Delany won back-to-back Nebula Awards for Best Novel for Babel-17 and The Einstein Intersection. The second year also saw him winning a Nebula for Best Short Story for “Aye, and Gomorrah.” In 1970, his novelette “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones” won both the Hugo and the Nebula Award and he won a second Hugo for The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1957-1965.
His novel Dhalgren received a Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame Award and he received a Lambda Lifetime Achievement Award and a Pilgrim Award. Delany was the Guest of Honor at Intersection, the 1995 Worldcon. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2002, received the Eaton Award in 2010, and in 2014 was named a SFWA Grand Master.
“High Weir” was first published in If by Frederik Pohl in the October 1968 issue. Delany included it in his collection Driftglass and Robert Hoskins reprinted it in the anthology Wondermakers 2. Brian Attebery and Ursula K. Le Guin selected the story for the collection The Norton Book of Science Fiction: American Science Fiction, 1960-1990 and Ellen Datlow published it on Sci Fiction on May 7, 2003. Delany included it in his 2013 collection Aye, and Gomorrah. The story was translated into French in 1970 for inclusion in Galaxie #76 and into German in 1982 when Delany’s Driftglass was published as Treibglas.
“High Weir” features a team of scientists and academics exploring a dead Mars and a ruin that indicates a high level of ancient Martian civilization. The story is told from Rimkin’s point of view. As the team linguist, there is little for him to do since the Martians did not appear to have any sort of written language. Furthermore, Rimkin exhibits signs that would now be recognized as autistic. He is a brilliant linguist, but his interpersonal skills are completely lacking to the point where he can’t identify his teammates when they are in their space suits, nor can he distinguish between their voices on the radio. Part of the team, he is entirely separate from it.
Do you remember the time Godzilla dropped the brown acid while watching Mothra’s colored wings, and then Raymond Burr joined him and they tipped back a few cases of wine from Burr’s personal vineyards, while Burr told the plot of Perry Mason episodes backwards, where Mason would undo a court decision, Paul Drake would put evidence back in place, and at the climax a dead body would return to life?
None of this actually happened — but something close to it did. It involves the Italian film industry (doesn’t it always?) and the director of Starcrash and the Lou Ferrigno Hercules movies. It’s called Godzilla il re dei mostri (“Godzilla the King of Monsters”), a.k.a. Cozzilla after its creator, Luigi Cozzi — and it’s one of the strangest and least known chapters in Godzilla history. Not as much an acid trip as Godzilla vs. Hedorah, but in that ballpark.
It starts with the 1976 King Kong. The Dino De Laurentiis remake of the ‘33 giant monster classic may not be much good (I’ll give composer John Barry a hand for his score, and I like Jeff Bridges’s beard), but it took in such a big overseas haul that it triggered a mini-monster boom in Europe and Asia. We can thank its success in Japan for getting the momentum going to restart the Godzilla series, resulting in The Return of Godzilla in 1984 and the better Heisei movies that followed.
But King Kong ‘76 also shocked into life an Italian take on Godzilla that most people are unaware exists. Godzilla il re dei mostri isn’t exactly a “new” film. It’s an Italian colorization and re-edit of the 1956 U.S. reshoot and re-edit of the 1954 Japanese Godzilla, only now with tie-dye colors, a mishmash of stock footage, and Tangerine Dream-esque electronic music. Because that’s what those two earlier versions of Godzilla were missing.
Alaya Dawn Johnson was born on March 31, 1982. She began publishing in 2005 with her story “Shard of Glass.” Her first novel, Racing the Dark, appeared in 2007. She was a Guest of Honor at Wiscon in 2015 and the convention published the guest of honor book, Metamorphosis, containing works and interviews with Johnson and her co-guest of honor Kim Stanley Robinson.
In 2015 Johnson won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette for “A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i” and the same evening won the Andre Norton Award for Best Young Adult Novel for Love Is the Drug. The year before, she also had nominated work in each of those categories. Johnson’s fiction has been nominated for the James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and the Carl Brandon Award.
“Far & Deep” was published in the March-April 2009 issue of Interzone, edited by Andy Cox, Andy Hedgecock, and David Mathew. It has not been reprinted.
The story is set on an unnamed Polynesian island and opens with Leilani discovering that her mother, Pineki, has been murdered. In her mourning, Leilani approaches the Council of Elders, of which her mother was a member, and is told that she will be denied a traditional funeral because of unspecified crimes she had committed.
It is clear that Pineki was not well liked on the island, although she didn’t care. Leilani must not only come to terms with her mother’s death, but also the way the other islanders perceived Pineki. In the few thousand words Johnson uses to tell the story, she manages to briefly tackle the questions of people who commit taboo behavior in a small community, the sense of filial love and duty, and the need for individuality in a society which demands at least of modicum of conformity. Despite Pineki’s position on the Council, she was seen as an outsider by the Council, who viewed her murder as the opportunity to get rid of a problem, rather than a crime that should be explored and punished. Leilani, who lost her parent, challenges the Council, an act worthy of her mother.
Chad Oliver was born on March 30, 1928 and died on August 10, 1993. He briefly became famous in 2000 when, trying to explain the concept of hanging chads in the aftermath of that year’s Presidential election, some newspapers discovered the existence of a science fiction author named Chad.
Oliver’s writing career began with the publication of the short story “The Land of Lost Content” in the November 1950 issue of Super Science Stories. He published short fiction through his career, with his final story published in 1991. During that time, he also published six novels and collaborated occasionally with Charles Beaumont and Garvin Berry. His 1984 story “Ghost Town” was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story.
Oliver published “Transformer” in the November 1954 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Anthony Boucher. Oliver included it in his collection Another Kind the next year and it was also translated into French to be run in Fiction that year. William F. Nolan included it in the anthology Man Against Tomorrow and Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles Waugh chose it for The Great SF Stories #16 (1954). It appears in the second NESFA Press collection of Oliver’s works, Far from This Earth and Other Stories and was a featured reprint in the June 1, 2005 issue of Sci Fiction. The story has also been translated into German twice and into Hungarian.
“Transformer” is a forerunner to Toy Story, published forty years before the Pixar film was released. Oliver tells the story from the point of view of a woman who lives in the small village of ELM POINT, a town on the table of a model railroad owned by Willy Roberts. Unfortunately for her, Willy is more Sid Phillips than Andy Davis. Willy isn’t particularly abusive, he’s just a young boy who sometimes gets a little wild with his toys and is beginning to lose interest in his toy railroad, none of which is good from the point of view of those toys.
Unfortunately for Willy, his toys are more proactive that Sid’s toys were in Toy Story and they plan to murder him, using the electric train as their weapon of choice. The story is told in a matter of fact way, the contemplation of murder not a horrific crime, but merely a way of ending the unpleasant life they live, perhaps due to the casualness with which Willy kills the toys figures on the table without any regard for the lives he knows nothing about. Willy doesn’t exist when he’s not in the room, just as the townspeople’s lives wind down when the current is off.
She won the World fantasy Award and the Nebula Award for her novella “Last Summer at Mars Hill.” She has won an additional Nebula for her short story “Echo” and three more World Fantasy Awards for her novellas Ilyria and The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon, which was also a Hugo nominee. Her collection Bibliomancy also earned her a World Fantasy Award. Hand received the James Tiptiree Jr. Memorial Award and the Mythopoei Award for her novel Waking the Moon and she has won three Shirley Jackson Awards. Her stories “Pavane for a Prince of the Air” and “Cleopatra Brimstone” have both won the International Horror Guild Award.
“Calypso in Berlin” was originally published by Ellen Datlow in the July 13, 2005 issue of Sci Fiction. Paula Guran included it in her Best Paranormal Romance anthology the following year. It is included in Hand’s collection Saffron and Brimstone: Strange Stories. In 2007, the story was translated into German for publication in the Spring issue of Pandora.
In Greek mythology, Calypso was a nymph who lived on the island of Ogygia and kept Odysseus captive for seven years. Her name is a variation of the word “concealed.” In Elizabeth Hand’s “Calypso in Berlin,” the nymph has survived into the modern era and taken as her lover a man named Philip, whose business requires him to travel, so they only see each other occasionally. Philip is also married, which doesn’t particularly seem to bother Calypso.
When Philip ends their relationship, Calypso decides to relocate to Berlin, a city he loved. Once there, she realizes that Philip has become something of a muse to her, inspiring her paintings of him and without his presence, she can no longer paint. Using an old sweater of his and sympathetic magic, she draws him to her, regaining her muse. The magic Hand describes as Calypso ensures that he will always be in Berlin to inspire her feels very much in keeping with the motifs of Greek mythology.
A. Bertram Chandler was born on March 18, 1912 and died on June 6, 1984.
Chandler has received four Ditmar Awards for his novels False Fatherland, The Bitter Pill, and The Big Black Mark, as well as the story version of “The Bitter Pill.” His story “Wet Paint” won the Seiun Award in 1976 and he was nominated for a Retro Hugo for his novella “Giant Killer.” Chandler was the author Guest of Honor at Chicon IV, the 1982 Worldcon in Chicago.
“Planet of Ill Repute” originally appeared in the November 1958 issue of Infinity Science Fiction, edited by Larry Shaw. The story was reprinted in the NESFA Press book Up to the Sky in Ships/In and Out of Quandry, released to coincide with the Chicon where Chandler was Guest of Honor. Published in the Ace Double format, the Up to the Sky in Ships side contained stories by Chandler and the In and Out of Quandry side contained essays by fan Guest of Honor Lee Hoffman. The cover for both sides was by Chicon Artist Guest of Honor Kelly Freas.
“Planet of Ill Repute” looks at “The Protection of Undeveloped Peoples Act,” which has stark similarities to Star Trek’s Prime Directive. In this case, when Commodore Pendray discovered that his men had run afoul of “The Act” during an initial survey of the planet Lishaar, he followed proper protocols, arresting the men responsible with the goal of having them court martialed.
It was one of those months. By which I mean one where there were a lot of of new swords & sorcery stories. In addition to the regular two monthly stories from Swords and Sorcery Magazine, there were new issues of Cirsova and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. Then, on top of all that, last Monday, what arrived at my door but the long waited-for first edition of the Howard Andrew Jones-edited and Appendix N-inspired Tales from the Magician’s Skull. Because there’s so much, I’m going to review HFQ and Tales this week and Cirsova and S&SM next week.
I don’t have much to say about Heroic Fantasy Quarterly (edited by Adrian Simmons and company) that I haven’t saidtime, and timeagain. It remains the best and most consistent source of new swords & sorcery fiction. If you aren’t reading it already, you are doing yourself a tremendous disservice. Issue #35, with magnificent banner art by Jereme Peabody, is no exception.
All right, I’m biased, but Raphael Ordoñez is one of my favorite writers working today, and I loved his new story, “White Rainbow and Brown Devil” in Issue #35. Not only is it a new story of “vagabond conquistador Francisco Carvajal y Lopez,” it’s got another of Ordoñez’s wonderful illustrations. In this tale of magic and danger, Francisco remains the same self-pitying, greedy but ultimately brave, hero he was introduced as in the first of his tales, “Heart of Tashyas.” He ended that tale in search of gold. This story opens with him frustrated and angry:
“Still no sign of them,” he growled, fingering the fishbone beads at his belt. “O Most Sweet Virgin, am I the victim of damnable perfidy yet again? With childlike trust have I followed Dacate’s word, seeking a modest recompense for all my sufferings in the painted canyons of the west. How many days has it been since I set out from the land of the Guequisales? Four? Five?” He raised the brown maul of his fist to heaven and shook it. “And where are these accursed canyons?”
Patricia C. Wrede was born on March 27, 1953. Her novel Calling on Dragons was nominated for a Mythopoeic Award for Best Children’s Fantasy and her story “Utensile Strength” was long-listed for the James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award.
“Rikiki and the Wizard” was written for the Liavek shared world series edited by Will Shetterly and Emma Bull. It appeared in the second volume, The Players of Luck, published in 1986. Wrede included the story in her collection Book of Enchantments and in Points of Departure: Liavek Stories, which collects Wrede and Pamela Dean’s Liavek stories.
Wrede tells a fable with the story of “Rikiki and the Wizard,” a pleasant take on a traditional lesson. Extremely powerful and lucky (for luck is magic in Liavek), the Wizard can never satisfy his need for fame and decides to trade his daughter Ryvenna to any god who will grant him the enduring fame he desires. In his hubris, the Wizard failed to consult with his daughter about this plan, which annoyed the gods, who feel that she should have some say in her own fate, and they agree to ignore his summons.
Rikiki, however, while a god, is also a blue chipmunk, with a short attention span about anything except his quest for nuts. Forgetting the bargain of the gods, Rikiki seeks out the Wizard and asks for nuts. While the Wizard tries to get rid of the chipmunk (causing the creation of the world’s geographic features, the way it happens in fables about gods), his daughter eventually gives Rikiki nuts.
Of course, there are different types of luck and different types of fame and in the end the Wizard gains his fame (although Wrede cleverly never gives him a name), and Ryvenna lives happily ever after.
G. Harry Stine was born on March 26, 1928 and died on November 2, 1997. Most of his short fiction has been published using the pseudonym Lee Correy and he publishes non-fiction using his own name. His novels have appeared with both bylines.
Stine has had a number of science fact articles appear in Analog over the years, as well as several articles in Analog’s “The Alternate View” series. He worked at White Sands Proving Grounds as a civilian scientist in the mid 1950s, and used his expertise to help create the model rocket movement. Stine served in the Citizen’s Advisory Council on National Space Policy, which helped create the Strategic Defense Initiative proposal.
“The Easy Way Out” was published in Analog in April 1966, purchased by John W. Campbell, Jr. and appearing under the byline Lee Correy. Campbell included it in the anthology Analog 6 in 1968 and Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh selected it for their anthology Science Fiction A to Z: A Dictionary of the Great SF Themes in 1982. Its last appearance was in Analog: The Best of Science Fiction, edited by Stanley Schmidt in 1985.
A group of alien invaders visiting Earth are the forerunners to a potential invasion. Part of a large intergalactic empire, their task is to rate the natives of the planet on a variety of indices to determine if an invasion is likely to succeed, although since they state that no planet has ever been bypassed, it isn’t clear what the purpose of the ratings actually is.
