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Year: 2021

Eternity vs. Infinity: Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity

Eternity vs. Infinity: Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity

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The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov; First Edition: Doubleday, 1955.
Cover art Mel Hunter.

The End of Eternity
by Isaac Asimov
Doubleday (191 pages, $1.95, Hardcover, August 1955)
Cover art Mel Hunter

Just as Arthur C. Clarke’s The Deep Range, which I reviewed here last time, was one of the latter novels of Clarke’s early period (which I defined as everything from his first novel Prelude to Space in 1951 to 2001 in 1968), so is The End of Eternity one of the latter novels of Isaac Asimov’s early period (which I’ll define as everything from his first books I, Robot and Pebble in the Sky in 1950 through the 1960s, before Asimov “returned” to writing science fiction with the first of his later novels, The Gods Themselves, in 1972). (We can see that Asimov’s and Clarke’s early and later periods were virtually contemporaneous, since Clarke also “returned” to SF with Rendezvous with Rama in 1973.)

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Future Treasures: Transgressions of Power, Book 2 of The Broken Trust by Juliette Wade

Future Treasures: Transgressions of Power, Book 2 of The Broken Trust by Juliette Wade

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Mazes of Power and Transgressions of Power (DAW, 2020/21) Covers by Adam Auerbach

I admit I got a little excited by the release of Mazes of Power last year, mostly because it’s set in a thousand year-old cave city (and if I have to explain why that’s so cool, we can’t be friends). But the series has become even more interesting with the impending release of the sequel, Transgressions of Power, arriving in hardcover in two weeks. Here’s an excerpt from the starred review at Publisher’s Weekly for the opening volume.

Wade’s excellent high fantasy debut, the first in the Broken Trust series, invites readers into an intricately constructed and morally ambiguous world full of complex political maneuvering and familial pressure. For centuries, the cavernous city of Pelismara has housed the 12 Great Families that comprise the noble class of the city’s strict caste system, who cling to the glory of a long-faded golden era. When a mysterious illness known as Kinders fever kills the city’s Eminence, the 12 families vie to fill the power vacuum. It’s up to 17-year-old Tagaret to represent his family in the competition to become heir to the throne, but his sociopathic brother Nekantor’s twisted attempts to help their family ascend to power threaten to tear down everything… The impressively winding plot, layered worldbuilding, and psychologically acute characterizations are sure to hold readers’ attention. Wade is an author to watch.

The sequel picks up the tale of the deadly battle for succession, in which brother is pitted against brother in a desperate bid for power. Transgressions of Power will be published by DAW Books on February 23, 2021. It is 480 pages, priced at $27 in hardcover, $14.99 in digital formats, and $29.99 for the audio version. Read the first seven pages of the first book here.

See all our coverage of the best upcoming science fiction and fantasy here.

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Gallic Gallantry

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Gallic Gallantry

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Le Capitan (1960)

As you might expect from the country that gave us Cyrano and d’Artagnan, the French film industry has always been enthusiastic about making swashbucklers. A lot of them have no available English-language versions, alas, but here are three of the best that do. I think you’ll agree they all have a certain je ne sais quoi.

The Captain (or Le Capitan)

Rating: ****
Origin: France/Italy, 1960
Director: André Hunebelle
Source: Pathé DVD

This French film may be the best swashbuckler you’ve never seen. It’s set in France a dozen years before the events of The Three Musketeers, when King Louis XIII was only 15 years old and still ruled by his mother, Marie de Médicis, and her lover, the Italian adventurer Concino Concini, whom Marie has elevated to the rank of prime minister. Concini’s hired thugs are killing nobles who oppose him and looting their estates, and the movie opens with a mêlée in which Concini’s assassins, led by their boss, Rinaldo, are raiding a count’s château. The count’s friend, the Chevalier de Capestang (Jean Marais), gallops up and leaps into the fray, turning the tide, but not before Rinaldo knifes the count in the back. As the thugs retreat Capestang is wounded by another thrown knife and is about to slain by the last assassin when the killer is shot down by a mysterious lady (Elsa Martinelli) in a male cavalier outfit.

The mystery woman nurses Capestang back to health but then disappears. Was she just a vision of delirium? Once healed, Capestang agrees to represent the grievances of the local nobles and travel to Paris to appeal to Concini — and maybe even the young king. Concini (Arnoldo Foà) tries to co-opt the capable Capestang, but he haughtily refuses, and Concini, in Italian, dubs him “Il Capitano” after the stock commedia dell’arte character of the strutting braggart. Capestang accepts the moniker as a badge of honor.

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A Wonderful Picture of a Far-flung Community of Writers: Quark, edited by Samuel R. Delany and Marilyn Hacker

A Wonderful Picture of a Far-flung Community of Writers: Quark, edited by Samuel R. Delany and Marilyn Hacker

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The 4-volume Quark anthology series, edited by Samuel R. Delany and Marilyn Hacker
(Paperback Library, 1970-71). Covers by Russell FitzGerald, Ira Cohen, Roger Penney, and Martin Last

These four volumes of Quark came out in 1970-71. The publisher killed the Quark enterprise after a year mainly because they weren’t selling, but also because of a really ill-thought-out review that Ed Bryant, who had a story in the first issue, wrote about the journal, in which he praised Marilyn and me, but went on and on about what a schlock publisher Paperback Library was.

Ed eventually submitted a novel to Paperback Library, and I happened to be in the office just after it came in. Cathy, our editor showed me his cover letter and read me her rejection note. His letter began, “You probably never heard of me, but I am an SF writer and…” Her answer back started off:

Dear Mr. Bryant,

You sell yourself short. I’m very much aware of who you are. What I don’t understand is why you hope to be published by a publisher you consider…”

and a), b), c) and d) she quoted back to him all the scurrilous things he had written about Paperback Library in his review. I felt sorry for Ed. He’d been my student at Clarion a few years before. But Ed’s was the review that made the publisher, Hy Steerman, decide that he couldn’t win for losing, and scuttled the paperback journal after the fourth issue.

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Cozy Catastrophes and Sinister Archaeology: Weird Tales #364 edited by Jonathan Maberry

Cozy Catastrophes and Sinister Archaeology: Weird Tales #364 edited by Jonathan Maberry

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Weird Tales #364. Cover by Lynne Hansen

As I write this, Weird Tales falls just two years short of celebrating its centennial — an astonishing feat, given that the fiction magazines in existence at that time, all considered far more prestigious than this lurid showcase of fantasy and horror, have vanished into time and space as if they never existed. (Only Argosy, revived in 2016 by Altus Press, matches it in longevity.) With such august placement in pop culture history, and given the differing tastes of its various editors (from Lin Carter to Ann VanderMeer), one might wonder if recent editions maintain the seminal publication’s pulp sensibilities while meeting exacting modern standards.

Under Jonathan Maberry’s editorial eye, that answer appears to be a resounding yes. With seven stories, four pieces of flash fiction, and two poems, Weird Tales #364 improves on its previous issue in the professionalism and sense of vision each writer brings as well as the sense of history infusing each work. As Maberry says in the introductory piece The Eyrie, “What delights me most as editor is that these stories are so diverse in terms of content, theme, styles, and genre. They don’t belong anywhere else — they are true Weird Tales.”

The magazine opens with Seanan McGuire’s “Too Late Now,” a Wyndham-esque “cozy catastrophe” lacking the coziness Wyndham brings to such works as The Day of the Triffids and The Chrysalids. Alien vegetation has overtaken life on earth, leaving humans to scavenge for non-organic goods (the plant life grows on almost any formerly organic matter) in order to maintain some semblance of society. Boston (people have begun naming themselves after cities and states in an effort to maintain continuity with the pre-Invasion world) is forced to take a team to the place where she lost her partner Jersey. McGuire mixes the worldbuilding she brings to such works as Every Heart a Doorway and Middlegame with adept pacing and suspense.

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New Treasures: The Best of Michael Marshall Smith

New Treasures: The Best of Michael Marshall Smith

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I don’t pay a lot of attention to the limited edition small press genre market here because, well, most of their output is overpriced and aimed squarely at collectors. The exception is Subterranean Press, who do fabulous work — and routinely produce much more reasonably priced editions of their high-end volumes.

The latest author to get the Subterranean treatment is Michael Marshall Smith, author of Spares (1996), Bad Things (2009), and many other novels, and more than half a dozen short story collections, including What You Make It (1999), and More Tomorrow & Other Stories (2003). The Best of Michael Marshall Smith is a mammoth 568-page retrospective that gathers 30 of Smith’s best stories from his lengthy and successful career. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly calls it a standout collection:

This standout collection showcase Smith’s facility at imbuing genre tropes with humanity. Every entry offers something unexpected, while grounding inventive paranormal situations in recognizable emotion. Smith.. crafts a plausible sequel to Lovecraft’s “The Music of Erich Zann” with “Window of Erich Zann,” successfully transplanting the tale from Europe to Haight-Ashbury and exploring the protagonist’s capacity to see into a terrifying alternate reality. Smith’s first published short story, “The Man Who Drew Cats,” which won the British Fantasy Award in 1991, offers a searing window into domestic violence…

Here’s the publisher’s description.

In 1990, British-born author Michael Marshall Smith burst on to the literary scene with his first story “The Man Who Drew Cats.” It won the prestigious British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction, and he went on to win the award again the next year. In a career that has now spanned three decades he has written nearly 100 short stories, published more than a dozen best-selling novels around the world, and scripted numerous movie and television projects. Now, to celebrate his three decades as a writer, The Best of Michael Marshall Smith brings together thirty of his most emotive and powerful stories (including all his award-winning short fiction), along with extensive story notes by the author.

Featuring evocative heading illustrations by Les Edwards, this career-spanning collection includes such memorable tales as “Hell Hath Enlarged Itself,” “More Tomorrow,” “To Receive is Better,” “What You Make It,” “Later,” “The Dark Land,” “What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night,” “Always,” and many others, in their definitive versions.

By turns touching, disturbing, and frightening, these stories are not limited by theme or genre, but reveal a writer always in command, and whose imagination knows no bounds. The Best of Michael Marshall Smith is the ultimate compilation of the author’s work, and stands as a testament to his mastery of, and commitment to, his craft.

The Best of Michael Marshall Smith was published by Subterranean Press in a deluxe hardcover edition on December 31, 2020. It is 568 pages, priced at $44 in hardcover and $6.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Stefan Koidl; the interior story heading illustrations are by Les Edwards. Order directly from the Subterranean website.

See all our recent New Treasures here.

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: 2020 Stay at Home – Days 22 and 23

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: 2020 Stay at Home – Days 22 and 23

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So, last year, as the Pandemic settled in like an unwanted relative who just came for a week and is still tying up the bathroom, I did a series of posts for the FB Page of the Nero Wolfe fan club, The Wolfe Pack. I speculated on what Stay at Home would be like for Archie, living in the Brownstone with Nero Wolfe, Fritz Brenner, and Theodore Hortsmann. I have already re-posted days one through twenty-one. Here are days twenty-two (April 12) and twenty-three (April 13). It helps if you read the series in order, so I’ve included links to the earlier entries. I enjoy channeling Archie more than any other writing which I do.

DAY TWENTY TWO – 2020 Stay at Home

No Easter parade. No church services. No family dinners at fancy restaurants. Things were very different this year. And speaking of fancy restaurants;

I don’t think I have mentioned that Rusterman’s is still open – sort of. A lot of places had simply locked up when the lock down order came. Sit-down dining was prohibited, so they decided not to struggle on. I’m sure a lot of them hoped that this whole thing would pass in a few weeks and they could reopen.

Quite a few restaurants shifted to carry-out and/or delivery only. And many of those couldn’t meet costs, and they closed: Probably for good.

And others have made it so far and are still trying to make it through. Rusterman’s is one of that group. Rusterman’s was run for years by Marko Vukcik, Nero Wolfe’s boyhood, and best, friend. Wolfe and I traveled all the way to Albania to find Marko’s killer and bring him to justice. In Marko’s will, Wolfe was made a trustee of the restaurant and for many years, he guided it well, though he eventually resigned that duty. Unfortunately, Rusterman’s, while still fine dining, went through a decline in the early 2000s, and Wolfe resumed his trusteeship. As you can imagine, he was quite demanding and the quality rose to previous levels.

We had ordered a dinner from Rusterman’s one Sunday, to support the cause and make sure it was still up to par. Wolfe found reason to grumble, but I thought it was fine. Delivering high-level cuisine can’t be easy.

Felix Martin was the manager, while William Dumfrey had come over from The Roosevelt to take on head chef duties. Leo ran the wait staff. I mention their names, because all of them were sitting in the office. I had put the red chair in the front room and moved three yellow chairs a proper social distance apart – and away from Wolfe’s chair and mine. Leo apparently didn’t feel far enough away, so he moved to the sofa.

Felix had called that morning and said that they needed to meet with Wolfe. I suggested a video conference, but they insisted on coming to the Brownstone. I don’t know that I could have convinced Wolfe to zoom, or skype, an entire discussion, so it was probably for the best.

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Our Most Unusual Pulp Adventure

Our Most Unusual Pulp Adventure

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10 Story Mystery, April 1943, and The All-Story Detective, October 1949

Based on my experience, I think that non-collectors often view us collectors as somewhat crazy. They just don’t approach things the way we do, particularly when it comes to whatever particular obsession drives us. They don’t understand why we collect, and they don’t understand what we do to collect, and they don’t understand that the desire to collect can often override what most folks would consider to be common sense.

Case in point: Many of my non-collector friends are often horrified when I relate to them the tale of our most unusual pulp collecting adventure.

On a late fall day about 15 years ago, I read an ad in an antiques magazine regarding an upcoming auction in a neighboring state. The auction mentioned pulps and showed a few. So Deb and I got up very early the day of the auction and drove for several hours. The auction was being held in a large, unheated building, and both of us were quite cold the whole time. We’d arrived with enough time to quickly browse through the material – there were several lots of pulps among the hundreds of lots being auctioned, but most of the material was non-genre, everything from tools and hardware to furniture to farm equipment to household items to architectural salvage. None of the pulps were particularly rare, but many were in nice condition.

I think the auction began around 11:00 a.m. Unfortunately, there was no order to it. Whatever item happened to strike the auctioneer’s fancy at any given moment would be auctioned off, with no rhyme or reason as to when something would be coming up. After a while a few pulp lots came up, which I won, but then he moved on to other things, leaving most of the pulp lots still to come. Every hour or so, he’d get to a few more pulp lots, and then switch to something else. Needless to say, it was extremely frustrating.

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Wandering a Monster-Ridden World: The Expert System’s Brother by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Wandering a Monster-Ridden World: The Expert System’s Brother by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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The Expert System’s Brother and The Expert System’s Champion (Tor Books, 2018-21). Covers by Raphael Lacoste

British author Adrian Tchaikovsky has been steadily making a name for himself since he burst onto the scene with his 10-volume epic fantasy Shadows of the Apt. He’s followed that with several ambitious new series, including the Echoes of the Fall fantasy trilogy and the far-future hard science fiction Children of Time series. His latest is a sequence of tales in Tor.com’s prestigious novella line, opening with The Expert System’s Brother (2018). Liz Bourke gave it an enthusiastic review at Locus Online.

The title of The Expert System’s Brother makes one expect a cyberpunk world, but the landscape initially seems like that of fantasy. Gradually, the reader becomes aware that what seems like a fantasy setting is in fact science fictional one: a setting where the inhabitants have forgotten how they came to live the way they do.

Handry has always lived in a village called Aro. He has a sister, Melory, and a small community, but when he’s 13, he’s involved in an accident. The village’s Lawgiver (one of a handful of people, like its doctor, who has a ghost inside her skull that gives advice and commands) is casting out a troublemaker, a process that involves physically severing that person from the community by the use of a specially brewed substance. When the ac­cident happens, Handry gets some of that substance on him…

Handry now becomes a wanderer, drifting from village to village… At the town-village of Orovo, he learns some more about the world: a ghost-bearer (the bearer of an architect-ghost) has been gathering and feeding the Severed in order that they may do the difficult and dangerous work of helping the now-overcrowded village-town set up a new village… Handry falls in with another Severed called Sharskin… a man who discovered a place he calls the House of the Ancestors, and who believes that the Severed aren’t made lesser than the other people, but are in fact made more: restored to their original state, before the ancestors fell from grace and gave their descendants over to the rule of the ghosts…

The Expert System’s Brother has an engaging voice. Told in first person from Handry’s point of view, it showcases Tchaikovsky’s growing ver­satility as a writer of long-form science fiction, depicting an interesting world with compelling characters.

The second volume, The Expert System’s Champion, arrived last week. Here’s a look at the back covers for both books.

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When Worse Comes to Worst: The Black Hole and Saturn 3

When Worse Comes to Worst: The Black Hole and Saturn 3

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The Black Hole (Disney, 1979)

Stephen Spielberg may have said that “the arc of the cinematic universe is long, but it bends towards quality,” but that’s a crock. (Actually, he didn’t say that. No one did. But I need to establish something here, so cut me some slack, will you?) Much as we may wish otherwise, cinema history, like the other, capital H kind, isn’t linear or progressive – it’s cyclical. This means that there will be times when things are trending up and times when they’re heading down, periods of boom and periods of bust, seasons when excellence commands the stage and epochs when utter crap towers so high over everything that it blots out the sun. Perhaps no film genre demonstrates this inevitable ebb and flow better than science fiction.

Never was this more evident than during the late 70’s and early 80’s, a low end of the bell curve era if there ever was one. For every Star Wars or Alien, there was a Metalstorm or a Spacehunter. Actually, given the iron logic of Sturgeon’s Law (“Ninety percent of everything is crap”), for every Empire Strikes Back there were nine (!) Laserblasts. In fact, you could argue that this arid stretch invalidates the law altogether – by proving Sturgeon wildly optimistic. Ninety percent? Anyone who spent time in the mall multiplexes during those years could be excused for thinking that the offal percentage was closer to ninety-nine than ninety.

(By the way, if you think I’m being unduly hard on these films, we can easily talk about some of the era’s other cultural products. How about music? Where shall we start – Martha Davis and the Motels? A Flock of Seagulls? Loverboy? Yeah… that’s what I thought. Back to crappy sci-fi movies it is.)

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