Black Gate

Land of Dreams (Ace, 1988). Cover by James Warhola

In 1986 James Blaylock’s novelette “Paper Dragons,” originally published in Robin McKinley’s anthology Imaginary Lands, was nominated for a Nebula award, and received a World Fantasy Award. A year later Blaylock returned to the same setting with Land of Dreams, a contemporary fantasy that Science Fiction Chronicle called “Blaylock’s best novel to date, one that will undoubtedly catapult him into prominence,” and which caused Gardner Dozois to proclaim, “James P. Blaylock is one of the most lyrical and inventive of all new writers.”

Land of Dreams was Blayock’s hardcover debut, originally published by Arbor House with a colorful but rather middlin’ cover by Viido Polikarpus. It was reprinted in paperback by Ace a year later, with a spectacular wraparound cover by James Warhola that definitely got my attention. So did the rave review from Kirkus.

Striking, beautifully turned surreal fantasy, Blaylock’s remarkable hardcover debut. In the alternate-world northern California coastal village of Rio Dell, strange events mark the approach to the eerie, highly magical 12-year Solstice. Hungry young Skeezix and his friend Helen live at the orphanage run by the stern, repellent Miss Flees (she feeds them nothing but cabbage soup) and her horrid sidekick, Peebles. Along with their friend Jack, Skeezix and Helen discover a gigantic shoe washed up on the beach, and haul it to Dr. Jensen, who’s already puzzling over a collection of similarly enormous artifacts. The beach is invaded by hermit crabs, small at first; but, as Solstice approaches, the crabs grow larger — the last is the size of a house. A darkly ominous Carnival arrives, travelling magically along train tracks that have decayed into uselessness… Skeezix and Jack unravel the multiple mysteries in a stunning and satisfying conclusion. Weird, complex, wise, original, delightful: pounce!

As Fletcher Vredenburgh has recounted here at Black Gate, he discovered Blaylock with the delightful trilogy that began with The Elfin Ship (1982), but Land of Dreams was the book that really put Blaylock on the map for me. The Ace edition was handed around and excitedly discussed among my circle of friends in Ottawa in 1988.

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Time and Again (Ace, 1976), Way Station (Manor Books, 1975), and A Choice of Gods (Berkley Medallion, 1977).
Covers by Michael Whelan, unknown, and the great Paul Lehr

116 years ago this week, one of the finest science fiction authors or the 20th century was born. He died 32 years ago, in 1988. And currently he is almost forgotten, which is a great shame and also a great pity, since his humanism, his respect for all living creatures and his tolerance for the alien, the divergent, the different viewpoints, backgrounds and expectations are qualities no less needed now than when he was alive.

I’m talking about Clifford D. Simak, author of seminal works of sf like Time and Again (1951), City (1952), Time Is the Simplest Thing (1961), Way Station (1963), All Flesh Is Grass (1965), A Choice of Gods (1972), as well as of dozens of unforgettable short stories. The author who said, in an interview,

When I talk of the purpose of life, I am thinking not only of human life, but of all life on Earth and of the life which must exist upon other planets throughout the universe. It is only of life on Earth, however, that one can speak with any certainty. It seems to me that all life on Earth, the sum total of life upon the Earth, has purpose. If the means were available, we could trace our ancestry – yours and mine – back to the first blob of life-like material that came into being on the planet. The same thing could be done for the spider that spun his web in the grass, and of the grass in which the web was spun, the bird sitting in the tree and the tree in which he sits, the toad waiting for the fly beneath the bush, and for the fly and bush. We are all genetic brothers. The chain of life, tracing back to that primordial day of life’s beginning, is unbroken…

Clifford Simak was a newspaper man and an author. He wrote of love for all living things, of respect for life and of acceptance both of the supreme importance of life and of the inevitable differences between living things. Reading him as a child, I learned from him the importance of tolerance and inclusiveness. His was one of the important voices in science fiction. He still should be.