Review: The Case of the Late Pig, by Margery Allingham

Review: The Case of the Late Pig, by Margery Allingham

by Rich Horton

Margery Allingham (1904-1966) was one of the "big four" women writers during the so-called "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", the others being Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh. Her best known character was Albert Campion, an aristocrat using an assumed name who acts as a detective sometimes, sometimes a spy. She wrote 18 novels and many short stories about him, though in several of the novels he is a relatively minor characters. Her husband Philip Youngman Carter completed an unfinished novel after her death, and wrote two more; and some time after his death a novel he had left unfinished was complete by Mike Ripley, and Ripley has continued to produce about 10 more Albert Campion novels, the latest appearing as recently as 2023. There was a BBC series called Campion in the late '80s (shown on PBS in the US) which adapted a few of the books.

I believe I read one or two Campion novels back in my teens but I have no memory of them. Several years ago I reads one of Allingham's non-Campion mysteries, Black Plumes (1940), which I quite enjoyed. So when I ran across a 1989 reprint of the 1937 novel The Case of the Late Pig, which Avon published about the time it was adapted into an episode of the BBC series, I picked it up, and I read it this past weekend, mostly while on an airplane to Boston to attend Readercon.

The Case of the Late Pig is a rather short novel, around 40,000 words. In fact, it was originally published in a collection of Campion short stories, but soon reprinted in a standalone book. It's told in first person by Campion -- apparently the only book to feature him as narrator. As the book opens, he is in bed, reading an anonymous letter, which announces the funeral of one R. I. Peters. Peters -- called Pig -- was a bully at the school Campion attended, and went on to a criminal career. Campion hardly regrets his passing, but attends the funeral anyway, and is surprised to recognize another schoolmate, Gilbert Whippet, who, he learns, received a similar anonymous letter. But there was nothing suspicious about Peters' death, and Campion forgets about it until a few months later a friend of his, Leo Pursuivant calls him down to his estate to investigate a murder. And the victim is unmistakably Pig Peters, though the man is known to Leo as Oswald Harris.

What follows is a fast-moving evolution of multiple motives (Oswald Harris made enemies easily, and particularly in this little place, where he proposed to buy up a popular property and develop it vulgar ways), multiple identities, many suspects, and some real danger for Albert and some of his friends. There's a bit of oddly undeveloped sexual intrigue between Albert and Leo's pretty daughter Janet. (The book is written in a way that seems to suggest that Janet and Albert may have met in a previous story.) There is more than one criminal, and Gilbert Whippet reappears in a surprising way. The crime itself is resolved in a pleasurably enough way. 

As a mystery, it's fine but minor. The best parts of the book are the ironical portrayals of the characters. There are a number of fine comic bits, and as I said some suggestinon of real peril. Campion is an engaging narrator. His somewhat brutish servant, the ex-burglar Lugg, is a nice sidekick. The narration is rapid and easy, never particularly deep. I am told that Campion's character deepens in later novels -- this story is fine but no more than that. 

Recent Short SF/F Fiction Reviews

Recent Short SF/F Fiction Reviews

by Rich Horton

Here I'm taking a look at some recent SF or Fantasy short stories I read recently. I'll begin by helping celebrate the 50th outing of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet -- this remarkable magazine, started in 1996, is still in print, in the traditional "zine" format -- saddle-stapled and all; the issues are very attractive to boot. The editors are Gavin Grant and Kelly Link, and the contents are an eclectic mix of fiction, articles (often about cooking!) and poetry, with the fiction loosely in the SF/Fantasy zone but with no boundaries. 

Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet celebrates its 50th issue with a strong issue, including S. Woodson's "Dog in the Garden", about a woman in a near future highly repressive corporatized environment who follows a mysterious dog into a new world, full of magic. It's sweet -- the nearly but not quite utopian other world is lovingly portrayed. I did feel that things were a good bit too easy for its main character. Jessy Randall's "Remedial Kissing Class" is also sweet, with the narrator finding love by more or less flouting the title lessons. "White Band", by Guan Un, is a nicely written vignette, with the main character a bit upset that their friend is marrying the moon, and "Graceless Creatures", by Shaun Cammack, is pure horror, about an exhibit of what seem sirens, which can be visited by people with headphones so they won't hear the song. Dark and effectively ugly. And Marie Vibbert's "The Summer Kids and the Gemini" has Hannah ready to go to college making one last trip to the amusement park (Cedar Point, in Sandusky, Ohio), only to meet some intriguing young people who spirit her away, to what turns out to be life of endless literal "amusement", and the rides can trasnport one through time to different parks in different eras. Vibbert sharply interrogates the real consequences of such an existence, and Hannah is smart enough to resist it -- even realizing that her mother had once met the same kids and regretted not going off with them.

Those are all fine stories -- Vibbert's being the best, I think -- but the prize story is "The Path to Pembroke", by L. H. Adams. It's set in North Carolina in a climate-ruined future, with serial outbreaks of different plagues a prime risk. Quint is a young man living among a small group of people trying to survive in the woods -- but always facing the risk of wanderers who might carry a new disease. When one such group comes by, Quint is delegated to walk to the Pembroke Biological Research Station, to warn them of a potential new disease and perhaps get some medicine. Quint's trip is terrifying -- he has gotten sick himself, and he is chased by a group of what seem a sort of zombies, and the weather is harsh. The narrative is a powerfully tense story, basically a chase. That's nice enough but nothing special, but the story is elevated to another level by the narrator itself -- at first seeming just an authorial device, allowing us to follow Quint and also learning something of his and his family's past -- but there is a kicker of a sting in the story's tail, combined with some neat and scary revelations of the nature of one of the diseases threatening people in this future.

The next two stories were recommended to me by Will Waller, and I thank him for the pointer. The first is from the May-June issue of Uncanny, the multiple Hugo-winning online magazine edited by Lynne and Michael Damian Thomas. 

One common trick of fantasy stories is to use the fantastical element as a very literal, reified, metaphor for the real life problems of the characters. I sometimes find this too artificial, too much a mere trick, and even unnecessary. But done well it can be very effective, and I though this strategy worked brilliantly in Anjali Sachdeva's "Vivisection". Eleanor has learned to hide vulnerable parts of her body from her partner Severine. Her heart is in the kitchen, her liver in a closet, and so on. We quickly realize that Severine is a pretty awful woman -- powerful, attractive, and also abusive and a cheater. And Eleanor copes -- by hiding parts of herself. And by nurturing a deer -- a hart -- from a fawn to adulthood -- not a pet, but a sort of a near friend by now. 

The story sets up the situation and lets it play out -- Eleanor's increasing desperation in trying both to please her lover and not to be hurt by her, Severine's inevitable discovery of Eleanor's hidden body parts, the eventual crisis. This is a story that could have been told straight, with no fantastical elements -- but the literalized metaphor in this case elevates it, makes every step more powerful. I really enjoyed this.

Now to GigaNotoSaurus, a webzine that has been publishing roughly a story a month since late 2010, when Ann Leckie founded it. The current editor is LaShawn M. Wanak. GigaNotoSaurus tries to publish longer stories -- their stated length is between 5000 and 25000 words. Sage Tyrtle's story "The Starter Family", from June, is about 10,000 words long. It really excited me, as it presents a powerfully affecting (and scary, and creepy) idea that I don't think I've ever seen before. It did remind me vaguely of Ian R. MacLeod's excellent 1992 story "Grownups". 

Charles narrates the story, beginning as he is eleven years old. His school is all boys, and they don't know anything about girls, except for their mothers. At turning eleven, they take the oath never to reveal the truths they will learn about boys and girls, men and women, and Starter Families. Charles becomes an adult, and is allowed to choose his Starter Wife, and they are happy together. Soon they choose a Starter Baby, whom they love. But some ominous currents are churning. Charles knows what awaits them in the future -- and he finds he can't deal with it.

This story is both really wrenching in presenting its central dilemma, and intriguing in the way it satirizes '50s-style families, conformity in general, the tendency to juvenilize women and straitjacket men. It really packs a punch, and it does not pull that punch at the conclusion.

Review: Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell

Review: Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell

by Rich Horton

David Mitchell is a personal favorite writer of mine, particularly for Cloud Atlas (2004) and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010). I've been working through the rest of his novels with great enjoyment, and now I've come to the book that came between those two books, Black Swan Green (2006). 

Most of Mitchell's books are to some extent genre-adjacent -- Cloud Atlas, for example, incorporates historical sections, a thriller, and sections set far in the future (all intriguingly and metafictionally entwined.) The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is an historical novel set in Nagasaki at the turn of the 19th Century, and including an extended episode that reads like a pure pulp story in some ways. Slade House is straight horror, and The Bone Clocks extends from the present day into a climate-change-wracked future. Black Swan Green, however, seems quite straightforward: the first person narrative of a boy growing up in Worcestershire in 1982, with noticeable semi-autobiographical elements. Having said that, the novel does, as with all of Mitchell's novels, feature characters from other Mitchell novels, most obviously the main character's cousin Hugh Lamb, who is one of the central characters in The Bone Clocks.

There are 13 chapters, each covering a month, from January 1982 through January 1983. Jason Taylor turns 13 at the start of the novel. He lives in the village of Black Swan Green in Worcestershire, in the west of England near the Malvern Hills. His father is an executive at the Greenlands grocery story concern, and his mother is (for now) a housewife. Jason attends the local comprehensive school. He is -- like most 13 year olds -- intensely concerned with social status at school, himself maintaining a precarious position somewhere in the middle, complicated by him being a pretty good student and an aspiring poet (who has published poems in the parish newsletter, naturally under a (pretentious) pseudonym, Eliot Bolivar; and furthered by the fact that his family are outsiders, living in a nice suburban sort of house in a new development outside the village.

The chapters organize themselves around central episodes during that year -- Jason breaking his treasured watch; the Falklands War and its effect on the locals, particularly the elder brother of a classmate; a fight between two of the school bullies; Jason's crush on a girl who ends up with one of the bullies; Jason's getting a chance to join a gang; a dinner party in which Jason's parents host his mother's sister and her husband and their children (including Hugh Lamb, who is a bit older and a lot bolder than Jason); an encounter with some nearby gypsies (following a city meeting about the proposed establishment of a compound for the gypsies); Jason finding a lost wallet at a carnival/fair, with tragic consequences; a school dance with much happier results for Jason, etc.

Those are episodes, but the linking themes follow primarily the fundamental changes in Jason's life, and his family's fortunes. It's clear from the start that Jason's parents' marriage is in trouble. Jason himself is pretty normal -- liking the sort of music I remember from 1982 (though I'm a decade older than he and Mitchell), having crushes on a couple of girls, dealing with bullies and finally holding his own (I do have to say I found his school much fuller of sadists (including some teachers) than I remember from any of my schools.) Jason's sister Julia is presented as fairly idealized -- a good student and future lawyer, much desired by boys her age and pretty sensible about dealing with them, and clearly adored by her brother who would never admit that. And in the end Jason's life will undergo a significant -- though not exactly earth-shattering -- change.

It's a very enjoyable and moving novel. Parts of it are very funny -- the early dinner party is a highlight in that sense. Parts are quite dark. Parts are sweet, others are exciting. I really loved the chapter in which Jason gets advice about poetry, about reading, and about music, from an old, eccentric, and fascinating Belgian woman. The depictions of life in the village, of the local geography, of the main characters all truly land. The portrayal of a disintegrating marriage is convincing and affecting. Perhaps a couple of the episodes seem to work about a bit conveniently, though. Still a really nice book. I can't rank it at the top of Mitchell's output, but it's very much worth reading. 

Review: Espedair Street, by Iain Banks

Review: Espedair Street, by Iain Banks

by Rich Horton

I really enjoy Iain M. Banks' SF novels, particularly Use of Weapons, one of his Culture novels. I have also generally enjoyed those of his mainstream books I've read. This is a short look at one of those. Espedair Street is held in fairly high regard by Banks fans. It is also usually called one of his happier novels.

I must admit I was a bit taken aback, then, when the book opened with the narrator declaring that he had decided to kill himself. To be sure, he quickly assures us that he has decided to live after all.

It being a Banks book, it's told on two timelines. Fairly traditionally: one timeline recounts the last few days in the life of Danny Weir, while the other tells the story of his life from his late teens to the present (age 31). Danny Weir, we soon gather, was the bass player and songwriter for a huge 70s/80s progressive rock band, Frozen Gold. His nickname was Weird (for Weir, D., obviously enough). The band seems to have ended under rather distressing circumstances, which don't become clear for a long time.

In the present day thread, we learn that Danny is living a pointless existence in a mock cathedral in Glasgow, drinking his life away with Communist liquor, spending time with three not-quite-friends -- a young man, a rather older man, and a prostitute. He still writes music, but not very seriously -- film scores and commercial jingles. He gets drunk enough to have no idea what crazy things he might have done. He also doesn't tell any of his friends who he really is -- letting them think he is just the caretaker for Danny Weir's property.

The other thread tells the story of Frozen Gold: how Danny more or less forced himself on the band as a songwriter (they were talented players of cover tunes), his resentment of the middle-class origins of the other members, the meteoric success of the band. Danny is extremely tall (6'6") and he describes himself as ugly. The leaders of the band are Davey Balfour, a supremely talented guitarist, and Christine Brice, a wonderful singer. We soon gather that Davey's risk-taking may have something to do with the band's collapse, though Danny blames himself. There is also some sexual dynamics -- Davey cheating with Danny's girlfriend, and Danny responding with an affair with Christine (she and Davey having been a couple). 

It all comes to a head when Davey is pushed to resume his career (it seems that his solo album is unexpectedly a success), but then learns some more devastating news. He feels that there is simply no point to his life -- but then he -- well, leave it to the novel to reveal. Yes, though, it is at least a hopeful ending, if not unambiguously happy.

I rather enjoyed the book, but with reservations. Mostly they turn on a feeling that it's all too easy. Above all, Espedair Street seems facile. It's hard to believe in Frozen Gold -- in their success, in Danny's brilliance as a songwriter. It's hard to believe the tragedy that precipitates the action of the book. (The tragedy that ruined the band, on the other hand, though absurd, is believable in a weird way.) Danny's redemption also comes too easy. The more I think about this book, and about Banks's other books, I suspect that he is perhaps a supremely talented writer but not a great writer -- that his instinct leads him too readily to facile, constructed, ultimately shallow resolutions. It may be that at his best he can transcend this -- a reread of Use of Weapons may be in order -- but I suspect that in the long run this facility, this tendency to neatness and to easy solutions (even the sad endings, on reflection, are "easy" in a sense) is a limit to his range. (One illustration -- the nature of the human character in his Utopian Culture. The Culture is a wonderful place to live, but Banks has shied away from presenting a place inhabited by actual humans. Instead, they have been genetically engineered to be more tractable.)

Resurrected Post: A Look At the Candidates for the 1950 Retro Hugo

"A Look At the Candidates for the 1950 Retro Hugo" 

by Rich Horton

Back in 2001 I spent some time going over as many potential candidates for the Retro Hugo that year -- for works published in 1950 -- and I published my thoughts in several iterations, mostly on my SFF Net newsgroup. (Newsgroups! Those were the days!) I first commented on what I thought were worthy nominees. I updated it as I read more stories, and then as the nominees were announced, and then after the winners were announced.

Then, a few years ago, I went through an exercise to look back at the Hugos for the whole decade of the 1950s, I made a new post on what I thought were good choices for stories from 1950. That post is here. It echoes a lot of what I did way back in 2001 -- about which at that time I had completely forgotten! Today I had reason to look up things I had said about Fritz Leiber's classic story "Coming Attraction" -- and I came across this old post! So I decided to reproduce it here, in its original form (mostly) -- my later post linked above does mention a couple pieces I missed earlier. 

(And, hey, for more of my recent Hugo neep, here's my Substack post about the 2025 Hugo Short Story ballot.)

Anywhere: here is that old post:

I've been calling this a work in progress. Now, however, I have to say it's complete: the Retro Hugos have been awarded, and this latest revision includes commentary on the actual choices. I note that I have read all the actual Retro Hugo nominees. So, this essay considers the works I considered the most likely nominees for the 1950 Retro Hugos, to be awarded by the 2001 World Science Fiction Convention, the Millennium Philcon. Nominations for the Retro Hugos, and for the 2001 Hugos (for works published in 2000) are complete, and have been announced, as have been the winners. Interested people should check out the Millennium Philcon home page. In this latest revision to this essay, I will still list the stories I thought deserved consideration, adding the few examples that didn't make my list but which were nominated, and discussing the nominations, and the eventual winners.

(Incidentally, a someone different version of this essay, with pictures!, and with more prose and fewer lists, is available at SF Site, 1950 Retro Hugo Candidates).

I'd like to mention first that I'm aware of the arguments against awarding Retro Hugos, and I think they are pretty sound. There is no way we, in 2001, can reasonably simulate what voters in 1951 would have chosen as the best work of 1950. For example, stories by writers who established reputations that endure to this day will almost undoubtedly have an advantage over stories, possibly equally good or better, by writers who are forgotten or nearly forgotten 50 years later. But given that Retro Hugos are going to be awarded, the best we can do is try to find as many good 1950 stories as we can, read as many as we have time to, and vote accordingly. That's the goal of this essay: to list the novels and stories that I have found that I believe deserve consideration for Retro Hugo nominations. It's worth noting that the eventual winners, in my opinion, support the position of those who find the awards flawed -- particularly the non-fiction awards, which include such inexcusable results as Bob Silverberg winning Best Fan Writer, and Kelly Freas winning Best Pro Artist.

I began simply by checking the Internet Science Fiction Database's list of stories from 1950. The ISFDB isn't complete, but it's a pretty good resource. My memory is even less complete, but I have read a lot of old SF. I made a list of potential stories and novels, and posted the list on the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.written, as well as on my personal newsgroup at SFF-Net, and at Dueling Modems. I got some suggestions for additions, mostly from the estimable John Boston, who knows far more about old SF than I do. I acquired a couple more anthologies to check out additional stories, and I even bought some magazine from 1950 (not a hardship: I love those old SF magazines). Dave Truesdale also made some suggestions, on SFF.Net. I also did some more research, at William Contento's Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections. Basically, I remembered that Everett Bleiler and T. E. Dikty's seminal Best of the Year collections were coming out in those days. So I looked up the contents of their Best Science Fiction Stories: 1951 (which was published in 1951 but selects stories from 1950) in the Contento Index. While many of the stories I had already listed were in that book, there are a few more. They seemed to restrict themselves to novelettes and short stories. They did do a short-lived series of Best Science Fiction Novels which collects novellas. (Typically, magazines in those days called things of roughly novella length "Short Novels", though their length standards varied: Planet Stories seemed to call anything longer than about 16,000 words a "novel", while the examples I find in Astounding are closer to 20,000 words (and for example the two Lawrence O'Donnell stories below were listed as novelettes and are each over 18000 words). The Standard Publications/Better Publications pulps (Thrilling Wonder Stories and Startling Stories, and, later, Space Science Fiction) published much longer "novels": 30,000 words was typical, and I have one issue of Startling with a novel called The Dark Tower by Wallace West that is nearly 60,000 words! At any rate, the first (1952) Bleiler/Dikty collection of Best Novels included the Poul Anderson story, "Flight to Forever", that I list below, even though that story dates to 1950, and the rest of that book collects 1951 pieces.

Anyway, I figure that to be fair I ought to add the Bleiler/Dikty selections to the list: they were what people at the time thought were the best. (And at least two of their selections are first rate stuff I had unaccountably missed in my earlier lists: Kornbluth's "The Mindworm" and MacLean's "Contagion".) In addition, I've discovered an anthology edited by Groff Conklin, Possible Worlds of Science Fiction, published in 1951, which had about 8 stories from 1950, many of them very good, such as Schmitz' "The Second Night of Summer", MacLean's "Contagion", van Vogt's "Enchanted Village", and Arthur C. Clarke's "A Walk in the Dark". I've gone ahead and listed all the 1950 stories that Conklin chose, just for kicks, though I haven't read "Exit Line" by Sam Merwin, and I think St. Clair's "The Pillows" and Fyfe's "In Value Deceived" are just OK. And, finally, I reread Ray Bradbury's seminal collections (quasi-novels), The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, both of which include several worthwhile 1950 stories.

So, here goes. Revised and expanded list of 1950 novel and short fiction Retro Hugo Candidates. I've marked [BD] next to stories from the Bleiler/Dikty collections, and I've also listed original magazine publications where possible. I've marked stories I've read with a *. And I've alphabetized the stories by author.

NOVELS: (this list includes at least three that should perhaps better be regarded as linked story collections: The Martian Chronicles, The Dying Earth, and The Voyage of the Space Beagle. I purposely didn't include another linked story collection first published in 1950, Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, simply because I subjectively think of it as more purely a short story collection than the other examples I list -- I concede without demur that reasonable people may disagree.) (I've just recently added Heinlein's juvenile Farmer in the Sky, which is not my favorite among his juveniles, but any of the RAH juveniles deserve mention!)

*"... And Now You Don't", Isaac Asimov (of course this is the second part of Second Foundation, but it was serialized in Astounding ending in January 1950, and it's about 50,000 words)

*Pebble in the Sky, Isaac Asimov

*The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury

*Needle, Hal Clement (This was serialized in 1949, but the 1950 book version is expanded to about twice the length of the serial)

*Farmer in the Sky, Robert Heinlein

*"You're All Alone", Fritz Leiber (though I prefer the 1953 (rev. 1980) expansion, The Sinful Ones, which is apparently actually Leiber's original, which he cut to get published in 1950)

Genus Homo, P. Schuyler Miller and L. Sprague de Camp (orig. 1941 but a revised version was published in book form in 1950)

*Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake

*"Time Quarry", Clifford Simak (first ever serial in Galaxy, this is better known by the title of the 1951 book, Time and Again)

*First Lensman, E. E. Smith

*The Dreaming Jewels, Theodore Sturgeon

*The Dying Earth, Jack Vance (not really a novel but a collection of stories, and not really closely linked stories for the most part: still and all, what better book was published in-genre that year?)

*"The Wizard of Linn", A. E. Van Vogt

The Voyage of the Space Beagle, A. E. Van Vogt, a fixup of a bunch of short stories, several of which I have read. I'm not sure if the book version had additional material, which would make it eligible -- I believe it does involve significant revisions to some of the original material. .

I nominated the Bradbury, the Peake, the Vance, the Sturgeon, and the Leiber. The eventual nominations were for Pebble in the Sky, Farmer in the Sky, The Dying Earth, First Lensman, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This last story, at 38,000 words, is actually a novella, but the Hugo rules allow the administrators to move stories of over 35,000 words into the novel category if they deem that sensible. I think that's a reasonable choice for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which after all is only known as a book. I plan to vote for The Dying Earth. I really think the remainder of the nominations are less than great. I don't quarrel with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but I do think it one of the weaker Narnia books. Neither Pebble in the Sky nor Farmer in the Sky is anything like its author's best work. And I have just read First Lensman, the first "Doc" Smith novel I have ever read, and I thought it was quite bad.

The actual winner was Farmer in the Sky. I don't think this is at all a great choice, but it's defensible -- people have pointed out that The Dying Earth isn't really a novel, and that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is by no means the best Narnia story. And I have no argument with those who like it better than the Asimov or Smith stories -- after all, so do I! Certainly the Vance, Smith, and Lewis stories are immeasurably more influential than Farmer in the Sky -- one might say, more important -- but the award is for "best", not "most influential". Farmer in the Sky is not in my opinion one of Heinlein's best juveniles, but it's a solid and enjoyable work, and its award isn't a disgrace.

SHORT FICTION: (categories based on my wordcount, when I had the story at hand, otherwise I'm guessing)

Novella: (of this list, several works were originally published in book form, perhaps unusual in 1950. The Vance is from The Dying Earth, the Heinlein from the collection also called The Man Who Sold the Moon, and the Lewis, of course, was published on its own as a book.)

*"Guyal of Sfere", Jack Vance (20,000 words)

*"Flight to Forever", Poul Anderson (20,000 words) [BD] (Super Science Stories, Nov)

*"The Man Who Sold the Moon", Robert A. Heinlein (36,000 words)

*"To the Stars", L. Ron Hubbard (37,500 words) (Astounding, Feb and Mar)

*The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis (at about 38,000 words, this is a novella by Hugo rules, though to be sure it was nominated as a novel)

*"Paradise Street", Lawrence O'Donnell (i.e. Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, in this case reputedly mostly Moore) (18,200 words) (Astounding, Sept)

*"Heir Apparent", Lawrence O'Donnell (also apparently mostly by Moore) (18,800 words) (Astounding, July)

*"Last Enemy", H. Beam Piper (24,000 words) (Astounding, June)

I nominated "Guyal of Sfere", "Paradise Street", "The Man Who Sold the Moon", The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and "Flight to Forever". The actual nominations I find rather controversial, indeed improper, though perhaps not worthy of too much fuss. They are, I am sure, the longest cumulative set of novella nominations ever. They include two novella-length stories that could have been moved to novel, though it's fine that they weren't, of course: "To the Stars" and "The Man Who Sold the Moon". There is also the Piper novella "Last Enemy", which I have just reread, and which I consider rather weak for a nominee, but that's not an issue either. The issue is that two full-length novels, above the word limit for movement down to the novella category (that limit is 50,000 words) were nominated: Sturgeon's The Dreaming Jewels, and Asimov's "... and Now You Don't". The first of these was nominated based on its appearance in the February 1950 Fantastic Adventures. The assumption seems to have been, any story that appeared a single issue of a magazine can't be a full-length novel. Well, that just isn't so. The pulps of that era were pretty generous as to word count, and novels of up to 60,000 words did appear in single issues. Oddly, Fantastic Adventures actually included word counts in their table of contents! (Something I've seen in few other '50s magazines, but none more recent.) They had "The Dreaming Jewels" at 55,000 words. As for "... and Now You Don't", I assume the rationale for calling it a novella was "it's only part of a novel, Second Foundation, so it must just be a novella". Not so again! It is well over half that novel, it was published as a three part serial in Astounding, and it's about 50,000 words long. Moreover, the precedent from the previous Retro Hugos (awarded in 1996) is illustrative: Asimov's "The Mule", a part of Foundation and Empire, also some 50,000 words long, was the novel winner for 1945. At any rate, my vote will go either to "The Man Who Sold the Moon", which I suspect will win, or The Dreaming Jewels, which is probably the better story, but which isn't a novella. I like "... and Now You Don't" fine, it ranks third. "To The Stars" is, on the one hand, reasonably well-done and pretty absorbing, an interesting read; and, on the other hand, morally disgusting. On the gripping hand, it ranks below "No Award". "Last Enemy" is not, in my opinion, one of Piper's better stories. I can't rank it very highly either.

As I predicted, "The Man Who Sold the Moon" won. I can't quibble -- as I've said, I voted for the Sturgeon novel, but the Heinlein novella was next in my list.

Novelette: (Note that the Blish stories are part of his series Cities in Flight, I believe part of the novel Earthman Come Home. The Kornbluth and Smith stories are in the SF Hall of Fame.)

*"The Helping Hand", Poul Anderson (10,500 words) (Astounding, May)

*"Bindlestiff", James Blish (16,000 words) (Astounding, Dec)

*"Okie", James Blish (Astounding, Apr)

*"The Dancing Girl of Ganymede", Leigh Brackett (13,800 words) (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Feb)

*"The New Reality", Charles Harness (15,500 words) [BD] (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Dec)

*"The Little Black Bag", C. M. Kornbluth (10,000 words) (Astounding, July)

*"Contagion", Katherine MacLean (11,900 words) [BD] (Galaxy, Oct)

*"Dear Devil", Eric Frank Russell (15,000 words) (Other Worlds, May)

*"The Second Night of Summer", James H. Schmitz (11,000 words) (Galaxy, Dec)

*"Scanners Live in Vain", Cordwainer Smith (13,000 words) (Fantasy Book #6)

*"The Stars are the Styx", Theodore Sturgeon (16,000 words) (Galaxy, Oct)

"Forget-Me-Not", William F. Temple [BD] (Other Worlds, Sept)

*"Not to be Opened --", Roger Flint Young (14,600 words) [BD] (Astounding, Jan)

My nominations went to the Harness, Kornbluth, MacLean, Schmitz and Smith stories. The final ballot consists of "The Helping Hand", "Okie", "Dear Devil", "The Little Black Bag", and "Scanners Live in Vain". Not at all a bad ballot. I'll vote for "Scanners Live in Vain", with "The Little Black Bag" second, "Dear Devil" third, and "The Helping Hand" fourth.

This award went to "The Little Black Bag". I think that's not right -- but, once again, it's defensible. "Scanners Live in Vain" is indisputably more important -- one of my personal favorites. But "The Little Black Bag" is a strong story, and definitely was much admired in its time.

Short Story: 

(Note that of the Bradbury stories, "Ylla", "Usher II", "Way in the Middle of the Air", and "There will come Soft Rains" are in The Martian Chronicles, while "The Fox and the Forest" and "The Veldt" are in The Illustrated Man. Note all the variant titles, too. The Leiber and Matheson stories are in the SF Hall of Fame.)

*"Quixote and the Windmill", Poul Anderson (3600 words) (Astounding, Nov)

*"Trespass!", Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson [BD] (Fantastic Story Quarterly, Spring)

*"Green Patches" (aka "Misbegotten Missionary"), Isaac Asimov (Galaxy, Nov)

*"Oddy and Id" (aka "The Devil's Invention"), Alfred Bester [BD] (6400 words) (Astounding, Aug)

*"There Will Come Soft Rains", Ray Bradbury (2500 words) (Collier's, 6 May)

*"Ylla" (aka "I'll Not Look For Wine"), Ray Bradbury (5000 words) (MacLean's, 1 Jan)

*"The Veldt" (aka "The World the Children Made"), Ray Bradbury (6000 words) (Saturday Evening Post, 23 Sept)

*"Usher II" (aka "Carnival of Madness"), Ray Bradbury (6000 words) (Thrilling Wonder, Apr)

*"The Fox and the Forest" (aka "To The Future", aka "The Fox in the Forest"), Ray Bradbury (6500 words) [BD] (Collier's, 13 May)

*"Way in the Middle of the Air", Ray Bradbury (5000 words) (Other Worlds, July)

*"The Gnurrs Come From the Voodvork Out", R. Bretnor [BD] (F&SF, Winter/Spring)

"The Star Ducks", Bill Brown [BD] (F&SF, Fall)

*"The Last Martian", Fredric Brown [BD] (Galaxy, Oct)

*"A Walk in the Dark", Arthur C. Clarke (Thrilling Wonder, Aug)

*"Summer Wear", L. Sprague de Camp [BD] (Startling, May)

*"A Subway Named Mobius", A. J. Deutsch (6500 words) (Astounding, Dec)

*"In Value Deceived", H. B. Fyfe (4300 words) (Astounding, Nov)

*"To Serve Man", Damon Knight [BD] (Galaxy, Nov)

*"Not With a Bang", Damon Knight (F&SF, Winter/Spring)

*"The Mindworm", C. M. Kornbluth [BD] (Worlds Beyond, Dec)

"The Silly Season", C. M. Kornbluth (F&SF, Fall)

*"Coming Attraction", Fritz Leiber [BD] (5000 words) (Galaxy, Nov)

"Two Face", Frank Belknap Long [BD] (Weird Tales, March)

*"Spectator Sport", John D. MacDonald (2000 words) (Thrilling Wonder, Feb)

*"Born of Man and Woman", Richard Matheson [BD] (1000 words) (F&SF, Summer)

"Exit Line", Sam Merwin, Jr. (Startling, Sept)

*"The Sack", William Morrison (6000 words) (Astounding, Sept)

*"The Pillows", Margaret St. Clair (4800 words) (Thrilling Wonder, Jun)

*"Liane the Wayfarer" (aka "The Loom of Darkness"), Jack Vance (4400 words) (Worlds Beyond, Dec)

*"Enchanted Village", A. E. Van Vogt (5800 words) (Other Worlds, Jul)

"Process", A. E. van Vogt [BD] (F&SF, Dec)

My nominations went to the Leiber, the MacDonald (which I recently read in the original Thrilling Wonder Stories issue), and three Bradbury pieces ("There Will Come Soft Rains" ,"Ylla", and "Usher II"). The actual nominations went to the two SF Hall of Fame stories, "Coming Attraction" and "Born of Man and Woman", as well as to three rather frivolous pieces, "To Serve Man", "The Gnurrs Come From the Voodvork Out", and "A Subway Named Mobius". While this isn't a bad nomination list, it does have a dreadful, disgraceful, lack. Where is Bradbury? My best guess is that he had so many fine stories that the votes were split. Secondarily, many people might not have realized which stories from The Martian Chronicles were eligible, and indeed, may not have regarded those stories as separate stories. At any rate, it's a terrible shame. That said, my vote, as I always intended, will go to "Coming Attraction", which, it seems to me, should be the overwhelming winner. (The other four stories rank more or less even with me -- I suppose the Knight, because the joke is a really neat joke, goes second on my ballot, or perhaps "Born of Man and Woman".)

The actual Retro Hugo went to "To Serve Man". Truly, this award is shocking. It may be unfair of me to suggest this, but I would hope that Damon Knight, with his outstanding critical sense, at least considered refusing it. "To Serve Man" is a fun, biting, story. But it's a trifle. "Coming Attraction" is a masterpiece, and it's a story that says something. Something besides "It's a cookbook", for crissake. I am forced to the conclusion that "To Serve Man" won not for Best Short Story, but for Best Twilight Zone Episode -- a clear example of what can go wrong with an award like the Retro Hugo -- where a story can benefit from a years later TV adaptation.

Review: Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

Review: Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

by Rich Horton

This is the first novel I read by Marilynne Robinson, which I suspect is true for many readers. Shortly before it appeared, in 2004, I read an excerpt from this novel in the New Yorker and was quite taken by it. Otherwise I might not have read the full book, though perhaps the praise of it by friends like Greg Feeley would have persuaded me. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Best Fiction of 2004, but I have a tendency to dismiss Pulitzer winners. (No doubt I am partly influenced by the common mistrust of genre readers for mainstream literary awards (though I've tended to like the Bookers), also I am influenced by a book I read long ago criticizing the first few decades of Pulitzer fiction choices.) The clincher was when I saw a friend of mine from church reading the book, a friend with whom I have traded the occasional book in the past (The Time Traveler's Wife, for instance, and Jasper Fforde's novels). She lent me the book on finishing it -- so I had to read it! And a good thing, too. To cap this discursive little paragraph, just a bit later I saw a copy of the New York Times with a profile of a reader's club, in which they cited five favorites (including The Time Traveler's Wife) and 4 books they disliked. One of these latter was Gilead ("watching paint dry") but I was heartened that another they disliked was The Master and Margarita, which I think is a spectacular novel.

I will add that after reading Gilead I of course continued to her only other novel then published -- Housekeeping, from 1980. And I will tell you that it is very different from Gilead -- and, for me, it is even better. It is one of my favorite novels of the 20th Century. Robinson has gone on to publish three further novels, each very closely related to Gilead: Home, Lila, and Jack. And of these I think Home is also magnificent, and I'd rate it too as better than Gilead. Which is only to say that Robinson truly is a great writer, to have written three such remarkable novels. (And the other two are also strong, though to me not quite at the level of the first three.)

Gilead is presented as a long series of letters from a man to his son. The letters are intended to be read after the man dies, and after the son is an adult. The letter writer is John Ames, a pastor in the small town of Gilead, Iowa, near the Kansas border. John Ames is an old man, 76 as the book opens (in 1956), and he has heart problems and doesn't expect to live long. He married very late in life to a much younger woman, and his son at the time of writing is only 7. In part the letters are an attempt to replace the years of fathering he guiltily feels he is depriving his son by his expected death.

John Ames is the son and grandson of preachers of the same name. His grandfather was a fiery abolitionist, an associate of John Brown, who came to Gilead as a Free Soiler, and who maintained in "Radical Iowa" a safe house for Brown and other abolitionist fighters and too for escaped slaves. The middle John Ames, by contrast, was a pacifist, who fought in the Civil War but was disgusted by it. Each pair of father and son became estranged -- the grandfather eventually returning to Kansas in the 1890s to preach and soon die. The estrangement between John Ames's father and himself is never clearly explained -- there is reference to a letter from father to son which the son burned, and a hint that the father may have lost his faith, or may have been simply offended by his son's refusal to ever move from Gilead.

But I digress. The letters from the younger John Ames to his son are partly a mixture of meditations on such subjects as the joys and disappointments of life, the life of a pastor, and theology. That doesn't seem like a novel, and perhaps if that's all the book was it wouldn't be a novel. (Though it could still be very enjoyable.) But the letters also tell stories, mainly on two subjects. One is the eldest John Ames, the wild abolitionist grandfather, who would steal from the collection plate in order to give money to the poor, and who apparently shot and possibly killed a Federal soldier to save John Brown from capture, and who had visions of Jesus coming and talking to him face to face. The other is Jack Boughton, John Ames Boughton, the ne'er-do-well son of the younger John Ames's best friend, a fellow pastor. Jack Boughton returns to Gilead from St. Louis during the book, but John Ames is suspicious of him, partly because of his dishonorable past actions, and partly because he seems to be just a bit too nice to John's wife, who is Jack's age, and to John's son, with whom Jack is able to play in a way that now frail John cannot. But Jack's story is more complex than John Ames first understands, and he presents John with a problem of faith, forgiveness, and honesty. As well as closing the novel with an involving story that resonates well with the historical motivations of John's grandfather.

The novel, then, is profoundly a moral meditation. At times it concerns the moral tug between pacifism and just causes such as ending slavery. At times it deals with this country's racial history. At times it concerns the responsibilities of parents to children, or of pastor to flock. At times it is, quite beautifully, a celebration of the wonders of life, and of the beauty of very simple things. Sometimes it is a love letter to a son and a wife. To an extent it is a depiction of life in a small town in American in the 1950s -- and earlier. And it is very much a religious novel, and concerned with the John Ames's sincere and humanistic religious beliefs. Ames's voice is wonderfully maintained. The prose is just remarkable, very balanced and measured, not spare but not ornate, and quite often striking without any sense of showiness. A great novel, I think, or at any rate a novel that over time will be a candidate for "greatness".