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Asimov's Science Fiction
March 2007
Vol. 31, No.3. Whole No. 374
Cover Art by Tor Lundvall
NOVELLA
Doctor Muffet's by Island Brian Stableford
NOVELETTES
Breeze from the Stars by Mary Rosenblum
Public Safety by Matthew Johnson
SHORT STORIES
The Lion by Bruce McAllister
The Sanguine by Jim Grimsley
Babel 3000 by Colin P. Davies
Chainsaw on Hand by Deborah Coates
POETRY
Cat Spacesuit by Ruth Berman
Bottles by Greg Beatty
They Arrived by Mark Rich
DEPARTMENTS
Editorial: Alli/Tip and Me by Sheila Williams
Reflections: Jack Williamson by Robert Silverberg
Letters
On the Net: The Living and the Dead by James Patrick Kelly
Science Fiction Sudoku by Sheryl Kolar
On Books by Paul Di Filippo
The SF Conventional Calendar by Erwin S. Strauss
Asimov's Science Fiction. ISSN 1065-2698. Vol. 31, No.3. Whole No. 374, March 2007. GST #R123293128. Published monthly except for two combined double issues in April/May and October/November by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. One year subscription $43.90 in the United States and U.S. possessions. In all other countries $53.90 (GST included in Canada), payable in advance in U.S. funds. Address for subscription and all other correspondence about them, 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. Allow 6 to 8 weeks for change of address. Address for all editorial matters: Asimov's Science Fiction, 475 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10016. Asimov's Science Fiction is the registered trademark of Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. (c) 2007 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. All rights reserved, printed in the U.S.A. Protection secured under the Universal and Pan American Copyright Conventions. Reproduction or use of editorial or pictorial content in any manner without express permission is prohibited. All submissions must include a self-addressed, stamped envelope; the publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER, send change of address to Asimov's Science Fiction, 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. In Canada return to Quebecor St. Jean, 800 Blvd. Industrial, St. Jean, Quebec J3B 8G4.
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CONTENTS
EDITORIAL: ALLI/TIP AND ME by Sheila Williams
CAT SPACESUIT by Ruth Berman
REFLECTIONS: JACK WILLIAMSON by Robert Silverberg
LETTERS
ON THE NET: THE LIVING AND THE DEAD by James Patrick Kelly
BREEZE FROM THE STARS by Mary Rosenblum
THE LION by Bruce McAllister
BOTTLES by Greg Beatty
PUBLIC SAFETY by Matthew Johnson
THE SANGUINE by Jim Grimsley
THEY ARRIVED by Mark Rich
BABEL 3000 by Colin P. Davies
CHAINSAW ON HAND by Deborah Coates
DOCTOR MUFFET'S ISLAND by Brian Stableford
ON BOOKS by Paul Di Filippo
SF CONVENTIONAL CALENDAR BY Erwin S. Strauss
SCIENCE FICTION SUDOKU SOLUTION
NEXT ISSUE
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EDITORIAL: ALLI/TIP AND ME by Sheila Williams
One of the joys of working in the science fiction field has always been the opportunity to work with and to get to know the writers whose fiction I grew up on. I cannot exaggerate the excitement I felt the first day in the office when Isaac Asimov strolled in, or meeting Samuel R. Delany at a party, or joining Ursula K. Le Guin for lunch while she was on a book tour for Always Coming Home, or sending galleys of I, Robot to Harlan Ellison. It's hard to convey how intimidated I was the first time I had to call Robert Silverberg to congratulate him on his Nebula nomination for “Sailing to Byyzantium” and to invite him to sit at the Asimov's banquet table. Later that day I had to make the same phone call to Roger Zelazny! One author that I never expected to have the chance to work with, and whom I never did meet in person, was the famously reclusive James Tiptree, Jr.
James Tiptree, Jr. had always been one of my favorite authors. As a teenager, I had no idea that there was a mystery about his identity. My first inkling that Tiptree might be an enigma occurred at the 1974 World Science Fiction Convention when I heard Harlan Ellison demand that the author come forward and accept his Hugo award in person. Tiptree, however, did not show up.
By the time I began working at Asimov's, everyone knew that both Tiptree and Raccoona Sheldon, another award-winning writer, were pseudonyms for Alice B. Sheldon. One person who did meet this author was Shawna McCarthy. Charles Platt, who was conducting a series of interviews for his Dreammaker books, asked Shawna to accompany him to his meeting with Sheldon. This was Alice Sheldon's first-ever in-person interview. Shortly after Shawna became editor of Asimov's, we ran the interview in our April 1983 issue. I had no contact with Alli then, but I did work with her on the three stories that ran in the magazine from 1985-1987. One of these tales, “Collision” (May 1986), became part of the author's book, The Starry Rift, which was published by Tor in July of that year. By then, alli/Tip or Tip/alli, as she variously signed her note
s, and I had corresponded by phone and letters several times.
This comfortable professional relationship lasted right up to her death in the spring of 1987. My memory of much of it, though, had been filed way back in my mind until biographer Julie Phillips asked me for an interview in March 2005. Julie is the author of the fascinating book, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, which was the subject of two reviews in last month's issue.
In addition to the interview, I provided Julie with some of Alli's notes and letters. Julie felt that there was one letter in particular that showed how late in her life, this highly regarded author was still learning and attempting to improve her craft.
It's an interesting historical document, so I thought I'd make the letter available here:
5 Aug 86
Dear Sheila,
Your letter about updating my blurb is with me as I cower in my cabin in an endless rainstorm in the wild woods north of Anchorage, Alaska. (Actually it is a very comfortable cabin but I long for sun so that my “gringo friend” [her husband] can fish more comfortably.) Great country, but wet. We're on the Talachulitna River, which isn't on most maps, and outside of that, the only means of getting about is by moose trail. Mooses do not make level trails, so that any trip, say to the johnny at midnight, is a question of slide—crash—pick yourself-up &-find-the-flashlight.
I have been so preoccupied and fascinated with the life here that I have no more idea what was in my previous blurb than a red squirrel, one of which is examining me thru the window. What did it say? As to writing, no novels since “Brightness Falls from the Air,” just a bunch of shorts hither & yon. I think the one you're printing is “Yanqui Doodle,” which indicates that I've been harking to the news with ever-increasing dread. (How that senile clown got into the White House is beyond me!) But all this is no good to you.
Maybe my writerly intentions are what you need. You could say I am bored by the slow-pace and ultra-clear style I develope—effect of novel writing—and I intend to go back to some of my old short manner, where you hit running and accelerate from there. “Yanqui” isn't an example of this, it's more of an unknown artifact I picked up on the way home.
And oh, by the way, a lot of blurbs have taken to calling me a “clinical” psychologist, WHICH I AM NOT & NEVER WAS. A research psychologist, or an experimental psychologist, please. The point is that while I know a lot about the wiring of say, hamsters, I am no use to sick people. In the field of psychology there is a savage and perennial war between the two species. Us research types think of ourselves more in terms of science. Of course I'm retired from all that, but old loyalties stick.
Dear Sheila, can you extract anything of use from all this?
Warmest regards,
Tip/alli
By the time I wrote the blurb for the story, six months had passed. The fishing trip was old news, and, since we'd always referred to her as an experimental psychologist, there was nothing to correct. As a result, none of the information in the letter actually made it into the blurb, so I'm glad to have the opportunity to share it with you now.
Late in 1986, I decided to screw up my courage and ask Alli for a favor. If I sent her a self-addressed stamped envelope and a copy of the book, would she autograph The Starry Rift for me? When I received word that she would honor my request, I packaged up the book and the envelope, but I left something out. I'm not sure what, but a whispered memory tells me it may have been a fan letter from a reader. I sent this “something” along on January 6, 1987, and casually mentioned that I had originally planned to include it in the book package. In early March I received a worried postcard. Alli had come across my vague letter and couldn't remember what I'd meant. “Please tell me,” she wrote, “Did I ever autograph and return Starry Rift?” Well, I had the treasured book in hand, and, being a procrastinator, I didn't get back to her right away. One afternoon in May, I received a phone call from Alli. She was still concerned about the book and wanted to make certain I had received it. I finally assured her that she had autographed it and returned it to me and thanked her for granting me this favor.
Alli's persistence at resolving this trivial mystery may have been a minor part of an attempt to clear out some papers and wrap up as many loose threads as possible at the end of her life. I was working at home a few days later when Gardner Dozois called to tell me that she had died by her own hand. We were all stunned by her loss. Isaac Asimov wrote a moving editorial about her, which ran in our January 1988 issue.
Although her death was saddening, I feel as though I know her much better now, after reading Julie's biography, than I ever did in life. Still, while my friendship with Alice Sheldon was neither long nor deep, it was a privilege to get to work with her during that period in the eighties.
Copyright (c) 2007 Sheila Williams
[Back to Table of Contents]
CAT SPACESUIT by Ruth Berman
How do you pat a cat in a pressurized container?
It judders against your glove.
You hold the little air-puffed mass,
Stiff against your insulated shoulder.
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"Don't pish in the carrier,” you say,
Wondering if the general sense of this
Will come through the suit radio
"It's a stinker to clean."
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A disapproving meow comes back to your phones.
How long till the next patting,
And will the food be any good?
—Ruth Berman
Copyright (c) 2007 Ruth Berman
[Back to Table of Contents]
REFLECTIONS: JACK WILLIAMSON by Robert Silverberg
The long, extraordinary life of Jack Williamson came to a peaceful end last November, six months short of his ninety-ninth birthday, at his home in the small university town of Portales, New Mexico. His career as a science fiction writer had begun in the by now almost mythical days more than seventy-five years ago when the great pioneer Hugo Gernsback was publishing Amazing Stories, and continued on, decade after decade, until just last year, when his final novel, The Stonehenge Gate, appeared. Throughout all that time Williamson was a major figure in the field, constantly evolving and growing, with the astonishing result that he was able to win both the Hugo and Nebula awards in his nineties.
Nineteen years ago I wrote the column that follows, by way of paying tribute to Jack's sixtieth anniversary as a published writer. I can think of no better tribute than to reprint it now:
This is the opening paragraph of a science fiction story that was published in 1928:
The Metal Man stands in a dark, dusty corner of the Tyburn College Museum. Just who is responsible for the figure being moved there, or why it was done, I do not know. To the casual eye it looks to be merely an ordinary life-size statue. The visitor who gives it a closer view marvels at the minute perfection of the detail of hair and skin; at the silent tragedy in the set, determined expression and poise; and at the remarkable greenish cast of the metal of which it is composed, but, most of all at the peculiar mark upon its chest. It is a six-sided blot, of a deep crimson hue, with the surface oddly granular and strange wavering lines radiating from it—lines of a lighter shade of red.
And this is the beginning of a story published in 1947:
Underhill was walking home from the office, because his wife had the car, the afternoon he first met the new mechanicals. His feet were following his usual diagonal path across a weedy vacant block—his wife usually had the car—and his preoccupied mind was rejecting various impossible ways to meet his notes at the Two Rivers bank, when a new wall stopped him.
The wall wasn't any common brick or stone, but something sleek and bright and strange. Underhill stared up at a long new building. He felt vaguely annoyed and surprised at this glittering obstruction—it certainly hadn't been here last week.
The third story, which appeared in 1978, starts like this:
The office intercom grunted.
"Olaf
?” It was Sakuma, head of Northcape Engineers. “Clients for you. A couple of motherworlders, pretty fresh to Medea. Want a research station built. I told ‘em you could do it.”
"Where?”
A silent second.
"Listen to ‘em, anyhow,” Sakuma said. “They're serious. Well funded. We've talked about the risks, and they're still determined. They want to see Farside—"
Much of the stylistic history of modern science fiction is encapsulated in these three excerpts. The first ("The Metal Man,” Amazing Stories, December, 1928) starts in a clear, quiet way, undramatic but suggesting wonders to come: rather British in tone. The second ("With Folded Hands") examplifies the slick, efficient style of the postwar Astounding Science Fiction, where it appeared in the July 1947 issue: strangeness dropped down in the commonplace world of bank loans and weedy lots. And the third ("Farside Station,” written for Harlan Ellison's Medea anthology but first published in the November 1978 Asimov's) is very much up-to-date in manner, fast-paced and clipped.
Different as they are from one another, these lead paragraphs have two things in common. One is that they all get their stories moving quickly and encourage the reader to want to know what happens next. The other is that they were all written—over a fifty-year period—by Jack Williamson. Who is still at it today, a decade after his superb Medea story appeared, and whose sixtieth anniversary as a science fiction writer we commemorate now.
Sixty years of first-class science fiction?
Consider that awhile. Calvin Coolidge was President of the United States when Williamson's first story was published. Isaac Asimov was not quite nine years old. Robert Sheckley and Philip K. Dick had just been born. Roger Zelazny, Harlan Ellison, Algis Budrys, and Robert Silverberg were all some years in the future. Radio was new; television was science fiction; movies were silent. And Jack Williamson—born in Arizona, not yet a state of the Union in 1908—had just sold his first story.
Asimov's SF, March 2007 Page 1
