Victories Greater Than Death (Unstoppable #1) by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor Teen, 2021)
Review by Lis Carey: Tina Mains knows she doesn’t have to worry about being ordinary. She’s known since she was quite young that she’s the clone of an alien war hero, hidden, disguised, on Earth, and when the time comes, the beacon implanted in her body will activate, and her life will change. In the meantime, she just has to survive high school.
When it happens, though, suddenly she’s being hunted by the enemies of the woman she was cloned from before the starship that will take her to her destiny even arrives. When it does, barely in the nick of time, she and her best friend, Rachel, are injured, and need the resources of the ship’s sick bay before anything else.
But the ship is more battered, worn, and short of crew than it is a shiny, powerful battle cruiser, and it turns out that the Royal Fleet has been counting on the return of their late hero more than she had imagined possible. Tina, Rachel, and four more teenagers they recruit using video games, soon find they will need to learn fast, and start coming up with their own ideas, if they’re going to face anything other than the defeat and destruction of the ship they’re on.
The six Earthlings are getting acquainted with several alien species, life on a military ship, the politics and ethical system of the Empire. And that Empire has perhaps grown more rigid and inflexible since the death of the woman Tina was cloned from, due to almost two more decades of relentless and unsuccessful war against a breakaway political force that’s frankly genocidal. These people need some loosening up, fresh ideas, and reminders of what they used to stand for.
Tina and her friends first have to figure out how to survive and thrive in this strange new environment, before they can save the rest of the galaxy.
This is a teen adventure in space, with really interesting characters, whether human, alien, or in Tina’s case, a bit of both. They face dangerous challenges, painful losses, and the need to make real decisions about who they are, and who they want to be.
Enjoyable and satisfying.
I received this book as part of the 2022 Hugo Packet, and am reviewing it voluntarily.
Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere: The Author’s Preferred Text (William Morrow, 2017)
Review by Cat Eldridge: There are any number of editions, many in the author’s preferred edition, of Neverwhere from inexpensive paperbacks to really costly hardcover editions signed by Gaiman. And of course, it exists as a digital publication in the same author’s preferred edition, not to mention as a graphic novel, a BBC series, which is interesting if flawed, and a full cast audio-drama, which is splendid. But the edition I own, well, aside from at least three audio works, one read by Gaiman and two full cast productions, and an ebook, is the illustrated edition with artwork by Chris Riddell which is what I’m reviewing here and what these illustrations are from.
Now I’ll admit that I don’t really actually collect paper books anymore as I prefer reading these days on the iPad as I can set the font and such to what suits me best, and being in and out of hospital because of a serious knee injury means I always have all my current reading on the iPad.
But this edition of Neverwhere is as much an art object as it is something to be read. An art object that I couldn’t find in the genre area of Books-A-Million as they’d shelved it in horror, which is appropriate, actually. That said, I will read it as it looks wonderful as something to be read on an evening.
It’s not a big hardcover book, measuring just eight inches by five inches. It comes sans dust jacket but has a front cover of Door (and I’m assuming that you’d not be reading this review if you’ve not most likely already read Neverwhere several times so I won’t be saying who the characters are in this review) standing on a sidewalk in London Above with a Doorway showing London Below in the background. And yes there’s a rat shown. Not a cute rat. The back panel has a quote from Croup of Croup and Vandemar asking Richard where Door is. And there’s another rat there. There’s lots of rats illustrated here. Very appropriate.
I‘m reasonably sure that you already know about Gaiman so I’ll talk about Riddell. He’s a British illustrator and occasional writer of children’s books and a political cartoonist for the Observer, the quite left-leaning newspaper. He’s won many an award for both his work there and that of other works for whom he’s provided the illustrations. As far as I can tell, this is his first genre undertaking. He’s lauded for his drawings which make very good use of actual pen and ink craft.
So here we get hundreds of his illustrations, including of course all the major characters such as Croup and Vandemar, who are even more scary as he envisions than I had thought in my mind’s eye, as you can see here; The Marquis is splendid in his medieval looking garb; Richard looking, well, lost and needy as he is in the novel; Lamia looking properly vampirish; and even Jessica, who I never liked. Why there’s even the Great Beast coming off looking a lot more horrifying here than he did in the video series where he just looked silly.
There’s full border wrap-arounds showing London Below folk. And of course as I noted lots of rats, most looking not at all charming.
So if you’re looking for a new edition for yourself, I wholeheartedly recommend this edition which also includes “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back” novelette which is a sequel to the novel. Or a prequel.
Babel or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R.F. Kuang.
Spoiler alert: this book is brilliant.
Review by Michaele Jordan: We all raged over the Hugo nominations scandal. We wrote angry letters, we excoriated the self-appointed censors, we bemoaned the tarnish on our beloved awards, we vowed to make sure this never happens again. And then we had to move on, get on with our lives. So I grabbed up a number of books that I’d heard might have been nominated if the committee had played fair and honest. I started with Babel or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R.F. Kuang.
And now I’m angry all over again. Because this is one of the best books I have EVER read. It is a masterpiece. That it should be censored, not for any evil accusations against China — which is treated with respect – but simply because it mentions China (which would be difficult to avoid in a book about British colonialism and the Opium Wars) is not merely ugly – it is evil.
I can almost hear you muttering, “’a book about British colonialism and the Opium Wars’? Doesn’t sound like a masterpiece to me. Sounds really dull. And what’s that got to do with SFF, anyway?”
It’s set mostly in Oxford in the 1830’s – which is depicted with a stunningly authentic realism, except for one little thing: an extra college (with its associated building, the tower of Babel) has been inserted into the university. It’s small, prestigious college and hard to get into. Candidates are required to speak at least three languages fluently to qualify and, having gained entry, spend years studying more languages. It’s a school of translation, and translation is the central power source of the magic that keeps the empire running.
It’s a very subtle magic. It works by inscribing two words (called a match pair) onto a silver plate. The first word (usually English) suggests what the user wishes to do. The second is the same word in a different language. But, as any fluent speaker can tell you, translation is never precise – every language has its own nuances, its own associations. That slight difference in meaning infuses the silver. The resulting power causes the silver bar to operate much like an electric battery. And so it’s everywhere, keeping ships afloat, keeping mills operating and street lamps lit, and managing the empire. And it all runs on silver.
So Britain needs silver to keep everything running. Silver is NOT an infinite resource, but the need for it is. We therefore remain in a truthful analog of Britain in the 1830’s. England is conquering the world, and angry about China’s refusal to enter into a “normal” trade relationship, i.e., two-way trading. China has silver, but they won’t buy anything from the west, so their silver remains in China. Britain can only find one thing that the Chinese will buy: opium. Opium is illegal in China. But the British insist on selling it to them anyway. This will not end well.
A novel needs characters to put a human face on political strategies. We have four main characters – students in a very small class at the university. Two are dark-skinned and two are light skinned. Two are boys (one white and one black) and two are girls (again, one white and one black) Three of them are immigrants of some sort. Robin is half Chinese and pale (in a dim light or from a distance, he can pass as white. Ramy is Arab, and so dark-skinned. Victoire is French, but she’s originally from Haiti. And lastly, we come to Letty, the only one who is not an immigrant. She’s a classic English rose,
Oxford considers itself the creme de la creme. Which means it expects itself to be all white and all English. Robin, Ramy, and Victoire suffer daily insults and indignities. Letty, not so much. But she’s still female, and women are not normally admitted to Oxford. So even she is viewed with a mixture of condescension and suspicion.
Even if I wanted to commit spoilers, it would take pages and pages to explain the story. (Hey, It took Ms. Kuang hundreds of pages to tell it.), So I’ll leave off now, and let you discover for yourself what happens next.
Review by Cat Eldridge: Ah, to visit John Carter and the inhabitants of Barsoom, Edger Rice Burroughs’ richly-imagined Mars. The characters in Robert Heinlein’s The Number of The Beast did so in their travels across the multiverse, and now the protaganist of Rainbow Mars does it. Well, sort of. Maybe. Possibly. Let me explain the confusion that I may have intentionally generated … Larry Niven has stated many times that he firmly believes that time travel is logically impossible — an utter and complete fantasy. So when retrieval specialist Svetz heads back from polluted future Earth in search of extinct animals, he tends to sideslip into fantastic, fictional worlds. And delightfully so in these stories.
In the short stories collected in The Flight of the Horse, he quests for a Gila monster and gets a fire-breathing dragon, seeks a wolf and retrieves an intelligent werewolf, goes after a horse and finds a unicorn with an exceedingly nasty temper, and looking for a whale finds Moby-Dick, complete with the ill-fated Captain Ahab and his harpoon sticking out of its side. It appears that either Svetz, who hates time travel, or his machine generate a reality straight out of the imagination every time he trips. Ouch. And sometimes quite literally ouch, e.g., when the unicorn tries to impale him. Or the dragon tries to deep fry him. Or the werewolf tries to eat him. Poor Svetz.
Under the command of Secretary-General Waldemar the Tenth, Svetz’s job was “simply” to travel into Earth’s past and retrieve exotic animals. (Far more exotic than he intended!) But Waldemar the Tenth is dead, and Waldemar the Eleventh has another pet project for Svetz to work on: the stars. The new Waldemar is interested in interstellar travel, but that’s pretty well beyond the means of an ecologically devastated 31st-century Earth. But Mars beckons — the intelligent Mars that they read about in the history books that remain from the 20th Century. Errr … historic records if one thinks that Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne are writers of history!
So Rainbow Mars ups the ante considerably by both space and time travel to explore Mars a.k.a. Barsoom in the deep past, before it was a dead world. As this is Barsoom itself, it’s inhabited by a menagerie of warring multi-armed sword-wielding Martians from Edgar Rice Burroughs, elements of H.G. Wells’ War of The Worlds (tentacled monsters and heat rays used as death dealing weapons), and lots of less familiar authors’ books. Svetz and his fantasy tripping companions are soon in really big trouble. Other problems that crop up include a gigantic alien tree extending into Mars’s orbit — a living version of the beanstalk elevator in Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradise. Unfortunately, this beanstalk breaks loose and falls to Earth!
Now I might argue that such a beanstalk on Earth seems a highly desirable situation, but there are hidden drawbacks, including the aforementioned multi-armed sword-wielding Martians and their long-running war!
The “novel” is not really a novel, as it actually consists of one novella, “Rainbow Mars,” and the short stories that were in The Flight of the Horse. But it’s delicious romp! You know that it’s going to be a great read if you keep in mind that the working title — which was better than the one used — was Svetz and the Beanstalk, and that it was originally going to be written by Larry Niven and Terry Prachett! That didn’t quite work out, but the result is still quite fine! And did I mention that Svetz discovers what the origin of the Martian canals was?
Though the book never made it to Audible or the audio streaming services, there is a delightful audiobook version. Michael Prichard is the narrator of this Books on Tape release done twenty-three years ago. Yes, it was an audiocassette tape.
I confess that someone uploaded a bootlegged version of it to the net many years ago and I listened to it off that recording. Prichard is a most excellent narrator and he brought Rainbow Mars to full life in his telling of it.
Review by Warner Holme: Erik Granström and Henrik Rosenborg’s Forbidden Lands: the Bloodmarch (Free League, 2023) is an interesting volume expanding on a pre-existing setting. Expanding on the previously known setting, this volume details a disturbing region which includes large portions of forest with disturbing red foliage.
Most of the fantasy standards exist in this world. Orcs, elves, dwarves, humans, demons and more. Some of them are fairly in line with the genre expectations for them, particularly the dwarves, while others have strange and detailed cultures and cultural conflicts explained. Fortunately the setting starts, largely, from a point of view that should make it easy for a reader to jump in even to this development in it without worry about feeling truly lost. Potential alliances, conflicts, and hidden agendas are all discussed in a fair amount of detail.
One complication when dealing with an overall high quality translation like the one created here by Niklas Lundmark is a question of comparison to the original. While a great deal of the strange, weird, and wondrous nature of a dark fantasy setting can be seen throughout this book there are moments which suggest a certain amount of tongue in cheek. And obvious one comes with the adventure seed on page 160, wherein “Muder, Madam” focuses on a particular character’s death. This would be a normal idea for a fairly basic type of event, however the individual who died is named Madam Munna. This is stated repeatedly with both words throughout this small section, and leaves one with a strong suspicion that either one of the original writers or the translator was in fact a fan of the Muppets. Knowing which would be quite nice, and neither it nor some of the other jokes keep the overall tone from something that can be taken reasonably seriously. These include wordplay like naming a deity Kolor who is claimed to be responsible for shades other than red, and a group calling themselves “The Inglourious Butchars” on page 42.
The illustrations are in general high quality, done in the style of drawings and maps which might exist in universe of the people, objects, or places one might encounter. This is overall extremely effective, even to an extent providing justification as to why certain illustrations like that on page 69 seem to devolve into the earliest stages of sketching while large portions are incredibly detailed. Neither is exactly bad, however if they were made to compete with very stylistically different illustrations it might be somewhat less impressive.
In such volumes, specifically going back to the early era of gaming, organization was often one of the biggest problems. While this book overall maintains a fair bit of quality in that regard, the index might be a little sparse to some. And although it does include entries for most of the important individual concepts, it will often leave only a notice when they are the subject of a section rather than merely being mentioned.
As a gaming module it will be very much take it or leave it both for fans of the franchise and more general gamers. Still, it represents a high-quality release, with a lot of interesting ideas that can be incorporated into games or simply get the mind pumping for those who enjoy manuals on fictional worlds. With interesting world building, creatures, and character concepts there is a lot to recommend it.
Review by Michaele Jordan: You may recall (or maybe not) that back in November, I started writing up the (presumed) Hugo nominees.
Upon returning from a happy trip to the library, I picked up Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir first. It happened to be on the top of the stack. Surprise! It turned out to be the third part of a trilogy. So I sighed, logged into the library, and requested a hold on Gideon the Ninth. I was not happy to learn that it was out, and that I was not the first hold waiting for it.
By the time I had read all the other nominees, and written them up to share with you, Gideon the Ninth was still unavailable. As was Harrow the Ninth. Did I mention this started in November? Because I have only just now finished Nona the Ninth. May I tell you about this trilogy? I’ve waited so long.
Gideon the Ninth is an excellent book, which in the beginning could pass as pure SF. It’s set in a multi-planet empire, with a single household controlling each of eight planets. They planets are labeled Second through Ninth. No first is designated, but all eight are ruled by the House of the Emperor, the King Undying, the Necromancer divine, whose court is at Canaan House. Since this all reads like SF at first, the reader might take the terms Undying and Necromancer as symbolic titles. But they soon prove to be literal.
The story opens with the Ninth House, in company with the other Houses, receiving a call from the Emperor for each household to send him a necromancer and a cavalier, as candidates to become lyctors, i.e., his personal guards and servants. The Ninth House sends their Reverend Daughter Harrowhark and her Cavalier Gideon Nav to Canaan House.
The Ninth House is a very dark place. Their planet is furthest from the sun. They paint their faces like skulls, and wear black robes. They are the Keepers of the Locked Tomb, the Black Vestals, and are viewed by the other Houses with a superstitious dread. Which is saying a lot in a culture ruled by necromancers. Each House specializes in its own branch of death magic. The Ninth house specializes in the raising and controlling of skeletons.
So sixteen necromancers and cavaliers gather in Canaan House and lose themselves in its nooks, crannies and mazes. And they begin to die. I wouldn’t dream of telling you more.
Harrow the Ninth: The book opens with Harrowhark in a nearly moribund state on the starship Erebos, the Emperor’s flagship. The only person she recognizes there is Ianthe, one of her fellow candidates from Volume One. They have passed their trials and been appointed lyctors.
The story seems at first to be a continuation of the first volume. But almost immediately Harrowhark reflects on a memory which gives a very different version of the past than what we saw in Volume One. She also remembers sneaking into the Locked Tomb as a child. Ever since she’s been followed by the body (the very beautiful body) which she saw there ever since.
Lyctors from before her time appear, along with their emperor-god, John. They are assembling for the funeral of Cytheria, another of the ancient lyctors. (One of them immediately starts trying to kill Harrowhark for no apparent reason).
They are on their way to the emperor-god’s stronghold. There’s about to be a terrible war. (That’s why the emperor needed more lyctors, who – upon surviving the tests and the initiation – acquire numerous powers and become virtually immortal.) The Revenant Beast is coming. Number Seven (presumably a forerunner or an aspect of the Revenant Beast) is already on the outskirts of the system.
There’s no point in even trying to outline the story, even assuming it’s possible. The above-mentioned swapping of the history is just the beginning. Ms. Muir throws so many reality shifts at the reader that it’s like a game of Chutes and Ladders. Characters change names without warning or visible reason. Often there are two characters in any given body. The other characters recognize them by their eyes. (Apparently, even when body swapping, they take their eyes with them). And credit where due, all characters seem to have VERY exotic eyes.
There is lots of fighting as the enemy draws near but, strangely, it feels distant, at least as long as it stays outside the ship. Some enemy forces called Heralds get on board, and they are very cool – sort of giant mechanical insects. And then they all fall into the river. There’s no need to avoid spoilers here – By this point, I don’t know myself what’s going on.
Nona the Ninth: The final volume! Or no? Several notes indicate that Ms. Muir originally intended the 3rd volume to be titled Alecto the Ninth. And in fact, at the end of the book Ms. Muir acknowledges that she was supposed to be writing Alecto the Ninth but somehow ended up writing Nona the Ninth instead. She still intends to write Alecto the Ninth. (Spoiler alert: I won’t be reading it.)
At first there is no apparent connection this narrative and the two that preceded it. It opens in an urban environment, with cars and schools, etc. There is a war going on nearby and there are sirens and blackouts and refugees. Our protagonist Nona is a young girl with an unusually childlike mentality. (The issue of her age is never fully resolved.) She lives with two caretakers (maybe two and a half – two of them are sharing a single body). The names, at least, are familiar: Camilla, Palamedes and Pyrrha. They are all characters from Volume Two.
Nona’s primary interests in life are the neighborhood dogs, and her position as a Teacher’s Aide at her school.
At intervals a narration labeled John is inserted, presumably written by the emperor-god from the previous books. This is always a simple third-person passage, with no names given, describing the historic events that changed our world into the one seen in Volumes One and Two. They tell of strange experiments, of John acquiring peculiar powers, and of public responses to those powers.
After a lot of running around within the ever-encroaching war zone, the narrative drifts to a stop that cannot be described as an ending, tangled in an attempt to introduce Alecto, even at this late date.
All in all, I cannot recommend this trilogy. Volume One (Gideon) is a very good classic SF novel. You can read it independently – it is complete and has an ending. Volume Two (Harrow) is okay, albeit extremely challenging. As for Volume Three (Nona) – and I must apologize in advance to anyone who disagrees because they’ll be in my face, and I don’t want a war – Volume Three is a mess, ranging from boring to opaque.
Volume Three brings us from the late 1960’s into the early 1970’s. Once again, Christopher Kovac’s literary biography, toward the end of the book, gives the framework for the man whose stories and works we read in the course of the volume. I noticed the switch from lead to back matter between the first and second volumes. It feels like an evolution in the series, now that Zelazny is on stage, to let the works talk first, and then discuss the context of his life. Although, as always, the copious noting and footnoting of the stories and poems often reveal parts of Zelazny’s life and career, as well as the more usual literary models.
This is a transitional part of Zelazny’s career and it gets play from a couple of angles. Before we dive in, the book acknowledges that for a spectrum of fans, by this point, after Lord of Light, Zelazny has seen his best work come out and he will never hit those highs again. It is true the number of awards and award nominations does fall away at this point. It is also true as Kovacs details:
By 1972 Zelazny had largely dropped mythology from his writing. “Science fiction has pushed ahead and left some things behind. In changing, the science fiction world has changed me. I did sort of have to get rid of my gods. When I reached self-parody of myself, I had to stop.
“I have not resolved in my own mind the manner in which I will deal with mythological material in the future. I would have to find a different way of using it.
“My mythological material has been invaded by the light
It’s true. The furious and highest use of mythology in Zelazny’s work diminishes at this point (Creatures of Light and Darkness, of which I will say more shortly, being that final signpost). The Zelazny of the 1970’s and on would use Mythology more sparingly, rather than dumping the bag of contents into the blender, baking the dough and seeing what comes out of the oven. It wouldn’t be the end of mythology in Zelazny’s work, but it definitely marked a change in what he was doing.
And while many seem to feel that meant Zelazny’s work diminished in quality after the work covered in the first two volumes, critic David Hartwell, in a piece at the front of the volume, disagrees:
A lot of people in the sf community felt that Roger Zelazny’s literary career began to decline at the end of the 1960s as his commercial reputation grew. Nine Princes in Amber, a hard-boiled adventure fantasy, sold well but was compared unfavorably to his best early work by most genre commentators… In spite of all the profound impact of his sixties work, his body of short fiction contains more masterpieces from later decades than from that first flowering.”
And so here we are, in the 1970s. A future fan writer (me) was born in 1971. Zelazny may have moved past the high mythology of Lord of Light, but his most successful series, the Amber Chronicles, was to take hold of his writing life.
And yes, like Banquo in Hamlet, The Ghost of Nine Princes of Amber is one that does haunt this book, and its publication does correspond with the other pieces that we find here in this volume. I admit freely that Amber is where I first encountered Zelazny (I think that is probably fairly well known in fandom at this point), and my love of his work grew from there. So the period in this volume, then, is prime material for me as a reader, since it shows Zelazny working and developing his craft in a period and a style and a level I had first come to him in.
Let’s dig in.
It emerges that some of my favorite Zelazny pieces are collected in this volume.
Let’s start with “The Game of Blood and Dust”, first published in 1975. It is a pinnacle of Change War sort of time travel stories, as history is changed by two beings again and again in a game. In a short space of a few pages, we get to see the blossoming of ideas of alternate worlds and jonbar points that could fill a Kevin Kulp Timewatch game. There is a playfulness and a pathos at the ending, as we figure out the changes the two beings have wrought have ended in our world…and that they are about to play again, and change our existence utterly. There is a meta-thrill to that idea and it makes it one of my favorite Zelazny stories of any era.
I’ve never been a fan of the full novel Damnation Alley, and the movie, even with George Peppard fighting “killer cockroaches”, is too much camp for me. But the shorter novella story of Hell Tanner’s run across the United States to deliver medicine to Boston on time is a much more effective piece. You don’t have to like Hell Tanner much, but he gets the job done. I could see a bit of Snake Plissken in Hell Tanner, for certain, especially the raised-finger sort of ending that Tanner gives as a coda. It does occur to me that in an endless set of remakes that Hollywood seems to want, Damnation Alley hasn’t been touched…yet. Maybe The Walking Dead and the like has dried up the market. Although, maybe if you had someone like Rhona Mitra or Millie Rae Brown play a genderflipped Hell Tanner, THAT could be fun. Hollywood, call me!
Anyway, moving on.
“Corrida” is a very dark and intense short story, inspired by Zelazny attending bullfights. The utter confusion of the man thrust into the ring makes it a short and chilling piece. It’s not what you normally think of Zelazny — but the use of imagery, detail and sense and focus are absolutely all that.
Again, unusual for Zelazny, perhaps are a pair of stories, “Here Be Dragons” and “Way Up High”. They are, in fact children’s stories, that capture wonder, happiness, magic, and ultimately pushing back the boundaries of the unknown. “Here Be Dragons” is a story about cartography and maps and the titular warning and what happens when actual exploration and necessity hits the reality of what was formerly just blank map space and the unknown.
“Way Up High”…well, reading that always makes me cry as we follow the story of Suzi as she meets and develops a friendship with Herman, the pterodactyl. Yes, a pterodactyl. The last pterodactyl? Well, that would be telling but you can probably guess where this story goes. It’s a story of wonder, and sadness at the end of wonder.
More typical and on brand for Zelazny is an excerpt from Creatures of Light and Darkness as Horus meets and encounters The Steel General. This volume reveals that the Steel General, in fact, was the initial seed for the book and things grew out from a being that would fight endlessly throughout history, even if utterly destroyed. Zelazny’s style of book writing, no surprise, was very much what we would call a Pantser, and in the case of Creatures of Light and Darkness, he started with The Steel General as a character and went from there. The “Agnostic’s Prayer” from this book appeared in the previous volume.
And then there is “The Man Who Loved the Faioli”. It is true that death, or immortals who defy death, are a common theme in Zelazny’s work. Some might say that most of Zelazny’s protagonists run around these two themes to a greater or minor key. “The Man Who Loved the Faoli” goes with the former. Again, we have an artist as the protagonist, and a very strange relationship between the dying artist and the creature come to witness his death. Or so the story should go. This being Zelazny, it takes a left turn at Albuquerque, in a sad and melancholy mood and key.
This book also covers the era where Zelazny started some more collaborations with other writers. There is “Come to Me Not in Winter’s White”, a collaboration with Harlan Ellison® that reminds me a bit of Time travel romances, and, it will make sense in context, The Pirate Planet in Doctor Who.
Although there are no excerpts from Zelazny’s novel length collaboration with Philip K Dick directly (Deus Irae), Dick, too, haunts the pages of this volume. In the non-fiction, we find the funny story of Zelazny and Dick at a SF festival in Metz, France (as it so happens, Ellison was there as well). We also get a poem from Zelazny on Dick, and we also get a story, new to me, written with Dannie Plachta, called “The Last Inn on the Road”. This story feels like it could almost be in the world of Deus Irae and I agree with the editor that it seems to have influenced that collaboration.
There are some additional interesting curiosities as well.
There is the “Deleted sex scene” between Corwin of Amber and Dara from the second Amber volume, The Guns of Avalon. Although I had heard about this scene, I had never read it before now. Frankly, by the standards of today, if I were to write it and show it to say, Kit Rocha, I am pretty sure Bree and Donna would return it asking for at least some heat to the scene.
Other curiosities include a couple of previously unpublished stories, a few GOH speeches, and of course, always the poetry. I was particularly intrigued by Bridge of Ashes, an outline for a book that, sadly and tragically, gets little coverage even from Zelazny’s most ardent fans (of which I am one). Frankly, the 30,000 foot level outline here might, I think, be somewhat more effective in conveying matters than the book was when I read it. It does illuminate how ideas can go from outline to novel in ways that one does not entirely expect, or perhaps even want. I may owe myself a re-read of Bridge of Ashes, now. There is also an outline of Doorways in the Sand, a more successful novel from Zelazny on every level, and a favorite of mine. And, especially given our economy and the problems of student debt, the idea of a student desperately trying to remain one forever to keep a trust paying room board and tuition feels awfully modern, doesn’t it?
Once again, in an excellent volume, NESFA has captured the soul and art of Roger Zelazny and in the period of work I first came to know it. I look forward to what comes next, in Volume Four: Last Exit to Babylon.
The Future Is Female! More Classic Science Fiction Stories By Women Volume Two: The 1970s. Edited by Lisa Yaszek (Library of America, 2023)
Review by Warner Holme: Lisa Yaszek’s The Future Is Female! More Classic Science Fiction Stories By Women Volume Two: The 1970s is a continuation of the previous volume from the same editor. Putting together a selection of stories from a more condensed period of time, this volume focused on a single decade nonetheless includes a fascinating assortment of material.
A very nice introduction by the editor provides context for the pieces in the collection as well as thoughts from individuals for working at the time. In addition there are a number of unadvertised pieces by women involved. Specifically, as early as page xiv there are illustrations from various SF publications which were created by women of the time. The first of these is a very nice figure originally in Galaxy magazine circa June 1975 which is by the well-known artist Wendy Pini. While these are a major surprise, they are all carefully credited and appreciated, although a few that definitely appeared in color are rendered in black and white.
“Bitching It” by Sonya Dorman Hess opens the volume with real action. While many think of the early 1970s as still a time when science fiction was clean and aspirational about the future, this piece is dark and twisted and grotesque in a way that seems well matching horror or dystopia of the time. Featuring everything from spousal abuse to dog attacks, it’s a strangely disturbing story that actually has a lot to say.
Another interesting piece is Elinor Busby’s “Time to Kill.” Featuring a mixture of disturbing thematic ideas for time travel and a strange look at the idea of time evening itself out, it begins with a woman running back to her time machine before flashing back to her decision to commit a very specific murder. Really it is extremely short and doesn’t do much that hadn’t been done before with the concept of time travel, however it does so in a very in your face way that addresses a problem of both rejecting the past and taking drastic action to make matters worse. On the other hand the fact a number of less severe solutions are offered and rejected in favor of a religious version of child murder could be seen as making the entire story at metaphor for avoiding extremism.
Wrapping up the book are a variety of nice biographical pieces on the offers as well as a very detailed selection of notes which occasionally include single commentaries lasting for multiple pages.
The biographies leave the reader in a strange position of remembering that this is one of the rare collections by Library of America in which a large percentage of the authors have passed on. This doesn’t so much affect the quality of the book as make it a very different read than one might have expected, at least with that little detail in the back of a reader’s mind.
The Future is Female! Volume Two represents a very nice companion.to the first book. While we mentioned stories each represent fascinating moments in the history of the genre, other included pieces are often brilliant and well-known, including the science fiction horror piece “The Screwfly Solution” by Raccoona Sheldon and Kate Wilhelm’s “The Funeral.” While not every story appeals to every taste, it does represent a fascinating book at that decade for women working in the field.
At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities by Heather Webber (Forge, 2023)
Review by Warner Holme: Heather Webber’s At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities is the latest from an author who has made quite a name in the small town story genre. Weber has become known for such stories, and both they and she have gained a certain amount of following as a result.
While the title might evoke a cozy mystery or oddball fantasy novel, neither genre fits this volume very well. A murder is not a major driving force for the story, nor the investigation of a very specific crime. And while there are happenings in the book that might seem beyond normal, it does not at any point turn into a story focusing on these strange aspects.
That said the book is quite likely to fit the tastes of fans of both. Featuring quirky characters, a strange assortment of happenings which don’t seem quite natural, and a variety of complicated relationships and family secrets the story has hallmarks that will feel familiar to readers.
Aca Harrison gets a letter and chooses to rush at the chance to serve as a caretaker. Having suffered years with lost friends and medical issues, she is surprised that the letter from an old flame seems to contain a crumpled old job advertisement. In spite of the oddity and her own problems, some instinct tells her that this job offer in Driftwood, Alabama is the best hope she has.
Maggie May Brightwell is a single mother trying to run the same coffee place that her mother ran. The titular one in fact, and her father seems to be moving on and considering selling the facility. In response she has toyed with the idea of getting someone to take care of him. They reside in Driftwood, Alabama.
The way that these two lives interact is a definite major catalyst for the story as a whole. Sadly the book does not involve the pair finding love together, but instead with a pair of men from the story. Each of their personal journeys is entertaining and involves forming friendships and looking into the information quite readily. fire, declining health, recurring medical issues, and difficult interpersonal relationships remain the largest obstacles the characters have to face.
Make no mistake, the implications that the book is genre are rather undeniable. Individuals living beyond their span, prophetic dreams and enhanced senses are just some of the subtle uses of the world beyond the normal in the book. Some of them are given partially or completely mundane explanations throughout the story, and these are varying levels of believable as the actual cause. Others never really receive such an explanation, except perhaps by proxy, and as a result leave this just a little more Supernatural than a book that would fit into the “maybe magic maybe mundane” category.
At The Coffee Shop of Curiosities is a slightly unusual turn on small town fiction. While certainly over idealized, this is less an endorsement of any particular region or its mores. Highly recommended to any fan of her work, this book definitely continues with many of the best traditions of Heather Webber’s work. As it is a standalone, this book would also serve as a perfectly acceptable introduction to pieces by the author, a little comfort reading for a cold day.
The Circumference of the World by Lavie Tidhar (Tachyon, 2023)
Review by Warner Holme: Lavie Tidhar’s The Circumference of the World is a book about a book, at least in part. But people associated with the book seem to disappear, either mysteriously or via outright kidnapping. While all connecting together, the book really can be divided into a number of major portions including the initial chapters which deal with people searching for it, portions of the volume, and a look at the life of the somewhat fictitious author.
The volume spends some entertaining time with a crime boss and his obsession with the author and his book, and at least as enjoyable time with Daniel Chase. Chase is a dealer in rare books. He is also an individual with the known difficulty of being functionally or completely facial blind, unable to recall or distinguish facial features. Most of the best writing in the book relates back to him, in no small part because of the care the author takes in creating descriptions that don’t rely on facial features in most ways. Instead everything from height and build and hair all the way to smells like cigarette smoke are used to identify specific individuals when they interact with Chase.
A large portion of the book is given over to text from, if not supposed to leave a complete text of, the missing book Lode Star. The text of it is entertaining, arguably better than the author it imitates, and it does well at attempting to reflect some of the ideas embedded in the book as a whole.
Unfortunately a lot of the book feels like apologia. John W. Campbell appears via correspondence and dreams, and is treated as forward thinking generally for his time on gender and sexuality. He claims for a fact that “readers would never stand for” a potential lesbian relationship implied on page 208, and suggests a male lead, but his story never quite reaches the levels of fascist intervention that he was known for. He is treated lightly, but his mania for strange theories and conspiracies is well known and touched on as well.
The author who marks as a major target, Eugene Charles Hartley, is a coded version of another figure, and given far too much sympathy as a result. He is a mid 20th century author of mediocre science fiction, including a lost book that is the subject of the hunt, and at the suggestion of Heinlein he starts a religion that makes him uber rich. His struggles and difficulties are treated sympathetically, and a reader may feel disgusted when this part of the story occurs. As even in his afterward Lavie Tidhar refuses to name the individual, this reviewer will do likewise.
The ideas of simulationism and echoes of reality as reality are nothing new to science fiction or the theoretical sciences. They are used, overall, quite well in this book both to accent the various difficulties and proving their own concepts and also which they could provide to a person or public trying to understand them. It’s interesting to note that recent releases by other successful authors have been touching on these ideas as well, albeit in such different fashion they barely feel like the same genre.
There are a lot of good ideas and clever thoughts in this book, but in other ways it tries to cut too close to certain realities and the result is instead a mix of apologia and occasional interesting ideas packed into a well-written volume. How well someone will react to what is going to depend heavily upon their tolerance for the former.
