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Author: Adrian Simmons

Star Trek: Discovery: A Quick Dive Into the New Face of the Franchise

Star Trek: Discovery: A Quick Dive Into the New Face of the Franchise

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Review’s Log, Stardate 2020.3.18

It’s not how I would have done it.

Honestly, any review/criticism of a beloved franchise that doesn’t begin with those eight words is committing a significant lie of omission. Indeed, I feel that all future reviews should be required to begin with those words, or the INHIWHDI acronym. Consider it a new Prime Directive for our wounded age.

Reviewer’s Log, Supplemental

Timing is everything, and Star Trek: Discovery (ST:D) really drew the short end of the stick on this one. When I got CBS All Access I didn’t know it was all access. As in the entire CBS backlog. Original Series Trek, Next Generation Trek, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and the Animated Series from ’74.

It is not ST:D’s fault that I dove right into the Animated Series (ST:TAS) as soon as I realized I had it. And ST:TAS was just as weird/cool/funky as you would think it was. It was also delightfully subversive and progressive. Uhuru commands the Enterprise twice. Is there even a live-action Trek that has a black woman in the big chair? Chapel solves The Problem once and solves The Other Problem once. Also, Kzinti.

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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Good News in Three Acts

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Good News in Three Acts

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Act I — A Year In Review

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly punches well above its weight in the Tangent Online 2019 Recommended Reading List with SEVEN stories. Don’t want to search through their list? I got ya!

“Then, Stars” by Michael Meyerhofer (Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #41, 8/19)
“Echo of the Siren” by Richard Zwicker (Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #42, 11/19)
“A Stone’s Throw” by Howard Andrew Jones, (Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #40, 5/19)
“Trail of Ashes” by Caleb Williams (Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #40, 5/19)
“The Song of Black Mountain” by Darrell Schweitzer (Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #40, 5/19)
“Demons from the Deep” by Adrian Cole (Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #40, 5/19)
“The Gatekeeper” by Marlane Quade Cook (Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #39, 2/19)

Now, some of you with good memories may be saying to yourself “Well sure, Simmons, #40 was the special 10-year anniversary issue. You brought in big guns and it is no surprise that the likes of Howard Andrew Jones, or Darrell Schweitzer, or Adrian Cole should end up on the recommended list.” First off, you’re welcome. Secondly, hats off to Caleb Williams who not only stood in that august company, but stood out!

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Amazing Stories, November 1979: A Retro-Review

Amazing Stories, November 1979: A Retro-Review

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11 79 Amazing Stories Covered

Cover by Elinor Mavor

Coming in after Asimov’s, Amazing Stories is a svelte 130 pages. One thing that really stood out to me in this issue was that almost everyone in it was a novice writer — many of the stories were first sales. It isn’t the ‘theme’ of the magazine, or of this issue or anything, but it is a thing I noticed. There is something refreshing about a quality amateur story, a certain unpolished plunging-ahead that can sweep the reader along.

That said, there are some of the stories that are, honestly, not that good. Others have said it better, but if you had picked up this issue back in the day (or pretty much any day), and thought to yourself “Hell, I could do this!”, you’d be right.

Here’s a look at the contents.

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Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction, November 1979: A Retro-Review

Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction, November 1979: A Retro-Review

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Asimov’s Science Fiction, November 1979
Edited by George H. Scithers
Published by Davis Publications. 196 pages, $1.25

I heard you missed me! I’m back!

Technically, this is Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (now known as Asimov’s Science Fiction). It was a refreshing change of pace after Galileo’s ‘story behind the story,’ and Analog’s massive book review. Asimov’s was pretty much fiction and nothing but fiction. 192 pages of it, as the cover advertises!

Also advertised, Dungeons and Dragons — and not ‘Advanced’ D&D, but the original. Takin’ it back! Also, as I’ve said elsewhere, taking readers away from sci-fi magazines in the long run.

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Analog, November 1979: A Retro-Review

Analog, November 1979: A Retro-Review

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Analog 1979-small Analog 1979-back-small

The November 1979 Analog has probably the least appealing magazine cover I’ve ever seen. By Richard Anderson, for the story “Phoenix.” However, when we get to the story itself, that guy… that guy has seen some things, man.

Guest Editorial, by G. Harry Stine.

So… Harry Stine is a writer, space advocate, and a major founder of model rocketry, and he is unhappy with this whole idea that humans will never break the light speed barrier. So, as you do, he writes a bit of a hatchet-job on Albert Einstein, or at least those people lacking enough imagination to assume Einstein didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

He was so successful at it, as a matter of fact, that a whole new cult of Keepers of the Faith have taken over and continue to look upon the Universe with the tunnel vision created by the blinders of their interpretations of Einstein’s work.

He goes on like this for easily 6 pages, hitting all the high points of various scientific ‘certainties’ that were exploded by later experimentations and observations. At least it wasn’t an article about telepathy…

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Galileo Magazine of Science & Fiction, November 1979: A Retro-Review

Galileo Magazine of Science & Fiction, November 1979: A Retro-Review

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Cover art by Larry Blamire – “Louis Wu Making Good His Escape”

I’m going to start my review of the November 1979 issue of Galileo magazine by talking about Omni. I’ve heard people, people of a certain age — people who were there, man — talk about Omni like it was the second coming of Christ. I bring that up because Galileo magazine was like Christ rolled the stone out of the way and was serving up fancy drinks in the tomb.

I’m also going to start my review of Galileo Magazine by kicking F&SF while it’s down. F&SF can’t scrape together a single piece of internal artwork? Galileo has artwork, multiple pieces at times, for each story, each article. Yes, yes, we know how it ends; slow and steady F&SF eventually wins this race, but you get my point.

In short, Galileo, while not perfect, certainly swings for the fences. It was a science fiction magazine that had one foot well in the world of sf/f writers, one foot well in the world of the serious sf/f fan, one hand guiding the casual sf/f fan, and one hand embracing the growing spheres of TV, movies, and games. It had artwork (although it was all black and white, which is one of the only things about it that seems a bit dated), and yes, it had fiction. Pretty good fiction, all around.

It is a crying shame that Galileo magazine folded in January, 1980 — literally the very next issue! It burned a bright trail in sf/f for a little less than four years.

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The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1979: A Retro-Review

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1979: A Retro-Review

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I didn’t really pick the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction to begin my November 1979 survey of sf/f magazines, it just happened to be on top of the stack. Overall I have to say that I was disappointed.

Lord Valentine’s Castle, Part 1, by Robert Silverberg. Given how much I enjoyed Downward to Earth in the November 1969 Galaxy, I was eager to see how Mr. Silverberg had evolved over a decade. … Lord Valentine’s Castle was a big letdown. You often hear that editors and agents really hate stories that start with a guy waking up not remembering anything, and I can totally see why. Valentine, the main character (MC), walks toward the great city of Pidruid, he meets a herdsman, they join a juggling troupe, Valentine starts to realize he has no real memories before walking to Pidruid, they practice for the grand parade for the King-of-the-World (the Coronal), also named Valentine, he has odd dreams. This goes on for 93 pages (easily 60% of the magazine), of which I only read about 80, and which only started cooking about page 75.

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Quatro-Decadal Review, November 1979: A Brief Look Back

Quatro-Decadal Review, November 1979: A Brief Look Back

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When you’re seven years old, you do not see what’s coming next between these two

I’m about to get into the November 1979 science fiction magazines. Dive Deep. But, there is a fundamental difference between November 1969, and November 1979 — I was born in 1969, but by 1979 I was 10 years old. I remember 1979. Or pieces of it anyway.

Before I got into the magazines I thought I’d see what I could recall from my younger years. In short — Star Wars is what I remember.

It loomed large over almost everything in my life at the time. I think I went to see it like… 7 times? And back then, back in 1977, that took work, dude.

I remember disco, I remember “Disco Duck.” I had, by 1979, watched the entire run of Star Trek (and I have to say, when you are 8-10 years old, each Star Trek episode was almost as good as Star Wars).

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July-August 2018 Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction: A Review

July-August 2018 Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction: A Review

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Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction July August 2018-small

Having just come out of the 1969 Retro-Reviews, AND Black Gate Book Club’s 1981 Downbelow Station, I wanted to dip into the modern SF/F scene a bit before starting the 1979 Retro-Reviews. I delved into Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August 2018. I’ll be talking about the fiction and poetry in this review, spoiler-free, but skipping book review columns and such.

This is a somewhat special issue, with stories inspired by (or matching) the excellent Bob Eggleton cover art “Big Mars.”

“The Phobos Experience” by Mary Robinette Kowal

 
Darlene Ritika works on the Bradbury Space Center, orbiting Mars, in this alternate history tale. She is hiding a severe case of vertigo from her superiors and co-workers and gets called out by the Man to go to Phobos and find an entrance to a series of secret caves. They find a cave, but discover they are not the first people to be there. A slow-motion chase/fight ensues in the low gravity. With the heart of the story being such a slow scene, the story in its entirety seemed really rushed to me.

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Black Gate Book Club, Downbelow Station, Final Discussion

Black Gate Book Club, Downbelow Station, Final Discussion

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BdS1Welcome to the final round of the Black Gate Book Club, where we hash out or feelings and impressions on C.J. Cherryh’s 1981 classic Downbelow Station (DbS).  We also give DbS our final score– and things get contentious!

Need to catch up on the discussion?  Easily done with these convenient links to the first, second, third, and fourth rounds.

Adrian S.

I finished DbS last week. Third time was on the money!  Since I appeared to be the slow elephant I assume that everyone else was probably finished before I was.  In our set-up for the Black Gate Book Club we said that we’d give a final 1 to 10 rating on the books and this is our opportunity for that, as well as for final thoughts/quibbles/arguments.

Me? I’m going to give DbS a 6 out of 10.

I acknowledge the vastness of the story and the world(s) that Cherryh constructed. It is intricate, it is dynamic, it is chaotic; she has two generations of station masters vs. two generations of saboteurs, vs. a rag-tag Company Fleet, vs. an unknown foe of the Union forces, and throws in the Downers and the Merchanters and all that.

That said, did we really have to spend 300 pages setting the board so that some things could start happening? Yes, I get it, a slow burn, small disasters leading to bigger disasters.  But 300 pages of it?

300 pages of characters that seem completely interchangeable. Is there much of a difference between Angelo Konstantin and his sons Emilio and Damon.  Is there much of a difference between Emilio and Damon?   Ditto Jon Lucas and his two sons?   Double ditto between Conrad Mazian and Seb Azov.  Double damn ditto the women in the story,  Miliko (Emilio’s wife) and Elene (Damon’s).

I’m going to expand on something that Chris Hocking said about Cherryh’s lack of a sense of wonder. Not only is there no real sense of wonder, but Cherryh seems to be able to only write one real emotional state—a crippling sense of dread (CSoD).  And that’s why each of those characters comes across pretty much the exact same way—they all have intricately explored, elaborated, and expanded CSoD.  There seems to be no character that she doesn’t put into a claustrophobic environment to stew in their own cold terror.

That’s why Jon Lukas, Jessad, Ambassador Ayers and even Satin stand out in this story like giants—they are the only characters who take an active hand in their own fate.  Even Bran Hale and the goon from Q , secondary characters at best, bestride Downbelow Station like colossi because they do something. The rest just bounce around like terrified pinballs until they are finally forced to take some action.

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