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Author: Steven H Silver

Birthday Reviews: K.D. Wentworth’s “Her Fair and Unpolluted Flesh”

Birthday Reviews: K.D. Wentworth’s “Her Fair and Unpolluted Flesh”

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Treachery and Treason-small Treachery and Treason-back-small

K.D. (Kathy Diane) Wentworth was born on January 27, 1951 and died on April 18, 2012. Wentworth was nominated for the Nebula Award four times, for the short stories “Burning Bright,” “Tall One,” and “Born Again” and for the novelette “Kaleidoscope.” Wentworth published two novels in the Heyoka Blackeagle series and two novels in the House of Moons Chronicles. She also co-wrote two of the novels in the Jao Empire series in collaboration with Eric Flint and two stand-alone novels.

“Her Fair and Unpolluted Flesh” was published in Treachery and Treason, edited by Laura Anne Gilman for Roc in 2000. It has never been reprinted.

K.D. Wentworth creates a religion which based on the holy scripture of the play Hamlet in “Her Fair and Unpolluted Flesh.” Based on what Father Benedicto and Father Frederick say, the religion is extremely misogynistic, claiming that women are soulless and have no reason to learn to read or do anything useful.

Set in a nunnery of ophelias, the women are trained to follow in her tragic footsteps to honor the glory that was the character of Hamlet. One of the sisters is to be selected to participate in a ritualistic drowning and is placed into the care of the young, and unsure Father Frederick.

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Birthday Reviews: Philip José Farmer’s “The Rise Gotten”

Birthday Reviews: Philip José Farmer’s “The Rise Gotten”

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Cover by Keith Howell and Charles Berlin
Cover by Keith Howell and Charles Berlin

Philip José Farmer was born on January 26, 1918 (Happy Centennial, Phil!) and died on February 25, 2009. In 1953, he received one of the inaugural Hugo Awards for Best New Author or Artist (a forerunner to the John W. Campbell, Jr. Award). He would win the Hugo again in 1968 for his novella “Riders of the Purple Wage” and in 1972 for his novel To Your Scattered Bodies Go. Farmer was the Guest of Honor at Baycon, the 1968 Worldcon in Oakland.

His lifetime achievement awards include the World Fantasy Award and the SFWA Grand Master Award, both awarded in 2001. In 2003, he received the Forry Award and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award. Farmer was known for expanding the science fiction field to include frank portrayals of sex with his novel The Lovers (Ballantine, 1961, expanded from the 1952 novella of the same title).

His story “The Rise Gotten” was written for an anthology Robert Bloch planned, but never published. The story saws its first publication in 2006 in the collection Pearls from Peoria, which collected previously published and unpublished works by Farmer.

“The Rise Gotten” is the story of a long-married couple who have fallen out of love, and merely survive in each other’s presence. Roger Baird’s impotence is a major sticking point for his wife, Rey, who either ignores him or denigrates him. Roger is just as happy ignoring his wife, whose alcoholic stupors make her less attractive to him even if he weren’t suffering impotence.

Their relationship, while sad, is completely mundane. Roger retreats to his study to get away from his wife and her sister’s drinking binge and turns his attention to the newspapers, which he reads and finds just as much horror as in the magazines, like Weird Tales, which form his pleasure reading. After his sister-in-law leaves and his wife suggests a cure for his impotence that worked for her brother-in-law, the story takes a decidedly dark turn. While part of the power of Farmer’s story comes from its ending, most of it comes from the sudden switch from a very mundane tale to Roger’s reaction to his years of humiliation by his wife.

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Birthday Reviews: Greg van Eekhout’s “Native Aliens”

Birthday Reviews: Greg van Eekhout’s “Native Aliens”

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Cover by Ho Che Anderson
Cover by Ho Che Anderson

Greg van Eekhout was born on January 25. His first story appeared in the anthology Starlight 3 and his first novel, Norse Code, in 2009. Van Eekhout was nominated for a Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 2005 for “In the Late December,” and received a Golden Duck nomination in 2011 for Kid Vs. Squid. In 2012, his novel The Boy at the End of the World was nominated for the Andre Norton Award.

“Native Aliens” was originally published in 2004 in the anthology So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan. Van Eekhout included it in his collection Show and Tell and Other Stories two years later and it was reprinted again in 2013 in Aliens: Recent Encounters, edited by Alex Daily MacFarlane.

“Native Aliens” tells two stories in parallel. One focuses on a Dutch colonial family living in Indonesia in the 1940s. Although the family has been there for generations and has intermarried with the Indonesians, they still consider themselves Dutch even though Indonesia is the only home they’ve ever known. As a result the father is forced to run a gauntlet after the Indonesian Revolution in the second half of the 1940s.

The other story looks at a group of humans who have colonized the world of Breva and who are about to be sent back to Earth. While the Dutch family looks like Indonesians and only know life there, the humans on Breva have been genetically modified to resemble the Brevans, making their return to their native world that much more problematic.

While van Eekhout explores the Brevan-Terran plans to repatriate themselves to the planet of the ancestors, he simultaneously shows us the Dutch family’s attempts to assimilate into Dutch, and later American, culture. Van Eekhout offers an intriguing view of colonization and its effects by focusing on those who are native to the land but still identify with, or are identified as, the colonizing power, without having any experience with the land from which their ancestors came.

Perhaps most poignant is the tale of the son of the character who experienced upheaval in Indonesia and the Netherlands, whose attitude directly leads to the issue facing the Brevan-Terrans centuries later. Fourteen years after its initial publication, when the US government is discussing, or refusing to discuss, the plight of the “Dreamers,” the van Eekhout’s story seems more pertinent than ever.

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Birthday Reviews: C.L. Moore’s “Lost Paradise”

Birthday Reviews: C.L. Moore’s “Lost Paradise”

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Cover by Margaret Brundage
Cover by Margaret Brundage

C.L. (Catherine Lucille) Moore was born on January 24, 1911 and died on April 4, 1987. From 1940 until his death in 1958, she was married to science fiction author Henry Kuttner. The two had their own careers and also collaborated together, although they claimed that they each worked on all of the other’s stories, sitting down and continuing whatever was in the typewriter at the time. Moore (or Moore/Kuttner) also used the pseudonyms Lawrence O’Donnell, C.H. Liddell, and Lewis Padgett.

In 1956, their collaboration “Home There’s No Returning” was nominated for the Hugo for Best Novelette. She received the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award in 1972, the Forry Award in 1973, and the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1981. Moore was the Guest of Honor at Denvention Two, the 1981 Worldcon in Denver. Posthumously, she was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1998 and, along with Kuttner, was named the recipient of the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award in 2004.

“Lost Paradise” is one of her stories featuring her space-faring rogue Northwest Smith and was originally published in the July 1936 issue of Weird Tales, edited by Farnsworth Wright. Moore included it in various collections, including Northwest of Earth, Shambleau, and Scarlet Dream. It has seen additional reprintings and has been translated into French and Italian.

“Lost Paradise” is essentially a bar story with a twist. Northwest Smith and his Venusian friend Yarol are enjoying a meal in New York when Yarol sees a strange man walking along the street below them. When the man is mugged, Yarol manages to retrieve the man’s package and, having recognized him as a member of a strange, secluded race, the Seles, who live in central Asia but don’t intermingle with any other peoples, he tells him that the only reward he desires is to know the great secret of the Seles.

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Birthday Reviews: Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s “Cruxifixus Etiam”

Birthday Reviews: Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s “Cruxifixus Etiam”

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Astounding Science Fiction February 1953-small Astounding Science Fiction February 1953-back-small

Cover by Van Dongen

Walter M. Miller, Jr. was born on January 23, 1923 and died on January 9, 1996. He is best known for his novel The Canticle for Leibowitz, which won the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel. He had previously won the first Hugo Award for Best Short Story for “The Darfsteller” in 1955. He wrote numerous short stories and edited the anthology Beyond Armageddon with Martin H. Greenberg, and left a partial manuscript for a sequel to A Canticle for Leibowitz at his death, which was completed by Terry Bisson and published as Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman.

“Crucifixus Etiam” was originally published in the February 1953 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, edited by John W. Campbell, Jr. It has been reprinted numerous times, including under the title “The Sower Does Not Reap” in The Best Science Fiction Stories: Fifth Series, edited by Everett F. Bleiler and T.E. Dikty (although it was published under its original title in the first edition of the book). Miller included the story in his collections The View from the Stars, The Science Fiction Stories of Walter M. Miller, Jr., The Best of Walter M. Miller, Jr., The Darfsteller and Other Stories, and Dark Benediction. It has been translated into Croatian, Dutch, German, and Italian.

“Crucifixus Etiam” tells the story of Manue Nanti, a poor Peruvian who has signed an indenturement contract to work on Mars for five years. Nanti figures that with little to spend the money on while he’s working, he can save up and have a good sized nest egg when he returns to Earth. Shortly after his arrival, however, he realizes that conditions on Mars are not exactly as he had expected.

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Birthday Reviews: Katherine MacLean’s “The Snowball Effect”

Birthday Reviews: Katherine MacLean’s “The Snowball Effect”

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Galaxy September 1952-small Galaxy September 1952-back-small

Cover by Jack Coggins

Katherine MacLean was born on January 22, 1925. Her novella, “The Missing Man” received the Nebula Award in 1971, and in 2003 she was named an Author Emerita by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. MacLean was the guest of honor at the first WisCon in 1977, and in 2011 she was named the recipient of the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award. Best known for her short fiction, which has been collected in three volumes, she has also written three novels and has co-written works with Carl West, Tom Condit, and Charles V. De Vet.

“The Snowball Effect” was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction in the September 1952 issue, edited by Horace L. Gold. It has been reprinted several times, including in MacLean’s collections The Diploids and Science Fiction Collection.

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Birthday Reviews: Judith Merril’s “Barrier of Dread”

Birthday Reviews: Judith Merril’s “Barrier of Dread”

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Cover by Earle K. Bergey
Cover by Earle K. Bergey

Judith Merril was born Judith Grossman on January 21, 1923 and died on September 12, 1997. She adopted the pseudonym Judith Merril for her writing. Merril received an Aurora Award in 1983 for Lifetime Contributions to the field and a second Aurora Award in 1986 for Lifetime Achievement in Editing. She was the subject of the non-fiction book Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril, written by her granddaughter, Emily Pohl-Weary, which won the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Related Work.

In addition to her writing career and her activities as an editor, Merril founded the Spaced Out Library in Toronto, now the Merril Collection of Science Fiction. In addition to her own writing, Merril collaborated with C.M. Kornbluth, publishing work under the joint pseudonym Cyril Judd. She was married twice, first to Dan Zissman, and later to science fiction author Frederik Pohl.

“Barrier of Dread” was originally published in the July-August 1950 issue of Future Combined with Science Fiction Stories and was later picked up by Martin Greenberg for his Gnome Press anthology Journey to Infinity. It also appeared in Selected Science Fiction Magazine issue 5 in 1955. It was next reprinted in Homecalling and Other Stories: The Complete Solo Short SF of Judith Merril, published by NESFA Press.

In “Barrier of Dread,” Merril posits a future which seems to have been popular among mid-twentieth century authors: A galactic-spanning empire in which humans have complete luxury while robots and automata do all the hard work. As Managing Director Dangret is preparing to open up a new galaxy for human colonization, his wife, the artist Sarise makes an offhand comment about the speed with which new galaxies are being opened.

Despite his lofty title, it appears that Dangret has plenty of time on his hands because his niggling concerns at his wife’s comment leads him to lock himself away for several hours watching a history of humanity, which gives Merril a chance to provide the background for this world to her reader.

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Birthday Reviews: Kij Johnson’s “The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change”

Birthday Reviews: Kij Johnson’s “The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change”

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The Coyote Road-small The Coyote Road-back-small

Cover by Charles Vess

Kij Johnson was born on January 20, 1955. Johnson won the Nebula in three consecutive years for her short stories “Spar,” “Ponies,” and the novella “The Man Who Bridged the Mist.” “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” also received the World Fantasy Award, Hugo Award, and Asimov’s Reader Poll. Johnson also won a World Fantasy Award for the novella The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe and the Theodore Sturgeon Award for “Fox Magic.” She served on the Sturgeon Award jury from 1997 through 2012 and on the World Fantasy jury in 2014.

“The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change” was original published in the anthology Coyote Road: Trickster Tales, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. It was picked up for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, edited by Datlow, Kelly Link, and Gavin J. Grant. The story was nominated for the Sturgeon, World Fantasy, and Nebula Award. Johnson included it in her collection At the Mouth of the River of Bees. The story has been translated into German.

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Birthday Reviews: Allen Steele’s “Day of the Bookworm”

Birthday Reviews: Allen Steele’s “Day of the Bookworm”

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Cover by Dominic Harman
Cover by Dominic Harman

Allen Steele was born on January 19, 1958. He was a finalist for the 1990 John W. Campbell, Jr. Award for Best New Author. Steele’s first two Hugo Awards were for his novellas “The Death of Captain Future” and “Where Angels Fear to Tread” in 1996 and 1998. His third Hugo was for Best Novelette and broke with the five-word titles, for “The Emperor of Mars” in 2011.

He also received the Phoenix Award in 2002 from the Southern Fandom Confederation and the Robert A. Heinlein Award from the Heinlein Society in 2013. Many of Steele’s early works focused on the expansion of mankind into near earth space, with his more recent works exploring the planet Coyote.

“Day of the Bookworm” was published in the anthology Little Green Men—Attack!, edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Robin Wayne Bailey and published by Baen Books in March, 2017.

When an alien spaceship lands in front of the main branch of the Boston library (as well as New York’s and London’s) in Allen Steele’s “Day of the Bookworm,” the military has a predictable response, cordoning off the blocks around the building and evacuating the library while waiting for any activity which would allow a military response. They are not prepared, however, for what actually happens, which is the appearance of two librarians, Molly Cooper and Levon Kahn, who were engaged in an illicit tryst and unaware of the evacuation notice.

The result was that they were able to work with the aliens who had entered the building to build up a sort of détente and understanding between the two races. Steele posits a similar situation to Galaxy Quest, which he notes within the story itself. His response is different from that of the film as his librarians work with the aliens, who resemble large slugs, to ensure that they have a better understanding of humanity, while not threatening them, despite the military power arrayed outside the library. Steele’s librarians’ solution is clever, but they must explain it to a reasonably sympathetic army colonel and an officious White House aide.

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Birthday Reviews: Pamela Dean’s “Paint the Meadow with Delight”

Birthday Reviews: Pamela Dean’s “Paint the Meadow with Delight”

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Cover by Darrell K. Sweet
Cover by Darrell K. Sweet

Pamela Dean was born on January 18, 1953. Dean has published the Secret Country trilogy as well as three stand-alone novels. In the 1980s, she was involved in the Liavek series of shared world anthologies, contributing stories to each of the five volumes as well as the title poem for the fourth volume. She has been nominated for the Mythopoeic Award twice, for her novels Tam Lin and The Dubious Hills.

Her story “Paint the Meadows with Delight” appeared in Will Shetterly and Emma Bull’s anthology Liavek: Wizard’s Row in 1987, and was reprinted in 2015 in Patricia Wrede and Pamela Dean’s Points of Departure: Liavek Stories.

Although set in a shared universe, Pamela Dean’s “Paint the Meadows with Delight” stands on its own. The Benedictis are a large Acrivain family living in exile in the city of Liavek. While the father attends political meetings, the rest of the family lives in wait for the day they can return to their native country. One of the daughters, Jehane, is convinced the Acrivain god Acrilat has turned his back on the family because they have left their native land. The result is that the family is in turmoil and one of the sons, Deleon, has disappeared.

Jehane is determined to restore her family to their lost happiness and seeks out one of Liavek’s wizards to help. Jehane’s plan isn’t particular well thought out, in either her goals or her mission. She seeks both to have Acrilat leave her family alone and also to have the family able to return to an Acrivain that is politically welcoming to them. These goals, along with her search for her missing brother, take her on a miniature quest through Liavek, visiting Granny Carry, the Magician, and, at the Magician’s insistence, the House of Responsible Life, and Silvertop, another magician.

In the end, the success of her quest, or even who helped her achieve it, is questionable. The most that can be said is that Jehane may have been able to reconnect on some level with her younger sister, Nerissa, who she also learned has been quite active in ways that Jehane had not even suspected.

While the story can be read and enjoyed on its own merits, its place in the shared-world universe gives it quite a bit of background depth and its structure as a quest around Liavek allows Dean to touch on the characters and concepts created by the other authors.

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