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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Stephen Fabian

The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Stephen Fabian

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Cover by Stephen E. Fabian
Cover by Stephen E. Fabian

Cover by Stephen E. Fabian
Cover by Stephen E. Fabian

Cover by Stephen E. Fabian
Cover by Stephen E. Fabian

Peter Graham is often quoted as saying that the Golden Age of Science Fiction is 12. I was reminded of this quote last year while reading Jo Walton’s An Informal History of the Hugo Awards (Tor Books) when Rich Horton commented that based on Graham’s statement, for him, the Golden Age of Science Fiction was 1972. It got me thinking about what science fiction (and fantasy) looked like the year I turned twelve and so this year, I’ll be looking at the year 1979 through a lens of the works and people who won science fiction awards in 1980, ostensibly for works that were published in 1979. I’ve also invited Rich to join me on the journey and he’ll be posting articles looking at the 1973 award year.

In 1972, the British Fantasy Society began giving out the August Derleth Fantasy Awards for best novel as voted on by their members. In 1976. The name of the awards was changed to the British Fantasy Award, although the August Derleth Award was still the name for the Best Novel Award. A category for Best Artwork was created in 1977 and ran for three years until 1979. Stephen Fabian won the award in its second year. In 1980, the Artwork Award was replaced by an award for Best Artist and Fabian won the inaugural award. The category has remained part of the awards to the present day, although a re-alignment in 2012 means the awards are now selected by a jury rather than the full membership of the British Fantasy Society. In 1980, the awards were presented at Fantasycon VI in Birmingham.

Fabian was born on January 3, 1930 in Garfield, New Jersey. Fabian was self-taught and heavily influenced by Edd Cartier, Hannes Bok, and Virgil Finlay. He began creating sketches for fanzines in the mid-1960s, but it wasn’t until he was laid off from a job due to the oil embargo of the 1970s that he turned his skills towards professional artwork. On the day that he received word of the layoffs, he also received invitations from Sol Cohen and Jim Baen to submit work for their consideration for inclusion in Amazing Stories (Cohen) and Galaxy (Baen). His first paid work was a cover for Robert E. Howard’s Western The Vultures.

His work was also championed by book collector and publisher Gerry de la Ree, who published several portfolios of Fabian’s work, bringing him to the attention of both fans and publishers who were able to give him work.

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Closing Out 2018 with Interzone Magazine

Closing Out 2018 with Interzone Magazine

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Interzone 276-small Interzone 277-small Interzone 278-small

I don’t get to pick up British SF magazine Interzone as often as I like, though I buy it whenever I see it. I was lucky enough to find three issues recently on the magazine rack at Barnes & Noble, and they’ve help remind me what a terrific magazine it is. If you’re at all interested in what’s going on in modern SF, I urge you to check it out.

Interzone is published and edited by Andy Cox, who has assembled a top-notched team of writers, artists, and columnists. It is one of the sharpest-looking magazines on the market, with full color interiors and gorgeous art. The most recent three issues of the bi-monthly magazine (#276, 277, and 278, cover dated July-December 2018) include fiction from Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, Aliya Whiteley, Natalia Theodoridou, Fiona Moore, Rachael Cupp, James Warner, and many others. They also include some of the best columns and non-fiction in the business, including the long-running Ansible Link by David Langford (news and obits); my favorite film review column, Mutant Popcorn by Nick Lowe; the excellent Book Zone (book reviews); Andy Hedgecock’s Future Interrupted (column); Nina Allan’s Time Pieces (column); interviews, and guest editorials.

Here’s a few samples of that gorgeous interior art I was talking about.

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New Treasures: Clarkesworld Year Nine, Volumes One & Two, edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace

New Treasures: Clarkesworld Year Nine, Volumes One & Two, edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace

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Clarkesworld Year Nine Volume One-small Clarkesworld Year Nine Volume Two-small

It’s hard to believe Clarkesworld magazine launched over a decade ago (in October 2006, believe it or not). I remember when Neil Clarke announced it, as sort of a side project/marketing scheme for his online Clarkesworld bookstore. I was already a regular customer — Clarkesworld was far and away the best source for small press magazines, and they sold a lot of the print edition of Black Gate — and I was curious to see what he could do with it.

The rest, as they say, is history. The bookstore shut down a few years later, but the magazine exploded. Last time I counted it had a World Fantasy Award, three Hugo Awards, a British Fantasy Award, and in 2013 it received more Hugo nominations for short fiction than all the leading print magazines combined. Clarkesworld keeps getting bigger and more ambitious every year… although, in one way at least, things haven’t changed much since 2006: I’m still intensely curious to see where Neil and Sean will take it next.

I don’t have time to read every issue, so I greatly appreciate their tradition of producing an annual print volume every year collecting a complete year of fiction under a single cover. Last year’s Year Eight was a huge 448 pages and, given how much the magazine has grown in the past year, I was looking forward to seeing just how big Year Nine would be. When I finally set eyes on it (at the Clarkesworld booth at the World Fantasy convention) I wasn’t disappointed. For the first time it’s been broken into two books, both over 300 pages.

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Mark Finn on the Future of Skelos Magazine

Mark Finn on the Future of Skelos Magazine

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Skelos magazine

Skelos magazine, launched as a result of a terrifically successful Kickstarter in 2016, is one of the best new magazines of weird fantasy on the market. Editors Mark Finn, Chris Gruber, and Jeffrey Shanks produced three of the first four promised issues — all of which look fabulous, and were well reviewed. But the fourth, originally cover-dated Summer 2017, has yet to appear, and after a year of delays and virtually no communication from the editors, there’s been a lot of open speculation around the fate of Skelos. Late yesterday Mark Finn posted a lengthy update with good new for dark fantasy fans.

Starting in 2019, we will resume publishing Skelos at a rate of two issues per year, during the Summer and Winter seasons… We will also pursue a more leisurely publishing schedule with regards to collections and original anthologies. Right now, there are two books in our hopper; a collection of Mythos Fiction by Don Webb, and a collection of Elak of Atlantis stories by Adrian Cole. We are very excited to bring those books out in 2019. Other original volumes and collections will follow and be announced, one at a time, as we can, and still keep our scheduled commitments.

As for the rest of this year: there’s not much left, but we are keen to finish and publish Skelos #4. Also, we are keen to fix/re-organize all of the ebook files so that they are standard and uniform and most important, all available. Once Skelos #4 is out, and the four issues have been secured and locked down in a digital format, we will turn our attention to publishing Skelos #5 and Skelos #6 in 2019, and Skelos #7 and Skelos #8 in 2020. Don’s book, Building Strange Temples, will be available in 2019, along with Adrian’s Elak collection. We will announce their on-sale dates in a timely manner… There are not enough places to read the things we like to read. Skelos was formed to address that, and we’d like to see it flourish.

We thank you for your patience. We will fix this, and try to do better going forward.

Speaking as a fan of the magazine, and one who’s been following the personal difficulties of Mark and his team with considerable sympathy, I’m relieved and impressed at the dedication of the entire team, and very much looking forward to the new issues. Read Mark’s complete Open Letter on Facebook here.

Birthday Reviews: Somtow Sucharitkul’s “Dr. Rumpole”

Birthday Reviews: Somtow Sucharitkul’s “Dr. Rumpole”

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Realms of Fantasy, 8/98
Realms of Fantasy, 8/98

Somtow Sucharitkul was born on December 30, 1952. He also writes using the pseudonym S.P. Somtow. In addition to writing science fiction, Sucharitkul is a successful composer and conductor, including the opera The Snow Dragon, which debuted in Milwaukee in 2015, and five symphonies.

In 1981 Sucharitkul won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He has published as both Somtow Sucharitkul and S.P. Somtow and won the World Fantasy Award for his novella “The Bird Catcher” in 2002. His short story “Brimstone and Salt” won the International Horror Guild Award in 1997. He has also been nominated for the Hugo Award twice, the Bram Stoker Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. He also won the Silpathorn Kittikhun Award, presented by the Office of Contemporary Art and Culture of Thailand’s Ministry of Culture. Sucharitkul was guest of honor at the 15th World Fantasy Con, held in Seattle in 1989.

The story “Dr. Rumpole” was published for the first time when Shawna McCarthy printed the story in the August 1998 issue of Realms of Fantasy. Sucharitkul included the story in his 2000 collection Tagging the Moon: Fairy Tales from L.A..

Sucharitkul takes a new spin on the story of Rumpelstiltskin in “Dr. Rumpole,” casting the princess with the impossible task as Adam Villacin, a wannabe screenwriter stuck in the mailroom at Stupendous Entertainment. When he happens to meet the studio head in an elevator, his friend’s fast-talking gets him an assignment as a script doctor. If he can’t turn a turkey of a script into a hit overnight, he’ll lose his job. Into this scenario comes Dr. Rumple, a mythic script doctor who can fix any script. However, he takes everything Villacin is paid for his scripts.

Just as Sucharitkul and the reader are aware that the story is a re-telling of the story of Rumpelstiltskin, the characters also compare their situation to the fairy tale. Knowing how the fairy ends, they also know what they need to do in order to avoid the threat that Dr. Rumpole could conceivably pose for Villacin and his friend/agent, Bobby Detweiler. The story works because Sucharitkul doesn’t follow the formula slavishly. Rumpole’s name doesn’t matter, but it is when Villacin and Detweiler uncover his past that they figure out a way to get out from under his thumb.

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Birthday Reviews: Charles L. Harness’s “Child by Chronos”

Birthday Reviews: Charles L. Harness’s “Child by Chronos”

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Cover by George Gibbons
Cover by George Gibbons

Charles L. Harness was born on December 29, 1915 and died on September 20, 2005.

Harness’s novelettes “An Ornament to His Profession” and “The Alchemist” were both nominated for the Nebula and Hugo Awards. His novella “Probably Cause” was nominated for a Nebula and the novella “Summer Solstice” was nominated for a Hugo. He was also nominated for a retro-Hugo for the novella “The Rose.” Harness’s novel The Ring of Ritornel was nominated for the Ditmar Award in 1969.

“Child by Chronos” was first published by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas in the June 1953 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The following year, they included it in the anthology The Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Third Series. It was translated into French for the magazine Fiction #26 in 1956, in 1966 for the anthology Historiques fantastiques de demain, and again for Planète #33 in March 1967, the last translation being done by Alain Dorémieux. Jacques Sadoul would also include it in his Anthologie de la littérature de Science-Fiction in 1981. It was published in German in 1969 in 9 Science Fiction-Stories, translated by Brigit Ress-Bohusch and in Italian in 1977 in Il future alla sbarra, translated by Roberta Rambelli. Charles Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg included it in 1980’s anthology Love 3000 and it was reprinted in 1998 in the NESFA Press Charles L. Harness collection An Ornament to His Profession.

In the film Somewhere in Time, based on Richard Matheson’s novel Bid Time Return, Elise McKenna (Susan French) gives Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) a pocket watch in 1972 which he carries back with him to 1912 and gives to a much younger Elise (Jane Seymour). At no time in its existence is the watch out of Elise’s or Richard’s possession, so there is no way for the watch to have been made or purchased, it just is. Charles Harness published “Child by Chronos” 18 years before Matheson’s novel and 23 years before the film, but has a similar paradox at the heart of his story.

Harness’s story focuses on a woman who hates her mother, whom she is amazingly like, and who notes that all the men she has ever loved were also involved with her mother, an unhealthy psychological situation. Her life isn’t made easier by the strange educational regimen her mother instituted. Rather than allow her to attend school, she was made to memorize all the headlines published from the time of her birth. Her mother, who made her living as a highly successful prognosticator, never gives her an explanation for this strange education.

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Ring in the New Year with the Latest Issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction and Fact

Ring in the New Year with the Latest Issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction and Fact

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Asimov's Science Fiction January February 2019-small Analog Science Fiction and Fact January Febuary 2019-small

I’m enjoying being off work for two weeks over the holidays. This is one of the few times a year I can tackle some really ambitious reading projects.

But it’s also a marvelous time to get caught up on short fiction. It’s been a while since I’ve read an issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction cover-to-cover…. and over a year since I tried Analog at all. I picked up the latest double-sized issues at Barnes and Noble on Saturday, and the website descriptions for both sound enticing, with brand new stories by Robert Reed, Howard V. Hendrix, Edward M. Lerner, Adam-Troy Castro, Thoraiya Dyer, Mary Soon Lee, S. B. Divya, and others (in Analog), and Robert Reed, Lavie Tidhar, Suzanne Palmer, William F. Wu, Alexander Jablokov, Sandra McDonald, and many more (Asimov’s).

I was surprised to find stories from Robert Reed in both issues, and Leah Cypess credited in both summaries  — even though her Analog tale, “Parenting License,” doesn’t actually appear in the issue. C’est la vie. Here’s Asimov’s editor Sheila Williams on what’s actually in the January/February 2019 Asimov’s SF.

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Birthday Reviews: Fred Lerner’s “Rosetta Stone”

Birthday Reviews: Fred Lerner’s “Rosetta Stone”

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Cover by Alan Bean
Cover by Alan Bean

Fred Lerner was born on December 27, 1945.

Most of Lerner’s writing is non-fiction. In fact, “Rosetta Stone” seems to be his only fictional credit. He has published the fanzine Lofgeornost since 1979 and many of his articles have been collected in the A Bookman’s Fantasy. His scholarly work includes The Story of Libraries, A Silverlock Companion, and Modern Science Fiction and the American Literary Community.

“Rosetta Stone” appeared as the first story in the debut issue of Artemis: Science and Fiction for a Space-Faring Age in Spring 2000, edited by Ian Randal Strock. The story has never been reprinted.

One of the stranger books in my collection is a brief treatise written by Terry Belanger in 1985 called Lunacy and the Arrangement of Books, which discusses a variety of ways private collectors have arranged their libraries to allow them to find the books they want, which may seem to make sense to that individual collection but can look random to anyone else.

The main character of Lerner’s “Rosetta Stone” is, like the author, an information scientist who has an interest in books. Dan is called by his old college roommate, Jack Hawkins, who invites him to the lunar base for some consulting on a confidential matter. When Dan arrives, he learns that a base has been discovered on the moon which looks a lot like the ones built by Lunar Labs, but which was not built by anyone known. Furthermore, the base has a library of human books from a variety of countries. Lunar Labs is hoping that Dan might be able to figure out something about the aliens who are believed to have built the base by the way they organize their books.

There are several points raised in the story, but dropped: Who the aliens are, why they chose the books they did, how they got the books up to the moon. Other questions are actually dealt with, although not always successfully. Jack explains why they decided to call on Dan rather than archaeologists or librarians or other people who might have seemed like a better match for the conundrum. In addition to Dan’s ability as an information scientists, he was also chosen because of late night musings he had shared with Jack when they were in college, a weak reason, perhaps, but it manages to fit into the story and Dan does, eventually, begin to provide results.

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Birthday Reviews: Holly Phillips’s “No Such Thing as an Ex-Con”

Birthday Reviews: Holly Phillips’s “No Such Thing as an Ex-Con”

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Cover by Adrian Kleinbergen
Cover by Adrian Kleinbergen

Holly Phillips was born on December 25, 1969.

Phillips won the Sunburst Award in 2006 for her collection In the Palace of Repose, which was also nominated for the William L. Crafword – IAFA Award and the World Fantasy Award. The title story had also been an International Horror Guild nominee the year before, while “The Other Grace,” which first appeared in the collection, was also a World Fantasy nominee. Along with Cory Doctorow, she was nominated for an Aurora Award in 2008. Phillips co-edited Tesseracts Eleven: Amazing Canadian Speculative Fiction with Cory Doctorow in 2007.

“No Such Thing as an Ex-Con” was Phillips’s first published story, appearing in the Summer 2000 issue of On Spec, edited by Jena Snyder. The story also appeared in the May/June 2006 issue of Weird Tales. In 2014, it was selected for inclusion in Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories: An On Spec 25th Anniversary Retrospective.

Emily Lake has served three and a half years for a series of murders she did not commit and upon her release from prison is taking work wherever she can find it, notably on a crew that is doing landscaping work for the city. Lake is always cognizant that once a convict, there are some people who will also see her as a convict, so she has to work harder and keep her head down to avoid drawing attention, knowing that any job is worth preserving since she won’t be able to find another one easily.

Unfortunately for Lake, the area in which she is working brings her into contact with Detective Bailor, who was one of the people responsible for putting her in prison for the murders. Lake had seen, or actually experienced, the murders in her dreams and went to the police to give them the lead that would put the perpetrator behind bars. Unfortunately, nobody believed she was not an accomplice, despite the claims of the murderer that he acted alone. Now, several years later, Bailor has a case of multiple kidnappings that have stymied him and he turns to Lake on the off chance that she was telling the truth and can help him find the lost boys.

Phillips offers a sympathetic view of an ex-con, even before the fact that she was innocent is known to the reader. Lake doesn’t show bitterness about the hand she has been dealt, and is trying her hardest to work within a system that is stacked against her. While Phillips builds the expectation that she’s going to be railroaded or fired, both concerns that Lake has, the reality of the situation turns out to be quite different. Lake’s abilities are described, but never explained, which seems to be more likely than having someone provide an explanation for her dreams.

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Birthday Reviews: Fritz Leiber’s “The Cloud of Hate”

Birthday Reviews: Fritz Leiber’s “The Cloud of Hate”

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Cover by Vernon Kramer
Cover by Vernon Kramer

Fritz Leiber was born on December 24, 1910 and died on September 5, 1992.

Fritz Leiber won six Hugo Awards for his novels The Big Time and The Wanderer as well as the novelette “Gonna Roll the Bones,” the novellas “Ship of Shadows” and “Ill Met in Lankhmar,” and the short story “Catch That Zeppelin.” “Gonna Roll the Bones,” “Ill Met in Lankhmar,” and “Catch That Zeppelin” also received the Nebula Award. He won the World Fantasy Award for the short story “Belsen Express” and the novel Our Lady of Darkness. He won his first British Fantasy Award for The Second Book of Fritz Leiber and his second for “The Button Molder.” He won the Geffen Award in 1999 for the Hebrew translation of Swords and Deviltry. The 1962 Worldcon presented him with a Special Convention Award in 1962 for his collaboration with the Hoffman Electronic Corporation for their use of science fiction in advertising.

In 1967 LASFS presented him with a Forry Award. He won a Gandalf Award in 1975 as a Grand Master of Fantasy and the next years received a Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention. In 1981 SFWA named him a Grand Master and he received a Special Balrog Award. He received a Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award in 1988, and in 2001 he was posthumously inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Leiber is one of the few people who was a guest of honor at multiple Worldcons, having the honor in 1951 at NOLACon I, the 9th Worldcon, held in New Orleans in 1951 and again in 1979 when he was a guest of honor at Seacon ’79 in Brighton, UK. He was the Guest of Honor at the 4th World Fantasy Con in Fort Worth, Texas in 1978. Leiber has most famously collaborated with Harry Fischer on the concept for Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser for the story “Lords of Quarmall.” He has also collaborated with Judith Merril and Fredric Brown.

Leiber first published “The Cloud of Hate” in the May 1963 issue of Fantastic Stories of Imagination, edited by Cele Goldsmith. He included it as the lead-off story in the Lankhmar collection Swords in the Mist and in 1975 it showed up in Sword & Sorcery Annual. When Donald M. Grant published a collection of three Lankhmar stories in Bazaar of the Bizarre, “The Cloud of Hate” was one of the those chosen. It showed up in the Lankhmar omnibus volumes The Three of Swords and Lean Times in Lankhmar as well as Thieves’ House: Tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Volume 2 and The First Book of Lankhmar. The story has been translated into Dutch, German, and twice into French, usually for collections of Leiber’s Lankhmar stories.

“The Cloud of Hate” is one of Leiber’s many stories about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. The two are serving as watchmen on the evening of a gala celebration of the betrothal of the Lankhmar Overlord’s daughter to the Prince of Ilthmar. They are stationed far from the festivities on a cold, foggy street. The action, however, starts below the streets of Lankhmar, with a mob of five thousand summoning the physical manifestation of hate to flood the streets and, one assumes, attack the Overlord’s party.

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