Steam Engine Time 12 March 2010
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Steam Engine Time 12 March 2010 OOFFFF OONN AA TTRREEAASSUURREE HHUUNNTT:: Ditmar Bruce Gillespie Frank Weissenborn Ray Wood George Zebrowski Steam Engine Time Steam Engine Time No 12, March 2009, was edited by but rarely achieved. All material in this publication was contributed for one-time Janine Stinson (tropicsf at earthlink.net), PO Box 248, Eastlake, MI 49626-0248 use only, and copyrights belong to the contributors. USA and Bruce Gillespie (gandc at pacific.net.au), 5 Howard St., Greensborough VIC Illustrations: Various book and CD covers; plus: Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) (front 3088, Australia, and published at cover: ‘Off on a Treasure Hunt’, composed six months before the release of a http://efanzines.com/SFC/SteamEngineTime/SET12. Members fwa. recent highly popular Pixar film!); John Foyster (probably) (p. 30); publicity Website: GillespieCochrane.com.au. photo copyright 20th Century Fox (p. 33); publicity photos copyright Warner Bros Entertainment Inc. (pp. 40, 43); stills from the collection of Ray Wood (pp. Print edition only available by negotiation with the editors; first edition and 41, 44); photo (George Turner collection) (p. 59). primary publication is electronic. A thrice-yearly publishing schedule is intended Contents 2 EDITORIALS 2009 the year — 2000–09 the decade 57 EDITING AND WRITING Bruce Gillespie The writer-editor: Jonathan Strahan The rightful custodian of science fiction and fantasy Michael Tolley George Zebrowski 28 COVER STORY 67 A. BERTRAM CHANDLER AND JOHN GRIMES The treasure hunt: Books about SF A lovely dollop of trollop: Bruce Gillespie A. Bertram Chandler’s John Grimes from Rim Worlds burnout to space-lane larrikin 40 TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES Frank Weissenborn The dancing cyborg Ray Wood If human thought is a growth, like all other growths, its logic is without foundation of its own, and is only the adjusting constructiveness of all other growing things. A tree cannot find out, as it were, how to blossom, until comes blossom-time. A social growth cannot find out the use of steam engines, until comes steam-engine time. — Charles Fort, Lo!, quoted in Westfahl, Science Fiction Quotations, Yale UP, 2005, p. 286 2 Editorial: 2009 the year — 2000–09 the decade by Bruce Gillespie 2009 took its own direction, independent of any intentions of mine. The trating appreciation of various article ‘The Treasure Hunt’ (in this issue of SET) refused to write itself. novels (some minor) by H. G. The October deadline loomed for delivering the talk to the Nova Mob. I Wells, and the funniest article I finished reading some books about SF, half-finished others, and became read last year, ‘Remembering further and further behind in making notes. The books I was reading “The Best of Young Novelists, didn’t fit my argument, and others 1983”’, in which Priest tells how, that might have fitted the argument at the media presentation, the got left behind altogether. Mean- best and the brightest new while, I failed to produce the next novelists of 1983, including him, Steam Engine Time. were upstaged and slighted by Martin Amis and Ian McEwen My article does not include discus- (which might account for a sions of two of the best recent books grumpy review of McEwen’s about SF: Christopher Priest’s Atonement, also in this volume). ‘IT’ Came from Outer Space: Oc- casional Pieces 1973–2008 and The Magic is Christopher Priest’s The Magic: The Story of the Film discussion of the film that was (both published by GrimGrin based on his novel The Prestige. Studios). Memorable pieces from Relations were sometimes dis- the former book include ‘A Little tant between Priest and Christo- Place in the Suburbs’, Priest’s pher Logan, the director of the memories of living in Ortygia House film, but nothing dims Priest’s in Harrow (the enormous basement appreciation of the brilliance of flat where I stayed in 1974), two Jonathan Nolan’s screenplay for fond obituaries of John Middleton the film: Murry (Richard Cowper), a pene- 3 The opening pages, with the voiceover about the Pledge, the Turn and necessary to read The Prestige again (pp. 182–4). the Prestige, made a particularly strong impression on me. Nolan had taken a few hints from the novel, had presumably done some research So, you might say, that is where my article ‘The Treasure Hunt’ should of his own into the ways of magicians, had had a think about have started. However, once I hit on the idea of the treasure hunt itself, everything, and finally came up with this simple, memorable and the rest of the article had to take its own direction. I kept trying to discuss powerful narrative hook. I was witnessing the writer of Memento hard the books by Christopher Priest and David Langford, but they kept being at work, and he had done an expert job. I was impressed. left by the wayside. Articles, like life, follow their own direction while you’re making other plans. John Lennon said something like that. He How many other novelists have the grace to appreciate what a script didn’t plan to meet a fool with a revolver in the street, and I didn’t plan writer has done with his or her novel, although Nolan took very few lines to try pedalling an exercise bike. directly from the novel and changed many of the emphases? Writing about the novel The Prestige became a kind of talisman for the difficulties I have in describing current writing about science fiction. In My plan during 2009 was to publish at least three issues, perhaps four, his book What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction, Paul of Steam Engine Time. The fortieth anniversary issue of SF Com- Kincaid delves deep into the guts of the novel and tells us how it does mentary was supposed to be released last January — on the fortieth what it does. However, he seems unable to convey why the novel gives anniversary of its first issue (January 1969). Will it become the 41st the reader that feeling of pure excitement, lovely brain fever, that I’ve Anniversary issue? I received more paying work than I expected during found in very few other SF or fantasy novels in the last thirty years. the year (that’s the good news), but failed to take advantage of the weeks Because I already knew the novel and felt the fever, I could appreciate between paying jobs to produce vast fanzines (that’s the bad news). what Kincaid was trying to say, but I wish he had been a bit more Steam Engine Time readers were short-changed by my interest in incandescent in saying it. (Kincaid is even more penetrating when keeping ANZAPA going. ANZAPA is the discussing Priest’s most recent novel The Separation.) Australia and New Zealand Amateur Pub- To find that excitement I was looking for, I had to reach back to a book lishing Association. (‘Apa’ is a concept that can hardly be called recent: David Langford’s Up Through an that is hard to explain to non-fans, so I Empty House of Stairs (2003). If SF has its Gore Vidal or Edmond suggest you Google it.) I became official Wilson of reviewing, it’s Langford. However, most of the books he is given editor of ANZAPA five years ago, built for review are second rate. He does his best to be amusing about bad membership numbers back to 30 (the books — but sometimes a publisher sends him a gem. Then Langford, in maximum), but recently have faced de- a few deft sentences, can convey something like this: clining numbers (currently 24). The mail- ings themselves have been becoming [In The Prestige] the particular brand if misdirection that lies at the larger and more interesting — and more heart of theatrical conjuring is also a favourite Priest literary ploy — expensive to post overseas (the October the art of not so much fooling the audience as encouraging them to mailing, the 250th, was 266 pages long). fool themselves. ... The heart of The Prestige consists of two auto- I love ANZAPA because it is the last biographical accounts, of the rival Victorian magicians Alfred Borden refuge in Australia of true fanzine pub- and Rupert Angier. ... Both Angier and Borden die, and yet do not die, lishing, apart from such fanzines as Ethel and end their tales with the same resonant words. ... The trick is done; the Aardvark, Mumblings of Munch- before and after, Priest has rolled up both sleeves; his hands are empty kinland and The Instrumentality. and he fixes you with an honest look. And yet ... you realize that it is 4 This year I decided to catch up on my mailing comments on a year and people that they have diabetes. I had to wait until my GP arrived home a half’s ANZAPA mailings. I enjoyed doing this so much that during the from holidays until I pick up the finger-pricking machine that tests my second half of 2009 I began publishing my ANZAPA magazine *brg* on blood sugar levels. a regular basis (it appears in PDF format as issues of Scratch Pad on efanzines.com). Regular production has inspired nice people to send me If I had not done something peculiar to my knee, I would have been articles. Without any intention of mine, it has become the successor to feeling a lot better by now. Because of the change of diet, I’ve lost 11 The Metaphysical Review (my magazine about everything but SF and kg (over 20 lb), my blood sugar levels range between 5 and 8 (metric), fantasy, which hasn’t appeared since 1998).