sign in sign up
<<
Home , Adage, Baird Searles, Boris Vallejo, Charles Sheffield, Dream Park, Edmond Hamilton

SCIENCE FICTION WINTER 1^ ~py^TJNUMBER 45

KEITH LAUMER - ■ REVIEW (ISSN: 0036-8377) Formerly THE ALIEN CRITIC P.O. BOX 11408 NOVENBER 3982 -VOL. 11, NO. 4 PORTLAND, OR 97211 WHOLE NUMBER 45 RICHARD E. GEIS—editor & publisher FUOtE: (503) 282-0381 PAULETTE MINARE', ASSOCIATE EDITOR

TIE VIVISECTOR PUBLISHED QUARTERLY ALIEN THOUGHTS FEB., MAY, AUG., NOV. BY THE EDITOR.4 BY .33 SINGLE COPY - $2.00 KEITH LALTER FRIDAY A PROFILE BY CHARLES PLATT.8 A PERSONAL REACTION BY RICH BROWN.38 THE EYES HAVE IT MOVIE REVIEWS INTERVIEW: TERRY CARR COVER BY BRAD W. POSTER BY ELTON T. ELLIOTT.12 CONDUCTED BY BRUCE D. ARTHURS... 40

ONCE OVER LIGHTLY LETTERS.43 INTERIOR AFT— BOOK REVIEWS BY GENE DEWEESE....14 BOB BARGER TIM kirk—2,4,58 SANDY PARIS-BARGER PULP! ALLEN KOSZOWSKI BY ALGIS BUDRYS.16 ARTHUR D. HLAVATY 49,50,51,61 DARRELL SCWEITZER BRUCE CONKLIN-5,35,37 ED ROM —11,20,29,44,55 OTHER VOICES.21 IAN MCDOWELL ALLEN KOSZOWSKI-12 BOOK REVIEWS BY SUSAN M. SCHWARTZ MIKE GILBERT-13,18,21,32,48 CHARLES R. SAUNDERS IjlAYNE T. RECTOR KURT ERICHSEN—15 PATRICIA SHAW JAfBS VAN HISE GEORGE KOCHELL-17,40,53,56,62 JOHN DIPRE7E DEAN R. LANBE BILL MANWELL-24,25 PAUL MCGUIRE STEVE PERRAM JAMES SHULL-28 NEAL WILGUS -34,47 ALMA JO WILLIAMS BILL DENHOLM JAMES MCQUADE-36,44,58 RITCHIE BENEDICT GEORGE H. SMITH RAYMOND H. ALLARD—43 STEVE ENG P6UL ANDERSON E.T. CALDWELL—45,46 DEAN R. LAMBE CHARLES PLATT V. KOSTPIK^-47 ANDREW TIDMARSH RICK NORWOOD SUE BECKMAN RONALD R. LAM3ERT KENDRA USACK TOM STAICAR RUSSELL ENGEBRETSON ALLEN VARNEY MARK WILLARD ALEXANDER NEDELKOVICH NO ADVERTISING WILL BE ACCEPTED STEVE LEWIS Second Class Postage Paid at Portland, OR 97208 THRE LIf'ERICKS BY NEAL WILGUS.. .45, 48, 57 Copyright (c) 1982 by Richard E. Geis. One-time rights only have been acquired from signed or cred¬ OTTER VOICES ANfO. .57 ited contributors, and all other ALMA JO WILLIAMS rights are hereby assigned to the contributors. THE ALIEN CRITIC SMALL PESS NOTES SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW BY THE EDITOR. .58 Available in microform from: OXFORD MICROFORM PUBLICATIONS, LTD Wheatsheaf Yard, Blue Boar Street RAISING HACKLES Oxford OX1 4EY, United Kingdom AS CANCER, PART 11 BY ELTON T. ELLIOTT. .60 SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW is published at 1525 NE Ainsworth, Portland, OR 97211. ALIEN CONCLUSIONS BY THE EDITOR. .62 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW. POB 11408, Portland, OR 97211 REVIEWS- PIONEER.58 FEVER PITCH B.59 file 770. ... INTERNATIONAL. OOWSPiRAC/ , / RIGEL £. 59 of electric "Power com panics.' o BORIS VALLEJO FANTASY CALENDAR. SF BOOK REVIEW INDEX-1981.59 SEEKING u/oftL-fc COM$>UEST,.- II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, YEARS OF LIGHT.59 THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL. THE DARKLING.59 BLADE RUNNER. REALITY INSPECTOR.59 FI REFOX. THE SMOKING LAND...... 59 TRON. AMAZING, SEPT. 82 & NOV. 82....61 THE SECRET OF NIMH. THE BLENDER BOOK. HOUSE OF ANOTHER KIND. STARBURST. SILICON VALLEY. WALPURGIS III. WORLDS OF GEORGE 0. THE IDENTITY MATRIX. STAR SEED. PSYCHO II. THE INDIANS WON. SUBSCRIPTIONS THE GOBLIN RESERVATION. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW THE PRIDE OF CHANUR. P.O. BOX 11408 DREAM PARK.... PORTLAND, OR 97211 A VISION OF DOOM. THE ANNOTATED TALES OF EDGAR For One and Two Years ALLEN POE. 22 At Four-Issues-Per-Year Schedule THE MYSTERIOUS WORLD: AN ATLAS OF THE UNEXPLAINED. THE BORRIBLES GO FOR BROKE. UNITED STATES: $7.00 One Year MR. S MOVIE . $14.00 Two Years WHERE TIME WINDS BLOW. AN F. MARION CRAWFORD COMPANION. CANADA*: US$7.50 One Year THE CROSS OF FIRE. US$15.00 Two Years THE MYRMIDDON PROJECT. *Canadians may pay with personal BRIGADIER GERARD. cheques if the chequing acct. THE ANNOTATED FRANKENSTEIN. number on their cheques is print¬ THE SWORDBEARER.,,. ed in computer numerals. (Thus THE BEST OF OPNI SF, B. ALL SUBSCRIPTIONS, NEW AND OLD, we become slaves to the needs of WATER WITCH. ARE HONORED AND FULFILLED ON AN the Machine.) THE BLIND MEN AND THE .. ISSUES NUMBER BASIS. THE GARDENS OF DELIGHT. UNITED KINGDOM: Send pound equiva¬ THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR. lent of US$7.50 One Year DEATHWIND OF VEDUN. US$15.00 TVo Years HORN CROWN. Next Issue. to agent WM. DAWSON 5 SONS TO SAIL THE CENTURY SEA..... Cannon House, THE WOUNDED LAND. AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN SLADEK Folkestone, Kent CT19 5EE SECOND NATURE. Conducted by or write them for current quote UNDER HEAVEN'S BRIDGE. SOE BACK ISSUES OF TAC AND SFR THE BANE OF LORD CALADON. A PROFILE OF ARE AVAILABLE FROM: THE AND THE SORCERERS.... By Charles Platt FANTAST (MEDWAY) LTD JOURNEY TO THE CENTER. 39 West Street, THE STOLEN GODDESS. HOW NOT TO WRITE SCIENCE FICTION Wisbech, Cambs., PEI3 2LX TO CONQUER CHAOS. By Richard Wilson LEGIONS OF ANTARES. AUSTRALIA: Send A$ equivalent of ALLIES OF ANTARES. STANDING BY JERICHO US$7.50 One Year THE LOST AND THE LURKING. US$15.00 Two Years By Steve Gallagher FRIDAY....,. to agent SPACE AGE BOOKS FOUNDATION S EDGE. 305-307 Swanston St. LANCES OF NENGESDUL. Melbourne, 3000 Vic. INDEX TO SF ALL OTHER FOREIGN- US$7.50 die Year US$15.00 Two Years All foreign subscriptions must be paid in US$ cheques or money orders except to agents.

MAKE ALL CHEQUES, CHECKS AND MONEY ORDERS PAYABLE TO SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW SAVE A HASSLE AND EXTRA EXPENSE- IF YOU MOVE WE NEED YOUR FORPER ZIPCODE AND YOUR NEW COMPLETE ADDRESS. ,58 FORRY ACKERMAN SENDS ME SOSTRANGE ALIEN THOUGHTS things. He opens up comers of pub¬ lishing I don't know exist. Almost anything in which he appears finds BY THE EDITOR m its way to me, and I am usually croggled. Today he sent a copy of THE IN¬ TERNATIONAL COMM LINE, Sept. 1982, in which...well, I'm not sure what I GO, YOU GO, WE ALL GO FOR A HUGO he has in this issue—a photo of The results of the Hugo ballot¬ himself with Gray Levett who wrote ing, counting, arri awarding are as a review (favorable, of course) of follows: L. Ron Hubbard's new, monstrously large , BATTLEFIELD : A Best Novel: DOWNBELOW STATION SAGA OF THE YEAR 3000. By C.J. Cherryh COM4 LINE is blatantly a Sci¬ Best : entology organ, with a reprint By this issue of an L. Ron Hubbard Best Novelette: "Unicom Variations" story from 1940, "Just Imagine." By Ah, I see—there's a short Foreward Best : "The Pusher" by Forry to the story. By Of some interest and value is a Best Nonfiction Book: DANSE MACABRE glossary of terms which By yields the new word "upstat"—one Best Dramatic Presentation: who has high statistics. New to me, anyway. Best Professional Editor: { « | I see in the classified ads ~ Edward Ferman that used E-Meters are in plentiful Best Professional Artist: supply, from a Mark V model for $75 fashion, into the cold, cruel world to a Mark VI (never used) for $1,000. Best : LOCUS, Charles Brown, of a LOCUS-dominated category. Also available are autographed cop¬ Editor. *Sob* Now I know how Mike Gly¬ ies of BATTLEFIELD EARTH at $850 a Best Writer: Richard E. Geis er feels. pop. But at least these changes won't Best Fan Artist: Victoria Poyser likely come into effect until the Forry also sent a flyer an¬ nominating and voting in 1984. nouncing a new book he has edited: See, I keep scheming... If THE GERNSBACK AWARDS, Vol.l---select¬ John W. Campbell Award: there's some way I can get SFR's ed fiction from 1926 to 1954. A Alexis Gilliland circulation under 1000 copies.... projected 28-volume effort to be Special Gonmittee Award: Mike Glyer Maybe the depression will wither published by Triton Books, POB 27934, ("For keeping the Fan in Fanzine away enough subscribers.... By Los Angeles, CA 90027. Publishing.") Ghod, I'll stay a fan and keep on The volumes will cost $14.95 First Award: Bill Crawford publishing a fanzine till the plus $1.50 postage. Or $55 ppd for Pat Terry Award: Randall Garrett freeze over! the first four volumes. I suppose Forry will be editing Conrnentary: The good ol' pros took But all this travail and manipu¬ all 28 volumes. He's certainly lation of the fanzine category is almost all the awards. By this time qualified to do it. of great moment to only about ten I think C. J. Cherryh can be added I have a copy of BATTLEFIELD to the old pro group. people. EARTH sent for review by St. Martin's LOCUS won again, the first time Press, and I started reading it. any fanzine has won the award three But the mother is too fucking looong! times in a row. FILE 770, £55 is the effort of Mike Glyer, 5828 Woodman Av.,#2, It is written in prime pulp style, It's good to see Victoria Poys¬ perhaps a bit leisurely, as Hubbard er win as Best Fan Artist. Van Nuys, CA 91401. Published "about every six knew he could get anything he wrote I'm very happy to have won a weeks", available at 5 issues for published, no matter how long. It's Best Fan Writer Hugo, and I fervent¬ $3. or $1. per for airmail. too formula-ish and shallow and pre¬ ly thank all those who nominated me Mike has just published a Chi- dictable for my taste. But it is and voted for me. I presume someday con V Report issue, very no doubt an endless delight for a I'll be sent the actual Hugo. I've well done, in his personable, 13-year-old who will wallow in the heard it was given to Marta Randall interesting, often humorous style. far , the evil aliens, the for transport as far as Oakland... Mike is a Trufan who has endur¬ young, genius male Earthling who But there has been no official word ed, stayed the course, done it his battles a galaxy-wide empire. from the Comnittee. way, and who truly does deserve a God! I wish I was thirteen Hugo for Best Fan Writer and/or again! There was a vote in the Business Best Fanzine. Meeting to revise the qualifications I had to smile at his wearing for Best Fanzine Hugo. If the next a t-shirt which proclaimed "SIX¬ worldcon ratifies the changes there TIME HUGO LOSER at the Awards BORIS VALLEJO FANTASY CALENDAR-1983 Banquet. I could wear one that will be a Semiprozine , A fine, large [the painting re¬ says "TWELVE-TIME HUGO LOSER"... also, with the Best Fanzine award. productions are 12”xl2-l/2"] calend¬ but who's counting? [You are, These changes [aimed really at ar of the picture-above-calendar- Geis!] Who said that? LOCUS and SFR] give the smaller cir¬ below format which allows framing Anyway, you should give FILE culation (under 1,000 copies of the full-color paintings after 770 a trial. It's the news/opin- per issue) a chance at a Hugo. the year is past. (Or after the ionzine of sf fandom. Fair enough. Though I resent month, if you're impatient.) being shoved out of fandom in this The paintings are: "The Red Amazon" # FOUNDATION'S EDGE a Caedmon I counted 23 one evening as we "Genie" recording of reading drove down Union on our way to Sears. "Captive Maiden" from his new Foundation novel. The A couple years ago there weren't "Jungle Warriors" dj features a fine Leo and Dianne any prostitutes on the street--- "Winged Beast" Dillon painting. they were primarily on parade down¬ "The Island of the Stone Gods" Caedmon TC 1710. No price on town on Third Avenue, clustered in "The Brand” the album. and around a few bars. "Crimson Fury" As new, expensive businesses "The Attack of the Gork" # 2010:CDYSSEY TWO a Caedmon moved into that area---big, corpor¬ "The Spider's Web" recording on Arthur C. Clarke read¬ ate businesses---the police pressur¬ "Riders from the Past" ing from his new novel. He reads ed the girls out. "The Slave Merchant" chapters 1, 9, 11, 16, 30, 51, and Like water, prostitution can¬ There is a magnificent centerfold the Epilog. not be compressed—it pops up some- painting, "Dragon's Birth". Caedmon TC 1709. No price on Vallejo, as we all know, inparts the album. a near-three-dimensional solidity and realism to his paintings, and # SIDESHOW Tales of the Galactic most of these feature nude and semi¬ THE Midway #1. By . nude beautiful women and mighty- Signet, $2.50. Provocative cover thewed men. showing a three-breasted woman, a- This calendar is published by CORPORATION mong other creatures. Workman Publishing, 1 West 39 St., New York, NY 10018. STRIKES BACK There is no price on the calend¬ # CARNIFEX MARDI GRAS By John F. ar [possibly $5.95] but it should Carr. Pequod Press, POB 122, North- A NEW EROTIC SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL be available at sf bookstores and ridge, CA 91328. BY RICHARD E. GEIS perhaps other outlets--department Profusely illustrated by about 21 full-page Fabian drawings. This TFE STAR WHORES SAGA CONTINUES- novel is set in the 21st Century... Toi King, Sex Guild Companion, is a world of "unlimited wealth and kipnapped by the corporation she ALIEN THOUGHTS THIS ISSUE IS A STEW unbridled license." Sounds like my frustrated in STAR WHORES. Taken of reviews, listings, economics, kind of book! to Phallus, the pleasure planet, news, cornnentary... Price: Quality hardcover--$12. injected with a new, powerful sex Well, for instance, I'll show you Signed and numbered edition—$20. drug, enslaved, she must make her what I'll be doing a lot of next is¬ escape and seek a terrible revenge. sue. But first a rationale: I feel # PHILOSOPHERS LOOK AT SCIENCE a greater and greater guilt pressure FICTION Edited by Nicholas Smith. to at least mention all the books Nels<*n-Hall Publishers, 111 N. Canal and magazines which are received Street, , IL 60606. here. They cannot all be read and Philosophers take some basic sf reviewed, of course. But I believe themes and examine them, speculate.. the readers of SFR should be alerted For professional academics, primar¬ to the facts of a book's publication, ily, and college students. Justin price, author and publisher. There Leiber’s examination of his father's are a wide variety of interests in [Fritz] fiction is probably the the readership, and I'm a firm advo¬ best thing in the book. cate of "Whatever turns you on—" Price: Cloth $20.95, Paper $10.95 And there is a great utility and need for a where practic¬ # 5 Edited by Charles L. ally everything is given a notice, Grant. Doubleday, $11.95. at least. 11 brand-new stories of the ma¬ There are probably hundreds of cabre and bizarre by: small presses out there which need , Steve Rasnic Tern, some "bulletin boarding" of their Alan Ryan, A1 Sarrantonio, Avon sf, fantasy and related weird cous¬ Swofford, Phyllis Eisenstein, Terry ins in fiction. L. Parkinson, Marta Randall, Beverly Evans, . # Today we received a ms. copy of a completed occult novel from a pro¬ # By Raymond E. Feist. fessional author who wants an ad¬ Doubleday,$19.95. vance review he could possibly send Medieval with to the publisher. [The novel has elements of sf: aliens, a "rift in already been sold and scheduled for space". 545 pages — long, but may publication.] Happy to see it be¬ be good. Main character is a boy. cause he's a damned good writer. The review will appear in SFR after the book is published. I waste nothing! # PROSTITUTION HAS REARED ITS NOW AVAILABLE $4.00 per copy seductive, troublesome head on a # SPACE TOYS-A Collector's Guide major street near here. Union Aven¬ ORDER FROM: To Science Fiction and Astronautical ue has become--for about a mile--a SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW Toys. By Crystal and Leland Payton. display of hookers standing on the P.0. BOX 11408 Published by Collectors Compass, street comers from late afternoon PORTLAND, OR 97211 POB 1666, Sedalia, MO 6S301. Cost: $9.95. With Price Guide, $13.95. where else. If Nevada can handle gambling, Fine? About time? Easy money, Now local neighborhood groups why can't Portland (or any large cheaper debt [credit] is always a are making noises and sounding out¬ ?) handle street prostitution? boom stimulus, right? raged by the girls and—further [Call girls---for the upper and north---a porno theatre. middle class---are almost never Except that the events which Yet the girls still parade. bothered with.] caused the Federal Reserve Board to And the police are they are And who knows, a few decades cut the discount rate [their inter¬ of honest, safe sex-for-sale might being told not to make too many ar¬ est rate on loans they make to U.S. rests- --because there isn't enough bring into existence a kind of labor banks] from 13% to 12% to 10% were bed space in the jail to hold the union for and by the Ladies and a string of crucially placed bank¬ girls off the street for long. Re¬ Young Men...a Sex Guild. ruptcies of U.S. government secur¬ sult is low bail, speedy processing, ities brokers in New York, the fail¬ and the Ladies are out on Union smil¬ ure of a big bank in the midwest, ing at men in passing cars. # TRANSMUTATIONS--A Book of the failure of a huge bank in Italy, There are always two problems Personal Alchemy. By Alexei Panshin. and the imninent default/bankruptcy inherent with prostitution, even Elephant Books, Box 999, Dublin, PA of Mexico which is 80 billion dol¬ if there is a general acceptance of 18917. lars in debt and has what is euphem¬ it as a social fact of life: NOBODY Price: Limited hardcover edition, istically called a "cash flow prob¬ WANTS A RED LIGHT DISTRICT in their 150 copies, numbered and signed, $20. lem." Further, and not noted by the area, or a bordello next door, and Trade paperback, cover by Barclay public, a huge multinational corpora¬ there seem to be a host of crimes Shaw, $8. tion in West Germany is about to go associated with concentrated pros¬ Alexei and Cory Panshin, IBM Com¬ under, endangering a couple large titution- --mugging, fraud, public poser in hand, have started a pub¬ banks in that country. Meanwhile, drunkenness, dope, and thefts from lishing company, Elephant Books — in Canada, a major oil corporation parked cars. and are open to new kinds of science owing billions [another cash-flow The police say they haven't the fiction, art and criticism that goes problem, you see) is in the process manpower to properly police such an beyond... Like that. Where has all of going belly up. area all the time. the wonder gone? They'll try to The list of major imminent de¬ The argument that prostitution capture it. Write them for details. faults and bankruptcies is increas¬ should be legalized runs into the Yes, this one I'll read and re¬ ing, and there are about 1600 "prob¬ same problems. view. lem" banks and savings 8 loan in¬ The "solution" of having the stitutions in this country teetering local government set up and supervise # FANTASY NEWSLETTER November 1982. on the edge of being forced into whorehouses and police the areas Edited by Robert A. Collins. closing their doors. while making a profit for the city A handsome, full-size 40-page or county isn't workable because of this, with two-color Adkins cover and the vicious anti-sex public morali¬ a full professional writers lineup All these desperate situa¬ ty [as opposed to personal, private of contributors. Coverage of the tions and their implications are what morality] espoused by politicians specialty fan presses, the prozines, triggered the Fed easy-money moves. and church groups. The wages of paperbacks, hardbacks... a fully- The implications are that two or sin might be lowered taxes, but it rounded news/comnentary zine. Good three of the largest banks in the still won't fly in the United Stat¬ to fine artwork. But there's a chill world have recently taken staggering es. in the air and a faint presentiment losses due to defaults and forced that FN may not survive too much bankruptcies and are taking unpubli¬ longer. The price, $2.50 per copy, cized torpedoes below the waterline $18. per year in the U.S., seems from soured Third World multi-billion too high. dollar loans. The address: 500 NW 20th Street, The Eurodollar bond and securi¬ Boca Raton, FL 33431. ties markets could easily collapse. There is so much uninsured, unsecured debt in those Eurodollar markets that it would snowball whole continents into economic oblivion. A FUWY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY Everyone, every government is TO THE DEPRESSION.... trapped in no-win comers. The stock markets boomed. Ex¬ And the frosting on the absurd¬ ploded. There has been, as of 8-20- ist cake the stock market speculat¬ 82, a week of panic buying. A week ors are eating is interest-rate guru of record volume of sales, a week Henry Kaufman's turnaround on his of record advances. Why, you'd interest rate predictions: from high¬ think Happy Days Are Here Again. er [because a recovery fran the re¬ A possible solution to the cession would put tremendous pres¬ "where?" problem---in Portland, at And all because interest rat¬ sure on the supply of liquidity as least—is to license a string of es started down, engineered by the the government financed 150 billion houseboat brothels tied up on the Federal Reserve. For months the dollar deficits, to lower, because East side of the Willamette River Fed has been feeding reserves into he sees no recovery ahead, and may¬ —now unused, mostly, and let the the banking system, encouraging be even further collapse!) bonded, closely monitored owners banks to make more loans, save more The wild-eyed speculators on hire private guards to keep order companies, keep the financial juice Wall Street, gambling billions of on and in the houses, and in the flowing. And then last week, and dollars of pension funds, insurance nearby riverside parking lots. this week, the Fed had to move reserves, mutual funds on the ex¬ This option could work. It swiftly and obviously in a panic it¬ pectation that lower interest rates would be observed by the world as self, to signal easy money and a maj¬ in themselves will fuel more and more an intriguing attempt to make com¬ or rescue. borrowing and one-more-recovery-please- mercial sex safe and controlled. God! are ignoring fundamentals in a for the untold billions of dollars rendous inflation would prompt people of losses now occurring aid continu¬ with money to demand unheard-of in¬ ing to accunulate into a major ava¬ terest rates, and as all this "new” lanche of debt collapse. money was spend it would drive up prices till the cost of living drove The economic/financial agony everyone to defensive positions— of the present time is THE MAJOR spending all income as quickly as STORY in the world, and only a few possible before prices rose further. of the media editors and publishers Saving would stop. A credit crunch have had the guts to follow it. The would develop...a crash would fol¬ mass media report only surface day- low. to-day events and deliberately do not link these events into a coher¬ No way out. ent whole. Why? If they do show The authorities know all this. and tell what BUSINESS WEEK and THE WALL STREET JOURNAL have been re¬ There is going on now what is porting for the past year or so, called a "flight to quality". It the mass public will panic and the proves the old adage that there is sickening lemning-like jump off the nothing so afraid as a million dol¬ cliff. collapse will come sooner, rather than later. It is in the interest lars. Money is fleeing into areas What are they going to do when of the government and giant corpora¬ of greatest'safety: U.S. treasury they discover that for sane strange tions and banks to not let the pub¬ obligations, the stock market, and reason lower interest rates are NOT lic be aware of the true depth and top-rated U.S. corporate securities. sparking a surge in new debt? When extent of the debt crisis. Billions of dollars are flow¬ they see a very weak plateau "recov¬ ing into this country from ery" melt away into another slide and The fundamental reason for the America, from the Middle-East, and ever greater economic troubles? worldwide debt crisis is simple: from Europe. These billions of Too many countries, corporations dollars are fueling the stock market and individuals borrowed too much. rise, in part, and helping to drive The reason why interest rates at They spent the money they borrowed, down interest rates. 104...8%...6%...won't help this and now, when they have to pay the One would think these billions economy or the world economy is the money back, they cannot, according old wet-noodle problem: you can't and the 130 billion-rate of U.S. to the terms of their debt contracts. govt, deficit would stimulate our push a wet noodle---you can only The reason for the depression we pull it. economy into some kind of recovery, are entering is also basically sim¬ wouldn't you? I thought so a few Translation: you can't make ple: We have enjoyed the boom creat¬ individuals and lending institutions months ago. But the contraction of ed and sustained by all that $750 foreign orders and domestic orders make consciously bad loans. Nobody (estimated) billion debt and now, continues, shrinks, and will loan out good money knowing or worldwide, the spending/buying level fearing that the borrower will not fear spreads. of past boom years cannot be con¬ The inflation game is dead. be able to pay it back with interest. tinued. Mexico is having to cut The Fed can pump (or offer to We're in a shrinking pie world, and its purchases of goods and services dog-eat-dog competition for a piece loan) umpteen billions of dollars from the USA by 404 or more. Simi¬ to banks---but can't make the banks of that pie is beginning to be vic¬ lar cuts are being made by other ious. borrow and lend in a national and in¬ debtor countries. Because orders ternational debt collapse environment. Be aware that the billions of are shrinking or disappearing, manu¬ dollars coming into this country is The Mexican moment of truth has facturers are cutting back. Unem¬ been put off three months, till Nov. harming the country it leaves, mak¬ ployment rises and workers cut back, ing trade and investment in that 20th or so, and the Fed is secretly and people with jobs, fearing lay¬ propping several big, big banks in country more difficult, resulting offs, cut back and save more. in fewer orders for imports.... New York. Trade shrinks in a down spiral But the base is eroding: small A self-feeding downward cycle as orders shrink, employment is re¬ has begun. It will accelerate in and medium-size businesses are fail¬ duced, bankruptcies rise. ing at horrendous rates. Massive the coming several years until it layoffs by major corporations--world¬ There is a school of thought reaches its natural debt cycle end. wide—are still continuing, still that says the world's central banks Watch the politios scream and scheduled. and governments cannot allow this yell and promise the moon. Watch People are scared, and those spiral to continue into a 1930s the economists mumble and dodge that can are saving money--not collapse. These people expect the and talk about surface effects. spending! authorities to "reflate” the world Watch the horrendous adjustments After an inflation scare pric¬ economy by pouring out unlimited in society and culture forced by es will cane down—and as it be¬ amounts of credits/debt. this debt collapse, and try to comes clear that later on prices BUT—this is crucial---it is position yourself'to your best per¬ will be still lower, it will pay not possible to replace all the sonal advantage. to wait! And the ferocious process spent borrowed money with even more I NfeVE-R TRIE> VOOtCO EC£>lOOMlCS„ that worked in inflationary times borrowed money. Would Mexico now to encourage spending before prices willingly borrow another 72 billion go up more, will then reverse and dollars of added debt? Who would prompt people to not buy, to wait, lend it to them? Would the people and as a result sales will continue of this country allow our national to decline, force prices lower, decline, debt to be extended an extra trill¬ force desperate price cutting.... ion dollars in two years time to That's the self-feeding aspect give "created" credits to insolvent of deflation. And we are in the be¬ countries and transnational corpora¬ ginnings of a deflation cycle now. tions? Who in his right mind would There is no way our government buy those bonds? The spectre of hor¬ and the other governments can run deficits high enough to compensate A Profile By Charles Platt

The first time I met Keith Laum- greets me at his voice to a shout.) --'Fuck you, stu¬ er he was tall and strong, a casual¬ front door and we walk through his pid! Assholes like you spend your ly capable outdoorsman, with an e- elegant home. He moves slowly, still goddamn lives abusing your fucking qually formidable intellect and not encumbered with a leg brace, but he bodies sucking on cigarettes and a shred of false modesty. no longer has the air of despair that drinking booze and never getting any he showed ten years ago. He seems exercise, and when the goddam thing He had traveled widely while in grim and determined now to overcome finally rots you come crawling in the Air Force and while working for the catastrophe that almost ruined here whining for a miracle. Well Department. He had taught his life. you're not going to get one. Do you realize I'm late for the golf course?' himself something about almost every¬ He tells me how he came to live thing, from history to language to out here. His father bought large "And then, zap, out the door." gourmet cooking to engineering to tracts in Florida very cheaply after The anger leaves him as abruptly art, and all that he knew was fact¬ World War II and became a real-estate as it came. I realize I'm flinching ually accurate, and most of it was millionaire. When Laumer decided he from him. While he was shouting, fascinating. He showed a small amount wanted to build a dream house, his of pity and a fair amount of scorn the intensity was frightening. But father supplied an idyllic plot sur¬ he continues now, once again in a for anyone who was less demanding rounded on three sides by a lake, in normal, conversational tone. than he was -- as though he believed untouched countryside. Here, on what that excellence was the only value is virtually an island, Laumer super¬ "Well, the fact is, I always took that truly mattered. He was inpat¬ vised construction according to his the best conceivable care of myself. ient with people who tolerated weak¬ own specifications -- he was trained I used to do a five-mile run every ness or imperfection in themselves. as an architect. Outside every win¬ day, on trails through the woods. And The second time I met Keith Laum- dow is water, and beyond that, wild¬ it's almost as though I had a premon¬ er, one year later, his left side erness . ition that something was going to was paralyzed from what doctors had happen to me, because every day when E^er true to his code of self- diagnosed as a stroke and he seemed I came in I'd turn around and say, sufficiency, he then started making devastated by the frustration of what 'All right, you sons of bitches, his own furniture, to his own de¬ that's another five miles I took a- had been inflicted upon him. Fate signs in a woodworking shop in his way from you. You can't get that was forcing him to accept the unac¬ garage. ceptable: a disability which made a back.' "When I was out in Rangoon, Bur¬ mockery of the code he had always "I never ate too much or too lit¬ lived by. ma, in the Diplomatic Service where tle. I ate good food and I never the beautiful oriental timbers grow, did start smoking, so I never had to That was more than ten years ago. I shipped home a bunch of slabs of quit. I enjoy beer or wine, but As I drive to Laumer's Florida home three or four different beautiful now, I have no idea what has happen¬ there isn't any form of hard liquor woods. I was about half way through ed during the intervening decade. that I like. furnishing the whole house when I He lives in wild, empty country. was ... temporarily interrupted. "One day shortly after I got in¬ Down an unpaved back-road of fine, to this horrible state, I was read¬ pale gray dust between stunted trees "At first, you know, the medical ing an issue of TIME on the subject and swamp grass; the telephone poles profession told me, 'The likelihood of CVAs, which means Cerebro-Vascul- carry a single wire and a single lon- of any significant recovery is mini¬ ar Accidents, and it had a little ly bird is sitting on it. mal.' In other words, what they were checklist there. I scored zero all really saying was -- (He clenches the way down; nothing applied to me. I reach his driveway. And here his fist on the handle of his cane. So I got through and I said, 'Okay, is a strange, enigmatic sight: For it'll never happen to me. So let me some reason, the entrance is marked He grimaces with rage and raises his by two dented 1968 Mercury Cougars, abandoned here on flat tires, with "And actually it didn't happen numbers scrawled in black paint on -ovsfL, toet; 2>uel.ust their rusty roofs. 2-AYioKi^ht; socpiek and to me. What actually happened was a -Reelance intellectual curious thing, to which everybody is Sn't Ewoyq-H AmYmoPE. subject to some degree, starting be¬ Approaching to his house --a fore you are bom, as soon as your modem building on a spacious piece intellect becomes aware of itself. of land -- I find more junked Cougars ■> Your mother bumps against something parked at the side of the driveway and you didn't like that a bit and and more are in the three-car garage; you make a decision, 'I do not like and still more are scattered across to be knocked around and I have got the lawn at the back of the house. to be tough, so that it cannot hap¬ There must be at least thirty cars pen to me any more.' Your body re¬ altogether, all of the same year and sponds to that absolute comnand by model, all dilapidated and all numb¬ hardening itself, in the form of ered in black spray-paint. muscles tightening up. "Everybody has a tight muscle and half-a-dozen short stories and Mentioning these positions re¬ representing some experience that am just starting a new novel which minds him of all the publishers who you subconsciously shunted aside. is due in a few months and I have have printed inaccurate biographical Say a big black dog comes bounding just signed a contract to do two more. notes on his life. And this brings out onto the lawn when you're three back his rage. One moment he's mild- "I always used to type. Now, I years old. That's too scary, so mannered Keith, with a sly smile and have to do it in longhand. But I some part of your mind, way down a taste for gentle . And then, have a gal who comes in once a week Jeep, says 'This is too nuch!' and in a flash, he's Demon Laumer, scream¬ to tidy up the place and she also shunts that emotional energy into ing and swearing in vile fury. It's types 15) what I've written. So that some place where it's safe, way down difficult for me to indicate, in works fairly well. in a muscle next to the bone of your print, how wildly he fluctuates to thigh perhaps. And little by little "I just turned in a new Retief and fro. you get an accumulation of these novel and before that was THE STAR "As a result of my going from the things. And apparently in my case I COLONY and THE ULTIMAX MAN, which Air Force to th'e Diplomatic Service, got an accumulation of them that fi¬ came out some months ago from St. ■and then back to the Air Force, the nally crossed a threshold -- and Martin's Press." -- GOD DAMPED ASS HOLES -- who write something said 'Okay, execute Plan Retief is Laumer's favorite hero, blurbs on book- jackets, instead of A.' And Plan A was to go -- an interstellar diplomat whose lot in asking me, made up some -- CRAZY BULL crrrkkkk. And there I was, all fuck- life is to grapple constantly and com¬ SHIT -- about how I was some kind of ed up." ically, with a galaxy full of incom¬ a 'diplomatic aide' or some goddamned I say that this sounds like the petents . thing. If the -- MOTHERFUCKING ASS theory of Rolfing. HOLES -- had just asked me ... Any- body who knows anything about diplo¬ "The therapy that I'm getting is "I always enjoyed doing Retief matic practice would read that and to Rolfing as champagne is to ditch and I still do. The world is so full say, 'This guy's a phony because water. The most visible part of what of bullshit -- there’s always a fresh there is no such thing as a 'diplo¬ he does is the massage, using a supply -- and in the Retief stories matic aide.' knuckle or an elbow. He can feel that muscle down there that's harder than rock. When he squeezes out that muscle, it lets go. And I can feel it let go. And the funny thing is that I get the emotion that orig¬ inally caused it. Either I'm scared shitless or I'm awful sorry for poor little me or I'm so goddam mad I could kill somebody. The emotion comes flooding out, as fresh as the day it happened. And after that the muscle can stay normal.

"And once he gets everything out, which is simply a matter of digging and digging at it, then everything will work freely." Keith Laumer says this with absolute, calm conviction. The therapy he is receiving, twice a week, has lasted four years now; but he knows it will work. Obviously, it has to. I try to puncture some of it. And "When I go in there and see them "It hurts horribly, but it's that's always worth doing." and say a bad word, do you think that does any good? No, they put just barely within what I can face. He started writing the stories the same GOD DAMNED SHIT on the next It's at least as bad as surgery with¬ as a reaction to his time spent in book. They make me grind my teeth. out anaesthetic. It's especially the Diplomatic Service. I ask how bad when he hits a fear pocket, be¬ long he was with the State Depart¬ "And then the goddaimed editor cause then you get terror along with ment. of IF magazine, when it was running the pain. Like when he starts work¬ all the Retief stories, constantly "I was never with them," he cor¬ ing down in around the throat. You got out his god damned editorial pen¬ rects me grimly, "I was employed by know goddam well you're being chok¬ cil and changed the little technical ed to death and you're panic strick¬ them. I was, in fact, against them niceties to something that seemed to from the beginning. I was there for en and suffering agonies at the same his god damned brainless mind to be about three years; I was a Third Sec¬ moment. a little closer to Middle American retary of Embassy of the United blah, thereby completely destroying "If somebody had tried to tell States of America in the United States the verisimilitude. So anybody who me about this before I got into this Diplomatic Service and I was a Vice was actually in the Diplomatic Serv¬ state I would have said 'Bullshit.' Consul of Career in the United States ice reading it would say, 'Well this But when it happens to Number One, Consular Service and I was a Foreign asshole's never been near the Diplo¬ you can't deny it. Service Officer of Class 7 in the U- matic Service.' The god damned "When I first got into this nited States Foreign Service. I rank¬ state, for five years I didn't write ed 'with and after a captain,' which anything. Then I slowly got started, didn't thrill me because I had al¬ "I said, 'Look, when I say the doing a few short stories and then I ready been a captain in the Air man was a counsellor, I do NOT re¬ started writing one of the Force." peat NOT mean that he was a menber for which I had contracted before. of a council. So will you kindly And I have now completed four novels FUCK OFF changing the spelling to 'councillor?' It AIN'T THAT, see?" point, I manage to agree that that "If I were placed in charge, I sounds like a fine way to spell it. would disband the department, fire Laumer relaxes back into his Hoping to put the conversation on sa¬ anybody who had worked for it in any chair. fer ground, I ask why he seems so capacity, and no one who had worked "But do you think he got it? He down on the State Department. for it would ever be eligible to didn't understand. Perhaps -- per¬ work for the new Department of Foreign haps I didn't make it plain enough. "The United States Department of Affairs. Every building that had be¬ Ot -- maybe he thought I didn't mean State," he says carefully, "is as longed to that organization would be it, because I wasn't emphatic enough." filthy an organization as ever exist- gotten rid of, every vehicle. That's He gives me a faint, ironic smile. ed on this planet, up to and includ¬ what it would take to clean it up. ing the Gestapo." Nothing less." "Little things like that. For some reason unknown to anybody the No, I object, it can't be that word 'despatch' in the State Depart¬ bad. I ask if he feels that bureau¬ cracy is always inherently corrupt ment is spelled with an E. So I "Worse! It is rotten from the and inefficient. spelled it with an E and he changed top to the bottom and if anybody gets it to an I. I said, 'Will you FUCK¬ into it who isn't rotten, he's pound¬ "Of course. It's a concept that ING LAY OFF?' And he said, 'But-!- ed on till he is rotten, or he gets has flaws built into it, part of its looked in the We-ber Dick-en-ary...' nature. There are a lot of jokes So I said, 'Look up your FUCKING ASS¬ that embody the truth, like the one: Really? That bad? HOLE, jerk! I am the guy who was a 'In the civil service they promote a full-time proFessional U.S. diplo¬ "WORSE! Think of something rot¬ man until he reaches a job that he mat' ." ten, and they do it. Nothing as can't do.' It's the fucking truth! His anger subsides again and he wholesome and decent as simply tak¬ Therefore, you have an incompetent begins telling me an anecdote. ing money for selling military sec¬ occupying every.position. rets to the enemy. I mean, any red- "It is absolutely against the in¬ "One day I had a most interesting blooded American boy might do that. terests of any bureaucrat to cut letter from somebody at the State But not these cocksucking bastards, down in any way on the scope of his Department Foreign Service Institute they go way beyond that. If you've duties or the number of people that who asked me if, the next time I was read my novel EMBASSY, which is not work for him. Because his pay is in , I would stop by and science fiction, you'll get some idea based on these things. So you get address the student body. And he of my experiences. I poured my life cme bureaucrat fighting to steal said, 'Personally, I'm sort of a Mag- blood into that book. A testament some section away from some other nan type myself.'" He chuckles. of two-and-a-half to three horrible bureaucrat so he can have all those fucking years out of my life. And "A what type?" I ask, not getting people added to his list, so he can editors said, 'Oh, yes, THE UGLY AM¬ the joke. get a raise. ERICAN with sex.1 Gaah! It's a hor¬ "A Magnan type." He sees that rible#- thing that that goddamned book "It's analagous to the U.S. legal my face is still blank. Suddenly, he THE UGLY AMERICAN, came out when it system, which places a premium on ex¬ grabs his cane and slams it against did. It was a piss-poor book, where¬ tending litigation. It's not in the the floor. He lets out a terrify¬ as EMBASSY was a marvelous book, and interest of lawyers to shorten liti¬ ing, full-blooded scream. "You nev¬ if THE UGLY AMERICAN hadn’t come out gation, but to prolong it as far as er heard of Magnan! Gaaarrgh! He right ahead of it, it would have possible." is Retief's sidekick in every Retief sold twelve zillion copies. It I ask if his dislike for bureau¬ story. Aaarrgh! Nyaaarrgh!'' should have been reissued when that cracy is so strong as to make him a thing was going on in Iran; because It's a terrible, frightening libertarian. sound, like a barbarian war cry. He what went on in my book was the same lets go his cane, grabs a saber in an kind of shit, and it showed exactly "No -- that's anarchy, and under ornamental sheath, and strikes it how it comes.to pass, because of the anarchy the biggest assholes gang up fiercely against the couch where he venality and cowardice of the god- and beat the shit out of everybody is sitting. He keeps screaming and daimed bastards who' ve been running else and take everything for them¬ scowling at me. the American Bnbassies in the United selves, and I'm not interested in States Department of State. that. It's Europe in the Dark Ages." "I thought you said 'magnum'," I try to tell him. "Aaarghh! Aaarghh!" "I'm sorry, Keith, but --" "Naarghhh! Aaaargh!" He pauses for breath. ''Have I made myself clear?" he asks mildly, replacing the saber in its comer. "You see, I think people ought to know that Magnan is the sidekick of Retief," he goes on matter-of-factly, "and is a weak sister, highly ineffectual and it's pretty funny when this guy put in his letter, 'I'm sort of Mag¬ nan type myself.' I thought that was really charming. "How are you going to transcribe my roars, off the tape?" he asks re¬ flectively. "I suggest: 'A-R-G-G-G- H-H-H-H'." Feeling slightly dazed at this whom lives in London, the other two in Texas, which is also where his ex-wife is located. "After I have completed the total recovery of my health," he says, "I'm going to mar¬ ry an absolutely first-class young beauty and have another family. And I'll know a lot more about what I'm doing, the next time." Then he walks outside with me into the warm Florida evening. I remark that the cruelty of what he has experienced would make me doubt the existence of a god, if I were not already agnostic. "But it has had exactly the op¬ posite effect on me," he says. Be¬ fore this happened to me, I was al¬ ways content, but never happy. Now, I have a whole new view of life. I appreciate life with a depth and scope I would never have imagined. And it cannot be an accident. I be¬ lieve in God now, and could not I mention that Poul Anderson is live happily ever after. And five have cane to this realization any a libertarian of sorts. years later they tried to kill me. other way. There is some principle, So that has drastically changed the some force, which is active in con¬ pattern of my life. I've had to de¬ trolling the universe, and I defin¬ "Well, that simply establishes vote every waking and sleeping moment itely believe that this applies to that Poul Anderson doesn't know shit to fighting this goddamned plague, the individual." from wild honey. People who express to recover my life, which I am doing, For now, at least, he seems to approval of that kind of thing aren't and will complete." have vented all his resentments. He thinking in terms of, all of a sud¬ speaks with a strange kind of equan¬ den, no more TV, no gas in the gas imity. station, no groceries in the grocery During the last part of the con¬ store. All of that is the product of versation, we've been eating steak "I sure wish some of my old a fantastic network of cooperation. which he insisted on preparing for friends would stop by," he goes on, me -- a Very fine cut of beef, cook¬ If everybody just said 'Fuck it!' it as I get in my rented car, "Though would all stop. You could take off ed to perfection. He clings stub¬ I wouldn't ever tell 'em that," he your clothes, go off into the woods, bornly to his ideas about excellence. adds gruffly. and start looking for nuts and ber¬ He still has detailed plans for the I can see why they stay away, of ries." completion of his house: "Everything properly made, and perfectly main¬ course. No doubt they dread his Laumer's views on modem science tained," seems to be his motto. spasms of rage and the way he stands fiction are almost as scathing as his as a vivid reminder of the shadow views on the state of modem society. And I learn that the dozens of under which we all live. Keith Laun- junked Mercury Gougars that he's col¬ er was stricken at age forty-five, in "I find it very bad and uninter¬ lected are a strange part of this ob¬ excellent physical shape; obviously esting. A lot of it is very preten¬ session with perfection. He's vague then, it could happen to me or you, tious. Science fiction started off about hew the collection got started or anyone. I suppose it's poor form as a literature that was created for but he's quite definite about what to stress the point; most of us nat¬ fun and read for pleasure. Now it's he's going to do. He'll repair every urally prefer not to dwell on mort¬ become a channel for social and soc¬ last one of them, as soon as he gets ality, and so we feel uncomfortable ialistic ideas from writers who are his strength back. He'll restore visiting disabled friends or even avant-garde and new-wavy and liberal them "to new condition --or better." reading profiles of them. Pretend¬ and all those things make me puke, He tells me there are thirty-eight ing we're invulnerable is a common so there's just nothing there for me. cars in all, and shows me some hood enough way of coping with life. "Personally, I never said 'I am emblems and instrument-panel trim Keith Laumer, of course, cur¬ going to write science fiction.' I that he's already removed and had re- rently lacks that option. just decided to write something that chromed. "It gives me something to pleased me. I never even had the in¬ occupy my mind when I'm not thinking ************************************ tention of becoming a writer; one about 'Topic A," he says quietly. day, in Rangoon, I told my wife, To me it seems as if the cars 'I'm going to stay home from that are an extemalization of his own goddamned office today and write a condition; they mar the beauty of his story.' And I did and I sold it‘and land as his illness has marred his all the ones since. life, and he wants to restore their "I went on doing jobs, like go¬ steel bodies as he would heal his ing back into the Air FOrce. It was a long time before it occurred to me* He shrugs, and doesn't argue the that I should quit doing all the oth¬ point. er stuff and write full-time. But I finally did, resigned from the Air Before I leave, he shows me pic¬ FOrce in 1965, came to Florida and tures of his three daughters, one of built the house and settled down to 11 THE EYES HAVE IT

STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN

Produced by Harve Bennett, direct¬ ed by Nicholas Meyer and starring Wil¬ liam Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nich¬ ols, George Takei and and guest-starring Ricardo Montalban as Khan, STAR TREK II is at least more exciting than the first Star Trek movie and the acting is better;

the actors seem more sure of them¬ Finally, the actors are all get¬ It later turns out the alien has selves and their characters, but the ting uld: gracefully, yes, but still some pretty nifty powers. It's cap¬ plot has enough holes in it to drive old. It’s not too bad in STAR TREK able of healing with a touch of its a starship through. II, but how about four or five years finger, can make a comnunications de¬ from now when Shatner begins to push vice out of ordinary household items The plot concerns Khan, a eugen- sixty? and can make bicycles fly through the ically engineered from the air (thus giving the movie a disturb¬ 1990's whose "sleeper" ship was found It's worth seeing once only, if ing similarity to Disney's THE CAT by Captain Kirk fifteen years prior for nothing else than Montalban's FROM OUTER SPACE and ESCAPE TO WITCH to the events in this movie. Kirk outrageous hanming and overacting as MOUNTAIN). left Khan and his followers on a plan¬ Khan. et, uninhabited by sapient beings, ************************************ This is such a stupid movie it which they could tame, much in the makes CLOSE ENCOUNTERS look intellec¬ way Australia was first colonized by tual. The alien, despite its powers, the British. Khan, however, has es¬ stumbles through the movie, presum¬ caped, thanks to the stupidity of ably because the plot dictates it. the plot, and is out after Kirk THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL The military aren't believable. again. Kirk who has decided to take Directed by , A nice movie to take the kids to over a starship from its rightful written by Melissa Matheson. see, but if you're interested in commander again (in this case, Mr. grown-up material, forget it. Spock), just happens to be in posi¬ Another sweet, cute movie about ************************************ tion to battle it out with a by-now UFOs and friendly, cutesy aliens quite mad Khan. from Spielberg. This movie is so sugary it's enough to give a diabetic The supremely silly plot forces an insulin attack. the characters into BATTLESTAR GALAC- TICA idiot logic, which in the real The story is about an alien who world would have the characters drum¬ is stranded on Earth when his fellows BLADE RUNNER med out of starfleet at the soonest have to make an emergency take-off Directed by Ridley Scott and star¬ opportunity. There are plenty of ex¬ because the U.S. military (I presume, ring Harrison Ford. amples : In one, Scotty takes a wound¬ it is never spelled out in the movie) ed man to the bridge instead of sick is after them. The military wants to BLADE RUNNER is a rarity, a sci¬ bay, no reason given. This shows study them and they don't want to be ence fiction movie taken from a sci¬ sloppiness on the part of the writers, studied. The alien finds a nice ence fiction novel (DO ANDROIDS DREAM producer and director and bodes ill friendly suburban household just wait¬ OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? by Philip K. Dick). for any future Star Trek movies. ing to coo over it. And even rarer, the movie works as both good film and good science fic¬ tion. Usually, like STAR WARS or CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, it's a decent en¬ Movie Reviews By ELTON T. ELLIOTT ough film, but awful science fiction. BLADE RUNNER also captures something PLAINS DRIFTER or DIRTY HARRY; it The one semi-original notion in on film I thought to be almost impos¬ doesn't here. I find it hard to be¬ TRON is the conputer world. The idea sible -- the near-future claustro¬ lieve the Russians are as lax with of programs on the conputer level phobic paranoid polluted urban land¬ their security as this movie makes being like their creators, is inter¬ scape so prevalent in most of Dick's them out to be. Finally, the cinema¬ esting even if TRON treated it in an more memorable novels. tography is poor -- too many close- uninspiring manner. Suffice it to ups, not enough medium shots. say that TRON does for computers The plot concerns a group of ren¬ what PHANTASIA did for animals. And egades, manufactured humans called Viewing FIREFOX is tolerable in that sense TRON is in the long Replicants, who have escaped from an tradition of Disney movies, and a off-world colony. The authorities ************************************ hell of a lot better than THE BLACK are concerned they'll wreak havoc HOLE. on Earth, so Harrison Ford is sent out after them. ************************************ The strengths of this movie are TRON the darkly-symbolic lighting and eye¬ TRON was written and directed by catching innovative visuals present Steven Lisberger. It is distributed throughout and the tight, efficient by Disney. It stars Bruce Boxleitner, acting Scott coaxes from the actors. Jeff Bridges, Cindy Morgan and David This is especially true for Harrison Warner. Ford, who in the past always seemed THE SECRET OF NIW to run through minor variations of The story concerns a computer NINfl was created by a group of Han Solo. In this film his laconic game-creating wizard (Bridges) whose animators who used to work for Dis¬ attitude at the start (which has been programs are stolen by the executive, ney. Disenchanted with current pol¬ shattered by the end of the movie) is Dellinger (Warner), of the company icies at Disney Studios, they decided played perfectly. Rutger Hauer gives that Bridges works for. Boxleitner to show the world how an animated a dynamic performance as the leader and Nbrgan also work at the company film should be done. And how. THE of the Replicants. Hauer, also bril¬ and together with Bridges they try SECRET OF Nim is without a doiht liant recently as Albert Speer in the to uncover evidence which would re¬ one of the most beautiful animated television mini-series INSIDE THE veal Dellinger's theft. Things are films ever made. It featured a whole THIRD REICH, is stunning here. He's complicated by the fact that Delling¬ cast of excellent and well-known human and alien-strange all at the er is aided by a malevolent computer voices such as Peter Strauss, John same time. Very impressive. program called the Master Control Pro¬ Carradine, Derek Jacobi and particul¬ gram or M.C.P. for short. The M.C.P. If you like your movies full of arly brilliant Dom DeLuise as a manic program which started out as an imoc- dark symbolism, film noire and moral fumble-footed and winged crow. It uous chess program is about to take ambiguity -- and are sick of the Stev¬ was adapted from a children's novel over control of the Pentagon and Krem¬ en Spielberg juvenile sweetness-n- by Robert C. O'Brien. lin computers when the story begins. light approach to SF -- then BLADE NIFH stands for the National In¬ RUNNER is for you. Thfe program discovers attempts stitute of Mental Health. As a re¬ to find out the truth about Delling¬ sult of experiments at the Institute er's activities. Realizing such a a group of rats and mice have develop¬ revelation might endanger the comput¬ ed powerful mental abilities almost er's own plans, it forces Bridges in¬ rivaling those of humans. The rats to a computer analog of our world, FI REFOX and the mice escape and the people where like the WIZARD OF OZ, people from NINH chase after them. The Produced, directed by and star¬ in the real world are represented in story picks up when the wife of one ring Clint Eastwood. the computer world as programs, all of the escaped mice attempts to find except Bridges who is from the real FIREFOX is the story of an ex- a new home for her family. Her hus¬ world. Bridges' task is to find the band has been eaten by a cat which Vietnam fighter pilot who suffers information and somehow get back to lives at the same farm where the rats from delayed stress syndrome. He is the real world. recruited by the U.S. government to and mice are hiding. The mouse goes to the rats for help just as the peop¬ slip inside and steal the Rus- If the storyline sounds complex le from NINfl discover the rats' hide¬ kies' new superplane, the Mig-31. and full of holes you are right, it out. Some of the rats want to flee About two-thirds of the movie is is. The Disney people were banking and find a new society, others want spent detailing how Eastwood's char¬ on the computer-assisted special ef¬ acter gets into Russia and gets near fects to make the movie into a STAR to continue to leech off humans (the the plane. The rest of the movie is WARS, E.T. mega-hit. So dependent rats steal some of the farmers' elec¬ a visual tour-de-force as the special- on the financial success of TRON was tricity for their own uses, for in¬ and-optical-effects team led by John Disney that when several market an¬ stance) . Dykstra (of STAR WARS fame) create alysts gave the movie a bad preview, The plot is in some ways remin¬ dazzling visuals for the movie view¬ Disney stock plummeted on Wall Street iscent of WATERSHIP DOWN: rats in¬ er as Eastwood tries to fly the plane The special effects were different, stead of rabbits, and DeLuise's crow out of Russia to freedom. but effects are never enough to carry is similar to the bird in WATERSHIP. a movie saddled with a ho-hum script. This movie is unconvincing from Also at the end it does slightly give the start. The audience is told that way towards wish-fulfillment fantasy the reason why Eastwood's character, (i.e., the author couldn't figure a Harry Gant, is chosen is because plausible way out of predicaments he Gant's mother was Russian and she had gotten the characters into so he knows the language. Then in Russia invented a magic crystal). Despite Gant never speaks Russian. This that, it is still an entertaining might be because Eastwood can't speak show, and if you think as I do that Russian; it's still a mistake. An¬ they can't make animation the way other flaw -- there's almost no at¬ they used to, watch THE SECRET OF tempt to humanize Gant. Now, this NINfl. Walt Disney would be proud. might've worked for Eastwood in HIGH THE BLENDER BOOK are neither believable nor likable. WALPURGIS III The writing and plotting are mediocre By David Ocker and John Steinmetz By Mike Resnick at best and the dialogue worse. In Push Poke Prod Press Signet, Paperback, $2.25 4313 Finley Avenue, Los Angeles, CA fact, if it weren't for the central idea's startling similarity to a 90027. $4.50 Jericho, the ultimate hired as¬ small piece of the Simak book, this sassin, lands secretly on the witch¬ REVIEWED BY GENE DE WEESE one wouldn't really deserve mention craft-dominated planet of Walpurgis at all. If you've ever wondered about III. He is there to find and kill the Metaphysics of Blenders, this is the ultimate mass murderer, Conrad the booklet for you. There are only Bland, who has already slaughtered six pages of text, but they are pack¬ over thirty million people on other ed with such deep and disturbing rev¬ planets before the Satanist govern¬ ment of Walpurgis III granted him as¬ elations as, for instance, the fact STARBURST that one of the newly discovered ylum. Now, however. Bland is proving By too much even for them, so they are rings of Saturn is "exactly propor¬ Ballantine/Del Rey, $12.50 tional to that little rubber ring in for the most part cooperating with everybody's Blender", not to mention Jericho. Such cooperation doesn't A fanatical scientist dupes the help a lot, however, since Bland is a theory attributed to "Israeli Theo¬ world into sending eight men and wo¬ logian David Blend-Gurion". The re¬ the sort who totally destroys a city men on an expedition to an extra-so¬ of 200,000 on the off-chance that maining forty-very-odd pages are lar planet he has discovered. IXiring Blender cartoons, like the Blender Jericho will be there at the time of the trip, the eight slowly evolve the destruction. All in all, this with three buttons, labeled "Loud into various types of superbeings, is a good, fast adventure story with Noise", "Higher Pitch, Loud Noise", and when they reach their destination and "Hideous, Unbearable High a touch of police procedural here and find there is no planet, they and there, and it's spiced with sev¬ Screech". I'm not sure it's worth create one and tHen devise a way to eral fascinating quotes attributed $4.50, but it's certainly a lot more return to Earth to take vengeance on entertaining than many review books to Conrad Bland, such as, "If you the ones who tricked them. Based on kill one man, you are an assassin. I've gotten recently and worth at the exaellent 1972 novelette, THE If you kill millions, you are a con¬ least a long look if you can find GOLD AT THE STARBCW'S END, STARBURST queror. If you kill everyone, you one in the huckster's room at your is itself somewhat disappointing. are a god." next con. In this greatly expanded version, there is hardly a sympathetic charac¬ ter left, and most of the sense of wonder is gone, replaced by an emph¬ HOUSE OF ANOTHER KIND asis on moderately amusing but heavy- By William Fritts handed satire. Tower, $2.25 WORLDS OF GEORGE 0. By George 0. Smith The basic idea here seems to be Bantam, Paperback, $2.50 taken directly from the conclusion of Simak’s 1980 THE VISITORS. A SILICON VALLEY Ten old-fashioned stories, in¬ mysterious house appears in an inac¬ By Michael Rogers cluding one with two endings and one cessible backwoods location, and in¬ Simon 8 Schuster, $15.50 with a radio adaptation, make up the distinct figures are seen inside. bulk of this 1946-1967 collection Beyond that, however, there's little A few years in the future, a mic¬ from the author of VENUS EQUILATERAL. to recommend here. The house appears. rocomputer company stakes all its There's a nice tale, for Word leaks out. A nasty politician chips (literally) on the chance that instance, in which a grandson goes makes hay by purposely inciting xeno¬ its experimental computer will be back in time not to kill his grand¬ phobic riots. No one can stop him able to pass the Turing Test, in which father but to make sure he becomes but when he pays a P.R. call on the it must, by its responses, fool a pan¬ his grandfather. Then there's a Run- house, the house itself zaps him and el of experts into thinking they are yonesque exercise in how to fix a shortly thereafter disappears. The talking to a human, not a ccmputer. horse race in a society of telepaths, supposedly sympathetic main charac¬ There are a lot of soap-opera type a story of the ultimate mouse trap ters -- a cynical, hard-drinking problems among the people in the com¬ and other equally intriguing items. smartaleck who used to be the nasty pany and their competitors, but it However, the most interesting seg¬ politician's aide, and a "kooky", all works rather well and does keep ments of the book are the "memoirs" honorable and deeply religious third- you turning pages. It also gives the author (who died shortly after generaticm prostitute whose main pur¬ you an excellent idea of just where the book was completed) has included. pose in life seems to be keeping the our present computer revolution may In a pleasantly chatty style, almost ex-aide (now her lover and fiance') take us in less time than you might as if he were writing a series of from taking Christ's name in vain -- think. friendly letters to the reader, he lets you in on thirty years of his life, both personal and professional, and that's worth the price of the BOOK REVIEWS BY GENE DEWEESE book by itself. Moreover, if you ask the average movie-goer who wrote PSYCHO, those few who have any idea at all will more than likely say "Hitchcock," all of which might help explain why Bloch is always identified on his books as "Author of PSYCHO." He is, to say the least, entitled. On his latest book, however, that identification had to be aug¬ mented. Now he is identified as "Author of the original PSYCHO," which is only logical since the book is "PSYCHO II", a sequel to the "orig¬ inal PSYCHO." It is not your average sequel, however, and bears little re¬ semblance to FRIDAY-THE-13TH-type of sequels, most of which merely retell the original story with only the identity and blood of the victims changed. As PSYCHO II opens, twenty years have passed, and a schlocky Hollywood producer is trying to make a movie based on the life and times of Norm¬ an Bates, the transvestite shower- slasher from PSYCHO. Norman himself is still in the mental hospital he THE IDENTITY MATRIX derwater Caribbean research station was committed to at the end of the are the only air-breathing survivors By Jack L. Chalker previous book, but he is now the hos¬ , Paperback, $2.95 of The Dying, and even they are be¬ pital librarian and is virtually cur¬ ing menaced by sharks whose intelli¬ ed, or so his psychiatrist. Dr. Clai¬ While backpacking in Alaska, gence has suddenly and inexplicably borne, thinks. Norman quickly dis¬ Victor Gonser, a 35-year-old "neb- jumped almost to the level of rats. illusions him, however, by killing a bish" Ph.D. in political science, When the station's oxygen-generating visiting nun in the stacks and escap¬ suddenly finds himself trapped in equipment is destroyed, some of the ing in her habit. Within a few hours the body of a 13-year-old Tlingit human^ set out in a sub on an ON-THE- three more bodies turn up, after Indian girl. A little later, about BEACH search for the source of a per¬ which things begin to get really in¬ the time he is forced from there in¬ sistent radio signal and perhaps to teresting. Claiborne, who feels re¬ to the spectacularly beautiful body find out what caused The Dying and sponsible for Norman's having escap¬ of a depressed 18-year-old blonde, boosted the sharks' IQ. Part of the ed, is sure Norman is headed for Hol¬ he finds that the switches are all answer may seem obvious fairly early lywood to wreak havoc among the movie part of a minor skirmish for Earth on, and you may note occasional makers, so he flies to Hollywood him¬ on the part of not one but two high¬ touches of THE THING and Larry Niv¬ self in an effort to warn them. Once ly advanced alien races who can en's WORLD OF PTAWS, but there are there, however, he can't get anyone switch bodies at will. And that is more than enough twists to keep you to take him seriously, and besides, just the beginning. Like many of interested. There is also one of some of the people involved with the Qialker's earlier books, this one is the wildest cliffhanger endings since movie -- producers, directors, etc. -- almost totally unpredictable and will the old cartoon that showed two half- almost make Norman seem sane and log¬ probably keep you guessing right up starved men chained to a dungeon wall ical by comparison. In the end -- to the last page. Not only that, several feet above the floor while well, after several jolts and twists the handling of the male marrator's one says to the other, "Now, here's liberally sprinkled with Bloch's reactions and adjustments to the fe¬ my plan ..." brand of whimsy and wordplay, things male bodies he inhabits seem very are neatly tied up in a rather sur¬ real and are certainly superior to prising sort of knot. anything Heinlein has done along sim¬ Incidentally, Universal may soon ilar lines. You could even say, with¬ PSYCHO II be coming out with a movie called out giving away too much of the plot, PSYCHO II, but don't be misled. It that Chalker has given new meaning, By Robert Bloch probably won't have anything to do in more ways than one, to the words Warner, Paperback, $3.50 with Bloch's book. It's not that Un¬ "character development." iversal didn't want to pay Bloch for Considering the fact that PSYCHO rights to the story. In fact, since is one of the best and most popular the movie rights deal twenty years films that Alfred Hitchcock ever made, ago included free rights to any se¬ it is, at the very least, disconcert¬ quel he ever wrote, they wouldn't STAR SEED ing to learn that the author of the have to pay him. According to Bloch, By David Andreissen book from which the movie was made it was just that "they didn't like Starblaze, Donning Company, received less than $10,000 -- before the idea of my turning Norman Bates 4659 Virginia Beach Blvd, Norfolk, taxes -- for the movie rights. And loose and sending him to Hollywood." VA, 23502 yet that -- and worse --is exactly Especially considering all those en¬ Paperback, $4.95 what happened to Robert Bloch, who dearing producers, directors, etc., wrote PSYCHO more than twenty years that Norman would find once he got In 2014, a handful of humans and ago. there. dolphins living in and around an un¬ 15 ************************************ papers. They had learned both from Ned Buntline and from Charles Dickens. They had very clearcut ideas on what would attract and hold readers at any PULP! given level of circulation, and all thinking was based on the selling of units -- merchandise -- rather than BY ALGIS BUDRYS providing literature. Publishing on this level operates within very narrow margins and the complexity of checks-and-balances that conditioned the eventual writ¬ "Pulp" once meant a kind of pap¬ This fact supported pulp chain pub¬ ing form is too complex for anything er, then a kind of magazine and then lishing in the period peaking in the less than a very thick book to de¬ a kind of writing. Each step of 1930s. No particular magazine sold tail. But what it boiled out to op¬ this evolution led out of the last anywhere near as many copies as COL¬ erationally for the writers and art¬ and the history of speculative fic¬ LIER'S or THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, ists was that they were dealing with tion as we know it is inextricably and advertising revenues were ludi¬ clients who were engaged in an attempt bound up in it. Today, SF is by far crously incomparable. But every pulp to sell as little artwork and wordage the most prominent of the last bas¬ reader tended to buy a great many to their customers as possible in re¬ tions of pulp. Because it's a style, titles per month and by holding turn for as high a retail income as now independent of physical format, down costs the pulp publishers were possible, given the fact that physic¬ it seems quite likely that pulp will able to make fortunes. al costs had already been driven down never disappear. But it is quite to the minimum. However, we do want to bear in mind the fact that any true that we've come so far from our Pulp magazines grew out of the pulp publisher and editor is someone earliest days that it's entirely pos¬ nineteenth-century dime novel. Pulp who has chosen not to be a party to sible to be a pulp writer all your paper is made by crushing wood fiber, slick publishing. life and never know it; to be a fan slurrying it in acid, then crudely of pulp writing while calling it and incompletely neutralizing the It was found that readers of something else and sneering at what acid while rolling out the slurry as pulp preferred categories; that they you think is "pulp" because it's bad it is hurriedly dried. The result is wanted the story to occur under cer¬ writing. a relatively spongy paper that's tain circumstances. The drive with¬ Pulp writing is neither good nor ridiculously cheap when pine trees in the industry was to particularize bad per se; it's a mode. A lot of are plentiful. This is printed-on categories --to divide westerns in¬ good writing is pulp. A lot of bad in "forms" -- assemblages of the same to straight westerns and ranch ro¬ writing would be much improved if it page printed in multiples of, for mances, for instance -- and to find were recast in the pulp mode, and instance, four -- and the form sheets new categories. Once a fresh format obviously, just being bad enough in tifm are gathered into bundles of this sort had been discovered by doesn't make a piece of writing a called "signatures". At some late one publisher, the tendency was for piece of pulp writing. stage in the process, the signatures all others to produce competing tit¬ are cut apart not with a trimming les either modeled directly on the Hie essence of pulp writing is knife but with a rotating or recip¬ predecessor or attempting to refine that it must offer a clearcut reso¬ rocating saw, thus producing separ¬ the category fiither. lution to a sentimental problem. It ate stacks of crosscut signatures, Thus when Hugo Gemsback for his differs from "slick" writing in that each stack representing one copy of own reasons produced slick writing must offer a clearcut the issue text. This is stapled to in 1926, his product was seen as a resolution of a conventionally sent¬ bind it, a slick paper cover is glu¬ pulp, and the proliferation of As- imental problem. For instance, while ed on and that's your newsstand copy, toundings. Astonishing, Startlings, it's became a matter of course to de¬ with one edge made ragged by the saw and Thrillings was inevitable. These clare that TV is the modem equival¬ and the other two outside edges cre¬ appeared as chain products, side by ent of pulp entertainment, the fact ated by the natural edges of the side with sister magazines devoted is that TV some time ago completed a form sheets. Turned out on a high¬ to sports, railroading, crime, jungle nearly total transition to forms pre¬ speed rotating stereotype press and stories, air war, horror, Fu Manchu viously seen only in the weekly "fam¬ shipped by train as slow freight, derivatives and of course, Westerns, ily" magazines once selling in the this piece of merchandise costs very millions on clay-coated (slick) pa¬ little per unit to produce and dis¬ as well as fantasy. per suitable for carrying four-color tribute, yet can be made to look as national advertising. if it were crammed with entertainment Some of the material appearing in at a retail price of fifteen or twen¬ the pulp physical format was not writ¬ Slick writing is easier for ty cents, in early 1900s cents, and ten to be pulp. In some cases, more bland minds to grasp blandly. There even in post-depression cents. ambitious publishers found --as is very little true pulp in the AV found -- that survival in media today: MASH, BARNEY MILLER (There were mini-depressions a more expensive format was not like¬ and now HILL STREET BLUES are all throughout this period, by the way; ly. In some cases, some of the stor¬ that immediately come to mind, and the one most recently preceding the ies had been written from different two of those, of course, are winding 1929 "Crash" occurred in 1924, so orientations but found no other home. it's an error to assume that there down, while the third is struggling. In very few cases were the edi¬ The day may come when there is no was any extended period of dollar- value stability during the pulp era.) tors actually ignorant of literature pulp on TV and radio except for some although it was not relevant to their segments on the sports and news broad¬ jobs. There was a persistent tend¬ casts. Pulp requires too much emo¬ Pulp magazines were published and ency to nurture or at least shelter tional involvement for the general edited by people steeped in the trad¬ writers and material that were pulp- mass market to bear as a steady thing itions of the dime novel and the ser¬ marginal because they tended to be ialized novel as published in news- A genuine pulp fan, however, will inept at subordinating classical lit¬ bear almost unlimited amounts of it. 16 erary considerations to commercial ones. If their work did not dismay We want to remember here that at ing of "spot" illustrations and is the readers beyond a certain point, that time there was a newsstand on cheaper. it tended to creep in, among the back nearly every comer of every city of This system ensures a steady flow pages and in low frequency per by¬ any size and a general store at many of easily-processed material to the line, as an editorial gesture to a rural crossroads, and that each of liking of the audience. The person things beyond commerce. This is not them, each month or every two weeks, at the typewriter is freed from any to say these pieces were necessarily received shipments of eight or twenty requirement of inspiration or other "better"; they were different, to pulp titles from eight or fifteen form of creativity. All that's need¬ different standards which might or magazine chains of various sizes, ed is the ability to grasp a set of might not be as naive as they were plus such wild hares as WEIRD TALES rules, sit down and type. higher-flown. and the old ARGOSY and its imitators, whereas much of the distribution of The pulp story, however, was But that's the minimum require¬ quickly identified and promulgated slick magazines depended on mailed subscriptions. It was vitally neces¬ ment, and even in the heyday of the as the bread-and-butter of the ind¬ pulps there were very few people who ustry; writers were trained to it and sary to develop thumb-rules for pro¬ ducing product, and every publishing consistently operated exactly at the writeT who could produce it in that minimum. When found, they were volume and on time was valued because house strove to refine its particul¬ ar set into a more successful set regarded with a very special sort of everyone's income, all the way down respect whose special quality re¬ the line, depended on him. within the general rules that pre¬ vailed throughout the industry. flects the fact that even among the Almost all of them were men, re¬ highly successful pulpsmiths most Thus the difference between the flecting mind-set not toward a part¬ practitioners were moved by impulses icular type of intelligence but to¬ pulp plot and the pulp formulae. above the minimum. Knowing that it ward cultural appraisals of the abil¬ The plot was conditioned by the gen¬ wasn't necessary, they nevertheless ity to do sweaty work. To say, as eral rules. The in-house formulae found themselves unable to keep from was said of scsne female writers, that covered all sorts of ground, deter¬ thinking beyond formula. mining not only the ethnic backgrounds "she writes like a man" was not sex¬ Most pulp fiction was and is ism toward content, but a naive com¬ of the characters, the locales, the frequency of action scenes, the cen¬ produced under that operational hand¬ pliment founded on the industry no¬ icap. The handicap no longer pre¬ tion that women were more apt to sorship or promulgation of certain topics, and so forth, but also the sents a critical problem; it's now miss deadlines and to treat the rules entirely possible to trade quality of commerce flightily, since they frequency of dialogue, chapter breaks, space breaks within chapters for volume; to live for a year on lacked the roll-up-your-sleeves-and the amount of wordage that would dig-that-ditch tradition. Any female and a host of other strictures which were as much mechanical -- tending to have barely sufficed for a month in who could show herself an exception the days of pulp magazines. But in to that general assessment was wel¬ give the page a certain "open" or "closed” appearance --as they were those days, most wordage was produced come in the fraternity and outside in a compromise condition lying some¬ working hours was treated of course relevant to content. In a two-page spread, for example, the presence of where between those two extremes. And with the elaborate Edwardian courtes¬ carefully-placed white space can even today, the maximum rewards to ies that seemed appropriate. serve the same purpose as a scatter¬ to maximum wordage; any writer who

17 evolving process has clicked irrevo¬ cably into the next notch, no matter what abstract judgments might be made on the worthiness of that step; the glass has been crushed, the mar¬ riage is made. That sort of thing can take hold of a creative person and lead to writing that transcends penny-a-word considerations, just as it can lead to irrevocable commitments in a read¬ er. There is nothing in literature as emotionally satisfying as a good pulp story. What is a good pulp story? A good pulp story is one in which a clearly engaging character has an in¬ teresting problem to which he or she proffers attractive solutions which by interacting with these story ele¬ ments, force tense evolutions leading publishes less than a thousand words and the successful defense of the to an adroit resolution in good time. a day is not even tickling the com¬ known universe is essentially the mercial potential of his market al¬ same as knowing what to do about the In other words, a good pulp though today's is the neighbor who keeps playing his stereo story is one which, at the very least paperback rack-sized book, generally loud at 2:00 a.m. does not closely resemble the details indistinguishable in format from re¬ of other pulp stories. So there are Pulp intrinsically can -- and prints or originals of non-pulp or very few masterpieces in pulp --no sanetimes does -- get down to the more carefully crafted pulp material. higher a percentage than in any other everyday nitty-gritty with a clarity literature and perhaps a relatively and power few other literary forms Let's re-examine the proposition: low percentage, since topflight pulp can match. It may not do much for The essence of pulp writing is that requires enormous amounts of concen¬ it must offer a clearcut resolution your Freudian interior processes ex¬ trated ingenuity and remorseless dis¬ cept to temporarily defuse them, to a sentimental problem. There is cipline. It is easier to do slight nothing in this that dictates a simp¬ but it has everything to do with variations on characters known to le solution, single characters or a your next breath and how you draw it. attract readers, and face them with melodramatic problem. There is noth¬ It is the literature not of what you problems whose only variation from ing in it that dictates slam-bang ac¬ mightrhave thought, but of "I should other pulp problems lies in their tion, and in fact the old pulps qua have said". nomenclature; to save one's true in¬ pulps -- PLANET, STARTLING, THRILL7 It must tell you what you should genuities, if any, for some one ele¬ ING WONDER, to name the most promin¬ have said,in words or in louder ac¬ ment in this structure, and be proud ent -- consistently published moody, tions, or it isn't pulp. Forms that -- rightly so, to some extent -- for sometimes evocatively poetic short propose several alternative solutions having done even that much. stories which are today mistakenly to the problem, that never pose the called something other than pulp In any given magazine or chain problem clearly, or that trail off of magazines, the prevalence of good simply because they have no fist- enigmatically, are not pulp no mat¬ fights in them. PLANET discovered or excellent-pulp is a response to ter how much action, wooden dialogue the editor’s orientation. Darrell , to loud cheers from and explosions they contain. Forms the audience, and all three of these Schweitzer, writing a letter in SCI¬ that rationalize their characters' ENCE FICTION REVIEW #43, has given a titles, plus many others, contain a actions, as distinguished from show¬ great deal of short material which very good picture of the Ziff-Davis ing clearcut motivational evolutions SF magazines when these were publish¬ was praised -- and sometimes damned -- from clearcut beginnings, are not for its "literary" merit by readers ed in Qiicago, as the bulkiest and pulp. And forms which propose solu¬ largest-selling pulps of the 1940s. who used that term to mean "non-ac¬ tions only in form of intervention tion" without respect to any actual by higher authority are not pulp. AMAZING STORIES and FANTASTIC AD¬ literary standards. But any story which eschews these VENTURES, under the editorship of "Sentimental", too, is something diffusing features is pulp by the Ray Palmer, were largely written by nuch different from "conventionally definitions worked out by pulp writ¬ in-house writers, many of whom rarely sentimental". Needing to decide ers in the pulp magazines, no matter appeared in other SF magazines and whether to put a bullet through a what format it appears in. this situation represents a tightness blonde's navel is a sentimental prob¬ of editorial control surpassing even What you should have said, in lem and on its own emotional terms is that which John W. Campbell, Jr., ex¬ words or in louder actions. A phys¬ as powerful as anything in Aeschylus. ercised at ASTOUNDING. And as Sch¬ ical blow struck in a pulp story is Whether it is as "worthy" of that weitzer points out, and despite hav¬ a statement, as distinguished from power as some more sophisticated con¬ ing several such "in-house" writers the decoration it is in other forms. struct is not germane to what it does of obvious literary ability: David It is struck not for its own sake to its reader's mind. Furthermore, Vem and David Wright O'Brien, to but to declare a breakpoint in a sit¬ it occurs on a level far more in ac¬ name the two most prominent -- Pal¬ uation; a definite step in the evol¬ cord with the sort of life the read¬ mer's magazines rarely contained any ution of the plot. The blow lands er can fantasize himself living and work that was the slightest bit mem¬ not only on the villain but in the relates much more clearly to such orable on its merits, and very little reader's emotions; it is a signal homely analogies as the domestic quar¬ of it has ever established any demand that henceforth everything will be rel. Similarly, the need to recover on the reprint market. What stories different to some extent -- that an the idol's eye or the talisman of are memorable -- from Robert Bloch power analogizes to the pay enevelope 18 and and Theodore Stur- geon, for three -- were from writers So in many ways, while the Pal¬ tables of contents tended to all echo who did not sit as close to Palmer mer magazines -- which shortly there¬ the sort of writing one might expect at his justly notorious poker table. after, perhaps coincidentally, be¬ of "" tales, written came someone else's magazines -- of¬ until the War by Edmond Hamilton. Nevertheless, Palmer's sales fig¬ fer an instructive object of study Merwin's touch was more serious, for ures regularly topped 100,000 -- sev¬ re pulp history; they represent an all that his stewardship of Sergeant eral score thousand above the figures aberration from straightline SF pulp Saturn often reflected a mordant wit. being attained by the magazines which history which proceeded somewhat dif¬ CAPTAIN FUTURE died, its paper allo¬ today furnish the bulk of the antholo¬ ferently back on the East Coast. cated to more successful sister pub¬ gized "Golden Years" material. Oper¬ lications after the first few war¬ ating in a near-vacuum -- all the Malcolm Reiss, for the major part time issues, and while THRILLING -- other professional SF publishing was of his career the managing editor for TWS in Fanspeak -- stayed pretty nuch in or near it -- and Love Romances Publishing Co., Inc. and as it had been, STARTLING began to possessed both of enormous charisma hence supervisor of a score of pulp demonstrate an experimentalism, still titles including , had and an inordinate shrewdness -- Pal¬ within pulp rules, that soon sharply mer was able to pull off the stunt evolved a contents formula calling distinguished it from any other Stan¬ other editors have fruitlessly attempt¬ for high-action lead novelettes, qua- dard magazine, let alone TWS. ed to emulate. That is, he moved his simystical, poetastic supporting nov¬ It became rather more like PLANET material out of the center of pulp elettes and short stories ranging which at this time was beginning to and out to the fringes where it be¬ from the snapper-ending gimmick to reach its apotheosis with Paul Payne's gins to merge with slick. Precisely proto-Bradbury. This proved to be discovery of the short stories that to the extent that 1940s AMAZING the winning combination, and was would form THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES and stories are bland -- that is, conven¬ quickly adopted by the succession Jerome Bixby's decision to contract- tionally sentimental -- they became of editors at competing Standard Mag¬ out all his lead novelettes to more attractive to people who are azines, whose "Thrilling Group" pub¬ Poul Anderson writing as A.A. Craig. distressed by writing with impact. lished CAPTAIN FUTURE, THRILLING WON¬ DER STORIES and , at In this respect. Me rwin's tenure Or inpact of a certain sort. first supervised by Leo Margulies and/ almost imperceptibly merges into that Palmer dressed his product in "fact , and later by others. of Mines, a man with just as many articles" and fillers which spoke of sensibilities and an even less con¬ lost civilizations and ancient mys¬ While PLANET during this same formable nature and the zenith of teries tending to make everyday real¬ period ran through a succession of ity less significant and less amen¬ this evolution in STARTLING came with short-lived but excellently Reiss- its 1952 publication of THE LOVERS. able to mere human modification. His trained editors -- W.S. Peacock, Philip Jose' Fanner's debut. covers and subsidiary artwork, for Chester Whitehom, Paul Payne and all their action material on the Jerome Bixby, to name the three best At about this point, the sales front and "science supposition" con¬ -- and frequently found Reiss having of STARTLING -- still a pulp, albeit tent on the back, were invariably done to sjt back in whenever Love Romanc¬ with knife-trimmed edges -- touched by a captive cadre of artists special¬ es' pay scales lost him his latest 90,000 copies, the best figures ach¬ izing in bland, glossy finishes, young comer -- tenure at Standard ieved by anyone but Palmer, in the among them, for example, were Robert proceeded much more evenly in the face of competition by the nearly Gibson Jones, who for all his render¬ persons of Oscar J. Friend, Sam Mer- sacrosanct ASTOUNDING and the new and ing skill tended toward fruitiness vin, Jr., and eventually, Samuel fashionable GALAXY and MAGAZINE OF in his total effect, and H.W. Macaul- Mines assisted part of that time by FANTASY § SCIENCE FICTION, or the ey, who had been trained in the stud¬ Jerome Bixby. completely revamped, New York-based io that produced the Coca Cola adver¬ and spendthrift AMAZING and FANTASTIC Friend was a jolly sort on paper, tising art of the day. (And was for under Howard Browne, a man very much creating Sergeant Saturn and his al¬ a long time, in fannish oral tradi¬ like Merwin. tion, sparked by Palmer editorial ien companions --a two (?)-fisted white lies, called "the" man who did lot of Xeno-drinking miscreants -- By all odds, if any magazine were the Coke art.) The packaging of AM¬ as personalities in the lively let¬ to survive the catastrophic demise AZING and its sister points up the ter-column, and generally editing of the pulps in the face of pulp TV, difference between one sort of pulp, with a touch that smacks of not tak¬ it ought to have been STARTLING: "escape" and another, slicker kind ing any of this too seriously. His pulp-borne, pulp-edited, pulp to the which is mich more the sort of actu¬ al escape that chloroform brings.

This trend culminated, with a sales leap to 250,000 in the "Shaver Mystery" stories; these were codified mania, in which real lost races liv¬ ing underground and on other planets were declared to be actually manipu¬ lating human affairs via "rays" and other arcane influences, buttressed by a welter of "facts" in the filler material, prefiguring Von Daniken by a generation but owing a palpable amount to de Sade and Sacher-Masoch. This was Palmer's ultimate reach for the audience that finds reality in¬ explicable via the unguided percep¬ tions, or at least to that relatively small segment of it which responds to this disability in that particular way. "Gomplete in This Issue" -- i.e., butchered -- but other than that, STARTLING had the edge over even that flamboyant competitor and the margin in numbers was the least of that edge. What's to be learned fran 90,000 sales -- and thus a circulation of over a quarter-million -- for a 1952 magazine devoted to pulp and making no bones about looking like a pulp while everyone else was ducking into ? Hard to say. VENTURE SCIENCE FICTION, F§SF's short-lived digest- format sister, instantly attracted the stories and writers who would have stayed with a continuing START¬ LING. Talk about your freshets, the problem wasn't filling the issue it was in finding room for all the mat- erail submitted by people eager to sell to a medium which, like START¬ LING, paid less than top rate. But the long-standing magazine distribu¬ tion system had recently collapsed, (nor has it yet fully recovered from the abrupt demise of the surreptit¬ iously gutted American News Co.). Despite long agonies within Mercury Press in an attempt to solve the prob¬ lem, VENTURE today is only a subtitle under FEiSF's colophon. And that, ex¬ cept for the eyeblink existence of IASFM'S sister adventure magazine, has largely been that.

It may be there's no further need for a magazine specifically proclaimed as an adventure story med¬ ium. It may be that proclaiming it "adventure" when what is meant is "pulp" in its full meaning --or not understanding it wasn't necessarily marrow of its staples. But when the Smith, and Robert A. Heinlein, Arth- the adventure that sold pulp --is chains folded -- no truly chain-pub¬ C. Clarke and for lished SF magazine survived, except backup. Vance, whose magnum opus of counterproductive. oddly enough, Robert A.W. Lowndes' the time was "Big Planet" in a 1952 Pulp -- pulp as it really was various titles of the Double Action STARTLING, has rarely written pulp and is -- is alive and well within group, and even so only to the next except for his "Magnus Ridolph" ser¬ all SF media. It's only called pulp bad break - they took STARTLING ies in the same medium, but all the when it's full of meaningless hit¬ with them, no one having made a suc¬ others rarely write anything else, ting, but that's not pulp's fault; cessful bid to buy it as a freestand¬ excepting some of the later novels it's the fault of a failure of per¬ ing title. of Heinlein and Clarke but not all ception in the oral tradition within the community and of scholarship out¬ This too, I think, was an aber¬ of them, and some cases in which ration; without knowing any of the G.O. Smith's concentration faltered. side it. inside facts, I assume Standard Mag¬ STARTLING was in many respects a liv- azines singly couldn't be bothered lier, wider-ranging1, more interesting I direct your attention to Fran- to investigate the possibility, or magazine than anything else on the son § DeVore's A HISTORY OF THE HUGO, wanted the world and all in compen¬ stands, and it achieved this condi¬ NEBULA, AND INTERNATIONAL FANTASY sation, or -- Standard being what it tion while staying quite well within AWARDS; run your eyes down the lists was -- both. In a rational world, the bounds of pulp, not pap. Writers of winners in every category from it would be with us yet, probably who might appear in any issue with Novel on through Short Story. These with its title changed to ANTILOG. above-average work included Leigh awards were instituted just as the Brackett, Mirray Leinster and A. Ber¬ despised pulps were assertedly tak¬ During its period of arbitrarily tram Chandler; pulpsmiths all, and ing their "worthless" action-dramas truncated health, STARTLING publish¬ some of them doing the best work to oblivion with them. There's only ed a great many worthwhile stories, they ever did, if memorability counts. one problem; whether the awards are most of them clearly pulp and took GALAXY at the time was enjoying the given by juries of experts, by the a chance on a number of writers who benefit of a freshet of serializable membership of the SFWA or by conven¬ have since paid off: John D. Mac¬ novels that had been dammed up by tion fandom, years since the "death" Donald, Walter M. Miller, Jr., Jack increasingly rigid parameters at AS¬ of pulp, it's non-pulp that's hang¬ Vance, Charles Harness and of course TOUNDING, whereas Standard was ada¬ ing on by the skin of its teeth, and Farmer, for openers; L. Ron Hubbard, mant about having all its novels it's pulp that wins. ************************************ , Kiitter-Moore, George 0. 20 THE GOBLIN RESERVATION By Clifford D. Simak DAW, 1982 (Reprint of a 1968 work) OTHER UOICES 160 pp., $2.25 REVIEWED BY JOHN DIPRETE

This light 'n' lively puff-stuff played strictly for laughs, appeals solely to slapstick fans. The cov¬ er-spine says, "DAW SF', but it's THE INDIANS WON pure fantasy; the SF trappings are By Martin Cruz Smith so sappy and slippery as to blow Leisure, $2.50 gustily apart from a ghost. In fact, this has a ghost. And a Neand- REVIEWED BY CHARLES R SAUNDERS erthaler. And a talking cat. And Martin Cruz Smith is best known ... why go on. for GORKY PARK, a best-selling novel I found this tpo silly as comedy of Soviet spy intrigue. Before that retain their independence in the face and too weak as excitement. Simak success, Smith achieved notoriety of American industrial expansion. has written a number of "gag" books; among horror aficionados with NIGHT¬ the characters and superficiality of WING, a gory yam about a berserk By the late 20th Century of THEY WALKED LIKE MEN and OUT OF THEIR swarm of vaupire bats. la¬ Smith's parallel Earth, the Indian MINDS always struck me as too self¬ ter became a motion picture, as GORKY Nation retains its autonomy despite consciously chuckles-oriented to mer¬ PARK no doubt will. the nuclear sabre-rattling of the it laughter. This is Simak's silli¬ United States and the USSR. The est. With solid success in two of the question is: Do the Indians also more lucrative of contemporary have The Bomb? Smith's resolution fiction. Smith was able to sell his of that dilenma is a classic Indian long-unpublished first novel, THE IN¬ ploy worthy of the wisdom of Old DIANS WON, to Leisure Books. THE Lodge Skins, the savant of the movie INDIANS WON is an exercise in histor¬ LITTLE BIG MAN. To reveal it here THE PRIDE OF CHANUR ical speculation, like Canadian Rich¬ would be a disservice to the prospec¬ By C.J. Chernyh ard Rohmer's SEPARATION and EXONER¬ tive reader. ATION series. DAW Books, 1982, paperback As a first novel, THE INDIANS 224 pp., $2.95 Smith's "what if is a fascinat¬ WON reads like an uneven mix of doc¬ ing one: What if the Indians had umentary history, cultural anthrop¬ REVIEWED BY PATRICIA SHAW managed to check the westward expan¬ ology Aid modem thriller fiction. THE PRIDE OF CHANUR is a star- sion of the American whites following Smith is of partial Indian descent, Custer's defeat at Little Big Horn? ship, an affluent clan of sentient and in his Introduction he mentions lions, and a rattling good blood-and- The key to is that the royalties from THE INDIANS the ability to create conditions guts adventure story. From the min¬ WON will go to "American Indian ute we see the starved, beaten, fur¬ that make the "what if plausible; to causes". While the novel makes for less alien running for his life realistically alter history. In real interesting reading. Smith might history, the Indians lost because of through Meetpoint where all sorts of have done himself and his cause a beings including a frightening and disunity within their ranks in the favor with at least one rewrite to face of the whites' nearly unanimous disgusting set of galactic villains tighten the connection between the come to trade, and realize that Meet- belief in their "Manifest Destiny" to disparate elements of his novel. dominate the North American continent point is run by a sleazy pack of in¬ "from sea to shing sea". In this Still, this book is must reading terstellar cowards, to the point context, Smith's "what if is simple for everyone who has ever wondered where Captain Pyanfar Chanur must but effective. what would have happened if Tonto decide what to do about it, to the had said to the Lone Ranger, "What end, the action never stops. Suppose a man like Canada's Louis you mean we, white man?" Riel had existed in the United States There are heroes both feline and during the Indian Wars. Suppose this ************************************ otherwise, villains, moral choices American Riel, an adept dancer in the cultural minuets of Indian and white alike, was successful in forging an alliance among Indian leaders as di¬ verse as Sitting Bull and Geronimo. Would not the Indians then have pos¬ sessed the capability of blunting the momentum of "Manifest Destiny"?

John Sutter, a Mandan Indian with a miss ion-school education and a middle-class lifestyle, is Smith's Riel --a pragmatic Riel void of de¬ bilitating mysticism. Through a com¬ bination of Sitting Bull's guerilla warfare and Sutter's canny diplomacy, the Indians manage to stall the Amer¬ ican juggernaut. In guerilla war¬ fare, as Vietnam taught us, a stall is as good as a win. The Indians to be made, desperate and dangerous A VISION OF DOOM action, and politics on both the By Ambrose Bierce grand scale and the small. Captain Edited by Donald Sidney-Fryer Chanur not only has the fate of an Donald M. Grant, Publisher, West entire new species in her hands, but Kingston, RI. a totally expected but annoying pet¬ 1980, hardbound, 110 pp., $12.00 ty revolt at home and the life of her mate to save, and in the course REVIEWED BY NEAL WILGUS of saving it, makes a major change in the customs of her people, for Ambrose Bierce is generally re¬ the personal and political are inter¬ membered for his war and horror stor¬ twined on all levels in this book. ies and for the acid satire of THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY, but as editor There is a detailed look at what Sidney-Fryer demonstrates in this a spacegoing leonine culture would collection, Bierce was also a first- be like, and how furred people of rate poet whose verse has been sadly rank would dress for a confrontation neglected these past 70 years since with the interstellar powers (color¬ the poet disappeared. According to ful and piratical and very impres¬ Sidney-Fryer, Bierce wrote something sive) , and glimpses at more than a like 800 poems in his life (includ¬ handful of other beings along the ing the 200 or so in the DICTIONARY) way, and the mechanics of this par¬ but the 50 preserved here are the ticular interstellar trade network. crop's cream and it's no surprise Terran readers are hooked by the fact that much of it is concerned with that, although the focus is on the Bierce's twin obsessions, horror leonine heroes, the refugee is Earth- and death. human, and heroic in his own right. Included here are the bulk of C.J. Cherryh writes fascinating Bierce's two volumes of poetry, aliens and fast-moving adventure BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER (1892) and with more than enough depth in form¬ SHAPES OF CLAY (1903), plus two nar¬ ing her writing to make a simple ac¬ rative poems that might well have categories of stories: Terror of tion story into a worthwhile novel. been lost forever if Sidney-Fryer the Soul, Mysteries, Humor and Sat¬ Rating: Three wows and lots of pur¬ hadn't retrieved them from their ire, Flights and Fancies. Like the ring. only previous publication in a news¬ average reader (note the word aver¬ *******A**A*ft*A********************* paper called THE CALIFORNIAN (1867). age!), the only Poe stories I had Of these only one, "Basilica", is ever read or heard on radio adapta¬ truly first-rate, but it alone almost tions or on records or in the movies make* this volume a collector's item. were drawn from the first two cate¬ gories, and my physical concept of Not everything here is in the Poe as a person was that of a pover¬ fantasy/horror , but the bulk ty-stricken pale, necrophilic alco¬ DREAM PARK of it is and the excellent cover and holic, humorless and hag-ridden. interior plates by Frank Villano add By Larry Niven and Steve Barnes WELL, let me tell you, it ain't so. immensely to flavor of the , 16727-6; 430 pp., $2.95 Buddy! Stephen Peithman has done an whole. A long and rambling introduc¬ overwhelming, superlative job of an¬ REVIEWED BY PAUL MC GUIRE tion by Sidney-Fryer gives much fas¬ notation and the story introductions cinating background and relates are a wealth of short story history. In the next century, Dream Park Bierce to the poetic tradition that will be the ultimate amusement park. includes Poe, George Sterling, Clark Poe was very widely read and did When a valuable research project is Ashton Smith and even mainstream gi¬ not hesitate to use current or his¬ stolen and a man murdered, the head ant Robinson Jeffers. It's too bad torical occurrences in the construc¬ of Park Security joins the suspects that a limited edition such as this tion of most of his short tales. Be¬ incognito to investigate. A most will have absolutely no inpact on cause the origins of these stories memorable group of fantastic, but the general appreciation of Bierce's have their birth in forgotten stor¬ in context believable characters, genius, but for lovers of fantasy ies, feuds and the like, the latter- the suspects are all gamers. The vi¬ and the poetry of horror this is a day reader may be put off by those tal SF element provides Dream Park big event that should not be missed. allusions and the liberal sprinkling the technology to create highly eth- You'll be lucky if you get a copy of of French, Greek, Spanish and Ital¬ erealistic fantasy -- adventure this gem before it goes out of print. ian phraseology which literally pep¬ games. This one lasts four days. ************************************ per the Humor and Fancies sections. An open-air Dungeons-and-Dragons - Apparently it was de rigueur for the type brawl, the game has traps, trag¬ well-read author and reader to be edy, heroism, horror and wonders well-versed in these classical lang¬ from a very unusual source. Using uages. Fear not, intrepid reader: the Cargo Cults of Melanesia for its This marvey editor has explanations motif, the game is a grueling trek THE ANNOTATED TALES OF EDGAR ALLEN POE of almost everything that needs ex¬ through the jungle, fighting natives, plaining. At times, the annotations mythological beasts and zombies. Edited by Stephen Peithman are far more interesting and excit¬ But there is always the clever sci¬ Doubleday Co, 1981, $35.00 ing than Mr. Poe's stories. It also ence-fictional reality behind it all, ($23.85 from Science Fiction Book appears that Poe was a bit of a plag- and human interaction in the fore¬ Club) 684 pages. arist, and did subtle rewrites of front. REVIEWED BY ALMA JO WILLIAMS stories which were popular 50 to 100 A vigorous novel, in many ways years previous. enjoyable, DREAM PARK is great en¬ The table of contents for this tertainment ! massive tome (684 pages) lists four It came as a distinct shock to ************************************ 22 read the humor, fantasy and satire that flowed from the pen of America's these books would be a valuable ad¬ THE BORRIBLES GO FOR BROKE turns acknowledged Master of the Macabre. dition to any writer's reference li¬ London into an alien landscape by fo¬ Believe it or don't, the stories, brary and together they cover the sub¬ cusing on those parts of a city good although overwritten, are delight¬ ject of mysteries as thoroughly as people never see. At times it is ful! most of us are likely to want. funny, wise, exciting and poetic. The realm of has some new I can see how the styles of Love- citizens. craft and Clark-Ashton Smith were af¬ fected, after plowing through the mas¬ ************************************ sive, wordy Poe writings. Highly recommended, especially for reworked story lines. (If Poe can do it, why THE BORRIBLES GO FOR BROKE not us!) By Michael De Larrabeitti ************************************ Ace 07024-8; 267 pp., $2.50 Cover art by MR, MONSTER'S MOVIE GOLD REVIEWED BY PAUL MC GUIRE By Forrest J. Ackerman Introduction by Stephen King THE MYSTERIOUS WORLD: AN ATLAS OF Borribles once were children, Published by the Donning Co., 1982 THE UNEXPLAINED and aside from their long pointed 206 pp., $12.95 ears and although they may be ever By Francis Hitching REVIEWED BY RITCHIE BENEDICT Holt, Rinehart and Winston so old, still look like children. They live in the streets of London, Paperback, 256 pp., 1979, $11.95 Forrest J. Ackerman (Forrie to wild and free, and like old deserted his friends) is the publisher of Arthur c, clarke's mysterious world buildings, telling stories and being the magazine FAMOUS OF FIN¬ Borribles. Suspicious even of other By Simon Welfare and John Fairley LAND, and is known as the collector Borribles, they do not travel much A5W Publishers, 95 Madison Ave., NY of science fiction and horror movie beyond their home base. They sup¬ Hardbound, 1980, 217 pp., $17.95 material in North America, if not port themselves by theft, have their the world. Best selling horror auth¬ REVIEWED BY NEAL WILGUS own traditions and legends and seek or Stephen King is one of his admir¬ to win names on . Mysteriously, there's a surge of ers and says in his introduction to interest in mysteries lately, much of The SBG is a division of the po¬ this book that although his elders it as shoddy and fake as the mystery lice whose only function is to cap¬ considered it as a form of trash, it business has always been. Two books ture Borribles. They hate the inde¬ inspired him when he was a kid. And on the subject that are not shoddy pendent ones with a fierce passion. who can argue with his success today? and fake are these volumes with echo¬ If they can clip a Borrible's ears I understand that Mr. Ackerman has ing titles and graphic illustrations then he's no Borrible and will grow willed his home and collection (which of the mysterious and unexplained. into a mundane adult and will obey is a vast compendium of memorabilia) By mysterious I mean Fortean, of all th£ rules. to be a museum after his death. course. Wendies used to be Borribles. This book is a mouth-watering MYSTERIOUS WORLD was originally They live'in the sewers. Regimented collection of rarities -- over 250 published in England as THE WORLD into an army under the tyrannical vintage still photos, artwork and ATLAS OF MYSTERIES (1978) and the rule of a monstrous dictator, Wend¬ posters ranging from the early silent original title was better, since ies have evolved into something on era to the 1950s. The author com¬ this large and lavishly illustrated the order of short trolls. Wearing ments on each and remembers some of volume (also available in hardcover) hip waders, orange city-worker rain his reactions to the actors and auth¬ is quite geographically oriented jackets and helmets made from beer ors he has met (he is one of the few with many maps to locate and define cans, armed with spears and the trad¬ people still alive to have met H.G. the patterns of mysteriousness. itional Borrib.le weapon, the sling¬ Wells). shot, they are much to be feared. CLARKE'S MYSTERIOUS WORLD, based on Aside from sheer entertainment the British TV series of the same The second great Borrible adven¬ value, there are a number of items name, is not so lavishly illustrated ture is about to begin, and it will that will fascinate film buffs and nor as large and it doesn't use the take some of them very far from home historians. One of the famous "lost" geographical approach, but it compen¬ films of all time is the 1910 version sates by being somewhat more skeptic¬ al and analytical. Both volumes cov¬ er such classic mysteries as Stone¬ henge, Bigfoot, UFOs, the TUnguska explosion, the Loch Ness monster and Fortean phenomena such as those mys¬ terious rains of frogs and whatnot that are still happening. It should be clearly noted that although it carries his name, his foreword, his introduction and his comments following each chapter, ARTH¬ UR C. CLARKE'S MYSTERIOUS WORLD is not by Arthur C. Clarke, but by two TV documentary makers who worked with Clarke to produce the 13-part TV ser¬ ies and the book. Francis Hitching is the author of MYSTERIOUS WORLD and His also appeared on TV defending "alternative theories of archeology and psychic phoenomena". Either of WHERE TIME WINDS BLOW AN F. MARION CRAWFORD COMPANION By Robert Holdstock By John C. Moran Timescape/Pocket Books, 43262-1 Greenwood Press, Westport, CT 260 pp., $2.95 1981, 548 pp., cloth, $45.00. REVIEWED BY PAUL MC GUIRE REVIEWED BY STEVE ENG VanderZande's World has a valley Tum-of-the-century novelist F. Marion Crawford's examples of of Frankenstein starring Charles Ogle. where time winds blow, depositing science fiction are few. In WITH There is a photograph of Ogle as he and removing artifacts from the past and future. Investigation teams work THE INMORTALS (1888) some electrical really looked sans make-up. There experiments raise the ghosts of Dr. are stills from a 1918 Bela Lugosi the valley between blows, salvaging and studying. There are also surgic¬ Johnson, Da Vinci and others; in THE version of THE PORTRAIT OF DORIAN WITCH OF PRAGUE (1891) a 107-year-old GREY as well as a photograph of the ally and genetically "manchanged" people adapted to life on the planet man is kept alive through death-de¬ first known movie Dracula --a Hung¬ fying science. But Crawford is bet¬ arian named Charles Takacs who is who live in colonies up in the moun¬ tains. ter noted in the fantasy field for still alive and living in Hollywood mystical MR. ISAACS (1882); the Or¬ today! There is a 1912 version of One investigation team consists iental KHALED (1891); a Ballantine Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that some¬ of Leo Faulcon, Lena Tanoway and Adult Fantasy Reprint in 1971, the what resembles PLANET OF THE APES in Kris Dojaan. Leo and Lena are tough very weird WITCH OF PRAGUE and the its conception. professionals, and lovers. Kris is famous short stories in WANDERING there seeking to learn about his GHOSTS (1911). Some of the latter brother, a victim of the winds. En- are his most popular tales, such as Trivia buffs will have a field savlion, their commander, is obsessed day -- did you know that Rudolf Val¬ "The Upper Berth", a ghost-at-sea with finding the time masters he be¬ story, "The Dead Smile", "The Scream¬ entino was in a ? Science lieved he once glimpsed. fiction has its turn at bat too. ing Skull" and the vampire classic There is an early movie called DEATH After a most promising beginning "For the Blood is the Life". By RAY and a film set on Mars in 1922 and despite his skill with words, Mr. these often-anthologized tales Craw¬ entitled MARS CALLING. Cryonics has Holdstock stops narrating his story. ford is better known than for all been used as a topic -- in a silent Instead he has characters explain of his forty-some novels put to¬ film, a dog is revived after being things to each other. In almost ev¬ gether. dead for eight minutes. There is an ery possible pairing, the characters This huge reference tone chal¬ entire section on the legendary Lon get things off their chests. Then lenges such an imbalance in Craw¬ Chaney. come lectures on a variety of sub¬ ford's reputation. There are three jects. Finally Lena and Kris are The author says he had a tough introductions --by eclectic Russell carried into the time winds (in an Kirk, by famed scholar Edward Wagen- job in trying to decide what to in¬ honesv to Ghod scene) and science clude in this first volume. He as¬ knecht and by fantasy poet-critic fiction tradition now requires that Donald Sidney-Fryer. Then comes a sures us that there definitely will Faulcon follow his team. be a second and asks for reconmenda- lengthy study by the author of this tions from the readers as to what it First Faulcon visits the man- romantic novelist's life and works. should contain. It was obviously changed. They give him a condensed Crawford almost literally worked in a labor of love to put it all to¬ version of a highschool Introduction an ivory tower --a tower made of gether. Not all mysteries are solv¬ to Eastern lecture. De¬ stone, actually, high above the Med¬ ed however, and neatly tied up. Mr. spite the simplicity, it has a pro¬ iterranean. The whole Crawford Ackerman admits in several captions found effect upon Faulcon. He vows story is absorbing: his father de¬ that he has photographs in his col¬ to enter the winds, but first we are signed the statue on our Capitol lection which puzzle him as to their treated to endless soul-searching dome, his aunt wrote "The Battle origin and what they depict. and debate. Hymn of the Republic" and the man himself was a seaman, a literate ob¬ This book will give the lie to Faulcon, at last, does enter the server of Buddhism in India and was anyone who believes that the silent winds and learns the truth but Mr. considered a failure by his family era was thin pickings for science Holdstock just has us listen to him till he began writing virtually a fiction and horror fans with the ex¬ tell another character all about it, book a year that made him the best¬ ception of a few recognized classics. after the fact. selling American novelist of his Due to the highly inflammable nature time. This latter fact is a well- The novel came alive just often of film stock then, there are many kept secret in literature classes to¬ films we only have titles for. Sev¬ enough to keep me going and did have day, probably because Crawford avoid¬ an imaginative science fiction explan¬ eral years ago, a treasure trove of ed the parochial "American Dream" pre-1930 film reels were recovered ation for all of the mysteries of and gave his readers escape, adven¬ from beneath a Dawson film rink where VanderZande's World. I like to vic¬ ture, romance, fantasy, horror and they had been preserved by the sub- ariously experience an author's nov¬ authenticity of fact that few "real¬ Arctic cold. Is it too much to ex¬ el, or at least see it; but we only ists could equal. His Mafia novel pect that some of these films in hear about WHERE TIME WINDS BLCW. CORLEONE (1897) anticipates THE GOD¬ this book may somehow still turn up? FATHER, for instance. In the meantime, we shall have to make do with whatever can be preserv¬ To build the case for Crawford, ed and I suspect that historians are the author has compiled a fascinat¬ someday going to be very grateful ing bookful of tables, histories, for a book like this, as it will be lists and summaries. the only record of some actors and film that is available. A very fas¬ A "Crawford Chronology" (23 pp.) cinating look at the early days -- is the novelist year-by-year; "The "Fangs for the ", you might Crawford Circle" (14 pp.) is a Who's say. Don't miss it. Who from Sarah Bernhardt and Henry ************************************ 24 James to Oscar Wilde; his "Literary THE CROSS OF FIRE less and cowardly neurotic to a dang¬ By Barry N. Malzberg erous self-destructive psychotic. Ace Books, 168 pp., $2.50 On a for the symbolic, and beau¬ tiful, by the time he sinks complete¬ REVIEWED BY PAUL MC GUI RE ly into the delusion, Harrold is looking forward to the crucifixion, As Moses, Harrold actually does and is willing to keep doing it un¬ part the Red Sea, but then can't con¬ til he gets it right. Self-sacrifice vince his people that it is safe to for the hell of it. And even God cross. has his troubles. In the twenty-third century, the World" (20 pp.) is a gazeteer of This work is not only in the totalitarian state is more than wil¬ most complimentary way comparable to places real and imagined in the fic¬ ling to help people to restructure tion -- Crawford's stories range many novels, but it is a dazzling their thoughts and actions into gov¬ the continents and the centuries; collage of many types of novels. It ernment-approved patterns. It of¬ the plot outlines (228 pp.!!) cover is a brilliant science fiction sat¬ fers the freedom of the , ser¬ every chapter of every novel; a list irical and psychological tour-de¬ enity through hopelessness. of characters (78 pp.) includes "non¬ force. Mr. Malzberg provides a human" actors like ghosts and the On the other hand, Harrold has feast of ideas and dialogues set dog-star Sirius (which affects one been acting a little strange lately. within one of his most fascinating character's psyche); the biblio¬ The above could be a paranoid delus¬ and entertaining science fiction nov¬ graphy (63 pp.) covers every known ion of a patient whom the state is els. A wonderful literary achieve¬ edition in detail; and a compilation sincerely trying to help. We have ment and a whale of a tale. of quotations (31 pp.) shows how only Harrold's perception of events, ************************************ pithy and readable Crawford still and not even he is crazy enough to is. Plentiful photos and facsimile put much trust in that. title-pages add their period charm. Futuristic psychological techno¬ Obviously so complete a "compan¬ logy is used to control all sensory THE MYRMIDDON PROJECT ion" will delight the enthusiast, input and create etherealistic scen¬ answer almost any scholar's question arios in the victim's mind. The spec¬ By Chuck Scarborough and and most vital, will tempt the gener¬ ulative terrain outside the protagon¬ William Mirray al reader to this obviously larger ist merges with the surrealistic in¬ Ace, 1981, $3.25. realm of a varied, expariate romant¬ ner realm. ic writer. Like M.P. Shiel, Arthur REVIEWED BY DEAN R. LAMBE Storm-trooper types calmly and Machen and Robert W. Chambers, Craw¬ politely explain how the liberal When the country's highest-rated ford is ijnnortalized by a few fan¬ rights of mankind gives them the TV newsman demands $10 million a tasy tales that only obscure his right to persecute and kill if they year to keep the American Comnunica- vast, diverse whole. This volume truly Want to suppress freedom and tions Network on top, ACN's ruthless unlocks that greater trove. honestly enjoy being ruthless about Chairman of the Board activates a The author stands with Crawford's it. Before executing Harrold, they less-expensive option. Anchorman literary position and reminds us why want him to understand how they are Harvey Grunwald, more popular than it is important to all fantasy lit¬ not to blame for any of this. It is Cronkite ever was, loses all his fam¬ erature. Crawford called himself always the victim's fault. ily and close friends in tragic ac¬ cidents and only Network News Pres¬ a romanticist, and opposed the at- Harrold much prefers playing tacks of theso-called realists in ident Sarah Anderson knows where Christ, although the disciples nag his THE NOVEL -- WHAT IT IS (1893). Grunwald has gone to mourn. After a him about his image as if they were few weeks off the air, Grunwald re¬ Imaginative literature will always Roman public relations agents. He be under fire until the false dicho¬ turns to the evening news, and the has not traveled back to ancient Pal¬ ratings soar. Video cameraman Jeff tomy between "realism" and romantic¬ estine. Worlds are distorted, warp¬ ism ceases. "The Upper Berth" is a Campbell, who became close to Grun¬ ed, anachronistic; Harrold is invent¬ wald during their Vietnam War cover¬ realistic ghost story of the first ing them as he goes, and his own un¬ rank, for instance. Fantastic liter¬ age, begins to suspect that Grunwald conscious is soon in control of his has changed. Then a fellow camera¬ ature would be further along today treatments. if Crawford's cogent and largely man dies from a sniper bullet Camp¬ correct views had been remembered. bell knows was meant for him, and There is a nightmarish undercur¬ even Jeff's girlfriend admits that This book itself is written in a rent to this poetic novel, often sur¬ something rotten is afoot at their lively style as befits its subject, facing throughout the journey of a Network. Fortunately, Jeff has an¬ and though a thick volume it is com¬ shattered and chaotic personna blind¬ other friend from 'Nam, a Good 01' pressed and terse. In appearance, it ly and painfully searching for a Boy with a penchant for killing and has none of the stuffy "library mark¬ truth, or even a lie it can live together they launch a counterattack et" that scholarly books often have: with. Harrold is a weary soul. His on the Grunwald mystery. the cloth is purple stamped in gold, questioning is disassociated from the title page evokes Crawford's own While aimed at a broader audience, action. Reality and image; what dif¬ first editions and the type-face and this gutsy, action-filled novel is a ference should it make to Harrold? layout is exceptional. It was de¬ fine piece of near-future SF. Read¬ Science-created fantasy-worlds are signed by its author, John Moran, ers within our genre will have little arenas for the resistance of indivi¬ difficulty in predicting what actual¬ who is also a bibliographer of long dual identity, a mental struggle per¬ ly happened to Harvey Grunwald, for experience. sonified, metaphor fleshed out. accurate discussions of electrophys- Libraries will want this, as will As disjointed as this narration iological motivation research tech¬ fantasy scholars. And readers of can seem, it is in sequence. Well- niques and methods of computerized "The Dead Smile" and KHALED will motivated development is seen in the image enhancement from the space find what else of F. Marion Craw¬ protagonist as he grows from a harm- program clearly presage the final ford they’ve been missing. pages. Enjoyment is not lessened in ************************************ 25 knowing where the story is going. however, as this book may be aptly Gerard as an old retired soldier in the first time after Victor's utter compared with Paddy Chayefsky's "Net¬ a tavern spinning yams of his youth abandonment of his Creation. I know work". And, as with "Network", the in hopes that someone will spring I sure couldn't have been that arti¬ message is clear, but Scarborough for another bottle of wine, Doyle culate. Mary Shelly created more and Mirray are preaching to the con¬ carries it all off with charm. But sympathy for the Monster than for verted. Those vanishingly-few who the stories'true strength lie in the Victor in this scene, the Creation still read already know better than romantic and exciting adventures this being more complex psychologically to trust all they see on TV and per¬ chivalrous but hot-headed young war¬ than his shallow-minded creator. haps the only Achilles-heel in THE rior has back and forth across Eur¬ I had forgotten that the story MYRMIDDON PROJECT is the authors’ ope. is told through the medium of let¬ failure to recognize that the dang¬ There is a second volume, THE ters, a device which Bram Stoker ers they project in computerized TV RETURN OF GERARD, with six tales perfected in DRACULA. images are here, now. from the years 1811 to 1815 and a fi¬ nal tale set in 1821. The pen-and-ink art of Marcia Huyette is very reminiscent of Sat- tee's lovely pictures in THE ANNOT¬ ATED DRACULA. Professor Wolf also includes a timetable of events in BRIGADIER GERARD the unfolding story and lists of the By Sir Arthur Doyle THE ANNOTATED FRANKENSTEIN various book editions and movie ver¬ Jove Books, 172 pp., $2.25 Introduction 8 notes by Leonard sions of FRANKENSTEIN. Wolf REVIEWED BY PAUL MC GUIRE The dust jacket is cobalt blue Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., Publishers and will be very complementary next New York, $14.95. At long last Sir Arthur's third to the scarlet of your copy of THE series had reached the United States. REVIEWED BY ALMO JO WILLIAMS ANNOTATED DRACULA which should be Brigadier Gerard was an officer in next to blue cover of THE Napoleon's army. By his own account Leonard Wolf, of the ANNOTATED ANNOTATED ALICE IN WONDERLAND by Gerard was the greatest man in that DRACULA fame, is an English profes¬ Martin Gardiner and the gold cover army, and his adventures go far to sor at San Francisco State University. of THE ANNOTATED ASIMOV. Highly prove it. The nine tales covering He has done a "neat" job of provid¬ recommended. the years 1806 to 1811 concern cap¬ ing notes, pictures, tables and ev¬ ************************************ tures, plots, secret societies, bat¬ erything you wanted to know about tles, vengeance, rescues, escapes the Monster but were afraid to ask and all the other little things that (thus exposing your ignorance). For this edition he used the original make buckles swash. Supporting char¬ THE SWORDBEARER acters include Tallyrand, Wellington story as Mary Shelly wrote it in and Napoleon. Locales are Saragossa, 1818. r For, as he explains, in 1831, By Glen Cook Venice, Dartmoor prison and places when the second edition was issued, Timescape/Pocket Books, 83687-0 such as The Castle of Doom. "... she was the respectable widow 239 pp., $2.75 of Percy Shelly, striving for even One problem of the first person more respectibility". Then Profes¬ REVIEWED BY PAUL MC GUIRE narrative used in adventure stories sor Wolf details the changes, among THE SWORDBEARER tells of a bloody, is how to present the virtues and them the making of Victor Franken¬ prowess of the hero without making no-quarter, three-way war. Sieges, stein into an idealized resemblance battles, massacres, strategies, chang¬ him or her seem to be a bit of a of the dead Percy Shelly and the braggart. Doyle solves this by mak¬ ing allegiances, assassinations and changing of Elizabeth, Victor's ill- armies on the march are often in the ing Gerard unashamedly and overwhelm¬ fated bride, from first cousin (which ingly conceited. By adding the ton¬ foreground and never far in the back¬ smelled of incest) to an aristocrat¬ ground in Mr. Cook's epic tale. gue-in-cheek quality of having the ic foundling.' stories told from the perspective of He begins with bickering small On re-reading FRANKENSTEIN, the kingdoms trying to work together to scientific naivete'of the authoress face a mighty barbarian enpire out at the age became apparent. Victor AlHAT THIS ARMY HEEbS ‘'l to unite the world in peace by means apparently had no problem with eith¬ IS A . J of a ruthless conquest. A lame boy er post-mortem autolysis or immuno- gains a with a will of rejection when he sewed his creation its own. The sword gives him strength together --or else, he worked in¬ but creates a bond between itself and credibly fast, considering the lack the youth which the boy cannot break. of sterility (the Germ Theory of De¬ Whenever it slays, the sword drinks cay of Pasteur had not been formul¬ the soul of its unfortunate victim ated yet) and lack of refrigeration! and the swordbearer lives that pers¬ But Monster was a "fast study" on's life in an instant, and can la¬ as is shown by his being able to ter call on those memories, in some learn to speak and read by merely cases even "talk" with them. The observing and listening through the sword also has a habit of killing crack in the cottage wall and it those whanits bearer loves. Along only took him a few months. It is with the blade, which it is hinted very reminiscent of 's self- also exists in other dimensions, taught reading methods. So why do comes one basic-issue, bad-tempered our kids have to go through 12 to 16 dwarf. In other words, we begin years of schooling to learn the same with a combination of much of the thing, one might ask? I marvel at writings of , partic¬ the Monster's skillfully wrought ularly the Elric and Count Brass speech to Victor when they meet for series. 26 There is an ancient evil incam- ate persona of vast knowledge and (a third person narrative) introduc¬ magical power. This being is served es the protagonist. The second of by ten forceful warrior-demons whose which contains his (abbreviated) bodies , ages before in somewhat chronicle (of events during a 300- different form, had belonged to he¬ day period). The third of which in¬ roes. I guess a little Tolkien dicates that, of a sudden (following never hurts. the disappearance of Madagascar), all is well. Between which there is What Mr. Cook's novel lacks in little dramatic connection. An in¬ originality, it makes up for with coherent story. craft and energy. And somehow, in the midst of all the rapidly-paced "Oil is Not Gold" by Sam Nichol¬ action the author works in a fair son. Whose argument is -- to quote amount of characterization. Dr. von Reinstad, "a genius with a ************************************ solution to the energy problem" (cheap energy? Surely not!) -- that "there is no Congress -- only an oil lobby!". An opinion seconded by: Captain Schuster, a loud-mouthed trouble-shooter (though, on "our" THE BEST OF OWI SCIENCE FICTION #3 side) and Captain Cunmings, a "de¬ Edited by § Don Myers cent young chap ... sober-faced, (Omni Society, 1982, LI.95.) somewhat inflexible" (but, on "our" side). Opposed by (the subtly un¬ REVIEWED BY ANDREW TIDMARSH qualified) Mr. Ealing, "an errand boy -- a jackal -- a fixer". Not a This volume contains 27 items: balanced fiction. A mite hysterical. 20 short stories (including 4 that are "new"), 5 pictorial extracts "God Bless Them" by Gordon R. (from larger works), and 2 essays. Dickson. In which the author pre¬ It retails at LI.95 (in the USA at sents a case for a United States- $4.50). A bargain? Yes. manned Mars Mission. By demonstrat¬ ing the economic decline of the Un¬ Each story is accompanied by a ited States of America following its full-page, full-colour illustration. "refusal to adequately fund its space (I was particularly impressed by program". A thinly-disguised polemic. which hid or C.L. that on page 21 by Gervasio Gallardo, "Newton's Gift" by John J. Nahin. Moore. Both of whom are now dead. reminiscent of the paintings of Rene A classic That asks: Which is the Magritte.) The pictorial extracts Made to, not by_, Isaac. A pocket dream, which the reality? Life on feature the work (the art, indeed) calculator. That he rejects because "it is the creation of Lucifer". Earth or life ... elsewhere. And of Robert McCall, Gordon Williams, that provides an answer. A symbolic Vincent DiFate, John Harris and the Nothing is changed. Though Newton's fiction. Science Fiction. "Young Artists" collective (incor¬ faith (in Christ?) is ridiculed. ************************************ rectly attributed to Robert Holdstock "The Empath and the Savages" by and ) -- awe-inspiring John Morressy. (Xirselves observed. despite the inane commentaries. The We're better than we think. A mat¬ essays are by Robert Sheckley and ter of opinion. Ben Bova, both ex-editors of OMNI: the first of whom explains "how a "The Vacuum-Packed Picnic" by WATER WITCH Rick Gauger. Taken upon the surface pro-writer really writes", the sec¬ By Cynthia Felice 8 Connie Willia of the moon. .By a man and a woman. ond of whom that "we" (SF "aficion¬ Ace, 87379-0, 216 pp., $2.50 ados") are better than "they" , be¬ Who enclose themselves in an air¬ cause "there are lots of things that tight tent. To fuck (not a word em¬ REVIEWED BY PAUL MC GUIRE we know so well", hence that "we" ployed in OMNI). But who were inter¬ are more likely to survive the fut¬ rupted by an abrupt loss of pressure The planet Mahali, where nearly ure. (I think not. Those who can, (in an adjoining tent that contains everything seems to be fossilized, do; those who can't, read.) A bar¬ all their equipment). They will sur¬ including the bones of living anim¬ gain. vive. Nevertheless, for a while, the als, is a desert (also fossilized) reader might vicariously enjoy their world. Once ruled by who No. exposure. Gripping stuff. I'd hopes could mentally control the under¬ Having read that OM4I foresees they both might die. ground water networks, ever since the infant princess (last of the a world of growing intellectual "Message From Earth" by Ian Stew¬ true-blood and mystic gift) disap¬ vitality, expanding dreams and infin¬ art. Borne by Voyager 1. Having peared, the planet has fallen deep ite hope. Knowing that it is the read which "the simurghs sighed a into superstition and poverty. Now field's highest-paying market, I had satisfied sigh, licked their lips, an off-world businessman and the rul¬ expected a selection of the finest and readied the mass-propulsion un¬ ing (but false) princess are schem¬ available short science fiction. its". As though invited to eat us. That would complement the art of Don ing together and planning to betray Dixon, Ralph McQuarrie and Chris "Hell Creatures of the Third Plan¬ each other. et" by Stephen Robinett. The mono¬ Moore. That would be literate, styl¬ Almost every character in this logue of a film buff, to describe ish, vigorously-executed and ambit¬ book is involved in plots, has se¬ their coming "out of the night sky ious . That would, at the very least, crets and is playing at least one like something out of CLOSE ENCOUNT¬ stimulate my "sense of wonder". false role. There is the charming ERS OF THE THIRD KIND, to shoot on Instead .... heroine who is a con-woman pretend¬ location (a film). "The Madagascar Event" by Robert ing to be the true princess whom she Haisty. That may be broken into It is ironic that the volume's doesn't know she really is, the three pieces. The first of which 27 prince who is pretending to be a pi- rate pretending to be a priest and against exhibiting him, he complains, By the time our intrepid trio his henchwoman who is really ... and quoting the docunent's wording, .. reaches Eden, as their speculations so it goes. The heroine's dead fath¬ •cruel and inhuman.' Can you beat and explanations are starting to be¬ er's spirit has inhabited the bones that? ...Ain't an Elephant Man sup¬ come redundant to the point of being of a goat and gives her telepathic posed to be inhuman?" But instead of boring, they find God. Both He and advice, which in the midst of all wreaking vengeance on his creators the mysterious human who is the key this intrigue, she needs despite her and tormentors, this gentle monster to all this are equally verbose, but overwhelming sexuality and amoral forgives them -- Qirist with the head on the whole, considering the depth cunning. of an elephant. and complexity, THE GARDENS OF DE¬ LIGHT is a surprisingly easy read. The book delivers no surprises The really remarkable thing about to anyone but its characters, but this book is the way the humor dances This novel takes place in the does contain much excitement. Al¬ cheek-to-cheek with some very tough same universe as other works by Mr. though most of the characters are of questions about religion and the na¬ Watson and expands upon their themes. stock cardboard, the authors breathe ture of the soul. The concepts of It is a multi-layered novel which considerable life into the young girl Original Sin and the Virgin Birth can be read as an adventure story. and the old goat. take some hard knocks. It's a plea¬ Will the marooned spacemen find a ************************************ santly old-fashioned morality tale, way to escape? It can also be seen full of poetic justice, delivered as philosophy, psychological mystery, pink and fresh to the 1980s. Griffin religious allegory or even art crit¬ seems to be on intimate terms with a icism. However you look at it, it nultitude of subjects: TV broadcast¬ is a wonder to behold. THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT ing, life in a Catholic orphanage, ************************************ ENA and cancer research, carnival By Russel M. Griffin low life. There's even a great chap¬ Pocket Books/Timescape, June, 1982 ter from the point of view of a dog. 295 pp., $2.95, ISBN 0-671-41101-2 It's also a first-rate mystery of The Horrible Truth variety. REVIEWED BY SUE BECKMAN THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR The explanation for Macduff's By Jean M. Auel Durwood Leffingwell, small-time condition is what qualifies the story Bantam, 1981, 495 pp., $3.75 weatherman for a low-budget TV sta¬ as SF -- but just barely. It's one tion in Butler, Massachusetts, dis¬ of those books you can recomnend to REVIEWED BY P.M. SHAW covers Macduff, World's Ugliest Mort¬ friends who never touch printed SF. CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR is the al, on display in a two-bit motel Just be sure to tear off the cover room. On the outside, Macduff has first, so they won't see the Times- best-seller about a prehistoric tribe tusks and several grotesque, protub¬ cape logo. When they tell you how of hunter-gatherers and their adopt¬ erances, one of which resembles an much they enjoyed it, you can astound ed child Ayla, the different one. elephant's trunk; on the inside, he them with the truth: It was science The tribe is Neanderthal. Ayla, has a heart of gold and a wish to fictiftn of the best sort. who is Cro-Magnon, is physically dif¬ locate the mother he never knew. ************************************ ferent to the point of seeming de¬ Leff sees past Macduff's monstrous formed, even ugly, in the manner of exterior all the way to his potential Ichabod Crane. Her greater size as the subject of a TV documentary -- leads people to feel she is older and Leff's ticket to fame and a new than she is, and to expect more, Mercedes. The story follows his ex¬ THE GARDENS OF DELIGHT while her slower rate of maturity ploitive attempts to unravel Macduf¬ By Ian Watson leads to some stunning paradoxes. f's past and introduce him to the Timescape/Pocket Books, 41604-9: 19 At one point, for instance, she is outside world with a succession of 191 pp., $2.50 exiled for a month in midwinter for humiliating, video-taped disasters. a serious breach of tribal law, and This is one of the funniest books REVIEWED BY RAUL MC GUI RE must survive, and does so. Only in I've read in a long time. Griffin the following chapter does the read¬ A spaceship lands on a world¬ er remember that this was a pre-ad¬ obviously feels, as his protagonist wide alchemy experiment which uses olescent child, nine years old, un¬ professes on page 237, that "... people for its base material. Not dergoing this test. jokes (are) acts of love because they only that, everything is an accurate (make) light of a world of abomina¬ living rendition of Hieronymis Bosch's tions and chaos." He parades his surrealistic painting, "The Garden of characters through a series of com¬ Earthly Delights", which means the pletely inprobable situations but gardens of "Eden" and "Hell" must be manages to make them high humor, in¬ represented too. After an initiation stead of cheap slapstick. The trick orgy, three crew members set off on is, I think, that the characters a quest after knowledge, hunting take it all very seriously. Life is through a landscape of dream symbol just one farce after another, but it as reality for the alien superbeing is no joke to them. responsible who fancies itself God. As Macduff passes through the If you want to see God, first lives of about a dozen people, each you have to die. is changed for better or worse. Leff's imbecilic, bickering co-work¬ ers, his crazy neighbors, his mixed- Hell has torture, horror, humor, up wife Claudine and her narcissis¬ paradox, insanity, enlightenment -- tic poetry teacher all prove that everyone questions, wants to know. the real freak show goes on outside Hell is a waystation. (The novel's the circus tent. But these charact- cover is part of Bosch's painting ers don't elicit hate or disgust, on¬ of the gardens of Hell.) ly pity. When Harry, Macduff's for¬ mer "keeper", receives an injunction 28 This is the kind of book to read and reread and read again and again. Auel has promised that there will be more in her Earth's Children series, of which this is the first. Keep both eyes open for them. ************************************

DEATHWIND OF VEDUN By T.C. Rypel Zebra Books, 427 pp., $3.25 REVIEWED BY PAUL MC GUIRE

This is "the first of three new gripping sagas of Gonji, the Santiri warrior." (I am unaware of any old sagas about him.) In this book, he is wandering around the Carpathian and Transylvanian Mountains looking for trouble. Battles, intrigue, vam¬ pires, wizards and the like give him ifamem,ms e ukeff rytusaare? plenty of rapid-fire episodic action. The not totally original idea of a Samuri in Europe for horror-fantasy has sane fascinating potential. Un¬ Ayla's relentless harrassment by The tribe is totally tradition- fortunately, T.C. Rypel seems unaware Broud, the chief's son; but for the directed, and in this, is the story's of it, and his (?) understanding of most part, it is shown as simply an conflict. Ayla is not of their writing and the English language in ongoing inconvenience that the women blood and for her earliest years, general would place it far out of tolerate. Their place in the tribe not reared to their customs, and for reach in any case. What emerges is is secure. The fact that all things all her trying, can sometimes see no juvenile and clumsy, a in are referred back to custom, so that sense to them, nor keep them. Her purple prose. Since it is often un- Ayla may have to die for saving the very presence is a source of trouble; intentially funny, check it out if chief's grandson by means contrary her nature, as quickly perceived by you have time and money to throw to custom, is another example. Creb, the Holy Man, her foster fath¬ away on a cheap laugh. er, is another; her talents, her Nor are they the brutish, depriv¬ ************************************ skills and her rebelliousness, all ed cave people of fiction. These form part of the problem the tribe people lead a good, rich, if not must cope with. In this book we are easy life. Some of the menus given given an extremely clear picture of are mouth-watering. That they com¬ just how tradition-directed people municate largely by gesture, lacking HORN CROWN deal with change when they want to some of our vocal mechanisms, depriv¬ and when they must. By es them of music, but they have story¬ DAW Books, Inc., 1633 Broadway, telling, ceremonials, rites of pas¬ New York, NY 10019 Creb, the Holy Man, knows the sage and all the usual round of small 1981, 255 pp., $2.95 ways of the spirits and he knows all group life: babies' naming days, the oldest traditions; when the need matchmaking, work, gossip, family REVIEWED BY KENDRA USACK arises, he can find a precedent for life, friendship, long trips to hunt almost anything. Brun, the chief¬ and fish and gather with other bands, This novel is the real beginning tain and Creb's brother, is an intel¬ funerals -- each person is buried of the Witchworld series. Here Nor¬ ligent conservative whose overwhelm¬ with the tools of his or her trade -- ton weaves for us the quests of Elron ing need is the good of the tribe. and pathos, as in the medicine woman's and Gathea. Elron becomes clanless Iza, the medicine woman, their sist¬ death, at 26, from tuberculosis, a because he allows his lord's daught¬ er and Ayla's foster mother, has no withered old woman whose illness was er, Iynne, to disappear. However, voice in council, but sticks to beyond anybody's power at that time he chooses to track her through the pointing out visible facts to her to cure. dangerous wilderness, in order to pay brothers, with very good effect. off his last debts to his former lord There are the diehard conservatives; There are stunning moments of Gathea, assistant to the only Wise there are those who see no breach of survival, almost all of which not Woman accompanying the inmigrants, custom because they don't want to; only show Ayla's character, but the also seeks Iynne to reclaim her heri¬ there are those driven by personal tribe's reaction to it and their tage, which Iynne has taken from her. liking or personal enmity -- tribal very real ambivalence about her. At last, Norton introduces the politics in the Clan of the Cave Finally, at the end, through Ay¬ gods and goddesses of her Witchworld Bear is a universal. That it is la's unwitting intervention, old -- Gunnora, the second phase of the in the service of a different set of Creb, the tragic figure in this book, moon, also part of a three-unit dei¬ values and different universe than is shown a vision of the ending of ty, whose powers are those of a trad¬ ours, does not change this. his people and the possible, faint itional fertility goddess and Kum- These are not twentieth-century glimmer of hope in the role Ayla's ous, the warrior god-hunter, lover, people in furs. To give one example, son and a daughter bom to another brother of Gunnora. Their cosmic all women must obey any man in any band might play later on. struggles are interwoven with the thing. This can be a horror, as in 29 destinies of Gathea and Elron. This book leaves the reader breathless -- filled with wonder at the awesome strength and beauty of the Witchworld. It is a powerful work -- the characters are well- drawn and the plot moves in a lively fashion, characteristic of Norton's best novels. This book is indeed a beginning for the Witchworld series and a worthy************************************ successor to the WITCH WORLD.

TO SAIL THE CENTURY SEA By G.C. Edmondson Ace, 1981, 194 pp., $2.25 REVISED BY RUSSELL ENGEBRETSON lonely life, coping with his leprosy. use the powers he has been shown to The action in TO SAIL THE CENT¬ But the evil that Covenant supposed¬ carry; he is ungrateful and unsensi- URY SEA takes place almost ten years ly destroyed has reached from the ble about the various aids he is giv¬ after the events in Edmondson's prob¬ Land to this world, trying to draw en. This is not how a hero behaves; ably most well-known novel, THE SHIP him back through possession of his it is probably much like the way you THAT SAILED THE TIME STREAM. The ex-wife. Covenant is_ returned to the or I would act in a similar situa¬ slapstick adventures of Rate and his Land (possibly mortally wounded in tion, and that's a big part of what crew as they bungled their way from the process) along with Doctor Lin¬ the series is about. At best, be¬ one era to another in the first nov¬ den Avery, who has been entangled in yond the inventiveness of Donaldson's el have altered the time stream for Covenant's fate by her attempts to settings and his interesting support¬ the worse, much to Rate's distress. aid him and draw him out of his se¬ ing cast, this is a fascinating, poig¬ clusion. nant, painful drama and spectacle; In this novel, the old crew mem¬ at worst, the reader is disgusted bers are reunited by order of the Im¬ In the Land four-thousand years with Covenant and embarrassed for the perial President and sent on a sec¬ have passed since Covenant was last surrounding characters who put such ret mission back to the time of the there; Lord Foul is back more power¬ faith in him. Council of Nicaea in an attempt to ful than ever and has devastated the change the course of history. But Land with a very original, oppres¬ Donaldson's impressive vocabulary things do not happen according to sive, constantly fluctuating ensorc- of obscure, archaic words is likewise plan. elment called the Sunbane. The Land's still present; every two pages at wretched inhabitants can use the Sun- the most I had to get up and consult The plot is a marvelously tangled bane's power for their own ends, but a very big dictionary to find out skein of jack-in-the-box surprises, only through the shedding of human what was going on. As LOCUS review¬ and the prose is much better than blood as a catalyst. Covenant is poi¬ er, Faren Miller has aptly noted, competent; Edmondson infuses his writ¬ soned by a victim of Foul's, but he Donaldson's fondness for these words ing with dry wit, intelligence and and Avery escape from the region und¬ is tone-deaf; as used, they don't clarity of detail. He is an under¬ er Foul’s domination and at this contribute to the atmosphere or em¬ rated writer who deserves a larger book's conclusion are embarking on a bellish the story, they just make it audience. journey to ot,her regions to find the harder to read. That's only a gripe, ************************************ means to combat Foul and his creat¬ not a serious objection to the books. ures. Donaldson's epic uses a superb heroic fantasy setting to challenge all the This is a worthwhile sequel; the assumptions of what a heroic fantasy THE WOUNDED LAND characters, peoples and background story should consist of. It should from the first trilogy are there in By Stephen R. Donaldson be required reading for Conan fans; recognizable form but developed, it's a very worthwhile book for any¬ Del Rey/Ballantine he and ppbk. changed and extrapolated from, as SF Book Club, 1980/81 one else. well as warped by Foul's malign influ¬ ************************************ REVIEWED BY MARK WILLARD ence. Linden Avery, with her fresh viewpoint and commitment to the Land, is a welcome and perhaps necessary This is a major book by almost counterpoint to Covenant's mistrust anyone's standards; as I write this and reluctance to assume any kind of the sequel to this volume, THE ONE role; even Covenant's attitudes have SECOND NATURE TREE, is at the top of even the main¬ developed, though marginally, from By Cherry Wilder stream best-seller lists. These vol¬ those displayed in the prior books. Timescape, 254 pp., $2.75 umes form two-thirds of "the second Some things haven't changed. REVIEWED BY PAUL MC GUIRE chronicles of Thomas Covenant" and Covenant still has his aggravating his adventures in the land to which tendencies to refuse to cope (through I had almost this novel he is transported through a combina¬ believing that he is coping with the before I realized of whom Ms. Wild¬ tion of arcane forces and bodily in¬ fact that it's all a hallucination). er's style reminded me. Arthur Hail¬ jury. Sympathetic characters die because ey (AIRPORT, HOTEL, WHEELS, OVERLOAD, For ten years (since the conclus¬ Covenant is unable or reluctant to etc.) will take a crisis in a busin¬ ion of the first trilogy) Covenant ess or institution and reveal its has carved out his somewhat bitter. 30 workings by showing the impact on several characters whose lives inter¬ be a new form of robotic life. They to be, which is to say, an entertain¬ twine. Ms. Wilder has done this to may also be gods, as the worried ex¬ ing work of adventure fiction. look at a planet. pedition to the world of the Kybers If it were a movie, the book is forced to consider as a distinct Well, I say planet, but actually would undoubtedly be rated PG -- possibility. the human segment covers little for the occasionally graphic vio¬ ground. 163 years before, a space¬ This sort of make-believe enter¬ lence and Slant's eventual submission ship had crashed. Good-bye high tech tainment is designed to make the to the apprentice Ahnao's charms. Adaptation. Survival. When the novel reader look inward as well as out¬ ************************************ starts, the new civilization has ward. It's probably not meant for reached a point of stability and everyone, but all in all, it's an ccmfort. Then a second ship crashes agreeably good example of its type. providing the catalyst for the events of the book. JOURNEY TO THE CENTER By Brian Stableford Reports and rumors of this crash DAW UE1756, 176 pp., $2.50 precipitate drastic change in the And equally so is THE BANE OF Cover art by Ken W. Kelly normal routine of several people with LORD CALADON, by Craig Mills, an differing backgrounds, strengths and author new to me, except that its REVIEWED BY PAUL MCGUIRE weaknesses. A young scholar, a rath¬ type is purest fantasy. On some al¬ er ordinary-seeming man, is suddenly ternate , far in the past, per¬ Before Egypt cracked down on the off on a dangerous trek to the heart haps, dragons may indeed be intelli¬ Europian destruction of its land's of the century's most extraordinary gent, living creatures, but on our past, vast amounts of loot had been event. The leader of a frontier com¬ own, they’re still nothing more than removed in smash-and-run operations munity, a tough old woman, is sud¬ the basis for a persistent mythology, leaving archeological sites virtually denly faced with chaos, unless she one that's never agreed to die. useless. Mike Rousseau is a scaveng¬ alone can keep control. Three people er on the planet Asgard where the sit¬ The present Lord Caladon, unable who may not be human come out of hid¬ uation is a bit more complicated. As¬ ing. Two survivors of the crash, a to remove one of these monsters from gard is a comprised of man and a woman, fight to stay alive his ancestral castle by force, turns ecolayers which may reach all the way and fall in love. instead to a book-long quest to help to the center where the millenia^ old fulfill the prophecies of a friendly builders could still be alive. Under There are many more characters, wizard. an alien government, (Terrians are all presented in depth and we see one of several minorities), only four this adventure not merely through The consistent style of the prose, slightly archaic, slightly levels have been reached since As- their eyes, but through their exper¬ gard's discovery. For that reason, ience. tinged with a sense of "Gosh! Wow!" but mostly matter-of-fact, fits the Mike believes plundering is the best ************************************ story like a well-worn glove. There method since it will reach the cent¬ is a T*ry little difference between er considerably faster than the comp- this and a Grimm fairy tale, except rehensive and methodical scientific of course, in the amount of verbiage approach. A tongue-in-cheek mystic, UNDER HEAVEN'S BRIDGE needed to tell the story. he half believes Man may find some ultimate Truth down there. One also By and Ian Watson makes money much faster his way. Ace SF 84481-2; 1981, originally printed in Great Britain, First An android arrives on Asgard and Ace printing, April, 1982 then disappears. Mike is framed for 198 pp., $2.50 THE CYBORG AND THE SORCERERS murder by an alien criminal conspir¬ will lead you to a dash of magical acy. The Terrian Star Force arrives THE BANE OF LORD CALADON fantasy and the massive amount of and, as the lesser of two evils, Mike By Craig Mills science and technology required to agrees to be conscripted. It is merge men and metal into unbeatable Ballantine/Del Rey, 28972, 1982 learned that a friend of Mike's had fighting machines. First edition, April, 1982 found a shaft going deep into As- 218 pp., $2.50 The magic that the cyborg Slant gard's core. A vicious gangster encounters is not fantasy, however, gives Mike the key to finding it. THE CYBORG AND THE SORCERERS but rather -- well, read the book. When the tough-as-nails Star Force Captain leams the android has gone By Lawrence Watt-Evans Other than that, this sort of con¬ frontation between science and the down it, she orders Mike to lead the Ballantine/Del Rey, 30441, First way after it since her orders are to printing June, 1982, 248 pp., $2.75 supernormal is exactly what Lawrence Watt-Evans is up to in his latest destroy the android at any and all work for Del Rey. The science is costs because it is believed this REVIEWED BY STEVE LEWIS solid. "Down-to-Earth" is precisely survivor of a brutal space war can what it is not. somehow threaten all humanity. The Michael Bishop and Ian Watson criminals have bugged the humans so are both fine exponents of what I Earth, in fact has been destroy¬ that when Mike finds the shaft they tend to think of as "transcendental" ed. Slant, the robotized war-machine can stay close behind in hot and science fiction. And in direct cor¬ has been obsolete for over 300 years, nasty pursuit. Mike ends up spending respondence, the science in UNDER but he's doomed by the computer in time with both groups, alone, and with HEAVEN'S BRIDGE is more in the line his head to keep fighting. Until, the android, but is always playing of religious metaphysics than it is that is, he reaches the planet of his own game. The book is written anything else, although certainly the sorcerers. in the first person by Mike, who is the harder sciences are well repre¬ tough but practical, and cynical with sented, too. While the story of Slant's prob¬ a wry sense of humor. Hard-boiled The mystical inhabitants of a lems is predictable enough, and per¬ private-eye ala BLACK MASK, and PLAN¬ newly discovered planet may be organ¬ haps 50 pages longer than it needed ET STORIES, in mood, THE JOURNEY TO ic beings, but the metallic nature to be, it is all that it's intended THE CENTER is adventure told in high of their bodies and their outlook style. on life indicate that they may also 31 ************************************ FOUR REVIEWS BY MARK WILLARD - suit of goals he shouldn't even be thinking about (though the resolution of this situation, too, seems a bit THE STOLEN GODDESS waste from which a variety of mons¬ too easy and uncomplex). Prescot trous "things" periodically crane wan¬ manages a New Deal with the enigmatic By Richard Purtill dering to trouble the rustic towns¬ Star Lords who still manipulate him DAW #415, 159 pp., 1980, $1.75 people who scratch a living at the from time to time. Bulmer's saga may Barrenlands' edge. Conrad becomes not be the most sophisticated on the This is a Mediterranean fantasy involved with the expedition mounted market, but it's very near the most set in Crete shortly after the reign by a duke from more civilized -- but ambitious. At this point I'd recom¬ of Minos; Greek gods, Greek factions, still somewhat backward -- zones; mend that anyone trying out Prescot/ and strands of Grecian mythology are the duke intends to scout out the Bulmer for the first time go back to woven into an original tale of a Barrenlands’ interior, in hopes of #23, BEASTS OF ANTARES, the first in young man revisiting the scenes of interesting loot and "just because this four-book cycle; you may be sur¬ his ancestors' fabled exploits and it's there". prised by what you find. stepping straight into romance and exploits of his own. The title page calls this a re¬ ************************************ vised text, but I couldn't find a Purtill has obviously put much word's difference from the 1964 Ace thought, research and effort into version. It's not a great book, but THE LOST AND THE LURKING this book, but the end product is it is entertaining and a little off¬ By Manley Wade Wellman workmanlike, not a bad book, but not beat and interesting to compare to Doubleday, hardcover, 179 pp., 1981 a particularly enthralling one eith¬ Brunner's more recent and better- $10.95 er. The story is fine; the faults known works. If it has a major flaw, are stylistic. Everything cranes a- it's that towards the end Brunner This is Wellman's third Silver cross as rather matter-of-fact, ev¬ explains, in the omniscient third John novel and the least noteworthy ents unfolding steadily at a moderate person, most of what's been going on; of a rather disappointing trio. Like pace. Purtill tells a great deal and the reader is left way ahead of the the previous two, it seems like an doesn't show nearly enough. An event characters at the book's end. inflated short story -- Wellman even is broadly foreshadowed ... and al¬ most at once happens, with no sur¬ ************************************ runs out of events and has John lock¬ ed in a prison room where nothing prises or complications. Most of the too significant happens until it's time the characters seem to be talk¬ LEGIONS OF ANTARES time for the climax. ing to the reader -- their speech ALLIES OF ANTARES patterns are neither realistic nor The title opens with wandering fantasy-melodramatic. There's way By "Dray Prescot" (Kenneth Bulmer) balladeer John, who's became known too mich genealogy, presented in in¬ DAW #446 8 462, both 1981, $2.25 ea. for his brushes with the supernatur¬ digestible chunks; the first three al in the rural South, being invited pages especially are a trial by fire. Tflese are volumes 25 and 26 in by the U.S. government to investigate Bulmer's epic adventure series. He¬ an isolated Appalachian town with a This is Purtill*s second book and ro Dray Prescot is more than a lit¬ sinister reputation. This executive he's been praised by writers I admire; tle superhuman and phaiomenally luck- commission seems unnecessary, in the all I can say is that their enthus¬ y, but the background and events of light of John's wandering proclivit¬ iasm for Purtill's milieu seems to the tales are several shades closer ies -- why couldn't he just come a- outweigh any consideration of the way to realism than is common in this cross the town himself? -- and his his story is told. I hope Purtill genre (interplanetary sword-and-sorc- sentiments about the President of keeps writing and developing his ery) and the multitudinous support¬ the Uriited States make him sound like skills -- I won't read his next book ing characters are a convincing arid a simple-ass peon who's never heard or two, but I will check his output entertaining lot. There is a strong of Watergate. The town turns out to sometime in the future. THE STOLEN sense that major and minor threads of be a whole community of devil-worship¬ GODDESS improved towards the end; Prescot's far-flung adventures are pers, and it's hinted that it's but hopefully, Purtill's writing as a weaving together towards an eventual one of many worldwide, but this is whole will improve as it continues. conclusion of the series; at the never followed up. The bunch abject¬ The potential is certainly there. same time there is the feeling that ly abandon their faith when their ************************************ Bulmer's creation has gotten almost leader dies at the end; John demon¬ too big for him to handle. In both strates no particular wit or initia¬ books the major events that climax tive and foils a lot of the magic the volumes seem glossed-over and directed against him evidently just short-shrifted compared to the because he's so dam good. lengthy treatment of minor events that lead up to them. On the other The book does have sane interest¬ hand those minor events, for me, cons¬ ing characters, lots of background titute the redeeming features that for its supernatural events and keep me reading this series. themes, and Wellman writes smoothly TO CONQUER CHAOS in a low key. If you've been follow¬ Prescot reveals his true identity By John Brunner ing Silver John's adventures, as I to a sword-comrade he's adventured DAW #422, 160 pp., 1981, $1.95 have, get it from the library (as I with and the man spends a long, tor¬ did) or wait for the paperback --no tured night adjusting to the fact This is a re-release of an earl¬ way this is worth eleven bucks. The ier Brunner novel, set in a post- that his friend is his nation's fore¬ best Silver John material is still most enemy. A very minor character catastrophe Earth (not a nuclear cat¬ the collection WHO FEARS THE DEVIL, introduced several books ago when astrophe) . Conrad is a peasant which I highly reconmend; this novel Prescot saved him from falling off a youth afflicted by recurring dream- comes nowhere near it in inventive¬ roof attains something near pivotal visions; he lives in a village next ness and execution. status through sheer obstinate pur¬ to the Barrenland, a huge circular ************************************ THE UIUISECTOR BY DARRELL SCHWEITZER

TVE OLD MASTER'S RETURN: PART I — I think I can put it all in pers¬ wakes up in the future so every¬ pective . thing can be explained to him. Be¬ OLD HEINLEIN COLLABORATES WITH NEW fore, this was expected of a writ¬ There are two Robert Heinleins. HEINLEIN er, and if he didn't include en¬ Heinlein #1, the31d Heinlein, be¬ ough exposition, the editor might gan his career with "Life-Line” in just add footnotes. Every writer 1939, and rapidly developed into a FRIDAY to come after Heinlein is in his brilliant talent, arguably the By Robert A. Heinlein debt, simply because he changed best science fiction writer since Holt, Rinehart, 5 Winston the general idea of how a science the early Wells. He was head and 1982, 363 pp., $14.95 fiction story should be written. shoulders over everyone else for decades. He was a natural story¬ He put the emphasis on charac¬ As I think everyone but Spider teller, and endlessly coming up ter and on the little details of Robinson will agree, the last three with new angles and insights. There living which make a time and place Heinlein novels have been unreliev¬ had been stories about flights to distinct. His were more ed disasters, distressingly so, if the stars before, even about giant richly textured than anyone else's. you've ever admired Heinlein's work, space arks, but when Heinlein much less, as most science fiction One is tenpted to say that, in thought the proposition through, readers under forty have, grown up the beginning, there was pulp to a depth no one else had achiev¬ with it. Doug Fratz probably said sludge and in the legacy of Gems- ed, the result was "Universe," a it best in his review of THE NUMBER back science fiction was void and genuinely archetypal story which OF THE BEAST: "Out of deepest re¬ without form and rather tedious, has touched the careers of virtu¬ spect, we must consider Robert Hein¬ and darkness was on the face of ally everyone since. (I wrote my lein 's career to have ended in 1965 the deep; and Heinlein divided the "Universe" story when I was 16. with THE MDON IS A HARSH MISTRESS. waters from the waters, calling It was not published professional¬ one type of SF "the gadget story" The alternative view is that I ly. But there are lots of obvious and the other "the human interest WILL FEAR NO EVIL, TIME ENOUGH FOR examples that were: Aldiss's STAR- story," had He directed the entire LOVE, and BEAST are logical out¬ SHIP, Simak's "Spacebred Genera¬ field down the path of the latter. growths of what went before. That tions,'* and even Ballard's "Thirt¬ Heinlein #1, the Old Heinlein, was is probably the most devastating een to Centaurus." It's a stage that important. thing you can say about Heinlein. of development most writers go It makes one pause and wonder down through. Theyalso usually write Heinlein #2, the cancerous what dark paths whole generations some variations of "By His Boot¬ growth, became manifest as early of readers have been lead. It's straps.") as in 1959. He enough to make one swear off sci¬ had none of the virtues of Heinlein ence fiction. His technical innovations were #1. He lectured endlessly in cute extensive. He was the first one dialogue, often blathering complete¬ But ... but ... the real Robert to make the reader a resident of ly stupid things. We saw more of Heinlein has returned at last. I the future rather than a tourist. him in STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, had given up hope. Imagine my sur¬ He did away with the long lectures a novel constructed out of an ab¬ prise and delight when first I between characters who already know andoned draft of something written heard, then I discovered for my¬ what they're talking about but car¬ much earlier than the final vers¬ self that FRIDAY is not only read¬ ry on for the benefit of the read¬ ion. The corpse came out of the able, but good. Imagine the sur¬ er, and such clumsy devices as the author's trunk covered with fungus prise and delight of the thousands or something. It grew. who put this book on all the hard¬ man from the present who travels/ cover bestseller lists. Before I proceed further, I shall bestow on this novel the highest compliment I can for a lat¬ er Heinlein book: FRIDAY is good enough that if it had been written by John Doe rather than Robert Hein¬ lein, and submitted over the tran¬ som, not only would it be publish¬ ed, but it would probably be suc¬ cessful and much acclaimed. (And published by Tor or Del Rey.) At the same time, to an extent, the awfulness of those last three novels a logical outgrowth of what went before, in the same sense that cancer cells are a logical outgrowth of normal cells accord¬ ing to certain laws of biology. thing inherent in the circumstances The world of the story is fal¬ that produced him. The malaise hit ling apart at the seams. At one several other writers of the same point Friday is made to analyze generation. It may be a natural the situation in great detail The outgrowth of the messianic fervor conclusion is that Earth's planet¬ of early science fiction. It may ary culture (our culture) is dying have been Campbell's fault. Ger- and the new dark ages are nigh. tainly ANALOG in his last years You would think that these neglected story in the interest of classically superior characters preachments. Then it might have would proceed to do something about been something in the air. Richard that. But no. Boss dies. Friday's Shaver went the same way immediate¬ grief for him is movingly portray¬ ly, for all that his destruction ed. The organization (rather like was no loss. (And the reputation the one that did save the world in of Ray Palmer, a trufan of the THE PUPPET MASTERS) breaks up. 1930s, with the finest stfnal cre¬ The members are scattered and Fri¬ dentials, will never be rehabili¬ day is left looking for a job, her tated.) Heinlein is sinply the identity, something. The vast longest-running case of the ail¬ forces that are tearing civiliza¬ With THE MOON IS A HARSH MIS¬ ment we have and he is the most tion apart cannot be opposed. The TRESS, the Old Heinlein regained gigantic talent brought so low. temporary control, but by I WILL best the Good Folks can do is get the hell out. In the end Friday FEAR NO EVIL, the blatherer had ta¬ But to get to the book at hand; settles down to a happy life in a ken over completely. It indeed FRIDAY reads like a collaboration group marriage on a frontier plan¬ looked like Heinlein #l's career between the Old Heinlein and the et, raising children, chickens, was over. New, with the storyteller keeping tight reign on the blatherer. cats, etc. It's a cheerful ending I think what happened was Hein¬ There are some flaws, which remind to what is, , a very lein began to take himself entire¬ us that this may be only a tempor¬ despairing book. Heinlein doesn't ly too seriously. Instead of tel¬ ary recovery of the Old Heinlein seem to believe that the supremely ling entertaining stories, even brilliance, but still this is a competent people can do anything entertaining stories with some did¬ marvellously entertaining book, but cover their own asses anymore. actic purpose, he began to instruct presenting a richly textured fut¬ In this sense FRIDAY is linked to directly. CWorse yet, he did so ure which is a believable socio¬ FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD, which is about in the most hideously cutesy man¬ political extrapolation from the the failure of the Competent Man. ner possible. Some of his bad hab¬ here and now. Those of you who But in this case the Competent Wo¬ its persist to this day. Any edi¬ are tired of SF (and mostly fan¬ man at least keeps her dignity. tor who ever gets the chance to tasy) ^which has absolutely nothing ride herd on Heinlein in the future to do with the world we live in, What’s good about this book? should strictly forbid him to use FRIDAY is for you. It is decided¬ A lot. It moves. You will read it the words "dear" and "darling" and ly not set in never-never land: in huge gulps. You may want to insist that the narrative/dialogue read it more than once. As you'd At the same time, the first- ratio never get above 40% dia¬ expect from the best of Heinlein #], person narrator is unconvincingly logue.) The same thing happened there are excellent details, every¬ to John Campbell when he began to blase' on the subject of a brutal thing from a convincing depiction rape. (Feminists will find large realize that ASTOUNDING was read of police and security procedures by a large audience of scientists parts of this book objectionable in a credit-card society to the new and technicians. But by then he on doctrinaire grounds. I doubt "racial" prejudice that grows up had stopped writing fiction and Heinlein cares.) Some of the char¬ around "artificial persons" like acters come from New Heinlein's funnelled this tendency into his Friday. And, for all the charac¬ central casting agency. They in¬ editorials, and such silly projects ters are types, Friday and her of the Hieronymous Machine and the dulge in cute dialogue about/dur¬ boss come alive as real personali¬ Dean Drive.* L. Ron Hubbard began ing sex. There's still a visible ties. The other characters are at to get too serious about his ideas tit fetish. But Old Heinlein, the least believable two-dimensional and look what happened. (Whatever storyteller, retains enough control constructs, who move and talk like you may think of Scientology, I to prevent this stuff from going real people and keep the story go¬ think you'll agree that science on for pages and pages. ing. It's Old Heinlein to a fault, fiction benefited by Hubbard's the fault being that the ending is presenting it in a series of non¬ 'Ihere are also characters from just too pat. Not only do two of fiction books, rather than tracts Old Heinlein's central casting ag¬ the bad guys turn out to be artifi¬ disguised as talky novels.) And ency, but thematically interesting cial persons willing to defect, but A.E. van Vogt began to take Hub¬ things are done with them. Friday, all the heroine's favorite folks bard's ideas too seriously, and it the heroine, is an artificially just happen to be on the right wrecked him. He has never regain¬ created superwoman, based on genet¬ spaceship, disembarking on the ed even a small fraction of the ic material from the two superper¬ right planet. It's not as glaring status he once held in the field. sons who starred in the 1949 novel¬ as the ending of ORPHANS OF THE la, "Gulf." She is the classic SKY, but the author does seem to What I am suggesting is that Heinlein competent character, who be pulling strings. The actual Heinlein's seeming collapse as a was always a man in the early stor¬ resolution of Friday's personal writer may have been caused by some- ies. She is by profession a secret situation, however, is not nearly courier for a hush-hush organiza¬ as contrived. These are just ad¬ * A frightening thought: If Camp¬ tion. Her boss, comnonly known as ded benefits for her. Boss, is the classic Heinlein fath¬ bell had not been editor and had What more can I say. This is er figure, a bit more decrepit still developed the same way, think the best Heinlein novel in a long than usual. of how bad a fiction writer he time. It's exciting, entertaining would have become. 34 and rich, for all it is not with- out flaws. It's also a probable ly tries, but he hasn't got Hein¬ Aside from structural differ¬ Hugo-winner for next year. lein's touch. ences, however, Asimov has been completely successful in recaptur¬ Welcome back to Robert Hein- Otherwise, it's still 1942, ing the feel of the earlier books, lein! when the first Foundation story ap¬ peared in ASTOUNDING. This same¬ if he ever lost it. ness is all the more remarkable As before, there is a very when you consider that EDGE was high talk-to-action ratio. In written under utterly different fact, while galaxy-shaking events conditions. In the early to mid- take place, and the ending is THE OLD MASTER'S RETURN: PART II — 1940s, science fiction books, as a Stapledonian in scope, it's all publishing category, did not exist. offstage. Onstage it is now 500 ONE GOOD FOUNDATION DESERVES ANOTHER The Foundation stories were writ¬ years into tKe interregnum between ten without any foreseeable pros¬ the First and Second Galactic Bn- pect of reprinting, let alone col¬ pires. This is the time of barbar¬ FOUNDATION'S EDGE lection into book form. A story ism, which Hari Seldon hoped to appeared one month in a magazine, shorten from thirty-thousand years By Isaac Asimov then was gone forever. Therefore, to a single millennium. But under Doubleday 5 Co., Inc. the author of a series could not the first guidance of the Founda¬ 363 pp., $14.95 assume that the reader had read all tion, everybody seems comfortable the previous stories. He couldn't enough, save for Golan Trevise, a After all these years, Isaac aim for any overall structure, in Foundation politician who doesn't Asimov is still clearly a pre-Hein- the sense that the later stories believe there ever was a Seldon lein science fiction writer. I would be imcomprehensible without Plan in the first place. He even think it was James Blish who refer¬ the earlier ones. (Indeed, when suggests that the mathematically- red to him as the workhorse of sci¬ I first read the FOUNDATION TRIL¬ predicted solutions to the Seldon ence fiction. He is consistent OGY at age 13 or so, I read the Crises have been rigged. and reliable, his career does not second volume first, then the have its wild ups and downs. His third, then the first. It was a For this heresy, a very Maggie first story appeared the same year function of which appeared first Thatcher-like Mayor of the Founda¬ Heinlein's did, but in all the in the drugstore paperback rack. tion exiles him, and sends him on time since, he has hardly changed I didn't have much trouble follow¬ a seemingly pointless search for at all. He has the same (consider¬ ing what was going on.) To a lim¬ Earth, in the company of a fusty able) virtues and (not very seri¬ ited extent this happened anyway, old scholar. The idea is that he ous, but limiting) faults as ever. which may have been one of the will serve as a "lightning rod" Those of you who were worried reasons why (reportedly) the read¬ (the working title of the book was, that this new Foundation book might ers of ASTOUNDING were getting indeed, THE LIGHTNING ROD) to draw be a washout and break up a winning bored with the series toward the the Second Foundation out of hid¬ team (said he mixed-metaphorically) end, and it came to a conclusion ing, so the original Foundation may worry no longer. Before read¬ where it did. can wipe it out. Meanwhile, Stor ing it, I went back to some of the The fact that it turned out to Gendibal, a rising young speaker original stories, and found that, be a trilogy was a coincidence, I of the Second Foundation, has an aside from a few obvious crudities, suspect, brought about by price- opposite heresy. He suggests the it's exactly like the others. Plan is working too well. Some¬ per-pagecount ratios. Had there FOUNDATION'S EDGE is 1942 science body must be guiding it. But for been a market for fat and expens¬ fiction. Very good 1942 science what purpose? ive science fiction books, when fiction, mind you, but that's what book publication came in the early Everbody gets paranoid. They it is. 1950s, we probably would have got¬ all go looking for Earth, all re¬ The crudities I noticed (most¬ ten just one volume. cord of which has been erased from ly in the earliest stories, com¬ Now along comes FOUNDATION'S the Trantor library. Everyone con¬ prising the book FOUNDATION) most¬ EDGE, a full 32 years after the fi¬ verges, including the Mayor; no ly have to do with background. As¬ nal installment of "And Now You imov decidedly has not picked up Don't” (the last section of SEC¬ Heinlein's ability to work in lit¬ OND FOUNDATION) in ASTOUNDING for tle details which make the setting January 1950. It is written with richly textured and extraordinarily much trepidation on the part of convincing. His futures are rath¬ the author, one assumes, since he er bland. Most of the scenes con¬ has been saying for years that he sist of people sitting in nearly would never write another Founda¬ featureless rooms talking about tion book because he didn't want the Big Situation. In the early to break up a winning team. (He stories, he might casually let on said that in an interview I did that, 50,000 years from now in a with him in 1976. He was apparent¬ pan-galactic civilization, the of¬ ly saying it before I was bom.) fices still have water coolers and Tremendous amounts of money are it is still possible for a man to waved about. But the biggest dif¬ buy a newspaper, sit down on a park ference is that FOUNDATION'S EDGE bench, and look through the fun¬ is designed for book publication. nies. (And at one point Hari Seld- It is a continuous story, 200,000 on whips out that marvel of galac¬ words long, something which would tic imperial science, the hand-cal¬ have been unpublishable in 1942. culator.) In FOUNDATION'S EDGE It is the first true novel in the this sort of thing is avoided, but , the other vol¬ there is very little sense of place umes being filled with linked nov¬ or of societies differing from plan¬ elettes and . et to planet. Sure, Asimov visib¬ one finds Earth, but in the mean¬ low who wrote for FANTASTIC as The main story, having to do time we find out where the Mule "Dennis More" in the late Ted White with the reason the hero was came from, a sort of Third Founda¬ era. LANCES OF NENGESDUL, however, brought to this world, is only get¬ tion shows up, the destiny of man¬ is not quite the same sort of fan¬ ting started at the end. The hero kind is finagled in such a way tasy. It is set in an imaginary has spent all his time surviving that Hari Seldon must be spinning world, rather than in the quasi- in the wilderness up till that in his grave, and there are tie- historical past. And the hero is point. The villain of the piece ins to everything from the a midget. has not yet appeared. This is the novels to . first volume of a series, which A what? That's right, a mid¬ may get more inventive later on. Almost entirely through talk, get, a circus acrobat who is trans¬ you understand. There is one quite ported by the gods of another It's the kind of book you read good dramatic interchange as vari¬ world into that world, where he in an hour or two, if you read ous Second Foundationers, using ad¬ discovers much to his surprise and that fast. Fans of Taylor's other vanced mental powers, struggle for delight that everyone else is as writing will want it, just to see political position. But otherwise short as he is. By comparison he him developing in a new direction. all the oftentimes considerable ex¬ is a giant of herculean physique, citement is generated by the ideas who is also aided, John Carter¬ which get geometrically bigger and like, by the lesser gravity of the bigger the way Doc Smith's space¬ place. (No, he is not the finest ships, destructo-weapons and shield¬ swordsman on two worlds, at least REFERENCE AND NOTED REPRINTS ing devices used to. I was surpris¬ right away. Taylor is a more real¬ ed at how enormously, almost com¬ istic writer.) INDEX TO SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINES., pulsively readable this book was, 1926-1950 when it followed none of the usual Unfortunately, the rather biz¬ By Donald B. Day rules of dramatic storytelling. arre situation is quickly forgot¬ G.K. Hall, 1982, 289 pp., $48.00 Asimov is a limited writer in many ten. For all the hero occasional¬ ways, but he is extremely good ly mentions it, his character does If you're a serious collector within his . not seem to be overwhelmingly af¬ fected by it. The novel rapidly of SF pulps and don't have this al¬ His multitudes of fans will falls into the standard sword-and- ready, I need only say that the Day INDEX has been reprinted, with not be disappointed. This one will planet pattern of a civilized man corrections, and it is certainly be on the ballot next year too.* being stranded in a primitive world and being forced to make do. The worth the price. For scholars and * Along with 2010: ODYSSEY TWO gods do not reappear. Everything librarians I will add that this is by Arthur Clarke. Lesser lights is on a "natural," realistic level. an essential research tool, cover¬ and mere mortals should abandon It's a pretty good adventure novel, ing all the science fiction maga¬ any hope of winning with that kind which should appeal to readers of zines from the period in which vir¬ of competition. such works published by DAW Books tually all English language SF was and others. Taylor is a crisp, published in magazines. Its one even sometimes graceful stylist. flaw is that it does not index He keeps things moving. There are WEIRD TALES (which the sequel, the no shrieking coincidences and im- M.I.T. INDEX for 1951-65 does). It plausibilities. At the same time, has been out of print for far too AND NOW A WORD ABOUT THE GHOST OF he lacks ERB's wonderful power of long, and this new edition is ex¬ image, for which the Master could tremely welcome. be forgiven many sins. There is LANCES OF NENGESDUL nothing as memorable as the curv¬ By Keith Taylor ing horizon of Pellucidar, or the hypnotic Mahars or the dead sea Void Publications/Cory and Collins; A READER'S GUIDE TO FANTASY bottoms, fabulous races and flying Box #66, St. Kilda, Victoria 3182, By Baird Searles, Beth Meachum Australia navies of Barsoom. And the hero's and Michael Franklin. 1982, 196 pp., $3.95 alien sidekick is no Tars Tarkas Avon, 1982, 217 pp., $2.95 by Paul Collins has been one of While this is by no means a the most active SF publishers in balanced history of the fantasy Australia for several years now. He field, it's a pretty good begin¬ started out with a magazine called ner's guide to what is available VOID which published some interest¬ in book form today, particularly ing stories but was a rather crude in paperback. Searles, who runs production, then converted it into the Science Fiction Shop in New a very nice hardcover anthology York, has undoubtedly drawn on long series, and then expanded Void experience of pointing out this or Publications to include a line of that book to his customers, or ev¬ original novels by Australian writ¬ en trying to explain briefly what ers. So far no enterprising Amer¬ the fantasy field is about. ican dealer has imported these There are the usual bits of books in quantity, so you'll prob¬ sloppiness, as there always are in ably have to send away to Australia these things, but no shrieking er¬ for them. Many of them are quite rors. We're told that August Der- good. If nothing else, their leth "finished" works by Lovecraft scarcity will make them collector's when in fact he constructed new items. works using only the slightest This latest volume is by the fragmentary material or notes. (At author of the well-received Bard no time did Derleth actually com¬ CAce Books). He is the same fel¬ plete a story Lovecraft had be- gun.) Then there's mention of Libertarians seem to have taken "a couple" of Conan novels by How¬ this book as a sacred tract, which ard, when in fact there is only is ironic, because if the Libertar¬ one, CONAN THE CONQUERER. DEVIL'S ians ever succeed in stripping the TOR by David Lindsay is supposedly government of all its powers the so obscure that it has never been way they want to, I suspect the published (I), which is odd, be¬ second most powerful force in the cause I own a copy of the Amo country will indeed take over -- Press reprint, which is a facsim¬ some combination of the Mob and ile of the first edition, and is powerful corporations, which un¬ probably still available. George checked, will probably be less ben¬ MacDonald wrote three adult fan¬ evolent than Kombluth's gangsters. tasies, not two, the third being I wonder what a satirist of his cal¬ the admittedly obscure (but also ibre would be able to do in a novel recently reprinted) THE PORTENT. about a Libertarian future. He was THE WOOD BEYOND THE WORLD by Wil¬ not the sort of person to believe liam Morris is not the first imagin¬ in easy solutions, or the natural ary world-fantasy novel. THE GLIT¬ goodness of mankind. TERING PLAIN, also by Morris, was H.L. Gold provides a closeup published three years earlier. (Lin of Kombluth in an afterword. Carter perpetuated this error in Right before he died, Kombluth ac¬ the introduction to the Ballantine cepted a position with FSSF and edition of WOOD. Claims that PLAIN visited Gold (then editor of GALAXY) is a novella do not hold up. It who told him some of the secrets of has always been published as a sep¬ arate book.) editing. Here's one which has no¬ thing to do with this review, but And so on, none of which affects is so good I want to pass it on to the novice buyer for whom this book you: is written. "...the editor's job is to buy, not reject ... every good magazine is a seller's market, and ... editing is hard on the writer but hard¬ er still on the editor, who THE SYNDIC must encourage, coax, wheedle, By C.M. Kombluth use any means to induce the Tor Books, 1982, 156 pp., $2.75 writer to do his best, with¬ out losing him -- and not Frederik Pohl has slightly re¬ just one writer but as many vised his friend and collaborator's as he can find.” (P. 255) classic novel for this edition. Now you know why Gold was such THE SYNDIC is a quite good story a good editor. But why didn't he about a Mafia-run future of the Un¬ buy THE SYNDIC? ited States, originally published in SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURES in 1954. The first half, which de¬ picts the society, is somewhat bet¬ ter than the standard adventure of This publication the second half, but very few writ¬ ers today write with anything near is available Kombluth's wit or satirical invent¬ in microform. iveness . I was particularly interested to note from Pohl's preface that

'HE CRIME RATE Msl AuoH't-.' The i-Azt woi> “fauxt to Me i/w*s A carmine \ M T5ESAf(0 / University Microfilms International

I 300 North Zeeb Road | Dept. PR. 40106 i U.SA. j 30-32 Morlirr I Dept. PR. I London WIN j England in ■ II a a personal reaction InlUHV. by I suspect that we will have on So I was hooked. My primary read¬ became obvious that Heinlein felt our horizon more than one review of ing interest became science fiction the story was the background and the Robert A. Heinlein's newest book, rather than hard science, and I nev¬ one-sided exchanges between the SCQM FRIDAY, if only because people are er went on to invent the weapon which and the YSIHWLUSCOMBBFWWFALM were already touting it by word-of-mouth almost destroyed the world (although, what people wanted to read, or at as Heinlein Back In Control. judging from what has transpired least what he wanted to write. since that time, it appears someone Were it not for Robert A. Hein¬ It was still painful, as a long¬ else may have gone ahead and done my lein, I doubt I would be here doing time Heinlein fan, to have to grab work anyway). this now. Robert A. Heinlein pro¬ myself by the back of the neck and foundly changed my life, although Up into the 1960s, I was not on¬ force myself (like a virgin perform- probably not in either a way you ly an avid SF fan but an avid Hein¬ ing fallatio for the first time) might expect or one which Heinlein lein fan; I frequently couldn't wait through I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, to ig¬ would totally approve. for a paperback edition -- which, in nore the ineptitude, self-indulgent my impoverished state, said something long-windedness and numerous other I was what they called an abnorm¬ about my enthusiasm. foibles of TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE, to ally bright kid; my parents taught me realize I simply had no stomach for to read before I went to school and But even then my tastes were THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST. Given this, I made use of the public library from changing; I used that as my excuse you can perhaps understand why I found kindergarten onward. My primary in¬ for finding certain aspects of Hein¬ FRIDAY to be a relief, why I wanted terest was any and all sciences. I lein's work to be vaguely --or some¬ to see Heinlein Back In Control. had been through the kiddie section times not so vaguely -- distasteful. and was into the junior section by Still, it took publication of STAR- But on sober reflection, I don't the time I reached second grade. I SHIP TROOPERS for me to crystallize think it was very good -- the joy of had narrowed my interest to physics the faults in my mind. The imperial¬ finding Heinlein telling a story once and astronomy at age 10 while still istic philosophy put forth led me to more, when I'd already given up hope, remaining willing to devour any book look at other stories I had read by just punched the "off" button on my labeled "science." Yet as I ran out Heinlein, and other stories I would critical circuits. So, while I was of books in my primary interest, I subsequently read by Heinlein, in reading it, and even for a few days wanted to move into the adult sec¬ a new light; I was surprised, and not after having read it, I enjoyed it. tion -- and my librarian(s) balked. a little dismayed, to discover how he There are at least fewer cases of the had been slipping these ideas over It's possible they were afraid I main characters sitting around Talk¬ without my previously having noticed might read something on (horrors!) ing So As To Reveal What Splendid it. While I could still appreciate biology. I have also theorized that, Survival-Types They Are, although the fine story-telling and Heinlein's in sane alternate universe, I went on this still occurs too frequently for unrivaled way of showing rather than to become a Top Scientist in my field my tastes. And, typical of the Hein¬ and invented a weapon which almost telling you about the technology of lein whose work I had come to dislike his future, the expository lumps destroyed the world --so maybe that in recent years, he searched for an which interfered with these superior future world sent back two time-trav¬ ending, failed to find one and so aspects of his stories were becoming el agents, in the form of librarians, wrote a stumbling denouement. more apparent. to head me off at the pass. The book also ultimately fails Whatever the reason, these lib¬ because, when you come right down to rarians would not let me into the It was not, I soon came to real¬ it, it has no plot -- although this adult section. Instead, one of them ize, merely because my critical acu¬ is hard to see at first. In place wanted to know if I had ever read men was growing, because the exposi¬ of a plot it has a series of subplots, any science fiction. "Science fic¬ tory lumps grew like cancers. Where which are entertaining enough to hold tion?" I asked. "But that's a con¬ Heinlein almost always had a tendency interest and keep the main character, tradiction in terms. Science is fact; to write beyond his endings, he be¬ a female enhanced artificial person fiction is not." gan to tack on whole sections, some¬ and top-notch courier named Friday, times almost whole novels (in terms moving so Heinlein can paint his pic¬ of number of words if not in plot). ture of this particular future. At Nonetheless, wishing to show I points, the book gives the appearance had an open mind, I let them recom¬ I had long been aware of Hein¬ of having a plot -- but each time mend an SF book to me. I no longer lein's three characters -- the Salty Heinlein gets to the point where the recall the title, only that'somewhere and Crafty Old Man, the Beautiful apparent plot logically should be re¬ in it the protagonists opened the But Faceless Woman Who Fought and solved, things become clouded over "door” (rather than air lock) of Acted Like a Man and the Young and or the subplot is shrugged off to be their spaceship, took an experiment¬ Somewhat Idealistic Hero Who Looked replaced with something else which al breath of the Martian air and pro¬ Up to the Salty and Crafty Old Man also appears to be a plot but which claimed it to be every bit as good and/or Beautiful But Faceless Woman is ultimately "resolved" in the same as Earth's. Had the book been my Who Fought and Acted Like a Man. But way. own, I would have thrown it across in earlier works they were involved the room; instead I merely closed it, in a story, facing and dealing with As usual with first-person Hein¬ marched back to the library and told problems; if the SCCM occasionally lein females, I had problems -- al¬ the librarians it was moronic. They had Wise Words to pass on to the though not the usual problem. Most urged me to try another; I didn't YSIHWLUSCOMBBFWWFALM, it was as a re¬ of his first-person females strike really want to, but they were ada- sult of facing and dealing with these me as being too "cutesy"; not so here. ment and kept appealing to my sense problems --it was a part of the It's just that Friday has a number of of fair play to give it a decent background. As the years passed, it attitudes which strike me as those chance. When I finally agreed, they Heinlein would like females to have pressed on me Heinlein's RED PLANET. 38 but which I believe few, if any, do. If only for the "relief" factor, be easier to keep if someone is sent is only another reason for not us¬ FRIDAY is a good read. Despite ray to Earth to make the arrangements ing her. If this is not bad enough, criticisms, Heinlein the story-teller and have them carried out there, rath¬ her employers provide her with e- is once more evident. There are some er than doing so on a world of The nough information to guess the iden¬ lovely touches -- oblique but nonethe¬ Realm. tity of the person she's carrying less visible references to "Gulf* and the "package" for---she therefore Yet if this is so, it leads to STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. The ex¬ can't help but understand her life pository lumps have apparently react¬ another question: Why did they choose will be forfeit after she arrives to use Friday, someone who's not only ed well to therapy -- they still get and fulfills the mission. (This, in the way of both action and story, trained to be suspicious but who has however, is clearly a red herring. but not as baldly as in other recent the cunning and combat skills which Whether she carries the fertilized Heinlein books. When the story moves, ultimately give her the ability to egg in her body or in the pouch of it moves --so vividly and so well foil their plot? Three skills would her belly-button, it's the fact it's hard to notice the lack of real seem to be useful if the secret were that she knows who it's for—not plot. And if he has once again writ¬ compromised or in danger of being how she's carrying it--- which ten beyond his ending, at least it's compromised -- and yet this demon¬ places her in jeopardy.) This just for a few pages. strably is not the case. If the se¬ seems especially dopey since she cret were compromised, that would be has often gone on missions for The But the more I think about the the whole show; there would be no Boss without the particulars---The book's "ending," the phonier and more point in the (implied but never shown) Boss forever citing "need to know." contrived it appears to be. Since opposition trying, at great expense Why not tell her—or the host moth¬ it's necessary to be specific, I'm of money and manpower, to capture Fri¬ ers, if that's what they decide to going to have to reveal more than day or to keep her from performing use—she's been hired by a wealthy just a few details. This is by way her mission, since it would only be merchant? That way, when she dis¬ of warning: if you've not yet read necessary to document the plot. If covers she's pregnant, she might the book, you may want to skip what the secret were only in danger of be¬ feel she'd been duped and perhaps follows until you do. ing compromised, it would only be have reason to be angry but would There are simply far too many necessary for the people who employed not know enough to realize she was things about the ending of FRIDAY Friday to hire someone who can either otherwise in danger. And host which, upon the slightest examination, (a) keep a secret or, better, (b) not mothers—there are such in this don't hold water. After the death be told the details of the secret so future; Heinlein "quotes" an ad of The Boss, her mentor and partial as not to be able to reveal it. In¬ for one earlier in the book—would "parent," Friday is hired as a cour¬ deed, it's never clear why they put ier to carry the fertilized egg of all their eggs in one basket -- pard¬ the heir to the throne of The Realm on: all their sperm in one egg -- cause to see anything out of line, to The Realm, keeping the matter the when they could hire a good healthy as Friday must. host mother (or two or six or 93 of secret it deserves to be. (It must At considerable expense, her em¬ not get out that anyone besides the them) and put them on different ships. As it sljands, the only possible use ployers have not only more than one present occupants of the throne had watchdog but the ship's captain as¬ anything to do with bearing the to which Friday can put her skills is against her employers -- a fact signed to make sure Friday stays on child.) She is supposed to be car¬ board the ship until she reaches rying the fertilized egg in the which heremployers must know, even if at first Friday does not. The Realm. Why is the doctor---the "pouch" which has long since been one person in a position to give surgically implanted in her belly It appears one of Friday's eggs her the information she needs to button; the people who hired her, has been used; she is known by her shift gears and act---overlooked as however, have actually placed the employers to be a genetically en¬ someone to have on their payroll? fertilized egg in her body so that hanced person, whose sterility may Or, if this presents an insurmount¬ she is in effect acting as host moth¬ be reversed, and her enhancements able problem of logistics, why is er. Why The Realm should send all are clearly of a kind which one someone not assigned to make sure the way to Earth to have someone to might wish to have in an heir to a the doctor does not do the thing carry the child is never really ex¬ throne.. But when Friday makes good he does—namely, conduct tests for plained. By implication, it might her escape, it turns out her ster¬ Friday in secret and give her the be possible to infer they didn't ility has not been reversed—Hein¬ information that she is pregnant? have the proper technology -- the lein having already glibly remark¬ Why did her employers put nothing world Friday ends up on doesn't have ed on how an egg might be removed in her "pouch" so she could so eas¬ it -- had The Realm not been shown without reversing the sterility ily verify what the doctor told to be rich and as technologically ad¬ and leaving Friday with the "mess," her? Especially since she might, vanced as Earth. It is possible that i.e., menstruation. The problem at any time, simply check the pouch the necessity for secrecy had some¬ is, the "mess" is the nutrient a anyway? (And why was her wonder thing to do with it; the secret might fertilized egg lives on. Even over her being pregnant because leaving this error aside, however, she hadn't been doin' nuttin' w' no this means if her employers made use one lately, rather than merely be¬ of one of her eggs, they (a) had her cause she was sterile?) sterility reversed, (b) ‘obtained one of her eggs, which they then had I can only conclude that, since fertilized, and then, (c) had her these actions were not what people sterility restored even though they in the situation might reasonably knew they would have to killher be expected to do, they only did after she had the child. them because Heinlein needed them to do them so he could easily re¬ This makes no sense whatsoever solve Friday's problems. Coming —except that, since she is ster¬ from scmeone who's noted for the ile, it's just something else which detail and believability of his is going to make her even more than backgrounds, character motivations mildly suspicious when she finds and plots, this is a severe disap¬ out she's pregnant, which in turn pointment . = T€

World Fantasy Con 7 Oakland, CA 1981

SFR: Youwereavery well-known and highly regarded fan of science fic¬ tion in the 1950s and 60s including winning a Hugo with Ron Ellik for FANAC and you had sold a number of stories, but I think your recogni¬ tion as a professional began when you became an assistant editor at Ace Books in the 1960s. What sort of work did you do as an assistant editor, as compared with a senior editor? CARR: I was doing largely what might be called the junkwork, stuff that SFR: What new writers have you found Reprint it first, at least, and bring "somebody has to do", going over man¬ among your unsolicited manuscripts? it to the attention of most science uscripts and checking to make sure fiction readers. *sigh* It's so 0\RR: The most recent one I've found that all the commas were in the right sad. places and the words were spelled is a fellow named , of correctly and correcting them if whom you've never heard, because he SFR: Do you ever get sick of read¬ they weren't. Copyediting, in oth¬ hasn't been published yet. He's just ing all that science fiction to find er words. Proofreading on manuscripts sold his first story to NEW DIMENS¬ the best of the year? IONS J13 or #14, and I have a novel that had been set in type. Writing wish could say no, but from nim which I'm going to buy for CARR: I I cover copy or blurbs. Such things yes, I get sick of it. About two or as that. the Ace Science Fiction Specials. three times a year, I go what I call SFR: Editors have traditionally SFR: Part of your work at Ace was "science fiction blind", which is a talked about the horrors of wading co-editing the best-of-the-year anth¬ state of mind in which I read two through the slushpile fiction, the ology with Donald Wollheim, and you pages of a story and have no idea of unsolicited manuscripts. Is it real¬ have continued your own best-of-the- what I've just read. I don't know ly that bad or do the occasional year anthology since then. What's whether this story is set on Earth, well-written and promising stories involved in searching out obscure in the far future, on Venus, on some make the effort worthwhile? science fiction stories in obscure other star. I have no idea what's sources? going on. It goes through my eyes CARR: Well, obviously, I think the and doesn't hit my brain. I have to A lot'of legwork and a certain effort is worthwhile because I con¬ CARR: stop reading at that point and take tinue, and I'm not making that much amount of luck. And asking your friends if they've seen something a week or so off and either not read money at it, so, yeah, I must like it anything or read mainstream fiction somewhat. It does get awfully tire¬ out of the ordinary. Just yesterday in the mail a friend of mine. Bob or non-fiction, just get away from some at times, but when you do find science fiction for a while. the really good story that comes in, Lichtman, sent me a copy of coEVOLU- out of the blue as it were, from TION QUARTERLY which has a science SFR: The first series of Ace Science someone you never heard of before, fiction story in it, because he fig¬ Fiction Specials was done under your that's just terrific. I've had a ured I might not see it. editorship and a remarkable percent¬ age of them, such as R.A. Lafferty's couple of those just recently in the SFR: Have you ever belatedly found last year or so. I've never heard a story you would have wanted to in¬ PAST MASTER and Uursula Le Guin's of them, and nobody else has. I clude in one of your best-of-the- LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, are still re¬ either buy their first stories or year collections? garded as exceptional or classic books encourage them to send me more soon. in the genre. What factors enabled CARR: Yes. Not often, but anything you to achieve this success? It's really delightful, espec¬ is far too often. I try not to think ially when you find somebody who is about it. It's always a feeling of CARR: Essentially, I was in the not just good enough to sell, but who chagrin ... particularly --if the right place at the right time. It is very, very good compared to the story's obscure -- if ]_ didn't find was a very interesting time in the people who are already selling. That it, then nobody else found it, and history of science fiction. There is exciting, when you run into some¬ I would have loved to be the one to were a lot of very, very good new body like that. discover it and publish it first. writers in the field in the Sixties and it wasn't yet a matter of having

CONDUCTED BY BRUCE D. ARTHURS 40 to fight with other publishers in laboration. I bought his first solo CARR: I'm of two minds about that. terms of the amount of money you novel. When I started the UNIVERSE series, were paying. There were other pub¬ as you've mentioned, I had them il¬ lishers who were paying more money The other three books that I have so far are all first novels, by lustrated by , an artist than I was. But not that much more. whose work I like very much. I also The spread wasn't up to a hundred- new writers who are very, very good. People like Carter Scholz, Donnan published illustrated editions of thousand or a million dollars as it Kuttner's THE MASK OF CIRCE and Lon¬ is today, so I could compete with Jeffers Junior, and Lucius Shepard, the fellow I mentioned earlier. don's BEFORE ADAM. I was in favor, most of the publishers. then, of using good illustrations I was also in a position, SFR: When you left Ace Books in with good stories, because I thought through professional contacts and 1973 for a freelancing career, you they complemented each other very in fandom, in which I was usually a- moved from New York to San Francisco nicely. It wasn't being done back ware of who was writing new fiction, Bay Area. Does the distance between then. Almost all books being pub¬ short stuff in the magazines or what¬ yourself and the house editors and lished then were a lot of type and ever, who looked like a promising publishers in New York cause any something on the cover, but no other newcomer. And also the established special difficulties or delays in pictures. I just thought it dres¬ names I obviously knew, so I got in your work? sed up a book and made it kind of touch with as many people as I pos¬ pretty and more interesting. sibly could and let them know that CARR: No, it doesn't cause any what¬ But more recently, the trend I was open to, and in fact looking ever. It does make it a little more towards the visual aspect in science for, adult science fiction, not simp¬ difficult to sell an anthology idea fiction has become so strong, so ly the space-opera adventure fare or something like that, where I have marked, that I'm reacting the other that was very conmon then and still to work through agents. But I'm in way, against it. I would like to is very conmon. a position now where I'm doing three see people forget about the pictures, When you do that, with writers continuing series -- BEST SCIENCE for God's sake. At least in most who are serious about writing science FICTION OF THE YEAR, FANTASY ANNUAL cases, because they don't add that fiction, they'll respond. In partic¬ and the UNIVERSE Series -- and es¬ much. They really are only window ular because I was packaging those sentially that's all I want to do dressing. God, don't tell any art¬ books with covers that didn't have for now, just those three books a ists I said that. year and then getting back to some spaceships and naked girls on them: No, really, I think the empha¬ They had very fine paintings instead, more writing on my own. I'm writing a new novel. sis should be on the stories them¬ and a tastefully-done package in gen¬ selves. In fact, I see the whole eral, in terms of the logo types and SFR: The first two issues of UNI¬ movement toward what I think of these so on. VERSE, your original anthology series, days as "picture books" as a combin¬ were published in paperback by Ace ation juvenile trend -- kids like to So it became reasonably easy with illustrations by Alicia Austin have pictures in their books because for me to get good manuscripts sub¬ preceding each story. When UNIVERSE the words are hard for them -- and a mitted to me. After that, it was moved into hardcover with #3, the trend which is caused largely by a singly a matter of picking what I illustrations disappeared. Was this growing illiteracy in this country wanted -- which isn't really very voluntary on your part or would you and in the world. People just do not hard. If you get something like LEFT resume having the stories illustrated read as easily as they used to. HAND OF DARKNESS submitted to you, it if possible? That bothers me a lot; I'd like to isn't hard to decide to buy it. Peo¬ go against that trend. ple say, "Gee, you're so brilliant. CARR; I didn't stop using illustra¬ Do you have any particular You bought LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS." SFR: tions because I wanted to; it was working method for choosing the And all I can say to that is I would simply because I switched publishers. stories in UNIVERSE? Are the manu¬ be awfully stupid if I had not bought When I was publishing the first two, scripts from recognized profession¬ I was in New Ydrk City, and I was als read before unsolicited manu¬ SFR: Several years ago, Ace Books the editor who was handling the pro¬ scripts from individuals? bought out a second series of Ace duction work on UNIVERSE #1 and 2. Yeah, the ones from regonized Science Fiction Specials under a dif¬ So it was easy for me to arrange to CARR: professionals are read first. I do ferent editor and they never achiev¬ have Alicia Austin do those illustra¬ the same system most people do: You ed the amount of critical acclaim tions. After I moved to California, have the professional pile and what's they did under your editorship. and I was sending in the manuscripts known as the slush pile. With a Since then, Ace has retained you to to Random House, Random House chose slight variation: You don't have to once again edit the Ace Science Fic¬ not to have interior illustrations, be a recognized professional to get tion Specials. Can you give us some either because they didn't feel they out of the slush pile and into the sort of idea of what works you will should be there, or it cost too much be presenting under the renewed money, or production problems, or "pro" pile if I've read something by series? whatever. you before and I think you're a pretty good writer, whether or not CARR: The new series is going to be Currently, UNIVERSE is being you've sold anything --I'll probably somewhat different from the original. published by Doubleday, and I think remember your name and put your manu¬ The original was both new writers we could possibly do it, but it would script over onto this pile to be and established writers -- John Brun¬ add on a certain amount to the budget read first. ner, James Blish, Roger Zelazny and on the book. And if that's the case, people like that -- whereas the new I think I'd rather add that amount SFR: Do you try to solicit stories series will be essentially a discovery of money to the budget for the auth- from specific writers? series, finding people who either CARR: I do, yes, definitely. haven't published before or have pub¬ SFR: What is your opinion of the SFR: Would you rather work through lished not very nuch. The most es¬ flood of profusely illustrated trade tablished writer I've bought so far agents or through the writers them¬ paperbacks that have been coming out selves? is Howard Waldrop, who’s been writing in the past several years? for about ten years but has done CARR: It doesn't make a great deal only one novel, and that was a col¬ 41 of difference. It's a little bit easier to work with the authors di¬ science fiction magazines. Have you SFR: Your own fiction has been al¬ rectly, simply because you can talk ever had the desire to do so, and if most entirely in the short story area with them about perhaps an idea for you were editing an sf magazine, what with only one full-length novel, a story, or if it comes to having would you do to try and make it a CIRQUE, to date. Is this because of success? the story revised then you can simply a natural inclination on your part, talk directly with the author. Al¬ CARR: I've always wanted to edit a or a lack of time due to your edit¬ most every time that I have dealt . It's the ing work? If you were to start writ¬ through an agent, if it comes down one thing that I've wanted to do ing full-time instead of editing, to revisions or something like that, that just hasn't come my way. I've would you tend to write more short I write directly to the author and never been in the right place at the stories or move into the longer send a carbon copy to the agent so right time. Yes, if anybody ever lengths? the agent knows what's going on. It wants a real good science fiction really doesn't make a great deal of CARR: I'd be doing both. What I editor for an sf magazine, get in difference. most like to write, and what I write touch with me. I would love to do most easily, is the short story; it, and I could do the job. SFR: When you're compiling one of that seems to be my natural medium. your reprint anthologies, how are What I would do to make it sell However, there is a lot more money the stories picked for those? Do is make it good. That is to say, I in novels. I can write novels; I've you rely on your memory, keep a card would make it good in a way that written one, and it was successful. file on good stories, ask your would sell. I'm not the kind of ed¬ I am writing another novel now, as friends? itor who has his head in the clouds I mentioned. and buys a whole lot of literary CARR: I keep a card file. Whenever SFR: I've got two final questions: I read a story that I think is out¬ stories and damn the readers! I nev¬ First, if there had been no science er was that kind of editor, though standing in some way, I sit down and fiction, what would have happened to some people have "praised" me in do a card on it. I give the number Terry Carr? of words, the title, the author and such terms. a short synopsis of the story and Q\RR; Interesting question. I put that in the card file. At the Besides, my own tastes, as I've think Terry Carr would be working in end of the year, I go through it and found over the years, coincide very a library somewhere, because that pick out the stories that seem to me closely to the tastes of the reader- was what I did before I got into sci¬ to be the best. ship at large. Which is very fortu¬ ence fiction. I worked in a variety nate for me. I don't have to second- of libraries around San Francisco guess things. You know -- read a and Berkeley. I'd probably be a li¬ SFR: How are rights obtained for story and say, "Well, I don't like brarian. stories you want to reprint? What that but I think other people will; I'll buy it." That's a very danger¬ SFR: Lastly: In what direction do happens when an author you want turns you see the science fiction field out to be dead or vanished? ous way to edit; it means you're guessing all the time. Whereas, heading? What do you feel is the CARR: That very seldom happens.' In particularly in THE BEST SCIENCE FIC¬ future of the magazines, the origin¬ fact, I can’t recall that it has ev¬ TION OF THE YEAR, every story that I al anthologies and the other markets er happened to me with the best-of- publish is something that I really for shorter fiction, as compared to the-year anthologies. liked myself, not just something I novels? It has happened in the case of cynically chose because "I think CARR: I wish I knew. Things are same other anthologies, since I've that's going to win the Hugo" or in a state of flux right now; it's done anthologies of material going something. It's worked out very well. very difficult to predict things. back to, say, the thirties and the Anthologies have never sold as forties. Some of those authors have well as novels, of course, and right died or have simply disappeared. now there's a countrywide -- world¬ There's one author named Burt wide -- recession going. In such a Filer who was writing in the 1960s. situation, publishers get very con¬ Indeed, I knew him then. He's dis¬ servative and they publish only those appeared completely since then; no¬ things that they know they can make body can find him. money on. So it's somewhat harder is looking for him too; Harlan owes to sell anthologies. him money in royalties on a story Sane of the magazines, as you that Harlan published. Harlan can't know, have died -- but there are new find him. I can't find him. I re¬ magazines coming in. As best I can printed a story by him. Since I tell, the future for pure science couldn't find him ... one option fiction magazines is questionable. that we have in the science fiction But on the other hand, you have CMNI field is Forrest J. Ackerman, who which is primarily visuals again, serves a very valuable function. and science articles and so forth, He's among other things, an authors' with a certain amount of fiction. agent, and if somebody cannot be That can obviously be sold very well; found, or he's died and his estate OMNI's been doing it and they have can't be located, Forry acts as a imitators coming out already. kind of clearinghouse for that; he will accept the money and put it in I think that, unfortunately, escrow, as it were, just hold it is where the future may lie. I say there, and he'll advertise in writ¬ unfortunately because I'd like to ers' magazines and so forth, trying see more pure science fiction being to find these people. Eventually, published. he usually does. SR: Thank you very much, Terry SFR; One area of science fiction ed¬ Carr. iting you've never done is in the LETTERS

# CARD FROM ROBERT BLOCH 2111 Sunset Crest Drive Los Angeles, CA 90046 August 5, 1982

'lean hardly wait to see the fall-out from this ((#44)) issue as the worlds of Schweitzer, Elliott and Card collide in a battle to the death over the status of fantasy. It is, however, a battle I'd just as soon observe from the sidelines, granted the nature of the combat¬ ants. Before they annihilate one anothe^. completely, I trust they may come to agreement on a defini¬ tion of fantasy. By so doing, it's possible they may unwittingly re¬ solve some of their differences. 'Card's critique of critics, coupled with Spinrad's assessment issues of THE ALIEN CRITIC: REG, better than they like good old hard a series of hardcore SF along the the SecretMaster of Fanlit! And SF." Whereupon she threw at me the lines of John Cleve's SPACEWAY seri¬ who else is old enough to recognize book she was reading (Robert Forward's es ... real SF adventure with lotsa your cover art as illustrating the DRAGONSTAR, I seem to recall, a book lust and sex, from a woman's point of birth of Laura LaPlante?' she says she enjoys because of the "degenerate" goings-on of the little 'Oh ... and the book I was read¬ ((Definitions only get in the neutronium critters in it) and when ing (which I did throw) was SPACEWAYS way. it missed my head, she grabbed the #6 by John Cleve (which, for some (No one is the Secret Master of mop from me and beat me about the strange reason, has a portrait of anything, anymore. Why, I am being head and shoulders with it's large, Andy Offutt on the cover -- did you kicked out of fandom! I have one splinter-ridden wooden handle, stop¬ know that??), which is most definite¬ more year of fanlife before being ping only after she belatedly realiz¬ ly hardcore SF and anything but wimpy. thrown to the woves as a dirty old ed I was enjoying it.' Meeoowwrrr. semipro! Pray to Yngvi for me!)) ((The fall-out follows.)) ((Having seen the picture of Sandy '(My husband is shouting disagree¬ on your (and her) letterhead, I can ment about women SF writers ... shout¬ only envy you, sort of. I'll ad¬ ing names like Cherryh, Lee, James dress the "women editors like fan¬ Tiptree, Jr.) Tfiue tmuisH/Jesr tasy better" argument after every¬ 'Trouble is I can't really say one has read her following letter.)) whether or not I agree with Mr. El¬ U)I7H TH£ liott's article. He makes several lucid points with which I agree, but QfS/jep lb WHOf the whole flavor of the article comes across as rather cobbish. We need \ wimpy fantasy on the market. If there was none, what would we have for comparison to determine what is # LETTER FROM SANDY PAR1S-BARGER good, hard SF?? And if you choose 5204 Dayton Blvd, #6 to think of it as a glut on the mark¬ Chattanooga, TN 37415 et, which is somewhat true, then the August 2, 1982 SF market isn't too terribly differ¬ ent from any other market. That 'One of my favorite aspects of which sells in the first place usual¬ SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW is waiting to ly ends up in demand. It's like see how stupid Alexis Gilliland's ADF ... he's a damn good writer but cartoons will make me feel. Some¬ they pay him for movie adaptations. times ^it takes me a while to decipher 'And who are you going to blame his somewhat bizarre/absurd/brilliant # LETTER FROM BOB BARGER for the rise of wimpy fantasy in the sense of humor. first place? Tolkien?? Those of us 5204 Dayton Blvd, #6 'Your reviews also provide a nev¬ who like real SF will keep on buying Chattanooga, TN 37415 er-ending source of amusement. I and reading it, even if we have to August 1, 1982 must admit, I don't always agree with dig a little for it. And the wimpy you (I liked CONAN tool Ooooooh ... fantasists will come and go and even¬ 'To comment further on the CONAN do it, Araie Babee .), but I en¬ tually Stephen R. Donaldson will run movie, I do indeed seem to be in the joy hearing your opinions. out of titles for that series and minority in regard to my reaction to we'll still have our good ol' SF. the film. I think this illustrates 'I do, however, beg to differ that different people simply have with my husband's (Bob Barger's) com¬ different concepts of, and reactions ments upon my' reactions to "Raising to, Howard's original stories. One Hackles" ... I do not "take exception or two of Howard's stories showed Co¬ to the statement ... that the cancer¬ nan to have a fair amount of intel¬ ous growth of fantasy in SF is the ligence; THE PEOPLE OF THE BLACK CIRC¬ result of more women editors in SF LE springs immediately to mind. For and more women reading SF." I simply the most part, Conan seems smarter think that said statement is utterly when he isn't the story's major pro¬ ridiculous. There is just as much, tagonist, but rather merely one of possibly more, "wimpy fantasy" per¬ several interesting protagonists. petrated by men, perhaps because Those stories which feature Conan as there are so many more men than wo¬ the sole protagonist, like for examp¬ men writers accepted into the SF/ le, THE DEVIL IN IRON, seem to more fantasy fields. For myself, I pre¬ or less have Conan acting like a fer hardcore to wimpy in anything, homy teenager of relatively low IQ and I think it highly unfair to imply -- thus Conan being a relative dumb- that women as a whole don't, especial¬ 'The main problem for me with fuck in the movie struck me as being ly when one is a man. Just because Mr. Elliott's article is that I'm fairly loyal to Howard's original. there are women writing and editing not really sure what solution he is wimpy fantasy does not mean that wo¬ 'My wife took exception to Elton suggesting. Should SF fans as a men are buying that, only that, and T. Elliott's statement in "Raising whole rebel against the fantasy all of that which gluts the market. Hackles" (which he mentioned was sug¬ "glut?" I mean, that's a little like Give us a little credit. We women gested by you) that the cancerous the Democrats vs Republicans. Kinda get off on phallic-symbol spaceships, growth of fantasy in SF is the result depends which side of the fence you too. I prefer them to dwarves and of more women editors in SF and more are on. Should publishers stop buy¬ hobbits anyday ... For my money, I'd women reading SF. "But, Dear," I re¬ ing fantasy? Wouldn't that be des¬ like to see a woman approached to do plied, "It's a proven scientific fact tructive to SF publishing too? And that women like wimpy fantasy stories 44 how can we demand that fantasy only be labelled as fantasy and not SF? mercial appeal of hardcore sf story sf, and it isn’t a natural ecology It's really up to the writer what his elements. And I would make the for women.)) work is called, and there's not much point again that in buying and edit¬ we can do about that. As for books ing sf for a hardcore male reader- being falsely labelled and mislead¬ ship, a male editor is going to do ing ... if a reader can't tell by a slightly better job than a woman. thumbing through and examining a book There are still (and likely always in the bookstore (which I thought will be) cultural and biological/ # LETTER FROM ALIEN KOSZOWSKI everyone did in today's economy) instinctual differences which subtly 217 Barrington Road what said book is generally about, do make a difference. Again, I do Upper Darby, PA 19082 then that reader probably won't know not see any males editing the women July 30, 1982 the difference between SF and fan¬ confession lines. tasy and shouldn't have anything to 'I found Mr. Elliott's column to be concerned about in the first place ((I think 'wimpy ' fantasy be right on, and (at the risk of started with the rise of Women’s 'P.S. The lady on page 30 some¬ sounding like a male chauvinist -- Lib; the "social pressure" (impos¬ how seems familiar, though I can't a charge I will always deny) -- your ed, masochistic "guilt") resulted view, that the fantasy taint to most quite place how .' in authors and editors and publish¬ recent SF can be attributed to the ers issuing sf and fantasy novels influx of women editors and readers, which featured "strong" women as to be very perceptive. In ray view, ((Mostly, Sandy, upon deep re¬ central characters. This attract¬ this is hitting the nail right on flection and hasty thought, you're ed a lot of young women readers- the head. Note, I don't say that right: In nost cases, 95% of the and repelled a lot of male readers. this is a bad thing -- I only mention time, the sex of an editor in a Later, a more "natural" woman's sf that I think you are right. major sf/fantasy line doesn't make and fantasy appeared-the sf and any difference-the publisher mak¬ fantasy gothic, and the horror/ 'Thanks for your nice comment es basic policy from reading the occult novel in which women were about my piece of art in KADATH #5. sales reports, and the effective¬ again back in the old role: victims. I haven't even seen the issue yet. ness of the cover may be more in¬ ((Now, I strongly suspect, the 'Two of the illos that you cred¬ fluential than any other factor fantasy and the woman-oriented sf it to me on the contents page belong anyway... But I do know from com¬ novel is fading as basic sales to someone else -- those on pages ments made by bookstore clerks and show the male-oriented pulp novel 12 and 39. Don't know if you caught bookstore owners, that the hardcore is selling better. (See "Pulp!" this yet. sf readership (men in their thir¬ by Algis Budrys in this issue for ties, forties, late twenties, early what pulp really means.) fifties) recoil from woman-focused ((In any case, over the next ((I suspect those illos are the fantasy. It's gut reaction: men year or two, the market will shake work of Vic Kostrikin.)) want to read about men-as-heroes out and tell publishers (if it has¬ doing dangerous, violent things n't already) what fundamental ele¬ successfully in a future technolog¬ ments of sf sell best, which not. ical world. There'll always be some fantasy pub¬ ((There has been a relatively lished, some woman-oriented sf, brief surge in woman-oriented fan¬ some sf/fantasy gothics, etc., but tasy, and it has seemed to over¬ science fiction will go on as a whelm male-oriented sf. But the reaffirmation of the progressive, market has spoken, the new sales conquering, winning, technological, THE SHIVERER IN DARKNESS figures are in, and hard sf (male- moralistic, masculine instinctual dominated sf, if you will) is back values of the core readership. SF There was a Yuggothian chain gang in the...er...saddle. I note the gives its readership a new frontier, And torture provided its main bang. four Tor releases for September are a new forest in which to hunt food It was so cold on Pluto THE SYNDIC by C.M. Kombluth, AN ANSI and demonstrate bravery, a new bat¬ That pleasures were pseudo by Niven & Barnes, WORLDS OF THE tlefield in which to win wars a- And, boy, did they relish a pain pang. IMPERIUM by Laumer, and MORITURI by gainst alien (not us) enemies. Barry Sadler. (I note also two are ((That's the heart and soul of — Neal Wilgus reprints from 20-30 years ago, which speaks to the enduring basic com¬ 45 figuratively. Also short. rowness of his literary background, ((A real medieval future is from his having come in at a differ¬ quite likely, I think, once critical ent time. When I_ came in, the Ball- raw materials give out and become entine Adult Fantasy series was gradually too expensive to create starting up. This wasn't my only 'There were two items that seemed artificially or do without. As the source of information, but it accel¬ particularly noticeable in this is¬ chain of mass production breaks down erated the rapid expansion of my hor¬ sue. Avedon Carol, in her loc, does so too will social structures break izons, as I discovered more and more something that she does often and down-with much struggle and mis¬ non-pulp, non-genre fantasy writers, well -- pointing out that something conception among those involved- going as far in various directions which Everyone Knows is in fact not and decentralization will set in as Anatole France, James Stephens, the case. politically as mass cormunications Charles Finney and, for that matter, 'The same sort of questioning of and mass movements of freight stop. Voltaire. received truth might be applied to But I don't expect all that to start 'One of the things I found most Elton Elliott's column, particularly for at least ano-her two-three hun¬ appealing about fantasy in that per¬ its assumption that fantasy = mediev¬ dred years. iod was that the writing was so much alism = technophobia. ((Once people know in their bon¬ better. After all, fantasy is an es a bright star future is not pos¬ 'It seems to me that there are older form (indeed, the oldest, pre¬ sible, sf will die. Instead, I im¬ dating the "mainstream" novel by mil- two kinds of positive approach to agine historical novels dealing with the Middle Ages: There are those who lenia), and it has had longer to re¬ our present "golden age" will be all fine itself. Back before fantasy be¬ wish to go back to the Middle Ages, the rage.)) and those who wish to go forward to came a commercial genre, there were the Middle Ages. The back-to-the- Middle-Ages group seems to be fleeing from aspects of the present that they don't care for. Technology is often one of these, but others wish to turn the clock back against democracy, sexual permissiveness, mass culture, etc. These people might like fantasy but my guess would be that their lit¬ erature of choice would be post-Col- lapse fiction, with nuclear war, col¬ lapse of the debt structure or natur¬ al catastrophe acting as a cleansing fire to rid us of those nasty old machines, or of other elements the authors find offensive, from male chauvinism (WALK TO THE END OF THE WORLD) to feminism (LUCIFER'S HAMMER). 'But there seems to me to be an¬ other possibility -- the Middle Ages as the future. Many of the aspects of the Middle Ages have a certain charm, but realists note two draw¬ backs: the prevalence of serfs and thus the likelihood that we ourselves # LETTER FROM DARRELL SCHWEITZER only three types of fantasy books: might be serfs, and the appalling 113 Deepdale Road classics, contemporary masterpieces lack of sanitation. In a future where Strafford, PA 19087 (like ONCE AND FUTURE KING or THE technology had yielded its benefits, July 30, 1982 LAST UNICORN), and unpublished manu¬ these could both be eliminated. Con¬ scripts. Since very little fantasy temporary technology has worked wond¬ 'I'm afraid my respect for Elton was published in this country between ers in making our lives more sanitary Elliott, which has never been partic¬ about 1930 and the middle of the and there is the possibility of a ularly high, has just dropped several 1960s, a fantasy novel usually had to world where the only serfs would be notches. He's certainly proven that be truly extraordinary to get into machines. it's possible to be a reactionary in print. regard to fantasy without first being 'I suspect that this will not be a Fossil Waver (to use Orson Scott the only letter you receive that de¬ Card's wonderful term). I should 'What has happened is that a new fends the Middle Ages and is written have known better. After all, Marty fantasy category has made room for on a word processor.' Cantor carried on the same shtick in mediocrity. In short, what is wrong HOLIER THAN THOU, and he did it more with fantasy today is that it has entertainingly. All Elton manages to sunk down to the level of science fic¬ do is come on like an old-time fan tion. It is possible to publish a ((Dytopian sf novels don't usually who is desperately afraid that out¬ fantasy novel which is no more creat¬ sell very well if realistic; a lot side literary influences will seep ive than a routine . of people reject our present society through the ghetto walls. The idea There are fantasy novels no better and culture-hut want to go onward that science fiction is innately sup¬ and produced with no more care than to a more technological, more con- erior to "mere" fantasy seems to have the great mass of undistinguished Ace trolled-by-man universe, out among been typical of the more immature Doubles. the stars. fans of the late 30s. 'But what Elton seems to be say¬ ((Medievalism's appeal is its ing is that you can "trust" mediocre simplicity, I think. Of course 'Elton's perspective on fantasy may be due, in addition to the nar¬ science fiction more than any fantasy. actual Medieval day-to-day life a- That is because he is not interested mong serfs was lousy, literally and 46 in imaginative writing. He wants the same safe, familiar stuff re-run After all, SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN over and over. KNIGHT is contemporary with Chaucer. The author knew what he was doing. 'Of course there is bad fantasy, but there is very good fantasy too, 'As we move forward a few centur¬ just like there is science fiction ies, we find certain types of satiric far above the level of routine Ace fantasy slowly turning into science Doubles. But there are fantasy writ¬ fiction, as in the case of Jonathan ers who are simply better writers Swift. Voltaire also wrote some al- than any science fiction writers. most-SF, though he surely saw no dif¬ T.H. White and Mervyn Peake stand out ference of kind between "Micromegas" particularly. Lord Dunsany is better (SF), "The Princess of Babylon" (fan¬ than any science fiction writer, but tasy) and CANDIDE (mainstream, well, only within the narrow range of a sort of). H.G. Wells clearly thought certain type of short story. There of himself as a fantasy writer, and are powerful things in his novels, saw no real difference between say, but he was not, overall, a very good "The Man Who Could Work Miracles" and novelist. And I do not think any "The Time Machine", although in his science fiction writer has ever top¬ work the branching-off was almost ped "The Masque of the Red Death." complete. For that matter, Mark (Yes, Poe wrote science fiction, but Twain would probably have argued just you try to read it.) that both A CONNETICUIT YANKEE and "The Mysterious Stranger" were fan¬ that matter, Charles Platt, Gregory 'More generally, as Elton would Benford (who, to be fair, was writing know if he were a bit more widely tasy. in PATCHIN REVIEW about the dangers read (but then, considering his 'Elton Elliott, I'm sure, would of trying to structure a science fic¬ blatherings about macho barbarian dismiss the latter as adolescent tion novel around fantasy elements -- characters, I'm not sure he is even twaddle. Then again, he would dis¬ a trend I don't care for either -- familiar with contemporary, genre miss most of the world's great liter¬ rather than the evil of fantasy it¬ fantasy), it is clear that fantasy ature that way. Yep, THE TEMPEST self), and Norman Spinrad is simply is a very basic mode of expression and THE DIVINE COMEDY and GARGANTUA that fantasy does funny things inside found in virtually all cultures and and DOCTOR FAUSTUS are all for adol¬ their heads which they don't under¬ all eras. I don't just mean the folk¬ escents, but James Hogan and E.E. stand and which frightens them. In tales and epics of primitive peoples, Smith -- now there's adult litera¬ FROM ELFLAND TO POUGHKEEPSIE, LeGuin although those are, quite universally, ture. Actually, few things are more compares it to dreaming, to mysticism fantasy. (And don't give me that adolescent than making sweeping and even to madness. The mental pro¬ crap about it being otherwise be¬ statements which exclude whole areas cess of reading fantasy, whether it cause the audience thought this was of writing, particularly when the be Kafka, Peake or White, is just everyday stuff. The audience of Ho¬ one in question is the huge literary very different from that of science mer had never seen a cyclops. The continent of which science fiction fiction, and to people who don't like hearers of BEOWULF had never seen a is a peninsula. their secure little world shaken up, dragon.) 'Is it easier to write good fan¬ who are not willing to think differ¬ tasy than good science fiction? I ently, and who, quite probably, are 'You will find fantasy everywhere doubt it. I don't think Gregory Ben- afraid of the uninhibited emotional¬ in sophisticated cultures. In the ford could write something equal to ism of much fantasy, this stuff can later Roman Empire, there was a nov¬ ONCE AND FUTURE KING. (Whether T.H. be very disturbing. el-reading public, and they read fan¬ White could write something like 'I might suggest that one of the tasy, the best-known survivor being TIMESCAPE is another matter. He did reasons for the influx of fantasy is THE GOLDEN ASS of Lucius Apelius. do a science fiction novel, THE MAS¬ that as the walls of the SF ghetto (This was actually quite a literate TER, but like everything else he did, crumble, writers are discovering more era. The literacy rate in Egypt, for it is- inferior to his one masterpiece.) example, has never reached that lev¬ I suspect that the talents are very el again.) Glancing around at some different, which is why fantasy writ¬ of the fantasy books I happen to have ers (Lord Dunsany, for instance) of¬ on nearby shelves, I find MONKEY by ten turn out to be poor science fic¬ Wu Ch'eng-en, which is a Ming Dynas¬ tion writers, and vice-versa. In ty (16th Century) Chinese fantasy Wells the two are combined, but in novel. There is also more ways than one. It is by retro¬ FROM A CHINESE STUDIO (not original spect that we see Wells as a seminal title, obviously), which is a collec¬ science fiction writer. THE FIRST tion of stories by P'u Sung-ling, MEN IN THE MOON is a literary descend¬ from the same period. (Ming China ant of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. was a period of very high culture.) From the European Renaissance, there 'I think that now that genrefic- is ORLANDO FURIOSO by Ariosto, the ation has set in, it is just as easy works of Rabelais and of course, to write bad fantasy as it is to Shakespeare, whose THE TEMPEST quite write bad science fiction. In both resembles much modem "." cases, you take pre-fab settings, Much medieval romance belongs in the plots and characters and run them category of literary fantasy (as op¬ through the usual motions. posed to folk literature). It was The results are about e- produced for a reading public by lit¬ qually exciting. erary artists who knew perfectly well they weren't producing realistic lit¬ erature, but had deliberately chosen their particular mode of discourse because of its special properties. and more of what has been available Lee, who is as good as (and in some ges.) The Haldeman and Sucharitkul to writers in the rest of the world. ways similar to) , and may are humorous SF. The Silverberg, That includes everything from fancy rise nearly as fast. There won't be which I haven't read as I write this, stream-of-consciousness techniques quite as many first-sales at first, is set in modern-day Mexico. The to, you guessed it, fantasy. Writers while the magazine is still bimonth¬ Judith Ann Lawrence story, "Some Are in the mainstream/literary ghetto are ly. IASFM could sometimes discover Bora Great," will surprise you. It increasingly discovering fantasy too. six new writers per issue. With AMAZ¬ may turn out to be the "Riders of Since fantasy has been the dominant ING it may be more like one or two the Purple Wage" of the 1980s, only form of literature throughout most for a while. I think we've got our it's a lot better. The technique is of history, it may be that what we're first one. We decided to buy a story probably the most innovative since seeing is literature reverting to the other day by a writer we had nev¬ the latter parts of THE STARS MY DES¬ normal. er heard of, and I wrote the author TINATION — long sections of stream to ask her if it was her first sale. of consciousness, about a quarter of No reply yet, as I write this. the story in verse. It's about an 'I suspect this "Fantasy is Ev¬ African messiah, and is quite extra¬ 'Yes, indeed, when AMAZING (with il" business will be the biggest tea¬ ordinary. It does right and for a pot tempest since the New Wave. The all due respect to Elinor Mavor) be¬ comes a major magazine again, and constructive purpose all the things crucial difference is that the New that the New Wave writers used to do maybe even becomes the clear leader Wavers were trying to tell people badly in the interest of showing off. of the field, TSR and Scithers will what they should read. The anti¬ The Nancy Springer story is a fairy¬ have a lot to answer for. They may fantasy reactionaries are trying to tale/fable. You will find a great even answer by reviving FANTASTIC tell them what they shouldn't. In variety of material in AMAZING, some¬ while they're at it. (I'd like to both cases, the book-buying public thing for just about anyone, with the revive AMAZING QUARTERLY while we're scarcely hears of it, and ignores core being very solid SF. People at it, but George doesn't seem con¬ it. As F. Paul Wilson has pointed keep asking me what an AMAZING story vinced. ) out (also in PATCHIN REVIEW), liter¬ is like. Well, I might say it's like ary Darwinism determines what is pub¬ 'I might mention that what AMAZ¬ a typical Poul Anderson or Robert lished and what is not. ING needs from the fan community, in Silverberg or Nancy Springer story, 'Editors and publishers don't addition to subscriptions (they are or like a typical Benford novel. But look at costumes at conventions. $9.00: AMAZING, Box 110, Lake Geneva, then the one by the probably first- They look at sales figures. WI 53147) is letters of comment. I timer isn't like any of those.' 'I guess Elton's crack about George Scithers means that he is one ((It might be said that science fic¬ of those people for whom IASFM was GORY DETAILS tion is machine fantasy, and that unforgiveably successful. Not only before the industrial revolution did it publish stories by most of An impotent man. Lord of , fantasy was about pre-industrial the major writers in the field, it Kept pestering Ms. Harlot, a whore. wonders, strange creatures, strange introduced lots of newcomers (who But she told him to ring up people.... graduated to writing science fiction When he got his thing up ((You make your old mistake novels, by the way), topped every¬ And not a damn minute before. of speaking for your enemy: "Elton body else in circulation and proved, Elliott, I'm sure, would dismiss..." for the first time in decades, that — Neal Wilgus ((Fantasy, literarily, is chosen it was still possible to start a sci¬ more often as a vehicle by super¬ ence fiction magazine. I'm sure Elt¬ ior stylists and pure, superior on will find the first Scithers is¬ wrote a gag lettercol in the November writers than sf, of course, since sf sue unforgiveably stocked with big issue because there were no letters is still (and probably always will names: It contains a novella by on hand. So far, I haven't seen any be) viewed as a far more commercial , novelets by Larry that could be put in the January is¬ genre. And because the pulp mode Niven and , short sue either. .This ridiculous. Folks, is repulsive to literateurs. stories by , Sharon Webb, if you want to get published in a Nancy Springer (A fantasy! How hor¬ prozine, here's your big chance. Af¬ rible!), John Ford and several oth¬ ter all, fandom started in the let- ((To the extent that fantasy is challenging and frightening, it is ers. The cover by Michael Whelan, tercolumns of AMAZING. There is a doomed to be a marginal genre and is part of a quiet revolution in mag¬ tradition to be upheld. azine cover art -- real science fic¬ not much published because mass tion paintings, a novelty since the 'Also I might point out that a readerships don't want to be shaken Idiot took over the covers at Davis, successful AMAZING will not only up unconsciously, to thrash in in¬ and FGSF has gone mostly to first- lead to a revived FANTASTIC, but will visible quicksand and not know why. year art student imitations of Ma¬ have favorable effects on the whole You're making a case for fantasy as gritte. field. It will make distributors a superior literature, a literature more willing to take science fiction only for the highly intelligent and 'Future damage done by TSR and magazines. It will bring new read¬ emotionally stable, mature. And of Scithers include covers by Kelly ers into the magazine field and I course since you like this rare kind Freas, a serialised Gregory Benford doubt they'll read just one magazine. of fantasy, that makes you a super¬ novel, a new Poul Anderson story And it means an expanded short story ior person. Congratulations. (hard science no less, set on Mer¬ market, more opportunities for new ((The upcoming new AMAZING sounds cury), four Gene Wolfe short-shorts, writers, more money for everybody. like a wonder. Any chance of gett¬ a long novelet by , AMAZING now pays 6* a word for short ing a review copy?)) plus stories by Jack Haldeman, Lisa fiction. As for the range of the Tuttle, , Somtow Such- fiction, well, the Benford and Ander¬ aritkul, Sharon Webb, Judith Ann Law¬ son are hard science. The Wolfe in rence and lots more. Lists like this the November issue is a section from are very hard to do without the file THE CITADEL OF THE AUTARCH. (The drawer open in front of me. There Four Wolves, as we call them, the are some very strong stories by new short-shorts, are reminscent of Bor- writers, including two by Rand B. 48 # LETTER FROM ED ROM scientific devices which make our 2600*5 Calihan Avenue life so much more livable are so many Bemidji, MN 56601 magic boxes to the average slob on August 13, 1982 the street.

'I really enjoyed Elton T. El¬ 'As far as fantasy being more liott's column. If he wants to do a compatible because it looks to the column like this, more power to him! past, I am in whole-hearted concur¬ I found this to be of vastly more in¬ rence. You can see this phenomenon terest than the "Human Hotline" -- elsewhere in the popular culture. think about it, Mr. Geis. There are Take music for instance — there's zines entirely devoted to SF news, been this revival of swing music and and that type of thing — why should if you've been following pop music you be so redundant as to go into like I have, you'd note that many of news, when the title of your zine is the recent top 40 hits are remakes of SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW? Anyway, tunes that were big in the 1960s. that's just a thought that I had, People are not feeling good about the which may or may not be flawed. way things are now, so they are sub¬ consciously trying to turn the clock 'The point that Elliott raises back. As long as this feeling is is quite valid. I am sometimes al¬ confined to English professors (para¬ most at the point of rage as I sur¬ sites, but harmless), I'm not worri¬ mattersL That's the vital element. vey the shelves at the local B. Dal¬ ed. When nostalgia becomes a nation¬ Of course a space drive is a "magic ton's. I am sick and tired of look¬ al obsession, then I'm worried. box" to the average slob. So is a ing at pictures of dragons, unicorns, TV set. So is a digital watch! In genre fiction the basic orienta¬ hooded sorcerers gazing at magic 'I don't think SF is about to go rings et cetera ad nauseam on the cov¬ totally stagnant on us — after all, tion, the furniture, is everything! ers of the paperbacks in the store. the market is still there, and where Some readers like tech fantasy, some And, as Elliott points out, this type there is a demand, the supply will like magic/supematural fantasy. of packaging is also applied to books meet it. What may happen is that That speaks to basic individual that are bona fide SF, which makes publishers may get wise to the dich¬ character. And perhaps it speaks selecting books by new authors a real otomy between science fiction and to instinctual and biological in¬ problem for the reader who prefers fantasy, and we may see separate sec¬ fluences. science fiction to fantasy. tions in the bookstores. Face it -- ((It would make things easier if 'Now, don't get me wrong. I read the science fiction reader is a rarer bird than the fantasy reader, and al¬ bookstores and supermarkets separa¬ fantasy from time to time. The prob¬ ted sf and fantasy on the racks lem is that most of the fantasy I en¬ ways has been. SF got along for a long time as a strictly minority and shelves. But they won't. And joy was written before 1950 — so in a way, the mixing is a good much of this new stuff appears to be genre,fand as a matter of fact, it still is. Don't let the expanded thing: it allows a pure test of formula work. I feel sorry for peop¬ the market, a true reading-by-sales le who think that this stuff is SF, memberships at conventions etc. fool you -- a lot of these people don't of which books sell best, which just because it's in the science fic¬ genre sells best. The problem for tion section. know science fiction from Shinola. This goes double for the bookracks — us is that sales figures are closely I'll bet that the amount of actual guarded by publishers, and fans can 'I have an idea as to what the science fiction is as large as ever, only discover trends and consequenc¬ cause of this problem is. With the it's just that the entire science es much later-years later-by growth of the audience interested in fiction section has been greatly ex¬ noticing reprints, writer populari¬ the fantastic, at least since STAR panded by the addition of fantasy, ty, bookshelf representation.)) WARS came out, we have seen a larger which makes it harder to dig out the amount of material aimed at that aud¬ real stuff. ience. The unfortunate part of this is that, I feel most people are not 'This is a real problem -- and mentally equipped to deal with SF I'm looking forward to the next SCI¬ and as a corollary to this, most writ¬ ENCE FICTION REVIEW to see what Elton ers are not capable of handling it Elliott has further to say about it.' # LETTER FROM IAN MC DOWELL either. It i^, I think, easier to 104 South Spencer Dorm write fantasy than SF, for the simp¬ UNC-Greensboro le reason that all the props are al¬ ((I put a news column -into SFR Greensboro, NC 27412 ready conceived and part of the com¬ years ago in order to compete with August, 1982 mon folklore, while in good science LOCUS. Now I'm not so sure that was fiction, the writer has to invent his a good idea. I still feel some 'I'm beginning to respect Darrell own and be logical about it without listing of new books is a good idea, Schweitzer's criticism. It's taken violating the laws of science as we but the format will have to be dif¬ a long time to recover from the bad know them. Note that I mentioned ferent. I'll likely try something taste left by my first exposure to good science fiction -- I know that next issue, either in a greatly ex¬ his column, the great Malzberg de¬ you can throw in "hyperdrives" and panded "Alien Thoughts" or separate¬ bate of some years back (I'm not ov¬ "spacewarps" but that doesn't make it ly. I've been wrestling with this erly fond of Malzberg, but I thought science fiction. problem for fifteen years! Schweitzer behaved disgracefully). 'What I'm saying is that the av¬ ((On the contrary, "hyperdriv¬ In spite of that initial encounter, erage American of 1982 AD is more es" and "spacewarps" do_make it sci¬ I now find myself reading the VIVE- comfortable with magic rings and fly¬ ence fiction. In 99% of the cases SECTOR with more than an occasional ing horses than he is with specula¬ ftl and wars among the stars occurr nod of agreement. And even when I tion on where society will be in 500 in the future! They are advanced don't agree with him, I usually de¬ (or for that matter 50) years. In a technology. And that’s all that tect a perceptive intellect at work. way, this ties in with what Spinrad He's dead right about the nascent had to say in lus article. All the 49 backlash against fantasy. I'd nev- er thought of it in terms of the New and went on to declare that their na¬ who like and read good fantasy, Wave controversy, but the analogy ked and unashamed manipulation of too, and who are not limited by fits. Take that, you reactionary these accounted for Hein- deep emotional/instinctual imperi- old farts and anti-fantasy fascisti. lein's and Van Vogt's popularity (he tives to sf (or fantasy) only.)) said this in admiration, not in 'Not that most of the stuff being scorn). To paraphrase a line from a churned out by the current fantasy poem by Tennessee Williams: "Each boom isn't crap and possibly even of us thinks the other is queer/ but detrimental to the field, but when in truth we all of us are." you attempt to tar Tanith Lee and Gene Wolfe with the same brush as 'PS: I've now read the Spinrad and , your piece. Although his views on fantasy arguments begin to founder. But that are not completely identical with # LETTER FROM SUSAN M. SHWARTZ isn't Elton Elliott's only problem. Elliott's, there are certain simil¬ 409 East 88th Street, #5A Elliott is seriously hobbled by his arities. Spinrad makes for a perfect New York, NY 10028 own prose style. A reaJ_ hackle-rais¬ example of what I was talking about August 14, 1982 er must have his reader's grudging in my second paragraph. Although I respect. For instance, Harlan Elli¬ don't agree with him, he writes with 'I find the criticism and let¬ son gets by with being controversial such forceful intelligence and muscu¬ ters in SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW more by being witty and inventive: one lar enthusiasm that I am forced to interesting than a wilderness of ten¬ can't just dismiss him as a crackpot. read him carefully and seriously con¬ ure-grabbers even at the rowdiest of The would-be gadfly should at least sider what he has to say. Unlike Modem Language Association meetings. sound tough-minded and aggressive, Elliott, I can't brush him off with 'As I read it, in SCIENCE FIC¬ for belligerent passion can occasion¬ a scornful laugh.' TION REVIEW #44, we seem to have sev¬ ally redeem the tiredest invective. eral different readings of the fan¬ I hate to say this, but the adjective tasy and the SF field, from what I that best describes the tone of RAIS¬ ((Elton’s use of "precious bodily can only call Norman Spinrad's in¬ ING HACKLES is "wimpy." fluids" was satirical or ironic. spired pragmatism to the ongoing du¬ el between Darrell Schweitzer and ((So...some people prefer to , which Elton Elliott 'Elliott whines. And he actually read about their power fantasies now seems to have entered. uses the phrase "precious bodily in the past-magic-supematural fluids" with a seemingly straight worlds of Fantasy, and others 'Polemics to the right of me, face, as if he were unaware of its prefer their power fantasies set polemics to the left of me. Every¬ satiric connotations (perhaps he's in future technological fantasies. one seems to be extremely polemical, a rabid anti-fluoridationist as well). Elton is emotionally invested in and I'm wondering if, as publishing In the past, you've mentioned having the future, in progress, in sci- conditions tighten, which may mean to untangle his spelling and grammar: fewer fantasy or science fiction a similar job needs to be done on his t((May I suggest that your in¬ novels published at higher and high¬ terpretation of his writing tone er prices, everyone is honing his 'Surely he knows that not all as "whining" is more subjective polemics in order to make certain people who read (and write) fantasy than objective?)) that when the crunch comes, the sort are arrested adolescents. Does this of reading he particularly likes description really apply to Fritz ((And here's a question: do won't be the sort cut. Thus we've Leiber and Poul Anderson? How about women have power fantasies? If got Darrell Schweitzer vivisecting Michael Moorcock? Or R.E.G., for so, are they different from men's? SF as being as responsive to the that matter. How many times has And if power fantasies explain the needs of readers (carefully categor¬ SF been called escapist, immature, core of the sf readership, wouldn't ized) as is much fantasy or science stultified and silly? As far as that that indicate a natural difference fantasy. Much of his criticism re¬ goes, haven't mainstream critics us¬ in reading preferences? minds me of Matthew Arnold; I keep ed some of these terms to describe ((I speak here of the hard¬ waiting for him to come up with his suspense thrillers? I think it was core readership, the visceral- list of "touchstones." Blish that pointed out the adolescent decisions made unconsciously to 'Then we've got Orson Scott Card power fantasies that formed the ba¬ buy/not buy. There is a large — after the ritual swipes at New sis of SF's most potent archetypes soft-core readership, too: those Criticism (good grief, that stuff was outmoded ten years ago even at the university which used to be its biggest supporter!) -- going on to play games with spelling, criticize the critic as shaman, for which I bless him, praise participatory read¬ ing, again another blessing! and go on to apply a streamlined version of structuralism to fantasy and SF com¬ mentary. (He's got me afraid to use the word "criticism" for this para¬ graph at least.)

'In this, I think he's dead on target. SF, with its complex system of signs, its emphasis not just on text but on context and the exceed¬ ingly detailed transmission of ideas from writer to writer over the past fifty years, is a perfect target for structuralist criticism, as people like Robert Scholes have discovered. Unfortunately, as criticism — along with fiction — becomes hit more and more by the economy and writers of criticism find it harder and hard¬ er to keep their fiscal heads above water, we're seeing more and more bad criticism too. Possibly this is because many academics, driven by a desire for tenure and a need to of¬ fer science fiction courses to draw students to their departments, have happened onto the field. 'Certainly I'm not talking about the ones who know SF. I'm talking about the ones who are stuck teach¬ ing it with little knowledge and less love of it. After all, after study¬ ing all those years to become shaman- critics (I do like that term), with all that implies about condemning popular writing, these people find make life a trifle difficult when I dy archaic diction and promiscuously themselves forced for their liveli¬ was an academic. misrepresented archetypes — are a lot more accessible than the elements hoods to teach it and, increasingly, 'I'm interested in Elton T. El¬ that make up bad fantasy, such as to write about it. And to borrow liott's "Raising Hackles" column. sloppy reasoning and examination of Norman Spinrad's magnificent phrase, Certainly, he raised a few of mine. technology (it's easy to reason slop¬ such is the mandarinate of letters Take his statement that fantasy is a pily, but less easy to come by a lo¬ that what may happen is that they'll cancer "attacking the SF field, gic or science background.) take over the writing of such crit¬ drinking away its precious bodily icism. Which will mean that people fluids of reason and rationality." 'Elton may riot like fantasy. without academic titles and positions (I'll venture that that's a mixed This is his privilege. He certainly may find it difficult to get a hear¬ metaphor of peculiar vividness.) does not like bad fantasy. In God's ing ... except in magazines like name, who does? However, I think 'I grew up reading hard SF; SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW. Those of us he's misrepresenting things as they what fantasy I read until I was about interested in maintaining the crit¬ are by writing off fantasy-lovers as 18 came in the form of mythology, icism of SF as a lively art in which technophobes, even closet techno¬ medieval romances and the like. So anyone who dares can participate for phobes. He's also revealing his my earliest experiences with SF came as long as he or she can keep up, own bias against academics -- who from stdties that — to a great ex¬ should take immediate steps to pre¬ are an accessible-enough scapegoat. tent — were influenced by John Camp¬ vent this from happening. Among such And it's a self-aggrandizing misrep¬ bell's insistence on science being steps, bitch like crazy at any signs resentation to assert that it is in¬ the effective cause of plot action. of sneers about "amateur sholarship" trinsically harder to write SF than and try to get represented in the And when I work at it, sometimes I "adademic" publications. Then there can even write that sort of story. is the mainstream press itself, 'Granted, SF requires precision which does pay for review and review 'It's difficult for me; like El¬ in research, attention to detail, articles -- from the NEW YORK TIMES ton, my training is in English, much and accuracy. But it should be pos¬ to one's local paper. Writing such of it at the hands of people who sible to write fantasy novels (some articles and putting "writer of SF" might either have been technophobes have been written along these lines) in the credits emphasizes what seems or who wished it would curl up and that use the elements of myth, hist¬ to me to be the main advantage crit¬ •blow away. To make matters worse, ory, art and literature with as much icism of SF and fantasy has over much my training is in medieval English, attention to detail and precision other criticism: It's practiced not which has got to be the field most as, at least, the social sciences. just by critics, but by writers of affected by the burgeoning of fan¬ Such attention to detail will weed fiction who are putting themselves tasy novels. There are times when out the sort of monstrosities that on the line. I feel that if I see one more pseudo- Ursula LeGuin cites in "From Elfland Celtic or pseudo-Viking romance, I'm 'When I was in grad school, the to Poughkeepsie." going to scream. There are times suggestion that any one of us who when I have. 'In the meantime, writers of might write dissertations on sonnets, science fiction face -- as they've novels, epics, romances or plays, 'Good fantasy isn't the cancer, always faced — the problem of deal¬ prove our fitness to do so by actual¬ Elton. Bad fantasy is. But then, ing with technophobes. Doesn't any¬ ly perpetrating a sonnet, novel, etc. bad science fiction is pretty much a one want to reconcile what C.P. Snow ourselves, was dismissed both with hor¬ cancer, in my book too. Benford calls "the two culture" anymore? ror and the lofty statement that points out in the PATCHIN REVIEW such an exercise wasn't necessary that good fantasy is easier to write 'Now, about Dick Geis' sugges¬ and wouldn't prove anything. Oh, than good science fiction -- a state¬ tion that more fantasy is being writ¬ yes, it would ... and I suspect what ment I don't want to take issue with ten because more women writers, edi¬ it would prove is that the critics for now. I think, however, that he's tors and readers have entered the would find it a lot easier to go on got it reversed: Bad fantasy is field ... there's a sort of double writing criticism. Of course, if much easier to write than bad science indemnity at work here. Most of us they tried writing the stuff they fiction, probably because the ele¬ have had it dinned into our ears criticize, they might also find ments that make up bad fantasy — that there are fewer women engineers, their criticism vastly improved. the liberal arts misremembered, crud- doctors, technicians, yes, and SF readers and writers because women 'Statements like that tended to aren't encouraged to read SF, women aren't encouraged to learn math, wo¬ new, young, good writers the way of his WORMS OF KUKUMLIMA in a sec¬ men are shunted from technical ma¬ a Don Juan loves virgins. tion entitled "Silly Science Fiction." jors into more "appropriate" -- and Pinkwater is great! I have been hunt¬ ((I don’t think those who hate coincidentally less well-paying -- ing down his books ever since. But and fear science can be reconciled fields. This may even be true in I would never have heard of him ex¬ to science or sf; they see technolo¬ some part. But then someone has to cept through SFR! gy as a threat to cherished beliefs turn around and say that because of or ways of life. So be it. I think 'On the other hand, I won't miss this, there's problems. All these it funny as hell, for instance, to the Archives. Books in print seems women, you see. It's fine for them see them spreading their beliefs by a fairly useless occupation for a to go into writing or publishing be¬ Quarterly. Besides, a listing is not cause that's what women do. But not means of TV, satellite, and comput- nearly as interesting as a review. in our field ... for the reasons Of course, I do subscribe to the listed above and a few other corol¬ ((Ah, the crunch question: which SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE. laries: Women don't know the field, editors am I referring to? I refuse to answer because until publishers they don't love it, they haven't split their sf and fantasy lines, been reading it for twenty years. 'One minor grunch, I was disap¬ with different editors for each, nam¬ What women writers, readers and edi¬ pointed by the article in SCIENCE ing names is pointless, and besides, tors are you referring to? FICTION REVIEW #43 entitled "The Por¬ I'd have to have access to lists of no Novel Biz." I read it with hopes books chosen exclusively by a given of finding out if it is possible to 'What this sounds like to me is editor, the sales figures for those two things: the double-bind imposed write and sell those things. In¬ books.. .etc. No one but a publisher stead, the article was a defense of on me when I taught SF, swelled de¬ and the editor involved (and often partmental enrollments, but got dres¬ porno. My expectations were rudely not even the editor) has that in¬ dashed by what amounted to a rehash sed down because my course wasn't formation. "substantive", and the reasoning of of the old arguments. Cute, but hard¬ ((I have no lust for any New ly needed. 1950s-type employers that it's point¬ York editor's job, so my arguments less to hire women because they're are not based on conscious or un¬ 'I haven't finished #44 yet, so not "serious" about work. conscious economic forces. And is¬ I can't say much. I am interested 'That analogy suggests another n't it about time men are given in finding out what these "Phantasy one. In the 1940s and 1950s, there ediorial jobs in the Romance Novels is Cancer" people want. I read more was a concerted and quite successful lines? Is it fair for males to be science fiction than fantasy, but my effort to herd all the opossums (I kept out of those genres? Is there favorite tends to be fantasy. Howev¬ mean women, I've been reading James an Old Girl network operating er, many are ones I can't quite clas¬ sify. Is C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy Tiptree again) out of the workforce there?)) and into their homes. After all, fantasy or science fiction or what? times were rough and men needed jobs. I really can't wait to read what Elt¬ Times are rough now. The market is on T. Elliott plans to do as he be¬ gins organizing resistance. Bomb a shrinking. Could it be coincidence Hobbit?' that women writeis and editors find themselves assailed just now? 'Note, I've asked a question. # LETTER FROM WAYNE T. RECTOR According to social scientists, this Moorestown, NJ is a speech pattern women favor be¬ August 13, 1982 cause it is non-threatening. It un¬ dercuts what they want to say, makes 'I was considering a subscription it less serious. A question gener¬ to PATCHIN REVIEW, when I actually ates a simple answer: Yes, it's co¬ read a copy of it. I must be getting # LETTER FROM JAf*ES VAN HISE 10885 Angola Road incidence, or even more aggressive¬ old, because I do not find a diet of San Diego, CA 92126 ly, yes, it's coincidence and you're unmitigated gall to be nourishing. August 15, 1982 being paranoid. So I'll say that This brings me to the most useful I'm not going to ask for a simple aspect of SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW ... 'I just had to write after read¬ answer, but for proof. Meanwhile, I like the enthusiasms. ing Elton Elliott's diatribe against I'll try to keep on writing, edit¬ 'Oh, sure, it is fun to see 'em fantasy. As he points out he's by ing, reading and reviewing both fan¬ kick poor Schweitzer around, or jump no means the first to take off after tasy and science fiction. I still on Orson Scott Card, but such fun is it but I just had to laugh at the think both fields are good, after ultimately shallow. I find it more underlying premise of the whole thing, over twenty years in them in some interesting when the reviewer grabs that being Fantasy Vs. Science Fic¬ form or other.' 'me by the lapels and shouts "You must tion. Hey, man, in case you hadn't read this book!" noticed it's all fantasy! I mean 'Negative reviews don't affect spaceships flitting across the uni¬ ((I suspect that the sf world will me if I think I might like the book. verse and time travel and plan¬ little note nor long remember what I read THE CHANGING LAND despite Mr. ets with sandworms. C'mon now, who we say here; the real judges and Schweitzer (and subsequently I came are we kidding really? Precious lit¬ decision-makers are Out There Decid¬ to agree with him). However, a good tle of it ever has the barest chance ing Now which sf and fantasy books review will get me to look at some¬ of resembling any sort of reality at will live, which authors will eat. thing which I wouldn't see otherwise. all so what does that qualify it as? What we have now is a shrinking pie, Darrell's glowing review of THE BEST Fantasy. Granted you're talking about and that usually means more than OF JOHN SLADEK got me to read that dragons and centaurs and elves but ever editors and publishers will book, and discover a wonderful author most of those stories have a basis stick with proven Big Names who I have been missing for years! in which the beings are the result command a following, leaving crumbs of genetic engineering (including and dribbles for lesser names and 'The best example has been my in¬ TIMES DARK LAUGHTER which he dismis¬ newcomers. Still-Jack Woodford troduction to Daniel Manus Pinkwater. sed on the basis of a superficial once passed a remark to the effect A couple of issues back had a review cover blurb). All I look for in a that editors and publishers love 52 book is that the story be good, imag- inative, captivating and hopefully ideas rather than attacking the fields cinnati a full eight days ahead of more often than not the characters those ideas wander into? I'm no fan its appearance here, a mere 110 miles seem like human beings with depth of Tolkein, but that's because I further east, as measured by the and thought. I'm not so prejudiced think it's dull and empty of genuine anguished howl from Mike Resnick). that I'll give up because the other human characterization, not because But indeed it was worth the wait, chose to use creatures which bear I have anything against elves or for #44 is one of your very best. more than a passing resemblance to dragons. To attack fantasy is like I particularly enjoyed the juxta¬ mythology. Tom Reamy did it in BLIND attacking Westerns because there's position of the Spinrad and Elliott VOICES and yet that's one of the so many of them and you don't like pieces with Schweitzer's usual cant best SF novels I read in the past few Westerns and you wish they'd stop in letter and column. Needless to years. I've certainly never consid¬ cluttering up the racks with it be¬ say, I side with the former two and ered a love of fantasy to automatical¬ cause it pushes out the good stuff. agree that corporate-think and cancer¬ ly consign the reader to an infatua¬ A story, even a , is as good ous fantasy are killing us. tion with the past. I find the fut¬ as what the intent of the story is. 'Re: Bob Barger's letter and ure far more interesting than the Whether it's mindless fantasy or mind¬ Barger's worries about H. Beam Piper past and I guarantee that it'll be less SF, one's as bad as the other "pastiches" (far too strong a word, lots different than most anyone writ¬ and whether ope type is better than I think), no, the next FUZZY novel ing has imagined it to be. Reality the other isn't really the point. will not — was not — written by tends to play nasty tricks like that Writing is the point.' but I prefer that to anything offer¬ William Tuning. GOLDEN DREAM: A FUZ- ed by the past whether real or imag¬ ZZY ODYSSEY by Ardath Mayhar will ined. be out shortly from Ace, complete ((Come to that, all fiction of with major promotion. Ardath has every genre is fantasy-from the continued the Fuzzy saga from the sugary teen romances to the hard- Fuzzies' viewpoint, and I would ex¬ boiled detective yams. pect Barger to be pleasantly surpris¬ ((I'm sure we all want good, ed at the manner in which she has exciting, well-written fiction. added to the Piper creation. But The only trouble is-the good, ex¬ Barger is absolutely correct in his citing fiction I found and liked concern for the creator of CONAN. when I was IS years old isn’t what The ultimate insult to the memory I like now. I’ve actually met a of Robert E. Howard may have been IS year old who doted on Perry the movie review of CONAN THE BAR¬ Rhodan stories. I am far more BARIAN on the nationally syndicated demanding now, and find fewer and TV gossip column, "Entertainment To¬ fewer books that excite me now. night," where it was stated with We all have different values in authority that the movie "— is bas¬ reading fiction-some want more ed on a comic strip popular in Eur¬ wonder-^ideas—and others more ope, but little known in the U.S." action, or characterization... 'Also, the remark that computer Sigh. That ranks up there with the One reader says WOW! and another reviewers who are calling the new people who like fantasy are subcons¬ says of the same book, "That was ciously anti-tech is absurd. People animated feature "The Secret of Nim" done better in 19S6. " while that federal agency wherein who get computers if anything become ((Maybe suspension of dis¬ more immersed in technology as they John B. Calhoun did the research belief has something to do with that inspired the children's book upgrade their equipment and keep a- this sf vs. fantasy controversy - on which the film is based has al¬ breast of the latest developments. with some readers finding it easier ways been called "en-eye-em-aich." Making a statement and saying it's and more comfortable to accept a- so because you feel it's so even liens and spaceships and ray guns 'A final thought on the spread though everything points the other than elves and magic carpets and of fantasy: The long-overdue 1982 way is a poor form of debating and death spells. SFWA Membership Directory is finally you'd flunk the course real quick ((I need to believe a story that way. out and contains about 15%'new names could happen in order to believe that ring no bells at all. Most, I 'I want mature adult literature the characters are real and in must assume, are writing fantasy. as much as Elton Elliott, but there’s order to cormrit emotion, to care And what, I wonder, are the kids not a whole hell of a lot of it in about them and what happens to who are growing up with video games science fiction. I can think of much them. It requires much more sus¬ and computers going to write? Re¬ of Ellison, and several Silverberg's pension of disbelief to believe cent readership surveys from LOCUS like THORNS, DYING INSIDE and THE fantasy. It requires an extra¬ and ANALOG would indicate that the MASKS OF TIME and a few other examp¬ ordinarily good writer to over¬ kids aren’t reading anything at all. les, but if E.E. really thinks that come that barrier, in my case. Maybe SF writers can turn the tide SF has a lot of that I wish he'd That’s probably true for many with a demographic shift toward more list it so that I can find it. It's other readers, too.)) stories with protagonists in their very rare I read a book as rich and forties. It doesn't seem to be a wonderful as 's young person's game anymore.' THE HERITAGE OF HASTUR and I had to stumble on that on my own. Some ((I think the young will turn to people even consider the Darkover reading again when they run out of series fantasy even though it posses- # LETTER FROM DEAN R. LAMBE Route #1, Northlake quarters.)) es a science fiction base and intense Vincent, OH 4S784 characterizations. I don't think August 16, 1982 fantasy is driving anything out. Authors write what they're comfort¬ able writing. There has always been 'SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #44 fin¬ hackwork around including hack sci¬ ally arrived last week (I say final¬ ence fiction. Why not deal instead ly because #44 made it as far as Cin- with looking for mature treatment of 53 # LETTER FROM STEVE PERRAM ((And just as obviously the # CARD FROM BILL DENHOLM 2920 Meridian Street editors/publishers felt TIMESCAPE 184 Centre Street, #5 Bellingham, WA 98225 and , as near-future Mtn. View, CA 94041 August 21, 1982 novels, could be chanced as mass August 4, 1982 appeal novels whose themes deal 'What is science fiction? Is it with present day problems. A lot 'Oh, shame! To not be able to a field so broad and versatile as to more money can be made that way.)) remember William Marshall, author of be just about anything? If so, then SCI-FI and the other Yellowthread just about anything can qualify as Street Mysteries. It is not really SF. an SF but an SF and Hor- or Film Convention. Were there real¬ 'I'm referring to the practice of ly more typos in #44 or is it just publishing works of non-SF as SF and my imagination? books which are SF as mainstream or general fiction. While I suppose # LETTER FROM GREGORY BENFORD 'Most impressed by the Card piece this is nothing new, recently it has 1105 Skyline Drive though I don't know how he wrote it. become glaringly apparent. Laguna Beach, CA 92651 If I had a young daughter (which I August 9, 1982 don't) I would not want her to read ' just published your gloomy projections, too grim, Philip K. Dick's CONFESSIONS OF A 'Norman Spinrad's HOW THINGS too scary (how about happy, upbeat CRAP ARTIST, and Ace Books SPIDER KISS WORK is a major analysis of the real¬ projections occasionally for a change by Harlan Ellison. Both are not, or ities we all work under and probably not intended to be SF. But we all the most unflinching study the field know what the Timescape logo repre¬ has ever had. We're doubly lucky sents, and the Ace edition has "sci¬ ((Okay! Starting in January the that it comes at a time of unpreced¬ recession will end, unemployment ence fiction" clearly printed on the ented rapid change, when the tradeoff spine. TIMESCAPE by Gregory Benford will decline, inflation will be between craft and craftiness is most zero, and interest rates will be and OATH OF FEALTY by Larry Niven and delicate. Jerry Poumelle, which pass for SF at 5%. If you believe all of that by anyone's test or definition, are 'I can testify that indeed there I have a lovely bridge I'd like to published by Pocket Books, not as is a vast difference between being sell you.)) Timescape editions as one might ex¬ top of a monthly SF line and middle pect, but as general fiction. of a main-list. Promotion, ads, es¬ prit de corps among the salesmen -- 'Since, as you say in issue #44, all improve mightily. My first few SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW is devoting novels got good critical reception, itself to an opinion-review format, but TIMESCAPE got me onto TV shows, have you any opinions regarding this dozens of newspaper stories and a # LETTER FROM GEORGE H. SMITH phenomenon? I myself, don't mind. pluslj night at the Beverly Hills Ho¬ 4113 West 180th Street As long as these books are made avail¬ tel, long lunches in the Polo Lounge Torrance, CA 90504 able then that's all right with me. (with Norman Spinrad, strangely e- September 2, 1982 However, from a philosophical view¬ nough), etc. point, it is a bit odd.' 'I am afraid that the Breakout 'I really must apologize to John Book — our newest writers' holy Brunner because in my ignorance I grail -- will increasingly be turned doubted his word about the extreme August 22, 1982 addition to the over to the biggies in the house, danger he is in (thank God the Argen¬ first letter: rather than left to the managers of tines and their Soviet allies didn't the SF line. This will be one more take atomic umbrage over being tossed 'I guess I'm not as clever as I pressure toward making such novels a out of the Malvinas or we wouldn't thought I was. A few minutes ago I touch thinner, more approachable by be hearing his words of wisdom any was browsing through my library when the common man ... You see where more). I was enlightened by a map I came across my copy of Gregory Ben- it's going, even now. he sent me (plus a few choice words ford's TIMESCvPE. While I was cor¬ about my habits of thought). The rect in pointing out it wasn't a 'But SF writers have much more map was copied from the NEW STATES¬ Timescape edition, it was clearly street smarts than other writers, MAN, a magazine of impeccable wisdom marked "science fiction" on both the from my experience. I expect them to and probity (it falls somewhere be¬ spine and cover. Perhaps better ex¬ survive well. Of course, some will tween PRAVDA and PEOPLE MAGAZINE). amples would have been Walter Tevis' simply cave into the trend Elton El¬ Naturally, I couldn't doubt such an MOCKINGBORD (Bantam), and Lawrence liott notes in "Fantasy As Cancer". unimpeachable source so I have to a- Sanders' THE TOMORROW FILE (Berkley But running with the herd won't wash; gree that, as Brunner says, every Medallion). Both are SF but not that way lies hackdom. The naturals single missile on either side of labeled as such.' who made the science-fantasy trend, what, embarrassingly, used to be cal¬ such as Anne McCaffrey and MZB, will led The Iron Curtain is aimed right always be ahead of the trendies. El¬ at The Square House, Palmer Street, ton's analysis of fantasy is super¬ South Petherton, Somerset, England. ((Obviously publishers think sf is charged with outrage, and Orson Scott a good category that will insure a Card's admirable discussion sets mat¬ 'The only excuse I can offer for good basic sale if a book is flagg¬ ters in proportion without undercut¬ my unseeing, unfeeling, insensitive ed that way. Too, the Dick and El¬ ting Elton's points either. (Quite and compassionless letter is that lison books would be invisible to the best article he's written yet, I Mister Brunner in his agony seems to most of the sf readers if they were think.) have missed the main point, which was marketed as "straight" books and that I would like to see American racked in other parts of the paper¬ 'Altogether one of your best is¬ troops and missiles withdrawn com¬ back forest. Labeled sf, these sues ever. Congratulations.' pletely from Europe. You know, like books will be put in the sf racks Yankee Come Home! That way poor Brun¬ and will be noticed by those who ner could rest in peace without hav¬ would be most likely to buy a non- ing to fear our aggressiveness that sf Dick or Ellison book. 54 got England into two World Wars and another set-to in the Falklands, not other hand, there is some slight of us is to be aware of the cycles, to mention the Revolution and the chance of one of their offspring be¬ the power struggles, and keep the necessity of having to invade America ing a genius who will save the world. hell out of the meat grinder!)) and bum Washington in 1814 to teach Whereas, in your case . us how to behave toward lordly Eng¬ 'Secondly, I don't see why you lishmen. ' balk at the idea that non-whites are intellectually inferior to whites. Are you simply afraid of offending your minority-group readers? Come on, Geis, face facts!'

# LETTER FROM POLL ANDERSON 3 Las Palomas ((You already know I think erotica Orinda, CA 94563 a social good (most private social 9 August 1982 enjoyments are not respectable and/or proscribed by establishments) and 11 must take exception to your since I've "assisted" thousands of theory -- a version of which is re¬ people to better orgasms through ceived doctrine of the John Birch So¬ masturbation, relieved tensions, en¬ ciety, if you want a case of guilt by lightened minds, freed-up emotional association — that the world has hangups, and satisfied private needs, been, or is in the process of being, I'd say my life has been of basic taken over by the great financial ty¬ value to society. So, too, has SFR coons, who mean to run it for their done its share of entertaining and own benefit. History shows that such serving. people simply aren't bright enough. ((But do I need to justify my¬ In fact, their level of competence self to the author of the notorious is probably below that of the average novel, GARBAGE WORLD? Congressman, and certainly far below ((True, I will not save the that of the average garbage collec- world. But then, I don't think the world needs saving, nor that mankind is perfectable, contrary to the views of "genius" Liberals, Socialists, and ((I've been journeying to the same similar fools such as yourself. conclusions...as I've watched the multinational banks, led by the ((I'm not convinced non-whites Rockefellers' Chase-Manhattan and are intellectually inferior to 2350 Virginia Citibank rock on their foundations whites, as you seem to be. ((How aan we snap and snarl at from multibillion dollar loan loss¬ Troy, MI 48084 es which were visible on the horizon each other this way, Charles, and August 8, 1982 still be friends?)) for years and which ordinary caution would have prevented. I’m inclined 'Speculating about the future is to think, too, that as power grows, the province of science fiction, and in whatever sphere of human activi¬ Nostradamus' outline of our immediate ty, it sows the seeds of its own future as presented in the book de¬ scribed in the accompanying book re¬ downfall because of its need to use # LETTER FROM RICK NORWOOD lesser, greedier employees who in¬ Box #1762 view is therefore of interest. It evitably fuck up on a grand scale.)) Wayne, NJ 07470 is credible and incredible, and in August, 1982 some respects, scary. As you might say, "Woe, woe. Doom, doom, doom." ' if the world is ruled by a pow¬ You should love it. erful combine of rich industrialists, 'The meteor Nostradamus predict¬ why do they allow the U.S. govern¬ ed would strike Earth in the mid- ment to go so deeply in debt that it 1980s probably is not Halley's, # LETTER FROM CHARLES PLATT is bad for business? though that is probably the first one 9 Patchin Place most people will think of as a like¬ New York, NY 10011 'The terrible truth is: The world is ruled by nobody at all.' ly candidate. Halley's is too big. August 4, 1982 A more likely candidate would be Swift-Tuttle. It is the right size 'Regarding your editorial, it was ((Most leaders don't look past next and is due back any time now. Earth's very amusing, and I hope to see your does intersect the orbit of philosophy expounded at greater leng¬ year. Or even next week. And the rest know the mistakes they're mak¬ Swift-Tuttle, every August 12. Frag¬ th in future issues, much as Hugh ments from the comet produce the an¬ Hefner's was once serialized in PLAY¬ ing, but think they can dodge the bullet. nual Perseid meteor shower. Perhaps BOY magazine. But, to take your soc¬ this time, the comet itself will be ial Darwinism seriously, where do you ((Right, there is no one ruler of the world, nor one cligue, nor there when Earth intersects its orb¬ place yourself on the scale? Any it. There is an article about this philosopher should be prepared to ap¬ one alliance of self-interests. Time and again history cycles its comet in the August issue of OMNI on ply his ethos to himself; in which way through time-nations and em¬ page 124. If Swift-Tuttle strikes case, pray tell, in what way is Rich¬ Earth in 1986, then Halley's comet ard Geis of tangible value to society pires rise and fall, economies boom and bust all the while men with could be visible in the sky at the morally, intellectually or physical¬ - what they consider power struggle same time and serve as a harbinger ly? Welfare mothers give us illegit¬ for the other comet. I wonder when imate children; Richard Geis gives us to increase that power and Do Good or Prevent Evil. some NATIONAL ENQUIRER type psychic porno novels and SCIENCE FICTION RE¬ ((The best policy for the likes is going to come forth and speak the VIEW. Granted, the mothers are sub¬ words, "I see death and destruction, sidized, whereas you are not; on the 55 coming out of Perseus." (Swift-Tut- tie will appear to come out of the a beloved scholarly game for four France will fall to the invaders, a- constellation Perseus.) centuries. But Noorbergen and Joch¬ long with Switzerland, and Ger¬ mans have done a creditable job ident¬ many. 'We give credit for ifying, assembling and decrypting the predicting the submarine; but I wond¬ Britain will not be able to help 265 quatrains of Nostradamus that er if he may actually have gotten the much because about this time England they feel relate to WW III. Theirs idea from Nostradamus, who in 1S55 will sink into the sea, leaving lit¬ is a clear and cogent explication, wrote about metal containers that tle more than the "Isle of Scotland" which appears reasonable and nan- carry people beneath the sea and above sea level. The survivors will arbitrary. which attack surface ships. (He says be evacuated to Canada and the U.S. this explicitly in the original Briefly, here is our future as Also about this time. New York City French.) Verne was surely familiar Nostradamus/Noorbergen/Jochmans have will be destroyed by an earthquake. with this prophecy; very few French¬ it: Finally Russia and the U.S. will men in the past few hundred years have not read Nostradamus. We in Two or three years from now, get their act together and take the America fail to appreciate how much communism will decline in the Soviet offensive. They will totally oblit¬ Nostradamus has influenced French so¬ Union, the old Stalinist leaders will erate China with A-bombs, then their be removed and Russia will become an ciety. armed forces will drive the invaders ally of the U.S. Nostradamus calls out of Europe, restore the Pope to 'Jerry Poumelle's concept of these allies "two brothers of the the Vatican and fight on to ultimate the CoDominium formed of an alliance far North, who hold coninunication a- victory. cross the Arctic Sea," and "the two between Russia and the U.S. was also In the process of relating this great masters of the North." anticipated by Nostradamus. When you series of events, Nostradamus des¬ read what he said about these two mod¬ In the middle of the 1980s, a cribes submarines and submarine at¬ em day superpowers and see how un¬ meteor about one mile in diameter tacks against surface ships (thus mistakably he identified them, you will strike the Indian Ocean, and preceding Jules Verne by more than cannot help but be amazed; particul¬ among the consequences will be the three centuries), amphibious marine arly when you recall that he wrote removal of India as a military check assaults and "fighting in the air." his prophecies in 1555, before the against China, thus setting China He even describes the orbital launch U.S. had even been conceived of -- loose in Asia. platform, 270 miles up, from which more than 200 years before the Amer¬ China launches its nuclear attack a- ican Revolution and when Russia was About the same time, a great gainst the U.S. Noorbergen and Joch¬ the most backward and poor region of leader will arise in the area of Syr¬ mans did not fabricate these things ia, Iraq and Jordan, who will unify out of too-liberal interpretation. 'We will know in the next few the Moslem world and lead a jihad Most of these things are explicitly years if Nostradamus was right. Sit against the nations of the West. Al¬ stated in the original French. See down with a friend and some popcorn liance with China will supply the Mos¬ for yourself. (The original quatrains to watch, and keep the gas masks lems with tactical nuclear weapons in French are included in the book.) and "battlefield chemical weapons. Historically, Nostradamus has China will release a biological not been 100% accurate. Some of his ((Thanks far the provocative, weapon (Nostradamus calls it "a liv¬ predictions about Hitler proved wrong. interesting review. As for a devas¬ ing weapon") over Alaska, spreading Noorbergen says that Nostradamus has tating comet hit in 1986-Ted Ken¬ disease throughout the far northern been right 86%-91! of the time, "de¬ nedy will be President then, and latitudes. China will also launch a pending on the bias of the interpret¬ God wouldn't ever let anything ter¬ few strategic nuclear missiles at er." If he proves right about WW III, rible happen to the U.S. during the U.S. and Russia. let us hope that at least he was al¬ so right about who wins. Teddy's reign. Everybody knows The Moslem jihad will conquer Is¬ that!)) rael, sweep around the east end of ************************************ the Mediterranean, conquer the Balk¬ ans (aided by the Chinese sweeping m through southern Russia to link up with the Moslems), then conquer Italy, NOSTRADAMUS PREDICTS THE END OF forcing the Pope to flee to America. THE WORLD After a particularly bloody campaign. By Rene Noorbergen Research by Joey Jochmans Pinnacle Books, 1981, 240 pp., $2.95 REVIEWED BY RONALD R. LAPBERT

The St. Martin's Press edition of this book was more appropriately titled: INVITATION TO A HOLOCAUST: NOSTRADAMUS FORECASTS WORLD WAR III. This book is not about the end of the world; it is about the iimediate fu¬ ture, from the mid-1980s through the 1990s. Writing from the viewpoint of the 16th century, the French seer, Michel de Nostradame, outlined a scenario for our future as credible as any that have been imagined by modem SF writers. Interpreting Nostradamus' delib¬ erately obscured prophecies has been # LETTER FROM TOM STAICAR 'You may say that a book like 1515 Pine Valley Blvd, #2B this has no place in the pages of OTHER VOICES Ann Arbor, MI 48104 SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW; and true, August 8, 1982 it's certainly not science fiction or fantasy, though it might be con¬ ANNEX 'Sorry I haven't sent any re¬ structively paired with DeCamp's views in a while. I am still rather THE GLORY THAT WAS. But think a- burned out after a big year which bout it: The novel conveys to the included editing THE FEMININE EYE: reader a culture 2300 years dis¬ STAR TREK 11 SF and the women who write it, and tant from his own. Isn't this the Photostory CRITICAL ENCOUNTERS II for Ungar, exact ideal of much current SF? I Pocket Science Fiction, $2.95 and also writing and revising my non¬ can think of several writers in REVIEWED BY ALMA JO WILLIAMS fiction book about Fritz Leiber. the field who would do well to learn from this book.' 'I resigned as book reviewer for For those who want a complete AMAZING after staying on for one photobook collection, this will be George Scithers issue (coming out ((I still remember vividly the somewhat of a disappointment as the next month). He wanted me to stay alien world of medieval Europe pictures are in black 5 white and on and I like and respect him a lot in Jim Blish's DR. MIRABILIS, a are not very good quality. but I was really tired of the pace oivilization/culture which did of reading and reviewing. I decided exist, hence more mindblowing it was a good time to quit and to be¬ than most sf or fantasy. Thanks THE LAST INCANTATION gin what I should have been doing for the tip re ARISTOTLE DETECT¬ all along, namely, writing fiction. IVE.)) By Timescape Pocket Fantasy, $2.95 'Thanks as always for the issues of SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW. Issue REVIEWED BY ALMA JO WILLIAMS #44 was another good one, as usual. Here is the mate to CITY OF THE 'It's too bad Elton T. Elliott SINGING FLAME and the majority of the has ended the "Human Hotline." I # LETTER FROM ALEXANDER NEDELKOVICH Professor of English stories were new to me, i.e. not hav¬ enjoyed the column and looked forward Zahumska 39, 11050 Belgrade ing been published in the Ballantine to having my books mentioned someday. Yugoslavia (August 30, 1982) Fantasy series. The classifications (Any week now the delayed essay col¬ here are "Atlantis", "Mars", "Hyper- lections from Ungar should be offic¬ 'You may publish that SF fandom borea", "Averoigne" and "California." ially published). I still want Ung¬ in this country is getting off the (Yes, you read correctly -- I person¬ ar to send you copies of the books ground, with 3-4 registered clubs. ally consider California a fantastic anyway. Getting published in SCIENCE The address of the Belgrade club, mythical land.) The Mars stories FICTION REVIEW after about four years of which I am a member, is: will seem dated, considering the re¬ of reading every issue was a thrill ality of the planet we now know. I remember fondly.' '"Lazar Komarcic" SF clu^i Narodni Univerzitet Braca Sta7 Get both books, cheapskates, and menkovic enjoy! Mitropolita Petra 8 11000 Belgrade, Yugoslavia THE CITY OF THE SINGING FLAME or, the Secretary: # LETTER FROM ALLEN VARNEY By Clark Ashton Smith 668 College Avenue 'Slobodan Knezevic Pocket Science Fiction, $2.95 Stanford, CA 94306 Secretary of SF Club "Lazar^Ko- August 30, 1982 raarcic" REVIEWED BY ALMA JO WILLIAMS Pere Segedinca 14, Stan 105 11070 Novi Beograd, Yugoslavia At last, at last, I panted, part¬ 'Another book that you might ing with my money and clutching this consider cluing your readers in 'The club has a bi-monthly maga¬ small maroon colored volume with its on is a mystery novel called ARIS¬ zine (fanzine), EMITOR.' lovely painting on TOTLE DETECTIVE, by Margaret Doody. the cover. The last Clark Ashton First published by Harper 6 Row in Smith stories published were in the 1980, it is now principally avail¬ ((Good! I hope you are contact¬ Adult Fantasy series of Ballantine able in a Penguin paperback (1981). ed by fan groups here, as a result Books (correct me if I'm wrong) and It's a "classical murder mystery" of this notice.)) many of the stories are reprints as the cover copy has it, with the from the HYPERBOREA, XICCARP AND Z0- great philosopher Aristotle invest¬ THIQUE books. The Averoigne tales igating a murder in Athens, 332 never rated a book of their own. B.C. PAVLOV'S BEM And to my great surprise, the title 'The book is well done. The story is one which I read many years mystery itself is not especially ago and have been searching for ever interesting (though, to give the This monster with bugging-out eyes since. Any C.A.S. fans will need no author credit, it makes use of ev¬ Sure gave me a great big surprise. urging to get this little gem and idence that could only be import¬ Why, the thing is a bitch -- for those who have never read any¬ ant in her ancient setting). Watch the tentacles twitch thing by him, I highly urge you to What's fascinating is the way the When I poke this spot here twixt the invest. His writing is opulent, his thighs. culture of classical is vocabulary superb (you may need a smoothly revealed in the narrative — Neal Wilgus dictionary, but it beats the READER'S Almost every facet of Greek life DIGEST W0RDP0WER series!), his des¬ is portrayed during the unfolding criptions colorfully visual and story, as well as a nice introduc¬ breathtaking and the story lines very tion for the layman to Aristotel¬ different. Highly recommended. ian . 57 are dead and who has powerful psi- SMALL PRESS NOTES bio powers which make him and his allies against crime and evil a menace to the space empire. BY THE EDITOR It's many-layered and good adventure, with symbolisms and subtle messages speckled through¬ out. The story by and FANTASY MONGERS #4 is a specialized the artwork of are top magazine for collectors of fantasy, professional quality. The publish¬ sf, horror, supernatural, mystery, er, John Davis, promises all-color detectives, adventure---in book, next issue. magazine, even fanzine format. There is included with each The featured item in this issue copy of this issue a long-play is "The Death Manuscripts" by Jo¬ stereo record which is a voice/ seph Lewandowski, which traces and music rendering of the picture story. analyzes the pulphero magazine DOC¬ The story is enhanced if you listen TOR DEATH which lasted three issues to the recording while following from February-April in 1935. it in the printed words and draw¬ There are many ads from old/rare ings. The recording is very good, book/magazine dealers. very professionally done. FANTASY MONGERS ispublished by is available from Capital Weirdbook Press, Box 149, Amherst Gomics, POB 908, Madison, WI 53701. Branch, Buffalo, NY 14226. the class act of the fantasy/occult fiction field. Each issue is a The single copy price is $2.95 [$3.75 If interested, a sample issue is Canada.] can be had for 254. collectors item, and each issue is worth its price for the fiction and non-fiction and art.

CARTOONIST #2, #6, #9 By Robert Bloch TARZAN THE FEARLESS (GREAT CLASSIC is reviewed this issue by Gene De- NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS #6) Weese in his column. The novel is OWLFLIGHT #3 $3.00 -1931-32 also available from Whispers Press Edited by Millea Kenin in quality hardback limited edit¬ Unique Graphics These large softcover books of ions: the trade edition is $15. and 1025 55th St., Oakland, CA 94608 reprinted famous comic strips [in is available from F5SF Book Co., Inc. Subtitled "Magazine of Science limited editions] were rescued from Box 415, Staten Island, NY 10302; Fiction 6 Fantasy," it offers flawed the estate of the late Edwin M. and a signed/slipcased edition at stortes and bad poetry,good artwork, Aprill, Jr. $35. is available from Whispers and a long, interesting interview Howard DeVore bought the re¬ Press, 70 Highland Av., Binghamton, with A. Bertram Chandler by the high¬ maining copies and is offering them NY 13905. ly professional Jeffrey M. Elliot. to collectors. These books were Lettersize format, saddle-stitch¬ originally published by Aprill in binding, 56-pages plus heavy covers. the late 60's and early 70's. The WHISPERS #17-18 [Double issue] $5. The best story is "The Unified print runs were in the 500-1000 Edited and published by Stuart Dav¬ Field Manual" by Richard Grant; a range. id Schiff, 70 Highland Av., Bing¬ rendering of a future time when sci¬ CARTOONIST SHOWCASE #2 and #6 hamton, NY 13905. ence is Out, and Magic is In. contain Secret Agent X9 and Tarzan This is the Stephen King issue, This magazine is another example adventures. #9 contains "Octopussy" and is extraordinary; it features of a vague .(or over-ambitious) --a James Bond adventure, plus a a stunning wraparound cover by John reach for an audience better served Tarzan sequence. Stewart inspired by King's "Gunsling¬ by the prozines. TARZAN THE FEARLESS reprints the er" series. It has two new King strip as it appeared all through short stories as well as fiction by 1938. well-knowns Robert Chilson, Lisa [November, 1982] $3.00, BUCK ROGERS contains the daily Tuttle, Richard Lupoff, David Comp¬ has the virtue of knowing what it is strips from #817 to 1163 as first ton, Janet Morris and David Drake. and what it wants to do. With 80 published in 1931-32. Also: "On THE SHINING and Other pages of letter-size format, heavy I'm not sure of the prices for Preparations" by Stephen King. And coverstock, full-color cover art, these--havifig lost Howard's covering other goodies too numerous to list. front and back, with names like R. letter. A postcard to him should The artwork is uniformly superbly A. Lafferty, Kathleen Sky, Steve bring a quick response. macabre and fantastic. Rasnic Tem, Nancy Springer, and art The early TARZAN and BUCK ROGERS All this on creamy book paper by Steve Fabian, Alicia Austin, are marvelous. I think these are a- with a full cover cover. Total of George Barr and Walter Lee, editor mong the first things I read as a 180 pages. Nick Smith and publisher Dennis Mal- child. WHISPERS is--I got to say it--- lonee have a goodlooking, value-lad¬ The address: Howard DeVore en package.... for those who want an 4705 Weddel St., extra "fix" of fantasy. Dearborn Heights, Address: P.O. Box 4193, Pasadena, Michigan 48125 CA 91106.

PIONEER--a survivalist/subsistence NEXUS #3 features the continuing graphic story of a young male sup¬ zine published by Paul Doerr, 225 E. erhero in the future whose parents Utah, Fairfield, CA 94533---is almost a classic example of counterproduc¬ 58 tive effort. He mimeographs 16 pag- es of single-space border-to-border of the land in spite of radioactiv¬ # THE DARKLING By David Kesterton copy on three-hole mimeo paper [at ity. Well-written but unsatisfy¬ . Sauk City, WI 53583. least, I think it's mimeo paper] and ing beyond the sentimentality. Price: $12.95 Quality Hardcover. somehow gets away with mailing the '"Caster" by Eric Vinicoff is A far-future novel involving 1-3/4 oz. folded, stapled zine for too full of hardworking dialogue. new creatures, psi talents, long- 20f. So far, fine. A miracle. But And I didn't like the story told by dead civilizations, a mission to he has a bad mimeo and the print is a newscaster on this war-tom world save the world. faint and spotty and very hard to of Greenworld, flashpoint of alien- Looks good. read. He doesn't use two columns, human conflicts; the newsman was Ob¬ so his line of print is 20-words server and didn't have much at stake wide, difficult to track. personally. Too, the story seemed # REALITY INSPECTOR by John Caris He prints a wide variety of too dense—a novel compacted to a- Westgate House, 1716 Ocean Ave., survivalist/subsistence information bout 10,000 words Suite 75, San Francisco, CA 94112. and speculation and philosophy— RIGEL's non-fiction features, Price: $3.95 postpaid. [Cal. resi¬ valuable nowadays---but in his no¬ especially "Science 6 Sense" by de its add sales tax] frills, no concessions-to-readabil- Dr. Dean R. Lambe, are better quali¬ ity "purity" he turns off readers Government policy is being ty. manipulated by an alien computer and turns away others. I have to question the editor¬ program which somehow continues to He wants $2.50 per copy---ridic¬ ial judgement which decided that a operate even after it has been ex¬ ulous! ---or will send a sample of a cover painting showing a sorcerer past issue for $1.00. punged from govt, computers. Mean¬ controlling dragons by means of an while, during the matches of the amulet was appropriate for a self- world chess championship.... labeled (on the cover!) science fic¬ This small press novel is an¬ tion magazine. other I'm going to read and review RIGEL has a mix of stories and FEVER PITCH is edited and pub¬ for SFR #46. lished by Brad lv’. Foster (other¬ features that copies the better-knowr sf magazines. It doesn't have a wise known as Jabberwocky Graphics, # THE SMOKING LAND by Max Brand 4109 Pleasant Run, Irving, TX 75062) focus, a personality, and does not seem to be aiming for or appealing Capra Press, P.0. Box 2068, Santa and is a 32-page extravaganza of Barbara, CA 93120. $5.95. voluptuous women in picture stories to a specific readership. At $2.50 a copy [four issues for $8. by sub¬ This trade paperback is a re¬ by various artists. There is one print from the original pages of scription] it must narrow its focus piece of text fiction: "Trainee" by ARGOSY magazine in 1937. Richard E. Geis. It is about Toi or go broke; five second-and third- rate stories aren't good enough to Max Brand also wrote some sci¬ King's first practice session with ence fiction. This is about a lost a man. She is a trainee of the Sex keep a readership which has ANALOG, ASIMOV’S and F5SF also available for race of primitives the hero discov¬ Guild in this early period in her ers inside a volcano in the North life. It is illustrated by a rather its shrinking reading-material dol¬ lar. Pole region. They speak 16th Cent¬ fine full-page Bruce Gonklin drawing ury English and have a priestess of Toi in the nude. For those Geis- A %emi-pro fictionzine must either offer a kind of fiction not named Sylvia. Also included is a completists among you, FP#5 is avail¬ rocketship chase... able for $3.50 plus $1.00 for first generally available in the larger class postage. circulation prozines, or it mast Copies of THE SMOKING LAND are FEVER PITCH also has a very im¬ offer better fiction. available in large lots at a 75

FANTASY AS CANCER: PART II

In the several months since the publication of "Fantasy as Cancer: Part I", I've received numerous conments and suggestions about the article. Thank you all who made helpful constructive comments. After reading the letters where they live, you'd be amazed This division goes far deeper it became obvious that some people at the personal nature of their than mere dragons versus aliens did not understand the major point responses, but it isn't surprising trappings, it is at base a comp¬ of "Fantasy as Cancer : Part I" -- when you consider what they're de¬ letely opposite way of viewing re¬ let me restate the major thesis: fending. ality itself. We have evidence a- plenty of this division in nature My argument is not with the One of the crucial factors un¬ and society: right brain versus genre of fantasy per se -- I don>'t derlying all of literature is how left brain, ontology vs. epistem¬ care to read it; if others do, fine. the characters deal with reality, ology, emotion vs. logic, religion Many good friends have asked me to whether it's a drug bust in south¬ vs. science, irrationality vs. ra¬ acknowledge in print that there is ern Oregon, a ship full of priva¬ tionality, delusion vs. realism, a difference between good fantasy teers on the Spanish Main, a horde lack of responsibility vs. respons¬ and bad -- okay, I'm sure there of Huns sacking central Europe, a ibility, wish fulfillment vs. cold are good fantasy works being writ- dragon menacing an English village equations, bleeding hearts vs. the t n today, I just don't want to or the search for asteroids con¬ cold hard facts ... FANTASY versus slog through all the crap to find taining stable transuranic ele¬ SCIENCE FICTION. In fact, them. My major concern is the in¬ ments. Dick Geis, has suggested that this trusion of fantasy values into sci¬ Science Fiction and fantasy ap¬ conflict contains an ever deeper ence fiction. proach this crucial factor from two level. A very personal level. He For those of us interested in diametrically opposed viewpoints. posits that some people are insul¬ the purity of science fiction, who These different approaches can be ated to reality by youth, family, see the intrusion of fantasy values summed up in two words, ritual and religion or money. Now, it is pos¬ as a corrupting influence, it be¬ reason. In fantasy when the char¬ sible that with computers, space hooves us to know how to fight back. acter gets into trouble he nutters shuttles, and genetic engineering The first step is identifying the some ritual incantation and viola in the present, Science Fiction be¬ problem (the usurption of science a magic genie appears and solves came too realistic for them. fictional values by those of fan¬ all his problems, or he mutters One thing is certain. Science tasy ) and the second step is to the correct magical spell and his Fiction at its best looks forward specify and elaborate. One caution¬ troubles vanish. In Science Fic¬ to the future, based on present ary note -- if you want everybody tion the character enters a new knowledge and extrapolation, al¬ to like you, if you are made upset situation and has to extricate him¬ ways keeping in mind the lessons, or nervous by controversy in print self by dint of reason -- the ac¬ examples and experience garnered or in person (I have been both cumulated knowledge stored up from the past. Science Fiction hailed and hassled at conventions through a lifetime of learning and tainted by fantasy seems to ignore by people who it seems either love experience. Grerk-Smirk, the Bar¬ the future, avoid the present and what I'm saying on this issue or barian, mindlessly chants in hope view the past through nostalgic hate it, like Howard Cosell the the dragon will vanish; Karin, the rose-colored glasses. In essence, topic of fantasy intruding on sf Computer Planner, feeds in the science fiction bastardized by fan¬ seems to have little middle ground.) equations she has learned through tasy is extremely limited in scope I suggest you move on to safer top- a lifetime of education and the and suffers what I call Nostalgia spaceship cruises past the outer For Yesterday's Tomorrow at best, layer of a Red Giant star on a per¬ Nostalgia For Yesterday's Yester¬ As some of the letters show, fect hyperbolic orbit. day at worst. All of the future I seemed to have touched very tend¬ is open to Science Fiction as well er nerves; if you tweak people 60 as time travel, alternate presents or pasts. None of the future is open to bastardized Science Fic¬ tion-Fantasy, only glimpses of the present and devolved decadent view of the past. (Bastard SF is also a lot easier to write than straight science fiction.)

In summation Science Fiction poisoned by Fantasy values is left weakened and emasculated unable to deal with the harsh realities of our technological age, not to men¬ tion the problems posed by a rap¬ idly shrinking base of literate consumers. Next issue I begin a series of articles about Science Fiction proper and the external and intern¬ al problems that plague the genre. Science Fiction, it seems to me, has entered an era of lowered ex¬ pectations on the part not only of critics and writers, but also among editors and readers as well. In an era when the future of pub¬ lishing in America is menaced by growing numbers of illiterate video gamers. Science Fiction approaches its sixth decade as a distinct genre ill defined as to its nature and future. The title of next issue's col¬ umn: "Why Science Fiction Coranit- ted Suicide: A Literary Autopsy."

ALIEN THOUGHTS CONTINUED AMAZING would have to shift to OMNI # AMAZING CHANGES HAVE OCCURRED size and promotion costs to match. in the magazine. I was sent a re¬ I don't see that happening. Within the hardcore sf magazine readership, # Depression Update 10-11-82 view copy of the final Elinor Mavor- edited AMAZING [Sept. 1982], and a AMAZING might, in a year or so, reach The stock market is on another few weeks later was sent a copy of the circulation of ASIMOV'S or ANA¬ frenzied surge, this time firmly the first George Scithers-edited LOG. But even that would be small past the 1000 mark on the Dow-Jones issue [November, 1982]. beer to the owner of TSR. Industrial Average. 140 million But some things haven't changed: shares traded in one day. the digest-size is the same, and the I remenber in the late fifties cover logo and format is the same. a heavy volume was S million shares The contents page is different, per day. Average was 3 million. now simple and unconfusing. The I note that on this day when line-up is the same with non-fiction the market boomed again, the govt, items like opinion, reviews, inter¬ reported sharply lower housing sal¬ view, letters all proceeding the es for September. European unem¬ fiction. ployment is steadily increasing. The November fiction is heavy Canadian unemployment is up. with names: Williamson, Silverberg, But the BUY STOCKS madness con¬ Wolfe, Springer, Niven. tinues, as the final paroxysm of The non-fiction text is present¬ desperate investment continues. As ed in two columns, while the fiction the flight to quality continues. is in larger, more readable type and [Actually, there isn't that much single column--like a book page. quality left in the stock market; The page count has risen from money managers are buying shares in 134 [September], to 164 in the Nov¬ overpriced, over-indebted, lowering- ember issue. profits corporations. This insanity Altogether, a greatly improved is like an infectious disease—a magazine. Its sales should improve true madness of crowds—a kind of gradually. Its function for TSR wild euphoria that has seized normal¬ Hobbies (and , the multi¬ ly cautious men. They’ll be jump¬ millionaire owner of TSR and of ing from windows before another AMAZING, now) is to promote TSR year is gone.] games and perhaps provide a nice Oh, add Bolivia to the long list tax write-off. # HAVE A HAPPY HOLLIDAY SEASON of nations which cannot now even pay To be a significant money-maker And be careful out there interest on its multi-billion dollar debts. 61 SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #35 Inter¬ ALIEN views with Fred Saberhagen and Don Wollheim; "The Way It Is" by Barry CONCLUSIONS Malzberg; "Noise Level" by John Brunner; "Coming Apart at the Themes" by Bob Shaw. # Before I forget, below is a list of reviews-in-hand or spoken-for SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #36 Inter¬ which will appear in the next issue. view with Roger Zelazny; A Profile Reviewers, be so guided. of Philip K. Dick by Charles Platt; "Outside the Whale" by Christopher THE NEW VISIONS-A COLLECTION OF Priest; "Science Fiction and Polit¬ MODERN SCIENCE FICTION ART ical Economy" by Mack Reynolds; In¬ EARTH CHILD terview with Robert A. Heinlein; TRI PLANETARY 'You Got No Friends in This World" FIRST LENSMAN by Orson Scott Card. GALACTIC PATROL GRAY LENSMAN SECOND STAGE MENSMAN CHILDREN OF THE LENS $1.50 per copy from #37 onward DIFFERENT SEASONS DAVE LANGFORD'S INTERVIEW WITH JOW PSION! A NOVEL OF THE FUTURE SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #37 Inter¬ SLADEK had to be rescheduled for DREAMRIDER, view with Robert Anton Wilson; f’ERCHANTER S LUCK next issue , I’m afraid. It was "We're Coming Through the Window!" THE DIMENSIONEERS either that or cut all my own writ¬ by Barry N. Malzberg; "Inside the SLEEPING BEAUTY ings. And I am always getting let¬ Whale" by Jack Williamson, Jerry MARATHON ters commanding, "MORE GEIS!" in Poumelle, and Jack Chalker; "Uni¬ THE BES|^CIENCE FICTION OF THE SFR. ties in Digression" by Orson Scott Card. LOST WORLDS TTC CORPORATION STRIKES BACK* my THE PARASITE SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #38 Inter¬ self-published SOO-copy limited THREE TOMORROWS view with Jack Williamson; "The edition science fiction/erotic HAWKMISTRESS of the Night" by Barry N. novel is almost sold out. I have STAR TREK: THE WRATH OF KHAN Malzberg; "A String of Days" by 31 copies left. For those who STAR TREK 11 (PHOTOSTORY) Gregory Benford; "The Alien Inva¬ have been intending to order it THE CITY OF THE SINGING FLAME sion" by Larry Niven; "Noise Level' but*forgetting, this is probably THE LAST INCANTATION by John Brunner; SF News by Elton your last opportunity for a first THE AYES OF TEXAS Elliott. tine's DARK LAUGHTER edition copy. Whether there will ever be a WORLD OF A THOUSAND COLORS SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #39 Inter¬ second edition depends on a lot of LIFE.* THE UNIVERSE* AND EVERYTHING view with Gene Wolfe; "The Engines factors. The first Toi King sf/ WIRED of the Night"-Part Two by Barry N. sex adventure novel, STAR WHORES A BARNSTORMER IN OZ Malzberg; "The Nuke Standard" by [of which CORPORATION is the sequel] BYZANTIUM ENDURES Ian Watson; "The Vivisector" by has been sold out for a year, now, Darrell Schweitzer; SF News by and there are some more reviews in and a reprint of that depends on Elton Elliott. my "In" basket I haven't looked at many factors. Eventually I'll get yet, from reviewers. It would seem around to trying an ms. copy on sane I need about 20 pages per issue to comnercial' publishers cope with all the Other Voices re¬ SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #40 Inter- views... at the present rate of in¬ Mostly I don't want to reprint view with Robert Sheckley; 4-way coming. I suspect the reviews mul¬ the novels in order to avoid the conversation: Arthur C. Clarke, tiply in relation to the space avail¬ extra work, and because I don't Harlan Ellison, Fritz Leiber S able. want to take the time to market an Mark Wells; "The Engines of the All I can do again is urge the offset edition to bookstores, etc. Night"-Part Three by Barry N. reviewers to be brief. So, if anyone wants to repub¬ Malzberg; Darrell Schweitzer; lish STAR WHORES and THE CORPORATION SF News by Elton T. Elliott STRIKES BACK, drop me a line.

SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #41 Space SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #44 Inter¬ Shuttle Report by Clifford R. Mc- THE ART FILE IS STILL OVERFLOWING view with Anne McCaffrey; "How Murray; "Chuck's Latest Bucket" by its box. I suspect certain of those Things Work" by Norman Spinrad; David Gerrold; Interview with Mi¬ drawings are Doing It with other "Fantasy and the Believing Reader" chael Whelan; "The Bloodshot Eye" drawings—the nudes—and producing by Orson Scott Card; "Raising Hack- by Gene DeWeese; "The Vivisector" multitudes of small illos which I lrs" by Elton T. Elliott. by Darrell Schweitzer; SF News by have never seen before! Elton T. Elliott. The word has to remain: please SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #43 Inter¬ hold off on sending artwork until I view with James White; "The Porno work this mass down to manageable Novel Biz" by Anonymous; "How To SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #42 Inter¬ size. [Of course I cannot refuse Be A Science Fiction Critic" by view with Ian Watson; "One Writer any Gilliland offerings...and one Orson Scott Card; "The Vivisector" and the Next War" by John Brunner; or two other artists are too good by Darrell Schweitzer; "Once Over "The Vivisector" by Darrell Schweit¬ to say nay to, but....] *whimper* Lightly" by Gene DeWeese; SF News zer; "The Human Hotline" by Elton I suspect I'm doomed to cope by Elton T. Elliott. T. Elliott. with The Overflowing Box the rest of my life. 62 THE ALIEN CRITIC #9 "Reading SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #23 Inter¬ BACK ISSUES Heinlein Subjectively" by Alexei views: A.E. van Vogt, and Jack and Cory Panshin; "Written to a Vance, and Piers Anthony; "The Pulp!” by Sam Merwin, Jr.; "Noise Silverberg That Was" by Robert Level" by John Brunner; "The Shav¬ Silverberg. THE ALIEN CRITIC er Papers" by Richard S. Shaver. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #24 Inter¬ NO OTHER BACK ISSUES ARE THE ALIEN CRITIC #10 Interview views: Bob Shaw, David G. Hartwell AVAILABLE with Stanislaw Lem; "A Nest of and Algis Budrys; "On Being a Bit $1.25 per copy Strange and Wonderful Birds" by of a Legend" by Algis Budrys. Sam Merwin, Jr.; Robert Bloch's EACH ISSUE CONTAINS MANY REVIEWS. Guest of Honor speech; The Hein¬ SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #25 Inter¬ EACH ISSUE CONTAINS LETTERS FROM lein Reaction. views with George Scithers, Poul WELL-KNOWN SF & FANTASY WRITERS, Anderson and Ursula K. Le Guin; EDITORS, PUBLISHERS AND FANS. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #14 Inter¬ "Flying Saucers and the Stymie view with Philip Jose Farmer; Factor" by Ray Palmer; ONE I MORTAL THE FOLLOWING LISTINGS ARE OF "Thoughts on Logan's Run" by Will¬ MAN--Part One. FEATURED CONTRIBUTIONS iam F. Nolan; "The Gimlet Eye" by John Gustafson. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #26 Inter¬ views with Gordon R. Dickson and SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #15 Inter¬ Larry Niven; "Noise Level" by THE ALIEN CRITIC #5 Interview view with L. Sprague de Camp; John Brunner; "Fee-dom Road" by with Fritz Leiber; "The Literary "Spec-Fic and the Perry Rhodan Richard Henry Klump; ONE I MORTAL Dreamers" by James Blish; "Irvin Ghetto" by Donald C. Thompson; MAN--Part TWo. Binkin Meets H.P. Lovecraft" by "Uffish Thots" by Ted White. Jack Chalker. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #27 Inter¬ SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #16 Inter¬ views with Ben Bova and Stephen THE ALIEN CRITIC #6 Interview view with Jerry Poumelle; "The Fabian; "Should Writers be Serfs with R.A. Lafferty; "The Tren¬ True and Terrible History of Sci¬ ...or Slaves?"; SF News; SF Film chant Bludgeon" by Ted White; ence Fiction" by Barry Malzberg; News; The Ackerman Interview; ONE "Translations From the Editorial" "Noise Level" by John Brunner; IMORTAL MAN--Part Three. by Marion Z. Bradley. "The Literary Masochist" by Rich¬ ard Lupoff. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #28 Inter¬ view with C.J. Cherryh; "Beyond SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #17 Inter¬ Genocide" by ; ONE IM¬ view with George R.R. Martin; In¬ MORTAL MAN--Conclusion; SF News; terview with Robert Anton Wilson; SF Film News 8 Reviews. "Philip K. Dick: A parallax View" by Terrence M. Green; "Microcos¬ mos" by R. Faraday Nelson. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #29 Inter¬ views with John Brunner, Michael SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #18 Inter¬ Moorcock, and Hank Stine; "Noise view with ; Inter¬ Level" by John Brunner; SF News; -BACK ISSUE ORDER FORM- view with Alan Burt Akers; "Noise SF Film News 8 Reviews. $1.25 EACH Level" by John Brubber; "A Short One for the Boys in the Back Room" SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #30 Inter¬ Dear REG: I enclose $ by Barry Malzberg. views with Joan D. Vinge, Stephen Please send back issue(s) #5 #6 R. Donaldson, and Norman Spinrad; #8 #9 #10 #14 #15 #16 "The Awards Are Coming" by Orson #17 #18 #19 #20 #21 #22 #23 SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #19 Inter¬ Scott Card; SF News; SF Film News #24 #25 #26 #27 #28 #29 #30 view with Philip K. Dick; Interview 5 Reviews. #31 #32 #33 #35 #36 with Frank ; "The Note¬ books of Mack Sikes" by Larry Niven; Circle #'s desired SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #31 Inter¬ "Angel Fear" by Freff; "The Vivi- view with Andrew J. Offutt; "Noise sector" by Darrell Schweitzer. Level" by John Brunner; "On the $1.50 EACH — #37 and onward Edge of Futuria" by Ray Nelson. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #20 Inter¬ Science Fiction Review views: Theodore Sturgeon, and Joe SUBSCRIPTION COUPON SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #32 Inter¬ Haldeman;"Noise Level" by John view with Andrew J. Offutt--Part Dear REG; Start my subscription Brunner; "The Vivisector" by Dar¬ Two; Interview with Orson Scott with issue #_ rell Schweitzer; "The Gimlet Eye" Card; "You Got No Friends in This by John Gustafson. World" by Orson Scott Card; "The $7.00 ONE YEAR / $14.00 TWO YEARS Human Hotline" by Elton T. Elliott. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #21 Inter¬ view with § Edmond SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #33 Inter¬ Address. Hamilton; Interview with Tim Kirk; view with ; "A "The Dream Quarter" by Barry Malz¬ Writer's Natural Enemy---Editors" berg; "Noise Level" by John Brunner. by George R. R. Martin; "Noise City. Level" by John Brunner. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #22 Inter¬ State.Zip. view with John Varley;"S-F and SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW S-E-X" by Sam Merwin, Jr.; "After¬ thoughts on Logan's Run" by William BACK ISSUES LISTING CONTINUED ON P.O. Box 11408 F. Nolan; "An Evolution of Cons¬ Portland, OR 97211 PAGE 62 ciousness" by Marion Zimmer Bradley. 63