365 Days of Sales, Day 2

Today's new item for sale is another selection from Arkham House.  This is a small (<100 pages?) collection of 3 stories from James Tiptree, Jr., published in 1986, reprinted here for the first time since their original publication in Asimov's and F&SF.

The book is near perfect, but has a slight flaw that I attempt to show in the bottom picture.  This is looking at the book from the top, and you can see that it is slightly "foxed," where the front cover is slightly pushed forward from the back cover.  This is a minor imperfection, but needs to be noted for the serious collector.

I'm asking $24.00 post paid for this book.  Contact me here by comments or through the usual channels (my email address can be found on the "about" page.)

2010 Hugo Awards Announced

You know that the World SF Convention is held outside of the U.S. when Locus doesn't win for semiprozine. Congrats to the winners, especially pals Ellen Datlow and Charlie Stross.

Meeting in Infinity

Meeting in Infinity
by John Kessel

A short story collection, including:

• "The Pure Product" -- Interesting, filled with some wonderful details, but confusing. In the future people will be much the same as they are now? Ok, but why go to such lengths? I don't connect the implied meaning with the nihilism of the character.


• "Mrs. Shummel Exits a Winner" -- Read this originally in Asimov's, as well as re-read it in Kessel's first solo novel, Good News from Outer Space. Wonderful story, about not necessarily wanting what one wishes for.


• "The Big Dream" -- I haven't read the "post-modern" classics, like Barthelme, Barth, or Coover. What I tend to term "post-modern" may not match up with the generally accepted use, so I'll define the way I see it here post-modern fiction is about itself, or, more generally, about fiction itself. This may leave the door open for works before 1960, for example, Tristram Shandy? Gargantua and Pantagruel? In any case, this story by Kessel fits my definition--it revolves around Raymond Chandler--the real RC? I'm not sure, not knowing anything about his personal life. But it definitely is loaded with criticism of his work. Maybe that's the "fuller" definition of post-modern it's fiction that criticizes fiction. I like it, but I can see where it might have a limited audience. Most people read a story for the story; some people read a story for what it might mean; only writers and critics read a story about a story. Kessel could probably have written this as straight criticism of the non-fiction type (maybe he has?), but I found this style much more fun. (Is William Goldman's The Princess Bride post-modern? A criticism of fantasy tropes? Hmmmm.)


• "The Lecturer" -- This one isn't post-modern, yet it has that same feeling of criticism as "The Big Dream." Here, Kessel as professor is criticizing teaching, whereas, in "The Big Dream," it was Kessel as writer criticizing writing. SF as criticism is nothing new; most utopia/dystopia fiction deals in implied, if not overt, criticism. The difference that Kessel brings to it is that he doesn't even attempt to answer the criticism. For him, the point is to point out the problems.
  "Hearts Do Not in Eyes Shine" -- This is the powerful kind of character driven SF that made Kessel's reputation (and Asimov's SF, as well, under the editors McCarthy and Dozois). A simple idea erasing memories. The flip side of Phil Dick's "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale." But why would someone want to erase a memory, and what if the trouble went deeper than memory? Emotional, yet logical. A wonderful story.


• "Faustfeathers" -- I believe this is the lone original story to this volume, which is not quite true, because a version of this is in the wonderful Kessel/Kelly collaboration, Freedom Beach. Basically, this is a humor piece--and what a piece, but not a peace, it is. Faust is played by Groucho Marx. Chico and Harpo are hired by the villain to get evidence that Faust is in league with the fiend; Zeppo is Faust's "favorite" student. And then there's Helen.... Simply imagine the story of Doctor Faustus as a Marx brother's movie and you won't be far off. I'm glad to see this here. When NOVA Express interviewed Kessel in 1988 (was it that long ago?), we expressed an interest in publishing this story, but never got past the purely talking part. Ever since Kessel told me about this tale, I've been anxious to read it. It was well worth waiting for.


• "A Clean Escape" -- Aiee! Oh, well...here's another story about someone with Korasov's Syndrome, done very well and interesting reading. In fact, this reminded me a lot of the best of Phil Dick's work. Why I screamed is because I've been working on a story related to someone with Korasov's, and when I workshopped it, one of the things that kept coming up was "I read a story similar to this wherein...." I guess this type of disease is tempting to the SF writer. If you would like to be tempted, too, the best place I've found that talks about disorders of this type is Dr. Oliver Sack's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. (Actually, I think the appeal of these disorders goes even farther than SF writers--there was an opera based on Sack's book a couple of years back.)


• "Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!" -- Okay, you can take this literally--like 60s SF (and 70s, and some of the rest, as well), this may be the future, but it's not the future that is probable, nor possible. Okay, so let's read it as allegory, and that's where it works. It's not Milton (Thank, God), and it can be read straight (although I think if you read it only straight it wouldn't be much of a story). I think this style of SF is fading, being replaced by the even more fantastic style of people like James Morrow. This was Kessel's first published story, and has aged fairly well.


• "Man" -- Whoa. Another powerful story, this one on the order of "Hearts Do Not in Eyes Shine." This is the new SF style--the style of the 90s? Basically, something weird occurs (it starts raining fish, the dead rise, penii detach, strange animals appear) and while this is recognized by the characters as something different, they do not panic. Roll with the changes, don't rock the boat. Maybe it will go away. The important thing is not the change, but how the characters are affected by change itself, individually as well as in groups. Here, a man moves into the protagonist's basement, as if the man was a rat or termites, yet not, because he also can interact with the characters. Getting rid of him by killing him is one accepted solution, yet the protagonist can't bring himself to do it--not because he considers it murder, but for a more undefinable reason (ennui?). Then the situation is compounded. I also sensed a vague autobiographical nature to the story, but I may be reading to much into it (that's always the danger of readers thinking a story is about you the writer, rather than the characters).


• "Invaders" -- Another piece of meta-fiction. Three separate settings, yet interconnected. One, the Spanish invasion of the Incas. Two, Kessel in the now. Three, the future, where aliens invade the earth like the Spanish invaded the Incas (well, not quite, but the effect is the same). This is a comment piece, underlined by Kessel's straight- to-the-reader essay section. Again, this is as much about science fiction as it is science fiction. Whether or not you agree with Kessel, it makes for interesting reading.


• "Judgement Call" -- Like "Mrs. Shummel Exits a Winner," I read this when previously published and also as part of Kessel's novel. It is an interesting story, about truth, and honor, and ethics. Excellent.


• "Buddha Nostril Bird" -- Well, I don't get it. I like the weird societal set-up, especially Athenian (Socrates, Protagoras), vaguely buddhist (the Zen like proverbs, the ending). Yet the events do not take shape for me. I'm as lost at the end as I was at the beginning-- that's vaguely Zen-like, isn't it?

City of Truth

by James Morrow

James Morrow is a writer after my own heart. In City of Truth, he takes an audacious idea--what if everyone always told the truth?--and uses it to show that there's something much deeper. We learn that while truth is beautiful, it can also be incredibly ugly. And that, while lies are despicable, they also have a place. And while we learn these things, we also get to laugh at some great imagination, as what would advertising be like if it had to be truthful (I especially enjoyed the "new" Surgeon General's warning on a pack of Canceroulettes, not to mention Camp Ditch-the-Kids). Morrow's got a way with this; his Full Spectrum story, "Daughter Earth," contained many of the same elements: a light, humorous tone encasing a serious, yet not dull, meaning.

Thanks to A.T. Campbell for recommending this.

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Ninth Annual Collection

edited by Gardner Dozois

Dozois does the best summation for the year, and his selections for the best short fiction, while not always matching mine, often encompass mine because of the shear volume of his collection. And, I have to admit, I find it hard not to be biased; Gardner's been acknowledging me for some slight help I might have given him for the last several years, and I find myself pleased to be even the smallest part of the preparation of these volumes. Although I've cut down on my short fiction reading in recent years, this volume was old enough to overlap with many stories that I had already read before, so my comments are limited to the stories that were new to me.

• Nancy Kress, "Beggars in Spain"--Great story, that, while reminiscent of some of the classics of SF (Odd John, More Than Human), stands firmly on its own, and states something new. Kress is interested in the tensions between the two groups--one modern analogy for her story is the tension between conservatives and homosexuals. But what I'd like to have seen her spend more time on (and maybe she does in the novel version) is this perverted (in my humble opinion) desire of parents whose children must be their own genetic makeup, and must have all advantages possible. A reflection of evolution? How can that be exaggerated any more than it already is?


• Alexander Jablokov, "Living Will"--Excellent story about a man facing Alzheimer's and deciding to do the "best" for his family and friends. I'm not sure I agree with Jablokov's conclusion--I think I'm more optimistic or something--but at least he made me think about it.


• William Gibson, "Skinner's Room"--The idea is interesting, just a passing speculation, but there's no story here. Yes, there's characterization, but absolutely zero plot. And a story without a plot isn't much of a story, really.


• Greg Egan, "Blood Sisters"--This one's got a plot; in fact, it's got a lot, but I still didn't find that it excited me all that much. Was it because for all the seeming passion that the narrator felt, the very fact and manner of the narration led to it feeling very passive? Things that occurred weren't surprising. You know the narrator didn't die because she's narrating (although that gives me a great idea for a ghost story, although it's probably been done before).


• Karen Joy Fowler, "The Dark"--I'm pretty much in the dark with this story. I think I follow it--Karen's writing is very clear and informative--but when the ending comes, I'm lost. Very much like her novel, Sarah Canary, where there's some great information, which I can't connect with her plot. O, well.


• Ian R. McLeod, "Marnie"--The concept isn't new, but McLeod does the characterization better than it's been done before. In fact, the authentic romance reminded me of the best of Jonathan Carroll (like the first third of Bones of the Moon), no small compliment coming from me. The characterization was so good that I was disappointed that the concept wasn't. If the concept had matched the characters, this would have been the best story I've read since Lucius Shepard's "The Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter" or Brad Denton's "The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians."


• Kim Newman, "Ubermensh!"--Newman seems determined to make his name as an alternate fictioner. Here he gives quite a unique twist to the Superman legend, and it works just as well as his excellent alternate take on Dracula in Anno Dracula. I could probably get tired of this after awhile, but at the moment I'm inclined to give Newman three thumbs-up.


• Robert Reed, "Pipes"--I liked it, but I don't know. I mean, it's almost too simplistic; not elegant enough. Everything fits together, like a jigsaw puzzle, and like a jigsaw puzzle, everything fits together too nicely, and the very fact that I notice the seams at all is disturbing. And while the plot may be original, it isn't all that exciting. So, I like it--with reservations.


• Paul McAuley, "Gene Wars"--A nice little condensed "Shaper" story. Yes, a mix of Sterling and Ballard. Neat. Wonder what weird combinations you could make with other authors? The ideas of one author through the style of another. Naw, too close to the recent rash of "tribute" stories. The story has to come out of it rather than being forced through the gimmick.


• Kristine Kathryn Rusch, "The Gallery of Her Dreams"--While this story reminded me of some of the others that I've read by Kris, there's something different--better--here. It may be the very realistic portrayal of Civil War photographer Matthew Brady, or the verisimilitude in descriptions of place, or something that I can't express. It is a moving story, and worthy of being included here.


• Geoffrey Landis, "A Walk in the Sun"--Here's the problem with "hard science" fiction--Landis may have all the science in this story perfect, but for me to know this, I have to have a lot of knowledge of the moon myself. That is, the story works on specialized knowledge. The audience with that requisite specialized knowledge shrinks as the amount of that knowledge increases. In 1950, the SF audience could follow along with most SF concepts. In 1990, they can't. Thus the growth of "soft science" and "science fantasy" fiction. The soft sciences allow an "intuitive" understanding, and science fantasy deliberately isn't based on actually occurring science. Take away the scientific premise to Landis' story, and it isn't anything new.


• Rick Shelly, "Eyewall"--Of course the next story would have to prove everything differently. "Eyewall" is also a hard science story from Analog that works for me. Maybe it's because Shelly takes the time to explain his science more fully, or that Shelly understands that SF stories aren't about the science per se, but people's reactions to that science. There's some info-dumping here, but it's not too odious, and the ending was a little predictable, but for the most part this is a fine story.


• Greg Egan, "The Moat"--I like Egan, but this is one of the poorest stories I've seen by him. Problems: a major amount of info-dumping, and a fairly boring info-dumping procedure. And the end is simply tacked on; what supposes to stand for the climax seems to have little to do with the rest of the story, and then to tie up the story, Egan adds a "told" section that reads like a "where are they now." The idea wasn't bad, but the execution was very poor.


• Jack Dann, "Voices"--How many times is Dann going to write about the Big Bopper, Holly and Valens? It's not the major focus of this story, although it's a major presence, and I seem to recall Dann writing about them before, maybe twice ("Touring" in collaboration with Dozois?). Maybe it isn't Dann personally, but all of the writers of his age. "The day the music died" seems to have quite an effect on that age group, as Kennedy's assassination, or Nixon's resignation, or the Challenger explosion, has or may have on later groups. I'm just tired of it. The story wasn't science fiction, either, although it was well-written.


• Brian Aldiss, "FOAM"--Nice little twist story, in which the twist is something much larger than the story. The story itself, as twist stories go, isn't much to think on or read; the twist, however, is one of those universals that it never hurts to underline.


• Connie Willis, "Jack"--An excellently researched story, as was her novel Doomsday Book, that reminded me a bit of the Dann & Dozois story, "Down Among the Dead Men." Superficially, it's the same idea. If vampires were real, what would they have been doing in WWII. Dann & Dozois gave us the German version; Willis gives us the English. This is also a clever story, incorporating many references to Dracula, most notably in the names of the characters. In fact, it was almost distracting. Still, Willis is a wonderful writer, and always best at the short form.


• Chris Beckett, "La Macchina"--Neat story about one possible future populated by robots. Becket accomplishes a lot in a little, and that's good writing to me.


• Mike Resnick, "One Perfect Morning, With Jackals"--The prequel to Resnick's Kirinyaga series, it contains the same strengths and weaknesses of the other stories in the series. Unlike other critics of this series, I'm not bothered by what Resnick may or may not be saying about technology; the weaknesses I see are in the writing--simplistic characterization, woody dialogue, etc. Resnick overcomes this by intriguing ideas and a strange mixture of legend and future.

Against a Dark Background

by Iain M. Banks

Surprisingly enough, this latest SF novel by Banks reminded me as much of Zindell's Neverness as of Banks' earlier SF. Maybe it's because I'd read Zindell's novel recently, and because Banks and Zindell are both writing "Space Opera" yet enlivening it with modern sensibility. Banks remains irrestiably readable, even when the novel is nothing more than an adventure novel with a few flourishes. Like Use of Weapons, Against a Dark Background centers around family relationships moving people and events around like a grand chess game. This novel is separate from Banks' other SF, however, which is grouped under the name of the "universe" that it is set in, the Culture. I think I prefer the Culture universe. At least, it seems to make more sense to me. I never quite grabbed the scale to which time and space moved in Against a Dark Background. Many things seemed invented solely to provide a different setting or mood when the story demanded it, rather than actually being true world building. Still, the individual constructions--the Sea House, the Lazy Gun, the World Court, the Huyze brotherhood, the characters, the weird animals, the political/religious/social sectors--are simply wonderful, each unique yet familiar as well.

What this novel really lacks is the twist that I've come to expect from Banks. Or, maybe the twist is there, but because I know Banks, I looked for it and expected it, and wasn't surprised as I should be. Which might mean that Banks has achieved a formula that has become predictable in its unpredictability. All in all, Against a Dark Background is not a worthless experience, but Banks has done much better in other books (I suggest The Player of Games for SF, Espedair Street for non-SF).

Icehenge

by Kim Stanley Robinson

I've long had to admit that while I liked Stan Robinson's writing, I had never read any of his novels, just his short stories in magazines and collections. No more, although the case could be made that Icehenge is a collection of three novellas. In fact, parts of Icehenge were published as "To Leave a Mark" (in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction) and "On the North Pole of Pluto" (in Orbit 21). This is the reason why I picked Icehenge to read first, before Robinson's first published novel, The Wild Shore; that is, to satisfy my anal retentive (does that have a hyphen?) desire for reading things chronologically. Icehenge is three stories inter-connected, each from a different time period and point of view. The first tells of Emma Weil and the Martian Unrest. The second of Nederland and his archaelogical investigation into the Unrest. And last is Doya, who questions whether Nederland's "proof" is actually an ingenuous hoax. Complicated? Yes, but also done in such a way that the convolutions are easy to follow. Robinson admires Philip K. Dick--his graduate thesis was on Dick's novels--and it shows in the theme of this book: what is real? What can we trust? But Stan isn't just copying Dick. For one, as much as I admire Phil Dick personally, I have to admit that the man wasn't a great "writer" (used in the connotation of how words, sentences and paragraphs work), especially in his early SF novels. (I feel obliged to go on to say that Dick's writing improved tremendously over the years, and much of his later work did not suffer in this aspect.) No, the reason Dick's early novels are still read is the wealth of imagination and the sheer exhilaration of stretching the mind. Stan, on the other hand, trades off some of the exhilaration and imagination for excellent writing. Several people have recommended his latest novel, Red Mars, to me, and I do intend to read it...after I finally read all these others of his that have been sitting on my to-be-read shelf for far too long.

Steel Beach

by John Varley

This has one of the most audacious beginning lines--an opening worthy of Harlan Ellison, famous for his eyeball-kicking first lines. "The penis will be obsolete within 5 years." What a great line. Unfortunately, Steel Beach is downhill from there. It's a slow downhill slope, and I kept expecting for the novel to start moving upward as I was reading through it, but a downer it is.

Somebody on rec.arts.sf.written had heard that this was a Heinlein pastiche, but couldn't reconcile that with their experience of Heinlein, because, they said, "Steel Beach was boring, filled with long monologues on immortality." Ha, I say. Name me a better description of Time Enough for Love, I dare you. In fact, if we compare Steel Beach with later Heinlein, Steel Beach really shines. There's enough thought and adventure here for any Heinlein fan who can stomach all the extraneous words. And, better yet, there's at least an ending here that is consistent with what went before. The conclusion is long and anti-climactic, but at least it is there, which is more than can be said about The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.

Maybe I'm being rough on Varley. This novel came out against some stiff competition, including Connie Willis' wonderful Doomsday Book and Michael Bishop's satiric view on art in Count Geiger's Blues. Maybe--probably--I expected more after a ten-year hiatus. I should remind myself that Varley spent a large part of those ten years toiling in Hollywood, not necessarily conditions conducive to improving or even maintaining one's artistic merit. Maybe I should be thankful that Steel Beach isn't any worse than it is. And, if Varley's learned his lesson, maybe there won't be a ten-year gap before the next.

Spacetime Donuts

by Rudy Rucker

Thanks to Mike Sumbera, I'm another novel towards completing my Rucker collection. A weird one from Rucker, but then, that's kind of an oxymoron; everything from the mind of Rucker has a weird stance. This one posits the idea that space/time is a continuum, and circular in nature. That is, if one was to increasingly make oneself smaller and smaller, after passing through the various levels (atomic, subatomic, etc.) one would then start progressing through space (universe, galaxy, solar system, etc.). Like Robert Anton Wilson's "Schrodinger's Cat" trilogy, Spacetime Donuts posits the theory, then fits a story around what it might be like if that theory were true. Rucker's writing style, at least in this early novel, is most similar to the early novels of Philip K. Dick, but whereas Dick was focused on the nature of reality from a psychological and philosophical viewpoint, Rucker comes at it from a mathematical and physical view.

Of Men and Monsters

by William Tenn

This novel recalled for me a Thomas M. Disch novel that I read back in high school. I'm not sure of the title at the moment, but I think it was The Puppies of Terra. Tenn's novel could easily be retitled The Cockroaches of Terra. Earth has been invaded, and conquered, by giant beings. Mankind is still alive--underground and in the walls of the houses built by the monsters. The first part of the book reads like your typical post-holocaust story: young man seeks acceptance in the new order of society, which gives the author plenty of chance to show you how things have changed. Luckily, Tenn has an agenda, and we quickly move beyond the standard hunter/gatherer phase into a darkly satiric view of humans. Tenn is supposedly a very funny author, but in Of Men and Monsters, it's all black (as in Disch's novels).