TThhee MMeettaapphhyyssiiccaall RReevviieeww 2288//2299 August 1998 John Bangsund Doug Barbour Diitmar Bruce Giillllespiie Paull Kiincaiid Robert Mapson Race Mathews Yvonne Rousseau and many others ISBN 0814-8805 Graphic by Ditmar The Metaphysical Review 28/29 August 1998 72 pages FROM BRUCE GILLESPIE, 59 Keele Street, Collingwood VIC 3066 Australia (ph & fax: 61-3-9419 4797; e-mail: [email protected]) Printed by Copy Place, 136 Queen Street, Melbourne VIC 3000. HOW TO GET IT Available for letters of comment (if e-mailed, please also send your postal address), written or graphic contributions, traded publications, donations or subscriptions ($30 within Australia: write cheques to ‘Bruce Gillespie’) (overseas airmail: equivalent of US$40 or £20; please send your country’s bank notes, or cheques marked ‘Bruce Gillespie’ already converted to Australian currency). THANKS Many thanks to financial help from DAVID LAKE, who made certain that this issue and No. 26/27 would be published. DITMAR FRONT COVER THE EDITOR 3, 48 I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS Includes: DITMAR A SHORT AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DITMAR YVONNE ROUSSEAU ROUSSEAU & ‘TOMORROW & TOMORROW & TOMORROW’ LEIGH EDMONDS TOM FELLER DOUG BARBOUR SIMON BROWN ROBERT MAPSON BRIAN ALDISS 9 IAN M. BANKS AND IAIN BANKS: SF AND NON-SF WRITER Includes: RACE MATHEWS IAIN M. BANKS: THE ‘CULTURE’ SCIENCE-FICTION NOVELS and the economics and politics of scarcity and abundance BRUCE GILLESPIE A TASTE FOR MAYHEM: IAIN BANKS’S NON-SF NOVELS DOUGLAS BARBOUR 16 MICHAEL ONDAATJE: History’s indifferent indeterminancies JOHN BANGSUND 19 ON LOOKING IT UP: A ramble on books and editing PAUL KINCAID 30 BOOKS TO HAUNT US PAUL KINCAID 32 I CAME UPON A CHILD OF GOD 37 Feature Letters: MORE BOOKS WE REALLY READ JANE CARNALL CHRISTOPHER PRIEST RACE MATHEWS WALT WILLIS ROB GERRAND CHARLES TAYLOR PAUL ANDERSON GEORGE TURNER JOHN LITCHEN KAREN JOHNSON 2 I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS THE EDITOR DITMAR YVONNE ROUSSEAU A short autobiography of Ditmar LEIGH EDMONDS TOM FELLER Martin James Ditmar Jenssen was born in Shanghai, China on 6 July 1935, of a Russian mother and a British father. For some reason he DOUG BARBOUR has always been called Dick. His family emigrated to Sydney, Aus- SIMON BROWN tralia early in 1941, and three years later to Melbourne. ROBERT MAPSON After taking Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Science, and then a Ph.D., Dick spent two years as an Associate Professor at the BRIAN ALDISS University of Wisconsin before moving back to the Meteorology Department at Melbourne University, where he spent the rest of his professional life, and of which he has been Chairman. He has been Welcome to The Metaphysical Review, the fanzine a Research fellow at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, at the Scott of People, Life, Events, Travel, the Vast Vortex Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, at the Institute for Alpine of Human Excitement — and Gillespie Gloom and Arctic Studies and at the Cooperative Institute for Research in and Doom, burglaries, illness and death, de- Environmental Sciences, both at the University of Colorado. He has scending income, falling dollars, all set in authored some fifty papers (mainly in the field of computer Godzone Country, from which God has sham- modelling of large ice masses such as Antarctica), co-edited a book bled off in a huff, muttering, ‘I can’t stand fish (Climate Change and Variability: A Southern Perspective, Cambridge and chips.’ University Press), been a council member and Secretary of the Royal No! you say. No more TMR 26/27! We want Meteorological Society (Australian Branch) and the Australian the fun stuff. On with TMR 28/29. Meteorological Society, and editor of the Australian Meteorological I haven’t changed my name to Pollyanna, but Magazine. His main professional successes were performing the first when flipping through the material for this issue computer weather forecast in the Southern Hemisphere, and pio- I rediscovered all the things that make life worth- neering the use of computer modelling of glacial dynamics and while — books, music, computer art, and even a thermodynamics. bit about films if there’s any room. Plus more Dick has been retired for six years, and has discovered that there about People, Life, Events and Travel. is a limit to how many laser discs he can watch, how many books he can read and how much music he can listen to before glut sets in. Computer graphics and Ditmar His professional life (since 1957) was intimately connected with Sitting in front of a computer screen takes up a computers, and so he now spends some considerable time trying to fair slice of my time. The computer graphics that fan what little artistic talent he may have (which clearly is minus- appeared on the back and front covers of TMR cule) by generating computer graphics which may have some aes- 26/27 were not, however, created by me (al- thetic merit. though I’ve had fun tweaking them in Quark Some fifty years ago his school friend Race Mathews introduced and Photopaint). They were created by Ditmar. Dick to SF, gave him his first magazine (Astounding, Sept., 1950), Yes, the same Ditmar as the annual Australian and a novel which has remained his most often read and second SF Achievement Awards, the infamous Ditmars favourite (The Ship of Ishtar by A. A. Merritt). Race also discovered, that cause much derision and wringing of hands and brought together, a number of SF fans at about this time, and each year, unless, of course, you win one. (For the group quickly formed itself into the Melbourne Science Fiction some reason I won one recently; thanks, every- Club, of which, naturally, Race and Dick were of the founding body.) members. Ditmar, the creator of computer graphics, is In 1968 Dick was a member of the committee that was organising the same person who gave his name to the Dit- an SF Convention at which the first Australian Science Fiction mars: Martin James Ditmar Jenssen, usually Awards were to be given. This committee met on a particularly called Dick Jenssen. A short biography appears stifling summer’s day in the clubroom’s oppressively hot confines. in the box. Dick retired at the age of fifty-five. After a protracted, and meandering, discussion trying to fix on a Since then (he tells us) he has been sitting in popular name for the awards, Dick’s frivolous nature erupted and front of a computer, playing with programs such he facetiously suggested they be called ‘Ditmars’. To his surprise, as Corel Photopaint, Paint Shop Pro, Vista Pro this found favour. and Bryce 3D, and creating programs such as When reviewing his life, Dick sees only two events of which he is DJFractals. Since I am a Bear of Little Brain, I’ve proud — in the sense that he would not want his life to been without learned only the rudiments of programs such as these. The first is quite personal, and possibly somewhat maudlin, Photopaint. Elaine has explored some of the and the other is having his name attached to the Australian Science possibilities of DJFractals. Dick’s and Elaine’s Fiction Achievement Awards. Nothing else is of much importance. computer experiments and Bill Wright’s and my 3 remorseless greed for fanzine art have led to the production Writer), Bill Wright (producing great stuff after more than of some interesting pieces. a decade away from fanzine publishing), David Grigg (who Not that this nice stuff is reserved for Bill, Elaine and me. was also absent for too many years), Marc and Cath Ortlieb, Anybody who is interested can get in touch with Dick at PO and many others. However, as far as I know no member of Box 432, Carnegie VIC 3163, Australia, or by e-mail at the apa is now under thirty, and ANZAPA faces no compe- [email protected] tition from rival apas run by the under-thirties. You will see from the colophon that Elaine and I have When writing for ANZAPA, I find I can write about finally chained ourselves to the Wordwide Web and the anything, but recently I’ve found myself waxing grumpy Internet. This has been mainly a disappointing experience. about economics and politics, fghodsake! Still, the things Timebinders, the only chat group to which I belong, has its we were arguing about five years ago are now at the centre moments, especially when I get in contact with one of those of the national stage, so perhaps John, Tim and Kim, not to many overseas SF fans who doesn’t write letters but with mention Pauline, should join ANZAPA to find the Answers whom I like to natter. I expected to find a vast treasure trove to Everything. I prefer to write about books and music, but of stuff on Web pages, but instead find mainly catalogues find few people in the apa who share my interests in music. and advertising. There is supposed to be good writing on Computers and computer programs are another constant the Web, but all I’ve found so far are a few sites such as John topic of conversation, along with travel, illness, condo- Bangsund’s, David Grigg’s, Dave Langford’s and Ali Kayn’s lences, cats, and pretty much the stuff you’d find in a Festivale Web reviewzine. So far I’ve found only a few of the bumper issue of TMR. ANZAPAns sometimes talk about SF fanzines that are distributed on the Web, such as Ansible, TV shows, but I avert my gaze when they do so. Cheryl Morgan’s Emerald City, Tommy Ferguson’s Tommy- To join ANZAPA, write to Marc Ortlieb, PO Box 215, World, Ted White’s new fanzine Spam, and Victor Gonzalez’ Forest Hill, VIC 3131, or e-mail him at mortlieb@ Squib.