THE VECTOR REVIEWS SUPPLEMENT

ISSUE 1 : FEBRUARY 1977 The VECTOR REVIEWS SUPPLEMENT Is a periodic supplement to VECTOR. Produced by Christopher Fowler for the British Science Fiction Association Limited. EDITOR: Christopher Fowler; Typing by Colette Broadbank (pp 2-6) and Chris Fowler; Duplication, etc by the SSFA Publications Group. COPYRIGHT (c) Christopher Fowler, 1977; all rights re-assigned to individual contributors. Address of publication: 73, Kenilworth Avenue, Southcore, Reading RG3 3DN. Tel: 0734-594890. ISSN request pending

MERLIN'S MIRROR by Andre Norton; Sidgwick & Melodramatic moments follow one another Jackson; Loudon; 1976; 205 pp; £3.95; ISBN in perfect military order and the tone 0 283 98328 0 of the book novers uneasily (but effortlessly) Reviewed by Brian Stabelford between aatter-of*fact toughness and soap­ opera sshmalziness. ‘It features boy-meets-girl. The world of Arthurian legend has been one consclence-meets-politics and back-to-the-wall Of the most prolific sources of inspiration heroics. The final casualty figures are for fantasy writers since the days of Malory. 21,000 plus. The mythology has worn extremely wtell, supplying a stream of excellent works. This is a book written very much according It is not sui’prlsing to find that Arthus's . to a recipe. (Movie pudding, I believe, is world is a constant feature of British what they, call the dish when it comes out fantasy • it is, after all, home-grown - but right.) Gourmets might find it unsatisfactory it is perhaps surprising to find that it because it has the unmistakable smack of holds a similar attraction for American metaphorical monosodium glutamate, but those fantasy writers. There is a kind of comfort­ out for a good, solid meal might do worse - able homeliness in stumbling across Merlin lots of lovely roughage here. Harry Harrison in The Crystal Cave , That Hideous Srengt h, is nothing If not competent, especially in the or ^he Weathermonger , but liark twain rs entertainment business, and the target audience Connecticut Yankee, who visited Arthur's for this particular book (see above note) will court in 1889, was surely so utterly out of undoubtedly get their money's worth. . place that his unfortunate accident rfid not ♦ bear repeating. And yet, we have seen in recent years Arthurian fantasies by H, Warner Munn (Merlin's Ring ). Sanders Aane Laubenthal SCIENCE FICTION DISCOVERIES edited by Carol (Ex callBur ) and Wbert Nathan (The Elixir ). and Frederik Pohl; Bantam; New York; 1976; Now Andre "Norton has Joined in, and^one is 65p; 272 pp; ISBN 0 553 08635 9 bound to ask: is there really anything new Reviewed by Brian Stableford to be added? The answer it seems is no. There are grave Here ie. yet another anthology of original risks involved in re-working a myth so well- stories which, if successful, will probably- known, and the gimmick by which Andre Norton turn into an annual series. As an experiment tries to invest it with new life is tediously in publishing policy the original anthology feeble. (There are these two alien races, you has probably not yet been fully tested despite see, and their agents - Merline, Nimue, et the vast number which have been issued in al. are begotten by miscegenation. ..and their the last six or seven years. The mortality magic powers are - you'll never guess ~ rate has been high, but New Dimensions and really their alien superpowers...) Universe both seem establidsd now as consider- forces within the field. SF Discoveries is Andre Norton is a pedestrian writer at the a fat collection, cons!stiagof seven short best of times, and can so easily fall into . stories and a short novel that might easily hopeless dullness. Here, alas, she has have wade a paperback in its own right, but fallen hard - her prose is quite bland and there is nothing in it which strikes me as the action sadly routine. Against compet ­ truly outstanding - and that is a failing that ition as strong as The Once And Future Ring., an anthology, unlike a single issue of a magazine, The Elixir and The Crystal Cave Miss Norton cannot really afford. The standard that has could hardly expect to shine in performance, to be reached in this medium is very high. but the extent of her failure is really quite tragic. The one poor story among the shorts is a trivial effort by Roger Zelazny, but three of the Sir Lancelot does not appear. I hope she others fit patterns which are bcoming disturb ­ isn't saving him for a sequel. ingly standardised. George R. R. Martin's "Starlady" and Scott Edelstein's "Age of Libra" are fashionable but unconvincing, while Robert Shockley's "Never-Ending Western Movie" is SKYFALL by Harry Harrison; Faber & Faber; so typical of Sheckley's work that every word London; 1976; 270 pp; £3.50; ISBN 0 571 10962 4 seems familiar as it slides past the eye. Fred Reviewed by Brian Stableford Ssberhagen, by contrast, contributes an atypical piece which Is eminently readable, Enclosed in the review copy of this book is and Doris Piserchia contributes a stomach- a note which reads: "Harry Harrison ask$ us churning black comedy which draws out yet to point out that unlike his previous books another inch of her sick sense of humour - I SkVfall is emphatically not a work of science wish she would set aside her morbid preoccupations Ifction" . It is signed: "Publicity Dept". a little more frequently, for she is a fine I pass on this message without comment, as writer. My favourite among the shorts is I feel that any debate arising from it actually a fairly unassuming piece, a variant would be unnecessarily wasteful of space. on the old-man-who-grew-young theme by Arthur Jean Cox called "An Incident at the Owl Creek Rest Home", which is very neatly handled. Skyfall is a suspense thriller about a joint Soviet-American spaceshot which takes off in I confess that I don't know what to make of trouble and gets deeper and deeper problems the long story - Babette Rosmond's "Error stack up neatly like a pile of pennies. j> p) 2

WHOTS WHO IN SCIENCE FICTION by Brian Ash; 1 find that *vhat offend me most about this Elm Tree Books; London; 1976; £3.95; 220 pp book is its determined attempt to pervert the ISBN 0 241 89383 6 English language. Any habitual reader of sf Reviewed by orian Stableford criticism should be used to this by now, but for some reason I find Ash’s semi-literacy even more grating than most. In Who’s Who in This book, according to its introduction, SF we meet J. G. Ballard, ”an expert in slow "is designed to provide a comprehensive guide for the newcomer to science fiction, choreographies of physical and mental disintegration”; Ray Bradbury, ’’a highly to widen the horizon for those who already know something of the genre, and to be a gifted writer and a constant bone of conten­ tion in the science fictional arena"; Larry useful, but less than exhaustive source of Niven, "a noted arrival of the last decade reference for the scholar and the committed devotee". And all in 30,000 words. and a sophisticated updater of space opera”; and Theodore Sturgeon, ”a gifted and provoc­ The remainder of the introduction scrupul­ ative writer, almost in a school of his own". ously follows L. Sprague de Camp’s advice There are at least three American critic/ to would-be magicians’, always prepare your historians who can now sit back with contented excuses beforehand. Ash defends his omis­ smiles.upon their faces, secure in the knowl­ sions and his errors in advance, and perhaps edge that they are no longer leading contenders one can sympathise with him. Errors do for the title of World Champion Metaphor­ creep in, omissions for one reason or dangler. another have to be made. What’s more, in There has always been a great deal of worthless 60,000 words total many of the entries have to be reduced to such a bare minimum that and ephemeral writing about sf, but once it was confined within the fanzines. It is very they contain no real information at all. He has every right to be defensive. depressing to discover that the proportion of good and useful material appearing from com­ As a source of. reference Who’s Who is mercial publishers is no greater than that defeated first by its slimness and secondly appearing in second-rate amateur journals. A by its calculated triviality. It is easy­ lot of people are getting money for old rope, going and lacks the terseness necessary to and the publishers will soon have collected come abruptly to the point in every case. enough old rope to strangle the market Most of its information is culled from completely. Robert Reginald’s Stella Nova bibliography * and Tuck’s Encyclopedia, and when the up­ dated version of the former and volume two (tti-Z) of the latter manage to work their THE EDWARD DE BONO SCIENCE FICTION COLLECTION edited by George Hay; Elmfield Press; Leeds; way into print Ash’s volume will be wholly 1976; £4.95; 217 pp; ISBN 0 7057 0068 2 superfluous. In this respect,, therefore, it has a life expectancy measurable in months, Reviewed by Brian Stableford inhere Tuck and the bibliographical sources are weak - on commentary and analysis - Ash I am quite a fan of Edward de Bono, the is so weak that his efforts are laughable. champion of lateral thinking. His book on The Mechanism of Mind is a neat and elegant In its more modest claims - widening hori­ example of analogical analysis applied to the zons for sf readers and guiding newcomers problem of how minds work, and is to my mind through the tangle of available works - Ash an admirable piece of work. His demand that is perhaps on safer ground. But to my mind minds should occasionally be jolted out of the the newcomer might appreciate a guide which ruts that help them run smoothly, so that they says a little more about science fiction in may be forced to confront new concepts and general and dwells less on trivia, and create new perspectives, is a very healthy one. horizons are not so likely to be widened by And I think, too, that science fiction may a book which deliberately omits so many new help this process - that by its very nature it authors and is so very inept in its comments helps create new perspectives. It seems to me, on the established ones. The competition in. therefore, that an Edward de Bono collection this area is very weak, but even so I must of science fiction might be a good idea. rank Who’s Who in SF among the also-rans. I am not so sure, though, about a George Hay anthology which calls itself an Edward de Bono collection. 3

#e have here a good, but very brief,ccomment In common with mnny humnnHarl aniots he is on $f in general by de Sono, plus twelve astonishingly naive and simplistic about human stories selected by George Hay. There is no nature; like many deeply committed men he is comment of any kind on the individual prepared, consciously or unconsciously, to use stories, and no attempt at all to bind the polemic and propaganda with minimal regard for fiction to the context which de Bono’s name truth. He is inconsistent and self­ and ideas are supposed to provide for them. contradictory yet his mind is more closed than This lack of integration is, I feel, a total open. cop-out. I’m not even sure whether there has been any attempt on George Hay’s part to He admits to irrational!ty but here as well I choose stories which might specifically believe him wrong. He is only that hopeless illustrate or embody anything in de Bono’s figure a rationalist at odds with an irrational thesis, or whether these stories just happen world and the battle has turned him into a to be ones he likes. There is the classic model of Langian craziness. "Noise Level11, in which a group of scientists is confronted with the notionally The book will be of more interest to students impossible (arranged by fraud) and then of Vonnegut as a literary figure rather than forced, via lateral thinking, to create a as an sf writer which he again, rightly, new theory in which the impossible not only claims not to be. What he has to say about becomes possible but practable. This would sf here is patent idiocy, his views on almost have been an appropriate story to lead off everything else are witty, facile and the collection. Unfortunately, it is placed profoundly irritating. Ar arnovelist he was second to Katherine MacLean’s excellent revolutionary, as a commentator he is pyramid-selling story “The Snowball Effect”, Citizeness The Vengeance knitting as the which seems to me to have little to do with •Jui 1 lotine falIs. the presiding genius of the collection. * There are good stories here - it is nice to see Norman Kagan’s ’’The ‘flathenauts” and THE EARLY LONG by Frank Belknap Long; Hale; Sprague de Camp’s ’’The Warrior Race" rescued London; 1977; £3.50; 211 pp; ISBN 0 7091 5854 8 from obscurity - but nothing has been done Reviewed by Brian Griffen with the idea behind the project. It has not been followed through and it has not This covers Frank Long’s virtuoso word­ been used to make a book any different from spinning career from ’Death Waters’ (V/eird all of the other reprint collections which Tales, 1924) to ’The Peeper’ (NJ. 1944J. will creep into print this year. Seven of the stories come from -J.T.; the rest # are divided between Astounding, Marvel Tales, and Campbell’s Unknown Worlds, and consist of

WPETERS FOMA J CRANFALLOlNS by Kurt fantasy, plus a few experiments with more recognisably SF-type ideas. Vonnegut Jr; Panther; St Albans; 1976; 75p; 255pp; ISBN 586 04256 3 To describe Frank Long, I choose the Reviewed by James Corley adjectives ’virtuoso’ and ’word-spinner’ with care. He is a virtuose, with formidable Possibly this collection of speeches, essays powers of association and invention (he some­ and magazine articles was meant to expand times confesses, in the short preambles to the Vonnegut’s reputation from youth cult novel­ stories, that he would sometimes sit down and ist to universal guru. make up a story on the spot); and there can be no doubt that he’s given countless readers Venturing Inside the dark recesses of the lots of good unhealthy fun down the years. On guru’s head one finds a region wild, the other hand, a lot of this early material indisciplined and exceedingly strange; in is word-spinning, produced at so many cents places an impenetrable jungle and in places a word. The resulting product is always easy a morass, everywhere uncompromising and writ to read, entertaining, and usually lies as on the large scale, rather like the upper light as a feather on the mind, ready to be amazon in fact. blown away by the next breeze. This,ii, in a way, a pity, for he is plainly capable of There is a powerful talent on display here striking ideas. In ’The Hounds of Tindalos’ but something has happened to its sense of — by far the best story here, and Long’s discrimination, from Madam Blavatsky on the most frequently anthologiscd piece, as up to donkey of American New Journalism. date in spirit as Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics — he was able, fur once, to treat 4 date in spirit as Frit jot Capra’s The Tao_of There’s quite a bit to please the lazily- Physics — he was able, for once, to treat indulgent reader here; but I suspect that his idea with something like due care, and the Frank Long has had more fun, over the years, result is uniquely memorable: anyone who than any of his readers. hasn’t read it should somehow get hold of it. Likewise, in ’The Space Eaters’ — one of the The author provides a 21 - page auto­ earliest Cthulhu Wythos tales — he makes a biographical introduction, which is pleasant, deep impression, drawing on the basic occasionally interesting, and excusably Lovecraftian obsession: Suppoee Imagination longwinded — after all, it was no doubt is Reality? (Higel Kneale must have had commissioned, together with the egoistic stories like this at the back of his mind when preambles to the stories. I suppose Asimov he wrote Quatermass and the Pit). started all this, and I don't like it. As persons, authors are no more interesting As for the rest of the stories here —. Well than enyone else, and these personal inter­ in the better of these — 'The Elemental’ polations tend to destroy whatever fictional (loosely resembling Wells’s 'The Man Who Could magic might be happening. Work Miracles’), ’Dark Vision’ (in which the protagonist experiences a kind of photographic * negative of Life) and 'The Fame Midget’ — The basic idea is striking, haunting even, but WILL O’THE V/ ISP by Thomas Burnett Swann; has to fight against the crudities of word­ Corgi; London; 1976; 60p; 160 pp; spinning. ’The Flame Midget posits the invasion ISBN 0552 10358 6 of our world by a being of microscopic size Reviewed by Brian Griffin from a tiny star, possessing terrific mass and energy. So far, so good. But Long the V/ord- In one of his essays, Chesterton says that spinner has a deadline to meet; so the story Puritanism, far from being a specially ends with an incredibly comic climax, in English phenomenon, can be regarded as a which the microscopic spacecraft, having landed in the right kidney of a mad scientist, sort of alien invasion, or mass psychosis. In Wil] O’the VMsp this suggestion is taken finally blasts off and takes the scientist with it ’. Marvellous! Trouble is, I don’t literally: the first Puritans, the real think it’s supposed to be funny. Or if it is, instigators, were non-human beings called Gubbings (a corruption of ’Sky-Kings'). it still doesn’t fit in with the rest of the Originally, they had been airborne, bird­ tale. This kind of incongruity can be found, like creatures, feathered and hatched from in varying degrees, throughout this collection. eggs, and worshipped by the ancient Celts. In ’A Visitor from Egypt’, an eminent Then they were cursed with ’the feather­ Egyptologist is transfigured into the form of blight’ and lost the use of their wings. Osiris — in a museum loo! It’s as if Bob Around this time the first Christian Shaw were to start making Shavian jokes in the missionaries arrived in England. They middle of The Palace of Eternity: Long just a persuaded both the Sky-Kings and their isn't in control, artistically-speaking. worshippers that those birdlike beings were fallen angels, doomed to mortify their flesh But you have to admire the sheer invention: in ’Fisherman’s Luck’, the rod of Hermes becomes and torture their souls for all eternity. The Sky Kings came to believe this: they to a fishing rod with which the protagonist mining in Devon, and became the sinister literally hooks a girl from the nineteenth Gubbings of Devonshire folklore. And once century, plus the troublesome severed head of the Tudors were dead and the gloomy Stuarts a Chinese suicide. The result is half- were on the Throne, the Gubbings' hour came. whimsical and half-impressive, as if Long Witch-hunting was in the air, the Elizabethan hadn’t made up his mind what he wanted, Some wholeness of vision was fractured, and the of the other stories are merely zany — ’The Census Taker’ and ’Step Into My Garden’ Gubbings twisted it all to their own use. On — or predictably sinister, like ’The Ocean the one hand, by hiding out on Dartmoor and Leech’. These are perhaps the least satis­ spreading rumours of their own bestial atrocities (they crucified at the least sign factory. of 'the Flesh’) they made sure no-one

Basically, Frank Long is a crazy, bumbling visited their stronghold. On the other hand, they infiltrated towns and villages (being magician who likes jiggling ideas round at careful to hide their feathers and vestigial random, and occasionally hits the right wings) and became witch-hunters in their own proportions. right — for the first to cry ’witch’ is never suspected. 5

Sustained by the Zeitgeist, the Gubbings pr meteor and heightened consciousness, opens spread: the captain of the Mayflower was a the earth beneath them, and they plummet Gubbings —. down into a very literal Hades, a vast underground kingdom of the dead and damned. Swann pits against the Gubbings the figure The essence of damnation, it appears, lies of Robert Herrick — ’poet, vicar and in the cruelty of the damned; so that pagan1 —- who makes a last stand for common-or-garden perverts like the Marquis Elizabethan England as against their age-old de Sade, Nero, and Blackboard, mix psychosis. Here wider issues are raised: familiarly with types like John Calvin and have we all been suffering from a dark Torquemada the Inquisitor, not to mention delusion? Is the Christian God some terrible their latter-day equivalents, the new perversion of the real thing? priesthood of Science, the behaviourists and vivisectors, who are forever watching This is an ingenious idea, with plenty of ongoing events in vivisection laboratories possibilities; an ' I wish I could say that throughout the world, via T.V. This book Swann had exploited it to the full. is, in fact, a massive attack on the twin Actually, I found the book slight in impact. gods of Science-with-a-capital-S and Swann’s style is very much that of an old- Religion-with-a-capitai-R, Eugenics and fashioned historical novelist, and his Jehovah, all the abstract claims of characters never really came alive for mo. ’Knowledge’ and ’Salvation’ that have He is naive, and sometimes downright soppy. militated against the still, small voice of He combines a certain care over local colour individual human conscience. and the poetic mot: juste with a surprising sloppiness in basic storytelling technique. But though there are lengthy passages of philosophising, this is no tract. Powys’s Still, the implications of his tale are imaginative invention is tremendous; and worth taking seriously, as long as you’re besides that, everything that happens depends not prepared for anything really revelatory. not on some abstract ’message’, but on the If you want revelation, I suggest you read intense erotic relationship between the John Buchan’s flitch flood. horny captain (who is the narrator) and the virginal Morwyn, as they pass through ever- * more-surreal istic underground adventures, involving Taliesin the ancient Bard, Merlin, MORWYN: THE VENGEANCE OF GOD by John Cowper Saturn, Rhadamanthus (Judge of the Golden Age), Powys; Sphere; London; 1977; 95p; 271 pp; and the shades of Socrates and Rabelais (who ISBN 0 7221 6980 9 are not damned, but seem, like Taliesin, to have a free pass to Hell). It all reads, at Reviewed by Brian Griffin times, like a wiIdly-surrealistic ^ourney^to This is a wild, lengthy, rhapsodical- Centre of the Earth —- in fact they do, philosophical fantasy, and I liked it a lot. ultimately, reach the dead centre. The chief dramatis personae are a horny ex­ army captain, his black spaniel, a vivisect­ Throughout the book, something Indescribable ing scientist and his young daughter — the is happening — the Creation/ of Man, the Morwyn of the title, and the object of the return of the Golden Age, the judgement of captain’s scarcely-sublimated passion. This the damned (i.e., all those who have not quartet may suggest the main characters in assisted in, or have actively militated Olaf Stapledon’s Sirius (which came out against, the Creation) — oh, anything and seven years later, in T9U), and not without everything is happening, and I enjoyed every reason; but whereas Stapledon makes no com­ bit of it. Powys keeps repeating himself, he ment on the methods whereby his scientist mixed extraordinary insights with platitudes, produces super-sheepdogs,and indeed seems to he Is long-winded and threatens to become give his tacit approval, Powys thunders his incoherent (Part Three is a continuous nar­ apocalyptic anger at the whole urge to ’murder rative of nearly a hundred pages, and you just have to keep on reading); but I don’t and dissect’ throughout the length of this care, IP's all worth it. There are precious book, which is considerable. moments when Powys seems to place the whole Anyway, these four main characters are caught rise of Sclence-with-a-capital-S within Ine on the hills in the wilds of flales (again, all-comprehending myth of Creation, and these very like Sirius), when some apocalyptic moments are well worth waiting for. physical-psychical event, involving a giant - 6 - *HE ILLUSTRATED MAN by Ray Bradbury; Panther; St Albans; 1977; 60p; 204 pp; ISBN 586 04359 4

Reviewed by Brian Griffin

In his introduction to The^Story of Art, E. H. Gombrich says: HTo talk cleverly about art is not very difficult —. But to look at a picture with fresh eyes and to venture on a voyage of discovery into it is a much more rewarding task. There is no telling what you might bring gome from such a journey.”

For me, this applies especially to a writer like Bradbury; and it certainly applies to the sixteen animated pictures on the epidermis of his Illustrated Man. Yes — sixteen: in this edition, at any rate. In the original edition (1951), and in my last Corgi edition (1963) there are eighteen. Panther have excised ’The Fire Balloons’ (for crying out loud — what do they think they’re doing to these classic collections?), ’The Exiles’ ’The Rocket Man’ and ‘The Concrete Mixer’ — so that’s four of the best stories gone to start with. I suppose they’ll pop up in some Panther edition of The Golden Apples, which would be better than nothing. But why??

Anyway, to fill In the aching void they’ve created, Panther have inserted two pretty good Bradbury Tales from elsewhere — ‘Usher Two’, which is a free fantasia on Bradburian themes, rather like ‘The Lost City of Mars’, or a sequel to ’Exiles’ (But where is ’The Exiles’?); and ’The Playground’, which is Bradbury in his psychological, October-Country mood ( ageing widower becomes obsessed with games of evil children in sinister playground). When I read this one recently I found It wondrously uncomfort­ able In its implications.

I can’t say that Panther are actually cheating anyone with this revised edition: after all, the other stories are great. 1 only hope they know what they’ve done with those other four, great stories. After all, there may be a few people around who haven’t read them yet. - 7 * Hurled”. If you take a couple of chapters first line says, this story has no hero in from, a fictitious autobiography of Thomas it. Au contraire, the whole cast of characters Carlyle's wife, and mix them up with a is eo nasty (sadists, murders, pimps, prostitutes, parable of naivete somewhere in between and never a heart of gold anywhere) as to JersyKozinski’s Being There and Chris­ leave a bitter taste in the mouth. Robert topher Morley’s Thuder on" the Left, Shockley’s "The Never-Ending Western Movie" linking them by means' oi a frame story is derivative of the film Westworld, but here in which God is a naughty schoolboy there aren’t any robots and everything is bollixing up bis project with help from for real, Including the bullets. There’s his little brother, and glue the lot to­ an astonishingly black comedy from Doris Piserchia gether with a touch of Charles Fort... (people die, but the tiny atomic motors in­ what do you get? A horrible mess, for sure - serted surgically keep their bodies function­ and yet it is not without its fascination. ing so that they can still walk around), and I can, at least, say in all honesty that an unusually good story from Fred Saberhagen I’ve never read anything quite like it. (about literally tangible time). Contributions by Scott Edelstein and Arthur Jean Cox are All in all, this is an idiosyncratic entertaining without being, outstanding, and collection - worth reading, but not likely there’s a Roger Zelazny piece which is, to inspire wild praise and a series. unfortunately, very slight and unoriginal. At 65 pence the anthology is still quite a good value.

SCIENCE FICTION: THE GREAT YEARS edited ©. by Frederik Pohl and Carol Pohl; Sphere; London; 1977; 287 pp; 75p; ISBN 0 7221 TETRA3OOT TWO by Oscar Rossiter; Corgi; Lpndca; 6294 8 1976; 174 pp; 60p; ISBN 0 552 10280 6 SCIENCE FICTION DISCOVERIES edited by Reviewed by Brian Stableford Carol and Frsierik Pohl; details above Here we have - not for the first time - a Reviewed by Chris Morgan schizoid superman-fantasy which finds its resolution in a transcendental metamorphosis. All right, I’ll admit it: some of thesf In its basics, it beats a strong resemblance from the 30s, 40s and 50s compares favour­ to The Infinite Cage by Keith Laumer, which ably with new stories; it exudes a breath­ I reviewed here some time ago. The superstructure less excitement which few authors achieve however, is different: Tetrasomy Two is glib, today. But because these good old stories with a touch of irony, its schizoid element are so few the same ones tend to be re­ is ©elf-conscious, the action taking place printed over and over again. Science in a mental hospital. Its author, like its Fiction: The Great Years contains seven hero, is a doctor, and can't quite take stories ‘which Jirst appeared between delusions with obsessive seriousness. The 1934 and 1953. All are entertaining and result’ is a flippancy which undermines the only a couple are noticeably old-fashioned. "...And Then There Were None" by Eric resolution. If you are going to juggle mind­ Frank Russell (later part of his novel* shattering concepts then you have got to take The Great Explosion) shows how a l.oug- th*»m seriously. If you look as if you’re just TBi-goFten"cotbfiy"jplanet without laws, messing about, the whole exercise becomes government or any kind of authority can ridiculous. Tetrasomy Two is a jolly little ’defeat" a large and well-armed spaceship book, as apocalyptic noveIs go - most of the from Earth which has come to make contact way it's competently written mystery stuff after a lapse of 300 years. C, M. Kornbluth's with an uneasy spicing of sex - but Jolly "The Little Black Bag", Fred Brown’s books should have Jolly endings, and you "Placet is a Crazy Place" and William Tenn’s can’t effectively latch a salvation myth on "The Liberation of Earth" are surely so to a trivial thriller. Look out for Rossiter, well known that any comment of mine is though - his writing, is lively, and he may superfluous. "Wings of the Lightning well produce some eminently readable books World" by James MacCreigh (a pseudonym of in time to come. Frederik Pohl) is an unusual fantasy within a hard-science framework, which succeeds due to its sense of wonder and a carefully calculated revelation, and despite an DRAGONSONG by Anne McCaffrey; Sidgwick & aimless plot. The two stories from the Jackon; London; 1976; £3.95; 202 pp; ISBN 1930© - "Old Faithful" by Raymond Z. Gallun 0 283 98329 9 (a Martian in communication with Earth) Reviewed by Chris Morgan and "A Matter Of Form" by H. L. Gold (a reporter investigates illegal brain surgery) So there we were at the end of Dragonquest , - are the poorest in the collection, though, waiting anxiously to hear whether the new- neither is really bad and the former seems fangled methods of F* lar and Bender. Weyr to have achieved the status of a classic. would really be accepted by the old dragon­ If you haven’t already read too many of riders and more conservative holders, whether these seven tales, this is an anthology the gubs could possibly multiply to cover worth buying. Pera's northern continent in time to save it from erratic fallscf Thread, -what plans F’lar When one novella occupies almost half of had for the dragon-riders if Thread could an original anthology, the anthology is be wiped out,.and what would happen to the going to stand or fall on the quality unique obits dragon Impressed by Jaxom of that novella. "Error Hurled" by (the juvenile Lord Holder of Ruatha). Babette Rosmond (who?) is original, erudite and amusing, but its point (about Earth But Dragonsong (the third novel in the series) being no more than the imperfect construction, doesn t tel 1 us any of these things, doesn’t of a couple of superchildren) could have advance the grand saga of Pern one bit. been made in half the space, and Science Instead, it concentrates on the microcosm, Fiction Discoveries is, by its inclusion, ’! telling the Cinderella tale of Meneliy, a tall, reduced irom good"to mediocre. The best gwky fifteen-year-old girl who lives in here is "Starlady" by George R. R, Martin, the Half Circle Sea Hold, a grim fishing g brilliant, rather Delauyeeque tale village which has little contact with the set in a complex,decadent future. As the rest of Pern. Kenolly is a natural musician 8 but is persecuted for this by her family This is an interesting Book, in that it because "girls can’t be harpers" and because offers valuable insights into Wells' think­ it’s a waste, of good fish-gutting time. ing and to the speculative literature char­ acteristic of its time. But it is a period There's a lot of sob stuff when she accidentally piece. Corgi, in presenting it as a standard slices her band. Will she/wcn’t she ever be genre paperback, are guilty of a misrepresent­ able to play the pipes again? Unable to bear ation which seems, alas, to be characteristic the harshness of the hold any longer, she of their present policies. runs away. And then the fairy godmother bit begins. Menolly finds a clutch of a fire lizard eggs which are hatching and she Impresses nine of them. (Which means NEW WRITINGS IN SF 25 edited by Kenneth they'll follow her anywhere.) From then Bulmer; Corgi; London; 1976; 50p; 189 pp; on (despite a few .misunderstanding) it's ISBN 0 552 10085 4 success all the way. NSW WRITINGS IN SF 28 edited by Kenneth This is essentially a juvenile novd, a fairy Bulmer; Sidgwick ft Jackson; London; 1976; tale. It occurs concurrently with Dragonquest, £3.95; 189 pp; ISBN 0 283 98317 5 and we are diown again the hatchings at Reviewed by Chris Morgan Benden Weyr when Brekke (having lost her queen dragon) fails to re-Impress, and when The longest-running original anthology series J axon Impresses the white dragon. It is in sf is alive and well and* living in deep** successful enough as a juvenile, but disappoint­ ©st Kent. Under John Carnell/s editorship ' ing by comparison with Dragonflight and Dragon­ (vole 1-21) the most outstanding feature of quest . They had depth / subtle trickery, the series was its conservatism. The arrange of strong emotions and a vast, awe­ stories were mostly by British authors (though inspiring grandeur; Dragonsoigis shallow, Canadians and Australians were occasionally simple and smal 1 -scale'.The1 sea hold is well allowed in) and were traditional science described, characterisation (especially of fiction: aliens, space ships, time machines Menolly) is convincing, and the fire lizards and dystopian futures, with almost no are delightully twee, but this isn't enough. fantasy or experimentation and certainly never a Dangerous Vision. And has the pos­ a ition changed under Kenneth Bulmer? I think it has. True, traditional sf is still TSE WORLD SET FREE by H. G. Wells; Corgi: to be found in NWSF (but this is what the London; 1976; .192 pp; 60p; ISBN 0 962 10258 X bulk of sf readers seem to demand, is it not?) yet mixed in with it are originality of both Reviewed by Brian Stableford theme and presentation, more fantasy and even references to love-making. Two examples This is the novel, first published in 1914, are pertinent here. First Brian Aldiss's in which Wells deals with the invention and trios of enigmas have become a regular use of the atomic bomb. It belongs to the . curious sub-genre of speculative fiction which feature of most recent volumes. Second, the flourished in Britain between 1670 and the eve proportion of new authors — mainly young - of the first world war - the imminent war “as risen, and these newcomers are clearly novel. not content to rip off the tired old ideas of 1950s sf, but instead try to achieve a This brand of scare story fed gluttonously on synthesis of old style and new wave. an undercurrent of anxiety which haunted Britain in this period. The roots of A good starting point for detailed consider­ the anxiety are easy enough to trace in the ation of these two volumes is with new social disruption which followed the Industrial author Michael Stall, who has produced Revolution - a loss of confidence in tomorrow, marginally the best story in each. His a mind of proto-Future Shock. very first published story,.in NWSF 23, was the most original of that collection. Oddly enough, only two of the writers who "Rice Brandy" in NWSF 25 displays that same contributed to the genre seem to have had any originality combined with excellent descriptions real appreciation of the fact that technology and a careful, double-plotted presentation. would s.o remake the art of war that there It is an alternate wordl story against a was genuine reason for great concern about Cambodian background which is either well the scale of the destruction wlch might soon known to ths author or painstakingly researched. be possible. One was Wells, the other George "Manganon" in NWSF 28 is so different in Griffith (who wrote, in 1911, The Lord of Labour, theme and style that it might have been written another novel featuring the use of atomic by a different Michael Stall, but the quality weapons). Perhaps even more odd was the is still present. In a way it, too, is an fact that neither Wells nor Griffith found in alternate worlds story. Travellers and ciphers this possibility of doom any cause for despair - seek gates which lead to other worlds. rather the reverse, In fact. Griffith always Their motives vary from escape to a desire took a delight in recounting tales of tremend­ for the immortality which gate travel confers. ous destruction, and Wells felt that the Their eagerness to seize a gate gives an destruction, of man's present world was nec­ air of heroic fantasy,- but Manganon, the essary in order that a socialist Ctopia whole system of gates, is revealed as very might emerge from thezuins. The World Set much a mental exercise, and the story becomes Free takes its title and its plot from heavily philosophical towards the end. Yes, ISI® belief. Michael Stall is a talented writer, still improving. The way in which the New Order arises from rhe chaos of atomic war in this novel seems, Another powerful tale in NWSF 25 is "The today, so shallow and uncohvfccing as to be Green Fuse" by Martin Ricketts. The unrav­ ludicrous. An elite corps of ex-kings and elling of alien reproductive cycles has ex-premiers band together to establish a become such a standard theme of late that beneficient oligarchy. This is characteristic the success of a new version • depends upon of Wells the Fabian, who could only believe the author's scientific ingenuity in that socialism would have to be forced upon setting up the cycle and his descriptive the .masses by a cultural elite. In common powers in making both humans and aliens people and revolutions he had no faith at all. believable. Despite a technically unconvincing underwater sequence, Martin Ricketts pulls each volume you are almost guaranteed to it off, and this success is due largely to find an assortment of gems and duds flavoured the intensely emotional climax in which nine­ by the perenaial performance of an "old hand". teen babies are slaughtered. (If this Ibis collection is little different from bort of Dangerous Vision persists in NWS? that standard barring the fact that the I’m sure it won't be long before there are "old hand" (in this case Mr Aldiss) performs four-letter words in the foreword!) more than adequately. I find this blend rather disconcerting at times - at others Fans of the Unorthodox Engineers will be refreshing. It is nice to be reminded that glad to see them back. Colin Kapp has edged sf is all things to all people. into Larry Niven territory to produce a funny - though rather obvious - Black Hole story. The John Keith opens the battlxsg with a tale in other goodies in NWSF 25 are an off-beat the manner of Cordwainer Smith, "A Planet epoof by Keith Wells, a beautiful almost Called Cervantes". "On Rawn died the Ballard-like contribution from Charles Thirty Thousand" he repeats tirelessly Partington and a slight but pleasing time (and tiresomely) and impresses us with travel mood piece by Wolfgang Joschke. The Kreld training, the Interregnum, Keridish remaining three stories in no 25 are all battle squadrons and the Rengol Marines. competently written by established authors Frankly, by the end of all the jargon (Sydney J. Bounds, Donald Maclolm and John I didn't care a damn. Cordwainer Smith Rackham) but their themes and styles are presented his fare with a hint of enigma, ®o much of the 1950a and early 60s that I a touch of myth and an undercurrent of could hardly get through them. I find it factual scepticism. Mr Keith presents it interesting that the blurb writer chose undiluted and bores us silly. these three on which to concentrate. Chris Priest's "Men Of Good Value" is an W8F 28 also has its share of hackneyed themes, impressively honest tract despite Mr but the authors concerned havo generally Bulmor's editorial disclaimer. Characters taken the trouble to disguise them by origin­ too often betray a natural "assumed" courage ality of presentation. For example, the that real life would rob them of when araat exciting story in the book ( "On the circumstances prevailed. Chris Priest Inside" by Robert P. Holdstock) is revealed, presents his alter-ego here for our inspect­ ia the harsh light of denoument, as having ion and It escapes unscathed if perjured. seme very hoary old plot ■elements. But the As a warning to us about the partiality writing pulls tte reader along from page to of the media it is perhaps a half-hearted page at a great pace. There is no time to blow; as if only to remind us of that stop and wonder as Andrew Quinn gets up, which we already know. kisses his mummified wife, goes off to work, makes a lunch-time visit to the park "Three Coins In Enigmatic Fountains" - another and "Shock1', becomes a different person. three enigmas from Mr Aldiss. This is one Similarly, Bryn Fortey sets up his fairly of two excellently written stories in this obvious ending in the first ten lines of collaction (the other is the last) and "Wordsmith" but the story is a success because stands out as such. The language drips like of its racy approach to the theme. molten honey as we romp through shards of the delightfully diseased mind of B’#A. "The Banks Of The Nile" by Ritchie Smith and "Carefully observed women" reels through Thomas Penman shows us Europe after the vistas of feminine dominance and trite fires of (presumably) nuclear war. It is truisms to where "The daffodil returns the ■ a rebuilt Europe, perhaps to similar to the smile" and Moolab travels up from the Rind original at the time of the Renaissance to to do battle with the Kimarsun. And somehow be totally cx’edible, but beautifully described it ia peaceful to find ourselves in "The and decked out with literary and historical year of the quiet computer" where transience allusions. It is also a Europe torn by will be banished and the daffodil returns new wars, and viewed mainly from an air­ the smile. ship. This has an air of quality about it and runs Michael Stall's "Manganon" close. Need I say more? Css the lighter side there are three more of "The Phobos Transcripts" by Cherry V/iidar Brian Aldiss's enigmas, this time in playlet is singularly unImpressive. A-la-Kalzberg form, and stories by leroy Kettle and Grahame the author provides us with the report Leman. "The Call Of The Wild" by Dutch of the incident on Phobos. Has an alien author Manuel van Loggem would have been intelligence involved? Well, you, me and aarasing in its descriptions of pedestrian­ the-maii-who-works-at-the-bottom-of-the-gardsn hunting by Parisian motorists if Death know, at least... Race 2000 had not come first. (The idea is not new though. Its earlies use which "The Maa Who" by David S. Garnett - a familiar I can trace is in Fritz Leiber's "X Marks nightmare to those with regular, routine The Pedwalk" from Galaxy in 1S53) jobs. Garnett handles the theme with respect and produces a finely crafted if I'm glad to see the gradual improvement in unspectacular result. Kew Writing's standards and also the increas­ ing number of fans appearing in it. Long "You Get Lots Of Yesterday, Lots Of Tomorrow, ray the series continue. And Only One Today” by Laurer.ce James avoids once again a question that has always nagged at me with these "crowded world" stories. So people live in tiny boxes, fed through NEW WRITINGS IN SF 26 edited by Kenneth tubes three times a day. Fine. But who Bulmer; Corgi; London; 1976; 60p; 191 pp; looks after them? How do they produce food? ISBN 0 552 10232 6 How do they reproduce? Are the workers in the system also the cause of the population Reviewed by David Wingrove explosion? If so, (a) when do they have the time? and (b) wouldn't they have the The New 'Writings series sways delicately be­ sense to leave off if it caused them so tween the excellent and the abysmal. Within much work? That aside, Mr James writes a. 10 - fine story about that "special'’ day everyone while simultaneously being varied and enter­ is allocated once in their lives. taining. But once again: why should they bother? Undeniably, Farmer's best work is of novel­ ette length. Two of his best, "My Sister's "Murders'* by Ramsey Campbell - holographic Brother" and "The Alley Maa", are reprinted solids and a powerful telepath become a hers, together with a short extract from, threat to society's fragile structure. his notorious Hugo winner, "Riders of the But the power of mass reaction can ba a two- Purple Wage". "My Sister’s Brother" edged weapon. This tory is competent (like The Lovers) is an early story of enough to maintain interest throughout, but alien sex. in this instance there is no not as powerful as Barrington Bayley's sexual contact between the human male, "An Overload" (NWQ 6) which explores the same Cardigan Lane, and the attractive female theme of mass manipulation by media personal­ humanoid he discovers on Mars, though there ities. A predictable outcome. are detailed anatomical descriptions. But the point of the story concerns conditioned "To The Pump Room With Jane" by Ian Watson - attitudes towards sex rather than actions; Mr Watson confuses our senses. A fine essay it is as much allegory as straight sf. on delusion and madness. The future proves (Curiously, this humanoid, who carries a a delirium of the past; but I spoil the small snake in her throat ae part of her tale.... ■ sexual apparatus, recurs only slightly altered in Farmer's two pora fantasies, "The Seafarer" by Ritchie Smith and Thomas The Image Of The Beast and Blown. I wonder Penman - I lost count of the literary/musical iF’Linca Tovelace ever read Phil Farmer dur­ references that about in this moving tale. ing her formative years.) It certainly captures the Zeitgeist, gazing back as it does with nostalgia for this Old Man Paley, "The Alley Man", is a scrap "simple" age of ours. Densely written; merchant and possibly the last surviving this pair lead us gently into the history . Neanderthal. Be is, for me, one of Farmer's of a new world and the lost love of Karangetti, most unforgettable characters, starring in the seafarer. The romantic poets and out a story full of pride and sadness which contemporary balladeers provide staunch support should have won a Hugo. to the intellectual entabglements of a budding relationship. A care for language, Obviously the Riverworld novels are Farmer's construction and emotive subtlety is much in best-known exporation of the resurrection evidence. I shall watch these two with theme, though Inside-Outside (reprinted last considerable interest. . . ■ year in the Avon "S? Rediscovery series) is a far superior treatment. The theme is re­ Something for everyone? Certainly there was presented here by "Toward The Beloved City", enough to keep my interest, and - in three a relatively poor novelette which is neverthe­ cases - stimulate my thoughts. New Writings less very typical of Farmer's non-heroic could be so much better with so little fiction, in having one weak male and two extra effort. I don't know Mr Bulmer's strong female characters, plus a bit of ■ problems, economic or other-wise, and divine intervention by an angel. (Just in bo would refrain from further comment, case you don't know, Farmer’s angels are but tow of these stories were pure padding. jxsually alien superbeings in more-or-lees Oh well, I keep reading the buggers so they Luman shape.) can't be that bad! Then there are six of what Phil Farmer teas christened polytropical paramyths. These are Marxian tales but, as the author THS BOOK OF PHILIP JOSE FARMER ; The Elmfield says in his foreword, "the term refers to Press; Leeds; 1976; £4.95; 239 pp; ISBN 0 Groucho, Chico and Harpo, not Karl". They 7057 0037 4 are very short zany fantasies with occasional bursts of satire, the best being "The Sumerian Reviewed by Chris Morgan Oath", in which it is suggested (with tongue Phil Farmer has made a name for himself not in cheek and scalpel in throat) that all by writing well but by the obsessional pursuit doctors besides swearing the Hippocratic in his works of three controversial themes: Gath swear the Sumerian oath never to reveal fantasy sex, resurrection and the factual that disease is manufactured by doctors bases of fictional heroes. Potentially a just to keep thwniselves in business. very good writer (I regard the excellent novelette "Sketches Among the Ruins Of My The last section of The Book Of Philip Jose Mind" as his finest achievement; at least Farmer contains a "factual" meeting between two of his novels, The Lovers and Inside-Outside banner and Tarzan, a biographical sketch are good by any standards), he has too often of Kilgore Trout and an article about sacrificed quality for sensationalism. Also, Farmer by US book critic Leslie A. Fiedler. much of his output over the last ten or The Tarzan interview is a stiff upper twlave years has been marred by lack of re­ lip encounter, concentrating mftinly on small writing. Some of his novela are appallingly discrepancies between Burroughs books and bad. ' real life, while missing out on most of the opportunities for wry humour. But there is This latrst volume (a nice hardcover reprint some humour there: (page 213): of the 1973 DAW books edition) is the author's personal selection and contains "Farmer: ‘ Suffice it to say that I have shown examples of many of the disparate strands you are closely related to the men of his work. Farmer has written a foreword whowe'e living prototypes of Doc Savage, and a brief introduction to each of the Nero Wolfe. Bulldog Drummond, Sherlock contents. Nowhere dees he attempt to dis­ Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey, Leopold Bloom, and Richard Wentworth (also known as G-8, guise or make light of his obsessions; nor The Spider and Ths Shadow), and a number of does he disown any of his hackwork. The other notable characters in nineteenth- result is a book which does Justice to the and twentieth-century fiction. strengths and weaksnsses of Philip Jose Farmer Tarzan: Indeed. nearly half a century - he began writing before Amazing Stories was born and was• still e.round to~EeTp~esuscitat.e it in ■ F&rsaer: I have also found the explanation the raid-sixties. He wrote a large numW ’ for the remarkable, almost super­ of dull potboilers but he did have ability human powers exhibited by yourself and and imagination, wbcih he occasionally used many members cf your family. As you know, to good effect. He wrote for a wide range a monument marks the spot today where of markets inside and outsid® the sf estab­ a. meteorite hit Sold Newton, Yorkshire, lishment. How is this career represented in 1795. It just so happens that three in this "memorial anthology"? We have ten coaches were passing by when the meteorite short stories all of which initially appeared struck, and in them were the third Dulse of beteen 1945 and 1958. The book does not Greystoke and his wife, the rich gentleman contain "The Mad Planet", "Sidewise in Time", Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley House and "First Contact" or "Exploration Team" - his wife Elizabeth Bennet - the heroine yet these are the four stories with which of Pride and Prejudice - Sherlock Holmes' his name is primarily associated. It does great-grandparents, "and a number of not contain any of the "Med Ship" stories. others. All the ladies were pregnant. It does not contain any representative Everybody was exposed to the radiation of his early work ia or out of the genre from the meteorite. Ionization accompanies magazines, not any representative of his the fall of these, you know. And ths work during the last decade that he was radiation must have caused favorable active. It doos not contain "A Logic Named mutations in the party." Joe" or "The Strange Case of John Kingman" or "The Lonely Planet" or "The Oldest Story To those unfamiliar with the Kilgore in the World" or "The Amateur Alchemist” - Trout controversy let me just mention it has, in fact, just two stories which that he is a character (a fictional sf number among Leinster's best or most pop­ author) in three of Kurt Vonnegut's books ular: "The Ethical Equations" and "De Pro- whom various sf authors have (with or fwadis". The book has an introduction, but without Vonnegut's permission) made use . it is only one page long and makes but a of. Phil Farmer has even written a Kilgore few facile 'conanents. There is nothing here Trout novel, Venus on the Half-shell. to put Leinster's work into ary kind of His BiographicaiT'artlcle on Trout is'a perspective. wOird combination of fact and fiction. The article by Fiedler about Farmer is In my opinion th® packaging of this collect­ an honest appraisal not without brick­ ion is dishonest. To pretend that this book bats. is a testament to Murray Leinster seems perilously close to an insult. This was meant to be a representative collection of Farmer's best work in different areas, omitting ths most frequently anthologised material. As WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME by Marge Piercy; Random House; New York; 369 pp; $10.00 such it succeeds well, though it WOMEN OF WONDER edited by Pamela Sargent; is inevitable that few readers will Random House/Vintage Books; New York; 235 pp enjoy the whole spectrum of writings * Ivil pp; $1.95 included. Bibliographical purists will MORE WOMEN OF WONDER edited by Pamela Sargent; be upset that several of the pieces' Random House /Vintage Books; New York; 310 first appearances were not credited, .and + liii pp; Al,95 I expect most people will join me in ORSINIAN TALES by Ursula Le Guin; Harper wishing that Farmer's introductory and Row; New York; 1976; 180 pp; $7.95 remarks had bean longer, but this is a good vdime - and interesting testimony- Reviewed by douglas harbour to obsession. What is perhaps moat Interesting about sf Josh Kirby has done a very nice wrap­ today is the fact that the boundaries are around jacket illustration of an early being blurred from every direction, as the . scene from "My Sister's Brother". two single-author books under review will reveal. But first, I want to discuss two * fine new anthologies. ' .

THE BEST OF MURRAY LEINSTER edited by Pamela Sargent has rapidly gained a reput­ Brian Davis; Corgi; London; 1975; 171 pp; ation as a formidable editor of and comment­ 60p; ISBN 0 552 10333 0 ator on sf. Wotsen of Wbnder and More Women of Wonder are not onfy~superior collections" Reviewed by Brian Sts.ble.ford cdTscience fiction, they are introductory exporations of the whefe speculative inter­ Advertising in the UK is subject to various face between "Science Fiction and Women's legal constraints regarding honesty, but Studies", as the back-cover rubric on Women one of the difficulties that the arbitrators of Wonder indicates. ~ face is the fact that through long and corrupt misuse certain words have become Both anthologies ai'e historically organised so devalued as to have lost all meaning. to present an accurate view of woman's One of these words is "best". There has place in sf over the years. The stories been a recent spate of "Best of..." anthol­ ■ are all by women, and they are all about ogies which have made the ter® ridiculous. women to a greater or lesser extent. The The present offering is even more pre­ comparisons and contrasts that emerge from tentious, in that it also claims to be the juxtaposition of stories from the forties "a memorial anthology". This means and titles with those from the sixties that Murray Leinster died while the collect­ and seventies are provocative and salutary. ion was being compiled and some bright Though sf is still a male-dominated field, spark at Corgi thought that his death might sosne real advances have been made; today offer opportunities for even more cynical writers are beginning to envision futures exploitation of the casual sf reader. where advances in every field of technology will have their effect upon the social, Murray Leinster's career in sf spanned psychological and sexual lives cf wemeh and -12 completely altering relationships long children have three mothers of both sexes.end held to be ’’normal”. make a stringent'and dangerous rite-of-passage to free themselves of familial possessiveness; Offtaring stimulating and fresh explorations a world in which communities are large family of possible futures in their best stories, groups, in which sexist distinctions have WOW and MWOW provide, first and foremost, been eradicated (one of Piercy’s best touches top notch entertainment throughout. Ms is the all-encompassing prcnoun"per", .which Sargent knows good sf when she sees it , no . I was using by the time I’d finished the matter what its period, and her selection in novel) in which, creativity for and of all is these two books is nearly faultless, Judith a reality, and in which death is accepted as Merril, Kate Wilhelm, Leigh. Brackett , Ursula a natural part of life. Against this dream - Le Guin, Joanna Russ, Joan D. Vinge and . a nightmare: a world of scientists, people Vonda McIntyre are only the very best of a . mostly cyborg and controlled by technology, fine group pi contributors. These books are the worst imaginings of C.S, Lewis’s not only interesting for their feminist The Abolition of Man. .And, as Luciente tells slant, they are also among the very best Connie, "Yours is a crux-time. Alternative introductions to sf available. universes co-exist. Probabilities clash and possibilities wink out forever,” : Ursula Le Guin’s new collection, Orsinian Tales, represents her first work outside Indeed. Chosen to be a guinea-pig for a new S?T»et in periods from 1150 .to. the near* /method of ’’therapy”, a neuro-electric experiment, present and in the imaginary-real countries in which computer-run electrodes implanted in of more realistic fiction, thesA stories reveal the patient’s brain will keep him or her new facets of Ms fee Guin/a protean and humane "peaceful”, Connie is only too aware that talent, her fine craft and her calm, accepting the war between the two* futures is already being love of life. fought. It is this terrifying story of the present which keeps Woman On The Edge Of Time Ms Le Guin has. a remarkable talent for from becoming, a boring Bafph Bellamy tour creating characters in whose emotional . of a perfect future world, Connie is a human life the reader shares. Many of these being, now, whose life as a free human being stories are set in Easter Europe during is in perils she fully engages the reader’s various periods of this century of change. sympathies. In the doctors* eyes, she is The men and women who lead their ordinary mentally ill and anti-social, and society lives there suffer forms of material depriv­ appears to agree with, the do :ctors, if her ation most of Ms Le Guin’s readers will : family is any measure of £s opinion. Yet never have known. This only means that, she finally realises that she is at "war” like the people of her bleak Utopian planpt . / with a form of thought and life which will in The Dispossessed, they live their lives prevent Mattapoisette from becoming, and this a bit closer to the skin; there’s less realisation brings her to a violent moral fancy clothing hiding the ’’poor bare, forked ; choice. animal” that is every person. Deliberately lacking in adventure or romance, and Often ending in material defeat for the protagonists, . "it is impossible to do justice to the ccmplex- these stories are wonderfully, profoundly ; ity of this novel, the stark realism of the moving celebrations of human courage and * hospital scenes juxtaposed to the glorious love of life. Orsinian Tales is a yea- creation of the world of Mattapoisette, the saying book. rich characterisations not only of Connie, but of others in her ward and her many friends in As, in its different way, is Marge Mercy’s the future. Woman On The Edge Of Time Is a Woman of the Edge of Time. Ms Piercy is book full of paTir aoiT-lo v^7* human courage and known, not as an' si" nutfior, but ad a feminist suffering, and, finally, hope. It Is a book poet and novelist whose last book, Small to be read and cherished for its provocative Changes, was praised by AdriAnne Rich and speculations, but also for Its refusal to jtyllis" Ches ter. Yet an earlier, novel. despair about the future of mankind. Dance The Eagle To Sleep, was a projection into a revolutionary^future from the youthful sense of possibility in the sixties, and. Woman On The Edge Of Time is sf if it’s EARTH ABIDES by George R. Stewart; Gollacz; anything:' a fable of the Jfuture for our own London; 1977; $3.95; 334 pp; ISBN 0 575 02273 S time, and a story of extraordinary power and . Reviewed by Cy Chauvin range. in Billion Year Spree. Brian ^Idiss said that Beginning in the contemporary slums of New the*best novel iii tfee disaster novel subgenre - York, it swings mostly between various mental which British writers of sf seemed to dominate hospitals in the area and stleast two - is, surprisingly, written by an American. possible futures, one a beautifully humane He was referring to George R. Stewart’s Utopia, the other a mechanistic Dystopia, Earth Abides (1049). Not only did the novel both obviously potential products of our win the International Fantasy Award for that present culture. Consuelo (Connie) Ramos, the woman on the edge of time, is trapped in year, but it comes with a recommendation from Carl Sandburg* a mental hospital so specifically rendered . it scared the bell out of me. She soniehow ; The novel chronicles the life of Isherwood makes mental contact with Luciente of the ,, playful, androgynous society of Mattapoisette (Ish) Williams, who is bit by a rattlesnake while alone In the wilderness just prior to over a century in the future. Treated us a the outbreak of the plague. Through some sick animal by the people of her own time, accidental iamulsation process, Ish does not Connie keeps going to Mattapoisette,. where, the Inhabitants teach her their way of life, - die. But he (and other survivors) still have a life William Morris would have loved for . the serious psychological problem of adjusting its playful sense of work and learning and to a radically different world. Some do not its life-enhancing use of technology. survive: they.drink themselves to obliviorf, withdraw, or pretend as best they can that Mattapoisette is a fully realised Utopia: a life ie aa it was.before. world of civility and ceremony, where 13 - left is a "loner" before the plague, and when It Is like a Hobln.,onade in much of its it first strikes he thinks of himself as an appeal - a small band of people fighting observer, rather than a participant, in the against nature, trying to salvage the world to come. Methodically, he makes a scraps of civilisation. But there is no list of his qualifications for survival: outside world they can escape to; and technological civilisation cannot survive. "1) Have will to survive. Want to see A part of Ish ('the last American') dies when what will happen in a world without man, and he realises this. how. Geographer. 2) Always was solitary. There is some religious background to the 3) Have appendix out. novel. A hammer Ish discovers when he is 4) Moderately practical., though not mechanical. first bittne by the rattlesnake becomes a Camper. symbol of his authcx’ity, and a ling with the 3) Did not suffer devastating experience of past. Some of the children come to believe living through it all, seeing family, other it has magical powers, and Ish carries it people, die. Thus escaped the worst of everywhere with him. (Towards the end of tta shock." (Ish was in the wilderness his life, Ish is tending to be regarded as during this period.) a god, or a prophet, and young men come to him for advice on important matters.) In the classic expbrer tradition, Ish decides There is also s amore conventional to take a cross country trip, to see how the religious/fate orientation to the novel. plague has affected different ai’eas. While Immediately after the infection swipes preparing for the trip, a beagle (in the through the Tribe, and Joey dies, Ish classic situation) adopts Ish as his master. thinks that the group may have committed Without being overly cute or sentimental, some unknown sin, and confesses his Stewart uses the dog as a device to reaveal weakenss to Em. She replies: lab's character. It is in the dog that Ish makes his first emotional attachment-since "If there is a Gcd who made is and we did the disaster. He has not realised how lonely wrong before bis eyes...at least we did he has been, and lives in fear (not all of it wrong only because we were as God made us, rational). He is extremely cautious. Khen and I do. not think he should set traps... the dog runs off to chase some reabbits in Let us not bring all that back into the the desert, he becomes very depressed (he is world again - the angry God, the mean God - afraid the dog will get lost and not return). the one who does not tell ua the ruels of When the dog returns after all, Ish makes the game, and then strikes back when we an important realisation: "’Khat am I afraid break them." of?' he thought. 'Nothing more than-my own death can happen. That has come to most Towards the very end of the novel, Ish begins people already. . Why should I be afraid of to wonder how the plague has affected his that?'....He felt infinite relief.’" life, sad he thinks that at this point in Ish's journey is an odyssey across a changed his life it hardly matters: he would be an world, a world where man’s influence is old naan now, even if civilisation had cont­ gradually waning, as certain bits of inued. "What did it matter? What had he crucially placed omniscient narration help accomplished? Kow certainly it made no emphasise. Dogs die penned in kennels; difference." At many points in the novel, pavement cracks and trees fall and cover Ish puts off doing things (ox does not do roads; the wheat and the weeds grow together. them at all) because he feels his actions These sections contrast with the personal alone will have no effect - nature will narrative focused on Ish - they give a picture undo all he tries toaccompllsh. Yet, Earth. of the earth's evolution from nature's view­ Abides is not a study of the futility of point, rather than man's. man's actions; it is more a'story about human courage, in which the characters learn Ish finds survivors along the way, but none reasons for surviving depsite the disasters. he would wish to stay with. The people were Of Em, a friend Srys: "We need Em, for she often emotionally dead; the culture shock gave us courage, and without courage there was too great. When Ish returns to the west is only a slow dying, not life;" On tny coast, he meets Em, and he realises how much second reading of the novel, 1 found this he has missed "real" human companions. They last section too depressing, and strangely decide to live together, and gradually a relevant to my own personal feelings, I small group of .survivors grows up around them. suppose I felt the pain of empathy and They refer to themselves as "The Tribe", and tragedy. a close-knit family/society evolves, with Ish as the leader. Ish says of himself: "I "Men come and men go, but earth abides". always struggle. I can never be merely (Ecclesiastes I, 4). The same might be said happy." of most science fiction novels, but not of George R. Stewart's Earth Abides. He sees the fall of his civilisation and Culture - not only the exteriors (buildings, o tachnology ) but in the children’s lack of musical and reading ability. Ish puts all A Surfeit of Empires his hopes in one small boy, Joey, and when a virus spreads among the Tribe and kills the THE IMPERIAL STARS by E. E. Doc Smith and boy, Ish is crushed. "Perhaps the brilliant Stephen'Goldin; Panther; St Albans; 1976; are not suited to sruvive," .says one 155 pp; 50p; ISUB o4334 3 character to Ish, but he goes on to FLAHDRY OF TERRA by Poul Anderson; Coronet; describe some members of the Tribe as "solid" London; 1976; 220 pp; 70p; ISBN 0 340 20753 1 but with "no imagination" (which is why they 'ffE CLAIM THESE STARS by Poul Anderson; did not go crazy with shock). Ish comes to Dobson; London; 1976; 125 pp; £3.35; {SBR realise too that one boy and man cannot 0 234 77946 2 change the world - "How much did man strike outward to affect his surrounding, and Reviewed by Brian Stableford how much did surroundings press in upon him?" - 14

Back writers, unlike old soldiers, die but fantasy. Here the Empire is still Daddy, sometimes show a remarkable reluctance to but instead of the snug childhood acceptance fade away, Doc Smith has joined that select of paternal rule we have a flamboyant and group of wordmills whose sails will be kept contemptuous adolescent resentment of it * turning despite the demise of the original. it ie seen as decadent and senile, while the machinery. His brand of space opera can now youthful protagonist represents himself be standardised and supplied by mass-production. narcissist ically as a cavalier and independent For want of a better comment: Oh dear. spirit.

pie Imperial Stars has been elaborated by Stephen The Imperial Stars is recommended to those I^Ydiln from a ^raip&ent which appeared.ag a with a men tai age of 9, the Flandry series novelette in I? some ten years ago, Goldin's to those existentially becalmed at 15. Parsimon­ additions are“TTike‘ a toupee - you can' t seie ious readers may care to note that if the Join but there’s no getting over the fact Coronet cont lune with the series We Clalin that the intrinsic plot is very thin on top. These Stars (the best of the bmcii should It is a spy story and a Ruritanian romance, appear * in a subsequent collection under The fact that its Ruritania is another Anderson's preferred title "Hunters of the world and its Rasendil a pair of mealy- Sky Cave", along with a couple of ether mouthed trapeze artists is hardly enough to novelettes. This will be better value by warrant any claim of originality. far than a thin paperback photocopied from half of an old Abe Double. Xh the symposium The Science Fiction Kovel published by Advent many years ago,; Cyril Kornbluth pointed out that Smith's work consists of fantasies structurally similar to those employed by small children engaged Into The Horse's Bead • in exciting games of make-believe, and that their universe is a metaphorical trans­ Teeth' glittering like myriad stars lation of the world-view of the child. On dark galactic nights The Imperial Stars is no exception, save that The helmsman pauses, smiles, hand poised its poverty of Ideas marks it oft as the Console blink their code in lights product of a jaded and ineffectual imagination The captain gases at the equine head compared to the Lensman seris (which had all Captured by the ship's unseeing eyes the verve and vigour of a genuine child's Ink black mass, coalescent gas Imagination.) The empire and the emperor Chance configuration of familiar disguise here are paternal not in the political The captain turns, nods his head sense but in a straightforward metaphorical The helmsman activates the ship's alert sense. To say that this is a childish novel Crewmen scurry, engines whine is not to.insult it but to describe it literally. They go, they go, they will be the first

Poul Anderson's Flandry stories, three of which -- Chris Evans

("The Game of Glory", "A Message in Secret" CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE OF VRS: and "A Plague of Masters") crop up in Flandry of Terra and one of. which similarly stands douglas harbour sfimiy alone in We Claim - These Stars. also Cy Chauvin feature the adventures of an imperial James Corley interstellar spy. They serve to point out Chris Evans some of the shortcomings of The Imperial Brian Griffin ■ Stars but * by an interesting irony * also Chris Morgan reveal their own shortcomings by virtue of Brian Stableford the comparison. David Wingrove

poul Anderson does not turn out standardised crud by the yard, Eadh of these four stories EDHQR1AL contains an idea, a more-or-less carefully designed hypothetical problem and a unique If all goes well, this first issue of VRS background. These factors allow the stories should be mailed out with Vector 79. on to become entities in their own right, not February 14th or thereabouts/ As it is mere section cut from an endless roll of something of an experiment, the reactions patterned cloth. They are not very good of you, tbe readership, would be much stories - the problem in "A Message in appreciated. Secret" is very silly and the background in "The Game Of Glory" fails to convince - but As you will gather, the purpose of VRS is they are individual stories. Their central to keep up the rate of reviewing provided character, in addition, has some semblance for Vector readers, without clogging up of personality - be does not simply go through the journal completely with book reviews, the motions prescribed by the plot but has to the exclusion of other material. We shall attitudes to what he is doing, motives cont laue to put the best of the reviews, and (occasionally) feelings. All. this of the most important books, in Vector itself makes Flandry more interesting, and his but the rest will end .up in VRS. This adventures more readable, than the la no comment on the relative merits of family d'Alembert, who exhibit a - those reviews/reviewers who appear in the literally - child-like acceptance of the two publications, merely a way of getting parameters surrounding their actions and all the‘material into print. There are existence. far more books being published in the UK today that are worthy of at least some Curiously, however, it becomes easy - once length of review than can be fitted into we have recognised The Imperial Stars as the pages of Wctgp itselfe Thus VRS. a childish fantasy - "to see "the Flandry stories for what they really are, and to — Chris Fowler identify the factors involved in the 14/2/1977 characterisation of their hero. The Flandry series is unmistakably an adolescent