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Frankly Frankenstein

Frankly Frankenstein

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My guess is that even people who’ve never read the novel or seen the Boris Karloff version likely recognize that “Frankenstein” signifies a human-made scientific creation that bites back. (Though they probably do confuse which is the creator and which is the actual monster.)

Here in the 21st century, what Mary Shelley depicted way back at the start of the 19th is embedded in our cultural collective consciousness, even for those people who don’t pay attention to the culture unless it involves Taylor Swift, because of how often it actually occurs throughout history. Take your pick of technological disasters, the latest perhaps being AI.

Of course the reason why Shelley’s Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus  is a canonical work even before SF gained some legitimacy in academia is that this isn’t just a gothic horror story (though it is of course that).

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Vintage Treasures: Hammer’s Slammers by David Drake

Vintage Treasures: Hammer’s Slammers by David Drake

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Hammer’s Slammers (Ace Books, April 1979). Cover by Paul Alexander

David Drake passed away on December 10, 2023, and his death was a major loss to the field. In addition to his considerable accomplishments as a writer — with dozens of novels and collections to his credit — he made significant contributions as an editor and publisher.  He edited dozen of volumes for Ace, including the Space Anthologies with Marty Greenberg and Charles Waugh, and The Fleet and Battlestation shared universe series with Bill Fawcett. For Baen he edited three volumes of Men Hunting Things, Armageddon, and much more. He founded the Carcosa small press with Karl Edward Wagner — and in fact every time David stopped by the Black Gate booth at conventions over the years, the two of us invariably ended up talking about Karl.

But without question David’s most significant creation was Hammer’s Slammers, a long-running SF series that followed the adventures of the mercenary Colonel Alois Hammer and the tank regiment that bore his name. Alongside David Weber’s Honorverse, Hammer’s Slammers was the most popular military science fiction series of the late 20th Century. Including spin-offs and related volumes, the series ran to over a dozen volumes between 1979 and 2002.

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First Class Noir: Death Comes Too Late by Charles Ardai

First Class Noir: Death Comes Too Late by Charles Ardai

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Death Comes Too Late (Hard Case Crime,
March 12, 2024). Cover art by Paul Mann

Charles Ardai is the creator and the editor of the famous, successful Hard Case Crime series (featuring novels by the likes of Rex Stout, Lawrence Block, Stephen King, Earle Stanley Gardner, Cornell Woolrich, and Ray Bradbury, just to mention a few) now reaching its 20th Anniversary.

But Ardai is no minor author himself, as proved by the present volume, which collects twenty short stories (including some prize winning tales) previously appeared in various venues.

On the whole the book represents a very interesting and entertaining showcase of Ardai’s work. Among the various stories some are particularly worth mentioning.

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Andre Norton: Gateway to Magic, Part II

Andre Norton: Gateway to Magic, Part II

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Andre Norton’s two-book series Judgment on Janus and Victory on Janus
(Fawcett Crest, December 1979 and January 1980). Covers by Ken Barr

Part I of Andre Norton: Gateway to Magic is here.

Two other fun books by Norton that I read between ages 12 and 16 were Judgment on Janus and Victory on Janus. In Judgement, a down and out young man named Naill Renfro ends up on the planet Janus, which is ruled by a group of religious fanatics from Earth. There are artifacts on Janus from a native civilization, which is thought extinct, and Renfro finds one but is contaminated by it and begins to mutate. Turns out, he’s mutating into a native of the planet, a changeling, if you will. He flees into the vast forest of Janus.

When I first read this book, I was caught up in the rousing adventure, which had elements of the Sword & Planet genre. Only with a later read did I realize all the things going on underneath the surface, the condemnation of religious fanaticism and racism, and the criticism of a corporate world of excess. I came around to that way of thinking myself many many years later. She was ahead of her time here.

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New Treasures: Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings

New Treasures: Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings

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Under Fortunate Stars (Solaris, May 9, 2023). Cover design by Dominc Forbes

According to the Solaris website, Under Fortunate Stars was published in the US nearly a year ago. But I just found it at my local Barnes & Noble, so it’s new to me. Let’s fire up the New Treasures floodlights and have a look at this thing.

First off, it’s a first novel, and that’s a plus in my book. New writers are the lifeblood of science fiction. And also, if I find the good ones before my friends, I get good street cred. And street cred is tough to come by in your late 50s, believe me.

It’s also space opera. We like space opera. Especially when it’s been well reviewed, like this one has. Gizmodo says “Under Fortunate Stars is a time-twisting homage to classic space opera and science fiction, taking well-beloved tropes and twisting them on their head. It’s a paradoxical puzzle-box of a novel,” and SF Book Review calls it, “One of the most entertaining time travel space adventures that you will ever read today, tomorrow — or even yesterday.”

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Adventure in the Magellanic Cloud: The Mote in Time’s Eye by Gérard Klein

Adventure in the Magellanic Cloud: The Mote in Time’s Eye by Gérard Klein

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The Mote in Time’s Eye (DAW, January 1975). Cover by Josh Kirby

This is the latest in a series of posts I’m doing covering relatively obscure SF novels of the ‘70s and ‘80s. This novel was first published in French in 1965, but as it didn’t appear in English until 1975, I figure it fits this series.

One of the things on the good side of the Donald A. Wollheim ledger is his willingness to publish SF in translation. This was one of four novels by Gérard Klein that DAW books published. (Perhaps half a dozen translated short stories appeared in various places.)

Gérard Klein was born in 1937. He began publishing SF at the age of 18, and he seems to have mostly stopped in the mid-70s. He has also been a significant anthologist, and a critic, receiving the Pilgrim Award in 2005 for his scholarly work. His day job was as an economist. He is still alive, now 86 years old.

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Vintage Treasures: To the Resurrection Station by Eleanor Arnason

Vintage Treasures: To the Resurrection Station by Eleanor Arnason

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To the Resurrection Station (Avon, October 1986). Cover by Tom Kidd

Eleanor Arnason is a familiar name to anyone who’s been reading short science fiction for the past four decades. Her first story appeared in New Worlds 6 in 1973, and since then she’s published dozens of acclaimed tales in most of the major markets, especially Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Tales of the Unanticipated, and many fine anthologies. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Nebula Award five times, including “The Potter of Bones” (Best Novella, 2003) and “Stellar Harvest” (Best Novelette, 2000), both published in Asimov’s SF.

Her novel output has been a little thinner, though still highly acclaimed. Her fourth novel, A Woman of the Iron People, won both the inaugural James Tiptree Jr. Award in 1991, and the 1992 Mythopoeic Award. But today I want to talk about her first science fiction novel, the quirky and original far-future tale To the Resurrection Station.

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Datlow’s Latest Treat: The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Fifteen, edited by Ellen Datlow

Datlow’s Latest Treat: The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Fifteen, edited by Ellen Datlow

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The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Fifteen (Night Shade, January 16, 2024)

Once again legendary editor Ellen Datlow has released her annual anthology featuring the Best horror stories that appeared in print the previous year.

And once again the volume includes, in the front, a detailed, invaluable overview of the year in horror (this time 2022). Being a short story lover I am particularly interested in anthologies and collections and, as it happens, once again I discovered how many interesting books I missed…

I always enjoy Datlow’s selections but, naturally enough, some I found particularly accomplished. Here they are.

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The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein

The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein

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In the town where Kicsi grew up there was a rabbi who could work miracles. It was a small town, and borders — Hungarian, Czech, Russian — ebbed and flowed around it like tides. Once, Kicsi remembered, she went too far from home and came to a place where the people spoke a different language. In the distance, on the horizon, stood the mountains, fat and placid as cows.

The Red Magician (1982) by Lisa Goldstein is a young adult, magical realist novel about a Jewish girl, during, and after the Holocaust. The author, herself the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, won a National Book Award for paperback original. The book, while short by today’s dreadful standards, is a compelling meditation on willful blindness in the face of great horror, misplaced vengeance, and the harrowing effects of survivor’s guilt.

Kicsi, which means little in Hungarian, lives with her family in a small town completely isolated from the evil smothering much of Europe. We meet her as she listens in on a conversation between her father, Imre, and the town’s rabbi. The rabbi threatens anyone who doesn’t remove their child from the town school with a curse. The school, in defiance of traditional belief, teaches Hebrew. The language, the rabbi insists:

will be spoken only when the Messiah comes and we return to the Holy Land. That is to say, when God wills it. Until then Hebrew is to be spoken only in prayer.

As punishment, the rabbi curses anyone connected to the school to be tormented by forty demons for forty days and nights. Imre insists that he isn’t scared of any curse and that his daughters will continue to attend the school Fortunately, a stranger arrives in the town, first appearing in the synagogue on Friday night.

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My Three Problems with the Three-Body Problem

My Three Problems with the Three-Body Problem

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The Three-Body Problem (Tor Books, November 11, 2014). Cover by Stephan Martiniere

In the middle of trying to explain quantum mechanics to me, my physicist friend stopped in frustration and said, “This would all make a lot more sense if you understood math.”

Alas, I am one of those recovering English majors who never could wrap their heads around anything more basic than simple arithmetic (and not so good at even that). Intellectually, I can intuit how mathematical prowess unleashes secrets of the universe, while also presenting further paradoxes. (I kinda, sorta get Schrödinger’s cat, but not really.) But my eyes glaze over at the actual work of adding it all up. Which explains my barely passable grades back in college for courses such as Science for non-Science Majors.  

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