Readercon 16 Souvenir Book Contents
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is Bfewv-- Read e rco n 16 Readercon 16 Souvenir Book Contents Kate Wilhelm Personal Apppreciations 3 A Bried History of Literature 11 Bibliography 13 Joe Haldeman Personal Appreciations 19 Old Twentieth: a century full of years 27 Interview 29 Bibliography 31 Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore Personal Apppreciations 37 Two Stories by Catherine Moore 40 Bibliography 43 The Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award 51 In Memoriam Hal Clement 52 George Flynn 54 The Readercon Committee 55 Editor: Michael Matthew Design and Production: David G. Shaw, Belm Design Bibliographies: William G. Contento, Joe and Gay Halde man, Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase, Michael Matthew Copyediting/Proofreading: David G. Shaw, B. Diane Martin Advertising: B. Diane Martin Details: Body text set in Adobe Caslon, titles set in Meta. Pages produced in Adobe InDesign CS2 on a Macintosh G5. Printing by Jaguar Graphics and Print. Cover: Roger C. Miller, “(6/18/04: b+w photo/frott. test).” Copyright © 2005 Readercon 16 Souvenir Book, copyright © 2005 Readercon, Inc. All rights revert to authors on publication. Souvenir Book i CORY DOCTOROW KARL SCHROEDER Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town Lady of Mazes 0-765-31278-6 • $24.95 O-765-3I219-O • $24.95 Now in hardcover Now in hardcover A miraculous novel of secrets, Only one woman can save lies, magic, and technological the ringworld of Teven Coronal vision. Surreal, yet deeply felt, from invaders who threaten to this is unlike any novel destroy its fragile ecologies you’ve ever read. and human diversity. “A glorious book, but there “Schroeder gives us another are hundreds of those. It is novel of marvelous insight more. It is a glorious book —brightest glimpses of unlike any book you’ve where our technology of ever read.” —Gene Wolfe communication and compu- tation may be taking us.” —Vernor Vinge JACK WILLIAMSON GENE WOLFE The Stonehenge Gate Starwater Strains 0-765-30897-5 • $24.95 0-765-31202-6 • $25.95 Now in hardcover Now in hardcover From Hugo and Nebula Award Gene Wolfe follows his GENE S winner Jack Williamson comes acclaimed all-fantasy short story a fast-paced tale of four poker WOLFE collection, Innocents Aboard, buddies who stumble upon a with a volume devoted primarily hidden ancient artifact that starmep stpains to his science fiction. Contains changes their lives forever. twenty-five diverse stories. “I have no hesitation in “Short fiction doesn’t often placing Jack Williamson get better than this in the on a plane with two English language.” other American giants, —Booklist on Isaac Asimov and Innocents Aboard Robert Heinlein.” —Arthur C. Clarke tor* www.tor.com The Summer of ’76 By James Patrick Kelly two weeks are taught by a pair of writers, the anchors. They were the ultimate Clarion anchor team. During those last t’s often the case that program book appreciations dwell two weeks, a kind of desperate wackiness rules the workshop, on madcap anecdotes of bathtubs filled with lime jello or as the students realize that they’re about to be exiled forever inappropriate use of Silly String. But I’d actually like to from their literary Eden. I remember squirt gun fights and appreciate two writers who had a profound effect on my ca killer Frisbee wars, although oddly enough, none of them ever reer. To do it, I need to scoot you back in time to the Ford seemed to touch Kate, who was able to project a force field of Administration, before iPods and cell phones and Paris Hilton. calm dignity that was proof against flying super balls. Toward I was an aspiring writer back then, and like many other young the end of the workshop Damon took a Polaroid picture of wannabes, my thoughts turned to the Clarion Writers Work me to prove to me that I existed. At that time, the question shop at Michigan State University. Clarion, for those who just seemed to me to be in doubt. I still have it, so I suppose he fell off the avocado truck, is something like science fiction was right. But it was Kate’s story doctoring that I remember boot camp, six weeks of intensive writing, reading and critiqu best. I had needed to pull an all-nighter to finish a story which ing with some of the best teaching writers in the business. The was workshopped on the last day of Clarion ’76. It involved faculty in 1976 was Robin Scott Wilson, Thomas Disch, Joe a woman scientist who, against her better judgment, partici Haldeman, Joanna Russ, the immortal Damon Knight, and pates in an unspeakable experiment. In the process she nearly Kate Wilhelm. Some of my classmates that year who went on wrecks her marriage. After much techno-mayhem, she alone to publish were Eileen Gunn, Leslie What, Cynthia Felice, is left of the research team; the experiment has succeeded but and Robert Morales. at a horrific cost. At the denouement, she retreats in a daze to That much is public knowledge—you could look it up. her office, where she finds a dozen roses from her estranged But I want to take you behind the scenes, even though every husband — a peace offering. In the version I workshopped, workshopper pledges that what happens at Clarion, stays at she decides impulsively to take the bouquet, go to him and Clarion (Wait, maybe that was Vegas. Or David Hartwell’s leave everything else behind. It was the bland conclusion to room, I forget.) In any event, here’s how two of our very best a There-Are-Some-Things-We-Are-Not-Meant-To-Know writers made an impression on a young James Kelly, who was story. In her critique, Kate Wilhelm taught me the importance so green that he hadn’t grown a “Patrick” yet. of the denouement, and in the process launched my career. The week that Joe and Gay Haldeman came was toward After reading my manuscript, she suggested a change: what if the middle of the workshop, third if memory serves, right after my heroine tossed all but a single flower out, stuck that one Tom Disch. The first thing that struck me about Joe (and Gay) into a bud vase and sat down to write up the experiment? All was that they were young, actually not that much older than it took was two sentences and one red rose to transform the I was. This was very encouraging, because I had been reading piece into a chilling and powerful Scientist-Loses-Her-Soul some of the other Clarion faculty since high school—or in story. Ed Ferman bought “Death Therapy” with Kate’s ending Damon’s case, since I was a sprout. The presence of the Hal for F&SF, which was in itself a major accomplishment—but demans indicated that they might still be taking on raw ap then the late, great Terry Carr picked it up for his Best Sci prentices like me at Science Fiction, Inc. I have two very clear ence Fiction OfThe Year anthology. It was my second published memories about advice I got from Joe and Gay. One was a story. Do I sell that story to F&SF with the original Kelly talk they both gave about how we could set ourselves up in the ending? Maybe yes, probably no. Do I sell it to Terry with my business of writing. They talked about what we might want in flat ending? No way! That Best sale carried me through some a home office, how to keep records, strategies for establishing very lean times in the years that followed. I owe it to Kate. a line of credit and the like. This was all very gratifying; Joe In the years since I’ve returned to Clarion as a teacher and and Gay seemed to be assuming that we would all inevitably have observed for myself how some offhand comment I made publish and thus would need to know how to count paper in workshop or at lunch has been transformed into Words To clips and massage our 1040s. But something Joe said about Live By. So it may be that my two dear mentors may have had craft struck a far deeper resonance. Just a few months before, no idea of how much I owe them. he had won a Nebula for his now-classic The Forever War and Until now. we talked about the pros and cons of writing the fix-up novel. Excuse me, but mostly what I heard were the pros. I was then and am now a relatively slow writer and it occurred to me that my already low profile might collapse into a black hole if I took a year or more to write nothing but a novel. So when I look at my brag shelf at Freedom Beach, which I wrote with John Kessel, Look Into The Sun, and Wildlife, I see Joe’s advice embodied in print. We awaited the arrival of Damon and Kate with great anticipation. There is a tradition at Clarion East that the last Kate Wilhelm 3 Kate Wilhelm: An Appreciation by Gordon Van Gelder ing. One need not span the globe to find good stories. Kate’s characters generally prefer to dig their fingers into the soil s if it’s a violation of client/lawyer confidentiality, they call home, and they like the feel of dirt and hard work. people generally consider it bad form for editors to Good food should be savored, life need not be led in quiet write appreciations of the writers they edit. State se desperation, at the highest level of heaven awaits a fresh pot Acrets might be revealed, mistakes made; working relationshipsof coffee.