulent and unput- tual, artistic and business prowess. most distinguished work of an downable. All books published are, in Apparently you must be an all- idealistic tendency; . . . other words, superlative. rounder to be a writer. And these lists It also seems that many writers, almost always include a job that shows So you might say that on these after their first books, become they have mixed with common people. grounds you can understand why the ‘acclaimed’, at least on the covers of Notice ‘cinema usherette’, ‘clerk at a Nobel’s judges wouldn’t have consid- their second ones. liquor store’ and ‘swimming instruc- ered writers like James Joyce or D. H. And look at how books are so often tor’? The ideal list for men seems to Lawrence, because the sexual content ‘the greatest’ since, say, Catch-22, The include: lumberjack (aka timber feller), of their books was shocking, at least Dice Man, The Day of the Jackal, Gone merchant seaman, dishwasher, jour- during their lifetimes. But again, this with the Wind, One Flew over the nalist, and sleeping rough in a park says more about the judges and the Cuckoo’s Nest or Lolita. Those are some while completing a PhD. mores of their times than it does about of the titles that are publishers’ favour- Barbara Hambly’s ‘karate instruc- great and especially ‘idealistic’ ites for such comparisons. And certain tor’ might deter critics from being literature. writers themselves become touch- negative about her books, and perhaps When readers see books constantly stones. Frances Gordon’s 1994 Louis L’Amour’s ‘elephant handler’ hyped in the above ways, yet find that vampire book, Blood Ritual, is ‘in the means he was secretly guying the after all far too many of them are just great tradition of Anne Rice’.4 whole idea of author biogs as a big pile the usual ho-hum stuff, who can blame Even authors’ biogs on jackets come of shit. them for being turned off reading? across as a kind of hype: One more curiosity about biogs is Have you heard this before? the considerable number that end up . . . she has been variously, a teacher, with something like this: ‘she lives in my son, be admonished: of making puppet maker, Opera House guide, Iram in the state of Butua with nine many books there is no end; . . . publisher’s rep, journalist, broad- cats’. It’s usually said in such a way caster, coffee-packer, cinema usher- that it puts cats on a par with hus- ette, traveller, nervous wreck and bands, wives and lovers. I presume That was said three thousand years 6 letter-writer. we’re meant to see this as a mark of ago by the Preacher in Ecclesiastes. Penelope Rowe, Unacceptable distinction in writers. Here are people But how few books were there that long 7 Behaviour (1992) so dedicated to writing books that ago? John Man says:

5 In 1455 all Europe’s printed books This suggests a delicious ploy for someone certainly will soon. could have been carried in a single ramping up the sales of a book that However, in the end writers and wagon . . . Today, books pour off you’ve written. You yourself can in- fans have far too much delicious fun presses at the rate of 10,000 million vent an award that is so specific that tossing awards around like confetti at a year. only your book can win it. And to make a wedding, for them to ever give the sure of the result you can appoint its awards game away. And you can be certain that every one judges from your relatives and friends. of those 10,000 million, according to Then your publisher can print this up 1 Minette Walters, The Sculptress the hype on its cover, is absolutely big on your book’s front cover and (London: Macmillan, 1993, brilliant. you’re made! reissued 1998). He also quotes a list of titles, some Further to that, why not make a big 2 Elliot Perlman, Seven Types of of which are amusing in themselves.8 drive to push sales of Aussie SF by Ambiguity Sydney: Macmillan, Here are a few: inventing fifty different annual 2003). awards? Then every Aussie SF book 3 Ernest Hemingway in an inter- Wheelbarrow Decoration can fly an award banner on its front view, Paris Review, vol. 18, 1958, p. Vocational Diseases of Professional Cooks cover. 78. The Semiotics of Sneaker Design You have to wonder what would 4 Frances Gordon (pseudonym of The Legacy of the Biro happen to the business of making Bridget Wood), Blood Ritual (Lon- Crime Control Strategies in the Modern awards, if every book boasting an don: Headline, 1994). Mall award were forced also to state how 5‘Nobel Prizes’, Funk & Wagnall’s The Art of the Afghani Truck few people had voted for it, and what New Encyclopedia (New York: Was God a Chair-Leg? its geographical limits were. Imagine Funk & Wagnall, 1979), vol. 17. Salads with Edible Flowers this: ‘The William James Sidis Award 6 Ecclesiastes 12: 12, in the King Porn with Marmite for the Best Novel about Tram Tickets, James version of the Bible (1611). restricted to Flinders Island Writers, 7 John Man, The Gutenberg Revolu- What are the chances that at least a few voted for by six Members of the tion (London: Review, 2002), p. 4. of these won ‘The Elephantine Award Flinders Island Rugmaking Club’. 8 Ibid., pp. 3–4. for 2002’? I’ve often thought that the Bible of 9 Now titled Guinness World Records You know, anyone can set up an the twentieth century was not the King (London: Guinness Publishing, award — let’s say the ‘Cordus Award James Version but The Guinness Book of annually since 1955). The book for the Best Book of the Year Written Records.9 I’ve been told by several itself is included in its own list of about the Ancient Greek Hero, librarians that it’s the most-borrowed world records as the ‘top-selling Theseus’. But who would know how book that they stock. I wonder if any- copyright book in publishing few books had actually qualified for its one has ever thought to put in a claim history’ (2004 edition). judging, when they saw a book whose to the Guinness that a book he or she jacket proclaimed no more than that wrote is the world champion for the it’d won ‘The Cordus Award’? number of awards it won? If not yet, — Ray Wood, 2003

Editorial

The state of the fanzine editor

Bruce Gillespie

I turned sixty in February. Elaine and ing, and was moved to a rehabilitation Jeanette stayed down at Rosebud, on I held an enjoyable gathering to cele- hospital for several weeks. In the sec- the Mornington Peninsula, during the brate this event, but could not invite ond half of February she lost her five weeks my mother was in hospital more than a small proportion of the strength; her body seemed to disap- or rehabilitation care, sitting with her people with whom we would have pear from under her; she died on 4 for five hours a day. She had a much liked to raise a glass. We would have March, three months before her stronger bond with mum than I did. needed a small-scale world convention eighty-ninth birthday. After my mother died, Jeanette took to do that. When my sisters and I visited her at responsibility for all those necessities While this event was happening, Christmas, although my mother that had to be done. my mother was very ill in hospital after looked frail and felt depressed, she My mother and I often annoyed falling, breaking her hip, in late Janu- was still living independently, with each other without meaning to, and I ary. At first she seemed to be improv- help from council services. My sister found it difficult to spend more than a

6 day in her company. Most years I I was sitting in the second front Web, and on that Web is a site called could see her only twice a year, when row, thinking such dismal thoughts, efanzines.com. Set up and managed by Elaine and I travelled down the Morn- when I noticed a Chandler Award on Bill Burns, it has given new literary life ington Peninsula with Jeanette. But her the table. Who would receive it this to a large number of people like me: continued existence was a rock of my year? Usually the Australian SF Foun- people who are retired or about to re- existence. My mother kept up all the dation, which makes the award, asks tire, have little income, but still have contacts with other members of the me to write the citation for the winner. great fanzine-publishing ambitions. family, and also retained a store of I hadn’t heard even a rumour this year. To the invention of the Web add the family photos, some from the late nine- As Cath Ortlieb was going to the ros- invention of Adobe Acrobat’s PDF teenth century. When Time claimed trum to announce the award, I technology, and one finds on http:// my mother, my own hold on Time be- thought, for one moment, ’Maybe it’s efanzines.com an amazing range of came more fragile. my turn this year.’ And it was. superb fanzines in PDF format, many The Chandler Award is given for produced by people who have been From January to July, I was undergo- lifetime achievement in Australian SF. absent from fandom for many years. ing a nightmare period of trying to I’ve only ever published three crappy Pixel, by Dave Burton, is one of the balance three paying jobs at once. I’ve SF stories, so I assumed the award was best. Dave was a contributor to Gorbett been offered no freelance work since. for publishing SF Commentary and my and SF Waves, which were edited by The period of maximum workload other fanzines since 1969, and for be- Dave Gorman in the early seventies. coincided with this year’s Melbourne ing a member of the Norstrilia Press (Whatever happened to Dave Gor- convention, ConVergence 2, 8–11 June, partnership from 1975 to 1985. The man?) Now Dave Burton is back. Arnie to which I had been looking forward. Chandler Award means much more and Joyce Katz have had two dis- Because of my workload, I had time to than that. It has been given to pro tinguished careers in fandom, with a attend only four hours of program- writers, such as Lee Harding, George long period of gafia in between. Not ming, including the Awards Presenta- Turner, Lucy Sussex and Wynne only did they run the BBB Fan Fund tion on the Saturday night. Whiteford, and to fan writers and pub- that took me from Melbourne to Cali- The lists of Ditmar nominees lishers, such as Van Ikin, John Bang- fornia and back, but also Arnie has seemed very peculiar to me: I recog- sund, John Foyster, Sue Batho, been publishing Vegas Fandom Weekly nised few of the names. Rose Mitchell, Graham Stone and Grant Stone. In as a PDF-only fanzine for the last two the Convention chair, had asked me to winning the Chandler, I had been in- years. Arnie and Joyce couldn’t afford present the Fanzine Ditmar. I had vited to join the company of the people to publish VWF in paper format, and never heard of three of the nominees I admire most. neither could Earl Kemp afford to print (websites, not fanzines), and the two I What links us? I like to think we’ve and post e1, a regular fanzine stuffed did know are clubzines. Not only has all contributed to the Australian SF full of great fan articles. there been a changing of the guard, but community, rather than being merely almost everybody whose work I value high achievers. Of course, Chandler Where major fanzine editors have in Australian fandom seems to have winners have been very high achievers gone, Jan Stinson and I will surely fol- been forgotten. over a long period of time, but they are low. Bob Sabella did it recently: his honoured for their contributions to the Visions of Paradise went all-online from greater SF family. one issue to another. I would love to keep publishing real fanzines, such as Why should I accept an award for the issue of SET that you are holding. something that comes naturally — Thomas Bull, stalwart Melbourne fan, fanzine editing? In the light of Ray has donated enough money for me to Wood’s Guest Editorial, I suppose I publish Steam Engine Time 7 and the should refuse all awards. first revived SF Commentary (No 80). Put it another way: does receiving But I don’t see why Thomas should put the Chandler for past achievements himself out when the Great Solution means that I can expect to achieve offers itself — all-online editions. I will nothing more? send out a note to everybody when the I’m not really sixty; in the middle of big day comes. Screams of anguish will my head I am still twenty-six. How be heard. No doubt we will come to much time do I have to achieve any- some arrangement with people who thing more? How can I keep publish- have no access to the Internet. Jan and ing fanzines without necessary funds? I will honour subscriptions to Steam If I thought about these questions Engine Time. But when I plan each new when I was forty-five, I would written issue of Steam Engine Time, or SF Com- myself off as a publisher after the age mentary, or even The Metaphyical of sixty. When I was forty-five, in 1992, Review (after nine years’ absence), I I had only just given up using a dupli- won’t have to say to myself: ’Can’t cator and stencils for publishing afford it!’ fanzines. The Internet had been barely Surely the best years of our fanzines Here’s a pic of the astounded recipient of this glimpsed by the ordinary computer are ahead. year’s Chandler Award: big blue bowl, user. plaque and citation. Cath Ortlieb handed me In 2007, we have the World Wide — Bruce Gillespie, August 2007 the award on behalf of the Australian SF Foundation, and she took this photo.

7 Alan Garner’s career

Inner stars: The novels of Alan Garner

by Bruce Gillespie

BRG: I wrote this article while I was The scene: Institute of Contemporary ‘happily ever afters’ were to reassure the assistant editor of The Secon- Arts, London. parents, not to soothe children. dary Teacher (the weekly magazine The time: An evening in February Even in the first two books, Garner of the Victorian Secondary Teachers 1975. began to change all that. Colin and Association) in 1977. I can’t remem- The happening: A white-faced, tense Susan are hardly memorable charac- man rises to give a lecture on ‘Inner ters, but at least they are not typical ber if it appeared there, or was Time’. He looks vulnerable; giving the child heroes. They get swept along spiked. I can’t remember whether or lecture is painful for him. The audience with the magic events, rather than con- not it’s based on the Nova Mob talk listens intently, a bit embarrassed. trol them. They have to make impor- I gave about Alan Garner in 1977. In The words: ‘The feeling is less that I tant decisions, but they are not always fact, I can’t remember writing it. But choose the myth than that the myth the ‘right’ decisions. when I was packing to move from chooses me; less that I write than that There is no ‘happy ending’ in The Collingwood to Greensborough, it I am written . . . I simply plot the maps Moon of Gomrath. Colin and Susan suddenly appeared there in the files. of inner stars.’ think they are on the side of the good- The writer: Alan Garner, author of ies, but the wizartd Calledin proves to It hasn’t dated much, since Garner five novels, several other books, two be a bit of a shyster. The forces of magic hasn’t published a whole lot since operas and several television plays. are not put back in their place. ‘Old New label?: ‘Magic fiction’ writer; Evil’ is still loose at the end of the book. 1977: just The Stone Book Quartet, English novelist. Most of the loose ends are not tied up. Strandloper, and an occasional title Children’s books changed alto- that never materialises in Australian So who are children these days? gether when Alan Garner published bookshops. However, Garner has Let’s get rid of the label first. In his Elidor, then The Owl Service and, most published a book of criticism since now- famous ICA lecture (published recently, Red Shift. Children’s books then, and my view of him might have in Science Fiction at Large, edited by are now dynamic, not to be touched by changed greatly after 27 years. I Peter Nicholls), Alan Garner does not those who want a ‘safe read’. Writers found out by typing the article. talk about himself as a writer for chil- such as William Mayne, Leon Garfield, dren. Yet all his books have been pub- Ursula Le Guin and Ivan Southall have lished as ‘children’s books’. He has also been part of the change. But some- even been credited with revolutionis- how the change is most noticeable in ing the genre. Labels stick, even when Garner’s books. Alan Garner in 1996. Alan Garner goes beyond them. It is not even certain that Garner’s Garner’s first two books, The books are any longer for children, let Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The alone about children. Moon of Gomrath, are ‘children’s In Elidor, Garner narrowed the books’ in the oldfashioned sense. The focus of action to a suburban house in two main characters are Colin and England. Great magic events still take Susan, about ten years old. They are on place, but they bring only trouble to holiday in the English moorland (as in the children in this story, and not much Enid Blyton novels). They meet a adventure. wizard, and umpteen magical crea- The Owl Service is about ‘young tures, and survive endless hairbreadth adults’, rather than children. Alison is adventures. The images are bright, the Roger’s half-sister, and Gwyn is a language is simple, and there is always Welsh kid who is involved with them. home to return to. The personal relationships are real, in- The children’s book has tradition- tense, and irritating to any reader who ally been a symbol for domestication. wants only an adventure story. Let the children romp around a strange Red Shift breaks right out of the landscape; give them a bit of rope; but children’s category. It will be hated by always end the book with ‘happily many adults who control book buying ever after’. It was all a bit of a trick. The for their children. Only a third of the

8 book is actually about the young adult In Elidor (1965), Garner’s work be- cally driven machines in the vicinity. A characters, Tom and Jan. Most of the gins to get interesting. The book begins year after the journey into Elidor, book includes swearing, physical and with a fairly hackneyed adventure into Roland looks through the keyhole in verbal violence and a fair bit of talk a magic kindom — but the children the front door — and sees an ancient about sex. All the old taboos have been this time find the entrance to the magic eye peering back at him. The enemies broken. If Red Shift is a ‘children’s kingdom in a ruined church in the of Elidor have found a magic doorway book’ (and the publishers say it is), the middle of a slum clearance in Birming- to catch up with the children. They label is losing its meaning. ham. No more country landscapes and wait in ambush — just outside the Which is all to Alan Garner’s natural images to help along the story. door, yet thousands of years in the advantage. But if they don’t fit a label, For Garner, myth is not what hap- past. what are Alan Garner’s books? pens in ancient stories. It represents Still, Garner is concerned not so what happens in all periods of time. In much with what happens to the treas- Mything links modern England, the four treasures ures, or to Elidor, but with what hap- ‘The element common to all the books’, turn into a length of iron railing, a pens to the children. Three of them said Alan Garner during the ICA lec- keystone, two splintered laths and an pretend that Elidor never existed. ture, ‘is my present-day function old, cracked cup. Buried in the garden, Roland tries to solve the problem. Eli- within myth. The difference between these objects still disburb any electri- dor is a sly protest against people who that function and what are usually called “retellings” is that the retellings are stuffed trophies on the wall, whereas I have to bring them back alive.’ I’m one of those people for whom any retelling of a myth is like watching a stuffed trophy on a wall. Long lists of ancient names (as in Garner’s first two books) make me yawn. Yet, says Garner, ‘the more I learn, the more I am convinced that there are no original stories. On several occa- sions I have “invented” an incident, and then come across it in an obscure fragment of Hebridean lore, orally collected, and privately printed, a hundred years ago.’ But it is a modern world, isn’t it? Things were quite different way back then. Even people are different now. Why bore us with old legends, Mr Garner? Where’s the originality? The originality is in the art of the books themselves, of course, not in the bits and pieces from which they are made, though many readers of Garner may be most interested in those bits and pieces. Not that there is much artistic origi- nality in The Weirdstone of Brisin- gamen (1960) and The Moon of Gomrath (1963). They fit the ‘one damn thing after another’ category: one adventure after another, without leaving space to think. Colin and Susan track across woods and moors, get trapped in magic-ridden houses, clam- ber through a particularly crazy sys- tem of underground caves, but not much is resolved. There are some memorable images: the magic lady on the island; the flying pony that takes Susan for a ride beyond the earth; the Wild Ride; the beam of moonlight that reveals a hid- den path over the hills once a year. But mainly these books form a catalogue of old legends and legendary names.

9 but all her actions increase the bitter- ness. Then Things Start to Happen. The three find themselves hit by a lightning bolt of magic; they are condemned to act out an ancient Welsh legend about a wizard who built a woman from flowers, who then turned into an owl and caused the deaths of both her hus- band and lover. The legend begins working again when Alison finds some old plates in the attic. A pattern of owls appears on the plate. The patterns disappear, and Alison begins to make paper owls. Garner hints, but never says directly, that she is turning into a magic owl. The transformation is only the shell of the story. The legend itself shows in the bitterness between the three char- acters. This scarcely disguised sexual bitterness gives the book its strength. Magic is no longer a playground for wild adventures. It’s a kind of disease that comes to life in everybody, and causes only grief. Gwyn tries to escape responsibility for his part in the triangle. He tries to leave the valley, but local villagers force him back. Roger and Alison try to ignore what is happening to them, but it happens anyway. ‘There are no original stories’, says Garner. What he means is that there are no people who can escape from being what they are. The Owl Service is very concentrated writing, each word picked precisely. The entire book is only 156 pages long. Many pages consist only of violent conversations between characters, yet the damp atmosphere of the Welsh valley sweeps out of the pages. We are part of the legend; Garner makes this idea live in the book.

Inner time: Red Shift say, ‘It’s nothing to do with me!’ settles down on the shoulders of the I suspect that nobody knew what to Garner does not quite meet the chal- main characters like a stinking smog. make of Red Shift when it was pub- lenge set by his ideas. He settles for Two of the characters, Alison and lished in 1973. The reviewers didn’t. magical effects — a unicorn, a breath- Roger, are on holiday with their Some of them admitted that they were less chase — to end the story. parents (his father, her mother) at a baffled. They said all the usual things: The Owl Service (1968) won the house in a Welsh valley. A daft Welsh about Red Shift changing the face of Guardian Award and the Carnegie gardener shuffles around the house. A children’s writing, which was true Medal. It’s been called the most impor- sharp-tounged housekeeper reigns enough. Some other authors, such as tant children’s book of the last twenty inside. Her son, Gwyn, forms a friend- Paul Zindel, might not have succeeded years — which, as always, is to put it ship with Roger and Alison. without Garner’s pioneering success. in a pigeonhole. The Owl Service is one A reminder of cosy British fiction It’s easy to see why the reviewers of the best English novels in any cate- for children? Of course. But nothing is scratched their heads. Make a hasty gory during the last twenty years. The cosy in this household. There are mys- first reading of the book, as I did, and readers have realised this already, teries about why the English family it’s confusing. Red Shift flashes con- even if the critics haven’t. owns the house at all. And daddy is tinually between three stories: the The Owl Service is a terrifying book. henpecked by mummy. Gwyn has a story of Tom and Jan (time: now); the No ‘magic kingdoms’ here. The magic chip on his shoulder about these visit- story of Thomas and Margery (time: is still here, but it is in the air that ing English upper-class slummers, and the English Civil War); the story of surrounds the characters. The magic is Roger treats Gwyn as a low pest. several Roman soldiers cut off from malevolent and inevitable, and it Alison wants everything to be ‘nice’, their legion and attempting to survive

10 in occupied Britain (time: about two meaning. The red shift of the stars is soldiers. But, without exterior threat, thousand years ago). The third story is the change in their colour that is the main characters fly apart from each confusing because Alan Garner gives observed on earth as stars rush away other. They commit psychological the Romans modern names (such as from each other and the earth at ever violence instead. Macey and Magoo). increasing speeds. I cannot do justice to the writing The three stories seem to have little ‘When we look at a starry sky’, skill that Garner shows in Red Shift. to do with each other — except that writes Alan Garner, ‘we see a group of Every line is important to everything each happens in the same area of Eng- configurations that seem to be equi- else in the book. Much of the book is in land (on or around a castle hill called distant from us and existing now. That dialogue. Not a word is wasted. At the Mow Cop), and that the same axehead is an “apparent perspective”. We are beginning of the book, Jan has just re- turns up in each story. In story 1, the looking a a complexity of times past — turned from a holiday in Germany. By Roman soldiers survive for a few a sky of “it–was”, all at different the end of the book, we know what months. All die except for Macey and epochs, distances and intensities. Inner happened to her there. So we read the a Celtic girl who survived a raid on a time creates similar illusions.’ beginning of the book again to find out village. In story 2, the Puritan village is ‘Red shift’, it seems, is something how it affected them there. And so on, captured by a group of Irish Loyalist that happens inside people, and watching the pattern grow, word by soldiers under the command of a for- between people. Three eras of history word. Beware: read the last two pages mer citizen of the village. Everybody is in Red Shift, but one humanity. carefully. killed except Thomas and Margery. In There’s that axehead, for example. Each book that Alan Garner pub- story 3, Tom and Jan are separated by In Roman times, it is the means by lishes, the pattern gets more complex. distance when Jan moves to the city. which the group survives. In Round- Garner is a ‘wise fool’, like the charac- They meet each month until each be- head times, it is a good luck charm — ters in The Guizer, his recent book of lieves the other is a betrayer. They and a symbol of last-ditch survival. In retold legends. separate permanently (or do they?) our time, Tom and Jan find it and Tom He calls himself a ‘boundary-rider’, It’s the modern story that is sells it to a museum. Twentieth- finding the boundaries of knowledge puzzling. No sudden violence or real century people, Garner seems to say, and going beyond them. We must ex- adventure. A boy discovers that his have forgotten their history. They’ve plain ourselves to ourselves; we can girlfriend once spent the weekend forgotten the importance of really im- explore the inner worlds through with another bloke. The girl discovers portant things. myth and story. There are stars that her boyfriend has sold an old axe- In the two historical sections, flaming inside our heads, and Garner head that she cherished. A bit tame? exterior violence draws people can draw star-maps for us. What does the book’s title mean? together. In the modern section, no- It’s easy to work out the scientific body is threatened by sword-carrying — Bruce Gillespie, 1977

‘turning, tapping, knapping, shaping, twisting, rubbing and making’: The novels of Alan Garner since Red Shift

Robert Mapson

BRG: Robert Mapson is a Western Robert’s own Alan Garner website. In Alan Garner’s latest novel, Thurs- Australian fan and writer who has bitch (2003), there is discussion of the never told me much about himself, As he writes of himself, Robert ‘first slow process of geological transforma- but who has contributed letters and encountered SF in the Dark Ages, tion: ‘So the sediments would have other material to my fanzines for attended Swancon II, and has drifted been about three kilometres below the sea floor at the time. There’s forestep- many years. When I posted my around the shoals of fandom in the ping here. And here’s a trace of the Garner article on my blog, Mapson subsequent years. He discovered palaeoslope.’ found it and suggested I write about Alan Garner around the same time, In the same manner, Garner’s nov- Thursbitch, Garner’s most recent and has maintained the Unofficial els appear to grow at the rate of geo- novel. I had not been able to find it Alan Garner Page since 1997. His logical processes. Thursbitch appeared in Australia. Robert also asked me to current activities involve hoarding seven years after its predecessor, write about Garner’s work since Red supplies to wait out the tides of dark- Strandloper (1996), and that 18 years Shift. A few weeks later I found a ness and superstition sweeping the after The Stone Book Quartet (1978). ‘I paperback copy of Thursbitch, and nation in the guise of psychics, knew I’d been away a long time when Robert sent me the following article homeopathy, intelligent design, etc children started writing, “Dear Mr and mini-autobiography. Google for etc.’ Garner, if you’re not dead”’ (Carousel

11 10, Summer 1999). music of fairy stories, is still evident. particular location in Cheshire, and the Like geological processes, though, dislocation from that culture (he was Garner was not dead but surprisingly Once upon a time, though it wasn’t the first of his family to go to univer- active, if most of this activity was not in your time, and it wasn’t in my sity) so that he has become a creature immediately obvious. time, and it wasn’t in anybody of both and none, both part of and Presently, Garner is busy with the else’s time, but whatever it was, a exiled from his heritage, able to formation of the Blackden Trust, to fox and a hare lived by a lake. observe, digest and integrate, and preserve his house into the future. It is Once Upon a Time bring forth something that recreates a site that has been continuously in- (London: Dorling Kindersley, that culture in a new and multilayered habited for over ten thousand years, 1993) way. and he doesn’t want to see it sold and If Garner was just writing or re- redeveloped like so much of surround- Jack climbed, and he climbed, and writing Cheshire history and tales, he ing Manchester. The Trust is intended he climbed; he climbed up, and up, would be of little interest outside that to ‘preserve this house and its site from and up, and up; up, up, up Jack area, but he deals with deeper themes future depredations and for the pur- went. He went past weathercocks that apply to all humanity: myth, pose of architectural and archaeologi- and larks, higher than the swallows history, relationships. cal study and to provide a place where he went, up, up in the air, till at last works of artistic or scientific merit may he came to the top of the beanstalk This is shown by the three original be completed’. and the end of the sky. works published since Red Shift: The Apart from the novels, there have Jack and the Beanstalk Stone Book Quartet, Strandloper and been a number of minor books retell- (London: HarperCollins, 1992) Thursbitch. ing various myths and fairy tales, per- After the compressed and difficult forming a task for mainly British tales During this time he also published Red Shift, which pared the novel back that the Brothers Grimm did earlier for a book of essays, The Voice that almost beyond its bones, The Stone Germanic tales: The Lad of the Gad Thunders (1997), which ranges over Book Quartet is a deceptively simple (1980), Fairytales of Gold (1980), Alan autobiography, mythology, madness, work. At first glance it might almost Garner’s Book of British Fairytales (1984), creation and archaeology and pro- appear to be only that object Garner A Bag of Moonshine (1986), Once Upon A vides much insight into the way a denies creating: a children’s book. The Time (1993), Jack and the Beanstalk writer is formed and how the creative four volumes that make up the quartet (1993), The Little Red Hen (1997), Grey forces work through him to produce, are slim (less than 80 pages each) and Wolf, Prince Jack and the Firebird (1998), at the end, a novel. Though Garner illustrated (admirably by Michael and The Well of the Wind (1998), as well might not agree, there is much in his Foreman), they feature children as the as Potter Thompson (an opera libretto, past that parallels the shamanistic main characters, and the language is 1985). storytellers of other cultures: the child- simple, but it is here that Garner really Though these might be considered hood illnesses (of such severity that he finds for the first time his true voice. It minor Garner, the use of language that was expected to die) and manic is in this work that he eschews the hovers dangerously between the com- depression, the deep and holding his- camp dialect of The Weirdstone of Bris- pression and rhythm of poetry, and the tory of family and place rooted in his ingamen for the use of Cheshire dialect that reflects its actual usage.

‘And you shall,’ said Grandfather. ‘Stone and you, you’d never marry: I’ve seen it, Joseph. And, Joseph, we do us best, but you’re a granny rear- dun, think on, and a granny rear- dun you’ll be. So you get prenticed, and a roof over you, and meat in you, and drink. You’re like to have to look to yourself sooner than most in this world. Hey!’ he shouted to Damper Latham. ‘My grandson! See at him! He’s going for a gener- ous, ingenious hammerman!’ Granny Reardun (London: Collins, 1997)

The four volumes relate to specific events in the history of Garner’s family, keypoints where the children must make life-changing decisions (The Stone Book, July 1864; Granny Rear- dun, Friday 11 June 1886; The Aimer Gate, Wednesday 7 September 1916; Tom Fobble’s Day, Friday 10 January 1941). The Stone Book is Mary’s story.

12 While she climbs to the future and the given the depth and intensity of to Cheshire, where he becomes Strand- sky, up the spire her father is complet- Garner’s biographical research). loper, the strider of the boundary ing on the new church, Mary also Taken together, the volumes of the between land and water (Australian climbs to the past and the depths, deep Stone Book Quartet are effectively Gar- readers will be familiar with William below ground, like Theseus and ner’s manifesto, and his most sublime from the phrase ‘Buckley’s chance’). Ariadne reversed, to discover the bull, work. The layers that were so much a Apart from the final return (in real- and to find a transcendental under- part of Red Shift are here as well, but ity, William Buckley died in Australia standing of the ground she stands more tightly integrated so that a casual without returning to Cheshire) the rest upon. reading might miss them. The is based on fact, but a historical retell- The language is assured and poetic. language (and particularly dialect) ing is not Garner’s concern, nor does a These are books about craftsmen, both also become a natural part of the flow simple outline of the plot indicate the of the hand and the brain, and, in a of the work, and not a shift in style. scope and power of the novel. He deals phrase that recurs, Garner describes While a word out of context (baggin, with the world of the mind and of the creative process as ‘turning, tap- aback, fettling, feckazing) may be myth, with great circles that link Aus- ping, knapping, shaping, twisting, meaningless, in the novel the sense is tralia and Cheshire, Aboriginal and rubbing and making’. It is both a magi- clear and the meaning plain. More British folklore, and the world of cal process and an affirmative process. than anything, they indicate an accep- dreaming and imagination: the motifs Granny Reardun tells the story of tance of Garner’s place in the world, in of William’s dreaming in Aboriginal Joseph (the granny reared ’un of the his family, and in his home. Australia occur also in the stained title) as school finishes and he must While I personally consider Red glass windows of an actual church in decide what to do with the rest of his Shift Garner’s most important book Cheshire (the church of St James and St life. (simply because it did something to the Paul at Marton) — both are entoptic novel that other authors had not), I patterns. ‘I must get somewhere: somewhere think The Stone Book Quartet is Garner’s While much of the novel utilises aback of you. I must. It’s my time. best book because of its deep personal Garner’s compressed style, and un- Else I’ll never.’ roots, and the use of language. The annotated dialogue (there is one sec- Stone Book Quartet won the 1996 tion, on the transport ship to Australia, This is the same dilemma and deci- Phoenix Award. where a plethora of voices all speak sion that Garner found himself faced After the culmination of The Stone without explanation, yet Garner with. Coming from a line of craftsmen, Book Quartet, it seemed Garner had manages to differentiate them all and he had to find the one form of shaping nothing more to say. Apart from the give them a character from the dia- and making that fitted him. In his case, minor books, there was no new novel logue alone — a fugue of disparate it became the fitting of words into a until Strandloper in 1996. Partly this can characters lost at sea) this is a more form that stands as firmly as the walls be explained by difficulties with his expansive novel than Red Shift (it is 200 of his ancestors, where the craft is not publisher: Garner changed publishers pages — lengthy for a Garner novel) in immediately obvious but where, with- between the two books (his previous both format and territory covered. out the craft, the wall or the novel publisher wanted him to write more The final section of the novel would not stand. Weirdstone of Brisingamen sequels — describes the transcendental unifying The Aimer Gate is Robert’s story, one something that would have undoubt- of the Aboriginal world (and world- harvest day. In a novel about death edly been popular, but would have view) with that of Cheshire: the and change (though none of that, in turned Garner into a J. K. Rowling type languages meld and are not different, Garner’s way, is overtly stated) the of literary journeyman rather than a the dreamings meld and are not differ- final paragraph is a superb linking of master of his art and which was clearly ent, and Buckley/Murrungurk link the workers and the turning of the anathema to a craftsman of his calibre). and bestride them both though, like ages: Partly it is explained by Garner’s Garner, without completely belonging working methods: he researches (often to either. It is a piece of writing that The corn kivvers waited on three beyond the call of the novel) until the strives to reach beyond the mundane church bells. The last cry went up, novel is formed in his mind, and only and to impart a knowledge that cannot ‘Who-whoop! Wo-whoop! Wo-o-o- then the writing begins. Indeed, he lik- be written. ‘Tundun and the Silence o!’ and was quiet at Leah’s Hill. ens the creative process to a gestation, and the Song were All and One.’ Wicked Winnie took Faddock All- using the term ‘pregnant’ with a novel, man home. Father and Uncle Char- until it is fully formed and can be Garner’s most recent novel, Thurs- lie played the great tune of the brought to light. bitch, might almost have seemed to Hough, E Flat cornet and rifle, on appear with undue haste, arriving as it either side of the fire, and the day Strandloper is Garner’s first novel not did only seven years after Strandloper, swung in the chapel clock, escape- to be marketed as children’s literature. but it has also been the longest in ment to the sun. It tells the story of William Buckley, a development, originating in an inci- Cheshire bricklayer in the 1790s who dent over forty years ago when Garner Tom Fobble’s Day takes us to the was transported to Australia. He accidentally found a mysterious Second World War, and tells of Wil- escaped, naively hoping to walk north memorial stone. Having only spent liam and his relationship to his grand- to China and then turn left for home. two years with it, I hesitate to even father. While the account is historically Instead, he is found by a tribe of Abo- comment on the novel, feeling I need accurate, it is a work of fiction, and rigines, is initiated, spends 32 years at least forty years to fully understand William should not necessarily be read with them, and becomes Murrangurk, it. directly as Alan Garner (though there an elder of the tribe. Eventually, he The novel centres around the valley is every reason why he also should, returns to the white people, and home of Thursbitch (etymologically, Garner

13 about place and history. It deals with The conclusion of the novel, more issues of Dionysian myth, Orpheus ecstatic and life-affirming than the end and Mithraism, the Eleusinian Myster- of Red Shift, points back to the begin- ies, Sumerian myth and language (the ning, and leads the reader back to the entranced devotees of the bull break first page. into Sumerian — just for fun I Thursbitch originally included a attempted translating these and, while T. S. Eliot quote, but this was removed not being a Sumerian scholar and rely- before the first printing, and if you ing on a dictionary, they do make sense want to understand the novel more in context). T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets deals with Garner’s art is that these themes are the same themes. Of course, you an integral part of the twin narratives, should also go back and read the Greek but do not distract from the human tragedies (Garner studied Classics at story. It is a novel of implication, not Oxford University) and Sir Gawain and explication. For example, there are a the Green Knight (a major influence on number of scenes where the eight- Garner — he recounts his recognition eenth-century and the twenty-first- of familiarity with it when he realised century narratives appear to cross, the dialect it is written in was wholly where the characters seem to meet understandable to him from the lan- each other in passing, or to hear each guage of his family) — such is the inte- other. Indeed, a number of reviewers gration of Garner’s method): have stated this as fact. The novel makes no such statement: the possibil- Time present and time past ity is implied that there is a meeting Are both perhaps present in time across time, but it could also be coinci- future dences. It could be an example of And time future contained in time recurring patterns, recurring types, a past. argues that this means Valley of the sort of collective unconscious provid- If all time is eternally present Demon), and the stories of Jack Turner ing the ostinato to the short lives being All time is unredeemable. and Nan Sarah in the eighteenth cen- lived above in the melody line. What might have been is an tury, and Ian and Sal in the twentieth Nothing is certain. What seems is abstraction century, whose lives parallel and mir- something else, the deeper we pene- Remaining a perpetual possibility ror each other, but not in a direct one- trate. Only in a world of speculation. to-one correspondence. It is not Red Garner’s writing is poetic and lucid What might have been and what Shift II, but it is its thematic sequel, (though what is being described may has been pared down to two stories. well be something else — symbols and Point to one end, which is always I find it hard to do justice to this dreams, ciphers and keys): present. novel: it is compressed and layered Footfalls echo in the memory like Red Shift (and, like that novel, it Jack sat, one heel beneath him, and Down the passage which we did deals with linked lives, astronomy — waited. The night was still. He not take. Orion again — and one particular watched. Listened. Waited. He T. S. Eliot: Burnt Norton place), but it is much more of an onion tucked his neckcloth into his shirt. than the earlier work. It needs to be And waited. The moon rose higher, In my beginning is my end. read carefully, and it needs to be re- drawing with it the mist. Jack stood T. S. Eliot: East Coker read, to even begin understanding its to see above it, listening, looking on deeper layers (discussing it with other the hare’s path. To get the most from the novel, it people, I know I’m not alone in miss- The first stars were showing, needs to be read and reread slowly and ing that Nan Sarah gives birth to twins their sounds the echoes of the carefully so that, like the initiation into as she dies, for example). Where Red moon, and the moonlight on the the ancient mysteries, the reader Shift was a red giant, this is a white brook rippled up to him. As in the absorbs each level of meaning before dwarf: more intense, more burning, day, he took of the valley and the moving on to the next. The more work more dangerous. sky and the valley and the sky took the reader is prepared to do, the more Thursbitch is about many things: it of him; but now all was lapped in a the reader will gain from this novel. is about how time and space interact in greater silence, and in it and from it Unfortunately, such readers are rare astronomical and geological terms, but he heard something in front of him, these days. Thursbitch has been nomi- it is also about how lives have patterns and a rustling and a plashing in the nated for no literary prizes. Indeed, and interact on their own smaller scale. mist. you probably won’t even find it in It is about myth and religion (Jack Jack stood firm and waited. The your bookstore unless you ask for it Turner leads an ancient bull cult that is rustling and the plashing drew (and maybe not even then). Those who being displaced by Christianity, Ian is near, the mist snorted, and of it and know Garner’s work, and those who a Jesuit faced with Sal’s terminal ill- from it came a bull, a great white know Thursbitch, however will ness); it is about death and how things bull, marked only by a red stripe treasure this jewel of a book. do not disappear but are transformed along its muzzle, dark in the moon. (Nan Sarah dies of the plague, Sal has ‘O sweet Bull. O noble Bull. O — Robert Mapson, 21 August 2005 a degenerative disease — probably worthy Bull. O bonny Bull.’ Huntington’s Disease); above all it is

14 The iceberg symposium, part 1

Imagination and science fiction

Ray Wood

I Citizen of the Galaxy2 — that I’d become horizon; the whole cloud covered a citizen of the universe. No, I would nearly 35° of the sky. The cloud I’m not sure why it is that SF writers have gone further, and said that I was would set at 5:12 a.m.; at 6:00 the tend to explain too much. I don’t mean just a speck of life in the universe. I no near edge of the home galaxy their speculations about science and longer even regarded being Homo would rise, but during the summer technology, nor about other-worldly sapiens as important. This was the most the sun rose earlier and would blot places and times. I mean that they wonderful thing I got from SF. it out. seem unwilling to leave as much of Many people I’ve known, who be- their stories to their readers’ imagina- came enthusiastic readers of SF, have An entire city coming out of space, and tion as they should. In a way it isn’t so told me that their love of it lasted only landing on a planet? Now that was much what’s told or described that around ten years. They gave it up stunning. Well, it’d be ho-hum stuff makes fiction powerful; it’s what’s left when its stories and milieux lost their today, but back then it was stunning. untold, what’s not described. novelty for them. Then they could no Further in the story the city’s Might this be because SF writers longer put up with the poor style, mayor, Amalfi, listens to the ‘City have a more methodical bent of mind banal dialogue and inadequate charac- Fathers’ — presumably a computer of than other writers? — a bent towards terisation that infects so much SF. I was some kind. He’s asked them ‘for a re- the thoroughness of the scientist and slower than most, and my love affair view of the [city’s] Violations Docket’. the technician? — a desire to explain with it lasted from 1948 until the mid And in this review are three para- everything, and not leave anything 1960s. I still do read it, but since then graphs, three of the most wonderful I mysterious. I’ve rarely found anything worth- had ever read. while. II However, I’ll never forget the debt Then there was the moving of He. that I owe it, for changing me from a The city had fulfilled its contract I stumbled across SF in 1948 when I small boy in an outback Aussie town with that planet to the letter, but was twelve. In that year I discovered into a member of the universe. And I unfortunately that could never be Astounding Science Fiction, and a still vividly remember when I began proven; He was now well on its way couple of years later when it first reading SF, how the extraordinary across the intergalactic gap toward appeared, Galaxy Science Fiction.1 power of those stories caused my mind Andromeda, and could not testify Today’s young people can have little to explode far out beyond anything I’d on the city’s behalf. As far as the idea how astonishing SF was back ever dreamed of before. cops knew, the city had destroyed then. Today SF is universal. Today He, a notion the cops would be no you’re familiar with SF from baby- III less likely to accept simply because hood. But back then it was a ghetto it was ridiculous. literature, and reading it said that you In the November 1953 issue of Worst of all, however, was the were weird. And you were probably Astounding Science Fiction was a novel- city’s participation in the March on the only kid in your class who read it, ette by James Blish, ‘Earthman, Come Earth. The March had been a trag- perhaps the only one in your school. It Home’. How astonishing it was back edy from beginning to end, and few may be true that at that time most then! Its opening words are: of the several hundred Okie cities people hadn’t even heard of it. which had taken part in it had sur- If you’d asked me who I was before The city hovered, then settled vived it. It had been a product of the 1948, I would have said that I lived in silently through the early morning galaxy-wide depression which had Broken Hill, Australia. At the most I darkness toward the broad expanse followed the collapse of the germa- would have labelled myself British, as of heath which the planet’s Proctors nium standard. Amalfi’s city — Australians did at that time. But this SF had designated as its landing place. already accused of several crimes in that I’d discovered changed who I At this hour, the edge of the misty the star-system where the March thought I was, and my sense of myself acres of diamonds which were the had started, crimes which as a mat- expanded hugely over the next few Greater Magellanic Cloud was just ter of fact the city had actually been years. I felt — to adapt Heinlein’s title, beginning to touch the western forced to commit — had gone along

15 because it had had no better choice, to fill in. bals/The Triumph of Time (1958).4 That and had done what it could to I read some time later that Blish was original novelette is now merely the change the March from a mutual working on a whole series of novels last two chapters of the third volume, massacre to a collective bargaining about his cities in space. And so I was Earthman, Come Home. And the three session; but the massacre had eager to read them. He himself wrote: paragraphs I quote above have been occurred all the same. No one city, expanded into the entire book. Blish’s not even Amalfi’s, could have made The germ of Cities in Flight was a explanation of the genesis of Cities in its voice heard above the long roar sketch [. . .] in which — hindsight Flight is from his ‘Author’s Note’ to of galactic collapse. shows with its usual useless clarity this volume.5 There was the redeeming fact — I set out to throw away an idea You may imagine how eagerly I that the city, during the March, had of Wagnerian proportions within started to read these books that I’d found and extirpated one of the last the compass of 10,000 words. The looked forward to for so long. residues of the Vegan tyranny. But alert magazine editor [. . .] refused But how disappointing they were, it could never be proven; like the to let me be so foolish. He rejected after all those years. affair on He, the city had done so the story [‘Earthman, Come Home’] You see, the power of the original thorough a job that even the evi- with a four-page, single-space letter novelette comes from just what it dence was gone irrevocably. in which he pointed out in detail the leaves untold, what it does not de- many questions I had failed to ask scribe, what it only hints at. It comes For me a story is good if it insinu- myself — thus involving me in a from how much is left to your imagi- ates itself into my imagination forever, project which took me some fifteen nation. In a 1958 Paris Review inter- and I find that I’m inventing my own years to realize properly. view,6 the American writer Ernest stories about the characters and events Hemingway said: and milieux of the original. And And in the middle of the 1970s I ‘Earthman, Come Home’ stimulated found the four volumes that this story If it is any use to know it, I always my imagination more than any other had now become. In narrative order try to write on the principle of the SF stories I’d read. So much was they are, They Shall Have Stars (1956), A iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it crammed into it, yet not detailed. So Life for the Stars (1962), Earthman, Come underwater for every part that much was left for my own imagination Home (1955), and A Clash of Cym- shows.

Solonevich cover for Analog, September 1962, used as the model for the covers Unfortunately, Blish has dragged the of some later omnibus editions of Cities in Flight. whole iceberg above the water. It’s often been pointed out that Homer never made the mistake of de- scribing Helen of Troy. So for nearly three thousand years she has tanta- lised everyone who reads his epics. What if he had described her as specifi- cally as, say, a red-head with sleepy eyes and bee-stung lips? How many of his readers would then have been dis- appointed because that’s not how they see their ideal women? When Christo- pher Marlowe lets Faust describe Helen’s face in his 1604 play, The Tragi- cal History of Dr Faustus, he doesn’t detail it in any such mechanical way either. Faust says no more than,

Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

(Ilium is the city of Troy.) Therefore you can imagine Helen to be whatever your ideal woman is. And ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’ is a de- scription so powerful that it’s known to many people who’ve never heard of Marlowe, or Faust, or even of Helen herself. Similarly Blish’s ‘moving of He’, ‘the March on Earth’, and the extirpa- tion of ‘one of the last residues of the Vegan tyranny’, are far more powerful when left to your imagination than any

16 number of chapters or books describ- much detail that they become mun- through a multivolume series isn’t ing them in detail. Even to discover no dane, and dull. new. When I was young I read Edgar more than that the mysterious city of Of course, my examples are to an Rice Burroughs’s Martian tales. How the original story is New York, is so extent a matter of personal taste. So I disappointed I was that its delightful disappointing. suspect you may say indignantly how first volume, A Princess of Mars (1917), Ever since reading the Cities in ridiculous this or that particular judge- was spoiled more and still more by the Flight series, I’ve wished that that edi- ment of mine is. And I suspect that following ten volumes (1918–64). tor had not sent his ‘four-page, single- dedicated SF readers are more cerebral I suppose any reader who has been space letter’ to Blish, prompting him to than I, readers to whom the scientific thrilled by a story wants more of the spoil his original novelette for me. And speculations of SF are more important same. But I believe that too often get- to this day I still curse the urge in so than the stories themselves. But do you ting more of the same is disastrous. I many SF writers to illuminate every agree that my point may perhaps be thought Vonda N. McIntyre’s short tiny corner of a story until nothing is generally true? story ‘Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand’ left for my imagination. (Analog, October 1973) was magnifi- One of the most wonderful SF sto- IV cent, and so I was eager to read the ries I read was Theodore Sturgeon’s 1978 novel, Dreamsnake, that she built novella, ‘Baby is Three’, in Galaxy I sometimes imagine that SF writers, on it. The short story is now only its Science Fiction (October 1952). It was when they get an idea for a story, first chapter. But the power of the especially wonderful because so very promptly wonder how many volumes original is missing from the rest of the little back story was given, and I was they can expand it across. No one book, which is so obviously tacked on. therefore left on my own to invent it for should blame them for wanting to And the vividly pictured and mysteri- myself. Many years later I read the make as much money out of their ideas ous setting of the short story is dimin- full-length book that this became, More as they can. But again and again I find ished by being placed in a larger than Human (1953). And I found that that multivolume stories rapidly be- environment. the original story was ruined for me by come dreary. Often only the first vol- There’s a mysterious underground the two tedious added parts that now ume is good, and the following ones city called Center in Dreamsnake, that sandwich the original novella: ‘The increasingly spoil it for me. you don’t get inside. It features briefly Fabulous Idiot’, and ‘Morality’. They I found Larry Niven, Jerry at the end of chapter 9. But it’s the fill in far too much, and destroy the Pournelle and Steven Barnes’s Legacy setting for most of McIntyre’s earlier original story’s mystery. of Heorot (1987) breathtaking, and 1975 novel, The Exile Waiting. I read The Russian writer Anton Chekhov therefore seized on its sequel with glee these books in reverse order, and the said,7 — The Dragons of Heorot/Beowulf’s Chil- mystery of Center in those nine pages dren (1995). But it was trite in an under- of Dreamsnake vanished when she took I think that when one has finished graduate sort of way. And what a me inside it in The Exile Waiting. writing a short story one should miserable anticlimax it was, that the However, because the characters delete the beginning and the end. Grendels were tamed! aren’t the same in the two books, I Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of didn’t find as much of that falling Although he is speaking only about Pern stories were wonderful in her first away that happens to so many SF short stories, this illuminates why two volumes, Dragonflight (1968), and novel series. ‘Baby is Three’ is so good, and why Dragonquest (1971). But the further the Therefore I asked McIntyre in a More than Human is not. The novella series continued, the more she de- March 1998 email if she intended writ- simply hangs there — isolated from stroyed their milieu by gradually re- ing more stories set in the milieu of space and time, you might say — un- moving its mystery. The series did these two books. She said, ‘The charac- connected to anything around it, or seem more like fantasy at its start, but ters of those books haven’t grabbed me before and after it. Where Lone, Janie, gradually segued into SF as it devel- by the collar and insisted that I write Bonnie & Beanie, and Baby came from oped, and it may have been better if it more about them, but in this biz you and how they got together, are not had remained fantasy throughout. For never know.’ How could I have been explained. And as soon as the protago- me The Crystal Singer (1982) is the best so stupid as to ask her that? So many nist Gerry finds out what they all are novel she’s written, mainly because times I’d seen how disastrous this ex- — ‘Homo Gestalt’ — the story ends. Killashandra Ree isn’t as cloying as her haustion of a story idea or milieu could More than Human removes this mys- protagonists usually are. But the be. Yet here I was, asking for the same tery of the novella’s before and after. second half of the next volume, Kil- thing too. But it had been a mystery that stirred lashandra (1985), spoiled the series with I wonder if milieu is easier to evis- your imagination so powerfully. It’s not only an embarrassingly juvenile cerate through a series than the story this mystery that Sturgeon should love story, but also some very inept set in it? William Gibson’s Neuro- have left untouched. characterisation. I couldn’t even force mancer trilogy consists of Neuromancer Why do so many SF writers do this? myself to finish her third volume, The (1984), Count Zero (1986), and Mona Why do they ruin their story ideas by Crystal Line (1992). It’s a pity too, that Lisa Overdrive (1988). The milieu that is writing them to death? They seem to as a McCaffrey series continues, she so so stunning in his first book fails to pride themselves on how fecund they often moves towards telling instead of excite me nearly as much in the other are with speculative ideas. Yet on the showing, as if her own interest in it has two as it becomes more detailed. And other hand it’s almost as if story ideas slackened. But how illuminating that perhaps the milieu’s power fading are so hard to come by that they’re is about a writer pushing a series much after the first volume is why the later afraid to treat them rigorously, and further than it ought to have gone! characters are not so gripping either. economically. And so they stretch The tendency of SF writers to ex- The difference between SF and them to such a length and fill in so tract every fragment from a story idea other genres is that it more than any

17 Although Dune is hardly ‘the greatest science fiction novel of all time’, it had one of the best set of illustrations. This Gollancz edition reprints one of John Schoenherr’s illustrations for the original Analog serialisation of the novel.

leave his story idea alone, and five in- creasingly tedious novels followed Dune, and dissipated it. The best part of the series is from where Paul and his mother are lost in the Arakeen desert at the start of ‘Muad’Dib’, Part II of Dune, to the start of the battle with the Emperor Shaddam IV that climaxes the novel. This is despite its mirabile dictu tendency to pile superlative on superlative. The Arakeen desert with its Fremen society is one of the two most vivid SF milieux that I’ve ever come across, but never so vivid after that battle. (The other is of Ridley Scott’s 1982 film, Blade Runner.) Then came Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s Prelude to Dune: House Atreides (1999), and the power of Frank’s first novel led me to read it. Or other depends on novelty: novelty of However, though the setting in a try to, because so much of Dune is milieu, novelty of character, and roofed city on Earth in The Caves of Steel spoiled by Herbert and Anderson. novelty of idea. And it’s difficult to is powerful, it’s weaker in the second They do little more than fill in the origi- stretch novelty over more than one volume on the planet Solaria, and nal back story, and therefore remove volume. This is why the shorter story weaker still in the third on the planet much of Dune’s mystery. It doesn’t is where SF shines most, more than it Aurora, though they are three separate help either that Prelude to Dune is so does in any other genre. Incidentally, mileux, of course. pedestrian. So I recoiled from it even it’s here that I think you can see the It seems harder in SF to build a before I finished it, and I’ve not difference between the two kinds of series around a single character and a bothered to look at their subsequent readers SF attracts: those who read it single milieu, whereas this seems to be volumes. for only a decade or so, and its lifelong one of the great strengths of detective In a way, what Frank’s son and aficionados. The first are attracted fiction. Think of Conan Doyle’s Sher- Anderson have done is an insult to more to its novelty of milieu and char- lock Holmes and London, Raymond Frank. His judgement was to leave acter, and the second more to its Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and Los various parts of his story untold, unex- novelty of idea. It’s also why the first Angeles, and Dashiell Hammett’s Sam plained, and mysterious — that is, to aren’t so upset if the science is wrong. Spade and San Francisco. On the other trust his readers’ imagination to fill in You may ask what I mean by hand, the thriller genre usually fails the gaps that he left. But they’ve pre- novelty of character. SF more than any badly when its writers use a character sumed to narrate those parts, to fill in other genre blurs the sharp delineation in more than one volume. Robert those gaps. What else does this suggest of character as purely human. (When Ludlum tried this with Jason Bourne in but that Frank’s judgement as a novel- animals are the characters in stories The Bourne Identity (1980), The Bourne ist was poor? such as Kenneth Graham’s 1908 The Supremacy (1986), and The Bourne Ulti- So what are we to expect now? That Wind in the Willows, they’re little more matum (1990). But once we know who even if some SF writers have not man- than anthropomorphised.) In SF, Bourne is, the two later volumes aren’t aged in their lifetimes to spoil their humans and other life forms and nearly as exciting — Bourne’s charac- stories and milieux by exhausting machines, and even gods, tend to ter is not strong enough to carry them. them, this won’t matter because their merge. ‘Man as monster’ you might The spy genre when it’s not so much children will? say is the chief character of SF, if you’ll the excitement of the unknown that I was interested to read something forgive the politically inept but more has to carry a series, has more chance in an article, ‘Buffy’s Season in Hell’, in alliterative ‘man’. SF democratises the of a character doing so, as does John Le Melbourne’s Age (26 July 2001). The Middle Ages’ hierarchical Ladder of Carré’s George Smiley, Ian Fleming’s article is about the TV series Buffy the 8 Being, making everyone and even James Bond, and Andrew York’s Jonas Vampire Slayer (1997–2003).9 everything equal members of the Wilde. But the spy story in these cases universe. is more akin to the detective story than Once upon a time, Buffy had no It seems rare to me for a single char- to the thriller. sister but Dawn’s insertion into the acter in SF to be powerful enough to Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) is one family came early in series five, carry more than one volume. One of of the best SF novels I’ve read. This is and, typically, it was achieved in the few SF characters who do seem despite its tending to be pretentious striking style. Suddenly, out of the strong enough to do this is Isaac Asi- when he stops the story and lectures blue, she was living in the Sum- mov’s detective, Elijah Baley, in The the reader — a fault particularly of the mers’ suburban home, griping like Caves of Steel (1954), The Naked Sun awful fourth volume, God Emperor of young girls do about how unfair life (1957), and The Robots of Dawn (1983). Dune (1981). But Herbert, too, couldn’t is and shyly making eyes at Xander.

18 And nobody blinked. It was simply work if they simply oblige their fans ations since 1960; first published constructed as though she had al- with endless variations on their first 1930. Galaxy Science Fiction was ways been there. successful stories? published 1950–80. Most TV shows would have Now since I have never been an SF 2 Robert A. Heinlein’s novel, Citizen jumped through narrative hoops in fan, I’m quite prepared to be told that of the Galaxy (1957). order to introduce a new family this just isn’t so. Yet perhaps lifelong 3 In the US a severe near-decade- member and most likely come up SF fans are the last people able to judge long drought starting in 1934 de- with some transparently inade- this, and are most blind to the harm stroyed crops and turned the soil quate explanation about adoption that they do. I imagine there are more to dust in the states of Kansas, or long-lost relatives. It’s indicative people like me — those who did read Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mex- of the elan that Whedon and his lots of SF for a while, but then gave it ico, and Texas. This, combined team bring to Buffy that they just away when it lost the novelty that had with the Great Depression of the plonked the kid at the kitchen table attracted them in the first place — 1930s, forced large numbers of and moved on. many more such people than there are people off the land, to migrate to lifelong SF fans. And I think that these other states, desperate for work Yes! — that’s how it should be done. people may be more likely than fans to and a place to live. They were (You do gradually find out more about look at SF objectively. (Perhaps SF fans known as Okies, after the state of Dawn’s origin in later episodes. But — and writers of SF — need to remind Oklahoma. the point is still valid, since throughout themselves that the word ‘fan’ is ab- 4 I checked SF story dates from John the series Whedon and his team make breviated from ‘fanatic’, which is ‘a Clute and Peter Nicholls, The En- similar leaps that are not filled in later person with an extreme and unreason- cyclopedia of Science Fiction (New on.) ing enthusiasm or zeal’, The Macquarie York, 1993, updated 1995). Unless And so, may I deduce two prin- Dictionary says. And note that word I say so, dates are of book publica- ciples for SF writers that are perhaps unreasoning!) tion. worth their thinking about? Make your It’s after that novelty has worn off James Blish’s four volumes are stories as short as you can, not as long as for those who were never fans, that the also available in an omnibus edi- you can; and Explain as little as you can failure to tell SF stories well becomes tion, Cities in Flight. get away with. In other words, Trust evident. Unless characterisation, dia- Book titles are sometimes your readers’ imagination far more. logue, style and so forth — and what changed in the UK from their US this diatribe is about, leaving far more originals, and vice versa. V to readers’ imagination — are all well 5 This ‘Author’s Note’ is dated I said at the start of this diatribe that I done, then most SF readers will con- 1964, and is in the Arrow Books wasn’t sure why SF writers don’t leave tinue to quit, and will end up moving edition (London, 1974). It isn’t in as much of their stories to their read- to other genres for their entertainment. all editions of Cities in Flight. The ers’ imagination as they should. But I Of course writers have to write editor he mentions but names do have one suspicion. Now I’ve never stories that people want to read. But I only obliquely in the Note is John been a fan of SF, nor have I ever re- believe they should move their readers W. Campbell, editor of Astounding garded myself as a fan, nor have I ever forward to new books, and introduce Science Fiction/Analog Science Fic- attended any SF conventions. And I them to new story ideas, new charac- tion and Fact, 1937–71. imagine fans might be enraged by ters, and new milieux, rather than let 6 Paris Review, volume 18, 1958, p. what I am going to say, which is: I their readers drag them back into ter- 84. The interview is perhaps easier suspect that fandom is one of SF’s big- ritories they’ve already made them fa- to find in Writers at Work: The Paris gest weaknesses. miliar with. Like Marcel Proust, Review Interviews, Second Series I think that when writers too often writers should instead of so often go- (London, 1963), p. 198. This is tap into their readers’ feedback, they ing to bed with their readers, go to bed sometimes known as Heming- tend to respond by writing more of the alone in a cork-lined bedroom for a way’s ‘Iceberg Principle/Theory’, same. And the result is that they over- decade or two and, isolated from their one which he expounded on at use their story ideas, characters and readers, write their books entirely on various times, such as in Death in milieux. So I wonder whether SF their own. the Afternoon (1932) at the end of would benefit greatly from its writers What if Shakespeare’s fans had chapter 16, p. 183. and readers cutting themselves off caused him to write nothing but more 7 Unsourced quote in Ian Reid, The from one another, and ceasing to live plays illustrating the history of Eng- Short Story (London, 1977), pp. in the mutually cannibalistic way that land, so that we never got A Midsum- 62–3. I’d love to know its source. they seem to now. mer Night’s Dream, or Romeo and Juliet, 8 The Ladder has six rungs that are, I’ve seen some genre writers on or Hamlet, or Antony and Cleopatra? from bottom to top, inanimate their websites plead with their readers What if Dickens’s fans had persuaded matter, plants, animals, humans, to let them know what they like about him to write nothing but sequels to angels, and God. Each has an ad- their stories, and which characters Pickwick Papers, so that there were no ditional attribute: plants grow, they’d like to read more about. And so Oliver Twist, no Nicholas Nickleby, no whereas inanimate matter does they deliberately produce what their Bleak House, and no Great Expectations? not; animals move about, which readers say they want, which means Is that the way writers ought to go? plants do not; humans have souls, more and still more of the same. But which animals do not; etc. how many fans are going to come up Notes 9 Season 5, Episode 1, ‘Buffy versus with totally new directions for writers 1Today, Astounding Science Fiction Dracula’, et seq. whose stories they love? And are writ- is Analog Science Fiction and Fact, a ers going to produce more mature title that it’s had with minor vari- — Ray Wood, 2004

19 The iceberg symposium, part 2

The appeal of the short story

by Gillian Polack

Gillian Polack has written several Books discussed: This is important. Whatever rea- books. Illuminations (described by soning that readers apply, and what- one critic as ’fantasy with footnotes’) The Fall of Tartarus ever the paradigms applied by was published in 2002. Everything by Eric Brown academics, writers and editors have a else is either forthcoming or contro- Gollancz 0-575-07618-6; 2005; tendency to divide things between the emotional and the intellectual. Let’s versial, including ‘The Art of Effective 312 pp.; £6.99/$A21.00 look at what these terms might mean Dreaming’ where Morris dancers die in practice. dreadful deaths. Occasionally she Black Juice Intellectual engagement is the soar- writes short stories. The most recent by Margo Lanagan ing aspiration of science fiction. is in Subterranean Magazine 4. One Gollancz 0-57507-781-6; 2006 Science fiction writers talk about push- of her short stories won a rather mi- (original Australian publication ing the envelope and trying out new nor literary award and another was 2004); 230 pp. ideas, opening new worlds and listed as recommended in Ellen Dat- stretching the reader’s universe. Eric low’s Year’s Best. She writes a great ‘The Memory of Breathing’, Brown’s anthology provides an excel- deal of short non-fiction, especially by Lynn Triffitt, lent example of this. He uses every material about the Middle Ages for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight story in a single anthology focused on the destruction of a single world (The enthusiasts and novelists. Currently Magazine, vol. 17. Fall of Tartarus) to explore a variety of she is working on a couple of larger human assumptions about relation- Why do we read short stories? Why projects. The most interesting con- ships, and life and eternity. Each story don’t we read short stories? Some of cerns bringing together and sharing takes a slightly different position, so the answers to these questions are of the types of information writers need throughout the anthology, the intellect the unfathomable variety. Some of to get a solid medieval backdrop for is engaged. them are simply to do with the their fiction. She teaches compo- Emotional engagement is much mechanics of writing. This is not a more subjective. What appeals to one nents of the project through the Aus- review of Eric Brown’s The Fall of reader might be dull to another. It is the tralian National University and Tartarus and Margo Lanagan’s Black immediacy of the story for the reader; through writers’ centres. Gillian has Juice. Both of them have been reviewed what pulls the reader into liking or received two Varuna Fellowships. elsewhere, to good effect. It is a review disliking a particular story; how of what a story can be and can do, quickly the reader is engaged and how using these anthologies as examples. slowly the reader disengages. Since emotional engagement can only really How do writers tempt readers into a discussed at the personal level, it is short story? Gillian Polack at ConVergence 2, June hard to find examples that are guaran- Writers tempt readers through engag- 2007. (Photo: Helena Binns.) teed to mean the same to all readers. ing with them. Easily said; not so easily Almost impossible, in fact. Feel free to explained. Engagement happens at find your own examples, if mine don’t several levels. The first level is that of give you the same reaction as they intellectual and emotional engage- aroused in me. ment. This is something writers have Lanagan’s prize-winning tale been very comfortable discussing: ‘Singing My Sister Down’ (Black over and over again, writers discuss Juice) had a deep emotional impact for how far engagement is intellectual and me, both immediate and lingering. I how far emotional. Editors also seem felt I was there, with the family on the to have a high level of comfort with tar pit. I had no such feeling for the these terms. In a weblog discussion people in any of Eric Brown’s stories, (see note, below), Ellen Datlow admit- no matter how close to home the ted to choosing stories because of their themes were. Even ‘A Prayer for the emotional engagement. Dead’ does not make me feel with

20 empathy with Joe, who sees his world its flares are going to be important to collapse. Brown’s works do not engage the story, but shows that the characters me as readily as Lanagan’s, when I will be more important. Brown moves compare stories volume to volume. us into the plot through the actions of When I analyse Brown’s and Lana- the protagonist Katerina as she awak- gan’s stories at the micro level, I find ens, but the sun’s actions also remain that Brown is no less technically com- important. In those few words, Brown petent than Lanagan. In fact, in some encapsulates the key background we ways he is more competent, ringing need, both to become hooked on the several changes on themes without re- story and to follow it. peating a story line. The story engages us, within the Interestingly, many readers will an- opening two paragraphs, by means of nounce that the level of their personal a main character (Katerina, from the engagement with a story is evidence of second paragraph), a narrative arc (the that a given writer is better or worse decline of the sun is crucial to all of than another. Emotional engagement Brown’s plots, so this hook ties in with is important, but it is not the only fea- both earlier and alter stories), an idea ture of a story that a writer uses to (the dying world) and a situation entertain a reader. More than any other (again, from paragraph two, with element of technique, it can create Katerina’s situation on Tartarus). reader loyalty. Emotional engagement and intel- How does a writer lead a reader lectual engagement are the most obvi- into engagement? There are several ous levels at which we, as readers, ways: by creating reader identification engage with a short story. There is a with a character; by developing reader second level beneath both of these: the identification with a narrative arc writing devices used to ensure such (tempting the reader into following the engagement. They make the intellec- ‘dropping a shoe’: the beginning of an plot or engaging him or her with an tual understandable and lead the action is separated from its ending, interesting situation); by using the lure reader gently into an emotional reac- and the reader must actively anticipate of the main idea (particularly impor- tion to a piece. Of these techniques, the the end. The reader wants to see what tant in science fiction). one that seems to create the most dis- the completion of the action or idea. In cussion among writers is the initial many short stories (largely because of Making acquaintance: sentence or paragraph of a story. Writ- their length), this gives the effect of the importance of openings ing devices open a dialogue between bringing the story full circle to a re- Short stories must have immediate the story and the reader. sounding emotional conclusion. This appeal. It is impossible to say ‘wait a Lanagan’s techniques often keep fulfils an emotional contract the writer hundred pages and see how this the voice of the narrator at one remove has made with the reader. shapes up’, because a hundred pages from the reader. She uses distancing What happens when this contract is later, the story will be long past. So the techniques, such as being unspecific not met? The reader might feel that a introduction must present more of the about the place and even the world in story has ended in a state of suspen- tale than is needed in the introduction which her story occurs. The themes of sion, with no joy in its ending, or might in a novel; it fulfils more functions, and her stories are strongly emotive, and experience intentionally induced sus- it must fulfil them well, otherwise the counterbalance the distancing in the pense. The difference between these reader has not been hooked. prose, drawing the reader into the sto- two similar endings is like the differ- Eric Brown opens his tale ‘The ries in Black Juice. ence between a perfect cadence and an Ultimate Sacrifice’ very science- interrupted cadence. The ending is fictionally. The first paragraph gives Keeping the reader’s attention given shock value. the setting, and the second, the Once readers have been drawn into the As I’ve shown, a reader’s loyalty is protagonist. story, the writer must maintain their most likely to be engaged when his or engagement. Passive readers who do her emotions are engaged. This can There was a spectacular aurora in not feel any engagement with a story lead to an emotive theme overshadow- the early hours of the morning, a will merely skim read. ing other elements in a story, or a story dancing sheet of magnesium-white A writer might engage readers by with a strong emotional power over- light which illuminated the night leaving much in a story unexplained, shadowing other stories in the same sky and brought a premature day- pushing the reader into using deduc- volume. An excellent example can be light to the darkside of Tartarus tive reasoning. The reader is forced found in Lyn Triffitt’s ‘The Memory Major. into an interaction with the story. Such of Breathing’, a story in Andromeda The flare awoke Katerina from a a strategy, however, often leads differ- Spaceways Inflight Magazine, no 17. dream about her brother, and it ent readers into widely different un- A writer can use a variety of tech- seemed a long time before she could derstandings of the work. This often niques to convey emotions. In the on- get back to sleep. She woke again happens among readers of Lanagan’s line discussion cited below, Ross when . . . work, where backgrounds and even Hamilton refers to to the shortcuts that reasons for doing things are offered Harlan Ellison uses to create immedi- An aurora can’t be spectacular un- without explanation, and the reader is ate reactions in readers (such as threat- less there is a watcher categorising it. forced to supply these explanations. ening the eye with a knife to create Brown lets us know that the sun and Another common technique is flinching). Another technique is to use

21 language that is subtly coloured to per- Is genre important? structure — the motif of the endan- suade the reader to take a position on Readers love to buy their books and gered world and the relationship of a subject, then challenge or support short stories according to genre. ‘I like living beings to that world — to add that position. fantasy,’ declares one. ‘Me, I prefer depth to the emotional aspects of each Triffitt uses all these techniques to horror and science fiction,’ says an- story. develop an affection in the reader for other. We classify short stories accord- Lanagan’s stories, on the other the dead child, and engage the reader ing to genres, but often these hand, have fuzzier edges. Some of her in the moral dilemmas of her story. classifications are independent of the short stories are set in unfamiliar socie- These techniques help to bring the techniques discussed above. ties, but the actual stories have no speculative fiction writer one step Reader engagement with specific magic, no scientific wizardry, and all closer to mimetic writing. genres is not decided by writing tech- the horror is created by human reac- Mimetic or mainstream realistic lit- niques or whether the work is short tions to what is going on. ‘Singing My erary fiction can be analysed into the story or three-volume novel, but by the Sister Down’ exemplifies this. same types of short cuts and technical choice of setting and theme. Within the Lanagan’s speculative fiction sig- tricks. Mimetic fiction is usually seen broad short-story classification, we nals can seem less clear for the reader. as related to characterisation, but what can find the numinous and the terrify- The main focus for each of her stories causes the reader to feel that a story has ing, internal growth, and world- tends to be at the personal level, and to strong characters is the writer’s ability deaths. The welding of genre charac- relate more to emotional and voice and to evoke emotional engagement in the teristics to a particular story links it to character development than to plot or reader. If the characters are not con- a genre and enables us, as readers, to the intellectual engagement with the vincing in mimetic fiction, the story decide in advance if we want to read a external world that Brown gives us doesn’t come to life: it fails. given story. with his Tartarus. The techniques used by speculative However, do readers know they are The level of satisfaction with the fiction writers are equally bridges be- reading a work of speculative fiction speculative elements is a part of the tween the reader and the world the before they begin it? If so, how does reader engagement with short stories, writer has created or speculative fic- this affect their expectations and so this difference is a crucial one. tion as in mimetic fiction; if the emo- change their reading experiences? This Genre, in other words, brings impor- tional identification happens, the is why I used the comparison between tant elements to reader engagement. bridge is crossed. Brown’s ‘Destiny on Brown and Lanagan as basis for dis- The differences between Brown and Tartarus’ is a story that shows how the cussion. Brown has mainly an specula- Lanagan, therefore, help point to some bridge works. The son talking to the tive fiction audience (as far as I know) of the specifics of short fiction in gen- image of his father provides the audi- while Lanagan has a wider appeal. eral, as well as helping to isolate the ence’s access to the son’s quest. It links Most people read a short story reader’s specific expectations for us directly with the plot. knowing it is a short story, and (from speculative fiction. It would take a book to list all the my personal experience at point of In summary, a writer can use many techniques writers use to create sale) will ask about the story’s genre techniques to bring readers inside a bridges. There are not an infinite num- before they buy it. This means that short story and encourage them to en- ber, but there are subtle differences Brown is writing to a very specific gage with it and identify closely. The between them. Sometimes a story is audience, whereas what might be per- differences between writers partly de- written in first person to create an in- ceived as weaknesses by Lanagan’s pend on the story they are telling, but stant bond with the reader (for exam- broader audience are actually also depend on the audience they seek. ple, Lanagan’s ‘Singing My Sister strengths. Lanagan’s best work has an Down’). Sometimes variations on extraordinarily universal quality, Note themes familiar to a writer’s audience which means her short stories can be The blogverse gives you a chance to are used, as in Brown’s playing and appreciated equally by readers of mi- think around ideas in a way otherwise replaying of the world-end and rela- metic and literary fiction and by read- unavailable. I owe a lot of the develop- tionship themes. Sometimes the read- ers of young adult fiction, as by SF ment of my thinking about stories to ers creates a link with the reader by genre readers. It doesn’t matter if various weblogs and the discussion on recreating some familiarity with a Brown’s work doesn’t engage a wider them. Most of them have linked to place or sentiment, whether by refer- audience, if his techniques successfully mine at some stage, so try ring to a real place or a known unreal capture the speculative fiction reader. http://www.livejournal/users/gill one, such as Lanagan’s use of the First and foremost, a speculative polack (particularly http://www.live- pseudo-medieval in Black Juice. fiction short story needs to have a clear journal.com/users/gillpolack/42422 The perfect story brings together all speculative element. In his collection, .html and http:// www.livejour- of these elements. It will have an emo- Brown achieves this by focusing on the nal.com/users/deborahb/60883. tive theme, with its techniques creating future of humankind, particularly as it html). strong reader engagement. For exam- is exemplified in the world of Tartarus. ple, ‘Singing My Sister Down’ works Every aspect of the emotional develop- — Gillian Polack, 2006 well at all levels. ment of each story fits within the broader framework of the destruction of Tartarus. Brown uses this overall

22 The iceberg symposium, part 3

Back to the short story

by Bruce Gillespie

It’s very liberating turning sixty. Now Delivered as a talk to the Nova Mob, verse, it seems a waste of time. Short I can join the ranks of the Grumpy Wednesday, 7 February 2007. stories or novellas seem much more Old Men. It’s so much more fun being effective conveyors of ideas than nov- irritated than pretending to be polite. I els. What is one to do with a novel: Not that I will be grumpy about every- spread the story like a smear of Vegemite over the whole story, or thing — now I feel free to be grumpy Turning sixty has set off a number of bees buzzing in my irritated belfry. throw in so many idea ingredients that about the things that matter: books, the novel dissolves into a sort of alpha- fanzines, music and films. No longer The first bee in my bonnet is my irrita- tion at hearing from some people in the bet soup? This seems to have been the do I have to put up with the second SF world that they no longer read short approach taken by many of the writers rate in those fields. In particular, I stories, but only novels. Yet science of today’s giant lumpy novels: either don’t have to put up with second-rate fiction publications provide one of the fire vast numbers of ideas at the reader, books just because they are new or few remaining venues where large or not bother about ideas at all. Both highly praised. I don’t have to put up numbers of short stories are published procedures are very boring. with long, dull novels because that’s every year. Somebody must be reading what everybody else is reading. I can them, and I am one of them. II return to the pleasures of reading I’ve always assumed that the whole The second bee in my bonnet has been short stories. mighty science fiction enterprise is based on the short story, but I couldn’t assembling this issue of Steam Engine have explained why. Since I began Time. I received two articles about SF reading SF in 1959, my most vivid short stories, which fit nicely under the reading experiences have always been heading of ‘The Iceberg Symposium’. the short stories in the field, from the But I needed a third article for the first Cordwainer Smith and Robert issue, which is this one. Sheckley stories I read in Galaxy, The first article is by Ray Wood, a through the best work of J. G. Ballard rather mysterious denizen of Eidolist and Brian Aldiss in the late sixties, the email list. His snail mail address is in fables of writers such as Calvino and Quorn, South Australia, which is north Borges in the early seventies, the out- of Whyalla, and that sounds hot and break of new writing in the eighties, ghodforsaken to me. His article is enti- and a whole crop of fine new Austra- tled ‘Imagination and Science Fiction’. Ray Wood tries to explain why there Brcue Gillespie, 2007. (Photo: Helana lian storytellers in the nineties. I still Binns.) remember Michael Bishop’s first pub- isn’t a lot of it around these days — lished short story ‘Piñon Fall’ (Galaxy, imagination, that is. In his article he October–November 1970), which was quotes Ernest Hemingway: followed by a stream of distinguished works from him through the seventies. I always try to write on the principle I can trace the rise and rise of Gene of the iceberg. There is seven- Wolfe and Ursula Le Guin through eighths of it underwater for every their memorable best stories as much part that shows. as by their novels. Short stories are the brightest flares in the field: indelible The ‘iceberg principle’ has always idea-prints that stay in the mind. seemed to me a great strength of the SF Science fiction is, for me, the fiction short story. By contrast, the SF novel of alternative ideas, usually about the tends to drag the whole iceberg on top future. If a story or novel doesn’t give of the water. Ray Wood’s article is me some new idea, or even a variation mainly about writers who have forgot- on an idea, about the world or the uni- ten the principle of the iceberg.

23 lock Holmes stories. George Edalji was 391 pages, has the advantage of mixing an unusual man in late Victorian Brit- humour and looming horror. He ain, the child of an Indian vicar and an speculates how his own zany family English wife, living in a small English might have pitted itself against the village. Persecuted by a poison-pen accumulating horror. letter writer, George was falsely In 2006, I read quite a few novels accused of killing horses, of all things, that contained exemplary prose. They then inexorably railroaded by some include Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, members of the police force into a long which took all my interest while I was prison sentence. Only after he had reading it, but about which I can been imprisoned did Arthur Conan remember little; Kathryn Davis’s Doyle become aware of the case and undeniably fine novel Labrador, whose begin his very public defence of gorgeous sentences have disappeared George, whose sentence was much from memory, and Elizabeth reduced. McCracken’s The Giant’s House, which It seems to me that this novel at 259 pages, was both short and should have been a rattling good yarn, memorable. The only novels that really much in the manner of the Conan seemed worth the trouble were John Doyle ‘long stories’, but it isn’t. At 503 Le Carre’s Absolute Friends, a convinc- pages, it is at least 250 pages too long. ing post 9/11 thriller, just ripe for film- The most unnecessary section is the ing; and Anne Tyler’s A Patchwork trial scene itself, nearly 100 pages long. Planet, which floats above the rest We know from the shape of the novel because of two sublime pages, which I what the outcome of that trial will be. won’t quote here. I spent the year look- We are shown clearly early in the novel ing for the tips of icebergs, and found the way in which the prosecutor is go- few. ing to use circumstantial evidence to While I’ve been growing more and This issue of Steam Engine Time also gain a conviction. The author insisted more impatient with novels, I’ve been features Gillian Polack’s article about on plodding through every boring finding jewels of short stories without the SF short story. Gillian writes short stage to get to the other side. I nearly looking for them. I don’t read the SF stories and conducts classes at Austra- gave up on the novel, as I’ve started to magazines any more, and some years lian National University. Her article, do with novels for the first time in my I don’t pick up an anthology for called ‘The Appeal of the Short Story’, life. months at a time. In 2006, however, I suffers only from a tendency to speak Although Julian Barnes has a formi- kept finding real treats among short to Australian would-be writers of dable reputation in Britain for his liter- story collections. short stories rather than to readers. ary fiction, the actual writing level of Dick Jenssen put in my hands a Since I’m not writing short stories or Arthur & George is not much above that copy of The Stories of Paul Bowles. Gore attempting to sell them, I speak only as of a current British thriller. And most Vidal describes Bowles as one of the a consumer of fiction; hence the differ- of them are also far too long. I blame three best American short story writers ences of emphasis between our P. D. James, in her mystery novels, for of the twentieth century. Bowles is not articles. starting the trend towards bloated nar- better than Flannery O’Connor, ratives in English popular fiction. Eudora Welty or Scott Fitzgerald, but III Almost every bestselling mystery nov- he’s pretty good. As Bowles did for elist except Ruth Rendell has followed many years, his restless characters My third bee in my bonnet is the failure her example. travel around a wide variety of over- of recent novels, including SF and fan- Each year, as you know, I make a seas countries, usually in northern tasy novels, to satisfy this particular list of my favourite novels. I have Africa or India. His characters slightly Grumpy Old Reader. It’s well over found over the last few years that I resemble those colonials in British twenty-five years since Paul Stevens, have been struggling to find a riveting fiction, those ‘mad dogs and English- once a looming presence behind the novel to pick as my favourite for the men’ who totter around in the noon- counter at Space Age Books, asked a year. In 2005, the only novels that day sun. Bowles implies that if you let customer what sort of book he wanted. really interested me were Gyneth a rich American loose in many coun- ‘Thick,’ said the customer. ‘I want a Jones’s Life, a powerful mixture of SF tries, he or she will go barmy and thick book.’ Thus began the era of the novel, biological thriller and love story undergo very odd adventures. thick customer. SF and fantasy books — and only 370 pages long — and Bowles must have some admirers have become steadily thicker since Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, still in America. The Best American Sto- then. That’s why I don’t read most of which tells what might have happened ries 2005 includes an astonishing story them. if Joseph Roth’s own Jewish immigrant called ‘Death Defier’ by Tom Bissell. This disease has spread to literary family had been trapped in an America The story has the same kind of imme- fiction. Recently Julian Barnes was where pro-Nazi Charles Lindbergh diacy as Bowles’ best stories. I’ve never shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize had run for office in 1942 and had heard of Bissell until now, but no for 2005 for the novel Arthur & George. beaten Roosevelt to win the Presi- doubt I will keeping hearing from him. It tells in fictional form the story of one dency. This could easily have hap- The story tells of a small group of of the few real-life cases that Arthur pened. Lindbergh, a flying hero, was American soldiers find themselves Conan Doyle took on after becoming offered the Republican nomination in marooned in the middle of post-9/11 well known as the author of the Sher- 1942, but turned it down. Roth’s novel, Aghanistan after their car is wrecked.

24 alised novels? here long before the first appearance of When I tried doing a bit of research Sherlock Holmes. on the subject, I hit a brick wall. My Our 1962 edition of the Encyclopedia Shorter Oxford Dictionary does not even Britannica takes a sniffy literary view of give a definition for the short story, let the short story, being only interested in alone any explanation of its origins. what it calls ‘the serious short story’: The Macquarie Dictionary, which is ‘The serious short story of the 20th often much more useful than the Ox- century might be visualized as occupy- ford, has this definition: ‘Short story: a ing a square, the four corners of which piece of prose fiction, usually confined are marked by the narrative essay or to a small group of characters and a sketch, the lyric poem, the prose drama single main event, and much shorter and the unit of local social history’. My than a novel.’ This definition helps to own interest is in the short stories that explain why short stories suit science people actually read, and have enjoyed fiction: the writer doesn’t have to reading over the last two centuries. worry about bringing to life more than The 1962 Britannica lists the first collec- a few characters, and the idea itself can tions of short stories as the fairy stories be maximised through one short and folk tales put together by E. T. A. punchy sequence of events. Hoffmann and the Grimm brothers in Where does the short story come Germany, and the stories of Washing- from? I turned to the Nicholls/Clute ton Irving in America. Britannica cred- Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. No entry its Edgar Allan Poe as one of the for ‘Short stories’. This seemed earliest practitioners. Poe called the astonishing to me, since I had taken for short story the ‘child of the American granted that the main engine of SF has magazine’. They try walking to their own base, always been the short story, and that Both editions of the Oxford Compan- asking for help from local tribesmen. the Encyclopedia would have said much ion to English Literature are silent about They come to realise they are in very about its early evolution. the ‘short story’, although they do foreign territory indeed. Again, one I then turned to my two encyclope- have a short entry for ‘Magazine fic- might point to similar British stories dias about mystery or detective stories. tion’, claiming that the English short about the Raj or East Africa, but Bissell, This is the genre that is historically story began in Pearson’s Magazine in like Bowles, has a vivid sense of how closest to science fiction, and one in the 1820s. helpless Americans can be when cut which many SF writers earn extra in- What all these sources might have off from everything they take for come. Herbert’s Oxford Companion to said, and nobody did, is that the main granted. Crime and Mystery Writing has a section attraction of the short story, up to the The other interesting aspect of The on the short story, but it tells me noth- advent of radio, was that members of Best American Stories for 2005 is that it ing about how the form came into be- a family could gather around the fire is edited by Michael Chabon, who is ing. It traces the beginning of the in the living room while somebody both an American literary lion and mystery short story in America to with a bit of a flair read a short story at One of Us. His novel The Adventures of Edgar Allan Poe, then to the maga- a single sitting. The other main use of Kavalier and Clay, about two comics zines of the pulp era, through to the the short story was for reading on pub- artists during the 1930s, is the best digest magazines of the forties and fif- lic transport. In either case, the voice of novel of the last ten years. Chabon ties, especially Ellery Queen’s Mystery the short story is its most important loves a good SF yarn, as can be seen in Magazine. It sets a division between characteristic: its assurance, from the the issues of McSweeney’s magazine mass market short stories, written for first line, that the storyteller will tell that he has edited. He is the first guest the pulps, and up-market stories for you something you have never heard editor of The Best American Stories for the ‘slicks’, such as those written by before, and that will keep you on the fifteen years to choose any genre short Chandler and Hammett, that is, the edge of your seat until the final para- stories, by people such as Kelly Link middle-class fiction in magazines such graph. and Tim Pratt. Most of the stories in the as Harper’s. Although the SF Encyclopedia does volume, especially those from non-SF The same source traces the begin- not have an entry for the short story as authors, have that offbeat quality that nings of the British short story to non- such, it covers several of its forms. The today we label as ‘slipstream fiction’. fiction accounts, written as memoirs, popular SF story probably begins in in the first magazines of the late eight- America in Munsey’s pulp magazines, IV eenth century. It lists the first real boost which begin in 1896, but there is no to the popularity of the mystery story specialist SF magazine until Hugo The fourth bee in my bonnet is making as being Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Hol- Gernsback’s Amazing Stories in 1926. sense of the concept of the short story. mes stories. However, any account of However, many of the H. G. Wells and What is so special about this form? Conan Doyle’s life, such as that in Ar- Jules Verne SF novels, and all the early Why does there need to be any division thur & George, emphasises that he Edgar Rice Burroughs ‘Tarzan’ and between the SF, fantasy or other genre wrote his stories to a formula already ‘Mars’ novels, had already been serial- short story and the so-called ‘literary’ well established in magazines such as ised in Argosy and other major pulp short story? Why have science fiction the Strand. As Lucy Sussex has discov- magazines long before Amazing began. magazines, from their beginnings in ered when she went looking in Austra- The pulps were called that because 1926, been based on the short story? lian sources, the form of the mystery they were printed on the cheapest pos- Why were they not based, say, on seri- story was already well established sible pulp paper, and sold very

25 Encyclopedia says, the fabulists tend to and Gillam’s book is based on research be ‘distrustful of the tools and as to by H. L. Nelson, in a book called Stories whether the world can be known’. I and Their Limits. The authors choose would point out that this distrustful five stories told by practitioners about attitude goes back at least to Philip cases, and analyse them according to Dick’s earliest short stories of the early the following ‘triggers’: ‘Naming ques- 1950s, many of which appeared in the tions’, ‘Sideways-looking questions’, pulps, and the best stories of Robert and ‘Forward-looking questions’. The Sheckley, most of which appeared be- latter two apply to fiction as much as fore the 1960s. The reason why I fell in to the telling of personal histories. Side- love with science fiction was because ways-looking questions include: of its scepticism about everything I had G What is the narrative frame, time, always taken for granted, not because plot, and desire? it offered ‘heroism, success’ or a ‘cheer- G How has the narrator cast her- or ful ending’. himself and the other characters? Although none of the sources G Who is telling the story? makes this point, the main difference G What has been left out of the narra- between genre SF stories and literary tive? Whose voice is not being short stories, at least as far as SF read- heard? What other stories does this ers are concerned, is the difference be- story resist? tween the way they tell the stories, not the content. As the old-time purists Forward-looking questions include: keep saying, a story should have a be- G What does this story tell us (that ginning, middle and an end. Many would not otherwise be heard)? New Yorker stories — and the New G How can engaging with this story cheaply. Until the cinema really Yorker still seems to be the standard- lead to ‘ethical mindfulness’ (for became popular about 1910, they had bearer for literary fiction throughout the health care professions)/‘sub- no competition as a form of popular the world — have a beginning, a big text’ (for readers of literature)? entertainment. The Encyclopedia lists emotional middle, and a whimpy, the main features of their fiction as squashed-soufflé ending. Many such If we change a few terms in this set ‘action, romance, heroism, success, stories still work because the big reve- of ‘triggers’, we gain an analysis exotic milieux, fantastic adventures lation — the epiphany — is in the method that is much more useful for (often with a sprinkling of love inter- middle, not the end, which is all right talking about genre stories than most est), and almost invariably a cheerful as long as you’re not expecting a satis- of those offered in short story courses. ending’. Today we still give the name factory ending. In particular, I like that term of ‘pulp fiction’ to stories with those ‘sideways-looking questions’. It’s qualities. Their other main feature is V really helpful when trying to talk that they are ‘stylistically crude’, but about the stories of Kaaron Warren. with ‘good narrative pacing’. The main bee in my day-to-day bonnet The stories of Kaaron Warren and Because of the Internet, and is attempting to make a meagre living Margo Lanagan have been buzzing especially a YahooGroup called Fic- while being addicted to an expensive around in my head ever since I first tionmags, I’ve discovered there are hobby — publishing a fanzine. Much read their books a year or two ago. I many readers throughout the world of the year I have to live on savings was very late in discovering Margo who collect and read pulp magazines from the few freelance editing jobs I Lanagan, whose first book White Time when they can find them, because they manage to scrounge. It’s not often that won an Aurealis Award some years provide just the qualities I’ve listed. one of the books I work on as a free- ago. Her second book, Black Juice, has The SF genre itself, though, seems to lance editor casts any light on my own been released in America and Britain, have gone in another direction. personal interests. However, last year and its feature story, ‘Singing My In the Encyclopedia’s entry on ‘Main- I edited a book for IP Communications Sister Down’, keeps picking up stream’ (as opposed to ‘Pulps’), the called Telling Moments: Everyday awards. Since Gillian Polack has dis- literary short story is described as a Ethics in Health Care, by Marilys cussed that story in her article, I’ll ‘realistic story of human character’, Guillemin and Lynn Gillam. won’t talk about Lanagan’s work here. although the entry does make the Telling Moments does not deal with Kaaron Warren’s first collection, point that science fiction began in the fiction stories as such. It is a book The Grinding House, has not yet had mainstream of English literature, with designed for health care practitioners the success of Margo Lanagan’s Black the books and stories of H. G. Wells, who use stories told by practitioners to Juice, but its stories are even darker and and only became a cut-off genre when help counsel patients and carers. This more interesting than Lanagan’s. it became part of American magazine turns out not to be a straightforward Take Warren’s story ‘Fresh Young fiction. The article makes a very nice approach. In fact, it is has led to the Widow’, which Bill Congreve and distinction between Golden Age SF discipline called ‘narratology’, which Michelle Marquardt picked up for the genre fiction, where ‘its whole creative is the analysis of the ways in which Year’s Best Australian Science Fiction and effort is bent on making its imaginary narratives work. Fantasy, Vol. 2. worlds, its imaginary future, as real as Much of the terminology of narra- In the story’s first paragraph: possible’, and much genre fiction of the tology borders on the territory of last twenty years, which could be semiotics, a field I don’t understand The fresh young widow washed called ‘fabulism’ or ‘slipstream’. As the and usually try to avoid. Guillemin her husband’s body. She dipped

26 her cloth into cloudy water and rub clay that surrounds the town. The clay thise with strange characters, dig deep rubbed at him, cleaning the pores, itself seems to have some magic quali- into the story, to find out its truths. A washing away dried blood, picking ties. After the clay figure is set in the very powerful example of this process at it with her long, strong finger- wall, Marla sneaks out at night, cracks can be found in the title story ‘The nails. She closed her eyes as she the appropriate area of the clay case, Grinding House’, which tells of the touched his body but he was so cold reaches in, and takes out a baby girl. world caused by the ossification of all that she couldn’t imagine him alive. No babies have been born in the town humans and higher creatures on earth. She laid her head on his belly and in two years. They are all turning into bone from the let her tears wet him. The story gains much of its strength inside out. The power of the story from the fact that Kaaron Warren has comes not from its general situation, This is my idea of ‘poetic prose’: almost no intention of explaining these but from taking a last pilgrimage with no adjectives, few words that overtly strange happenings. Is this magic, or one family whose members are ossify- emotional, with all the work done an alternative physics? We see things ing, and therefore dying, one by one. If through muscular nouns and verbs. only through the eyes of Marla and the this story is reprinted widely overseas, This storyteller seems to have a steely rest of the townspeople. They capture it will make Kaaron Warren famous. quality to her as well as a capacity for the husband’s killer, kill him, and bake SF and fantasy short stories have strong emotion. That term ‘fresh him upside down into his own clay retained their capacity for change. I young widow’ is interesting; we want man, which is also set in the wall. was going to discuss Jerome Bixby’s to know as much as possible about her. Everything in the town is ruled by ‘It’s a Good Life’ (1953), one of the We think we know what is happen- ritual and perpetual stoic despair. The most famous American SF short ing, and quickly discover that we characters hope that some time in the stories. Like many of the great stories don’t. Why has the husband died? The future all the bodies placed in the wall from that period, it also has that ability only comment is, from Connie, the sec- during the history of the city will come to let us see characters and situations ond voice in the story, is: ‘Why do they alive. from the inside out. Its situation is hor- even let the tourists in?’ Another char- Like Margo Lanagan, Warren sees rifying, but its cool, concentrated prose acter says: ‘There will be no clay walk.’ things from the inside out. This is a works admirably. The fact that writers So what is the ‘clay walk’? very different approach from that of like Warren and Lanagan in Australia The story becomes increasingly the classic SF writers, who tended to can take up this tradition and run with strange. As readers we have no choice explore strange words and universes it in a wholly original way means that but to ask ‘sideways-looking ques- from the viewpoint of the outsider ex- I still find it very satisfying to explore tions’, because it becomes plain that plorer. In most of the stories in The books of short stories. I urge you to do the author will not give direct answers Grinding House, we have to guess at the same. to our implied questions. Some sort of what is ‘really’ happening — that is, magic seems to be invoked. Marla, the from our viewpoint. We have to empa- — Bruce Gillespie, January 2007 widow of the title, talks about adding ‘fingernail clippings, a link from his mother’s chain and a pinch of corian- der’ to something she calls the ‘clay mix’. The clay is being mixed as part of the funeral ritual. Marla begins to cover her husband’s body in the clay. Abruptly we realise that we not in a terrestrial world of ancient ritual. Mala builds a penis for the clay man, then makes love to the figure. The clay man is then taken to the Kiln and baked hard. As part of the funeral ritual, the equivalent of the chief priest invokes a blessing: ‘Into the wall we cement thy physical being. May your soul be free to roam until the great clay walk. May your body stay safe within the wall, an empty vessel awaiting your return.’ It’s pretty easy to see the parallels to the biblical notion, in our world, of souls arising at the end of time and reoccupying their bodies. It seems that the dead of this town are all baked into clay figures and placed inside a wall of

27 Enjoy a good short story

Bruce Gillespie

The following charts emerged from 18 ‘Houston, Houston, Do You 35 ’Inhabiting the Interspaces’ my ‘researches’ (fossicking around) Read?’ (James Tiptree Jr) 1979 (Philippa C. Maddern) 1979 A for the article you have just read. You 19 ‘Life the Solitude’ (Kevin McKay) 36 ’Looking Forward to the Harvest’ are invited to send in your own lists, 1983 A (Cherry Wilder) 1996 comments on your and my lists, or 20 ‘The Dominant Style’ (Sean 37 ’The True State of Affairs’ (Diana McMullen) 1991 A Wynne Jones) 1998 long articles about the short story 21 ‘The Twist of Fate’ (David Grigg) 38 ’A Man and His Dreams’ (Marele form. 1985 A Day) 1997 A 22 ‘The Safe-Deposit Box’ (Greg 39 ’Not with Love’ (Philippa C. Mad- Bruce Gillespie’s favourite short Egan) 1995 A dern) 1995 A fiction (SF and fantasy) published 23 ‘On for the Long Haul’ (T. 40 ’Angel Thing’ (Petrina Smith) 1977–2006 Coraghessan Boyle) 1988 1995 A The following list was prompted by 24 ‘The Unicorn Tapestry’ (Suzy 41 ’The Bone Ship’ (Terry Dowling) discussion on one of the email groups McKee Charnas) 1980 2003 A (probably Fictionmags) more than a 25 ‘God and Her Black Sense of His- 42 ’White Time’ (Margo Lanagan) year ago. Somebody was asking for tory’ (Lucy Sussex) 1990 A 2000 A candidates for an upcoming antho- 26 ’Rainbow Bridge’ (Kim Stanley 43 ’The Silence of the Falling Stars’ logy. I cannot remember why the years Robinson) 1992 (Mike O’Driscoll) 2003 to be covered began in 1977. 27 ’Firewatch’ (Connie Willis) 1983 44 ’The Ragthorn’ (Robert Holdstock 28 ’The Walk’ (Greg Egan) 1994 A and Gary Kilworth) 1994 A = Australian author. 29 ’Varicose Worms’ (Scott Baker) 45 ’Horse Meat’ (Brian W. Aldiss) 1991 1997 30 ’The Green Road to Quephanda’ 46 ’Red Ochre’ (Lucy Sussex) 1990 A 1 ‘The Mask’ (Stanislaw Lem) 1977 (Ruth Rendell) 1995 47 ’The Dove Game’ (Marele Day) 2 ‘The Battle of Acosta Nu’ (Gerald 31 ’The Dirty Little Girl’ (Joanna 2003 A Murnane) 1985 A Russ) 1998 48 ’Wooden Bridge’ (Margo Lana- 3 ‘The Little Kingdom of J. Franklin 32 ’The Boy Who Didn’t Yearn’ gan) 2004 A Payne’ (Steven Millhauser) 1993 (Margo Lanagan) 2003 A 49 ’The Grinding House’ (Kaaron 4 ‘Little Red’s Tango’ (Peter Straub) 33 ’Steppenperd’ (Brian W. Aldiss) Warren) 2005 A 2006 2001 50 ’Singing My Sister Down’ (Margo 5 ‘Seven American Nights’ (Gene 34 ’How the Other Half Lives’ (James Lanagan) 2004 A Wolfe) 1978 Lovegrove) 2002 51 ’No 3 Raw Place’ (Deborah Bian- 6 ‘The Pressure of Time’ (Thomas cotti) 2004 A M. Disch) 1980 52 ’The Gloaming’ (Lucy Sussex) 7 ‘On the Turn’ (Leanne Frahm) 2000 A 1988 A 53 ’Fresh Young Widow’ (Kaaron 8 ‘A Map of the Mines of Barnath’ Warren) 2005 A (Sean Williams) 1995 A 54 ’One Thing About the Night’ 9 ‘The Fittest’ (George Turner) 1985 (Terry Dowling) 2003 A A 55 ’Basic Black’ (Terry Dowling) 10 ‘A Letter from the Clearys’ (Con- 2003 A nie Willis) 1986 56 ’Saving Face’ (Michael Bishop) 11 ‘The Caress’ (Greg Egan) 1990 A 1984 12 ‘Ashland, Kentucky’ (Terence M. 57 ’Re-deem the Night’ (David J. Green) 1993 Lake) 1979 A 13 ‘Seven Guesses of the Heart’ (M. 58 ’Isobel Avens Returns to Stepney John Harrison) 2000 in the Spring’ (M. John Harrison) 14 ‘Leningrad Nights’ (Graham 1994 Joyce) 2002 59 ’Bones’ (Rjurik Davidson) 2004 A 15 ‘Tendeleo’s Story’ (Ian McDon- ald) 2002 (30 Australian stories.) 16 ‘Pie Row Joe’ (Kevin McKay) 1978 A 17 ‘Out There Where the Big Ships Go’ (Richard Cowper) 1979

28 Bruce Gillespie’s favourite short American Stories 2005 fiction read in 2005 5 ‘Pages from Cold Point’ (Paul Yes, I realise I’ve changed the rules Bowles) The Stories of Paul Bowles slightly for this list. Of the following 6 ‘Here to Learn’ (Paul Bowles) The stories, I would count as genre or bor- Stories of Paul Bowles derline SF or fantasy nos 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 7 ‘Call at Corazon’ (Paul Bowles) 9 and 10. The Stories of Paul Bowles 1 ‘The Little Kingdom of J. Franklin 8‘Pastor Dowe at Tacaté’ (Paul Payne’ (Steven Millhauser) Little Bowles) The Stories of Paul Bowles Kingdoms 9‘The Grinding House’ (Kaaron 2 ‘A Man Called Horse’ (Dorothy Warren) The Grinding House A M. Johnson) Adaptations 10 ‘Fresh Young Widow’ (Kaaron 3 ‘The Sepia Postcard’ (Steven Mill- Warren) The Grinding House A hauser) The Barnum Museum 11 ‘You Are Not I’ (Paul Bowles) The 4 ‘Revenge’ (Steven Millhauser) The Stories of Paul Bowles King in the Tree 12 ‘Justice Shiva Ram Murthy’ (Rishi 5 ‘Babylon Revisited’ (F. Scott Raddi) Best American Stories 2005 Fitzgerald) Adaptations 13 ‘The Circular Valley’ (Paul 6 ‘Coming to Terms’ (Eileen Gunn) Bowles) The Stories of Paul Bowles Stable Strategies 14 ‘The Fourth Day Out from Santa 7 ‘The Gloaming’ (Lucy Sussex) A Cruz’ (Paul Bowles) The Stories of Tour Guide in Utopia A Paul Bowles 8 ‘An Adventure of Don Juan’ 15 ‘No One Writes to the Colonel’ (Steven Millhauser) The King in the (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) No One 13 ‘The Weapon Shop’, A. E. van Tree Writes to the Colonel Vogt 9 ‘No 3 Raw Place’ (Deborah 16 ‘Skein Dogs’ (Leanne Frahm) (tie) ‘Twilight’, John W. Campbell Biancotti) The Year’s Best Austra- Year’s Best Australian Science 15 ‘Arena’, Fredric Brown lian SF and Fantasy, Vol. 1 A Fiction and Fantasy, Vol. 2 A 10 ‘Bones’ (Rjurik Davidson) The 17 ‘The Red Priest’s Homecoming’ Favourite SF novellas as chosen Year’s Best Australian SF and (Dirk Flinthart) Year’s Best Austra- by members of the Science Fantasy, Vol. 1 A lian Science Fiction and Fantasy, Vol. Fiction Writers of America in 1971 2 A Source: Ben Bova (ed.): The Science Fic- 18 ‘The Hortlak’ (Kelly Link) Magic Bruce Gillespie’s favourite short tion Hall of Fame, Vol. 2A (Doubleday; for Beginners 1973. fiction read in 2006 19 ‘The Wrong Seat’ (Kaaron 1 ‘Little Red’s Tango’ (Peter Straub) Warren) The Grinding House A Conjunctions:39 20 ‘The Hanging People’ (Kaaron The ten most popular novellas: 2 ‘The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Warren) The Grinding House A ‘Who Goes There?’ by John W. Camp- Heroines’ (John Crowley) Con- bell, Jr. junctions:39 Favourite SF short stories as ‘A Canticle For Leibowitz’ by Walter 3 ‘Silence’ (Alice Munro) Best chosen by members of the M. Miller, Jr. American Stories 2005 Science Fiction Writers of ‘With Folded Hands’ by Jack William- 4 ‘Death Defier’ (Tom Bissell) Best America in 1969 son ‘The Time Machine’ by H. G. Wells Source: Robert Silverberg (ed.): Science ‘Baby Is Three’ by Theodore Sturgeon Fiction Hall of Fame (Doubleday; 1970). ‘Vintage Season’ by Henry Kuttner 1‘Nightfall’, Isaac Asimov and C. L. Moore 2 ‘A Martian Odyssey’, Stanley G. ‘The Marching Morons’ by C. M. Korn- Weinbaum bluth 3 ‘Flowers for Algernon’, Daniel ‘Universe’ by Robert A. Heinlein Keyes ‘By His Bootstraps’ by Robert A. Hein- 4 ‘Microcosmic God’, Theodore lein Sturgeon ‘Nerves’ by Lester Del Rey (tie) ‘First Contact’, Murray Leinster 6 ‘A Rose for Ecclesiastes’, Roger The ten most popular authors: Zelazny 7 ‘The Roads Must Roll’, Robert A. Robert A. Heinlein Heinlein Theodore Sturgeon (tie) ‘Mimsy Were the Borogoves’, John W. Campbell, Jr. Lewis Padgett Walter M. Miller, Jr. (tie) ‘Coming Attraction’, Fritz Leiber Lester del Rey (tie) ‘The Cold Equations’, Tom God- C. M. Kornbluth win Jack Williamson 11 ‘The Nine Billion Names of God’, H. G. Wells Arthur C. Clarke Poul Anderson 12 ‘Surface Tension’, James Blish Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore

29 Howard Waldrop: The music of the spheres is Frankie Lymon

by Matthew Davis

Matthew Davis is responsible for a The folk myth of Howard Waldrop is magazine and the Saturday Evening small part-time public library in the a tale to whisper into the cribs of future Post, Famous Monsters of Filmland and Midlands, England. He’s only been SF writers, a version of the artist starv- Aurora Models, Sputnik, Beatlemania, shot at once during opening hours. ing in his garret (or on the banks of the Rolling Stone and Kent State: that is all He has had articles appear in Foun- Stillaguamish, as the case may be) to you know and all you need to know. If make a literary agent blanche. And yet their predecessors had looked to dation, The Internet Review of Waldrop should be as popular as unlock the history of Western civilisa- Science Fiction, and Snake’s Hands: Stephen King, since their similarities tion in Ulysses or Wagner, baby boom- The Fiction of John Crowley. are much greater than their differ- ers brought that same imaginative and ences. Both were born in the late 1940s critical intensity to Roger Corman and are exemplars of the baby boomer films, Elvis and Batman. From being imagination: the prosperous ’50s consumers, they rapidly became fans, childhood, the ’60s revolution, the self- self-indoctrinated in the glamour of reverence for their popular culture, the semiotics and explication of the pop aspirations, anxieties and disillusion- culture they championed and claimed ment of a generation heaving itself into for themselves, and then went on to get adulthood and after. Not only do they their hands on the means of produc- choose to write in a vein of American tion: the film-school brats like Spiel- mass culture, they also relish any berg, Coppola and Dante; the snide opportunity to incorporate pop collegiates of the National Lampoon; or references. They both exude a folksy critics of such differing stripes as gosh-wow persona. But if King has Lester Bangs (who also casts a lengthy been more successful in winning a shadow over ‘80s cyberpunk) and broad audience, it is because he Camille Paglia: a generation of Ameri- reflects, amplifies and validates their cans who, if they had experience of the experiences and assumptions, propi- supra-narratives of Western civilisa- tiating a generation’s folk myths to the tion, it was subsumed in the total extent that he too has become one of shared experiences of the popular them. Waldrop wants to explain each media American dream (Oswald individual pop icon or event, and Spengler and Marxist revisionism therefore his writing is not so trapped direct more than a few Waldrop stories in nostalgic acceptance, instead about movie monsters or theme park examining the ties between American characters). arts such as cinema and music and Whatever the reality and quality of personalised American history, those old films, pop songs, magazines, dramatising his exegesis into fiction. TV adverts, sitcoms, etc., the baby For if the reader can wallow in King’s boomers made them transcendent by lengthy narratives of family and social awe and love (as too do SF fans with ties, then the concision and rapid the contents of their long-dead pulps; juxtapositions of Waldrop’s stories and there is a larger argument to be threaten to induce vertigo. made that contemporary consumption Baby boomers were raised on TV of pop culture has adopted the and went steady with rock and roll. neotenic paradigms of fannishness They had a love affair with the pop first pioneered by the SF community). culture of their youth and adolescence They refined them in their minds to the as strongly affecting and formative as iconic noumena their teenage eyes first any teenage crush. Whatever literary discovered in these shoddy produc- and cultural touchstone preceding tions, cherishing the pure imaginative generations may have had, baby content and the incidentals of creation. boomers had mass culture. A genera- It was they who made the icons, their tion of young men followed the same fandom claiming them as fetishes from stations of the baby boomer cross: the wash of mere commodities. Pop Scrooge McDuck and EC comics, Life culture, later given the nod by

30 Marshall McLuhan, Andy Warhol and who through technology can make the past: ‘Save A Place In the Lifeboat for Roland Barthes, took over from the old whole of film history permeable, intro- Me’ is about the attempt to prevent myths, and new writers realised that ducing characters and scenes from old Buddy Holly from dying. Stories are modern society was saying the most films into his scenarios, until he be- animated by the adolescent wonder at important things about itself through comes unable to tell his present from the freshness of these pop icons and its mass media culture. SF writers such their past, sucked into an imaginative the place they had in his generation’s as Fritz Leiber, P. J. Farmer and Roger singularity. life, but the adult Waldrop knows that Zelazny could take the classical myths In one sense Waldrop‘s stories are they can’t be brought back, despite they’d read as children and contort almost improvisations around that mass culture’s rush to reissue. All the them to fit SF’s new worlds. The new feedback, the industrial whine created adult Waldrop can do is make you generation knew the dreams of the by America‘s culture and history, try- thrill as he thrilled and then feel the future would be woven out of the pre- ing to find the true chord. Really importance of their subsequent sent pop culture, and when they though, Waldrop is less a meta- passing. For all the invention of his turned to inner space the characters historical Jimi Hendrix than a modern scenarios, the dodos and the Big Bop- waiting for them were out of old pulp Brothers Grimm, using the pop icons per still die, totalitarian terror obtains magazines and the comics pages, not of his youth and all the minutiae of and the Holocaust is inevitable. The Frazer or Freud. New Wave fiction is Americana to write contemporary price to be paid for an alternate world, awash with representations of Mickey American folk tales (indeed, in ‘Our maybe a better world, may be too pain- Mouse and Superman. The most Mortal Span’ Waldrop identified the ful, too much to be borne by any indi- extreme example would be Arthur historic necessities out of which folk vidual. The apparently congenial Byron Cover’s ‘Autumn Angels’ series and fairy tales are formed). Like village life of an African boy in ‘The of zanily depressing stories, in which American tall tales, his stories demon- Lions Are Asleep Tonight’ is a result of the last all-powerful humans at the end strate a love for the exuberant and the obliteration of native Americans of time have exhausted all opportuni- comic, but, ultimately, they have from the record of history. The pro- ties for self-expression save to adopt pathetic endings. The passions of his tagonist of ‘Calling Your Name’, a the personas of Captain Marvel, Sher- adolescence for celluloid and transis- figure who might in this one rare lock Holmes, etc. tor fantasies are animated by zany instance be Waldrop’s surrogate, finds Which diegesis, through swerve humour but leavened by affectionate as he slips across several alternate con- and bend, brings us rushing back to tender melancholy (SF is not necessar- temporary Americas the apparent Howard Waldrop. He is a profoundly ily much noted for its sense of compas- benefits are enjoyed at the expense of American writer. For while King uses sion). Tenderness is demonstrated by his personal relations and the life pop mythopoeia for references of veri- Waldrop to his characters rather than already built for himself. similitude, or as familiar signpost by within the stories themselves. The If there is a recurrent theme in which to direct his readers, Waldrop amorous and sensual aspects of art Waldrop’s stories, it is ‘They couldda ratchets it to the next level, making that seem largely absent from his work been contenders’. Indeed, Waldrop these representations the subjects of are instead sublimated into the crea- explicitly uses this phrase, echoing his fiction, as worlds in which to oper- tion of his work, thereby seducing his Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront to ate in and of themselves. Outside of SF, readers. Unlike many academic cul- begin ‘Flying Saucer Rock and Roll’. Waldrop’s peers are those post- tural critics, through the dramas of his Many of Waldrop’s stories are built modern avant-gardists, whom David fictions Waldrop offers stories that are around contests: the psychic sumo Foster Wallace identifies as hyper- alive to the pleasures of his subjects, wrestling of ‘Man-Mountain Gentian’, realist, whose realism depicts as its that truly are erotic hermeneutics, with the tractor pull of ‘Mary Margaret subject the imaginary landscapes of a all the pleasure and loss true eroticism Road-Grader’, the doo-wop of ‘Flying world deformed by electric images: denotes. Waldrop likes to trace back Saucer Rock and Roll’, and fishing in Delillo’s novels, Coover’s A Public his first experience of SF to seeing a ‘God’s Hooks’, with the climax being Burning, Cantor’s Krazy Kat, Woody dinosaur standing next to a barn in an the description of the bout itself. Or Allen’s Zelig. To write about the conse- early children’s book, and his fiction else many stories build up to some quences of American history is to write has that same wonder of a child artistic or dramatic achievement, about how it has been represented in explaining to anyone who will listen which might have but never did occur the American media, and then how about dinosaurs and the same feeling in this world: ‘Ike at the Mike’, ‘Fin de this feeds back into subsequent his- of loss for a marvel that has passed Cycle’, ‘Occam’s Ducks’, ‘The Effects tory. The question is always, ‘Will art from the world. (Later Waldrop will of Alienation’. The protagonists usu- replace history?’ Or can the artistic act include TV programs and actors ally win; they pull off their artistic survive outside of its historical fact? among his ‘Strange Monsters of the attempt, typically to standing ovations Waldrop’s characters find themselves Recent Past‘.) and shrieks from the audience. walking through history and through His alternative history stories are others’ artistic endeavours. For how about how we may be trapped by Ike was crying as they went into the can we know a period except through history. Dodos, Neanderthals, passen- final number. He stepped forward how the people of that time repre- ger pigeons, mammoths, Thomas to the mike Helen had used when sented themselves; as in the extreme Wolfe, Charles Lindbergh Jr., all get a she came out to sing with them for case of ‘What Makes Hieronymous second chance. Their glamour and the last three numbers. ‘This song is Run’, where his time travellers find romance is made actual and revivified, for the memory of George Smith themselves overshooting the sixteenth but at the last moment they must be Patton,’ he said. They played ‘The century to find themselves trapped in lost again so that their loss in our real Old, Rugged Cross.’ Ike, nor any- sixteenth-century paintings instead. world may be felt more keenly. body else, had ever played it just Or the protagonist of ‘French Scenes’, Howard Waldrop wants to save the like that before. Ike broke down

31 halfway through. He waved to the boosters. Indeed, the few stories that present reality, to determine the crowd, took his mouthpiece off, do pay attention to technology usually quanta that make up the apparently and walked into the wings. Pops recount its collapse, as in ‘Helpless, brute implacable reality. At its worst, kept playing. He tried to motion Ike Helpless’ or ‘Major Spacer in the 21st this viewpoint of history results in a back. Helen was hugging him. He Century’. Every introduction of story like ‘Horror We Got’, where waved and brushed the tears away. change is not de facto ‘progress’, and paranoid anti-Semitic conspiracy fan- Armstrong finished the song. The has a human cost. tasies are lovingly detailed and then audience tore the place apart. They enacted to create an inescapable night- were on their feet and stamping, Alternative history fascinates me, mare of history. At his most affirm- screaming, applauding. Presley, especially social alternative history. ative Waldrop is one with Robert F. out there, sat in his chair. He was Nearly everybody writes military Kennedy: ‘Some men see things as they crying too, but quickly stood up or political alternative history — are and say “Why?” I see things that and cheered. Then the whole thing the event that changed everything never were and say “Why not?’’’ was over. was some crucial event like a battle Of course, all of this is to wilfully ‘Ike at the Mike’ or assassination. I write about indi- ignore his foremost appeal to readers. vidual acts, like Eisenhower being a The humour, enthusiasm, invention, Yet the victory is in fact an anti- jazz musician, Elvis a politician. technical skill and pastiche that consti- climax, since this is usually the high- What it changes is their lives, tute his stories regularly win Waldrop point for Waldrop’s protagonists. It though it does actually change the accolades of ‘eccentric’, ‘unique’, does not carry their lives forward; their whole world. You see the society ‘bizarre’, and also ‘difficult’ and lives have no second acts. Waldrop can reflected in what’s happened to ‘obscure’. Though his stories may give them an iconic, shining moment, them. It doesn’t have to be a big seem impenetrable, smooth monoliths but he can’t give them more than that. change. of received history, in fact they are The moments of appealing high ‘Howard Waldrop highly porous. At every moment the energy and inventiveness give way to Interview’, Locus, August 1988 reader’s attention and judgment are the smallness of real life. ‘We live attracted by some new detail that is a beyond any tale we happen to enact; so It is for this reason that so many of pivot point, not merely some gestalt in the saddest or most sardonic of tales Waldrop’s stories are told in the first contribution to verisimilitude, but an- we are conscious of the simple persist- person. His narrators are witnesses other microscopic juncture at which ence of a person’s power to live out his who can testify to the personal impor- the story can swivel into new possibili- life; in this there is nothing futile — the tance of the events and perform as ties. At the compositional level the private silence in which we live and unwitting votaries to enact Waldrop’s stories enact the same pluralism that is which enables us to endure our own own devotion. They are plot mecha- Waldrop’s animating spirit, that love solitude’ (V. S. Pritchett on Chekhov). nisms that are able to register the trans- of the diverse and forgotten. The Waldrop does not disparage the formative effect of Waldrop’s details do not intend in just one direc- American Dream, but rather tries to suppositions upon their lives, even tion but ramify, are a process in and of include those who have been when there is no apparent external themselves, causing the reader to be- excluded, those who would in fact add change in the wider world. The typical come almost motionsick as he or she to this dream, and in so doing make the Waldrop protagonist tends to be some- tries to negotiate and consolidate all Dream worthy by their inclusion. For what of a blank, yet is highly respon- these possibilities. Waldrop’s parables all American mass culture’s tendency sive to the events around him (rather of the American consciousness are to triumphalism, Waldrop’s sympa- like someone intensely involved in worked out in flashes of consonance thies are with the marginalised and the watching the TV or a film), often an rather than being yoked into some underdogs that American Manifest innocent adolescent. Although later massive metaphorical programmatic Destiny would otherwise run over, be stories do identify more the passing of monolith, a reductionist allegory of the they historical, as evidenced by his time and opportunity in the individ- twentieth century. They have the recurrent interest in native Americans, ual’s lengthy life. Character develop- lucidity and slipperiness of dreams. or literary, with his attempt to create a ment is not a great concern, and most Waldrop’s recombinant approach to sanctuary for America’s fictional mis- often takes the form of the narrative culture means that his stories wander fits in ‘Why Did?’. Failure is only a pattern of innocence lost, an awaken- through that dreamscape of pop cul- superficial consideration, since Wal- ing to the thrills of possible experience ture and western history, where the drop’s stories could never be anti- entwined with the pangs of future historical and fictional brush up American, sullen philippics in tones of adult disappointment. Waldrop’s may against each other. His writing has a aimlessness and hopelessness. There is not be stories of how one person visionary quality, as a result of which always an excitement in reading a changes the world, but how in a the reader is often chasing to keep up Waldrop, in response to a spirit of changed world a person may still be with Waldrop and explicate his vision. hopefulness and wishfulness. The able to act, an artist’s paeons to the Waldrop doesn’t write down to the avidity of SF for the world of tomor- persistence of endeavour. The dramas audience, and to the extent that he feels row is mirrored in Waldrop’s retro- of his characters are the necessary tools that these are things worth remember- spection for the world through which for the detailed dissection of his ing (which is the primary fact that his we’ve already lived. Though fasci- remade worlds. Waldrop chooses cru- stories attest to), he expects his audi- nated by the potential of alternate cial moments in his characters’ lives, in ence to be his potential equals so that worlds, Waldrop is restrained by expe- which, as they try to make sense of the his stories may soar at optimum condi- rience and a melancholy under- direction of their own lives, we tions. However, to the extent that standing of the constraints of reality. attempt to unravel the holistic trails of Waldrop also writes above his charac- He cannot be one of SF’s technocratic causality, unpicking past hope from ters, not making explicit to them the

32 nature of their worlds, so he is also on thought, eliciting wonder, laughter or to decide whether he or she wishes to the verge of writing above his readers, confusion at his willingness to push his take up his invitation to be baptised in not explicitly guiding and holding manipulation of all his available ele- the holy stream of the American their hands, instead relying upon them ments to surreal liberties, leaving it to subconscious. to decipher and make the necessary the surprised readers to project their interpretations. His taste for vaude- own context and themes upon what — Matthew Davis, 2004 ville, comic shtick and dialogue com- may be genius or ‘refer madness’. It is presses a novel’s worth of detail and up to each reader of Waldrop’s writing

Waldrop: Three short story collections

Ursus, Kansas City, MO/Mark V. Eidolon Publications, Perth, WA; Old Earth Books, Baltimore, MD; Ziesing, Shingletown, CA; 0-942681- 0-9586864-0-8; 1997; Foreword by 978-1-882968-36-7; 2007; Introduction 05-3; 1990; Introduction by Chad Lucius Shepard; Introduction by by Howard Waldrop; 311 pp.; tpb; Oliver; 231 pp; hb; $US25.00. Howard Waldrop; 223 pp.; tpb; $US15. $A16.96.

Introduction: Chad Oliver Foreword: Lucius Shepard Introduction: Howard Waldrop ’Night of the Cooters’ (first published Introduction: Howard Waldrop ‘The Ugly Chickens’ (1980) 1987) ‘You Could Go Home Again’ (1993) ‘Flying Saucer Rock and Roll’ (1984) ‘French Scenes’ (1988) ‘Household Words; or, The Powers ‘Heirs of the Perisphere’ (1985) ‘The Passing of the Western’ (1989) That Be’ (1994) ‘The Lions Are Asleep This Night’ ‘The Adventure of the Grinder’s Whis- ‘The Effects of Alienation’ (1992) (1986) tle’ (1977) ‘The Sawing Boys’ (1994) ‘Night of the Cooters’ (1987) ‘Thirty Minutes Over Broadway!’ ‘Why Did?’ (1994) ‘Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance? (1988) (1986) ‘Occam’s Ducks; (1995) ‘Wild, Wild Horses’ (1988) The Annotated Jetboy (1986) ‘Flatfeet!’ (1996) ‘French Scenes’ (1988) ‘Hoover’s Men’ (1988) ‘El Castillo de la Perseverancia’ (1995) ‘Household Words; or, The Powers ‘Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance?’ (1988) ‘Scientifiction’ (1997) That Be’ (1994) ‘Wild, Wild Horses’ (1988) Bibliography ‘The Sawing Boys’ 1994) ‘Fin de Cyclé’ (1990) ‘Heart of Whitenesse’ (1997) ‘Mr Goober’s Show’ (1998) ‘US’ (1998) ‘The Dynasters; vol. 1: On the Downs’ (1999) ‘Calling Your Name’ (2003) ‘The King of Where-I-Go’ (2006)

33 Letters of comment

CY CHAUVIN Cordwainer Smith’s short stories are [BRG: I agree with you, Cy, but many 14248 Wilfred, far superior. people in the SF world don’t. The best Detroit MI 48213, USA But it seems that some of the simi- description of fiction I’ve heard recently larities he is finding in the two books is that it deals with ‘the truth of human This is a terribly late letter on Steam are suspect or shaky. For instance, the behaviour’. Eric Raymond wants SF to Engine Time 5. The letter has been similarity in what Rod McBan and support one very narrow view of human sitting in my computer waiting to be Paul A. are wearing for a wrestling behaviour and society, whereas ideally finished, but I don’t think it will be ever contest in a desert climate does not science fiction would deal with all future possibilities of human existence more complete or polished, so I will indicate a common ancestry for the — instead of the authors that Raymond send it as it is. two novels! Science fiction seems to favours, let’s mention Stapledon, Wells, I quite liked Gillian Polack’s article, lend itself particularly to those who Aldiss, Cordwainer Smith, Le Guin, Lem which interrelated Cordwainer wish to see reflections of other events and a few others.] Smith’s experiences in 1960s Australia within the story because (perhaps) we and Canberra with his fiction know that the events in the stories JOSEPH NICHOLAS (although Smith spent most of his time cannot be real, so we look for some 15 Jansons Road, Tottenham, in Australia in 1957, and Norstrilia was other source for the stories. London N15 4JU, England completed in 1960, but held back from Eric Raymond’s ‘A Political History publication by the author). Her expla- of Science Fiction’ seems somewhat Thanks for your email of giving the nations seem to offer some insight, and disappointing, since it’s terribly link to Steam Engine Time 6 — a sub- I read the article twice. Sometimes the unspecific and makes huge generalisa- stantial issue, so of course I haven’t yet better articles may not provoke as tions. He somehow misses one of the read all of it. I am progressing slowly many comments. I wonder if she has larger political revolutions within through it, fitting it in with all my other read the Arthur Burns article about science fiction against the Campbellian reading — other fanzines (as and when Smith/Linebarger? norm: feminism. This is still going on, there are any; since it’s summer and Her mention of the abba-dingo and and the James Tiptree Jr award is given there aren’t any conventions in pros- ‘Alpha Ralpha Boulevard’ reminds me out annually (although not at the pect, people’s publishing frequency how much I love that story. I feel a little Worldcon) for the best science fiction seems to have dropped away), other uneasy that so much of her interpreta- treating gender-related issues, so liber- magazines (New Scientist every week, tion of Smith should be in terms of tarianism is not the only political stripe Private Eye every other week, a couple allegory, and I don’t think that Smith’s within science fiction. of history magazines every month), universe is always predetermined. I did like his use of the term ‘radial even a book when I can find the time, ’Alpha Ralph Boulevard’ is all about category’: ‘one that is not defined by although most of what I’ve read over how the element of chance is re- any one logical predicate but by a cen- the past year has been history of one introduced on Earth. It is significant tral prototype and a set of permissible kind or another. I seem to read so much that the character Virginia is most or customary variations’. Or maybe less than I used to, at least when I was concerned about whether she is really what I like is his example of ‘fruit’ in a young and carefree twenty- free to make her own choices now, or English being defined by ‘apple’ and something, that I can only suppose I whether she is directed in her actions including very similar fruits like pears, must be slowing down as I get older. by the Instrumentality. She receives peaches, etc., but also avocados and Or else it’s just that the demands of the reassuring prediction that ‘she will coconuts. But then he goes and self- ordinary everyday life (someone has to love Paul all her life’, while Paul defines science fiction with hard sci- cut the grass — make the breakfast — receives the foreboding prediction that ence fiction as being at the core of SF. keep the house clean) squeeze out the ‘he will love Virginia for another 23 Yet surely this does not explain the opportunities for reading that one minutes’. But it is certainly Virginia’s wide appeal of fantasy to many SF enjoyed in previous decades. choice when she recoils away from readers? Fantasy and SF are twin In this interim rejoinder, I want to C’mell’s help in crossing the gap in fruits. I think that some of the frisson respond to the two comments by Alpha Ralpha Boulevard — and falls that you can get from Gregory Benford Janine to my letter about Eric Ray- to her death. Nothing could be more and Greg Bear with their hard science mond’s article in the previous issue her choice, and in a predetermined artifacts that are wonderful puzzles is (and thank you, too, for publishing my universe, there would be no choice. A something you also can get from the letter). In her first comment, Janine fol- prediction can after all be true or false. more magical and fantastic elements in lows my list of lone genius inventors It is also interesting that ‘Alpha Ralpha Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by with a query as to whether Stephen Boulevard’ is the only Smith story that Suzanne Clarke. There is something Hawking should be counted among I know of that is written in first person. there, some ‘fruit’. them. No, he should not, because he is I don’t think I want to make any real I really believe that the ‘fruit’ of all not a lone genius of the same nature as judgment about Harry Buerkett’s link this is fiction, and science fiction and Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison: that between Dune and Norstrilia. I read fantasy a subset of fiction; how can it is, a private individual, maintained by Dune when I was a teenager, and I be so substantially different from other private funding, working in a private don’t think I want to spoil my memo- types of fiction to not be related to it in laboratory. Or, to put it more simply: ries of it by trying to reread; I couldn’t the same manner that apples, oranges, the criterion here is not the insights of read Dune Messiah. And while I reread and even avocados are fruit? the scientists in question but the man- Norstrilia just two years ago, I think 9 August 2007 ner in which they worked. As far as I’m

34 Article of comment

Why I don’t like Harry Potter

by David J. Lake

C. S. Lewis once wrote an amiable H. G. Wells who wrote fine children’s the problem of magic by putting it in book, Experiment in Criticism (1965), in books in the decade 1900–10. Some of another, very Earthlike, world where which he defined ‘utter trash’ as fiction these are straight mundane; but most magic works. But there are strict limits nobody wants to read twice. This fits are magical. For me, the best are Five on what magic can do. Some young well with my own firm principle that Children and It, The Phoenix and the people have the magical gift, but, like all value in the arts is subjective. We Carpet, The Story of the Amulet and, Ged, they must be trained. But may say, ‘Shakespeare is a great above all, The Enchanted Castle. This ordinary unmagical people are not writer.’ This only means that a great last I first read in the 1930s, and I have denigrated. Ged generously helps his many people (including myself) have re-read it countless times, including ordinary ‘parishioners’ against a thought so. Other people may hate last year. In this story, a small group of dragon. Shakespeare. We cannot say that they children go through a tunnel and There is just a touch of ‘school story’ are wrong. For them, he is bad; for me emerge upon a wonderful country — or rather, university story — in A he is good. Period. Therefore all heated house (or ‘castle’) with large beautiful Wizard of Earthsea. Ged challenges his arguments which try to prove objec- grounds filled with statues of classical fellow student Jasper to a magical tive merit or demerit in (for example) gods. It is a real country house in this duel, with disastrous consequences. books are a waste of time and temper. world, but (with the help of a magic But the story passes well beyond the It’s a good idea to train yourself al- ring) strange things happen there. By Mage School on Roke to most of the ways, in such discussions, to insert the moonlight, the gods come alive, and other islands of Earthsea. Ged grows two words ‘for me.’ For me, Proust is a near the end there is a gathering of up. boring old fart. For others, he is the gods of all the world, who welcome the Another point: Nesbit, Lewis and master of all novelists. (There are objec- children to their moonlit feast. (I have Le Guin are brilliant writers. For me, at tive features in Proust that turn me off, been prejudiced in favor of classical art least, they have vivid and beautiful but some people on. It is fine to refer to and polytheism ever since.) styles. these objective features, and then to One rule Nesbit always observes: Now — Rowling’s style seems to differ as to their value.) magic must be unobtrusive on our me as flat as a plastic-covered table. I am, therefore, not trying to prove mundane world. Usually the grown- And she has magic pretty well ruling now that the Harry Potter books are ups don’t notice it at all; or if they see the very world we know. It is obtrusive trash. I am sure some people read them something odd, they think they are on mundane reality. (There is a Minis- twice or more, with pleasure. I only hallucinating. And all goes back to try of Magic in Britain.) Since we all want to explain why I dislike Potter. I normal at the end of the story. Also, know that magic doesn’t work in our have read the first book, and then I said there is no denigration of ordinary, non- world, this sets up a violent clash in the to myself ‘never again’. I have seen magical people. mind of at least this reader. three of the films (the last two, only C. S. Lewis, in his Narnia books, And Rowling horribly denigrates because I was dragged to them by makes his magic happen out of this ordinary people, by calling them friends). But I am not a film buff. I go world, in the separate world of Narnia Muggles. by the printed word: and I dislike (which is a flat earth with a celestial She makes a bastard cross between Rowling’s printed words. rim). The children get there through a the school story (Billy Bunter and all Let me say that I have had deep wardrobe or by magic rings — as in that) and the magical story. This is not exposure to the classics of fantasy, Nesbit. I don’t like all the Narnia books like Le Guin’s College for Mages, magical fantasy, from the age of four — some are too blatantly Christian for which is in another universe, and is to my present age of seventy-eight. I my stomach. But I have re-read with sketched lightly. I don’t like school love good fantasy, and re-read ‘chil- great pleasure The Voyage of the Dawn stories. I read them when I was a dren’s books’ even now with pleasure. Treader and The Magician’s Nephew. schoolboy, especially those in the Gem For me, the great fantasy authors are (This latter is heavily indebted to and the Magnet, but I have no desire to Edith Nesbit, C. S. Lewis (sometimes), Nesbit’s Story of the Amulet, and Lewis re-read them. Schools are things to get Tolkien (sometimes — but his prose is makes a sly acknowledgment of this by over. Nesbit does not write school plodding), and Ursula Le Guin. But referring to Nesbit’s Bastable family.) stories, and I can re-read her for ever. (most people don’t know this) Lewis Again, the separation between the In the end, it comes to this — for me, was heavily influenced by Nesbit — ordinary mundane world and the Nesbit, Lewis and Le Guin create and so was I, at a very early age — so magical Narnian world is (very nearly) beauty, and Rowling does not. I will begin with her. complete. Edith Nesbit was a Fabian friend of Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy solves — 6 August 2007

35 aware, Hawking has never worked ded to the science fiction dream) is that A. Bertram Chandler Award — lest privately, with private funding to the space age is over before it ever any of them were ignorant of Oz underpin him; thus Janine is not com- really began, killed off by its own huge fandom) to Zoran, Roman, Jacq, Neil paring like with like. A like-for-like costs and the unwillingness of govern- and Brian. I handed the copies for comparison suggests that only James ments to meet them. Robot exploration Adam and Ian to Steven Clark, who Lovelock (private money–private of the solar system is all we’ll ever apparently teaches them both (but laboratory) might be a modern match know; the rest is fantasy. who says that Ian has not been at all for the lone geniuses of yesteryear. 2 August 2007 well lately). And today I posted the In her second comment, Janine eighth to Jeff Harris. Nobody com- responds to my statement that govern- [JGS: A summer fanzine pubbing lull plained of misrepresentation, and ments are unwilling to spend money seems to me to be more prevalent in several exclaimed at the evocative ex- on space exploration by observing that the UK than in the US. Reading happens cellence of the solo photo of Zoran. ‘governments have spent plenty on where you make it happen, I’ve found, 2 August 2007 space exploration . . . but the majority and though I’ve also seen a decrease in of it seems to have gone toward non- my own reading speed, when I designate REMY LECHEVALIER manned exploration’, that ‘the Bush a day for reading, I can get through at 1 bis, rue Sainte- Yphraise, least one 300-pager in about 16–18 administration has started talking up 60800 Crepy en Valois, France hours. It all depends on one’s priorities. building a Moon base for humans and You’re certainly entitled to your sending people to Mars’, and that I went to eFanzines.com and read not opinions about what’s been spent in private enterprise and commercial money so far on space exploration, and only your Stapledon article, but also interests will substitute for govern- I’m entitled to not agree with them; I issues 1 to 3 of Steam Engine Time (I’m ments ‘once the financial costs are out- see no point in continuing the beginning issue 4 at the moment). I’m weighed by the potential gains’. To discussion, for that reason.] delighted, particularly by the analyses take these points in order: the ‘plenty’ on British and Australian science fic- spent on unmanned space exploration DAVID LAKE tion, and the historical background it since the end of the 1960s is a mere 7 8th Avenue, St Lucia QLD 4067 provides, for while my knowledge of fraction of a percentage of the amounts the latter is still very limited at the of money that would be required to I was a bit shocked when Jan admitted moment (Erle Cox, then Greg Egan . . . realise anything like the science fiction on page 5 that she hadn’t read any I’m missing a lot of things in between!), dream of the conquest of the high fron- Philip Dick! I’m quite interested in discovering its tier. The additional amounts of money I think arguments about what is specificity, its authors and history. I’ve allocated by the Bush administration central in SF are a waste of time. SF is started to make a list, from the Austra- to new crewed expeditions to the a device that can be used for many lian books commented on or cited in Moon and Mars is not regarded by purposes. If anyone is central, I would SET, of those I have to find (and some serious scientists or policy administra- say it is Wells. I already have, since I actually had this tors as remotely sufficient to achieve 28 July 2007 idea of exploring Australian science the stated results, and even if it were, fiction in the back of my mind for a the funding isn’t ring-fenced: a future [JGS: I was surprised, myself, when I while already). I’ll read through SET, US administration (perhaps even the realised it; I suspect I felt I had read at then SF Commentary, Metaphysical one to be elected in November next least a bit because I’d seen so many Review, Scratch Pad, etc. with great year) could cancel the whole program film adaptations of Dick’s work. Still pleasure. without a second thought. Finally, the intend to set that straight, but you Reading SET struck another chord suggestion that private enterprise can should see the book stacks I have (one for me, as I’m in the process of launch- substitute for governments is just for personal choice, one for review, and ing (or rather re-launching) a French wish-fulfilment, because (as I said) the the books can and do move between the critical fanzine, that will be called Nous time horizons required for any return two rather often).] les Martiens (We, the Martians, from the on the investments made would be so magazine serial title of Dick’s novel lengthy (and the investments so enor- YVONNE ROUSSEAU Martian Time-Slip). I hope it will be a mous) that no board of directors which PO Box 3086, Rundle Mall, focus for serious thought about both proposed such expenditure would Adelaide SA 5000 the literary aspects, and the craft of remain in office for very long. The fact science fiction, from a French point of that one company has won a prize for Roman Orszanski turned up at Critical view. And that it will provide a win- making two trips to 100 km up in a Mass on 1 August, as predicted: an dow for us to the rest of the SF world, single week means nothing — 100 km ex-boss of his ate with him at the cafe as we don’t have, I think, a clear view isn’t even suborbital, and to get any- beforehand, and accompanied us to of what’s going on beside the US scene, thing substantive to Earth orbit will the Critical Mass meeting (apparently and to some extent the British. require a far larger investment than he’s mildly interested in SF, and he Back to Olaf Stapledon: reading hitherto . . . which clearly isn’t forth- said afterwards that he rather enjoyed your essay made me go back to my coming. Instead, we have proposals by the discussion — during which, I’m bookshelves and pick out Stapledon’s Richard Branson to use Burt Rutan’s sorry to say, I cried ‘Spung!’ when books. They’re now in the ‘to reread’ vehicles to take paying passengers on people were edging around the pile . . . An amusing synchronicity half-day trips to view the curvature of question of what was wrong with the here: one of the contributors to a future the Earth — and what could better Heinlein novels that weren’t marketed issue of Nous les Martiens will offer a demonstrate the fundamental trivial- as juveniles). I was able to hand over piece on Stapledon, as we both think ity of the whole venture than that? SETs (with each of which I included a he’s much overlooked in France, The awful truth (for those still wed- photocopy of the write-up for your though his works were well received

36 when first translated, in the sixties and Analog under his own name and as ‘J. expression of disgust and disbelief and seventies. I wasn’t aware of the Robert J. Coupling’, which is apparently an she said, ‘Why?’ Knowing that the term Crossley biography, I will mention it to engineering pun. John Jeremy Pierce, ‘New Wave’ is notoriously fluid, I my friend who’s working on the his son, a.k.a. J. J. Pierce, whom I have asked her, ‘What does “New Wave” Stapledon article. known for many years, is the person mean to you?’ This was in the early to Now, one last question which you meant. He is the one who started the mid 1990s, mind you. She said, with probably heard zillions of time: is there Second Foundation anti-New Wave equal emphasis, ‘Those awful Orbit any copy left of Greg Egan’s An movement about 1968, and who rather stories.’ Unusual Angle, by the defunct foolishly published some Schweitzer I know someone else (who is old Norstrilia Press ? juvenilia in its official organ, Renais- enough to remember the whole busi- 29 July 2007 sance. He himself could be an erudite ness) who refuses to believe that ‘New and forceful writer. He later went on to Wave’ refers to a time period at all. To [BRG: I have a few copies left of the become an expert in Cordwainer him the term means ‘The use of avant- paperback. Carey Handfield and Rob Smith, the author of three books of SF garde techniques to hide the fact that Gerrand, the other members of the long- history (published by Greenwood the author has nothing to say’. He cites defunct Norstrilia Press, might still have Press and not, I suspect, widely read ‘A Cold Dark Night With Snow’ as a some. An Unusual Angle was written because they were expensive books prime example. He further goes on to long before Greg’s successful books, and that sold only to libraries), and for a say that any story, regardless of when has quite a different style, but does short while the editor of Galaxy. He it was written, if sufficiently incoher- show that the very young Egan was published an article about his editorial ent, qualifies as ‘New Wave’. Thus it is already an excellent writer.] experiences recently in The New York an entirely negative term. This, I sug- Review of Science Fiction, entitled ‘A gest, is not very perceptive or very use- TIM MARION Year of Torment’. He wasn’t merely ful, but the notion is widespread. c/o Kleinbard, 266 East Broadway, making bricks without straw as editor Such usages may tell us nothing Apt 1201B, New York, NY 10002, USA of Galaxy. He was making bricks with- about what actually went on in the out mud. That he produced anything New Wave Era, but almost forty years No real comments on Steam Engine at all under the circumstances was later, the term ‘New Wave’ still has Time 6, except for minor quibbles, as remarkable. strongly negative sales value. (I can tell opposed to taking issue (or agreeing) As for Orbit and the New Wave, you from my eBay experience that if with many of the thoughts and ideas your remarks caused me to get out you want to sell a book, do not mention expressed. Orbit 6 and look at it. This is indeed a the N. W. words.) At the time, its effect The word ‘dolphin’ is an ambigu- strong volume. Contains ‘The Asian was to drive the Brits from the Ameri- ous example to use for something that Shore’ by Thomas Disch; ‘Entire and can market until the mid 1980s, when is perceived visually one way and Perfect Chrysolite’ by R. A. Lafferty; they returned with a new kind of space described verbally another way, as two Gene Wolfe stories; and ‘The Cho- opera, typified by the work of Iain there actually is a fish called the sen’ by Kate Wilhelm. But it also con- Banks. It caused a major shift in cover ‘dolphin’. It’s green, about three feet tains an opaque dribbling by James design on American books. The surre- long, and is related to the mackerel. I Sallis and ‘A Cold Dark Night With alist/swirly Paul Lehr/Richard Pow- also just found out that the mammals Snow’ by Kate Wilhelm, which is ers look was out. Rowena Morrill and porpoises and dolphins are similar in simply an unremarkable mainstream the Brothers Hildebrandt were in. appearance but unrelated; they belong story chopped up and sliced together Books sold as a function of how far to two different families. out of sequence to make it ‘experimen- they could be distanced from the New That photo next to Darrell tal.’ Aye, there’s the rub. Wave. Larry Niven won. James Sallis Schweitzer’s letter doesn’t look like This is the sort of thing that brought and Langdon Jones lost. The anthology him at all, so I assume it’s supposed to the Golden Age of the Original Anthol- market, with undeniable help from be a joke. The Darrell I remember ogy to a rapid close. The problem was Roger Elwood, crashed and burned. (whom I have not seen in four years, that anthologies like Orbit tended to be When it recovered, New Worlds and admittedly, but I did once live with more noted for their worst than their Orbit were replaced by Jim Baen’s Des- him, long ago) doesn’t have quite such best, and their worst was worse than tinies and New Destinies. a sharp chin or narrow face. The hair anything found anywhere else. I’m not talking about the New does look similar, though, I admit. I repeat an edifying story I brought Wave but about how the New Wave is 4 August 2007 up on the discussion group Fiction- remembered, which is of course a dis- mags. Maybe ten or fifteen years ago, tortion, even as that lady’s memories DARRELL SCHWEITZER when I was selling books and maga- of Orbit were a distortion. I think there 6644 Rutland Street, zines, I happened to show a lady a is an idealistic half-truth at work here. Philadelphia PA 19149-2128, USA copy of Scott Edelman’s Last Wave. The We want to believe that the really good lady in question is about a decade my stuff in Orbit, such as Wolfe’s ‘Seven Steam Engine Time 6 arrived, complete junior, and therefore not old enough to American Nights’ or ‘The Fifth Head with that shocking photo of myself remember the great New Wave War of Cerberus,’ would have been eagerly that will doubtless deprive many when it was actually happening. She snapped up by the editor of, say, F&SF. readers of many nights’ sleep and/or is, however, a long-time fan. Her father This fails to give credit to Damon smooth digestion. published SF stories in the pulps in the Knight for nurturing his writers, But what brings me to the keyboard ‘30s and ‘40s. So she knows the field. giving them suggestions, and other- right away is that there’s an extra- But when I showed her Last Wave and wise exerting his editorial influence. ordinary typo in my second letter. I told her, ‘It’s an attempt to revive the Possibly Wolfe would not have written have got the wrong Pierce. John R. New Wave’, her face showed an those stories but for the presence of Pierce, whom I never met, wrote for

37 Damon Knight. stars, although I don’t recall the story’s But the worst of Orbit seemed really contents. I’ve reread/reviewed ‘The unique. It wasn’t, admittedly. You Asian Shore’ more often than I have could find stuff just as bad in New read any other piece of SF/fantasy — at Worlds or Quark, but those weren’t as least five times. The same issue widely read. Orbit’s empty opacities contained two one-star stories, are remembered. They dragged the ‘Sunburst’ by somebody named Roderick Thorp, who disappeared, and ‘Where No whole series under. In the last couple Sun Shines’, by Gardner Dozois, who volumes you can see Knight clearly didn’t. trying to change course, but it was too Take the SF magazines, other than late. An interesting corollary is that if New Worlds, for the same month, August you question someone like the lady I 1970. Galaxy was edited by Ejler was talking to further, they don’t even Jakobsson. Many people consider that it remember the writers, just how bad went into steep decline after Frederik the stories were. That is because, to Pohl left. Jakobsson had done his best, them, one ‘New Wave’ story was very but the August–September issue was much like another, and to be avoided. the first time since 1968 that Galaxy At the crudest level, you could say had been forced to return to bimonthly that a New Wave story is any story the publication. The August–September Ben Indick and the real Darrell Schweitzer, reader didn’t understand. But this also issue contains one top story, the James November 2006. (Photo: courtesy New York suggests that an old-time, failed New Blish’s novella ‘The Day After Review of Science Fiction, January 2007). Waver, if he’d learned to write actual Judgment’, renamed Black Easter in the coherent narrative in the meantime, novel expansion. The same issue indigestible mixture of Anvil, Reynolds could start over in SF. No one would contains the last episode of I Will Fear and other stock Campbell authors. remember his previous work. No Evil, the serial that stopped me (Australia’s own Jack Wodhams provided What I learned from Orbit and reading Robert Heinlein; ‘About a Secret the only light relief in Analog during applied to my own editorial career is Crocodile’, a very ordinary R. A. Lafferty that period.) the need for minimum standards. If story, and two one-star stories, ‘Power You talk about standards, Darrell! Play’ by Dannie Plachta, and ‘Moon Heat’ you publish 40 per cent brilliant mas- Standards in the SF magazines were by Ernest Taves. terpieces and 60 per cent outrageous appalling by the time Orbit, Universe The August 1970 issue of F&SF garbage, you will be remembered for and (later) New Dimensions arose in the contains no four-star stories. As I the garbage. Sad but true, if you pub- firmament. Every magazine and original remember the magazine from that time, fiction anthology had its clunkers, but lish 10 per cent brilliant masterpieces most issues were only fair-to-average and 90 per cent pretty-good stories, in the early 1970s only the anthologies quality. I gave three and a half stars to were providing the stories we still you will probably survive. Minimum the first part of Thomas Burnett Swann’s standards may even be more impor- remember. To repeat what I said last serialised novella ‘The Goat Without time: I love my set of Orbits, and most tant than maximum standards. Every Horns’, but remember nothing about it. of the original fiction anthology series story must satisfy the reader at least The only other story that might remain of that period. I’ve kept the American somewhat, so he doesn’t go away feel- interesting today is Raylyn Moore’s ‘Out magazines from the late sixties only ing burned, as Orbit readers did. The of Control’. The same issue had two because I’ve never found anyone who ideal, of course, is to have as many one-star stories: ‘The Self-priming, takes them off my hands.] brilliant masterpieces as possible with- Solid-state Electronic Chicken’ by Jon Lucas, and Maureen Bryan Exter’s ‘The out having any garbage, to be as good BEN INDICK Goodbye Birthday’. as Orbit without being as bad as Orbit. 428 Sagamore Avenue, As I remember Amazing and I think one reason that, for example, Teaneck NJ 07666- 2626, USA Terry Carr’s Universe survived a bit Fantastic in the early 1970s, they longer is that Carr came close to improved greatly under Ted White’s editorship. There was no August 1970 Thank you for Steam Engine Time 6. It achieving this. Universe was a lot more is characteristically handsome and even in quality, almost as good as Or- issue, but I’m surprised to find in the September issue a straight slate of filled with good thoughtful stuff, bit, but nowhere near as bad as Orbit. one-star stories: Philip Jose Farmer’s which I will leave for others to discuss. 3 August 2007 ‘The Oogenesis of Bird City’, Christopher In deplorable contrast, I offer you the Anvil’s ‘The Low Road’, Bill Pronzini’s most recent issue of Ben’s Beat. It does [BRG: So you’re going to talk about ‘Dry Spell’, and the first episode of Piers have some nice things about my old ‘standards’, are you, Darrell? Why do Anthony’s Orn. The August Fantastic you think the New Wave came into friend Hannes Bok, long gone now, does somewhat better, with the first existence? It’s because in the 1960s and, more recently, my dear buddy, appearance of Ursula Le Guin’s ‘The science fiction published in the Paul Walker, dead at only 64 and much Good Trip’ (to which I gave only three magazines had reached its lowest missed by me. stars), and ‘Music in the Air’, a satirical standard since the 1930s. The issue has a reproduction of a pastiche by Ova Hamlet (Richard Take Orbit 6, for instance. According photo from the New York Review of Lupoff). to the little note in my copy, I bought it Science Fiction of the true, genuine and An extensive archaeological dig in on 26 August 1970. According to the original Darrell Schweitzer. None of my study failed to unearth the August ratings I gave at the time, Orbit 6 has this baloney such as you innocently issue of Analog, the best-selling US two four-star stories, Thomas Disch’s printed on page 27 of this issue. Jason magazine in 1970 and for many years ‘The Asian Shore’ and Carol Emshwiller’s was having fun, but he used an old after. As I remember the period, it ‘Debut’. I gave Kate Wilhelm’s ‘A Cold photo he had of Satan instead of his would have contained the usual Dark Night with Snow’ three and a half Schweitzer photo! I’ve known Darrell

38 too many years to be hornswoggled in the Culture . . . In a society where person who agrees with the body of that way. Not even he can do it to me! material scarcity is unknown and the the ideas of Marx — which form an 2 August 2007 only real value is sentimental value, integral but not static whole — and there is little motive or opportunity for acts accordingly. (So one could be a JEFF HAMILL the sort of action we would class as a communist without being a Marxist — 4903 Fremont Ave Nth, crime against property.’ I find these which is possible but unlikely — but Seattle WA 98103, USA ideas not only believable (remember, being a Marxist without being a com- we are talking about the future, not the munist is not possible.) I just received Steam Engine Time 6 present), but, at some point in human Ordinarily, I use ‘Marxism’ as a yesterday. The cover and layout look history, inevitable. I don’t believe that rough synonym for ‘socialism’ or very good. I haven’t had a chance to there is any such thing as ‘human ‘communism’ — it depends on the really read any of the articles straight nature’ — people are not innately context. As I view it, virtually no through yet, but I did notice the greedy and selfish, if given a chance, ‘Socialist’ party in the world is social- ‘Gillespie Fanzines Go Electronic’ box and in an enlightened post-scarcity ist, and virtually no ‘Communist’ above your editorial on page 3. Add society they will have that chance. party is communist, because the me to the ‘Official Downloader’ list. Where Iain and I would disagree, I parties using those names stopped My health is about the same as suspect, would be in our answer to the representing the interests of ordinary when you last heard from me — no question, How do we get there from working people long ago. For better, no worse. I have been making a here? example, the Communist Party of the half-hearted effort — is that too I glanced at my own letter and some Soviet Union had ceased in any way obvious a pun? — to get some free- of the others, and I have a comment for representing the majority of the work- lance work doing copy editing, and Janine. ing people of Russia — much less the I’ve succeeded here and there in little In my letter, I mentioned that ‘the rest of the world — by the 1930s at the bits, but my main interest right now is only well-known SF writers who I latest. What is important is not what a in learning more about book design would be willing to call Marxist were party or group or individual calls it- and production. Not that I’m likely to the Strugatsky brothers. Maybe.’ self, but what it does, what the reality is, get any sort of job there, but I find the Janine then added, in brackets, ‘There who it acts for. And in that sense there whole process of production of books, are different definitions of “Marxist”, very few Marxists, or communists, in from typography to printing, a par- too.’ I didn’t elaborate on my defini- the world today. The only political ticularly fascinating one. I could have tion of Marxist (which I use inter- parties that I would call Marxist are the worse hobbies. changeably for ‘communist’ — notice Socialist Workers Party of the United I am in the middle of reading Iain the lowercase ‘c’ — when speaking of States, and the Communist Party of M. Banks’ novel Excession, which I like a political movement) — and in fact I Cuba. (There may be individuals and rather more than his Player of Games. I didn’t offer any definition of ‘Marxist’ other organisations here and there that found his website, downloaded and at all, but I find Janine’s comment I don’t know about, of course.) skimmed through his essay, ‘A Few annoying. My point was that about 4 August 2007 Notes on the Culture’. Once I’ve writers who I — and not somebody re-read it more carefully, I’ll send you else — would be willing to call Marxist. [BRG: I replied to Jeff that one really — and him — some comments. I find It is trivially true, on the one hand, should have read Marx before calling the Culture to be fairly plausible over- that everyone defines any given word oneself a ‘Marxist’, and I haven’t. I have all, economically and politically in his or her own way — no two people read Harry Braverman’s Labor and speaking. Banks’s statement ‘The have exactly the same mental image of Monopoly Capital, which described Culture, in its history and its on-going ‘dog’ — and, on the other hand, that modern communist governments as form, is an expression of the idea that people must have some idea in com- instruments of ‘state capitalism’: they operate under the same principle as the nature of space itself determines mon when they try to use these words Western capitalism, except that the the type of civilizations which will to communicate; otherwise, no state reaps the benefit of workers’ thrive there’ I find questionable, but communication would take place. In labour instead of the corporations. It’s his conviction ‘that a planned econ- politics, more than practically any theft, either way. Somebody else once omy can be more productive — and other sphere of human activity, words said that the most Marxist question a more morally desirable — than one left and their definitions are commonly person can ask is: ‘Who benefits?’] to market forces’ is the core of social- used for deception, evasion and mis- ism, in a sense, and I fully endorse it. education. What some call ‘demo- Communism — like any other political Banks is envisioning a society in which cracy’ others call ‘imperialism’. What grouping or party or organisation — the need for law — and any material meaning such words have depends on corresponds to the economic (and ulti- forces of repression, such as the police the context in which they are being mately political) interests of a distinct — has long since vanished: ‘The used, who is using them, and what social group in the modern world. This Culture doesn’t actually have laws; associations and traditions such words social group is the modern working there are, of course, agreed-on forms of have. class — generally, people who are paid behaviour; manners, as mentioned As concisely as possible, here is my by the hour. There are, of course, many above, but nothing that we would definition of Marxist. Communism is exceptions and borderline cases and so recognise as a legal framework. Not the political expression of the common on, but the important thing to realise is being spoken to, not being invited to interests of the working people (and that we are talking about hundreds of parties, finding sarcastic anonymous especially of the industrial working millions (at least) of people of all articles and stories about yourself in class) of the entire world. The best- nationalities who live throughout the the information network; these are the known communist of the nineteenth world. These are real people, living in normal forms of manner-enforcement century was Karl Marx. A Marxist is a the real world.

39 As the Communist Manifesto says, article on Iain Banks for you to use. But instantly drawn to the content — an ‘The communists are distinguished I had better read some more of his article titled ‘Jurisprudential Difficul- from the other working-class parties work before then, so it won’t be any- ties in Heinlein’s “Star Beast”’ actually by this only: 1. In the national struggles time soon. makes me laugh and think of Founda- of the proletarians of the different The ‘Who benefits?’ question is a tion at its worst (which could be at any countries, they point out and bring to good starting point. And Marx himself time in the last ten years really . . .). the front the common interests of the would be first to point out that asking However, do not be downcast; that’s entire proletariat, independently of all the question isn’t enough; you have to just a first frivolous reaction, and I am nationality. 2. In the various stages of answer it, and act on the answer. sure I’ll derive as much interest and development which the struggle of the I don’t object to anyone being liber- pleasure from this as any previous working class against the bourgeoisie ated — so long as no one gets hurt by issue. has to pass through, they always and the result — so a liberated Gillespie Your accompanying note questions everywhere represent the interests of would be fine by me! whether I’m still interested in your the movement as a whole . . . The 5 August 2007 fanzines. What an idea. Of course I am. theoretical conclusions of the commu- I rate you very highly indeed. I think nists are in no way based on ideas or [JGS: Thanks for the definitions, Jeff, I you have been spending too much principles that have been invented, or honestly appreciate the clarity you time on email lists populated mostly discovered, by this or that would-be provided with them; your elaboration on by boring Americans — the kind I am universal reformer. They merely your initial point is a fine example of not a member of. (Oh hang on, the express, in general terms, actual rela- what I meant by different definitions of Wegenheim list seems populated tions springing from an existing class Marxism, and what I hoped to elicit by mostly by boring Americans too . . . struggle, from a historical movement making the comment. I have a really, must do something about that.) really big pet peeve: it’s 19 feet tall and going on under our very eyes.’ Anyway, despite my absention from weighs 80 tonnes, named Sweeping And, of course, any political move- what Ted White probably thinks is the Generalisations, and I try to stay as far ment whatever must be judged first of mainstream of fandom I have not in away from it as I can, which is why I’m all not by what it claims about itself, always asking loccers here and in my fact gafiated. Think of it as internal but by its actions, by what it does. That own fanzine to define their terms and migration. is why the Communists — that is, the provide examples. I also try not to Alas I am in no position to subscribe official parties of the former Soviet assume I know what someone else to SET at the moment. We’re having a Union and of present-day China (and means when they use a malleable term, number of problems around here that the other parties that depend on them), and asking for a definition is in no way are soaking up all the loose cash. How- who are what most people think of as intended as a verbal weapon, but as an ever, I will get back to you on that at the Communists — that is why the information-gathering device.] some point in the future. Probably Communists are not communists. before the next issue . . . (Actually I According to Marx and Engels, no less. TERRY JEEVES didn’t even know I had a subscription. If you want to read something by 56 Red Scar Drive, Newby, Are you sure?) Marx, you can’t do better than to start Scarborough YO12 5RQ, England Don’t put me down as a Down- with the Communist Manifesto. Follow loader; I can’t stand reading any laid- it up with the Fred Engels’ pamphlet, Many thanks for sending me a copy of out-for-print material online, and I Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Save Steam Engine Time. I’d like to loc it in don’t have adequate printing facilities Capital for later. full, but my health says no. I am receiv- to produce a satisfactory copy locally. I might mention that Marx and ing treatment for prostate cancer and (When will the Dickian age of the true Engels (as well as Lenin, Trotsky and Parkinson’s disease, and can no longer homeopape arrive? — we need a new many others) used the word ‘commu- handwrite or walk more than a few generation of printers before that, I nist’ to refer to two distinct things: (1) paces using a frame. Typing is very think.) the present-day political movement hard, so please drop me from your Anyway, it is a shame that we don’t that corresponds to the interests of the mailing list. Sorry old chum, but seem to interact in the same arenas working class; and (2) the society of the thanks for thinking of me. anymore. Must do something about future in which all economic activity is 6 August 2007 that. I’ll have an idea in a minute. socialised and private ownership (of 7 August 2007 economic units, not personal effects) is [JGS: I wish you all best, Mr. J., and a thing of the distant past; in which hope the treatments work well and [BRG: In an email reply, I asked Greg in such things as the police, army, courts, swiftly for you.] which arena we would interact these laws, money and government itself days? I depend on the fannish internet have disappeared, as there is no longer [BRG: Also best wishes from me. And newslists for my lines of a need for them. Iain Banks’s Culture thanks for all these issues of Erg over communication. I can’t imagine Greg as more or less corresponds to this latter the years.] a blogger; and I’m baffled by LiveJournal and can’t even get into my state of affairs. BlogSpot blog. This does not mean that Iain is a GREG PICKERSGILL I don’t make distinctions between Marxist, although possibly he may 3 Bethany Row, Narberth Raod, fans based on nationality. A fan is a fan consider himself to be one — I have no Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire SA61 2XG, Wales is a fan . . . it’s all of us against the rest inside information there, of course. All of the world. Some of the e-lists seem it means is that, so far as I am con- SET 6 showed up here this morning, so Americanocentric, but I’ve heard that cerned, he has a relatively realistic InTheBar is just as parochial in favour thanks very much. Looks like the usual view of what the future may offer. So, of the British point of view. expected Gillespie polished product — yeah, at some point I will write an Greg, you did actually send a twenty- i.e. a joy to behold. Mind you, I’m not

40 quid note a few years ago, believe it or even an editorial comment (from BRG, tions, in works like Raft or Vacuum not. When I begin to publish everything at the end of Joseph Nicolas’s letter) Diagrams, could really be described as only on-line, we must negotiate.] that make the same point. In fact, Bruce ‘scientifically correct’, although they uses almost the same phrasing — ‘Ray- do fall into the category of classic sfnal STEVE JEFFERY mond’s “Libertarianism” is, to me, just ‘what if’ thought experiments. 44 White Way, Kidlington, a variation on the adolescent wish- The other point on which Janine Oxon OX5 2XA, England fulfilment fantasy structure that has chides Sneyd for lack of ‘supporting dominated SF from its genre begin- evidence’ is Steve’s comment that ‘the You could persuade Chuck Connor to ning until now’ — that Janine jumps on loner “mad scientist” trope hardly include your fanzines on his CD-ROM Sneyd to back up with supporting accords with the way big science is zine, Phlizz. Do you know about this facts. Or just how significant are those actually done’. Now on this one (as a one? — it touches on various com- single quotation marks Bruce places working scientist in a biggish cor- ments about the notion of resurrecting around the word Libertarianism? porate multinational), I want to turn Acnestis as an electronic apa. Chuck’s Frohvet points out an overlap between the tables and ask Janine to identify done something similar with the Libertarian thought and fanatic anti- those loner mad scientists responsible inaugural issue of Phlizz, putting a government zealotry; Zoran (in the for the Apollo space program, CERN bunch of stuff from his own archives, Critical Mass debate [err, I’ve realised and similar ‘big science’ projects. scans and downloads from efanzines how that sounds]) describes it as ram- While I don’t doubt an increasing onto a small format (three-inch) CD, pant individualism where everyone involvement of private enterprise and which he posts to people on his mail- has guns and hates the government, equity, I’m not aware of the world of ing list. He even bundles some free and the Ayn Rand Institute apparently science being dominated by people open source software in case you don’t thinks it’s a good idea to nuke people like Lex Luthor, Captain Nemo — or have PDF readers/writers of your they don’t like. This sounds more like even Wallace and Grommit — build- own. Interesting concept, though I’ve rampant nihilism to me, or a tooled-up ing spaceships and cyclotrons in their not fully worked how you respond to version of Aleister Crowley’s ‘Do back yards. something like this rather to a single What Thou Wilt Shall be the Whole of A very thought-provoking issue. It fanzine, or an apa. If you’re interested, the Law’ crossed with Taxi Driver’s certainly sparked some interesting you can contact Chuck at chuck. Travis Bickle. It’s certainly not any debate, even if the general consensus [email protected] (mail to: ‘core SF’ that I recognise. I had always seems to be that Raymond is wide of [email protected]). That assumed that Heinlein was a libertar- the mark, or is building his argument was the last address anyway; he’s ian, but it doesn’t seem to fit. Heinlein from a Humpty Dumpty set of defini- changed it at least once due to a spam- certainly championed the idea of the tions that only work inside the context flooded inbox. competent man, but most, if not all of, of his article. 12 August 2007 Heinlein’s competent men also had 13 August 2007 some notion of social responsibility, [JGS: Phlizz is very much to my liking, even leadership. (A philosophy of [BRG: I explained to Steve that, by and I’ve read both ishes (which is all armed rampant individualism doesn’t necessity, Jan and I, working half a that Chuck’s pubbed so far). The appear to lend itself very well to the world away, must provide individual mini-disk is formatted so that, if one notion of leadership, at least not for comments on letters (JS for Jan’s, and has a CD-RW burner on one’s computer, very long.) BRG for mine), and that these one can add to the disk and send it back And I’m sure there’s an exchange in comments need not add up to one to Chuck. I plan to archive Phlizz via combined editorial front. Jan provides one of Heinlein’s books where some- burning copies of it onto larger CDs to her comments first. I put in mine one makes a dismissive remark about keep at home. Then, as Chuck suggested second. By the time I’m adding my politics, to be slapped down with a to his readers, I’ll see if I can return to comments, usually the space available him something similarly designed in the sharp response along the lines: ‘Don’t for letters is nearly full, so I delete way of a reply. A fancy loc, one might ever denigrate politics. It’s evolved as some of my own comments, and even say. I also love the free software and a the best method for people to get some good letters.] the fanzine downloads, especially since what they want without having to kill I’m still on dialup and getting the larger each other for it.’ That doesn’t sound [JGS: Please see my comment after Jeff fanzines online is time-consuming as a like the sort of libertarianism that’s Hamill’s second letter in this column on result. If Bruce doesn’t mind, I could being discussed. (On the other hand, Sweeping Generalisations. Steve Sneyd certainly ask Chuck about including SET my memory being what it is, this half- wrote, ‘The Libertarian viewpoint on future Phlizz disks.] remembered quote may not be from supports readers who are seeking a Heinlein at all. It’s decades since I’ve power fantasy.’ I didn’t see why he SET 6 is also an object lesson in not to read any of his books, after throwing would say that, and so asked for some read fanzines backwards, which is a Friday across the room in irritation. supporting facts. The same was true for bad habit of mine. Doing this, I was Can anyone place it?) his comment about the ‘mad scientist’ struck by the rather snappy tone of a Martin Morse Wooster comments: trope being inconsistent with how ‘big couple of editorial comments in the ‘Stephen Baxter is a popular writer science’ is conducted. I’m not a letters column, and wondered if some- with a PhD in hard science who pro- scientist, I’ve never had the opportunity one had got out of bed the wrong side duces novels that are scientifically to see scientists at work in a lab, so I in the morning. For instance, the come- correct but very depressing.’ This pro- have no firsthand information on it. However, I’ve read at least one book back on Steve Sneyd’s comment on pensity for depression is presumably that described the work of a particular Libertarian power fantasies. Well, OK, why one of Baxter’s latest works is scientist who allegedly was too busy but elsewhere in the same column titled Exultant. Also, I’m not convinced hogging the media spotlight and trying there are several letters (Frohvet ) and that some of Baxter’s wilder specula- to be the first man in to understand

41 that collaboration was more important of my favourite series.] electronic. in what he was trying to do than getting About the history of my relocation his name in the papers and on TV. The GREG BENFORD in Britain, now unfolding at a snail’s book was And the Band Played On by Department of Physics and pace in your letter column, it’s hard to Randy Shilts, and the subject was the Astronomy, University of California, see that it would matter much to any- onset of AIDS and the medical Irvine CA 92697-4575, USA one after all this time — or even then researchers who were instrumental in — but I actually left Australia at the finding treatments for it. If you or Good issue, especially Ditmar’s art- fag-end of 1969, though arriving in the others can recommend books that you work and Yvonne Rousseau’s article. UK in 1970, those being the days when feel are more accurate in their portrayal Alas, politics through SF is mostly a the cheapest method of reaching of how ‘big science’ really works, I’d be loser path. We all have political glad to have them. My point is that Europe (except for the freighter-to- opinions, are packed with theory, but making comments without providing Yokohama, then-cross-country-to- something for the reader to investigate none of us is a pro — and the pros are Finland-via-TransSiberian-Railway amounts, in my view, to so much hot mostly crowd-pleasers who have little Route) was the month-long boat ride air. I felt that what I wrote in reply to or no theory, and don’t care. Intellec- on one of the pre-World War II liners Steve Sneyd’s letter was enough on the tuals in politics had a rotten record in refurbished by the Greek Patris Line, subject, and I knew others commented the twentieth century, mostly from and described so well by Clive James on the Raymond article in letters after their love of abstraction — recall in Unreliable Memoirs. He shared a his; you admitted you read the loccol ‘scientific Socialism’? The era of cabin with six Rugby League players backwards. And Sneyd isn’t the only one utopian schemes is long gone. and the crankshaft and so little floor I took to task for making Sweeping When Yvonne says ‘Raymond area that, if one person wanted to get Generalisations (see p. 37, column 3, of mentioned approvingly the role of out of his bunk all the others had to SET 6).] libertarian SF authors in Ronald climb back into theirs. My girlfriend of Reagan’s 1980s Strategic Defense the time and I were luckier, sharing a Yes, I did realise you and Janine signed Initiative (SDI), and named Robert two-berth cabin that was actually your loccol comments with your Heinlein and Gregory Benford. Jeff above the waterline, but it was a long, initials. And the fact that you both pointed out that Jerry Pournelle also slow trip — which, for most of us, respond to the same letters suggests played a prominent role’, I wonder if made the arrival in Britain that much you didn’t split the letters between you they actually know much about the more exhilarating. before compiling the column. Which point of SDI — to alter or even bring Pace Lee Harding, but it isn’t true makes some of the inconsistencies down the Soviets, by changing the that my publisher of the time, Peter even odder, where a couple of people balance of power in the Politburo? I Cowie, ‘promised me digs’ in London. get jumped on for stating opinions that worked on that in policy and on the Peter, who is currently, I think, manag- go without comment (sometimes ground in the dear old Soviet Union, ing editor of International Variety, is when even more forcefully put) in and it’s a complex tale that’s mostly and was a very austere individual, other places. about getting things done, not lofty much under the spell of Scandinavia Re Phlizz, you wrote: ‘Chuck wasn’t theory. The SF element was the sizzle, — he wrote a biography of Ingmar actually in Acnestis at any stage, so he but real power politics and artful Bergman — and lived in some luxury would wonder who I was.’ It’s a poor manoeuvre, including disinformation on a park on the outskirts of London. sort of fan who compiles CDs from (from knowing how the Soviets We lunched there one chilly day efanzines.com and won’t recognise the worked, an area I spent a lot of time on) shortly after we arrived. The park was name Gillespie, I’m thinking. Phlizz 2 was the steak. SF ideas just opened the blanketed in snow, and we ate boiled turned up on its baby three-inch CD in door and made the threat plausible. white fish and potatoes in a white today’s post. Not yet had a chance to The Soviets were convinced that if the sauce off white china and drank white fire up the thing and have a look. USA set out to do something, it could wine . . . I don’t believe that, even had I’m going to have to have another — because it had. My job was to make he offered, we could have lived in such go at Barnes’s Gaudeamus (re Jan’s re- that plausible, since I had the creden- Bergmanesque surroundings for very view column in SET 6). I don’t quite tials. The Soviets didn’t give a damn long. Fortunately, my friend knew the know why I gave up on it the first time. about my being a part-time SF writer. Perth novelist Randolph Stow, who Perhaps it was more a case of the 13 August 2007 lent us his cottage in the East Anglian wrong book for the time. It happens village of East Bergholt while he went sometimes. I have a host of Al [JGS: Thanks for providing that bit of off on a residency in Canada. We Reynolds books on the shelves. I en- ‘insider’ history; I was working in US ended up spending three years in the joyed (or was certainly intrigued by) Army intelligence during the 1980s and, village. the first few, but I need to be in a certain since the work was compartmentalised, Lee is right that Phil Harbottle mood now for widescreen hard SF. I there were nooks and crannies I never (using Ron Graham’s money) did com- also need to get back to Paul Park’s The got to explore during my time of mission a novel from me for Visions of service.] Tourmaline, which is parked half Tomorrow, and that the book, called The finished on the bedside table. And The Meadows of Capricorn, was never JOHN BAXTER Carpet Makers sounds intriguing. I’ll published, since VoT expired almost as 18 rue de l’Odeon, have to make a note of that. soon as I arrived in the UK. However, Paris, France 75006 14 August 2007 it’s not entirely the case that the novel is ‘lost’. The ms passed to Ted Carnell, Thanks too for Steam Engine Time 6. I [JGS: I had the same problem with the then my agent as well as editor of New will be sorry to see the print version Gormenghast trilogy in high school; I Writings. He failed to sell it, however, had to wait twenty years before I was disappear, though well understanding and it remained in his files until he able to appreciate it, and now it’s one your reasons for going 100 per cent

42 died. His business passed to one Leslie a not-uncommon reaction from people E. B. FROHVET Flood, who subsequently closed it who don’t have much to do with 4716 Dorsey Hall Drive, down — not before, however, selling buying and selling. He should read a Apt 506, Ellicott City MD 21042, USA off, with debatable legality, all Ted’s recent article in the New Yorker about papers, including Meadows of Capri- the Harry Ransom Centre in Austin, I regret that Syd Bounds was little corn. It was bought by the SF collector Texas, now the repository of a vast known to me, for much the same and dealer George Locke, who asked archive of original letters and manu- reason he may have been little known me to annotate it with an account of its scripts. It describes with glee how the in Australia: if any of his works were spotty career. It reposes in George’s current director haggled with an old published here, I was not aware of collection, documented in one of his friend of Graham Greene’s to acquire them. Spectrum of Fantasy volumes. a collection of correspondence at a Of the books reviewed by Jan In taking me to task about the bargain price. Stinson, I have read only two: Quag operations of the rare book business, 16 August 2007 Keep, which fans of Andre Norton Patrick McGuire shows a want of would mostly agree was not one of her understanding of the free market. A JOHN PURCELL better efforts (should anyone care to book, like a cow, is only worth what 3744 Marielene Circle, brush up on their Norton I can easily you can sell it for. No book — or cow College Station TX 77845, USA recommend a dozen better books); and or house, or gram of gold — has an The Carpet Makers, which struck me as abstract ‘value’. Booksellers have Yvonne Rousseau’s contribution made not merely stupid, but cruel. Of course always bought for between 30 and 50 me more interested in researching I may have misread it entirely, some per cent of retail — quite generous, if Libertarian politics. It is sad to admit subtlety having been misplaced in you consider, say, the clothing trade, that this American does not know translation. John Barnes has forfeited with its mark-ups in the 100s of per much about the Libertarian Party, my readership, for about the same cent. Before the Internet, nobody except that it seems to have rather con- cause; I doubt if he worries much thought this very surprising. How- servative leanings. Maybe if I knew about that. ever, the advent of net sites like ABE more about its philosophical under- In ‘Critical Mass versus Eric Ray- Books created a false ‘stock market’ of pinnings I could get the connections mond’, I found myself in agreement values. A dealer arriving at a prospec- more about the various texts the mem- with Roman Orszanski, that Mr tive sale these days will often find bers of Critical Mass referred to in this Raymond’s article was ‘powerfully every book interleaved with a printout article. At least you editors (and wrong, but interesting in all sorts of of the ABE listing, showing the highest Yvonne) accomplished something ways’. price at which that book is on offer. good here: you got me interested into The presentation of my article was Sellers are taken aback when the dealer doing some informational digging. excellent. Thank you. just leaves. ‘But that’s what it’s worth,’ That is A Good Thing. The highlight of the issue, for me, they protest to the departing back. Of all the Heinlein books that I’ve was David Lake’s piece ‘Grouches on When A Pound of Paper was pub- read — which is a fair number — I have Gethen’. For the most part I agreed lished, the UK publishers suggested, never read The Star Beast. The legal with the premises put forth by Mr as a publicity gimmick, that I track the angles that E. B. Frohvet discusses are Lake; it was his conclusions that first edition of one of their books thus lost on me, and, quite frankly, troubled me. Of course the text through the market, and show how its don’t make me want to go read this includes absurdities: this is the nature value had soared. They suggested book. As a matter of fact, I found of science fiction. The criticism of Louis de Berniers’ Captain Corelli’s Frohvet’s writing style a bit awkward Genly Ai as improbably ‘saintly’ Mandolin — first editions of which, it in spots, almost as if his thoughts and bothers me. Does Mr Lake know some- was true, were priced as high as 1800 observations needed more transitions thing we don’t about Genly’s early life, pounds. However, a little research to smooth out the flow. Of course, to complain that he abandoned his showed that those copies had been without my knowing the story at all, parents? People do that sort of thing all listed for years at that price, with no that probably is one reason why I the time, and for less reason: psycho- buyers. The cheapest collectible copies found this a bit hard to read. But then logy calls it ‘individuation’. And on offer were closer to 700 pounds, again, when Frohvet plunks down a people commit their lives regularly to with nothing much below that — for little paragraph like ‘There’s a general ‘higher causes’; should Mr Lake care to the obvious reason that they had all precedent, quoted in Chapter 10, so visit me, I will gladly show him the been sold. So the true market value of basic it’s taught to school children’, it Franciscan friary in my neighbour- a first edition of this book was more would be nice if he at least quoted that hood. Of his (Genly’s, not Mr Lake’s) like 500 pounds — which means that a precedent for the members of the read- sex life, again, we don’t know whether dealer, in order to make any profit, ing audience who may not know the it is Ekumen policy for the Envoys to would probably offer 200 or 300 reference. Sad to say, not all of us SF remain celibate. pounds. Still a pretty good return for fans have read everything published in Of Karhide, I found no inconsis- the seller on a book that retailed for the science fiction field since 1900. This tency between its quasi-anarchic state 14.99, wouldn’t you say? And keep in is a bad assumption for a writer to and the King’s banishment of Estra- mind that the writer only got 10 per make about his or her reading audi- ven. The King has limited powers; cent of even that 14.99 . . . ence, and that needs to be taken into when he chooses to enforce them, most So just where do these transaction account. Karhiders go along because (1) the begin to be ‘unethical’? 15 August 2007 King’s decrees are rare enough that 14 August 2007 there’s a presumption of importance, and (2) most people don’t really care, I don’t mind McGuire’s comments. It’s because their principal loyalty is to the

43 Hearth rather than to the nation. where he says that most modern litera- nologies! But then I saw the Gossamer Presumptuous of me, to be sure, but ture (including modern SF) has less of Condor and other parts of private I fear Mr Lake is objecting not to the the sense of ‘the organic and historical spaceflight and I cheered up. Govern- text that The Left Hand of Darkness is, nature of societies that one finds in ment spaceflight seems to me to have but to the text he thinks it ought to have (say) the major nineteenth-century entered its calcified phase; the press is been. The curious comparison that European novels’ prompted the fol- only interested in astronauts if they’re comes to mind is James H. Schmitz’s lowing. I spent a great deal of my drunks or diaper-wearing angry The Witches of Karres: no, it doesn’t fiction-reading time from May until women. While it’s true that private make a lot of sense, but that’s not the July reading Bleak House, and I found efforts have only gotten as far as NASA point. Parsing some texts for sense will that I enjoyed it much more than con- has gotten in 1960, at least they’re try- destroy their fragile charm. temporary SF. The reason, to me, is ing. Has NASA made any progress in Darrell Schweitzer: There are that Dickens was a master world- 20 years? forgotten minor figures from the ‘New builder, able to combine tragedy and Patrick McGuire’s comments about Wave’. That is true of any era in SF. It satire (his portraits of shady lawyers Wikipedia remind me of the time I spent does not diminish Ellison, or Zelazny and flighty do-gooders are very accu- looking up their entries on science or Delany. rate) and producing a world with fiction fandom. It’s true that Wikipedia Harry Buerkett: If your perception much more density than anything SF has entries on some of the prominent of SF is still ‘gosh-wow! whiz-bang! can do. To my mind, this craving for fanzines of the day. But its coverage of sense of wonder’, I am tempted to con- solidly constructed imaginary worlds older fen is spotty. Richard E. Geis, for clude that you have not read much SF. is one reason why fen prefer Patrick example, only has a two-line entry. Chris Garcia: If Dune doesn’t work O’Brian to Michael Flynn. Maybe I’m Meanwhile, obscure media fen have for you, then it doesn’t work for you, just a crabby middle-aged guy, but SF very lengthy entries, for reasons that and you should read something else. I today seems a lot thinner than in the are known only to the senior mandar- generally have faith in my own taste; past, as writers fail to describe the ins of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a wonder- it’s very rare a book utterly fails to future with boldness and confidence ful resource, although of course all interest me on first reading, yet ‘clicks’ and retreat into solipsism and self- references should be supplemented on a later reading. (For whatever help referential pastiche. with a second source whenever pos- it may be to anyone, Le Guin’s The sible, given the capacity to instantly Lathe of Heaven is one of the few excep- [JGS: ’To my mind, this craving for rewrite anything. But it would be nice tions.) solidly constructed imaginary worlds is to have someone with leisure time and Heinlein’s perception of legal one reason why fen prefer Patrick a desire to write on-line history do proceedings appears to have been O’Brian to Michael Flynn.’ May I lengthy biographies of, say, Victoria whatever he needed them to be for plot recommend Idolon by Mark Budz Vayne, Don D’Ammassa, Donn purposes at the moment. For an (Bantam Spectra, 2006)? It’s a recent Brazier, and other important fanzine equally gruesome botch, see the hear- example of a solidly constructed, editors of the past. imaginary world on the order of your ing in Chapter 13 of I Will Fear No Evil, 13 August 2007 description of Bleak House. Maybe I’m during which the presiding judge: just a crabby middle-aged guy, but SF G openly refers to spectators and the WE ALSO HEARD FROM . . . today seems a lot thinner than in the media as ‘cattle’ past, as writers fail to describe the CLAIRE BRIALEY AND MARK PLUMMER G serves intoxicants while court is in future with boldness and confidence (Croydon, Surrey, England); DORA session (even if it’s a preliminary and retreat into solipsism and LEVAKIS (currently in Northern hearing being conducted in self-referential pastiche.’ Can you Territory); JAMES ALLEN (Gladstone chambers, it’s explicit that court is provide some examples of what you’ve Park, Victoria); BILL WRIGHT (St Kilda, in session) read in the last few years that gives you Victoria); ROBERT ELORDIETA (Traralgon, G Tells a party with a clear privy this impression? We’re obviously not Victoria); ROBERT DAY (Fillongley, interest in the case that she is pre- reading the same books, and SF is a Conventry, England); STEVE SNEYD sent ‘only by courtesy’ large enough publishing category for (Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, G that to easily happen. Unlike you, I find And finds ‘persuasive’ evidence in England); COLIN STEELE (Hawker, ACT); encouragement in the work of certain the fact that a party nominally MURRAY MacLACHLAN, Editor, Ethel the writers (bang the drum again, it’s unknown to him knows his secret Aardvark (Melbourne Science Fiction Elizabeth Bear and Peter Watts) that SF fraternity handshake. Club, Victoria); ALISON SCOTT (London, hasn’t nodded off just yet.] 10 August 2007 England); MURRAY MOORE (Mississauga, Ontario, Canada); A. L. SEARLES [JGS: I don’t understand the impulse to Joseph Nicholas’s comments about (Bronxville, New York, USA); JULIAN abandon reading any other works by a space exploration remind me of a FREIDIN (East St Kilda, Victoria); writer due to encountering one book by science-fictional moment I had last GEORGE ZEBROWSKI (Delmar, New York, a writer which is not to a reader’s taste.] year when I visited the annex to the USA); MOSHE FEDER (New York, USA); National Air and Space Museum. JAMES DOIG (Palmerston, ACT); DOUG MARTIN MORSE WOOSTER There, in one corner was a Concorde BARBOUR (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada); PO Box 8093, — and, in another, a space shuttle. DAVID JACOBSSON (Sweden); RALPH Silver Spring MD 20907, USA There I was, having outlived super- ASHBROOK (Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, sonic flight, and seeing a shuttle that USA); ALEX SKOVRON (Caulfield North, Many thanks for Steam Engine Time 6. was irrevocably as much a product of Victoria). I wondered what else I could say about 1970s technology as eight-track tapes. Eric Raymond, but Bruce’s comment at I had outlived both of these tech- — 24 August 2007 the end of Joseph Nicholas’s letter

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