The IntFernoatiounanl Redviewa otf Sicoiennce Fiction 128 Foundation The International Review of Science Fiction In this issue: Brian W. Aldiss is remembered by Colin Greenland, Michael Moorcock, Andy Sawyer and David Wingrove Special section on sf theatre, edited by Susan Gray, featuring articles by Shelby Brewster, Geraint D’Arcy, Ian Farnell, Tajinder Singh Hayer and Martin McGrath Jim Clarke reviews the National Youth Theatre of Ireland’s production of F o R.U.R. u n d Matthew De Abaitua on the influence of Alan Moore and Ian Gibson’s The a t i Ballad of Halo Jones o n Henry Wessells on the back-story to Ronald Reagan: The Magazine of v o l . Poetry 4 6 . Conference reports by Beata Gubacsi, Paul March-Russell and Jennifer 3 Woodward N o . 1 2 8 2 0 In addition, there are reviews by: 1 7 Mylène Branco, Rose Harris-Birtill, Thomas Kewin, Joseph Norman, Andy Sawyer, Sue Smith, Rhys Williams and D. Harlan Wilson Of books by: Mike Barrett, Michael Brotherton, Jenni Fagan, Dan Hassler-Forest, John Howard, James Morrow, Nicholas Ruddick, Johanna Sinisalo and Grant Wythoff Cover image/credit: The cast of the National Youth Theatre in R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots, by Karel Čapek, directed by Caitríona McLaughlin. Photo by Fiona Morgan. Produced by Youth Theatre Ireland at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin. Special SF Theatre Issue Foundation is published three times a year by the Science Fiction Foundation (Registered Charity no. 1041052). It is typeset and printed by The Lavenham Press Ltd., 47 Water Street, Lavenham, Suffolk, CO10 9RD. Foundation is a peer-reviewed journal. Subscription rates for 2018 Individuals (three numbers) United Kingdom £23.00 Europe (inc. Eire) £25.00 Rest of the world £29.00 / $44.00 (U.S.A.) Student discount £15.00 / $23.00 (U.S.A.) Institutions (three numbers) Anywhere £47.00 / $77.00 (U.S.A.) Airmail surcharge £8.00 / $13.00 (U.S.A.) Single issues of Foundation can also be bought for £8.00 / $13.00 (U.S.A.). All cheques should be made payable to The Science Fiction Foundation. All subscriptions are for one calendar year; please specify year of commencement. Address for subscriptions: The Science Fiction Foundation, c/o 75 Rosslyn Avenue, Harold Wood, Essex, RM3 0RG, U.K. Email: Roger Robinson, [email protected] – all messages should include ‘SFF’ in the subject line. Back issues can be obtained from Andy Sawyer – see contact details below. Editorial address (for submissions, correspondence, advertising): Dr Paul March-Russell, [email protected] Articles should be approx. 6000 words in length, double-spaced and written in accordance with the style sheet available at the SF Foundation website (www.sf-foundation.org). Books for review: Please send to Andy Sawyer, Science Fiction Foundation Collection, Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool, PO Box 123, Liverpool, L69 4DA, UK. Please clearly mark ‘For Review’. Reviews (up to 1500 words in length) should be sent to [email protected] All contents copyright © 2017 by the Science Fiction Foundation on behalf of the original contributors ISSN 0306-4964258 Foundation The International Review of Science Fiction Editor: Paul March-Russell Guest Editor: Susan Gray Book Reviews Editor: Andy Sawyer Editorial Team: Cait Coker, Dean Conrad, Andrew Ferguson, Heather Osborne, Maureen Speller Contents Volume 46.3, number 128, 2017 Paul March-Russell 3 Editorial Colin Greenland et al 5 Brian W. Aldiss (1925-2017) Special Section: SF and Theatre Susan Gray 11 Guest Editorial Shelby Brewster 13 Performing Cognitive Estrangement: Future Memory Technics in Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime Geraint D’Arcy 26 From Page to Stage: Adapting Vermilion Sands Ian Farnell 38 Utopian Dreams, Dystopian Realities in Lucy Kirkwood and Anne Washburn Tajinder Singh Hayer 48 North Country: An English Post- Apocalyptic Landscape Martin McGrath 60 Ayckbourn’s Artificial People Features Matthew De Abaitua 73 The Fourfold Library (6): Alan Moore and Ian Gibson Jim Clarke 77 R.U.R. (The Abbey Theatre, Dublin) 1 1 Henry Wessells 80 A Note on Ronald Reagan: The Magazine of Poetry Conference Reports Jennifer Woodward 82 Apocalypse and Authenticity Beata Gubacsi 85 100 Years of Estrangement Paul March-Russell 88 Organic Systems: Environments, Bodies and Cultures Book Reviews Joseph Norman 93 Mike Barrett, Doors to Elsewhere and John Howard,Touchstones: Essays on the Fantastic Andy Sawyer 97 Grant Wythoff, ed. The Perversity of Things: Hugo Gernsback on Media, Tinkering and Scientifiction Sue Smith 100 Nicholas Ruddick, Science Fiction Adapted to Film Rhys Williams 104 Dan Hassler-Forest, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Politics Mylène Branco 109 Johanna Sinisalo, The Core of the Sun Rose Harris-Birtill 112 Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrims Thomas Kewin 114 Michael Brotherton, ed. Science Fiction by Scientists D. Harlan Wilson 117 James Morrow, The Asylum of Dr Caligari 2 Editorial Paul March-Russell This is my third attempt at writing this editorial. Now that I am in a position to reflect upon my first year as an Arthur C. Clarke Award judge, I have struggled to convert my thoughts into words. My difficulty has arisen from trying to express what I learnt most from the Award, which was not matters of taste, judgement, criteria or genre definition. What I learnt, instead, was just how small the sf community is. It almost goes without saying that the decision-making process was – and remains – confidential, although I would mention to friends and colleagues the books I was enjoying. But even this outlet dried up the more serious the judging became and the closer we got to the shortlist meeting. Despite (or because of) the confidentiality, speculation upon the Award was rife, an atmosphere intensified by the presence this year of the shadow jury chaired by NinaAllan. The Clarke judges tended to avoid such speculation – which also meant avoiding much of social media. Friendships became, if not strained, then warped by the fact of being a Clarke judge. I became self-conscious about what I could or could not say to friends, even those associated with Foundation’s editorial team, especially if they were also connected to the shadow jury. A wariness dogged my social relations whilst speaking with writers, who may or may not have been under consideration for the Award but who might be connected to those who were, so that discourse became virtually impossible. As the books poured in, I turned inwards, only occasionally raising my head above the parapet. What was strange, and most unexpected, was how the shadow jury itself became shadowed, most notably by the contributors to File 770. Accusations that the shadow jurors were somehow like the Sad Puppies not only misunderstood the purpose of the shadow jury, let alone the Clarke Award itself, but also accentuated the claustrophobia of the sf community. It seemed as if it had become impossible to say anything or, in the Clarke’s case, to raise speculation without impinging upon someone else’s likes or dislikes. Such claustrophobia may indicate proximity but it does not suggest closeness – whilst negotiating one’s own critical position almost inevitably affected someone else’s position, at the same time, vast tracts of in- or miscomprehension lay between rival and competing echo chambers. Suddenly, it became clear to me just how small the sf community is – small in the sense that an opinion or speculation voiced in one place almost automatically effects a response from elsewhere, but small also in the 2 3 atomisation of what we still call a ‘community’, even if it now appears to be so many isolated hamlets rather than a city of Babel. Small in a third sense, too, in that few of the controversies which agitate so many within sf have any direct bearing on the worlds outside sf – that nebulous culture we erroneously describe as ‘the mainstream’, as if that too could be reduced to a single entity. How can criticism operate in such a scenario where, alternately, opinions and speculation jostle with one another, and vast areas of ignorance lie in- between? There is no easy answer to this question. Except perhaps that a journal such as Foundation, which stands back from the incessant chatter of social media, has a role to play precisely because of its relative aloofness. In what may be taken as a New Year wish to our readers, the comparative distance of the journal makes it all the more attractive to support. As a writer, fan and critic, Brian Aldiss knew similar tensions within the sf community, especially when he was most associated with the New Wave. His death in August, at the age of 92, received widespread attention. I am grateful to Colin Greenland, Michael Moorcock, David Wingrove and our very own Andy Sawyer for writing in commemoration of him. The New Wave is further remembered by Henry Wessells in his note on the short-lived Ronald Reagan: The Magazine of Poetry, co-edited by Thomas M. Disch, John Sladek and Pamela Zoline. The centrepiece of this issue, though, is the special section on sf theatre guest-edited by Susan Gray. I am also delighted that Jim Clarke was able to review for us the National Youth Theatre of Ireland’s recent revival of Karel Čapek’s R.U.R. (1920), a landmark of both sf and modernist drama. Matthew De Abaitua, meanwhile, reflects on the influence of Alan Moore and Ian Gibson’s The Ballad of Halo Jones (1984-6), the first time a graphic novel has featured in the Fourfold Library. By the time this edition goes to press, the appointment for our new Book Reviews Editor will have been decided and made public on (of course) social media.