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Author: Steven H Silver

Birthday Reviews: Michael A. Burstein’s “Reality Check”

Birthday Reviews: Michael A. Burstein’s “Reality Check”

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Cover by Kim Poor
Cover by Kim Poor

Michael A. Burstein was born on February 27, 1970. Burstein is an Orthodox Jew and many of his stories are informed by this background, from the main character of “Reality Check” to the entire story “Kaddish for the Last Survivor.”

Much of his short fiction is gathered in the collection I Remember the Future: The Award-Nominated Stories of Michael A. Burstein. His debut story “TeleAbsence” won the Analog Readers Poll and the Science Fiction Chronicle Readers Poll. His later novella “Sanctuary,” also won the Anlab poll. Burstein won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1997.

“Reality Check” was first published in Analog’s November 1999 issue, purchased by Stanley Schmidt. It was reprinted in Burstein’s collection I Remember the Future and was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novella and shortlisted for the Theodore Sturgeon Award.

Michael Burstein’s four linked stories, “Broken Symmetry,” “Absent Friends,” “Reality Check,” and “Empty Spaces,” deal with parallel universes linked together through a Superconducting Supercollider. Although “Reality Check” is the third in the sequence and refers to the subject of “Absent Friends,” it requires no knowledge of the previous story to enjoy it (although the four appear sequentially in I Remember the Future).

David Strock is a theoretical physicist specializing in low energy research. When one of his papers gains the attention of a government facility in Texas, he is invited to see the classified work they are doing. Despite his better judgment, and the desires of his wife, he visits them and decides to take a temporary appointment to work on the secret project, offering him the chance to collaborate with another universe. Strock tries to balance his research and time in Texas with his home life in Boston, although the strife in Boston seems to be worse than Burstein shows.

When Strock meets a woman who reveals that he has a near doppelganger on the other side, his interest is further piqued in the project, although he tries to point out to her that he is not the person she has heard about from the other universe. In the end, Burstein successfully ties together disparate scenes of Strock’s home-life, his lunches at MIT with a graduate student, his doppelganger, and the research he was conducting.

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Birthday Reviews: Theodore Sturgeon’s “The Girl Had Guts”

Birthday Reviews: Theodore Sturgeon’s “The Girl Had Guts”

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Cover by Ed Emshwiller

Theodore Sturgeon was born on February 26, 1918 (Happy Centennial Theodore!) and died on May 8, 1985. Sturgeon won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his story “Slow Sculpture,” possibly the only time a story has won the Novelette Nebula and the Short Story Hugo.

His novel More Than Human received the International Fantasy Award. A translation of “And Now the News…” received a Seiun Award while “The World Well Lost” received a Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame Award. Sturgeon himself received the Forry Award from LASFS in 1971 and a Life Achievement World Fantasy Award shortly after his death. In 2000 he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. He’s remembered today mostly for his short stories, including “Killdozer,” “A Saucer of Loneliness,” and “If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister,” but he also wrote the novels More Than Human, Venus Plus X, and The Dreaming Jewels. Kurt Vonnegut’s recurring character Kilgore Trout is believed to have been named for him.

Sturgeon wrote the classic Star Trek episode “Amok Time,” which introduced the Vulcan salute and the phrase “Live long and prosper.” His short fiction has been collected into a thirteen volume set by North Atlantic Press. The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, presented annually for short stories by the Gunn Center at the University of Kansas, is named in his honor.

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Birthday Reviews: A.M. Dellamonica’s “A Key to the Illuminated Heretic”

Birthday Reviews: A.M. Dellamonica’s “A Key to the Illuminated Heretic”

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Cover by Jeff Easley
Cover by Jeff Easley

A.M. (Alyxandra Margaret) Dellamonica was born on February 25, 1968. She began publishing short fiction in 1994 and published her first novel, Indigo Springs, the first novel in a duology, in 2009.

From 2014-2016, she published the Hidden Sea trilogy, beginning with Child of a Hidden Sea and continuing with A Daughter of No Nation and The Nature of a Pirate. With Steve Berman, Dellamonica edited Heiress of Russ 2016: The Year’s Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction.

Dellamonica won the Sunburst Award for Indigo Springs and the Aurora Award for A Daughter of No Nation. She has one other Aurora nomination and has also received nominations for the Lambda Award for novel and the Gaylactic Spectrum Award for short fiction.

“A Key to the Illuminated Heretic” was original published in Alternate Generals III, edited by Harry Turtledove in 2005. It was nominated for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. Dellamonica later published the story in an e-chapbook.

A.M. Dellamonica creates a world in which Joan of Arc is not burned at the stake on May 30, 1431, instead surviving to continue to be a thorn in the side of not only King Henry VI on England and King Charles VI of France, but also of Pope Eugene IV, continuing her battle not only for the secular realm of France, but also in support of her own heretical sect of Christianity, the Listeners, who follow Joan and believe in her visions.

While much of the story describes her military escapes in France, the focus is really on her relationship with a young artist, Dulice Aulon, and the paintings she created of important moments in Joan’s life. Descriptions of these paintings are found throughout, as if written for an exhibit catalog, and the paintings described help illuminate the action that immediately follows.

Dellamonica notes that Joan was illiterate, which serves to heighten the importance of Aulon’s paintings. They are the way Joan’s story is spread to the masses, gaining Joan adherents who are willing to fight for Joan’s visions and vision for France and support her, particularly the city of Orleans, which Joan had rescued from siege prior to Dellamonica’s point of divergence.

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Birthday Reviews: August Derleth’s “The Return of Hastur”

Birthday Reviews: August Derleth’s “The Return of Hastur”

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Cover by Virgil Finlay

August Derleth was born on February 24, 1909 and died on July 4, 1971. It was Derleth who coined the term “Cthulhu Mythos” for H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, although Derleth had earlier suggested the “Hastur Mythology,” which Lovecraft rejected.

In 1939, Derleth and Donald Wandrei founded Arkham House, a small press dedicated to preserving the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, and eventually those who were influenced by Lovecraft.

Although best known as a proponent of Lovecraft and for his own stories which expand on Lovecraft’s work, Derleth also wrote children’s books and biographies aimed at kids and detective fiction, most notable the Solar Pons series. He felt his Sac Prairie saga, which was based on Sauk City, Wisconsin, where he lived, was his most important work.

“The Return of Hastur” was purchased by Farnsworth Wright and appeared in the March 1939 issue of Weird Tales, which also included a story by Lovecraft. Derleth reprinted the story in his collection Someone in the Dark in 1941 and again in The Mask of Cthulhu in 1958. Lin Carter selected the story for The Spawn of Cthulhu and it was eventually included in Robert M. Price’s The Hastur Cycle. It was included in the Barnes and Noble collection of Derleth stories The Cthulhu Mythos and in In Lovecraft’s Shadows: The Cthulhu Mythos Stories of August Derleth, issued by Arkham House in 1998. The story has been translated into French, Italian, and German. Lovecraft is known to have read and commented on an early version.

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Birthday Reviews: W.E.B. Du Bois’s “Jesus Christ in Texas”

Birthday Reviews: W.E.B. Du Bois’s “Jesus Christ in Texas”

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W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868 and died on August 27, 1963. He was the first black man to earn a doctorate from Harvard University and taught history, sociology, and economics.

Du Bois helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. Most of W.E.B. Du Bois’s writings were sociological in nature, focusing on the plight of African-Americans. Throughout his career, he fought for equal rights for blacks and against lynchings and Jim Crow laws.

“Jesus Christ In Texas” was original published in Du Bois’s collection Darkwater: Voices from the Veil in 1920. It has been reprinted numerous times since.

Two of Du Bois’s stories have elements of the fantastic in them, including “Jesus in Texas.” As told in the title, this story is about a visitation of Jesus to Texas. During his brief time, he sees black prisoners used on a chain gang, the whites who are benefiting from their labor, and a prisoner who has escaped.

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Birthday Reviews: Joanna Russ’s “Nobody’s Home”

Birthday Reviews: Joanna Russ’s “Nobody’s Home”

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Cover by Ron Walotsky

Joanna Russ was born on February 22, 1937 and died on April 29, 2011. From her first publications, she became a voice for feminist science fiction in a world which was dominated, but not exclusively, by men.

As important as her science fiction, if not moreso, is her monograph How to Suppress Women’s Writing. Among her notable science fiction are the stories that make of the Alyx cycle, including Picnic on Paradise, and the novels And Chaos Died and The Female Man.

She won the Nebula Award for her short story “When It Changed” and a Hugo for the novella “Souls.” In 1996, she received two retrospective James Tiptree, Jr. Awards for “When It Changed” and for The Female Man. The Female Man was inducted into the Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame. Russ received a Pilgrim Award for Lifetime Achievement for her contributions to science fiction and fantasy scholarship from the SFRA in 1988 and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2015, Russ received the Solstice Award from the SFWA.

“Nobody’s Home” was originally printed in New Dimensions II, edited by Robert Silverberg in 1972. It was picked up the next year by Terry Carr for The Best Science Fiction of the Year #2. Pamela Sargent included it in Women of Wonder. Silverberg has reprinted it in several of his anthologies over the years, including Alpha 9, The Best of New Dimensions, Great Tales of Science Fiction, and The Arbor House Treasury of Science Fiction. Russ included it in her collection The Zanzibar Cat in 1983. David G. Hartwell reprinted it in The World Treasury of Science Fiction and Gardner Dozois reprinted it in Modern Classics of Science Fiction and Supermen. “Nobody’s Home” was translated into Spanish in 1977 and into Dutch in 1980.

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Birthday Reviews: Richard A. Lupoff’s “Black Mist”

Birthday Reviews: Richard A. Lupoff’s “Black Mist”

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Cover by Nicholas Jainschigg
Cover by Nicholas Jainschigg

Richard Lupoff was born on February 21, 1935. He edited the fanzine Xero, which included articles from Avram Davidson, L. Sprague de Camp, and Roger Ebert. In 1963, Lupoff and his wife, Pat, received a Hugo Award for Best Amateur Magazine for their work. In 2005, a hardcover The Best of Xero would be nominated for a Hugo for Best Related Work.

He published his first novel One Million Centuries, in 1967 and is perhaps best known for Circumpolar! and Circumsolar! Lupoff is not averse to using pseudonyms such as Ova Hamlet or Addison E. Steele. He collaborated on the graphic novel The Adventures of Professor Thintwhistle and His Incredible Aether Flyer with Steve Stiles. Lupoff edited three volumes of short stories he felt should have won the Hugo Award (What If? Volumes 1-3).

“Black Mist” was originally published in the April 1995 issue of Omni Online. Orson Scott Card reprinted it in Black Mist and Other Japanese Futures and Lupoff included it in his collection Claremont Tales. The story was also reprinted in Robert Reginald’s To the Stars—And Beyond: The Second Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories.

Many stories set in the far future of space exploration select a human culture and have them expand into space, as L. Sprague de Camp did with his Viagens Interplanetary series. Often these space-faring cultures have little to do with the original terrestrial country beyond nomenclature. In “Black Mist” Lupoff has postulated a future in which Japan has taken over planetary exploration after the United States and Russia’s programs have collapsed.

The Japanese are attempting to terraform Mars and part of that effort takes place from a small outpost on Phobos. Not only do Japanese ideas of honor and caste play a big role in the story, but other aspects of Japanese society are interwoven and provide an integral part of the plot. “Black Mist” opens with a lowly kitchen worker, Jiricho Toshikawa, discovering the murdered body of a scientists on Phobos. When the body disappears, the head of operations on Mars sends his friend Hajimi Ino to investigate the disappearance.

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Birthday Reviews: Richard Matheson’s “Third from the Sun”

Birthday Reviews: Richard Matheson’s “Third from the Sun”

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Cover by David Stone
Cover by David Stone

Richard Matheson was born on February 20, 1926 and died on 2016. His first published story was “Born of Man and Woman,” which was nominated for a Retro-Hugo.

He received the World Fantasy Award for his novel Bid Time Return, which was turned into the film Somewhere in Time, starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. He also won the World Fantasy Award for his collection Richard Matheson: Collected Stories, which also received the Bram Stoker Award. Matheson has received lifetime achievement awards from both World Fantasy and Bram Stoker and was declared a living legend by the International Horror Guild.

The World Horror Society named him a Grand Master in 1993 and he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2010. His novel I Am Legend has been filmed numerous times under different names as has The Incredible Shrinking Man. In addition to his career as a novelist and short story writer, Matheson has written screenplays for a variety of television episodes.

“Third from the Sun” was purchased by H.L. Gold and published in the October 1950 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. Gold reprinted it in Galaxy Reader of Science Fiction and Matheson has included it in multiple collections of his work. It was reprinted in the children’s anthology Beyond Belief and in The Twilight Zone: The Original Stories. It was adapted by Rod Serling for the first season of The Twilight Zone, starring Fritz Weaver and Denise Alexander. The story has been translated into French (twice), German, and Italian.

Matheson followed his stunning debut story, “Born of Man and Woman” with a more pedestrian outing in “Third from the Sun,” a story with a twist that is ruined by its title. Matheson tells the story of a man and woman who are clearly planning on stealing a spaceship and fleeing the earth with their children and neighbors ahead of a cataclysm. Their ability to do so it made possible by the man’s position within the space program.

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Birthday Reviews: Jonathan Lethem’s “Lostronaut”

Birthday Reviews: Jonathan Lethem’s “Lostronaut”

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Cover by Bob Staake
Cover by Bob Staake

Jonathan Lethem was born on February 19, 1964. His debut novel was Gun, with Occasional Music, which followed several published short stories. Often skirting the line between genre and mainstream, most of his novels, including Amensia Moon, As She Climbed Across the Table, and The Fortress of Solitude contain science fictional elements or play of the popular culture that surrounds science fiction.

Lethem won the World Fantasy Award for his collection The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye. He has been nominated for the Nebula Award four times, the James Tiptree, Jr. Award three times, and the Shirley Jackson Award, Sidewise Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award one time, each. His novel Gun, with Occasional Music received the William L. Crawford Award and won the Locus Poll for best first novel.

“Lostronaut” was originally published in The New Yorker on November 17, 2008. Although it has not been reprinted in English, it was translated into Hungarian for publication in the anthology Kétszázadik, edited by Németh Attila in 2009.

“Lostronaut” is an epistolary story written from Janice, an astronaut orbiting on a space station known as “Northern Lights” to her lover, Chase, in Manhattan. The letters are filled with a mix of longing to be together again, gossip about the rest of the Russian-American crew of the station, and concerns that because the Chinese have mined the orbital region below the space station, they would have difficulty returning to Earth.

As the letters progress, their tone becomes more urgent and more depressed. The situation with the Chinese mines grows more dire, members of the crew become more despondent, and Janice’s own circumstances become urgent as she is diagnosed with cancer, which will need to be treated aboard the station unless a way through the minefield can be found.

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Birthday Reviews: Gahan Wilson’s “The Sea Was Wet as Wet Can Be”

Birthday Reviews: Gahan Wilson’s “The Sea Was Wet as Wet Can Be”

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02-18-unknownGahan Wilson was born on February 18, 1930 and is best known as a cartoonist with a very identifiable style. For many years, his bust of H.P. Lovecraft was used as the trophy for the World Fantasy Award. His cartoons have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction as well as more mainstream publications like Collier’s, The New Yorker, and Playboy.

Although most notable as an artist, Wilson has published several short stories and wrote a movie review column for The Twilight Zone Magazine and a book review column for Realms of Fantasy.

“The Sea Was Wet as Wet Can Be” is one of Wilson’s few short stories and was originally published in the May 1967 issue of Playboy Magazine and reprinted in The Playboy Book of Horror and the Supernatural. It has since been reprinted several times, including in Fantasy: The Literature of the Marvelous, edited by Leo P. Kelley, Gahan Wilson’s Favorite Tales of Horror, Blood Is Not Enough, edited by Ellen Datlow, who also reprinted it in Sci Fiction, Wilson’s collection The Cleft and Other Odd Tales and his Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons, Otto Penzler’s The Vampire Archives, and the Vandermeers’ The Weird. It was also reprinted in the December 2015 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. In 1986, the story was translated into French.

Just as Wilson’s cartoons demonstrate a dark sense of humor, “The Sea Was Wet as Wet Can Be” offers a similar outlook on life. Based on the poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter” from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, and containing a significant portion of Carroll’s text, Wilson recasts the oysters of the poem as a group of people picnicking on the strand.

One of their number, Phil, doesn’t quite feel at home with the rest, himself cast as the oldest oyster of the poem, and decides that he is going to change his life’s circumstances. Into this rather glum party, two interlopers come, and the characters in Wilson’s story compare them to the Walrus and the Carpenter of Carroll’s poem. Wilson never defines who, or what his Walrus and Carpenter are, although he provides them with names.

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