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Birthday Reviews: Harry Harrison’s “The Mothballed Spaceship”

Birthday Reviews: Harry Harrison’s “The Mothballed Spaceship”

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Cover by John Sposato
Cover by John Sposato

Harry Harrison was born on March 12, 1925 and died on August 15, 2012.

He is perhaps best known for his Stainless Steel Rat and Bill, the Galactic Hero series. Other series include The Hammer and the Cross, Deathworld, Stars and Stripes, and Eden. Before publishing science fiction Harrison worked as a comic book artist, often collaborating with Wallt Wood. In 1950, he left comic art to begin writing and editing, although he occasionally did return, and wrote the Flash Gordon newspaper strip in the 50s and 60s.

Harrison wrote the novel Make Room, Make Room, which served as the basis for the Nebula Award winning film Soylent Green. In collaboration with John Holt, he won the Italia Award for The Hammer and the Cross and the entire trilogy was nominated for a Sidewise Award. He was the Guest of Honor at ConFiction, the 1990 Worldcon. Harrison was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2004 and was named a SFWA Grand Master in 2009. In addition to Holt, he has also collaborated with Robert Sheckley, David Bischoff, Jack C. Haldeman II, Marvin Minsky, and others.

With Brian W. Aldiss, Harrison edited several anthologies and published SF Horizons, the first serious journal of science fiction criticism. Harrison often made use of Esperanto in his fiction.

“The Mothballed Spaceship” was written for Astounding: John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology, which Harry Harrison edited. It was later reprinted in Harrison’s collections The Best of Harry Harrison and Stainless Steel Visions. Set in the same universe as Harrison’s Deathworld trilogy, the story was included in an omnibus edition of that series published by BenBella Books in 2005 (earlier omnibus editions of the trilogy do not include this story). In 1985, it was translated into Croatian for publication in the magazine Sirius.

Harrison provides a puzzle story with “The Mothballed Spaceship.” A derelict space battleship has been found five millennia after it was abandoned, however its automatic defense systems are still active. Jason dinAlt, Kerk, and Meta have been hired to figure out how to get on board and take control of the ship, which has destroyed all other attempts to approach it, and are given thirty days to solve the problem.

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Future Treasures: The Long Sunset by Jack McDevitt

Future Treasures: The Long Sunset by Jack McDevitt

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The Long Sunset Jack McDevitt-smallI discovered Jack McDevitt with his second novel, a slender Ace paperback titled A Talent For War, back in 1989. Since then he’s produced over two dozen novels and collections, including Ancient Shores (1996), Infinity Beach (2000), and the Nebula Award-winning Seeker (2005).

But his most acclaimed series has been his Academy novels. Seven have appeared so far, including four Nebula nominees and three Campbell Award finalists. It began with The Engines of God (1994), which was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. The eighth in the series, The Long Sunset, arrives in hardcover from Saga Press next month.

From Nebula Award winner Jack McDevitt comes the eighth installment in the popular The Academy series — Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins discovers an interstellar message from a highly advanced race that could be her last chance for a mission before the program is shut down for good.

Hutch has been the Academy’s best pilot for decades. She’s had numerous first contact encounters and even became a minor celebrity. But world politics have shifted from exploration to a growing fear that the program will run into an extraterrestrial race more advanced than humanity and war.

Despite taking part in the recent scientific breakthrough that rejuvenates the human body and expands one’s lifespan, Hutch finds herself as a famous interstellar pilot with little to do, until a message from an alien race arrives.

The message is a piece of music from an unexplored area. Despite the fact that this alien race could pose a great danger and that this message could have taken several thousand years to travel, the program prepares the last interstellar ship for the journey. As the paranoia grows, Hutch and her crew make an early escape — but what they find at the other end of the galaxy is completely unexpected.

Here’s the complete series in order.

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Birthday Reviews: F.M. Busby’s “Tundra Moss”

Birthday Reviews: F.M. Busby’s “Tundra Moss”

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Cover by Paul Swendsen
Cover by Paul Swendsen

F.M. (Francis Marion) Busby was born on March 11, 1921 and died on February 17, 2005. In 1960, Busby, along with his wife Elinor, Burnett Toskey, and Wally Weber, won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine for Cry of the Nameless, which was nominated a total of three times. In 1943, he joined the US Army and was assigned to work on the Alaska Communication System, which forms the background for his alternate history “Tundra Moss.” Busby served as the Vice President of SFWA from 1974-6. His novels include the Demu trilogy, the Rebel Dynasty books, and the Rissa Kerguelen series.

“Tundra Moss” appeared in the third volume of Gregory Benford’s What Might Have Been series of alternate history anthologies with the theme Alternate Wars. Its only reprints have been in subsequent editions of that book.

Set during World War II, the Alaska Communication System (ACS) outpost on Amchtika Island is an integral part of the United States war efforts in the Pacific theatre, made more important by the fact that in this timeline, the US is concentrating its power on the Japanese. They figure they can worry about the European theatre later, with the exception of a small force there led by Dwight Eisenhower.

While the story focuses on Buster Morgan’s activities in Amchitka, Busby also allows peeks into the actions of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a band of Japanese saboteurs operating on Amchitka, and scouts in the area as the Japanese attempt to destroy the communications lines and the Americans are trying to relay orders which will support a major offensive far to the south.

Alternate history stories often teach the reader something about a relatively unknown and seemingly minor part of history, and the ACS certainly qualifies in the regard. The fact that Busby was stationed on Amchitka brings a level of detail and realism to the story which would have been difficult to match with just research. The disjointed nature of the story, jumping back and forth between the different characters, tends to work against it. It would have been stronger with fewer viewpoint characters and a more singular focus.

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A Worthy Successor to an Award-Winning Tradition: Provenance by Ann Leckie

A Worthy Successor to an Award-Winning Tradition: Provenance by Ann Leckie

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Provenance Ann Leckie-smallIngray Aughskold hasn’t just risked her life’s savings for this moment. If she fails, she’ll have to work for years to make up the debt. Her reputation will be ruined, and she’ll lose her job. Worse, her adoptive mother will never choose her to inherit over her vile foster-brother Danach. But just when the deal’s supposed to come together, everything’s falling apart.

Sitting in a holographic room, Ingray can see the Facilitator clearly, and the Facilitator can see her. The Facilitator can also see the opposing party. To Ingray, however, he’s just a gray blur.

The blur cites “unexpected difficulties” in fulfilling the contract. “The package will not be delivered unless the payment is increased.”

But Ingray doesn’t have any more money. If this deal goes through, she won’t even be able to afford her next meal. She’ll have to wait to eat until she’s on board the ship home to Hwae. She really should’ve forced herself to eat breakfast that morning, no matter how nervous she may have been. “Then do not deliver it,” she says.

She’d probably be better off if the anonymous procurer didn’t cave. All she’d suffer would be a dent to her savings for the Facilitator’s fee and her travel expenses. She could go home and hatch some new scheme to outdo Danach. But she doesn’t get that lucky.

“Very well, then,” the blur says. “The deal goes forward.”

“Very well,” she answers. At which point, she takes custody of a large shipping crate. Which wasn’t what she was expecting at all.

Arriving at the small cargo ship she’s booked passage on, she runs into a new problem in the form of Captain Tic Uisine. Taking one look at the size and shape of her shipping container, he suspects human trafficking and insists on opening it.

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In 500 Words or Less: All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault by James Alan Gardner

In 500 Words or Less: All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault by James Alan Gardner

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All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault-back-small All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault-small

All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault
By James Alan Gardner
Tor (384 pages, $17.99 paperback, $9.99 eBook, November 2017)

Imagine a world where vampires, werewolves and demons all exist in public, courtesy of rich people making pacts with dark entities for immortality and power. Got that? Okay, now imagine a world where people can become superheroes by being exposed to the right (or wrong) kind of powerful energies, with as wide an assortment of powers as any comic book. Good? Take another pocket of your mind and add in things like wizard magic and weird science like opening rifts to other dimensions. And then combine all of this together into a single world.

Still with me?

If you’re not, I’d understand – but nonetheless, all of the above is present in James Alan Gardner’s All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault. I’m sure some of you are sitting back and thinking that sounds insane. But the X-Files/Cops crossover episode or establishing Bones and Sleepy Hollow in the same universe came with an expectation of a certain amount of ridiculousness, and the world Jim has created definitely has that flair. It’s interesting in that there’s a fast-paced and arguably straightforward narrative, even when the narrative pauses again and again with moments of “okay, I’d better explain this before we move on,” where this might be were-bats, rifts to other worlds that spew telepathic fireflies, university buildings named after rich vampires, or why a cascade of superpowers like force fields and telescopic vision and encyclopedic knowledge and whatever you would call Ant-Man (which is all in the first five chapters) makes logical sense.

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New Treasures: The Hyperspace Trap by Christopher G. Nuttall

New Treasures: The Hyperspace Trap by Christopher G. Nuttall

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The Hyperspace Trap-small The Hyperspace Trap-back-small

47North, the science fiction publishing imprint of Amazon.com, has taken a lot of chances on new authors, with considerable success. Jeff Wheeler (the Legends of Muirwood trilogy, The Kingfountain Series) has become a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and Meg Elison’s The Book of Etta was a 2018 Philip K. Dick Award nominee, just as a few examples.

Christopher G. Nuttall is another example of a 47North author who’s a little outside the mainstream. Nuttall has published over fifty novels through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, as well as 16 volumes in the Schooled in Magic series through Timeless Books. His latest, The Hyperspace Trap, is a deep-space thriller set in the set in the world of his Angel in the Whirlwind series. It’s a creepy tale of a shipwreck in a floating graveyard, in a war-ravaged galaxy beset by pirates. Sounds like a winning combo to me.

The Hyperspace Trap was published by 47North on February 27, 2018. It is 397 pages, priced at $14.99 in trade paperback and $4.99 for the digital edition. Read an excerpt here.

The Origin Stories of Tempus, Niko and the Sacred Band: Tempus With His Right-Side Companion Niko, by Janet Morris

The Origin Stories of Tempus, Niko and the Sacred Band: Tempus With His Right-Side Companion Niko, by Janet Morris

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Tempus with his right-side companion Niko-small Tempus with his right-side companion Niko-back-small

Relive the iconic adventures of Tempus the Black and his Sacred Band through the eyes of Nikodemos, his right-side companion, as Niko seeks his spirit’s balance on Bandara’s misty isles. Five early tales of the Stepsons in a world of thieves, novelized with additional stories available nowhere else. Ride with Tempus and his Sacred Band once again, or for the first time. PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Parts of this work have been published in substantially similar form in several volumes of the Shared Universe Series, Thieves World.

This book contains the original stories first written about the Sacred Band of Stepsons, as well as some new stories that expand on their adventures, and  Niko’s quest to regain his spiritual and mystical balance. Meet the characters who made the Sacred Band famous: Abarsis, the Slaughter Priest Abarsis, who first formed the Sacred Band and from whom Tempus took over the Band; Niko, Critias, Straton, hazard-class and allergy prone mage Randal “Witchy Ears.” Meet Roxane the witch and her death squads, Ischade the Necromant and her cadre of undead servants, and Cime, Tempus’ wizard-slaying sister. Witness the might of the storm god Vashanka and his immortal god-ridden avatar, Tempus as they battle against sorcery, betrayal and corruption, alongside his Sacred Band of Stepsons. Meet legendary immortals Askelon, the Dream Lord of Meridian, and Jihan the Froth Daughter of Lord Storm.

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Future Treasures: The Body Party by Jeff Noon

Future Treasures: The Body Party by Jeff Noon

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A-Man-of-Shadows-Jeff-Noon-small The Body Library Jeff Noon-small

Jeff Noon, author of the 1993 Arthur C. Clarke award-winning Vurt (1993), returned after too long an absence with A Man of Shadow last year, which Warren Ellis called “superb… one of our few true visionaries,” and Adrian Tchaikovsky said was “A disturbing and bizarre journey by one of the great masters of weird fiction.” The sequel, The Body Party, arrives next month from Angry Robot, continuing the tale of a P.I. in an weird and inverted city.

Jeff Noon returns with a staggering hallucinogenic sequel to A Man of Shadows, taking hapless investigator John Nyquist into a city where reality is contaminated by the imagination of its citizens

In a city dissolving into an infected sprawl of ideas, where words come to life and reality is contaminated by stories, John Nyquist wakes up in a room with a dead body… The dead man’s impossible whispers plunge him into a murder investigation like no other. Clues point him deeper into an unfolding story infesting its participants as reality blurs between place and genre.

Only one man can hope to put it all back together into some kind of order, enough that lives can be saved… That man is Nyquist, and he is lost.

The Body Party will be published by Angry Robot on April 3, 2018. It is 384 pages, priced at $12.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover design is by Amazing15. Read Part One here.

STRANGE! WEIRD! EERIE! The Odd, Unusual, and Uncanny Biography of Lionel Fanthorpe

STRANGE! WEIRD! EERIE! The Odd, Unusual, and Uncanny Biography of Lionel Fanthorpe

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The Return Lionel Fanthorpe-small The Return Lionel Fanthorpe-back-small

Some writers agonize over every line. Some are prolific like Andre Norton. Others are hyperprolific like Isaac Asimov.

But Lionel Fanthorpe stands alone. He isn’t the most prolific author out there, having written “only” about 200 books, but he had the distinction of having written 168 books in less than a decade. Many he wrote in a week. Some he wrote over a three-day weekend.

This fervid output was the result of his association with Badger Books, a cheap-as-they-come UK publisher that emphasized quantity over quality. The publisher would commission the cover art first (or steal it from some old American paperback), send it to the author, and have them write a 45,000 word novel, usually with a deadline of one week.

Fanthorpe wrote 168 books for Badger between 1961 and 1967, dictating his tales into a reel-to-reel recorder and sending the tapes into the publisher’s typist. Often he’d stay up late into the night, covering his head with a blanket so he could concentrate. The results were overwritten, padded, and compellingly bad.

The only biography of Lionel Fanthorpe, Down the Badger Hole by Debbie Cross, has long been out of print but has now been revised, expanded, and released as a free ebook on the TAFF website.

And what a book it is! Cross gives us generous helpings of Fanthorpe’s prose, including masterful examples of padding through repetition.

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Birthday Reviews: Paul Preuss’s “Rhea’s Time”

Birthday Reviews: Paul Preuss’s “Rhea’s Time”

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The Ultimate Dinosaur-small The Ultimate Dinosaur-back-small

Cover by Wayne D. Barlowe

Paul Preuss was born on March 7, 1942. Mostly a novelist, he has published the Venus Prime series and stand-alone novels Human Error, The Gates of Heaven, and Core. His short fiction output is more scarce, consisting of three short stories and a published excerpt from his novel Starfire. His novel Secret Passages was a nominee for the 1998 John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

“Rhea’s Time” originally appeared in The Ultimate Dinosaur, edited by Robert Silverberg and Byron Priess, which was heavily illustrated by Wayne D. Barlowe and included a mixture of science fiction and factual articles about dinosaurs. The story has not been reprinted outside The Ultimate Dinosaur, but the anthology has seen two editions following its first publication.

Although originally published in a collection about dinosaurs, there are no saurians in “Rhea’s Time.” Preuss relates, with almost clinical precision, the story of a woman who has been in a coma for nearly a year, since shortly after a skiing accident. He tells the story from the point of view of Doctor Rowan, who has inherited her case after her original doctor gave up on her.

Despite his patient being completely unresponsive, Roan discovers that she actually is moving, albeit extremely slowly. Rowan begins employing unorthodox methods to establish contact with the woman, who he calls “Rhea.” Talking about her career as a biostratigrapher with her husband, Rowan is eventually able to come up with a rather intriguing explanation for what she’s going through.

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