FREDERIK POHL ISAAC ASIMOV Could Aristotle define what Exclusive excerpts from makes good SF work? his forthcoming “In Joy Still Felt” \

ROBERT Interview with Hal Clement SILVERBERG Climates clash in another episode of “The Silverberg Papers” RICHARD LUPOFF Will commercialism ruin SF conventions? B CD CD K B C. J. Cherryh’s Climactic New Novel

MW THE FADED SUN: KUTATH No 37? *2 ZS ■ Hugo Award Winning Author C.J. Cherryh C.J. CHERRYH THE FADED SUN: Here is the novel C. J. Cherryh fans have been waiting for. KUTATH The powerful, climactic conclusion of the Faded Sun series, A Science Fiction Book Club Selection THE FADED SUN: KUTATH brings Sten Duncan to a fateful dilemma: Can a man betray his own kind for an alien s code of honor? All of C. J. Cherryh’s DAW books are Science Fiction Book Club selections. Over 750,000 DAW copies of her novels are in print— with a better than 70% sale! DAW ORIGINAL/First Paperback Edition UEI5l6/$2.25*

Other exciting February titles from THE KEEPER’S PRICE THE GARMENTS OF CAEAN Marion Zimmer Bradley and Barrington J. Bayley the Friends of Darkover First Paperback Edition DAW ORIGINAL/First Paperback Edition UJI5I9/$I.95* UEI5l7/$2.25* DIADEM FROM THE STARS THE FIVE GOLD BANDS Jo Clayton Jack Vance UE l520/$2.25* UJI5I8/$I.95* *Canadian prices slightly higher

1

ITfTTTfl Distributed by DA\^ NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY B CD CD K S The Exclusive Science Fiction and Fantasy Line Selected by P.O. Box 120, Bergenfield, NJ 07621

DONALD A. WOLLHEIM Canadian Orders to: 81 Mack Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario M1L 1M8 ANDREW PORTER Editor & Publisher

SUSAN WOOD Book Editor

VINCENT DiFATE RICHARD LUPOFF FREDERIK POHL ROBERT SILVERBERG THE MAGAZINE ABOUTSCIENCE FICTION I ROBERT STEWART Contributing Editors

DAVID JAUVTIS Financial Services

STARSHIP: THE MAGAZINE ABOUT SCIENCE FICTION. Vol. 17 No. 2, CONTENTS Whole No. 38. Spring 1980. 5 BEATLE JUICE: editorial...... Andrew Porter STARSHIP is published quarterly, in Febru­ 9 THE SCENES OF LIFE ...... Isaac Asimov ary, May, August and November, by Algol The Good Doctor journeys to many World SF Conventions, suffering joy, sadness, Press. Address all mail to: STARSHIP Magazine, P.O. Box 4175, New York, NY and gallstone attacks. 10017. Entire contents copyright © 1980 by 19 PROFILE: HAL CLEMENT...... Brian M. Fraser STARSHIP Magazine. All rights, including Ha! Clement is a master world-builder, aided by a keen imagination and a good translation into other languages and reproduc­ electronic calculator. tion of artwork in this issue, are reserved. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part 22 THE WRITER AS ARTIST ...... Brian M. Fraser without written permission from both the Hal Clement paints as well as he writes. publisher and the author. All rights in letters 25 THE SILVERBERG PAPERS: part 2...... Robert Silverberg sent to STARSHIP will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and The author of "Lord Valentine's Castle " calls for a drought-and gets one. copyright purposes and as subject to STAR- 31 VERY NEAR TO MY HEART...... Richard A. Lupoff SHIP’S unrestricted right to edit and comment Will greed and the Hollywood mentality ruin SF fandom? editorially. Return postage must accompany all materials submitted if they are to be 35 POHLEMIC: THE IMAGINERS & OTHER returned. No responsibility can be assumed REFLECTIONS...... Frederik Pohl for unsolicited materials. Fred has read some fascinating books lately. Advertising: For display advertising rates and 40 WORLDS OUT OF WORDS: books...... Susan Wood information, write the publisher. Classified Starship’s new book reviewer introduces herself. ads cost 15 cents per word, minimum 20 45 FILMEDIA: FILM DIARY ...... Robert Stewart words. Payment must accompany copy. Deadlines December 15 for Spring issue, 47 RANDOM FACTORS: letters...... The Readers March 15 for Summer issue, June 15 for Fall Gregory Benford, David Bratman, Seth McEvoy, Doug Barbour, jerry Pournelle, issue, September 15 for Winter issue. Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert Bloch, Chip Hitchcock, Gregg Trend, Darrell Schweitzer, Norm Hollyn, Arthur C. Clarke, Martin Wooster, Pascal Thomas. Retail Sates: STARSHIP is distributed by the F&SF Book Co., Box 415, Staten Island NY 52 THE PENULTIMATE TRUTH...... Meet Your Mailing Label 10302. For full information, write the 54 CON LOG...... Convention Calendar publisher. 54 CLASSIFIEDS & ADVERTISER’S INDEX Subscriptions: USA: 1 year $8, 2 years $14. Libraries: 1 year $8.60, 2 years $16. FOREIGN: 1 year $8.60, 2 years $16. Foreign Libraries: 1 year $9, 2 years $17.20. ARTWORk Billing charge 50 cents. All subscriptions must be in US Funds. Mail to STARSHIP Magazine, P.O. Box 4175, New York NY 10017. John Barnes ...... 40 European Subscriptions: 1 year 18 DM, 2 years 33 DM. Checks payable and mail to: C. Lee Healy...... 17, 51 Waldemar Kumming Mike Hinge...... Cover Herzogspitalstr. 5 D-8000 Munchen 2, W. GERMANY Alan Hunter...... 38 [Postscheckkonto Munchen 1478 14-802] Linda Michaels ...... 47 British Subscriptions: 1 year 4.75 Pounds, 2 Arthur Thomson ...... 44, 52 years 9 Pounds. Checks payable and mail to: Bjo Trimble ...... 5 Ethel Lindsay 69 Barry Road Carnoustie. Angus DD7 7QQ Color separations: Sun Graphics, Parsons KS. UNITED KINGDOM Typesetting: LUNA Publications, Oradell NJ. Printing: Science Press, Ephrata PA.

US ISSN 0195-9379

starship/spring 1980 3 door? The Making of the Trek Conven­ tions! I Am Not Spock! and rows of fluorescent killer-robots, which are “in” this year as cover-art.) I get no academic brownie-points, writing a column about SF and fantasy, especially for something called Starship. I’m doing it because I like SF and fantasy, and like to talk about it, about the books that please and interest me. Meantime the fans (some of ’em) still mutter about “ivory tower academics” (over there, beside Mad Scientists, under “C” for “Cliches, outmoded”) who are “ripping off the field” and “taking the fun out of SF” by “making it Serious.” Well: you will be disturbed by this column, if you are disturbed when someone suggests that SF and fantasy deserve to be judged, not in terms of Thrilling Wonder Stories’ worst issue, but in terms of the best of current fiction; that SF and fantasy can and should provide genuine alternate worlds, not just escapist colour, 1950’s white GIXFORLDS middleclass male social assumptions, and cheap happy endings; that craft matters, because a writer worth your VVoutof time and mine is doing more than turning out wordage by the metre in return for the reader’s beer-money; and W&KP8 that a “good” book is not necessarily one whose sole reason for being printed is to occupy your eyes on a Greyhound bus between Winnipeg and Minneapolis. This approach has very little to do wSusan with my being “an academic,” though it has to do with my learning to appreciate, and talk about, good books ood Isle of the Dead and Ba be I-17, to prove in general. It has everything to do with W that SF could combine the sort of book my being a fan. Because 1 enjoy SF and I’d learned to love (with characters, fantasy, 1 want to see them done well. Hi. I’m Susan Wood, and like Dick good writing, all that literary stuff) with There’s a place for easy-listening music, Lupoff before me (who’s taking a the sense of wonder I’d missed since I and elevator muzak, but no-one pre­ well-earned rest from writing about left the Heinlein juveniles behind. tends they represent the state of the art. other people’s books, to work on his I became, by profession, an “aca­ There’s a place for easy-reading sci-fi own), I’m a science fiction fan. I demic.” I teach Canadian literature, SF, (hereafter called “skiffy”) and formula discovered Lucky Starr and the Oceans fantasy, children’s lit, composition and fantasy, too; but it’s not academic of Venus at about age eight, and loved technical writing, at any level from first irrelevance to say, hey, we can all do it. I loved its excitement, its colour, its year to graduate school. I sometimes better than that. ideas. Face it, I loved those Venusian find myself in a swimming pool at OK. 1 admit, I sometimes wonder frog-creatures, the telepathic beasties worldcon, reminding myself I’m at an, what I’m doing, assigning The Best who lived in the swamps (remember er, a conference related to my scholarly Science Fiction of the Year for when Venus had swamps?) and ate work. (I am, too.) homework. I also wonder what I’m grease. When David Starr, space ranger­ I have remained a fan, writing about doing, asking questions like: “What is superhero with the comic Martian SF (and teddy bears, Bob Tucker, SF? What is fantasy? What do they do? sidekick, fighting the awesome torment feminism, conventions and wombats) What can they do? How can they do it of the froggies’ evil mind-controls, for a variety of amateur magazines; better? What’s going on in supposedly- defeated them with a jar of vaseline ... organizing programs for conventions; mainstream non-realistic fiction, and, wow. I was hooked. and making friends with other fans from hey, doesn’t it make our cozy little I also read cornflakes boxes, Jane Brooklyn and Liverpool, Canberra and genre-world seem a little, urn, cramped Austen, The Wind in the Willows, Capetown, Dawson Creek, B.C. and sometimes?” Freddy the Pig, and my neighbours’ Jesus Maria, Argentina. What I’m doing is having fun. comics. Inevitably, 1 stopped being I have thus spent the last twelve This column may end up as a eight, and stopped reading SF, because years of my life falling, with what grace mixture of speculations and market I’d outgrown Lucky Starr, cleancut I could muster, between two stools. reports, theory and book talk. cardboard heroes, and even ideas that Academics still view “paraliterature” A reviewer delivers market reports— couldn’t soar when the writing merely with suspicion, and wonder exactly buy this, avoid that—based on more or plodded along. Inevitably, I became an what I am teaching. (Given the current less informed assessments of a book’s English major, to give myself license to state of SF in the media, I don’t blame style, content and so on. A critic starts keep reading. Inevitably, I started them. Walk into the university book­ to develop a context for understanding reading SF again when a friend gave me store, and what do you see, right by the and enjoying that particular work which 40 starship/spring 1980 the reviewer persuaded you to buy. The dragons and women warriors, enslaved look for one sandal, one bare foot), context includes other books by the barbarian princes and devious courtiers, meets eleven people (characteristics and same author, other SF/fantasy books, hunters’ huts, dockside slums and actions drawn from real people, to make other literature/art/popculture in gen­ palaces: and they’re all trimmings. characters “true” to the truth of the eral. Me, I’m a booklover talking to (Delany is, among other things, explor­ experience), interacts, observes other other booklovers. Anyone got a third ing the Barbarian-Warrior-Mightythews modes of living, thinks about the stool? genre, to see what lurks behind the experiences he’s having, leaves with The original title? It was “Schematic formulas.) three notebooks in a guitar case when Models,” from Samuel R. Delany’s essay The world, while interesting for its group and commune disband: and “Shadows” in The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: own sale, solid and richly-detailed, acts who—this is the important point- The critic sits at a certain distance mainly as a distorting funhouse mirror spends the months trying to create an from the work, views it from a of our own beliefs, social and sexual alternate world, trying to create a new particular side, and builds a more or assumptions, actions and myths. In way to live. less schematic model of the work as "The Tale of Old Venn,” in fact, Venn The book is random, diffuse and full it strikes her.... uses mirrors to illustrate a point she’s of irrelevant details of what (for Basically, however, the critic is making about fiction, mirroring a example) people ate, not what they said part of the work’s audience. The mirror-image of "reality” and creating or thought or hoped they were doing. critic responds to it, selects among something new in the double-image It’s idyllic, too—surely no commune can those responses and, using them, process. Elsewhere in the tale Venn work with so little space, so many makes, selectively, a model of the (who more than any of the characters is different people, so few ripoffs/freak- work that may ... guide, helpfully, a mouthpiece for her creator) discusses outs/illnesses, so few hassles (not over the response of the critic’s own the changes that come to a “primitive” sex or money, but over possessions, audience when they come to the culture when it starts to use money dirty dishes, decisionmaking and the work being modelled.... (what is money? economics?) and sheer pressure of numbers)? It does ///criticism is personal. recounts a hunter’s solemn discovery of recreate a vision, though, not of The best is rigorously so. penis envy (what are the differences media-idealized middle-class 1967, but OK, Andy. How about “Worlds Out between men and women? are they of practical dreamers in a time when of Words,” which are what the SF/fan­ biological? social?) building a new world seemed possible. tasy writer builds ... and what the The tales are crammed with ideas, The narrator says “We stand on the writer-about-books builds ... and what ranging from sexuality, slavery and brink of tomorrow” and it’s not just Douglas Barbour (a critic who cares dependence, through creation myths, to stoned rhetoric or escapist self-deluding about SF, and a poet) called his book speculations about language itself. Any­ fantasizing, but vision and creative on Delany (a writer who’s become a one misled by the cover and blurbs into dream: the roots of fantasy. critic speculating about SF, language, expecting escapist fantasy is going to be Like Neveryon, Heavenly Breakfast words, and how we talk about all these puzzled, at best. If you want your brain kept me up late, at my bourgeois dining things). Delany, and Barbour-on-Delany, pleasantly stretched, though, Delany’ll room table, talking about communes, are asking the questions I’m asking. do it. The tales are a “literature of dreams and realities, alternate universes They’re the living, breathing stuff of ideas” in the best sense. They’re also and this reality. what we’re thinking about, and working self-conscious, witty, sometimes irritat­ And the nightmare bikers’ commune on. Worlds out of Words, by the way, is ing, sometimes slowmoving, and very at “334 Eleventh St..” (“real” that published by Bran’s Head Books, 45 often brilliant in language and insights. address, or a nod to Disch?), the Milk St., Frome, Somerset, England, Heavenly Breakfast is a mirror-image creation myth from the Western Cre­ and sells for $12US. of a mirror-image, too, reflecting and vasse, and the work done by “K. Leslie If you want a good discussion of reflecting on “real life” to create Steiner” on the “Culhar’ text,” the “criticism” in SF/fantasy, I recommend “something else entirely, with its own “source” of the Neveryon tales: they’re Joanna Russ’ “Books” column in the meaning” (to quote Venn). A man all equally true. □ November 1979 issue of The Magazine named Chip lived, in the fall and winter of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Onward of 1967-68, in a Lower East Side THE BEST OF NEW DIMENSIONS, to the books. commune called the Heavenly Break­ edited by Robert Silverberg. $2.50. fast, as part of a rock group of the same 333 pp. 1979. Pocket. TALES OF NEVERYON, by Samuel R. name. During the experience, he wrote Delany. $2.25. 264 pp. 1979. Bantam. down his observations, without shaping Recently, someone asked me what I thought were the best SF stories of the HEAVENLY BREAKFAST: An Essay them into stories with predictable ’70’s. Trying to work back beyond on the Winter of Love, by Samuel R. endings, “aesthetically manipulated 1977, I started going “uuhhh ...” and Delany. $1.95. 127 pp. 1979. Bantam lies.” Several years later, Delany the writer got out the notebooks when a fumbling for titles that turned out to One of the time-honoured reasons New York magazine requested an article have been published in the late ’60’s. for building a world out of words is to on communes; he began to shape the My memory was jogged by The Best of comment on this world. Both of material, and to analyse the communal New Dimensions, 18 stories published Delany’s new books, one ostensibly experience. Still later, Samuel R. Delany between 1971 and 1979, in the fiction and the other ostensibly a published a manuscript, a memoir prestigious original anthology for which, nonfictional memoir, are in some sense “basically for myself” of “the Heavenly Silverberg says, he sought stories which “fantasies,” playing with the idea of Breakfast” as an experience. combined “early 1950’s craftsmanship” their function in presenting “reality” Mirrors. The final text isn’t the with “late 1960’s sensibility.” Many of and in presenting “alternate universes.” autobiography of Samuel R. Delany, an these are my kind of stories: ideas and Neveryon consists of six linked account of his socio-sexual-musical- solid plotting combined with good baroque tales, set in the sort of exotic lit’ry-culinary-chemical activities (a character development and controlled pre-industrial world you expect in companion, reading the interim essay, experimentation. “heroic fantasy.” (Sorry about the says “You’ve left out an awful lot about The collection includes "Nobody’s quotation marks, but I’m using tech­ yourself.”) It is a fragment about a Home” by Joanna Russ. Silverberg calls nical terms and trying to suggest their character named Chip, who walks it “one of the most vivid and plausible limitations, at the same time.) There are empty-handed into an apartment (you depictions of the daily life of the future

starship/spring 1980 41 ever written,” and I agree; it rings though the bulk of the work was done special adult (who’ll enjoy the charming absolutely true. There’s Le Guin’s “The by Nicholls, associate editor John Clute, fable about art and life). At first, I Ones Who Walk Away From Ornelas,” and contributing editors Malcolm Ed­ thought the black-and-white line draw­ Tiptree’s “The Psychologist Who Would­ wards and Brian Stableford. (Technical ings by James Brunsman were too crude n’t Do Awful Things to Rats,” Laffer­ editor was Carolyn Eardley, who and cartoony; but they fit the book, ty’s “Eurema’s Dam,” and other ex­ “wishes to firmly dissociate herself from since after all, a spider and her web are amples of what SF in the 1970’s could some of the split infinitives which we basically a collection of lines, and a do when it tried. Silverberg encouraged have felt compelled occasionally to use realistic spider might be scary. Does both established writers, and some of for the sake of clarity.” Oh, I do like anyone not working for a public library the best new talent of the decade; and this book’s style.) Many of the contrib­ actually buy picture books? If you do, I the collection reflects this. His own utors are loosely associated with Lon­ recommend this one. introductions give a fascinating picture don’s Science Fiction Foundation, with Malafrena is a realistic novel—about of how an anthology is put together. a healthy mix of international experts. the texture, actions and decisions of This Best of ... is an important Each essay is signed, and, though everyday life, described in careful package, for anyone interested in judgments and opinions are present, shadings and nuances. It’s set in a contemporary SF; and it gives me cause they’re generally reasoned and interest­ created world, the Orsinia of Orsinian to rejoice that New Dimensions is being ing. Tales (to give the author freedom), in a revived, from Pocket Books with Marta The Encyclopedia is an invaluable real place and time, The Austro- Randall as co-editor. □ reference work on SF. It’s also more: a Hungarian empire of the 1820’s, the era history and survey of SF (in and outside of the stirrings of revolutionary nation­ THE SCIENCE FICTION ENCYCLO­ the Gernsback continuum) which, be­ alism (to give the author context). PEDIA, edited by Peter Nicholls. cause of the theme essays and extensive Through Itale Sorde, a young patriot $24.95 hardback, $12.95 paperback. cross-references, really does give a from the provincial gentry, and his 672 pp. 1979. Doubleday/Dolphin balanced picture of the field. The childhood sweetheart Piera, Le Guin (US), Granada (UK). material from outside the British/Ameri- continues the debate on freedom and Recently, the Noreascon Two com­ can publishing world is useful, as is that responsibility, love and duty, she mittee—the group running the 1980 on films, comics, SF art (much of it presented in The Dispossessed and The World Science Fiction Convention- from Jon Gustafson) and criticism. As a Eye of the Heron. 1 find it oddly announced it was exercising its right to bonus, there are 400 well-chosen illus­ theoretical, at a bit of a distance, create a special Hugo for the SF field’s trations. As another bonus, the contrib­ though the world and the lives are “best non-fiction book” of 1979. utors and editor, bless them, know how richly-textured. It’s certainly proof that The walk-away winner has got to be to use the English language, and write any serious literature is a “literature of The Science Fiction Encyclopedia. If with clarity, economy, and a surprising ideas"; and it should be welcomed by ever a project deserved to be praised, degree of elegance. anyone for whom Le Guin’s ideas have this is it. Nicholls writing on Nicholls com­ human importance. □ If ever a book demanded to be used, ments that, when writing or publishing this is it. criticism, he has been “generally at­ MOON IN THE GROUND, by Keith The Encyclopedia contains some tempting to mediate between the two Antill. $12US. 220 pp. 1979. Norstrilia 2,800 entries, ranging from bio-bibliog­ extremes of academic orthodoxy and Press, P.O. Box A491, Sydney South, raphies for 1,817 authors, editors and fannish bonhomie.” Among other ac­ NSW 2000, Australia. critics, through histories of SF maga­ complishments, the Encyclopedia grace­ fully accomplishes this feat. Anyone THE DARK BRIGHT WATER, by zines and entries on films, to 175 Patricia Wrightson. $7.95. 223 pp. interested in SF will appreciate this general essays on SF themes: aliens to 1979. Atheneum. xenobiology. It’s so complete that book. For me, it’s already become both (statement of interest follows) Nicholls an essential reference tool, and a Australian SF people tend to resent asked me to do an entry for “SF in bedside browsing book (which may say and lament their isolation from the Canada”; it’s so trustworthy on trivia something about my habits, but says supportive communities of fans, fellow­ that he got my number of Hugos right more about the book: imagine a writers, editors and, especially, pub­ (though he got my academic rank reference work you flip through for lishers in Britain and the U.S. They’ve wrong-l hope he’s as good a prophet as entertainment). begun to coalesce, in self-preservation he is an editor). Buy the hardcover. You’re going to and self-defence, as a community of I can pick nits as well as anyone. use this book, and the paperback won’t their own, and Norstrilia Press is one John Clute and Nicholls get Ted White’s stand the strain. result. A fan-owned effort, it’s produced middle name wrong (apparently a Remember The Encyclopedia of two volumes of stories from the mistake copied from Tuck). Nicholls Science Fiction at Hugo-nominating Australian writers’ workshops, and now, expanding, a novel. gets Ron Ellik’s middle initial wrong. time. Malcolm Edwards insists that Warlord of And look forward to Nicholls’ Moon in the Ground opens with an Kor is a novel. Etc. In a book like this, promised companion-volume on fan­ aboriginal myth of a Moon Baby that plummets to earth and destroys the the little details are exactly what tasy. □ power of a much-feared shaman. It’s an matter; I mention these only to point LEESE WEBSTER, by Ursula K. Le interesting narrative hook, and could out that the editor and contributors Guin, illustrated by James Brunsman. have provided an effective fable for the care about details and, as far as I can $7.95. 26 pp. 1979. Atheneum. story, which focuses on a group of US tell, overwhelmingly get them right. scientists (our shamans) confronting the (Nicholls includes the address of his MALAFRENA, by Ursula K. Le Guin. “moon baby,” a sentient alien artifact British publisher, Granada, and urges $11.95. 369 pp. 1979. Putnam. they name “Pandora.” Unfortunately, readers to send corrections for future It’s a pity this column is appearing in however, Antill mostly ignores the extra editions. Since the British edition went February. Leese Webster, a children’s dimension his myth and physical setting into a second printing immediately on picture book, would make a dandy (the desert near Alice Springs) could publication, such new editions should Christmas present for a child (who’ll have provided, though he does make be guaranteed.) enjoy the story about a clever spider some use of the social tensions between There are 35 contributors listed, who starts spinning pictures) or for a Australians and Americans. The scien-

42 starship/spring 1980 tists (identified by last names, and them both, though. Butler’s fantasy psychologically as well as physically, in virtually indistinguishable) confront premise was too arbitrary, but the a devastated near-future world where Pandora. Everybody confronts Big Gov­ emotional situation it set up was “the machine society” demands con­ ernment. Since this is 1979, the latter is fascinating and convincing. As for formity. Here, her protagonists are far more scary. The artifact isn’t what Disch’s book, it’s my choice for the best Arthur Cluny, a graduate student in you’d expect (the ultimate weapon, or SF novel of 1979. astrophysics, who longs for space; and the computer playing God); the govern­ The following two reviews have been Jean Brighton, a graduate student in ment-stuff is what you’d expect, a stock sitting in Andy’s files since the spring of linguistics, who understands the “mag­ thriller-element, and unconvincing. 1979, but we both decided to run them. ic” and the power of words. Both are The book is interesting enough, and This column is full of recommendations; the children of dreamers, men who certainly as competent as anything here’s another: remember “Options” at schemed to build the first space station. currently issued by North American award-nominating time. □ Arthur has grown up to be the tool of paperback houses; I hope one buys power-hungry men; Jean has rejected JUNIPER TIME, by Kate Wilhelm. reprint rights, if only to encourage the “large machine that had no need for $9.95. 288 p. 1979. Harper and Row. Antill and Norstrilia. The problem is souls or consciences or feelings,” the that, much as I wanted to hail this book In juniper Time, Kate Wilhelm’s military-government-industrial machine as a new discovery, I can’t. It won the twelfth novel, she returns with increas­ which destroyed her father. Mary Gilman award for Australian ing skill to the territory she has staked Yet neither Jean nor Arthur has a literature given by the New South Wales out for herself. Her subject frequently is real choice, since they are both born Trade Union movement (!) in 1970. the struggle of human beings to survive, into a “shrinking world” without hope. We’re told that Antill has written other novels, but this is his first to be published-in 1979. I wish that, in the intervening years, someone—his own conscience, if not his editors—had made Wonders of 6F C Fantasy- him do extensive rewrites. The actual writing is less than competent: muddy, imprecise, and full of sentence frag­ New From Dell! ments, run-on sentences and sentences that change subject in midstream. Maybe you’ll be so caught up in the story that you won’t be confused and THE PENULTIMATE irritated; for me, the writing had exactly TRUTH the opposite effect. □ by Philip K. Dick Hugo Award-winning author Patricia Wrightson, in contrast, is an able and graceful writer. The Dark of Time Out of joint and Bright Water, a sequel to The ice is Clans of the Alphane Moon Coming, follows her aboriginal hero "The most consistently Wirrun as he and his friend Ularra leave brilliant SF writer in the the white coastal city, the world of “the world"* is in top form in this ordinary things a man had to live with,” for the Outback, the world of the prophetic novel of chillingly People and the spirits. The Yungga- LEGACY realistic adventure. $1.95 murra, a water-spirit, in woman’s form, sings sweetly, luring him to death; and BINARY STAR #4 all the land is disturbed. Wrightson does Legacy by Joan D. Vinge make good use of the Australian The Janus Equation background, both the physical setting by Steven G. Spruill and, especially, the strange and haunting myths associated with the Outback. Two great novellas in a single Like Wirrun, we come to accept the illustrated volume—our best reality of Yunggamurra and Mimi, as Binary Star yet! $1.95 present and actual as the rocks and streams. itDrmf WHO FEARS THE DEVIL? Wrightson’s prose is flowing and by Manly Wade Wellman evocative, her characters (both the abos and the spirits) convincing, and her A Grand Master of Fantasy emotional relationships (the friendship presents several beloved between Wirrun and Ularra, the attrac­ John-the-Wanderer stories, tion between Wirrun and Murra) power­ specially illustrated by ful. Packaged as a “young adult” book, this is meant for everyone who enjoys Howard Award-winning artist good, and unusual, fantasy. □ Tim Kirk. $2.25

And finally.... I checked with Dick Lupoff to make sure that our columns didn’t overlap; and for that reason, I’m Publishing the best of the new not reviewing Octavia Butler’s Kindred writers and the established stars. *John Brunner (Doubleday) and Thomas M. Disch’s On Wings of Song (St. Martin’s). I admired

starship/spring 1980 43 “Bewilderment, humiliation and apathy, Unless 1 find a really “important” bad ing, an end to rigid sex roles, and so on. these were the masks people wore, and book, 1 simply can’t be bothered His future is both possible and plausible; it was terrifying.... And they were finishing anything crummy-to-mediocre, his people are convincing. Juleen Bran- helpless. Nothing could be done.” much less write about it just to see the tingham’s “Chicken of the Tree” is a The actual drought devastating the blood flow. Marking term papers gives short parody of the search for rural bliss world is a powerful metaphor for this me all the lousy prose I need. in a polluted world (“Pickles ... gave lack of hope. Wilhelm presents these I always finish Terry Carr’s Universe back my Euell Gibbons autograph. I ate bleak scenes with impressive skill. Her anthologies. For some reason, 1 seem to it for breakfast with honey and understated style effectively suggests prefer the odd-numbered ones; and #9 yogurt”—p.130.) It’s the sort of thing I the people’s despair, and the horror of kept me away from a stack of never have the nerve to actually submit. the “newtowns”—refugee camps in technical-writing exams for an enjoyable Marta Randall’s “The Captain and which civilized people become either evening. the Kid” is a delight. Randall handles apathetic or violent, like the gang which The anthology contains 9 original first-person, present-tense narrative ex­ rapes and brutally beats Jean. stories, from Carr’s usual blend of tremely well, convincingly showing the Yet Wilhelm insists on the necessity established pros (Bob Shaw, Greg Kid’s exasperation with, and love for, of choice. We can choose, not to Benford), newer luminaries (John Var­ the Captain, cranky about being stuck live—this is a tough-minded book, and ley—is he an “established pro” now, on a colony planet. Wilhelm makes no promises-but to try with his Nebula? can’t keep these Bob Shaw’s novella “Frost Animals” to live. We must choose to hope. Jean’s categories straight—Marta Randall, John is a murder mystery with a difference, search for her own “real place,” in the Shirley, Greg Bear) and good new as Dennis Hobart, returning from space, Oregon desert with an Indian tribe writers (Paul David Novitski, Mary C. recalls events which happened 13 relearning survival skills, and within Pangborn and Juleen Brantingham, the subjective months and 18 Earth years herself as she comes to terms with her latter two with their first published SF before. I found it emphasized ideas, and past, counterpoints Cluny’s loss of his stories.) rather arbitrary plotting, at the expense dreams. Wilhelm’s skill at character Carr says of Varley’s novelette of character. development and center-of-conscious- “Options” that it “may well be the best Greg Benford’s “Time Shards” in­ ness narration is clearly evident in story he’s yet written.” Yes. It’s volves a Smithsonian scientist of 2000 Juniper Time. stunning. It’s the story we’ve been AD attempting to recapture a voice I could have wished for even more waiting for him to write, about the from 1000 AD—and asks what we’re psychological exploration, and fewer beginnings of that future society in the leaving as “history” for 3000 AD. It’s plot mechanics—the discovery of an Eight Worlds, when the easy sex-changes an entertaining short story with well­ “alien” message encoded on gold, are first introduced. Cleo is a happily- handled dialogue. Like it, Greg Bear’s kidnappings, murder, political machina­ married mother of three on Luna who “White Horse Child” is a fine variation tions, international intrigues. The frame­ decides (after much soul-searching) to on a familiar theme: a fantasy in which work of Juniper Time is spectacular, a find out what it’s like being Leo. an imaginative child learns to tell stories science-fiction thriller. Yet its heart is Husband Jules is quite happy as a man, despite a repressive, Billy-Graham- quiet, an exploration of what it means quite unhappy with Cleo’s decision. Are reading community dedicated to con­ to be human, an individual, whole. The “man” and “woman” just social roles, centrating “on things that are real” like book can be read as entertainment, or as limitations put on the minds and hearts the hardships of life. Mary Pangborn’s a disaster novel with ecological over­ of male humans, female humans, human “The Back Road” is a pleasant Simak- tones. It can also haunt your mind, humans? Cleo says: “It’s the option I style tale of strange happenings in rural asking hard questions about human want.... I want to know how much of New England. John Shirley’s “Will the nature. me is hormones, how much is genetics, Chill,” very different in tone, is an That’s Wilhelm’s territory. She ex­ how much is upbringing” (p.171). So do adventure story and psychological plores it well. □ I. This story will produce a lot of study. UNIVERSE 9, edited by Terry Carr. discussion and thought. Universe 9 is an interesting collec­ $7.95.182 pp. 1979. Doubleday. Paul Novitski’s “Nuclear Fission” tion, then, with an outstanding Varley People have accused me of writing also focuses on the problems people will story. It’s a worthy addition to the have, even if we achieve an almost- nothing but positive reviews. Well, yes. series. And now I’ve got to get back to utopia of sane power use (zeppelins and marking those papers... home computers), back-to-the-land liv­ —Susan Wood sraRship is Available in MICROFORM

... from Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Rd.. Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106

44 starship/spring 1980 HARLAN VINCENT DiFATE ELLISON interviews artist Paul Lehr tells the incredible tale behind his most famous story GEORGE ROBERT / R.R. MARTIN exclusive interview SILVERBERG tells why he had to write SUSAN “Lord Valentine’s Castle’’ WOOD MICHAEL book reviews BISHOP explores the fascinating worlds of Philip K. Dick A stunning novel of international terrorism in the too-near future.

Z DEAN ING “Soft Targets” attacks a critical worldwide problem in a novel and controversial way. It should be read by everyone.” —Ben Bova, Omni Magazine $2.50 A Ace Science Fiction ANDREW PORTER Editor & Publisher

SUSAN WOOD Book Editor

VINCENT DiFATE RICHARD LUPOFF FREDERIK POHL THEMAGAZINEABOUTSCIENCEFICTION I ROBERT SILVERBERG ROBERT STEWART Contributing Editors

DAVID JAUVTIS Financial Services

STARSHIP: THE MAGAZINE ABOUT CONTENTS SCIENCE FICTION. Vol. 17 No. 3, Whole No. 39. Summer 1980. 4 BEATLE JUICE: editorial...... Andrew Porter In a slowing economy Starship is running into meteoroids. STARSHIP is published quarterly, in Febru­ ary, May, August and November, by Algol 6 MEMOIR: 1 HAVE NO MOUTH, Press. Address all mail to: STARSHIP AND I MUST SCREAM ...... Harlan Ellison Magazine, P.O. Box 4175, New York, NY Ellison bares his soul about the writing of his most famous story. 10017. Entire contents copyright © 1980 by STARSHIP Magazine. All rights, including 15 THE SI LVERBERG PAPERS: part 3...... Robert Silverberg translation into other languages and reproduc­ Why "Lord Valentine's Castle" was a book that had to be written. tion of artwork in this issue, are reserved. 19 INTERVIEW: GEORGE R.R. MARTIN . Clifford R. McMurray Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission from both the The recent Nebula winner in a no-holds-barred interview. oublisher and the author. All rights in letters 25 IN PURSUIT OF UBIK...... Michael Bishop sent to STARSHIP will be treated as The fascinating world of Philip K. Dick. unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright purposes and as subject to STAR- 29 SKETCHES: art column ...... Vincent DiFate SHIP’S unrestricted right to edit and comment A conversation with artist Pau! Lehr. editorially. Return postage must accompany 34 F1LMEDIA: CROSSINGS IN MIST...... Robert Stewart all materials submitted if they are to be A review of the PBS film "The Lathe of Heaven." returned. No responsibility can be assumed for unsolicited materials. 36 WORLDS OUT OF WORDS: books...... Susan Wood Books reviewed: Canopus in Argos; Wizard; The Snow Queen; An Infinite Summer; Advertising: For display advertising rates and In the Mist; New York NY 10022; The Official Star Trek® Trivia Book; information, write the publisher. Classified Wonderworks; Other Canadas; Fireflood; Amazons!; SFWA Bulletin; Vectors. ads cost 15 cents per word, minimum 20 words. Payment must accompany copy. 45 RANDOM FACTORS: letters...... The Readers Deadlines December 15 for Spring issue, Harlan Ellison, Douglas Barbour, Darrell Schweitzer, Van Victoria, Jeff Hecht, Ethel March 15 for Summer issue, June 15 for Fall Lindsay, Alien Varney, Charles Strand, Allan Lankin, Arthur C Clarke, Steve Antell, issue, September 15 for Winter issue. Tara! Wayne MacDonald. Retail Sales: STARSHIP is distributed by the 49 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS F&SF Book Co., Box 415, Staten Island NY 50 CONLOG...... Convention Calendar 10302. For full information, write the publisher. 50 THE PENULTIMATE TRUTH...... Meet Your Mailing Label 50 AD INDEX Subscriptions: USA: 1 year $8, 2 years $14. Libraries: 1 year $8.60, 2 years $16. FOREIGN: 1 year $8.60, 2 years $16. Foreign Libraries: 1 year $9, 2 years $17.20. Billing charge 50 cents. All subscriptions must ARTWORk be in US Funds. Mail to STARSHIP Magazine, P.O. Box 4175, New York NY 10017. European Subscriptions: 1 year 18 DM, 2 years 33 DM. Checks payable and mail to: C. Lee Healy...... 36, 49 Waldemar Kumming Lee Hoffman...... 46 Herzogspitalstr. 5 D-8000 Munchen 2, W. GERMANY Alan Hunter ...... 45 [Postscheckkonto Munchen 1478 14-802] Paul Lehr...... Cover British Subscriptions: 1 year 4.75 Pounds, 2 Bill Rotsler...... 13 years 9 Pounds. Checks payable and mail to: Arthur Thomson ...... 4 Ethel Lindsay 69 Barry Road Carnoustie. Angus DD7 7QQ Color separations: Sun Graphics, Parsons KS. UNITED KINGDOM Typesetting: LUNA Publications, Oradell NJ. Printing: Science Press, Ephrata PA.

US ISSN 0195-9379

starship/summer 1980 3 I want to thank Andy Porter for giving me a lead into this column. Starship arrived today (March 6) with Lessing has made previous forays into “inner space fiction” [Briefing for a an introduction saying “I hope Susan Days. 365 pp. 1979. Knopf, $10.95; Descent into Hell) and SF [Memoirs of a can overcome the deadliest peril the Jonathan Cape £5.95 (Canada $17.95). columnists in Starship face: attack of Survivor). In these cases, her metaphors CANOPUS IN ARGOS: ARCHIVES. served her well, and she them. Now the deadly deadline beast.” Well, my THE MARRIAGES BETWEEN ZONES deadline was March 1, and my column she’s embarked on a projected epic, THREE, FOUR, AND FIVE (As Nar­ “Canopus in Argos: Archives.” Shikasta, still isn’t quite finished. Part of the rated by the Chroniclers of Zone problem, a large part, is a creature I call the full title of which I refuse to keep Three). 256 pp. 1980. Knopf, $9.95. retyping, “has as its starting point, like the Strep in Residence. For over a year, Jonathan Cape, £5.95 (Canada $17.95). I’ve had a series of strep infections many others of the genre, the Old which seem to be mutating, resisting What is a science fiction novel? Testament.” Really? What genre? any and all antibiotics. (I may miss the (Welcome to part 2 in a continuing “Space fiction”? or moral fable, which next deadline because the US Army plaintive query into the void.) is what Lessing is really writing? Huh? bacteriological warfare people have It’s no news to anyone who’s noticed The series is set in “a realm where kidnapped me for research purposes.) a “mainstream” novel in the last five the petty fates of planets, let alone I’ve just been sick again. My doctor years that “realism,” as a literary individuals, are only aspects of cosmic prescribed Sleep, so I’d return from convention, is wearing a bit thin. evolution expressed in the rivalries and school and flake out at 6 pm instead of Meantime, fantasy and flights of imagin­ interactions of great galactic Empires: writing. ation, the roots of story, are regaining Canopus, Sirius, and their enemy, the There’s another problem. I’ve written acceptance. Empire Puttiora, with its criminal planet everything except the lead reviews, Doris Lessing, a British mainstream Shammat.” which I’ve been working on for three novelist of considerable ability, consid­ Discovery of this realm gives her “the weeks. I have seventeen failed drafts and erable preoccupation with Serious exhilaration that comes from being set terminal reviewer’s block. I hate writing Themes, and considerable status in the free into a larger scope, with more killer reviews. Yet I feel I have to talk world of contemporary literature, ob­ capacious possibilities and themes.” She about these books, because they fail in serves in the preface to her novel says finally that “space fiction, with science fiction, makes up the most extremely important ways, because Shikasta that “novelists everywhere are original branch of literature now; it is they’re by a major contemporary breaking the bonds of the realistic novel inventive and witty; it has already novelist crossing over into SF, and because what we all see around us enlivened all kinds of writing; and ... because they’re what non-SF readers becomes daily wilder, more fantastic, literary academics and pundits are much will regard as representative of today’s incredible. ... fact can be counted on to blame for patronizing or ignoring it.” SF, which they are not. to match our wildest invention.” When Le Guin says this, we SF people listen, Wonderful! we SF people say. (We knew it all along. Fans are slans. Etc.) CANOPUS IN ARGOS: ARCHIVES and Andy Porter publishes her national Unfortunately, Shikasta, while lofty Re: COLONIZED PLANET 5. SHI- Book Award acceptance speech in his KASTA. Personal, Psychological, Histor­ magazine. When Lessing says this, Gore in purpose and imagination, is neither ical Documents Relating to Visit by Vidal pays attention in the lead review good SF, nor a good novel. Johor (George Sherban) Emissary in the New York Review of Books (Dec. Writing SF does not give you the (Grade 9) 87th of the Period of the Last 20, 1979). freedom to break the rules of known

36 starship/summer 1980 fact and common sense. I was trying to what “really happened” was much less title’s a misnomer. The book concen­ discuss Lessing’s stumbling mis-use of symbolic (and generally a good deal trates on the relationship between various SF conventions and Von Dan- more human and interesting). The Al-lth and Ben Ata, the nuances of their iken cliches, when the March 1980 issue stance also makes the narrator and emotions. Very late in the book, Ben of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science society real, through an obvious sense of Ata “marries” a barbarian princess from Fiction arrived with Algis Budrys’ superiority to the barbarians down there Zone Five so the symbolic social careful review of the novel. I commend in Zone Four. interactions can continue, while Al-lth becomes an exile, entering mystic Zone this to you. Having established that an “exem­ Writing SF does not give you plary marriage” is about to take place, Two. freedom to abandon the traditional the narrator then comments: “While There are some fine moments in Marriages. I especially enjoyed Al-lth’s values of fiction. this famous marriage was being cele­ Listen, I like serious moral fictions; I brated in the imaginations of both meetings with the underground wo­ enjoy George Eliot. But Eliot, Le Guin, realms, the two most concerned re­ men’s society of patriarchal, militaristic Lessing in her earlier work, Stapledon mained where they were. They did not Zone Four. For example, in secret whose influence is clearly visible here know what was wanted of them.” ceremonies, the women help each other (though Lessing gets the title of Last Exactly. The mysterious Protectors, and to lift off the heavy helmets which and First Men wrong, while praising it) the author-as-God, have their own ideas. people are forced to wear if they spend and Varley whom I’ll be praising in a Human beings come alive, and matter unprofitable time looking up at the minute, know the difference between a more, in Marriages than in Shikasta, but mountains of Zone Three. Those hel­ muddy tract about Good and Evil, and a not quite enough, in the end. mets, though; that chosen lack of novel which embodies its ideas in Though Zones Three and Four are freedom to dream and aspire; that believable characters, well-developed well-developed as societies, for example, defiance, that mutual aid as women societies, and-oh, how philistine of the overall context is not. Fine, the support each other’s necks and gaze up, me—interesting plots. Shikasta lacks Chroniclers are writing for their own far away: they’re powerful symbols but these. people, but Lessing is writing for us. Her still not quite humanly real. Johor comes to Shikasta-Earth. He science fiction convention is only that, a Still, as Al-lth learns jealousy, depen­ sends back reports in purest bureaucrat- device to set a moral fable in motion. dence and other unhappy things in Zone ese. This is mistake number one. The Zones are real places; yet where are Four, while Ben Ata (a bumbling but I started to get very bored. People they, and who lives there? (Zone Six is ultimately likeable figure) learns of love are only case-histories. Okay, we’re where the souls of the dead on Shikasta and friendship between the sexes, involved with a sweeping vision span­ go to await rebirth.) They are divided Marriages come alive. You can never ning time and space, but so what? by an “invisible barrier” of air, denser in forget it’s a dramatization of ideas Stapledon makes the fate of galaxies Four and more rarified in Two. about marriage, civilization, the rela­ matter to the little human reader. Travellers cannot move between Zones tionship of men and women and so on. Campbell in “Twilight,” surely the without illness, unless they wear pro­ However you can often feel and share worst-written Influential SF Story ever tective “shields.” Again, this is an these ideas, not merely appreciate them reprinted, nevertheless communicates a arbitrary device to explain lack of intellectually. □ powerful vision of humanity’s rise and previous contact, not anything logical or convincing. When the marriage of duty disappearance. It can be done: not here. WIZARD, by John Varley. Illustrated turns into a friendship which changes Two-thirds of the way through the by Freff. $10.95. 1980. Putnam/Berk- both parties, a mysterious drum begins book, Johor the superbeing is born as a ley. human, George Sherban—to save the to beat; it ceases when king and queen near-future world which is busily must part. How, why, and wouldn’t it For me, Varley succeeds where destroying itself. His sister Rachel keeps drive everyone bonkers? The Protectors Lessing does not, because he works a journal. She’s real. She talks about life ordered Ben Ata to build a pavilion to from character into idea, and not the as a privileged young white woman, certain precise specifications for his reverse. daughter of doctors, in various third bride. Food mysteriously appears there Titan (first novel of a trilogy, of world countries. She faces suffering and for them when they imagine it; then it which Wizard is second and the death. “The reek of blood going up ceases. Why? Lessing could have used unwritten Demon third) seemed to be from this planet must be in somebody’s such mysteries effectively, having her two different books. One was the nostrils. Somebody needs it.” Who? characters question the forces directing traditional SF-adventure novel, involv­ Why? IT/jy? Suddenly, these ideas their lives. Instead they are irritations, ing a group of Earth explorers journey­ matter. Then Rachel is disposed of, showing a fatal lack of concern with the ing through the marvels of the world/en- offstage, and the book dies with her. □ reality of her creation. tity Gaea, a great wheel whose outer rim Similarly the “marriages” between sustains various life forms, especially Marriages, in contrast, almost comes the Zones are symbolic, with some Titanides, intelligent sort-of centaurs. alive. This book is presented as a story, human reality, and not, alas, the reverse. This was the book you read in Analog, almost a fable, narrated by the “chron­ Al-lth, “queen by will of the people,” is if you read that edited version. This is iclers of Zone Three.” one of whom is a the incarnation of her realm and its the book that Dick Lupoff reviewed “genefather” to Al-lth, Queen of the values: civilized, sensitive (her race here, and called “a disappointment.” Zone. She has been ordered to marry communicates with its animals), spiri­ The second book was the one I read Ben Ata, warrior king of Zone Four. As tual, sexually liberated, and so on. Ben and enjoyed. In it, the SF-adventure a first advantage, the book’s style is Ata represents his race’s problems: material was the background for the real interesting. Lessing captures the ca­ barbarian, uncouth, materialistic, sexu­ story, in which Cirocco Jones, captain dences of oral storytelling well. Also her ally unenlightened (he doesn’t know of DSV Ringmaster, discovered various stance allows her to explore some how to perform a sex act that isn’t a things about herself, including the fact interesting questions about the relation­ rape) and so on. Both are created and she’d rather be a hero than a responsible ship of life, truth and art. The used to discuss those values. leader. narrator(s) frequently mention that a The marriage, which brings civiliza­ I’m not quarreling with Dick (or given scene is depicted, in popular art or tion to Four and challenge to decadent suggesting he read the edited Titan}\ A story, in such-and-such a way, though Three, is also primarily a symbol. The book that’s the same to every reader is

starship/summer 1980 37 too shallow to be good. I am saying that ways. marches; he and Bach are the Titanides’ a lot of contemporary SF, Varley’s Into this mess come two visitors two favorite human composers. Those work included, is “SF” only because seeking miracles: Chris Minor, now clever touches are there.) that’s what the author enjoys writing. Major, from San Francisco, and Robin Wizard's main problem is that it isn’t The author-as-God had a lot of fun of the Coven, from an all-woman a novel. It’s the middle third of a novel. setting up Gaea-as-world/god, and the society inhabiting an L-5 colony. Chris You may learn more about Titanide result tickled my sense of wonder as few is subject to episodes of madness, in reproduction than you care to know, things have since the Heinlein juveniles. which his social controls vanish and he but unless you’ve read the earlier, uncut I enjoyed the clever touches, the movie becomes your basic barbarian, intent on book, you won’t understand the scenes references, the humour. What interested fighting and fornicating. Robin, thanks with Gene at all. Unless you have more me (and the author?) more, though, to a technician in a sperm-bank who patience than I do, you’ll be annoyed were the people, and the human ideas didn’t like lesbians, is subject to by the obvious cliff-hanger ending. which emerged from their interactions. epileptic seizures, a transmittable gen­ Nevertheless, the Titan trilogy, even Titan, and much contemporary SF, etic defect. (If Earth society is as incomplete as yet, demonstrates how to can, I suggest, be read as adventure; and medically advanced as it seems to be, write good SF which is also good it can be read as Literature, to the with cloning possible in Titan, I don’t fiction. □ enrichment of both and the happiness know why the defect can’t be edited of the reader. out, but never mind.) Robin also has Wizard offers more of the same. some interesting social conditioning to THE SNOW QUEEN, by Joan Vinge. Seventy-five years have passed since overcome, since she’s never seen a man $10.95. 552 pp. 1980. Dial. Gaea agreed to make Rocky her Wizard. but has heard a lot of folk tales, none In a sense it doesn’t matter what I The happy ending has proved to have, as pleasant. say about Joan Vinge’s new novel, The you might expect, some hidden clauses. Neither Chris nor Robin like them­ Snow Queen. Vinge is, deservedly I Gaea/God is increasingly capricious, selves much. Fortunately they’re like­ think, emerging as a Big Name: Hugo cruel, and crazy. able. Once again, Varley sets up a real winner for her Analog cover story “Eyes Cirocco isn’t in much better shape, journey which then becomes a process of Amber,” a frequent convention GoH thanks in part to Gaea and the by which the characters discover, deal and so on. The Dial/Dell machine is responsibilities she inflicted on her with, and accept themselves. gearing up to promote The Snow Queen Wizard. Rocky spends most of the book Wizard, like Titan, is a book “about” like crazy. And it will sell. It’s a big drunk or hung over, and it’s as painful being a hero. It’s “about” power, which book, literally and figuratively, to me as it is to Gaby Plauget to watch Gaea misuses and Cirocco is hiding from crammed with things that readers are her. (Freff’s opening portrait, a sharp in her alcoholic fog. It’s “about” bound to love: romance, adventure, contrast to the “recruiting poster” responsibility, including the responsibil­ strong female protagonists, exotic lo­ which opens Titan, suggests it; suggests, ity for acknowledging your own weak­ cales, a mother-goddess religion and too, her basic strength.) nesses, and “about” the power you gain spaceships plunging through black holes, Gaby, meanwhile, is beginning to from that act. It’s a science fiction book young lovers tragically parted and wonder if Gaea is really God, or only because Varley starts with realities happy endings. City Hall. Can she be held to account which embody his ideas. He starts with It also has a stunning cover by Leo for every injustice she’s inflicting? a being which can invent napalm to fry and Diane Dillon. I hear rumours of a The Titanides, meanwhile, have dis­ you, or send milk to feed your child. He special book of their artwork in covered tequila, “death-with-a-pinch-of- starts with characters, and trusts you to preparation; does anyone know about salt-and-a-twist-of-lime.” As Valitha, the do the abstract thinking. this? Meantime, I hope Dial/Dell prints book’s chief Titanide character, tells her Wizard isn’t as upbeat as Titan. this painting as a poster, and sends me human lover, “Humans brought alcohol­ People survive; they even triumph one! ism to Gaea.... Humans brought sometimes, mostly over themselves. Yet The Snow Queen, in short, is going venereal disease, the only malady of the joyous adventure of floating down to be 1980’s The White Dragon. Terran origin that affects us. Humans the river singing “We’re off to see the My compariison (made before Dial’s brought sadism, rape and murder.” But Wizard” quickly becomes grim. The publicity people said the same thing!) is the Titanides have to put up with style, reflecting this, lacks the Bester- based on more than potential best-seller- humans, because Gaea likes them; she esque flashes of invention in Varley’s dom. Vinge and McCaffrey are writing gets her jollies from watching them try earlier work. (The chapter titles, “SF”; but their strength and appeal, I to be heroes, and die in interesting though, are all taken from Sousa think, are the stuff of fantasy: in

I ■ mpsfe aMAGAZINE FIRST ISSUE OUT IN JULY 1980 U LIRA T

SUBSCRIPTION: $9.00 Yr. [6 issues] ULTRA is a new bi-monthly magarine that will feature the beet in science, speculative and fantasy fiction from around the ULTRA: P.O.Box 545, Truro NS B2N 5C7 world. Each issue will contain news items, con listings, and art Canada work, as well as articles on the SF/fantasy field. Don’t miss out on this exciting new magazine. So you won’t Name. miss an issue, become a charter subscriber to ULTRA now! Remember, ULTRA is not available on newsstands. ULTRA Address. is available only by book store or subscription. Fill out the subscription form below and rush to ULTRA MAGAZINE, City. State. .Zip. P.O. BOX 545, TRURO, N.S., Canada, B2N 5C7 ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■»■■■■■■■■■■■■■ 38 starship/summer 1980 McCaffrey’s case, the power of dragon second novel, is her characterization. German bombers in 1940. lore, and in Vinge’s case the power of Moon—young, alone, in love, with her It’s a fascinating idea, this, but Priest the triple goddess figure. The book is pale hair and moss-agate eyes—is an presents it as an arbitrary convention, dedicated “to the Lady, who gives, and obviously appealing figure. Yet so is not explained. His focus is on Thomas who takes away”; the acknowledged cold, cruel, complex Arienrhod; she’s Lloyd, on love and fidelity, and on that sources include Andersen’s “The Snow not a Wicked Witch, and Vinge makes lost youthful world of the sunlit Queen” and Graves’ The White Goddess', her both understandable and forgivable. Richmond meadows beside the Thames. and the myth is embodied in three The Queen tries to ruin Jerusha, by It’s a moving story, and Anita Siegal’s figures, girl, woman and queen of death, giving her unwanted power as Comman­ cover serves it well. who are unforgettable. der of police, a woman trying to do a “Whores,” in contrast, is a chiller, a I find the “science fiction” elements man’s job in a sexist environment (after short horror story about a soldier with of the novel less than convincing, when all those years?) Jerusha remains hu­ synaesthesia. “Paley Loitering” also I think about them. It is the very-far- man. She’s joined by a wealth of other involves time-travel and displacement, future (and people still wear wrist­ characters, male and female, drawn youth and age, love and loss, in the Flux watches?). The planet Tiamat supplies vividly in Vinge’s lush (sometimes Channel Park: both an SF wonderland, the Hegemony (a loose planetary over-ornate) prose. with its bridges to Yesterday, Today federation replacing the Old Empire) Vinge’s luck was to tap into a and Tomorrow, and, somehow, a proper with “the water of life,” an immortality powerful archetype. Her novel is flawed, English park (I kept expecting to find a drug gained by slaughtering the mers, mostly by its own ambitious scope; and statue of Peter Pan around a bend in intelligent sea creatures. In return, the it will, I suspect, appeal to fantasy those neat paths). “The Negation” Winter clan, centred mostly in the great lovers more than hard-core SF readers. suggests, in precise details, a brief but city of Carbuncle (jewel and pustule of Nevertheless, between the Lady and significant meeting between an impres­ the world, yes) is given some of the toys Vinge’s own developing skills, it be­ sionable young man and an older of technically advanced worlds (there’s comes a memorable book. I have woman novelist: a Le Guinian fable a wonderful robot character) but is criticisms of it; but I also loved every about the unbuilding of walls. Yet the generally kept in its backward state. minute of reading it. □ Dik who is inspired “to act in symbols,” Every 150 years, as the planet’s twin to scale the wall, is above all, real. suns become unstable, the Black Gate, AN INFINITE SUMMER, by Chris­ Finally “The Watched,” an award the local black hole which provides topher Priest. $8.95. 208 pp. Scribner’s. nominee in 1979, is a long, challenging access to other worlds, becomes unus­ account of an anthropologist watching IN THE MIST and Other Uncanny able. The offworlders leave with their alien rites, drawn into them: one of the Encounters, by Elizabeth Walter. $8.95. technology, the Winter clan falls, the best treatments of “the alien” who is 202 pp. 1979. Arkham House. Snow Queen and her consort are ourselves I’ve seen recently. sacrificed, and the primitive fisherfolk, In Christopher Priest’s short story Priest is most commonly described as the Summer clan, assume power. “Negations,” a young man—a would-be a “sensitive” writer, a “stylist.” I’ll use This Change is due, as the novel poet drafted into a faroff and meaning­ those terms too, as a warning to opens. Arienrhod, Snow Queen for less war—has been greatly influenced by potential readers, and as praise. nearly 150 years, schemes to maintain a book of literary criticism. “In it, the Elizabeth Walker, while hardly in power and save her world from author made out the case that the act of Priest’s league, also excels at creating barbarism, if not directly then through reading a book was just as important atmosphere. The seven stories in her her secret clone, Moon Dawntreader and creative an act as writing one. In collection In the Mist (no previous Summer. The double society is, for me, some respects, the reader’s reaction was publications are credited) are “stories of a device rather than a fully-realized the only completely reliable measure of the supernatural.” They’re not chill-a- world. (The highly structured society of the book. What the reader made of the minute horror stories of the North the nearest planet, Kharemough, is more book became the definitive assessment, American type, but quiet, even over- convincing, especially as its restrictions whatever the intentions of the author.” long accounts of the intrusion of one are shown through police officer Gun- That critic could have been speaking of supernatural event (often an unquiet halinu.) Moon is a sibyl; and, given the Priest’s own work. spirit) into a quiet, civilized British or importance of this idea in the book The five stories from 1976-79 collec­ European world. The collection includes (“magic” which turns out to be ted in An Infinite Summer are elusive, “technology”) I feel her training needs impressionistic. They deal in nuances, to be shown more fully. Her reactions- they invoke feelings. Little “happens” SlARship a shy, unsophisticated young tribal as such. The reader looking for plot and woman, separated from her family and action, for space ships and strong her lover, her world and her Lady—seem statements about Humanity’s Destiny in is Available in unconvincingly calm. Her family back­ the Stars, should look elsewhere. Yet ground and her Summer heritage need surrendering to these puzzling, subtle MICROFORM more development too, since it’s her stories was, for me, a creative act. upbringing which distinguishes her from What does “happen”? In the title her other self, Arienrhod: that, and story, an Englishman in his 60’s stands innocence opposed to long years of contemplating the Thames, remember­ holding power. ing his courting days on Richmond The Snow Queen is a hugely Hill—and seeing mysterious tableaux, ambitious novel. Words, characters and people “frozen” in time by mysterious ideas spill out, and five hundred pages visitors with strange devices. Lloyd can’t deal with them all. Also, I found himself, frozen in 1903 at the moment that the novel began slowly. But the of proposing to his beloved Sarah, has characters of Moon, the Snow Queen, woken in 1935. This accounts, appar­ tot Microfilms and Jerusha, an offworld officer in the ently, for his unique ability to see the 300 North Zeeb Rd . Hegemony’s police force, wouldn’t let freezers and their victims, including Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106 me stop reading. Sarah who remains beside the Thames, Vinge’s strongest achievement, in her amid the falling wreckage of exploding starship/summer 1980 39 Walker’s own introduction, a Fabian support editor David Hartwell’s efforts detailed. It’s also an extremely attrac­ frontispiece, and an ugly, inappropriate to publish good SF? □ tive book, a good example of quality cover, also by Fabian. These stories, small-press publishing. □ despite the garish jacket, do not focus WONDERWORKS, by Michael Whelan. OTHER CANADAS: An Anthology of on violent action, though it’s there. $13.95 he, $7.95 pb. 119 pp. 1979. Science Fiction and Fantasy. Edited by They deal with mood, nuance, and Donning. John Robert Columbo. $7.95 pb, human relationships. Within their chos­ This column’s prize for impressive $15.95 he. 360 pp. 1979. McGraw-Hill en limits, they are quite finely done. □ Ryerson. I don’t necessarily agree with packaging goes to Wonderworks, a collection of Michael Whelan’s SF and Columbo about what he means by “Canadian,” “SF” or “fantasy,” but I NEW YORK, N.Y. 10022, by Steve fantasy cover art, from Donning’s enjoyed this collection of stories, poetry Kahn. $2.50. 311pp. 1979. Pocket “Starblaze” line edited by Polly and and essays. It might make a dandy Books. Kelly Freas. I confess that, til recently, I textbook. □ THE OFFICIAL STAR TREK® TRIV­ was only vaguely aware of Whelan’s FIREFLOOD and Other Stories, by IA BOOK, by Rafe Needleman. $2.25. work, associating him with the numer­ Vonda N. McIntyre. $10.95. 281 pp. 206 pp. 1980. Pocket Books. ous others who turn out pictures of 1979. Houghton Mifflin. There are 11 New York, N.Y. 10022 was an pneumatic women who are unclad (Lamarchos), semi-clad (Gate of Ivrel) finely-wrought stories here, on loneli­ interloper in a batch of SF books, a ness, alienation, human contact- or chafingly clad in impractical “ar­ thriller whose title isn’t a date, but a including the award-winner “Of Mist, mour” that would surely never let you zipcode. It’s a fast-paced, ingenious and Grass, and Sand” and the marvelous sit a horse in comfort (Well of Shiuan). account of a mail heist, told in “Aztecs.” Enjoy. □ His charming cover for Amazons!, fragments as the thieves, police and AMAZONS! Edited by Jessica Amanda within the heroic fantasy conventions postal workers go about their activities, Salmonson. $2.25. 206 pp. 1979. DAW. yet redefining and challenging them, and especially as various anxious people By standing the conventions of heroic changed my mind. Then Wonderworks wait for their share of the two million fantasy on their heads, to create stories made me re-evaluate Whelan again, as pieces of mail normally ready for the about women warriors, 12 writers— the creator of other covers I’d enjoyed. carriers on Monday mornings in NY Within the restrictions of the genre (and Andre Norton, Tanith Lee, C.J. Cherryh 10022. Like any ordinary SF novel, it and others who’ll become equally those are considerable) he’s established depends on its idea and fast plot for famous—have created some very enjoy­ himself, since 1974, as a distinctive impact; the characters are stereotypes, able stories. Added bonuses include but it did keep me reading. It may artist. The first collection of his work editor Salmonson’s excellent introduc­ interest SF people simply because of its showcases over 50 colour paintings; the tion, Joanna Russ’ presentation of premise. Ever since “fandom” generated Emily Bronte’s "The Death of Augusta” itself from the lettercolumns of Gerns- 8/2x11 ” format and quality printing do them justice. They are accompanied by and a list of recommended reading. back’s Amazing, SF people have been Elizabeth A. Lynn’s story “The Woman mail junkies. We get our fanzines and black and white preliminary sketches, and Whelan’s comments. They’re divid­ Who Loved the Moon” is the gem of the books, build our paper personalities, collection, a gem of the year in fantasy. make our friends and live our love lives ed into six categories—science fiction, sword and sorcery, romantic fantasy, I only wish that DAW had proofread the through the post office. SF writers, book! □ worse off, wait for the cheque or the horror, heroines and aliens—each with an appropriate introduction by an BULLETIN OF THE SCIENCE FIC­ returning manila envelope: joy or TION WRITERS OF AMERICA, vol. misery, through the mail slot. Both author whose work Whelan has illus­ trated—Anderson, Moorcock, McCaf­ 14, no. 3, Fall 1979. $3.00. 100 pp. writers and fans have been defined as Editor John F. Carr has put together a frey, Gerald Page, Cherryh and Alan people who become sexually aroused by special issue on “Science Fiction Future Dean Foster. Moorcock’s praise for the sight of a mail truck. And there are Histories” with essays by Heinlein, Whelan’s combination of fidelity to the all those people in NY 10022, waiting Anderson, Niven, Bradley, Asimov, Sky, text and ability to capture an approp­ ... and waiting ... Pournelle, Varley, Dickson, Card and riate atmosphere is especially well- In Canada, we call it a mail strike. himself. It’s available to non-members deserved; the “Stormbringer,” “White In the same package was The Official from Carr at 10512 Yarmouth Ave., Wolf” and “Sailor on the Sea of Fate” Star Trek® Trivia Book “by Trivia Granada Hills, CA 91344 (cheque paintings are very effective. Oh, and it Master Rafe Needleman (Orgonian).” payable to SFWA). Get it! I especially was Whelan, was it, who did those cute Now who am I to trash a book by a enjoyed the Varley article, “1955,” Fuzzy covers, those chilling Year’s Best 15-year-old, which asks such meaningful perhaps because his dates so closely Horror covers, and .. ? oh! questions as “Do Vulcans drink alcohol­ match mine. He made me remember ic beverages?” and “What is the last line Whelan has been nominated for both the Hugo and Howard (World Fantasy) vividly the years I spent getting the of ‘The City on the Edge of Forever’?” other kids to play “Sputnik,” the day I Answer: I’m someone fed up with the awards. He’ll win one or both soon, especially with this collection to en­ was the only kid in the class who knew trashy merchandising of ST and other hance his reputation. The book is well who Yuri Gagarin was, the day the least-common-denominator skiffy. Star library clerk looked at Lucky Star and Trek® the novel was abysmal, but it had designed, with an attractive, uncluttered text. A special collector’s edition, the Moons of Venus and The Bolling a reason for existing, as do the Stones and said “You can’t read those. Enterprise blueprints and other items. signed, numbered and boxed, is avail­ able for $30; the regular edition is They’re boy’s books”.... □ But I’m tired of the spinoffs and already in a second printing. □ VECTORS, by Charles Sheffield. $2.25. ripoffs: / am Not Spock, Chekov's 432 pp. 1979. Ace. Fourteen enjoyable Enterprise, the gushy Making of the RECOMMENDATIONS stories here, with introductions, by the Trek Conventions, the mostly-talentless THE DARKOVER CONCORDANCE, author of The Web Between the Worlds. Startoons (redeemed by Shiffman, Stiles by Walter Breen. Foreword by Marion I agree, by the way, that “The Treasure and Gilliland), and etc., cluttering up Zimmer Bradley. Illustrated by Melisa of Odirex” is “SF,” not “fantasy.” the shelves and wasting good paper. Will Michaels. $8.95 pb, $17.95 he. 163 pp. —Susan Wood, Dept, of English, Uni­ people actually buy The Official Star 1979. Pennyfarthing Press, 2000 Center versity of British Columbia, Vancouver, Trek® Trivia Book! Will Pocket make a St. # 1226, Berkeley, CA 94704. This is B.C., Canada V6T 1W5 mint with it? Will it use the money to a must for Darkover fans: complete and

40 starship/summer 1980 THE MAGAZINE ABOUTSCIENCE FICTION

KATE WILHELM perceptive overview of the ' great SF writer by Susan Wood HARLAN^* ELLISON in praise of Michael Whelan DIANE DUANE

! : ■

ijjs

I ■ Ujis® A World Remote ANDRE NORTON in Space and Time LORE OF THE WITCH LORE OF THE WITCH WORLD WORLD Andre Norton Special Introduction by C. J. Cherryh The Witch World is Andre Norton’s most popular fantasy creation, and this latest volume in her already classic series brings together all her Witch World novelettes and short stories. Included is a novelette written especially for this occasion.

DAW ORIGINALAJJI560/$I.95*

JACK ‘ VANCE NOPALCARTH NOfMLGARTH SON OF THE TREE THE HOWSES OF ISZM

r «■ « > WW<

Other Exciting September Titles from T)A\a7s g :

KILLTHE DEAD STAR LOOT Tanith Lee A. Bertram Chandler DAW ORIGINAL DAW ORIGINAL UE 1562/$ 1.75* UE 1564/$ 1.75* NOPALGARTH DRINKING SAPPHIRE WINE Jack Vance Tanith Lee UEI563/$2.25* UE 1565/$ 1.75*

‘Canadian prices slightly higher

MW IXIZXL Distributed by ^3 CD CD K S=S tmjaaJ new American library The Exclusive Science Fiction and Fantasy Line Selected by PO. Box 120, Bergenfield, NJ 07621 DONALD A. WOLLHEIM Canadian Orders to: 81 Mack Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario MIL IM8 ANDREW PORTER Editor & Publisher

SUSAN WOOD Book Editor

VINCENT DiFATE RICHARD LUPOFF FREDERIK POHL THE MAGAZINE ABOUTSCIENCE FICTION ■ ROBERT SILVERBERG ROBERT STEWART Contributing Editors Vol. 17 No. 4, Whole No. 40. Fall 1980 DAVID JAUVTIS Financial Services CONTENTS

4 BEATLE J U1CE: editorial...... Andrew Porter Cataclysms, changes and the editor's book reviews. STARSHIP is published quarterly, in Febru­ ary, May, August and November, by Algol 7 KATE WILHELM IS A WRITER ...... Susan Wood Press. Address all mail to: STARSHIP A critical and analytic article about the great woman SF writer. Magazine, P.O. Box 4175, New York, NY 17 INTERVIEW: DIANE DUANE...... Jeffrey Elliot 10017. Entire contents copyright © 1980 by An exceptionally frank and revealing interview with a newer writer. STARSHIP Magazine. All rights, including translation into other languages and reproduc­ 27 A SPECIAL DREAMER ...... Harlan Ellison tion of artwork in this issue, are reserved. The never-before-published rejected introduction to Michael Whelan’s “Wonder­ Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part works. " without written permission from both the publisher and the author. All rights in letters 31 POHLEMIC: BURNING MY BRIDGES...... Frederik Pohl sent to STARSHIP will be treated as Secret truths about publishing we were Not Meant to Know. unconditionally assigned for publication and 36 FILMEDIA: OF HUMAN BADINAGE...... Robert Stewart copyright purposes and as subject to STAR- The return of Topper is greeted with glad cries. SHlP’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially. Return postage must accompany 38 WORLDS OUT OF WORDS: books...... Susan Wood all materials submitted if they are to be Books reviewed: Thieves World; Bug-Eyed Monsters; The Clone Rebellion; Aliens; returned. No responsibility can be assumed The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction: A Thirty Year Retrospective; Galaxy: for unsolicited materials. Thirty Years of Innovative Science Fiction; The Best of Omni Science Fiction; The Best of Walter M. Miller Jr.; The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Advertising: For display advertising rates and Stories; The Vampire Tapestry; San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories; Matilda’s information, write the publisher. Classified Step-children; Zelde M’tana; The Fifth Book of Virgil Finlay; The Iron Law of ads cost 15 cents per word, minimum 20 words. Payment must accompany copy. Bureaucracy; Science-Fiction Studies; Foundation; The Empire Strikes Back; Room Deadlines December 15 for Spring issue, of One's Own. March 15 for Summer issue, June 15 for Fall 43 RANDOM FACTORS: letters...... The Readers issue, September 15 for Winter issue. George R.R. Martin, Elizabeth Lynn, Douglas Barbour, Poul Anderson, Ed Krieg, Hank Stine, Malcolm Edwards, R.S. McEnroe, Patrick McGuire, Roxanne Retail Sales: STARSHIP is distributed by the F&SF Book Co., Box 415, Staten Island NY Deslongchamps, Vaidis Augstkalns 10302. For full information, write the 49 THE PENULTIMATE TRUTH...... Meet Your Mailing Label publisher. 50 CON LOG...... Convention Calendar Subscriptions: USA: 1 year $8, 2 years $14. 50 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS Libraries: 1 year $8.60, 2 years $16. FOREIGN: 1 year $8.60, 2 years $16. 50 AD INDEX Foreign Libraries: 1 year $9, 2 years $17.20. Billing charge 50 cents. All subscriptions must be in US Funds. Mail to STARSHIP Magazine, P.O. Box 4175, New York NY 10017. ARTWORk European Subscriptions: 1 year 18 DM, 2 years 33 DM. Checks payable and mail to: Waldemar Kumming Herzogspitalstr. 5 David Egge...... Cover D-8000 Munchen 2, W. GERMANY Alan Holub...... 38 [Postscheckkonto Munchen 1478 14-802] Alan Hunter ...... 4, 16, 24 British Subscriptions: 1 year 4.75 Pounds, 2 Bill Rotsler...... 44 years 9 Pounds. Checks payable and mail to: Ethel Lindsay Arthur Thomson ...... 43, 49 69 Barry Road Carnoustie. Angus DD7 7QQ Color separations: Gilbert Color Systems UNITED KINGDOM Typesetting: Luna Publications Printing: Science Press

US ISSN 0195-9379

starship/fall 1980 3 Last night, 1 finished doing my tasy store, and a used-SF store which research and notes for my current carries some collectors’ editions, in column for Andy Porter. I went out for Vancouver. Nevertheless, I rely on Susan Wood dinner with Peter, an Australian-born publishers’ generosity to help me do this Department of English friend who teaches Canadian studies, column. University of British Columbia and who is helping Bertram Chandler do In general, you have been remarkably #597, 1873 East Mall research for the big, serious novel for generous. Jim Baen of Ace, I apologize Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1W5 which he recently received a research again for taking out my frustrations Canada grant from the Australian Arts Council. with your firm, on you. Thanks for While I still have your attention, dear It’s to be an alternate-world novel, in sending Thieves’ World, edited by publishers, may I remind you of a basic which Ned Kelly, the Australian folk Robert Asprin (Ace, 1979, $1.95, 308 fact? Packaging matters. You want a hero, leads a successful war of indepen­ pp), eight stories by the likes of John casual reader to pick up an SF/fantasy dence in 1885 (with a little help from Brunner, Lynn Abbey, Poul Anderson, book and buy it. Europe and North America). John F. Joe Haldeman and M.Z. Bradley, all set Packaging matters especially to those of us who know that much of SF is Kennedy gets into the novel too. I hope in the same universe. It came as I was NOT junk, is not “sci-fi,” but is to give further details when and if Mr. marking final exams, and got put onto intelligent, well-crafted literature. I can Porter, editor, sir, publishes my inter­ the “real soon now” shelf; but it looks still remember Robert Silverberg saying view with Chandler. (One of the fascinating, and I will certainly consider that he was quitting SF in part because spin-offs is that Peter and I, discussing the stories when, as a judge, I’m making he was trying to write “real literature” conditions in Canada in 1885, when recommendations for the World Fantasy —and was damned tired of publishers there was an al most-successful rebellion Awards. who “issued it with jelly-fish blobs on in the West, have been inspired to write Atheneum seems to have cut me off the covers, that scare off the people our own alternate-world historical fan­ their review list after several years who would enjoy my books.” tasy.) (perhaps because I praised two of their As the SF panel at the Modern But I digress. books, two columns ago?). Macmillan In my fortune cookie, after dinner, never seems to send out review copies. Language Association conference (the was the motto: “Literature does not Nor does Gollancz, or any other British big academic conference) last December lead men astray.” It seemed a good publisher, even though a review here was reminded, most readers are trained omen to begin writing this column, in might help make a North American to distinguish the good books from the plenty of time to get it done, revised reprint sale. junk, the serious novels from the carefully, and into the mail long before You small press people are superb. drugstore paperbacks. Most readers do my deadline. All of you please note: books should not have that mechanism for SF. On the PUBLISHERS PLEASE NOTE: I live go to my work address, where there is basis of the covers, they assume it’s all in Canada. Paperback distribution here always someone to receive the mail, and junk, AND THEY DO NOT BUY IT. is spotty, hard-cover rare, and small­ keep it out of the rain. The university Last week, at the reception for the press virtually nonexistent, except that has just (grrrr) changed our mail Governor General’s Literary Awards finally we have both a decent SF/fan­ address, so it’s: (Canlit’s Hugos, sort of), I assured local

38 starship/fall 1980 SF writer Crawford Kilian that I would tive book about aliens to date. James Gunn, in The Road to Science never pan a book on the basis of its One final note, to a specific pub­ Fiction #3 (Mentor, 1979, $2.75, 656 cover. I’m about to break that promise. lisher, Doubleday. I could not have pp; the third volume of an excellent Sorting through the pile of review compiled this column, or taught my SF series I’m using in my SF class next books, I picked out some examples of class, without The Science Fiction year) says that, in this period, “The books which I, as an intelligent and Encyclopedia, edited by Peter Nicholls consensus was shaped by Campbell. sympathetic reader of SF, would dismiss (Doubleday, 1979, $12.95 paper, 672 Mostly he defined what science fiction immediately, unread, on the basis of pages). I’ve already praised that book was by the stories that appeared in his packaging alone. here, as have innumerable other review­ magazine ..(p.3). And so on. ers, fans, SF teachers, bookstore owners Then, with the new decade (I quote BUG-EYED MONSTERS, edited by Bill and so on. It’s been nominated for the Gunn again) “Other directions emerged Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg. Har­ 1980' special Hugo Award for Best ... with the appearance of The court, Brace, Jovanovich (who should Nonfiction, and I hope it wins, despite Magazine of Fantasy and Science know better), 1980. $4.95. 273 pp. the fact that it’s up against The Fiction, edited by Anthony Boucher The title is reinforced by a hideous Language of the Night: Essays on (1911-1968) and J. Francis McComas wrap-around cover of a multi-coloured, Science Fiction and Fantasy by Ursula (1910-1978) and of Galaxy Science drooling Thing, and by a blurb which K. Le Guin (Putnam, 1979, $9.95. Fiction, edited by H.L. Gold” (p.9). says “13 stories of dripping, creeping, 270 pp.)—edited by Susan Wood. Frederik Pohl, in his preface to Science gurgling, purling, trilling, oozing, seep­ Someone High Up at Doubleday Fiction of the '50’s (Avon, 1979, $4.95, ing, gushing deadly monsters.” Thanks. cancelled the planned companion ency­ 438 pp., another excellent collection If anyone at school saw that, they’d clopedia on fantasy. We need that I’ve praised elsewhere) credits these two revoke my tenure immediately (you book—and we will buy it. Please publish new magazines with beginning “a teach that?}. it! perfect explosion of new science-fiction The anthology is edited by two Those of you out there who agree magazines” and thus helping to bring respected professionals, and does con­ with me might write to Doubleday, 245 important new writers into the field tain some Big Names, all of whom are Park Ave., New York, NY 10017, and (p.xii). probably ready to commit mayhem in repeat these sentiments. □ My impression is that, while Camp­ the offices of HBJ. I’ll give this one a bell emphasized scientific accuracy, try, actually, which is more than I can THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND F&SF stressed (as it still does) literary say for Locusts by Guy N. Smith SCIENCE FICTION: A 30-Year Retro­ quality; while Galaxy stressed entertain­ (Paperjacks Canada, 1980. $2.75, 230 spective. Edited by Edward L. Ferman. ment and psychological exploration. pp.). “A winged nightmare of swarming Doubleday, 1980. $10.00. 310 pp. (Well, Andy, this ought to provoke a terror,” it promises, with an illiterate lively lettercolumn, at least.) GALAXY: Thirty Years of Innovative blurb and lots of ugly green insects Anyone doubting the importance of Science Fiction. Edited by Frederik dripping bright red blood. Junk. □ Astounding/Analog, F&SF and Galaxy Pohl, Martin H. Greenberg, and Joseph should check, for instance, the first D. Olander. Playboy Press, 1980. appearances of the stories in the Science THE CLONE REBELLION by Evelyn $10.95.465 pp. Lief. Pocket, 1980. $2.25. 210 pp. Fiction Hall of Fame volumes. This first novel has half-decent cover THE‘BEST OF OMNI SCIENCE FIC­ Anyone interested in good SF and art, but it’s ruined by an awful blurb, TION. Edited by Ben Bova and Don fantasy should immediately buy the which I will not inflict on you. The Myrus. Omni, 1980. $3.75. 144 pp. F&SF volume, first issued as the 30th advance proofs came while my SF class Large format paperback. anniversary issue. There are notable was studying Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late There are a number of books on my omissions (Varley, especially), as Fer­ the Sweet Birds Sang, a sensitive, review shelf right now, billing them­ man explained in the magazine version, well-written extrapolation of a clone selves as “the best of ...” Has the 90% but still ... This book contains stories society. The students were genuinely crud really been removed? In two of like “Fondly Farenheit,” “Flowers for moved by Wilhelm’s exploration of these anthologies, the answer would Algernon,” “A Canticle for Leibowitz,” what it meant to be “human.” I read seem to be yes. “The Women Men Don’t See,” “Jeffty them the Clone Rebellion blurb. By the Since I teach SF, I have been trying is Five,” “Born of Man and Woman,” end of the first paragraph, they were to bone up on The History of the Field. “Sundance,” “We Can Remember It for doubled over laughing, saying “The Yet, despite much research in the pulps, You Wholesale” and “The Quest for St. book sounds like a bad parody of Sweet much reading (since I discovered Lucky Aquin”; Gahan Wilson cartoons; an Birds." “It sounds like it’s got every Starr when I was 8), a sub to F&SF Asimov story and introductions; and clone cliche around.” We won’t buy since 1968, and a dozen years of much more. There are 24 stories and that. ” hanging around at conventions hearing poems by most of the best people who Sorry, Evelyn Lief. Sorry, David people talk about the Good Old Days, ever worked/are still working in this Hartwell at Pocket. Get angry with your there remains one problem. I was born field. There’s a fascinating introduction art/advertising departments for me, in 1948. by Ferman; I didn’t know, for instance, please? □ The general consensus, from people that his father was general manager, and Editors, art directors, publishers: are who were in the SF field before I later publisher, of Mercury Press, which you listening? Look at the cover of ... discovered it, seems to be that, in the publishes F&SF. A glance at current Golden Age from 1938 to circa 1950, issues indicates that Edward L. Ferman ALIENS, edited by Gardner R. Dozois John W. Campbell and Astounding is maintaining the high quality estab­ and Jack M. Dann. Pocket, 1980. $2.25. dominated the field. When Terry Carr lished by his predecessors, and revealed 305 pp. indicated this in his excellent collection by this volume. ... to see how to present a book right. Classic Science Fiction (Harper and The Galaxy collection is less impres­ The uncredited, dammit cover (Whelan, Row, 1968, $14.95, 445 pp.) A.J. sive as a volume of “classics,” though it at a guess; interior illos are by Gaughan) Budrys jumped all over him in F&SF. does have “Coming Attraction,” “The is charming, the blurb is intelligent, and I’m not denying that other magazines Lady Who Sailed the Soul," “The Day the whole package makes you want to were around, or that they were Before the Revolution” and “Slow buy what turns out to be an excellent important, but.... Sculpture,” among other goodies. What anthology indeed, probably the defini­ it does have is 27 entries (including a

starship/fall 1980 39 Budrys book review) by, again, most of other stories. By Tom Reamy. Earth­ problem. Charnas makes him real, and the major writers in the field. Most light Publishers, 5539 Jackson, Kansas likeable. As a bonus, there are well-done important, it has a marvellous introduc­ City, Missouri 64130, 1979. Trade women characters, especially Dr. Floria tion by Pohl; “Gold on Galaxy" by the edition $14.95, slipcased edition Landauer, Wayland’s psychiatrist. founding editor; and “memoirs” from $25.00. 237 pp. Tom Reamy was well-known to fandom as the editor-publisher of the most of the authors represented, dis­ These four books are my personal cussing their stories. Again, this is both graphically-impressive magazines Trum­ “bests” for this column. pet and Nickelodeon, before he won a an entertaining book, and a good Walter M. Miller, Jr. won a Hugo for reference source for anyone who cares Nebula in 1976 with “San Diego “The Darfsteller” in 1955, and another Lightfoot Sue,” his second profes­ about SF. Alas, it makes you weep to for Canticle for Leibowicz, three linked look at Galaxy now, even assuming you sionally-published story. He also won stories from F&SF, in 1961. Then he the John W. Campbell Award as best can find a copy. I wonder if they ever vanished from the SF scene (for various did pay Varley for his three stories, new writer that year. He produced a reasons), leaving about 40 published handful of excellent stories—“Twilla” including “Overdrawn at the Memory short stories and a classic novel. This and “The Detweiler Boy” among them. Bank,” reprinted here? collection reprints 15, not only of his His first novel, Blind Voices (a Hugo The Omni volume, with a hideous best, but of the best, short stories of the nominee last year) was off at the cover by Pierre Lacombe, proves once ’50’s. I could quarrel with some publishers when he died, suddenly, in again that this is the magazine for selections, but won’t. people who not only don’t read science 1977. The best news, however, comes from Yes, we lost a good, and potentially fiction, but probably can’t read to begin Pocket Books editor David Hartwell. with. My increasingly-irritated notes great, teller of chilling fantasy-horror Miller has resurfaced, and is working on stories, when we lost Reamy. We also reveal that I found Sheckley’s “Body the sequel to Canticle. (My SF class Game” and Ellison’s “Count the Clock lost a good person. Harlan Ellison and cheered.) that Tells the Time” still interesting, Howard Waldrop say it better than I can Gene Wolfe is one of our best, most in their articles in San Diego Lightfoot Bester’s “Galatea Galante” amusing but complex, and most consistently under­ irritating in its socio-sexual assumptions, Sue, a collection of 11 stories lovingly rated writers. Other people get the assembled by Tom’s friends, and graced and the rest—routine work, by good awards, though he won a Nebula for authors (Card, Haldeman, Asimov, by a gorgeous (and of course approp­ “The Death of Dr. Island” in 1973, riate) wrap-around cover by Leo and Zelazny and Martin, whose “Sandkings” after placing second to “no award” in here just won a Nebula) who not only Diane Dillon, who also did the end­ the 1970 Nebulas, with “The Island of papers. Some of the stories are frag­ could do a lot better, but, at the rates Dr. Death.” These are included in his Omni pays, should have done better. ments; the best will live. This volume is collection, along with “The Doctor of The focus, of course, is on the slick a beautiful memorial, a collector’s item, Death Island,” “The Eyeflash Miracles,” and, most important, a book to enjoy. graphics, which I generally found boring and that marvellous award-losing novella in the extreme. The Arthur C. Clarke “Seven American Nights.” The latter is OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS: interview was ok. Must I mention that, marvellous in the true sense; it deals MATILDA’S STEP-CHILDREN. By A. except for Kathleen Stein, who did a with marvels, as a young Arabian man Bertram Chandler. Robert Hale, Lon­ very brief text for a “pictorial,” there travels through a post-holocaust Amer­ don, 1979. £4.35. 208 pp. I discovered, seem to be no women represented at ica; and I marvel at it. and enjoyed, the Horatio Hornblower all—this despite the fact that Suzy Wolfe’s wry humour, his ironic stories when I was a teenager. Then I McKee Charnas’ “The Ancient Mind at vision, and his ability to transform discovered that Capt. Chandler had Work,” currently being talked about as traditional mythology and culture into re-incarnated Hornblower as John a World Fantasy Award nominee, was new SF/fantasy/horror terms, are appar­ Grimes, and put him into space. The first published in Omni! ent on every page. Maybe that’s his Grimes books are fun, and this one is no Anyone who thinks we don’t need problem. It helps to be educated to exception. Matilda’s Stepchildren has any more of this equality talk had a) appreciate Wolfe, a man who’ll use the not yet found a North American better think again, and b) look at any Bible and The Wizard of Oz as publisher; I am sure all of Grimes’ many current issue of Omni or Analog, not to background, and who’ll use quotations fans will be as puzzled about this as I mention 75% of the crud published each from Proust and Virgil to introduce am. □ month as SF, that I don’t review here stories which then reproduce, convinc­ ZELDE M’TANA. By F.M. Busby. Dell, because it’s too offensive to any ingly, ordinary slangy American conver­ 1980. $1.95. 316 pp. Zelde is a thinking human being. sation. street-tough black woman, who fights My SF class doesn’t buy Omni, I think there are 14 stories here, and her way up to become a starship either, any more. □ I think I have the dates right; the Pocket captain. She’s great. There’s lots of advance proofs left out copyright action, adventure and entertainment in THE BEST OF WALTER M. MILLER, information and the table of contents. her story. □ JR. by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (Editor Suzy Charnas’ “The Ancient Mind at THE FIFTH BOOK OF VIRGIL FIN­ uncredited, but probably David Hart­ Work,” the first of five linked stories LAY. Edited by Gerry de la Ree. Edited well, who did a Miller volume—was it which make up The Vampire Tapestry, and published by Gerry de la Ree, 7 this one?—for Gregg Press.) Pocket opens quietly: “On a Tuesday morning Cedarwood Lane, Saddle River, NJ Books, 1980. $2.50. 472 pp. Katjie discovered that Dr. Weyland was 07458, 1979. 128 pp. $15.75. I confess THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR DEATH a vampire, like the one in the movie to extremely mixed feelings about Virgil AND OTHER STORIES AND OTHER she’d seen last week.” Finlay’s artwork. However, I have STORIES (yes, that really is the title, The point is, of course, that poor nothing but admiration for the fantasy and I love it). By Gene Wolfe. Pocket, Edward Lewis Wayland is nothing like art books which Gerry de la Ree 1980. $2.95. 410 pp. the traditional “I vaant to trink your produces superbly. Collectors and art­ lovers, take note of this one. □ THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY. By Suzy blooood” vampires of movies and THE IRON LAW OF BUREAUCRACY. McKee Charnas. Simon and Schuster, popular fiction, with their cliches and their overtones of sadomasochistic sex. By Alexis Gilliland. Loompanics Ltd., 1980. $11.95 He’s just an ordinary being in contem­ P.O. Box 264, Mason, Michigan 48854, SAN DIEGO LIGHTFOOT SUE and porary New York—with an unusual 1980. $4.95. Alexis Gilliland, many-

40 starship/fall 1980 times Hugo nominee, is a cartoonist Finally, with Andy’s and your excellent long study of Joanna Russ, by who can do as much with a single black indulgence, I’d like to publicize a Seattle writer Marilyn Holt. Debbie line as Bill Rotsler can. In addition, his project dear to me. I have just finished Notkin, who is co-owner and manager cartoons have wit and vitriol (perhaps as guest-editing a special issue of a local of The Other Change of Hobbit, an SF a result of Alexis’ real-world job as a women’s literary journal, devoted, this bookstore in Berkeley, put together an Washington bureaucrat; I’m sure car­ time, to women’s SF and fantasy. I excellent, readable 17-page (in ms.) tooning, brilliantly, is one of the things didn’t get paid a penny for this (and it guide/bibliography which tells you that keeps him sane). This excellent was a lot of work); I did it for love, and everything you might want to know collection has an introduction by I am proud of the result. I think you’ll about women’s writing in SF now (and Rotsler. Send for it, and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy it too. including those male writers who are enjoy. □ The issue contains, among other portraying real human characters). Said SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES. Edited good things, stories by Jessica Amanda bibliography is so complete it includes by Angenot, Elkins, Philmus and Suvin. Salmonson (who just sold The Tomoe plugs for Starship in general, and for my 3/$11.5O Canadian, $10 US (cheques Gozen Saga to Ace; there’s a portrait of women-in-SF piece in particular. If the payable to SFS Publications) from Prof. Tomoe Gazen by Wendy Shultz in the collective finds the money, there will be Marc Angenot, Science-Fiction Studies, issue, and a review of Jessica’s anthol­ pages of photos of the women in SF, by Arts Building, McGill University, 853 ogy Amazons!); by Eileen Kernaghan me. Sherbrooke St. W., Montreal, Quebec, (the prequel to her fantasy novel The journal is called Room of One’s Canada H3A 2T6. This journal is the Journey to AprUioth, forthcoming from Own, published by the Growing Room “heavy” (in all senses) in the academic Ace; the story here has a gorgeous Collective, P.O. Box 46160, Station G, SF field. I particularly recommend, in frontispiece by Hugo nominee Victoria Vancouver, B.C. V6R 4G5. Subscrip­ #19 (November 1979), the symposium Poyser); by Eleanor Arnason; by Elinor tions are $7.50 a year in Canada, $8.50 with Greg Benford, Samuel Delany, Busby, the first woman to win a Hugo to the US. The special double issue, Robert Scholes, Alan J. Friedman and (for co-editing Cry of the Nameless) and which should be out in early fall 1980, John Woodcock, ed., on teaching by a number of other people who are will cost $4.00 in Canada, $4.50 in the science fiction; and Delany’s review of going to be very famous soon. (This is a US. Not bad for 150 pages of what is, in the Gregg Press reissue of And Chaos little-mag, and 1 could only pay $10 a my opinion as a critic, a lover of SF and Died, by Joanna Russ. Issue #20 (March story; Le Guin and Russ were not fantasy, and a woman who read two full 1980) turned out—by accident, not available, sorry.) cardboard boxes of manuscripts, a very design—to be an issue about SF on There’s poetry by Terry Garey and fine collection. women, and by women. For me, the Lois Wickstrom (of Pandora), among Advance orders, especially from highlight is Joanna Russ’ article "Amor many others. There is artwork by Hugo bookstores, would make the Collective, Vincit Foeminam: The Battle of the nominees Jeanne Gomoll and Joan which is very poor, very happy. Sexes in SF.” There’s also a thoughtful, Hanke-Woods, among others. There’s an -Susan Wood readable study of Frederik Pohl by David N. Samuelson, a critic whom I respect very much. □ FOUNDATION. Edited by Malcolm Edwards (who has since resigned, leaving no successor as of this date). 3/$7.50 surface mail to Canada/US, cheques payable to The Science Fiction Foundation, North East London Poly­ technic, Longbridge Rd., Dagenham, BUX fl Essex RM8 2AS, U.K. I always enjoy Foundation-\t's the chattiest and most writer-oriented of the serious/academic magazines. I especially recommend #17 (September 1979) in which D.G. Comp­ ton, Fritz Leiber and Philip K. Dick all have fascinating autobiographical pieces. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. By Now until January first, 1981, buy back issues of STARSHIP for less Donald F. Glut (really? Is this a real than half price. The minimum order is five copies; there is no name or a reference to the glut of maximum. There is an additional cost of seventy-five cents for postage SF-movie books and junk on the and handling per order. Use the form below, and enclose complete market?) Ballantine, 1980. $2.25. payment in US $ with your order 214 pp. Why, oh why did the publishers send me this two weeks before the STARSHIP MAGAZINE P.O. Box 41 75 movie opened? I refuse to read it before New York NY 10163 I see the film—why spoil the suspense? Enclosed is______(includes .75 per order for postage and —but this decision is really straining my handling) for the following back issues: willpower. The cover manages to com­ bine elements of pop-culture skiffy (blazing lasers, occult flying-saucer craft, and of course the robots and Chewie) with those WW1I fighter planes Name______and a passionate embrace straight off the bodice-buster “romances,” all of it Add ress______backed by a brooding Darth Vader. It’s awful, but it’ll sell, to people who think City State Zip that this is what SF really is all about.

starship/fall 1980 41

i THE MAGAZINE ABOUTSCIENCE FICTION

ROBERT ANTON WILSON exclusive interview with the author of “llluminatus!” AUGUST DERLETH a personal memoir by Sam Moskowitz GEORGE R.R. MARTIN takes on reviewers

Ml

SUSAN WOOD VINCENT DiFATE STEPHEN KING

FREDERIK POHL what’s wrong with future studies DAWc

GJ.Cherryh> inT€RPLAH€TARY BLOCKBUSTER

Downbelou* Station

Rebellion had broken out between mies among the battlecraft com­ Earth and its far-flung colonized manders of both sides—is equal to worlds—and the city-size space sta­ the greats of Larry Niven, E. E. Smith, tion at Pell's Star was the strategic key and Gordon Dickson. to each side's victory... SCIENCE FICTION This blockbuster of a space-war novel BOOK CLUB SELECTION —bringing the people of Downbelow Station into vivid focus as they con- DAW ORIGINAL/(ABC) front their potential friends and ene- UE1594/$2.75 ($2.95 in Canada) Other Exciting February Titles From 15U

TERRA SF: THE YEAR'S BEST HUROK OF THE STONE AGE EUROPEAN SF Lin Carter TERRAS* Continuing the exciting adventures of Eric Edited by Richard D. Nolane Carstairs on the lost underground world This long-needed addition to the best-of- of Zanthodon...Peril in the dinosaur-guard­ the-year anthologies presents the top st sto­ ed city of Zar, as Carstairs fights to save his ries of the finest European writers during the Cro-Magnon love from a mad queen's past two years. Here are fourteen newly vengeance. translated stories from France, Italy, Ger­ DAW ORIGINAL / (BC) many, Holland, Scandinavia, and other UE1597/ $1.75 ($1.95 in Canada) nations, selected and edited by a leading French sf authority. TO CONQUER CHAOS

DAW ORIGI NAL/(AB) John Brunner UE1595 / S2.25 (S2.50 in Canada) Something strange and terrifying was devel­ THE WRONG END OF TIME oping in the center of the vast uninhabitable atomic terrain of future Earth. There were John Brunner reports of visions, of monster beasts, and Humanity is not alone. Out near Pluto, as­ finally of people from nowhere. Here is a tronauts encounter an alien vessel and re­ gripping novel by the Hugo-winning author ceive a message that Earth must decipher if of Polymath and Stand on Zanzibar. it is to survive. But Earth is divided between DAW / UJ1596 / $1.95 ($2.25 in Canada) the Reds and Fortress America—and it will take both factions working together to crack s For individual orders, send to: the alien warning. 'A SUPERB SUSPENSE IMZXL I NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY I P O Box 999 STORY." — Publishers Weekly J Bergenfield. New Jersey 07621 DAW / UE1598 / $1.75 ($1.95 in Canada) ANDREW PORTER Editor & Publisher

SUSAN WOOD Book Editor

VINCENT DiFATE RICHARD LUPOFF FREDERIK POHL ROBERT SILVERBERG ROBERT STEWART Contributing Editors

DAVID JAUVTIS Volume 18, Number 1, Whole Number 41, Spring 1981 Financial Services CONTENTS STARSHIP: The Magazine About Science Fiction, is published quarterly, in February (Spring), May (Summer), August (Fall), and 4 BEATLE JUICE: editorial...... Andrew Porter November (Winter), by Algol Press. Address Cover prices, price changes and a sad report to readers. all mail to: STARSHIP, P.O. Box 4175, New 7 I REMEMBER DERLETH...... Sam Moskowitz York, NY 10163. Entire contents copyright Memories of the founder of Arkham House by a long time correspondent. ©1981 by STARSHIP Magazine. All rights, including translation into other languages and 15 INTERVIEW: ROBERT ANTON WILSON . . . Jeffrey Elliot reproduction of artwork in this issue, are The author of 'THuminatus!" talks about his work, his beliefs, his life. reserved. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission from 25 SINS OF THE REVIEWERS...... George R.R. Martin both the publisher and the author. All rights Let he who is without sin cast the first typewriter. in letters sent to STARSHIP will be treated as 31 THE GRAND MASTER: ROBERT A. HEINLEIN .James Gunn unconditionally assigned for publication and On Heinlein in general and “The Puppet Masters" in particular. copyright purposes and as subject to STAR- SHIP’s unrestricted right to edit and comment 35 POHLEMIC: TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND editorially. Return postage must accompany TOMORROW...... Frederik Pohl all manuscripts and artwork submitted if they Why people who read science fiction are so important in today's world. are to be returned. No responsibility can be assumed for unsolicited materials. 38 WORLDS OUT OF WORDS: books...... Susan Wood Books reviewed: Warhoon 28; The Berkley Showcase: volume 2; Still Forms on Advertising: For classified ad rates, see the Foxfield; Ascendencies; Magical Changes; The Barbie Murders and Other Stories; classified listings. For display ad rates, write Joshua Then and Now; The Great Pursuit; The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy; The the publisher. Shadow of the Torturer; Far Rainbow/The Second Invasion from Mars; Who Fears Retail Sales: STARSHIP is distributed by the the Devil. Fantasy & Science Fiction BookCompany of 42 SKETCHES: art column ...... Vincent Di Fate Staten Island, NY. For complete terms and The art of pictures that move. information, write the publisher. 45 FILMEDIA: THE REST OF KING...... Robert Stewart Subscriptions: USA: 1 year $10.60, 2 years An interview with Stephen King. $18.80. USA Libraries & Foreign Individuals: 46 RANDOM FACTORS: letters ...... The Readers 1 year $11.60, 2 years $22.80. Foreign Douglas Barbour, Ed Krieg, Lon Levy, Thornton Kimes, Alex Eisenstein, Libraries: 1 year $12, 2 years $23.60. Billing charge (institutions only) 50 cents. All Anonymous, Alien Varney, David L. Travis, Susan Wood, Janrae Frank, David B. subscriptions must be in US Funds. Mail to Mattingly, Milton Subotsky. STARSHIP, P.O. Box 4175, New York, NY 49 THE PENULTIMATE TRUTH . . . Meet Your Mailing Label 10163 USA. Europe: 1 year 23dm, 2 years 44dm. Checks 50 CON LOG...... Convention Calendar payable and mail to: Waldemar Kumming, 50 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS Herzogspitalstr. 5, D-8000 Munich 2, W. GERMANY. United Kingdom: 1 year 4.85 50 ADVERTISER’S INDEX Pounds, 2 years 9.50 Pounds. Checks payable and mail to Algol Press c/o Ethel Lindsay, 69 Barry Road, Carnoustie, Angus DD7 7QQ, UNITED KINGDOM. ARTWORk

US ISSN 0195-9379 C. Lee Healy ...... 22, 29 Alan Hunter...... 25 Andrew Porter...... 4,49 Bill Rotsler...... 34 Arthur Thomson...... 38, 46 Janny Wurts...... Cover

aoa9° Color separations: Sun Graphics, Parsons KS. ^Maess Typesetting: LUNA Publications, Oradell NJ. Printing: Science Press, Ephrata PA.

starship/spring 1981 3 Susan Woe®

WARHOON 28, edited by Richard an order before Bergeron sells out his And if Chicago wins the 1982 Bergeron, “being a special issue of printrun. worldcon bid, we could have another Warhoon devoted to Walt Willis’ life, Willis wrote for love, and egoboo, to Willis fund like the ones that brought times and work.” 1 W. 72nd St., New entertain his friends. His only major him to Chicon in 1952 and 1962. O York, NY 10023. 618 pp. $25.00. “pro” venture was a history of Ireland, THE BERKLEY SHOWCASE: Volume The Improbable Irish, under the pseudo­ Once upon a time, a rainbow made 2. Edited by Victoria Schochet and nym “Walter Bryan.” Bergeron’s “Notes up of wit, outrageous puns, and John Silbersack. New York: Berkley, for a Walt Willis Bibliography” take up sh re wd I y-sym pathetic observations 1980. 200 pp. $2.25. came shimmering up out of Northern eight double-columned, single-spaced Ireland. It was rooted in a legendary fan 8/2x11 ” pages. I knew I’d been reading too much magazine named Hyphen, and it spread Bergeron published this issue, all 618 formula fantasy when I opened the out through a column in Quandry and pages of it, with shamrock-covered Berkley Showcase, second in a series of elsewhere, called “The Harp That Once endpapers and a gold-stamped green original story collections, and found Glen Cook’s “Soldier of an Army or Twice” by Walter A. Willis. binding, for love too. He did the Now, after a promise made in research. He solicited about 100 pages Unacquainted with Defeat.” The soldier February 1969, we’ve found the other of extra material from Willis’ fellow-fans Tain has deserted from the army of the end of the rainbow, in New York City. from the ’50’s and ‘60’s, including Dread Empire. The opening scene, The pot of gold is the long-promised full-colour artwork by himself, Lee which has him methodically disposing “Willish,” Warhoon 28, an elaborately- Hoffman, Bob Shaw and other legends. of four mountain barbarians and their bound collection of the best of Willis’ He typed the thing. He duplicated it. shaman, contains lines like “A man’s fanwriting, edited by Richard Bergeron. He’ll send it to you, by mail or UPS, if scream butchered the stillness,” “Simi­ If you understand why fandom is a you send him US$25. lar blades had taught half a world the way of life, you’ve already ordered this Energumen, Innuendo and Void (if meaning of fear” and “The third celebrated his passing by plunging volume. If you don’t, but want to Ted White is really serious about the downhill in a clatter of pebbles.” If you know-or if you simply enjoy good latter) could all share next year’s like this sort of thing, Cook does it well. writing and finely-crafted books-place fanzine Hugo ballot with Warhoon.

38 starship/spring 1981 phenomena are never explained (part of But would an uneducated shepherd boy ly handled, is fascinating. (I wish H.R. Compton’s comment on human nature). in a remote fantasy land really say Van Dongen, the cover artist, had read Their effect in individuals is clearly “Gosh, this’s good”? the book. These are practical colonists; “Child of Darkness” by Pat Hodgell men and women wear trousers or shown. Like most Compton novels, this one also takes on various cliches: gang wars, denim, not picturesque, but cumber­ is a study of character: wealthy, aloof student violence, the craziness on any some, “traditional” dress.) campus in exam week, the End of Occasionally, the author slips, The Carolyn Henchard, whose husband has Disappeared, and Richard Wallingford, Human Civilization. She makes them dialogue tends to contemporary North the insurance agent who discovers that work. Her future society and its slang American slang, and I can’t accept that Caroline has substituted a body. Twists are convincing; and Jame Talissen, med “smart aleck” and “frisbee” would be and tensions mount as Richard plays student, Kencyrath kitten, and lots common terms on a colony in 2133. private detective, investigating the “Dis­ more, is a good person to have around. Still, it’s a most readable book, one that appearances Advisory Service.” Twists Remember this story at award-nominat­ should make Joan Slonczewski a strong contender for the John W. Campbell and tensions, complicated by the ing time. nuances of the British class system, also “Doll’s Eyes” by Karl Hansen is Award. Speaking of the Campbell Award, I mount as, over a few days, the almost as effective, though it substitutes characters fence: “two people no longer despair for the Hodgell story’s manic have two more contenders. One is William Gibson, who actually sold his strangers” without “apparently even the energy. Speaking of hyperactivity, R.A. smallest possibility of anything unsuit­ Lafferty’s “Lord Torpedo, Lord Gyro­ first story to Unearth in 1977. However, that issue also carried Somtow Sucharit- able" happening. Compton uses that scope” careens along in a style approp­ phrase and others like a chorus. His riate to the lives of its protagonists, Karl ■ kul’s first story, and he was ruled eligible this year. Bill just sold his language (except for a rather arch Riproar and Emily Vortex. The Show­ opening and closing) is as dry and ironic case contains nine original stories: SF, second story to Terry Carr’s Universe 11, another to New Worlds, another (in as his plot, shading in nuances of fantasy, humour, and a Grim Warning language and social class, revealing from Tom Disch. I read it at one sitting. collaboration with John Shirley) to Charles N. Grant’s Shadows . .. and character in a line of dialogue. Yet It also has whacko biographical notes, Compton, and his characters, ultimately and an excellently presented interview another, also with Shirley, to Omni. celebrate compassion and hope. with Barry Longyear by Shawna Mc­ That very first story was written for my Oh, and the book is witty: Jane Carthy. From this sample, Berkley has SF class at UBC. I am proud of Bill. Austen crossed with Evelyn Waugh and an excellent series going. E3 Terry Carr’s Universe 9 carried “The Back Road” by Mary C. Pangborn. Yup, the early Len Deighton. Ascendencies is not a book for every STILL FORMS ON FOXFIELD by Edgar’s sister. Her first story. She’s in taste. Don’t look for rayguns, flashing Joan Slonczewski. New York: Ballan- her 80’s, has another story forthcoming swords, or conclusions: just people, and tine/Del Rey, 1980. 214 pp. $1.95. in Universe and one in Marta Randall’s New Dimensions. Watch for them; I the muddle of living. □ Still Forms on Foxfield is an think she’s very good. □ MAGICAL CHANGES by Graham Oak­ enjoyable first novel by, Heaven help ley. New York: Atheneum, 1980. n.p., me, a doctoral student in molecular ASCENDANCIES, by D.G. Compton. $12.95 biophysics at Yale. Do all SF people London: Gollancz; New York: Berkley/ have fifteen fascinating talents, or am I From British verbal wit, I’ll pass to Putnam and Toronto: Academic Press, only imagining it after reading Berkley British visual wit. Graham Oakley, 1980. 224 pp. $12.95US. Showcase biographies? creator of the “Church Mice” series of Joan Slonczewski (who’s also eight I admire the work of British writer large-format picture books, has taken a years younger than I; oh well, maybe I D.G. Compton, but have always found device long familiar in children’s books: can turn into another Tiptree when I it unrelentingly bleak. I once, in a that of cutouts which, as each page is retire from university teaching) is also a marathon session, re-read all of his SF in turned, combine to create new pictures. convert to Quakerism, and a member of two days, for an introduction to The The results are, indeed, “magical the New Haven Friends Meeting. Hence Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe changes.” Each large-format page is split came the inspiration for her novel. (Gregg Press, 1980) and ended up with horizontally. Each reveals a different In 2022, following the inevitable acute depression. Now 1 take Compton scene: longhaired sculptors finishing a global war, a small group of refugees in moderation. town monument to Scumbleton’s may­ (Friends, this time, not Catholics) fled It’s a pleasure to report that his new ors (four large sharks); swans on a pool; to a habitable planet, Foxfield, orbiting novel, Ascendancies, is a delight. Witty. dignified businessmen with brollies; Tau Ceti. Aided by the friendly alien Clever. Subtle. Very British. matrons in Marks and Spencers clothes inhabitants, who are biotechnological It’s also not really “SF.” gossiping over the back fences of wizards, they have maintained a func­ Compton seems, here, to have Council houses under the washing. Flip tioning society, sustained by their faith. combined his other identities: Frances the half-pages, though, and the gents are Now, four generations later, a United Lynch, who writes entertaining ro­ carrying the laundry, the sharks are Nations ship has made contact, promis­ mances in the comedy-of-manners growing out of a suburban garden, and ing reunion with Earth, ftl travel, mode; and Guy Compton, who writes so on. This is a kid’s book for adults. I “psychic adjustment” for all, and the mysteries. Ascendancies (the title refers had to fight off Sharon and John (in dubious benefits of advanced tech­ to a game of one-upmanship which their 30’s) and Chris and Burt (8 and 9) nology. Complications ensue. everyone “plays” in some form or to get it back so I could write this First novels are allowed to be another) is a thriller set in the near review. predictable. Rarely are they redeemed, future. By 1998, Earth has experienced Buy it as a Christmas present. as this one is, by smooth writing, 15 years of falling “moondust,” a Indulge in another for you. □ competent planet-building, and good mysterious substance which provides THE BARBIE MURDERS AND OTH­ characterization, especially of the view­ safe energy and fertilizer. The catch is ER STORIES by John Varley. New point character, Allison Thorne, the that Earth also experiences the Singing. York: Berkley, 1980. 260 pp. $2.25. planet’s technical director whose call The sound of children’s voices fills the into the void brought the UN ship to air, along with the scent of synthetic Update: I showed John Varley my Foxfield. The Quaker background, deft­ roses-and people Disappear. These review of Galaxy, the 30-year “best of” starship/spring 1981 39 volume I discussed last column, to reasonably successful writer, journalist Frensic and his partner, Sonia Futtle, verify whether he had been paid for his and sportscaster. He has a Westmount persuade an unknown and abysmal stories before that tale saw print. house, a happy marriage to the beautiful writer to travel through the U.S. He looked ... pained. Then he shiksa Pauline, and all the problems and impersonating the author of a steamy explained that not only had he not been doubts of middle age, as youthful follies bestseller. All havoc breaks loose. paid; but Playboy Press never bothered join with midlife follies to nearly ruin it There’s not a decent human being in to send him a copy of the book. all. The book flashes deftly back and this book, but there’s a lot of savage wit I handed him the bound page-proofs forth through Joshua’s life, showing the and slapstick. It’s great bedtime reading. of Barbie Murders, a collection which accidents and the breaks that have made presents, well, the best of the rest of his life what it is—the same accidents THE HITCH-HIKER’S GUIDE TO THE Varley except “Options.” [You are and breaks that have put this Ottawa GALAXY by Douglas Adams. London: doubtless tired of hearing me say that I Valley shiksa in Vancouver to tell Pan, 1979. (Forthcoming from Har­ think Varley is the best short story Jewish kids reading Duddy Kravitz mony Books, 1980.) 159 pp. $2.50 Can, writer to hit SF since Tiptree. If you about bar mitzvahs and the Holocaust. 80p U.K. buy the book, you can decide.] Now, Joshua’s mother does a striptease at Don’t panic! It’s in the book! bound page-proofs are often sent to his bar mitzvah. He’s humiliated on BBC’s smash hit series, the worthy reviewers in advance of hardcover Ibiza, returns as the author of an successor to The Goon Show and Monty publication; and they are generally sent international bestseller on the Spanish to authors as a courtesy. Varley looked Python, is now a book. Reading the Civil War, to find his enemy dead. He Guide is no substitute for rolling around even more pained, and inscribed the drinks too much at the World’s End in book “I really hate to sign copies of on the floor, laughing hysterically as Chelsea, at the Rideau Club in Ottawa, your friends play it for you, though you something I don’t own.” He also did not and at the parties given by the old gang receive pageproofs of Wizard, sequel to can do that too by sending £6.99 plus from Fletcher’s Fields High, hungry 50p. postage to Megadodo Productions, Locus Poll winner Titan. I did not get boys who are now rich, powerful and pageproofs, nor did Locus, though the P.O. Box 101 A, Surbiton, Surrey KT6 unhappy men. The constant themes of 5AX, and asking for the double l.p. (I reviewer for Neil Barron’s defunct his life are a search for integrity, review magazine did. Varley found out always thought Surbiton was so respect­ represented by the Civil War heroes; the able, but then, I expect Aunt Lily Wizard was actually in print when a necessary compromises we make to listens to Hitch-hiker's Guide too.) local bookseller brought him a copy. survive; and the need for love. It’s a The Guide opens with Earth being These are minor discourtesies. Another wise, funny, and moving book. destroyed for a hyperspace express writer I know was, this summer, trying Joshua is also the biggest Canadian route through the neighborhood, and desperately to begin a new book, Joke since the National Lampoon’s gets better from there. I’m waiting to proofread galleys (a horrible job) and “Canada: Retarded Giant of the North” hear the second series. □ fend off the bank, which was threaten­ issue. Maurice Richard. Cornwall, and ing to foreclose because a $9,000 Plattsburg. The Grey Cup in Ottawa in THE SHADOW OF THE TORTURER cheque from Pocket Books was months 1967 (technically, Mordie, founded not by Gene Wolfe. New York: Simon and overdue. (It finally came.) by American lumber baron Philemon Schuster, 1980. 303 pp. $11.95 Look, I’m not blaming anybody, Wright, who settled in Hull, but by least of all Victoria Schochet and John There seems to be a lot of trans­ Nicholas Sparks. Sparkses have our Silbersack, editors, and poor over­ atlantic comedy, mixed with Serious pride, too). And, oh heaven, there’s worked Melissa Singer, editorial assist­ Literature, in this column. I’ll end with William Lyon Mackenzie King, the old ant at Putnam Berkley. I would just like Serious. humbug, Canada’s longest-governing to observe that publishing is one of the Gene Wolfe, like Compton, is a least efficient businesses I’ve ever seen, Prime Minister, who got us through writer for whom “science fiction” and including the Ottawa civil service WWII by communing at night with the “science fantasy” provide some conven­ (though not our postal “service.”). As spirits of his dead mother ... and his ient devices, and a publishing label. dead dog. The book takes on everything for writing: as one writer, drinking Shadow of the Torturer introduces his sacred, from the Bible onward, and himself to death in Hampstead, observes most impressive work to date, The Book mocks it: everything but Josh’s love for to the hero of Joshua Then and Now, of the New Sun, planned as a tetralogy. Pauline, his family and friends. “It’s a mug’s game.” □ The setting appears vaguely Euro­ In particular, it takes on the insane pean-medieval, until Wolfe drops JOSHUA THEN AND NOW by Morde­ world of writers, from Hampstead to enough hints that it’s the southern cai Richler. New York: Knopf; and Hollywood, New York and Montreal. I continent of a far-future ice-age Earth, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, loved the book, stayed up til 4 am where some technological marvels sur­ 1980. 435 pp. $16.95 Canadian. reading it and giggling, felt I knew Josh vive in a degenerate society. His hero, THE GREAT PURSUIT by Tom and Pauline by the end, and put it down Severian, is introduced as a child, Sharpe. London: Pan, 1979. 253 pp. with a little more hope that we’ll all adventuring at night in a graveyard 80p U.K., $2.95 Canadian. survive with some grace. where he saves Vodalus, archenemy of Grace is precisely the quality lacking the Autarch who rules the vast walled Writing is also a fascinating game, in the world Tom Sharpe dissects in The city of Nessus. Severian is an apprentice and an an addictive one. For anyone Great Pursuit. A scathing satire of torturer, an executioner, soon exiled for who contemplates literary life with international publishing, it reveals a the crime of showing mercy after appalled amusement, I recommend two world corrupt to the core. enforcing the law. non-SF books. Frensic is a failed British novelist We know Severian is on a quest to Joshua is the first novel in 9 years turned literary agent, a profession he find his identity. We know, early on, from Canadian Mordecai Richler, author chose because agents live “interesting, that he will inherit, or “back into” the of both the novel and the screenplay comfortable and thoroughly civilized Autarch’s throne. Yet Wolfe’s skill The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. lives ... they met novelists [and] they reveals every popular “quest” novel for Like all Richler’s work, it contains a showed an encouraging lack of literary the cliche it is. The plot is a thread; the large element of autobiography. Joshua perspicacity. In addition they seemed to quest is for nothing less than the nature Shapiro, once a grubby teenage car thief spend a good deal of time eating and of reality itself, under all the dreams from Montreal’s St. Urbain St., is now a drinking and going to parties.” and illusions of life. Wolfe, as “trans­

40 starship/spring 1981 lator,” allows Severian to conduct us of the Master who could transcend fumbling, they destroy the ecological through the squalors and marvels of his reality and negate time: like Wolfe balance of their world—and face the “posthistoric” world, until the torturer, himself. □ consequences. Ah, but the authors hated by all, is revealed literally and handle the idea so well, with such metaphorically as both an actor in FAR RAINBOW/THE SECOND IN­ economy, and with such insight into someone else’s play, and the author of VASION FROM MARS, by Arkady and their characters that anyone should be his own life. “I know little of literary Boris Strugatsky. $9.95. 240 pp. 1979. impressed. "Second Invasion” is a rather style; but I have learned as I progressed, Macmillan. I have never understood the heavy-handed satire; but fun. □ and find this art not so much different popular misconception that Russian SF from my old one as might be thought,” in general, and the Strugatsky brothers’ WHO FEARS THE DEVIL, by Manley he writes. SF in particular, is dull or arty or Wade Wellman. $2.25. Dell. 239 pp. Of course Gene Wolfe, torturer, is hard-to-read. “Far Rainbow” is a 1980. Dell. The "Silver John” stories making us wait for the next three delight, and my choice for best novella have been reissued, with Tim Kirk volumes, though Shadow is satisfying in of 1979. It doesn’t do anything illustrations. Again, enjoy. itself. It’s as dazzling and mysterious as startlingly new, for Western readers: it —Susan Wood that magic blue stone, the Claw of the shows the reactions of various people as, Conciliator (title of the sequel), a relic through indifference and bureaucratic

SUSAN WOOD

Susan Wood died suddenly No­ and energy to act as the celebrated vember 12th at her home in Wood Hotel, hosting numerous fans Vancouver. The cause of death was and professionals during their stays not immediately established, await­ in Vancouver. ing the results of an autopsy. She Per her will, she was cremated. A was 32. memorial service was held in her Susan shared a Hugo award with honor November 21st at the Uni­ Mike Glicksohn, then her husband, versity of British Columbia, to at TorCon, the 1973 World SF which her collection of Canadiana Convention, for the fanzine Ener- was donated. A scholarship fund in gumen. Energumen was a Hugo Susan’s name will be established. nominee in 1971 and 1972 as well. I knew Susan quite a long time, Susan was a Hugo nominee for Best as fannish relationships go, begin­ Fan Writer in 1974, 1975, 1976, ning at the 1968 Boskone, where I 1977, and 1978, winning the award K Susan Wood at Norwescon. introduced her to bagel’s at Bul- in 1974 and 1977. A many faceted kie’s. I visited her and Mike several critic and reviewer, writings by her of Canadian journals. times, staying at their apartments appeared in numerous magazines She received a Masters Degree on St. George Street and Maynard and fanzines including The Wash­ from Carleton University in Otta­ Avenue, and served with Susan on ington Post; Amazing (where she wa, where she was born, and a the committee to bring the 1973 conducted a fanzine review col­ Ph.D. in Canadian Literature from Worldcon to Toronto. umn); Locus; Starship, where in the University of Toronto. After Susan’s last column for Starship addition to long articles, one of teaching at the University of appears this issue. An interview which won a Ditmar award, she Saskatchewan in Regina, she moved with A. Bertram Chandler, which conducted “Propellor Beanie,” a to Vancouver, where she was a Susan was working on at the time fanzine review column and lately tenured member of the English of her death, will also appear soon. “Worlds out of Words,” the review Department at the University of That such a brilliant scholar, column in which she replaced the British Columbia. such a warm and fannish talent long-established Dick Lupoff; her Somewhere in there Susan found should be taken from the world is a own Amor de Cosmos, a personal­ the time to be half fan-guest-of- great tragedy. I am devastated. We zine; and literally dozens of other honor, with Mike Glicksohn, at the have lost one whom we can scarce publications, ranging from the 1975 World SF Convention in afford to lose. smallest fanzine to the most literary Australia. She also found the time —Andrew Porter

starship/spring 1981 41