The Place of Fantasy in Science Fiction: Dell Science Fiction Reviews

The Place of Fantasy in Science Fiction: Dell Science Fiction Reviews

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Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine January February 2020-small Analog Science Fiction and Fact January February 2020-small

My main apprehension in agreeing with John O’Neill to write regular reviews for Dell Magazines appears to have been realized. This bi-month, for stories published in these issues in particular, I don’t have much — if anything — to say. In regards to the overall discourse, however, I have a few thoughts, and those thoughts might drive this article out of the bounds of a “review” into that of an “essay.”

So here it is: a number of the stories put me in mind of the sometimes-adversarial relationship between the science fiction and fantasy genres.

This time around, my rumination on this topic might have begun with Norman Spinrad’s review of books for the final 2019 issue of Asimov’s. Spinrad has little sympathy for fantasy, particularly when it — in his view — masquerades itself as science fiction.

Therefore, when I read the first of a series of decade-specific reprints of “best” science fiction stories published in Analog, I was sensitive to a bit of dialectic about the science/fantasy disparity, one, admittedly, that is twenty years old now. Moreover, in this same issue of Analog, in the present, some mitigation is brought to this topic through Sarina Dorie’s satire “The Shocking Truth About the Scientific Method that Privatized Schools Don’t Want You to Know,” though it, too, has much to say about a post-Enlightenment ideology that appears to somehow have lost its ability to Reason.

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Goth Chick News: Disturbing Wood

Goth Chick News: Disturbing Wood

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Disturbing Wood 1

Welcome to a new decade of frightfully entertaining information from the subterranean offices of Goth Chick News. 2020 is already shaping up to be a busy year with multiple trade shows to cover, interesting people to introduce you to, an epic Halloween bash to plan and multiple random bits of creepiness to share, starting with this.

You’ve likely never heard of Japanese artist Nagato Iwasaki. I certainly hadn’t until I came across him in a photo exhibition. The first words that came to mind when I saw Iwasaki’s sculptures were “beautiful nightmare” and I knew I had to share them with you. Iwasaki create humanoid figures from driftwood.

Back in the early 70’s, Masahiro Mori, Japan’s first creator of robots which had a human-like appearance, coined the term “uncanny valley”. He used it to describe the uneasy feeling, boarding on revulsion, which people experience when non-human objects look a bit too much like real humans. I immediately think of ginger roots which look very much like human babies and have been creeping people out for centuries. Inspired by the concept of the “uncanny valley,” Iwasaki set out to purposely create it in nature, by blurring the line between flesh and wood.

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Desperate Heroes in the Oldest City in the World: The City of Kings by Frank West

Desperate Heroes in the Oldest City in the World: The City of Kings by Frank West

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The City of Kings at Gen Con 2019 2-small

The City of Kings at Gen Con 2019

My trip to Gen Con this year was a little overwhelming, to be honest. I’d been invited as a guest to the Writer’s Symposium, and I had a fairly packed schedule of panels and presentations. But I did find the time to wander the enormous — and I do mean enormous — Exhibit Hall, jammed end to end with hundreds (maybe thousands?) of booths, all packed with vendors selling games. It was too much to take in all at once, so I learned to snap a photo or two every time I saw something interesting. I brought home plenty of treasures, but there was no way I could afford (or carry!) even a fraction of the items that caught my eye. So in the five months since I’ve returned from Indianapolis I’ve slowly been sifting through hundreds and hundreds of photos, trying to make sense of it all, and occasionally ordering a game or two that I find irresistible.

This has been a fun process of discovery, actually. Just this week, based on my photos and a small amount of internet research, I took a chance on The City of Kings, an ambitious Kickstarter-funded game designed by Frank West, and I’m enormously glad I did. The display at Gen Con was one of the more impressive sights in the hall — the massive game box comes absolutely packed with content, weighing in at nearly 8 pounds — but I didn’t get the chance to spend much more than 60 seconds in the booth. But of the hundreds of titles I saw, it was one of a handful that really stuck in my mind, and when I had a few extra dollars after Christmas I splurged on the core set.

The City of Kings is a fully cooperative fantasy adventure board game, meaning you and up to three friends must work together. You play the surviving leaders in the oldest city in the world, faced with the nearly-impossible task of overcoming the armies of Vesh over a series of seven stories and twelve scenarios. Each story offers different challenges and objectives. The game is playable with 1-4 players (yes, it has a solitaire option); story games run from 90-180 minutes, and the simpler scenarios 45-90 minutes.

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There Will Never Be an End to Wonder: James Davis Nicoll on Poul Anderson

There Will Never Be an End to Wonder: James Davis Nicoll on Poul Anderson

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Brain Wave Poul Anderson

Brain Wave by Poul Anderson (Ballantine Books, 1954). Cover by Richard Powers.

Poul Anderson was one of my favorite science fiction writers when I first discovered the genre. That interest didn’t survive into adulthood. While I still read Vance, Zelazny, Delany, I probably haven’t picked up a Poul Anderson novel in 30 years. It’s mostly neglect, rather than any conscious choice. It’s simply been too long since a Poul Anderson book survived the cut in my to-be-read pile.

I finally read James Davis Nicoll’s Tor.com article Celebrating Five Favourite Works by Poul Anderson, published on the 93rd anniversary of his birth, November 25, and it was a fine reminder of why Anderson’s work used to appeal to me… and why much of it maybe still does. Here’s Nicoll on the the 1953 novel Brain Wave.

The Earth emerges from an intelligence-suppressing field. Every creature that can think suddenly finds itself five times smarter. All humans of normal intelligence wake to find themselves geniuses. Animals discover that they can now think around the barriers used to control them. Human institutions crumble because humans are too bright to believe in them, while the agricultural systems on which we depend are themselves threatened by animals no longer willing to be stock or prey.

This could very easily have been an apocalyptic tale (superhuman humans shrug and carry on eating creatures that now fully understand what’s going on) — but that’s not the direction in which a comparatively young Anderson took his novel. Instead, the various viewpoint characters do their best to find new, better ways to live.

That’s a strongly appealing review, especially for a 66-year old book. But in many ways that matter, Anderson still speaks to modern readers. As Nicoll writes in his review of The Enemy Stars, “Anderson delivered on the promise. He took worldbuilding very seriously. He understood the sheer immensity of the universe… There will never be an end to wonder.”

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Four Things I Learned Publishing a New Modern-day SFF Set in a Reimagined Atlantis

Four Things I Learned Publishing a New Modern-day SFF Set in a Reimagined Atlantis

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The Last Sun-small The Hanged Man-small

Here’s a quick list of 4 things I learned publishing a new modern-day SFF set in a reimagined Atlantis. (The Last Sun and The Hanged Man are the first two books in The Tarot Sequence.)

  1. Try to get an agent or publisher who supports your vision.

By the time I sent a query to an agent, I had 9 novels planned in the series, with a strong idea of each installment’s development arc and plot. I knew in advance this was ambitious, and that I was 100% committed to it if at all possible. Getting a series launched is… not easy. Bookstores and therefore publishing houses are less and less inclined to make any far-reaching commitments, especially for debut authors, and really especially in crowded subgenres like urban fantasy.

What helped me get started with an initial 2-book contract was an awesome, awesome agent who understood what I wanted to accomplish, and framed her guidance and recommendations and sales strategy around that. That’s not as simple a statement as it sounds. It involved me clearly articulating my goals; and then being open to her feedback on the realities of my dream, including PROs and CONs.

My agent Sara (Sara Megibow of kt literary) is exceptional at what she does. She’s industry-savvy, heavily-networked, and very practical. Practicality, especially, is important. What happens if my contract ends at 2 books? What if I really want to continue writing 7 more novels? From the start, Sara had a plan. There’s very little that will surprise me next, because she’s prepared me so well.

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Vintage Treasures: The Space Magicians, edited by Alden H. Norton and Sam Moskowitz

Vintage Treasures: The Space Magicians, edited by Alden H. Norton and Sam Moskowitz

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The Space Magicians-small The Space Magicians-back-small

Cover artist unknown (which is kinda tragic)

And so my quest to write up all the interesting science fiction anthologies of the 20th Century brings us to The Space Magicians.

This is kind of an oddball anthology. Yes, it has a theme. (That theme is not space magicians.) The idea appears to be a collection of rare and hard-to-find science fiction tales by “science fiction’s major talents… each one a masterpiece in its own right,” and each of which has never been reprinted in paperback before.

The result is an eclectic mix of pulp tales by, yes, seven major SF writers: John Wyndham, Henry Kuttner, Isaac Asimov, Clifford D. Simak, Eric Frank Russell, Robert Bloch, and Robert W. Chambers. The stories within originally appeared between 1899 and 1953, in Wonder Stories, Super Science Stories, Astonishing Stories, Science-Fiction Plus, Universe Science Fiction, and other fine venues. They include the first reprint of Asimov’s “Half-Breed,” written when he was 19 years old, and Robert W. Chambers science fiction story “In Search of the Unknown.”

The stories are packaged in a 206-page paperback with a gonzo wraparound cover featuring cartoon characters on a gloriously colorful alien landscape. The artist, tragically, is unknown. The editors offer a chatty two-page introduction in which they wonder aloud why none of these stories have been reprinted, and tell us a bit about each one to whet our appetite. Here’s the complete intro.

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I Need to Talk About Hellblade 2, or I’ll Burst

I Need to Talk About Hellblade 2, or I’ll Burst

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Hellblade 2

Senua, swapping the woad warpaint from the first game for red and black in the second. It’s nice to see she still has her triskel, though.

Good morning, Readers!

So… The teaser trailer for the sequel to Ninja Theory’s spectacular horror puzzle adventure (how’s that for genre-blending?) game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice dropped a few weeks ago, and I’ve been dying to talk about it. But first, the trailer:

One thing is for certain, Senua’s Saga (Hellblade 2) looks like it’s going to be as intense and terrifying as the first.

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Future Treasures: Fighters of Fear: Occult Detective Stories edited by Mike Ashley

Future Treasures: Fighters of Fear: Occult Detective Stories edited by Mike Ashley

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Fighters of Fear Occult Detective Stories-smallMike Ashley has been editing anthologies since at least 1977 (with the Year’s Best volume SF Choice 77 from Orbit), and in the last 40 years he’s produced dozens, including no less than 19 volumes of The Mammoth Book of.. (such as The Mammoth Book of Science Fiction, The Mammoth Book of Sorcerers’ Tales, etc.), and over a dozen for British Library Publishing, including Lost Mars: The Golden Age of the Red Planet and Moonrise: The Golden Era of Lunar Adventures. He’s also edited multiple volumes of the Stark House Algernon Blackwood.

His latest is Fighters of Fear, a collection of 31 classic occult detective tales from Arthur Machen, Robert W. Chambers, William Hope Hodgson, Victor Rousseau, Sax Rohmer, Seabury Quinn, Henry S. Whitehead, Manly Wade Wellman, Joseph Payne Brennan, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, and many, many others — including a handful that have never before been reprinted.

It’s a fat 624-page volume that belongs in the library of every serious fantasy fan, and it’s easily one of my most anticipated volumes of winter. It got a starred review from Publishers Weekly, pretty much unprecedented for a collection of generally obscure, mostly 19th Century genre fantasy. Here’s a snippet:

Ashley… has never been better in conveying his genre expertise than in this impressive assembly of 31 short stories featuring psychic or occult detectives from the mid-19th century (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Green Tea”) to the late 20th century (Jessica Amanda Salmonson’s “Jeremiah”). While usual suspects Arthur Machen and William Hope Hodgson are deservedly included, the volume’s real value lies in its introducing fans of those writers to more obscure authors, such as Max Rittenberg, whose “The Sorcerer of Arjuzanx,” concerning a possible case of bewitchment at Lourdes, makes the case that his consulting psychologist, Xavier Wycherley, merits having all his stories republished. And few setups are more tantalizing than Victor Rousseau’s “The Woman with the Crooked Nose,” in which a man consults a doctor after seeing a ghost resembling a dead woman in every particular, except that it has a straight nose, unlike the deceased.

It’s been a lean few years for occult detective fans. The most recent really comprehensive anthologies I can think of were Stephen Jones’ Dark Detectives: An Anthology of Supernatural Mysteries (Fedogan & Bremer, 1999), Paula Guran’s Weird Detectives (Prime, 2013), and of course The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, by Seabury Quinn (Night Shade Books, 2017-18). And we mustn’t forget Occult Detective Magazine, which just published its 6th issue last month.

Fighters of Fear will be published in trade paperback in two weeks. Here’s the complete description and Table of Contents.

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Bob’s Books: “Fast, Loose Money” by John D. MacDonald

Bob’s Books: “Fast, Loose Money” by John D. MacDonald

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MacDonald_EndTigerCover2EDITEDJohn D. MacDonald broke in near the end of the Pulp Era, writing for science fiction and mystery magazines. He appeared in Dime Detective his first year of writing, and made it into Black Mask the next. Joe ‘Cap’ Shaw became his agent after the legendary editor left the magazine. He quickly became a staple for Fawcett Gold Medal’s paperback origscoinal novels, while still writing short stories, including for slicks like Redbook and Cosmopolitan. With seven stories in 1958 (the same as in 1957), Macdonald effectively ended his run as a short story writer and shifted almost completely to novelist.  He would only write that many short stories in a year twice more for the rest of his life.

The last story published in 1958 was “The Fast, Loose Money,” in the July issue of Cosmopolitan. It was included in the 1966 collection, End of the Tiger and Other Stories. One of the fourteen other stories in that book is “The Trap of Solid Gold,” which I think is one of his best; and which Steve Scott used to name his blog – the best John D. MacDonald site on the web. You can read Steve’s two-part essay on MacDonald’s Park Falkner, here.

At eleven pages of tightly spaced small print, it’s a little longer than almost every other story in the book.

During World War II, MacDonald was an ordnance officer in the India-China-Burma Theater, working in procurement. He was initially assigned to New Delhi, and he did not like India, writing over forty years later, that it “was a sorry country, full of sorry people.”

He was transferred to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which became the CIA. He worked out of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma, and China. MacDonald would use his experiences and knowledge of his wartime service in the Far East, in several of his short stories. 1958’s “Taint of the Tiger” was expanded into a Fawcett Gold Medal paperback, Soft Touch. Another ‘war-roots’ story from that year is “Fast, Loose Money.”

Something has gone very wrong in Jerry Thompson’s day. Jerry owns three parking lots in a nearby city. He and his wife Marie live well enough off of them, but as he says, “If you play by the rules, you’re a sucker.” So, Jerry had been using a duplicate ticket scheme to grab some off-the-book income, totaling about $26,000, which he kept at home in a wall safe, and spent low-key, to avoid the danger of getting caught.

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The Top Five Books I Read in 2019

The Top Five Books I Read in 2019

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Alice Payne Rides-small The-Kingdom-of-Copper-medium Titanshade-medium

Covers by Cliff Nielsen, Unusual Corporation, and Chris McGrath

Being semi-retired from my biweekly column doesn’t mean I’m off the hook from picking my Top Five reads from 2019! *The crowd goes wild*

Like with previous years — 2016-18; see below for links — I’m focusing specifically on fiction (sorry, non-fiction books) published sometime in 2019 (sorry, amazing older books I read – especially the Broken Earth trilogy). I’m also chickening out from ranking all five and only picking my top choice, with the rest in alphabetical order.

Drumroll, please…

Alice Payne Rides by Kate Heartfield (Tor Books, 176 pages, $14.99 paperback/$3.99 digital, March 5, 2019)

Fine, I’m just one of the multitude going on and on about how amazing this time travel duology has been. Sue me. I was concerned at the end of Alice Payne Arrives that retconning some of the story and resetting its core characters (a la time travel) would turn me off, but Heartfield maintains the core of Alice, Jayne, Zuniga and the others while putting them in even more harrowing scenarios. There’s a ton of genuine peril and some neat twists on what sometimes feels like the bloated genre of time travel stories, tied together somehow with a tidy conclusion.

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