Retro Magazine Review: Astounding, July 1955

Retro Magazine Review: Astounding, July 1955

Astounding Science Fiction, under the editorship of John W. Campbell, Jr., was the central magazine of the so-called "Golden Age of Science Fiction", which is typically considered to have lasted from 1938 through the 1940s. Campbell's influence was both good and bad, though I believe on balance the good outweighed the bad. He insisted on better prose from his writers than had been typical in the pulp magazines of the 1930s. He encouraged a greater focus on plausible scientific rationales for the speculations in the stories he published (which is not to deny that a certain amount of scientifically absurd tropes were still acceptable, nor that Campbell himself had an attraction to some very doubtful scientific ideas.) He was very supportive of new writers. His politics were certainly of the Right, but he was tolerant of stories by writers who disagreed with him. That said, he was also tolerant of profoundly imperialist attitudes, and sometimes racist attitudes; and his support of crank science led him to midwife the birth of Scientology by publishing L. Ron Hubbard's first Dianetics essay. In his latter years, Campbell's taste seemed to ossify, and his 1960s Analog (Astounding after a rename) was often boring, often obsessed with "psionics", though not worthless -- Poul Anderson's contributions remained interesting, and towards the end he published a few very interesting new writers, notably James Tiptree, Jr., and Stephen Chapman.

The Golden Age, in the common narrative, ended with the founding of two key competitors to Astounding -- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1949, and Galaxy in 1950. The real story is muddier, as most stories are: the sister pulp magazines Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories had greatly improved by the late 1940s, and other magazines such as Planet Stories and Amazing Stories were mixing in some excellent fiction -- though to be sure often benefiting from the writers Campbell had nurtured. In my view, though, by 1950 the focus of the field had certainly broadened, due not only to these new magazines, and the improvement of older magazines, but also due to the emergence of books as a market for science fiction writers. Ultimately I think the science fiction of the 1950s was better than that of the 1940s -- standing on the shoulders of that decade's advancements, no doubt, but still superior, better written, and featuring a broader range of views. But Astounding soldiered on. And here is a look at an issue from right in the middle of that decade.

The cover for this issue is by Kelly Freas, who had just recently become a regular artist for Astounding, a role which he maintained nearly until his death in 2005 (his last new work for Analog appeared in 2003.) Interiors are by Freas, H. R. van Dongen (another long-time ASF artist) and by "Riley". I couldn't find out anything about "Riley" -- he illustrated five stories for Astounding in 1954/1955, and that seems to be it. (The ISFDB credits him for some illustrations (in other places) in the 21st Century, but I doubt those are the same person.)

The stories then, beginning with two by Eric Frank Russell, a Campbell regular.

"The Waitabits"

A Terran military team lands on a world they have been warned is unconquerable. The natives do indeed turn out to be unconquerable, but for an amusing reason. Decent enough, but I think a bit long for its substance.

"Tieline" (under the name Duncan H. Munro, presumably for the fairly obvious reason that it appeared in the same issues as "The Waitabits")

Men sent to an isolated "lighthouse" planet inevitably go mad. How can they be kept sane? A bad story -- the setup is strained beyond belief (they go insane on 10-year hitches -- why not try shorter hitches? Pets aren't allowed -- but that is pretty much contradicted by the eventual solution.).

"In Clouds of Glory", by Algis Budrys

I mentioned above Campbell's imperialist sympathies. It's not fair to evaluate anyone on a single story, but "In Clouds of Glory" is certainly a prominent exhibit supporting that description of his tendencies. It's a fairly early story in the career of Algis Budrys -- an author I greatly admire for his best work. This is early stuff, however, and Budrys was still developing his skills. On the other hand, by the time this story appeared, Budrys had published some 40 stories and a novel, including such outstanding work as "The End of Summer" and "Nobody Bothers Gus". In that company "In Clouds of Glory" reads to me as something written to order to satisfy Campbell. (And it has only been reprinted once, in an anthology co-edited by Jerry Pournelle and called Imperial Stars, Volume I: The Stars at War.)

The story concerns one Bill Demaris, who works for a shady organization called the Agency. His job is to go in disguise to alien planets, and foment wars, or manipulate wars, so that the Earth's favored side "wins". Demaris himself is bitter that Man's ambitions seem to stop at Pluto, however -- there are all those planets out there to conquer, so why aren't we? His newest mission has him undergoing a special treatment so that he looks like and smells like whichever alien race he's infiltrating, and worming his way into a place of trust, from which he can arrange that the local King for whom he "works" wins his war in the most damaging way possible. The trick ending is that the other guys in the war are also "helped" by a disguised Earthman, with the ultimate object being to pretty much leave the various planets involved ripe for the picking when Earth decides to conquer them. There's also some guff about the pampered rich people back on Earth being too soft for the job of conquering new planets, so that this secret Agency recruits only the toughest, who will of course eventually be the colonizers. Oh -- and one way they manage to get themselves hired as advisers everywhere is to poison the most influential of the aliens so they are too stupid to effectively operate. 

It's really profoundly offensive. There's a lot of pretty overt cynicism among the members of the "Agency" -- but no real regrets. After all, they're reasonably well paid, and Humanity Uber Alles, eh?  It occurred to me that Budrys might have intended the story to be satirical, but I don't think so, and if he did, the satire doesn't come through well.

"Rat Race", by Frank Herbert

Another fairly early story from a writer who would become very prominent about a decade later. "Rat Race" is a somewhat convoluted, but not uninteresting story. An investigator, visiting a mortuary to check up on a dead woman, sees some strange things -- a weird passageway, and disappearing tanks of -- something -- that don't seem to belong in a mortuary. He keeps following up, and the rather odd mortician shows signs of stress -- until he shoots the investigator and commits suicide. It's a science fiction story, so we can kind of guess what's going on -- the mortician is an alien. But why are aliens doing strange things with human bodies? The answer is a bit of a twist. I didn't quite buy all the steps it took to get there, but at least the story is after something interesting. 

"Earth, Air, Fire and Water", by Robert Sheckley

Robert Sheckley  and Algis Budrys started selling SF stories in the same year -- 1952 -- and were similarly prolific at the start of their career. (One could, through the 1950s but not really after that point, make a living selling short stories to magazines.)  Sheckley, at this point in his career, was better than Budrys, partly because he was often funny, partly because he was a clever writer in a way Budrys wasn't. Unfortunately, "Earth, Air, Fire and Water" isn't him at his best, not even close. A space pilot is on a mission to Venus, with two objectives -- recover some recording devices from an unmanned probe, and test a brand new spacesuit model. Upon landing, he puts on the suit and starts walking to the probe -- but there's a snowstorm and, for unconvincing reasons, the spacesuit is a problem and he has to take it off ... It's really just not a good story. It's filler.

"The Long Way Home", part 4 of 4, by Poul Anderson

This serial was Anderson's fourth novel, only his second science fiction novel for adults, after Brain Wave (1954). (A juvenile, Vault of the Ages (1952), and a Norse-based fantasy, The Broken Sword (1954), were the other two predecessors.) I read this long ago and I don't remember it well. It's about a spaceship testing a hyperspace drive that returns to Earth to find that the drive doesn't really work like they thought, so they are 5000 years in the future. It was published in book form as No World of Their Own, part of an Ace Double backed with The 1000 Year Plan, by Isaac Asimov -- which of course was Foundation after application of the Don Wollheim title-generation algorithm. I have that Ace Double, and I'll read it soon and report on it! Later reprints restored Anderson's original title, and apparently also restored some cuts Campbell had made (I'm not sure if the Ace Double also had those cuts restored.)

"Brass Tacks" and also Campbell's editorial

"Brass Tacks" was the letter column at Astounding, and it was noticeable for tending to be focussed less on the quality of the stories the magazine published than it was on nitpicking -- or seriously disputing -- scientific or other ideas -- not just from the stories but from the science articles and also Campbell's editorials. In this issue all three letters take issue with a very controversial essay by Donald Kingsbury from the April issue, "The Right to Breed". Essentially (as I recall) Kingsbury was advocating draconian eugenics policies -- only allowing "worthy" parents to have children, in order to prevent overpopulation. A torrent of letters came in, almost all (apparently) vociferously rejecting Kingsbury's ideas. Campbell's editorial this issue, "The Fanatic", claims that Kingsbury's objective was to show that one could write something stringing together facts with logical deductions from them to come to an awful conclusion -- and that the readers were supposed to see that the point was that the essay demonstrated how fanatics took things too far and made seemingly logical steps lead one to a terrible place. Kingsbury later confirmed this, and said that he had to revise the piece multiple times at Campbell's insistence to get it just right. The letters reprinted in this issue give three responses -- two by readers who missed the point and one by a reader who basically got it.

"The Reference Library"

This is Astounding's Book Review column, which was written by P. Schuyler Miller from October 1951 through January 1975 (shortly after I started reading Analog). (Miller had died in October of 1974.) In this column he covers a couple of nonfiction books about Mars, plus the novels Earthman, Come Home, by James Blish; The Mouse That Roared, by Leonard Wibberley; False Night, by Algis Budrys; and The Chaos Fighters, by Robert Moore Williams. He ranks them pretty much in that order. He also discusses two anthologies: Stories for Tomorrow, edited by William Sloane; and Beyond the Barriers of Space and Time, edited by Judith Merril. He has very high praise for both anthologies, especially Merril's. A couple more nonfiction books are covered: The Sun and the Earth as a Planet, edited by Gerard Kuiper; and Sun, Sea and Sky, by Irving P. Krick and Roscoe Fleming. And Miller finishes by mentioning a couple of (gasp!) fantasies, which he describes as "charming". These books are by a certain Professor Tolkien -- The Hobbit, and The Fellowship of the Ring. Miller does praise them, but doesn't quite seem to get them -- though he had not yet seen The Two Towers nor The Return of the King. (He also misidentifies a character he is sure the readers will be fascinated by: Tom Bombadillo.)

"Is Bode's Law a Coincidence?", by Roy Malcolm

This is a short science article, discussing the still well-known suggestion that planetary orbits follow a predictable pattern, that works for the Solar System if you consider the asteroid belt to be where a planet should have been. It works, to one degree or another, with the major moons of some of the planets. But ever since its discovery (co-credited to Johann Ebert Bode and to Johann Daniel Titius, both German astronomers of the 18th Century) people have questioned whether the pattern represents something real or is, well, a coincidence. This article sensibly discusses the state of things as of 1955 -- and I was surprised to learn that the question is still somewhat open in 2026. (I have generally believed that it was most likely just a coincidence.)

The bottom line, I think, is that this is a pretty mediocre issue of Astounding, redeemed to some extent by the Herbert story and perhaps by the Anderson serial. The magazine, even in the 1950s, was usually a bit better than this, I'd say -- but this does show signs of the decline that, really, continued until Ben Bova took over after Campbell's death. 

Reclaimed SF Site Review: Emphyrio, by Jack Vance

Here's another SF Site review I'm posting on this blog after the demise of that wonderful site. This review was written in 2000.

The UK imprint Millennium is reprinting a number of classic SF novels as SF Masterworks. This is an effort for which they deserve much praise. I have at hand number 19 of this series of reprints, a 1969 novel by Jack Vance, Emphyrio. [I should note that more recently this novel was reprinted by the Library of America as part of Gary K. Wolfe's selections of some of the best American SF novels of the 1950s and 1960s -- the volume with Emphyrio is American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1968-1969.]

This is one of Vance's best novels, and in many ways a good introduction to this author. On display are many of the hallmarks of his mature style: his elegant writing, his wonderful depiction of local colour, his unusual social systems. Emphyrio lacks only the humour that is so often present in Vance: this is one of his more melancholy books. It's also better plotted than many of his novels, and it's a stand-alone.

The story concerns a young man in the city of Ambroy (on the planet Halma) named Ghyl Tarvoke. Ghyl is the son of Amiante Tarvoke, a rather unconventional inhabitant of Ambroy. Amiante is a master carver of wooden screens, one of the handmade products that Ambroy exports to the rest of the Galaxy, but he is rather solitary, and does not produce especially many screens, and does not participate in the religious rituals of Ambroy, which involve intricate leaping (saltation).

Ghyl's childhood is wonderfully presented. It's rather lonely, but happy, as Amiante's rearing of Ghyl bids fair to make him as unconventional as his father. Ghyl explores much of his city, which is ruled by a very few "Lords" or "Remedials," who control the utilities and services of the city, and provide a guaranteed minimum support lifestyle to the common people who co-operate, in exchange for control of the market for Ambroy's artwork. Various regulations are enforced, most notably an absolute rule against duplication of any kind, ostensibly to ensure the maintenance of Ambroy's reputation for completely original handmade art.

Ghyl makes a few friends, some who end up "noncups," or people living outside the welfare system. He also learns eventually that his father's unconventionality extends to illegal duplication: his father has a collection of historical documents, which he duplicates. He also teaches Ghyl the writing systems used in these old documents. One old document is an unfinished version of the legend of Emphyrio, a hero of the past on the planet Aume who helped humans throw off the domination of aliens from the mood Sigil. As Ghyl grows older, he remains isolated from most of his fellows, an isolation only enhanced by his brief affair with a Lord's daughter, and further exacerbated by his father's eventual punishment and death for his duplicating.

Finally Ghyl is pushed to a desperate act, kidnapping a Lord's spaceship. This leads to a journey offworld, where he eventually learns much about the true story of Emphyrio and the true nature of his own planet, of the Lords who rule it and the mysterious puppet makers of the moon Damar. The resolution is satisfying if a bit odd, with a nice twist. However, although the plot of this novel is satisfactory, the real pleasures, as with all Vance, lie elsewhere.

This book features, for one thing, a very satisfying depiction of an odd, lonely but happy, childhood. For a second thing, there is the culture of Ambroy, which is perhaps not so odd as some of Vance's social structures, but still fascinating, with its welfare system, prohibition of duplication, mysterious Lords, and unusual and mordantly amusing punishments. Thirdly there is Vance's always elegant prose, with his glorious touch for names of people (Amiante Tarvoke), alien races (the Garrion), and places (Daillie); and his knack for coining words (noncups, skeel, Remedials). And finally, his plots, even when unsatisfactorily resolved, often seem to be following conventional paths before suddenly taking unusual but believable turns. Vance's main weakness, besides his occasional trouble with endings, is his cavalier approach towards scientific realism. With some writers this bothers me, but I think it's best with Vance simply to ignore this. So what if his spaceships seem but cars that can be driven at FTL? That's not the point with Vance.

I might make a minor quibble about the production values of this book. It appears to use the plates from the 1979 DAW edition, slightly enlarged, and complete with typos. This is not as attractive as it might be. But I'm only quibbling: if the money thereby saved makes this project feasible, I'm happy. Besides, there is a nice new cover painting.

Repatriated SF Site Review: My Favorite Science Fiction Story, edited by Martin H. Greenberg

I was a bit surprised to realize that I haven't posted here in half a month -- but I have a good reason: my new grandson, Sylvester Took Whitman, was born, and my wife and I have been at Sylvester's home, babysitting his older siblings while my daughter was in the hospital, and welcoming Sylvester when he came home.

Here's another review that I wrote for the great but now sadly defunct website SF Site. This one is from 1999.

Review: My Favorite Science Fiction Story, edited by Martin H. Greenberg

In this new anthology, Martin H. Greenberg uses a gimmick that I've seen before, but one which still has legs. He has selected several prominent SF writers of the present day, and asked them to choose one favorite SF story. Their choices form this anthology.

Ideally, an anthology of this nature should have two aims: 1) simply to present a collection of outstanding stories, to participate, if you will, in the process of SF canon-forming; and 2) to throw light on the influences on the selecting writers. It might suggest what stories appeal to writers, as possibly opposed to readers (something in the way that the Nebula Awards do), and it might illustrate the development process of the field. It doesn't really appear that Greenberg had any special intent to reinforce this secondary aim, however.

For one thing, the authors chosen to select stories are not a particularly homogeneous group, either in age or in being members of any identifiable "school" or "movement." In addition, the stories chosen seem for the most part to be chosen as favorite reads, not so much as influences. This is not really a complaint, just an observation: what we are left with, thus, is mostly an anthology of the first type, a canon-building anthology.

The authors selecting stories are Arthur C. Clarke, Anne McCaffrey, Joe Haldeman, Frederik Pohl, Mike Resnick, Andre Norton, Alan Dean Foster, Poul Anderson, Harry Turtledove, Greg Bear, Connie Willis, Lois McMaster Bujold, L. Sprague de Camp, Robert Silverberg, Gregory Benford, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and David Drake. A varied lot, including writers who emerged during Campbell's "Golden Age," such as de Camp and Pohl, some who emerged slightly later, as with Clarke and Anderson, and continuing to such comparatively recent stars as Bear, Willis and Bujold.

I've been reading SF for quite some time now, and I've always liked short fiction, so the bulk of these stories are familiar to me. I was pleased to reread Theodore Sturgeon's "The Man Who Lost the Sea" for the umpteenth time: this story, Clarke's selection, may well have been mine if I were eligible to choose a story for a similar anthology. This is one of the most moving of all SF stories, and its theme lies at the heart of SF: the desire to keep exploring, the value of exploration for its own sake.

Other prominent selections include Frederik Pohl's brilliant story of what humans might become in the very far future, "Day Million" (chosen by Haldeman); C.M. Kornbluth's mordant SF Hall of Fame tale, "The Little Black Bag" (Pohl's choice), about a present day doctor discovering medical tools from the future, and the bitter misuse to which they are put; and Howard Waldrop's Nebula-winning tale of the fate of the last dodos, "The Ugly Chickens" (chosen by Turtledove). Also from the SF Hall of Fame are Lester del Rey's "Nerves," "A Martian Odyssey" by Stanley Weinbaum, and "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" by Cordwainer Smith. Each of these stories is famous, thus familiar. But at the same time each is famous for good reason, and I was happy to reread them. Certainly there is no harm in reprinting them again.

But any anthology will hopefully also include some surprises. I had never before read Ward Moore's "Lot, " for example. This is a story of the first day of a Nuclear Holocaust, and as such it has a bit of a dated feel. But it's really a depiction of a character, the markedly unpleasant man who is, he believes, fully prepared for this disaster. We follow his actions, filtered through his self-satisfaction, as he brings his family towards "safety" in the back country. The protagonist bears a striking resemblance, in more than one way, to another unpleasant SF survivor of a Nuclear War, Hugh Farnham of Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold. "Lot" in itself is chilling enough, though no real plot resolution is reached. I don't think the story requires one, thought there was a sequel, and there was also a somewhat well-regarded movie based on the two stories: a Roger Corman production, directed by Ray Milland (who also played the lead):  Panic in Year Zero!, from 1962 . At any rate, thanks to Connie Willis for selecting it (and, I wonder, meditating upon influence, how much this story affected her "A Letter From the Clearys").

Another story that I hadn't encountered before, and which I really enjoyed, was Poul Anderson's choice, "Black Charlie" by Gordon R. Dickson. This is a story about the nature of art, a difficult but worthwhile subject. Dickson's protagonist is an experienced art buyer, and he is approached by a man on a backwoods planet, who has some sculptures by a member of that planet's indigenous alien race. The sculptures are worthless, in objective terms, but at long last the art buyer is pushed into understanding the history behind the sculptures, and the character of the alien who produced them. Does this knowledge in the viewer make them art? I don't know, but the story is indeed art.

The other selections are by and large fine stories as well. I felt that the second Kornbluth story ("The Only Thing We Learn," chosen by David Drake) was a bit obvious, and nowhere near the quality of his best work, and the pieces by Eric Frank Russell ("Diabologic") and Robert Sheckley ("Untouched by Human Hands") were also somewhat slight, to my taste. Again, both writers have certainly produced stories that belong in anthologies like this. And Norman Kagan's "The Mathenauts" (Greg Bear's choice), while full of fascinating ideas, doesn't really work as a story. But four merely minor stories out of a collection like this is no great weakness, especially as I'm sure the next reader will feel differently than I do.

One other quibble concerns the book's production values, in particular the copyediting. The book is riddled with typographical errors, most of the sort where the correct word is replaced by another word, such that a simple spellcheck won't catch the error. This is becoming sadly common these days, but even so there were far too many in this book.

These quibbles aside, any collection that includes the stories I've mentioned -- as well as "Common Time" by James Blish, Keith Laumer's early Bolo story "The Last Command," Barry Malzberg's meta-fictional "A Galaxy Called Rome," and Roger Zelazny's moving "The Engine at Heartspring's Center" -- is well worth the price.

SF Site Resurrection: The Desert of Souls, by Howard Andrew Jones

Howard Andrew Jones died a year ago, on January 16, 2025. He was only 56 (and could have passed for 36!) He was one of the undersung stars of the modern day sword and sorcery field -- a fantastic writer, a first-rate editor, an exceptional critic with tremendous knowledge of the fantasy field in general as well as key related genres -- adventure fiction and historical fiction in particular. He was also, hands down, one of the purely nicest people you could ever hope to meet, and I was honored by his friendship for the past couple of decades.

He wrote three primary series of sword and sorcery novels and stories -- the tales of Dabir and Asim, the Ring Sword Trilogy, and his series, ongoing at the time of his death, about Hanuvar, a fantasy analog to Hannibal. All of these are very entertaining, and his career, a bit of a slow burn commercially (he deserved much better) seemed to be taking off when he was taken from us. I haven't written enough about his work yet, but I did review his first novel for SF Site, and so it is my latest SF Site resurrection. (If only we could resurrect Howard!)

(As ever, I print the review essentially unchanged, so the comments about Howard date to 2011.)

SF Site Review: The Desert of Souls, by Howard Andrew Jones

a review by Rich Horton

Howard Andrew Jones has been publishing stories about the scholar Dabir and the soldier Asim -- sort of an 8th Century Arabian version of Holmes and Watson -- for several years now, in places like Black Gate and Jim Baen's Universe. These have been consistently very enjoyable. Jones is an expert on Sword and Sorcery and Adventure fiction -- he has edited books of Harold Lamb's stories, he was the founding editor of Flashing Swords magazine, and the longtime Managing Editor at Black Gate. And he proved early on that he could translate his knowledge of fantasy adventure stories into the real thing. The Desert of Souls is his first published novel. (I should add, in the interest of full disclosure, that Howard is an associate of mine, and a friend, because of our shared experience at Black Gate.)

As with all the Dabir and Asim stories, The Desert of Souls is told by Asim. It is not really an "origin story" for the duo, though it comes early in their career, before they truly became close associates. (The actual origin story, previously published in Black Gate as "Whispers from the Stone" is incorporated in the book as a tale told by Asim to a traveling company.) This story also serves as something of an explanation for Asim's later career as a chronicler -- as the book opens he is shown being rather dismissive of a poet in his Master's service, but for a variety of reasons, including a prophesy that he will take up the pen, he changes his attitude.

But what of the story, you say, the story! It's quite as good as any of us fans of Dabir and Asim might have hoped. The two are both members of the household of Jaffar, a prominent judge in Baghdad and an associate of the caliph. Asim is the Captain of Jaffar's guards, and Asim is the tutor to Jaffar's beautiful -- and very intelligent -- young niece, Sabirah. Attempting to raise Jaffar's spirits after the death of his beloved parrot, Dabir and Asim happen upon an escaping thief, and recover a valuable ancient door pull. Dabir soon realizes that the door pull is connected with the disappeared ancient city of Ubar, and that it might be put to terrible uses. And when it is stolen by a Greek visitor associated with Firouz, a fire wizard from a group with a (rather justified) grudge against the caliph, Dabir and Asim are sent on a journey to recover the door pull before Firouz can get to Ubar and put it to whatever fell purpose he has in mind.

Things are complicated when they find that Sabirah has stowed away on the ship in which they follow Firouz. Not only is this bad because Sabirah will be in harm's way, but because her student/teacher relationship with Dabir has already set tongues wagging, and this will only increase suspicions of impropriety. (Which in this culture means one is risking one's head.) But the mission to stop Firouz seems more urgent. Their journey is full of mundane problems like seasickness, traditional adventure problems like sea battles and sword fights, and imaginative magical concerns. (I particularly liked the worm they encounter in the title Desert of Souls.) Jones manages two climaxes without making the second seem an anticlimax, as there is first an encounter in Ubar, and then a final resolution in Baghdad.

Dabir's approach is unrelentingly rational -- which is not to say he denies the reality of magic. Asim's is plainer, reflecting his soldierly background, which can get him in trouble when he fails to perceive Dabir's intentions. Both characters are excellently realized. The story is primarily about the adventure plot: the need to catch Firouz and stop him. But there is also an effective ongoing thread about the personal lives of the two protagonists. Jones also manages to interweave triumph and failure -- the characters do not succeed completely, and there are real costs to their falling short. This is a very satisfying first novel, and I will certainly be looking for the promised sequel. In the meantime, I suggest that any readers who haven't yet encountered this duo by all means buy The Desert of Souls, and also seek out their appearances at shorter lengths.

Resuscitated Review: The Wooden Sea, by Jonathan Carroll

Here's another review I'm reposting after the demise of the outstanding old SF/F review site, SF Site. Note that for the most part I'm leaving these reviews unchanged. This was first published in 2001, when The Wooden Sea came out. My comments are from back then, and I've read more of Carroll's work since then, and the writer comparisons I make might seem out of date. So be it!

Review: The Wooden Sea, by Jonathan Carroll

by Rich Horton

The Wooden Sea is a fine new novel from a very interesting writer. I'm only slightly acquainted with the work of Jonathan Carroll: I've read one early novel (Bones of the Moon) and several short stories that have appeared in genre sources, such as "Uh-Oh City." Still, I had an idea what to expect: a contemporary setting, veering off into very strange territory at some time; an ordinary person, deeply in love, faced with an unexpected and unexplainable threat to those he loves; and fine writing with a mixture of almost goofy humour and wrenching tragedy. And that's what we get here. (Writers who come to mind as comparison points are William Browning Spencer, Jonathan Lethem, and Bradley Denton.)

The Wooden Sea is narrated by Frannie McCabe, the 47-year old police chief of a small town, Crane's View, New York. Frannie is on his second marriage, and he has a teenage stepdaughter. He is sometimes plagued by the town's collective memory: he was rather a juvenile delinquent as a youth, and, in high school, he dated the girl who is now the mayor; but by and large he seems respected and happy. One day he adopts, almost perforce, a sickly three-legged dog named Old Vertue -- within a few days the dog is dead, and Frannie's attempts to bury the dog seem to set in motion a series of increasingly surrealistic events.

The strangeness starts out small, as it were: the buried dog disappears, and needs to be reburied. The dog turns up again, sort of, in an Old Master painting. And a high school girl dies of an overdose, leaving behind a notebook with tantalizing hints that she too was involved in these strange events.

From this point things become very odd indeed. The novel involves trips both forward and backward in time. Frannie's 17-year old self becomes a major character, as does a sinister businessman from decades in the future. Frannie finds himself presented with an ultimatum -- figure out what he needs to do in a week, or else -- with almost no idea of what he is to figure out, or what the "else" is. And this is to say nothing of the gods and/or aliens.

In a way, this book might be called "Science Fiction Magical Realism": it uses Science Fictional imagery in ways reminiscent of how more usual "Magical Realism" uses Fantastical imagery. (This is a term I've also been tempted to apply to Bruce Sterling's Zeitgeist and M. John Harrison's Signs of Life, though I ought to emphasize that in most ways, these three novels are very different from each other.) On first reading, I had some difficulty with this: there's a temptation to make the book be about the Science Fictional events, and it really doesn't work that way. They don't end up making outward sense, and they aren't really properly resolved. But reading the book more as a mainstream (or, dare I say, slipstream) novel -- that is, as a story about the life of Francis McCabe -- works much better. We get a portrait of a believable man, a good man, and a happy man, facing a crisis from out of nowhere. The characters are very nicely done: Frannie, his younger self, his wife Magda and stepdaughter Pauline, his strange neighbour George Dalemwood. The action, for all its weirdness, is always interesting, though at times I felt a bit disconnected from things: at times things simply got too weird. The resolution is moving and bittersweet.

2025 Reading Summary

Here is a quick and dirty look at the books I read in 2025, and how they fit into various categories. To some extent, these categories simply track some of my personal interest: how many "classic" novels did I read, for example, or how many SF/Fantasy novels, or how many in the category of "Midcentury UK women writers", a group that interests me greatly. Some of these categories are more obvious: how many by women versus how many by men, how many translated novels did I read. I freely confess that I slotted these books into categories rather arbitrarily at times.

Here's the breakdowns first.

I read 91 books total. Magazine and invidudal short stories aren't counted, except for novellas published as separate books (including Dickens' five "holiday" novellas, though I counted that as only one book.) 37 books were by women -- about 40%, a bit of a comedown from last years' dead even split. (I blame that in part on reading 6 books by Anthony Trollope and 3 each by Charles Dickens and J. R. R. Tolkien -- if I just count authors the share of women goes up to 46%.) I've reviewed almost all of these book, either here at this blog, at my substack, or at Black Gate.

I read 8 novels in translation, 4 from the French, and one each from the Japanese, the Spanish, the Danish, and the Swedish.

27 books were Science Fiction, and 23 Fantasy. Eight of the SF books were from writers outside the genre, and three of the Fantasies. I read five crime or thriller novels, 14 that I would call "contemporary fiction" (essentially, books written after about 1925). There were 3 nonfiction books, and a rather low (for me) 3 in the category of "Old Popular Fiction" -- books from the late 19th century through the first couple or so decades of the 20th Century. Of the "contemporary" novels, seven were by midcentury UK women writers.

A lot of my reading was novellas -- the five Dickens stories, and quite a few SF/Fantasy stories, a total of at least 14, though a couple books I categorized differently were very short, such as André Breton's Nadja and Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron. 80 of the books were long fiction, novellas or novels, and there were 7 story collections plus one anthology. 10 of the novels I read were very long -- say 500 pages or maybe 175,000 words plus.

Following is the list of books I read, ordered alphabetically by author. More detailed comments on the best of them can be found here: My Best Books of 2025.

The Case of the Late Pig, by Margery Allingham

Hidden Folk, by Eleanor Arnason

Spring List, by Ralph Arnold 

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen

On the Calculation of Volume I, by Solvej Balle

The Early Worm, by Robert Benchley

The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett

A Drop of Corruption, by Robert Jackson Bennett

The Horse Without a Head, by Paul Berna

Tanner's Twelve Swingers, by Lawrence Block

The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen

A Royal Pain, by Rhys Bowen

Rowany de Vere and a Fair Degree of Frost, by Chaz Brenchley

Nadja, by André Breton

Belinda, by Rhoda Broughton 

Evelina, by Frances Burney

Rakesfall, by Vajra Chandrasekera

Saint Death's Herald, by C. S. E. Cooney

Starhiker, by Jack Dann

The Artistry of Magic, by Helen De Cruz

The Tents of Wickedness, by Peter De Vries 

Some Trick, by Helen DeWitt

Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens 

A Christmas Carol and Other Holiday Treasures, by Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas

The River Has Roots, by Amal El-Mohtar

Euphoria Days, by Pilar Fraile 

Treacle Walker, by Alan Garner

The Love of Monsieur, by George Gibbs

The River, by Rumer Godden

In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden

Annie Bot, by Sierra Greer

The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman

I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman

Den of Thieves, by Daniel Hatch

A Mourning Coat, by Alex Jeffers

A Sorceress Comes to Call, by T. Kingfisher

Space Trucker Jess, by Matthew Kressel

Lies and Weddings, by Kevin Kwan 

The Book of the Night, by Rhoda Lerman

Radiomen, by Eleanor Lerman

In Memoriam: A Novel of the Terran Diaspora, by Fred Lerner

This Shape We're In, by Jonathan Lethem

The Brothers Lionheart, by Astrid Lindgren

Changing Places, by David Lodge

Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey

Metallic Realms, by Lincoln Michel

Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell

The Adventures of Mary Darling, by Pat Murphy

Where the Axe is Buried, by Ray Nayler

Collisions, by Alec Nevala-Lee

The Ante-Room, by Kate O'Brien

The Blighted Stars, by Megan O'Keefe

Miss Marjoribanks, by Margaret Oliphant

A Ladder of Swords, by Gilbert Parker

Haunt Sweet Home, by Sarah Pinsker

Major Arcana, by John Pistelli

Bewilderment, by Richard Powers

Inverted World, by Christopher Priest

The Old English Baron, by Clara Reeve

On Strike Against God, by Joanna Russ

The Female Man, by Joanna Russ

The Gipsy in the Parlour, by Margery Sharp

Up the Line, by Robert Silverberg 

The New Atlantis, edited by Robert Silverberg

Cahokia Jazz, by Francis Spufford 

The English Air, by D. E. Stevenson

The Sleep of Reason, by Michael Swanwick

Naomi, by Junichiro Tanizaki

Angel, by Elizabeth Taylor

Alien Clay, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Service Model, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Fellowship of the Ring, by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Two Towers, by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Perilous Realm, by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Wings of the Morning, by Louis Tracy

The Small House at Allington, by Anthony Trollope 

The Last Chronicle of Barset, by Anthony Trollope

Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope

The Eustace Diamonds, by Anthony Trollope

Miss Mackenzie, by Anthony Trollope

The Fixed Period, by Anthony Trollope

The Curious Case of the Somnambulist and the Psychic Thief, by Lisa Tuttle 

The Feathered Serpent, by Edgar Wallace

The Children of Llyr, by Evangeline Walton

The Elfland Prepositions, by Henry Wessells

A Philosophy of Thieves, by Fran Wilde

Someone You Can Build a Nest In, by John Wiswell

Endangered Species, by Gene Wolfe

Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods!, edited by Richard Wolinsky

Reclaimed SF Site Review: Deep Secret, by Diana Wynne Jones

Here's another review I did for the late great science fiction site SF Site, which gave me a huge leg up in my book reviewing career. This was one of my earlier reviews for them, from 1999, when Tor published the first US edition of Deep Secret, which first appeared in the UK in 1997. The review is as it appeared then, reflecting my relative newness back then to her work, and failing to note that she died in 2011 after a remarkable career.

Seldom recently have I simply enjoyed reading a book as much as I enjoyed Diana Wynne Jones' Deep Secret. Jones employs a mixture of engaging characters, interesting fantasy concepts, and a light touch with serious undertones, to create a novel that is infectious and absorbing. This is not new with her: I just discovered her work last year, and the YA novels Howl's Moving Castle and Charmed Life (which has certain similarities to Deep Secret) affected me in similar ways. Deep Secret, I should say, was marketed in the US as an adult novel, although I would imagine it would be appreciated by younger readers. (And to be sure, Jones' YA novels are certainly good fare for adults, and I have seen Deep Secret called YA anyway.)

Right from the beginning we know something is up, as narrator Rupert Venables is called away to the Koryfonic Empire, to give his stamp of approval as a Magid to a legal proceeding there. Koryfonic Empire? Magid? We are told that the Multiverse consists of worlds arranged in a sort of infinity figure, with one half (including Earth), negative magically (this is the Naywards half). These worlds tend not to believe in magic, and magic is harder to do there. The other (Ayewards) half are positive magically: for instance, creatures such as centaurs can exist there. The Koryfonic Empire is very important, as it occupies the exact middle of the infinity sign. And Magids are a variety of wizard, with the duty to subtly influence events on whatever worlds they are responsible for in the appropriate direction. Rupert is Earth's junior Magid, and he is fresh from helping out in Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland, when he gets sent to the Empire.

Rupert is soon engaged in two succession problems. His mentor has died, and he must select a new Magid from among several human candidates. In addition, the Koryfonic Emperor is assassinated, and Rupert has to try to track down the proper heir -- a process complicated by the previous Emperor's paranoia, which caused him to hide away his heirs so they wouldn't try to take over before their time. Even so, Rupert has an unexpectedly hard time tracking down the various Magid candidates. Even the young Englishwoman, Maree Mallory, who should be easy to find, is surprisingly difficult to get in touch with. And when Rupert finally does meet her, he doesn't like her at all, and crosses her off his list.

An alternate narrative path starts to follow Maree, which ought to be a clue to any reader that Rupert may have a harder time avoiding her in the long run than he thinks. Maree's father has cancer, and she's gone to live with her Uncle, a fantasy writer. But her Aunt and she don't get along at all. Plus her boyfriend has dumped her, which complicates her veterinary studies. (He's another student.) And then she gets these annoying letters from Rupert...

Rupert finally decides to weave a spell (a working) to bring the various candidates (except Maree, whom he thinks he's already rejected) together, where he can find and interview them. The real world result of this is that they are all brought to a Science Fiction convention. (It seems to be an Eastercon, actually.) A convention at which (you guessed it), Maree's uncle is to be Guest-of-Honour.

As we should expect, the convention, the interviewing of the Magid candidates, and the question of the Koryfonic succession are all intertwined. Much of the action is superficially light in tone, including some funny bits involving the difficulty of navigating the hotel's corridors. But at the same time the concerns are deadly serious, and Jones doesn't cheat us there: real mistakes are made, people are really hurt and killed. So it's not just a light-hearted romp, and though it's often funny, Deep Secret is not a comedy.

What it is, is a thoroughly involving book. Jones is one of those natural storytellers: her books compel reading. The characters are real, and very likable. The plot is exciting, and resolved logically. The magical system is lightly sketched, but what we see is interesting and well drawn. The resolution is largely what we expect, but it also involves satisfying surprises. This book kept me up late at night, and made me eager for each chance to read another chapter.

It's not perfect: the overall setup, although interesting, is a bit strained, and a bit too lightly sketched, which reduced the immediacy of some of the events. And structurally there is a slight burp: the book ends, more or less, followed by an odd sort of coda, which fills us in on an earlier event that was missed in the main narrative. But Jones finds a way to round up that coda nicely, without causing too muffled an end to things. And I came away from this book a satisfied customer. Highly recommended. And hopefully, the publication of this novel in the United States is a harbinger of more Diana Wynne Jones to come, since her earlier works are not so easy to find in the New World.