SF Commentary 71-72
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SF COMMENTARY 71/72 April 1992 96 pages Damien Broderick on PRINGLE’S ‘ULTIMATE GUIDE’ Colin Steele on BRODERICK’S COLLECTED STORIES TAD WILLIAMS and GREG BEAR interviewed Bruce Gillespie on JONATHAN CARROLL Roslyn K. Gross on DIANA WYNNE JONES Wynne Whiteford on CHANDLER’S COLLECTED STORIES SHORT REVIEWS OF SI# AND FANTASY BOOKS: Damien Broderick Wynne Whiteford Alan Stewart Dave Langford Greg Hills Andy Sawyer Roger Weddall Roslyn Gross Bruce Gillespie Michael J. Tolley Scott Campbell Elaine Cochrane Colin Steele I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS PINLIGHTERS: Letters from Ursula Le Guin Walt Willis Brian Aldiss Gerald Mumane Malcolm Edwards Rob Gerrand Kim Stanley Robinson Robert James Mapson Syd Bounds Richard Brandt David Russell Brian Earl Brown Ralph Ashbrook LETTERS TO A CURRENTLY DEFUNCT FANZINE Buck Coulson Yvonne Rousseau Justin Ackroyd’s LISTOMANIA SF COMMENTARY 71/72 April 1992 96 pages SF COMMENTARY No. 71/72, May 1992, is edited by published by Bruce Gillespie, GPO Box 5195AA, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia. Phone: (03) 419 4797. Printed by Copyplace, Melbourne. Editorial assistant and banker: Elaine Cochrane. Available for subscriptions ($25 within Australia, equivalent of US$25 (airmail) overseas), written or art contributions, traded publications, or donations. ART Most of the art is out of copyright, available from various Dover Publications. Back cover and Page 15 illustrations: C. M. Hull. Book covers and photo of Jonathan Carroll (p. 28): thanks to Locus magazine. TECHNICAL STUFF This is my first big publication in Ventura 3.0. Thanks to Elaine Cochrane, Martin Hooper, Charles Taylor, Tony Stuart and several others who endured my endless learning process. I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS JONATHAN CARROLL, STORYTELLER Editor 3 Bruce Gillespie 28 PINLIGHTERS DIANA WYNNE JONES: AN OVERVIEW Ursula Le Guin Roslyn K. Gross 34 Walt Willis Brian Aldiss SEA, SPACE, TIME: CHANDLER’S Gerald Mumane VOYAGES Malcolm Edwards Wynne Whiteford 38 Rob Gerrand Kim Stanley Robinson CRITICAL MASS Robert James Mapson Dave Langford 40 Syd Bounds $ Richard Brandt CRITICANTO David Russell Roger Weddall Brian Earl Brown Michael J. Tolley Ralph Ashbrook ^Elaine Cochrane and We Also Heard From ... 6 Wynne Whiteford Greg Hills LETTERS TO A CURRENTLY DEFUNCT Roslyn Gross 50 FANZINE Buck Coulson NO MORE MR NICE GUY Yvonne Rousseau 13 Scott Campbell 59 THE DAMIEN BRODERICK SECTION: CoKteefeOLUMN 66 CHEAP EATS OR GOOD FOOD GUIDE? f S ALLEYWAY Damien Broderick 16 Auen Mewart /y ANTHEM AND CADENCE OF THE YOUNG SAWYER’S LOG by Colin Steele 18 Andy Sawyer 83 COSMOS AND DAMIEN: Sf reviews ™®cm!i£WE REPORT Damien Broderick 19 Bruce Gillespie 86 _____________________________________________ VINTAGE TOLLEY Michael J. Tolley 92 THE LIMITS OF GENRE Tad Williams and Greg Bear YET MORE LISTOMANIA interviewed by Colin Steele 25 compiled by Justin Ackroyd 95 2 J I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS Yes, there is still some Australian sf funny and entertaining, they began delights of good sf and fantasy. We and fantasy published in Australia. buying lots of others, including au still don't have an industry — but at No, there is still no Australian sf and thors whose works do not read at all last there are signs of a continuous fantasy industry. like Peter Corris's. This year, a work underbubbling activity that might The most recent commentator on of crime fiction by Finola Morehead lead to an industry. Australian sf is Peter Nicholls in Aus won the Victorian Premiers' Award. tralian Science Fiction Review 26,Sum It helps that many of the new It has been a long time since an Aus mer 1991. He tackles the question of Australian crime writers are aca tralian periodical featuring new sci whether there is a recognizable Aus demics or well known in other fields ence fiction stories has lasted more tralian style in sf (The stories, by and (Peter Corris as editor and historian; than five issues. Omega did, but fic large, are very emotional . .'), but Jennifer Rowe as magazine editor tion was only a small section of that pays less attention to the question of and children's writer; Bob popular science magazine. Some whether we might ever gain our own Brissenden as scholar; Robert amateur magazines, such as the Mel sf industry. On the basis of compar Wallace as art connoisseur). Crime bourne University SF Association's ative population figures ('we pro writing is not a hobby for them; it is Yggdrasil, lasted years, but were seen duce about as much sf as a source of very useful pin money. only by readers within limited cir Czechoslovakia, more than Iraq or Peter Corris is one of those few Aus cles. Aphelion lasted five issues, be Algeria'), he doubts it. tralian writers to make an income fore its publishers changed direction In saying this, Nicholls makes from his craft. and became book publishers. The nothing of the fact that fifteen years What would it take for Australian cover artwork for Aphelion was ago Australia published little crime sf and fantasy to become an indus splendid, but the stories looked un and mystery fiction except the 'Car try? The same process that crime fic readable, because they had been set ter Brown' books. Today crime fic tion underwent. As yet, no on a typewriter. tion is a major fiction industry here. Australian sf writer has attained Until Aurealis from Victoria and This change began with the success Corris-like recognition among Aus Eidolon from Western Australia of one writer, Peter Corns. Once tralian readers. As yet, academics, made it, no Australian sf magazine Australian readers realized that their literary persons and general readers had reached six issues since Vision of own crime writers could be literate, remain appallingly ignorant of the Tomorrow more than twenty years 3 ago. It's a tough market; an impossi stands and sells well enough to stay does not know how to write any ble one, many would say. viable. thing more than the flourishes of the Eidolon might be on sale in some horror story. book stores in Western Australia, but My motive for exploring these mag Who do we blame, the writers or for the rest of us, it seems to be avail azines is to see whether either offers the editors? True, the editors are able only by subscription (A$20 for any hope of a home market for local committed to producing a magazine four issues; overseas A$40 airmail, writers. Our best writers have al regularly. They must choose from an A$30 surface mail, payable to Rich ways published overseas, but the ef undeveloped writing pool, because ard Scriven, PO Box 225, North fect on them has been the same as on our best authors and stories send Perth, WA 6006). Canadian writers who have no major their work overseas. Aurealis is available both at home market— few recognize that a But this does excuse the difficulty newsstands ($6.95 per copy; or on particular writer is Australian, posed by a story like 'Dawn' by An subscription: Australia $A24; over rather than American or British. drew McBumie (Aurealis 3). It begins seas A$39 airmail, A$31 surface mail; In financial terms, neither Eidolon well: 'For the last two thousand mil payable to Chimaera Publications, nor Aurealis provides a 'market'. Ei lion years, dawn had been breaking PO Box 538, Mount Waverley, Victo dolon admits that it can afford to pay over the wind-carved landscape ria 3149). only $10 per story, a token amount to below.' The reader is interested im I'm pleased, even amazed, that cover the author's mailing and pho mediately in the nature of the planet each magazine has lasted nearly two tocopying costs. Aurealis does not Dawn. Its weird geography and years. To celebrate the occasion, re publish its rates, but I suspect they weather remain the focus of the cently I read a complete run of each are not much higher. story; crossing its surface proves per magazine. The editors and publish But Eidolon has already begged petually dangerous to the main cha r- ers will have to put up with my authors to cease sending manu acters. Indeed, McBumie leaves crude comparisons. scripts for a few months until the them stuck out in the middle of no editors can catch up on the backlog, where: 'Their downward descent From the beginning, Eidolon and Au and I suspect Aurealis is in the same halted temporarily, as the front of realis have taken very different ap position. Fiction authors throughout the two crawlers ground into a small proaches to cover art and interior Australia remain hungry for publi outcrop of rubble. The crawlers production values. cation, never (it seems) questioning rocked and trembled as the wind Eidolon shows nothing on its the insulting rates they are paid by struck at them.' And there the crawl cover but the 'eidolon' symbol. Oth everybody except the ABC and a few ers and our main characters remain erwise the cover is a plain colour, high-circulation magazines. If there at the end of the story, awaiting res which changes each issue. The mag is any difference between the quality cue! azine is perfect-bound. Inside the of the stories in Eidolon and Aurealis, Surely if the editors (DirkStrasser magazine, each page is designed, or if either shows any sign of quality, and Stephen Higgins) want to pub sometimes elaborately, in Palatino it will have nothing to do with lish an adventure story that is effec and Avant Garde typefaces. The ef money. tive for most of its length, they fect looks handsome: having gained should send it back to the author access to some expensive desktop Why then has there oeen, until each with instructions to finish it.