The Devniad, Book 28 Bob Devney 25 Johnson Street, North Attleboro, MA 02760 U.S.A
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The Devniad, Book 28 Bob Devney 25 Johnson Street, North Attleboro, MA 02760 U.S.A. 508-699-7885 [email protected] For APA:NESFA #326 July 1997 Orbita Dicta His own brother said, "Normally, he was a surly sonuvabitch." Heard in the halls of Readercon 9 [Co-Guest of Honor Algis Budrys says BS to all Marriott Westborough the SOB talk about his dead Co-GOH] Westborough, MA, U.S.A. I was a close friend of Cyril’s. Second July 11-13, 1997 maybe to Fred Pohl, but a close friend. He was not at heart a surly son of a bitch, I NOTICE ABSOLVING ME OF ALL don't care what his brother says. BLAME: The people quoted below might … Think of him as something a little very well have said something resembling more complicated. And as, during the what’s approximated here. But if you period he was writing, THE writer of disagree and have a tape or something, science fiction. maybe it was some other universe. [Malzberg also rates Kornbluth pretty high] [At the Friday night panel on The Science He was a great science fiction writer. No Fiction of C. M. Kornbluth, fine new short story worse than the 4th or 5th best of his time. writer Andy Duncan recounts one of the few … But in my opinion, the work shows an endearing CMK anecdotes around] unremitting loathing of humanity. So this woman leans over the stroller containing little baby Kornbluth, and he says [Writer Michael Kandel disagrees] up at her, “Madam, I am not the child you I’m shocked to hear all this — about think me.” despising humanity. I’d put it that there was not a grain of sentimentality in him. [Duncan seems to like NESFA's new collection, His Share of Glory: The Science Fiction of C. [Duncan favors CMK’s story “Gomez”] M. Kornbluth, which (by the way) you can find Gomez is a dishwasher with uncanny out how to order at http://www.nesfa.org/press/] mathematical powers who is co-opted by There are books that belong on every SF the Pentagon: a Robert Heinlein figure, Rear reader's shelf, and this is one of them. Admiral MacDonald. [Writer Barry Malzberg likes much of [CMK was not so rah-rah re RAH, per Budrys] Kornbluth, but one story he’d take to the bank] Cyril, by the way, DID hate Robert A. I liked “The Last Man in the Bar.” I liked Heinlein. He felt he was a fascist militarist, it so well I decided to write it again … I got who would sell his mother down the river if $150 for the story I based on it. I'll bet that's the cause was just. more than Cyril got for the original. And he said so. To Heinlein. [Budrys sums up] [Which last may be one of the reasons why, as This convention could not have picked a Kornbluthiac scholar Mark Rich observes] better guest of honor. The Devniad, Book 28 Page 2 of 16 [In the audience, NESFan Tony Lewis adds perhaps the most convincing elegy of all] [Meanwhile, back at P. K. Dick headquarters] Even Asimov admitted Kornbluth My other two novels — they wear Dick overmatched him. There are very few on their sleeves. [Laughter] ... I know that people of whom Isaac Asimov ever said, sounds very weird. “He was smarter than me.” [Lethem talks technique] [Kandel ends with a plea for Clemensy] You should be careful to find a couple of Also, in the way he was so key differences between a first-person unsentimental, some say misanthropic — narrator and yourself, and FASTEN on another writer accused of the same thing them. Because he’s going to be mostly you. was Mark Twain. [After writing Gun With Occasional Music on [In a program item on the origins of his newest a typewriter, he now swims in the PC sea] novel, hot young author Jonathan Lethem recalls Once you’re working on a computer an auspicious omen at his first con] screen, everything is suddenly liquid, and I met Paul Williams at Sercon 1, in the you can’t COUNT your drafts anymore. Clairmont Hotel — the same hotel where Philip K. Dick met Paul Williams years [Lethem has dipped into collaboration before. occasionally] Carter Scholz, the writer I drove up here [To the eternal question “Where do you get your with, wrote the best of my collaborations ideas,” Lethem can answer “Ashby Avenue”] with me. It’s about Franz Kafka and Frank I was walking home from the con down Capra. Once you notice the similarities in Ashby Avenue that gorgeous day, so names, you begin to see there’s more there. exhilirated by everything that had ... So Kafka survives TB, comes to happened, and I thought in my terrible Hollywood, and becomes the screenwriter ambition, “I want to blow those people behind It’s a Wonderful Life. It turns out that away.” I really wanted to write the next Hollywood is pure Kafka. You know, he just great science fiction novel. And I thought of can’t leave this town. a story featuring a black hole as a character, and a woman falling in love with that black [At the Meet the Prose party, Andy Duncan just hole. found out his short “Liza and the Crazy Water Man” is on the prelim Nebula ballot] [But before he could write As She Climbed When I went to Clarion West, I was Across the Table, he had some living to do] afraid. Not that I wouldn’t produce the I hadn’t yet read much of Don DeLillo. stories. Not of being critiqued. But that they I hadn’t had some particular emotional would all look at my stuff and say, “Hey, experiences, or a particular romance yet. THIS isn’t science fiction,” and throw me It eventually became a novel that I could out. But everywhere in this field, people write successfully. I took many years to get have been incredibly nice to me. that book right. But it was always a sentimental favorite to me. [Fan Joe Petronio went to meet some pros, but so It’s the ridiculous idea, and my far he’s only managed to meet me] overwhelming commitment to that idea .... I keep a database now of every book I It’s the book where I declare my personality buy. So I know exactly how much I spent most openly. last year on books. The Devniad, Book 28 Page 3 of 16 No, I haven’t shown it to my wife. … But I’m not sure about the cover — [You’d think such a sharp guy would have better [Reporter abandons all gender sensitivities] taste in cons] Yow. I only wanted to go to one con this winter, so I skipped Boskone and went to [Di Filippo has the grace to look concerned] Arisia instead. Big, BIG mistake. The panels Yes, well, I have gotten that reaction were dead boring. Or they were about from some people. Which is why I’m not gaming, and people are trading cards and that sure about this. getting into yelling matches about it. [At breakfast Saturday, Paul Giguere seems to [If it’s summer, Robert Sawyer must be on an have found his dream girl] awards ballot — which makes an author’s heart She likes reading science fiction books, go ka-ching ka-ching] but she doesn’t want to go to cons. So I go Anybody who says awards don't affect alone. your income is wrong. After I got the Nebula, sales of that book shot up. And in [While Tor editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden the contract for my next book, my U.S. shatters any dreams this reporter might have had advances doubled. My European advances of originality] doubled. My Japanese advances went up This technique of stringing quotes 500%. together into a portrait of a con was done in the 1950s, you know. By some fans from [Legendary short story writer Michael A. Toronto who styled themselves the Burstein (it’s my fanzine, he’s my friend, I can Derelicts. It’s called “derogation,” after use any adjective I want) should get a commish “Derelicts’ Derogation.” on Sawyer’s newest novel Frameshift] If you don’t like it, I swear I’ll give you [I forget when and where Nomi Burstein said your money back! I’ve never given that kind this] of guarantee before. At least on a hardcover. Are you having fun going around quoting people out of context? [The prof in this bit by NESFAn Chip Hitchock must have been an ale man] There was an op ed article in the Boston Globe this week where the writer kept getting John Adams mixed up with Sam [When the showing of A Kornbluth Family Adams. What made it worse is that the Home Video is delayed 15 minutes because none writer was the chairman of the history of us literary geniuses can work the VCR, department at Boston University. somebody mutters] This wouldn’t happen at Arisia. [In the hall, Paul Di Filippo, another wild man of the short form, shows he can go long] [In the con suite, volunteer Amy West talks This is my first novel, Ciphers, that’s about life in the word mines] coming out soon. Yes, it’s a big monster of a At Merriam-Webster, we’re making lots thing … of money. We’re owned by Encyclopedia Britannica, you know. But it’s us who are [Flips book to display illo of a beautiful nude keeping them afloat.