Vector158 Parkinson & Mcveigh 1990-12

December-January 1990-91 125p Issue 158 • lain Banks Interviewed • • Charles Stross: Myths, Computers & Cyberpunk• • The Summer's SF films reviewed • Josephine Saxton interviewed • Vector Issue 158 • Dec 1990/Jan1991 ISSN 0505-1448 Contents 3 - Editorial 4-Letters 5 - lain Banks Interview By Andy Sawyer 8 - Myths, Computers and Cyberpunk By Charles Stross 10-One Fine Summer A Review of tM Summer's SF Films by Ian Nathan 12 - Book Reviews Reviews of books by lain Banks, William Gibson & Bruce Sterfing,Jack Vance, Colin Greenland, Grt!g Bear, Lucius Shepard, Mary Gentle, Jonathan Carroll, Kim Stanley Robinson. Brian Aldiss, CJ Cherryh. Dan Simmons, and Christopher Priest among others ... 20 - Josephine Saxton Interviewed By Kev McVeigh Co-Editors Boyd Parkinson 11 Marsh Street, Barrow- in-Furness, Cumbria, LA14 2AE Telephone 0229-32807 Kev McVeigh 37 Firs Road, Milnthorpe, Cumbria, LA7 7QF Telephone 05395-62883 Review s Edito r - Paul Kincaid Production A ssistants - Chris Amies, Paul Macaulay, Catie Cary, Alison Sinclair, Camilla Pomeroy, Brian Magorrian, John Foster Production Consultant - Barry Parkinson Typeset by PCG, 61 School Street, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria LA141EW. Tel: 0229-36957 Printed by PDC Copyp,int, 11 Jeffries Passage, Guildford, Surrey. GU1 4AP Vector is published bimonthly by the BSFA, copyright 1990. All opinions expressed in Vecior are those of the individual contributors and must not be taken lo represent those of the Editors or the BSFA except where explicitly staled. Contributors - Good articles are always wanted. All MSS must be typed double-spaced on one side of the paper. Maximum preferred length is 3500 words; exceptions can and will be made. A preliminary letter is useful but not essential. Unsolicited MSS cannot be returned without an SAE. Please note lhat lhere is no payment for publication. Members who wish to review books must first write to the Editors. Artists - Cover art, illustrations and fillers are always welcome. Advertising - All advertising copy must be submitted as b/w camera-ready artwork with a!I necessary halftones. All enquiries on rates, sizes, etc. to the Publicity Manager: Dave Wood, 1 Friary Close, Marine Hill,Clevedon, Avon BS21 7OA Editorial By Kev McVeigh have ~ust read a remarkable novel based on bm where are they? Why aren't they memo background, trivia and detritus, nothing Ia maJOr historical change in the middle of rable? more. I think Terry Bisson recognised this, the 19th century. It isn't the best novel I 've I mentioned Molly Rachel, but although I not only because he wrote something very read this year (though very well-written ii has remember her now as a black woman, when I different, but in the manner of his difference. its minor flaws), but ii has an approach to its first read Ancient Light each time I came He recognises that Abraham Lincoln is a na subject which is worthy of ancntion. across a reference to her colour it was like the tional hero for abolishing slavery, whilst Before I do that, however, I'd like 10 ex first time. Cultural conditioning is such, par Brown and Tubman are neglected, as is the plain the background to my reading of this ticularly in a nonhem village or in the sf real situation in 1859: Slavery was on the novd. There are two f-.ctors of note: the firn community where black faces are rare, that I brink of collapse; there were almost as many is that I generally enjoy alternate history tend lo read characters a.s white, even now poor whites as poor blacks; and abolition had novels (despite gelling bogged down rwo when I'm aware of this. It i, even tricky when begun long before Lincoln, who was caught lhirds of lhe way lhrough The DIITertnce the charactct is a slave descendant as in Ho up in ii ud was shrewd enough to react Engine). The "what if" method of com ward Waldrop's A Doun Tough Jobs. Most ahead of his rivals, rather than being a man menting on the present using the past is 1 writcts, I suppose, ue in a position where with a mission as, for example, Willi1J11 Wil common device not always convincingly doing anything bu1 mak.inc the occasional berforce was in this counlJ)'. (Indeed, how used (cg Hitler winning the war without any skin reference is very difficulL Mentioning it many people are aware that Rhode Island, the explanation of what change has broughl this every time is racist, because it isn't necessary thirteenth state of the union, abolished about). I also enjoy certain periods of history, for white characters; ignoring it negates the slavery in 17741) Bisson contributes to the including !hat in which half of this novel is whole poinl. Phonetic accents are difficult history lesson with a foreword ske tching set, which was why I bought it. Sec.ondly, I too, either to be convincing or readable (and I what really happened at Harper's Ferry have recmtly been reading a few books don't just mean black accents. but Scottish, (Brown and others were h1111ged) 1111d writes chosen after watching BBC2's "Eyes on th e Northern English, Spanish, French. and any into his novel an alternative history novel. Prize" series. That series and some of those non-conventional accentuation). Neverthe John Brown's Body, where this was how it books, dealt with the American Black Civil less, I had been thinking that it was strange happened 1111d Lincoln did become the Presi Rights Movement from the mid-50's upto the that nobody had managed to shake me up and dent we know. A clever conceit which early 80's. Until I read this novel I had been out of my white middle class complacency in emphasises the potential reality of this black 10ying with the idea of 'Nliting something sf the way that a few non-s f writen including USSA. based upon this subject. Of course I hadn't hnamu Amiri Baraka, Alex Haley and Nto I didn't intend this editorial to become and taken it back far enough, and now I can't, zake Shange had done widely. extended review of one book (though Bisson because Terry Bissom's Fire on the Moun So this was the direction from which I ap is an author to cherish), but I hope it hu tain does it so well. proached Fire on the Mountain, having served its purpose through that review, That h i:; 50 ye11TS since Black novelists began been delighted by Bisson', previous novel is, I hope that I have made people think on 10 achieve success, notably James Baldwin, Talking Man, and being intrigued by his the (mostly unconscious, minor and under Frank Yerby and Richard Wright; but there premise.: th.at John Brown and Harriet Tub standable) racism in sf and fanwy, and, were others before them, leading 10 Ishmael man succeeded at Hvpcr's Ferry in 1859, perhaps, realise Iha! there is a lot happening Recd and George Lamming today. It is 30 and afterwards, leading to a black secession in today's world that a greater awareness of years since S1J11uel R Delany began his ist and socialist Deep South. (My own idea what really happened in our collective and cueer as p-obably the first black sf writer of had been for Malcolm X to survive Dr Martin individual paslS will help us produce a more any note; and 30 yean since Robert A Hein Luther King, leading to • powerful and radi tolerable furure. There is a long way to go, I lein casua.lly slid a sucker punch pa.sl us by cal black Moslem movement whils1 the US noted only a half-dozen black faces amongst idling the reader who'd got half-way through was confused by Viet Nam.) What I found aboul 350 white faces at Novacon in Birm Starship Troopers that his hero, Jolm Rico, was sornelhing special: Fire on tht Moun ingham last wr.ek. Nevenheleu, sf was blade. And it i:; 20 years since Norman tain gently and unob1rusively coerced this assimili~ women both as characti:u IUld u Spiruad put Lucas Greene into the White reader into reading it with lhe natural as 'Nliters and is immeasurably richer for it - House as the first black President ... Now sumption that, until told otherwise, all though still flawed, as lnlerwne's well -in name me a major black character in sf since characters could be considered to be black. tentioned sexual apartheid in issue 42 and then. I'll make it easier: name a major black This reversal is remarkable, and quite as radi· most of the preceding year shows - IUld it clUI public figure outside of sport and enteruin cal a.s anything that the SFU is offering; but it do the same with multi-racial sf, in which ments (and also ucepting certain South is also somewhat disturbing thaL in 1990. a case Terry Bisson may well be remembered Africans). To the lauer question we probably novel like this is so unusual. Yes. there are as one of the early stlUldard bearers, and a got Jesse Jacbon (I wonder if he's read Spin writers such as CJ Cherryh who regularly and brave and irupiring writa. rad?), Trevor McDonald and... that's very successfully use. aliens in this manner. a If sf ignores this lead then it hu failed 10 probably it. To the sf question? Those guys friend says he tends 10 assume characters are be either the " literature of the imagination" with the cod accents in Ncuromancer, a few Hartl unless told otherwise; bu1 in human or the growing, living form it must be to sur Lucius Shepard, RA Lafferty and Delany orientated sf and particularly in fantasy the vive.

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