Black Gate

I’ve been enjoying James Wallace Harris’ blog Auxiliary Memory. Recent topics include A History of the SF Best-of-the-Year Anthology, a cover survey of the Del Rey Classic Science Fiction series and, a particular favorite of mine, his review of Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg’s The Great SF Stories 1 (1939). I think one of the reasons I enjoy his blog is that, like a few of us here at Black Gate, James particularly enjoys classic SF stories, which is kind of a speciality interest these days. Although James seems to worry more about declining readership than I do.

There are a handful of blogs that reflect a love for old science fiction short stories. That suggests we are the keepers of a very weak flame. I see many of the same names posting comments at these sites. Are we the fans of a dying art form? I don’t think science fiction is dying out, but I do think new science fiction gets most of the attention… There are more anthologies than ever collecting the best short science fiction of the year, including one from the prestigious Best American Series. And there’s plenty of places that publish new short science fiction. I believe the readership is smaller today than we I was growing up, but the science fiction short story is still going strong despite the overwhelming popularity of media science fiction.

Yes, new science fiction gets most of the attention — and that’s because it is blessed with talented newcomers producing terrifically exciting new work, like Lavie Tidhar, Linda Nagata, Sarah Pinsker, Kelly Link, Yoon Ha Lee, Charlie Jane Anders, C.S.E. Cooney, Rich Larson, Aliette de Bodard, and many others. And that’s exactly as it should be. There’s a word for a genre that focuses too much on the past: Dead. Science Fiction is not dead, it is very much alive and thriving. That’s takes nothing away from the great old SF we enjoyed decades ago — it’s still there waiting for readers of a new generation to discover. But first we have to win over that new generation of readers, and it takes modern writers to do that.

You can read the complete text of James’ rambly but entertaining post Remembering Old Science Fiction Short Stories here.

By 1977 Joe Haldeman had already won three Hugo Awards, for his novella “Hero” (1972), his debut SF novel The Forever War, and his short story “Tricentennial” (1976), and one Nebula, also for The Forever War. He was a fast-rising star, and in November of that year he added the anthology Study War No More to his fast-growing SF catalog. It contained stories by some of the greatest SF writers of the time — including Poul Anderson, Harry Harrison, Isaac Asimov, George Alec Effinger, Damon Knight, and Mack Reynolds — that addressed the problem of war. Here a snippet from his introduction:

Fear of the atom was such an effective deterrent that it was over two weeks before war broke out again. A fellow with a wispy beard seized control of Hanoi. The editor of this anthology was in diapers when that happened; it lasted long enough to give him his first white hairs, and then five years more…

But why this anthology? The absurdity and outrage of war may be quite obvious, but trying to find a solution to it has occupied the energies of the race’s finest philosophers and poets for thousands of years, to no conspicious success.

Science fiction writers are generally renowned neither for the depth of their philosophy nor the fineness of their poetry, so isn’t it presumptuous of them to take on so formidable, yet subtle, an opponent? The answer is a duet: a soft “no,” and a loud “Hell, no!”

Haldeman was intimately familiar with war; he was a combat engineer in Vietnam who was wounded and received a Purple Heart. The inside cover of Study War No More addressed his experience, and how it had influenced his writing. Here it is.

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I haven’t used Goodreads much, but I’m beginning to see that’s a mistake. It truly is a marvelous resource for those looking for a wide range of opinions about books — especially those that have been out of print for decades. For example, here’s a small sample of reviews for R. A. Lafferty’s gonzo space-pirate novel Annals of Klepsis, published as an Ace paperback original in 1983. First up is Andrew:

A surrealistic apocalypse from a master of surreal apocalyptic fantasy. Lafferty’s novels function with the logic of a Bugs Bunny cartoon written by Kafka.

Astonishing how on-point that is a 2-sentence review. Here’s a snippet from a much more in-depth review by Printable Tire.

The book’s setting is sort of a blend of science fiction, in that it takes place on another planet, with “zap guns” (not called that) and everything, and fantasy, in the way Alice in Wonderland is fantasy. The very loose sprawling story takes place on Klepsis, a pirate planet, who for the last 200 hundred years has been in a state of pre-history, a state of legend. One of the thousands of things Lafferty postulates is that all pre-history and pre-legend does not take place in linear time, but because it is pre-history it all takes place at the same time; thus Hercules was a contemporary of Achilles, and thus the proportion of ghosts in this book.

And finally, here’s a sample from my favorite Goodreads review, from Raymond St.

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