Vol. 3 No. 4, 2013
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The Cascadia Subduc tion Z A LITERARY on QUARTERLY e October 2013 X Vol. 3. No. 4 ESSAY Seeing C.M. Kornbluth as Gender-Egalitarian by Mark Rich POEM a tipping point by Gwynne Garfinkle GRANDMOTHER MAGMA Two Eleusinian Mysteries Lud-in-the-Mist and IN THIS ISSUE Paris: A Poem by Hope Mirrlees by Michael Swanwick BOOK REVIEWS Big Mama Stories by Eleanor Arnason We See a Different Frontier edited by Fabio Fernandes and Djibril al-Ayad Caution: Contains Small Parts by Kirstyn McDermott She Walks in Darkness by Evangeline Walton One Small Step edited by Tehani Wessely Sea Change by S.M. Wheeler Ogun, Lord of the Forest, Iron, and Tools, FEATURED ARTIST ascends from the bottom of the Ocean to the top of the mountain $5.00 Luisah Teish Managing Editor Lew Gilchriist Reviews Editor VOL. 3 NO. 4 — OCTObeR 2013 Nisi Shawl ESSAY Features Editor Seeing C.M. Kornbluth as Gender-Egalitarian L. Timmel Duchamp by Mark Rich h 1 Arts Editor Kath Wilham POEM a tipping point $5.00 by Gwynne Garfinkle h 19 GRANDMOTHER MAGMA Two Eleusinian Mysteries Lud-in-the-Mist and Paris: A Poem by Hope Mirrlees by Michael Swanwick h 8 BOOK REVIEWS Sea Change by S.M. Wheeler reviewed by Nisi Shawl h 10 Big Mama Stories by Eleanor Arnason reviewed by Andrea Hairston h 12 We See a Different Frontier edited by Fabio Fernandes and Djibril al-Ayad reviewed by Cynthia Ward h 13 One Small Step edited by Tehani Wessely reviewed by Karen Burnham h 15 She Walks in Darkness by Evangeline Walton reviewed by Caren Gussoff h 16 Caution: Contains Small Parts by Kirstyn McDermott reviewed by Kiini Ibura Salaam h 18 FEATURED ARTIST Luisah Teish h 20 Subscriptions and single issues online at: To order by check, payable to: www.thecsz.com Aqueduct Press Print subscription: $16/yr; P.O. Box 95787 Print single issue: $5 Seattle, WA 98145-2787 Electronic Subscription (PDF format): [Washington State Residents $10 per year add 9.5% sales tax.] Electronic single issue: $3 In This Issue Cover banner collagraph of the Cascadia subduction zone by Marilyn Liden Bode Seeing C.M. Kornbluth as Gender-Egalitarian y (For Those Who Have Seen Him as Anything But)1 by Mark Rich In early 1941, when Cyril Kornbluth and put “Cyril M. Kornbluth” on a dust was not yet eighteen but already writing, jacket. In a note to another editor about publishing, and collaborating, newlyweds the byline you can almost hear his fist Catherine L. Moore and Henry Kuttner, coming down in his insistence that the both of them successful professional writ- name to be published in a book had to be [M]en’s names concealed ers, made it known they were uniting exactly “C.M. Kornbluth.” Nothing more. a husband-wife writing their professional lives and collaborating Nothing less. team — insofar as a on a regular basis. Their bylines came to For those who care about such matters, collaboration that had include “Lewis Padgett” and “Laurence the feeling seems inescapable that the ap- been unveiled, at least O’Donnell.” These men’s names concealed pearances of “Padgett” and “O’Donnell” within fan circles, might be said to be concealed. a husband-wife writing team — insofar as marked the disappearance of an accom- a collaboration that had been unveiled, at plished and successful woman writer. least within fan circles, might be said to be Since, to my knowledge, Mary Korn- concealed. bluth in the 1930s had only one letter- In 1946 Cyril, who had adopted a vari- column publication to her name — her ety of bylines as a teenager, began publish- maiden name, to boot — the byline “C.M. ing detective stories under a new one that Kornbluth” marked something different: for the first time acknowledged his fam- A debut. ily name. In “C.M. Kornbluth,” the “C.” stood for Cyril. He had no middle name. Late in 1938 a young science fiction “M.” stood for Mary. He and Mary had reader named Mary Byers, of rural Spring- married just before his service in World field, Ohio, wrote to John W. Campbell, Jr., War II; and bringing Mary into the pic- editor of Astounding Science Fiction. Pro- i ture bore some relation to how numbers voked by letters in the “Brass Tacks” column would add up at tax time. Since he admit- sent in by male fans, her responses reflected 1 ted this in his correspondence, we might a feisty spirit and an attitude that in a later conclude cynically that Cyril was engag- decade might have earned her the epithet of ing in a dance with convention and ex- feminist. With youthful enthusiasm one of pedience. Yet he also told friends that these correspondents, Isaac Asimov, in ad- he and Mary were pursuing an “invisible dressing the issue of the “feminine interest” collaboration” of the Moore and Kuttner in science fiction, had associated weak qual- sort. That the byline did reflect some not- ities in SF stories with women characters, at-all cynical realities seems evident. For and advocated their expulsion. Byers wrote one thing, Cyril respected Mary’s writing. in reply: “Undoubtedly it has never occurred For another, Mary contributed to Cyril’s to him to wonder whether the girl fans like stories — although we have almost no idea the incredible adventures of an almost- [Mary] Byers wrote in how often or how much. ridiculous hero any better than he likes the reply: “Undoubtedly it I find it striking, however, that Cyril impossible romance of an equally impos- has never occurred to adopted something other than a Lewis sible heroine.… To his plea for less hooey him to wonder whether Padgett sort of name. A byline beginning I give my whole-hearted support, but less the girl fans like the with initials opened the possibility, in the hooey does not mean less women; it means incredible adventures of minds of readers, that the author’s sex was a difference in the way they are introduced an almost-ridiculous hero female. The byline “C.L. Moore” had sug- into the story and the part they play. Let any better than he likes gested this in the 1930s — accurately. In Mr. Asimov turn the pages of a good histo- the impossible romance of an equally impossible the 1950s at least one reviewer made this ry book and see how many times mankind heroine.…” assumption about C.M. Kornbluth, mis- has held progress back; let him also take takenly — and accurately, too, to some un- notice that any changes wrought by women known degree. have been more or less permanent, and that Cyril strongly wanted the byline’s ini- these changes were usually made against tials to remain exactly as they were. He the prejudice and illogical arguments of made this clear after an editor made a slip men, and feel himself chastened.”2 (cont. on p. 2) n C.M. Kornbluth as Although Asimov did respond in “Brass Drug addiction and alcoholism took her Gender-Egalitarian Tacks,” the full extent of the Byers-Asimov in their grasps and became, like Cyril, life (cont. from p. 1) conversation — serious on her part, boy- companions. Her exuberant life in wartime ishly boisterous on his — will almost cer- Manhattan damaged the young spirit that tainly remain a matter for conjecture. At had so captivated the prewar Futurians. the time, pulp magazines routinely printed All the same, her creativity survived. correspondents’ addresses, an act that en- In Chicago, where the Kornbluths lived couraged network-formation among fans. in the late 1940s, she worked on a novel [A] romance between Byers and Asimov, as a consequence, cor- whose beginnings Cyril regarded highly; the male Futurians as responded directly; Byers then traveled to and she became active in ceramics to the a whole and Mary Byers Manhattan to meet him; and she made a extent of doing commercial work. To the seems to have begun second trip in early January 1941, coin- best of my knowledge the novel beginning instantly — which seems ciding with his twenty-first birthday. This vanished. Her efforts in ceramics likely natural, given their time she made a longer stay in New York, survive, somewhere. Communist-influenced taking a room at the YWCA and meet- I have only undocumented evidence of egalitarian attitudes and ing local luminaries, including Donald one instance when Mary helped write a her assertive spirit. Wollheim, leader of the Futurian Literary C.M. Kornbluth story. It happened before Society of New York, and Campbell. Pre- the Kornbluths’ move from Chicago back sumably, too, she met Campbell’s secretary to the East Coast. Kate MacLean related Kay Tarrant, at a time when Tarrant was, to me, one evening when we sat talking invisibly, one of the most powerful women in the WisCon con suite some years ago, in science fiction publishing. Byers met a conversation she and Mary once had, I other Futurians, as well; and a romance think by telephone. MacLean mentioned between the male Futurians as a whole to Mary that she had read “The Marching and Mary Byers seems to have begun in- Morons,” which had appeared in Galaxy in stantly — which seems natural, given their April 1951. Communist-influenced egalitarian atti- “Did you like the beginning?” said Mary. H Mary held a place of tudes and her assertive spirit.3 “I liked it a great deal,” said Kate. pivotal significance “Good. I wrote that.” 2 in Cyril’s life. Those who have read my book C.M. The month “The Marching Morons” Kornbluth: The Life and Works of a Science appeared in print, the Kornbluths decided Fiction Visionary know more about Mary, to move back East.