Birthday Review: Stories of Jack Vance

John Holbrook Vance would have turned 104 yesterday (August 28, 2020). (He died back in 2013.) He is one of the most enjoyable SF/Fantasy writers ever, and I noticed that I had never done a story review compilation for him before. So here we go -- a selection of some things I wrote about a number of his stories that I found in old magazines, mostly. Many of these stories are a bit on the obscure side -- not always his best work. But still well worth reading!

(I also realized I have at least one Ace Double review of his books I haven't posted about here -- maybe later!)

Worlds Beyond, February 1951

"Brain of the Galaxy" is better known as "The New Prime". It is one of the most highly-regarded of early Vance stories. I like it, but I think it tends to be a bit overpraised. It's about a sort of virtual reality contest to select the new "Galactic Prime" -- each candidate is exposed to a variety of harsh tests. The ending is a moral twist. 

Planet Stories, July 1951

One of the real unexpected bonuses of this venture was to find an obscure early Jack Vance story, "Temple of Han".  As far as I know, this has not been anthologized before.  It has a hint of Vance's ironic voice, but really isn't close to being in his mature style.  An Earthman on a colony planet steals a jewel from the title temple.  A god-like being from another dimension takes offense and moves the entire planet.  The Earthman is compelled to return the jewel, but instead of accepting the death penalty, he engages the "god" in a battle with the help of the god's rival gods.

Startling Stories, September 1951

And finally Vance's "The Masquerade on Dicantropus", about a couple whose marriage is falling apart due to the frustrations of living on a new planet, along with a mystery about a strange pyramid built by the native Dicantrops, and the potential of a motherlode of diamonds. I thought it pretty inconsequential Vance.

Space Stories, December 1952

Each issue of this pulp featured a long novella or short novel. The long story in the December 1952 issue was by Jack Vance, "Planet of the Damned", at 47,000 words definitely novel length. This is the novel that led me to find Space Stories. I'm a Jack Vance enthusiast, and I was looking for a copy of his early novel Slaves of the Klau, and this was its original publication. (Vance's actual preferred title was Gold and Iron.)

As the story opens, Earth is occupied, very benignly, by a few members of the Lekthwan race, a very humanoid (to the point of being typically beautiful, if unusually colored) people who have given humans the benefits of some of their advanced tech. But Roy Barch, an employee of one of the Lekthwan administrators, is suspicious -- he believes the Lekthwan influence, even if well-intended, will stunt Earth's development. He is also somewhat hopelessly under the spell of the beautiful daughter of his employer. One night he takes her on a date -- resulting only in frustration as she makes it clear that she regards him as a hopeless primitive -- but on returning to the Lekthwan estate he finds all the residents murdered. He and Komeitk Lelianr, the Lekthwan girl, are rounded up by the attackers, the brutish Klau. It seems the Klau are evil slavers, trying to take over the galaxy, and given only token resistance by the virtuous but ineffective races such as the Lekthwan.

The course of the rest of the story is predictable -- upon arriving at the slave planet, Roy finds a way to escape with "Ellen" (as he calls Komeitk Lelianr), despite her ennui and her conviction that resistance is hopeless. After hooking up with a grubby bunch of escapees, Roy eventually hatches a desperate plan to make a spaceship from scratch and head back to Earth. Vance elaborates this rather routine plot pretty well -- Roy's efforts are far from fully successful according to his plans -- though they do end up having the desired effect; and Komeitk Lelianr doesn't immediately jump into Roy's arms. It's not a great novel at all, but it's enjoyable in the terms of early 50s pulp SF, and it prefigures later Vance pretty well, particularly in the character of Komeitk Lelianr, who is the standard late Vance aloof, superior, woman. The only departure is that at the end she comes back to Roy (admittedly somewhat hesitantly), while in later Vance she might have been more likely to meet a bitter end.

Vortex, Volume 1, Number 1 (1953)

Vortex was a truly awful magazine that lasted only two issues. It might be best known for featuring the first professional sale by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It was doubtless a salvage market for more experienced writers, and I feel that must have been the case with "The Mitr", by Jack Vance. A young woman is sort of the pet/food animal for a race of huge beetles. Then a spaceship comes with what seem to be men inside. An oddly pointless story, I thought. Not even close to good Vance.

Cosmos, November 1953

Vance's "Shape-Up" is a rare story, only reprinted in his 1986 Underwood-Miller collection The Augmented Agent, which reprinted 8 previously uncollected stories. (Mostly uncollected for good reason, I will say.) It's routine Vance of the period, competent pulp work with a bit of a twist -- not bad of its type but not memorable. A man is hired for a job with a notorious leader of adventurers. After a couple of tests, he finds himself one of five remaining candidates for four positions -- and it transpires that the extra man is a murderer, and that the whole point of this exercise was to flush out the murderer. Unconvincing reasons are given as to why this would work, and pointing to the killer -- but then there is a twist.

Cosmos, March 1954

Jack Vance's "When the Five Moons Rise" is set on a planet with five moons. Perrin is a lighthouse operator. His veteran partner, Seguilo, warns him not to believe anything he sees when the five moons appear together. Then, after they all rise, Seguilo disappears -- only to strangely reappear then disappear again. Perrin encounters more strange things -- a working radio after his has broken, then a beautiful woman just as he has been, all lonely, dreaming about. He soon gathers that whatever he imagines might come to be -- and then he can't stop thinking "What if I imagine something awful" ... Nicely done light horror, not terribly Vancean but solid work.

Galaxy, August 1961

I'm a stone Jack Vance fan, and I've read "The Moon Moth" several times with pleasure. But I think it diminishes a bit on repeated rereading. Basically, the hero's achievement begins to seem trivial and lucky. And a bit implausible. That said, the evocation of local color is still lovely. (As most know, the story is set on a world where everyone wears masks, and where the only currency of importance is "strakh" (reputation). The language has a musical component conveyed partly by singing and partly by playing instruments, and the right choice of instrument is vital. A new envoy is charged with intercepting a dangerous assassin who has chosen to hide on this world, and his clumsiness with the language and etiquette gives him much trouble.)

F&SF, February 1966

"The Mountains of Magnatz" is a Cugel the Clever story. Quite enjoyable, with the usual Vance touches (a bit of misogynism, delightfully mannered prose, a slightly exotic society) plus typical Cugelisms -- basically, his decided non-cleverness, and his rather vile nature. The story concerns Cugel coming to a village and ending up imprisoned in a tower, as the replacement "Watcher" ... he escapes, of course, and takes the girl he was promised in payment with him (without her permission, of course.) 

Galactic Effectuator

Years ago I read Jack Vance's "The Dogtown Tourist Agency" when it was first published in the Silverberg/Elwood anthology Epoch. That anthology was roundly criticized (one review said that it was best described by removing the "p" and the "o" from its title), but though it did contain some dreck, it also had some decent stuff (one suspects, perhaps unfairly, most of the latter bought by Silverberg.) The Vance story, really a full-length novel (43000 words), is in the middle range.  Solid but not special entertainment. A year later, Vance published a novella, "Freitzke's Turn", in another Silverberg anthology, Triax. Eventually the two stories were assembled as a book, marketed as a novel, Galactic Effectuator. The title character is Miro Hetzel, an investigator operating in the Gaean Reach in Vance's baroque Galactic future. The longer story ("The Dogtown Tourist Agency") is fairly routine, worth the time but not memorable, about a planet full of a warlike race which is administered by humans and two other alien races in order to keep the warlike indigenes in control, and a possible gun-running plot. The shorter story, "Freitzke's Turn", is really fairly minor Vance as well, but I found it quite charming in a mordant way. Hetzel is called in to investigate a former classmate of his, a surgeon who has been known for dishonesty and brilliance his whole life, and who is taking rather unusual revenge against a rival in love, and perhaps against some other former enemies. The title has little to do with the story, but it is a delight nonetheless. 

Birthday Review: Three Capsules on Martin Amis Books

For Martin Amis' 71st birthday here are three very short reviews -- just capsules, really -- of three of his books: a novel, a memoir, and a story collection. 

Three Short Reviews of Martin Amis Books

by Rich Horton

The Rachel Papers

The Rachel Papers was Martin Amis's first novel, from 1973, written when he was about the age of the book's protagonist -- that is, on the cusp of 20. Charles Highway tells his story on the night before his 20th birthday, which in his view makes him an adult. He is cramming for entry to Oxford. He's the son of a successful man who he mostly loathes. He is living in London, with his elder sister and her rather disgusting husband.

The story tells in flashbacks the history of his relationship with a girl named Rachel. He meets her at a party he crashes with a friend -- it turns out she's the one throwing the party, though he has no idea of that. He is smitten, and despite the presence of an American boyfriend, he tries to get her to go out with him, and haltingly succeeds. And so the tale goes ... several months of a fairly sweet (in context) relationship between two not terribly well-matched people. Charles is ferociously cynical (if much of that is a pose) while Rachel is sweet enough, pretty, but perhaps a bit dim. They have terrific sex but that seems their main connection. There are amusing scenes with both families, and plenty of further comedic details of Charles's life, in particular his dealings with the bumbling tutors at his cramming school. He also deals with the infidelities of his father and his brother-in-law. And finally of course with his concerns about where his relationship with Rachel is headed.

It's a very fine first novel. Very funny, in what was soon enough known as Amis's standard cynical manner. 

Experience

I've mentioned before that I really like literary memoirs: that is, the memoirs of writers. I think the main reason is that they tend to be better written.  This is Amis' "I'm turning 50, and my Dad just died" book.  Actually, he structures the book mostly around two wrenching experiences: his father (Kingsley Amis) dying, and the discovery of his cousin's (Lucy Partington's) dead body among those murdered by the notorious serial killer  Frederick West.  Two other threads also feature: his relationship with his idol and friend Saul Bellow, and his discovery of a daughter he never knew he had (the result of a past affair). It's a fine book, effective and moving.  The best parts for me were his depiction of his relationship with Kingsley: very affectionate, very honest, very moving.  To be sure Kingsley Amis is a favorite writer of mine, so that might colour my view.

Heavy Water

Martin Amis' Heavy Water is a collection of short stories spanning his whole career.  I think on the whole he is a natural novelist, and that at shorter lengths his gifts are not shown to their fullest. That said, there are some pretty decent stories here.  My favorite is probably "The Coincidence of the Arts", about an English aristocrat and portrait painter living in New York, and his affair with a silent Black amazon.  The theme here is race, mostly, and I thought it was addressed subtly and intelligently (to be sure, I say that as a white man). "Career Move" is a cute piece asking what if poetry was treated like blockbuster movies (and pulpish screenplays like poetry)? "Straight Fiction" is another role reversal story: about a world where gays are the dominant majority, and heterosexuals the oppressed minority. "Let Me Count the Times" is soft porn about a guy who obsesses about counting his sexual acts with his wife, then "discovers" masturbation. A lot of Amis showing off his bravura verbal tricks in this one. "The Janitor on Mars" is a dark story about a robot from Mars who contacts Earth and invites a party to come visit. The rest of the stories include some decent ones, and some which I frankly don't get the point of.  (I'll note that three of the stories are forthrightly SF: "Career Move", "Straight Fiction", and "The Janitor on Mars".)

TOC, Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2020 Edition

This has been a long time coming, due primarily to the pandemic. But here at last is the lineup of stories for The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2020, due from Prime Books in December. Note that the stories are listed in alphabetical order by place of publication -- the final TOC order will be different. Thanks very much to all the authors included -- your stories -- even the darkest ones -- are a light to me.

"The Savannah Problem" by Adam-Troy Castro (Analog, 1-2/19)

"Love in the Time of Immuno-Sharing" by Andy Dudak (Analog, 1-2/19)

"Empty Box" by Allison Mulvihill (Analog, 11-12/19)

"At the Fall" by Alec Nevala-Lee (Analog, 5-6/19)

"Anosognosia" by John Crowley (And Go Like This)

"Tourists" by Rammel Chan (Asimov’s, 3-4/19)

"At the Old Wooden Synagogue on Janower Street" by Michael Libling (Asimov’s, 9-10/19)

"The Ocean Between the Leaves" by Ray Nayler (Asimov’s, 7-8/19)

"Cloud" by Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s, 11-12/19)

"Cloud-Born" by Gregory Feeley (Clarkesworld, 11/19)

"Give the Family My Love" by A.T. Greenblatt (Clarkesworld, 02/2019)

"Tick Tock" by Xia Jia (Clarkesworld, 5/19)

"The Visible Frontier" by Grace Seybold (Clarkesworld, 07/2019)

"Secret Stories of Doors" by Sofia Rhei (Everything is Made of Letters)

"miscellaneous notes from the time an alien came to band camp disguised as my alto sax" by Tina Connolly (F&SF, 3-4/19)

"Mighty are the Meek and the Myriad" by Cassandra Khaw (F&SF, 7-8/19)

"Shucked" by Sam J. Miller (F&SF, 11-12/19)

"How to Kiss a Hojacki" by Debbie Urbanski (F&SF, 5-6/19)

"Green Glass: A Love Story" by E. Lily Yu (If This Goes On, edited by Cat Rambo)

"Fix That House!" by John Kessel (Interzone, 9-10/19)

"Ink, and Breath, and Spring" by Frances Rowat (Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, 11/19)

"The Death of Fire Station 10" by Ray Nayler (Lightspeed, 10/19)

"The Archronology of Love" by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed, 04/19)

"The Fine Print" by Chinelo Onwualu, (New Suns, edited by Nisi Shawl)

"The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations" by Minsoo Kang (New Suns, edited by Nisi Shawl)

"Bark, Blood, and Sacrifice" by Alexandra Seidel (Not One of Us, 10/19)

"Mnemosyne" by Catherine MacLeod (On Spec, 04/19)

"A Country Called Winter" by Theodora Goss (Snow White Learns Witchcraft)

"And Now His Lordship is Laughing" by Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons, 09/20/19)

"The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear" by Kelly Link (Tin House, Summer 2019)

"The Hundredth House Had No Walls" by Laurie Penny (Tor.com, 09/11/19)

"Knowledgeable Creatures" by Christopher Rowe (Tor.com, 03/06/19)

"Vis Delendi" by Marie Brennan (Uncanny, 3-4/19)

"The Migration Suite: A Study in C Sharp Minor" by Maurice Broaddus (Uncanny, 7-8/19)

"A Catalog of Storms" by Fran Wilde (Uncanny, 1-2/19)

Old Bestseller Review: Old New York, by Edith Wharton

 

Old New York, by Edith Wharton

a review by Rich Horton

A little while ago I posted a list of 100 books I haven't read, implying of course that they ought to be next in line. The list included My Antonia, by Willa Cather, so naturally my last post was about Willa Cather's novel ... Death Comes for the Archbishop. Also on the list was Edith Wharton's short novel Summer. So what was the next fiction I read by Cather's great contemporary? Her collection of short novels, Old New York. (Which does not include Summer!)

Oh well. I don't care much in which order I read these great writers! And I was very happy to read Old New York (and also Wharton's memoir, A Backward Glance, of which more in a post to come.) My impression is that these stories were written partly in response to the reception of The Age of Innocence, a story set in New York in the 1870s, for which Wharton (according to A Backward Glance) had no expecations of commercial success. Instead, the book was a bestseller, and so it must have seemed, to Wharton or to her editors, that more stories about "Old New York" might have a market. 

The book appeared from D. W. Appleton (by then her regular publishers) in 1924. Somewhat to my surprise, none of the four stories had a magazine publication. (Wharton published often in the magazines of that time, and was paid very well.) The four novellas are: "False Dawn" (perhaps 19,000 words), "The Old Maid" (perhaps 29,000 words), "The Spark" (about 15,000 words), and "New Year's Day" (perhaps 23,000 words.) The unifying conceit is that they all concern upper class New York society, in four consecutive decades, the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s. (You may note that this time period overlaps with the main time period of The Age of Innocence, and indeed a couple of characters from that novel show up in one or two of these stories.) The book was very nicely published as four slim volumes, each with its own dust jacket, and a slipcover for the set.

So -- to consider each story. "False Dawn" is about Lewis Raycie, the son of Halston Raycie, one of the leading citizens of 1840s New York. Lewis is about ready to take his "Grand Tour" of Europe. His father -- purely a philistine, and a tyrant too -- is happy to pay for Lewis' trip, but he does ask one thing of his son -- to bring back some paintings by the Grand Masters -- perhaps a Raphael will be beyond their means, but surely someone of the next tier. Halston also has plans (of course) for Lewis' marriage, but Lewis is in love with Treeshy (short for Beatrice) Kent, a girl of good enough breeding but little money and little looks. Curiously, the story doesn't really turn on Lewis' love affair, but on the artworks. Lewis, on his travels, runs into a passionate young Englishman, who preaches to him about art. (This is, of course, John Ruskin.) Lewis becomes a convert, and instead of buying the then fashionable near-Grand Masters that his father wants, he acquires the Italian primitives (as then called) that Ruskin (and others like Dante Gabriel Rossetti) champion. And when he gets home, his father is furious, and disowns him. This is sufficient to clear the way for him to marry Treeshy ... but with no money their lives are rather sad; and Lewis' valiant attempt to promote his paintings by opening a museum fails utterly. The twist ending comes after they have died, and Lewis' more conventional sister, who made a successful marriage, inherits the supposedly worthless paintings ... and some of them are now realized as masterworks, so she makes a killing. I thought this story rather contrived, and to be honest I found the namedropping of the likes of Ruskin and Rossetti a bit tiresome. That said, I thought Lewis in particular a very well realized character -- he's not any sort of artistic critic of genius, he's a weak man who instead of submitting to his father submits to the views of Ruskin and Rossetti. And of course Wharton's prose is exceptional. It's not a great story at all, but worth reading. 

"The Old Maid" is, it seems, the story of this set which is most highly regarded, and that might be fair (though I also quite liked "New Year's Day".) It's about two cousins: Delia and Charlotte Lovell. Delia makes a good marriage with James Ralston, scion of a very traditional New York family. Charlotte -- who is, alas, a bit plain, and from a poorer branch of the family -- is a bit different -- she has started an orphanage, to care for some of unfortunate children (including black children), and so she seems doomed to be an old maid. But then she becomes betrothed to Joe Ralston. And Delia is thrilled for her cousin -- until she learns her secret. Charlotte's orphanage is in part designed to allow her to care for her illegitimate daughter, and her presumptive husband (who knows nothing of this) has insisted that she give up the orphanage (especially as it includes black children.) The other twist is that the father of her daughter Clementina is one Clement Spender -- who was the man Delia truly loved, but wouldn't marry because he wasn't quite respectable enough.

The upshot is that Charlotte cannot abandon her daughter, so she breaks off the engagement. And Delia agrees that Charlotte and her daughter should come live with her and her husband -- but of course her daughter's true parentage can never be revealed. And we jump to the future ... and the girl is of marriageable age, and in love with a presentable young man. But can a girl with no family get married? And Charlotte, of course, cannot reveal her involvement -- but the girl has actually long considered Delia her mother -- what if Delia adopts her? But how will Charlotte -- the Old Maid -- take that. It's a truly Whartonian conclusion ... an agonizing personal decision that seems forced on the character but necessary. I thought the depictions of Charlotte and Delia were excellent. (I'm not sure I quited believed in Clementina.)

"The Spark" tells of Hayley Delane, a man of good birth in New York society who married unwisely -- a rackety woman who has continued her bad ways, constantly taking up with younger men and all but flaunting her affairs in her husband's face. He is generally regarded as something of a fool for the way he continues to take this abuse, and indeed for having suddenly decided to marry her. But he seems to truly need her. The story is told from the point of view of a younger man, who at first takes the standard society view of the Delanes, but who then gets to know Hayley better, and indeed also to work with him. Hayley is a Civil War veteran who enlisted despite his father's disapproval, and who could have avoided service easily -- he had to lie about his age to get in. He was seriously wounded in the war. Yet somehow he doesn't seem to insist on attention for his service, like other veterans we are shown, and he won't talk about his experience. (The story seems set in about the '90s.) The narrator notices, behind the scenes, Hayley's occasional acts of nobility -- defending a horse from abuse by his wife's lover, then apologizing so that society will blame him and not the young man; at work, quietly ensuring that his company does not engage in shady schemes; caring for his wife's dishonest father when he is in need; and always protecting his wife when she gets into trouble -- when any other man would have divorced her. All this is very well portrayed ... what struck me as a bit off is the story of the "spark" that inspired Delane to be such a good man. The narrator eventually learns that Delane was cared for by a male nurse while wounded, who talked to him about his philosophy of life in such a way that Delane adopted a similar morality. We gather of course that this is Walt Whitman, and in the ironic conclusion the narrator insists on reading Whitman's poetry to the aging Delane (who is not a bookish man), with the idea of cheering him by showing him what a success his nurse became; and Delane is dumbfounded by the poetry, gently telling the narrator that he wishes "you hadn't told me that he wrote all that rubbish."

Finally, "New Year's Day" is again told by a young man, concerning something he saw when he was still a boy: a fire in a notorious hotel, from which Mrs. Lizzie Hazeldean and her lover are seen to emerge. Mrs. Hazeldean is suspected of betraying her invalid husband, and here's the proof society needs. The point of view shifts to Lizzie Hazeldean, as she rushes home from the fire to see her husband, in order to convince him she was with someone else. And all goes well enough -- it is clear that he is besotted with her; but too ill to give her the Society life she craves. He can only stay home and read his books -- books Lizzie Hazeldean doesn't care about at all. But we gather right away that she does care for her husband -- very deeply. And she knows he'll die soon, and is crushed by this. At his urging, she goes out again that night to a party, only to be cruelly cut by the society women who are aware of her straying. And within a year, her husband is dead. Her lover comes, and wishes to marry her -- but she refuses absolutely: there was only one man for her, her husband.

The narrator takes up the strand later, after he is grown, and he gets drawn into the orbit of Lizzie Hazeldean, who entertains regularly, receiving those who don't care about her reputation, particularly including respectable young men who like a "jolly" woman. He too gets to know Lizzie fairly well, and eventually learns the truth -- she truly loved her husband, and realized that he insisted on pampering her, even as his illness made it impossible to make a living, and as his family money was used up. So her affairs were simply, in essence, a form of prostitution -- her lovers would make her gifts, which she would use to convince her husband that she was as pampered as he wanted. I found all this affecting but hard to quite buy -- this is a case of people in the past with alien values that sometimes are just a bit too hard to understand. Still, I liked it -- and it's only fair to say that much of Wharton's work turns on similarly uncontemporary manners, and in other stories such as "Autre Temps ..." (my favorite of her shorts) and The House of Mirth (and Lizzie Hazeldean is much like Lily Bart in some ways) I was able to empathize somewhat more.

In sum -- these are fine novellas, but not for me at a level with either her best shorter work or her greatest novels. But still enjoyable reading.

Old Bestseller: Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather

 Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather

a review by Rich Horton

Long ago I formed a completely false view of Willa Cather's fiction, assuming it was dour, dreary, and message bound, so I ignored her. This was at the time that she was also being ignored by critics -- relegated to the status of "minor regionalist". Her work has been not so much rediscovered (My Ántonia at least always retained some readers) but re-evaluated, partly by feminist and Lesbian critics, but really more widely than that. I happened across her short novel A Lost Lady a few years ago and was entranced, and soon O Pioneers! and My Ántonia and Lucy Gayheart were on my TBR pile. But I never got to them -- deadlines, too many books, too little time, all that. A couple of weeks ago I found a first (no dust-jacket, alas) of her well-regarded novel Death Comes for the Archbishop at an estate sale, and so I bought that, and half by accident ended up reading it.

Willa Cather was born in 1873 in Virginia. Her family moved to Nebraska in 1883. Cather published pieces in the Red Cloud, NE, newspaper early, and planned to become a doctor. But at the University of Nebraska she continued to write, and switched to an English major, graduating in 1894. She moved to Pittsburgh in 1896, and taught school while also working for magazines and newspapers, and publishing occasional stories. She moved to New York to join the editorial staff at McClure's in 1906. (I encountered some editorial correspondence between Cather and a McClure's contributor, H. G. Dwight, when I was writing about Dwight's collection Stamboul Nights.) McClure's serialized her first novel, Alexander's Bridge, in 1912, and her three famous "prairie novels", O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia, soon followed. (A Lost Lady is also a  prairie story.) She won a Pulitzer in 1923 for her World War I novel One of Ours. Death Comes for the Archbishop was published in 1927, and it remains among her best regarded novels.

Cather lived in New York from 1906 (summering in New Brunswick eventually), and from 1908 she lived with Edith Lewis. Her only other close relationships were with women, and so it is (plausibly) assumed by many that she was a Lesbian, but she never so identified (publicly.) Of course that last is easy to understand given societal pressures -- but who knows? Somebody suggested recently that she may have been a trans man -- she regularly dressed in masculine clothes, hung out with boys more often as a child, called herself William at times -- again, who knows? I thought that interesting, at any rate. 

My copy of Death Comes for the Archbishop, as I noted above, seems to be a first, from Alfred E. Knopf. No dust jacket. It is inscribed on the inside front cover by Mildred P. Duncker, in pencil.

This is an historical novel, and very episodic, telling of the career of Bishop Jean Latour between 1851 and his death in 1889. The first date corresponds to his appointment as Bishop of New Mexico, after that territory became part of the United States. Latour is accompanied by his friend Father Joseph Vaillant. In several chapters, we see the slow process by which Latour -- with Vaillant's very considerable assitance -- asserts his authority over his people, both Indians and (former) Mexicans. At first he must convince the Bishop of Durango of his Papal authority. He deals with an established pastor who is a libertine and a parasite on his parishioners -- but still popular. There are some intriguing stories of Indian beliefs -- all held by sincere professing Catholics. Father Vaillant serves as partly his enforcer, partly his intermediary -- and then is sent to Colorado, eventually to become Bishop of Colorado. Bishop Latour, all along, plans to build a cathedral in Santa Fe, and finally gets it done. 

The portait is of a good man, but perhaps not a great man. His standard approach to people who are doing wrong is to wait them out (with perhaps a couple of exceptions) -- to accommodate them with disapproval, and then when they are gone, to assert his authority. He was truly appalled at the expulsion of the Navajos from their ancestral home, but while he protested, he did nothing more, and was fortunate to see them restored only a few years later. Latour is an honest and sincere man, but rather cold sometimes. Vaillant may not be quite so honest -- he is insistent on begging and cajoling and shaming people for contributions to the Church -- but he is more passionate. 

In the end, of course, both men must face death. And the scenes of the (now) Archbishop's dying days are moving and beautiful. Both he and Vaillant were successful -- they established strong dioceses in New Mexico and Colorado. Latour built his beautiful cathedral. Both truly led their parishioners to Christ (as they saw it, of course, I don't wish to debate theology and neither did Cather.) 

But, really, much of that fell a bit flat for me. What sung? Two things: the landscape, for one. Cather, in everything I've read by her, was a complete master of the description of landscape. New Mexico's desolate spaces -- and the utter beauty visible there -- is completely believable. I've been through New Mexico twice, once in the South and once the North (and a fraught trip that Northern one was, for unexpected reasons) and I think it is a beautiful place, and Cather captures its beauty -- including much I never saw -- wonderfully. Second -- the Indian stories. These are fascinating, beautiful in their own way, and never seen in a deprecating way. They are made real, and true. And, of course, much of this is the result of Cather's prose, which is elegant, not ornate at all, but quite lovely.

Finally, I should add, most of this novel is based on true events. The "real" Father Jean Latour was Jean-Baptiste Lamy, first Archbishop of Sante Fe; and the "real" Father Vaillant was Joseph Projectus Machebeuf, first Bishop of Denver. Most of the events portrayed in the novel are real, though some are invented (or reimagined from something that happened another time) as well. Lamy really did push for the building of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis Assisi in Santa Fe -- which is still there, and quite a lovely building. There are other historical characters presented, some under altered names, but some, including Kit Carson, under their own names. 

I didn't love this novel, but I liked it -- and I will be soon continuing to more of Willa Cather's work.

Birthday Review: Red Thunder (and some short stories), by John Varley

Today is John Varley's birthday. He's 73! I'm not sure people who weren't reading SF in the mid-70s realize what a phenomenom he was. His first sale (or maybe not, as we'll see below!) appeared in the very first issue of F&SF I ever saw (and bought), the August 1974 issue. He was THE GUY we looked for in the magazine from that time throughout the '70s. 

I haven't written a whole lot about his short fiction, because it mostly appeared long before I was writing. So I've assembled just a couple of pieces about his stories, and a blog post I wrote about one of his enjoyable later novels.

Red Thunder, by John Varley

a review by Rich Horton

John Varley's latest novel is Red Thunder. Varley is well-known as a writer much influenced by Heinlein, and this book pretty openly advertises its influence. To begin with the basic plot echoes slightly that of Heinlein's first juvenile, Rocket Ship Galileo. In the Heinlein book, a couple of teenagers, with the help of a knowledgeable older man, build a spaceship and travel to the Moon. In Red Thunder, four teenagers, with the help of a knowledgeable older man (an ex-astronaut), built a spaceship and travel to Mars. Also, Varley adds in a couple of very direct RAH references by way of character names: the main character is named Manny Garcia, and another major character is named Jubal. Basically, the book is good fun, propelled (pun intended) by a thoroughly implausible scientific advance but otherwise at least in the range of plausibility, with a heartfelt and not too overt message about responsibility and power at its core. 

One night Manny and his best friend Dak, and their girlfriends Kelly and Alicia, having just witnessed the latest Venture Star launch, run over a drunk man on a Florida beach. The Venture Star is a shuttle successor, and this latest launch would be boring and routine except that the passengers are the astronauts on NASA's Mars mission. (The book was obviously finished before February 1, 2003, and thus in mentioning the potential dangers of space travel Challenger is brought up a few times, but never Columbia -- one of the pitfalls of writing SF!) Manny and Dak are space nuts, and their girlfriends tolerate this. Manny and Dak are also trying to work their way through college on the Internet, handicapped by their relative poverty and the debased public school system. It turns out that the man they run over is Travis Broussard, an ex-astronaut who was quietly pushed out of NASA a few years previously. And Travis's ex-wife is one of the Mars astronauts.

They strike up a friendship with Travis (who is uninjured by the mishap, thanks to the sand he was laying in), and soon they meet his strange cousin Jubal. Jubal is mentally damaged by his father's abuse, but he is extremely intelligent in his odd way. And Manny stumbles across an invention of Jubal's, the potential of which Jubal doesn't recognize, but Travis does -- it offers the possibility of a spacedrive that can maintain 1g acceleration for approximately forever. One thing leads to another, and the kids hatch an idea for building a spaceship, powered by Jubal's drive, that can get to Mars fast enough to beat not only the American mission but the Chinese mission that is slightly ahead of the Americans. All becomes more urgent when Jubal figures out that the American spaceship has a flaw, which could lead to a disaster -- and only a spaceship like the one they propose to build could possibly rescue anyone. But there are problems, such as convincing the kids' parents to let them go ...

Well, as I said -- good fun. The characters are engaging and involving, though there is a bit of convenience in the way all the good guys are good in just the right ways. I'd say it was a perfectly appropriate YA book -- though there is a fair amount of sex (premarital and without bad consequences -- I suppose some people would object). The central SFnal McGuffin, Jubal's drive, is totally unbelievable, but why quibble? The other SFnal element, the technical and logistical details of building the rest of the spaceship, are, I suspect, a bit stretched, but Varley tries hard to make that stuff work, and it mostly does.

Vertex, August 1974

Reading this issue of Vertex, I find that "Picnic on Nearside", which appeared in the first issue of F&SF I ever bought, only TIED (more or less) for the honor of being Varley's first published story. I had never even heard of "Scoreboard" before. With good reason, it turns out. I don't think the story has ever been reprinted. It is set on Ceres, during a protracted and wasteful war between two companies. It's not terribly interesting, and worse, it turns on a gimmick rather blatantly borrowed (perhaps not intentionally) from Ben Bova and Myron R. Lewis's much more economical story "Men of Good Will". "Picnic on Nearside" isn't a masterpiece, but it's enjoyable, and it's an Eight Worlds story -- as such a good introduction to Varley. "Scoreboard" is a downright weak story, and not set in any of Varley's futures -- as such not a good introduction to Varley. So perhaps it's just as well that it seems to be forgotten.

Locus, June 2003

"The Bellman" (Asimov's, June) is set on a colonized Luna. A serial killer is targeting lonely pregnant women. Anna Louise Bach is one of a number of pregnant policewomen who volunteer to be "bait". Naturally, she's the one who attracts the Bellman's attention. The resulting chase sequence is truly exciting, though other aspects such as the Bellman's motives didn't quite convince me.

Review of Fourth Planet From the Sun

John Varley's "In the Hall of the Martian Kings" brilliantly represents the 70s – what writer could be more a 70s SF writer than Varley? This story stands outside his more familiar series. It's about an expedition marooned on Mars, and the unexpected means they find to survive. Much 70s SF, in retrospect, reads like an attempt to recast 50s tropes for a new audience, and Varley's story certainly fits, with its plucky survivors and optimistic science miracles – with such details as a female expedition leader, and lots of sex, marking it as a product of the 70s.

Stories with Titles Taken from Kubla Khan

Stories with Titles Taken from "Kubla Khan"

Many years ago on Usenet I put together (with help from other denizens of the great newsgroup rec.arts.sf.written) a list of stories which take their titles from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan". I believe this may be the poem (or, at least, relatively short poem) which has inspired the titles of more SF stories than any other. That list was on my old home page for a while, but has not been anywhere but on my hard drive since the demise of my old host, SFF.net. So I've decided to resurrect it here, just for fun. I've added a few new stories.

The list doesn't include a couple of ambiguous cases -- stories called "Demon Lover", for instance, nor one called "Floating Hair". It does include a couple instances where the story's title isn't a direct quote from the poem, but is clearly directly inspired by the poem. Also, the Raymond F. Jones story listed gets its title from Coleridge's preface to the poem discussing its origin, and why it's not "complete" (N.B.: I think it's plenty "complete", and that the Person from Porlock perhaps did us all a favor!) There are four based on "Down to a Sunless Sea", three called "Ancestral Voices", and two each called "In Xanadu" and "The Milk of Paradise". Doubtless there are some I have missed.

I've read several of these, and those I've read I've bolded.

Chris Amies, "Down to a Sunless Sea", 1994

Ray Bradbury, "A Miracle of Rare Device", 1962

Marion Zimmer Bradley, "Measureless to Man", 1962, Probably better known as "The Dark Intruder".

Thomas M. Disch, "In Xanadu", 2001, A fine story with chapter headings also derived from the poem.

Gardner Dozois and Michael Swanwick, "Ancestral Voices", 1998

Malcolm Ferguson, "A Damsel with a Dulcimer", 1948

Sarah Frost, "Her Symphony and Song", 2014

R. Garcia y Robertson, "Into a Sunless Sea", 1994

Theodora Goss, "Singing of Mount Abora", 2008, World Fantasy Award winner and a wonderful story

David Graham, Down to a Sunless Sea, 1981

Rivka Jacobs, "The Milk of Paradise", 1994

Raymond F. Jones, "The Person From Porlock", 1947

Kari Maaren, Weave a Circle Round, 2017

Syne Mitchell, "Stately's Pleasure Dome", 2003

Kris Neville (writing as Henderson Starke), "As Holy and Enchanted", 1953

Kevin O'Donnell, Jr., "In Xanadu", 1976

Nat Schachner, "Ancestral Voices", 1933

S. M. Stirling, "Ancestral Voices", 1994

Cordwainer Smith, "Down to a Sunless Sea", 1975, This story was completed by Paul Linebarger's wife Genevieve Linebarger.

Brad Strickland, "Beneath a Waning Moon", 1993

Melanie Tem, "Woman Wailing" (poem), 2004

James Tiptree, Jr., "The Milk of Paradise", 1972, A great story, my favorite of this list

Stewart von Allmen, "He on Honeydew", 1995,

Birthday Review: Stories of Marissa Lingen

I'm a bit late again, but here's a Birthday Review for Marissa Lingen, a number of my reviews of her stories -- work I've liked consistently from her earliest publications, and which seems to have gotten stronger and stronger in recent years.

Locus, February 2005

The Canadian magazine Challenging Destiny has gone to electronic publication, through Fictionwise. I can't but regret this (though I can certainly understand the economic rationale). The words of the stories are the same though! The latest issue, #19 (December 2004) is a pretty strong one. Marissa K. Lingen's "Anna's Implants" has an intriguing idea. The colonists on Anna's planet have what seem to be personality constructs of great artists implanted during their teen years. The idea is to foster creativity – but sometimes it leads to madness. And – does it really help truly original art? Anna seems to be a very promising young artist – and her sister begs her not to take the implant. But Anna has a different idea.

Locus, September 2010

I saw a sequence of lush, fascinating, stories at Beneath Ceaseless Skies in July. “The Six Skills of Madame Lumiere”, by Marissa Lingen, is told by one of Madame Lumiere’s protégés, who worked for her in her whorehouse. Naturally, it was more than a whorehouse, and Madame Lumiere had more skills than just as a Madame. In this story a young man comes asking for help for his cousin, a woman with a special talent that has brought the interest of the cruel Rust Lords. The story involves a convincing journey through Faery, an intriguing talent, different villains, and a set of interesting women lead characters – all mixed delightfully.

Locus, January 2011

In Analog’s January/February Double Issue I enjoyed Marissa Lingen’s “Some of Them Closer”, a nicely quiet piece about a woman returning to Earth after decades helping terraform a new colony planet. Between the travel time (plus time dilation) and time spent on the new planet, she is completely out of touch with the people of Earth, but she had also not felt at home on the new planet. Where can she feel at home? And with whom? The answers are familiar, but the story does a fine job getting us there, and a fine job portraying the main character.

Locus, May 2014

In On Spec for Winter 2013/2104 I particularly liked “The Young Necromancer's Guide to Re-Capitation”, by Marissa Lingen and Alec Austin, which is just lots of fun, concerning a boy who collects minions in the form of re-animated fantastical creatures, here trying to recover the stolen head of his latest minion, a dragon.

Locus, March 2015

Marissa Lingen's “Blue Ribbon”, in the March Analog, is a very enjoyable and moving and rather Heinleinesque YA short set in the Oort Cloud. Tereza Pinheiro and her sister have just won a spaceship race but find themselves barred from returning to the station where their parents are: it is in quarantine. The race is sponsored by their 4H club, and there are a lot of other children in spaceships, all of course with no place to go. The problem is how to survive until help can come, how to keep their spirits up (knowing their parents are possibly very sick), and how to deal with sickness if it strikes any of them. This is well and honestly handled … in in the pure Heinlein manner, we also get a glimpse of an intriguing future space-based society. Good stuff.

Locus, July 2018

Analog’s May-June issue includes several intriguing short stories. Marissa Lingen’s “Finding Their Footing” is about a woman and her two children who have divorced their family in the Oort after her husband’s death, and who are moving to Triton to look for a new position, hoping to stop at Callisto to witness a cryovolcano eruption on the way. This is one of several stories Lingen has published about a future society in the Outer System, and they are collectively fascinating in their details about the structure and dynamics of that society. This piece is quiet, a minor work perhaps, but quite enjoyable, and I hope to see many more stories (or a novel) in this milieu.

Locus, August 2018

The purest SF story in the July-August Analog is “Left to Take the Lead”, by Marissa Lingen, another in her extended sequence of pieces set in a heavily populated Solar System. Holly is a woman from the Oort, forced into an indenture after a catastrophe (the subject of an earlier story) cost her family their home. She is working on a farm near Edmonton, with a good Earth family, and a fellow indenture who becomes a friend. The story turns on the struggles of the rest of her family to make enough money to get everyone together again, and Holly’s struggles to adapt to Earth life. (Plus there’s a bit about hockey (Martian hockey), because Marissa Lingen!) This is solid work in what is becoming a really impressive series dealing with very interesting ideas about the social and economic order of this Solar System.

Locus, March 2019

I also liked Marissa Lingen’s “The Thing, With Feathers” (Uncanny, January-February), which is set in a weirdly post-apocalyptic world – a magical apocalypse. Val is a lighthouse keeper on a lake, once a sort of magical doctor, struggling to maintain belief in a possible future. A man comes to her place by the lake, a stranger, asking for her help. The story, quiet, understated, really portrays the blossoming of something that might be friendship, and, maybe, a bit of, well – the thing with feathers.

Locus, December 2019

In the November-December Analog Marissa Lingen contributes a strong well grounded story, “Filaments of Hope”, about Lif, who has been planning to go to Mars as long as they’ve been able to, and who is left at loose ends when the mission in canceled. So they visit relatives in Iceland, and they find, perhaps, that what they’ve learned about adapting to Mars still has meaning on this ever-changing, ever-challenging, world. It’s a quiet story, with no bombshells: just solid and believable characters.

Birthday Review: Stories of Mercurio D. Rivera

Today is the birthday of Mercurio D. Rivera. He's been publishing short fiction since 2005, always interesting, and increasing in power, I think. At least, his Asimov's story from this year is very impressive. Here's a collection of my reviews of his work from Locus.

Locus, September 2006

“Longing for Langalana”, by Mercurio D. Rivera (Interzone, June), is a sad story of humans colonizing a planet in partnership with an alien species, the Wergen. The aliens have a couple of intriguing features: on marriage they are physically connected, growing ever closer over years. And they are obsessively attracted to humans. But the colonization of Langalana runs into problems (due to a cleverly depicted native species) – and in parallel the relationship of humans and the Wergen deteriorates. This is movingly portrayed by the relationship of the story’s narrator, a Wergen female, with the human boy she meets and is inevitably drawn to as an adolescent.

Locus, April 2008

The first 2008 issue of Abyss and Apex is a good one. Two particularly sharp-edged pieces work best: Mercurio D. Rivera’s “Snatch Me Another” deals with the implications of a technology that can “snatch” conjugate items from parallel universes, and the effect on one mother and her partner, as we slowly realize that they have “snatched” a replacement for their dead child.

Locus, July 2010

I also quite liked Mercurio D. Rivera’s “Dance of the Kawkawroons” (Interzone, March-April), about a couple of rapacious humans coming to the planet of the alien Kawkawroons to try to retrieve an egg with some precious properties. Still, though I enjoyed it, I thought its focus slightly off – the aliens fascinated me, and I’d have liked to learn more.

Locus, October 2011

Mercurio D. Rivera’s stories about the Wergen, an advanced alien race bound by chemistry to obsessively bond to humans, have been consistently interesting, and “For Love’s Delirium Haunts the Fractured Mind” is a particularly strong piece, from the July-August Interzone. Joriander is a Wergen serving a human family on Mars, as something of a guardian/pet for a young boy. He loves this role, but we see, over the length of the story, by observing the way his “owners” act, and by confrontations with his brother, how degrading it is. In the end, one is reminded of Lee’s feelings, that slavery is worse for the owner worse than the slave – and reminded as well that bad as it is, especially morally, for the owner, it really is actually worse for the slave. Even when they are conditioned to love it.

Locus, June 2012

June sees the Asimov's debuts of three newish writers who have been doing strong work for other magazines. None is quite the author's best work, but all three are enjoyable stories. And Mercurio D. Rivera, an Interzone regular, offers “Missionaries”, which has plenty of intriguing elements but doesn't quite close the deal, telling of a religious group coming to try to speak to aliens on a distant planet.

Locus, April 2020

The March-April Asimov’s features Mercurio D. Rivera’s “Beyond the Tattered Veil of Stars”, an impressive story in the lineage of Theodore Sturgeon’s “Microcosmic God”. It’s told in two threads – one follows a series of entries from the chronicles of an alien race, as they deal with a series of catastrophes; and the other is told by a journalist involved with an old friend of his, who has created something remarkable: a virtual simulation of an alternate world; in which she subjects her simulated creatures to horrible crises, in the hope that their ingenuity will create something she can use in our Earth to deal with our problems. The story deals effectively with the ethical issues this raises – and the ethical issues surrounding the journalist’s motives – and also with the reactions of the simulated creatures, leading to a striking and dark (if ambiguously hopeful, but for who?) conclusion.

Belated Birthday Review: Stories of Leah Cypess

Leah Cypess had a birthday recently, and I prepared this set of reviews of her work I've done for Locus, but life intervened, and I didn't get around to posting it. So -- finally! Happy Birthday, late! I like how these reviews, to me, show a writer, though always interesting, growing and growing.

Locus, September 2013

I wanted to like Leah Cypess' “What We Ourselves Are Not” (Asimov's, September) more than I did, because its central idea is interesting – an implant that gives people access to real memories of people of their culture, with the idea that this will help preserve diverse cultures. Alas, the main characters (two teenagers) don't convince, and the story is given to somewhat loaded arguments for both sides of the (worthwhile) question considered.

Locus, August 2016

Leah Cypess’ “Filtered” (Asimov's, July) concerns a journalist struggling with getting a story he thinks important noticed in a world where online filters tailor what everyone sees so much that nobody sees anything that will challenged their preconceptions. It’s further complicated because his wife is also his boss – and their ambitions, and their slightly different focus, might threaten their marriage.

Locus, June 2017

From the May-June Asimov's, “On the Ship” is another impressive and thoughtful idea piece from Leah Cypess. The narrator is a child on a spaceship searching for a new home planet. (A perhaps too explicit analogy is made with the horrible treatment of the Jewish refugees on the St. Louis before World War II.) Life on the ship seems fairly happy, and every time a new planet is reached there is a party while it is tested. But the narrator soon realizes that something strange is happening, especially when a mysterious woman keeps showing up unexpectedly. The secret isn’t much of a surprise to SF readers, but it’s used and resolved effectively here.

Locus, July 2017

Leah Cypess contributes “Neko Brushes” (F&SF, May-June), an effective retelling of a Japanese folktale about a boy who can paint things so well they come to life – mostly cats, but eventually a magic sword in service to a woman in revolt against the Emperor.

Locus, August 2018

And, finally, don’t miss “Attachment Unavailable” by Leah Cypess (Asimov's, July-August), a short and sharply funny story told as a comment thread from a social media group of new parents, discussing the offer of some aliens to help their babies sleep better.

Locus, April 2019

Leah Cypess, in “Parenting License” (Analog, March-April), takes on the notion that prospective parents might need training before insurance companies will pay for the costs of pregnancy, childbirth, and child rearing. Melanie, thus, is panicked when she turns up pregnant by accident before she and her husband have had gotten their Parenting License. At first blush it seems poised to be a satirical take on the issue, but instead it too looks quite soberly at the problem.

Locus, May 2020

What matters most? Plot? Character? Prose? Something else? The answer is all of the above, I think, and more importantly, each reinforces the other, ideally. These thoughts are prompted by an exceptional novelet in the May-June F&SF, “Stepsister”, by Leah Cypess. At first look, this is as cleverly constructed a plot as I’ve seen in some time. It’s a Cinderella retelling, from the point of view not of a stepsister, but of the Prince’s stepbrother. He’s absolutely loyal to his Prince (now King), partly, to be sure, because any sign of the bastard son of the former King being less than loyal would mean his life. But now the King wants him to fetch Queen Ella’s stepsister from the refuge the King allowed her when Ella insisted her sisters and mother be killed. There’s a tangled mesh of personal issues to deal with – Ella’s hate for her sister is justified: she really was an abuser; however the King had fallen for her just enough to save her life; and the stepbrother – had completely fallen for her. But what now? Does the King want a new Queen, as Ella has proved barren? Has Ella discovered she is still alive, and does she want her killed? What will the stepbrother do? Does the stepsister even have a voice in this?

All these snarled threads are just beautifully resolved. And we realize, that much as this expertly constructed plot snaps shut perfectly, we’ve seen a story of character wonderfully resolved as well – the beautiful plot wouldn’t work if we didn’t believe in the motivations – in the love! – of each of the characters. Even the character we don’t know about until the end. Excellent!

Revised Review: The Other Nineteenth Century, by Avram Davidson

The Other Nineteenth Century, by Avram Davidson

a review by Rich Horton

A little while ago, for Avram Davidson's birthday, I posted a "review" I had done of this book for my blog, almost two decades ago. It was a carelessly tossed-off piece, arguably OK for a blog post (though still wrongheaded as I have found!), but I never should have reposted it.

I got some criticism, gentle and very fair. And I thought, "Rereading Avram Davidson is never a bad thing! Why not reread the book!" And so I have.

To begin with -- stupid things I said in that first review -- for one thing, I complained that not all the stories are really set in the 19th Century. To which the simple answer is, "So what!". In fact, most at least touch on the 19th Century, and those that don't are either from a bit earlier, or at least have a certain redolence of that time about them. (Indeed, if you choose to end the 19th Century not with the calendar's demarcation but instead the beginning of World War I, as some do, just as some end the '50s with Kennedy's assassination, a couple further stories come in, including one which explicitly is placed right at that event.) Second: I bitched about "Mickelrede", a rather strange piece that Michael Swanwick put together from notes Davidson had left for an abandoned novel. On rereading that piece, I wonder what the heck I was thinking when I read it the first time.

Anyway, to the burden of my new review. The Other Nineteenth Century was the third Davidson collection in four years to come from St. Martins or Tor, after The Avram Davidson Treasury and The Investigations of Avram Davidson, so in a sense it was picking through leftovers, especially as all three books mostly skirted his two acclaimed short story series, the Eszterhazy and Limekiller stories. (This book does include a later and rather short Eszterhazy piece, and one story that appeared in the Treasury.) But the richness of Davidson's catalogue is thus revealed -- even with that constraint, and with the thematic constraint of choosing pieces that at least vaguely suggest the 19th Century, the book is worthwhile throughout, and includes a few pieces that stand among his very best stories.

For example, "Dragon Skin Drum", which I prefer to his slightly better known story of post-War China, "Dagon". "Dragon Skin Drum" is told from the viewpoint of an earnest and naive soldier, who visits a restaurant in the Forbidden City in the company of his more rough-edged friend, Gunnery Sergeant Jackson. Howard tries out his knowledge of Chinese, and tries to understand the local guides/interpreters he must hire, and puts up with Jackson's crudeness, and hears the story of the title drum ... and we learn a bit about these two characters (Jackson not surprisingly the savvier), and about this particular time, right as Mao is marching.

Also, "The Montavarde Camera", a really effective biter bit piece about a man who buys a camera from one of those mysterious little shops you can never find again. The camera has a sinister background -- people whose pictures are taken tend to die soon. And the man has a nagging wife ... We see where this is going, and it gets there just right.

Certainly among the best of Davidson's late stories is "El Vilvoy de las Islas". Many have noticed that his style grew more mannered, more prolix, late in his life. Sometimes this habit was taken to excess, but sometimes it worked, as here. The narrator seems to be the author himself, on a trip through South America. Feeling too tired to continue, he stops in a country called Ereguay, and eventually hears the story of "El Vilvoy" -- a young man from the Islas Encantadas, who, visiting the mainland, saves a woman from an attack, and becomes a sensation for a while. It eventuates that he and his family, on a nearly deserted small isle, live a simple life ... but there are mysteries. And so Davidson wanders through various newspaper accounts, oral stories, and so on, letting us piece together the story of the "Wild Boy".

"What Strange Stars and Skies" has been a favorite of mine for a long time -- telling of a Dame Philippa, who does charity work in the slums of London, and when ministering to the poor near a sailor's house, encounters a very curious press gang. The last line is wonderful.

I first encountered "The Man Who Saw the Elephant" in this book, and it delighted and moved me -- it's about a Quaker couple, the wife hardworking and only just tolerant of her husband's dreams ... one of which is to see the elephant that a traveling showman advertises. In the end, the husband does get to see ... well, if not an elephant something quite wonderful anyway, it seems to me.

I don't perhaps have time to discuss every story. Many turn on portraying a reasonably well known historical incident, or set of characters, from a slant -- and letting the reader figure out what's really going on. Davidson also delights in Alternate History, such as "O Brave Old World!", about the radically different history of America had Frederick of Hanover survived and moved to the Colonies; or "Pebble in Time" (with Cynthia Goldstone) in which a Mormon travels back in time to witness Brigham Young reaching the Salt Lake and unexpectedly changes history, leading to a different 1960s in San Francisco (though concluding with a labored pun that doesn't land as easily now as it might have when first published.) The stories are a mix of historical fiction, mystery, and SF/F, from a very wide range of sources. The editors and a couple more people contribute short afterwords, rather a mixed bag -- some add intriguing detail (including, in one case, Davidson's editorial interaction with Robert P. Mills), others, alas, rather clumsily step on the subtle point Davidson is reaching for.

Finally I need to address a quite odd posthumous collaboration that closes the book, "Mickelrede", put together by Michael Swanwick from a set of notes that Davidson left for an unfinished novel begun in the early '60s. In my previous review, I was very dismissive of the story, which I really failed to understand. Honestly, I'm ashamed, because actually it's not that difficult to follow. It helps somewhat to get the context right -- now I can see that the notes really do look like they might plausibly have become a novel very much in the mode Davidson was using for his earliest short novels, such as Masters of the Maze. The novel involves a contemporary academic thrust into another world (possibly the future) to serve in some sort of combat games, and also to deal with the Green King and the holy Mickelrede, a sacred object that seems to be a slide rule. There is a woman involved, of course, and Swanwick advances some alternate plot points, such as changing the slide rule to a Difference Engine, and the woman to Ada Lovelace. Davidson's novels, at this point in his career, were not his best work, and I can imagine well enough the novel which might have resulted, which would have been enjoyable but not great (sort of a better written Ken Bulmer, for those who remember Bulmer) -- the possibility of a later true collaboration between Swanwick and Davidson, incorporating Swanwick's ideas, is intriguing but likely would not have been the best use of either authors talents -- though who knows? The prose in this fragment seems more Swanwick than Davidson, but that's hardly a complaint, and there certainly are hints of Davidson as well.

Very Belated Birthday Review: Stories of Kris Neville

Here's a very belated birthday review for Kris Neville, born May 9, 1925. I wanted to write about him, but I had only reviewed three or four of his stories, so I dug up a few more and read them ...

Kris Neville (1925-1980) had one of the interesting disappointing careers in the field. He was a native of Carthage, MO, home of Belle Starr and the great baseball pitcher Carl Hubbell and the far from great (indeed criminal) Missouri Attorney General William Webster, but NOT related to "North Carthage", the fictional town where Gillian Flynn's bestseller Gone Girl is set. (Carthage is near Joplin, entirely across the state from the Mississippi, on which North Carthage is said to sit.)) Thus Neville is the second Missourian in a row I've covered. He lived most of his adult life in California, and began publishing short fiction in 1949, and quickly made an impact, most notably with "Bettyann" (1951), but also "Hunt the Hunter" (1951) and "The Toy" (1952) among others. He also published perhaps a half-dozen novels, the last of which, Run, the Spearmaker, has only been published in Japan, except for an excerpt in the Riverside Quarterly. (It was co-written with his wife Lil, as were other late stories.) The novels were mostly expansions or fixups of earlier stories, and made little impact.

There is little question that he could have had a significant career. Why didn't he? Barry Malzberg, who collaborated with him on two stories and carried on an extensive correspondence, says that this was partly due to frustrated ambition -- the field, perhaps most of all its editors, were not ready to publish work of the ambition he desired. Another reason could be that he had a very good job, a technical writer and an expert on epoxies, which he seems to have liked and in which he was highly respected. Sometimes we readers forget that much as we want to see promising writers keep at it, there are other, equally rewarding, careers, and it's not our call what a given person chooses to do with their life. (I think of P. J. Plauger sometimes in this context.)

Astounding, March 1951

"Casting Office", by "Henderson Starke" (Kris Neville) is set just where it says -- in a casting office. The Actors seem pretty upset with the latest play, and the Critics are hammering it. The Author is peeved. It doesn't take long to figure out what's really going on, and what the "play" really is. Campbell calls it a fantasy, kind of by way of apology to Astounding's readers. There are some cute bits, but it goes on a bit long, and the central twist idea is so clear from the start that I think the story spends too much time acting like the reader can't guess.

Galaxy, June 1951

"Hunt the Hunter" is set on a distant planet where the leader of the human race (I assume) is hunting the mysterious "farn beast". He has roped in as guides two businessmen who have apparently previously visited the planet and bagged a farn beast. Meanwhile, an alien force is supposed to be nosing around the planet. The main viewpoint characters are the two businessmen, who make their resentment of the leader clear -- and who feel even worse when the leader decides to use one of them as bait. The bulk is the story is fairly familiar cynical comedy about bad and worse people variously bumbling around and mistreating each other ... and then the ending, quite literally, springs a little trap. Nice story, not a classic but solid work.

Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader, April 1953

"As Holy and Enchanted" is another story Kris Neville wrote under the name "Henderson Starke". A lonely, ordinary, man name Nick likes to walk in the part on Sundays, representing a more peaceful and natural break from his usual life in the city and work in a shop (perhaps a machine shop?) One Sunday at a fountain he happens across lovely girl name Mona, who seems enchanted by him, and they spend the day together, eating at restaurants and such. Nick falls for her immediately, and she seems intrigued by him -- but the reader, of course, knows right away what sort of creature (or spirit) she is, so the ending is never in doubt. A nicely done bittersweet piece.

(This story appears, of course, on my list of stories with titles taken from "Kubla Khan".)

Imagination, January 1954

(Cover by W. E. Terry)

The cover story (illustrated rather garishly by W. E. Terry) is "Peril of the Starmen", by Kris Neville. Earth is visited by aliens, and we (the readers) learn immediately that their plan is to blow up the planet. (Apparently they subscribe to the logic that I think I saw stated in Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski's The Killing Star -- once a species is capable of space flight they are a potential danger, so the smart thing to do is destroy them first.) Of course, the aliens' message is one of peace. One of the aliens, however, begins to have doubts. Set against the aliens' plans is conflict in the US government. Some are eager to welcome the aliens, but another faction, led by a Senator from Missouri who might be described in contemporary terms as "Trumpian", wants nothing to do with the aliens. In essence, they are right, but for totally wrong reasons. The premise is intriguing, but the story goes on a bit too long, mostly turning on an implausible love story between the doubtful alien and the Senator's sister.



9 Tales of Space and Time, 1954

(Cover by W. Thut)

"Overture" is the direct sequel to "Bettyann". (The two stories were combined, presumably with additional material, into a novel in 1970, and another story, "Bettyann's Children", written with Lil Neville, appeared in 1973.) (Obviously, spoilers for "Bettyann" follow.) The story opens with Bettyann, having left the ship in which her alien relatives were planning to take her away, using her shapechanging ability to fly back to her true home, in Southwest Missouri. She must now come to terms with her newly revealed alien abilities, and somehow explain to her parents why she suddenly left Smith College. She becomes obsessed with the idea of making a difference -- perhaps by using her powers to heal people, and she also begins to fall for the much older local doctor. Not much else really happens -- a couple of minor health crises, her young love, her relationship with her adoptive parents -- but the story is very nicely told, sweet, well-written.

Galaxy, October 1968

Kris Neville's "Thyre Planet" is a bit more serious, if not entirely so. The story has two foci, and I'm not sure they work together. On the one hand it's a fairly broad satire of the executive personality, almost Dilbertian in spots, as Mr. Bellflower, a very well-trained expert executive, is hired by Thyre planet to solve the reliability problem with their transport booths, which were left by the natives of Thyre, who have all disappeared. So Bellflower's strategies are shown, which proved to be more based on establishing a power base and keeping the money flowing than actually solving the problem. Thus, a solution to the problem is the worst thing that could happen -- despite the fact that thousands of people a year are lost in the transport booths. The other focus is of course the problem -- and its solution, which is fairly clever, if, I think easily guessable. I liked both aspects of the story, but they seem to sit a little uneasily together.

F&SF, December 1970

"The Reality Machine", by Kris Neville, is a brief, dark, satire that follows an advisor to the President as he tries to brief him on the progress of the title machine, which we eventually learn, really is altering reality. The story seems darkly prescient in presenting an advisor who despite some apparent competence defers entirely to his worthless President; and a President who is happy to deny reality. How did Neville know?

Universe 3, 1974

Kris Neville's "Survival Problems" is, somewhat like "The Reality Machine", a dark satire on American politics. It mainly follows a successful scientist at a Mortuary institute, an expert in preserving people after their death, who wins a lottery to get life extension (at the cost of slowing one's brain processes so they become very stupid.) But first he must deal with crises at his job ... and then it becomes necessary to preserve the President himself ... the story runs on long enough to make the mordant points it wants to make, without really developing a plot -- which is OK, I suppose, because Neville doesn what he wants in its space.

Birthday Review: Stories of Robert Moore Williams

(Cover by Jeff Jones)

Robert Moore Williams was born in Farmington, MO, in 1907. He began publishing SF in 1934, made a mild splash with the 1938 story "Robots Return", and continued publishing fairly regularly into the 1970s. He was possibly best known for a number of Tarzan-like knockoffs, first the Jongor series from the pulps in the '40s and '50s, reprinted in 1970 or so when there was something of a Burroughs revival, and also the Zanthar series, from the late '60s. (These two series featured covers by perhaps the most significant Sword and Sorcery artists of that era -- Jeff Jones for Zanthar, and Frank Frazetta for Jongor.) His late short fiction (that is, that from the 1960s) was all for Frederik Pohl at If -- he was one of several writers from Pohl's youth that he lured back to publish short fiction for his magazines in the '60s.

I found his stories rather ordinary, but generally professionally done. Here are looks at a few stories of his I have read in some older SF magazines.



I have also reviewed a couple of his Ace Doubles here.

The Star Wasps

King of the Fourth Planet


Super Science Stories, May 1950

"The Soul Makers" by Robert Moore Williams is one of two stories dealing with Nuclear War. (If you ever see an SF magazine from the early 50s without a Nuclear War story, you can bet it's a fake.) In this case the Americans are fighting the East Bloc, with the help of newly invented robots. The robots are acting erratically however -- and it turns out they have realized that the fallout from the bombs has already doomed humanity, and they are planning for the future.

Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1951

Robert Moore Williams' "The Void Beyond" posits that space travel is so painful that only young men -- no women, and no one over 30 -- can survive it. Eric Gaunt is a veteran captain, 28 or so, who is disgusted when a woman tries to come aboard, having bought her ticket legally with her ambiguous name, Frances Marion. So then the woman stows away ... and when they catch her she insists that the problem is in their head and if they just exhibit will power they'll be able to tolerate space, just like she will. The ending is a mild twist. Generally a pretty silly idea and execution, with a predictable romance tacked on.

Imaginative Tales, July 1957

As for Robert Moore Williams' "The Red Rash Deaths", it's about a policeman investigating a mysterious plague -- a terribly contagious red rash has caused dozens of hundreds of deaths. He tracks down a strange man who seems associated with the deaths ... and a deus ex machina (or ex futura) solves his predicament.

Super Science Stories, May 1958

Robert Moore Williams (name given as "Robert M. Williams" on the TOC, but the full name shown on the story page) contributes "I Want to Go Home" (3500 words), about a troubled boy who has spent his whole life obsessed with the idea that he is out of place in our world, and he wants to go home. He eventually infects the police psychiatrist assigned to his case with the same concern. A minor story, but Williams does come to an unexpected conclusion.

If, October 1965

"Short Trip to Nowhere", by Robert Moore Williams, is set in the distant future of 2010, where there are antigravity beds and sleep machines. One night the protagonist is a accosted by someone in his sleep -- and after wondering who could talk to him via the sleep machine, he realizes that his 3-year-old daughter also seems to talk to -- and play with -- someone while she sleeps. This soon leads to the creature in the sleep world luring the child into his "world" -- and when the Dad talks to the creature via his sleep machine he quickly realizes that this creature has no notion that his world isn't made for humans -- for example, there's no food there. Kind of a trivial piece, really.

Birthday Review: The Coming, by Joe Haldeman

Joe Haldeman turns 77 today. He's an SFWA Grand Master, one of the truly fine writers of his generation. He's one of those writers who made a huge splash early in his career, with his second novel, first SF novel, The Forever War; and in some ways I sometimes think that's made people forget how consistently strong his novels have been throughout his career. I haven't seen a novel since Work Done For Hire in 2014 -- I hope we might have more coming. Here is a review based on a blog post I did of one of his solid late middle-period books.

The Coming, by Joe Haldeman
a review by Rich Horton

Joe Haldeman's newest book is The Coming. This is a shortish, nicely executed, book about the receipt of a signal from an alien ship. Haldeman explicitly credits James Gunn's fine novel about receiving messages from aliens, The Listeners, as an influence, but The Coming reminded me much more of a brilliant and underrated novel by John Kessel, Good News From Outer Space. Both books (The Coming and Kessel's novel) use the idea of aliens coming to Earth as a fulcrum for an exploration of U. S. society.

The Coming opens with an astronomer at the University of Florida, Aurora Bell, recognizing an anomalous signal from a gamma ray telescope. It turns out to be a short message saying, in English, "We're Coming". And she is able to confirm that it comes from a source about a tenth of a light year from Earth, blue-shifted so that it must be traveling at 99 percent of the speed of light.

The novel is neatly structured so that the point of view smoothly shifts from scene to scene, such that each new scene begins from the POV of a character encountered just previously.  This gives the whole book a certain fluidity and a certain sense of movement, and it also alows the author to gracefully explore events through the eyes of a wide variety of characters.  What we see is a portrait of\ the city of Gainesville, Florida, in the 2054. The characters include Dr. Bell and her husband, a composer and also a professor; several colleagues of Dr. Bell, significantly including her assistant, a mysterious immigrant from Cuba named Pepe Parker; a restaurant owner in the University neighbourhood; a Mafia bag man; a policeman; a couple of reporters; a homeless lady; a university student making extra money by "acting" in "virtual reality" pornographic episodes; and more. Haldeman uses this tapestry of viewpoints to portray the reaction of the wider populace to the Coming of the aliens, but more importantly, he uses it to portray the social and political and technological landscape of this particular future.

Haldeman's portrayal is interesting. The future tech includes highly computerized homes and holographic conference calls and the above-mentioned virtual porn. Environmentally, the world is facing advanced global warming, with much flooding, unusual winters and summers, sunblock essential at all times lest you get skin cancer, etc. The political view of the US is a bit disappointing: his view is a cynical redaction of contemporary politics, with all but unchanged Democratic and Republican parties, and an image-besotten Republican idiot as President.  I'd have rather seen a more altered political landscape. There are snippets of world politics that present some interesting changes: an important subplot concerns a looming war between France and Germany. The major social change in the U. S. that affects the book is that much stricter laws about sexual activity have been implemented: homosexuality is completely criminalized, while even some consensual married activities are apparently against the law (though not often enforced).  I confess I find these last changes implausible and counter to real social trends in the U. S. today: perhaps I am simply an optimist. His overall future is somewhat depressing but not without hope, and it is quite interesting. The characters are well-portrayed and involving.

The plot is also interesting. It turns on political manoeuvring about the proper response to the arrival of the aliens, as well as the calamitous revealing of a dark secret in the Bells' past.  There is a certain amount of action and intrigue, resolved nicely enough. And Haldeman's climax, involving the promised arrival of the aliens, is well-handled, and the reader isn't cheated.  Overall the book feels just a bit slight, but it's a fine effort, and a good solid read.

A List of 100 (+) Books I Haven't Read

One Hundred Books on my TBR Pile

I put this list together after having previously rather carelessly posted a shabbily curated list of 100 (actually 99) books that, it was claimed, was put together by the BBC and that of which, supposedly (no proof offered) the average person had only read 6. The list also included a couple of strange duplicates, too many books by certain writers, and a couple of (in my opinion) egregiously bad books. On the other hand, most of the books on the list were actually pretty good, so it was fun discussing it.

But then, I thought -- this might be more interesting. This list is one I made essentially from looking at my (literal and also figurative) To Be Read pile -- books I've known about for years, own in most cases, and think are awfully interesting. Some are fairly recent books (many SF) that I've been meaning to get to, others are older books, mostly in the category of "classics". Some people have noted that some of them seem like the lesser-known, and arguably "lesser", books of great writers. There are two reasons for this: some are books by writers whom I've already tried, but want to read further. So, I've read Henry Esmond and Vanity Fair, and I want to read more Thackeray, hence Pendennis. I've read Middlemarch, and want to read more Eliot, hence Daniel Deronda. I've read lots and lots of Byatt, but never got to Babel Tower, hence it's there. The other reason is that I don't necessarily agree that all these books are "lesser" ... speaking as one who hasn't read them. Is Anna Karenina "lesser" than War and Peace? I don't know, but it seems pretty major to me. Is The Blind Assassin lesser than The Handmaid's Tale? I don't think so (can't say I know) ... it's just the book that hasn't become a famous miniseries.

Anyway -- what's not on this list. First -- nothing I have already read. So don't ask me why there's no Jane Austen -- I've read her complete works. Same with Kingsley Amis. Anthony Powell. Robertson Davies. Penelope Fitzgerald. Flann O'Brien. Kipling. Flannery O'Connor. W. M. Spackman. Karen Joy Fowler. etc. etc. etc.

It is my list, and I read only English (a failure of mine, not any sort of virtue), so it's very English-language-centric, and beyond that rather Western-centric, with some attempts to broaden that. Parts of it are pretty idiosyncratically me -- but what would be the fun if that wasn't true? And this is a shame-free zone, I hope -- if you haven't read these, great! Neither have I! That just means we have more to look forward to!

I have also expanded my additional list to include some excellent suggestions offered after my original Facebook post. Those appear at the end.

I have, as of August 2024, a bit more than four years after the original post, gone ahead and put strikethroughs on each book that I can now say I've read. There are also cases where I read another book by the same author but not the one I cited (i.e. I've read David Copperfield now, but not yet Great Expectations ... but I haven't struck through the original books in those cases.)

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

Richard Adams, Watership Down

Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits

Charlie Jane Anders, The City in the Middle of the Night

Eleanor Arnason, Daughter of the Bear King

Kate Atkinson, Life After Life

Margeret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

Honore de Balzac, Pere Goriot

John Barth, Giles Goat-Boy

Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March

Lauren Beukes, Zoo City

Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart

Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

A. S. Byatt, Babel Tower

Willa Cather, My Antonia

Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries

Anton Chekhov, Selected Stories

Wu Cheng’En, Journey to the West

C. J. Cherryh, Cyteen

Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone

Ivy Compton-Burnett, Manservant and Maidservant

Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

John Crowley, Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land

Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

Samuel R. Delany, Tales of Neveryon

Thomas M. Disch, On Wings of Song

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Fyodor Dostoyevksy, The Brothers Karamazov

Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

Jennifer Egan, Manhattan Beach

George Eliot, Daniel Deronda

William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

E. M. Forster, A Room With a View

George Macdonald Fraser, Mr. American

Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls

Alasdair Gray, Lanark

Henry Green, Doting

Elizabeth Hand, Curious Toys

Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

Tsao Hsueh-Chin, Dream of the Red Chamber

Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

Henry James, The Ambassadors

Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf

N. K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

James Joyce, Ulysses

Franz Kafka, The Trial

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Margaret Laurence, Rachel, Rachel

Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home

Stanislaw Lem, Solaris

Eleanor Lerman, Radiomen

Doris Lessing, Canopus in Argus

Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn

Karen Lord, The Best of All Possible Worlds

George MacDonald, Lilith

Naguib Mahfouz, Arabian Nights and Days

Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Toni Morrison, Sula

Ottessa Moshfegh, Homesick for Another World

Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Lady Murasaki, The Tale of Genji

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities

Vladimir Nabokov, Laughter in the Dark

Helen Oyeyemi, Mr. Fox

Edgar Pangborn, Wilderness of Spring

Georges Perec, Life: A User’s Manual

Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

Alexander Pushkin, The Captain’s Daughter

Mary Renault, The King Must Die

Sally Rooney, Normal People

Matt Ruff, The Mirage

Karen Russell, Swamplandia

Walter Scott, The Heart of Midlothian

Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy

William Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen

Zadie Smith, On Beauty

Francis Spofford, Golden Hill

Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Hard to Be a God

Elizabeth Taylor, Angel

William Makepeace Thackeray, Pendennis

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now

John Updike, The Centaur

Jack Vance, Lyonesse: Suldrun’s Garden

Jo Walton, Lent

Janwilliam van der Wetering, The Corpse on the Dike

Edith Wharton, Summer

Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad

John Williams, Stoner

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Xenophon, Anabasis

Margaret Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian

Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

Stefan Zweig, The Royal Game

New Additions:

Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

Lawrence Durrell, Constance; or, Solitary Practices

Jaraslav Hasek, The Good Solider Svejk

Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Leena Krohn, Collected Fiction

Chen Quifan, Waste Tide

Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles

Voltaire, Candide

Edward Whittemore, Quin's Shanghai Circus

Birthday Review: Stories of Bryce Walton

Bryce Walton would have turned 102 today. Bryce Walton, you say? Who he? He was a prolific contributor of short fiction in various genres between 1945 and 1969, with just one SF novel (Son of the Ocean Deeps (1952).) He was originally from Missouri, and he died in 1988. Frankly I found his work fairly mediocre -- but at times surprisingly ambitious. He's one of those names you'd have known if you read in the field in the 1950s ... but you might not remember him.

In his honor, here's a look at several of his stories that I have read in various 1950s SF publications.

Space Science Fiction, May 1952

As for the other story, "To Each His Star", it's wholly forgettable. Bryce Walton is not one of my favorite pulp-era writers -- I've read a lot of his work for Planet. So is this story, about four criminals who escape in a spaceship heading for a paradise planet, one of four stars. They can't agree on the right planet, though, and come to violence over it (after they have crashed and are apparently traveling light years in their spacesuits). Horrid stuff.

Science Fiction Stories, 1953

Bryce Walton's "By Earthlight" (5200 words) is an anti-war story. The first flight to the Moon is planned, and a secret organization smuggles a man onto the ship (which is not meant to be manned). It's all part of an unconvincing attempt to end all war, by reasons explained in the story that I couldn't believe. It's a very sincere story, that tries to be a powerful message piece, but fizzles.

Vortex, Volume 1 Number 1

"The Last Answer", by Bryce Walton (4300 words) -- Computers and robots have taken over all man's functions and man is stagnating. A supercomputer decides that for the good of man this must change.

Planet Stories, Summer 1954

I read "Mary Anonymous", by Bryce Walton (7400 words) a few years ago in Planet Stories and didn't remember it before rereading it in Don Wollheim's anthology The Earth in Peril. It's not too bad -- Walton's stories didn't usually impress me much, but he could show some real ambition. Mars and Earth have been at war for decades, and Earth has just figured out the weapon to exterminate the Martians. But as they launch it, Mary suddenly rebels, and, as it turns out conditioned by the Martians, destroys the Earth spaceship. It's a surprisingly cynical story -- both Earth and Mars come off as irredeemably evil. Mary is sympathetic but does bad things too. The story ends with a twist revelation about Mary that seemed obvious to me (but then I had read the story before!)

Orbit, July-August 1954

"The Passion of Orpheus", by Bryce Walton (7500 words) -- probably the most ambitious of these stories, though not quite successful. After some disastrous nuclear wars, a small remnant of humanity survives. They remember the great days of life in the City. Finally, a representative young man is sent to the City, with instructions to go to the Temple and sing the Song, which may do something good but unspecified. Near the city he meets some beautiful but unambitious people, who try to keep him with him (using sex and all), but he continues to the City, sings the Song, and learns its real purpose, and the real nature of the people he has just been with. It doesn't convince, but it's not without interest -- Walton at something like the top of his not very extensive range.

If, June 1955

Bryce Walton's "Freeway" (5000 words) is a curious combination of the "people living in their cars all the time" story with the "oppressed intellectuals" story. Our hero and his wife are driving all the time, forbidden to stop for more than 8 hours at a time because he has been accused of "philosophy", and also of supporting the previous administration. His wife is sick, and he stops illegally, and he is pushed to violence, but then ... The setup is strained, and the resolution implausible.

If, October 1957

The other novelette (note that at If even stories over 20,000 words were still novelettes -- as I have noted elsewhere, Novella did not become a common term until much later, though Short Novel was not uncommon) was Bryce Walton's "Dark Windows". This concerns a future in which "eggheads" are blamed for all the world's problems. People have periodic intelligence tests, and are subject to destructive brain-probes if they fail -- or, I should say, pass! Our hero, Fred, a loyal patriot, is recruited to the SPA to help hunt down eggheads, partly because he is held to have well-suppressed intelligence. Well, you can see where this is going -- Fred will become an Egghead -- but Walton does get to a slightly unexpected ending.