The Cosmic Horror Of William M. Sloane

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Over the last couple of  years, I've gotten more and more interested in the pulp era of science fiction, particularly of the science-horror genre, dominated by the likes of H.P. Lovecraft and his circle of fellow authors. Recently, the New York Review of Books sent me a copy of a very interesting looking omnibus, The Rim of Tomorrow, by William M. Sloane, introducing me to a new author of cosmic horror.

Looking into his background, he seems to have had a fairly minor role in the pulp world, but wrote two very interesting novels, now collected in this book. If Stephen King's raving about it, he did something right.

Read The Cosmic Horror Of William M. Sloane over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

The Metamorphosis of Astounding Science Fiction

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There's few institutions like Astounding Science Fiction or editors like John W. Campbell Jr. Together, they are probably responsible for much of the tone and content of the science fiction genre in its formative years. Thus, during the tumultuous years of the 1960s, the changes to the magazine are an interesting example of how science fiction was changing: shedding one image and adapting, while positioning itself for the future.

The story of how Astounding Science Fiction became Analog Science Fact and Fiction is an interesting one, not only for what they changed, but what they didn't change. I think that the changes and non-changes are part of the reason for why they're still around today.

Go read The Metamorphosis of Astounding Science Fiction over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

  • Transformations: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines, 1950-1970, Mike Ashley. As always, Ashley's work is in depth and detailed, and he provides some good background information on to how and why these changes came about.
  • I, Asimov, Isaac Asimov. Asimov has a couple of interesting words about Campbell towards the end of his life.
  • A Requiem For Astounding, Ava Rogers. This is a fannish book dedicated to the legacy of Astounding, which has some good information about the magazine and its history.
  • Astounding / Analog, Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. As always, there's a wealth of good information at the SFE, about Astounding AND Analog.
  • Analog Website. Analog's own history has some good revelations.

The Early Career of Leslie F. Stone

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There’s been a bit of talk about how women didn’t write SF early on: that wasn’t ever the case. Ignoring some of the earlier female authors such as Mary Shelley, women were reading and writing fiction for SF magazines early on, abeit in smaller numbers than their male counterparts. One such author was Leslie F. Stone, who enjoyed a brief career in the 1930s.

Read up on The Early Career of Leslie F. Stone over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

  • Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction, 1926-1965, Eric Leif Davin. Davin's book is a pretty exhaustive resource when it comes to women writing in the earlier days of science fiction, and he provides some excellent information on Stone here.
  • Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century, Justine Larbalestier, Larbalestier has assembled a really interesting book of short stories and companion essays. Stone gets some good treatment here.
  • Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction, edited by Arthur B. Evans Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Rob Latham, and Carol McGuirk. This is a fantastic anthology, and there's a good biographical sketch here.
  • The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, by Justine Larbalestier. This book is a good examination of feminist SF during the early years.
  • SF Encyclopedia. As always, there's a good examination of the author here.

Catching Up: Orson Scott Card and Margaret Atwood

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I've been a bit behind on updating about Kirkus Reviews posts. I've published two in the last month, one about Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and the other about Margaret Atwood.

Ender's Game is probably one of my favorite genre novels: it's one that I picked up when I was in high school, and I've read it every couple of years since then: it's gotten better with each reading.

Card is a controversial author, to say the least, and while I don't agree at all with him on a bunch of his stances, this is an instance where I've simply had to separate the author and the story from one another. Card himself noted that he attempts to remove any type of monologuing from his books, as his own views won't necessarily make sense in a far-future or speculative environment.

Orson Scott Card's Career-Defining Story, Ender's Game

I read Atwood's Handmaiden's Tale a while back, and it's still a haunting book: enormously relevant today, it's probably one of the better dystopian novels that I've picked up. I've picked up a number of her short stories, but I haven't read her other novels, something that I now feel the need to do.

Atwood also has a curious take on genre fiction, and it formed the basis of my look at her career.

Genre and Margaret Atwood

The Pioneering Clare Winger Harris

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I have a short post up this week at Kirkus Reviews. I've been looking at writing more about some of the women who wrote in the genre, and came across one, Clare Winger Harris, who seems to have been one of the earliest, at least under her own name. There's not much out there about her, but she proves to be a really interesting subject.

Go read The Pioneering Clare Winger Harris over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources

  • Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950, by Mike Ashley. Ashley's books are excellent. A bit pedantic, but great sources for this era of science fiction history. There's some good information here.
  • Partners in Wonder: Women and the birth of science fiction, 1926-1965 by Eric Leif Davin. There's some weird complications with this book, but it's overall a good source to work from. This has some good information on Harris and her career.

Online

  • Clare Winger Harris. This site has a lot of information about Harris. There's no sources, but I've seen enough cross-connections with other places that make me think that it's accurate.
  • Harris, Clare Winger. The SFE has a succinct, useful post.

The Not-So-Typical Adventures of Lois McMaster Bujold

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The idea of genre is a helpful and annoying one: people like to identify where things fit, particularly on bookshelves, but they don't want to be constrained by it. As we've seen over the course of this column, science fiction's character has vastly changed in the centuries of its existence, transforming and splitting into its own little factions over time.

Science Fiction history tends to focus on the transition between Golden Age SF and New Wave SF, but it doesn't really seem to examine how truly complicated the situation was moving into the 1980s and 1990s, where science fiction became an even broader definition than ever before, encompassing new works that were different than what came before.

Particularly, one gets the impression that the New Wave gave way to Cyberpunk and that was it: the truth is more complicated. While it left a large impression, older forms were undergoing their own transformations at the same time. One notable author to look at this with is Lois McMaster Bujold.

Go read The Not-So-Typical Adventures of Lois McMaster Bujold over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

Interestingly, The SF Encyclopedia noted that while Bujold has become a highly popular author, there's not much written about her. That'll change later this fall with a dedicated entry in the Modern Masters of Science Fiction series issued by the University of Illinois Press. In the meantime, I found few entries in my usual references.

John Wyndham and the Global Expansion of Science Fiction

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One of my favorite activities is to browse through used bookstores to see what turns up. I don't buy a lot of new science fiction novels anymore: It's worked out so that most of the books I want to read come to me for reviews (although I still buy my share of new books, usually from several of Vermont's fantastic indie bookstores), but there's something cool about an older paperback. One such recent purchase was a pair of John Wyndham novels, The Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Wakes. They're gorgeous Penguin editions with some outstanding cover art.

One of the larger debates in science fiction that's raged on for decades concerns the definition of the genre. What constitutes science fiction? There's tons of definitions out there, but there's also arguments which attempt to exclude books. I've had people complain about some of my Buzzfeed lists of new books, saying that there's too much 'literary' inclusions. Certainly, recent books such as The Magicians by Lev Grossman, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel and California by Edan Lepucki have their feet in both sides of the argument: authors inspired by genre fiction, but whose works are broadly appealing to mainstream audiences.

Throughout my column with Kirkus Reviews (and a major topic for the book that it's turning into), I've been fascinated by the way science fiction has adapted over time, and how, in an increasingly technological world, elements that used to be confined to genre novels have bleed into mainstream works. Certainly, thrillers from authors like Michael Crichton or Tom Clancy would have been the stuff of genre fiction in 1939, and there's certainly plenty of mainstream fiction novels that deal with genre-like material simply because it's become relevant in this day and age.

I think much of the angst over this comes not from content, but the sense of betrayal for a closed-knit community, for branching out of the genre and into larger, more profitable waters. Science Fiction is fairly insular, with a churning melting pot of science fiction fans and professionals working in close proximity to one another, often from a very early age. Organized fandom is probably not too dissimilar to a cult or religious group, with their own idols, worships and rituals, and where any attempt to modernize or drastically change the makeup is met with open hostility.

Science Fiction has left the community: major films like Star Wars broke those doors open years ago, and if the increasing popularity of shows like Arrow, or The Big Bang Theory, events like San Diego Comic Con or film franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe are any indication, they're not closing anytime soon. Going back to the 1930s/1950s, there's already cracks in the exterior, and John Wyndham proved to be an interesting author to look at when it came to jumping from the science fiction world to that of a larger, mainstream audience.

Go read John Wyndham and the Global Expansion of Science Fiction over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

Print:

  • Transformations: The Story of the Science Fiction Magazines from 1950-1970, Mike Ashley. Ashley has a dedicated couple of pages looking at Wyndham, particularly when it came to the start of British Fandom.
  • Martians, Morlocks and Moon Landings: How British Science Fiction Conquered the World, Jamie Austin. This is a book that recently arrived for me, and they talk quite a bit about Wyndham and his famous work. Science Fiction Writers, Second Edition, edited by Richard Bleiler. There's an excellent biographical thumbnail of Harris in this book.
  • Seekers of Tomorrow: Masters of Modern Science Fiction, Sam Moskowitz. Moskowitz is someone to always take with a grain of salt, but he includes an interesting piece on Wyndham and his works. It's interesting to see his opinions on Harris's stories, as opposed to other genre critics.
  • The Way the Future Was: A Memoir, Frederic Pohl. Pohl mentions Wyndham's sale of Triffids and how it was a landmark sale.
  • Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham / Edmund Morris. Edmund Morris provides an excellent contextual introduction in this 2003 edition of the novel.

Online:

  • John Wyndham & H G Wells, Christopher Priest. Priest has some interesting things to say about Wyndham and Wells.
  • Wyndham, John. The SFE has a good overview of Harris's career and his place in genre history.

The Very Amusing Douglas Adams

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I remember the moment very clearly: I was with my friend Erica at a writer's conference in 2001, when we learned that Douglas Adams had passed away. It was the first time I was really struck that an author I enjoyed would no longer write something, and we both commiserated over the book that really really loved: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I read this book a number of times over the years, and I've always been struck at how *funny* it is. It's remained so in that time, and one of the things I was later surprised at was how the book came to be. It's alternatively been a radio show, audio drama, novel, television series and movie, and remained ridiculously popular throughout the whole time. I'll even admit that I enjoyed the filmed version.

Go read The Very Amusing Douglas Adams over on Kirkus Reviews:

Sources:

  • The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Complete and Unabridged by Douglas Adams. I don't know what happened to my original paperback copy, but my wife owns the omnibus edition, which has a very good introduction by Adams, which provides some good details about how the story came to be.
  • Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion by Neil Gaiman. Interestingly, Neil Gaiman wrote a guide to Hitchhiker's Guide. This isn't a great source most of the time: Gaiman assumes that you've read other texts, such as Webb's biography, and there's a weird apologetic "This has been covered elsewhere" attitude throughout some of it, but there's some interesting details that come out about the creative process.
  • Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams by Nick Webb. Nick Webb, who originally commission the novel, wrote the official biography after Adams' death, and it's full of details, interesting facts about Adams' life.

A. Merritt and Plausible Science Fiction

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Last column, I wrote about Jack Williamson, and in doing so, I came across another name frequently: A. Merritt. Merritt was an pulp author in the early days of science fiction, and was highly influential to a number of other authors. His career as a journalist and his numerous short stories helped to reinforce some of the character of science fiction: he helped to establish speculative fiction as a genre, not through his imagination, but through his presentation of his characters and scenarios. This is a distinction that I feel is important: it's a characteristic that most science fiction stories hold to.

Plus, I love that cover up above. It's wonderful.

Read A. Merritt and Plausible Science Fiction over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

  • Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950, Mike Ashley. Ashley has some good contextual information here, and Merritt shows up a couple of times.
  • Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction, 1926-1965, Eric Leif Davin. Merritt shows up a couple of times here, as he was influenced heavily by Francis Stevens.
  • A. Merritt: Reflections in the Moon Pool, Sam Moskowitz. This is a longer biography of Merritt's life, authored by genre historian Sam Moskowitz. There's historiographic issues with Moskowitz's writing (he rarely cites sources and relies on ancedotes), but there seems to be some decent information here, as well as some good commentary.
  • Merritt, A. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction has some good information here about Merritt's life and career.

Jack Williamson's Space Operas

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Space Opera is a genre near and dear to my heart, and as I've written for Kirkus Reviews, it's clear that space opera is one of the genres that's been a central focus of science fiction: the idea of travelling through space and visiting new worlds is a particularly interesting one. Space Opera has changed over time, and one of the authors responsible for setting up some modern styling of it is Jack Williamson, who enjoyed a particularly long career as an author.

Go read Jack Williamson's Space Operas over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

  • Science Fiction Writers, Robert Belier. There's an excellent biographical sketch here in this book.
  • Space Opera Renaissance, edited by Katheryn Cramer and David G. Hartwell. Hartwell and Cramer have a good overview of the history of Space Opera in their anthology, and Williamson has some pointed remarks in it.
  • The History of Science Fiction, by Adam Roberts. Roberts has some good comments about Williamson's place in genre history, as well as some of the other authors writing around that point in time.
  • Williamson, Jack. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction likewise has some good contextual information on Williamson and his career.

Captain Video and his Science Fiction Authors

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While I've written about books and magazines for this column, there's other mediums where science fiction lives: television and film. I haven't talked about that much for the column (given that Kirkus Reviews is primarily a book magazine), but there's some fascinating times when they've crossed over. One such case is one of the first science fiction television shows, which caught my interest based on the authors who wrote for it: Asimov, Clarke, Vance, and others. The show was Captain Video and his Video Rangers, and it's a neat program that forms a solid branch from the literature world to the television world, helping to bring about other major television shows that followed.

As a bonus, there's several episodes online:

[archiveorg id=captainvideo width=640 height=480] Go read Captain Video and his Science Fiction Authors over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

  • The World of Science Fiction, 1926-1976: The History of the Subculture, Lester Del Rey. Del Rey mentions this show in passing, and how it related to the early TV world at the time.
  • The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World,
  • Thomas M. Disch. Disch also mentions this in passing, and notes that it's a forerunner to some of the early TV shows.
  • Arthur C. Clarke: The Authorized Biography, by Neil McAleer. There's some great quotes in here from Clarke's experience working on the show, as well as quotes from the producer, Druce.
  • Hugo Gernsback: A Man Well Ahead of His Time, edited by Larry Steckler. This fannish (read, meh) biography of Gernsback provides some good context for SF as a technological phenomenon.
  • The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television, David Weinstein. This book has some fantastic information about the DuMont network and particularly, some great details about the TV show and the behind the scenes work, although not much about the authors.

Online:

The Trickle-Down Effect of Genre Bookselling

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My latest column on Kirkus Reviews combines a couple of things that I've been looking to talk about for a while now: how did major changes in the bookselling industry change how books were being written and sold to publishers?

There was a bit of a convergence of topics here. Last week, I looked at the rise of paperback publishing and how that impacted the SF world. This week was a bit of an extension of that, looking at the effects of a paperback boom on authors. At the same time, there were a number of other things happening in the bookselling world: bookstores were rapidly changing as major chain stores rose out of suburban shopping malls, while the paperback boom ended, killing a lot of careers.

Some of this has some particular interest for me, because I used to work at a Waldenbooks in college, and ended up getting laid off when Borders went under.

Paradoxically, we see some of the genre's best known authors doing exceptionally well for themselves as the 1980s progressed: authors such as Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert and Arthur C. Clarke each made millions on their new books, due in part to the way books were sold in the new stores.

Go read The Trickle-Down Effect of Genre Bookselling over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

  • I, Asimov: A Memoir, Isaac Asimov. Asimov recounts how Foundation's Edge came about, with an encouragement from his publisher to write a new novel in the series.
  • The World of Science Fiction, 1926-1976: The History of a Subculture, Lester Del Rey. Del Rey talks a little about the late 1970s here, which was helpful for this piece.
  • Dreamer of Dune: The Biography of Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert. Brian Herbert recounts how his father was talked into writing more Dune novels.
  • Arthur C. Clarke: The Authorized Biography, Neil McAleer. McAleer talks about how Clarke was talked into writing a sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  • Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption, Laura J. Miller. Miller's book is a very interesting look at the history of publishing, and has a chapter that was very helpful here.
  • Robert A. Heinlein: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948-1988, William H. Patterson Jr. Patterson talks about how Heinlein's books sold in high numbers during this period, but also specifically how they sold in chain stores.
  • Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century, by John B. Thompson. This book contains a lot of information on the nature of the bookselling business, particularly towards the rise of chain stores.

Thanks are due as well once again to Betsy Wollheim and David Hartwell, who answered several of my questions.

The Rise of the Paperback Novel

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My latest post is up on Kirkus Reviews, this time pulling back from the trenches and looking at what my boss calls the 20,000 foot strategic picture. Throughout the column, I've largely looked at authors who've shifted the genre from point to point, but over time, I've started getting interested in the larger forces at play: the publishers and reading habits of Americans. As I work towards putting these columns towards a book, I've begun looking at some of the other influences outside of the arts world that have shaped SF.

One notable example of this is the actual medium in which people are reading. SF is a neat example of this, going from Dime Store novel to pulp magazine to mass market paperback / hardcover book, and now, to eBooks.

A while back, I went to a talk where the speakers described government and rules as the sort of software that makes society run in a particular way: in many ways, it's a technology in and of itself. By the same token, these invisible systems that we construct - logistics, education, and science, are examples of this sort of technology: it's not just the gadgets that we construct, but the way we make people live in a society that isn't a hunter-gatherer one.

The paperback novel is one example of a technological innovation that really changed a lot in the publishing world: it not only changed how people began to read stories, but how they were produced in the first place. Authors had to shift their habits, but also the very types of stories which they had begun to write. Thus, the science fiction of the 1930s is vastly different in style, structure and content than that of the 1970s. It's an interesting thing to examine.

This is the first part of two columns: the next is going to look at another major element that we might not think of often when it comes to the writing of books: chain and super bookstores.

Go Read The Rise of the Paperback Novel over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

  • Two-Bit Culture: The Paperbacking of America, Kenneth C. Davis. This is *the* book to read if you want to read about how paperback books came into being, in a great amount of detail. This is an excellent read, although my copy has been falling apart.
  • The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Publishers, Their Editors and Authors, Al Silverman. This is a memoir from a major publisher, and he provides some interesting details into the workings of that world.
  • Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century, Second Edition, John B. Thompson. This is a new-ish book on the publishing industry, and it provided some excellent overviews on the broad history of the book and how it has been sold.

Web:

Huge thanks for Betsy Wollheim and David G. Hartwell for their input.

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars

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Throughout my years of stalking the science fiction shelves of bookstores and libraries, there's been a trilogy of books that's always caught my eyes, but which I never quite picked up to read. They were Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, with its distinctive covers which matched the titles of the books. I had attempted to get into Red Mars over the years, but never got very far.

A couple of years ago, I picked up 2312 and found myself engrossed in Robinson's world and vision of the future. At some point after that, I actually met him when he attended a conference in Massachusetts, where he kindly signed a couple of his books for me. Since then, I've started re-reading Red Mars, and actually getting into it a bit more.

Robinson's works fly in the face of what a lot of science fiction seems to revel in: it's optimistic, and isn't extrapolatory; that is, taking a darker version of the present day and transplanting it into the future. He's built fantastic worlds that feel all the more plausible and relevant today than that of most of his colleagues.

Go read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

  • The History of Science Fiction, Adam Roberts. Roberts has a short section on Robinson's works, particularly related to the Mars trilogy.
  • The Sci-Fi Chronicles: A Visual History of the Galaxy's Greatest Science Fiction, edited by Guy Haley. Haley has a page devoted to the Mars trilogy in this book.
  • Science Fiction Writers, Second Edition, Richard Bleiler. There is a fantastic critical examination of Robinson's life and works in this book.

Web:

Additionally, many thanks to Kim Stanley Robinson himself for agreeing to answer my questions. We had an excellent discussion, which I'll post up later. I can attest that he's probably the nicest guy in the solar system.

 

The Culture of Iain M. Banks

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Last year, I was shocked to read that Iain M. Banks announced that he had cancer and was going to die within months. I had first come across him when I picked up Consider Phlebas, and several of its sequels when my Waldenbooks shut down and liquidated its stock: his books were amongst the first that I grabbed and stuck in the backroom to hold while we waited for the store to close. I really enjoyed the novel, although I've yet to really pick up any of the others. I was facinated by the depth and breadth of the Culture.

Banks plays a critical role in the resurgence of space opera in England, leading a number of other well-known authors such as Alastair Reynolds, Peter Hamilton, Stephen Baxter and others around the 1990s. Space opera is a type of story that's not been well recieved, and Banks sort of bridges the gap between authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and C.J. Cherryh and those such as James S.A. Corey.

I have a growing stack of Culture novels that I've picked up over the years, and I look forward to digging through them. After Banks passed away in 2013, I think it's best to savor them.

Go read The Culture of Iain M. Banks over on Kirkus Reviews.

Print:

  • Trillion Year Spree, Brian Aldiss. Aldiss speaks about Banks briefly, as his career was just starting up.
  • SciFi Chronicles, Guy Haley. Haley's book has a page about Banks and his works. This is a neat book, and while it's not terribly scholarly or anything, it provides a LOT of information to work with.
  • The Space Opera Renaissance, edited by Kathryn Cramer and David G. Hartwell. Cramer/Hartwell have a fantastic introduction to Banks' short story in this fiction anthology and a look at the evolution of Space Opera as a whole. Banks is noted as someone who brought a new resurgence to the genre in the late 80s/90s.
  • Science Fiction, Roger Luckhurst. Luckhurst speaks about Banks and his works in some critical detail.
  • The History of Science Fiction, Adam Roberts. Roberts devotes some space to Banks, placing him in context with a greater SF movement in English space opera.

Online Sources:

This was probably the first time I found a lot of online sources, commentary and interviews with one of my subjects. Here's where I went for information:

I'd also like to throw out a huge thanks to Ken MacLeod, who agreed to speak with me about Banks and his life. I'll put the interview up in a bit.

The Worlds of C.J. Cherryh

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C.J. Cherryh is an author that I've come across quite a lot, but was never one that I really ever got into. Recently, I've become more interested in her books, particularly Downbelow Station, which prompted me to take a look at her career. It's a facinating one that pulls in some of the legacies of her predecessors (such as Robert Heinlein and similar), and newer innovations that made her career different than that of her predecessors: she was primarily a novelist, rather than someone who started in the pulp magazines.

Go read The Worlds of C.J. Cherryh over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

  • Science Fiction Writers Second Edition, Richard Bleiler. This volume has a solid biographical sketch of Cherryh.
  • Science Fiction Culture, Camille Bacon-Smith. Bacon-Smith's book had some excellent insights into the work of women during the 1980s which I used for the Russ piece, and it once again came in handy this time.
  • The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World, Thomas Disch. Disch has some interesting things to say about how genre fiction changed with female authors being influenced by one another.
  • Science Fiction after 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars, Brooks Landon. Brooks has some good points about genre placement.
  • The Faces of Science Fiction: Intimate Portraits of the men and women who shape the way we see the future, Patti Perret. Perret has a photograph and paragraph from Cherryh, which I found particularly helpful.
  • The History of Science Fiction, Adam Roberts. Roberts has a solid, critical section on Cherryh's works.

Online sources:

 

Many thanks as well to Cherryh herself, who kindly answered some of my questions. I'll post that up at some point.

The Radical Joanna Russ

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Joanna Russ wasn't an author I came across when I first came across science fiction: she was someone that I slowly became aware of more recently, when I started working at this on a more professional and critical level. Part of this came from friends who were interested and researching her, and over the last couple of years, I've gained an appreciation for the few works that I have read.

What I find most interesting is her relationship with the genre: many of the arguments she put forward back in the 1960s/70s/80s still hold true today, and if anything, they're even more relevant. For me, Russ makes a lot of sense, and her arguments not only apply towards better representations of men and women in science fiction, but make an excellent argument for simple innovation in writing science fiction. I can see why she was frustrated, and why she was angry.

Go read The Radical Joanna Russ over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

  • Science Fiction Culture, Camille Bacon-Smith. This is a book that I think I need to pick up for my own library at some point: it's a very interesting survey of SF literature.
  • Science Fiction Writers, Second Edition, Richard Bleiler. Solid biographical sketch of Russ here. The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Essays on Science Fiction, Samuel R. Delany. Delany has a short essay on Russ's Alyx stories, and it's a good one.
  • The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World, Thomas Disch. My feelings on Disch's book is complicated: it feels a bit argumentative at points, but he has some interesting insights into Russ fit with other contemporaries during the 1970s.
  • Across The Wounded Galaxies: Interviews with Contemporary American Science Fiction Writers, Larry McCaffery. McCaffery has an excellent oral history interview with Russ, which provided me with a wealth of information, but some good ways to look at science fiction as well.
  • We Wuz Pushed: On Joanna Russ and Radical Truth-Telling, Brit Mandelo. Brit's a friend of mine, and I've been wanting to read this for a while now. She's become a good expert on Russ through this book and her column on Tor.com.
  • The History of Science Fiction, Adam Roberts. Roberts devotes a good amount of space to Russ in this book, placing her in some good context with her peers.
  • NY Times Obituary: This obit has a number of good, critical details of Russ's life.
  • Joanna Russ Biography: This was particularly helpful figuring out where she worked, year to year.
  • Russ, Joanna: Clute has a short, insightful biographical sketch of Russ here.
  • Joanna Russ (1937-2011): Locus's obituary, which provided some minor details.

The Slow Unveiling of James Tiptree Jr.

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Science Fiction publishing is full of strange characters, but there's one story that seems to really capture people's attention consistently: James Tiptree Jr., a brilliant figure who seemed to appear out of nowhere, earn a number of awards, and maintained a fairly elusive personality in science fiction circles. It wasn't until a decade of writing that it was revealed that Tiptree wasn't actually a guy: it was a woman named Alice Sheldon, with an utterly fascinating background: she had traveled the world, participated in the Second World War, worked for the CIA and had a PhD.

Sheldon proves to be an interesting figure, challenging a number of preconceptions for gender in science fiction (not just with her alter ego). What's interesting about Sheldon is that she endured and wrote about a number of the same issues that we seem to face in science fiction right now: how are women represented in fiction and how are female authors treated differently than their male counterparts? Sheldon's story is illuminating when it comes to this.

This post comes at a sort of weird time, as blogger Requires Hate was revealed as Benjanun Sriduangkaew: The revelation comes as one personality is drastically different from that of the other, and there's been a lot of discussion around that topic. The Tiptree/Sheldon situation is vastly different, but it is interesting to see just how people use pen names. There's a number of women who have resorted to the practice: C.L. Moore, Andre Norton and others, with each rationalizing their use differently. Moore, for example, was worried about her employer finding out and firing her (he wasn't a fan of the pulp magazines). Sheldon wanted to compartmentalize her professional academic and writing lives. Others wanted to make sure that they were actually considered for publication - for good reason.

Go read The Slow Unveiling of James Tiptree Jr. over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

  • Transformations: The Story of Science Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970, Mike Ashley: Ashley has a couple of insights into Tiptree's early stories.
  • Gateways to Forever: The Story of Science-Fiction Magazines from 1970-1980. Ashley devotes more space to Tiptree in this volume.
  • Decoding Gender in Science Fiction, Brian Attebery. Tiptree pops up quite a bit in here, with some good analysis on his stories.
  • Science Fiction Writers, Second Edition, Richard Bleiler. There's a pretty comprehensive biographical sketch of Tiptree in this book.
  • Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction 1926-1965, by Eric Leif Davin: This book is a detailed study of women in science fiction, but largely before Tiptree's entry into the genre. However, Tiptree pops up quite a bit.
  • Reload: Rethinking Women + Cyberculture, edited by Mary Flanagan + Austin Booth.  This mixed fiction and critical theory anthology has one of Tiptree's stories in it: The Girl Who Was Plugged In, which is a fantastic read.
  • Sci-Fi Chronicles: A Visual History of the Galaxy's Greatest Science Fiction, Guy Haley. Alice Sheldon has a great entry in this neat book.
  • The Battle Of The Sexes in Science Fiction, Justine Larbalestier: Larbalestier looks at a number of Tiptree's prominent stories.
  • Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century, Justine Larbalestier. Larbalestier edits this volume, and it has one of Tiptree's stories (And I Awoke and Found Me Here On The Cold Hillside), along with some analysis by Wendy Pearson.
  • Across the Wounded Galaxies: Interviews with Contemporary American Science Fiction Writers, Larry McCaffery. Tiptree/Sheldon doesn't have an interview in here, but there is a good interview with Joanna Russ, who provides some good contextual information.
  • James Tiptree Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, Julie Philips: This is the definitive biography of Sheldon and her personal. My post is a pale reflection of what's in this book, and I highly recommend this detailed, interesting and outstanding biography.
  • The History of Science Fiction, Adam Roberts: Roberts devotes some good details about Tiptree's place in the SF genre.

Joe Haldeman's Forever War

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When I was in High School, I devoured Ender's Game and Starship Troopers, but it wasn't until I'd left graduate school that someone forced me to read The Forever War. When I did, I sort of missed the point of the book, and going back to it recently with this research, I'm finding that it's a book that's growing for me each time I read it. It's certainly one of the best SF novels that I've ever read.

I've interviewed Joe several times already, and we included him in War Stories, with his story Graves leading off the TOC. Going back and looking at how his book was written has been something I've wanted to do for a while now, and after writing up this column, I have to say, I need to give the book another read to fully appreciate it, I think.

Go read Joe Haldeman's Forever War over on Kirkus Reviews.

  • Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction, Brian Aldiss. Aldiss has some interesting points to make here about TFW and its placement in genre literature.
  • Gateways to Forever: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1970 to 1980, Mike Ashley. Ashley notes where Haldeman began writing and where he was able to first publish his stories.
  • Science Fiction Writers Second Edition, Richard Bleiler. Blieler has a good biographical sketch of Haldeman in this edition.
  • The Forever War, Joe Haldeman. Haldeman himself has some things to say about his own book. My 1991 edition has a good author forward.
  • Sci-Fi Chronicles: A Visual History of the Galaxy's Greatest Science Fiction, Guy Haley. This recently released book isn't terribly academic, but it has a page devoted to Haldeman (written by Damien Walter). Overall, it's a really neat, (dense) book with a TON of material. Good for flipping through.
  • Survey of Science Fiction Literature, vol 2, Frank Magill. Magill has a solid review of TFW in volume 2.
  • Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, Vol. 2- The Man Who Learned Better, 1948-1988, William H. Patterson Jr. Patterson talks about Heinlein's interactions with Haldeman in 1975 here.
  • Fights of Fancy: Armed Conflict in Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by George Slusser and Eric Rabkin. There's a fantastic essay from Haldeman called Vietnam and other Alien Worlds, which is well worth reading. (Here's a good source online.

Online Sources:

  • Interim Report: An Autobiographical Ramble by Joe Haldeman. This is a fantastic autobiography from Joe, which provides some extremely helpful details about his life.
  • Many, many thanks to Joe Haldeman himself, who agreed to be interviewed for this. I'll post up our conversation at some point in the near future.

Interview with Larry Niven

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A while ago, I wrote about Larry Niven and his novel Ringworld for Kirkus Reviews. In doing so, I interviewed Mr. Niven, and he was kind enough to answer my questions about the genesis of the book. Here's our conversation:

Andrew Liptak: You're well known for your 'Known Space' stories. What prompted you to link them together as you wrote, and how did this affect the stories as you wrote them?

Larry Niven: Heinlein and Anderson and others had done linked stories. It seemed an obvious labor-saving move. Equally obvious: if the story idea didn’t fit my universe, build another for it.

Often the effect was that a story written for its own sake generated more stories.

Lately the various series are generating stories in other minds. AL: How did you come to open up Known Space to other authors?

LN: James Patrick Baen suggested doing that. I told him that Known Space was mine and I wouldn’t share. Five minutes later I was saying, “We could open up the Man-Kzin Wars. I don’t do war stories.” It all derived from that: fifteen volumes of the Kzinti, and then five written with Ed Lerner.

AL: Ringworld is arguably one of your best known novels: what can you tell me about how this story was conceived and written? What was the writing, submission and publication process like?

LN: I was gearing up to terminate the Known Space series when I thought of Ringworld. I think I did the obvious but at this late date I’m no longer sure. The obvious: take the equator out of a ping-pong-ball Dyson sphere—the only useful part—spin it up and terraform the inside.

I was visiting bibliophiles when I borrowed a text and got the formula for spin gravity. Otherwise I’d have used bad math to write bad scenery.

I was at Madiera Beach at the Knights’ writers conference, when I thought of the Eye Storm. I tried to describe it to Betty Ballantine. Maybe it got through.

I wrote the ending as quick as I could. It felt like the book was getting huge. That cover was done from my sketch, but by someone who just didn’t get it. I’ve seen much better Ringworld illos since.

AL: How did your background in mathematics help you with writing and describing the book and Ringworld?

LN: I don’t think the math helped as much as the mathematician’s way of thinking. Building logic towers from premises wrung out of thin air. Mathematics is a game.

AL: Ringworld won the Hugo and Nebula in 1971, Ditmar in 1972 and placed 1st in the Locus poll that year: what was the winning streak like for you?

LN: Unique. I haven’t won a Hugo since 1976. I only won the one Nebula. You should know that I worried about Ringworld. I was afraid it would be laughed off the stage.

AL: What do you think appealed to readers for such a reaction for the book?

LN: The Ringworld is a wonderful mental plaything. THE INTEGRAL TREES is better science fiction, but it’s not as easy to play with the ideas.

AL: You note in your introduction that you never planned to continue the Ringworld story, but fans prompted you do continue. How did you go about putting together Ringworld Engineers from there?

LN: It kind of shaped itself. Beginnings are difficult; I started Louis Wu at the bottom of a lost career, the opposite of Ringworld. I’d been ignoring the hominid races; I began building them. It ran from there.

AL: Do you have any future plans for Ringworld?

LN: No.

AL: Your novels are considered to be 'Hard Science Fiction', and I've heard stories about your first published story, Coldest Place in reaction to that (regarding Mercury). Who were your influences when it came to writing in this particular style?

LN: “Hard” science fiction was pretty soft when I started writing. FTL, psi powers, teleportation and many other notions were fair game. These days I try to hew closer to what we think we know. My influences were Poul Anderson, Jack Vance, Arthur C. Clarke, Fritz Leiber…all the greats of that era.

AL: Were there any real-world influences (such as the space race) on Ringworld or the Known Space books? How do you think the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo missions impacted Science Fiction as a genre?

LN: I was pretty ignorant of the facts of daily life, politics, history. I didn’t get into those matters until I started collaborating. So reality didn’t have much effect on my writing early on.

AL: What can you tell me about the Galaxy Magazine pro/anti war ad?

LN: They made me decide. I chose to win a war we were already fighting. The truth may be more complicated, but they wouldn’t let me sit it out.

AL: Can you tell me a little more about this? Who made you decide, the magazine? What was their motivations for placing such an ad?

LN: Damon and Kate Wilhelm Knight gathered writers to a mutual criticism circle, once a year. One year they invited the conservatives to stay out while their like minded colleagues formed that first list advising an end to the Vietnam War. I did not appreciate being treated so, and when Poul shaped a counterattack, I joined it.

AL: What was your relationship with the Dangerous Visions anthology? (Aside from publishing a story in it - I saw that you were thanked in the acknowledgements).

LN: I loaned Harlan money. (It was paid back.) And I wrote an early story.

AL: Ringworlds have become popularized artifacts in science fiction: are you pleased to see this idea take off? Where did the idea of a Ringworld come from?

LN: Sure I’m pleased to have influenced the field, that way and others. Sometime the whole field looks like an ongoing conversation covering centuries.

The Ringworld derives from Dyson (Dyson sphere) via SF writers (who took it for a ping pong ball 93,000,000 miles in radius, with a star at the center) to the notion that you can’t have gravity generators, so you have to spin the thing, but now the air and water all cover just the equator…

AL: Are we ever going to see an adaptation of Ringworld on the big or small screen? I saw that SyFy had announced it last year, almost a decade after they originally announced it.

LN: SyFy has cancelled again.

AL: That’s a shame. Do you hope to see an adaptation made?

LN: I might not live that long.

AL: There's a critical essay out there that compares Ringworld to The Wizard of Oz. Are these comparisons accurate or intended? Was Oz an influence for you?

LN: That critic convinced me completely. Yes, I loved the OZ books when I was in grade school, but I didn’t realize I was using the plot line. It just felt right.

AL: When did you first come across science fiction? Why have you remained a reader and writer in the genre?

LN: First there were fair tales (including the OZ books.) Then, Heinlein and a bunch of other writers of juveniles.

AL: Were you a magazine fan at all, or part of Fandom before you became a writer? If so, where there any authors that were a particular influence, stylistically?

LN: I was a magazine and anthology fan, but I’d barely heard of Fandom. When I knew I wanted to become a pro writer, I tracked them down.

AL: A friend of mine who's working on her PhD in soil ecology has two questions: In Bowl of Heaven, human intentions and behavior are misunderstood by the other sentient creatures they encounter, leading to conflict that could have been avoided if both species better understood one another. Do you think this also happens here on Earth, and if so, what implications does it have for efforts to preserve ecosystems and biodiversity? How could environmentalists and policy-makers benefit from reading Bowl of Heaven? How could the ideas explored in Bowl of Heaven help set research agendas for scientists studying animal behavior?

LN: Misunderstandings have caused conflicts through the ages, but less often today. Communications are better. Today conflict arises from real differences. Biodiversity and ecosystems should be preserved…but won’t be until someone can make that economically feasible.

Reading Bowl of Heaven will make smart people smarter. The lessons are in there. Research agendas in animal behavior? I’m not sure. Ask Greg Benford.

 

There's been others championing Ringworld - Lev Grossman recently published a great look over at Time.