Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Universe 13 by Terry Carr Terry Carr. Terry Gene Carr (February 19, 1937 – April 7, 1987) [1] was a United States science fiction fan, author, editor, and writing instructor. Contents. Background and discovery of fandom. Carr discovered science fiction fandom in 1949, where he became an enthusiastic publisher of fanzines, which later helped open his way into the commercial publishing world. (He was one of the two fans responsible for the hoax fan 'Carl Brandon' after whom the Carl Brandon Society takes its name.) Despite a long career as a science fiction professional, he continued to participate as a fan until his death. He was nominated five times for Hugos for Best Fanzine (1959–1961, 1967–1968), winning in 1959, was nominated three times for Best Fan Writer (1971–1973), winning in 1973, and was Fan Guest of Honor at ConFederation in 1986. Professional work. Though he published some fiction in the early 1960s, Carr concentrated on editing. He first worked at Ace Books, establishing the Ace Science Fiction Specials series which published, among other novels, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin and Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin. After conflicts with Ace head Donald A. Wollheim, he worked as a freelancer. He edited an original story anthology series called Universe , and a popular series of The Best Science Fiction of the Year anthologies that ran from 1972 until his death in 1987. He also edited numerous one-off anthologies over the same time span. He was nominated for the Hugo for Best Editor thirteen times (1973–1975, 1977–1979, 1981–1987), winning twice (1985 and 1987). His win in 1985 was the first time a freelance editor had won. Terry Carr commissioned a first novel from William Gibson for the second series of Ace Science Fiction Specials, shortly after the Denver WorldCon, 1981. The purpose of the series was to give attention to first-time novelists. Gibson's fellow Ace Specials first-timers were Kim Stanley Robinson, Michael Swanwick, and Howard Waldrop. [2] William Gibson mentions Carr in the introduction to the 20th Anniversary Edition of the book: "Having been talked into signing a contract (by the late Terry Carr, without whom there would certainly be no Neuromancer) . . ." [3] Carr taught at the Clarion Workshop at Michigan State University in 1978, where his students included Richard Kadrey and Pat Murphy. Personal life. Carr married a fellow science fiction fan, Miriam Dyches, in 1959. [1] They were divorced in 1961. Later that year, Carr married Carol Stuart. He remained married to her until his death. Under her married name of Carol Carr, his widow has also sold science fiction: "You Think You've Got Troubles" (1969), "Inside" (1970), "Some Are Born Cats" (1973, with Terry Carr), "Wally a Deux" (1973), and "Tooth Fairy" (1984). Terry Carr died April 7, 1987 from congestive heart failure. A memorial gathering of the sf community was held in Tilden Park in Berkeley, California on May 30. An original anthology of science fiction, Terry's Universe , was published the following year; all proceeds went to his widow. [4] His papers and his large collection of fanzines (71 linear feet and almost 2000 titles) have become part of the Eaton collection of Science Fiction at the University of California, Riverside. [5] Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations. Reviews of Vintage Science Fiction (1950s to mid-1980s) Book Review: Universe 4 , ed. Terry Carr (1974) (Robert Silverberg, Pamela Sargent, Jack Vance, R. A. Lafferty, Alexei Panshin, Ron Goulart, et al.) Jack Faragasso’s cover for the 1975 edition. 3.25/5 (collated rating: Vaguely Good) Terry Carr’s original anthology Universe 4 (1974) contains a cross-section of early 70s science fiction–from oblique New Wave allegories to “hard SF” first contact stories with unusual aliens. Despite clocking in last in the installments I’ve read so far– behind Universe 2 (1972), Universe 1 (1971), and Universe 10 (1980)—the best stories, R. A. Lafferty’s rumination on memory and nostalgia, Pamela Sargent’s bleak account of urban erasure, Alexei Panshin’s evocation of conceptual shift , and Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund’s first contact tale with aliens who claim to speak to suns, are all worth the read. Brief Plot Summary/Analysis. “Assault on a City” (1974), Jack Vance, 3/5 (Average): Nominated for the 1975 Hugo Award for Best Novella. This exotica-drenched vision of a far future wonder-filled city presents an upper-class heroine who puts those below her in their place (it’s best not to read too much into the social message, if Vance meant one at all). Bo, a hyper-macho drifter who works in the shipyards, and Waldo, a local noble, each encounter and become obsessed with the visiting Alice Tynnott, a member of the interstellar aristocracy. Both Bo and Waldo, who represent decadent urbanism obsessed with “vicarious experience” and “inner space”, let their obsession get the better of them. As always, Vance excels at world-building. For example, fitting neatly into the novella’s ruminations of subjectivity and objectivity, the Hall of History contains tours that reinforce guided interpretations and grand narratives. Alice, “curious as to the local version of history” collides with the perspective of Bo, who thinks brutishly that “history was history” without any interpretive element (39). History as illustration of paradigmatic difference… If you’re a Vance fan you’ll probably enjoy this more than me. I tend to be ambivalent towards his planetary adventure SF visions even when they posture in the general direction of the profound. “A Sea of Faces” (1974), Robert Silverberg, 3.75/5 (Good): Utilizing new technology that allows one to enter a mind, a celebrated young psychiatrist, Richard Bjornstrand, attempts to treat a troubled patient named April Lowry. Despite warnings from his colleagues about the danger to both—“it’s the riskiest kind of therapy you could have chosen” (59)—Richard wanders the ever evolving landscape of April’s troubled mind. Like Christopher Priest’s Dream Archipelago novels and stories, the fractured human mind takes the form of a series of islands. In Silverberg’s formulation, they are masses in a continuous state of transformation and variation–dense forests, warm sand beeches, and single islands with “several distinct geographical zones” (63). And of course, Richard feels his control slipping as he wanders from isle to isle and his own sense of reality blurs. A solid outing from one of my favorite SF authors. While it doesn’t have the searing power of his other medical-themed fictions such as Thorns (1967) of “The Pain Peddlers” (1963), but his metaphoric representation of a fractured mind as multifarious islands is moody and beautiful. Fits firmly into the psychiatrist as singularly deluded mold…. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Hyacinths (1982) remains the only positive portrayal of a psychiatrist I’ve encountered yet. “And Read the Flesh Between the Lines” (1974), R. A. Lafferty, 4.5/5 (Very Good): As expected, Lafferty weaves the most challenging story in the collection! First, imagine history as one would a memory–compressed, selective, porous, constantly rewiring itself. Now imagine a physical manifestation of memory—a throbbing room filled with ephemera of youth and the items of nostalgia and the language of comic books… This proximity of images collides with what could be an alternate-history, as a man ruminates out loud with his Australopithecus servant serving drinks. Memory as a passive myth-generating process? I want to reread this one and re-uncover its threads! “My Sweet Lady Jo” (1974), Howard Waldrop, 3/5 (Average): The twenty-seven-year-old director of public information in the Space Science Services Administration, Edward Smith, a brilliant orphan, welcomes home colonists who left their comrades on the first colonizing voyage to Alpha Centauri. But Smith’s life, despite his prodigious rise to power, is filled with sadness as his marriage winds to its end. Melding the strands of “scientific romance” from the Gernsbeck era with 70s character driven interior visions, Waldrop fools with self-aggrandizing narratives progress and humanity’s desperation to explore outward. There’s no way to escape the troubles of the heart. There’s a gimmick ending that echoes that famous work of Greek tragedy. While I am all for science fiction that satirizes our destructive desires to explore and exploit, I still have yet to encounter a Waldrop story that resonates with me. “Stungun Slim” (1974), Ron Goulart, 2/5 (Bad): Executioner Josh Birley, beset with the monetary demands of his “willowy blond wife” Glendora, invents a new scheme to raise money (103). Goulart satires feel like anthology filler. I might smile a bit at their kitsch (lizard men, drummer androids) and empathize with the empty materialistic worlds he presents, but the details and characters pass quickly from my memory… and “Stungun Slim” is no different. “Desert Places” (1974), Pamela Sargent, 3.5/5 (Good): An unsettling tale about the end of the world… Eggar Knute, Tiel Obrine, and Man Mountain L’ono are perpetually on the move as a city crumbles building by building around them. Eggar positions and repositions his cameras charting the mysterious act of urban erasure. Man Mountain L’ono whittles and whittles piling wood shavings across the floor. Tiel mumbles “I’m sick of it […] I want to settle down” (120). But a new building crumbles. And they must set off again. This is the best Pamela Sargent story I’ve read yet. Unlike The White Death (1979), the detached way of telling adds a sinister touch—and all the dialogue (and repetitive speech patterns that emerge) and actions feel like they have happened countless times in the past. “If The Stars Are Gods” (1974), Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund, 4.5/5 (Very Good): Won the 1975 Nebula Award for Best Novelette. A hydrogen bomb-propelled alien starship arrives in the Earth solar system. Humanity, who has traveled only as far as Mars, sends the aging astronaut Reynolds to meet with the aliens. The aliens (giraffe-like grazers) appear to be on a pilgrimage to Earth’s sun: “it is yours we have sought the longest. It is so powerful. And benevolent” (135). Uninterested in visiting Earth or engaging with its petty politics, the aliens, due to the strange movements of their planet and a “brutal” sun, hold astrology as the ultimate knowledge. Reynolds, grappling with his own failed dreams and increasing age, sees the alien’s quest as meaningful . Or at least something to latch on to as he ages. This is a delightful story of peaceful contact with a fascinating alien species. The hard-science touches combine artfully with its exploration of character. There’s a chance that I’ll track down their 1977 novelization! “When the Vertical World Becomes Horizontal” (1974), Alexei Panshin, 4/5 (Good): A surreal and metaphoric story about the world approaching a conceptual shift: “the city will be scrubbed clean” (171). Woody Asenion, controlled by his father, seldom ventures from the largest closet in their apartment. His father, a mad scientist sort, sends him to Brooklyn to find a rare piece of technology to control the world. Woody, with great trepidation, sets off holding the hand of his robot. Strange situations unfold. A character he encounters proclaims that “The Great Common Dream is changing and so is the world” (180). The robot disappears, but a metaphor of the fear of the unknown programmed into him by his father. Eventually Woody deviates from the path laid out for him… Cory Panshin (Alexei’s wife), on her sadly defunct blog, discusses the conceptual shift the counterculture promised and his dreams of a new paradigm change. Mapping the dreams of the counterculture onto the story initially gave me pause due to the date. Nixon was in office, the movement has run its course, and the conservative backlash was in motion. Perhaps Woody’s final return to his father, after his momentary deviation, represents a return to the status quo? A world transformed but not in the way the radical dreams intended. A fascinating little parable told in the language of a fairy tale… Recommended. Universe 13 by Terry Carr. introduction, by Terry Carr. the death of doctor island, by Gene Wolfe. the ghost writer, by Geo. Alec Effinger. many mansions, by Robert Silverberg. randy-tandy man, by Ross Rocklynne. the world is a sphere, by Edgar Pangborn. the legend of cougar lou landis, by Edward Bryant. free city blues, by Gordon Eklund. The golden age of science fiction is now. When aficionados of this field get together, that’s a standard topic of discussion: When was science fiction’s golden age? Some people say the early forties, when John W. Campbell and a host of new writers like Heinlein, Sturgeon and van Vogt were transforming the entire field; others point to the early fifties, to H. L. Gold and Anthony Boucher and to such writers as Damon Knight, Alfred Bester and Ray Bradbury. Some will lay claims for the late sixties, when the new wave passed and names like Ballard, Disch and Aldiss came forward. There are still people around, too, who’ll tell you about 1929 and David H. Keller, E. E. Smith and Ray Cummings. The clue in most cases is when the person talking first began to read science fiction. When it was all new, all of it was exciting. Years ago a friend of mine, Pete Graham, tersely answered the question “When was the golden age of science fiction?” by saying, “Twelve.” He didn’t have to explain further; we knew what he meant. But it isn’t totally a subjective matter; there are such things as real standards of quality, tricky as they may be to assess. You can tell a good writer when he brings to life a scene or an idea you’ve seen so often before that you thought it was used up. (“You can have him, all the thrill’s gone out of him,” said the man to Kenneth Patchen, handing him a dead mole.) You can recognize a good story when it makes you feel things you’re not used to—even if they’re old things: if it’s been a while since you’ve felt them, old things get new again. And when enough good writers and good stories appear in the field, we have a “golden age.” All right, consider the science-fiction field today. When before have we had so many first-rate talents writing at once? Philip K. Dick, R. A. Lafferty, Poul Anderson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Samuel R. Delany, Alexei Panshin, Avram Davidson, Larry Niven, Clifford D. Simak, John Brunner, Robert Silverberg, Thomas M. Disch, Joanna Russ, Brian W. Aldiss, Roger Zelazny, D. G. Compton, Kurt Vonnegut . . . I’m sure you could name a dozen more. And there are remarkably good new writers coming into the field all the time. If we had had these writers and their stories in 1950, or 1940, or 1929, we’d have considered them giants, and many of the works of those previous golden ages would have paled to insignificance by comparison. But of course we couldn’t have had all these writers then; science fiction evolves, it builds on the ideas and stories that have gone before. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch couldn’t have been written in 1929; it would simply have been unthinkable. That’s also true of Stand on Zanzibar, And Chaos Died, Lord of Light, Slaughterhouse-Five, Camp Concentration or The Einstein Intersection. Clifford Simak was active in science fiction in 1940, but he was writing Cosmic Engineers, not Why Call Them Back From Heaven? Time offers progress, and new possibilities emerge. We live in an increasingly exciting world and amid larger realities than we dreamed of when science fiction was young. (If we date modern science fiction’s birth from the founding of the first sf magazine, then science fiction was thirteen years old at the beginning of 1940.) The boundaries of scientific knowledge expand almost exponentially, and we’re beginning to understand that there are other kinds of knowledge, too. It’s all here to be wondered at, and written about, and science fiction has developed the vocabulary for it. This is the literature of our infinite universe; is it any wonder that so many strongly talented writers should be drawn to it? So the golden age is now. Part of it is here, in this book: enjoy, enjoy. THE DEATH OF DOCTOR ISLAND. This fascinating novelette by Gene Wolfe is the story of a strange young boy who moved his head continually from side to side, as certain reptiles do, and of what happened between him and two others on a man-made satellite circling Jupiter. It may be the oddest sequel in science fiction: two years ago Wolfe wrote a short story titled “The Island of Dr. Death ,” which was nominated for a Nebula Award; Wolfe wondered what kind of story he might devise if he turned the themes and character types upside down, and the result was the tale below. It’s totally unconnected with the earlier story in any conventional sense; it’s complete in itself and has no characters, background or situation from the other story. It might be regarded as a fugue-sequel on earlier themes . or you could ignore such quasi-technical jargon and read the story purely for itself: a richly inventive tale of people in an intriguing new environment. I have desired to go. Where springs not fail, To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail. And a few lilies blow. And I have asked to be. Where no storms come, Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea. —Gerard Manley Hopkins. A grain of sand, teetering on the brink of the pit, trembled and fell in; the ant lion at the bottom angrily flung it out again. For a moment there was quiet. Then the entire pit, and a square meter of sand around it, shifted drunkenly while two coconut palms bent to watch. The sand rose, pivoting at one edge, and the scarred head of a boy appeared-a stubble of brown hair threatened to erase the marks of the sutures; with dilated eyes hypnotically dark he paused, his neck just where the ant lion’s had been; then, as though goaded from below, he vaulted up and onto the beach, turned, and kicked sand into the dark hatchway from which he had emerged. It slammed shut. The boy was about fourteen. For a time he squatted, pushing the sand aside and trying to find the door. A few centimeters down, his hands met a gritty, solid material which, though neither concrete nor sandstone, shared the qualities of both sand-filled organic plastic. On it he scraped his fingers raw, but he could not locate the edges of the hatch. Then he stood and looked about him, his head moving continually as the heads of certain reptiles go back and forth, with no pauses at the terminations of the movements. He did this constantly, ceaselessly always-and for that reason it will not often be described again, just as it will not be mentioned that he breathed. He did; and as he did, his head, like a rearing snake’s, turned from side to side. The boy was thin, and naked as a frog. Ahead of him the sand sloped gently down toward sapphire water; there were coconuts on the beach, and seashells, and a scuttling crab that played with the finger-high edge of each dying wave. Behind him there were only palms and sand for a long distance, the palms growing ever closer together as they moved away from the water until the forest of their columniated trunks seemed architectural; like some palace maze becoming as it progressed more and more draped with creepers and lianas with green, scarlet, and yellow leaves, the palms interspersed with bamboo and deciduous trees dotted with flaming orchids until almost at the limit of his sight the whole ended in a spangled wall whose predominant color was blackgreen. The boy walked toward the beach, then down the beach until he stood in knee-deep water as warm as blood. He dipped his fingers and, tasted it- it was fresh, with no hint of the disinfectants to which he was accustomed. He waded out again and sat on the sand about five meters up from the high-water mark, and after ten minutes, during which he heard no sound but the wind and the murmuring of the surf, he threw back his head and began to scream. His screaming was high-pitched, and each breath ended in a gibbering, ululant note, after which came the hollow,- iron gasp of the next indrawn breath. On one occasion he had screamed in this way, without cessation, for fourteen hours and twenty-two minutes, at the end of which a nursing nun with an exemplary record stretching back seventeen years had administered an injection without the permission of the attending physician. After a time the boy paused-not because he was tired, but in order to listen better. There was, still, only the sound of the wind in the palm fronds and the murmuring surf, yet he felt that he had heard a voice. The boy could be quiet as well as noisy, and he was quiet now, his left hand sifting white sand as clean as salt between its fingers while his right tossed tiny pebbles like beach-glass beads into the surf. ”Hear me,” said the surf. “Hear me. Hear me.” ”I hear you,” the boy said. ”Good,” said the surf, and it faintly echoed itself: ”The boy shrugged. ”What shall I call you?” asked the surf. ”My name is Nicholas Kenneth de Vore.” ‘ ”Nick, Nick . . . Nick?” The boy stood, and turning his back on the sea, walked inland. When he was out of sight of the water he found a coconut palm growing sloped and angled, leaning and weaving among its companions like the plume of an ascending jet blown by the wind. After feeling its rough exterior with both hands, the boy began to climb; he was inexpert and climbed slowly and a little clumsily, but his body was light and he was strong. In time he reached the top, and disturbed the little brown plush monkeys there, who fled chattering into other palms, leaving him to nestle alone among the stems of the fronds and the green coconuts. “I am here also,” said a voice from the palm. ”Ah,” said the boy, who was watching the tossing, sapphire sky far over his head. ”I will call you Nicholas.” The boy said, “I can see the sea.” ”Do you know my name?” The boy did not reply. Under him the long, long stem of the twisted palm swayed faintly. ”My friends all call me Dr. Island.” ”I will not call you that,” the boy said. ”You mean that you are not my friend.” A gull screamed. ”But you see, I take you for my friend. You may say that I am not yours, but I say that you are mine. I like you, Nicholas, and I will treat you as a friend.” ”Are you a machine or a person or a committee?” the boy asked. ”I am all those things and more. I am the spirit of this island, the tutelary genius.” ”Now that we have met, would you rather I leave you alone?” Again the boy did not reply. ”You may wish to be alone with your thoughts. I would like to say that we have made much more progress today than I anticipated. I feel that we will get along together very well.” After fifteen minutes or more, the boy asked, “Where does the light come from?” There was no answer. The boy waited for a time, then climbed back down the trunk, dropping the last five meters and rolling as he hit in the soft sand. He walked to the beach again and stood staring out at the water. Far off he could see it curving up and up, the distant combers breaking in white .foam until the sea became white-flecked sky. To his left and his right the beach curved away, bending almost infinitesimally until it disappeared. He began to walk, then saw, almost at the point where perception was lost, a human figure. He broke into a run; a moment later, he halted and turned around. Far ahead another walker, almost invisible, strode the beach; Nicholas ignored him; he ` found a coconut and tried to open it, then threw it aside and walked on. From time to time fish jumped, and occasionally he saw a wheeling sea bird dive. The light grew dimmer. He was aware that he had not eaten for some time, but he was not in the strict sense hungry-or rather, he enjoyed his hunger now in the same way that he might, at another time, have gashed his arm to watch himself bleed. Once he said, “Dr. Island!” loudly as he passed a coconut palm, and then later began to chant, “Dr. Island, Dr. Island, Dr. Island,” as he walked until the words had lost all meaning. He swam in the sea as he had been taught to swim in the great quartanary treatment tanks on Callisto to improve his coordination, and spluttered and snorted until he learned to deal with the waves. When it was so dark he could see only the white sand and the white foam of the breakers, he drank from the sea and fell asleep, on the beach, the right. side of his taut, ugly face relaxing first, so that it seemed asleep even while the left eye was open and staring; his head rolling from side to side; the left corner of his mouth preserving, like a death mask, his characteristic expression -angry, remote, tinged with that inhuman quality that is found nowhere but in certain human faces. When he woke it was not yet light, but the night was fading to a gentle gray. Headless, the palms stood like tall ghosts up and down the beach, their tops lost in fog and the lingering dark. He was cold. His hands rubbed his sides; he danced on the sand and sprinted down the edge of the lapping water in an effort to get warm; ahead of him a pinpoint of red light became a fire, and he slowed. A man who looked about twenty-five crouched over the fire. Tangled black hair hung aver this man’s shoulders, and he had a sparse beard; otherwise he was as naked as Nicholas himself. His eyes were dark, and large and empty, like the ends of broken pipes; he poked at his fire, and the smell of roasting fish came with the smoke. For a time Nicholas stood at a distance, watching. Saliva ran from a corner of the man’s mouth, and he wiped it away with one hand, leaving a smear of ash on his face. Nicholas edged closer until he stood on the opposite side of the fire. The fish had been wrapped in broad leaves and mud, and lay in the center of the coals. “I’m Nicholas,” Nicholas said. “Who are you?” The young man did not look at him, had never looked at him. ”Hey, I’d like a piece of your fish. Not much. All right?” The young man raised his head, looking not at Nicholas but at some point far beyond him; he dropped his eyes again. Nicholas smiled. The smile emphasized the disjointed quality of his expression, his mouth’s uneven curve. ”Just a little piece? Is it about done?” Nicholas crouched, imitating the young man, and as though this were a signal, the young man sprang for him across the fire. Nicholas jumped backward, but the jump was too late-the young man’s body struck his and sent him sprawling on the sand; fingers clawed for his throat. Screaming, Nicholas rolled free, into the water; the young man splashed after him; Nicholas dove. He swam underwater, his belly almost grazing the r wave-rippled sand until he found deeper water; then he surfaced, gasping for breath, and saw the young man, who saw him as well. He dove again, this time surfacing far off, in deep water. Treading water, he could see the fire on the beach, and the young man when he . returned to it, stamping out of the sea in the early .t light. Nicholas then swam until he was five hundred meters or more down the beach, then waded in to shore and began walking back toward the fire. The young man saw him when he was still some distance off, but he continued to sit, eating pink-tinted tidbits from his fish, watching Nicholas. “What’s the matter?” Nicholas said while he was still a safe distance away. “Are you mad at me?” From the forest, birds warned, “Be careful, Nicholas;” ”I won’t hurt you,” the young man said. He stood up, wiping his oily hands on his chest, and gestured toward the fish at his feet. “You want some?” Nicholas nodded, smiling his crippled smile. Ni cholas waited, hoping the young man would move away from the fish, but he did not; neither did he smile in return. ”Nicholas,” the little waves at his feet whispered, “this is Ignacio.” ”Listen,” Nicholas said, “is it really all right for me to have some?” Ignacio nodded, unsmiling. Cautiously Nicholas came forward; as he was bending to pick up the fish, Ignacio’s strong hands took him; he tried to wrench free but was thrown down, Ignacio on top of him. “Please!” he yelled. “Please!” Tears started into his eyes. He tried to yell again, but he had no breath; the tongue was being forced, thicker than his wrist, from his throat. Then Ignacio let go and struck him in the face with his clenched fist. Nicholas had been slapped and pummeled before, had been beaten, had fought, sometimes savagely, with other boys; but he had never been struck by a man as men fight. Ignacio hit him again and his lips gushed blood. Vintage Treasures: Year’s Finest Fantasy edited by Terry Carr. The first Year Best volume I ever read was Terry Carr’s The Best Science Fiction of the Year #6 , published in paperback by Del Rey in 1977 and filled with stories that blew my 13-year old mind, including the fascinating gadget tale “I See You” by Damon Knight, John Varley’s futuristic murder mystery “The Phantom of Kansas,” the raunchy and bizarre “Meathouse Man” by George R. R. Martin, and Isaac Asimov’s classic “The Bicentennial Man.” I kept an eye out for Terry Carr’s anthologies after that. The next one I spotted was Year’s Finest Fantasy , published by Berkley in July 1987. It was a fine demonstration of Carr’s far-ranging and discerning eye, for it included names both expected — Avram Davidson, Stephen King, a Dying Earth tale by Jack Vance, and Harlan Ellison with one of his finest stories, “Jeffty Is Five” — and unexpected, including T. Coraghessan Boyle, Woody Allen, and a horror novella by Robert Aickmanm. It also contained Steven Utley and Howard Waldrop’s Frankenstein story, “Black as the Pit, from Pole to Pole,” and an long novella from a virtual unknown, Julian Reid, his only known fantasy work, originally published in Universe 7 . Year’s Finest Fantasy was successful enough to kick off a series that lasted for five volumes, changing name to Fantasy Annual with #3. Terry Carr, a fine writer in his own right, provided a thoughtful introduction to the first volume, arguing convincingly that “contemporary fantasy tells us more truly of the nature of humanity than any collection of “realistic” stories could.” 43 years after I first read them, I find Carr’s words still resonate strongly. [Click the images for the Finest versions.] Inside cover text for Year’s Finest Fantasy (1978) Here’s the part of Carr’s introduction that stayed with me: Put simply: we are creatures of fantasy ourselves. We live our humdrum day-to-day lives as taxpayers, secretaries, computer programmers, husbands and wives, but our deepest existence still lives in fantasy. We are warriors using numbers as weapons, magicians at the stove, beings from other realities caught in a world where we must shuffle bits of photocopied papers from one tray to another pausing only to make mystic marks on them. We are, deep within us, monsters and heroes, succubi and muses, magicians and peasants. The range of fantasy is inexhaustible. That why this anthology of the finest fantasy stories of 1977 doesn’t confine itself to bloody adventures or dark encounters with the inexplicable — our fantasies are about everything . An exploration of contemporary fantasy tells us more truly of the nature of humanity than any collection of “realistic” stories could. There are dangers here, yes, and horrors too — but there’s also joy and wonder, triumphs and puzzles. Fantasy is the oldest for of fiction because it’s about the most profound forms of reality. Isn’t that fantastic? Modern Year’s Best editors, like Rich Horton, Jonathan Strahan and Neil Clarke, use introductions to reflect on the annual highlights in science fiction fantasy, and truth to tell I enjoy those yearly doses of industry gossip. But there are I still times when miss that feeling of being in the hands of someone who understood his subject as profoundly and as deeply as Terry Carr, Terry Carr’s introduction to Year’s Finest Fantasy (1978) Here’s the complete TOC for Year’s Finest Fantasy , which contained two novellas (by Julian Reid and Robert Aickman), three World Fantasy Award nominees (the Ellison, Vance, and Davidson), and the winner of the Hugo, Nebula, Locus and BFA awards for best short story of the year (“Jeffty Is Five”). Introduction by Terry Carr “Jeffty Is Five” by Harlan Ellison ( The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , July 1977) — World Fantasy Award nominee, Hugo, Nebula, Locus and BFA award winner “The Bagful of Dreams” by Jack Vance ( Flashing Swords! #4: Barbarians and Black Magicians , 1977) — World Fantasy Award nominee “The Cat from Hell” by Stephen King ( Cavalier , June 1977) “Black as the Pit, from Pole to Pole” by Steven Utley and Howard Waldrop ( New Dimensions 7 , 1977) “The Kugelmass Episode” by Woody Allen ( The New Yorker , May 2, 1977) “Manatee Gal Ain’t You Coming Out Tonight” by Avram Davidson ( The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , April 1977) — World Fantasy Award nominee “Getting Back to Before It Began” by Raylyn Moore ( The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , August 1977) “Descent of Man” by T. Coraghessan Boyle ( Descent of Man , 1977) “Probability Storm” by Julian Reid ( Universe 7 , 1977) “Growing Boys” by Robert Aickman ( Tales of Love and Death , 1977) Year’s Finest Fantasy was followed for four more volumes, the first two from Berkley and the last two published by David Hartwell”s Timescape imprint at Pocket Books. Here they are. Here’s the complete publishing details. Year’s Finest Fantasy (Berkley Books, 262 pages, $8.95 in hardcover/$1.95 paperback, July 1978) – cover by Carl Lundgren (World Fantasy Award nominee) The Year’s Finest Fantasy Volume 2 (Berkley Books, 311 pages, $12.50 in hardcover/$1.95 paperback, July 1979) – cover by Carl Lundgren Fantasy Annual III (Timescape/Pocket Books, 302 pages, $2.95 paperback, May 1981) – cover by Lisa Falkenstern Fantasy Annual IV (Timescape/Pocket Books, 350 pages, $3.50 paperback, November 1981) – cover by LAF (World Fantasy Award nominee) Fantasy Annual V (Timescape/Pocket Books, 271 pages, $2.95 paperback, November 1982) – cover uncredited (Locus Award nominee) The first and fourth volumes were nominated for the World Fantasy award, and volume V for a Locus Award for Best Anthology. Universe 13 by Terry Carr. Edited By Terry Carr. Proofed By MadMaxAU. A Source of Innocent Merriment. james tiptee, jr. And All the Skies Are Full of Fish. The Ugly Chickens. Special Non-Fact Articles Section: charles e. elliott. Report of the Special Committee on the Quality of Life. The Confession of Hamo. mary c. pangborn. The Johann Sebastian Bach Memorial Barbecue and Nervous Breakdown. First Person Plural. As the world’s media become ever more widespread and pervasive, questions about the rights of public figures become more difficult. What constitutes invasion of privacy in a world full of cameras and microphones? If a politician is satirized, where’s the line between fair comment and libel? And if it’s legal now for a performer to have his features surgically altered to look like those of Elvis Presley, would that be true with a living actor? Michael Bishop considers the latter question in the following novelette. His answers may surprise you. Bishop’s most recent book is Catacomb Years, an interrelated series of stories including “Old Folks at Home” from Universe 8. “Get back,” Rakestraw told his children, who were eyeing him curiously as he tried to chop the thick pruned branches of a holly tree into pieces small enough for the fireplace. “I don’t want you to get hit” He waited until the five-year-old girl and her slightly smaller twin brother backed hand in hand toward the mulch pile and the edge of the winter garden. Then, to demonstrate his strength to them, he swung the ax in a high arc and brought the blade down viciously on the propped-up holly branch. One half of it flew upward like a knotted boomerang, its gray-white bark coruscating silver in the December sunlight. After windmilling a good distance through the air, the severed piece landed with a thud at Gayle and Gabe’s feet. “Damn it!” Rakestraw bellowed, dropping the ax. “I told you to get back! Your mother’d kill me if I killed you!” The boy retreated into the muddy turnip bed, but Gayle picked up the holly log and carried it to her father. Rakestraw knelt to accept it, and she reached toward his face with her small, damnably knowing fingers. “You diddn shave,” Gayle told him. He started to catch her hand in order to rub his coarse chin in its palm, but the holly log impeded him and Gabe was running forward from the garden. “Look, Daddy!” the boy cried. “Looka the truck!” Rakestraw stood up and saw, not a truck, but some sort of fancily decorated imported van coming cautiously along the gravel road from town. He tossed the log among several others he had cut that morning and pulled his children to him. “Wait a minute,” he said as they squirmed under his hands; “you don’t know who that is. Hold still.” He didn’t recognize the vehicle as belonging to anyone in the county, and since the road it was traveling dead-ended only a stone’s throw away, Rakestraw was as curious as the twins. The van halted abreast of them, and a man wearing a neck scarf as big, red, and silky as a champion American Beauty rose stuck his head out the window and squinted at them. He had on a pair of sunglasses, but the lenses were nestled in his hair. “Tom Rakestraw?” he asked. “That’s right,” Rakestraw responded. The man in the American Beauty cravat stuck his head back in the window, flipped his glasses down, and maneuvered the rear end of his van into the yard, running over several of the uncut holly branches Rakestraw had earlier dragged to the woodpile. He made a parking space between the garden and the house, where there’d never been a parking space. Another man sat in the front seat beside him, but the driver’s clumsy backing maneuver delayed recognition until the van stopped and Sheriff Harrison had opened his door and climbed out. Benny Harrison, wearing a khaki shirt with his badge half-hidden in one of its greasy folds, was a head shorter than the newcomer and a good deal less at ease. Even though he kept his thumbs in his belt, at unexpected moments his elbows flapped like poorly hung storm shutters. He introduced the man who had backed into the yard as Edgar Macmillan, an attorney from California. Rakestraw said, “Gayle, Gabe, go play with Nickie.” Nickie was the dog, a lethargic brown mongrel visible now as a furry lump in the grass below the kitchen window. The twins went reluctantly off in the dog’s direction, and Rakestraw looked at Macmillan. “I represent Craig Tiernan, Mr. Rakestraw.” “Craig Tiernan. Surely you’ve heard the name.” Macmillan had his hands deep in the pockets of his blazer. The lenses of his sunglasses glinted like miniature hub caps. “Craig Tiernan.” “An actor,” Benny Harrison put in. “A movie actor.” “He’s placed first among male performers in three consecutive box-office polls, Mr. Rakestraw, and this year he’s nominated for an Academy Award.” “We don’t go to the movies.” “You read, don’t you? You watch television?” “We don’t watch much television. But I read now and again.” ‘Then you’ve seen his name in the newspaper. In the amusement section, where the movie ads are. In ‘people’ news, in feature stories.” Benny Harrison flapped his elbows. “Tom gets the Dachies County Journal,” he told Macmillan by way of defending his friend. “And you’ve got a little library of history and farming books, don’t you? And Nora’s magazines. Nora subscribes to magazines.” “Tiernan’s always in the women’s magazines,” Macmillan said almost accusingly. “He’s always being featured. Sometimes he gets a cover.” “I don’t read those,” Rakestraw confessed. “Nora gets them for recipes and pictures of furniture. She shows me the pictures sometimes.” “Has she ever told you you look like Craig Tiernan?” Rakestraw shook his head. “That’s why I’ve come out here,” Macmillan said. ‘That’s why I stopped at Caracal’s sheriff’s office and asked Sheriff Harrison to ride out here with me.” He took a piece of paper from an inside blazer pocket, unfolded it, and shook it out so that Rakestraw could see the matter printed on it. Rakestraw recognized it as the poster he had sat for when Harrison and two or three other people on the Caracal city council persuaded him to run for mayor against the sharp-spoken, doddering incumbent. He had lost by only ten or twelve votes, primarily because he had been unable to convince the ladies of the local women’s club that he wasn’t too young and inexperienced for the job, which in reality was little more than a sinecure. Mayor Birkett was pushing seventy, and Rakestraw had just turned thirty-two. “Is this you?” Macmillan wanted to know. He paced toward the woodpile, then waved off his own question. “Of course it is. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.” He turned around. “Somebody in Caracal sent this to the studio. The studio forwarded it to Tiernan, and Tiernan sent it to me, along with instructions and air fare to your state capital. A friend of mine up there loaned me this van, and here I am.” A sudden gust of wind rattled the pecan tree towering over the woodpile, and the smoothed-out election poster in Macmillan’s hand fluttered distractingly. r /> “Why?” Rakestraw asked. “To take care of the matter.” “What matter, Mr. Macmillan?” Rakestraw heard the twins shouting and laughing in another part of the yard. He also heard the bewilderment and impatience in his own voice. “Your trespass on Tiernan’s physiognomic rights, which he now has on file in Washington, D.C. Your state legislature approved local compliance with the Physiognomic Protection Act last May, Mr. Rakestraw, and that makes you subject to every statute of the otherwise provisional federal act.” “Benny,” Rakestraw asked, “what the hell does that mean?” “It means your face don’t belong to you anymore,” said Benny Harrison, flapping his elbows. “Sounds crazy, don’t it?” Rakestraw let his gaze drift from the perturbed, disheveled sheriff to the attorney with the crimson scarf at his throat, who was standing among the holly logs Rakestraw had already cut. “Let me finish these,” Rakestraw said. “I’m almost finished.” He retrieved his ax and began hacking at a smooth, gray-white holly limb only a small distance from Macmillan’s foot. The attorney backed up to his borrowed van and watched the other man chopping wood as if witness to a performance as rare and exotic as ember-walking or lion-taming. “Craig Tiernan?” Nora said. “Tom doesn’t look like Craig Tiernan.” She dug an old magazine out of the wall rack in the den and flipped it open to a double-page color layout. “He does to me,” Macmillan countered. “I’ve seen Tiernan up close, oh, a thousand times, and your husband looks like him. An amazing likeness, really amazing.” He stubbed his cigarette out on the canning lid Nora had given him for an ashtray. “At least you know who Tiernan is, though. That’s more than I can say for your husband. I wouldn’t’ve believed anybody that uninformed or isolated, Mrs. Rakestraw. I mean, the boondocks just aren’t the boondocks anymore—the media’s everywhere. Everybody touches everybody else. That’s why it’s necessary to have a law like the Physiognomic Protection Act.” “Tom isn’t interested in movies.” Nora examined the photograph in the magazine. “And I don’t think he looks like Craig Tiernan, either. I don’t see what you see.” “That’s why I’m going to drive him to the capital—so we can do a point-by-point match-up of features. This procedure isn’t hit-or-miss, Mrs. Rakestraw—it’s very scientific.” Macmillan shook out another cigarette. “Okay. So he isn’t interested in movies. But how can he be unaware? That’s what I don’t understand, how he can be so unaware.” “Do you know who the head of the government of Kenya is, Mr. Macmillan?” Nora asked the attorney. “Hell, Mrs. Rakestraw, I don’t even know who the President of Canada is.” “Okay, Prime Minister. But the Prime Ministers of Canada and Kenya don’t happen to be up for Academy Awards this year, either.” “Maybe they should be,” Benny Harrison said. “The President, too.” He stood by the double windows fronting the road to Caracal and, when a noise overhead reminded them all of Tom’s activity upstairs, lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “How long are you going to keep him?” Nora asked. “I don’t know,” Macmillan replied, exhaling smoke. “He might get back tomorrow. It might be three or four days. Or a week. Depends on what the examiners report after the match-up of features.” “Well, what happens if—if they match up?” “There are options, Mrs. Rakestraw. Nobody gets thrown in jail or caught out for damages for looking like somebody else. —Listen, if the test’s positive, you’ll be able to talk to him by telephone at our expense. It’s nothing to worry about. You may even make some money.” “I don’t care about that. However much it is, it won’t be worth going through all this. I don’t even see why he has to go. It’s ridiculous.” There was more noise from upstairs. “Listen to that. He’s upset with me for not helping him pack” “Nora,” Benny Harrison said, turning around, “Mr. Macmillan’s got a legal summons for this test. That’s why Tom’s going.” “What am I supposed to tell Gayle and Gabe? This is working out just as if Tom’s done something wrong. And he hasn’t—not a thing.” Neither the attorney nor the sheriff answered her. Sunlight fell across the hardwood floor through the double windows, and Nora tilted her head to catch the subtly frantic inflection of Nickie’s barking. After a time, Tom came into the room with his overnight case and asked if there was an extra tube of toothpaste anywhere. As a concession to the legality, if not the reasonableness, of Macmillan’s visit, Nora went looking for one. The men straggled out to the van while she looked, and when she found the extra tube of toothpaste, she carried it outside and handed it to her husband with a sense of vague disappointment Nevertheless, she kissed him and touched him affectionately on the nose. “Take care,” Rakestraw said. “I’ll call you.” Back inside the house, Nora found a check for a thousand dollars on the kitchen table. Macmillan’s lazy signature was at the bottom, twisted like a section of line in Tom’s tackle box. Nora wanted to tear the check up and scatter the pieces across the floor, instead, she left it lying on the table and returned thoughtfully to the den. The drive from Caracal to the state capital took four hours. Rakestraw asked Macmillan no questions, and Macmillan volunteered nothing beyond ecstatic but obtuse comments about the scenery. “Look at those blackbirds,” he exclaimed as they sped by a harvested cornfield in which a host of grackles was strutting. “There must be a thousand of ‘em!” He drummed his fingers on the dashboard in time to the disco music on the radio. He filled the van’s ashtray with cigarette butts. But he was subdued and solicitous checking Rakestraw into the private sanitarium where the testing was to be performed. He kept his voice down in the gloomy but spacious lobby where potted plants were reflected doubtfully in the streaked marble flooring, and he gave the black teenager who insisted on carrying Rakestraw’s bag to his first-floor room a generous but far from flashy tip. Then he left and let Rakestraw get a nap. Surprisingly, the testing itself began that same evening. A young man named Hurd and a young woman named Arberry—dressed, but for their name tags, as if for the street—came into Rakestraw’s room with photographic equipment, a scale on removable coasters, a notebook of laminated superimpositions of Craig Tiernan’s features, and various kinds of stainless-steel calibrating instruments, most of which looked sophisticated enough to induce envy in a physical anthropologist Rakestraw reflected that these two young people were physical anthropologists of a kind—they wanted to determine, scientifically, whether or not he looked like Craig Tiernan. “Do I look like Craig Tiernan?” Rakestraw asked Arberry as, after weighing him and noting down his height in centimeters, she posed him for a series of photographs. ‘There’s a real resemblance,” Arberry said genially. She smiled at him and made him point his chin for a portrait of his left profile. “Don’t people you’ve never met before do double takes when they first see you?” “Not that I’ve noticed.” “Her next question,” Hurd put in, fiddling with a calibrating tool, “is whether you’re married or not.” “Married,” Rakestraw managed between his teeth. “Don’t move,” Arberry cautioned him mildly. In the same low-key tone she added, “Shut up, Hurd, and get your own act together.” There was a surprisingly silent flash from her camera, and then Arberry was posing him face on. Like a tailor, Hurd was using a tape measure across his shoulders. Rakestraw found their finicky probing more interesting now than annoying, and he cooperated with his examiners as he was always urging Gabe and Gayle to cooperate with Dr. Meade when he took them for checkups back in Caracal. Chin up, face on, no bickering; child or adult, that was how you were s upposed to do things. . . . Arberry and Hurd were in the room with him for most of the evening, but they did give him a few odd minutes to himself as they conferred over the notebook of plastic superimpositions, flipping pages and matching features. Rakestraw began to feel like a pretender to the name, title, and person of the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Those fervid women had tried to prove their claims by a variety of methods, including the assertion that their ears had twelve or thirteen or fourteen positive points of identity-out of a possible seventeen—with the ears of the infant Anastasia, as revealed by photographs. The difference, of course, was that he didn’t wish to establish himself as Craig Tiernan; he certainly didn’t want his examiners to find enough points of similarity to make his resemblance to the actor a trespass against the Physiognomic Protection Act. Where had such legislation come from, anyway?