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AN INTERVIEW WK eENE Wfr£FE 30fi VECTOR 65

VECTOR 65 ;; May - June 1973 VECTOR is the official journal of the Contents ; British Science Fiction Association Ltd. Lead-In 3 Chairman; John Brunner Gene Wolfe; An Interview 7 Vice-Chairman & Acting Executive Secret ­ ary; Keith Freeman, 128 Fairford Rd., Lost Peoples 17 Tilehurst, Reading, RQ3 6QP. Panels Sargent Treasurer; Mrs G.T. Adam« , 54 Cobden The Fannish Inquisition 20 Ave, Bitterne Park, Southampton, Peter Roberts S02 4FT The Man Who Could Work Miracles 23 Company Secretary; Graham Baola Brian W. Aldiss The Infinity Box; Book Rerviaws 33 Malcolm Edwards VECTOR costs 30p. Membership of the Christopher Priest British Science Fiction Association is George Zebrowski £1.50 per year, which sum normally in­ Ad Astra? 38 cludes six issues of VECTOR. Bob Shaw In the U.S.A., B.S.F»A. membership is Notes on Contributors 41 ^3.00 per year; it is ths same in Australia, only in Australian money. Author's Choice 42 Membership enquiries should go to Keith Roger Zelasny Freeman. The Mail Response; Letters 47 Readers outside the U.K. can subscribe B.S.F.A. News 54 to VECTOR separately. In the U.S.A. the rate is 2 for jil.OO and pro rata surface mail; $1.00 each airmail. Same in Cover art by Andrew Stephenson , suggest­ Australia, in local dollars. Subscrip ­ ed by "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" by tion money should go to Mrs Adams. Gene Wolfe. Overseas subscribers; please send VECTOR is edited^ assembled, and et cash if possible; cheques are subject to ceteraed by someone who knows no better; heavy surcharging. Malcolm Edwards _0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0_ 75A Harrow View Harrow Copyright (c) Malcolm Edwards, 1973. Middx HA1 1RF All rights assigned to the individual authors. Except for the News Column, edited by; Archie Mercer Copy deadline for VECTOR 66 is July 1st. 21 Trenethick Parc This is a final deadline ■— please try Helston, Cornwall to get the stuff to me earlier, fellas. LEAD-IN

Having largely been typed beforehand, Oh well. That’s enough of com­ thia issue is being completed in oppo­ plaints. Onoe settled in I had a sition to an insidious but strong great time, which unfortunately seemed feeling of post-convention lethargy. to flash by at about two hours per It is less than two days since we left minute. I'd been looking forward to Bristol, as I type this, and I'n not this convention for a long time, it sure that it would be wise to attempt being the first we'd been able to get any sort of full convention report so to since the 1971 Novaoon, and eventual­ soon after the event) at the moment ly I enjoyed it as much as I had anti­ the events of the three days are still cipated doing, so that oome Monday mor­ jumbled and unsorted in my memory. ning I was just ready for another week or so of convention. And I think But it was, yes, a good Con. Up Christine enjoyed it much more than she until late Saturday afternoon I was not was really expecting to. The first at all sure it would be: everything vaguely familiar face I encountered was seemed disjointed; the convention had Newcastle fan Thom Penman, who seemed not settled into any kind of pattern to have grown up since I last saw him or rhythm (for me, at least). In my two years previously — but this init­ admittedly limited experience every con­ ial impression soon proved wrong. vention has its own very distinct Thom, who had surely set some kind of personality, but in each case the moment record by issuing a long report on the you really begin to enjoy yourself, 1972 Easteroon in the week before this though hard to pin down, oomes when you one, had brought his water—pistol with atop feeling like a visitor and start him in order to give himself something feeling at home. If OMPAcon had a major to write about next year. Worse, he fault it was in the way it bcgen on was not alone, having been accompanied Friday. The programme began too early, by the well-known, sensitive, pre-adol- presumably in response to the increasing esoent poet Ritchie Smith. Anyway, I'm number of people who arrive on the not going to go into that side of the Thursday evening. I think this was a convention very much, although it pro­ bad misjudgment, and I hope future con­ vided intermittent entertainment (i.e. ventions should learn from it (are when it was aimed at someone other you listening, Ian?). I would think a than me); in any case, I preferred 3 p.m. opening would be quite early Penman's (I think it was his) other enough (perhaps 4 p.m. when, as will strange device — a small pink object happen next year, many attendees will be which did a marvellous cackling imper­ faced with very long journeys). We sonation of John Piggott, right down arrived at lunchtime, having come down to the battery you had to insert before on a train which didn't involve getting it worked. No, I'll devote most of up too early and rushing; although we this to the more formal, or at least were there at what I expected to be the normal aspects of the weekend, because start, everything was apparently under I wouldn't want to give any of you who way already. Another mistake was in may never have visited a convention the not having any proper opening item. The impression that it's somewhere where programme drifted from some films silly things happen. Gosh, no. straight into the opening panel. The net result of all this was a feeling of In the important area of making the dislocation which persisted through much Edwards family more famous, the Con of the next day. was a reasonable success — in fact, a striking one. We were sitting in the Sentences, and staggered back to the lounge on Saturday morning when I was lounge, my coffee was cold. approached by a reporter and photo­ grapher from the Bristol Evening Post. The formal programme was only inter­ As it turned out, they didn't want to mittently interesting; there seemed to interview me on the Significance of be too many panel discussions which Science Fiction in the Modern World were there solely because, what the and maybe put a photo on the front hell, you gotta have panel discussions. page — they were more interested in The best of those I attended was that Christine, but instead of going through on time-travel on Saturday afternoon, any of this modern nonsense about equa­ with lightning attendee Hiilip Strick lity of the sexes they wanted to ask me in the chair and James Blish, Ken if they could borrow her to take some Bulmer and Bob Shaw on the panel. photos in the Art Room. Once they had Even so, this was far from being a total success: too much of the hour was received my assent, they dragged her off without further ado. Apparently spent talking around different aspocta of the subject without finding a really they were rather nonplussed when they profitable area for discussion. This asked her a few questions and discovered is a fault inevitable in panel discus­ she ditty't read science fiction. What sions unless they are both well-moder­ was she doing there then? Christine ated (which this one was) and either explained about me, and Vector, and the rehearsed to some degree or very B.S.F.A. Later that day we picked up clearly defined and directed (which it a copy of the paper, which carried one wasn't). Nevertheless, many of the of the photos, plus two articles — one things which were Baid were very inter­ done from an interview with Brian esting, and I wished it had gone on Aldiss, and one of the usual ho-ho sf longer. convention things ... "Time warps, interplanetary travel, monsters and Later on Saturday, Guest of Honour invasions are likely to be among the Chip Delany spoke, largely about the casual chat at the Grand Hotel, Bristol, academic acceptance of sf. He spoke over the next few days Part of well, although not saying anything the general article referred to "Mrs really new. One rather disturbing Christine Edwards, a publisher's wife item came up in the ensuing discussion: from Harrow"J Well, I always believe there has been a lot of talk lately what I read in the newspapers, so about holding more 'fannish* conven­ henceforth don't try referring to me as tions, and this had given the impression, a librarian, or a fanzine editor, or to James Blish at least, that pros were any of that stuff. I'm a publisher not welcome at these gatherings. Not now -- it's official. so, not so. All that's meant, I think, is more emphasis on talk and less on the For my own part, I was approached by formal programming at the Novacons — Gerald Bishop on the Friday, asking if much like many American regional conven­ I' d mind being interviewed by Radio tions, I believe. I suppose I should Bristol. About what?, I asked. Oh, mention the Fancy Dress Parade in the just the B.S.F.A., you know, said he. evening. Normally I dislike these even­ I agreed, but nothing seemed to come of ts more than I can tell you, though it so I'd put it out of my mind by mid­ some masochistic urge always drags me morning Saturday, and was just settling down with some extortionate (17p each) away from the bar to watch. However, on this occasion, proceedings were dis­ hotel coffee, when Gerald came and rupted by a remarkable and entertain­ dragged me into another room (the plush ing robots' protest march, masterminded lounge, where us science fiction lay­ by Tony Walsh and the Liverpool group. abouts weren't allowed) and left me with a friendly lady from Radio Bristol. Sunday morning saw the B.S.P.A. We sat down, me all ready to give a few A.G.M. (I have skated over the later pithy comments about the B.S.F.A., and part of Saturday evening, because al­ she turned on the tape-recorder. What though in the that time I learned per­ exactly is a science fiction fan?, she haps more than ever before about the asked. Zotzl, Gerbish. Zotzl Worse real inside story of science fiction. I still, after I'd stumbled through can hardly reprint any of that herel) Everyman's Guide to Fandom in Three Easy Christine assured me that this was the

4 single most entertaining item on the pro­ to say rather than (as always happens gramme (although strictly speaking she at present) when the mike happens to shouldn’t have been there). The minutes perambulate in their direction. In thit of the meeting should be going out with particular instance, I found that when­ this Vector, so you’ll see from them ever the microphone was with Peter what was resolved, and who was elected to Roberts at the far end of the table I the Council. I’d only been to one pre­ had something almost relevant to say, vious B.S.F.A. meeting, which was pretty but by the time it had made its way chaotic; this time, however, with John across to me, comments made by the Brunner in the chair and actually chair­ three between us had moved the discuss­ ing the meeting, things were rather ion to an area where I felt I had very different. Still, one had to sympathise little to contribute. Was the same with poor Keith Freeman who couldn’t thing happening to the other panellists? finish a single sentence without being Is it general in this kind of situation? interrupted from a particularly vocal If so, is it any wonder that however part of the audience which continually interesting they look on paper, panel demanded elucidation on various points discussions rarely generate anything while denying Keith the ohanoe to give really worthwhile. I know that if it. One of the end results was that I there were more microphones there would was one of the three new members elected be the danger of everybody talking at to the Council. Power I Ab I understand once, but this might be preferable to it, since the B.S.F.A. is a limited the state of affairs when you can't company, the Council counts as a Board talk when you want to. of Directors of sorts. Which gave Keith Oddly enough, I suffered little or the ohanoe to deliver one of the best no fear before going on that panel, al­ lines of the convention when he told me though the thought of having to appear later that our Company Secretary, Graham in public always fills me with dread. Poole, wanted to see me because, as a Probably it was because I had been en­ new Council member, I had to list my joying the B.S.F.A. meeting, which had other direotorships. overrun, with the result that I went Well, I never did see you Graham, so more-or-less straight out of the meet­ if you've got penoil and paper ready: ing, into the Con hall, and onto the I.C.I., Unilever, British Leyland ... platform. It was different in the afternoon. After the A.G.M. I had to appear on Pete Weston's fan panel, along with Ian I suspect that the idea of a fun Williams, Peter Roberts, Jim Goddard, quiz show was Fred Hemmings' evil way and of course the man himself. I forget of subjecting 16 innooent people to what we were discussing, though I'm not terrible public humiliation. There sure we knew even then. "Be a bit ex­ were four teams of four, representing treme," Pete hissed to everyone before different fan groups: one from Newcas­ we began, no doubt realising that the tle, one from Liverpool, one from five of us would probably be in substan­ Birmingham, and one from London. This tial agreement on most things, despite last team, representing the Globe and his attempt to split us, both physically the mythical entity known as Ratfandom, and philosophically, into two camps: the consisted of Rob Holdstook, Greg Pick­ fannish fans (lan and Peter Rabbit) and er sgill, Leroy Richard Arthur Teeth the gimlet-eyed seroon fans (Jim and me). Kettle, and me. It would have been O.K. To anyone who's listening I'd like to if it had been a simple quiz; but it make another complaint about the set-up wasn't — it was a 'Twenty Questions' of panels at conventions (like the sort of affair in which we had to guess Philip Strick panel above, this one I the identity of obscure objects from sf think had the virtue of being well-run and fandom, one team competing against and the defect of direotionlessness): another and the two winners playing in there are never enough microphones. the final. Fifteen minutes before we Admittedly there ought to have been two went on, there was a small, pathetic between the five of us, but one was not group clustered round one of the tables working; nevertheless I think a conven­ in the bar, united by sheer naked fear. tion ought to be able to get at least Only John Brosnan, who was originally in four together, so that people on these the team but had dropped out, was happy. panels can speak when they have something We had hoped that we'd be one of the

5 second pair, so we could get some idea reorganise the Award will be put to you by watching them in action. But no all shortly. I'm not sure of the such luck* the first match was between mechanics of this, but I believe it Birmingham and us. It was terrible. involves a final ballot listing maybe We had no idea. God alone knows what half a dozen novels, which will be the audience were thinking as the ques­ distributed early enough to give people tioning went round and round without a chance to read them. You'11 be get­ ever getting near the answer. But be­ ting details from another quarter, but lieve me, there's nothing more likely just let me say, for God's sake support to make you feel really stupid than it — try to read the novels and vote sitting in front of 100-150 people ask­ next yearI ~ ing daft questions to try and find some answer they all know already (it having been written on a blackboard out of our sight). As it happens, we won both our Of course, a convention is no good un­ games, more by luck than judgment, and less you oome away weighed down by a became the first, and hopefully only certain amount of printed matter which recipients of the H.G. Wells’ Moustache you didn't take with you. This year I trophy. This was presented with due managed not to buy a single book either pomp and absurdity at the banquet on in the auctions or in the Bookroom, Sunday evening. I was sent to collect but I nevertheless arrived home with a it, the others thinking it to be a box number of bits of paper, some of which of chocolates. In fact, it turned out deserve a mention here. One surprise to be a bottle} but sadly, though I was the eventual appearance of Found­ ation 3 (see the advert on p.30 of made my exit on the other side of the Vector 64 and chortle). It's a good room, Kettle caught me. issue though, with its 84 pages rep­ I didn't go to the banquet, of resenting muoh better value for money oourses one can buy bad food at a than the previous two. The contents quarter of the cost in a Wimpy bar, or are better, as well. I have complained reasonable food at about half the cost before that it was a (supposedly) aca­ in any number of places, and further­ demic journal which consisted mostly more it's served to you while it's still of fanzine material. This is no longer hot. The only disadvantage of missing true. There are still a couple of the banquet is that not enough other fanzine pieces (by Van Vogt and James people do it, leaving only a small ded­ Tiptree, Jr.) but these show up so icated bunch outside, waiting for the weakly in comparison with the other interminable affair to end so that contents that I'm sure Peter Nicholls they can go in and mock the speeches won't be letting this kind of stuff in and the awards. A fair number of much longer. With these exceptions awards were made which I'll try to the contents are interesting, varied, remember, though undoubtedly I'll and go a long way towards achieving the miss some. The Doo Weir Award went journal's stated aim of providing good, to Ethel Lindsay. The Ken McIntyre serious, scholarly, but lively discuss­ Award for artwork went to a fantasy ion of sf. Recommended. (You'll find artist again — Dave Fletcher I the address in the news section.) think — despite competition from our Another item of interest was Check­ very own Andrew Stephenson. The point 36, with the results of its British Fantasy Society made a 1972 Fan Poll. Peter Roberts' Egg number of August Derleth Awards* was voted best fanzine, as last year. some Robert E. Howard resurrection Vector came in 10th, which I suppose is won one as best novel, and I forget an improvement on the 19th of last year the others (though I remember that but is nevertheless disappointing. I'm another novel won the award for not arrogant enough to think of suggest­ short fiction and a Conan comic won ing that it's the best British fanzine; something) • Ramsey Campbell won the but nevertheless I'm damn sure it's one special Falling Over Award, for doing of the best five. Mutter mutter. Any­ it best. There was no British SF way, Checkpoint, costing only 40p for Award, since insufficient votes were 10 issues, is recommended. (Peter Rob­ received. This is a sad state of erts, 87 West Town Lane, Bristol, BS4 affairs, but hopefully a proposal to 5DZ — he'll send you a free sample.)

6 GENE WOLFE An Interview

Could you first of all tell us some­ became my home town, the place I was thing about your background, how you "from". oame into writing, and why sf? I vent to Edgar Allen R>e elementary I was bora in Brooklyn, New York. This school, where we read "The Masque of the oame home to me, to me who had always Red Death" in fifth grade and learned oalled myself a Texan and thought of my­ "The Raven" in the sixth. We lived in self as a Texan, when I read that Thomas a small house with two very large bed­ Wolfe "warmed up" for writing by walking rooms | the front room was my parents', the night streets of Brooklyn. He was the back one, with mint growing profusely from the hill country of north west North beneath its windows, mine. I had no Carolina and so was my great, great brothers or sisters, but I had a blaok grandfather — making us, at least pres­ and white spaniel named Boots, and I umptively, distant oousins. Hemingway built models (mostly World War I planes, sharpened twenty penoils and Willa Cather which still fascinate me) there and read a passage from her Bible, but oolleoted cornice and Big-Little Books. Thomas Wolfe, bless him, swung his big The thing I recall most vividly about body down Brooklyn streets and may have Houston in the late thirties and early been thrashing out some weighty problem forties is the heat. Houston has almost in Of Time And The Biver during the precisely the climate of Calcutta, and early hours of Thursday the 7th of May, until I was ready for High School there 1931. I hope so. I like to think of was no air conditioning except in him out there on the sidewalk worrying theaters and the Sears Department Store. about Gene Gant and flaying NYU. You went to the movies in the hottest At any rate I was born in that city part of the day to miss it, and when you at the south western tip of Long Island. oame out the heat and sunlight were My parents lived in New Jersey at the appalling. I remember my father wrapping time, but they moved and moved. To his hand in his handkerchief so that he Peoria, where I played with Rosemary could open the oar door. Dietsob who lived next door, and her Our house stood midway between two brothers Robert and Richard. To Massa­ mad scientists. Miller Porter, who chusetts, where little Ruth McCann lived in the big house behind us (his caught her hand in our car door. To father was a brewing company executive), Logan, Ohio, my father's home, where was my own age but much tougher and Boyd Wright and I got stung by the cleverer, and he built Tessla coils and bumble bees that had nested in our wood­ similar electric marvels. Across the shed. To Des Moines, where a redheaded street a chemist for Humble Oil main­ boy taught me chess while we were both tained a private laboratory in a room in the second grade. Then to Dallas for over his garage. If this were not a year, and at last to Houston, which

7 enough there was, only five sweltering The G.I. Bill allowed me to finish blocks away, the Richmond Pharmacy, my education to B.S.M.E. at the Univer­ where a boy willing to crouch immobile sity of Houston. Rosemary Dietsoh, behind the candy case could cram Planet whose mother had kept in touch with Stories, or Thrilling Wonder Stories, mine, came to Texas for a visit, and or (myown favorite)Famous Fantastic we were married five months after I Mysteries, while the druggist compounded got a job in engineering development. prescriptions. Almost unnoticed the We have Roy II (after my father, whose big, slow moving ceiling fans vanished real name, however, is Emerson Leroy from the Richmond Pharmacy and the barb­ Wolfe; mother is Mary Olivia Airs Wolfe) er shop. World War II was over and there Madeleine, Therese, and Matthew; and a was a room air conditioner in one of my three bedroom house. bedroom windows and another in the dining room, Houston began to lose its mixed How did I oome into writing? Spanish American and Southern character Quietly. And late. and I was in high school, where I showed The lights were dimmed and most of no aptitude for athletics or most other the seat were filled. He edged down things. I joined the R.O.T.C. to get the aisle, dribbling popcorn and trip­ out of compulsory softball. (I was one ping over fat ladies. Eased into a of the very few cadet who was not made seat and found that he was the picture. an officer for the year before gradua­ tion.) And a year later the "pappy Q: Why sf? Okay, I’ll level with shooters" of the Texas National Guard you i it is the biggest market for because you got paid (I think ^2.50) short stories. In faot, sf and mys­ for attending drills. teries are almost the only short story markets in America today, and the To my surprise the National Guard sf market is several times the size of was fun. We fired on the rifle range the mystery market. I have written a and played soldier, with pay, for two number of mainstream short stories and weeks during school vacations. When I have never sold (for money) one. I the Korean War broke out we though our have written a number of mystery shorts outfit, G Company of the 143rd Infantry, and sold two — for 1/ a word. Let me would be gone in a week. It never went, add in passing that I don't believe in and though I would gladly have waited these rusty little fences: fiction is around the armory for the order I found fiction and there are no fundamental myself committed to attending Texas A&M differences between the supposed types. instead. It would be perfectly possible to write a mainstream sf western about a murder A&M, which offered the cheapest poss­ with a strong sex element; if it sold ible college education to Texas boys, was it would probably sell as sf — because at the time I attended it an all-male land-grant institution specializing (the the sf audience is the last audience that can stand the psyohio strain im­ A&M stands for Agricultural and Mechani­ cal) in animal husbandry and engineering. posed by the short story form. For some reason I have forgotten — I I have been squatting here trying suspect because someone told my father to remember what books I liked as a or me that it was a good thing to take child. The Oz books, which you do not, until you made up your mind what to perhaps, read in Britain, and the best switch to — I majored in Mechanical of which were written within a few Engineering. Only Dickens could do miles of here (i.e. Barrington, Illi­ justice to Texas A&M as I knew it, and nois). Alice. A series of books about he would not be believed. It was, I a goat named Billy Whiskers who was suppose, modeled on West Point; but it always on the bum. When I was in lacked both the aristocratic tradition school twelve years later, the head of and the sense of purpose. I dropped the department, an old Swede who had out in the middle of my junior year, been an officer in the American army i® thus losing my student deferment and both world wars, asked our class who was drafted for (remember that?) the had read the BW books; and then who Korean War. So G Company never went, had read Miss Minerva And William Greet but I did. I was lucky and got my Hill; and I was the only one who had oombat infantry badge during the clos­ heard of either. A very early Disney ing months without even getting book: Buoky Bug — because it was full nicked. of wonderful machinery the huge had made 8 from junk, tanks that were pill boxes on leisurely book for the first 150 roller skates and the like. The oldest pages or so, but thereafter becomes Disney was rich with this kind of mech­ increasingly rushed and telegraphic. anism, which made its last stand in Was it cut for publication? Snow White.

The dedication of Fifth Head of ARES was written in 1967, and the Cerberus implies a considerable original manuscript ran over 100,000 debt to Damon Knight, and in fact words. It was out to about 80,000, you are one of a group of writers the earlier chapters by me and the closely associated with Knight, later ones by Don Benson, then editor Milford and Orbit. What effect do at Berkley. At the time I began it you think these associations have I supposed it to be possible to tell had on your development as a writer? the story of a war in a single novel of not unreasonable length. I still believe this, but it would take some I implied a considerable debt to Damon handling. Knight in the dedication to Cerberus because I owe him a considerable debt) in fact, more than I will ever Are you satisfied with the published be able to repay. He was the first version? editor to buy my work regularly, and the first to pay me good rates. He No, but I will never revise it, and has given me invaluable advice and been that for two reasons — first, because my steadfast friend when he owed me with an equal amount of work I oould nothing. write a new book, and second, because Tou ask about Milford. Read A I regard that sort of thing as a Pocketful of Stars if you have not species of crime. already. I knew no other writers and no readers before I went to Milford for Crime against whom, or what? the first time. In England where (so I am told) things are better, you Against Truth, for one thing) you will cannot well conceive the climate of say (or if you don't someone else will anti-intellectualism that exists in — I shall use you because you're this country outside of a few places handy) that a given book or story will like New York and San Francisco. And carry all sorts of disclaimers to the though I was born in the former I left effect that the author wrote at twenty- it in infancy and have lived all my five and revised at forty but in point life in Texas and the middle west. of fact it won't. The publishers won't bother with them — not for long on a But is the kind of criticism and book and not at all on a short story. advice you get at a place like Secondly against Art. Assuming that Milford any better than what you the writer has progressed (and if he get elsewhere? hasn't, of what use is the revision) he will be using the techniques he has developed by years of practice on his Yes, but sometimes it can be very own youthful ideas, much as though a bad. In 1969 almost everyone said parent were to forge the child's home­ (for example) that Richard Hill's work. "To Sport With Amaryllis" was bad — they were like people biting into cotton candy when they expected roast I was fascinated by The Fifth Head beef. But you can't eat roast beef of Cerberus, but trying to put myself on the Ferris wheel. in the author's place, I was unable to see quite how you oould come to Your first novel, Operation ARES, write the book in this way. How did was published in 1970* although it come about? differences from most of your other work suggest that it is one of your earliest stories. It's a very How the book came about is uncomplicated I wrote "The Fifth Head of Cerberus"

9 (the first novella) for the 1970 Milford sf example — The Gods Themselves. SF Writers Conference, the last to be Why didn't you call it one? held in Milford. As is customary I mailed in the manuscript several weeks before I left for the conference myself You seem to be asking why I published — this gives Damon and Kate and any my three novellas as three novellas early arrivals (and people sometimes when I probably could have called them come as much as a week in advance) a a novel and not been sued or sent to chance to read some manuscripts before prison. Why should I? Would they have the pressure gets too high, and gives been better received under that label? Damon the information he needs to work All this suggests the problem of the out a schedule for the first few days. theme anthology — you know, "Great Damon wrote back in a day or so that he Science Fiction About Bees". It is would like to buy the story for Orbit, perfectly true (at least in most cases) and I accepted; so it was actually sold that all the stories have something to before I got to Milford. do with bees; it is equally time that Norbert Slepyan, who was then they have nothing to do with each Scribner’s sf editor, attended the con­ other — they are linked by an external. ference, and Virginia Kidd (who has since Now I think the stories in my book are become my agent) and Damon sicked him in the opposite situation: the internal onto the manuscript. He said he thought linkage is there, but the external links are entirely omitted: the first Scribner's would publish it in book form if I would write additional material. story is told in the first person, the second in the third person; the third It was artistically impossible to in a mixture of both: a minor character continue the story of Number Five, but in the first story is the author of the when you have imagined an unreal world second and a major character in the it is possible to lay any number of third; and so on. Now if the public is stories in it. I considered Aunt Jeann- willing (as it clearly is) to aooept ine and David as possible protagonists "Great Science Fiction About Bees" as — I still regret, slightly, that I a true expression of its theme, what could not go with Dr. Marsoh and Jean- would it think of my book if it claimed nine both — and the rest you know. the unity of a novel? I should add that I rather enjoy Was the idea of the Annese incorpor­ theme anthologies because they force ated in the first novella with no their editors to uncover good but seldom intention that it should be devel­ reprinted material. oped, then? Would it have been better received At the time I put them in "Cerberus" I as a novel? Hard to say; but I had no plan to develop the Annese furth­ think it might have been better en­ er, but I was conscious that they could joyed. As you say, the internal be developed, as I've tried to say. linkages are there, but by labelling Almost everything can be developed fur­ it as it is, surely you encourage ther. The fact that the development readers to overlook them? Put it occurs in a later story, or in the same this way: if someone were to read story, or does not occur, makes no the third part first, then the first, fundamental difference. Stevenson then the second, would they get as could have written the childhood of much out of it as someone who read Long John Silver — it was there. I it consecutively? could begin the later adventures of Marydoll tonight. I think I see what the trouble is in this novel-novella argument: you feel Cerberus is published as "three no­ that if shorter pieces are in any way vellas". Yet the three stories connected they should be called a novel. are strongly, if unobtrusively, I don't agree, but granting your defin­ linked; they illuminate one another ition then Cerberus is, as you say, a and finally add up to a unified novel. I did, of course, intend the book. It seems to me at least as much a novel as — to take a recent * No I don't. But let it pass. (MJE) 10 stories to be read in the order in which about the three books a little, the they were published) and it would, of good and the bad, but always with the course, be possible for some thick or reservation — which I think you al­ eccentric reader to decide that "VBT" ready are willing to concede me — that was the most attractive title (I might they are great literature in precisely almost agree with him there) and read the sense that Hamlet (for example) is that first. great literature. We may oomplain justly about the gravediggers’ jokes Are there any writers who have par­ or the absurd welter of blood at the end of the last act, but we are throw­ ticularly influenced you? Which ing stones at the moon and we know it. writers do you especially admire? A disclaimer first — it's been three years since I read the books. Damon Knight onoe asked me what books I'm sure it will he possible for you had influenced me most, and I told him The Lord of the Bings (which I found to catch me out on some of the things I say. I can claim, though, that I out later he loathes), The Napoleon of Notting Hill (which he loves), and have performed the fundamental duty of a critic and read my authort I remember Marks' Mechanical Engineer’s Handbook. very well how eagerly I looked forward I still feel this is a pretty good to my daily hour with Peake. answer, but would add The Man Who Was Thursday, Darkness at Noon, The Trial, Tou asked if I read the Langdon The Castle, The Bemembrance of Things Jones reconstruction of Titus Alone, Past, the Gormenghast trilogy (magnifi­ saying that you understood it to be cent no matter how flawed, and it is more faithful to the author's intentions. terribly flawed), and Look Homeward No, and I confess to being very wary Angel, which I feel is that "great of "reconstructions". In any event, I American novel" people sometimes still think the second volume — Gormenghast — talk about) very few people in this and not Titus Alone is the weakest of generation trouble themselves to read the three, and that by a considerable it. margin. The school (granted that it is I have read Bradbury, Ellison, Disoh, great fun at times) is the worst thing Lafferty, Buss and a few others with in any of the books. After we have en­ great respect, but I don't feel I have joyed the scene in whioh the Professors been influenced by them — their things oome to Irma Prune squall or' s ball — in are good things but not my thing. fact while we are in the very midst of it — we realise with terrible disapp­ I have read most of Maupassant and ointment that we have left the castle feel Mme, Tellier's Excursion to be his and have been stranded instead in the story. I have read a good deal of middle of just such a nineteenth century Dunsany, Oliver Onions, and Machen. English village as Piokwiok might have And Lovecraft and Gunter ffrass. If you visited. It is very jolly, and never haven't read them yet I recommend A jollier than when one of the teachers Voyage to Arcturus (though I despise its philosophy). The"Teachings of Don Juan mistakes Irma's face, as she peeps around a corner, for an apparition of and its sequels, and The Universal Death) but it is not the world of Steer­ Baseball Association, Ino. J. Henry pike (that magnificent creation) and Waugh, Prop. Fuchsia and Barquentine. It is not even the world in whioh Craggmire the Aorobat I'd be interested to hear you en­ crosses his apartment on his hands toss­ large on the flaws in the Gormen­ ing a pig in a green nightdress to-and- ghast trilogy. fro with his feet. It is not Gormen­ ghast at all. I don't want to do that. There is A few other points from the first always something sneaking about trying two booksi At one time we are told that to pick holes in a masterpiece, and this there are rattlesnakes outside the is doubly so when the writer is among castle. If you cannot understand why the dead of our time. there cannot be, I cannot explain it. Those are adders. Flay (his fight with So I'm going to try instead to talk

11 Swelter is the best thing in the first think it will have? book save perhaps for Swelter's corpse floating in the trapped water on the roof with the sword a cross sticking I too read that one editor (Boger El­ out of it and eventually cascading over wood) has signed contracts for 42 the eaves like the body of a dinosaur anthologies, and it is hard to believe. going over a waterfall) has knees that But Boger has been buying an awful lot click when he walks* which is good. of material (I hear); and certainly he When he oomes to kill Swelter (I believe has been buying quite a bit from me, it is) he binds strips of blanket about viz: "An Article About Hunting"; them to muffle the noise* whioh is very "Beautyland"; and "Going To The Beaoh" - good indeed. But later* when it is no all of them paid for and none yet pub­ longer convenient for the author that lished. May he prosper. Play's knees click* we are told that This question of collapse you raise they have stopped* whioh is just ghastly is an interesting one; it is tied, I — I wanted to take Peake by the throat think, to the replacement of sf maga­ and shake him when I read it. The wild zines by sf paperbacks* and this im girl oomes to nothing* when she promised turn is tied to the general lack of so much. understanding of the sf field by the The death of the twins is wonderful, upper management of publishing. To unique. As is the very end of Titus oversimplify, I would say that the Alone* when Titus hears the signal gun proliferation of original anthologies and turns away. Muzzlehatoh, in the will lead to collapse when and if the last book* is a fine character; as is publishers deoide that the public is so Crabcalf, who is surely a selfparody of eager for this type of book that the the author. But nothing can console us books can be edited by their junior for the death of Steerpike.••except the tradebook editors. When that happens knowledge (like Titus's) that Gormen- (and I hope it never does) we will see ghast is still there. I think that it entire books filled with really bad is more or less the custom* when writing material — and the great mass of the sf reading public (whioh is much larger, about a great book* to quote the opening paragraph, or at least a few sentences as I feel certain you realise, than fan­ dom) simply does not know enough to of it, at the end. I am not going to do understand that a volume edited by (say) that — they are quite undistinguished. Instead I would like to quote the sen­ Harry Harrison is likely to contain tence from Titus Alone that I copied out quite a bit of good material while one on the flyleaf when I first read the edited by Norman Nudje is probably a book: Behind him* wherever he stood* or bad investment* particularly if his slept* were the legions of Gormenghast — contents page is populated exclusively tier upon cloudy tier* with the owls by unreoognisables. There are a lot of palling through the rain* and the ring­ reasons for this, and they all pull to­ ing of the rust-red bells. gether: it is unlikely Norman knows or cares much for science fiction* and he I came on it a few minutes ago while will not be given much of a budget for I was paging through the books in prep­ his book. On the other hand* it is aration to writing this letter* and the highly probable that he will feel con­ demon who stands behind my chair is fident that he knows what the public still screaming (as he did when I first wants: he has (after all) seen two saw it) why not you? Why not you I episodes of Star Trek* he has watched the sci-fi flicks on late TV* he has seen the covers of Aoe doubles. Very Most of your stories appear in the little that is good will be sent to various original anthologies — Orbit* him* and most of that will be rejected. Universe* and so on — which now seem to be proliferating beyond all reason: In time his book ("Tales From The for example I read recently that one Void") will appear. How many bad books editor had signed contracts with 19 will his non-fan reader buy (at /1.25 different publishers for 42 antholo- each* I should say) before he stops giesl Do you think this will lead, buying anything? I suspect two to three fairly soon, to a collapse in the market? If so, what effect do you I also suspect I am not answering the

12 question you want to ask, which is, I I certainly cannot agree with the think, As things are now, is collapse Compton quote you give. It's one imminent? No. - - . thing to take sf out of the ghetto; it To answer a question you have not would be another to deprive it of its asked, I am much more optimistic about individuality. Space travel and alien the future of print as a medium than I intelligences tend to encourage the was five or ten years ago. Motion pic­ continuance of sf as a genre too; but tures, the great enemy of print in my the way to break down those compartments boyhood, the popcorn monster that seemed is to have a great many very good books. so completely invulnerable when there was no television, and only the theaters Would you describe your method of were air-oonditioned, and an adult paid writing? 35/ or 40/ and a child 10/ or 15/, today is more than half dead. Television it­ self is noticeably weaker every year, You want to know (I should say, seem to and every year more inclined to occupy want to know) about my schedule; I itself with completely non-1iterary suspect you’re going to find this so material (i.e. sports). The loss of dull you're going to have to out the cigarette advertising has been a terrible whole thing. On a work day I get up blow to television, and it seems certain sometime between six thirty and seven, to be followed by others — soon, I shave if I can beat the children to the think, there will be no more broadcast bathroom, go down into the basement and ads for tobacco in any form (natural­ write until Rosemary calls me up for wrapper cigarettes, which are legally breakfast, go back down, if there's time cigars, are being advertised here now), left, until eight. Besides writing I no ads for wine or beer, either. Recent­ will have reviewed the carbons of any ly I attended a symposium sponsored by letters I wrote the night before, and the American Business Press in which the decided whether to send then or revise effect of TV cassettes was discussed. them. The publishers who hadn't tried them At eight I go upstairs, dress, drive were (for the most part) enthused. Those to the post offioe, mail my letters and who had .were grim. pick up the nail. At eight-thirty I am at my desk at work. At five I am back home (all this assumes I am not travel­ How much contact have you had with sf ing, of course) go downstairs and try fans, fandom, fanzines? Have you been to any conventions? D.G.Compton said to deal with the mail between then and once that he was grateful to discover supper, which will be between five the existence of sf fans because it thirty and six. After supper I will proved that there were people who read shop if I have shopping to do, or write his books but had reservations because more letters, or fix something around such activity tended to encourage the the house. From seven to eight I watch continuance of sf as a genre, while we TV about three days a week; after eight (if it is a TV day, after seven if it should be tearing down compartments is not) I try to write until nine.. rather than building them. Would you From nine to ten I read. At ten (un­ agree? less what I am reading is very good indeed) I watch the news and TV and I went to St. Louisoon, two Marcone, the first half hour or hour of the Peoon last year and Midwestcon this year; Tonight show, then to bed. I usually in a few days I hope to be at Chambanaoon. get in about four hours of writing on I have a feeling I'm leaving out some­ Saturday and Sunday. thing, but that's all I can think of now. It takes me about an hour/page of I hope to go to Toroon; and while I was in Cincinnati I was a member of the local finished copy — a half hour for first fan club, called, I believe, the Cincinn­ draft, another half for two or three ati Fantasy Group. I get Locus, Yandro, revisions. As I said, I write in the SOTWJ, Geg, SF Commentary, Richard E. basement, but I try not to yell at my Geis, Mota, BC, Starling, and a lot of children when they come down and want other excellent magazines whose titles to talk to me. At least not the first time. I find that when I start a story escape me now.

13 I had better know the ending. Sometimes (1) He is ego-centric to the point I ohange it when I get there, but if I of excluding other peoples' ideas and start without that I’m usually in closing his mind to opposing discuss­ trouble. I must have the characters and ion. the end. When given leadership position he No, I don’t voice my own opinions asserts himself in a "let's get lined through my characters, because one of up and don't dare challenge my posi­ them is that each character should be tion ((This has been crossed out, but true to himself or herself at all times; is still legible — the kind of thing and if one of them isn't it hurts like we do with slashes.)) a boil until I fix it. Obviously I may agree, from time to time, with something He is a firm leader and tends to a character says, but that is purely co­ carry his authoritarian attitude as a incidental and I seldom think about it. leader into the discussion. He cuts off conflict as sharply as he can. It is very hard to say how much of my (3) Gene works just as hard as nec­ output I sell, because I continue market­ ing things for a long time — I once sold essary to get the job done, step on toes, loner — ((can't read)) — good a story (I won’t tell you the title, so don’t ask) on the 38th submission. I guy facade have written three novels I am no longer marketing, so that is a considerable Rayt impatient, withdrawal, instructive, body of work which will remain unpublish­ hardhitting, self-possessed doesn't ed. One is very bad, one fair, one, I search think, good but badly dated as to cont­ In the face of conflict, he presents ent. Of my present output. I would say that I sell 80%. Yes, I would like to his position once, and then withdraws; typically "Here's the way it is boys, write full time, and will do it when I if you can't see this position now no feel I can support myself and my family further contribution by me will help that way. understanding." If understanding is You think I'm fussy and Damon Knight not reached, he is willing to comprom­ and Virginia Kidd tell me I'm sloppy, ise. His major contributions to the and that gets me off onto a tangent team are invaluable and instructive in­ that might be interesting to any Vector sights such as analogies ((sic)), case readers who have followed this thing histories, and psychoanalysis. He this long. In 1969 I took part in a does not search for alternate opinions sensitivity group program in which each and listens to them through unfiltered participant was required to write a ears. ((I think he means or instead of capsule description of all the others and, but he wrobe and — or maybe nor.)) as the last exercise. I saved the ones He exerts informal direction through­ I received (I have a stack of binders out meetings & as a leader exercises I call my journal — letters, jottings, excellent control. His humor is gener­ etc. dating to March I960; it now fills two shelves of a sizeable bookcase), ous hardhitting, and sells his position. When withdrawing from meetings he ex­ have not looked at them since I re­ hibits disgust and pouting. ceived them, and think it might be in­ teresting to copy them out for you — to my knowledge no one has published DK ((not Damon Knight)): He tends to this kind of parlor analysis of a be domineering and responds to conflict writer, but I should add that none of by defending, resisting, and counter­ the participants knew I wrote. The arguments. He does not hesitate to descriptions are not signed (unfort­ step on toes to get his point across. unately) but I will indicate when the His humor is hardhitting and aimed at hand changes. You have to trust my convincing his opponents. Although he honesty, obviously, but I promise to is very task-oriented, he has a strong spare nothing: desire to be liked and this basic per­ sonality conflict tends to cause him to Gene's humor is a key to his psychology. withdraw when he believes that the job It is clever, cutting, deep, full of is not getting accomplished. He is a double meaning & can be readily sharp­ good leader because his intelligence ened to a keen edge. commands respect. Only in the light of 14 very strong factual evidence against appeared. 1UE)), and I haven't heard his position does he change hie posit­ from him for a time. ion without withdrawing from the team Terry Carr has "The Death of Doctor effort. He desires to obtain team Island", which I understand has made results by traditional approaches such the lead story in Universe 3. This is as timed agendas etc. and hence forces "The Island of Doctor Death and Other compromises to which he is not committed. Stories" inverted — perhaps I should say reversed. Your image in a mirror W ((?))» His skill in coping with con­ (as I am sure you realise) does not flict situations stems from in-depth look in the least like you; in fact it probing and critique. would be completely correct to say that there is probably no one in the world His humor is a oandid and hard-hitting who looks less like you than that image style that fits the situation. High does. It is the reverse of you. Kate performance is coupled with deep commit­ Wilhelm says that every story has a ment, deep enough to cause a oloseminded certain sice and shape (and she might attitude in evaluating divergent points have said a color or colors too), what of view. He drives himself and others I tried to do here was to create the in an effort to produce quality results mirrored story as a new entity. About and meet stated deadlines. 19,000 words. Orbit 12 will carry "Continuing Oi The "sage". He is highly competit­ Westward", the story of two aviators ive, anxious for conflict, as he feels blown into the future while fighting that he can sway the opinions of others. the Turks in WWI. His humor is barbed and directed to winning his point. He is a forceful "How I Lost the Second World War leader, an orator, and yet he hides be­ and Helped Turn Back the German Invasion" hind a "good guy" facade. His contribu­ tells of Adolf Hitler's ill-fated tions to team achievement, though many, attempt to market Volkswagens in Britain. are influenced by how they agree with Six thousand words, to be in Analog one hie convictions to self. of these days. "Feather Tigers" recounts the diffi­ Wayne» Conflict is openly faced but culties of aliens whose speculations generally managed by talking a position about the interdependence of that ex­ of superiority. He has a high level of tinct animal Man with the other creat­ commitment to goals he considers worth­ ures of his planet embroils one of while but will withdraw completely when them in a little adventure. A very situations deteriorate. ((Next sen­ light treatment of a subject that int­ tence crossed out but legible.)) He is erests me deeply — totemism. To be in a very opinionated person which results Edge Suppliment, a little magazine. in taking and expressing strong stands I've hopes of having what is called a on issues with little room for comprom­ young adult novel — a term I dislike — ise. Situations are examined in depth published this year. The Devil In A yielding deep insights such as that the Forest. "Big Picture" approach is used in prob­ lem solving. Leadership abilities are There are two novels half or less excellent but he is more of a loner complete which have been in that state than a team man. Humor is hard-hitting for years — Frieda From the Fire and used to make a point and shows deep In Greyhame Prison. Someday. insights of human behavior. And I've 150 pages of Peace, the big thing I'm trying to do. I still don't Finally, could you tell us something know what it's about. about work you have forthcoming or Just before beginning this I finished in progress? the second draft of "Forlesen", a largely autobiographical novella; and as soon as I won’t mention the stories sold to I have finished I'll begin "The Dark of Rogor Elwood, since I just did. Tom the June", the first story of a four-part Disch has a 10,000 word novelette, cycle Roger Elwood has asked that I do "Hour of Trust". Unfortunately his book for Continuum. And that's it. — Bad Noon Rising — seems to have been delayed ((I believe it has now 15 Gollancz

Science fiction by

“A complex, highly original and moving novel” JAMES BUSH

Just published PAMELA SARGENT IDST PEOPLES a review of The Fifth Head Of Cerberus

Orlando and Claudio Villas Boas are two is in the making; the plants which feed brothers who have spent the past thirty them are now dwindling in numbers as a years trying to help the indigenous result. Perhaps in a few generations, Indian tribes of Brasil. In attempting if not sooner, these people will face to minimise the effects of so-called starvation. It seems to make little civilisation upon these people, they difference in the end whether our have been responsible for saving many motives are malevolent or benevolent as of the tribes. They sought out those far as these people are concerned; threatened by the burgeoning Brasilian eventually their cultures are mutilated society and introduced them gradually by friend and enemy alike. As we have to modern ways. But now the brothers consistently acted thus toward our own are giving up. They see their cause as species, there is little reason to be­ hopeless; the Indians have not been lieve we will act any differently when improved or helped by contact with out­ we travel to other worlds. siders, but corrupted. Their women Gene Wolfe's three novellas in The become prostitutes, bought and sold by Fifth Head of Cerberus deal with two miners and engineers; they succumb to sister planets, Sainte Anne and Sainte diseases to which they have no resist­ Croix, which have been settled by ance and habits over which they have Earthmen. The aboriginal people of little control. At times, they are Sainte Anne have been wiped out by the murdered. settlers, and little about them is It is an old story, perhaps as old known as the book opens. as human beings are. We have learned "The Fifth Head of Cerberus", the little in the meantime. Indians in the first novella, takes place on St. United States and Canada still protest Croix. We see the cruel society of to anthropologists who ravage their this planet through the eyes of a man burial grounds and mining companies who looking back at his childhood experi­ covet their holy places; they are still ences. He has grown up in a brothel being robbed systematically by the gov­ owned by his father, a distant and ernment of their lands and waterways. seemingly heartless figure; he and his One wonders how long the Tasaday people brother bavid are looked after by »ir. of the Thilippines, only recently dis­ killion, their robotic tutor. covered, will be able to preoorve their peaceful ways. The Tasadays, who gather The subject of the aborigines is food with primitive implements, have raised by i-ir. Kill ion during a lesson: already beon given knives by one member he asks the two boys to debate about of the party which found them. The the "humanity" of theoe people. It io knives make their food-gathering process hypothesized that the abos might have more effioient, but an ecological problem been descendants of an early Earth 17 colony, one perhaps sent out by an rigines share their world with the ancient Earth civilization of which we mysterious Shadow Children, who might have no records. David, during the be the descendants of an ancient Earth debate, makes an interesting points expedition. Sandwalker is told by the Shadow Children that the abos once had "The abos are human because many different shapes, but adopted they're all dead." human ones after the Shadow Children "Explain." arrived. The novella, consistent with "If they were alive it would be Veil's hypothesis, is a reconstruction dangerous to let them be human be­ by Marsch of what the aboriginal cul­ cause they'd ask for things, but ture might have been like. It is with them dead it makes them more haunting; the lost abos are made real interesting if they were, and the for the reader and are no longer only settlers killed them all." (p.13) a long—dead, decomated culture. Wolfe makes one care about these people as people rather than simply as represent­ The culture of St. Croix is evoca­ atives of a murdered race. tively presented by Wolfe in this novel­ la. It is a society which deals in The third novella, "V.B.T.", deals slaves, in which young women must make with the imprisonment of Marsch on a good marriage or sell themselves into St. Croix. We learn of his journey slavery or prostitution, in which chil­ into the unsettled wilderness of St. dren must be guarded against kidnappers Anne in search of a remnant of the who would sell them. Yet St. Croix has abo culture in the company of two its own peculiar beauty in spite of unusual individuals* Trenohard, a man this, reminding one of old French cities, who claims to be an aborigine, and his or New Orleans. A curious character son, a strange boy whose mother has enters this setting, he is Dr. John V. disappeared. The story of Marsch's Marsch, an anthropologist from Earth. journey is told in pieces, interspersed Marsch is seeking information about the with accounts of Marsch's arrest and abos of St. Anne and comes to the torment in prison. Trenohard is quite brothel, looking for Dr. Aubrey Veil. obviously an old faker and no aborigine; his son, however, quite possibly is one. Dr. Veil is the originator of an Marsch finds hints of the continued hypothesis about the abos; the theory existence of the abos on his journey states that the abos had the ability to and remembers burying the boy, who died mimic mankind perfectly. When the first in an aooident. Yet he is arrested Earth ships arrived, the abos supposedly upon his return by the authorities, who killed all the settlers and took their doubt that he is in fact Marsch. And places. This would of course make the as the novella progresses, we find that human characters only abos who had for­ Marsch himself is unsure of his identity. gotten their origins, and Wolfe suggests Has the mysterious boy taken his place, that the theory is only an explanation so expertly Imitating his that he is for the cruelty Dr. Veil has witnessed. sure, at times, that he is Marsch? Is The appearance of Dr. Marsch, and the it Marsch who died in the wilderness? growing suspicions of the protagonist Or has Marsch so fallen under the spell and his father regarding the anthrop­ of the culture he seeks that his mind ologist, play a minor role in this first has become unhinged? One cannot be novella, which concentrates on the story absolutely sure. of the nameless character's growth and Wolfe's book, with its ambiguities its bizarre circumstances. But Marsch and its beauty, haunts one long after is the thread that weds the three novel­ reading it. Underlining it is a plea las into a unified whole in their depic­ for understanding those whose cultures tion of the present, and possible past, are unlike our own, yet it is far from of the worlds of St. Anne and St. Croix. being a tract. The world it creates is The second novella, " 'A Story', by rich in characters and details and the John V. Marsch", depicts the alien soci­ book stands as a major work in science ety of the St. Anne aborigines. This fiction, whatever its message. It is a is perhaps the most difficult of the spell-binder, drawing expertly on three novellas, as the reader views an science-fictional concepts and using entirely alien culture through the eyes some of the best writing I have seen in of Sandwalkcr, an aborigines. The abo- recent years.

18 Perhaps, with luck and determination, alien race could seek our destruction the cruel colonies ’.lolfe writes about will never come to pass* Tie might work --- Pamela Sargent for that, and might alco consider the The Fifth Head of Cerberus, by Gene possible ways in which a threatened ’lolfe. Gollancz, 1973* 244p.j £1*90

The Gollancz/Sunday Times £1000 Science Fiction Competition

Two prizes are offered, each of £500, for (1) the best unpublished science fiction novel and (2) the best volume of unpublished science fiction short stories. The conditions are as follows: 1. The competition is limited to authors who have not previously had science fiction published in volume form. Established authors who have not written in the genre before may therefore enter, and so may writers who have had science fiction stories published singly in magazines or as part of an anthology. Entrants must, however, be free of any publishing commitment that would preclude either publication by the Sunday Times or a contract with Victor Gollancz Ltd. 2. Victor Gollancz Ltd shall have first offer of publication of any of the entries submitted, and in the event of a contract being entered into between any writer and Gollancz both the advance and royalties offered shall be additional to the prize money. The Sunday Times shall be free to publish any story from the winning volume without further payment, or from any runner-up at their usual rates. 3. Pseudonyms are acceptable, but real names must be given when submitting entries, and will be treated in confidence. 4. Entries should be addressed to Science Fiction Competition, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 14 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8QJ and should arrive not earlier than 1st October 1973 and not later than 31st January 1974. Scripts should be typed (preferably in double spacing) and postage enclosed for their return. They should not be less than 50,000 words or more than 100,000 words in length. 5. The competition will be judged by Brian Aldiss, Kingsley Amis, Arthur C. Clarke and John Bush (Chairman of Victor Gollancz Ltd). The judges’ decisions shall be final and no correspondence will be entered into with regard to them. 6. The names of the prize-winners will be announced in the Sunday Times on 30th March 1974. Peter Roberts the fannish inquisition

Any devotee of fans ines knows too well tions (the Melbourne Easteroon and the the frustration and gnawing worries cau­ Adelaide National Con), plus a variety sed by their prolonged absence — has of personal news (for example, Aussie- fandom disappeared? Was the whole fan Ron Smith has been raided by the thing a dream, a temporary delusion?* Victorian Vice Squad — an appropriately Ab I the victim of some vast and evil named force, it would seem), and sundry hoax? Are the Secret Masters of Fandom other items (Lee Harding reviewing the displeased with me? Only the arrival film Solaris, the annual Nova Mob of a fansine can quell such fears (and awards, and so on). With the Australia damn me if the Past Office doesn't in '75 worldoon bid, the creation of bring them all at once, like a downpour the Down Under Fan Fund, and the general after a drought); at times like these growth and vigour of Australian fandom, even a messy and noxious orudsine is Norstrilian News brings you information welcomed. from a centre of fan activity and not some curious colonial backwater; it's There are, however, ways to avoid useful, entertaining, and recommended. fansine-starvation, to ensure that the sight of a distant postman is something More entertaining still, but of no better than a mirage. I bring you The known use, is Amoeboid Scunge from Seth Frequent Fansine (thus spake Zarathus­ McEvoy and Jay Cornell, Jr. Produced tra), the regular fortnightly or month­ fortnightly by a collective entity ly products which will guarantee you a known as 'abner', Soynge contains a mod­ steady supply I icum of fannish news and a great deal of spontaneous idiocy. The eleventh Robin Johnson's Nortstrilian News is issue gives details, amongst other one such, the Australian equivalent of things, of new films (Bambi Meets Britain's Checkpoint and America's Godzilla) and authoritative fannish Locus (reviewed a few issues ago). It's definitions ("A peelot is the opposite a monthly newssine, just four or so to a kiwi. Always glad to answer pages per issue, which covers most of questions."); there's also a flier from the fan and sf world Down Under as well Al jo Svoboda, one of the best of the as the more important items of inter­ new fannish writers, and this is appar­ national news. The latest issue gives ently to be a regular feature. I enjoy details of forthcoming Aussie oonven- Amoeboid Scunge immensely, but would hardly recommend it to the serious sf reader. Holy Holy, Rosooel You're not * There may still be hope for you, one of them though, are you? Goddammit, Peter. This realisation is the first step on the road to recovery. Boy you it's free, anyway. will forget you read this. You will In the last Vector I reviewed Bill forget...

20 Bowers' Outworlds, an impressive public­ it becomes a gimmicky game for the bene­ ation and a 1971 Hugo nominee. Bill has fit of the writer's ego." Marion recently started a smaller monthly fan­ Bradley's ideal would seem to be a sine as well? it's called Inworlds and good story with strong (but not overly is largely dedicated to fanzines, which so) characterisation. Ah well. It it reviews and brings news of. The third isn't my ideal, anyway; it sounds like issue arrived recently with plenty of the mimetic ideal of classic mainstream current reviews, details of forthcoming Realism with its emphasis on character fanzines, and even a letter column. The rather than form and authorial absence reviews are too short to be ideal, but, rather than authorial control or pre­ as I've found myself, that's the only sence — and a sprinkling of sf doesn't practical way to handle them when you're absolve this kind of theory from its trying to be regular and all-inclusive. drabness. Bay Bradbury, no less, Interesting and recommended. follows this with a very short piece Moving right away from these small, with a blunt, but well—said messaget frequent fanzines, we oome to something don't burn books. Fred Pohl then looks like Andy Porter's Algol, a large and at "Soienoe Fiction as Social Comment”, rather stunning magazine which appears emphasising its useful predictive role. twice a year. The latest issue is the That's fair enough, but any attempt to nineteenth and describes itself as 'a write a novel with a committed social magazine about science fiction', this intention usually ends in tedium — subtitle indicating its move into the certainly some of the stuff he cites is wretched enough (Bellamy's Looking semi-professional world of news-stand sales (though I doubt whether your Backward, for instance). George Turner looal newsagent stocks it, unless you follows with a survey of sf which, as he admits, is rather too general (it have the good luok or misfortune to live in New York). Algol is printed was originally written for a non-fan audience), though it's interesting throughout with good use made of art­ enough. Finally, Diok Lupoff reviews work, from a wrap-around, coloured DiPate cover, to full page interior books, Ted White has a column wherein illustrations from Eddie Jones, Dany he suggests the SIVA should publish Frolioh, Joe Staton, and Terry Austin, books, and there's a good letter column. plus a variety of 'fillers'. Hiotos Altogether, then, Algol is an ex­ are also used, including a two page cellent magazine for the serious sf fan: survey of contributors past and present it's attractive, interesting (even to a — it surprises me that more American non-addiot like myself), and doesn't fanzines don't include similar photos, waste much time examining totally worth­ especially since they're quite frequent less hack-writing (a grave fault of in British, continental, and Australian Riverside Quarterly and sundry other fanzines. Most of the material within 'serious* fanzines}. Highly recommend­ comes from professional sf authors and, ed. with the exception of Bob Silverberg's James Goddard's Cypher, the only "Traveling Jiant" account of a visit to British fanzine reviewed this tine, has, the Guianas, is concerned with science I'm afraid, the very fault I just fiction in one form or another. ascribed to RQ: it too frequently de­ Marion Zimmer Bradley starts off votes its pages to rubbish; delving with "Experiment Perilous", a long look into the midden of the pulp magazines at the state of sf using the Old Wave/ and ooming up with a survey of some New Wave oonoeptsy it's heavily related atrocious scribbler. Cypher 9 is the to and illustrated by her own work, latest issue and bears a fine cover by with which I must admit I'm unfamiliar, Kevin Cullen which, together with a but it's interesting and puts forward a a mass of interior drawings, illustrates fairly middle-of-the-road approach to the fiction of Harry Harrison. There's science fiction which must be common to a reason for this, namely that the lead most writers and many fans; basically article is an interview with that it's the 'no extremes' stance: "Like author, taped by Jim Goddard and includ­ sex and character, style is all very ing various comments from Brian Aldiss well when integral to the story} when and Leon Stover. It's fairly interest­ used and cultivated as an end in itself ing and also amusing, though the trans- oript might have been edited somewhat Heavily disguised as an issue of Hyphen, more strongly — it's pretty incoherent with an Atom cover and the lighthouse at times. I should quickly note that I emblem on the baok, Egoboo contains •wouldn’t include material like this in long, rambling editorials and two very my initial condemnation of Cypher, fine personal columns: Calvin Demmon’s though the book reviews in this issue "Whole Hog" and Bill Rotsler's "Stuff", give more space than is necessary to the former representing probably the various hack writers. Following the best fannish writing currently being interview there's a cartoon strip by produced. The letter oolumn is excell­ D. West and John Constantine, a regular ent and the whole thing is duplicated feature and not a good one (either in on high-quality Fannishly Sensitive terms of art or humour). Jeff Clark paper, impregnated with SMOF (forgeries then examines the three short stories can be detected by holding copies to of James Tiptree Jr., apparently with the light and looking for the initials the idea of uncovering a new sf writer. •SF’ — should any be found, ohuck it). The only thing is, I oan't help feeling Egoboo is an Intelligent Fannish Fanzine it’s a put-on, a rather clever hoax; and one that I highly recommend. The the criticism and extracts from the dollar price-tag is designed to discour­ supposed stories are nicely, but plaus­ age subscribers, by the way — they'd ibly cliched, and I found the whole rather reoeive a letter (and that's piece wryly amusing. If James Tiptree, true of all similar publications). Jr. actually exists, however.•• -- Peter Roberts The rest of Cypher consists of a reprint of a humourous Brian Aldiss piece from the Grauniad, some adequate Algol - Andy Barter, PO Box 4175, New film and book reviews (though Mark York, NY 10017, USA. (UK Agent: Adlard's review of Chris Priest’s Ethel Lindsay, 6 Langley Ave., Sur­ Fugue for a Darkening Island is par­ biton, Surrey, KT6 6ql)• 4/^3 or £1.25 ticularly good), and a fairly good Amoeboid Sounge - Seth McEvoy & Jay letter oolumn (including a marvellously Cornell, Jr, 105 E.Wilson, MSU, E. inept letter from Jhil Harbottle, the Lansing, MI 48823, USA. Free. ar oh-exponent of grubbing around in the pulps). Cypher is not, I’m afraid, Cypher - James Goddard, Woodlands Lodge, a fansine that I find particularly Woodlands, Southampton, Hants. 20p interesting. It appears regularly, per issue. however, and draws strong support from Egoboo - John D. Berry and Ted White, 35 many of its readers, so it may poss­ Dusenberry Rd, Bronxville, NY 10708, ibly interest you. USA. $1 per issue. The final fanzine in the pile is one Inworlds - Bill Bowers, P0 Box 148, Wad­ of my personal favourites: Egoboo, the sworth, Oh.44281, USA. (UK Agent: sixteenth issue in fact, from John D. Terry Jeeves, 230 Bannerdale Rd, Berry and Ted White. It's a fannish Sheffield, Sil 9T&). 5/fa or 40p fanzine of some long standing (this is (3/40p airmail). the fourth annish) and seems to have outlasted the recent spate of similar Norstrilian News - Robin Johnson, GPO fanzines — Rats, Potlatch, and so on. Box 4039, Melbourne, Vic.3001, Aust­ ralia. (UK Agent: Peter Roberts, 87 West Town Lane, Bristol. BS4 5U2). 12/^2 or 8/50p (airmail). BRIAN W ALBSS THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES

There have been many books written about How much of Wells, his negative and Herbert George Welle, but only one real­ positive sides, reveals itself in this ly good one, and that he wrote himself: passage I His hatred of muddle, his Experiment in Autobiography.1 hope for something beyond the profit Here is the passage, from Chapter 6, motive, his sense of melodrama, hi w in which Wells describes the London he irascibility, his dramatic feeling for knew, and the housing constructed early the organic flow of history — all are in the nineteenth century: here, as well as whispers of that did­ acticism which rose up and choked off **inte enterprise spewed a vast his great creative ability. quantity of extremely unsuitable building all over the London area, The passage tells us much about and for four or five generations made Wells’ background. Life for him was a an uncomfortable incurable stress of battle for health and success. Whereas the daily lives of hundreds of thou­ most writers of the England of his time sands of people. lived in large comfortable country hou­ "It is only now, after a century, ses, Wells was a poor man's son and made that the weathered and decaying lava his way without any assets other than of this mercenary eruption is being his genius. slowly replaced — by new feats of He was bom in his parents' little private enterprise almost as greedy china shop in the High Street of Brom­ and unforeseeing. To most Londoners ley, Kent, in 1866, a year after the of my generation, these rows of jerry- birth of D.H.Lawrence, another of the built unalterable houses seemed to be dynamic but tubercular poor. as much in the nature of things as rain in September and it is only in Wells' mother had been in service retrospect that I see the complete when she met and married H.G.'s father, irrational scrambling planlessness of then working as a gardener. The shop which all of us who had to live in was their first hopeful matrimonial London were the victims. The multi­ venture together; it failed by degrees, plying multitude poured into these year after year. Wells wrote with love moulds with no chance of escape. It and exasperation of his mother, "Almost is only because the thing was spread as unquestioning as her belief in Our over a hundred years and not concen­ Father was her belief in drapers." trated into a few weeks that history After some elementary schooling, his fails to realise what sustained dis­ first job was in a draper's shop in aster, how much massacre, degeneration Windsor. He was no good at it, and they and disablement of lives, was due to told him he was not refined enough to be the housing of London in the nine­ a draper. He got the sack. teenth century." This was the man of whom the fastidi­

23 ous Henry James was later to cry — in are only an appearance; below the sur­ the nearest the Master ever got to a face lies corruption. The theme is a fan letter — "Bravo, bravo, my dear familiar Victorian one; it had vivid Wells1." in response to two of Wells’ meaning for urban generations striving books, admitting "They have left me to install efficient modern sewers prostrate with admirationl''^ under their towns. One finds it, for Wells became a teacher, educating instance, in Oscar Wilde's The Picture himself as he went along, and so moved of Dorian Gray, published in 1891, where into journalism and authorship. Hia the sinner stays young and fair; only first books appeared in 1895, when he his portrait, locked away from prying was almost thirty. Around him, a raw eyes, ages and grows dissipated and new London was emerging, consciously obscene. becoming the Heart of Empire — an ex­ But the Eloi and Morlocks have his­ panding capital trapped in the contract­ torically deeper roots. They are a viv­ ing houses Wells described with such id science fictional dramatisation of hatred. The central figures of many of Disraeli's two nations. Wells tells us his early novels are chirpy Cockney as much in a later book, The Soul of a "little men" with whom he was entirely Bishop: familiar — their accents came to him through the flimsy bedroom partitions "There's an incurable misunderstan­ of his various digs. Wells exhibits ding between the modern employer and them for inspection rather than admir­ the modern employed," the chief ation.? labour spokesman said, speaking in a broad accent that completely hid from In this submerged metropolitan world, him and the bishop and every one the taking lessons from Thomas Huxley, fact that he was by far the best-read thinking great thoughts and struggling man of the party. "Disraeli called with great illnesses, Wells lived and them the Two Nations, but that was survived. In 1895, he got one hundred long ago. Now it's a case of two pounds from W.E.Henley for his short species. Machinery has made them novel The Time Machine. Its sceptical into different species ... We'll get view of the present, and its pessimistic a little more education and then view of the future of mankind — and of we'll do without you. We're pressing life on Earth — challenged most of the for all we can get, and when we've cosy ideas of progress and the new im­ got that we'll take breath and press perialism then current. for more. We're the Morlocks. Coming up." Except for a collection of essays, The Time Machine was the first of Wells’ one hundred and twenty odd books, and it This "submerged-nation" theme, coupled always with the idea of retri­ is very nearly his most perfect. It was an immediate success.4 bution, is essentially a British obsess­ ion, occurring in writers as diverse as As Bernard Bergonzi has stressed in Lewis Carroll, S.Fowler Wright, and John his excellent study of Wells’ science Wyndham. The essential American obsess­ fiction,The Time Machine is very much ion is with the Alien — also coupled much a fin de sieole book. One glimpses with the idea of retribution. in it some of the despairs of Hardy’s Wells in his thirties was prodigious. vision; while the Eloi, those pale, Most of his best books were published decadent, artistic people that the time­ before his fortieth birthday: The Island traveller discovers, derive a flavour of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, The from the aesthete of the eighteen-seven- War of the Worlds, When the Sleeper ties, and are echoed in those pale lost Wakes (later revised as The Sleeper lilies of people who haunt Beardsley’s Awakes), Tales of Space and Time, The and Walter Crane's drawings and Ernest Food of the Gods, and the two novels Dowson’s poems. before which the Master was prostrate, The Eloi live above ground, in idyllic A Modern Utopia and Kipps, as well as surroundings. Below ground live the such non-sf works as Love and Mr. dark and predatory Morlocks, appearing Lewisham and Anticipations. at night to snatch the helpless Eloi. Still to come after that first decade The innocence and laughter of the Eloi of writing were many good things, among

24 them Hr. Polly, The New Machiavelli, matter of enquiry; and from this spring The War in the Air, Ann Veronica, and a the other two virtues, Wells' ability number of lesser and later books which to see clearly his own world in which would have looked well in the lists of he lived (for without such an ability a lesser writer, as well as his excur­ it is impossible to visualise any other sions into popular education. Wells is world very clearly), and his lifelong also remembered for a number of remark­ avoidance of drawing lead characters able short stories; indeed, he was one with which readers will uncritically of the forgers of this genre of England, identify and thus be lulled to accept following the example of De 1'Isle Adam, whatever is offered. De Maupassant, and others in France. Among his short stories are some that To see how these virtues work in won immense popularity in their time. practice, we may examine two of the Most of them belong to Wells' early early novels, The War of the Worlds and creative phase. The Island of Dr. Moreau. In many of these stories, Wells prov­ The War of the Worlds was published in serial form in 1897 and in book form ed himself the great originator of sci­ ence fictional ideas. They were new with a year later. It describes what hap­ him, and have been reworked endlessly pens when Martian invaders land on Earth. The story is told by an English since. He seems to have been the first fiction writer to use the perspectives observer, who sees the invaders move in of evolution to look backwards as well on London against all the army can do as forwards. His "The Grisly Folk" to hold them off. London is evacuated (1896) is a tale of human-kind struggling before the invaders die, killed by common microbes. against the Neanderthals at the glaciers retreated. "Great Paladins arose in that Even this brief outline shows that forgotten world, men who stood forth and The War of the Worlds is part of the smote the grey man-beast face to face literary lineage which includes Chesney's and slew him." The Battle of Dorking. But Wells makes a twofold progression. This time the Tales of prehistory have always remain­ invader is from another planet. This ed a sort of sub-genre of science fantasy. time, the invader is effortlessly more Wells also wrote "A Story of the Stone Age" (1897), and Jack London dealt with powerful than the invaded. the confrontation of human with pre­ These two steps forward are not mere­ human, but it is not until William Gold­ ly a development of wandering fancy; ing's The Inheritors that this theme they form a development of the moral yields anything like a masterpiece. imagination. For Wells is saying, in Wells' mind is the first to venture so effect, to his fellow English, "Look, far into past as well as future. this is how it feels to be a primitive tribe, and to have a Western nation Among science fiction writers past arriving to civilise you with Maxim and present, Wells, with Stapledon, is gunsI" one indisputable giant. His debt to Hawthorne, Poe, and Swift, which he This element of fable or oblique acknowledged, is apparent; he mentions . social criticism in Wells' early work also the novels of Holmes and Stevenson0 is marked, from the novels to such in this context. It is true that Wells short stories as "The Country of the lacks the Inwariness we perceive in Blind" and "The Door in the Wall". Yet Mary Shelley; but he has an abundance it remains always subservient to the of imagination as well as inventiveness strong flow of his invention; only when — the two are by no means identical. invention flagged did moralising ob­ Wells has his weaknesses, among which trude and the tone become shrill. his inability to create any osychologi- In The Invisible Man, one is not cal depth of characterisation must be intended to identify with Griffin in conceded. But it seems to this critic his strange plight. The moral beneath that the virtues which lift Wells above the fable is that scientific knowledge his successors (and above Verne) are should be shared and not used for self­ threefold. Firstly, he inherited some- ish gain (as Moreau uses his knowledge ting of the enquiring spirit of Swift — for personal satisfaction and so is and science is, when ell’s said, a damned just like Dr. Jekyll); but this His non-humans are not without Grace but moral is so profoundly part of the fab­ are fallen from Grace. ric of the story that many reviewers and readers missed the point, and com­ In War of the Worlds we can distin­ plained that Griffin was "unsympathet­ guish Wells using three principles to ic". Similar obtuseness confronts a produce this masterly piece of science science fiction writer today. His fiction. Firstly, he begins by drawing audience is accustomed to powerful a recognisable picture of his own times, heroes with whom they can unthinkingly 'the present day'. While we acknowledge identify. A mass audience expects to the truth of this picture we are being be pandered to. Hells never pandered. trained to accept the veracity of what follows, secondly, he uses the newer Gf course, Wells provides plenty of scientific principles of his tines, sensationalism in War of the Worlds. evolutionary theory and the contagious There is the carefully detailed des­ and infectious theories of micro-organ­ truction of the London of his day, foll­ isms, as a hinge for the story.' Third­ owed by the horrible appearance of the ly , he allows a criticism of his society, Martians. Cunningly, Wells refrains and possibly of mankind in general, to from describing his invaders — we have emerge from his narrative. seen them only in their machines — until over halfway through the book. To these principles must be added They are then as ghastly as you please. Wells' ability to write effectively. There are few openings in science fic­ After a description of their external tion more promising, more chilling, appearance comes an account of their than that first page of War of the internal anatomy when dissected. Wells' Worlds, including as it does the passage, manner is cool and detached. From des­ "Across the gulf of space, minds that cription, he turns to a discussion of are to our minds as ours are to the the way in which the Martian physiology beasts that perish, intellects vast and functions in matter-of-fact detail, cool and unsympathetic, regarded this going on to consider Martian evolution. earth with envious eyes, and slowly and The telling stroke, when it comes, lifts surely drew their plans against us." the whole remarkable passage to a higher How beautifully underplayed is that level. "To me it is quite credible that adjective "unsympathetic"J the Martians may be descended from beings not unlike ourselves, by a grad­ Yet Wells' early readers were puzzled ual development of brains and hands ... over the question of his originality. at the expense of the rest of the body." How original was he? This question of It is this linking of the Martians with originality is bandied about with re­ humanity, rather than separating them gard to today's writers, all of whom it, which shows Wells' superior creative stand in Wells' portly shadow. Wells powers. At the same time, he prepares himself has an amused word to say on us for the surprise and logic of his the subject in his autobiography. final denouement. "In the course of two or three C.S.Lewis was later to attack Wells years I was welcomed as a second Dick­ for peopling our minds with modern hob­ ens, a second Bulwer Lytton and a goblins. But it was Wells' successors second Jules Verne. But also I was a in the pulp magazines, the horror mer­ second Barrie, though J.M.B. was hard­ chants with no intent but to lower the ly more than my contemporary, and, reader's body temperature as fast as when I turned to short stories, I possible, who managed that. Wells' non­ became a second Rudyard Kipling. I humans, his Martians, Morlocks, Sele­ certainly, on occasion, imitated both nites, and Beast-People, arc creatures these excellent masters. Later on I figured also as a second Diderot, a not cf horror but terror; they spring second Carlyle and a second Rousseau® from a sophisticated acknowledgement that they are all part of us, of our ... These second-hand tickets were flesh. It was the later horror merch­ very convenient as admission tickets. ants who made their creatures alien from It was however unwise to sit down in us, and so externalised evil. Wells' the vacant chairs, because if one did so, one rarely got up again."9 position is (malgre lui) the orthodox Christian one, that evil is within us. The War of the Worlds enjoyed an imme­

26 diately favourable reception from read­ the way Prendiok's mind leaps to terri­ ers and critics. Yet many of its aspects ble nameless conclusions, we come to were ignored or misunderstood. It was that nervous playing on unvoiced things felt in some quarters that the novel was which is the essence of science fiction. not very nice. The reviewer in the Daily News declared that some episodes Incident flows smoothly on incident, were so brutal that "they cause insuffer­ each preparing us for the next: Pren- able distress to the feelings." The dick's unwelcome arrival; the mystery Island of Dr. Moreau had had the same of the Viativet#; Prendiok's suspicion effect two years earlier. that Moreau experiments on human beings to bestialise them, and then the reve­ Despite its merits, The War of the lation that Moreau is in fact creating Worlds cantains at least two aspects of something like humanity from animals by Wells’ writing which tell against it the extreme application of vivisection increasingly as time goes by. They turn techniques; then we meet the grotesque out to be aspects of the same thing. population of the island, the fruits of Wells as a delineator of "the little Moreau’s surgery, the Hyena-Swine, the man". I mean his penchant for humour, Leopard Man, the Satyr, the Wolf Bear, particularly Cockney humour, and the the Swine Woman, the faithful Dog Man. general scrubbiness of his characters. Then we have the death of the Leopard An old man is rescuing his orchids Man; the escape of the female puma on as the Martian invasion force draws which Moreau is operating; the death of near. '"I was explainin’ these is Moreau himself in the ensuing hunt thro­ vallyble,’" he says. Wells’ London is ugh the forest; Prendiok's shaky assump­ tion of control; Montgomery's drunken populated by shop assistants, cabmen, artillerymen, and gardeners. There is carousal with the Beast-Men, in which he is killed; the destruction of the strong­ a curate, too, but he, like most of the clergy in Wells' works (and in his dis­ hold; and the whole awful decline, as ciple, Orwell's), is used as a comic Prendick is left alone with the Beast­ People while they slowly forget what butt and talks nonsense. "'How can language they have learned, and lapse God's ministers be killed?'" he asks. There are no characters in The War of back into feral savagery. the Worlds, only mouths. Nobody has quite decided what Moreau is, apart from being a splendid and In Wells' best book this fault does terrifying story. But it is clear that not obtrude. Wells has something more in mind, some­ The Island of Dr. Moreau, published thing larger, than a thrilling adven­ in 1896, contains for all practical pur­ ture.* poses only three human beings: Moreau, In the main, Wells' first critics the scientist ahead of his time; Mont­ and reviewers expressed shocked horror gomery, his assistant, a drunken doctor at the whole thing, and would look no in disgrace; and Prendiok, the common further; in short, he was condemned man, the narrator. Prendiok has none of rather than praised for its artistry — Bert Smallways' or Mr. Polly's or Kipps' a reception which was to have its due cocky chirpiness, while the Beast-People effect on Wells' future writings. Yet hardly crack a joke between them. If it is not difficult to see what he the characters are in part cliche, this intended. is in part because they serve symbolic roles, and there is a symbolic quality For some time, we are kept in sus­ about the whole that gives it a flavour pense with Prendick about the nature of of Poe or the French writers. the island's population. Is it animal or human? This is not merely a plot Moreau begins in a businesslike way, device; as with the scientific hinge on in the manner of Gulliver's Travels, which War of the Worlds turns, Moreau's with a sea voyage and a shipwreck. experiment links with the entire philo­ Prendiok survives the wreck and arrives sophical scheme of the novel. And even at an unnamed island, owned by Moreau. after we learn the true meaning of the A mystery surrounds the place, there are strange shrouded creatures, cries * Just as one of this novel's descend­ in the night. If this is Prospero's ants, Golding's Lord of the Flies, is island, it is peopled by Calibans. In more than a thrilling adventure.

27 Beast-People, Wells carefully maintains protagonist in his maturity — Frank­ a poignant balance between animal and enstein Unbound. human in them. At their most human, they reveal the animal; at their most Furthermore, Moreau’s science is animal, the human. only vaguely touched on; the whole business of brain surgery, on which the The point may be observed at the novel hinges, has none of Wells’ usual moment when ftjendick, now in the role clarity. We can infer that he wanted of hunter, catches up with the Leopard to leave this area sketchy, so that we Man in the forest: no more know what goes on in Moreau’s "I heard the twigs snap and the laboratory than in God's. This vague­ boughs swish aside before the heavy ness, by increasing our horror and un­ tread of the Horse-Rhinoceros upon certainty, is a strength rather than my right. Then, suddenly, through a otherwise. polygon of green, in the half dark­ When God is dead, the island popula­ ness under the luxuriant growth, I tion reverts to savagery, though he saw the creature we were hunting. I hovers invisibly above the island. halted. He was crouched together Prendick tells the Beasts: "For a time into the smallest possible compass, you will not see him. He is there — his luminous green eyes turned over pointing upward — where he can watch his shoulder regarding me. you. You cannot see him. But he can "It may seem a strange contradiction see you." in me — I cannot explain the fact — but now, seeing the creature there in Blame for the wretched state of the Beasts is set firmly on Moreau. "Be­ a perfectly animal attitude, with the light gleaming in its eyes, and the fore they had been beasts, their in­ stincts fitly adapted to their surround­ imperfectly human face distorted in ings, and happy as living things may terror, I realised again the fact of be. Now they stumbled in the shackles its humanity. In another moment others of its pursuers would see it, of humanity, lived in a fear that never died, fretted by a law they could not and it would be overpowered and cap­ understand." tured, to experience once more the horrible tortures of the enclosure. At this moment, Wells is trying to Abruptly I slipped out my revolver, create a synthesis between evolutionary aimed between his terror-struck eyes and religios theory. Not to put too and fired." fine a gloss on it, he does not think highly of the Creator. Nor does he of It is clear that Moreau, at least in the created. Moreau says it for Wells, one sense, speaks against transplant declaring that he can "see into their surgery, the consequences of which are very souls, and see there nothing but revealed in the ghastly Law which the the souls of beasts, beasts that perish Beasts chant (a Law which some critics — anger, and the lusts to live and have seen as a parody of the Law of the gratify themselves." There is that Jungle in Kipling’s Jungle Book, though Biblical phrase which echoes in the the dry, sublimated humour of Swift is opening of War of the Worlds: "beasts also present): that perish". As for the two real human beings, Prendick and Montgomery, they "Not to suck up Drink: that is the also are poor things. Prendick is Law. Are we not Men? certainly not there for us to identify "Not to eat Fish or Flesh: that is with, any more than the Invisible Nan the Law. Are we no Men? etc. is. His shallowness, hie lack of under­ "His is the Hand that Wounds. His standing for Montgomery, his lack of is the Hand that Heals." sympathy for the Beasts, is perhaps a We are put in mind — not accident­ mark against the book — the darkness of ally — of liturgical chant. "For His any painting can be enhanced by a high­ Mercy Is on Them That Fear Him: Through­ light here and there. Or perhaps it is out All Generations." We recall that just that Prendick is a commonplace Wells labelled the novel "an exercise little man, as Gulliver was a common­ in youthful blasphemy". Moreau is in­ place little man and Alice a commonplace tended to stand for God. Moreau is a little girl. nineteenth-century God — Mary Shelley’s

28 Moreau stands in an honourable line thing that obsessed him during that of books in which man is characterised period. Although Moreau is the darkest as an animal. Gulliver*s Travels is of his novels, it is not strikingly one of the best-known examples of the different in attitude for its compan­ genre, and the one to which Wells paid ions. We find a horror of animality, homage, but such stories stretch back an almost prurient curiosity about to the Middle Ages and beyond. Wells, flesh, and the cultural shock of evol­ however, revived the old tardition, ution stamped across all Wells' early gaining additional power because he science fiction. As the Beast-People and his audience were aware of evol­ are our brethren, so the Martians could utionary theory. They are the first be us at another stage of our develop­ generation to understand that it was ment; while the Morlocks, that submerged no mere fancy as hitherto to regard man nation in The Time Machine whose vril as animal; it was the simple, betraying flesh of Eloi — they are descended from truth, and formalised religion began to us, our flesh could grow into such noc­ decay more rapidly from that time on­ turnal things. "I grieved to think how wards. brief the dream of human intellect has been," says the time-traveller. R?endrick eventually returns to "civilisation", rescued from the island The cannibalism practised by the by a boat with dead men in it. His Morlocks is paralleled by the flesh-eat­ fears pursue him back to England. "I ing of the Beast-People. Although the could not persuade myself that the men Invisible Man divests himself of flesh, and women I met were not also another, he does not lose a vicious competitive still nassably human, Beast People, streak. The Selenites of The First Men animals half-wrought into the image of in the Moon are one long nightmare of human souls; and that they would pres­ distorted flesh; like the Morlocks they ently begin to revert, to show first live underground. They are forced into this bestial mark and then that." The arbitrary shapes by social usage almost Leopard Man, c* est moi. as cruelly as if they came under Mor­ eau's scalpel. In The Food of the Gods, This is the final triumph of Moreau; flesh runs amok — like Moreau, this that we are transplanted from the little novel, too, is in part an allegory of island, only seven or eight square miles man's upward struggle. in extent — say about the size of Holy Island — to the great world outside, With a frankness remarkable for its only to find it but a larger version of time, Wells has told us much about his Moreau's territory. The stubborn beast early sexual frustrations. He was a flesh, the beast mentality, is every­ sensuous man and, with success and where manifest. wealth, found the world of women open to him. It may be that this gradually The ending has a sombre strength.* assuages his old obsessions; though he As with the climax of War of the Worlds, never achieved peace of mind, his later it comes not just as a surprise but as books do not recapture that darkly a logical culmination. Wells has subtly beautiful quality of imagination, or prepared us for it, so that it is revel­ that instinctive-seeming unity of con­ ation rather than punch line, for inst­ struction, which lives in his early ance in his Hardyesque remark that "A novels, and in his science fiction blind fate, a vast pitiless mechanism, particularly. seemed to cut out and shape the fabric of existence." The rest of Wells' career must be look­ ed at briefly, bearing in mind the ques­ In this early novel, Wells amply fulfill­ tion of why the hundred books that foll­ ed his conscious intentions. The exer­ owed do not share the brilliance of the cise in youthful blasphemy worked. It early handful. is apparent that he also exorcised some- As soon as Wells’ public became acc­ * Not least, one would imagine, for ustomed to one Wells, up would pop ano­ George Orwell, who may have found in the ther. There was A Modern Utonia, the passage last quoted inspiration for what last of the great utopias and the first was later to become Animal Farm. to realise that from now on, with im­ 20 proved communications, no island or con­ pill-carrying age followed the wea­ tinent was big enough to hold a perfect pon-carrying age...*" (Chapter 5, 4) state — it must be the whole world or nothing. Later, he developed the idea The World Set Free is successful in of a World State. This was H.G. flex­ every way but the ways in which the ing his Fabian and political muscles. early Wells books were successful. It Tono-Bungay, a social novel full of is full of lively ingredients; it has autobiographical material, and Ann no organic life. Wells the One-Man Veronica, which roused a great storm Think-Tank has burst into view. His because the heroine practised free love, books are no longer novels but gospels. saw publication in 1909* There were two gorgeous and sensible books for After World War I, this more solemn children before the Great War broke out, Wells developed further into the Wells Floor Games and Little Wars. who produced solid and effective works of scientific popularisation and start­ In 1914, just before the outbreak of ed the vogue for one—volume encyclopae­ hostilities, The World Set Free was pub­ dias. Wells was on the way to becoming lished. It contains some of the most the most popular sage of his day.* And amazing of Wells* predictions, in par­ he was still producing novels every ticular of atomic warfare, but also — year. more accurately and horribly — of trench warfare. His speculations on During the thirties, Wells the Novel­ tank warfare had already appeared in a ist faded out before Wells the World short story, "The Land Ironclads". We Figure. He was a famous man, busily have seen how Wells* warfare books were planning a better world, chatting with Lenin ((In the thirties? Must have written very much in the Battle of been a one-sided conversation! MJE)), Dorking tradition — yet he was remark- more successful in predicting what arguing with George Bernard Shaw, flying actually happened than his rivals, per­ to the White House to talk to Roosevelt, haps because he was no reactionary (as or to the Kremlin to talk to Stalin. were most of his rivals), and therefore Remembering the muddle of the London of tended less to view the future in terms his youth, he hated muddle, and saw a of the past; and also because he actual­ World State as the tidiest possible way ly hated war (though with the ambival­ of governing man for its own happiness. ent feelings many people experience), Unlike Verne, he was never in danger unlike such men as Le Queux, who pretty of being blessed by the Pope. clearly longed for it. Wells proved himself one of the few The World Set Free is full of shrewd men capable of spanning the great gulf preachments, exciting home truths writ between the mid-Victorian period when large, and radical diagnoses of human he was born and our modern age. He had ills, all of which made the book (novel grasped the principle of change. He it hardly is) exciting and immediate at was a visionary and not a legislator, the time. yet he worked for the League of Nations during World War I and, during the Sec­ Here's Karenin in the future, when ond, helped draw up a Declaration of the London is being cleared up after exten­ Rights of Man which paved the way for sive bombing. He is looking back and the Universal Declaration of Human talking about a 1914 which bears resem­ Rights adopted by the UN aft ar Wells* blance to the 1970s. death. He died in 1946, having wit­ "*It was an unwholesome world,* re­ nessed the dropping of an atomic bomb flected Karenin. *1 seem to remember he had predicted many years earlier. everybody about my childhood as if they were ill. They were ill. They were sick with confusion. Everybody To the Establishment, the idea of was anxious about money and everybody change is always anathema. It never was doing uncongenial things. They took Wells to its lordly bosom, just as it has never taken science fiction, ate a queer mixture of foods, either too much or too little, and at odd * An edition of The World Set Free pub­ hours. One sees how ill they were by lished by Collins in the twenties her­ their advertisements ... Everybody alds Wells, on the cover, as "The most must have been taking pills ... The widely read author in the world".

30 possibly for the same reason. It dis­ clearer and clearer. His characters liked him for the things he did best, became mouthpieces, the fiction became and thought him a cad. So did the lit­ lost in didacticism. The amplifiers erati, perhaps with more reason, for were turned up. Wells gained volume Wells' ill-timed attack on his old and lost quality, but he was always friend Henry James in Boon (1915) was a a man with an amplifier, not content to poor thing, and most orthodox writers whisper in corners. Indeed, the contro­ sided with James. versial nature of science fictional The literati still do not accept themes is such that only careful con­ Wells to the sacred canon. In a volume trol — the control Wells found and such as Cyril Connolly's The Modern Move­ lost — deflects the fantasy from the ment (1965), which claims to list books sermon. "with the spark of rebellion", there is Moreover, despite his fecundity and room for Norman Douglas and Ivy Compton- his joy in producing a different-colour­ Burnett but none for Wells, except in ed rabbit from his hat with each perfor­ an aside. However, some real writers, mance, Wells was consistent in his car­ like Vladimir Nabokov, appreciate his eer. As early as 1912, he turned down true worth as innovator and creative an invitation to join the Academic spirit. Committee of the Royal Society of Lit­ The current received idea of Wells erature. However much we may regret it, seems to be that he began modestly and he wanted to deal with life, not aesthe­ well as an artist (The Time Machine and tics. Perhaps he failed to recognise all that) and then threw it all up for that he was a creator, not an admini­ journalism and propaganda purposes.10 strator. He could exhort but not exec­ There is a grain of truth in the charge. ute. Eventually, the exhortations took Many of his books were hastily written over from the imagination. or scamped; he says himself, "It scarce­ ly needs criticism to bring home to me Wells did not change the world as he that much of my work has been slovenly, would have liked to do. He did alter haggard and irritated, most of it hurried the way millions of people looked at it. and inadequately revised, and some of it He was the first of his age to convey as white and pasty in texture as a star­ clearly that our globe is one, the peo­ ch-fed nun."11 What humility and hones­ ple on it one — and the people beyond ty I Lesser writers today would not dare this globe, if they exist. He helped admit anything of the sort. us understand that present history is For all that, the facts do not ent­ but a passing moment, linked to distant irely bear out either the received idea past and distant future. It was Wells or Wells' own declaration (what writers who said, "Human history becomes more and more a race between education and say of themselves always should be greeted with scepticism). Wells began catastrophe." As the human race strug­ gles and sinks beneath its own weight as a teacher and continued as one. He of numbers, we see how his words remain had a strong didactic example from his contemporary. teacher, Thomas Huxley, one of the great controversialists of the century. For Perhaps a writer who views history a while, in those earlier novels, Wells as a race between anything and cata­ followed the doctrine of art for art's strophe is doomed to write hastily and sake (then in favour with those writers carelessly, as Wells often did. Yet and artists who were, like Wells, again­ Wells was loved by men and women far st the "done thing"); in that period he beyond his personal acquaintance, far took care to incorporate his central beyond the normal readership a novelist point into the imaginative whole. When gathers if he merely has staying power. he did so, when his point was so well He was witty and honest, he spoke for integrated as not to be obvious, his his generation —■ and for more than one audience misunderstood him or failed to generation. George Orwell conveyed get the point, as was the case with something of what a symbol H.G.Wells Moreau, Invisible Kan, and War of the became: Worlds. "Back in the 1900s it was a won­ Jells hated muddle and misunderstand­ derful thing to discover H.G.'.Jells. ing. He took to making the message There you were, in a world of ped­ ants, clergymen, and golfers, with such imaginings. And he brought to the your future employers exhorting you genre a popularity and a distinctness to feet on or get out *, your parents from other genres which it has never systematically warning your sex life, lost since, despite the blunders of and your dull-witted schoolmasters many following in his wake. sniggering over their Latin tags; Wells is the Prospero of all the and here was this wonderful man who brave new worlds of the mind, and the could tell you all about the inhabit­ ants of the planets and the bottom Shakespeare of science fiction. of the sea, and who knew that the --- Brian Aldiss future was not going to bo what res­ pectable people imagined.1,1 Notes 1. H.G.Wells, Experiment in Autobiog­ Orwell was speaking of the beginning raphy, 2 vols., 1934. of the century. Thirty years later, as 2. James to Wells, letter dated Rye, this writer can vouch, the same state Nov. 19, 1905. The two books to of affairs held true. Wells was still which James refers are A I-fodern at it, stirring everyone up. He saw Utopia and Kipps. The letter, that the one constant thing was change, brimming with rare enthusiasm, is and the dynamic for change that he quoted in a biography by Vincent found in the world about him was echoed Broome, H.G.Wells, 1952. in his own being; this accounts for his turning from one role to another, and 3* A fair example is Bert Smallways, from one woman to another. hero of The War in the Air. He spread his energies widely. To 4. For a thoroughgoing account of the regret that he did so is hardly profit­ reception of Wells' books as they able, for it was in his nature to do so. were published, see Ingvald Raknem, H.G.Wells and his Critics, Oslo, Much of his activity has been dissip­ 1962. ated. His novels remain. The science fiction is read more than ever. 5. Bernard Bergonzi, The Early H.G. Wells: A Study of the Scientific Wells was born in the year dynamite Romances, Manchester, 1961. was invented; he lived to witness the birth of the nuclear age. Inaccurately, 6. Experiment in Autobiography, Ch.6. Orwell characterised Charles Dickens' 7. Mention should be made also of the novels as "rotten architecture but won­ good psychological timing of War of derful gargoyles"; it is Wells' gargoy­ the Worlds. The new journalism was les, his Martians, the Selenites, the bringing word of the solar system Morlocks, the Beast-People we most rel­ to Wells' public, while Mars in par­ ish today, when Kipps and Polly grow ticular was in the general conscious­ faint. We may no longer accept Wells' ness. It had been in close opposit­ faith in the improving potentialities ion in 1877, 79 and 81, and Percival of education, but we long ago conceded Lowell's first book on Mars, contain­ his point that we show "first this best­ ing speculations about the "canals" ial mark and then that". and possibilities of life there, had It is undeniable that if we compare been published in 1895* Wells' novels with Dickens' most Wells­ 8. Wells does not mention himself as like novel, Great Expectations (assuming a second Camille Flammarion, the Great Expectations to be about Pip's parallels between whose novel La escape from a menial life at the forge Fin du Monde and Wells' "The Star" into the wider world of Londonl), then arc striking. we are confronted with Wells' short­ comings as a novelist. But such a com­ 9. Experiment in Autobiography, Ch.8. parison would be unfair to almost any 10. This assumption lies behind the writer. Within his own wide domain, otherwise sympathetic biography by Wells was sui generis. Within the do­ Lovat Dickson. main of scientific romance, he managed three unique achievements. He elevated 11. Experiment in Autobiography, Ch.l. the freak event — a visit to the lioon, an invasion from another planet — into 12. George Orwell, "Wells, Hitler and an artistic whole. In consequence, he the World State", Critical Essays, greatly extended the scope and power of 1946. 32 The Infinity Box book reviews

Dying Inside omniscient author of fiction. by Robert Silverberg Come to think of it, that is all Scribner's} $6.95; 245p» pretty inventive and clever. But even­ tually we see more. We see the limit­ Reviewed by George Zebrowski ations which are peculiar to a one-way­ receiving telepath as he gradually loses Someone once said that it is hard to his powers (much in the same way sexual write intelligently about good books, prowess or talent may decline with age). and even harder about the very best. Eventually the hero becomes like the One may say, "This is a great book", rest of us, shut up in himself. He is and naturally anything you say is not the extreme case gradually approaching up to the work itself — and can't be. the norm, and it is a unique realiza­ The literary essay can be great liter­ tion to identify with his loss and know ature in itself, but then it becomes a that one is exactly what the hero is showpiece for the critic-as-author, becoming. taking away from the work which is up Silverberg so cleverly walks the line for examination. We then say, "That between being of two minds about the was a fine essay on the work of 30-and- materials of his story — i.e. the bio­ so." The problem is obvious. In any graphy of a New York Jewish intellectual case, I'm going to try to ask the hard­ growing old (almost a cliche in the est questions about the best books which mainstream) and the powerful theme — a I will write about in these pages, as tragedy really — of a superman losing well as try to find constructive things his abilities in a world of closed-up to say about less than perfect works. mortals, that I am tempted to call this Now what is the prime interest of ambivalence a form of complex genius. Dying Inside? It seems that it is not Things such as this are so much more the psi power of the protagonist. And clear-cut in science fiction. In fact this raises the question, why is the I'm tempted to say that Silverberg is psi there at all? Do we need it to help deliberately mining ambivalence as a key us round out the portraits of the other element in his recent work. Those of us characters? Or to understand the motiv­ who are writers might learn something ations of the people around the hero? from this, transforming this attentive­ So-called mainstream writers have man­ ness to ambivalence through our own aged to get inside any character without concerns and themes. It makes for recourse to psi. They've done this with richer fiction. the conventions of fiction — point-of- The end page of Dying Inside leaves view changes, direct thoughts, etc. the main character merely human, ready Silverberg, it seems, has made psi stand to explore a new set of limits when and for these conventions. It is the means if he recovers from the silence he has of contemporary fiction made reality. arrived at. He has become another kind The protagonist is something like the of man, dying away from his previous It means you're reading the sketch self* I don't think he matured as a for a novel rather than the novel telepath, and now he has to grow up itself. And then there's the matter as a normal, and die again when his of all the switches in the order of normal physical abilities decline the chapters... toward death. Aside from this, I think that Come to think of it, writers and Silverberg's two 1972 novels, Dying artists are telepaths. We use point Inside and The Book of Skulls, mark of view in fiction as if we were tele­ an important new high point in his paths, receiving. We invade the career. Over the last few years, minds of people who lived in historical Silverberg has continually been exper­ times, the present, and in the shadows imenting with different methods of of the times to come. constructing fiction — using differ­ Silverberg has taken a science fic­ ent tenses, different persons, either tional idea, a mainstream literary con­ separately or mixed. All of these vention, and made the result real and have been interesting although not concrete in a true science fictional all have been equally successful. sense. As a result he has revitalised Now, in these two novels, he seems to mainstream fictional materials in a have entirely assimilated these tech­ manner which will startle those un­ niques, with exciting implications familiar with sf. Dying Inside is for his future work. It's therefore Robert Silverberg continuing his a little saddening to realise that, science fictional preoccupation with certainly for the first time since I've been in fandom, there's no new people, to paraphrase Brian Stableford ("The Compleat Silverberg", Speculation Silverberg novel in the offing. ++ 31), and with the human characteristics of beings not specifically human. Dying Inside is Silverberg doing better Heart Clock than Roth, in a book which will be re­ by Dick Morland read with new eyes years hence, long Faber} £2.35) 213p. after The Breast is buried and empty of all nourishment. Reviewed by Christopher Priest +4- No, I'm not about to adopt Pete Wes­ ton's practice of including post­ There is a kind of science fiction scripts to reviews in which he con­ which English writers seem to do very tradicts everything his poor critic well, and that is the sort where some­ has just said. But there are a cou­ thing very daft happens to the popula­ ple of things I'd like to add to tion as a whole. The best example of George's review. this I can think of is Brian Aldiss's Firstly, if you have read this The Primal Urge, in which the national novel as serialised in Galary, I aberration was a metal disk implanted urge you to get hold of the book and in the forehead which glowed rose-pink read it again, whatever you thought whenever the owner became sexually of the serial. Having read both ver­ aroused. Dick Morland has adopted a sions, I was amazed at the cumulative similar motif in his first science effect of a mass of small alterations. fiction novel Heart Clock, but unlike Many of theme are intended to 'tone Aldiss he doesn't play his book for down' the novel for family consump­ laughs. His bizarre development is the tion, and include a very amusing implantation of an alarm-clock into the shift in the hierarchy of curses. I heart. The time when the alarm goes don't recall it exactly, but roughly: off is set by the government} reach a 'shit' in the book becomes 'crap' in certain age, determined in the light the magazinej 'crap' becomes 'damn'} of whatever economic crisis is going on 'damn' becomes 'oh, bother' or some- at the time, and you are turned off. such. But more important is the No exceptions ... and no appeal. apparently random excision of at least This pleasant little gadget has, as one sentence from practically every might be expected, brought several dir­ naragraph of five sentences or more.

34 ect and indirect changes to English life. trust ourselves to the author who, we It is in describing these sociological can only hope, will get us through the changes that Morland’s book works bril­ complexities to the end. In fact he liantly, because in the manner of all does, but I believe that this is a the best sf of this sort the world he tactical error on the writer's behalf. draws is at once very like our own and By reducing his hero to the role of a horribly different. The London that manipulated dummy, he takes away the Matt Matlock, the protagonist, moves action from the central character and about in is recognizable, so long as one places it in unknown and unseen hands. doesn’t take too much notice of the Matt Matlock totes his handgun in Birthday Unions, the Scottish Embassy s®df—defence, murdering some and knock­ and the prowling curfew-wagons. ing others unconscious because he has This is the science fiction content, to in order to survive; how much better and the author describes it as to the would it be if the slayings were carried manner born. The book is filled with in pursuit of his own destiny? Perhaps tantalizing details, the more tantali— less moral, but more of a satire on zing for being woven expertly into the political ambition? Like the last act background with the implications and of Julius Caesar, one can hardly move ramifications left for the reader to for corpses at the end of this book ... fill in for himself. and like Julius Caesar, it has all been in the pursuit of political power. Where the book goes slightly astray is in the matter of its plot, and I But all this said, I greet Mr Morland think it’s worth going into this in with some pleasure. His is a fresh some detail. Dick Iforland, in one of vision, and a deftly-written vision. his other manifestations, has written A few less "thrills" next time though, several thrillers, and he has brought please. the action, structure and plotting of the thriller to science fiction. In the first few chapters he sets up his Mrs Frisby and the Bats of NIMH scene and, as I say, he does it bril­ by Robert C. O'Brien liantly. Unobtrusively, the background Gollancz; £1.40; 191p. is filled in as the story proceeds. But then, quite abruptly, the emphasis Reviewed by Malcolm Edwards shifts. The protagonist, a 69 year old ex­ cabinet minister, becomes involved in Mrs Frisby, a widowed fieldmouse, is all manner of standard devices: capture, in a difficult predicament. Spring escape, shootings, betrayals, blackmail. is almost here, and it is time she He is a pawn in three hands: the govern­ and her family moved from their winter ment of the day, which wants him to home in the Fitzgibbon's field before return to the fold and stop attacking it is ploughed up. But her son, the heart-clock system which he himself Timothy, is too ill to be moved down was instrumental in introducing; a re­ to the damp river bank. There seems ligious sect known as The Meek, who are no solution until a crow she has be­ against the system anyway and need him friended takes her to see the wise old for their own purposes; the rising clans owl who lives in the middle of the beyond Hadrian’s Wall (now a sixty feet wood. He tells her to go to the rats high metal-plastic structure), who want who live under the rosebush by Mr him to lead an armed insurrection. At Fitzgibbon’s barn. Like all the first cajoled and persuaded, later animals, Mrs Frisby is wary of rats, threatened and blackmailed, finally kid­ and these are a very unusual bunch — napped, Matt Matlock reaches a point, almost a match for Dragon, the farm about two-thirds of the way through the cat. She has seen them, about in book, when he doesn’t know where he is. broad daylight, unafraid: And neither does the reader. Lost in a "There were a dozen of them, and maze of motives and counter-motives at first she could not see what (wheels within wheels I think this is they were up to. Then she saw called) all that can be done is to en­ something moving, between them and

35 behind them. It looked like a thick the rosebush, they are working on a piece of rope, a long piece, maybe master plan — to move lock, stock and twenty feet. No. It was stiffer barrel to a small, hidden valley near­ then rope. It was electric cable, by, where they will set up their own, the heavy, black kind used for self-sufficient rat civilisation, free­ outdoor wiring and strung on tele­ ing themselves from the need to scav­ phone poles. The rats were hauling enge on mankind. it laboriously through the grass, inching it along in the direction Hrs Rrisby's problem is solved, but the rats face a much greater one of of ... the rosebush." their own. A dissident group which left Perhaps this all sounds unpromisingi the rosebush managed to kill themselves a suitable book for quite young children in an accident sufficiently suspicious but no more. To an extent this is true; looking to bring the men from NU-IH, who the first third of the book, delicately are now scouring the area for them, and observantly written though it is, flushing out any ratholes they find does not present us with anything very with cyanide. And the farmer is well special. But now Lire Frisby goes to aware that there are rats in his rose­ visit the rats, and we enter a differ­ bush.. . ent world, one which works with the Mrs Frisby and the Rats of ND-IH is a same kind of magic as illuminated such triumph of children's writing; a worthy dissimilar stories as Gulliver's Travels (and T.H.White's delightful 'sequel' to winner of the Newbery medal. And, like it, Mistress Masham's Repose), James all the best children's writing, it reaches far beyond the confines of any Blish's "Surface Tension", and the specific age-group. It will appeal to various stories of the Borrowers — any reader willing to approach it the miniature equivalent of our own without oondesoenaion. It is distin­ world: guished throughout by the luminous "Ahead of her stretched a long, simplicity of the writing, and while well-lit hallway. Its ceiling and it's obviously an exercise in anthropo— walls were a smoothly curved arch, morphisation it subtly recognises the its floor hard and flat, with a soft differences between the various types layer of carpet down the middle. of animal. The novel ends with a vic­ The light came from the walls, where tory for the rats mixed with a tragedy every foot or so on both sides a tiny of uncertain extent. It’s complete in light bulb had been recessed and the itself, but there is obvious scope for hole in which it stood, like a small a sequel. Sadly, the author died re­ window, had been covered with a cently, to it seems there will not be square of coloured glass ... The one — all the more reason to treasure effect was that of stained-glass the fine book he has left us. windows in sunlight. "Justin was watching her and smiling. Books received» 'Do you like it?' ... From Gollanoz, The Early Asimov, by "’It's beautiful,’ Mrs Frisby said. Arthur Stebbings, £2.75 (Massive — 'But how?' 540p. — collection of pre-1950 "•We've had electricity for four Asimov stories. The introductions years now.' are generally better than the fiction, and sometimes are nearly as long. Re­ "'Five,' said Hr Ages." quired reading for Asimov fans.), A Science Fiction Argosy, edited by The rats are fugitives from a labora­ Damon Knight, £2.?0 (Together with the tory where they were the subjects of ex­ Asimov, this could, be used to make a periments into artificially-induced docent set of barbells. 828p., inclu­ intelligence. The experiments were far ding two complete novels —■ The Demol­ more successful than the scientists of ished Man and More Than Human, plus LIIIH had realised — the rats became co 26 other stories which aren't all too intelligent that they were able to con­ well known, although keen readers will ceal the extent of their intelligence probably have come across most of from the scientists and thus to contrive them); The Farthest Shore, by Ursula a means of escape, iiov, hidden beneath

36 Le Guin, £1.60 (l*ve promised myself three times as much for twice the that I can read this after I finish price. You have been warned. The the 5,000 word essay I have to hand first story is "I Have No Mouth, and in on May 21st. Possibly to be re­ I Must Scream" — probably Ellison's viewed next issue; the one after, if most effective story, and a certain not. Final volume of the Earthsea inclusion in my projected theme an­ trilogy. Need I say more?); Incon­ thology, Great Science Fiction About stant Moon, by Larry Niven, £2.20 Pus. Nice Christopher Foss spaceship (collection culled from the two on the cover.); At The Mountains of American collections, The Shape of Madness, by H.P.Lovecraft, 40p (He- Space and All The Myriad Ways. I print of the Gollancz collection with was disappointed that the funny the two decent stories removed. la, "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" — Shub-Niggurath, Cthulhu fhtagn, Plaid about Superman’s sexual problems — Cymru, Aiii, Yog-Sothoth, Sospen faoh, was omitted; otherwise it’s an and the rest.). impeccably well-chosen selection); Tomorrow Lies in Ambush, by Bob From Mayflower: Count Brass, by Michael Shaw, £2.00 (Bob’s first collection, Moorcock, 30p. (Yes folks, he's changed the names and sold his sword—and-sorcery and very entertaining too. To be reviewed.) trilogy again!) From Arrow: Solaris, by St«n*sl*w L*m, From Sidgwick & Jackson: The Probab­ 35P« (Sorry, Mike Coney — nearly ility Man, by Brian N. Ball, £1.60; slipped there!); Isle of the Dead, by New Writings in SF 22, edited by Kenneth Bulmer (Impressive contents Roger Zelazny, 35p. list. Brief squibs from Brian From Sphere: Beyond Bedlam, by Wyman Aldiss and Arthur Clarke plus, among Guin, 35p» (originally titled Living others, Harrison, White, Tubb and a Way Out); Captive Universe, by Harry long Chris Priest story. So far I’ve Harrison, 30p. only read Laurence James’ story, From Coronet: Transit, by Edmund which is amazingly bad. Impenetrable Cooper, 30p.; Sleepers of Mars and introduction. To be reviewed by Tony Sudbery. £1.75, Ly the way.); The Wanderers of Time, by John Wyndham, 30p eaoh (Two collections of early Best of John W. Campbell, £2.25 stories.) (Five long stories, thankfully omit­ ting the dreadful "Twilight"; intro, From Pan: Gold The Man, by Joseph by James Blish. May be reviewed next Green, 30p. ("A Brobdingnagian Beta time, if God gives me strength.); plus for audacity" says the Birmingham Earthlight, by Arthur C. Clarke, Evening Mail); Tales From the Galaxies, £1.75; The World Shuffler, by Keith edited by Amabel Williams-Ellis and Laumer, £1.75 (Misadventures of Michael Pearson, 25p. (A Piccolo book, Lafayette O’Leary, star of such other aimed at the kiddies. A comic strip, Laumer epics as The Time Bender and The a rotten story by Miss W-E, and abrid­ Shape Changer. Extremely silly but ged versions of Wyndham's "The Red quite fun. I read this a couple of Stuff", Sheckley's "The Odour of years ago and can’t recall a single Thought" and Leinster's "Exploration damned thing about it. Features a Team. 126p. of very large print.) pushy wench called Swinehild. It's From Penguin: Cat's Cradle, by Kurt that kind of book.); A Choice of Gods, Vonnegut, Jr., 30p. (New edition of Clifford D. Simak, £1.75 (A Hugo final­ this brilliant book — one which I ist, and supposedly Simak*s best book assume you've all read anyway. If for some years. As an old Simak fan I you haven't ... what are you doing very much hope it is; but thus far — wasting your time reading this? Go. about 30p. — I find it rather sopor­ ific. Stand by for further reports.); Buy.) The Far Out Worlds of A.E.Van Vogt, From Texas A&M University: A Dream of £1.95. Other Worlds, by Professor Thomas D. Clareson, no price given. (Offprint of From Panther: All The Sounds of Fear, by Harlan Ellison, 30p. (The first 6 a lecture. Short — 15 double-spaced typescript pages — but interesting.) stories from Alone Against Tomorrow, now out in paperback, and containing

37 BOB SHAW AD ASTRA?

At the age of 14 I decided to become an — I had once owned a telescope astronomer. measuring about one inch across which As a first step in achieving this had cost me three shillings: the one I ambition, I read every book on the sub­ wanted to buy was five times thicker ject in the public library at the rate and therefore should cost three of one or two a week. This second-hand shillings multiplied by five, equals stargazing was satisfying enough for fifteen shillings. Allowing a bit some months, but, as time wore on, it extra for inflation I reckoned that if became apparent that a telescope of I raised eighteen shillings I would be one1s own was de rigueur for up-and- in a position to put up a serious coming astronomers. challenge to Armagh Observatory. The concentrated reading course had Some weeks later — slightly weak­ taught me quite a bit about astronomic­ ened by total abstinence from regular al instruments and I was able to decide items of diet such as Nutty Nibs and at once that the best one for my purpose Jap Dessert, but filled with an unbear­ would be a five-inch telescope, which, ably delicious sense of anticipation — in non-teohnical language, is a tele­ I cycled downtown on a brisk Saturday scope which measures five inches across morning to purchase a telescope, with the fat end. Unfortunately, although almost a pound safely buttoned in my the library books had dealt very hip pocket. Saving the money had been thoroughly with matters like focal hard work so I decided not actually to lengths, chromatic aberration and alt­ go into the first instrument maker's azimuth mountings, they had been com­ shop I came to in case he hadn’t got a pletely mute on the subject of prices. five-inch telescope in stock and talked There was, as I was later to learn, a me into buying a less powerful four- very good reason for this omission. A inch, or even a miserable little three- first-class five-inch telescope with inch. Accordingly, I went round all accessories can easily cost several the instrument makers and after hours hundred pounds, and as the theme of of studying their window displays and most of the authors was, "How foolish peering in through their doors began to feel slightly disappointment. None of it is to waste money going to the cine­ ma when you can survey the limitless them seemed to have any decent-sized telescopes, and I could hear in my spendours of the Universe for nothing!" imagination the familiar phrase, "Oh, they were understandably reluctant to descend to the vulgar financial de­ we'd have to send away to England for tails. However, I was unaware of all that." this at the time, and in the absence Finally dusk began to fall and, as of guidance estimated a price by my­ it was bitterly cold and lunchtime was self. The calculation was quite simple severed hours past, I decided to com­

38 promise. One of the shops had a skimpy ring the thing was to pick up a second­ little thing of not more than two inches hand instrument from some friendly old diameter in the window and although it junk dealer who had no idea of its was a pale imitation of what I wanted it current market value. Within a week I would at least get me cracking on the had developed a deep and implacable limitless splendours of the universe hatred for friendly old junk dealers — that very evening. The money left over obviously somebody had told them what after buying it, I consoled myself, the telescope makers were up to and would be a good start towards the price the unscrupulous rogues had pushed of a proper telescope. their own prices up to within shillings The thin, meticulously neat, sevcre- of the brand-new prices. The stars looking man behind the counter did not would have to wait, but this time the seem particularly pleased to see me. situation didn't seem quite so hopeless. He jerked his head inquiringly and went I couldn't believe that junk dealers on polishing a row of expensive cameras. would be as well organised as instrument makers and there was always the chance "I’m interested in the telescope you that one day one of them would make a have in the window." mistake. He stopped polishing and fixed a cold Then began a phase of my life which gaze on my cycle clips. I withstood the lasted several years and gave me an scrutiny confidently, knowing the cycle unrivalled knowledge of Belfast's clips were as good as money could buy. second-hand shops, even those in dis­ I decided to let him know that here was tant quarters of the city. On Saturdays a fellow expert on precision instruments. and lunch times and holidays I spent my "It's got an object glass of about time checking the dingy little shops, two inches," I said, realising it might going in hopefully each time a new be a good idea to chat about technical telescope appeared, coming out in re­ details for a while, and only after he newed despair on hearing the price. Not once during those years did a had seen that I knew something about telescopes bring up the subject of friendly old junk dealer make a mistake. price. They maintained the price barrier which separated me from the distant untrodden "It's thirty two pounds ten," he reaches of the universe as though it said with a complete lack of finesse or was all part of a gigantic plot. preamble, and went right back to polish­ Fruitless though the search was, it ing the cameras. produced an occasional memorable exper­ The blow did not hit me right away. ience. One Saturday afternoon I was I sneered at the back of his head a prowling through the darker corners of couple of times, then dashed out of the Smithfield Market when I displayed a shop with two objectives in mind — to tiny brass object which I immediately buy a telescope before closing time and recognised as being the eye-piece of to spread word around the trade that a fairly large telescope. It was one of its members was trying to sell completely useless to me, but out of six-shilling telescopes for thirty two sheer force of habit, I asked the price pounds ten. Half an hour later I was from the old woman in charge. After slowly cycling homewards, sickened by sizing me up cheerfully she announced the discovery that they were all in it that it was seven and sixpence. Her together. It seemed I was shut off business sense must have been remark­ from the stars as effectively as if ably good for I had about eight shil­ huge steel shutters had sprung up from lings in my pocket at that moment, and behind the Castlereagh Hills on one immediately said I would buy. There side and the Black Mountain on the was absolutely nothing I could do with other and had clanged together over­ the eye-piece of course, but it was the head. first thing in the telescope line that had come into my price range, and I had The despair lasted several days, to have it. I had come a long way from then, with a resurgence of hope, I that first morning when I set out to realised what had to be done. It was buy a five-inch telescope. all so simple. If the people who sold brand new telescopes had formed a price The old lady knew the object was only an eye-piece from an instrument with his air rifle. (Prom her back perhaps six-foot long but she had no garden she had seen the flowers fold way of knowing that I too fully under­ over, one by one, apparently without stood this, and, when she saw my reason, and had given such a heart­ obvious delight at the price, seemed to rending scream that ray brother vowed feel a pang of unprofessional remorse. never again to shoot anything but She stood for a while as greed battled birds and cats.) Anyway, I was forced with guilt, then slowly handed the tube to abandon the eyrie. over and took my money. As I was going out through the door she emitted a In between tours of junk shops I faint strangling sound which made me persevered with telescope-building and look back, and I realised she was going in the process learned a lot about the to speak. science of optics. I learned to cal­ culate the magnification obtained by "You know,” she finally ground out, even the most complicated lens systems, "there's a piece missing.” but preferred the simpler method of I nodded. Having gone that far she direct measurement. To find out how had made peace with her conscience and strong a telescope is, one looks through we parted in a glow of mutual satis­ it at a brick wall and keeps the other faction. Surprisingly enough, my money eye open, with the result that large was not altogether wasted because I bricks and small bricks are seen super­ began to pick up other vaguely telescop­ imposed on each other. A count of the number of small bricks that fit into a ic items in the form of magnifying big brick gives the instrument's magni­ glasses and spectacle lenses, and dis­ fication. covered that it was possible to make telescopes — after a fashion, that is. The snag with this method was that My first one was constructed from a every now and again the brick would be piece of lead piping, made stars look blotted out by a sudden flurry of move­ like little balls of illuminated candy ment and I would find myself staring at floss, and was so heavy that when I let the vastly magnified and outraged face it fall from the bedroom window one of a fat middle-aged woman. Sometimes night it woke half the street and threw the fat, middle-aged woman gathered an one of my father's dogs into some kind excited knot of other fat, middle-aged of fit. women who stood around, arms crossed protectively over their bosoms, mutter­ That was the first occasion on which ing among themselves and staring in I became aware of a rather strange fact. disquiet at my bedroom window. I Astronomy was presumably the quietest always cringed back, appalled, wonder­ and most respectable pursuit any teen­ ing what I could say to my parents if ager could be expected to take up, but the police or a deputation from the every time I got into my stride people Church arrived at the door. and small animals kicked up hell. There was the time I built a telescope Finally, after about five years, I with a wooden tube ahd made the marvel­ acquired a reasonable telescope. Not lous discovery that some of the tiles the five-inch job I had set out to buy on our roof could be slid out of the on that fateful Saturday morning — way, leaving a hole big enough to poke that was still beyond my pocket — but the telescope through from the attic. a reasonable telescope, nevertheless. I began work on a suitable telescope Anybody who has even a superficial mounting right away but during the understanding of the workings of the first hald hour our front door was human brain inside the human bonoe will almost pounded down by panic-stricken guess what happened next. I was disapp­ passers-by coming to warn us that our ointed. During those five years the roof was collapsing. So great was the anticipated pleasures of owning an consternation caused by my private astronomical telescope had multiplied observatory that one of the first people themselves in my mind to a point which to call was an old lady who hadn't could not have been satisfied by all spoken to any of us for years, not the resources of a modern observatory. since the day my younger brother, with Prolonged re-reading of the poetic the ruthless ease of a Japanese sniper, astronomy books of people like Garrett had annihilated her row of prize tulips

40 P.Serviss (remember his early science And yet, the years-long search was fiction?) had convinced me that putting not wasted. Now, twenty years further my eye to a telescope would transport on, I still occasionally dream that I me to another plane of existence in have found a friendly old junk dealer which the grey realities of mundane who doesn’t know the price of telescopes. life would be replaced by a wonderland I smell the dust in his shop, I see the of celestial jewels, vari-coloured uncomprehending china dogs, I experience and mind-drinking; clusters like fire­ the limits of intellectual delight as I flies tangled in silver braid; glowing carry the solid, heavy instrument out nebulae among whose filaments the into the street — moving towards a imagination could wander for ever and beautiful future which can never exist. ever. You couldn’t buy dreams like that. Of course, all I saw were quivering and meaningless specks of light, and I --- Bob Shaw got rid of the telescope within a few weeks.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS aardvarks, possibly due to a slight resemblance.

George Zebrowski lives in New York, and Brian Aldiss, Chris Priest, Bob Shaw, is a full-time writer. He has had and Roger Zelazny are all famous. stories in many magazines and original Malcolm Edwards is a well-known pub­ anthologies, including New Worlds lisher from Harrow. foiarterly. His story "Heathen God" was a runner-up in the 1971 Nebula Awards. He is the author of two sf novels: The Omega Point (Ace) and ®)(o)©xo»x*xo»mo)fcm^xo»»wx>w) Kacrolife, a reportedly massive book forthcoming from Scribner’s. He has Don't forget SF COMMENTARY, the well- lectured on science fiction at known Australian fanzine. For the University level. He is editor of second successive year, SFC is on the the Bulletin of the Science Fiction final ballot for the Hugo Award; for Writers of America. All in all, he is the second successive year it is the quite a busy man, apart from writing only finallist from outside North reviews for Riverside Quarterly.and America. SFC specialises in intelli­ Vector. And he is still quite youngl gent and highly critical discussion of science fiction. Pamela Sargent is another New Yorker Only £1.50 for 9 issues, sea mail about whom I know very little, save that she writes a very good review. She From: has had stories published in NWQ, F&SF, Malcolm Edwards Universe, etc., and has a novel called 75A Harrow View Cloned Livos to be published in 1974* Harrow Middx HA1 1RF Peter Roberts is the name given to a substance which fills a colourful set of clothes. May be observed at conven­ tions looking somewhat above it all, except when taking embarrassing photos. There's room here for an advert, a few Has a reputation as a fannish fan, but words of wisdom, or a funny fannish is a Secret Intellectual. Has been interlineation. Unfortunately I can't letting his mask slip a little of late. think of any of them. Not that there's Professes an unhealthy interest in any room left if I could.

41 AUTHORS CHOICE roger zelazny

I like all of them for different rea­ to or talk about. Question; Who does sons, because I wrote all of them for this very well? Answer; Aldous Huxley. different reasons. Dislike is equally Decision; Bear him in mind in construc­ unanimous, for all the thins they did ting the cast of characters, including not achieve. I never, save in the most a monomaniac scientist as a note of general, conversational terms, say what thanks for the assist, but take nothing I was attempting to do in a particular else. Do not lean too heavily on piece, because I have really said all anyone. 2) The particular Mediterranean that I was able or cared to say about afflatus I wanted came very close to my it in the piece itself. If it requires feelings as aroused by Lawrence explanation then it is not effective, Durrell* s Prospero's Cell and Reflect­ and for this reason not worth wasting ions on a Marine Venus. I felt this in time over. If it is effective then the the opening sequence and tried to avoid act of explanation becomes an exercise it in the later ones, as I was aware of in redundancy. my susceptibility at that time. 3) I reread Cavafy and Seferis as I wrote, So much for the ideas and intended to balance the influences and to keep effects. things in Greece while I was about it. This leaves then the purely subject­ Dream Master/He Who Shapes. 1) I ive impulses themselves which stirred wanted a triangle situation, two women my thinking and feeling equipment into and one man, as I had never written one motion along the lines that led to the before. 2) I wanted a character loosely books. I am not at all desirous of based on a figure in a classical tragedy sharing more than a few of the outer — exceptional, and bearing a flaw that circles of my spirit with my readers, would smash him. 3) I have never been and with this proviso in mini I will overfond of German shepherds, as there tell you some of the things that helped were two which used to harass ay dog to poke various book-shaped holes in my when I was a boy. —I prefer the short­ consciousness in times go by. I will er version of this story, by the way, mention three items per book: over the novelization. This Immortal/»..And Call He Conrad. Lord of Light. 1) I initially in­ 1) My first book. At the time of its tended to destroy Yama partway through inception, anything over 25,000 words the book, but was subsequently taken in length seemed next to infinite. by a feeling that he and Sam were two Question: What could I do to be assured aspects of one personality. In my own an ample supply of material? Answer; mind, and I suppose there only, Sam and Have lots of characters representing Yama stand in a relationship similar to different attitudes, so that the narra­ that of Goethe’s Faust and Mephisto- tor would always have someone to talk

42 pheles. 2) I wanted a triangle situat­ Jack Vance. ion of sorts here also, only this time involving two men and one woman. Sam, There you have three impulse-items Yama and Kali served. 3) It was in per book, with no assignment of rank writing this book that I came to real­ intended. Three seemed as good a ize the value of a strong female figure figure as any. I like ...And Call Me or presence in a novel, to balance and Conrad because I was satisfied with my add another level of tension, apart — central character. I dislike it be­ or rather, abstracted — from the purely cause of the contrived nature of sexual. several of the conflict scenes, which I juggled about so that there would be Isle Of The Bead. 1) The situation highpoints of action in each portion of the main character in my novelette whether it was serialized in two parts "This Moment of the Storm" served as or three. I like He Who Shapes for the the point of departure here, with the background rather than the foreground. pervasive sense of loss involved in I thought it an effective setting for in living past or outliving what could the Rougemont-Wagner death-wish busi­ have been monumentally significant, ness. I dislike it because Render along with the uncertainty as to the turned out too stuffy for the figure I present moment's worth. 2) A beginning was trying to portray and Jill was far consideration of the fact that the too flat a character. I like Lord of psychological effects of actions per­ Light for the color and smoke and folk formed are often more significant than tale effects I wanted to achieve. I the motives for those actions. 3) A dislike it because I unintentionally desire to relax after the narrative let my style shift. The first chapter line in Lord of Light. and the final chapter, which succeeds Creatures of Light and Darkness. it temporally, are farther apart in 1) A further desire to relax. This terms of tone than now strikes me as book was not really written for public­ appropriate. Everything that oame ation so much as my own amusement. It between caused me to drift from an achieved this end. 2) The Steel General initial formalism. If I had to do it again, I would rewrite the first chap­ came first, as a character in a vacuum, ter though, rather than the rest of the horn of an early morning viewing of the film "To Die in Madrid". 3) I wanted book. I like Isle Of The Dead because to write a piece in which my feelings I like Sandow, I like his world and I was pleased with the course of the for my characters were as close to zero action in it. I dislike it because I as I could manage. was so pleased with the way it was Damnation Alley. 1) I wanted to do moving that I fear I slicked it over­ a straight, style-be-damned action much in maintaining the pace and trying story with the pieces fall wherever. to make everything fit neatly. I like Movement and menace. Splash and color Creatures of Light and Darkness for the is all. 2) A continuing, small thought sense of power the verfremdungseffekt as to how important it really is granted me in dealing with everything whether a good man does something for and everybody in the piece. I dislike noble reasons or a man less ethically it because I employed it only for that endowed does a good thing for the wrong purpose. I like Damnation Alley for reasons. 3) Had the No play buried the overall subjection of everything in near the end of the book-length version it to a Stanislavsky-Boleslavsky action been written first I would probably not verb key, "to get to Boston". I dis­ have written the book. like it for the same reason. I like Jack of Shadows for Jack, Rosalie, Nine Princes In Amber. I will re­ Morningstar and the world in which they frain from saying anything about this act. I dislike it because I now think one, as the entire story is not yet I should have telescoped the action finished. somewhat in the first third of the book Jack of Shadows. 1) Macbeth and the and expanded it more in the final third morality plays were on my mind here, as producing a stronger overall effect. were 2) 17th cent, metaphysical poetry, Basically, coldly, I cannot single in the soul & body dialogues and 3)

43 out one of these books as preferred the dislikes are more important to me above the others, now. I like and than the likes, while the impulses in­ dislike all of them, for very different volved are either totally frivolous or reasons. These reasons have tended to an angle—shot of the way my mind works, alter as the world grows older and or both. doubtless will continue to do so. I --- Boger Zelazny write to learn how to write. Therefore,

continued from p.6 bitter-sounding speech from Bram, in which he accused us all of not really During Philip Strick’s brief visit being interested in an sf convention, he was handing out masses of leaflets because we didn't want the kind of concerning the Russian film Solaris. convention he wanted. The majority in This opens at the Curzon Cinema, favour of the Newcastle bid was over­ Curzon Street, London W.l. for an whelming. And good luck to them. Ad­ extended run from May 3rd. (Probably vance registration is 50p, and I pre­ it will be on by the time you get sume should go to the Treasurer, Bob this issue.) Whether or not you’ve Jackson, 21 Lyndhurst Boad, Benton, read the novel on which it is based, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE12 9NT. this is clearly a film you’re going Although they're a little nervous to have to try to get to see. Don't about it all, the Gannets should be try waiting a few years for it to able to put on a good convention. I appear at a Convention — their film hope we'll be able to afford to go. facilities aren’t generally too good on Cinemascope. The film, which is directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, won the Special Jury Prize at the 1972 Cannes The first lot of awards for 1972 have Film Festival. I’ll quote just a been announced, and just for onoe it short section from the leaflets isn't the Nebulae. With few apologies to Cy Chauvin, who doesn't think I "The film is epic in length as should put this kind of thing in an well as appearance — it is 2^ editorial column, these are the results hours in its Western version, of the first John W. Campbell Award edited by Tarkovsky himself. Its for the best science fiction novel of pace is calm, methodical, and the year, sponsored by the Illinois hallucinatory. Few people will Institute of Technology and decided be able to forget its vivid, upon by a committee consisting of Brian beautiful and disturbing images, Aldiss, Professor Tom Clareson, Harry or its unique story of a planet Harrison, Professor Willis McNelly and where nightmares come true..." Professor Leon E. Stover: Because Philip's company is handling First Prize: Beyond Apollo, by Barry Maizberg (Random House) the U.K. release of Solaris he is un­ likely to be reviewing it in his col­ Second Prize: The Listeners, by James umn (missing this issue, but hopefully Gunn (Scribner's) back next time). If I can get along Third Prize: Fugue for a Darkening to it I’ll try to say something about Island, by Christopher it next time. Priest (Faber)

Special Award: Dying Inside, by Robert Silverberg (Scribner's) I notice that in all the preceding stuff about OMPAcon, I somehow managed to omit As you might predict, being a jury any reference to next year's Eastercon. award, this differs pretty radically It's Newcastle in '74* The bidding from the lists in the other awards session on Saturday morning ended trium­ (only Dying Inside made the finals of phantly for the Gannet mob, with the the Hugo and Nebula). But it's an alternative London bid, headed by Bram interesting list for all that, not Stokes, foundering and being effectively least because it actually includes not conceded (and certainly lost) in a very 44 just a British author but also a British thing I'm supposed to have said when I publisher. don't appear to have said it, this is the reason. "The Man Who Could Work Miracles" This is the special King-Size issue of is taken from the chapter of the same Vector, containing about half as much name in Billion Year Spree. Thanks to again as any of the others I've done. Brian Aldiss I've now had the opportun­ This is not to be a regular thing, how­ ity to read the bulk of the book in ever. It happens this time because we galley proofs, and can say without have found another printer whose quote any hesitation whatever that it is a for a 5^-Page Vector is about the same book which every B.S.F.A. member is as that of our previous printer for a going to want and need in their collec­ 40-page issue. Assuming that this one tion when it appears. turns out O.K. we have now switched from Bob Shaw's piece this time is re­ the old printer. printed from an Irish fanzine, George I'm not quite stupid enough to want Charters' The Scarr. In answer to to do six 5^-Page issues as a result; one or two enquirers, yes, Bob's but it will result in a greater opera­ humourous writings are to be a regular tional flexibility. Until now, the 40- feature of Vector in future, as long as page format has been both the minimum our common tendency to do things at the (from the point-of-view of a reasonable last possible moment doesn't interfere. range of contents) and the maximum They won't all be reprints; Bob promis­ (from the point-of-view of cost). It es some new material as we go along. will remain the standard size. But now, But I believe these articles will be if the range of material won’t fit into new to the vast majority of B.S.F.A. the 40 pages, instead of having to leave members — they're certainly new to out the reviews or the letters or some­ me — and are well worth reprinting. thing I'll be able to increase the size a little. I don't know quite why this issue has grown in the way it has — Next issue, something I'm unable even partly it's because Brian Aldiss offered to contemplate at this precise moment at quite short notice to let me print of time, should be out in the first another section of Billion Year Spree, half of July — probably a little more and with the American edition looming than two months after this one; but (although the British one is now set then, this one is, of all outlandish for November 1st) it couldn’t very well things, a little early. No.66, in wait. Apart from this, I'm afraid that addition to all the regular stuff, will with the unaccustomed opportunity to have an interview with D.G. Compton, expand, this Vector just growed. plus an assessment of his work by It's time to say a few things about Mark Allard. If I can persuade Harry this issue. The interview with Gene Harrison to send that article on Make Wolfe is constructed, as you probably Booml Make BoomI he's been promising guessed anyway, from a series of let­ for nearly a year now, that may be in ters. I’ve done my best to give the there too. Otherwise, who knows? whole thing, rather ramshackle when I Whatever I say will probably turn out started, a reasonable flow and contin­ to be untrue, so I won't say it. uity. I think it's O.K., but if it Maybe there will be a supplement on isn't it's my fault. Another thing: I home decorating: after several months soon found that the possibility and touring round hovels of various kinds ease with which one can be misunder­ we have finally found a flat which seems stood when asking questions over 3-4000 O.K. So unless something goes wrong miles meant that questions were spelled (which of course it may, but we keep our out in rather more detail than was fingers crossed) the next Vector may really desirable in the finished arti­ come from a new address. It's not cle. I've therefore pared the quest­ ideal by any means, but is rather less ions down and omitted parts of them extortionate than other places we've which are obvious by implication from seen, and we can just about afford it. the answers. If, on occasion, Gene See you next time. Please writel Wolfe seems to be referring to some­

45 SF in MICROFICHE FfinTRSV in miCPOFICHE

from STARLIGHT RESEARCH ■

initial material includes gg

JOHN W CAMPBELL, KEN BULMER _ THE MAIL RESPONSE

Mike Coney sider wrong with these books — they 10827 Bowerbank don't dismiss them in a word. And Sidney, B.C. neither would I, because I read them CANADA both twice, which proves something... But it's easy to say that a writer is Dear Malcolm» Many thanks for the plug good and then to point out where his on page 5 of Vector 63. faults lie, so I will leave that angle. I'm glad you enjoyed Mirror Image; I Here are my positive feelings about had my doubts about it as I knew I had Aldiss* books. crammed too many plots into too short Nonstop I picked from a shelf in a novel, and so all the time had to Digit form ('Haunted by peril, he economise on words instead of being Found Himself) having never heard of able to take the thing leisurely. When Aldiss, so that was a long time ago. I I re-read it, I got the impression that have since read the thing about six most of the book was devoted to hurried times. I have thrust it on friends and disposal of points arising before they told them to try it, and the hell with threatened to take up too much space. Digit's cover. Even if they have never I am sure I am my own severest critioj read SF before, they have enjoyed it to but I did like the way the action moved a man, or woman. Not only have they along and was genuinely interested in enjoyed it, but they have been amazed some of the oharaoters. Les Flood tells by itj the old sense-of-wonder thing. me Gollanoz have now bought it — so at In all ray reading of SF there are three last I will be represented on the U.K. books that I would class above all bookstands. It has been frustrating others, and Nonstop is one. (The recently, DAW having bought three novels others are Pavane and The Chrysalids, from me and Ballantine's one, but not a but I have a suspicion you will not sale in the U.K. And I have heard mutt­ agree with me there.) ++ Well, no. erings of oomplaint in the U.S.A. because For one thing, I couldn't possibly my stuff is too British, they say... pick just three books (though if I did And so to No.63 which was without they'd probably all be by Philip K. question the most interesting issue of Dick). But I wouldn't argue with you. Vector that I have ever read. Brian It's a good trio.++ Aldiss is a man whose stories I always Naturally I was hooked on Aldiss seek out, rather than happen on by acci­ from then on and have read everything dent. Not only is he good, but he is since with varying degrees of delight recognised to be good — so much so that and disgust, but always with interest. critics will take the trouble to defend Novels or short stories, the man is his failures rather than ignore them en­ always worth reading. The last time I tirely. I mean, I though Earthworks and was in England I bought The Hand—Reared An Age were poorly characterised and Boy, took it back to Antigua, and it plotted, and lacking in any kind of in­ was the sensation of the island, and teresting SF content. But the critics made me, socially. The plots and the will go to lengths to say what they con­

47 characters of all his books stick in my have any idea of what is going on in memory even now, years after I read the literatures of other peoples and some of them. (Even Earthworks and An other countries." It's a criticism Age...) There are vivid images still I feel open to, which may be why I'm there} the Trappersnapper in Hothouse; prepared to give a respectful ear to Poyly and Gren; Soames and the deflor­ many of the things Franz and others ation ceremony; the Utods and their ex­ have said about Stanislaw Lem. It crement; the pig that had its insides seems unjustifiably xenophobic to dissolved and sucked out... to dismiss the man as an unknown no­ And many others. Aldiss has a knack body just because his work hasn't with these scenes. But above all, he appeared in English to any great compels me to read on... Which is the extent. And I hate to tell you mark of a writer and distinguishes him this, Mike, but had it not been for from the overpublicised bores which your letter the dreaded name would surround us from every shelf, like not have been mentioned anywhere in this issue! (Heh heh.) /// God Hailey, and Metalious... and Lem... (Some time ago I made a pact with my­ forbid that Vector 63 should have been self that I would never mention his name twice the size. I've started counti ng in writing, because he received quite my grey hairs as it is. But I'm enough undeserved mention without me glad you enjoyed it. Speaking of adding to it — but it’s no good, I've which... ++ got to speak out. There the name is again in Vector 63; just like it was in Brian Aldiss 62, and 61, and we don't use his Christ­ Heath House ian name any more; we just call him Lem. Southmoor Everyone has heard of Lem. He's as well Abingdon known as Ballard, and Aldiss, and Delany, Berks. and Simak. Except that the last four made their names by virtue of a string Dear Malcolm, There wasn't a'real chan­ of excellent novels which gave enjoyment ce at the recent festiv­ to a hell of a lot of people, whereas ities in the US Embassy to tell you how Lem's fame is based on stuff nobody's much I enjoyed the special surprise read, apparently. But never mind, we packet of Vector 63. Great to see a are soon to be inundated. And human creative editor working on Vector, as nature being what it is, the critics will in Archie Mercer's day! Have I really join in sheeplike bleats of praise. And been twenty years in business? I'll being what I am, I will refuse to read give you the same answer I gave Moorcock this works, and steadfastly condemn them and Ballard when I had to phone them on as crap. Prejudice is the most honest my last birthday and they both asked me and satisfying of emotions.) why I sounded so cheerful about having another birthday* "I'm just thinking The excerpt from Aldiss' book was fas­ of what I've got away with all that cinating. How a man can be a good crit­ ic and a good writer at the same time I time!" can't understand, but Aldiss manages it. Thanks too, and a tear in the eye and The other articles were all interesting all that, to the friends who lied so although I would liked see more; several staunchly for me throughout the issue, novels were hardly mentioned while Bare­ especially Andrew Stephenson, Jim Blish, foot and Probability A received more the incredible Jhilip Strick, who must than their share of space, I felt. This produce his own book on sf as soon as is not a valid criticism of the issue, possible, and of course my old mate however; what I am really saying is that Harry Harrison, who gives as good as he Vector 63 ought to have been twice the takes when it comes to friendship. size. (Excuse — difficult letter to write — quick blow of nose...) Actually, I feel ++ I really think you ought to try and awful about 63, recalling the words of have a go at Solaris — you never Max Beerbohm, another man with a small know, you might like it (it has cer­ tain affinities tri th Ilirror Image). talent, who begged, "Do not by dithy­ rambs hasten the reaction against me!" Franz Rottensteiner tells me, "The trouble with you English and American All the same, may I say how much I fans is really that so few of you admired Davp Rowe's and Andrew's efforts 48 on your behalf? Andy has mentioned ition. Her article, however ("The something of the story behind his power­ Wearing Out of Genre Materials") is a ful interpretation of my Frankenstein specific and valuable contribution to novel. He worked tremendously hard, and current argument. that stunning illustration encapsulates many of the themes of the novel. All I don't think Joanna Russ actually the same, his other illo strikes even says a single thing which stands on its deeper. By God, it’s Marston Street, own as something new. But she has ass­ viewed from the kitchen doorl Margaret embled a number of ideas which float did and Harry and Jim will experience around in general debate, and placed the same pang I have. Marston Street them in a useful frame of reference. it is. And the ocean streaming above Discussion about whether, for example, the old church is a fine imaginative Niven has injected fresh blood into the effect. There Greybeard and Saliva main stream of sf, or whether he is Tree and many other terrible things merely a late flower on stock already were written, there the Oxford Univer­ dead, is given greater clarity if one sity Speculative Fiction Group was bom has Joanna Russ' analysis in mind. — the beer stains are still on the It is worth reminding people (or, +o carpet. It makes you feel like a living be less kind, telling them for the first fossil, doesn’t it? time) that "third-stage" sf was being You’re a bit inaccurate about 80­ produced in some volume by English Minute Hour. It was written over a writers outside the genre, at precisely that time when "second-stage" sf was long period, and includes covert refer­ enjoying its heyday in the American ences to both Denmark and Mexico, which magazines. I think of Stapledon (Last happened to be flashing by at the time. and First Men '31, Odd John, '35, Star It was a slow write. Then came Frank­ Maker, '37, Sirius ’44); Huxley (Brave enstein, a quick write, and clearly a New World '32, After Many A Summer '39, by-blow of my labours on Billion Year Ape and Essence ’48); Lewis (Out of the Spree. Silent Planet '38, Voyage to Venus '43, P.S. Both 80 Minute Hour and That Hideous Strength '45)• Of the Frankenstein Unbound will be published three it seems that only Lewis was aware by Jonathan Cape. As you probably of the American magazines. know, Billion Year Spree is coming from In many ways Stapledon provides the Weidenfeld and Nicolson. I have been most instructive contrast with the "sec­ weaned at last from the bosom of Faber, ond-stage" writers in the pulp tradition after seventeen years and twenty books. In Star Maker, for example, he constant­ ly tells the reader that he is not going ++ I had hoped to be able to hang on to to describe such-and-such a thing: the originals of Andrew's two illus­ trations. But unfortunately he "I must not tell in detail of the prised them out of me. /// This is heroic struggle by which..." the first Vector is quite a while to "It would be wearisome to describe carry a letter column, so this one the insane warfare which ensued..." is going to be something of a grab­ bag. The next few letters all hark On the other hand he constantly warns back to Vector 62, which some of the reader that he is going to describe you may still remember dimly. ++ certain things in detail: "Leaving all else unnoticed, I must Mark Adlard try to describe this crisis..." 22 Ham Lane "This change that had come over us Lenham deserves to be carefully described Nr Maidstone Kent And so on, again and again. The Dear Malcolm, Joanna Russ wasn't much interesting point arising out of this more than a name to me, stylistic device is that the things he tenuously associated with the small but says he won't describe are those things increasing number of American writers by which the contemporary pulp writers who are disenchanted with the pulp trad­ were earning their living — galactic

49 warfare and. imaginary technologies. first shove. Then, who knows? The things he insisted, on describing Last and First Men in Penguin were those things which the pulp Modern Classics? Could be... writers left out — the nature of good, Now back to Mark again, and another and evil, of pain, of man’s relation letter. ++ to the cosmos and to God. It seems important to me that we I cannot resist following my earlier should re-direct out attention to letter with a couple of specific this other tradition of non-pulp sf. references: In the course of time genre sf may Asimov (speaking on film recently shown seem no more than a temporary excres- at the American Embassy): ence upon a mainstream sf tradition which had no relationship with the "The sf written in the 40s became American magazines. A few of the fact in the 60s. When Armstrong best writers who started in the pulp stepped onto the moon it was justi­ magazines have made the transition. fication of the work done by the Blish is one of the most eminent ex­ writers in Campbell's stable." amples. C.S.Lewis (essay "On Stories" republish­ Unfortunately the effects of the ed in Of Other Worlds): pulp tradition on discrimination are "If some fatal progress of applied still very strong, and help to science ever enables us in fact to account for the lack of interest in reach the Moon, that real journey what I have called the "other tradi­ will not at all satisfy the impulse tion". This can be the only explan­ which we now seek to gratify by ation why the sf shelves in the writing such stories." bookshops are currently overflowing with reprints from those two pioneers It seems to me that this paraphrase of the pulp tradition, E.R.Burroughs and quotation illustrate very succinct­ and B.E.Smith, whilst Stapledon can ly the difference between second- and be obtained only through specialist third-stage sf, and also between the or second-hand sources. American pulp tradition and the British ++ This letter, of course, was writ­ non-pulp tradition. ten before Penguin brought out their mass Stapledon reprint, mak­ ing available all his sf except James Blish Odd John — it’s incredible to Treetops think that Star Maker has taken over Woodlands Road 35 years to reach paperback in this fiarpsden (Henley) country. But I don't think it’s Oxon. fair to blame this neglect on the growth of genre sf. In the long Dear Malcolm, Hiilip Strick is far too run I suspect it will be fairer to kind to Silent Running. thank the genre for cultivating a Why put plants that need Earth-intensity readership to give Stapledon the sunlight in orbit around Saturn, a mini­ recognition he deserves. I think mum of 740 million miles further out, there are obvious parallels between with all the attendant extra energy to his case and that of Mervyn Peake, get them there, let alone maintain them another genuinely original talent and their crew after they arrive? How whose books remained in almost com­ could Dern's ship survive plunging plete obscurity until the public through the rings of Saturn, which the caught up with him. Maybe the time film shows as no worse than running is ripe for somebody to launch the head-on in a heavy gale? The rings are kind of rehabilitation of Staple- at least a mile thick and consist chief­ don's work as Mike Moorcock, Anthony ly of what appear to be chunks of ammo­ Burgess, and a few others, managed nia ice, and not in convenient cube for Peake in the late sixties. And sizes, either. How does it happen that it could just be that Billion Year when three of the domes are blown up Spree will provide the necessary in space, the observers in the fourth

50 hear the explosions? In fact, I can't able, not everything is unfavourable. recall a single scene in the film, As to the specific case of Solaris, I right down to the smallest, that doesn't have quite explicitly commented (in a require some explanation which is never letter to him) on several points of forthcoming. Even the score — not his F&SF review that I thought especial­ counting the songs of Joan Baez, which ly perceptive; so why should Blish now seem to be there only to further rein­ be "stunned" to find his name included force the Lesson — shows that however in an enumeration of people who liked good Peter Schickele may be at burles­ Solaris; or indeed, why should he think quing Mannheim-school composers it's such a mere listing has any special unsafe to turn him loose on his own. ... significance either for him or me? And Tony Sudbery ignores my careful limit­ that makes me the devil who would quote ation of my introduction to More Issues Scriptures? At Hand to the technical critic (I took two long paragraphs to mention some of I must also deny that my favourite word "for the rest of us" is "dishon­ the many other kinds, and rule them out of my discussion), who like it or not esty" : my favourite word probably is "hack". I may have used "dishonesty" does address himself primarily to the writer and editor. Reviews are aimed one or two times, and if Blish wants to primarily at the reader, and anybody assert that I used it more often than that, or more often than hack, he is who wants to bother comparing the Athe- invited to count it. It seems to me ling books with E&SF book columns will that Blish may be allergic to this see the difference at once. word since he himself likes to apply it ++ Couldn't agree with you more about to such journals as Time Magazine or Silent Running, which compounded all Partisan Review; but I certainly once its scientific idiocies by committ­ accused him of literary cheating. ing the cardinal sin of boring me. What I'd like to know of Mr Blish If I'd paid to see it I'd have felt now is whether he includes the fact really cheated... Sorry, Jim, but that I translated his "Cathedrals in you have committed a cardinal sin Space" in my German language fanzine, yourself — that of offending our or that we made him a German offer for man in Austria. ++ A Case Of Conscience among the alleged "expressions of utmost contempt"? It's of course Mr Blish's privilege as an Franz Rottensteiner author to prefer bad translations to Felsenstrasse 20 good, a paperback deal to a combined 2762 Ortmann hardcover/paperbaok sale, and the pub­ AUSTRIA lisher of Lewis B. Patten, Dorothy Eden and Poul Anderson to the publisher of Dear Malcolm, I really don't understand T.S. Eliot, Hermann Hesse and James James Blish: is his mem­ Joyce; but the fact that we made him an ory failing him, is he fishing for com­ offer is hardly evidence for his claims pliments in a very curious way, or has and I should also think that offering his dislike for me reached such heights somebody a contract is of somewhat that his reasoning powers have suffered? (++ Puzzled readers are referred to greater significance than a few remarks in the most ephemeral of publications, Vector 62, p.34 ++) I could answer him the sf fanzines. that he underrates me: he has no idea of what expressions of contempt I am Gee, do they really have Dorothy capable when he thinks I have treated Eden in Germany too? (Totally him with the utmost contempt "up to irrelevant editorial comment.) ++ now". But such flippancy probably isn't necessary. Besides, what he says simply Ursula Le Guin isn't true; for one thing, James Blish 3321 NJ Thurman hardly is in a position to pass any Portland judgement on all I have written about Oregon 97210 him, for the simple reason that there U.S.A. undoubtedly is much that he has never Eeen; and while most of it is unfavour­ Dear Malcolm, I was glad to see your

51 discussion of the last Hugo awards, dis­ + I think the only answer with the seminating the information Locus gave Hugos is just to vote for first us. I have felt extremely unhappy place and leave the rest blank. about the whole thing, ever since I read That's what I eventually decided to that Locus. It is almost impossible to do last year, after concluding that say anything about it, though, and I it was hard enough to pick winners don't know who to say it to. I do immen­ in each category without having to sely appreciate the honor — it is a rank the also-rans as well. Of real honor — of being nominated and course, by the time I'd reached this voted for by all those people, all those conclusion the deadline for ballots strangers who have "met" one only in had passed... ++ one's book — it gives a pleasure that no nomination or award from a selected jury could give. But this "Australian This is where we start to go in to the ballot" (my conviction is that it's brief mentions and We Also Heard Froms. called that because it turns everything There are a couple of long letters, from upside down) spoils it all. My novel, Barry Gillam and Cy Chauvin, which I'd which clearly placed a poor third, like to use —— but since they mostly comes in second; Anne McCaffrey's, which refer right back to No.59, I'm afraid as clearly placed first, comes in third'. they're too obsolete. But a quote each Well, all that juggling and recounting on Pamela Bulmer's article therein. is supposed, I suppose, to insure jus­ First Barry: "One point in Mrs Bulmer's tice. But it doesn't. First place is argument that bothered me was her state­ first place, and when people vote for ment that the first ingredient of style it that's what they want — and that's is honesty. Honesty is a moral judge­ the only plaoe the business end of ment and should have no plaoe in critic­ science fiction, the editors and pub­ ism. The first question about style is: lishers, are going to pay any attention does it suit the contents? Does Mrs to at all. They couldn't care less who Bulmer call Farmer and Silverberg dis­ makes second, third, and fourth; all honest because they change their styles they care about is The Prize. I think from work to work?” And now Cy: "There the book that received the most votes is one point on which I part ways with Pam (and also James Blish); you may re­ for The Prize should get the prize. And, if justice or consolation is what call the line in the introduction to the Hugo committee are after, then per­ More Issues At Hand where Blish says haps they could designate all the something to the effect that 'a critic second-third-fourth-fifth people, the has a duty to be positively harsh to­ runners-up, as "Hugo Honor Books" or wards a bad book'. Now, I'm not sure something, as the Newbery Awards just exactly what Blish meant when he committee has recently taken to doing. said 'harsh'; certainly a critic must be honest, and call a bad book a bad As it is, I haven't been able to book, but some critics adopt a very arro­ bring myself to vote on the Hugo nom­ gant tone, and like to 'insult' books inations at all yet this year, because (and, indirectly, their authors). I do I have this feeling that however I not think this is a good practice at vote they will add it up to come out to all. Now, I realize that Pam never just the opposite of what I meant'. openly endorses this, but I'm afraid Your reply to Christopher Evans' her review of The Flowers of February letter in No.62 is absolutely right — is arrogant and full of insults. (For for England I — but alas, not for example, 'whoever choose this book must America. There are a few excellent have read it with his eyes closed', and reviews (Horn Book for instance) and ' to begin with the plot — if that's the word for it —".) I can’t see how reviewers, but in general writing for the insults directed at the book make children puts one in a ghetto just as Pam's review any more insightful or writing sf does; and people say to me clear — all they are is Cute Little with hearty camaraderie, "I know you Jokes. And I think that any critic write for children, do you write real who adopts this tone is really working books too?" In fact, to put it against himself. After all, one of the rather crudely but I think accurately, primary objectives in writing a criti­ literature for children here is con­ cal article or review is to be as per­ sidered woman's work — in every sense suasive and convincing as possible; to of the word. 5* make people accept your viewpoint on a in his drawing so much of what I had book as the most logical and correct tried to convey in the speech that I one. If someone adopts the above atti­ could not believe qy eyes. Although tude, however, he can only alienate the over many years I have had many, many writer and reader; I’ve yet to see any­ of my stories illustrated, I don't one convinced by an insult." recall ever being so astonished and Having done something to remedy those delighted." The illustration was in­ omissions, we get back to the vicinity deed by Alan Hunter — in one of my of 1973, and Vector 63. Rev. L.S. Riv-g characteristic moments of stupidity I ett comments on Philip Strick’s arti­ onoe again forgot to credit the art­ cle therein: "Perhaps it was too ob­ work. The cover was by Ames, whose vious to have mentioned, but the pain­ style you'll probably recognise by ting (++ i.e. Holman Hunt's 'The Hire­ now anyway. Incidentally, Philip ling Shepherd' ++) was obviously in­ Dick is particularly interested in spired by John 10, 12 & 13, "He that getting reactions to "The Android and is a hireling, and not the shepherd, the Human", so if you were thinking of whose own the sheep are not, seeth the commenting and then didn' t, please wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep and think again. Among those who did fleeth; and the wolf oatoheth them and comment were Richard Cotton and scattereth the sheep. The hireling 1.0. Evans, neither of whom was in fleeth because he is an hireling, and agreement with the actions advocated careth not for the sheep" (A.V. which in the article. I don't think Philip Holman Hunt would have used). I al­ Dick would advocate them, either, in a ways took it that the point of the normal situation — I think the point painting was that the Church was becom­ is that in an extreme situation you ing too much involved in other things have to make what counteraction you to care properly for the sheep. Com­ can, even if it is entirely negative. pare Hunt's painting with Breughel the Tony Sudbery, not noted as a Dick fan, Elder's in which the wolf is devouring thought I should have cut the article one sheep and the shepherd is running to make room for the letter column, away. I may be wrong and I can't check whose omission, he said, Ought Not To as I have not been able to put my hands Be Done. He didn't help it, though, by on a copy of Hunt's work, but I always writing at brief and non-quotable believed that a wolf was shown hiding length. E.R.James, one of the more in the far corner of the picture, wat­ regular correspondents, never fails to ching the sheep. This is part of the cheer me up with his kind comments. 'chill in the afternoon' and five min­ He seemed to enjoy everything, although utes later not only would the hireling the other items paled a little beside shepherd "have" the girl, but the wolf the Dick article. He also wonders how would "have" the sheep ..." Archie I find the time and application ... Mercer thought it seemed hardly right well, there's not much else to do in for the author of Report on Probability the asylum, I'm afraid ... And finally, A to condemn anything, even Clark there was Andrew Weiner, who writes Ashton Smith, as unreadable, though he rock criticism for Cream and has the odd added that Brian Aldiss was one of the distinction of having his only short few authors around whom a special issue story published in Again, Dangerous could profitably be based. Gene Wolfe Visions. He's another raving Dick thought "To Barsoom and Beyond" was fan, liked the reviews and layout, but "wonderful-- truth and twaddle, but spoiled his record by not finding Bob always delightful. I'm going to get Shaw's piece funny. He's doing some Aldiss's book." Ah well, that's another sf-oriented articles for Cream, by one soldi the way — but more of this later. On to Vector 64, and first of all a And that's all for this time. Do word from the star of the piece, Philip write. I look forward to hearing K. Dick: "Above all, I would like to from you. express to you my amazement at the ill­ ustration on page seven — it's by Hunter, is it? The android and the human locked in battle. When I saw it, I realized that the artist had caught anywhere. BSFA news David C. Bendelow (36): 27 George St., Consett, Co.Durham, DH8 5LN. Ice­ skating, motoring. edited by ARCHIE MERCER Monica M. O'Hara (37): 8 Shirley Drive, off Knutsford Rd, Grappenhall, via GRAND REOPENING OF LIBRARY Cur Book Warrington, Ches. ESP, Sociology. Library, Reading. USA, Commonwealth. containing a reasonably vast amount of Allan J. Ovens (21): 5 Brabyns Rd, sf and fantasy in both hard and soft Hyde, Ches. Postal Diplomacy, Climb­ covers, is alive and well at the N.E. ing. UK, USA. London Polytechnic. The address iss John W. Jarrold (20): 31 Dukes Way, West Wickham, Kent. Anglo-Saxon Peter Nicholls Lang. & Lit., Reading, Writing, Science Fiction Foundation History, Fantasy. UK, USA. North East London Polytechnic David F. Tillston (27): Flat 1, 96, Barking Precinct Burning Rd, Liverpool, L7 5NH. Longbridge Road Electronics, All Art Forms, Peace & Dagenham, Essex Unity, DIY legs. Russia, USA, etc. RM8 2AS Alan E. Woodroffe (29): 19 Twentywell Borrowing fees are 2p per paperback and Rd, Sheffield, S17 4RJ. Music, Wine 3p per hardback, plus postage both ways. & Beer Making, Photography. UK, USA. Members may borrow up to three books at Christine Ogden (Miss) (17): 35 Keswick a time, no more than two of which may be Drive, Cullercoats, North Shields, hardbacks. A recent addenda/deletions Northumberland. Astronomy, Drama, list is available from the library add­ Classical Guitar, Ancient History. ress. Previous catalogues are still av­ UK, USA. ailable from the BSFA Treasurer, though John Caldwell (43): 4 Copperhill Rd, a reshuffle of such holdings is in the Congleton, Ches., CW12 3JG. Music, air. Good reading'. Photography, Fell Walking, Swimming. Jennifer Elson (29): 16 Stafford Drive, .. .AND A FEW FANZINES The Association's Wigston, Leicester, LEP 2YA. Ancient Fanzine Foundat­ Greek History, Writing, Travel. USA. ion (Keith A.Walker, 3 Cromer Grove, Burnley, Lancs) also claims to be back SF ART A wad of sheets concerning THE in business, and catalogues are promised INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE FANTASY for the near future, if not before. ART EXHIBITION has drifted on to your Watch This Space for further news from News Editor's desk. They concern, this Department. amongst other things, the exhibiting of artwork at this year's World S.F. Con­ WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT it might as vention, in Toronto over the August/ well be men­ September week-end. For full partic­ tioned that the magazine section of the ulars, contact the ISFAE Art Show Dir­ Association's Library remains in the far- ectors: John & Bjo Trimble, P.O.Box flung custody of Joe Bowman, Balinoe, 74866, Los Angeles, CA 9OOO4, USA. Ardgay, Ross-shire, Scotland, IV24 3DN. S.F. FOUNDATION REPORT The S.F. Found­ DR. liORMAN COCEBURN Members will he ation (which is sorry to learn that looking after our book-library for us) the Rev. Dr. Norman Cockburn has felt has issued a Report on its activities. impelled to resign from the Association Dated January 1973, the Report is in owing to ill-health. He has recently fact a well-written and interesting undergone several operations on his eyes, resume of the Foundation's aims, organ­ and ve can only hope and trust that th

54 free SMALL-ADS 1290 Ovens, Allan J.: 5 Brabyns Rd, Hyde, Ches. SFINX Britain’s only magazine of 1285 Tillston, David F.: Flat 1, 96 speculative fiction is now in print! Burning Rd, Liverpool, L7 5NH Copies of the latest issue are av­ 1284 Watkins, David: Gaycroft, Lale- ailable for 15p each, or 40p for 3 ston, Bridgend, Glam, CF32 OLD. issue, from: 1283 Whitelock, Patricia A.: Astron­ Kevin Smith, Oriel Coll, Oxford omy Dept, Imperial College, 10 Stories and artwork would also be Princes Gdns, London SW7 gratefully received by the editor: 1287 Woodroffe, Alan E.: 19 Twentywell Allan Scott, New College, Oxford Rd, Sheffield, S17 4RJ

GRANFALLOON The U.S. Hugo nominee CHANGE OF ADDRESS fanzine now has a British agent! Copies available for 30p each, 3/85p, 1114 Field, M.C.: now 14 Barrs Rd, from: Taplow, near Maidenhead, Berks. Philip Payne, Longmead, 15 Wilmer- 389 Hensey, R.S.F.: now 389 Fairview, hatch Lane, EPSOM, Surrey Tal-y-fan, Gian Conway, N. Wales.

NEW AND REJOINED MEMBERS POSTCODE would you believe:

1296 Bamford, Robert: 1 Glasslyn Rd., 3 Mercer, Archie: please add TRI3 8LH Crouch End, London, N8 8RJ 1294 Bendelow, David C.: 27 George St., CORRECTION(S) In the "Correspondents Consett, Co. Durham, DH8 5LN Wanted" section last issue, 1282 Caldwell, John: 4 Copperhill Rd, Belgian fan Simon Joukes was credited Congleton, Ches, CW12 3JG with an interest in the fictitious sci­ 1279 Elson, Jennifer: 16 Stafford ence of ’phiology'. It should have been Drive, Wigston, Leicester, LEP 2YA philology, of course. He adds: "More in 612 Heathcote, Brian: 17 Pembroke particular, I like 'artificial' languages, Cres, High Green, Sheffield, like Tolkien produced in LotR. S30 4PB And we got his address irrong too 1280 Hemmings, Fred: 20 Beech Rd, (powers—that-be please note): it's not Slough, Bucks, SL3 7DQ Haantjaslei? it's Haantj^slei. 1286 Hill, Roy T.t 139 Westwood Park, Forest Hill, London, SE23 3QL 1291 Jarrold, John W.: 31 Dukes Way, West Wickham, Kent. 1293 Johnson, Leslie J.: 16 Rockville Rd, Broad Green, Liverpool, L14 3LP 1292 Labdon, Stanley: 25 Horsham Rd, Pease Pottage, Sussex, RH11 9AW 1295 Linwood, Jas G.: 125 Twickenham Rd, Isleworth, Middx. 1281 Maine, Charles Eric: 14 Chipstead Rd, London SW6 1278 Lee, Bryan J.: 5 Percy Sq, Lowes Barn, Durham, DH1 3P2 1288 Ogden, Christine (Miss): 35 Keswick Drive, Cullercoats, North Shields, Northumberland 1289 O'Hara, Monica M.: 8 Shirley Drive, off Knutsford Rd, Grappenhall, via Warrington, Ches.

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