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Home , Andy Duncan (writer), Michael Bishop (author), Paul Di Filippo, Readercon, Think Like a Dinosaur

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 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, . 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 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 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 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, , 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. woman] The Devniad, Book 28 Page 4 of 16

[At a panel on the career of co-Guest of Honor I called up the police station and did 5 Algis Budrys, Daniel Dern starts with two minutes of research. But it took 17 years to works not everyone might have read] finish, because I was doing other things. Two Budrys books I could read over and I’m currently working on two novels, over are Michaelmas and Silent Eyes of Time. one SF, one . They may take less time. [Hard SF high priest David Hartwell places Budrys in high company] [For several years, he’d been editing his own SF For a while I kept getting A. J.’s stories magazine, Tomorrow, which recently switched mixed up with Ted Sturgeon’s. Both writers from paper to ether] with a high, high command of the polished I’ve never been a publisher before, and I slick style who tended to focus very closely hate it. The electronic version is more fun, on a central character. because I don’t have to deal with distributors. [Barry Malzberg praises Budrys the critic] Now you pay 10 bucks, we give you a I learned a great deal from his criticism password, and you can access 6 issues on- in Galaxy from ‘65 to ‘71. I learned more line. Plus the 3 issues we’ve done already, goddamned things from that than from for free. anything else I can think of … The last two sentences of a column he [Although his wife Edna pleads from the wrote summed up everything I read in 30 audience] years: Buy the old magazine back issues too, “It is not enough to be right. You have to everybody. I want that bedroom back. be right on time.” [Hartwell points out that the career is on the [A. J. himself started beforetimes] upswing lately] I wrote my first story when I was 9. I got You are Guest of Honor at the World my first rejection slip — from Malcolm Reiss Science Fiction Convention next month. of Planet Stories — when I was 11. How do you like that?

[Budrys had lots of trouble with his stern, demanding father — a Lithuanian diplomat who [Budrys could get used to it] hated his son’s chosen avocation — until] I love it. I’m crazy about it. Finally, my second novel, Who, came The career has gone more or less where out. And he actually read it, in the British it deserved to. edition. The one thing I resent is that I’ve never He took me aside with awe in his face, won a Hugo or a Nebula, and I know and he said, “My God, you’ve got talent. In damned well I’ve done work that deserved here is a [stern, demanding] Russian secret it. police colonel. And he’s perfect. … Something always happens. Rogue “And you don’t know anybody like Moon lost to A Canticle for Liebowitz, which that!” some folks think wasn’t even eligible that year. The fans in Seattle felt that Canticle had [His latest published novel, 1993’s superb Hard gotten jobbed the year before, so they Landing, took some hard time to write] jobbed me.

[Still, these days, all in all, life is good] The Devniad, Book 28 Page 5 of 16

More and more often, as I sit down to write and rewrite, it comes out the way I [Discussing History and Fictional History, wanted it. That wasn’t always true. editor of the Science Fiction Book Club thinks sincerity is key; learn to fake that [On a panel named Bad Craziness: Society, and you’ve got it made] Subversion, and Speculative Fictions, Paul Di It’s much more important in writing Filippo muses on things that surface in our historical fiction that you have verisimilitude culture] than that you have accuracy … After all, Yogurt used to be a fringe food. Kooks you’re not writing your French characters’ ate it. Now everybody does. There’s been a dialog in French, are you? real revolution in eating habits. But not too much flavoring. You have to avoid attacks of the “forsoothlies.” [SF Age editor Scott Edelmann wonders if SF has lost its edge] [After spending all of her The Porcelain Dove Look at the reaction real subversion in 18th century France, Delia Sherman is not gets. When Rites of Spring premiered, they sure we’d want to] were tearing up seats in the theater. When Most of us would not enjoy a they hung up something called Piss Christ in conversation with someone from the 17th or a museum a few years ago, there was major 18th century. Different jokes, different slang, outrage all over. a whole different way of looking at things … Then look at our field. Is subversion People found torturing cats just hysterical in subversive if it’s invisible? the 18th century.

[A fan in the audience says at least Tepper isn’t [Alexander Jablokov agrees] tepid] Can you get excited by an 18th century Sheri Tepper has written of her belief erotic story? They’re whipping nuns and so that men and women should live separately, forth … There’s a weird specificity to some only visit each other, even monogamous of the stuff there that leaves us cold. pairs. She’s been attacked from both sides of [Subtle narrative master thinks the the field. If you have both camps hating past was always living in the past] you, that’s subversive. Until 20 years ago, almost all fiction was told as though it happened in the past … [Edelmann goes two further] Every novel was over before it began. Probably the two most subversive science fiction novels were Stranger in a [Not true of history itself, Sherman points out] Strange Land and Dune, with its sneaked-in History does NOT have a beginning, environmental message. middle, and end. It just has a middle. But even there … The message of Stranger in a Strange Land is NOT that group [Which is why, co-Guest of Honor Kim Stanley sex is cool. Group sex is only cool if you’re a Robinson might say, paranoia is the act of Martian. imposing narrative on the universe] Conspiracy theories and secret histories [Writer Lance Olsen thinks William Burroughs all express the desire that history make could eat either of the above for, well, you know] sense. Naked Lunch. So much of today’s subversive literature is a footnote to Burroughs. The Devniad, Book 28 Page 6 of 16

[Some moderators at least try to begin panels on There’s the astonishing magic of the a nice, sprightly, upbeat note, like fantasy writer term “And then,” which to our rationalistic Katya Reimann] mind implies causality. Welcome everybody. This is Reality and Dream in Fiction — [And then, in one of those 3-minute, back-of-the- room exchanges that are a chief glory of [But there’ll always be a fandom, as a woman in Readercon, Paul Park explains his renegade Jesus the audience immediately makes clear] in last year’s brilliant historical novel The — Are you sure? Gospel of Corax] If you’re both divine and human, some [And stellar critic doesn’t help much people have a tendency to de-emphasize the either] human part completely. But that’s not My uninterest in dreams in fiction is that portraying the part about both God and usually they don’t work very well in fiction. Man, is it? … One immediately obvious failure of a And it’s more believable when you have, children’s book written by some Awful say, a preacher who has been a sinner and Aunt is that it’s told as a dream, in a repented, than someone who has been a condescending manner. Perfect Master since the age of 6. … How can stories engender the hooks that dreams do? [Oh yes — right at the end of the panel, somebody brought up Joyce, but Clute wouldn’t [Writer Jennifer Stevenson thinks Elizabeth let that riverrun] Hand pulled it off a novel or two ago] You don’t begin talking about Finnegans How do you account for the Wake at 5 minutes to 4:00. hallucinogenic quality of Waking the Moon? [Ernest Lilley, editor of the new webzine [Hand recalls it well, considering] SFRevu (see http://members.aol.com/ Drugs. sfrevu/sfrjun97.html), talks the modern faned [Which brings up hookah-smoking caterpillars, equivalent of “where do you get your paper”] although as Jonathan Lethem says] You may have noticed that you can only In Lewis Carroll, the issue is never that a fit about a dozen names in each slot of your animal is talking, but that he has such an AOL address book. Ah, but it turns out you irritating personality. can put as many as you want up top in the CC: space of your outgoing mail doc. [At least Lethem has done a little research here] Science has confirmed that dreams occur [Artist/writer Joe Mayhew opens his A. J. in a very short burst of time in the sleeper’s Budrys interview by getting the subject to name REM dreaming period. And that the names, producing a long Lithuanian equivalent narrative is imposed on a series of glancing, of Algirdas Jonas Budrys] fragmentary, chaotic impressions. … Unless you want to translate it into … My image would be a network, English: Gordon John Sentry. lattice, or web nudged … vibration in response to that nudge … trying to make [When he was a boy in the mid-1930s, Budrys’s sense of those disturbances. family was stationed in Konigsberg, East Prussia, where his father held a diplomatic post] [Clute agrees we never stop making sense] I saw Hitler come parading up the streets a couple of times … The reaction of The Devniad, Book 28 Page 7 of 16

the people is what I remember. Ordinary [Budrys spears it] people, German hausfrauen — they soiled I’m glad you asked … their pants, they headed for our bushes. We gave it to someone who cut out a Some of them copulated. hole in it and entered it in a canoe race on They screamed their heads off because the Fox River. In the middle of the race he of this little man. turned it over. It floated away. That was when I became an SF writer. The Fox connects to the Illinois; the There was more in the world than the world Illinois connects to the Mississippi. would admit. That pickle could be anywhere.

[After his first professional sale to Astounding [Even good interviewers have to ask the one Science Fiction in 1952, he sold to other about influences] markets too, but kept on good terms with ASF’s There were writers who impacted me famous editor John W. Campbell, a hot Cold early on. Spy and thriller writers, as it Warrior] happens. Eric Ambler, C. S. Forester, Nevil One of my pen names was Paul Janvier; Shute — and Geoffrey Household, with one interesting how it came about. I had too novel, Rogue Male, which he never equaled. many stories in his inventory, and Campbell Although he came close with Dance of he said how about a pseudonym. I said how Dwarves. about Ivan Janvier, which I’d been using in Fantastic Universe. Campbell said “Oh, no, not Ivan!” So it became Paul. [Budrys on his career as one of the finest reviewers the field ever produced] I did book reviews as fast as I could [A writer by any other name still can’t make type. All first drafts, with negligible enough money to live] exceptions. It got to a point where the kids — there The Galaxy reviews are all collected in a are four boys — were eating 10-dollar bills book called Benchmarks, from Southern for lunch. So I got a job in a PR shop. Illinois University Press. Which you’ll have to look around hard to find anywhere. [Which could be idillic] We had Pickle Packers International as a [On how you should write] client. At one point, we built a 12-foot pickle The stuff I know about writing … I put it … Presented it to the city of Chicago, which all down in a book, called Writing to the had an empty courthouse square because Point. people had objected to the Picasso sculpture Nowadays, when somebody says “Tell originally intended for the site … So we had me how I should write,” I say give me ten all the newspapermen out, a tremendous and a half dollars, and I give them the book. event … They called it the Picklecasso. I did that. [On the downside of experience] A couple of years ago, getting a root [A good interviewer always asks the extra canal, I had a small stroke. question, as Mayhew knows] There are several things I can’t get back. What happened to the pickle? My handwriting is terrible. My skills at the The Devniad, Book 28 Page 8 of 16

keyboard are not what they were. And I I could name several writers in SF now can’t remember simple names. that are children of a dysfunctional workshop. [On the upside] Now I’m 66. I have an enormous [Yet he survived to make his first sale, for the backlog of stuff back here, which I use as Knight original anthology 18] the need comes up. I was driving from home in California to grad school out here at Boston University. [Editors David Hartwell and Called my mother on the way, and she said, are in hard SF heaven, interviewing co-GOH “There’s a letter for you from someone — starting with the early named .” years] I had her read it over the phone. I was a very methodical reader, and in Standing beside Highway 80 in Rawlins, my library the science fiction came after the Wyoming. I’ll never forgot it. Zs in general fiction. So I was in college by He basically wrote, “I loved it. Can I buy the time I got to it. it for $700?”

[His first professional contact came at the tender [What’s his position in the field today?] hands of ] There’s a science fiction niche that may I went to a lecture he gave, and raised have been semi-empty, which is science my hand in the Q&A session. I asked for the fiction that has lumps of scientific exposition address of this Clarion SF workshop course in it. I’d heard about. People scorn expository lumps. But This was not a wise question to ask anything is interesting if you make it Harlan … interesting. He made me stand up in middle of the audience. “So, you want to be a science [Being interviewed by two leading definers fiction writer, boy? And you think you can (deifiers?) of “hard SF” doesn’t faze Robinson] get it at some writer’s workshop … ” On I don’t think there is such a thing as hard and on about how tough a career it was, and science fiction, except maybe as a completely all that. It was awful. empty ecological niche. “Show us the Writer’s Look. Go on. … I’ve also been presented as a literary “Aw, kid, you look like a death’s head.” SF writer. Now think of this term: “literary science fiction writer.” It’s bad on several [Although he’s not sure Harlan isn’t right about levels: marketing, esthetics, lots of others. Clarion] Socially, I bonded with all 24 of my [After writing his great trilogy Green Mars, fellow students. Still in contact with most; Red Mars, Blue Mars, what does he think of they’re my brothers and sisters for life. black-and-white Mars?] Robert Crais, Greg Frost, all the others … I saw these stereo photos from Viking of But as a literary experience, as much bad the Martian surface. A cliff set sideways on as good. There’s this homogenization effect, a cliff. Very interesting in backpacking/ this urge toward safety because of the engineering terms. intensive critiques … The shooting gallery syndrome, where you go bang-bang-bang as [But about the trilogy novels themselves] the story goes by … They’re all one book. The Devniad, Book 28 Page 9 of 16

… The political stuff is much harder to [Spies report someone said this at the Updating make interesting than the science … The Your Real Year panel, but neglect to specify just political chapters are only 30 pages long, but who] apparently some feel they read much longer dragged science fiction into … the 80s and left it there. One phrase from ’s review, “a brutal overload of information.” [At the Saturday night banquet al fresco, your Maybe that should have been the blurb. reporter had the great fortune, along with a few other fans, to be seated with science journalist [Who does he read?] Jeff Hecht, co-Guest of Honor Robinson, and There’s so much SF being written that iconoclastic icon Samuel R. Delany; the what I’m likely to read is the new SF written conversation was much too fine to be shared with by my friends. mere fanzine readers, except for the point where I pompously begin] [Second only to family] The winners write the history — These days, I do a lot of parenting: an 8- year-old and a 2-year-old. [And historian/fan Beth Natchison serenely tops One of the most criminal aspects of the it with] economic system we live under is driving — and the losers write the songs. the dads away from their kids.

[Plus a few other preoccupations] [At the indescribably malicious Tenth or We garden a lot, the boys and I. I do a Eleventh Non-Annual Kirk Poland Memorial lot of sports. Bad Prose Competition, Readercon stalwart Eric Sure, I try to get up in the mountains as Van announces the, er, prizes] much as I can … My time above 10,000 feet In previous years, we’ve gone with first is golden time … prize, a John Norman novel; second prize, But I’m not exactly Reinhold Messner. two John Noman novels. And so on. This I’m a hiker, mostly. In a way, climbing year, we’re more topical. Prizes include strikes me as a decadence. unpublished John Norman manuscripts! These include Web Sites of Gor, Sheep [Then there’s saving the world] Clones of Gor, and The Seven Habits of Highly I used to believe in a kind of leftist Effective Slave Girls. ecology. But leftism has had a series of very bad [At the Boston in 2001 party, NESFAan Leslie ecological consequences. Maybe I’m mostly Turek reports she had some trouble crashing this an environmentalist now. con … but with a former worldcon chair battling a mere hotelier, it was Xena Warrior Princess [At some panel or other, writer Candace Jane Meets Mister Limpet] Dorsey muses on baubles, bangles and boobs] We showed up at the front desk around It strikes me that gender is just another 10:00 p. m., and they tried to turn us away. accessory, and the entirety of human We were supposed to have a reserved, identity is in how we accessorize. confirmed, late arrival room. If we hadn’t shown up, you can bet they would have charged our credit card 70 bucks. The Devniad, Book 28 Page 10 of 16

As it was, we had to be really [In a Sunday panel on adult vs. children’s obnoxious, talk to the manager, and make it fantasy, John Clute brings up one unsung clear we weren’t leaving quietly before they classic] found us a room here. One of the great time travel stories that’s Somewhere in there, they tried a line I still not recognized as such is Puck of Pook’s hadn’t heard before. “Sorry, we’re Hill, by Rudyard Kipling. underdeparted.” I said, “No, you’re overbooked!” [Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, [Fan Elka Tovah Menkes kvetches about some indicates the research was easy] pitfalls of maintaining a fully equipped home Oz has no history. Or at least, its history office in the basement] is so thin on the ground. Friends are always just happening to drop by with something to copy, something [Fantasy’s classic nostalgia for the past is on to fax, something to laminate … shaky ground in America, according to writer Ann Tonsor Zeddies] [Fan and pro film critic Daniel Kimmel made A return to our past isn’t a return to Contact earlier this week] innocence. It’s a return to our despoiling of It’s not only one of the best science the land that was here when Europeans fiction movies of the year, it’s one of the arrived. best movies.

[The group presents editor David Hartwell with [Afterwards, Clute is pleased with this reporter’s a spectrum-smashing, SPF-1000-busting, tie- enthusiasm for a certain incredibly strange, shaped object sporting a huge sunburst and iconographically dense, altogether glorious entry tassel — an artifact fully co-refulgent with his in Clute’s (and John Grant’s) dreamy new other fashion choices, all obviously imported from Encyclopedia of Fantasy] some plaidomaniacal couture house on the dark You especially liked [the entry for] side of the Bizarro World — as your reporter FACE OF GLORY? I’m so pleased to hear comments] you say that. People have been talking to Later tonight, David will make the tassel me about the book for months, and you’re spin — the first person to mention it. The other editors made me cut the hell [NESFAn Davey Snyder has some unspeakably out of it, but it’s one of my favorites too. Chippendalian vision dancing (naked) in her head] [Signing NESFAn Mark Olson’s copy of the — without moving the tie. EOF leads Clute to a neverending story] If you want to follow a lot of threads of [As the sun rises Sunday morning, NYRSF our underlying critical argument, look at the editor Kathryn Cramer does a little deserved entry for STORY. It has a huge list of cross- crowing at the breakfast buffet] references. It functions as a sort of germ of The New York Review of Science Fiction — many of the themes we’re exploring. a hundred and seven issues, month after month, without ever missing an issue! [Olson riffs on other favorite reference books, including that desert-island necessity Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable] The Devniad, Book 28 Page 11 of 16

If you like Brewer’s, you’ll like The Oxford [Maguire said this, or maybe Schweitzer; some Classical Dictionary. writer, anyway; frankly, this reporter had to go to the bathroom] [Barbara Keunzig of Intergalactic Book Works While I’m writing, I imagine some reports chix skiffy is kickin’] fractious 4-year-old who has to go to the Nowadays, it's the women writers we bathroom beside me in a car, so I’ll get to have trouble keeping in stock. Patricia the story very fast. McKillip, Patricia Wrede. Shariann Lewitt sells very well. is impossible to [The panel on using one work as a model for keep in stock. Esther Friesner, Rebecca Ore, another begins with Alexander Jablokov’s several others. And I think it's grand. remembering ripping off Robert Sheckley] I decided, “I want to write a version of [Bookseller Art Henderson, about the "vanity" Sheckley’s Mindswap in my oeuvre” — and I license plate on his Mazda] can use that word because we’re at That's right, it says "Ahura." Some fans Readercon. get it right away. Others think I just can't ... Anyway, now I’ll ask the other spell the name of the black chick on Star panelists if they’ve ever done it, and if so Trek. with whom or with which.

[In a panel on the writing process, writer Darrell [Robert Sawyer thinks like an academic] Schweitzer’s tee shirt greets Sunday morning ’s Hugo-winner last with appropriate indignation] year, “Think Like A Dinosaur,” is explicitly WHAT AM I DOING OUT OF BED? his version of — his reply to — Tom Godwin’s famous story “The Cold [Eleanor Arnason’s attention to detail may strike Equations.” you as a tad obsessive, but honestly, this is what she said] [Paul Di Filippo is not sure this qualifies as a Even when people are reading without ripoff, sorry, tribute] speaking, the way words would be spoken But Kelly’s story is a polemic. It’s that can affect the way they’re read. dialog that SF writers are engaged in. The two worst letters in the English alphabet are “w” and “s.” So common. So [Jablokov whips out a reply] difficult to say. All those whichs, wheres, Yeah, you mean like “My advance is and whats. And she. And especially she said bigger than yours?” — the only thing I dislike about female protagonists is having to write “she said.” [The program gives as an example The Forever War considered as ’s version of [Worrying about stuff like that may account for Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers; Robert Schweitzer’s next anecdote] Sawyer thinks the relationship is more fraught] The Western and adventure writer Max I rather suspect that Joe Haldeman on a Brand — real name Frederick Faust — could very deep level must hate Starship Troopers. only write drunk. It was the only way he could turn off his crap detector, so he could [Jablokov peels another layer] be five or six of the most prolific writers in My suspicion would be that at one time Argosy magazine. Haldeman liked that book, and then found he’d been sold a bill of goods. The Devniad, Book 28 Page 12 of 16

[Di Filippo takes it up a level] writers have since taken in nanotechnology. With many of these situations, I think Everybody’s read it. Of course, he did a lot the imprinting factor is important. That of pure speculation … these things, these originals make an impression at a certain age. [So have others, says writer/editor Glenn Grant] Your challenge is, using some of the The problem is an old one in SF: same tropes, let’s see if I can generate the inconsistent extrapolation. You introduce same buzz. one change, but that change implies a lot of other changes that aren’t there. [Author Felicity “Rosie” Savage, who unless the In Robert Sawyer’s The Terminal bio is crocked has already written and sold five Experiment, there’s a guy who’s difficult to genre novels and one mystery yet is only 22 in kill because he’s got some nanotech human years, considers it professional courtesy] protection. The problem is, there isn’t any It’s really one magician learning a other nanotechnology in the book. This is sleight-of-hand trick from another. the ONLY thing they use nanotech for? In Iain Banks’ Use of Weapons, there’s misdirection as to which child in one part of [Daniel Dern fires back] the book will become the adult narrator Why don’t they shoot him with a later. When I realized what he’d done, I said nanotech bullet? “Oh God that’s good.” And I did it in a novel I’m working on. [Asaro estimates the possibilities are large but not endless] [For Di Filippo, it helps if the hommage isn’t It’s reasonable to say we could put small too obvious] machines in our bodies that clean things up. If only John Clute or A. J. Budrys spots Because we have things like that already: that you had this influence, OK. But if they’re called enzymes and proteins. everybody who reads it immediately says … But there are problems. For instance, “Wow what a Tolkein ripoff,” that should microscopic levers would have trouble concern you. working because they don’t hydrogen-bond to the next level of molecules. [From the audience, Michael Burstein uses And if you have machines inside the the S word] body doing all this fantastic work, they’re There are two kinds of sharecropping going to have a big problem dumping heat. here. One is “Oh, I can make money with this.” In the other case, a writer can become [Grant sees the miracles piling up] obsessed by someone else’s character or When you look at things like nanotech, I universe and do good work. feel as SF writers that we’re like the Guild … Or you can repeat your own stuff. steersmen in Dune. We can predict 30 or 50 Remember, The Adventures of Huckleberry years out, and then there’s a wall and we Finn is a sequel. can’t see beyond it.

[The panel on nanotechnology and Clarke’s Law [Apparently physics teacher Michael Burstein starts with a small tribute by writer/scientist keeps up on his homework] Catherine Asaro] You can already be in two places at the There was a wonderful book a few years same time, you know. Earlier this year, they ago, The Engines of Creation by Drexler, who had a particle that split apart into two extrapolated and laid out the paths a lot of quantum states. The Devniad, Book 28 Page 13 of 16

last day. There’s no culmination. [Dern predicts small things for nanotech] Everybody’s energies just fade away ... If you look at what the extrapolations were for TV, and how well we’ve failed to achieve them … FlimFan

[A panel on dislikable characters — in fiction, No … space …(gasp) left. Rrr -readercon meaning not Piers Anthony or Harlan Ellison — … near .. ly … finished me. starts with an engaging definition by moderator Must … review movies. Will … keep it Ellen Kushner] short …. (uhh) .. An engaging character is someone you’d … rosebud. like to have lunch with. Excellent: Ulee's Gold — Peter Fonda as Ulee the Florida beekeeper hasn’t heard this much [Short story author Jeff VanderMeer isn’t sure buzz about one of his roles since Easy Rider. he bites] Ulee’s son is in jail, his daughter-in-law long There are a lot of great characters I ago ran away down the fast lane, and he’s wouldn’t want to have lunch with. Hannibal raising two granddaughters and tending his Lecter, for instance. bees with whatever love is left in his withdrawn, resentful soul. Then things get [SF giant Chip Delany expands the definition to worse. Fonda’s work is strong, quiet, slow, fit his own Lecter figure] and sad, as is the rest of this fine film by The character who wants something — independent Victor Nunez. and expends a lot of energy to get it — is Men in Black — As NESFAn Mark Olson interesting. always says, we won. Science fiction is the For instance, the protagonist in my novel mainstream culture now. And Men in Black Hogg is a professional rapist. He expends a is a completely satisfying mainstream lot of energy trying to get it, and fails — and comedy that deals wholly in SF terms I think readers go “ohhhh” when he doesn’t without apologies or explanations. It’s based get it, then “OH” when they realize what on a 90s comic book, but feels more like a they first said “oh” to. 1960s hardball short satire by, say, Ron … I’ve also seen an audience of black Goulart or Robert Sheckley. The Big kids cheering at The Birth of A Nation when Concept: all the conspiracy theories (and, in the Ku Klux Klan rides in to save the day. the film’s best running gag, the tabloids) are totally true; there are aliens among us, and [Andy Duncan isn’t sure the writer always has a the government is covering it up. The Men choice] in Black keep the covers tucked in. Besides Sometimes you have a different reaction instantly likable Will Smith, this movie than the author maybe intended. Like in features stellar talents Tommy Lee Jones, Heinlein’s stories, you can read some of his Rip Torn, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Linda characters as upstanding characters — or as Fiorentino, plus enough aliens to turn ranting cranks that you wish would shut up. Whitley Strieber, well, Grey. Go see it again.

[Jonathan Lethem, earlier in the con, predicting Good: the mood late Sunday with uncanny accuracy] Dream with the Fishes — For the first 15 At my first con, I thought there’d be minutes of this movie, showing up looks some sort of wonderful culmination on the The Devniad, Book 28 Page 14 of 16

like a big mistake. You get cheap, ugly swapping surgery because it heals in a visuals and obvious, whiny writing, coupla days and is “completely reversible,” garnished with scuzzy acting. So one guy’s a you realize that, gee, Toto, we’re not in suicidal nerd and the other’s a sick junkie Scienceland anymore. hustler, they get thrown together, hit the road, BFD. Then you start to laugh … and Decent: the laughs get really huge. Then you even Out to Sea —Basically, think of this as start to care. Big time. His first go out of the Grumpy Old Men Get Wet. Jack Lemmon and box, writer/director Finn Taylor completely Walter Matthau schlep their respective turns my head around. How did he do that? shticks aboard a cruise ship, with Brent Contact — A very good movie, not a Spiner fresh and terrific as a Hitlerian cruise great one. Problems: Jodie Foster acts too director under whom our heroes must toil scared, fragile, and naïve throughout the as geriatric dance hall boys. Director Martha entire film to be taken seriously as a Coolidge previously made Real Genius and scientist, much less as a candidate to ride Rambling Rose, two superior flicks. But be the wild wormhole machine built on warned: the pace here is more IV than MTV. instructions received from Out There. President Clinton’s tricked-in appearances add nothing but distraction. And Matthew McConaughey dresses better than the real- life hunk/theologian/White House advisors Backchat we see every day. However, this movie has on APA:NESFA #325, June 1997 real beauty. Real pain in showing Foster’s childhood and lonely adulthood. Real To all debates about belief in God. And really In my CD review last time, of course it great special effects, that for once move us was not a "sonnet" that occasioned the first to some other emotion than empty Aubrey/Maturin meeting, but a "sonata." To excitement. Instead, Contact fills us with the be exact, Pietro Antonio Locatelli's Sonata in genuine sense of wonder that is science G Major, Opus 5, Number 1 for two violins fiction’s one true gift to the world. and basso continuo. You all probably knew Face/Off — It’s like the old joke about that, but were too considerate of my feelings how they correct the mistaken room to write in. assignments in the funeral parlor: just switch the heads. Or here, faces. This movie To George Flynn has the swirling camera movements, berserk Thanks for the stories about Wiscon and action sequences, and obsessive hot new author Mary Doria Russell, author concentration on the strong faces of his of The Sparrow. Thanks also for the further actors that made director John Woo famous history of the phrase “Iron Curtain.” in Hong Kong. And you’ve never seen Originally, of course, it was coined by the anything quite like the actor’s-exercise Man in the Iron Mask’s interior decorator. extravaganza you’ve got in Face/Off: archcriminal Nicholas Cage acting like he’s To Anna Hillier really federal agent John Travolta inside, The trick in romantic stargazing is to and vice versa. So for a summer action gaze at the sky and your beloved movie, this one has style to go. But let’s face alternately. I agree that simultaneously it: when the doctors assure Travolta early on would be much harder. not to worry about this brand-new face- The Devniad, Book 28 Page 15 of 16

Enjoy your summer off. We’ll all be watching the heavens until you return ...

To Lisa Hertel To Mark Olson Thanks for the reviews. I liked the subject Here I do a whole column on Plymouth of Longitude, but felt that the author (Dava and a good chunk on its Rock, and in the Sobel) could and should have done much same issue you tell me the invaluable John more with it. On the other hand, I McPhee has another book out — yay! — immediately called up and left a message on with an essay on the Rock — boohoo! wish my sister Liz’s answering machine about I’d read it before writing my piece. Doranna Durgin’s horsy ; if she Your mention of the good guys’ super- hasn’t read them already, they sound like BB gun in Patton’s Spaceship by John Barnes perfect matches for her taste. reminds me that we’re seeing a bumper Wonderfully detailed, funny, awe- crop of fun SF weapons recently. Just off the inspiring report on Disclave ‘97, the SF top of my head, there’s the skull-mounted Convention That Almost Sank Washington. number in Stephenson’s The Diamond Age I’d heard stories; you brought it all to life. (wherein Bud’s gun in the first few pages is almost literally off the top of HIS head). And To Michael A. Burstein the Lazy Gun you mentioned last month in I wish you great good luck with your reviewing Banks’ Against a Dark Background, novelette and novel projects, Michael. We’re which brings immediate, fatal bad luck upon all proud of you ... Sure, go ahead and its target. And Zorg’s gun with the nifty besmirch the Devney name by using it for replay feature in The Fifth Element. And now one of your characters if you want. And this Barnes book. Any others we can think unlike many such requests writers get, how of? about somebody completely pathetic or Maybe there’s some dark, psycho- evil? As Milton proved with Satan, villains literary compensation at work here. As gun are more interesting. control wins a few battles here and there About your deciding not to attend and may be slowly gaining ground even in worldcon in San Antonio, you realize that the U.S. (OK, aside from a minor setback the Legion might then be forced to consider with the Supreme Court and the Brady Bill), pulling your license to avatarize as perhaps our thwarted imaginations turn Ubiquitous Boy ... longingly to building fiendish new death- dealers in our fantasies ... To Ray Bowie Glad you like Nero Wolfe. Have you To Elisabeth Carey read the 1966 pastiche by Randall Garret, Seriously, good luck on the job hunt. If Too Many Magicians, wherein his Plantagenet it’s any consolation, both my wife Maureen time-line detective Lord Darcy encounters and I have had the experience in the last few the fat, brilliant Marquis of London and his years of going for some months with not wisecracking sidekick, Lord Bontriomphe, much progress, then having earlier get it? Actually a pretty cool tribute. prospects we’d almost given up on come to Hadn’t thought about (A. A. Fair’s ) E. S. life. In fact, after long droughts we’ve both Gardner’s Bertha Cool / Donald Lam books been in the situation of having not one but in years! You’re absolutely right, they were two offers on the table in the same week. quite good. Certainly better than his much Would it be out of place here for you to more famous Perry Mason books. briefly describe your qualifications and the The Devniad, Book 28 Page 16 of 16

type of job you’re looking for, in case any APA readers can slip you a lead?

To Tony Lewis Again, my sympathies on the loss of your mother. Settling her estate sounds Herculean, as often with these matters. I wonder how people who aren’t particularly educated or good at paperwork manage at all. When our mother died, my sister Darcy handled all the bumf. Supremely organized though she is, it still took heaps of time and frustration.

To Nomi Burstein Thanks for the invite to your moving party. It was good to see your mother Eleanor again, plus your friend Elka; to get the lowdown on what Michael is really like at school from fellow-teacher Carl LaCombe; and to finally meet your father since he doesn’t seem to go to conventions. That’s one thing a move is good for: people have to air out their friends and families for all to see. Like their underwear drawers. (I particularly liked that lacy little French-cut number in passionate purple, Nomi. Or was it Michael’s?)

To Paul Giguere Man, I keep hearing how good was Bruce Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, and now you join in. I’ve had the book in my hands in bookstores twice, both times when I lacked the funds to buy it. Must get real soon now. Interesting concept you have of “‘hard’ romance books.” But wouldn’t it be simpler just to say “pornography”?

To Tim Szczesuil Your fun day redistributing loam with a rented shovel loader has entitled you to the super identity of: Bobcat Boy. Your super power: spreading it around.