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Birthday Reviews: Joe Patrouch’s “The Attenuated Man”

Birthday Reviews: Joe Patrouch’s “The Attenuated Man”

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Cover by Barclay Shaw
Cover by Barclay Shaw

Joseph F. Patrouch, Jr. was born on May 23, 1935.

Patrouch was a teacher in Ohio who had a brief career writing science fiction. In the early 1970s, he wrote several essays about Asimov’s fiction and published his first short story, “One Little Room an Everywhere” in the February 1974 issue of Vertex. Most of his fiction has never been reprinted, with the exceptions “The Man Who Murdered Television” and “Legal Rights for Germs.” He also published The Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov in 1974.

“The Attenuated Man” was published by Edward L. Ferman in the March 1979 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It has never been reprinted.

Ken Hamilton sneaks into his father’s company to use the Transmat machine to become the first man on Mars, in an attempt to prove to his father than he isn’t completely worthless. Unfortunately, things go wrong for him almost immediately as he starts bleeding from his eyes, ears, and mouth. Back on Earth, Ken’s excursion has been discovered and his father’s staff is trying to figure out how to get him back, especially once they realize something has gone wrong and they can’t send someone after him without the same problems occurring.

Patrouch has an interesting look at some of the dangers of teleportation, although the impact seems to be different when transmatting people to different places, a discrepancy which he discusses in the story. Furthermore, although he indicates that Hamilton has a very low opinion of his son’s intelligence and abilities, the son figures out part of the solution that will allow him to return to Earth safely, and understands what has happened to him.

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Birthday Reviews: Wallace West’s “No War Tomorrow”

Birthday Reviews: Wallace West’s “No War Tomorrow”

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Cover by Milton Luros
Cover by Milton Luros

Wallace West was born on May 22, 1900 and died on March 8, 1980.

West began publishing speculative fiction in 1927 with the story “Loup-Garou,” which appeared in Weird Tales. Working mostly at short fiction lengths, he didn’t limit himself to science fiction and fantasy and his story “Muddy Waters” was turned into the 1933 film Headline Shooter.

“No War Tomorrow” was printed in the first issue of Science Fiction Quarterly, published in May 1951 with Robert A.W. Lowndes as the editor. In January of the following year it appeared in the magazine’s British edition. West included the story in his 1962 collection Outposts in Space.

The world of West’s “No War Tomorrow” is something of a mess. The major power is the United Stars, which seems to govern Earth, the Moon, Mars, and part of Venus, all of which appear to be inhabitable and suitable for human life, although there may be domes or terraforming that has occurred on Mars and the Moon. West’s focus, however, is on Venus, which is divided by the United Stars and the local Big Shots, who rule an anarchic area where the laws requires people to fend for themselves, although at the same time there is a civilization and police force, without explanation for how either survive.

Although West’s hero is Captain Frank Sage of the Space Patrol (part of the United Stars), his protagonist is really Sage’s girlfriend, Sadie Thompson, who dresses in barely enough clothing to highlight her figure, and who varies between being hyper competent and acting like a flirtatious girl who barely knows what is going on. While this might make sense if West used these variations to further the plot, they mostly seem to be used at random when he isn’t sure what to do with the character. Despite Thompson’s general ability, as well as the abilities of another female character, Greta, the depiction comes across as misogynistic.

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Birthday Reviews: Manly Wade Wellman’s “The Terrible Parchment”

Birthday Reviews: Manly Wade Wellman’s “The Terrible Parchment”

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Cover by Margaret Brundage
Cover by Margaret Brundage

Manly Wade Wellman was born on May 21, 1903 and died on April 5, 1986.

In 1956, his story “Dead and Gone” received an Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Story. Wellman’s collection Worse Things Waiting received a World Fantasy Award for Best Collection in 1975, and in 1976 he received a Phoenix Award at DeepSouthCon. He received a World Fantasy Award Life Achievement Award in 1980 and in 1983 was a Guest of Honor at the World Fantasy Convention in Chicago. At ConStellation, the 1983 Worldcon, Wellman was inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame. He received a Special Award from the British Fantasy Society in 1985.

“The Terrible Parchment” first appeared in the August 1937 issue of Weird Tales, edited by Farnsworth Wright. The story was dedicated to the memory of H.P. Lovecraft, who had died five months earlier. In 1972, Meade and Penny Frierson reprinted it in the first issue of their fanzine, HPL. Wellman then included the story in his 1973 collection Worse Things Waiting. In 1996, Robert M. Price selected it for the Chaosium Cthulhu Cycle anthology The Necronomicon: Selected Stories and Essays Concerning the Blasphemous Tome of the Mad Arab. It was also included in the Wildside Press e-book The Second Cthulhu Mythos Megapack in 2016.

While preternatural horror is often the goal of fiction set in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, humor also has a tendency to sneak in. Wellman’s meta-fictional “The Terrible Parchment” is definitely an early example of humorous Cthuliana, positing a copy of Weird Tales delivered to its subscriber and containing a page from The Necronomicon.

Although the idea of the characters being terrorized by the volume Lovecraft and so many of his followers have described works on a conceptual level, Wellmen’s depiction of the attack undermines the horror and turns the story into a more humorous work. As readers of Weird Tales, the characters are aware of The Necronomicon and its role in Lovecraft’s mythos, and Gwen even suggests that the book has achieved reality based on its legendary nature and fame, already occurring in 1937. The page’s method of attack, moving along the floor like an inchworm and seeping up the narrator’s leg, however, leaves much to be desired as a preternatural horror, as does his means of defense, stabbing at it with his wife’s umbrella.

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Venture Science Fiction, November 1969: A Retro-Review

Venture Science Fiction, November 1969: A Retro-Review

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Venture Science Fiction November 1969-small

This is Part 6 of a Decadal Review of vintage science fiction magazines published in November 1969. The previous articles are:

Amazing Stories, November 1969
Galaxy Science Fiction, November 1969
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November 1969
Worlds of If, November 1969
Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, November 1969

I approached Venture with a sense of trepidation, fearing that it was a place for cast-offs from Galaxy, there might be a diamond in the rough, maybe a good B-side. I am happy to report that I was totally wrong about that.

“Plague Ship,” by Harry Harrison, illustrations by Bert Tanner. This is an entire novel (about 82 pages, in -magazine). Normally I would summarize, but in this case, the people at Venture did it for me!

The interplanetary spacer, Johannes Kepler, was thirty days out from Earth when the meteorite hit the spaceship head on. Almost dead center. The survivors, led by a young medic, began a desperate struggle for their lives, not realizing that as bad as things were, they were soon to get worse.

That’s what is promised and rest assured that Harry Harrison delivers!

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Birthday Reviews: F. Paul Wilson’s “When He Was Fab”

Birthday Reviews: F. Paul Wilson’s “When He Was Fab”

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Cover by Bob Eggleton
Cover by Bob Eggleton

F. Paul Wilson was born on May 17, 1946.

Wilson won the Bram Stoker Award for his short story “Aftershocks” in 1999. He has been nominated for the award seven more times, and in 2009 he received a Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Horror Writer’s Association. Wilson was named a Grand Master by World Horror Con in 2005. He received his first Prometheus Award in 1979 for the novel Wheels Within Wheels and in 2004 he won the award for the novel Sims. His Healer and An Enemy of the State won back-to-back Prometheus Hall of Fame Awards in 1990 and 1991. He was one of the Guests of Honor at the 2009 World Horror Convention in Winnipeg, Canada.

Although originally written with Thomas F. Monteleone’s Borderlands 2 in mind, “When We Was Fab” was purchased by Darrell Schweitzer for a special F. Paul Wilson issue of Weird Tales, which appeared in Winter of 1992/1993. Wilson reprinted the story in his 2009 collection Aftershocks and Others: 19 Oddities. It has not otherwise been reprinted.

“When He Was Fab” starts out like many stories about an alien symbiote that takes over a hapless human, in this case, Doug, who works as a super for an apartment in Brooklyn. The symbiote attaches itself to him one day when he’s cleaning out a clogged drain in the building’s basement. The story is also about Marc, a New Yorker who has suddenly found himself part of the cream of New York night life, able to get into all the bars and the person the stars all want to be seen with. Despite the shallowness off Marc’s live, he has found something that makes him happy and he tries to share what he has found with other people.

Wilson eventually brings Marc and Doug’s stories together. In doing so, he takes the symbiote, which would normally be the villain or monster of this type of story and actually makes the creature, which appears as a thick goo, to be a more sympathetic character than either of the humans whose activities Wilson has been describing. When the symbiote appears to take ill, both Doug and the reader care about what happens to the creature.

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May/June Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Now on Sale

May/June Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Now on Sale

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The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction May June 2018-smallThe big May/June issue of F&SF comes packed with stories by Gardner Dozois, Lisa Mason, Matthew Hughes (a new Argent and Sable tale), Albert E. Cowdrey, Black Gate writer Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and many others — all under a magnificent cover by Alan D. Clark illustrating “The Barrens” by Stephanie Feldman, featuring a group of high school students searching for a pirate radio station transmitting from the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, and the supernatural menaces they encounter on the way.

Victoria Silverwolf at Tangent Online calls the issue “an even balance of science fiction and fantasy… [with] a wide variety of imaginative literature.” Here’s a snippet of her review.

“Unstoppable” by Gardner Dozois concerns a prince obsessed with becoming the greatest warrior in the world. After murdering his way to the throne, he uses magic to become indestructible. It all leads to an ironic ending. This is an enjoyable tale, if hardly profound.

“Crash-Site” by Brian Trent takes place on a distant planet in the far future. Various characters are after a weapon recovered from a starship that crashed on the planet centuries ago. The main appeal of this science fiction adventure story is its technologically advanced setting.

Set in the 1920s or 1930s, “What You Pass For” by Melanie West involves magic white paint, which allows a man to give his fellow African-Americans the physical characteristics of Caucasians. He hates and fears his unwanted ability, and refuses to use it on himself, although this condemns him to a life of poverty. A dancer, forbidden to join a ballet company because of her race, demands the use of this power, even though she is already very light-skinned. This is a powerful story about appearances and reality.

“Ku’gbo” by Nigerian writer Dare Segun Falowo is a dense, complex fantasy with a plot difficult to summarize. Suffice to say that it takes place in an African village which is no ordinary community, and that it begins with a boy seeking to protect food from invisible rams. The many supernatural events and beings that fill the plot, and the author’s fondness for metaphors, make this a story which must be read slowly and carefully to appreciate its uniqueness.

Set in modern New Orleans, “Behold the Child” by Albert E. Cowdrey depicts an unscrupulous lawyer who uses a telekinetic little boy to kill his enemies. A rival lawyer and a private detective, both telepathic, fight to end his reign of terror. The narrative tone is often light, contrasting oddly with the story’s violence. The ending comes as an unpleasant surprise.

Read Victoria’s complete review here.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents of the May/June 2017 issue.

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Birthday Reviews: Joyce Thompson’s “Boat People”

Birthday Reviews: Joyce Thompson’s “Boat People”

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Cover by Allen Koszowski
Cover by Allen Koszowski

Joyce Thompson was born on May 14, 1948.

Thompson has published several short stories, collected many of her early ones in East Is West of Here. She has published four novels, including the novelization of the film Harry and the Hendersons.

“Boat People” first appeared 1990 in Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine: Horror, the seventh issue, edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Rusch also included the story in the anthology The Best of Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, published by St. Martin’s Press in 1991.

Thompson has produced an oddly confessional story in “Boat People,” albeit one with little fantastic element. Her narrator lives in Montana and is dealing with a mother who was once liberal, but is now older and averse to all the change brought into her life by a more diverse population. A generation behind her mother, the narrator sees the influx of Asian people as part of the aftermath of the Vietnam War, a war she opposed, but which left an indelible mark not only on her friends who served in Vietnam, but also on those who remained behind.

The narrator has survivor guilt for not having served overseas, and to assuage her guilt, she has taken on the task of working with veterans who are trying to capture their experiences on paper, offering her services as a published author to former soldiers who need the catharsis of writing about their experiences, no matter how bad the experiences or their prose. As she reads more and more of their memoirs, she takes on more and more of their memories, expressing regret that she wasn’t able to take a more active role in the war or the protests, and never fully understanding what they went through, but taking on their traumas.

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The May Fantasy Magazine Rack

The May Fantasy Magazine Rack

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 251-small Black Static 63-small Pulp Literature Spring 2018-small Uncanny Magazine 22 May June 2018-small
GrimDark Magazine 15-small Interzone 275-small Vastarien 1-small Weird Fiction Review 8-small

Lots of great new fiction in May, including new stories by Mark Lawrence, Nicholas Kaufmann, Kelly Robson, John Shirley, Naomi Novik, Erica L. Satifka, Steven J. Dines, Lynne Jamneck, Katharine Duckett, Michael Washburn, Robert M. Waugh, and many others.

The new kid on the block this month is Vastarien from Grimscribe Press, a 284-page journal “of critical study and creative response to the corpus of Thomas Ligotti as well as associated authors and ideas.” The first issue includes contributions from Michael Penkas, S.L. Edwards, Devin Goff, Christopher Ropes, Patricia Allison, Carl Lavoie, and many others. I’m also very pleased to see the latest annual issue of Weird Fiction Review, with a big color section devoted to the great D&D artist Erol Otis, plus new issues of GrimDark and Pulp Literature.

Here’s the complete list of magazines that won my attention in May (links will bring you to magazine websites).

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Birthday Reviews: Barry B. Longyear’s “Collector’s Item”

Birthday Reviews: Barry B. Longyear’s “Collector’s Item”

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Analog April 1981-small2 Analog April 1981-back-small

Cover by George Angelini

Barry B. Longyear was born on May 12, 1942.

Longyear received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1980, the year he won the Hugo and Nebula Award for his novella “Enemy Mine,” which was turned into a film starring Dennis Quaid and Lou Gossett, Jr. That same year his novelette “Homecoming” also appeared on the Hugo ballot, as did his novelette “Savage Planet” the following year. His stories have twice topped the Analog Reader’s Poll and he has been nominated for the Prometheus Award three times and the Sidewise Award once.

“Collector’s Item” was first published by Stanley Schmidt in the April 27, 1981 issue of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact. The following year it was translated into German to be reprinted in Analog 2, a German language version of the magazine. Longyear also included the story as the lead off to his collection It Came from Schenectady.

Longyear examines the unenviable task of cleaning out a parent’s belongings after their death. For Jay Hall, who barely knew his father and had little to discuss with him, the natural inclination is to just take everything and sweep it into the garbage. A call with his father’s attorney, however, causes him to look through some of the papers his father has collected over the years. Among those papers are essays written by five of his father’s students in 1955.

The essays were assigned on prosaic topics, “What I Did Last Summer,” “My Favorite Dream,” “Things I Think About.” As Jay begins to read them, however, he finds that these five students all had things in common… notable, references to someone known as the Major. Furthermore, their essays all seemed to indicate that they were being fed knowledge of America’s future involvement in Viet Nam.

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Birthday Reviews: Elizabeth Engstrom’s “Seasoned Enthusiast”

Birthday Reviews: Elizabeth Engstrom’s “Seasoned Enthusiast”

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Cover by Allen Koszowski
Cover by Allen Koszowski

Elizabeth Engstrom was born on May 11, 1951. She occasionally writes using the name Liz Cratty as well.

Engstrom’s collection Nightmare Flower was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and she co-edited the anthology Imagination Fully Dilated with Alan M. Clark, which earned them an International Horror Guild Award nomination.

“Seasoned Enthusiast” first appeared 1990 in Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine: Horror, the seventh issue, edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Engstrom later reprinted the story in her 1992 collection Nightmare Flower.

The short work “Seasoned Enthusiast” tells two parallel tales, one about a dancer performing in front of an audience, the other the story of a divorced woman who is considering her own self-worth in light of her husband’s new life.

The more interesting story looks at Lillian, whose life has fallen apart after her divorce and she’s living in squalor while her husband and his new wife start their life together in an upscale house, a symbol of the success which eluded the couple while they were married. Unable to separate her life from his, and seeing herself as a failure because she lost him, Lillian drives over to her ex-husband’s house without a firm plan in mind, feeding her obsession with him without any plan of action.

In the other story, a crowd gathers around to watch a woman dance in an apparently primitive setting. As the dance sequences are interwoven with Lillian’s story, it becomes clear that things aren’t quite as they seem. There is an element of danger in the woman’s dance and she has suffered for her craft as she has perfected it.

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