Old Bestseller: The Story-Teller, by Maud Lindsay

Old Bestseller: The Story-Teller, by Maud Lindsay

a review by Rich Horton

This book, aimed at children -- very young children -- was not really a bestseller. But I think the writer, and her several books for children, was pretty popular in her day.

One of the joys of finding old books like this is the occasional quite unexpected things you learn about the authors. I bought this book at an antique store in St. Louis on a pure whim a little while ago. I'd not heard of the book nor the author. But when I looked up Maud Lindsay I found that she was really a pretty significant figure around the turn of the 20th Century.

(Cover by Florence Liley Young)

Maud McKnight Lindsay was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, in 1874, the daughter of a former governor of the state. (Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia six years later, and the entry on Lindsay in the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame says that she and Keller were childhood playmates and lifelong friends.) Lindsay became a kindergarten teacher, first at a private school, then, in 1898, she opened a free kindergarten in East Florence, Alabama, apparently a poorer area. She ran the kindergarten (which still exists, now named after her) until her death in 1941. Part of her teaching program was telling stories to her students, and so she published a book of stories, Mother Stories, in 1900. Twelve more books followed, a couple of them longer stories, but most collections of quite short pieces, suitable, I suppose, for reading to kindergarteners.

The Story-Teller was published in 1915 by Lothrop, Lee, and Shepard. My edition appears to possibly be a first (fine condition, no dj -- I don't think there ever was one). It is illustrated in color by Florence Liley Young. The front cover in some copies is colored, and mine is not, which may hint that it is not in fact the first edition, or that the color (including, apparently, gold leaf in the lettering) has worn off. Another interesting feature is a few songs, for which musical notation is given, written by Lindsay and set to music by Elsie A. Merriman (or in one case, set to a folk tune).

The book contains a dozen stories:

"The Two Brothers" (1300 words)
"The Jar of Rosemary" (1600 words)
"The Promise" (1300 words)
"The Plate of Pancakes" (1000 words)
"Little Maid Hildegarde" (1000 words)
"The Apple Dumpling" (1500 words)
"The King's Servant" (1600 words)
"The Great White Bear" (800 words)
"The Song That Traveled" (800 words)
"The Quest for the Nightingale" (2200 words)
"The Magic Flower" (800 words)
"The Lions in the Way" (1000 words)

These are all in fairy or folk tale mode, set in the standard cod-European settings of the most familiar (to Western readers of my generation, anyway) such tales. Most seem to be original to Lindsay, but she does credit other sources for a couple of stories: "The Promise" is based on an old poem ("told to me by Miss Harriette Mills"); "The King's Servant" is based on the Brothers Grimm tale "White Snake"; for "The Quest for the Nightingale" she credits Shakespeare, Joseph Rodman Drake, and a couple of old folk tales; and "The Lions in the Way" is based on an incident in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

As the lengths of the stories suggest, these are very simple pieces. For any but the very young, I think they are a bit too simple -- there is neither enough incident, nor enough conflict, to really hold the interest. But perhaps they are well pitched for very young children -- for kindergarten age children, and possibly the lengths are appropriate for classroom reading. The writing is clear enough. The stories tend to be very sentimental, and to make quite straightforward moral points. Only in a one or two is there any humor (mostly in "The Great White Bear", in which two foolish characters mistake a sheep for a bear). My favorites were "The Apple Dumpling" in which an old woman wants an apple dumpling but has no apples, and goes out looking for them with some plums, and ends up serially trading the plums for a variety of things before finally getting her apples; "The King's Servant", in which a faithful servant of the King goes to visit his mother and on the way helps out a bird and a fish and some ants, which redounds to his benefit when another evil King detains him; and "The Quest for the Nightingale", in which a fairy allows the Queen's nightingale to be stolen, and must go on a long quest to rescue it.

Obviously at my age I am not the audience for these stories. I'm not sure many children will be any more, however. I think they are really too simple, and they lack sufficient wit, plot, or wonder to really make them memorable. Perhaps in their time they were serviceable, however, for their intended purpose. And, I will say, the book itself is a fairly attractive physical object.

Hugo Nomination Thoughts -- Other Categories

Other Categories

In the remaining categories (as, really, with all the categories except short fiction) I do want to emphasize what may be obvious – these are people and things that I personally enjoyed, but I know there’s a lot of excellent work I’ve missed. I’ll be nominating things that impressed me, but I’ll be glad to check out the stuff other people nominate.

Best Fan Writer

The first thing I’ll do here is mention myself. I am a fan writer (at least my blog writing and my stuff for Black Gate qualifies, if perhaps not my work for Locus, which I guess is now officially professional). I would note in particular my reviews of old magazines at Black Gate, particularly Amazing and Fantastic in the Cele Goldsmith Lalli era, and my various reviews of Ace Doubles here at Strange at Ecbatan (and often linked from Black Gate.) I would be greatly honored if anyone thought my work worthy of a Best Fan Writer nomination.

But of course there are many wonderful fan writers out there. For years I have been nominating Abigail Nussbaum, especially for her blog Asking the Wrong Questions (http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/ ), and I see no reason not to do so again this year. I will note in particular her review of Arrival, which captured beautifully the ways in which the movie falls short of the original story, but still acknowledges the movie’s strengths.

Another fan writer who has attracted my notice with some interesting posts is Camestros Felapton (https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/). Some of the most interesting work there regarded (alas) the Puppy Kerfuffles, and I was quite amused by this Map of the Puppy Kerfuffle: https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/the-puppy-kerfuffle-map/. But the blog is much more than Puppy commentary – indeed, it’s much more than SF commentary. In the more traditional fanwriting area, I can point to the most recent entry (as I write), a well-done review of Greg Egan’s Diaspora.

Another possibility is Greg Hullender at Rocket Stack Rank (http://www.rocketstackrank.com/ ). The site is run by Greg along with his partner Eric Wong, and both deserve a lot of credit – I mention Greg in particular because of article like his analysis of the effect of slate voting on the 2016 Hugos (http://www.rocketstackrank.com/2016/09/reanalysis-of-slate-voting-in-2016-hugo.html )

One of my favorite fan writers does a lot of his stuff in a place relatively few people see, but he has begun to review Amazing Stories for Galactic Journey. This is John Boston, and his work can be found at this tag: http://galacticjourney.org/tag/john-boston/. The conceit at Galactic Journey is that magazines from 55 years ago are reviewed, with an attempt to make the reviews reflect only knowledge up to the point of publication of the magazine. (It will be obvious to anyone who reads my stuff at Black Gate that this sort of thing is right up my alley, and in particular that reviews of Amazing from the early ‘60s are of special interest, as I am (in a somewhat less disciplined fashion) trying to look at  and write about as many issues of Amazing and Fantastic edited by Cele Goldsmith Lalli as I can.)) A couple of years ago John (along with Damien Broderick) published a series of books reviewing every issue of New Worlds and Science Fantasy from the Carnell era, which gives another look at his credential as a fan writer.

And finally I think there are a number of people at Black Gate worthy of a look. Too many to mention, perhaps, but one who definitely deserves recognition is the editor, John O’Neill, who also does a great deal of writing for the site.

Best Fanzine

Mentioning sites like Black Gate, Galactic Journey, and Rocket Stack Rank immediately brings to mind the Best Fanzine category. I plan to nominate each of these sites for a Best Fanzine Hugo. I’m particularly partial in this context to Black Gate, primarily of course because I have been a contributor since the print days (issue #2 and most of the subsequent issues). Black Gate was nominated in this category each of the past two years, but we declined the nomination due to the taint of (unwanted) presence on the Rabid Puppy slates. (I had suspected, and Greg Hullender’s analysis mentioned above suggests that I was right, that Black Gate would have been nominated even without the slates last year, but John made the principled decision to withdraw anyway.) Anyway, Black Gate is notable for publishing a lot of content on a very wide variety of topics, from promoting new book releases to publishing occasional original and reprinted fiction to Sherlock Holmes to reviewing old issues of Galaxy (Matthew Wuertz) and Amazing/Fantastic/etc. (me) to intriguing posts about travel and architecture by Sean MacLachlan. 

Rocket Stack Rank and Galactic Journey are a bit more tightly focused: the former primarily reviews and rates short fiction, as well as assembling statistics about other reviewers (myself included) and their reactions to the stories; while the latter, as I mentioned above, is reviewing old SF magazines from 55 years ago. (On a personal note, I was surprised to find that Greg Hullender credits me for some of the impetus towards starting Rocket Stack Rank, in a conversation we had when we met at Sasquan.)

Finally, I’ll mention the other SF-oriented site I read and enjoy regularly – File 770 (http://file770.com/ ), which is (deservedly) very well known, having been nominated for the Best Fanzine Hugo numerous times and having won some as well, including just last year. I think they continue to be worthy of a Best Fanzine nomination.

Best Editor

When I wrote about this category last year I especially recommended Sheila Williams (Asimov’s), Jonathan Strahan (the Infinity series and other anthologies (including a Best of the Year series), plus stories for Tor.com), and John Joseph Adams (Lightspeed, numerous anthologies, a Best of the Year series). I haven’t changed my mind – a look at my story recommendations shows how many good stories each of them published in 2016. Jonathan Strahan, besides the anthologies Bridging Infinity and Drowned Worlds, was the acquiring editor for one of the very best novellas of the year, The Dream Quest of Vellitt Boe. John Joseph Adams edited one original anthology, What the #@&% is That?, a horror-oriented book, plus Lightspeed, from which I chose three stories for my anthology; and Nightmare, a horror e-zine. And Sheila Williams, of course, continues to edit Asimov’s with remarkable distinction – every year that is the magazine with the most stories I consider for my book, including four that made my book this year, all of which will likely be on my Hugo nomination ballot.

So once again I’ll nominate all three of those folks. The other two editors of Big Three magazines are certainly worthy as well – C. C. Finlay at F&SF and Trevor Quachri at Analog (which to my mind continues to improve). And Andy Cox’s work at Interzone and Black Static is impressive as well. And then of course there is Clarkesworld, edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace. Neil is also editing a Best of the Year book, and he has been doing original anthologies as well (though none appeared in 2016). Sean is also co-editor of a very strong horror e-zine, The Dark. Clarkesworld in particular had a very strong year indeed in 2016. The other e-zine that really stood out in 2016 was Beneath Ceaseless Skies, edited by Scott H. Andrews, from which I chose 3 stories (and could have chosen K. J. Parker’s excellent “Told by An Idiot” as well.) I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Beneath Ceaseless Skies is I think indisputably the best Fantasy-oriented ezine there is. To mention one more name – Ian Whates, at NewCon Press. He published two original anthologies this year, Crises and Conflicts and Now We Are Ten, from both of which I chose a story for my book. (Now We Are Ten, in particular, is a first-rate book from top to bottom.) And he is also the acquiring editor for one of the best novellas of the year, Alastair Reynolds’ The Iron Tactician.

I haven’t even mentioned the two most decorated contemporary editors, Ellen Datlow and Gardner Dozois. And they of course remain exceptional editors. This year I didn’t see as much original short fiction from either of them (though both put out Best of the Year books), but Datlow was the acquiring editor for one of the best novellas of the year, Victor LaValle’s “The Ballad of Black Tom”, as well as other work for Tor.com. Gardner’s 2016 work was mostly reprints – his landmark Best of the Year series, as well as his role as reprint editor for Clarkesworld.

In Best Editor, Long Form, I bow out. Between the fact that I just haven’t read enough 2016 novels, and that even if I have, I’m not always sure who was editorially responsible, I really can’t speak with any authority.

Other Hugos

I’m going to bow out of the rest of the Hugo categories as well. This doesn’t mean I don’t think highly of those categories – I do! But I just can’t say much intelligent about any of them. I have my favorite artists, but I forget, sometimes, what they’ve done lately. I don’t read graphic novels (and please don’t take that as a dis – it’s more a matter of “so many books, so little time”.) For Best Semiprozine, give me a list of the currently eligible Semiprozines, and I’ll have more to say – Beneath Ceaseless Skies is one, for sure, and definitely worthy of nomination; as is Uncanny, and Interzone. I am more or less clueless on podcasts. I don’t know what’s been good this year in related work – please enlighten me! UPDATE: A couple of Related Works did occur to me later as worthy of recommendation: Alvaro Zinos-Amaro's TRAVELER OF WORLDS: CONVERSATIONS WITH ROBERT SILVERBERG, and Chris Offutt's MY FATHER, THE PORNOGRAPHER (about SF writer Andrew J. Offutt).

Campbell

Finally, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. This is given to the best writer whose first professional publication in the SF or Fantasy field appeared in the past two years (2015 or 2016). Writertopia has a page, not guaranteed to be complete, with a list of eligible authors: http://www.writertopia.com/awards/campbell .

From that last, a couple of names stand out for me. One is Charlotte Ashley, whose story “A Fine Balance” is in my upcoming Best of the Year book, and her first pro sale, “La Heron”, was pretty close to being in last year’s book. The other is Ada Palmer, for her impressive first novel,Too Like the Lightning, which I have already discussed. Other new writers who have particularly impressed me include Nin Harris, Malka Older, T. R. Napper, Steve Pantazis, Sunil Patel, Laurie Penny, Eric Reynolds, Tamara Vardomskaya, and Benjamin C. Kinney.

An Obscure Ace Double: Threshold of Eternity, by John Brunner/The War of Two Worlds, by Poul Anderson

ce Double Reviews, 102: Threshold of Eternity, by John Brunner/The War of Two Worlds, by Poul Anderson (#D-335, 1959, 35 cents)

a review by Rich Horton

I decided to read this Ace Double after Alvaro Zinos-Amaro mentioned it recently, and I realized that it comprised two novels by writers I always enjoy that I was completely unaware of. Alvaro, it must be said, didn't much like the novels. But I figured Anderson and Brunner are always worth a try, and anyway I have a certain quasi-completist attitude towards both of them. Curt Phillips was good enough to offer me a good copy of the book quickly thereafter ...

(Cover by Ed Emshwiller)

These novels both come very early in their authors' careers. Depending on how you define "novel", Threshold of Eternity is Brunner's first, second, or third. And The War of Two Worlds, if you want to call it a novel (at some 35,000 words, it is shorter than the offical SFWA definition), might be Anderson's second.

I've written about both authors before, so I won't recap biographical details. Both were very prolific writers. Anderson became an SFWA Grand Master, and I think Brunner would have been one too, if he hadn't died so young (aged only 60, at the 1995 Worldcon in Glasgow). Both were proficient in entertaining adventure-oriented SF, but also, especially later in their careers, produced serious and challenging work.

Threshold of Eternity was first published in New Worlds, December 1957 through February 1958. I don't know if that serialization was the same as the 1959 Ace Double edition, though I suspect it was pretty similar. It's just about 50,000 words long. The War of Two Worlds was first published in Two Complete Science-Adventure Books for Winter 1953 as "Silent Victory". That version seems to be substantially the same as the Ace Double ... both are in the neighborhood of 35,000 words. (I much prefer, obviously, the original title. It was reprinted under that name in the 2014 NESFA Press collection A Bicycle Built for Brew. (It had earlier been reprinted in The Worlds of Poul Anderson as "War of Two Worlds".))

(Cover by Ed Valigursky)

In the final analysis I must agree with Alvaro -- these two novels aren't very good. They are very early in each writer's career, as I noted, and it shows. The simplest way to put it as that Brunner's novel is more ambitious -- and it fails -- while Anderson's novel is more successful -- because it tries much less. (Brunner's "The Wanton of Argus", a shorter and earlier piece eventually published as a very short "novel" is also more successful than Threshold of Eternity -- because less ambitious.)

So to begin with the longer novel -- Threshold of Eternity. It opens in California in 1957 or so, as one-legged Red Hawkins encounters a French-speaking girl who couldn't possibly be there -- and, indeed, it turns out that Chantal Vareze was just in London. What's stranger is the other person they soon encounter, a man named Burma who turns out to be from thousands of years in the future.

We jump, then, to the future, where Magwareet is helping to coordinate humanity's desperate war against mysterious aliens called The Enemy. One of the side effects of their battles, and also of a strange entity called The Being, is temporal surges, which can throw people into the far past. And Magwareet has just realized that his friend Burma has been flung into the past, to the distress of Burma's wife, Artesha, who we soon realize is embodied in the computers that control human society. Meanwhile a sort of "city in flight" (a la James Blish) has been encountered, infested with one of the Enemy, who becomes the first humans can capture alive.

Soon Burma has shanghaied Red and Chantal to his future. Red in particular is annoyed, but he is soon placated when their magic tech fixes his leg, and also when he learns the super-efficient language the people of the future speak, which helps them think more clearly, so that Red realizes all his hostility was due to resentment of his handicap. The two are quickly recruited into the war against the Enemy, which ends up involving more trips to the past (Holland in the 16th Century), as well as doppelgangers for most of the main characters, and eventually a realization of the true nature of The Being, and a curious (and, to me, unsatisfying) ending, with a really strange fate for Chantal in particular.

(Cover by Kelly Freas)

It's all kind of a mess, but amid all that there's no denying Brunner's imagination -- even if it comes off as downright 1930s superscientific guff much of the time. It's interesting to note that Damien Broderick, one of the underappreciated SF writers of our time, and a writer with a history of fascination with wild SF ideas, has written an "elaboration" of Threshold of Eternity, due out from Arc Manor later this year.

Poul Anderson's The War of Two Worlds was first published, as I note above, as "Silent Victory" in the Winter 1953 issue of Two Complete Science-Adventure Books. This was a magazine that published two short novels per issue, often reprints (sometimes abridged) but also often originals. The other story in this issue was an abridgement of John D. MacDonald's 1952 novel Ballroom of the Skies.

It opens with Intelligence Prime, now the alien ruler of the Solar System, receiving a manuscript written by David Arnfeld, who had discovered the aliens and tried to start a resistance, before being betrayed by his companion Christine Hawkins, in order to save her young child.

The rest of the book is Arnfeld's manuscript, which opens as he, once part of Earth's Space Navy, returns to a defeated Earth after a bitter and useless war with Mars, that Earth lost. Arnfeld makes his way to upstate New York and his old farm, along the way acquiring Christine Hawkins and her young daughter. Once at his farm he is disgusted to learn that he will be forced to accomodate a Martian garrison, commanded by Sevni Regelin dzu Corothan.

Inevitably, if slowly, he comes to realize that Regelin is as honorable a creature as he hopes he is himself, and they reluctantly become sort of friends, despite Kit Hawkins' hostility. (It will not surprise the reader that Kit and David are falling for each other.) David soon realizes that Regelin is just as disgusted and confused by the war between Earth and Mars, and by its incompetent conduct, as he is. And then they have visitors -- a senior Martian and his human Quisling. And by accident, David electrocutes one of them, and it shapeshifts -- it is an alien!

We can see right away what has happened -- the Solar System has been invaded by shapeshifting aliens, who took the form of leaders of both Earth and Mars, in order to force them into a foolish and destructive war, after which they can take over both planets. David, Kit, and "Reggie" begin a desperate attempt to raise awareness that the Martian leaders and their human collaborators are infested with shapeshifters ... but how can they succeed, when any of those they encounter might be aliens themselves?

The resolution, frankly, is unconvincing. Along the way, though, Anderson paints of picture of not two but three desperate races, forced into terrible acts for understandable if regrettable reasons. It's reasonably fun, if very very minor Anderson.

Hugo Nomination Thoughts: Long Fiction (and some notes on Dramatic Presentation)

Hugo Nomination Thoughts, Long Fiction (and Dramatic Presentation)

In past years, “Long Fiction” just meant “Novel”, but this year there is one new category to  consider, a Hugo for Best Series Perhaps we should also start thinking about another new award, likely to come along next year (if ratified in Helsinki), for Best Young Adult Fiction (which would not officially be a Hugo Award, but would be voted on by the same population using the same rules (as with the Campbell Award for Best New Writer). It does not yet have a name, the best option (Andre Norton Award) already being taken for the similar award given by SFWA. (And thanks to Andrew M., commenting at File 770, for reminding me that the YA Award will not be given this year.)

So this is the point where I confess that I read so much short fiction that I’m not qualified to rule on Best Novel. I’ve said this every year for the past few years. I always end up reading my favorite novels a bit too late – so, for instance, I think the best SF novels of 2014 were Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven and William Gibson’s The Peripheral, but I didn’t read them until 2016. Likewise, for 2015, I didn’t read Jo Walton’s The Just City until after the Hugos were awarded, and I didn’t finish my favorite 2015 novel, The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, until early 2017. There are, thus, plenty of 2017 novels I think might be excellent that I haven’t yet read, including The Gradual, by Christopher Priest; Everfair, by Nisi Shawl; Necessity, by Jo Walton; The Winged Histories, by Sofia Samatar; Central Station, by Lavie Tidhar; and Crosstalk, by Connie Willis are six that I already have on hand, and definitely will read, perhaps very soon. I am sure there are many more. And all that said I can only recommend two novels from 2017 that I liked a lot, both, as it happens, first novels. (I suppose technically there are two more pretty good novels that I read and marked as novellas, but both are eligible as novels: Penric’s Mission, by Lois McMaster Bujold; and The Last Days of New Paris, by China Miéville. One more pretty good novel, also pretty short but longer than novella length, I think, is Walter Jon Williams’ Impersonations, his latest Praxis story, though as I note below, I don't consider it quite Hugo-worthy.)

The two first novels I mentioned are All the Birds in the Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders; and Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer. Both are fairly seamless mixtures of SF and Fantasy (though Palmer’s novel reads like pure SF with a difficult to explain fantastical intrusion, while Anders’ novel reads like Fantasy set in a pretty SFnal near future.) All the Birds in the Sky is the story of Patricia, who can talk to birds, and Lawrence, who has invented a two-second time machine, as they grow up, both somewhat dysfunctionally, and end up friends and sometime lovers in a near future facing imminent collapse due to global warming. Both promote solutions – Patricia’s fantastical, Lawrence’s science-fictional, and both make terrible mistakes, before a literally earth-shaking conclusion. It’s funny – Anders is always funny – and serious as well (Anders is usually serious too). I really liked it. Too Like the Lightning is set several centuries in the future, in a world divided into “Hives”, cooperative family-like organizations with different strengths. The narrator is Mycroft Canner, who, we slowly learn, is a criminal (and the nature of his crime, only late revealed, is pretty appalling), but who is also quite engaging, and an important mentor to an amazing child who can bring inanimate things to life. This novel introduces a conflict – a threat to the world’s balance of power – and also intricately sketches the complex background of this future, and introduces a ton of neat characters. Then it stops, which is its main weakness – it is but half a novel. The sequel (Seven Surrenders) is due in March 2017. In the end I was impressed but unsatisfied – leaving a novel perhaps not quite Hugo-worthy (though the author is surely Campbell-worthy!), but a novel which will compel me to read its sequel, which, if it sticks the dismount, might be Hugo-worthy itself.

Speaking of first novels, one that I haven't read but definitely need to get to is Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee. Lee has been doing really outstanding work for a long time -- I've used a few of his stories in my anthologies, and in a way it's a surprise that his first novel is only coming out now. But it looks very interesting indeed.

Best Series

Considering this brand new category reminds me of one novel that I have just read, Impersonations, by Walter Jon Williams, a new pendant to his Praxis (or Dread Empire’s Fall) series. It’s a fun story, and I’m glad I read it, but I don’t think it’s Hugo-worthy by itself. I am strongly considering nominating the entire series for a Hugo, however.

And, indeed, that hints at one of my misgivings about the Hugo for Best Series. The most recent entry in a series may not be particularly representative of the series as a whole, nor as good as the rest of the series. The same comment, obviously, applies to Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series, represented in 2016 by the rather pedestrian Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. I would say personally that both Bujold’s Vorkosigan series and Williams’ Praxis book are worthy, over all, of a Best Series Hugo, but that the best time to award them that Hugo has passed. (Which, to be sure, is primarily a function of this being a brand new award.)

At any rate, I was wondering what the possible candidates for Best Series, eligible in 2016, might be, and I was delighted to find that JJ, over at File 770, had done the heavy lifting, producing this page with a good long list of potential eligible series: http://file770.com/?p=30940.

Of those my personal favorites are:

Dread Empire’s Fall, by Walter Jon Williams (note that JJ lists Impersonations, the 2016 entry, as a novella, though it seems more of a short novel to me, and Jonathan Strahan tells me it's about 55,000 words long)

The Vorkosigan Series, by Lois McMaster Bujold

The World of Five Gods, by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Expanse, by James S. A. Corey

The Fairyland Books, by Catherynne S. Valente

The Laundry Files, by Charles Stross

The Liaden Universe, by Steve Miller and Sharon Lee

The RCN Books (Leary/Mundy), by David Drake

Riverside, by Ellen Kushner

Temeraire, by Naomi Novik

Thessaly, by Jo Walton

And immediately I see a problem – common to series, I think. While I’ve read and enjoyed many books in each of these series, I’ve fallen behind in many of them. I didn’t even know there were new entries in Ellen Kushner’s Riverside series or David Drake’s RCN books. (And, hey, speaking of problems with the Best Series Hugo, does Delia Sherman get a Hugo too if the Riverside series wins, as she co-wrote one of the major novels in that series, The Fall of the Kings?) Which, by the way, isn’t a bad thing from my point of view – I’ll be glad to grab the new books in both of those series.

There’s also a big difference in the types of these series. Some comprise several books with a fairly coherent story arc: certainly Jo Walton’s Thessaly books are a pretty tight trilogy; and the Temeraire and Expanse series, a bit more loosely, are still pretty coherent. Some represent mostly just a universe in which to set stories, with perhaps some sub-arcs: the Liaden books, the RCN books, the Vorkosigan books, for example. Dread Empire’s Fall is an original closely unified trilogy, followed by two much shorter pendants (one about each of the two main characters of the original trilogy). I suppose this isn't really a fatal problem – the voters can judge for themselves how to evaluate each of these types of series.

To be honest, I’m not sure what, or even if, I’ll nominate. I will see if I can catch up in a couple of the series I like but am behind in. There’s a good chance I’ll nominate Kushner’s series, because I think it deserves the attention. Beyond that, I just don’t know. I have enjoyed books in each of the series I listed – I wouldn’t be bothered by any of them winning a Hugo (though many of them – not that this is a bad thing, mind you – represent lighter entertainment than we often think of for the Hugos – possibly this is partly the nature of long series.)

Best YA Novel

This potential new award, as I mentioned, would not be a Hugo, but would be administered and awarded by the World Science Fiction Society. For this year, I have little to say – I really haven’t read enough books in this category to make any ruling or recommendations. I can recommend a look at the Locus Recommendation list, which includes a section on YA novels: http://www.locusmag.com/News/2017/01/2016-locus-recommended-reading-list/. I will say that I’m intrigued by the presence of Alastair Reynolds’ Revenger, which I didn’t know was YA. And I’m sure that many of these books are very good work indeed – but I haven’t read them, so further deponent sayeth not.

Dramatic Presentation

To my mind, this is one of those years in which the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, should be awarded by acclamation, to Arrival, an excellent film based on one of the very best SF stories of all time, Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life”. Of course, being based on a good story doesn’t guarantee a good film (as those who have seen the movie version of Nightfall can testify, or so I am given to understand) – but Arrival is a very good film (if not, to my mind, quite as good as the original story, which is hardly a complaint, as the original story is so great).

Beyond that, I will say that I enjoyed Rogue One, but didn’t love it – it will probably get a nomination, and deservedly enough I suppose, but it would be a disgrace if it won. I have seen suggestions that Hidden Figures could be nominated – that seems silly to me, but I suppose it would get the Apollo 13 exception. (If so, can I nominate Michael Chabon’s Moonglow for Best Novel?) I don’t really have any other obvious candidates.

As for Short Form, I don’t watch Doctor Who so I’m not allowed to nominate. (Joke!) Actually, I don’t watch that much TV – I just started on The Magicians, which I am enjoying so far, and I suspect I would like The Expanse, and I know there’s lots of other cool stuff out there. But I haven’t seen enough to judge.

Hugo Nomination Thoughts: Best Novella (Revised)

[This post is a revised version of my previous post on potential novella nominees, reflecting questions about the eligibility of a couple of my suggestions, as well as reflecting my reading three more highly recommended novellas.]

Novella

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, by Kij Johnson (Tor.com Books)

“The Vanishing Kind”, by Lavie Tidhar (F&SF, July/August)

“Lazy Dog Out”, by Suzanne Palmer (Asimov’s, April/May)

“Maggots”, by Nina Allan (Five Stories High)

The Iron Tactician, by Alastair Reynolds (NewCon Press)

The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle (Tor.com Books)

The Last Days of New Paris, by China Mieville (Del Rey)

Penric’s Mission, by Lois McMaster Bujold (Spectrum Literary Agency) [technically just slightly too long to be eligible in the Novella category]

Technologies of the Self, by Haris A. Durani (Brain Mill Books)

The Jewel and Her Lapidary, by Fran Wilde (Tor.com Books) [technically a novelette at some 16,900 words, though also eligible in Novella]

In this category, there are only two stories included in my book – that’s always the way, with novellas – they take up so much space that I can only fit a couple per year. The top five stories listed will almost certainly be on my Hugo nomination ballot. That said, there are a few significant novellas I have not yet read, so there is some room for change.  But to quickly cover my putative nominees:

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is a truly lovely story, taking its inspiration and setting from H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”, but more importantly, written as well as the work of the writer Lovecraft was under the influence of when he wrote his story: Lord Dunsany. The title character is a professor at a women’s college who must chase after a student who has foolishly run away with a man from our world.

“The Vanishing Kind” is dark noir set in an alternate England, under the sway of a Nazi government, having lost World War II. A German screenwriter comes to London partly in pursuit of an actress who had briefly been his lover, only to find her involved in some very scary things – drugs, sex-trafficking, murder – not to mention hidden Jews.

“Lazy Dog Out” is traditional SF adventure, and lots of fun, about a space tug pilot on a moon of a colony planet, who gets stuck in the middle of a nasty plot involving framing some unfortunates for the murder of some visiting aliens.

“Maggots” is a long story about a young man from the North of England who becomes convinced that his Aunt, after a mysterious disappearance and reappearance, has been replaced by something alien. This ends up messing up his relationship with his girlfriend, and he ends up in London, tracking down hints of other people who’ve had similar experiences as his – which leads him to a spooky house where he encounters something really scary, as well as learning a lot about his Aunt that he hadn’t known.

The Iron Tactician is the latest Merlin story from Alastair Reynolds, set in a far future in which humanity is threatened with destruction by Berserker-like robots called Huskers. This story, set more or less to the side of the main action, has Merlin encountering a ship destroyed by the Huskers, with one survivor, who leads him to a system riven by war, which may have a syrinx to replace Merlin’s decaying one. The story truly turns on the nature of the AI which one side of the war has used to plan their campaigns, the Iron Tactician, and on its real nature and motivations. The story starts a bit slow but is resolved really effectively.

I’m not a horror fan, not a Lovecraft fan, which is one reason I resisted Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom. And it is Lovecraftian horror, though with a distinct twist. Still – not my favorite stuff – but I have to say this is a pretty strong story regardless. It’s set in New York in the ‘20s, about a black man, a bit of a con man, who becomes involved with a rich white man who believes he can summon the Old Ones from the depths – and so perhaps he can, but if he calls them will they do what he wants? And will Black Tom care? Solid work, and really well written in spots, but in spots written a bit carelessly, as if it needed one more draft.

The Last Days of New Paris is subtitled “A Novella”, so I list it here. Its main part is perhaps 39,000 words, which qualifies it as a novella, but there is a long section of endnotes, which brings it to well over 45,000 words, so I’ll leave the question of its eligibility for the Best Novella Hugo to others. But it’s very interesting, set in an alternate Paris during and after World War II. In this Paris a curious weapon has brought Surrealist art to life, with ambiguous effects, and Thibaut, the main character, along with an American spy named Sam, negotiates the city and the Nazis’ efforts to use their art as weapons in an attempt at, perhaps, escape – or, perhaps, an encounter with some arguably more threatening than the Nazis. As I said, it’s pretty interesting, but I thought it perhaps a bit too much a really neat idea looking for a story and not really finding one. (To be fair, there really is a story here, just not one I was entranced by. But, the central idea is very cool indeed.)

I ought to say something as well about the other two novellas I mention. Technologies of the Self is about Joe (real name Jihad), a Dominican-Pakistani-American growing up in New York, and a faithful Muslim in post-9/11 New York, also an engineering student, a young man a bit shy around woman, proud of his Dominican heritage and his family’s long history of exile. The SFnal part concerns his Uncle Tomas, particularly his repeated encounters with a creature he thinks is a demon called Santiago (but who might be a strange time traveler, or a person from a parallel world, or all of the above). Cool and involving work about the main character’s identity (or identities). And The Jewel and Her Lapidary also has a cool central fantastical idea: a valley protected from outsiders by powerful jewels that are wielded by the ruling family (“Jewels”) but controlled by Lapidaries who each bond to a single Jewel. This story concerns the betrayal and fall of the valley, leaving one surviving Jewel and her Lapidary, both fairly insignificant young women. They must find a way to resist the invaders, and at least to prevent them using the valley’s mines to supply jewels to allow them to cement and extend their conquest.

[I had previously mentioned Penric’s Mission as a potential Novella nominee, and my favorite so far of Bujold’s three self-published novellas set in her World of the Five Gods. Penric is a young man who in the first story became the host to a demon (that he calls “Desdemona”), which makes him a sorcerer. In this story he travels to another country to try to recruit a popular General for the Duke he’s working for, and ends up enmeshed in local politics, with the General blinded, and Penric trying to help, and falling for the General’s widowed sister in the process. Fun stuff, with some interesting magic. However, I am told that this story is 300 words too long to be eligible for Best Novella.]

Hugo Nomination Thoughts: Short Fiction: Short Story

Short Story

“Empty Planets”, by Rahul Kanakia (Interzone, January/February)

“Red in Tooth and Cog”, by Cat Rambo (F&SF, March/April)

“Red King”, by Craig de Lancey (Lightspeed, March)

“That Game We Played During the War”, by Carrie Vaughn (Tor.com, March)

“All That Robot Shit”, by Rich Larson (Asimov’s, September)

“Openness”, by Alexander Weinstein (Beloit Fiction Journal, Spring)

“Between Nine and Eleven”, by Adam Roberts (Crises and Conflicts)

“Gorse Daughter, Sparrow Son”, by Alena Indigo Anne Sullivan (Strange Horizons, August 1^st and 8^th)

“In Skander, for a Boy”, by Chaz Brenchley (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, January 16)

“Laws of Night and Silk”, by Seth Dickinson (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May 26)

“Ozymandias”, by Karin Lowachee (Bridging Infinity)

“A Fine Balance”, by Charlotte Ashley (F&SF, November/December)

“Rager in Space”, by Charlie Jane Anders (Bridging Infinity)

“Innumerable Glittering Lights”, by Rich Larson (Clockwork Phoenix 5)

“Dress Rehearsal”, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Now We Are Ten)

“Something Happened Here, but We’re Not Quite Sure What it Was”, by Paul McAuley (Tor.com, July)

“I’ve Come to Marry the Princess”, by Helena Bell (Lightspeed, November)

“A Non-Hero’s Guide to the Road of Monsters”, by A. T. Greenblatt (Mothership Zeta, July)

“Things With Beards”, by Sam J. Miller (Clarkesworld, June)

“The Magical Properties of Unicorn Ivory”, by Carlos Hernandez (The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria)

Lots of stories listed there, and they are all good stuff. Noticeable is, of course, Rich Larson, who really had an excellent year. I think there’s a nice mix, too, af fantasy and SF, some funny stories, some quite dark, hard SF, far future SF, action, philosophy. I’m leaning towards the top five listed stories (though, really, as with the other categories, all these stories are worthy) for my nomination ballot. To consider those a bit further:

“Empty Planets” is an achingly beautiful and rather melancholy story set in the very far future, with a diminishing human race realizing it is alone in the universe. The story focuses on two people from the younger generation, one of who, a “recontactee” from a generation ship, looks for evidence of intelligence among distant gas clouds.

“Red in Tooth and Cog” is a sometimes whimsical, clever, and also quite affecting, story about abandoned robots in a city park who have created their own ecology. The combination of sweetness and sharp imagination really grabbed me.

“RedKing” tells of the title computer game, that causes its users to become killers, and a “code monkey” whose job is to analyze the software, both to understand what makes is dangerous, and to find evidence against the maker – but that job is by its nature dangerous. It’s a slick, exciting, and scary story.

“That Game We Played During the War” is a moving piece set in the aftermath of a war between a telepathic race and non-telepaths, and two people who met during the war, and played chess together, working out how to play even while one is a telepath, and how they try to come to terms with peace.

“All That Robot Shit” is (I believe) Rich Larson’s preferred title for the story published in Asimov’s as “All That Robot …”. It’s about a robot and a human after an apocalypse of some sort which means there probably aren’t many more humans – and about the robot’s cooperation with the human – but more importantly his love for another robot. 

Old Bestseller: Champion's Choice, by John R. Tunis

Old Bestseller: Champion's Choice, by John R. Tunis

a review by Rich Horton

Until quite recently, books for children (and "juveniles") were not considered for bestseller lists, so I don't know where John R. Tunis' books might have ranked. But he was a very popular writer of sports stories for young readers, and indeed my mother (whose Master's degree was in what she called "kidlit") recommended his work to me when I was a kid. I remember reading his baseball novel Highpockets with enjoyment. In this context I can mention that a subthread of this blog's look at "Old Bestsellers" is occasional consideration of popular fiction for young readers -- in the past I've looked at a "Roy Rockwood" book, at a Tom Corbett: Space Cadet book, at a house-written book called Alice Blythe Somewhere in England (a WWI book), at a Horatio Alger book, and at YA SF by Sonya Dorman and by Richard Elam.

John R. Tunis (1889-1975) came from a wealthy background, somewhat diminished when his father's family disowned him for marrying a waiter's daughter, and indeed refused to come to his funeral, when John was only 7. John was still able to attend Harvard, though he later wrote an article critical of the Harvard education. After WWI, Tunis moved to Europe and became a sportswriter. He was also a very accomplished tennis player, once playing a doubles match against Suzanne Lenglen, one of the all time great woman players. Back in the US, he freelanced for a wide variety of major magazines, such as Harper's and the Atlantic Monthly. Perhaps most importantly, he wrote a regular column on sports for the New Yorker. He was also a sports announcer on radio, particularly for tennis, and was part of the first TransAtlantic tennis broadcast.

His first novel was American Girl (1929 or 1930, sources differ), described as a thinly-disguised and somewhat unsympathetic portrayal of the great tennis player Helen Wills Moody. This became a movie in 1951, called Hard, Fast, and Beautiful, directed by Ida Lupino. This was his only novel marketed for adults, though Tunis apparently objected when Harcourt Brace wanted to publish his next novel, Iron Duke (1938) as a juvenile. This was a new category (Tunis is sometimes credited with popularizing it). Be that as it may, his remaining 23 novels were all marketed for children. The bulk of them were about baseball, though a few concerned football, basketball, tennis, or track, and there were even a couple not really about sports. Tunis' books were noticeable for promoting equal participation for minorities (particular African Americans and Jews), and more generally for promoting sportsmanship, and for a skepticism about the professionalism of sports.

(I'll add that though I didn't read a ton of sports novels as a kid, I do remember a few -- besides Tunis' Highpockets, there was at least one of the Chip Hilton novels by Clair Bee, and Jack Laflin's football novel Throw the Long Bomb! Are sports novels for the YA market still a thing?)

Given that tennis was Tunis' main sport as a participant, and apparently the sport he was best known for announcing, it's a bit surprising that only two of his books were about tennis, both about the women's game. One of course was his first, adult, novel, American Girl, and the other was the book at hand, Champion's Choice (1940). Interestingly, though I haven't read American Girl, it's easy to see, based on descriptions of that book and of the movie loosely based on it, that Champion's Choice has a lot of similarity to that book (and some important differences as well, to be sure). (Indeed, some sources incorrectly cite Champion's Choice as the basis for the movie Hard, Fast, and Beautiful.) It can be argued that it is a reworking of the earlier novel for a younger audience.

Champion's Choice opens in Millville, MA, with young Janet Johnson and her slightly older friend Rodney Davis happening across a tennis exhibition. Janet becomes intrigued with the sport, and as her family can't affort membership at a tennis club, her father paints their garage door with targets so that she can practice hitting a tennis ball. She becomes a very accurate hitter, and something of a prodigy, and gets sponsored by a wealthier family to become a tennis club member. Soon she is competing at the US Junior Championships, and though she loses (in the final) to an older and better coached girl, she attracts the attention of a coach.

Her game improves rapidly (i.e., she learns to hit a backhand) and before long she's competing in the US Championships, and, surprisingly, at Wimbledon. Again she loses only in the final, and some advice from her old friend Rodney Davis, now a young businessman based in London, helps her over the psychological hump. Things progress rapidly, and in no time she's the best tennis player in the world, winning both the US Championships and Wimbledon several times in succession. (These details are in some ways consistent with the career of Helen Wills.) There are a few bumps in her road -- her father dies, and her mother suffers a severe illness, which causes Janet to make a dramatic flight in a private plane to the hospital in Millville, in between the semifinals and final of the US Championships. 

Rodney, who has suffered business reversals, moves to the Far East, but not before warning Janet that the way she has learned to act to be a "champion", and to maintain her image and superiority, is harming her character. She is not too receptive to this criticism, and in the final sequence we see her in London, once again defending her Wimbledon title, and dating a dull but eligible Baronet. Then Rodney returns, and Janet is faced with a wrenching choice ...

What does she choose? Well, I think you know. That's the sort of resolution we expect from a 1940 novel, and it is kind of jarring. Indeed, the novel has a series of shortcuts -- Janet's path to the top is implausibly easy, stopped only by initial losses in finals -- as if she is never less than second best. Other things are overly coincidental -- her mother's illness, Rodney's schedule, etc. The final crisis, timed right at the Wimbledon final, seems really contrived. But it must also be said that the book is continually readable. The tennis scenes are generally plausible and well-described, And Janet's character holds together well. It is easy to believe in her, and in her reactions to celebrity. In the end, this is a pretty good YA sports book, not a great one. But maybe as good as we might have hoped.