Sense of Wonder Stories 2, July 2008 (5 months late) is edited and published by Rich Coad, 2132 Berkeley Drive, Santa Rosa, CA 95401. e-mail:
[email protected] Wondertorial......................................... .........................................page 3 Editorial natterings by Rich Coad The Good Soldier: George Turner as Combative Critic.................page 6 Bruce Gillespie on the well known author and critic A Dream of Flight..........................................................................page 13 Cover artist Bruce Townley on steam driven planes Heresy, Maybe?............................................................................page 16 FAAn Award winner Peter Weston battles James Blish J.G.Ballard A Journey of Inference...............................................page 18 Graham Charnock reminds us how good Mundane SF could be The Readers Write.......................................................................page 22 To get SF fans talking SF simply mention Heinlein Great Science Fiction Editors..................................................back cover Horace Gold: Galaxy Master 2 WONDERTORIAL SF seems to be a literature that thrives upon manifes- Hard to argue with that. Science fiction rooted in sci- toes, written and unwritten, loudly proclaimed for all ence fact - sounds like Campbell’s prescription for As- to inveigh upon, or stealthily applied by editors at large tounding. And the future is here on Earth for most of to shift the field into a new direction. us seems less than controversial He goes on to say Geoff Ryman, a writer of immense talent and ambi- tion as anyone who has read Was will tell you, has fol- “I wrote a jokey Mundane Mani- lowed the loud proclamation route with his provoca- festo. It said let’s play this serious tive call for more mundane SF. It’s difficult to think of game. Let’s agree: no FTL, no FTL a name more calculated to drive the average SF fan communications, no time travel, into a state of copralaliac Tourette’s twitches than no aliens in the flesh, no immortal- “Mundane SF”.