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.

Ace Double Reviews, 113: Android Avenger, by Ted White/The Altar On Asconel, by John Brunner

Ace Double Reviews, 113: Android Avenger, by Ted White/The Altar On Asconel, by John Brunner (#M-123, 1965, 45 cents)

a review by Rich Horton

The occasion for this Ace Double review is Ted White's 81st birthday today, February 4, 2019. Ted White is a true SMOF. He published a fanzine beginning at age 15. He won the Best Fan Writer Hugo in 1968. He was co-Chair of the 1967 Worldcon, and his fannish credits could likely go on for pages.

He is probably best known to the casual SF fan (at least, fan of my age) as an editor -- an assistant at F&SF from 1963 to 1968, then for the next decade editor of Amazing and Fantastic, where he affected an improvement from the depths of the years right after Sol Cohen took over the magazines, to something at times approaching the Cele Goldsmith Lalli levels. (These were the years -- 1974-1978 at least -- that I subscribed to those magazines, and I appreciated Ted's rather pugnacious approach to them.) He then became an editor at the American magazine Heavy Metal (based on the French graphic magazine Metal Hurlant.)He was also a disk jockey for a time, and he is an accomplished musician.

(Covers by Ed Valigursky and Gray Morrow)

And he is an SF writer, producing more than a dozen novels and a couple of dozen short stories (the most recent in 2017, so he's still at it.) One collaborative story got a Nebula nomination, but I'll confess that I've not really been overly impressed with the occasional story I've seen. But I hadn't read a novel, and I ran across this Ace Double, with Android Avenger, so I figured it was worth a try. (I admit I really bought the book for the Brunner novel.)

So, what is Android Avenger about? Well, it's about 40,000 words or a bit more! Sorry ... It's set in New York in the relatively near future of 2017 -- oh, wait a minute, that's the past now! Life is calm in this near future, apparently, mostly because anyone who shows unruly attitudes -- Deviants, that is -- is detected by automatic scanners, and executed. The narrator, Bob Tanner, is serving his periodic (every couple of years) duty as Executioner -- a thousand people gather in an arena, and press a button, one of which randomly activated the electric charge to kill the Deviant. This time, however, Bob is oddly affected by the execution, and he ends up going into sort of a fugue, which causes him to be picked up and scanned. The scanner finds nothing, but an X-ray determines that his bones are metal. Surely this will brand him a Deviant, so he escapes, using violence, which is certainly Deviant.

Soon he encounters a beautiful redhead, who warns him to be careful. Then he's attempting to return home -- but his home is too dangerous. And suddenly he finds himself gripped by a compulsion he can't control -- and he runs without volition (and at implausible speed) to a building wherein he finds and kills a man. Before long he's confronted by the sister of the dead man (another beautiful redhead!), and he learns that the original redhead is named, oddly enough, Hoyden. And then he is possessed by the mysterious force again and kills the sister.

By now you can see who the android avenger of the title is, though not why he's "avenging". The story continues at some pace, through some sudden changes of tone and scenery. He meets up again with Hoyden. They have sex. They fight. Then he runs away to another borough, takes on a new identity, and starts to live with the poor people there, who are outside the controlled system of the main part of New York. And things get stranger, and Bob, trying to understand his nature and purpose, finally comes to a confrontation with the being behind his problems ... Plus he gets his reunion with the lovely Hoyden.

It's all a bit -- maybe a lot -- silly, and disjointed. There are occasional nice bits of speculation, as for example about the moving roads in future (past, now) Manhattan. There's a certain ambition behind some of it, lost in the end by the need for action and by the hard to take ending. So -- not a particularly memorable book. There was a sequel, called Spawn of the Death Machine -- I almost wonder if White wrote it just so he could use that gloriously pulpish title.

(Cover by McKenna (not for The Altar at Asconel)

I've written a lot about John Brunner before, so I won't reiterate that. He is a favorite of mine, and I generally really like his early, shorter, less serious novels. The Altar On Asconel is in that category, but it's a bit late -- 1965, after he had begun producing work of more obvious ambition, such as The Whole Man from 1964. This novel is part of his so-called Interstellar Empire series, which also includes an early novella, "The Wanton of Argus", which became the very short Ace Double half The Space-Time Juggler; and another novella, "The Man from the Big Dark". The ISFDB also claims that his first novel, Galactic Storm (written when he was 16 or 17, and published as by "Gill Hunt") is part of that series. (I've not read that book, and I gather it's not easy to find.) It's about 55,000 words long. It was serialized in If, April and May 1965, as "The Altar at Asconel", in a cut version, about 42,000 words. I have the serial as well, and the cuts seem to be pervasive but rather minor -- a few sentences here and there, spread throughout the book. I don't know if Brunner or Frederik Pohl made the cuts.

The main character of The Altar on Asconel is Spartak, an academic on Annanworld, which was the university planet of the old interstellar empire. The empire has mostly collapsed, after 10,000 years, with many planets having reverted to barbarism, but a few, such as Annanworld, still retaining a decent tech level. Spartak's specialty is the history of the empire -- he knows, for example, that the starships humans use were all made by a previous, now disappeared, race -- and especially the history of one prominent world, his home, Asconel, which also has retained some technological underpinnings.

Spartak, along with his half-brothers Vix and Tiorin, agreed to leave Asconel on the ascension of their older brother Hodak to the position of Warden -- in order to avoid the possibility of clashes over the succession. But now, 10 years later, Vix has shown up on Annanworld with terrible news -- their brother Hodak has been assassinated, and a strange man named Bucyon has taken over as Warden. And he, with the beautiful Lydis and the misshappen Shry, rule the planet in the name of a god -- Belizuek, who demands human sacrifices. And it seems that nearly the whole population of Asconel has been conditioned, so that they accept their oppression happily.

Vix, along with his latest woman, Vineta, head to Delcadoré, near the heart of the old empire, to look for Tiorin. And they find him, but they also are shanghaied into transporting a mutant girl, rumored to have mental powers, into exile on the Galactic rim. This is accomplished by a crude conditioning, so they cannot even think about going to Asconel to try to free their planet from Bucyon and Belizuek. But the mutant girl's powers come in handy -- she is able to undo their conditioning, and after some struggle, she agrees to help them get to Asconel.

Once there they find the world in even worse shape than they thought. And then they encounter Belizuek, who seems a megalomaniac telepathic being. Vix and Tiorin are read to attack, but Spartak, with the help of the mutant girl, comes up with a more sneaky plan ... And, well, you know more or less how it ends. There is, of course, a revelation as to what or who Belizuek really is, and there's a final, fairly logical, fate for Spartak and the mutant girl (who is quite young -- there's no suggestion that Spartak fancies her).

All in all, this isn't one of Brunner's best efforts. I wonder if he really didn't have much interest in the project. There is less speculative interest, less original thinking, than in most of Brunner's early books. The plot is not very tightly constructed, and things are really too easy for Spartak and company. The end is rushed a bit, and also comes off rather flat.

An Obscure Ace Double: Times Without Number, by John Brunner/Destiny's Orbit, by David Grinnell

Ace Double Reviews, 108: Times Without Number, by John Brunner/Destiny's Orbit, by David Grinnell (#F-161, 1962, 40 cents)

a review by Rich Horton

This isn't entirely a new review -- I covered the 1969 edition of John Brunner's Times Without Number some time ago here. But I felt like it was time for another Ace Double review, and I had just found this book.

Both writers are actually major figures in SF, though many people won't recognize the name David Grinnell. "David Grinnell" was in fact a pseudonym used by Donald A. Wollheim for most of his later fiction. Wollheim of course was the science fiction editor at Ace Books for nearly two decades, and perhaps he felt that when he published his own fiction the fig leaf of a pseudonym was prudent.

(Cover by Jack Gaughan)

Both these books were originally published in magazines as a series of stories. Times Without Number comprises three novellas about the Society of Time, specifically Don Miguel Navarro. They appeared in issues 25, 26, and 27 of the UK magazine Science Fiction Adventures (a sort of descendant of the American magazine of the same name) in 1962. This Ace edition appeared the same year, and seems to have been close to the same text. The 1969 edition, which I previously covered, was somewhat revised -- some slight expansions and a fair amount of smoothing of the prose.

Destiny's Orbit comprises four novelettes from the magazine Future Combined with Science Fiction Stories, October 1942 ("Pogo Planet"), December 1941 ("Destiny World"), April 1942 ("Mye Day"), and August 1942 ("Ajax of Ajax"). I haven't seen those stories, so I'm not sure if they were revised for the novel, which was originally published by Thomas Bouregy in 1961. The original novelettes were published as by "Martin Pearson".

As noted, I've already discussed Times Without Number. I think it's a very good book, perhaps the best of Brunner's early novels. The final section in particular, "The Fullness of Time", is one of the great time travel novellas ever. The general story concerns an alternate history in which the Spanish Armada prevailed, and the world of 1988 is still Catholic dominated. (The same idea, pretty much, is at the center of two other great alternate histories, Keith Roberts' Pavane and Kingsley Amis' The Alteration.) Times Without Number adds time travel, with the goal (as in Asimov's The End of Eternity and Anderson's Time Patrol stories) of preserving their timeline.

As for Destiny's Orbit, it's a considerably lesser novel. And its 1940s pulp origins show. In particular, the science is beyond laughable. That said, it is, on the whole, tolerably enjoyable, at least in spurts, though Wollheim really wasn't much of a writer.

(Cover by Ed Valigursky)

Ajax Calkins is a rich young man, heir to his father's fortune, which is based on inventing a system of compressing stores to make them easier to ship through space. (Don't ask -- it's scientifically too stupid for words.) But his character was formed by his mother, a night club singer and an aficionado of adventure stories. Ajax wants to explore new worlds, plant his flag, and be King of his own domain. And, alas, the Solar System is too constrained for him -- Earth, Mars, and the asteroids are under strict EU -- er, EMSA (Earth Mars Space Administration) -- control, and Saturn is ruled by the native Saturnians.

But how about Jupiter? Or, more specifically, the asteroids in the Trojan orbits. Ajax is contacted by a group of miners of the Fore-Trojan asteroids, who want his help (i.e., his money), and in exchange, will let him be their King. Ajax is ready to go, but there is one problem -- a distractingly pretty young woman, Emily Hackenschmidt, a new recruit of the EMSA, who is using the legal powers of the EMSA to try to stop him.

This whole section is presented in fairly amusing satirical terms. And it works OK that way. But from then on, the satire is pretty much abandoned, and the cliches increase. Ajax escapes Emily, and heads to Mars, where he gets attached to a spider-like Martian, the Third Least Wuj, who becomes his loyal sidekick. They head off, with the miners' representative, Anton Smallways, to the Fore-Trojans, particularly the asteroid conveniently named Ajax. They are pursued by the pesky Emily Hackenschmidt ... but Ajax manages to plant his flag (literally) on Ajax.

Complications ensue, particularly involving the Saturnian threat. In addition, Emily continues to try to establish EMSA control. And Ajax the asteroid seems very strange indeed. Could it be a special construct of the inhabitants of the fifth planet, the one that exploded to create the asteroid belt? For that matter, could Ajax' inconvenient attraction to Emily be significant? And why does Anton Smallways look and act so strangely? Could he be a Saturnian plant?

Well, you know all the answers to those questions. Not surprisingly, Ajax turns out to be key to Earth's resistance to the Saturnian threat. And of course the Third Least Wuj -- and Emily Hackenschmidt -- are important as well. There are no real surprises remaining. But, as I said, the book does entertain, in a minor way. I've read worse, at any rate -- a lot worse.

There was, oddly, a sequel, Destination Saturn, written in collaboration with Lin Carter, and published by low end house Avalon in 1967. I have not seen that book, and I must say I don't think the original needed a sequel.

An Unjustly Little-Known SF Novel: Times Without Number, by John Brunner

An Unjustly Little-Known SF Novel: Times Without Number, by John Brunner

a review by Rich Horton


This is one of my favorite time travel/alternate history novels, and it's a novel that to my mind does not get the notice it deserves. The three stories that make up this novel appeared in consecutive issues of the relatively little-known UK magazine Science Fiction Adventures (a companion to New Worlds and Science Fantasy) in 1962: "Spoil of Yesterday" in #25, "The Word Not Written" in #26, and "The Fullness of Time" in #27. These three stories, with minor revisions, became half of an Ace Double, Times Without Number, also in 1962. As with many of his early novels, Brunner later revised and expanded Times Without Number, in 1969.

This book is about Don Miguel Navarro of the Society of Time. It is set in an alternate 1988/1989 in which the Spanish Armada succeeded, and established an Empire. The Moors reconquered Spain, but much of Western Europe, including England, remained under Spanish rule, and the independent Mohawk nation in North America was also allied to the Empire. In 1892 the secret of time travel was discovered, and under the auspices of the Pope the Society of Time was established, and a strict rule set up that history could never be altered, only observed. Besides the aspect of time travel, the Alternate History aspect is interesting -- it's noticeable that in many ways this future, described on the face of it sympathetically, is really quite undesirable -- slavery persists, for example, and the level of technology is much lower.

The first story, "Spoil of Yesterday", concerns a foolish noblewoman who has bought an expensive golden mask of Aztec workmanship -- obviously, Don Miguel deduces, an illegal theft from the ancient Aztec empire. Don Miguel take risk of offending a noblewoman and unnecessarily disturbing his superiors by reporting this theft. Then he becomes involved in solving the mystery of who actually is responsible for stealing the mask from history, and in returning it. It's a lesser story than the other two -- it doesn't seem to be about much, rather, it's sort of a scene-setting work.

"The Word Not Written" is set on December 31, 1988 and January 1, 1989 -- the Quatrocentennial Year of the Spanish Armada's victory is just concluding. Don Miguel is regretting his duty of attendance at a boring party hosted by the Prince of New Castile, younger son of the King and head of the Society of Time. He meets a pretty and intelligent girl, daughter of the Ambassador from Norraway, and they sneak out for a better time on the town. But on returning they learn that there has been a disaster -- a foolish official has fetched Amazons from history, to prove a point, and the resultant chaos has led to the death of the King and near certain war. Don Miguel is recruited to help solve this problem in a terribly dangerous way -- by creating a closed timelike loop, going back in time just a few hours to prevent the disaster. Thus, the story ends up not so much an adventure as a rather serious consideration of time paradoxes.


(I have the issue of Science Fiction Adventures in which "The Word Not Written" appeared. The 1969 revised novel version is expanded from the magazine version by about 2000 words, to 18,500. Many of the additions are at the sentence level -- slight filling out of descriptions and so on. There is also a fairly extended expansion at a critical point, in which Brunner goes into some more detail on the theoretical concerns about the actions taken to form the closed causative loop.)

The last story, "The Fullness of Time", is first rate, and brings the "novel" from "pretty good" to "really good" in my mind. (It is a novella I would dearly love a chance to reprint.) In it Don Miguel, on vacation in California, uncovers what seems to be evidence that the Eastern Confederacy, rivals to the Empire, have been mining in California in the distant past. This seems obviously a violation of the prohibition on altering the past, which is enshrined in the Treaty of Prague, but by some literally Jesuitical logic, it seems that possibly no violation has occurred. However, the mining is stopped -- but it turns out that something much more sinister is going on. There may be a plot to go back to the time of the Armada and alter history so that England wins. Don Miguel, among a host of others, is sent back to 1588 to try to stop this alteration.

The ending is purely brilliant, to my mind. Brunner faces the implications of time travel directly and honestly, and comes to the only sensible conclusion. And he doesn't shy away from that conclusion. (It's a pretty original view, to my mind, though there are correspondences with Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity.)

"The Fullness of Time" has only been reprinted as part of Times Without Number. I note that there have been a couple recent anthologies called "The Best Time Travel Stories of All Time" or something to that effect -- if I were to do one such, I'd try to include "The Fullness of Time", in among "The Man Who Came Early", "All You Zombies", "The Dead Past", and so on.

A Little Known Ace Double: The Atlantic Abomination, by John Brunner/The Martian Missile, by David Grinnell

Ace Double Reviews, 65: The Atlantic Abomination, by John Brunner/The Martian Missile, by David Grinnell (#D-465, 1960, $0.35)

I'm reposting this Ace Double review on the occasion of Donald A. Wollheim's birthday: he'd have been 104. Alas, I'm not very nice to his book, but, then, it's not a very good book.

This one qualifies as a rather randomly chosen Ace Double -- on the one hand, I like Brunner, on the other hand, here's an opportunity to review Donald Wollheim (who used "David Grinnell" as a pseudonym for much of his fiction) back to back.

(Covers by Ed Emshwiller and Ed Valigursky)

Both of these novels are about 43,000 words long. As far as I know this is the first publication of The Atlantic Abomination in any form, though I may have missed a shorter magazine version under another title. The Martian Missile was first published in 1959 by Thomas Bouregy and Co. Which means some other editor evidently approved of it -- good thing! since I would have been pretty annoyed had Wollheim chosen his own piece of utter garbage! (That other editor would like have been Robert A. W. Lowndes.)

The Atlantic Abomination opens with an alien being panicking as his world seems to be falling apart. We soon gather that Earth, long ago, has been dominated by a few aliens of a species with special telepathic powers. But geological catastrophes are ruining this early human "civilization", and at least one alien escapes to a specially prepared lair.

Fast forward to the 20th Century, and an deep ocean expedition, using special technology to allow exploration of the ocean bed. The explorers happen upon a mysterious installation, which of course is the lair of the evil alien. The rest of the novel is readily enough predicted -- the alien awakes and takes over as many humans as he can. He proceeds to the East Coast of the US and enslaves thousands. An international effort attempts to stop him, with some success, but the alien seems to be figuring things out. Our hero is enslaved, but his new wife (both oceanologists from the original expedition) remains free, but he manages somehow to escape. Does humanity survive? Well of course.

I am being somewhat sarcastic, a bit unfairly. This is certainly nothing special as a novel, but in following its very predictable path, it does entertain. Brunner was just a damn good writer of, for lack of a more precise word, pulp. He always gave value for money. I enjoyed the novel, though I don't think I'll remember it or reread it.

The Martian Missile can also be described as "pulp". 30s pulp. Really BAD 30s pulp. I suppose Wollheim may have written this in 1958 or so, but it sure reads, with its scientific and astronomical stupidities, like it was written in 1931.

A small-time criminal, hiding out in the desert, happens across a crashed alien spaceship. He rescues the alien, only to have the alien implant a bomb or something that will go off in a few years if he doesn't take a special message to the alien's fellows. Naturally he figures that this "message" might mean no good for humanity, but he doesn't see an alternative.

So he sneaks aboard a Russian rocket, and manages to get to the moon. He is able to rendezvous with various planted alien ships, and he proceeds to Mars, Jupiter, and finally to Pluto. Needless to say the description of the conditions on these planets are scientifically ridiculous. Our hero becomes aware of a cosmic battle between good, bad, and indifferent aliens, and he is able to figure out a way to play them off against each other and both save Earth and save his skin.

On the whole this is pretty much SF at its worst. I've read other Wollheim/Grinnell novels, and none of them make me think Wollheim's writing career is anything to be rediscovered, this has to qualify as below his usual standard.

Birthday Review: Stories of John Barnes (and one novel, A Princess of the Aerie)

Today is John Barnes's birthday. I think he's one of the best pure SF writers of our time. In particular, The Sky So Big and Black is one of the best SF novels of this millennium -- and one of the scariest. Here's a selection of my reviews of his work in Locus, plus a review of his novel A Princess of the Aerie that appeared in the UK magazine 3SF.

Locus, November 2005

The November Analog features a novella by John Barnes, the latest in his Thousand Cultures series, which opened with a beautiful Analog novelette, “Canso de Fis de Jovent”. “The Diversification of His Fancy” reads like a bridge to a new novel. That said, it stands pretty well alone, though it may be a bit too long. Giraut Leones, the series’ hero, is now a celebrated musician (as well as a spy) – and he has also been a target of assassination attempts. His latest concert seems likely to be the venue for another attempt – and so we witness his “entourage” as they try to protect him. His entourage includes (among others) his ex-wife; his once dead friend; his father, who is now younger than him; and his lover. We learn little enough about the assassination plot (I presume that’s left for the novel?), but we learn a lot about the background of the Thousand Cultures, and especially about their somewhat imperfect immortality technology, which is based on recorded minds being downloaded into new bodies. (Hence the once dead friend and the younger father.) This story turns movingly on one of the central imperfections of this technology: not everyone can be saved and downloaded.

Locus, January 2006

The January-February Analog is also strong, indeed, one of the best issues in some time. There is good work in particular from Rajnar Vajra, Mark W. Tiedemann, and Richard A. Lovett, and an intriguing far future reverse take on today’s environmental controversies by Julian Flood, “Change”. But the best story is the longest: John Barnes’s “’The Night is Fine’, the Walrus Said”, a direct sequel to “The Diversification of its Fancy” (November 2005), and due to be followed by its own sequel in March. Indeed, it would appear that Barnes’s latest Thousand Cultures novel is perhaps being stealthily serialized in Analog, at least in part. I have no complaints! The stories work well enough on their own, though they are very clearly parts of a larger whole.  In this story Giraut Leones is again the subject of multiple assassination attempts as he tries to get his latest musical project finished. He seems to be the target of some faction of a group of illegal human colonies on distant planets. Things are further complicated when he begins to fall for a woman from his past – who seems to be connected to a representative of those colonies, and who is also a passionate Ixist. (The Ixist religion (introduced in an earlier book) being the subject of Giraut’s latest work.) The ending reveals some secrets, and sets the stage for much more to be revealed soon – involving AIs, aliens, the curious life-extension tech on this future, and of course the illegal colonies.

Locus, February 2006

John Barnes’s latest Thousand Cultures story continues in the March Analog with “The Little White Nerves Went Last”. A recording of Giraut Leones’s old boss Shan has been hosted in Giraut, and both are in the custody of rogue “aintellects”. Shan in particular had been a fierce opponent of AI rights, and this story consists mostly of his account of his childhood on a distant planet. The story reveals some important secrets of Barnes’s future – the source of his enabling “springer” (matter transmitter) technology, and the nature and motivations of a threatening alien civilization. This story is interesting and moving, if at times just a bit pat. The stage seems well and truly set for a pretty spectacular finish.

Locus, May 2006

I thought the best stories in the first issue of Baen's Universe were two longer novelettes. “Poga” by John Barnes, is a fantasy about a woman, Plain Old Goddamn Amy (or “Poga”), whose father was a struggling fantasy writer who suddenly made it big. In this world, Elfland is roughly Wyoming, and she lives in Colorado, near the border. She is struggling with a lonely life, and her dead father’s ambiguous legacy, and her uneasy relationship with the fantastical promise of Elfland.

Locus, November 2006

In October at Baen's Universe I thought two stories stood out – perhaps not quite what a reader of Baen Books would expect. ... Even better is John Barnes’s “Every Hole is Outlined”, set very far in the future, and essentially the life story of a girl sold from slavery into service on a starship. The small starship crew lives at a different rate, in essence, from planetbound people, and in a very different way as well. And there are mysteries – in particular the ghosts … Barnes’s heroine goes from a young girl more or less manipulated into marriage with an old man to the ship’s captain, and as we read of her life we learn fascinating snippets of the culture she inhabits. It’s quite a moving story, and it hints at a very interesting future.

Locus, February 2007

The new online magazine Helix offers a very good third issue. Among several strong stories I’ll mention particularly John Barnes’s “Rod Rapid and His Electric Chair” is a very mordantly funny send up of a Tom Swift-like series of books and more to the point the racist and fascist views expressed therein – which lead to the end of the world.

Locus, September 2007

The August Baen’s Universe includes another strong story from John Barnes, who had two of the best stories there last year. “An Ocean is a Snowflake, Four Billion Miles Away” is about a couple of documentary makers on Mars to record the impact of a comet as part of the terraforming effort. They have sort of a Red Mars/Green Mars conflict: Léoa’s point of view is to mourn the loss of the old Mars, while Thorby (a significant name in SF terms, but I admit I can’t figure out the reason for the nod to Citizen of the Galaxy) wants to celebrate the coming of a new Mars, and also wants to document Big Energy Release Events – that is to say, things blowing up. The story turns, however, on their more personal characters – Thorby’s lonely life, Léoa’s ambition – as plotwise it pivots on an accident on the surface of Mars.

Locus, January 2010

However, they (Jim Baen's Universe) do close 2009 with perhaps the best story they’ve published yet, and one of the great stories of the year: John Barnes’s “Things Undone”. Rastigevat is a highborn member of a rather darkly formed society. His partner is of lower class, but we learn quickly that they are in love, for which the lower born individual is liable to be executed. Their job is curious – they track down time travelers and try to minimize the damage they can cause. The story turns on several things – the feelings of the main characters (Rastigevat in particular, as he seems to be borderline autistic), eventual revelations about the true nature of this world – an alternate history – and why it’s different to our world, the rather subtle delineation of the extent of the differences (accompanied by some of the typical alternate history namedropping, but here employed to much better effect than usual), and of course a conspiracy … In the end it’s very moving, very involving – I was reminded of one of my favorite time travel stories of all time, John Brunner’s “The Fullness of Time”.

Locus, March 2011

Jonathan Strahan serves notice that 2011 may be as strong a year as the past few in original anthologies with Engineering Infinity. ... John Barnes closes the book with “The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees”. Stephanie and her husband Lars are part of an expedition to the Southern Ocean to investigate a curious feature: a mat of huge upside down “trees”. The nature of the trees and the reason for them is pretty neat, in an SFnal way. The story also has a fine character-based conflict, as Lars’s ex-wife, a humaniform android built for space exploration is also along on the trip; and Stephanie is fiercely jealous of her, a jealousy only complicated by her being as nice as she is physically and mentally superior. Fine work from a first-rate but I feel underrated writer.

Life on Mars Review (Locus, May 2011)

Finally the best two stories come from Ian McDonald and John Barnes. ...Barnes’s “Martian Heart” posits a condition that affects a significant subset of Martian colonists, whereby their heart fails due to the conditions on the planet. The “colonists” here are essentially indentured. For example, the narrator, Cap, and his wife Sam are homeless people on Earth, shipped to Mars in lieu of time in the army, hoping to earn their way back to Earth by prospecting. But the odds of a prospector hitting it big are minuscule – so they’re likely stuck on Mars. And things get worse when Sam’s heart begins to fail. The story is in a sense about how Cap – who is telling it decades later – finally hits it big – and why Sam is the reason he did. Sentimental stuff, I suppose, but in the best way, and it hit me right in the gut.

Locus, December 2012

Strahan also gives us a new anthology of stories set in the relatively near future Solar System, Edge of Infinity, which has a plethora of neat pieces. ... John Barnes's “Swift as a Dream and Fleeting as a Sigh”, about an AI who gets involved (it's his job) with the relationship issues of a man and a woman – which ends up impacting the relationship of humans and  AIs quite profoundly.

Review of A Princess of the Aerie for 3SF, April 2003

Last year I was quite taken with John Barnes's novel The Duke of Uranium, a romp set in a well-inhabited 36th Century Solar System over That novel introduced Jak Jinnaka, a charismatic young man who, it is hinted, will achieve great (and perhaps sinister) power later in his life. Barnes seemed to deliberately sprinkle that book with references to Heinlein, and in many ways it read like a present-day Heinlein juvenile. But Barnes evidently has different things in mind, and the sequel, A Princess of the Aerie, is certainly not a Young Adult book. It is, however, an interesting and very enjoyable read, set in a politically and technologically fascinating future.

Jak's former girlfriend, Shyf, was revealed in the first book to be a princess of a nation in the Aerie, a cluster of space habitats located at the Earth-Sun L4 point. Jak lives in the Hive, at the L5 point, and he's studying at the Public Service Academy, with his friend Dujuv, a young man with panther-derived genes. Jak is looking for a class project, and at the same time he gets a message from Shyf, asking him for help and hinting at a resumption of their relationship. So Jak, Dujuv, and Dujuv's ex-girlfriend Myxenna, head for the Aerie. Once there, however, they find that Shyf claims not to have sent any such message. They also learn that Shyf is not the person they thought she was, instead she is a sex-mad, power-mad, spoiled brat. But Jak and his friends, partly because of what seems to be unusual luck on Jak's part, foil an attempt on the Princess's father's life. As a reward, they are sent to the hellish mines of Mercury, where they get involved with a revolution against a group angling to take control of Mercury's resources.

The story is exciting in itself, and furthermore it is fascinating in its cynical view of realpolitik as it applies to the 36th Century. Our view of Jak is complicated enormously in this second of his adventures: it's clear that he's not quite what he seems, but it's also clear that his friends (and former friends) don't understand him well either. I'm looking forward to further stories detailing the career of Jak Jinnaka -- and I do want to see what he makes of his life and times.

World Fantasy Convention, 2017, Part III: Day 2

World Fantasy Convention, 2017, Part III: Day 2

For breakfast on Friday we had the brunch buffet at the hotel restaurant. Waffles, bacon, omelettes, all the usual stuff. It was OK, nothing all that special. But convenient.

I was particularly interested in Friday's "Engaging Our Theme" panel, entitled "What is Alternate History?". This mainly because one of the panelists was Damien Broderick (who lives in San Antonio). I've known Damien online for quite some time, and I've really enjoyed his fiction (and I've reprinted a few of his stories, and even wrote the introduction to one of his collections), but I'd never met him in in person. The other panelists were Fred Lerner, Daryl Gregory, and S. M. Stirling. The discussion was stimulating. The panelists considered things like overfamiliar jonbar points; the notion that in reality even small changes would likely mean that there would be no common people -- that is, that most people would even be born in alternate histories, due to their parents' not meeting (Stirling described in this context the very unlikely events leading to his parents and grandparents all meeting each other), or even if their parents met, changes in, oh, when they happened to conceive their children; favorite Alternate Histories, etc. Damien mentioned Vladimir Nabokov's Ada, one of the most interesting and different (and problematic!) literary alternate histories. Afterward, I did get a chance to meet Damien, and he gave me a copy of his latest novel, his revision of one of John Brunner's more ambitious 1950s novels, Threshold of Eternity (a novel which I read and reviewed in its Ace Double edition a few months ago). He also introduced me to another Australian writer, Russell Blackford (and later I met Russell's wife Jenny, whose work I had read and reviewed previously, which she remembered).

Our Noon panel was "My 12 Favorite Works by Karen Joy Fowler". Brian Attebery moderated the panel, and the other participants were Eileen Gunn, Elizabeth Engstrom, Rachel Neumeier, and Gordon van Gelder. As you might have guessed, the discussion centered around a whole bunch of Fowler's works. There wasn't any real consensus on the "best" (nor did I expect one!) -- though a fair amount of people seemed to pick We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves as a favorite. Rachel Neumeier's approach was interesting, and, it seems to me, a good reaction to being placed on a panel for non-obvious reasons. For, she confessed, she had not previously read Fowler. (I don't actually know if Rachel requested this panel or just got stuck there.) So she read a whole bunch of Fowler's work in the past couple of months, which gave her a pretty fresh perspective.

I did introduce myself to Brian Attebery after the panel, and we discussed -- at this time and on a couple further occasions where we could talk at greater length -- a variety of things, including Brian's major current project, curating the Library of America editions of Ursula Le Guin's work.

Next was a reading by John Crowley, from his new novel Ka. The reading was certainly interesting, though really I'm just waiting to get the novel (which I already have). John went over time a bit, because he had assumed that he had an hour, but readings at this con were only 30 minutes. I introduced myself to John afterwards -- I've known him for a while on Facebook, but this was the first time we'd met in person. Crowley is absolutely one of my favorite writers, but I restrained myself from gushing (I assume writers get tired of that, as it doesn't seem to me to lead to actual conversation). Instead I mentioned my friend Will Waller, who was one of John's students, and Will's admission that John found his work frustrating. John laughed a bit ruefully, and agreed that he had found Will a bit frustrating as a student, but said that his more recent work has gotten a great deal better.

I skipped the David Mitchell reading at 1:00. Which leads to one of my real regrets -- this convention featured three of my absolute favorite writers: Crowley (as noted), Fowler, and David Mitchell. I had no problem introducing myself to Crowley and Fowler. But I never did speak to Mitchell. Partly, no doubt, that's because I have corresponded with both Crowley and Fowler, and bought stories from them for reprint. But partly I think that's because I know they are both embedded in our field -- in a sense, they are "one of us". That said, they straddle the genre lines quite the same as Mitchell does. (On reflection, that may be a reason I like all three!) Really, that's on me. I did hang around the dealer room by the Small Beer table on Sunday, as we were about to leave, because Mitchell was there. But he was in what looked like an absorbing conversation with Ted Chiang, and I felt like it would have been terribly rude to butt in.

There was one more panel, "History: Secret, Hidden, or Otherwise", featuring Fran Wilde, Ian Drury, J. L. Doty, John Crowley, and Mary Anne Mohanraj. I will confess I don't remember the panel well, but I did take the time to introduce myself to Fran Wilde, whom I had missed at Boskone earlier this year.

Mary Ann and I went to a nearby Mexican restaurant, the original Blanco, for lunch. It was OK, but didn't really strike me as special. I have two favorite Mexican restaurants in St. Louis -- when I want Americanized Mexican food, I like Chevy's, which advertises itself as Tex Mex. This was for a while the most popular Mexican chain in St. Louis, but they are down to perhaps two stores now. When I want more authentic Mexican food, I go to Pueblo Nuevo, which was opened by a couple from Guadalajara in 1982, shortly after I came to St. Louis. I first went there that year, I think, for lunch (it's fairly close to where I work). For many many years, a group of us went every Thursday for lunch, and we got to know the owners -- the husband has died, alas, but his son took over -- I remember him as a child, sitting at one of the tables and doing his schoolwork. That stopped a few years ago when the day job got too intense to take long lunch breaks, plus a couple of our regulars retired. And on another visit just recently, one of the regular waiters greeted me by wondering where I'd been -- it had been three or four years, and I had a beard I hadn't had back them. Which is just to say, sometimes places become like home.

Diversion over. Back at the hotel, after some time in the Dealers' room (I'll discuss the Dealers' room in a later post), we ran into John Joseph Adams, the chief editor at Lightspeed (where I am the reprint editor). John was meeting his sister Becky, a teacher now living in North Carolina, who was coming to her first World Fantasy. Becky's daughter lives in San Antonio, and she was providing a convenient base of operations for both of them. They were heading to dinner soon, and we went along with them. To another Mexican place, as it happens -- Acenar. Actually, it was just fine to go to another Mexican place -- Acenar had more of an upscale vibe, with some interesting takes on "Street Tacos", for example. (Reminds me a bit of a visit to Chicago several years ago, when Mary Ann and I met up with my brother Pat, who lives in the city. He took us to a fancy Mexican place, and when we blanched at the notion of paying $25 for an enchilada, he said that's fine, I made a couple of different reservations, and we left and went to the other place ... Acenar wasn't as expensive as that! (And John actually picked up the tab -- thanks again!)) And, I should say, the food was really nice. Probably stands as the best food we had in San Antonio. The conversation was good as well, with some family stuff -- comparing Becky's teaching experience with our daughter Melissa's, for example; and some discussion of things like John's publishing ventures include the Best American SF anthologies he does.

Back at the con, it was time for the signing session, which at World Fantasy is a mass event, with everyone lined up at tables in a big event space (that turned out to be beneath the hotel's parking garage, so a bit of a walk). I thought that really worked out nicely. I didn't realize that I could have grabbed a name "tent" and sat down myself -- I thought it was by invitation only. No matter -- I don't think I'm a particularly hot name for signatures, and I was glad to wander around meeting people. I got just one thing signed, a chapbook of "An Earthly Mother Sits and Sings" by John Crowley. I talked to quite a few folks, though, including James Alan Gardner (who finally has a new novel out); Darrell Schweitzer, whom I had not previously met; Alex Irvine; Bill Crider; Christopher Brown, whom I bumped into a few more times -- I have been familiar with his interesting fiction for a while, but I was intrigued to realize he's a lawyer who spent some time working with Congress (for example, as one of the "behind the scenes" guys at the hearings you see on CSPAN); Joe McDermott, whom I had met at Boskone, and who, as he's local, gave us a good recommendation for an ice cream place on the Riverwalk; Kij Johnson, whom I've known for a little while now (I had bought her novel The River Bank at the Small Beer Press table but was too clueless to remember to bring it to the signing session); and Steve Rasnic Tem.

After that was over, it was back to the bar, which meant quite a few more stimulating conversations. Keeping in mind that my memory will confuse which night a particular conversation took place -- I remember meeting Sarah Pinsker, and we had a really good talk about music, particularly as I recall Tom Petty, and how fortunate Mary Ann and I feel that we got to see him on his last tour. I had just read Sarah's very strong novelette "Wind Will Rove" in Asimov's, which is about music (and a generation ship!), and a sort of music I like a great deal (old-timey folk, basically). That conversation was with other people, and I'm being an idiot by not remembering who -- was it Scott Andrews? Or Derek Künsken? And somebody else too? I know I did spend some time talking to both Scott and Derek. (I finally remembered who else was in the conversation: Michael Damian Thomas.)

I also ran into Arin Komins, whom I had met (along with Richard Warren) at a previous Windycon. Arin and Rich were at that time winding up their bookselling business, so I was surprised to see them in the Dealers' room -- but they were helping out another Chicago bookseller, Dave Willoughby, from whom I have bought a number of books over the years. I did discuss with Richard the fact that his name is the same as that of my ancestor who came over on the Mayflower. With Arin we recalled our dinner at Windycon at an Indian restaurant, which everyone enjoyed except Mary Ann (she hates Indian food!)

I spent considerable time talking to F. Brett Cox too, whom I had known online back in the SFF.net days. We talked about Maine, and about Joy Division -- Brett had a Joy Division t-shirt on, and they are a band I have liked since my college years -- among numerous other subjects.

And I recall talking a bit to Peter Halasz as well, and reminding him to keep an eye out for a new novel next year from a new Canadian writer -- Todd McAulty. I really liked Todd's stories for Black Gate back in the day, and I got a chance to read an advance copy of his first novel, The Robots of Gotham, which is due from John Joseph Adams' imprint next June. (Check out advance notice about it here.)

More on next rock ...


Here are links to all five installments of this con report:

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

A Forgotten SF Anthology: Great Science Fiction Adventures, edited by Larry T. Shaw

A Forgotten SF Anthology: Great Science Fiction Adventures, edited by Larry T. Shaw

A review by Rich Horton

It was once common for SF magazines to occasionally put out anthologies of the best stories from their pages. There was a very long series called The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, and shorter series from Galaxy and Analog. The more obscure magazines were perhaps less likely to explicitly publish a book with their name in the title, as their brand wouldn’t necessarily sell books, but there were many examples of anthologies drawing exclusively from such magazines. This book is arguably an example, though its title does in fact reflect its source magazine.

Science Fiction Adventures was a fairly short-lived digest. It was edited by Larry T. Shaw, the first issue dated December 1956, the last June 1958. There were 12 issues in all. (At the same time Shaw was editing the fine magazine Infinity.) It was preceded by an unrelated magazine that ran between 1952 and 1954, edited by Lester Del Rey. There was also a UK incarnation, that for five issues reprinted stories from the Shaw incarnation of Science Fiction Adventures, but continued for a total of 32 issues between 1958 and 1963. This magazine was edited by John Carnell, and was a companion to New Worlds and Science Fantasy. The Shaw magazine was, naturally, specifically devoted to adventure-oriented SF, and also to longer stories, typically featuring two long novelettes or novellas (billed as “novels”) each issue. Carnell’s incarnation had a similar focus and length mix.

The anthology at hand was published by Lancer Books in 1963, with an Ed Emshwiller cover, and if it’s not necessarily a “Best of”, it is a quite representative selection. The four stories are all long, and all certainly adventure stories. All the authors are quite prominent, though three of them are represented by early work, published before they had made their names.

The TOC is:

“The Starcombers”, by Edmond Hamilton (December 1956, 17500 words)

“Hunt the Space-Witch”, by Robert Silverberg (January 1958, 18000 words)

“The Man from the Big Dark”, by John Brunner (June 1958, 19500 words)

“The World Otalmi Made”, by Harry Harrison (June 1958, 13000 words)

Edmond Hamilton was the veteran of this group, a favorite of SF readers since the 1920s. “The Starcombers” is a rather dark story in which a somewhat unsavory star travelling band, mostly a mix of a couple of families, that makes its living scavenging, finds a nearly dead planet with signs of massive ancient structures. There is a curious deep rift on the planet, and in it they find the remains of a once impressive human civilization. The few devolved survivors offer to trade their high-tech relics for food, but their real goal is betrayal. The main character is a cynical drunk, already disgusted with the way the slatternly wife of the captain is throwing herself at him. But he is forced to attempt to save the captain and others when they are taken by the nasty locals … leading to a desperate rescue attempt, and more betrayal … as I said, quite dark and cynical. Just an OK piece.

“Hunt the Space-Witch” was originally published as by “Ivar Jorgenson” – Silverberg was the most prolific contributor to Science Fiction Adventures, under his own name, as well as “Ivar Jorgenson”, “Calvin M. Knox”, "Ralph Burke", and “Alexander Blade”. Most of his contributions were novellas or even novels, and some ended up as Ace Doubles. He also did some book reviews. This story is a bit better than the Hamilton, if in the end about as dark and cynical. Barsac is a big dumb starship crewman, who comes to the planet Glaurus determined to rescue his blood brother, who missed the ship on their previous stop there. But he soon learns that his friend has joined the Cult of the Witch. Barsac blunders around trying to find him, but runs afoul of the local authorities (some of whom are also cultists), and eventually ends up captured by a circus owner, and works for him for some months. This interlude has some noticeably Vancean moments. Eventually Barsac is able to return to his quest, and eventually find his blood brother, and confront the Witch. There are some colorful passages here, though the plot is never really surprising.

The best of these stories is Brunner’s “The Man From the Big Dark”. It’s still pretty conventional, but it grabbed me. It’s one of three pieces set in the same loose galactic future, eventually collected in the book Interstellar Empire. (The other two are “The Wanton of Argus”, one of Brunner’s first stories, originally published in Two Science Fiction Adventure Books for Summer 1953 as by Killian Houstan Brunner, and later as an Ace Double under the title The Space-Time Juggler; and The Altar of Asconel, a 1965 If serial also published as an Ace Double.) This story opens with a pirate’s starship coming to the planet Klareth, just this side of the “Big Dark”. The pirate disappears before the authorities find a murdered girl on his ship. We then follow the pirate, Terak, who, we learn, is out for revenge against the man really responsible for the girl’s murder, his former boss, Aldur. He is trying to find Janlo, who has been leading the local effort to suppress a rebellion. Terak ships on a ship captained by a beautiful woman, and soon finds himself entranced by her and her world … but still wanting revenge on Aldur, who has plans to take over this world. Nowhere does this story surprise, and in the end it doesn’t make too much sense, but it’s effectively told and I like it.

Finally, the weakest story is “The World Otalmi Made”. It’s about a member of the “Profession”, who has been hired to stop a man named Otalmi from his control of his planet. Otalmi seems to be using some sort of mind control. Our hero, Brek, in the company of a beautiful doctor, accomplishes this, of course, in pure thriller fashion. The SF elements here are not really important, and the story never makes much sense.

All in all, a not inappropriate representation of Science Fiction Adventures. I might have included Thomas N. Scortia’s “Alien Night” or C. M. Kornbluth’s “The Slave” instead of the Harrison, or indeed Algis Budrys' “Yesterday’s Man” or one of a couple of Harlan Ellison novellas. But the book is what the magazine was: adventure-oriented long SF stories, not terribly great but often decent fun.

Obscure SF novels reviewed on this blog

My latest organizing post covers relatively few of my posts -- these are SF novels that have fallen into obscurity (or never got out of it!). I'll sneak in an anthology or two as well. I mean to distinguish these from a) my Ace Double reviews, which certainly include a lot of obscure SF novels!; and b) the various fairly recent and not necessarily really obscure SF novels that I've mentioned, things like Station Eleven and Engine Summer and my recent summary review of four 2017 books.

So, the "obscure" SF novels (and an anthology or three) are:

New Dreams This Morning, edited by James Blish;

Recalled to Life, by Robert Silverberg;

Point Ultimate, by Jerry Sohl;

The Super Barbarians, by John Brunner;

The Time-Lockers, by Wallace West;

The Planet Strappers, by Raymond Z. Gallun;

9 Tales of Space and Time, edited by Raymond J. Healy;

The Reign of Wizardry, by Jack Williamson;

Great Science Fiction Adventures, edited by Larry T. Shaw;

Times Without Number, by John Brunner;

D-99, by H. B. Fyfe;

Planet Patrol, by Sonya Dorman;

Birthday Ace Double Review: Captives of the Flame, by Samuel R. Delany/The Psionic Menace, by Keith Woodcott

Ace Double Reviews, 85: Captives of the Flame, by Samuel R. Delany/The Psionic Menace, by Keith Woodcott (#F-199, 1963, 40 cents)

A review by Rich Horton

(Covers by Jack Gaughan and Ed Emshwiller)

This Ace Double includes novels by two of the great writers in the field. "Wait!", you might say, "Samuel Delany I understand. But Keith Woodcott! I never even heard of him." Ahh ... but Keith Woodcott was a pseudonym for John Brunner. At any rate, neither of these novels is among their author's best, though Delany's is the promising work of a young writer who would get better, and who even here shows much promise, while the "Woodcott" is terribly disappointing work by a writer who had already done first rate work, and who could usually be trusted to be quite entertaining, even in his hackwork. He'd get better too -- but you can't say that The Psionic Menace provides any evidence of that. Captives of the Flame is the longer book, about 52,000 words. The Psionic Menace is about 38,000 words.

Captives of the Flame is Delany's second novel. It appeared when he was just 21 years old. It is the first of a trilogy, collectively known as The Fall of the Towers. It opens enigmatically, with Jon Koshar confused and lost ... we soon learn that he has been imprisoned for the past 5 years, despite his prominent position as the son of a leading merchant in the city of Toron. Toron is the island capitol of Toromon, a small "empire" on a future Earth, an Earth on which the inhabited parts (which seem to include Aptor, setting of Delany's first novel, The Jewels of Aptor) are isolated by belts of radiation, the result of the "Great Fire". As the novel begins, Toron is lurching towards war with the mysterious people beyond the nearby radiation belt. The young King Uske, mostly a puppet, wonders what he is doing, declaring war. Jon Koshar's sister Clea, a brilliant mathematician, looks forward to her graduation party, and worries about her military boyfriend. The mysterious Duchess of Petra plots to kidnap the King's younger brother Let. A boy named Tel has landed on the island, and is immediately swept up in the Duchess's plot, along with the acrobat Alter, her aunt Rana, and Jon Koshar. Also involved is a giant from the slightly mutated forest people, who live near the radiation barrier.

If all this seems a bit busy, well, it is. And it stays that way, though it's mostly easy to follow and fun to read. The war starts on schedule. Economic chaos, partly driven by artificial fish production, and exacerbated by a poisoning of the fish supply, accompanies the war. (Delany includes some rather incoherent and unconvincing economic rants.) The kidnap plot comes off, and Prince Let is taken to the forest people, to learn how to be a better King than his ineffectual brother. Clea's mathematical abilities identify a way to end the war. Jon Koshar, with Alter and Petra, battles the alien Lord of the Flames, who seems to be behind the provocations that led Toromon to war. This battle takes them to numerous different planets, to inhabit different life forms, in a colorful sequence that reminded me of Harlan Ellison's very minor early novel The Man With Nine Lives. And ... well, the book pretty much stops. Good thing this is just part one of a trilogy!

In many ways this book is kind of a mess. But some of that might be resolved in the concluding novels of the trilogy, to be fair. (I've read the whole thing, but 40 years ago, and I don't remember it at all.) And as I said it's readable and fun throughout, with prosodic flashes that, while not wholly successful, point the way to the kind of writer Delany would become.

It should be noted that both Captives of the Flame and the second novel in The Fall of the Towers trilogy, The Towers of Toron, were significantly revised prior to publication of the omnibus edition of all three books. That's omnibus edition is what I read, back in 1975 or so, and maybe that's why I don't remember Captives of the Flame! (Or maybe not.) For one thing, it was retitled Out of the Dead City (a much better title) for the later editions. It is possible that some of the revision was restoration of cuts demanded by Donald Wollheim -- I have read that Delany's first novel, The Jewels of Aptor, had to be cut significantly to fit in an Ace Double, and that in the end, frustrated, he was just tossing out paragraphs more or less at random. I would say there is definite evidence in Captives of the Flame that scenes are missing.

The Psionic Menace, by contrast, is a bad book unrelieved by any indication of the possibility of better work to come. I wonder if Brunner purposely used the Woodcott name because he knew how bad the novel was. ("Keith Woodcott" wrote some 5 books for Ace, 4 of them Doubles -- the name also appeared on a couple of short stories. I haven't read any other "Woodcott" novels so I can't say if their quality was generally lower than the novels under the Brunner name. But certainly the other Brunner Ace Doubles I've read (under his name) were much better than The Psionic Menace.)

The book is set in a future in which a mostly peaceful and well-controlled Earth has isolated "psions". Conditions are worse for Psions in the interstellar confederation controlled by the "Starfolk", who live on starships (like Anderson's Kith or Heinlein's Free Traders). The main character, a "cosmoarchaeologist" named Gascon, is a psinul -- his thoughts cannot be sensed by psions. One night he encounters a runaway psion boy who is panicked by a broadcast psionic message warning of the "end of everything".

Meanwhile, on the Starfolk-dominated planet Regnier, a young girl, Errida, is chosen to be a Starfolk concubine. (It appears they need to refresh their genetic pool on occasion, and they do so by force.) But her brother is a psion and it becomes necessary for them to escape to an isolated alien city -- once home to a colony of the "Old Race"... alas, the rest of her family is swept up in a fomented anti-psion riot.

Gascon's academic field, cosmoarchaeology (study of the relics aliens have left on various planets), combined with his being a psinul, makes him ideal to send to Regnier in an Earth plot to solve the mystery of the psion panic about the "end of everything", and also to put pressure on the Starfolk. So he goes to Regnier, and meets Errida. The Starfolk, who have come to Regnier because a Starfolk ship has been lost and psions are suspected, get involved as well, and in a typically too rapid Brunner ending Gascon steals a Starfolk ship and follows clues to the location of the "Old Race" and to the, in the end very disappointing, solution to the mystery of the "end of everything".

It's just a book that didn't work for me at all. I wasn't engaged by any of the characters. I was thoroughly unimpressed by the SFnal aspects, particularly the lamish resolution to the central mystery. Brunner wrote a lot of his early stuff pretty fast, for the money, but he usually gave decent value. Not this time, though.

Birthday Review: PITFCS, by Theodore R. Cogswell

PITFCS, edited by Theodore R. Cogswell

a review by Rich Horton

Theodore R. Cogswell was born March 10, 1918, so he'd have been 101 years old today. (His hometown, Coatesville, PA, was also the home of the great writer W. M. Spackman, who was 13 years older than Cogswell.) Cogswell died in 1987. He was primarily an academic, at Ball State in the 1950s, and by the end an English teacher at a junior college. (Algis Budrys claimed he "couldn't be bothered to publish, and couldn't be bothered to get his Ph.D", which hampered his career.) He wrote some 40 SF stories between 1952 and 1981 (though the largest part by far appeared through 1962), plus one novel, a Star Trek tie-in, Spock, Messiah!, written with Charles Spano. He is still by far best remembered for one story, his first, "The Specter General", from Astounding for June 1952, and later reprinted in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume IIB. One more story is even better, I think -- "The Wall Around the World", from Beyond in 1953.

His writing career, then, never really took off, though as noted he did publish at least a couple really lasting stories, which is more than a lot of folks have done. But he did something else of real significance for the SF field. This was his editing of the "fanzine for pros" called Proceedings of the Institute for Twenty-First Century Studies, usually abbreviated PITFCS. This ran for 17 issues between 1958 and 1962, with one last issue published in 1979 but mainly printing stuff left over from 1962. He prepared this book, a collection of most of the material from PITFCS, in 1985, but Advent didn't publish it until 1993 (though it is dated 1992.) It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Non-Fiction Book.

As I said, this book is primarily the contents of PITFCS, though it includes one issue of another Cogswell fanzine, Digit, comprising mostly humorous poems by a number of SF writers riffing on the ambiguous pronunciations of names like Leiber, Boucher, and Poul (Anderson). Not all of PITFCS is included -- the Science Fiction Encyclopedia suggests that what is missing is discussion of a "particularly ugly controversy involving Walter M. Miller". (I have no idea what that controversy was -- I wouldn't be human if I wasn't curious about it, but I assume it was not included in the book for good and proper reasons.)

The book is huge -- 375 close packed 8 1/2 by 11 pages. (Something in me wishes the format was 7 by 10 in homage to the pulps!) Each issue after the first consists of a short editorial note and a series of letters from the subscribers (often, of course, in response to material from the previous issue.) The list of contributors is huge -- prominent names from within the field include Judith Merril, Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Algis Budrys, Rosel George Brown, Harlan Ellison, Randall Garrett, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, Damon Knight, Miriam Allen de Ford, Lloyd Biggle, Donald A. Wollheim, Sam Youd ("John Christopher"), John Brunner, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, etc. etc. There were several contributors known primarily for work outside the genre: Richard McKenna, Kurt Vonnegut, John Ciardi, Michael Frayn, and Kingsley Amis most obviously.

What was discussed? Some shop talk, for sure -- there was an exchange about the value of editors, some happy to do rewrites on request, others against it. There was discussion about controversial works of the time, notably for example Starship Troopers -- and, indeed, James Blish vowed to write a response to it in novel form. (This became Mission to the Heart Stars, one of Blish's worst books.) There was a fascinating exchange about Budrys' Rogue Moon, and how he cut it for the magazine publication, and possible alternate titles. There were political discussions -- for example, a bit about Chan Davis' encounter with McCarthyism (which is why his career as a Math professor took him to Canada.) There were versions of the age-old debate "Is Science Fiction Literature?" There were discussion of John W. Cambpell's enthusiasms, such as the Dean Drive. Perhaps most significant, there was extended discussion of the possibility of forming an SF Writers' Union -- discussions that were critical in leading eventually to the formation of the Science Fiction Writers of America. And of course there was gossip.

I'm not sure how wide the true audience for this book is -- I know I'm not the usual case. But I absolutely loved it. It's probably my favorite book "about" Science Fiction, and the Science Fiction community, of all time. And it's still available, from Advent Publishers (via NESFA.) So -- if you are part of the SF community, if gossip and elevated gossip about issues dating back 50 years is of interest to you, this is a wonderfully fun book to have. That said, these issues hanker back to ancient times, sort of, and for many people likely this won't mean much of anything, which is fine too, of course.

Hugo Nomination Recommendations, 1954

Potential Hugo nominess from 1953 (1954 Worldcon -- SFCon, in San Francisco)

Continuing my project of suggesting potential Hugo nominees (and winners) for the early years of the Hugos. The 1959 Worldcon was the first to settle on a year of eligibility (the calendar year prior to the year of the Worldcon) and on a nomination process. The nomination process, voting rules, and categories changed quite often over the next 10 to 15 years, before largely settling down, in the fiction categories, anyway. But at least to some extent, things were more comparable to present day rules beginning with the 1959 Hugos, for 1958 stories.

There were no Hugos awarded at the 1954 Worldcon -- and perhaps as a result, there has been some attention paid to potential Hugos from that year! And, indeed, there were Retro Hugos awarded at the 2004 Worldcon. 

Jo Walton's Informal History of the Hugos didn't really cover 1954, as there were no Hugos that year, though she suggested that Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human would have been a good novel winner. Richard A. Lupoff, in What If, Volume 1, chose Damon Knight's "Four in One" as a potential Short Fiction winner. And Noreascon 4, the 2004 World SF Cconvention, did award Retro Hugos, and there was a quite a plausible set of five nominees in each of the fiction categories. I've marked the nominees (and winner) with a bolded RH (not to be confused with my initials!) in the lists below. And, finally, I wrote an article for Locus Online back in 2004, suggesting potential nominees in the fiction categories. I've changed my mind some since then, and I also messed up some of the story lengths, but I still like what I wrote, which is here: The Best Science Fiction of 1953: A Look a Potential Retro Hugos.

Novels

The Caves of Steel, by Isaac Asimov RH

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury RH winner

Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke RH

Mission of Gravity, by Hal Clement RH

More Than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon RH

Other possibilities:

The Big Jump, by Leigh Brackett

Revolt in 2100, by Robert A. Heinlein

Starman Jones, by Robert A. Heinlein

The Sinful Ones, by Fritz Leiber

The Green Millennium, by Fritz Leiber

You Shall Know Them aka Les Animaux Denatures, by "Vercors" (Jean Bruller)

Bring the Jubilee, by Ward Moore

Children of the Atom, by Wilmar Shiras

The Kraken Wakes aka Out of the Deeps, by John Wyndham

This was a remarkable year for SF novels, and the five that I list as nominees -- the same list the Retro Hugo nominators picked -- are all certified classics in the field. There some impressive alternate choices too -- among those I list, Leiber's The Sinful Ones (an expansion and in my opinion an improvement on his 1950 short novel "You're All Alone") is a personal favorite. In my Locus article I picked The Caves of Steel as the winner, but I'm really torn. Nowadays I might lean to either More Than Human, or to the Retro Hugo winner, Fahrenheit 451.

The Vercors novel, You Shall Know Them, was published in France in 1952 but I list it here for the first edition of its English translation (by Bruller's wife, Rita Barisse). (There were other editions of the English version (the same translation): The Murder of the Missing Link and Borderline.) It's a purposely controversial novel, and hard to take at times, but very interesting. My review: You Shall Know Them.

Novellas

"A Case of Conscience", by James Blish (If, September) RH winner

"The Rose", by Charles Harness (Authentic, March) RH

"Double Meaning", by Damon Knight (Startling, January)

"The Diploids", by Katherine MacLean (Thrilling Wonder, April)

"... And My Fear is Great", by Theodore Sturgeon (Beyond, July) RH

Other possibilities:

"Three Hearts and Three Lions", by Poul Anderson (F&SF, September and October) RH

"Un-Man", by Poul Anderson (Astounding, January) RH

"Sargasso of Lost Cities", by James Blish (Two Complete Science-Adventure Books, Spring)

"The Wanton of Argus", by John Brunner (as "Kilian Houston Brunner") (Two Complete Science-Adventure Books, September)

"Cue for Quiet", by T. L. Sherred (Space Science Fiction, May and July)

In this category my choice for the winner is still Charles Harness's "The Rose", an extremely strange, dreamlike, story of science vs. art. The rest of the ones I list as possible nominees are all strong, though, and any one would have been a good winner.

The "other possibilities" include two solid Poul Anderson stories ("Three Hearts and Three Lions" being a shorter version of the 1961 novel), one of several interesting T. L. Sherred stories from this time frame, an enjoyable but slight very early Brunner story (later reprinted as half of an Ace Double and also as part of his collection Interstellar Empire as "The Space-Time Juggler"), and an important Blish story that I had missed (thanks to Gregory Feeley for reminding me of it) that became part of Cities in Flight. Note the two novellas from the somewhat obscure (but often interesting) Two Complete Science-Adventure Books.

Novelettes

"The Wall Around the World", by Theodore Cogswell (Beyond, September) RH

"Second Variety", by Philip K. Dick (Space Science Fiction, May) RH

"Four in One", by Damon Knight (Galaxy, February)

"Lot", by Ward Moore (F&SF, May)

"Mr. Costello, Hero", by Theodore Sturgeon (Galaxy, December)

Other possibilities:

"Earthman Come Home", by James Blish (Astounding, November) RH Winner

"Belief", by Isaac Asimov (Astounding, October)

"Sam Hall", by Poul Anderson (Astounding, August) RH

"The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound", by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson (Universe, December) RH

"Time is the Traitor", by Alfred Bester (F&SF, September)

"A Way of Thinking", by Theodore Sturgeon (E Pluribus Unicorn; Amazing, October-November)

"What Thin Partitions", by Mark Clifton and Alex Apostolides (Astounding, September)

"Hide! Hide! Witch", by Mark Clifton and Alex Apostolides (Astounding, December)

"A Little Knowledge", by Judith Merril (Science Fiction Quarterly, November)

"The Third Guest" aka "Macario", by B. Traven (Fantastic, March-April)

"Eye for Iniquity", by T. L. Sherred (Beyond, July)

This is one of those categories  where I had a hard time narrowing down to five nominees. "Earthman, Come Home", "Sam Hall", and "Time is the Traitor" could easily have made my list. I should add that it's a reasonable guess that back in 1954, at least one of those Clifton/Apostolides stories would have been nominated. In my Locus article, I chose "Four in One" as the winner -- and so did Richard A. Lupoff in his What If? anthology. My second choice would probably be the Cogswell story, "The Wall Around the World". 

Short Stories

"It's a Good Life", by Jerome Bixby (Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2) RH

"Common Time", by James Blish (Shadow of Tomorrow; Science Fiction Quarterly, August)

"The Nine Billion Names of God", by Arthur C. Clarke (Star Science Fiction Stories) RH winner

"Specialist", by Robert Sheckley (Galaxy, May)

"A Saucer of Loneliness", by Theodore Sturgeon (Galaxy, February; E Pluribus Unicorn) RH

"The Liberation of Earth", by "William Tenn" (Philip Klass) (Future, May)

Other possibilities:

"The Hypnoglyph", by "John Anthony" (John Ciardi) (F&SF, July)

"Disappearing Act", by Alfred Bester (Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2)

"Star Light, Star Bright", by Alfred Bester (F&SF, July) RH

"Testament of Andros", by James Blish (Future, January)

"Encounter in the Dawn" aka "Expedition to Earth" aka "Encounter at Dawn", by Arthur C. Clarke (Amazing, June-July)

"Impostor", by Philip K. Dick (Astounding, June)

"The Man With English", by H. L. Gold (Star Science Fiction Stories)

"A Bad Day for Sales", by Fritz Leiber (Galaxy, July; Shadow of Tomorrow)

"The Night He Cried", by Fritz Leiber (Star Science Fiction Stories)

"Crucifixus Etiam", by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (Astounding, February)

"All Cats are Gray", by "Andrew North" (Andre Norton) (Fantastic Universe, August-September)

"As Holy and Enchanted", by "Henderson Starke" (Kris Neville) (Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader, April)

"The Ruum", by Arthur Porge (F&SF, October)

"Seventh Victim", by Robert Sheckley (Galaxy, April) RH

"Warm", by Robert Sheckley (Galaxy, June)

"The Altruists", by "Idris Seabright" (Margaret St. Clair) (F&SF, November)

"The World Well Lost", by Theodore Sturgeon (Galaxy, June; E Pluribus Unicorn)

"DP!", by Jack Vance (Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader, April)

"Unready to Wear", by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Galaxy, April)

Long list of stories in this category! I included some more for secondary reasons -- I remain intrigued that the great poet and Dante translator John Ciardi was also an SF enthusiast (and a friend of Asimov's) who appeared in F&SF several times over the years. The Clarke story is the first iteration of the idea behind 2001. Robert Sheckley had an astonishing year, and probably three or four more stories could have been listed. I note that the three stories I do list come from consecutive issues of Galaxy. 

Note too the influence of Frederik Pohl as an editor. He published the first two volumes of his Star Science Fiction series of original anthologies, and also a excellent standalone original anthology (Shadow of Tomorrow). Also note that Sturgeon's collection E Pluribus Unicorn featured more or less simultaneous printings of three stories that also appeared in magazines. (I suspect perhaps Sturgeon had sold the stories to the magazines some time before, and publication was delayed enough that the book caught up!)

My choice for a winner in my Locus article was James Blish's "Common Time". I still think that's a good choice, though "A Saucer of Loneliness" is one of my very favorite Sturgeon stories and it would have been a good winner too.