Vector 229 Butler 2003-05 BSFA
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May/June 2003 £2.50 £ 229 The Critical Journal of the BSFA BSFA Officials • Chair(s): Paul and Elizabeth Billinger - 1 Long Row Close, Everedon, Daventry NN11 3BE Email: [email protected] Vector 9 • Membership Secretary: Estelle Roberts - 97 Sharp Street, Newland Avenue, Hull, HU5 2AE The Critical Journal of the BFSA Email: [email protected] • Treasurer: Martin Potts - 61 Ivy Croft Road, Warton, Nr Tamworth B79 OJJ Email: [email protected] • Publications Manager: Kathy Taylor - Contents Email: [email protected] • Orbiters: Carol Ann Kerry-Green - 278 Victoria Avenue, 3 Editorial - The View From the Empty Bottle by Andrew Butler Hull, HU5 3DZ Email: [email protected] 4 TO Letters to Vector • Awards: Tanya Brown - Flat 8, Century House, Armoury 4 Freedom in an Owned World Road, London, SE8 4LH Stephen Baxter on Warhammer fiction and Email: [email protected] the Interzone Generation • Publicity/Promotions: Email: [email protected] 18 First Impressions Book Reviews edited by Paul Billinger • London Meeting Coordinator: Paul Hood -112 Meadowside, Eltham, London SE9 6BB Email: [email protected] COVER • Webmistress: Tanya Brown - Flat 8, Century House, Armoury Road, London, SE8 4LH The cover of Comeback Tour by Jack Yeovil (aka Kim Newman). A Email: [email protected] Carnes Workshop book, published by Boxtree Ltd in 1993. Art by Cary Walton 1993 BSFA Membership The first time Vector has had Elvis on the cover, I think. UK Residents: £21 or £14 (unwaged) peryear. Please enquire, or see the BSFA web page for overseas rates. Editorial Team Renewals and New Members - Estelle Roberts - 97 • Production and General Editing: Tony Cullen - 16 Sharp Street, Newland Avenue, Hull, HU5 2AE Weaver's Way, Camden, London NW1 OXE Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] • Features, Editorial and Letters: Andrew M. Butler - c/o USA Enquiries - Cy Chauvin, 14248 Wilfred Street, Detroit, Department ofArts and Media, D28 - ASSH Faculty, Ml 48213 USA Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, High Wycombe, HP11 2JZ Printed by Email: [email protected] • Book Reviews: Paul Billinger - 1 Long Row Close, Everedon, Daventry NN11 3BE PDC Copyprint (Guildford), Middle Unit, 77-83 Email: [email protected] Walnut Tree Close, Guildford, Surrey GU1 4UH • Associate Editor: Tanya Brown - Flat 8, Century House, Armoury Road, London SE8 4LH Email amaranth® Other BSFA Publications amaranth.aviators.net FOCUS: Simon Morden - 13 Egremont Drive, Sherriff Hill, Gateshead, NE9 5SE Email [email protected] Vector Matrix Published bythe BSFA ©2003 ISSN 0505 0448 Commissioning Editor: Mark Greener - 16 Orchard End, Bluntisham PE28 3XF Email: [email protected] All opinions are those ofthe individual contributors and Production Editor: Martin McGrath - 91 Bentley Drive, should not necessarily be taken as the views ofthe editors or Harlow, Essex CM17 9QT the BSFA Email: [email protected] Web/lnternet News: Martin Sketchley - 232 Alvechurch Road, West Heath, Birmingham B31 3PS The British Science Fiction Association, Ltd. Email [email protected] Limited by guarantee. Company No. 921500 Registered BSFA Web address: 1 Long Row Close, Everdon, Daventry, NN11 3BE. The BSFA is a non-profitmaking organisation, staffed entirely BSFA Web page: by unpaid volunteers. http://www.bsfa.co.uk May/June 2003 • Vector 229 Editorial The View From the Empty Bottle were about to intrude. In fact, rather than deciding that such real world events made criticism dangerous or A year ago I was writing about the International wrong, I felt that it was more vital than ever. Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts and pondering Flashback to a moment last year in Ft Lauderdale, about making a return visit. I wrote: "Would I go back? when we were returning through the pool area from Well, controversy rages over loutish behaviour at the some meal at a restaurant, and a young woman stopped closing awards banquet, so I'm not sure what form the me to compliment me on my Doc Martens - these rather event will take next year, or whether the people I hung stand out when you are wearing shorts. I don't know who out with will go. But the combination of sun, sea, science she was, she didn't seem to be part of the conference. fiction and, er, tequila, was a very appealing one, and I She recognised my nationality through my accent and feel the call to go back to Fort Lauderdale. Except that thanked me for my support for the bombing of next time I think I'll lay off the tequila. Yeah, right." It Afghanistan. I wasn't clear what to say, in part because I needs to be stated first, as a matter of record, that I did didn't have the energy. But I should have said not in my indeed go back. And whilst to the untutored eye much of name. it may look like sitting next to a pool, drinking, actually This year I was also wary, wondering whether it was much of that time was really working. Debating. safe to express my point of view in a country on the edge Discussing. Networking. of war, or at least on the edge of bombing a country to Once more I skipped the banquet, which apparently smithereens. In fact I encountered the same kind of anger passed with the minimum of racism (some amusement and frustration I've found in Britain; anger at the over pronouncing non-anglophone names). A number of mindlessness of it all, frustration at the inability to stop the people that I'd seen last year were actually at a process. No one I spoke to wanted to make a case for conference on technology in Hong Kong, and were war, or to link 11th September to Iraq. In many ways I spending time in arguably the second most dangerous wish I'd been giving my children's sf and war paper at the spot on Earth, thanks to some incurable disease or virus conference. which is doing the rounds. Given that I'd seen no Life has to go on, of course, and although security at advance information relating to that conference, I did airports was noticeably tighter, I see its point. And having begin to speculate about the Secret Masters of Academia, lived through decades of a bombing campaign which to which I have not yet been admitted. could have struck any point of the British mainland at any I say second most dangerous spot, because it is point, I don't give in to terror. We have to get on with life impossible to ignore the international events which have - although I remember long nights just over a decade been unfolding over the last year, and which went into a ago, watching the war being fought out under the new phase the day after I got to Ft Lauderdale, Florida. Of choreography of General Schwarzkopf, I've not felt the course I should avoid using the magazines of the BSFA as same impulse this time, nor indeed have the terrestrial a soap box for my own political opinions, but this is an television channels given the war such blanket coverage. editorial and my views don't necessarily reflect those of There are perhaps clearer and more present dangers: the management. All I want to say is that I just can't see for example the impact of a significant amount of a bottle how bombing a country that was the cradle of (western) of tequila on my body. Would I punish my body in much civilisation back into the stone age can really help liberate the same way? The signs were good; a group of us made it from a dictator. It's sort of having to destroy the Shire in a pact to bring a bottle of our favourite spirit, and so in order to save it. I suspect that there may be such a thing duty-free at Heathrow I purchased a litre of Laphroaig. as a just war - but that is much more about self-defence Unfortunately nobody else kept their side of the bargain. and clear and present danger than future threats - and There was a rumour of bottle of Vodka, but this never this isn't one. emerged. Perhaps this was just as well, and the single Over the last few months I've been writing an article malt was appreciated over two nights. on war in children's science fiction. It began with being Clearly, however, I must go back to find out what we asked to write something on children's sf, and my initial would have drunk if the others had brought their thought was to examine the treatment of war in Terry favourite drink. It's a dirty job, but. Pratchett's Johnny Maxwell trilogy, with half an eye on Gillian Rubinstein's Space Demons as a comparison. Finally I must thank Steve for his sterling work on editing Then I came across Robert Westall's Gulf and the reviews over the last few years, and to hope that emphasis shifted to the ethics of war, with a particular somehow he finds ways to fill the void left by no longer emphasis on the Gulf War. All of the time I was working working on Vector. Paul Billinger now assumes the on it, and re-reading Jean Baudrillard's The Gulf War Did vacant chair, and I'm sure he'll live up to the standards Not Take Place, I was aware that the politics of criticism set by Steve. I'm sure you'll let us know if we fall short. Andrew M.