« August 2006 | Main | October 2006 »
September 29, 2006
"There is such a thing as accepting a responsibility."
Seecond favorite quote: "I aint no gentleman .... But I need a lawyer."
"To Walk a Citys Street" is a story told almost completely as dialogue. Its plot is centered around a simple moment of realization that turns the entire premise upside down; its the kind of elegantly simple SF story that would usually be told by a scientist, but instead is given to the people who know least. (This is a common theme in SF - but it is difficult to pull off without confusing the reader. At moments this story reminded me of Tiptree's "Screwfly Solution" although that story (as much feminist SF does) exploits the confusion,* deliberately, i.e. the opening scene of LeGuins The Left Hand of Darkness.)
* Tiptrees story is narrated by a scientist, a technique that usually lets the author be laser-direct about the ideas in a story. In a genre thats often about ideas authors have to find ways around knowledgeable characters making a storys *entire* point in a single, neutron star-dense paragraph of exposition. :P
"Citys Street" was written by Hugo-winning author Clifford D. Simak, best remembered for his award winning "Grotto of Dancing Deer." The best thing about this story is the way it is written. His absolutely clear and lucid style no doubt came from his background as a journalist. This story is like a windowpane and I did not miss the a bit of absent stage-setting or description. (There are no clues about date or geography, but there is no sense of "white room" to this story at all.) Simaks publishing career spanned from 1931 to 1997. (Although he died in 1988.) His works.
It so happens that this short story was filmed for TV:
http://imdb.com/name/nm0089756/bio
(I am curious what they did with it since it is nearly a screenplay as written - although there are no descriptions of fashions, buildings, characters, or locations. A filmmaker would have to make all the decisions about setting and era (and decide whether to invent background and exposition to add to this lucidly minimal tale.))
An extensive appreciation of Simaks work:
http://trikacommunications.com/simak/welcometothewaystation.htm
I read Cliff's stories with particular attention, and I couldn't help but notice the simplicity and directness of the writing - the utter clarity of it. I made up my mind to imitate it, and I labored over the years to make my writing simpler, clearer, more uncluttered, to present my scenes on a bare stage. - Isaac Asimov
Next time a story by T. J. Bass. Who? Further info: http://www.strangewords.com/archive/bass.html
-LV
Posted by lisav at 10:50 PM
September 28, 2006
'The recreation is not to help them make the trip; it is the whole purpose of the trip.'
Hm, maybe I shouldnt bring the Sponge Bob Sodoku sticker book on my next trip... This story calls to mind the Mark Twain quote, 'Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.' Or (to summarize this story in one of those old Science Fiction Book Club questions): 'What could people achieve if they were freed from the sense of burden or obligation with work?'
One of the pleasures of 'The Gold at the Starbows End' lies in its surprises (and its lapses into poetry.) I dont recommend googling it before you read it - and I dont wish to spoil much of it, myself. Ill only say this is a fine tale of the first manned trip to Alpha Centauri and of human potential at its best - and worst.
The author of this story, Frederik Pohl, was an established and accomplished writer by the time this story appeared. (It was the cover story for Analog in March 1972.) A Nebula Grand Master, he had been publishing since 1932 and has been both an SF editor (Galaxy, If) and a SF literary agent. (His works and awards are too many to count.)
He continues to publish and appear at cons.
(The editor of this collection comments that 'Starbow' should win the Hugo and Nebula: in fact it was nominated for both but lost to the novella 'The Word for World is Forest' by Ursula K. LeGuin, and 'A Meeting with Medusa' by Arthur C. Clarke, respectively. Pohl won that year for 'The Meeting.')
An Interview with a good warning against fixing an unpleasant habit to ones work:
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue240/interview.html
Why political themes are important in this story and his other work:
http://www.tor.com/pohl/interview.html
Official Bio: http://www.frederikpohl.com/
Next time, a story by Clifford D. Simak.
-LV
Posted by lisav at 12:43 AM
September 15, 2006
Oh, Valinda!
This story is by Michael G. Coney (1932-2005), author of more than a dozen novels, a short story collection (which does not include this story), and the Song of Earth series. He was nominated for the Nebula award for "Tea and Hamsters" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (January 1995)) and won the British Science Fiction Award in 1977. He was also nominated for the Aurora Award 5 times. He is best remembered for his novel Hello Summer, Goodbye (US title: Rax) and its sequel I Remember Pallahaxi.
He published his first novel in 1972, so this short story is a very early work of his. It is one of those tales whose setting is SF but whose plot and dialogue come from another genre: this is a story about vendetta, prejudice, personal hatred, a kind of cut-throat espionage. The SF setting is original: I cant think of many SF works that start from arctic marine biology. The story also has an interesting take on 'space madness' - how humans may adapt to being alone in large, empty, isolated environments. I recommend it, even though I like my aliens more alien and prefer my SF to permeate more than a pieces setting.
An Interview with Coney: http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/intrvws/coney.htm
An Appreciation by John Clute: http://tinyurl.com/zyzw2
A Remembrance by The Lonely Cry: http://www.lonelycry.ca/mconey.html
Next time: a short story by Frederik Pohl.
-LV
Posted by lisav at 10:54 PM
September 14, 2006
"Dust from the future ... What's it going to tell you? That the future has dust in it?"
A friend recently sent me an aerial photo with an odd curved line though it, asking me if I thought it was the remains of an old road. (Sure why not? I replied.) What I thought first, however, was "We need James Tiptree, Jr."
James Tiptree, Jr. was the pen name of Alice Sheldon, a Major in the Army trained in interpreting intelligence photos taken from the air. She also had a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology and worked for the newly-formed CIA. She wrote SF, won awards, and signed letters and books under her male pen name -- keeping her secret so carefully that her identity would not be known until 1978, after ten years of writing. Her biography and her accomplishments were so conventionally male (and much of her short fiction was such a fine and exacting parody of the machismo common in then-contemporary SF) that Robert Silverbergs brief biography of Tiptree in his introduction to the story "A Momentary Taste of Being" did not blink at calling Tiptree "a man of middle years." (p. 88 The New Atlantis ed. Silverberg, also part of the Sprague Browsing collection.)
(Although I wonder, as others have, if signing herself 'Tip' (instead of 'James' or 'Jim' or 'Tiptree') was a reference to Ozma of Oz -- if you dont understand this why, then please read L. Frank Baum's second Oz book. (You dont have to have read the first one to understand it, except for the world it is a completely independent book.) The Oz books were the Harry Potter books of their own day, and in the right time for Tiptree of have read them herself as a girl.)
This anthology contains one of Tiptrees early stories, 'The Man Who Walked Home.' It first appeared in Amazing Science Fiction Stories in 1972; Tiptree started publishing in 1968. This story is an unusual mix of pastoral post-apocalypticism and time travel gone wrong (or is that 'gone right'?) It discusses magical thinking vs. science and is fundamentally optimistic about human nature: it is the first post-apocalyptic work Ive read in a long time that was disquieting but not depressing.
You can read an appreciation of Tiptree’s legacy in Ursula K. LeGuins book of essays called The Language of the Night. There is also a new biography of Alice Sheldon called: James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips.
Tiptrees legacy is honored by an award in her name: http://www.tiptree.org/
-LV
Posted by lisav at 10:23 PM
Another note on Orpheus
Read the Classical poet Ovid's telling of the story -- it is far stranger and more moving than any opera, or summary of Roman myths, or encyclopedia entry on "Orpheus." Go to this link and skip down to "Orpheus and Eurydice" (Orpheus story continues into book 11. Skip the intervening stories -- Ovid needed a plot device to tell as many stories as
possible in one long poem, so his characters keep interrupting their own stories to tell someone elses: http://oaks.nvg.org/omd.html#j1 )
-LV
Posted by lisav at 10:17 PM
September 01, 2006
The 1972 Annual World's Best SF
I love old SF anthologies like this one: I grew up reading every single one I could get my hands on from small libraries and rural second hand bookstores. As a result Ive probably read something by every author active in the 60s and 70s (and other decades as well) -- but my memory is *terrible*: I can read with a far more careful (and a more comprehending) eye, now.
Poul Anderson (SFWA Grand Master 1997) is remembered for his wide ranging science fiction and fantasy works covering several serieses and a multitude of independent novels and short stories. He had a degree in physics but was also a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. He won several awards throughout his long career, and Sprague Library has his 1972 Nebula Award winning (and 1973 Hugo Award winning) novelette Goat Song, a frequently anthologized story of his, which first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in February of 1972.
The phrase goat song is the English translation of the Greek word tragedy. Andersons story alludes to two other, older stories (one of them a tragedy) in order to tell its tale: the story of Thomas the Rhymer and the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice. (Thomas the Rhymer is also alluded to in Pamela Dean's novel Tam Lin.) This is appropriate, as one of the themes of Andersons story is whether humans have any further need for art and mythology in setting where a rational computer decides everything. (It also talks about how religious beliefs are used to sustain the authority of this type of government: the computer is given authority over death because it promises a future cybertronic resurrection.) The story involves a poet, a meeting with a powerful woman, a journey to another world -- and a plea that someone be returned from the dead.
I recommend it, it's an sf story that feels like the best of modern fantasy.
Next time I'll cover an early story by James Tiptree, Jr.
-LV
Posted by lisav at 11:57 PM