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Category: Vintage Treasures

A Celebration of the Wonder of the Universe Itself: Vast by Linda Nagata

A Celebration of the Wonder of the Universe Itself: Vast by Linda Nagata

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Vast Linda Nagata Gollancz-small Vast Linda Nagata Gollancz-back-small

Gollancz edition (1990); cover by Bob Eggleton

I’ll get right to it: Linda Nagata’s Vast is everything you want epic sci-fi to be: a huge scope in time and space, a compelling look at the horizons of human and technological evolution, and a celebration of the wonder of the universe itself. Vast provides all this, with some truly beautiful descriptions of stellar evolution thrown in for good measure. On top of all this, this scale and big ideas are woven alongside excellent character formation and a plot that builds tension so effectively that long years of pursuit between vessels with slow relative velocities still feels sharp and urgent.

I liked this book. A lot.

Vast is set in the far future, after multiple waves of colonization have moved out from Earth (which has since itself been destroyed). Humanities’ settlements along the frontier have been ravaged by twin threats from an ancient lost race called the Chenzeme: automated, partially biological warships and an engineered virus that turns its hosts into carriers of a cult that enslaves entire populations. Humanity, it seems, is being squeezed between these two prongs of an incredibly ancient civil war with weapons lingering on even after the civilization that wages it is long gone.

But there’s a whole lot going on against this epic background. Vast is actually the concluding book in a series that includes three others (one of which is the Locus Award-winning Deception Well) but I didn’t realize this when I picked up the paperback edition this summer in a used bookstore when my vacation reading supply tanked. The plot picks up with four characters — Nikko, Lot, Urban, and Clementine, all human — on a starship called the Null Boundary heading into Chenzeme space. Starting with the final book means I missed all the details of how these characters originally met, how they learned Lot was a carrier of the cult virus, and how they ended up on the Null Boundary, but it didn’t decrease my enjoyment of the book. Sometimes it’s nice to be dropped in the middle of an unfamiliar universe to figure things out as you go. (I remember starting Gene Wolfe’s Long Sun quartet for the first time with the third book and being simultaneously confused and enthralled.)

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And in the End: Soldiers Live by Glen Cook, Part 2

And in the End: Soldiers Live by Glen Cook, Part 2

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SLDRSLVCKG2000So that’s that. Last night I closed the cover of Soldiers Live (2000), the final volume of Glen Cook’s Black Company series. (Yes, yes, I know there’s a new book, Port of Shadows, coming out this month, but it’s set in the past, before Shadows Linger.) All the Company’s enemies and most of its veterans are laid to rest, mostly in their graves. In the last few pages the Black Company, Last of the Free Companies of Khatovar, leaves one universe for another. Only a single veteran from the pre-Taglian days remains and, after two devastating battles, most of the Taglian recruits are gone as well. And still…the Company remains the Company.

From this point on: Spoilers!

Sleepy leads the Company north from the Plain of Glittering Stone. Her plan is to defeat Soulcatcher’s army, then march on the great city of Taglios and force Mogaba and his fellow commanders to surrender. Outnumbered, Sleepy hopes that the magical advantages afforded by the wizard Tobo will give her the intelligence edge needed to overcome the larger, if less competent, opposing armies.

There are few happy endings in Soldiers Live. Willow Swan, Blade, Murgen, and many of their brethren fall in battle or succumb to their wounds afterwards. Shara is presumably killed in the final great fight near Taglios but her body is never found. We see Sleepy and her command staff caught in a magical trap and later learn they were all burned too severely to be identified. Goblin comes back but he’s been possessed by a demon of Kina. Mogaba, in a new found state of reflection, abandons Taglios in order to prevent its destruction only to be tortured and killed by Tobo. Just as he’s about to resume rule of Taglios, the Prahbrindrah Drah is killed by a stray bolt of magic. Much of the book’s second half is a roll call of the dead, punctuated by vicious battles.

At the heart of Soldiers Live is the fate of Croaker. It is through him that we first meet the Black Company, and through his eyes we leave it. His plan to rebuild the Company would have them traverse the worlds connected by the Plain of Glittering Stone, so Croaker makes a deal with the golem that maintains it. Shivetya is ancient and exhausted, desiring death but trapped in an immortal body. In the end the two swap bodies, allowing the golem to die and Croaker to become a near-divine being, able to access all the ancient history of the sixteen worlds and maintain the gates between them.

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Birthday Reviews: Rick Wilber’s “Greggie’s Cup”

Birthday Reviews: Rick Wilber’s “Greggie’s Cup”

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Cover by Thomas Canty
Cover by Thomas Canty

Rick Wilber was born on September 4, 1948.

Rick Wilber won the Stephen R. Donaldson Award for scholarship at the IAFA in 2006 and the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2013 for his story about catcher/spy Moe Berg. He has also been nominated for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. In 1997, along with Sheila Williams, Wilber founded the Isaac Asimov Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing that is presented annually to students at the IAFA. In 2005, Asimov’s name was replaced in the award title with Dell Magazines.

“Greggie’s Cup” was written for the 1992 anthology Grails: Quests, Visitations and Other Occurences, edited by Richard Gilliams, Martin H. Greenberg, and Edward E. Kramer. The only place it has been reprinted is in one of the two trade paperbacks which were issued to split that massive collection into a more manageable size for reprinting, Grails: Quests of the Dawn, in 1994.

Greg is a back-up quarterback at the end of an uninspiring career, dealing with the aftermath of his second divorce, who takes Greggie, his twelve year old son with Down’s syndrome, with him to visit his sister in Scotland to try to figure out the next steps of his life. While Greg is talking to his sisters and brother-in-law, striking up a conversation with a woman who is interested in him for who he is rather than because he’s a football player, and talking to a team owner about a possible coaching job in the Scottish league, Greggie is off exploring the ruins of a Roman fort and pretending to be a knight.

The fort is more than just a playground for Greggie. Having heard his uncle Tam talking about how everything in Scotland has a tie to King Arthur, Greggie plays that he is fighting with a knight, who slips through time to actually befriend the boy. Sir Lancelot is supposed to be questing for the Holy Grail, but has doubts about his ability to find it since he knows he isn’t pure enough to hold the Grail. Greggie, of course, only sees the good in Lancelot, the fact that he befriended the boy. That is enough for Greggie and knowing that Lancelot is looking for a cup, he gives him the small plastic trophy that he won at a basketball game.

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Wit and Play in Classic Science Fiction: The Best of Fredric Brown

Wit and Play in Classic Science Fiction: The Best of Fredric Brown

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The-Best-of-Fredric-Brown-smallThe Best of Fredric Brown (1977) was the tenth installment in Lester Del Rey’s Classic Science Fiction Series. The then living horror author Robert Bloch (1917–1994) gives the introduction. H. R. Van Dongen (1920–2010) returns to do his second cover in the series, having done the cover for the seventh volume in honor of John W. Campbell.

There is no afterword since, generally, the series seems to include an afterword by the author only if (fair enough) the author was living at the time. Since Fredric Brown had already died (1906–1972) by the time this book was published there is no afterword.

I first heard of Fredric Brown a few years ago here at Black Gate. Our own esteemed editor John O’Neill was reminiscing about this very book. As with so many of John’s Del Rey “Best of” posts, I was intrigued and tracked down a copy. I read through the book and enjoyed many of the stories.

But, my main memory of Brown was primarily one of annoyance.

At that time Brown struck me as an author who often tried to be too cute for his own good. My impression was not helped when I picked up his short novel Martians, Go Home (1954) a few months later. I enjoy a bit of humor in my fiction. But I guess I was not in the mood for something like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at the time.

I also found the twist endings of many of Brown’s short stories to be less than satisfying. So when I started to go through this series for reviews on Black Gate, I was not looking forward to returning to Fredric Brown.

But upon re-reading this volume, I surprisingly found that my prior annoyance had dissipated. What changed?

I am convinced that one’s reading is sometimes greatly affected by the context of one’s life. Perhaps the first time I read The Best of Fredric Brown I just was not in the mood to experience, what the book’s back cover calls, the “Wit and Whimsy of Fredric Brown.” Perhaps I wanted my fiction to be a bit more serious. And perhaps I was living in the post-hangover era of M. Night Shyamalan movie twist-endings. Whatever it was, this go-around was much more enjoyable.

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Birthday Reviews: Roland J. Green’s “Strings”

Birthday Reviews: Roland J. Green’s “Strings”

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Oceans of Space
Oceans of Space

Roland J. Green was born on September 2, 1944.

Green’s only award nomination was for the Sidewise Award in 1998 for his story “The King of Poland’s Foot Cavalry.” He has used the pen name Jeffrey Lord for his work on the Richard Blade novels. In addition to his own Wandor series, he has written Conan and Dragonlance novels. Green collaborated with Jerry Pournelle on three books in the Janissary series, with Gordon R. Dickson on the novel Jamie the Red, Andrew J. Offutt, John Carr, and with his wife, Frieda A. Murray. Along with Harry Turtledove, he co-edited two volumes in the Alternate Generals anthology series and co-edited Women at War with Lois McMaster Bujold.

Green wrote “Strings” for the anthology Oceans of Space, edited by Brian M. Thomsen and Martin H. Greenberg in 2002. The story has never been reprinted.

In “Strings,” Green creates a complex interspecies political system in a short amount of space, presenting humans, Baernoi, and K’thressh in the same system. The humans and the Baernoi are attempting to navigate the possibility of open warfare between them while the telepathic K’thressh monitor, and possibly influence, the system.

Green’s entry into the story is through the eyes of Brigitte Tachin, a newly minted lieutenant aboard the FSS Trollstep. As the situation escalates with the realization that the Baernoi may have established an illegal colony on the nearby planet, Tachin’s commander begins to give orders that heighten the risk of war and Tachin must decide whether she will follow the orders and possibly die, or refuse them and jeopardize her fledgling career. The realization that the K’thressh are watching telepathically and might be influencing the decisions on both sides for their own gain only raises the stakes.

The situation is interesting, but Green’s focus on the military details of the human’s attack on the Baernoi forces tends to detract from the ethical considerations that Tachin raises in her decision to follow or ignore her commander’s orders. Green manages to lessen the impact of the situation he has set up by moving the story into the realm of standard military science fiction.

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Birthday Reviews: C.J. Cherryh’s “The Unshadowed Land”

Birthday Reviews: C.J. Cherryh’s “The Unshadowed Land”

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Sword and Sorceress II-small Sword and Sorceress II-back-small

Cover by Ilene Meyer

C.J. (Carolyn Janice) Cherry was born on September 1, 1942. When she sold her first work, editor Donald A. Wollheim suggested adding the final “h,” making her byline C.J. Cherryh. Her brother is artist David Cherry, who did not add a final “h.”

Cherryh won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1977. In 1982, she won the coveted Balrog Award for her short story “A Thief in Korianth.” She has won three Hugo Awards, first for her short story “Cassandra” in 1979, for her novel Downbelow Station in 1982, and for her novel Cyteen in 1989. In 1988 NESFA presented her with the Skylark Award. She named a Damon Knight Grand Master by SFWA in 2016. Cherryh was the guest of honor at Buccaneer, the 1998 Worldcon in Baltimore.

“The Unshadowed Land” first appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress II: An Anthology of Heroic Fiction in 1985 and was translated into Italian as part of the anthology in 1988 and again in 1994. It was reprinted in English in The Collected Short Fiction of C.J. Cherryh in 2004.

Cherryh slowly creates her world in “The Unshadowed Land,” subverting the reader’s expectations as she goes along. It opens with a description of God (or a god) callously creating and changing the world by looking at it in different ways or flapping wings. This setting seems to indicate an alien world, mostly desert, at least the part Cherryh is interested in. A woman, whose name might be Akhet, is introduced to the world, giving the reader a viewpoint character, but also, like the reader, unsure of the situation she is in.

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Birthday Reviews: August Index

Birthday Reviews: August Index

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Cover by Todd Lockwood
Cover by Todd Lockwood

Fields of Fantasies
Fields of Fantasies

Cover by Edward Miller
Cover by Edward Miller

January index
February index
March index
April index
May index
June index
July index

August 1, Raymond A. Palmer: “Diagnosis”
August 2, Robert Holdstock: “Magic Man”
August 3, Clifford D. Simak: “Observer”
August 4, Rick Norwood: “Portal”
August 5, Elisabeth Vonarburg: “Cogito”
August 6, Ian R. MacLeod: “Starship Day”

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Birthday Reviews: Nancy Holder’s “Prayer of the Knight of the Sword”

Birthday Reviews: Nancy Holder’s “Prayer of the Knight of the Sword”

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Cover by Paul Youll
Cover by Paul Youll

Nancy Holder was born on August 29, 1953.

Holder has won the Bram Stoker Award five times. She won the Best Short Story award for “Lady Madonna,” “I Hear the Mermaids Singing,” and “Café Endless: Spring Rain.” She won for Best Novel for Dead in the Water and for Best Young-Adult Novel for The Screaming Season.

Her story “”Prayer of the Knight of the Sword” was published in the 1995 anthology Excalibur, edited by Edward E. Kramer, Richard Gilliam, and Martin H. Greenberg. The story has never been reprinted.

The story opens with Joseph of Arimathea climbing to the top of Glastonbury Tor, surrounded by four pagan spirits, although he has no idea of their presence. When Joseph dies during his climb, the spirits plant his staff on the tor and eventually use it to create Excalibur.

The sword is next seen in the possession of Geoffrey de Troyes, a young knight fighting in Jerusalem during the Crusades. While all around him the crusaders are raping, pillage, and killing the Muslims and Jews who live in the city, Geoffrey cannot participate, only seeing the cruelty of their actions and how they seem to fly in the face of Christian virtue. When a young Muslim woman winds up in his path, he shows her mercy and tries to help her, realizing that at the same time he’s rescuing her he needs to rescue himself. His mercy caught the attention of Joseph’s spirits, who appear to him and tell him to return to England with the sword, where he will wield it until one who was destined to appear. In the process, Geoffrey brought Igraine to Glastonbury and pushed the sword into the stone.

While at first the timeline of the story doesn’t seem to make sense, with Geoffrey de Troyes fighting in the crusades, when the tradition of Merlin living his life backwards is taken into account, along with the idea that time may be malleable, the strangeness of the order of events actually becomes something of a strength for the story.

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Ticking Up and Winding Down: Soldiers Live by Glen Cook, Part 1

Ticking Up and Winding Down: Soldiers Live by Glen Cook, Part 1

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oie_2845223nNXU28alAnd so we near the end of our months-long march through the ten books of Glen Cook’s groundbreaking Black Company series. While best remembered as one of the first military fantasy series, one important takeaway is that it’s not that at all. Yes, the Black Company, the last Free Company of Khatovar, is the main “character” of the books, but the tale told is filled with so much more than just war. War is always on the horizon, just a chapter or two away, but Cook’s 3,500-page saga gives us the Company in times of peace and times of flight. He shows how it grows, evolves, and mutates into something different but still the same, bound by four-and-a-half centuries of tradition. Its soldiers possess an intense fealty to the Company as the thing that sets them apart from the world in which they can find no other place.

The title for Soldiers Live (2000) comes from a cryptic statement made to Sleepy in Water Sleeps by the stroke-incapacitated One-Eye: “Soldiers live. And wonder why.” Sleepy interprets it as the question every soldier asks each time they survive a battle but comrades are laid low by swords and arrows. It became her mantra, taking the place of the larger question she asked of herself in the last pages of Water Sleeps.

For now, I just rest. And indulge myself in writing, in remembering the fallen, in considering the strange twists life takes, in considering what plan God must have if the good are condemned to die young while the wicked prosper, if righteous men can commit deep evil while bad men demonstrate unexpected streaks of humanity.

Soldiers live. And wonder why.

Four years have passed, and the Company is safer than it has ever been. Using one of the Shadowgates on the Plain of Glittering Stone, Sleepy led the Company beyond the reach of Soulcatcher and Mogaba and into another world. Despite the sanctuary it’s found, the Company is a changed thing. Goblin died fighting Kina, One-Eye is increasingly weakened by a series of strokes, and Croaker, Lady, and Murgen haven’t fully recovered from the effects of being trapped in stasis for fifteen years. Willow Swan is balding and the remains of his flowing blond locks are gray. Still, there is peace and, in a nice touch, Croaker has again taken up the Annalist’s pen. It’s through his jaundiced vision the final chapter of this epic will be seen.

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Birthday Reviews: Edward Bryant’s “Saurus Wrecks”

Birthday Reviews: Edward Bryant’s “Saurus Wrecks”

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Cover by Peter Stallard
Cover by Peter Stallard

Edward Bryant was born on August 27, 1945 and died on February 10, 2017.

Bryant won back to back Nebulas for Best Short Story in 1979 and 1980 for “Stone” and “giANTS,” both of which were also nominated for the Hugo Award. His work was also nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. In 1997, the International Horror Guild named Bryant a Living Legend. Bryant was the Toastmaster for Denvention II, the 1981 Worldcon and also emceed the masquerade at Denvention III. He also served as Toastmaster for World Fantasy Con, ArmadilloCon, TusCon, and Death Equinox. He collaborated with Harlan Ellison, James Sutherland, Jody Harper, Trey R. Barker, Connie Willis, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Dan Simmons.

“‘Saurus Wrecks” is a testament to the power of dreams, as well as the idea of taking a bad situation and turning it to the general benefit of the community. The town of Goshen, Wyoming was in for a surprise when a coal plant was built in nearby Stubbleford. The winds meant that the enormous plume of steam the plant generated was falling on Goshen, changing the town’s climate. The only person who saw this as beneficial was Rexford Allyn Pugnell, the town drunk.

Pugnell pointed out to the town council that the new climate was perfect for growing ferns and recommended that the city ban the growth of flowering plants to turn it into a fern Mecca. Of course, being the town drunk and suggesting such a thing gained him absolutely no traction. Rather than give up on his idea, Pugnell approached one of the school’s teachers, Miss Devereaux with the simple request that he be allowed to use some extra chicken wire she had and build something on the side lot of her house. Without asking questions, she agreed and Pugnell set about building an enormous metal Tyrannosaurus rex.

Although the town attacked the sculpture, especially when he began to incorporate manure into it, its eventual sprouting of ferns, supporting Pugnell’s initial suggestion, causes a make-over to the economically depressed town. Although Bryant doesn’t go into detail about the specifics of how the town builds on Pugnell’s legacy, or that of Devereaux, who fights to allow him to do what he needs to, it is clear that Pugnell has won his argument and found a way to take the steam from the coal plant and turn it to the town’s benefit.

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