warmsoda reads

Stars Seen Through Stone
by Lucius Shepard

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 2007

Kiosk
by Bruce Sterling

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 2007


Aye, and Gomorrah...
by Samuel R. Delany

Dangerous Visions #3, edited by Harlan Ellison
Berkley Medallion Edition, July 1969

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate
by Ted Chiang

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 2007

The Man Who Went to the Moon--Twice
by Howard Rodman

Dangerous Visions #2, edited by Harlan Ellison
Berkley Medallion Edition, June 1969

I need to change up things...

January was to be New Worlds month.  My plan was to read stories from only the three volumes I have of Best SF Stories from New Worlds.  (I had/have vague plans for the occasional theme month: pulp (H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, etc.), horror (Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, etc.), stories from the recently published first volume of Best American Fantasy, and so on.)  Last Thursday, in addition to the New Worlds story ('The Last Inn on the Road'), I read 'The Strange Case of X' by Jeff VanderMeer from his collection, City of Saints and Madmen.  I had to.

Excluding The Last Inn, I haven't been moved by the last few stories I've read from New Worlds.  The two Harvey Jacobs stories ('Gravity' and 'In Seclusion') succeed as light, humorous stories, but don't do much for me in terms of wonder or awe; there is nothing to them that I feel I need or want to revisit.  They were funny and breezy -- I was amused, but then the stories were immediately trivialized.  Nothing about either captured my imagination.

Ballard's 'The Death Module' I could not parse well enough to gather from it anything meaningful.  When I read 'The Killing Ground,' I was afraid it was a story commenting too intimately on a time and history to which I could not adequately relate (Vietnam, the '60s -- I was born in '79), regardless of the timelessness of its theme.  I had that same feeling reading 'The Death Module' -- so much so that the story seems taken out of context.  The characters are their obsessions, and their obsessions (a catastrophic space flight, the Kennedy assassination, Ralph Nader's auto crash tests, et al.) are somehow mimetised in posture and gesture, body  contours.  And consciousness... there's something about consciousness and isolation tests... and sexual ambiguities.

I dunno -- I'm an idiot.  I've read the story three times now, and cannot say I understand it in a meaningful way.  That would be a problem, except that in those three readings nothing has grabbed me (not my interest, not my imagination, not my sympathy, not my humanity).  My intellectual curiosity has been piqued (I hadn't known anything about Nader's auto safety initiatives -- see, told you: I'm an idiot), but-- eh, I think I'm going to have to give it some time.

To avoid burning out in the first few weeks of this experiment, I'm going to mix it up a bit more.  I'm not looking for anything in particular.  Just want to be moved, to be awed, to be surprised.  I love that giddy feeling you get when you discover a great short story -- a feeling novels cannot sustain.

New voices, new worlds...

The Strange Case of X
by Jeff VanderMeer

City of Saints and Madmen, by Jeff VanderMeer
Prime First Edition, July 2002

(Have previously enjoyed 'Dradin, In Love,' 'The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris,' and 'The Transformation of Martin Lake.')


The Last Inn on the Road
by Roger Zelazny and Danny Plachta

Best SF Stories from New Worlds 5, edited by Michael Moorcock
Berkley Medallion Edition, May 1971

 In Seclusion
by Harvey Jacobs

Best SF Stories from New Worlds 4, edited by Michael Moorcock
Berkley Medallion Edition, January 1971

The Death Module
by J. G. Ballard

Best SF Stories from New Worlds 5, edited by Michael Moorcock
Berkley Medallion Edition, May 1971


Gravity
by Harvey Jacobs

Best SF Stories from New Worlds 6, edited by Michael Moorcock
Berkley Medallion Edition, July 1971

The Square Root of Brain
by Fritz Leiber

Best SF Stories from New Worlds 4, edited by Michael Moorcock
Berkley Medallion Edition, January 1971

I've enjoyed what little of Fritz Leiber's work I've read (namely his Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories).  His characters are always surprising, and his stories catch you off guard: subversively (and often humorously) juxtaposing the typical and the atypical, specifically in terms of generic expectations (e.g., a contemporary humanness not a lot of characters in fantasy possess).

In 'The Square Root of Brain,' Leiber takes us to a Hollywood party, and abandons us surrounded by ridiculous people and ridiculous pronouncements.  Within the main narrative, he intersperses brief, baffling, and often erroneous excerpts from the Universal American Encyclopedia, my favorite of which follows:

EVIL, the subject of an appaling [sic] quantity of barren speculation.

Regarding the encyclopedia, searching online brought up no hits.  In his introduction, Moorcock notes Leiber's story is "based on [his] experience [...] when he worked on the original of the Universal American Encyclopedia," adding that the quotes are "absolutely authentic."  Frankly, I don't know what to make of it: fictional or long forgotten.

Regardless, Leiber's use of the excerpts is deft.  They aren't used in place of scene breaks (there are none); in all instances except the first and last (which reference each other), they interrupt dialogue.  In this bustling party atmosphere, the effect is like being momentarily distracted by an overheard snippet of conversation while trying to follow the one in which you are engaged. 

The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde
by Norman Spinrad

Best SF Stories from New Worlds 5, edited by Michael Moorcock
Berkley Medallion Edition, May 1971

This was a strange one.  It's a Jerry Cornelius story.  Jerry Cornelius being Michael Moorcock's time-hopping English assassin.  Though I've owned an omnibus copy of the first four Jerry Cornelius novels, The Cornelius Quartet, for a few years now, 'The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde' is the first Jerry Cornelius story I have read.  I'm interested to know if Spinrad's interpretation is indicative of Moorcock's.

As Moorcock describes in his introduction to the story, 'The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde' was "originally conceived as the 'ultimate' caper film [but] was unable to [be put into] prose until presented with a literary form in which the absence of logical connections was not only acceptable but a necessity."   This is a madcap adventure to assassinate the heir apparent of Mao Tze Tung, leader of the People's Republic of China.  Lunacy, twists, and double-dealings between the Mafia and the People's Army of China (with cameos by MI6* and the KGB) climax to Jerry Cornelius playing an electric violin amid "explosions, contusions, fire, gore, curses, looting, rape," and dead crocodiles, and that's before the Golden Horde ride into the picture with their "time-honoured" imperatives: "Burn. Pillage. Rape. Kill."  All because the last supply of heroin the Chinese sold to the Mafia was cut with milk-sugar.

I want to say the story is slight, in that I doubt it will stay with me for long, but we'll see.  (Part of the point of this experiment is to engage with the stories beyond temporary escape, beyond the fleeting sense of wonder.)  I suspect of anything, it will be the telling that has the lasting impact.  There is a rhythm to the language that without a doubt propels the action with a certain verve.


*MI6: Britain's Secret Intelligence Service

The Ship of Disaster
by B. J. Bayley

Best SF Stories from New Worlds 4, edited by Michael Moorcock
Berkley Medallion Edition, January 1971
 
I came to reading science fiction and fantasy relatively late (not until my mid-twenties did I seriously start to read it).  I don't have a good grasp of the history or the cliches.  From what I gather, Tolkien's influence on fantasy is a boon for some and a bane for others.  (The only Tolkien I've read is The Fellowship of the Ring -- took me a few tries to accomplish even that little.)

In 'The Ship of Disaster', Bayley introduces us to Elen-Gelith, proud and arrogant "elf-lord of Earth's younger days, before man had come into their own."  (At this point in time, there are "only two truly intelligent races of the world" -- elves and trolls; "an age ago" man appeared "from random mutations among lower animals," whereas the elves believe "they had come into being as an act of self-creation [...] destined to be Earth's fairest flower.")  Elen-Gelith captains the Ship of Disaster, sailing lost on the ocean after escaping the complete destruction of the elf-nation by the hands of the trolls.

I mentioned Tolkien because his depiction of elves seems to be the benchmark to which a lot of people within and without fantasy hold: lean and pale, severe and haughty, but deservedly so; they are for various reasons an obviously superior race and civilization [sarcasm].  Elen-Gelith is certainly of that mold and a bastard for it.  Bayley's depiction is without reverence, and it's worth appreciating the difference it makes subverting the reader's expectations.  But I wonder how many of those who normally admire Tolkien's majestic elves would make the connection between the characteristics of his and Bayley's (or am I wrong for seeing a connection)?

Also interesting is the idea that the elf-nation was atheistic and scientific, yet, according to the human character, Kelgynn, they were also materialistic and inbred, resulting in their demise (similar to Moorcock's cruel and decadent Melniboneans).  It's an interesting correlation to me considering the current hubbub surrounding New Atheism (to which I'm not too familiar but my wife is very keen).  But the two perspectives (elf-lord v. man -- that is, Elen-Gelith v. Kelgynn) featured in the story are not simply two arguments (science v. religion) being pitted against each other; there's more nuance in that these are two character-specific perspectives clashing (Elen-Gelith's pride v. Kelgynn's).  For example: "Elen-Gelith laughed mockingly. 'Semi-sentient humans speak of magic,' he said.  'We elves have science [emphasis Bayley's].'"  Yet, the belief in their own self-creation is based on "as it was recorded [emphasis mine]."  Smacks of the same bullshit pride as "man's pathetic attempts to claim magical abilities."

Regardless, I'm curious to learn more about Bayley's personal beliefs...


Edit, 1/2/2008:

Another comment regarding the issue of race.  On the way to work today, I was listening to The Perceptionists, a conscientious hip hop group; in the title track on their Black Dialogue album, Mr. Lif Akrobatik comments that according to popular history, black culture is/was considered "savage" and "insignificant" -- I'm paraphrasing horribly, but the actual quote reminded me of Elen-Gelith's very similar opinion of Man's insignificance, "even in the animal kingdom."

Also, for more information regarding Barrington J. Bayley and his work, see http://www.oivas.com/bjb/ (this article on science and religion is pretty good: http://www.oivas.com/bjb/bjb-es1.html)

Starting January 1, 2008, I will read a short story every weekday for one year. More information soon...