Visions of Paradise #168 Contents Out of The Depths.............................................................................................page 2 Hugo Observations ... Too many books, too little time The Passing Scene..............................................................................................page 5 August 2011 Wondrous Stories ..............................................................................................page 8 Dreamsongs, Vol. 2 ... Stories of Your Life Under Heaven ... Midnight in Paris Listmania ..............................................................................................................page 15 Sidewise Awards On the Lighter Side...........................................................................................page 16 Robert Kennedy _\\|//_ ( 0_0 ) ______________o00__(_)__00o____________ Edited and published by Bob Sabella
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Copyright ©August, 2011 by Gradient Press
Artwork: Marc Schirmeister ... cover / Bill Rotsler ... page 14
Out of the Depths Some observations on the Hugo Awards: Rather than make subjective qualitative comments on whether I agree with the recent Hugo Awards, I would like to discuss the 13 categories which lend themselves to repeat winners. Best Novel: Connie Willis for Blackout / All Clear: This is Connie’s 11th Hugo Award, 4 more than any other writers. She is obviously very popular among Hugo voters, but does this large number of Hugo Awards indicate that she is the greatest living sf writer? Or has she been partly rewarded for her entertaining personality and popularity among worldon attendees?
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Best Novella: Ted Chiang for “The Lifestyle of Software Objects”: This is his 4th Hugo Award, 3 of which have come in the past 4 years. Either he is peaking as a writer, or is merely on a popularity roll such as Michael Swanwick was from 1998-2003 when he won 5 Hugo Awards in 6 years. Best Novelette: Allen M. Steele for “The Emperor of Mars”: This is his 3rd Hugo Award, the last one coming in 1997. His other two awards were both in the Best Novella category. Best Short Story: Mary Robinette Kowal for “For Want of a Nail”: This is her first Hugo Award, making her the token new winner in the fiction categories. She previously won the Campbell Award in 2007 and had another Hugo nomination in 2008. The winning story actually tied for last in the number of nominations received, getting less than half of Peter Watts’ “The Thing,” which it beat handily for the award. Best Graphic Story: Girl Genius 10, by Phil & Kaja Folio: This is their 3rd consecutive win in this category, all the years of its existence. I was glad to see they did the polite thing and withdrew from consideration next year. Best Dramatic Presentation - Short Form: Dr. Who. This show has won the award 5 of the past 6 years, only losing one year to a sing-along blog, of all things. Dr. Who also dominates the nominations, having had 8 nominees in this category the past 3 years. Does this dominance speak for the quality of Dr. Who or the lack of quality of the rest of televised f&sf? Best Professional Editor - Long Form: Lou Anders. This is his first award in a category which previously went to David G. Hartwell and Patrick Leslie Nielson twice each, both of whom declined nominations this year. This was a close vote between Anders and Ginjer Buchanon. Best Professional Editor - Short Form: Sheila Williams. The is the 19th time the editor of Asimov’s has won a Hugo Award, Shawna McCarthy once, George Scithers twice, Gardner Dozois 15 times, and this first win for Williams. A prozine is only as good as its editor and, at least in the eyes of the Hugo voters, Asimov’s has been very fortunate with its editors. Best Professional Artist: Shaun Tan. After a considerable amount of publicity the past year, including an Oscar, Tan managed to squeak out a victory over Daniel Dos Santos. Previously this award was won 13 times by Michael Whelan, 10 times by Kelly Freas and 8 times by Bob Eggleton. Three of the last four years it was won by Donato Giancola. Best SemiProzine: Clarkesworld. For years fans have complained about the dominance of Locus in this category, but for the last three years the award has been won by fiction zines: Weird Tales in 2009 and Clarkesworld the past two years. The latter winner is exclusively online, which might be more indicative of the future of this category than the fact that the winners have published fiction. Clarkesworld was actually trailing in the voting until Lightspeed, another online fiction zine, dropped out and its voters mostly favored Clarkesworld over Locus. VoP #168 / page 3
Best Fanzine: The Drink Tank. This is probably the most consistently-published fanzine, having had nearly 300 issues since its inception in 2005. The winner and its editor Chris Garcia (and if you haven’t seen his acceptance speech online, do so immediately!) have paid their fannish dues, having had 8 prior nominations before winning this year. Although Drink Tank is the third consecutive online winner, it is a much more traditional fanzine than last year’s podcast zine StarshipSofa which offended so many people that there has been a movement to ban such zines from this category. It was beaten handily by Drink Tank in this year’s voting. Best Fan Writer: Claire Brialey. Another winner who has paid her fannish dues, having had 8 prior nominations before winning this year in a close vote over Steven H. Silver. This category has been dominated in the past by a small handful of fanwriters, such as Richard E. Geis (7 awards), Dave Langford (21 awards) and Mike Glyer (3 awards), before going to two professional writers for their blogging 2 of the past 3 years (John Scalzi and Frederik Pohl). Best Fan Artist: Brad Foster. Like Fan Writer, this category tends to go to a few repeat winners, such as Tim Kirk (5 times), Alex Gilliland, Bill Rotsler, Teddy Harvia and Frank Wu (4 times each). But Brad Foster is the most popular winner with his 7th award spread over a 25 year period, designating him as one of the best fan artists ever. This category was the closest vote of all, with Foster winning by a single vote over Randall Munroe, in spite of the latter barely making the final ballot by a single vote. Overall, 6 of the 13 winners–Mary Robinette Kowal , Lou Anders, Sheila Williams, Shaun Tan, Claire Brialey and The Drink Tank–are first-timers, which is an unusually-high number for recent Hugo Awards. Next year is guaranteed to have at least one more newbie with the Foglios withdrawing from their category. Perhaps Connie Willis will not publish any stories this entire year, opening the door for other winners in the fiction categories as well. (Please don’t send me hate mail if you believe Connie Willis is the greatest writer in the history of science fiction. My reply to that is simple: sorry, she’s not.) * Recently at the cocktail hour of a wedding, somebody recommended the book version of A Beautiful Mind to me. It was a biography of Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash and the basis of the movie by Ron Howard which starred Russell Crowe. When I went home, I added the book to my Recommended Reading list, then immediately I began laughing. I actually have 8 recommended reading lists, by categories, and I decided to tally the totals in each category. Here are the totals: Science Fiction
296
Fantasy
123
Historical Fiction
366
Nonfiction
193
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Series books - Fantasy
127
Series books - Historical Fiction
248
Series books - Science Fiction
296
Graphic Novels
35
Total recommendations
1,684
That is a heck of a lot of books to buy and read, especially when you consider how many books I have already bought and not yet read: Fiction
415
Nonfiction
118
Total books to read
533
I am currently reading books at about a rate of approximately one book per week. So for me to read all my current books, then buy and read all my recommended books (assuming no other books join the wish list, a vast stretch of the imagination) would take me approximately 42 years. That is highly unlikely to happen. Too many books, too little time. *sigh* z
The Passing Scene Aug 12 - 17: We went to the Chinese buffet for my birthday dinner with Alan and Denise, after which we discussed travel plans for the next two months. We decided to go camping in midSeptember, but are still deciding between Old Forge in the Adirondacks or somewhere in the Finger Lakes. Jean and I have been cleaning out 32 years’ worth of accumulated stuff in the basement. Nearby Vasa Park–a Scandinavian community consisting mostly of summer cottages from when Budd Lake was a resort area for people from New York City–recently had a “green” fair, so we took 7 large boxes filled with papers, mostly financial and medical records dating as far back as 1979, and had them all shredded. We have already donated our old tent, but still want to get rid of such items as our old car carrier, a glass-top table which one of Andy’s friends left in our basement, and several old monitors, keyboards, and boxes of college texts, both Andy’s and Fei Fei’s. Two weddings. Both weddings were in New York, about 90 minutes away. Friday 6/5 was my cousin Dina’s wedding. She is the oldest daughter of my cousin Will, Rita’s younger brother. We VoP #168 / page 5
sat with my brothers and their wives, a rare chance for the 8 of us to catch up on our lives as a group. Friday 6/12 was Briane’s wedding. She is a young math teacher, one of my protegees whom I treated just like my students (which is a good thing). I hand-picked her to take over my Honors Algebra 2 class, and she’s been doing a fine job with it. Her wedding was fun–and the food was terrific. We picked up my brother David in mid-afternoon (since his wife Karen is working many hours due to the Verizen strike and could not attend the wedding) and another math teacher Megan on the way to the 4:00 ceremony. The reception was at 7:00, so we spent the time inbetween with several teachers who had booked a nearby hotel room overnight. A rash of socializing. I ate three meals in a row 8/16 - 8/17 with friends, and enjoyed everyone of them. It began Tuesday 8/16 when I met Leslie and Meghan (both class of 2002) for lunch at a diner. I ate a huge portabella mushroom, cheese and veggie hoagie with caesar salad. My first memory of Leslie is when she showed up in the Math Lab as a freshman who had just arrived from China and was misplaced by the guidance department into the wrong math class (which happened much more than you can imagine; one of my jobs as lead teacher was trying to assure that ESL students were placed properly rather than waste their first year or two of math). She became one of my finest independent study students ever, and is now a high school math teacher (apparently I did something right!). Meghan was part of an AP Calc class whose boys spent more time in the math lab than any group of boys I ever had, including Kevin, Vincent, Winston, Andrew and Tony. I have stayed in touch with several of them over the years. When I got home, Jean and I went out for supper with Marilyn & Frank prior to a Tuesday night movie with them. We ate at a pizzeria where we split a large salad, eggplant parm casserole, chicken parm casserole, and a spinach strromboli. Then we went to see The Help, which was a good movie, based on the popular book which Jean had read. It’s an easy movie to like because a viewer will instinctively feel superior to the rich white women and root for them to get their comeuppance. Whether it is historically accurate is not something I can judge though. Wednesday morning 8/17 Jean and I met Nancy at IHOP for breakfast. She and I had car-pooled for many years (and Jean the last three) before we retired. We chatted about school and all the changes/troubles taking place there. These conversations always remind both of us that we made the right decision to retire. That same afternoon I met Monisha (class of 2008) at Barnes & Noble in Parsippany after lunch. Monisha and I have not chatted much recently because of her summer internship, so I was glad to get together with her. She is following a similar career path as my son, having done internships in accounting and finance, and has already been offered a job in one of them, which takes a lot of pressure off her during her senior year. VoP #168 / page 6
The following week also had three consecutive days of socializing. On Tuesday 8/23 Jean and I met George (the Physics teacher who is the only sf fan I actually know in person rather than virtually) and his friend Joanne. I let them choose the restaurant and they picked my least-favorite place to eat, Applebee’s. But at least the conversation was worthwhile. Wednesday 8/24 I met two students at a site where I rarely go, Starbucks, and again I had a good time. While the vast majority of students I am friendly with are from Asia originally, these two are exceptions: Priscilla is from Canada (although of Indian-Chinese background) and goes to school at McMasters, while Tino is from Denmark (although he lived in Greece and Israel between Denmark and NJ). Thursday 8/24 Jean and I traveled 90 minutes to see Ain’t Misbehavin’ with Alan and Denise. It was a musical, my least-favorite type of play (I prefer dramas and comedies), but I would never refuse to go to a play the other three might enjoy. I did enjoy it, although it was a musical revue without any plot at all. Friday 8/26 we took a drive with Marilyn & Frank to New Hope, Pennsylvania, right across the Delaware River which is the boundary between NJ and PA. We spent about two hours walking around Peddlar’s Village, a cute gathering of stores. We ate dinner at a restaurant on the Jersey side where Jean had shrimp and scallops, while I had Creole-style jambalaya, which was a bit spicier than I wished. Overall, it was an enjoyable day. Tales of Hurricane Irene: I guess the media got their wish this time, since Hurricane Irene was as bad as they predicted. Our power went out Sunday morning 8/28 between 5:15 am (when I fed Tiger) and 6:15 am when Jean woke me up to bail water out of the basement. We spent most of Sunday bailing water, about 2" total, which would have been much easier to do if we had power for our wet vac. Because we rarely need to use it, we never considered getting a battery backup previously, obviously a mistake. We also had no running water, because we have a well, although we use bottled water for drinking, so we had ample bottles. I had filled the bathtub with water prior to the storm Saturday night, so we used that for flushing. I also filled a pot with water Saturday night, so I was able to cook macaroni on our gas stove. Mark & Kate and Alan & Denise both have sump pumps, neither of which have battery backups, so they also had water in their basements. Monday 8/29 Andy went to nearby Hackettstown, which did not lose power, where he bought 5 bags of ice. I put 2 in the refrigerator and 3 in the freezer to delay the ruining of all our food. That turned out to be a wise decision, since while Jean, Andy, our neighbor Pat and I were eating grilled hamburgers for lunch at 1:00 pm on Tuesday 8/30, I noticed the time was showing on the clock radio. I turned on the power and they all cheered when the music started playing. ( 32 hours without power could have been worse. Mark & Kate got power back Wednesday morning 8/30, while Alan & Denise got it that same afternoon. There was incredible flooding in northern New Jersey, due to all the rivers meeting there, but fortunately we are too far west and were not affected by that. Mark & Kate’s VoP #168 / page 7
neighborhood was surrounded by water the first few days, but it had receded by the time they got their power back. Overall, we had no serious damage from the hurricane, and our food all survived. The only negative was that Sunday night we raised the Aliner, hoping to use its refrigerator which is powered by either gas, battery, or electric, but the refrigerator would not turn on. The battery was drained, which seemed strange since we had never used the battery for anything. Then Tuesday we realized that the battery was immersed in water. Jean phoned the Aliner dealer who told her to bring in the camper for evaluation and repairs. It is all under warranty, but we were not pleased needing to drive five hours to make the round trip. Plus will we get it back prior to our planned 9/15 camping trip? Time will tell. z
Wondrous Stories While everybody else seems to be reading the #1 bestselling book in the country, George R.R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons, the latest historical epic in his Song of Fire and Ice series (I hesitate to call the series “fantasy,” since nothing I have read about it seems the least bit fantastic), I have decided to read Martin’s comprehensive volume of his later short fiction, Dreamsongs, Volume 2. I do not have Dreamsongs, Volume 1, and probably will not buy it, since except for a few amateur stories he wrote prior to his first publication, all the other stories in it are contained in one of his earlier collections which I already own (A Song For Lya, Songs of Stars and Shadows, Sandkings, Portraits of His Children). So if you have not read those collections, then you might wish to buy Volume 1 before tackling Volume 2. Let’s not beat around the bush: George R.R. Martin is a great writer of sf, fantasy, even horror, freely moving between categories. As he states in one of his essays in Volume 2, We can draw our boundaries and make our labels, but in the end it’s still the same old story, the one about the human heart in conflict with itself. The rest, my friends, is furniture. So if you’re willing to cross genre boundaries, this is a great book subdivided into four sections: •
A Taste of Tuf. Haviland Tuf is Martin’s everyman hero who travels from world to world dealing with problems which are ostensibly ecological in nature. This series reminds me of Murray Leinster’s fine Med Ship series, although Martin is a better writer than Leinster, so the Tuf stories, while basic problem-solving sf, are even better than Leinster’s;
•
The Siren Song of Hollywood. Martin spent most of the 1980s in Hollywood writing and producing such shows as the revived Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast. Several of his screenplays were never produced in their original form, so he includes two of them, one which was badly truncated as a Twilight Zone episode, and a pilot which never appeared. Both were good enough that I would have loved to see them performed;
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•
Doing the Wild Card Shuffle. Martin created his own “shared world” series, a format I consider the literary equivalent of a continuing tv series. The wild cards series was a realistic look at super-heroes, and the two entries here are so good that they convinced me I should go back and read more volumes in the series (having only read the initial Wild Cards when it was first released). One of the stories introduces perhaps Martin’s greatest character (yes, better than his carefully-designed Haviland Tuf), with the unlikely name of The Great and Powerful Turtle;
•
The Heart in Conflict. This section contains six novellas which show Martin at the top of his form, and which deserve individual discussion.
The first novella is “Under Siege,” whose premise is that after a devastating nuclear war, life on Earth is both precarious and dismal. A project is underway to send the minds of six mutants back in time into the minds of historical people who were important figures at the crux of changes which could alter history and hopefully prevent the devastating nuclear war. But five of the mutants have died during their trips through time, so the last surviving mutant is the only hope to prevent the nuclear war and save life on Earth. His chosen event seems somewhat problematic to me, during a war between Finland and Russia related to the Napoleanic Wars, but selecting any important turning point in history is always subject to debate. This is a strong story with an unexpected ending. “The Skin Trade” is a noir mystery set in a midwestern city controlled by a small group of rich people who are secretly werewolves. Several of them have been murdered by the particularly gruesome method of being flayed alive. Their deaths are being investigated by a private detective and an insurance investigator, the latter a werewolf himself. Keeping in mind that I generally dislike urban fantasies, this was still fascinating reading which held my interest throughout, even as the wheels kept turning and turning. I had initial problems with “Unsound Variations” since all the five characters in it were particularly unlikeable. The main two characters were a young couple who do nothing but fight and harass each other. They are attending a reunion of his college chess team, where they meet up with three other unlikeable team members, particularly the team outcast who has become incredibly wealthy and is using the reunion as his chance to finally get revenge against his former teammates. Other than the poor choice of characterization, the story was interesting, and events progressed in a generally good direction with a satisfying denouement. Anybody who read George R.R. Martin’s early stories, such as “With Morning Comes Mistfall” and “A Song For Lya,” could not miss the influence of Roger Zelazny on his fiction. In one of Martin’s section introductions, he discusses his move to Santa Fe where he became personal friends with Zelazny. So it was not surprising when I reached “The Glass Flower” to find it the most Zelaznyish story I have ever read by any author other than Roger Zelazny itself. It resembled a typical Zelazny story in mood, structure, and plot. Most of the characters were mysterious beings with strange powers. The two main characters were emotionally-wrought VoP #168 / page 9
beings engaged in dealings which risked both their lives. This might have been the strongest story of the group, except the farther I read the more I felt it was more form than actual story, so determined to resemble a Zelazny story that it was difficult to really appreciate it for its own merits. Next came “The Hedge Knight,” which is set in the world of his Song of Fire and Ice historical series, which I assume is intended to be an epic fantasy series. However, except for a brief mention about dragons (from the past, seemingly more legendary than factual), there is nothing really fantastic about either this story or the very similar “The Mystery Knight,” also in the same series, and which appeared in the recent anthology Warriors. This is the story of Dunk, the hedge knight of the title, who enters a jousting tournament in an attempt to earn some muchneeded money, and his squire Egg, an orphan boy who basically forced Dunk to accept him as a squire, and who seems to know more about the knights in the tournament than Dunk does, thus becoming a valuable source of advice for him. The early portion of the story is primarily concerned with the tournament, and the individual battles which take place in it, very similar to “The Mystery Knight” and also similar to Ivanhoe, an obviously influence on both stories. But once the plot started moving when Dunk fights off an arrogant prince who is attacking a young puppeteer, the story became much more interesting. I liked this story better than “The Mystery Knight,” and it intrigued me to look up more stories in this series. The last story is the Nebula-winning novella “A Portrait of His Children,” a story about the relationship between a writer and his fictional characters, and how that relationship affects his relationship with his real family. Much of the story’s premise is understandable to any serious writer, but I strongly disliked parts of it, since I am not a fan of any story in which rape and violence play such a major role. I can understand why Martin felt he needed to do so, for it made the story’s climax more powerful, but I really wish he could have done it less violently. Overall, Dreamsongs, Vol. 2 is a major collection covering the second half of Martin’s career, definitely well-worth reading. My immediate thought upon finishing it is that I wish the author had not abandoned most short fiction (except for occasional Song of Fire and Ice stories) in favor of his massive epic series. My second thought was that I wish he would finish the damned series so I can decide whether to read it or not. * Ted Chiang is perhaps the best science fiction writer who has never written a novel, earning his reputation exclusively on short fiction. That puts him in the company of such grandmasters as Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison who, although they have both written novels, have earned most of their acclaim for their short fiction. There is nothing wrong with mentioning Chiang in the same breath as Bradbury or Ellison, since he is as fine a writer as they were in their prime, and all three writers have at least one similarity: none are routine story-tellers. Ray Bradbury began writing with a strong interest in horror fiction, and his first collection Dark VoP #168 / page 10
Carnival showed that. But even as he matured into romantic fantasies, Bradbury was still primarily interested in arousing emotions in his reader rather than telling a story. Harlan Ellison’s stories have also been highly emotionally-charged, and while he never wrote straight horror per se, his stories frequently aroused the same type of sharp emotions in his readers as the best horror fiction did. Ted Chiang is not interested in arousing emotions though, but rather arousing intellectual curiosity in his readers. A typical Chiang story starts with some speculative concept, then explores it through his characters. He rarely bothers with deep characterization, nor much detailed plotting, but arouses intellectual sense of wonder about as well as any writer possibly could. If you still doubt that Ted Chiang deserves being mentioned in the same breath as Bradbury and Ellison, consider this: since his first publication in 2011, Chiang has published 12 stories, 9 of which have been nominated for major awards (Nebula, Hugo or Sturgeon), and he has won 4 Nebula Awards, 3 Hugo Awards and 1 Sturgeon Award. As for my personal opinion of Chiang, he has had 3 stories on my best-of-the-decade lists already, 1 of which was my favorite story of the 1990s. So it will not be surprising when I mention early in this review that his first collection of short fiction Stories of Your Life and Others ranks with such debut sf collections as Roger Zelazny’s Four For Tomorrow, Samuel R. Delany’s Driftglass, and John Varley’s Driftglass. The first story in the collection, which was Chiang’s first publication and a Nebula winner, is “Tower of Babylon,” which examines what it was like for the builders of the immense tower which took several centuries to complete and who basically spent their entire lives living in the tower itself, raising families which in some instances have never seen the ground. The story’s climax, in which the tower finally reaches heaven itself, is interesting, as is the Babylonian cosmology which is an intricate part of the story. “Story of Your Life,” which was my favorite piece of short fiction for the 1990s, tells about an alien race which arrives in Earth orbit and establishes contact with humans. It is basically the story of two scientists, a male physicist and a female linguist, who attempt to communicate with the aliens. The linguist is the viewpoint character who discovers that the aliens’ language is not linear, but holistic, and as she immerses herself in it, her own worldview begins changing (not surprisingly, since linguists rightfully claim that a culture’s language is very influential on their view of the world). The alternating passages of the linguist’s personal life seem a bit misplaced at first, but as her worldview changes, the connection becomes both obvious and startling. An outstanding story. “Hell is the Absence of God” takes the premise that God exists without any doubt, and whose angels periodically manifest themselves in our physical world, during which they occasionally VoP #168 / page 11
cause great damage by their passing through, although at other times they create miracles. Add to this the fact that when a person dies, their soul can be seen either rising to heaven or descending to hell. Chiang does an excellent job examining the life and emotional struggles of a man whose beloved wife has died and whose soul has risen to heaven. But he has never felt particularly close to God and thus fears his soul will descend to hell when he dies, thus cutting him off from his wife for all eternity. Outstanding as these three stories are, there are four other fine stories in the book as well: • •
•
•
“Understand” tells of a man who undergoes an experimental treatment for brain damage which makes him the most advanced mind in the world; “Division by Zero” tells the story of a brilliant mathematician whose entire world is shattered when she discovers a proof which destroys the underlying foundations of all mathematics; “Seventy-Two Letters” examines a world in which golems do exist, which has profound effects on the shape of 19th century life (this story would be considered “steampunk” were it published nowadays); “Liking What You See: A Documentary” examines a scientific technique which removes a person’s ability to differentiate the esthetics of other people’s faces, spurring a potential movement on campuses to equalize all students’ beauty in each other’s eyes, while causing great concern in the cosmetics industry.
Stories of Your Life is a fabulous collection, but keep in mind that characterization and routine story-telling are not Chiang’s main concern. He is an old-fashioned “hard” science fiction writer who is examining ideas first and foremost, but doing so about as well as I have ever seen it done. I recommend this collection very highly. * Next to science fiction, historical fiction is my favorite form of reading. My favorite authors of historical fiction include Iain Pears, Andrea Barrett, Steven Saylor and Guy Gavriel Kay. Kay? Isn’t he a fantasy writer? Sometimes, yes. Tigana and the Fionavar Trapestry are fantasies. But other novels of his are pure historical fiction, except that he likes creating his own events in the past which either did not occur, or might even contradict historical facts. While most writers would just alter those events and call it “alternative history,” Kay prefers changing the names of both places and people, and treating it as other-world fantasy. But in fact, except for the name changes and altered events, it reads like pure historical fiction. The Lions of Al-Rassan is set in a thinly-disguised Moorish Spain. The Last Light of the Sun is about the Viking invasions of the British Isles. His most recent novel Under Heaven is set during Tang Dynasty China. It tells the story or the three children of famed general Shen Gao, recently deceased, but whose reputation persists: Liu has become principal advisor to the VoP #168 / page 12
emperor’s first minister; Li-Mei became part of the entourage of one of the emperor’s minor sons before Liu convinced the first minister to donate her as wife of a barbarian ruler. Tai, the second son, is the novel’s main character. After the death of his father, he spends two years at the sight of one of his father’s greatest battles, burying the dead bodies which litter the area. He is alone except for the ghosts of the fallen soldiers, both Kitan (the novel’s name for Chinese) and enemies. He becomes a famous figure through the empire, and is even given a gift of 250 horses by one of the emperor’s daughters, herself the wife of a barbarian king. The breed of horses is so superior to those of the Kitan that Shen Tai immediately becomes a person of major importance to the emperor and his advisors. Under Heaven is mostly a novel of politics, into which Tai has become intimately-involved. People of importance include: • • • • • •
Wei Song, a Kanlin warrior who saves Tai’s life early in the novel, and then becomes his protector; Wen Jian, a twenty-year old beauty who has become the emperor’s “precious consort,” and the power behind the throne; Shinzu, the emperor’s heir, who has a reputation for indolence and drunkenness, but whose true personality shows when political affairs heat up; Wen Zhou, the first minister who achieved his rank due to being Wen Jian’s cousin, but who is an enemy of Shen Tai for reasons unknown to him; An Li, also called Roshan, is the most powerful general in Kitai in spite of being a “barbarian” rather than a native Kitan; Shin Zian, the most famous poet in Kitai, known as the “Banished Immortal,” who becomes a close advisor of Shen Tai.
Although there is a major war in the novel, Under Heaven is not really concerned with military actions, but rather with the politics surrounding them. This is an outstanding novel, the equal of The Last Light of the Sun, which was my novel-of-the-year in 2004. So far 2011 has been an outstanding reading year for me, having read such classic novels as The City & The City, Julian Comstock, The Windup Girl and now Under Heaven. If only every year could be as good. * Retirement has given me the free time to see a lot more movies than I ever saw previously. Our cable-internet-phone triple package enables us to see free movies every Tuesday as well, which is another incentive. Still, I do not go to movies that I have no interest in seeing, which unfortunately is the majority of movies since I have fairly specific interests in movies, while the movie chain which honors our free pass (it’s actually owned by the cable company) tends to show popular movies rather than more serious movies. So I’ve skipped all special effects extravaganzas, juvenile comedies, mindless thrillers and movies whose basic premise is people trying to kill each other. That has actually left a half-dozen genre movies (from among the dozen VoP #168 / page 13
or so we’ve seen all year), about which I had generally positive reactions: • •
•
•
The Adjustment Bureau, starring the always-good Matt Damon, was a decent and fairlythoughtful adaptation of a Philip K Dick story; Source Code, starring Jake Gyllenhal, was an interesting thriller about a man whose mind is sent back in time to uncover the bomber of a Chicago train before he can perform the terrorist act. In some ways, this movie was the dark side of the wonderful Groundhog Day; Green Lantern is one of my favorite comic books, but his movie was mediocre, mostly because it was dumbed-down for the ignorant viewer rather than appealing to people who understood the character and preferred seeing Green Lantern himself rather than dwell on a rather wimpy version of Hal Jordan; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, part 2, was similar to other movies in the series for the opposite reason as Green Lantern: it was basically aimed at viewers who had read the book and understood all the motivations and nuances of what was happening. I have not read the books, so while the movie was enjoyable watching, the logic behind much of it was skimpy.
But the best movie I’ve seen all year, genre or not, was Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. First, I was amazed at how good Owen Wilson was in a serious role. He played a man with a successful career as a Hollywood screenwriter, but whose heart and soul were truly that of a novelist. As the movie opened, he was in Paris with his fiancée’s family. They were rich and snobbish though, and did not understand Owen’s love of Paris and particularly his obsession with the Paris artistic community of the 1920s. I cannot explain why this movie was a fantasy, since those elements snuck up on both Wilson and the viewer, but they became the central element of the movie, and were very successfully done. The fantasy helped Wilson grow and evolve as he learned what was wrong with his life and his dreams, and what he needed to do about both of them. I realize that part of the reason I loved this movie was because I can certainly relate to Wilson’s obsession and frustration with his writing, but I suspect anybody with an artistic passion would enjoy the movie as much as I did. It is the finest Woody Allen movie I have ever seen.
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Listmania Along with all the other awards announced at the recent Renovation worldcon were the Sidewise Awards. I am a big fan of historical fiction, including alternative history, so these awards appeal to me, and often suggest some good reading. For those of you who enjoy alt hist as much as I do, here is a listing of all the winners of the Sidewise Award. Happy reading! Year
Long Form
Short Form
2010
Eric G. Swedin, When Angels Wept
Alan Smale, “A Clash of Eagles”
2009
Robert Conroy, 1942
Alastair Reynolds, “The Fixation”
2008
Chris Roberson, The Dragon’s Nine Sons
Mary Rosenblum, “Sacrifice”
2007
Michael Chaban, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Michael Flynn. "Quaestiones Super Caelo Et Mundo" Kristine Kathryn Rusch. "Recovering Apollo 8"
2006
Charles Stross. The Family Trade, The Hidden Family, and The Clan Corporate
Gardner Dozois. "Counterfactual"
2005
Ian R. MacLeod. The Summer Isles
Tilton, Lois. "Pericles the Tyrant"
2004
Roth, Philip. The Plot Against America
Warren Ellis, Chris Weston, and Laura DuPuy Martin. Ministry of Space
2003
Murray Davies. Collaborator
Chris Roberson. "O One"
2002
Martin J. Gidron. The Severed Wing and Harry Turtledove. Ruled Britannia
William Sanders. "Empire"
2001
J.N. Stroyar. The Children's War
Ken MacLeod. The Human Front
2000
Mary Gentle. Ash: A Secret History
Ted Chiang. "Seventy-Two Letters"
1999
Brendan DuBois. Resurrection Day
Alain Bergeron. "The Eighth Register"
1998
Stephen Fry. Making History
Ian R. MacLeod. "The Summer Isles"
1997
Harry Turtledove. How Few Remain
William Sanders. "The Undiscovered"
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1996
Stephen Baxter. Voyage
Walter Jon Williams. "Foreign Devils"
1995
Paul J. McAuley. Pasquale's Angel
Stephen Baxter. "Brigantia's Angels" z
On the Lighter Side Jokes by Robert Kennedy A man is driving up a steep, narrow mountain road. A woman is driving down the same road. As they pass each other, the woman leans out of the window and yells "PIG!!" The man immediately leans out of his window and replies, "WITCH!!" They each continue on their way, and as the man rounds the next corner, he crashes into a pig in the middle of the road. If men would only listen. * A visitor to the Rosebud Sioux Indian reservation in South Dakota asked an old chief what was his wife's name. The chief replied, "Wife name Three Horse." The visitor asked if there was a story behind the name. The chief sighed and said, "Name short for nag, nag, nag." * Lois had suffered for a week from the nasty virus that is going around and it left her feeling completely wiped out. On the first day that she could crawl out of bed, she discovered a "silver lining." Pulling on a pair of jeans, Lois called out to her husband, "These jeans fit! They finally fit!" "That's great," her husband replied, "but they're mine." * An English teacher at Michigan State University spent a lot of time marking grammatical errors on her students' written work. She wasn't sure how much impact she was having until one overly busy day when she sat at her desk rubbing her temples. A student asked, "What's the matter, Mrs. Godfrey?" "Tense," she replied, describing her emotional state. VoP #168 / page 16
After a slight pause, the student tried again ... "What was the matter? What has been the matter? What might have been the matter? ... ???" * Two men, sentenced to die in the electric chair on the same day, were led down to the room in which they would meet their maker. The priest had given them last rites, the formal speech had been given by the warden, and a final prayer had been said among the participants. The Warden, turning to the first man, solemnly asked, "Son, do you have a last request?" To which the man replied, "Yes sir, I do. I love dance music. Could you please play the Macarena for me one last time?" "Certainly," replied the warden. He turned to the other man and asked, "Well, what about you, son? What is your final request?" "Please," said the condemned man, "kill me first." * Question: "Are you married?" Answer: "No, I'm divorced." Question: "And what did your husband do before you divorced him ?" Answer: "A lot of things I didn't know about." * When my grandson Billy and I entered our vacation cabin, we kept the lights off until we were inside to keep from attracting pesky insects. Still, a few fireflies followed us in. Noticing them before I did, Billy whispered, "It's no use, Grandpa. The mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights." * A second grader came home from school and said to her mother, "Mom, guess what? We learned how to make babies today." The mother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool. "That's interesting," she said, "How do you make babies?" "It's simple," replied the girl. "You just change 'y' to 'i' and add 'es'." * A woman asks her husband at breakfast time, "Would you like some bacon and eggs, a slice of VoP #168 / page 17
toast, and maybe some grapefruit, juice and coffee?" He declines. "Thanks for asking, but I'm not hungry right now. It's this Viagra," he says. "It's really taken the edge off my appetite." At lunchtime, she asked him if he would like something. "How about a bowl of soup, homemade muffins, or a cheese sandwich?" He declines. "The Viagra," he says, "really trashes my desire for food." Come dinnertime, she asks if he wants anything to eat. "Would you like a juicy rib eye steak and some scrumptious apple pie? Or maybe a rotisserie chicken or tasty stir fry?" He declines again. "No," he says, "it's got to be the Viagra. I'm still not hungry." "Well," she says, "Would you mind letting me up? I'm starving."
VoP #168 / page 18