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Birthday Reviews: Catherine Wells’s “The Sea-Maid”

Birthday Reviews: Catherine Wells’s “The Sea-Maid”

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Realms of Fantasy
Realms of Fantasy

Catherine Wells was born on November 15, 1952.

Catherine Wells was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award for her novel Mother Grimm in 1998. Her other novels included Beyond the Gates and the Coconino Trilogy. While almost all of her novels were published in the 1990s, she published several short stories beginning in 2000.

Wells based her story “The Sea-Maid” on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Little Mermaid,” going back to Andersen’s original story rather than the Disney version that appeared in 1989. The story was published in the February 2002 issue of Realms of Fantasy, edited by Shawna McCarthy.

The story begins with Wells giving a good indication of what is to follow. Paul talks about “The Little Mermaid” and explains the difference between Andersen’s tale and the Disney version Wells knows most people will be familiar with. According to Paul, the mermaid’s fate was sealed by the fact that the Prince she fell in love with was a jerk. He then explains that the same thing happened to him and he, too, was a jerk, which he says not only influenced his relationship with the mermaid, but also with every woman he has ever dated, most recently with Diane, who broke up with him shortly before his encounter with the mermaid.

To get over Diane, Paul attends an engagement party on a yacht thrown by his long-time friend Jenna. Set in the 1970s, sex and drugs are rampant on the yacht and Paul is the only one who realizes that there is a huge squall coming in that could potentially sink the ship. He manages to get the yacht moving back to port, but in the process falls overboard and is rescued by a mermaid, who shows up again weeks later, unable to speak, and with legs. The story becomes a retelling of Andersen’s tale in a modern venue.

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Birthday Reviews: Daniel Abraham’s “Pagliacci’s Divorce”

Birthday Reviews: Daniel Abraham’s “Pagliacci’s Divorce”

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Cover by Kent Bash
Cover by Kent Bash

Daniel Abraham was born on November 14, 1969.

Daniel Abraham won the International Horror Guild Award for his story “Flat Diane” in 2005. The story was also nominated for a Nebula Award. His story “The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics” was nominated for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Seiun Awards. Abraham has two additional Hugo nominations in collaboration with Ty Franck using the pseudonym James S.A. Corey for their novel Leviathan Wakes and for ther series The Expanse, which has been turned into a successful television series. Abraham has also published using the names M.L.N. Hanover and Daniel Hanover. In addition to his collaborations with Franck, he has collaborated with Gardner Dozois and George R.R. Martin, Susan Fry, Michaela Roessner, Sage Walker, and Walter Jon Williams.

“Pagliacci’s Divorce” was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Gordon van Gelder in its December 2003 issue. The story has never been reprinted.

Although “Pagliacci’s Divorce” is built around a sting operation based on Pagliacci’s ability to help create fake phenotype cards of illicit purposes, it really focuses on the relationship between Pagliacci and his ex-wife, Carly, whose current husband, Damon Weiss, is the target of the sting. Law enforcement uses people like Pagliacci as informants in return for letting them continue to run their scams and in this case has found a connection to a larger fish.

Abraham builds a complex relationship between Pagliacci and Carly, which points out that a divorce, even when children are not involved, does not necessarily sever the couple or their relationship. Yes, Carly has married a new man, but she and Pagliacci still have a relationship that can be leveraged, even if she is unaware of the way she is being used. However, even as Pagliacci realizes that he has to permit law enforcement to use him to get to Carly’s husband, he also knows that there are ways he can subvert the process because of his own attachment to her, the same attachment they are so adamant to use.

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Birthday Reviews: Stephen Baxter’s “The Twelfth Album”

Birthday Reviews: Stephen Baxter’s “The Twelfth Album”

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Cover by Roy Virgo
Cover by Roy Virgo

Stephen Baxter was born on November 13, 1957 in Liverpool.

Baxter’s novel The Time Ships won the Philip K. Dick Award, the Kurd Lasswitz Preis, the Seiun Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and the British SF Association Award. He won a second Dick Award for Vacuum Diagrams and has also won the BSFA Award for “War Birds,” Omegatropic, and Mayflower II. He has also won the Seiun Award for Timelike Infinity. He won the first Sidewise Award for Short Fiction for “Brigantia’s Angels” and the next year won the Long Form award for Voyage. Baxter eventually joined the Sidewise judge’s panel for a decade. On rare occasions, Baxter has used the pseudonym Jim Jones. He has collaborated with Alastair Reynolds, Arthur C. Clarke, Terry Pratchett, Simon Bradshaw, and Eric Brown.

“The Twelfth Album” was originally published in the April 1998 issue of Interzone, edited by David Pringle. David G. Hartwell included the story in his Year’s Best SF 4, which was translated into Italian as well. The story was also translated into Polish for inclusion in the magazine Fenix. The story was reprinted in Baxter’s 2002 collection Phase Space: Stories from the Manifold and Elsewhere and in 2014 was translated into French for the anthology Alternative Rock.

There are several stories and novels which postulate an alternative history for the Beatles and “The Twelfth Album” is one of them. In this story, the narrator and his friend Lightoller are sitting in the bowels of a long-serving ocean liner which has been turned into a berthed hotel in Liverpool. A friend of theirs known as Sick Note, has died and they are sitting in his apartment in the hotel listening to some of his old vinyl records and reminiscing about him. However, they come across an album called God which has no other label or indication of tracks. When they play it, they hear eleven songs they know were recorded by the Beatles post-breakup, but on the album it is clearly all four musicians playing together.

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Birthday Reviews: Michael Bishop’s “Patriots”

Birthday Reviews: Michael Bishop’s “Patriots”

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Cover by Michael Whelan
Cover by Michael Whelan

Michael Bishop was born on November 12, 1945.

Bishop won back to back Nebula Awards in 1982 for his novelette “The Quickening” and in 1983 for his novel No Enemy But Time. In 2009, he won the Shirley Jackson Award for “The Pile,” His novel Unicorn Mountain received the Mythopoeic Award, and his poem “For a Lady Physicist” won the Rhysling Award. He has twice won the Southeastern SF Achievement Award for his stories “The Door Gunner” and “Bears Discover Smut.” In 1977, he was awarded the Phoenix Award by DeepSouthCon. His novel Brittle Innings is one of the best fantasy baseball novels ever published.

“Patriots” was originally published in issue six of Shayol, edited by Pat Cadigan in Winter 1982. It has been reprinted twice, first in Bishop’s Arkham House collection One Winter in Eden in 1984 and later in his collection Emphatically Not SF, Almost, as part of the Pulphouse Author’s Choice Monthly series.

Bishop’s “Patriots” fits well into his collection Emphatically Not SF, Almost because it really isn’t science fiction. It is the story of two American servicemen stationed on Guam during the Vietnam War, Lieutenant Danny Rojas and Sergeant Monegal. Rojas is concerned that he is facing a court martial and fine for his actions in Southeast Asia. The older Monegal convinces him to go for a walk with the hope that Rojas will share his great crime as a form of atonement and will go back to being his normal self.

On their walk, the two come across an older Japanese businessman, Jinsai Fujita, and his Guamian girlfriend, Rebecca Facpi. The Fujita and Monegal try to jolly Rojas out of his funk when they suddenly come under fire from a Japanese soldier who has been living on Guam since World War II and is not convinced that the war is over, and has been fighting it for longer than Rojas has been alive.

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The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1979: A Retro-Review

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1979: A Retro-Review

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The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction November 1979-small

I didn’t really pick the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction to begin my November 1979 survey of sf/f magazines, it just happened to be on top of the stack. Overall I have to say that I was disappointed.

Lord Valentine’s Castle, Part 1, by Robert Silverberg. Given how much I enjoyed Downward to Earth in the November 1969 Galaxy, I was eager to see how Mr. Silverberg had evolved over a decade. … Lord Valentine’s Castle was a big letdown. You often hear that editors and agents really hate stories that start with a guy waking up not remembering anything, and I can totally see why. Valentine, the main character (MC), walks toward the great city of Pidruid, he meets a herdsman, they join a juggling troupe, Valentine starts to realize he has no real memories before walking to Pidruid, they practice for the grand parade for the King-of-the-World (the Coronal), also named Valentine, he has odd dreams. This goes on for 93 pages (easily 60% of the magazine), of which I only read about 80, and which only started cooking about page 75.

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Birthday Reviews: Mack Reynolds’s “Doctor’s Orders”

Birthday Reviews: Mack Reynolds’s “Doctor’s Orders”

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Fantastic Story Magazine
Fantastic Story Magazine

Mack Reynolds was born on November 11, 1917 and died on January 30, 1983.

He was nominated for the Hugo Award in 1962 for his short story “Status Quo” and in 1966 was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story for “A Leader for Yesteryear” and for Best Novelette for “The Adventure of the Extraterrestrial.” Reynolds, whose birth name was Dallas McCord Reynolds, published under the pseudonyms Bob Belmont, Clark Collins, Mark Mallory, Guy McCord, Maxine Reynolds, and Dallas Ross. He collaborated with Fredric Brown on the anthology Science-Fiction Carnival. He collaborated on fiction with August Derleth, Brown, Theodore Cogswell, and Gary Jennings. Following his death Dean Ing completed several of his novels and Michael Banks completed one.

Originally published as “Four-Legged Hotfoot” in the Winter 1952 issue of Fantastic Story Magazine, edited by Samuel Mines, the story was reprinted in the NESFA Press collection Compounded Interest using the title “Doctor’s Orders.” It was included by Wildside Press in The 12th Science Fiction Megapack e-book collection in 2016.

Reynolds offers a starship story in “Doctor’s Orders,” setting up an interstellar journey with a crew that is filled with redundancy. As the navigator, Dick Roland, complains to Doc Thorndon, nobody really has anything to do. They are all back-ups for the computers, which fail so rarely that each person might have something to do once every several trips. If that weren’t enough, the crew was sent out with insufficient leave between missions, so they were already starting to suffer from cafard, a debilitating mental illness caused by spending too much time on board ship.

The story does an excellent job demonstrating the boredom inherent in any long journey and the ship’s crew try, and fail, to stave off boredom by playing a variety of games. What finally pulls them from their ennui is the discovery of an animal on board, which Doc Thorndon identifies as a rat, long extinct on Earth, but thriving on the Venusian colonies, where the ship may have picked up its stowaway. Catching the rat, named Arthur, goes from being a game to something more important when Doc Thorndon notes that the rat may be carrying the Bubonic Plague and could prevent them from docking when they return to Earth.

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Birthday Reviews: Alfred Coppel’s “Mars Is Ours”

Birthday Reviews: Alfred Coppel’s “Mars Is Ours”

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Cover by Chesley Bonestell
Cover by Chesley Bonestell

Alfred Coppel was born on November 9, 1921 and died on May 30, 2004.

Coppel published under a variety of pseudonyms, including Sol Galaxan, Robert Cham Gilman, Derfla Leppoc, A.C. Marin, G.H. Rains, and sometimes attaching a Jr. to the end of his own name. In addition to writing science fiction, he wrote for the pulps in a variety of genres, including thrillers and military stories. His best selling book may have been the 1974 thriller Thirty-Four East about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“Mars Is Ours” was first printed in the October 1954 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Anthony Boucher. It was translated into French in 1955 for publication in Fiction #19 and was reprinted in France in 1985 in the anthology Histoires de Guerres Futures, edited by Demètre Ioakimidis, Jacques Goimard, and Gérard Klein. Its only English language reprint was in Fourth Planet from the Sun, edited by Gordon van Gelder, which collected stories about Mars originally published in F&SF.

Unfortunately, writing a tale too closely tied to a political situation can completely date the story, which is why so many authors create analogs for political forces. Coppel did not do this in “Mars Is Ours,” which tells about a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union being fought on the red planet.

Marrane is in charge of a group of American soldiers on Mars who are intent on wiping out the Soviet base. He knows, as must the Soviets know, that their war is coming to an end. There is little in the story to require it be set on Mars rather than a distant outpost on Earth, although near the end of the story, the distance to Earth and the non-terrestrial environment do come into play enough that the story would have been different had it been set in Mali or Colombia rather than on Mars.

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Birthday Reviews: Ben Bova’s “The Café Coup”

Birthday Reviews: Ben Bova’s “The Café Coup”

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Cover by Michael Garland
Cover by Michael Garland

Ben Bova was born on November 8, 1932.

Bova won the Hugo Award for Best Editor six times, including a solid run from 1973 to 1977 as well as a Balrog Award for editing in 1983. In 2007, his novel Titan won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He received the Skylark Award from NESFA in 1974 and the Gallun Award from I-CON in 2005. In 2008, the Heinlein Society recognized his space exploration advocacy with the Robert A. Heinlein Award and in 2016 he was inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame.

He took over the editorship of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact in 1972 upon the death of John W. Campbell, Jr. and edited the magazine until 1978, when he left to help start up Omni Magazine, which he edited until 1982. Bova has collaborated on fiction with Rick Wilber, A.J. Austin, Gordon Dickson, Bill Pogue, and Les Johnson. He has also collaborated with numerous other editors on a variety of anthologies. Bova was the author Guest of Honor at Chicon 2000, the 58th World Science Fiction Convention held in Chicago. Bova has also published as by Oxford Williams.

“The Café Coup” was first published in the September 1997 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Gordon van Gelder. The next year, it was reprinted in Bova’s collection Twice Seven and was translated into German by Michael K. Iwoleit, Cecilia Palinkas, Horst Pukallus, Chris Weber, Manfred Weinland for inclusion in Der Tod im Land der Blumen. Van Gelder included the story in One Lamp: Alternate History Stories from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 2003 and in 2017, the story was included in The Best of Bova, Volume III.

One of the primary focuses of alternate history fiction is a way to change the outcome of World War II or prevent the war from happening. Bova takes the latter route in “Café Coup,” in which a time traveler from a future in which pockets of technologically advanced societies are beset by barbarians at their gates who are intent on destroying the last vestiges of civilization, decides that the root of his world’s problems is World War II and the best way to change the world is by making sure the Germans win World War I.

Bova’s narrator has thought through his plan to the extent that he realizes he would never be able to return to the world he has helped create. He convinces his wife of the importance of the project and the two travel back together, effecting the change and living their lives in a German occupied Paris in 1922.

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Birthday Reviews: R.A. Lafferty’s “Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas”

Birthday Reviews: R.A. Lafferty’s “Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas”

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Cover by Sol Dember
Cover by Sol Dember

R.A. (Raphael Aloysius) Lafferty was born on November 7, 1914 and died on March 18, 2002.

Lafferty won a Hugo Award for his short story “Eurema’s Dam” in 1973, which tied with Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth’s “The Meeting.” Lafferty’s story also won the Seiun Award in 1975 and he won a second Seiun in 1993 for the story “Groaning Hinges.” In 1971 Lafferty received a Phoenix Award from DeepSouthCon and in 1990 he was recognized with a Life Achievement World Fantasy Award. He was the second recipient of the Cordwainder Smith Award for authors whose work deserves rediscovery.

“Sodom and Gomorroah, Texas” was first published in the December 1962 issue of Galaxy Magazine, edited by Frederik Pohl. It was translated by Ferruccio Alessandri for the Italian version of the magazine in 1964. Lafferty included it in his 1972 collection Strange Doings. A. Kindt-van Ewijck and G. Suurmeijer translated the story for the Dutch version of Strange Doings, called Niet Pluis in 1975 and the same year it was translated for the French edition of Galaxie. The story saw a German translation in 1982 in the anthology Science-Fiction-Stories 92. The story was posted to Project Gutenberg in 2007 and was included in the LibriVox anthology Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 004. In 2011, it was published as a chapbook. Its most recent publication occurred in 2015 when it was included in Feast of Laughter, Volume 2, an anthology edited by Kevin Cheek as an appreciation of R. A. Lafferty on the occasion of the centennial of his birth.

“Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas” is actually a story about expectations and the understanding of reality. Manuel has been hired to work a s a census taker in the Santa Magdalena region of Texas by Mr. Marshal. When Manuel asks if he should count the little people, Marshall instructs him to count all people, not just adults, although Marshal also has to specify not to count animals or spirits. While Marshal and Manuel see no difficulty with the instructions, the reader sees them readily, only wondering what form Lafferty will chose to show the hijinks sure to take place.

The little people living in the remote Texas region where Manuel is sent to count the nine human inhabitants are aliens who firmly believe they have a deed to the Earth. They allow Manuel and his mula, Mula, to count them, but at great cost. When Manuel turns in his figures, which are highly inflated, Marshal turns them in, resulting in problems with the little people who don’t want to be known.

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November 2018 Locus Magazine Now on Sale

November 2018 Locus Magazine Now on Sale

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Locus November 2018-smallI made the mistake of flying to Baltimore for the World Fantasy Convention this weekend without packing the current issue of Locus. There’s no better way to get caught up on all the latest industry news, publishing changes, and genre gossip than in the relative peace and quiet of a pressurized cabin at 30,000 feet.

So I landed in Baltimore woefully behind on all the news. Even worse, I hadn’t read this month’s reviews by Rich Horton, Liz Bourke, Gary Wolfe, Russell Letson, John Langan and many others. How was I supposed to talk intelligently about all those exciting new writers? I had to stand there glumly and nod at the midnight Beneath Ceaseless Skies party.

I won’t make that mistake again. Whatever you do, don’t be like me. Make sure you have your copy of Locus safely tucked under your arm when you travel (especially to a con.) It will make you wiser, happier, and a better person.

The November issue is packed full of good stuff, and available at most well stocked bookstores. Here’s the description from the website.

The November issue features an interview with Andy Duncan; MacArthur Genius Grant news; British Fantasy, Aurora, Sunburst, Copper Cylinder, Geffen, and Elgin awards winners; a column by Cory Doctorow; photo stories on Galactic Philadelphia, the Neukom Awards ceremony, George R.R. Martin, and Genrepalooza; international reports on Israel and Estonia; obituaries for Pat Lupoff, Anthea Bell, and David J. Willoughby, and reviews of short fiction and books by Paul Di Filippo, Natasha Ngan, Brian Hodge, Tomi Adeyemi, and many others.

Locus magazine is published by twelve times per year by the Locus Foundation. This issue is 68 pages in full color, priced at $7.50 or $5.50 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Francesca Myman. One year (12 issue) subscriptions are $63 for print (US) or $48 (digital). Subscribe here.