Q: How do you research your introductory essays?
A: As a librarian, I have what we in the business refer to as "mad reference skillz." Science fiction fandom has been assiduous about putting reference material online. I also have multiple shelves of books about the SF field, biographies of SF authors, and critical works. In addition, I draw on friends and associates, as well as the members of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. And I can always count on Trevor and Emily to catch any mistakes or omissions.
Thank you for your indulgence; now let me draw the curtain back into place and get on with this issue's reviews.
Old Mars
edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
Bantam, 485 pages, $28.00 (hardcover)
Kindle: $11.76, iBooks, Nook: $13.99 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-345-53727-0
Genre: Mars: The Red Planet, Original Anthology, Retro-SF, Science Fantasy
Oscar Wilde said, "Science is always making wonderful improvements in things." However, longtime SF readers sometimes question whether certain improvements are so wonderful... and nowhere more than the planet Mars.
When we were in charge of Mars, it was a magnificent place, full of wonders: ancient ruined cities, world-girdling canals, alien races terrible or kind, and a hospitable second home for humanity. Then science got its hands on the planet and basically trashed the place. No canals, no cities, no wise ancients—heck, when science is done, there won't be any life at all on the Red Planet. It's an interplanetary tragedy.
Editors George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois remember that old Mars, and they've given us a star-studded anthology of modern stories set on the Mars we once imagined. There are fifteen stories by as many writers, each different and each delightful.
The featured authors are a true cross-section of science fiction. Big names like Mike Resnick and Michael Moorcock, relative newcomers like Chris Roberson and Matthew Hughes, familiar names like Allen Steele and David D. Levine, welcome names like Phyllis Eisenstein and Mary Rosenblum, and scare-masters Howard Waldrop and Joe R. Lansdale... this anthology has them all.
The stories are without exception engaging and full of the old sense-of-wonder. It's hard to pick standouts in this crowd, but be sure not to miss David D. Levine's "The Wreck of the Mars Adventure," a tale of Captain Kidd's 17th century expedition to Mars....
This book is definitely not hard SF. The science and technologies are those of bygone days. As long as you're okay with that, it's hard to imagine that you wouldn't enjoy Old Mars.
Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs
edited by Mike Resnick and Robert T. Garcia
Baen, 356 pages, $15.00 (trade paperback)
Kindle: $7.19, iBooks, Nook: $8.99 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-4516-3935-3
Genre: Original Anthology, Retro-SF, Science Fantasy?
( Okay, I'm going to go ahead and take George R. R. Martin's suggestion and call it "Retro-SF," because it's obviously an idea whose time has come.)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (universally known as ERB) was surely the first popular American science fiction writer, and his impact of the field was immense. Well before Astounding, John W. Campbell, and modern SF, Burroughs was spinning tales of interplanetary adventure that sent his heroes to the Moon, Mars, Venus, and beyond.
The big problem with Burroughs nowadays is that his writing reflects the world and fashions of more than a century ago. His stories are not very accessible to the modern reader.
Mike Resnick and Robert T. Garcia have taken care of that. The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs does for ERB what Martin and Dozois did for Mars. Again, an all-star cast of writers brings us modern stories of the good old worlds and beloved characters.
Mike Resnick and Joe R. Lansdale are here, but so are Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Peter David, Kevin J. Anderson and Sarah A. Hoyt, F. Paul Wilson, Todd McCaffrey, and ERB uber-fan Richard A. Lupoff. In all, there are 11 stories by 13 authors.
The stories range from Earth (Rusch's "Tarzan and the Great War" and "Apache Lawman" by Ralph Roberts) to Mars (Resnick's "The Forgotten Sea of Mars") and Venus (Lupoff's "Scorpion men of Venus"), to ERB's more exotic worlds (the hollow-Earth world of Pellucidar and the weird island Caprona), to historical adventure.
By far the most daring (and most welcome) story is McCaffrey's "To the Nearest Planet," set on Poloda, a brand-new distant world that Burroughs barely introduced before his death.
These authors, one and all, have definitely captured the ERB magic. Anyone with fond memories of the Burroughs oeuvre will surely enjoy this book. Anyone who's wondered what the fuss is all about should give it a try. And for anyone who's unsuccessfully tried to read Burroughs (it helps to be 11 years old), The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs offers a perfectly accessible entry point.
Dogs of War
edited by Mike McPhail
DTF Publications, 239 pages, $14.95 (trade paperback)
Kindle, Nook: $2.99 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-937051-05-1
Series: Defending the Future 6
Genre: Military SF, Original Anthology
If science fiction has a totem animal, it is the cat. From Robert A. Heinlein's various felines to Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's Barque Cats series and everywhere in between, there's hardly room in to swing a book without hitting a cat.
That's why it's so refreshing to see an anthology about dogs.
Mike McPhail's Defending the Future series feature satisfying military-themed SF short stories from various authors and universes. Often the stories are offbeat or deliciously understated, and these—all involving military canines in one form or another—are no exception.
The 17 authors here include the usual mix of familiar names and newcomers, writers known for their military SF and those associated with other subgenres, novelists and short fiction writers. Analog readers will certainly recognize Bud Sparhawk, whose "True Friends" is a tearjerker in fatigues. Brenda Cooper's "For the Love of Metal Dogs" shows how courage and loyalty transcend both species and form, and "Tower Farm" by Vonnie Winslow Crist explores the redemption of a pair of has-beens on a frontier outpost.
Those who like military SF should enjoy this assortment of stories, and I dare any reader who loves dogs to make it through without several "awwws" and a few tears. And if you don't fit into either of those two categories, but you just like some good stories, you might want to give Dogs of War a try— the e-book is certainly inexpensive enough.
Skirmishes
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
WMG Publishing, 324 pages, $17.99 (trade paperback)
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $7.99 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-615-79524-9
Series: Diving Universe 4
Genre: Space Opera?
Kristine Kathryn Rusch is best known for her Retrieval Artist series, so maybe you've missed her Diving Universe series. If so, it's high time to remedy that oversight.
In the course of the three previous books (Diving Into the Wreck, City of Ruins, and Boneyards) we've come to know Boss— explorer and salvager of old wrecked spacecraft—and her partner Coop—Captain of the good ship Ivoire. Boss and Coop, along with their crew, are trying to make their living while helping to preserve the Nine Planets Alliance from the evil Enterran Empire. The alien technologies that Boss and her fellow salvagers find are worth more than fortunes—they are the key to the ongoing war between Empire and Alliance.
Coop and Boss know that there's some powerful technology in huge expanse of ancient wrecks known as the Boneyards. While Boss sets out to track down this much-needed tech, and solve the mystery of the Boneyards, Coop and his crew stay behind to defend against the Empire.
But Coop has some secrets he hasn't told Boss about, and one of them turns up to complicate matters....
There's adventure, suspense, intrigue, and not a few surprises, all in Rusch's quick, light prose. Boss, as much historian as salvager, reminds one of a Poul Anderson or Gordon R. Dickson protagonist. Th
is is definitely a fun universe to visit: dive in!
The Plague Forge
Jason M. Hough
Del Rey, 433 pages, $9.99 (mass market)
Kindle: $7.58, iBooks, Nook: $9.99 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-345-53716-4
Series: Dire Earth 3
Genre: Adventure SF, Post-Apocalyptic, Visitors From Space
Sometimes the final book of a trilogy is a disappointment. When all the questions are answered and the loose ends tied up, it's somehow anticlimactic.
You don't need to worry about that with Jason M. Hough's Dire Earth trilogy.
The Plague Forge is a fully satisfactory conclusion to the story begun in The Darwin Elevator and continued in The Exodus Towers, one of the most breathlessly exciting stories in recent SF.
In case you missed it (or were waiting for all three volumes), the Dire Earth is set in the 2280s. A generation earlier, aliens called the Builders came to Earth, planting an earth-toorbit tower in downtown Darwin, Australia. At about the same time (nobody's exactly sure of the sequence), a plague spread across the world, turning people into mindless, violent beasts.
Most of Earth's human population succumbed, with two exceptions—those few naturally immune to the plague, and those protected by a mysterious aura around the Darwin tower.
The race survived in Darwin and in the body of the space elevator, while immunes like Skyler Luiken and his crew salvaged what they could from the wreckage of Earth.
Skyler, along with scientist Tania Sharma, discovered another elevator, along with more relics of the Builders, in Brazil. They established a second colony, withstood a religious dictatorship back home, and learned more about the Builders and their technology.
In this book, Skyler and crew find more Builder artifacts in the African desert—and this discovery leads them to the final confrontation and the answers the whole world seeks. Who or what were the Builders, where are they now, and what do they want with Earth?
Science fiction is particularly good at combining breakneck action and adventure with cosmic philosophical questions, and the Dire Earth books are a great example. These books engage your gut, your brain, and your heart all at once. What more could you ask?
And that, sadly, is the end of my space this time around. I hope you've enjoyed the last fifty columns as much as I have, and that we'll be together for another fifty or more.
Don Sakers is the author of The Eighth Succession and The Leaves of October. For more information, visit www.scattered-worlds.com.
* * *
BRASS TACKS
1946 words
Dear Mr. Quachri:
In the October 2013 issue there is a letter from Richard M. Boothe, citing two stories by Walt & Lee Richmond: January 1964, "Poppa Needs Shorts", and March 1964, "The Pie-Duddle Puddle" (which featured the cat, Mal R. Key). Mr. Boothe objects that these stories had no science fiction rationalizations for them and doesn't want Analog to print more of this nature. Of course, he is entitled to his opinions.
Having subscribed to Astounding and Analog since 1955, I have read about 5,000 stories in the magazine. If I tried to list stories over the years from memory, only a few dozen would pop up. These two would be on the list (and were also memorable to Mr. Boothe after almost fifty years). The editor has to select from what comes in and balance what sees print, keeping in mind his perception of what most of the audience will like. If a few good stories slip in that are fantasy or something other than science fiction, what is the harm? They might balance the occasional stinker that makes it in despite fitting the science fiction genre.
Keep the good stories coming!
John P. Aurelius Indianola, WA
Dear Editors,
I want to congratulate Marissa on her likely Hugo win [Things We Have in This House for No Reason, October, 2013]. I am that impressed with her story. "Writing every other writer under the table" is our job as writers, right? I want to reply to a published letter [Brass Tacks, October, 2013] and protest that "Papa Needs Shorts" [January, 1964] is a classic in the field, and that quality should beat genre. Especially since it "felt" like a good SF story to me.
Sean Cleary Chino, CA
Dear Mr. Quachri,
I had to write in response to Michael Smith's letter in the most recent issue. As an (I hope) intelligent woman, I greatly enjoyed "A Cup of Dirt." In my view, the male and female characters had equally powerful roles, and the romantic tension was quite realistic. I greatly enjoyed a bit of humor to lighten the mood after a few somber stories. Please do not let Analog lose its sense of humor. The real world is depressing enough.
By contrast, I was insulted by the portrayal of the women characters in the "Dark" serial. But then, the male characters weren't much better. I had to force myself to read through to the rather frustrating and disappointing ending. But I haven't written to complain because I know everyone has different tastes and someone likely enjoyed it, even if I can't quite imagine how.
Some issues are more to my taste than others, but I continue to subscribe because over the course of a year, there are more stories that I enjoy, and I accept a few disappointing stories as a necessary mainfestation of catering to different tastes.
Elka Tovah Davidoff Malden, MA
Mr. Quachri,
I wrote a few months ago about what I perceived as a disturbingly two-dimensional treatment of women in one of the first stories under your editorship. I just wanted to retract any concern I expressed then and to congratulate you on an excellent first few months as editor of Analog. Not only are the stories engaging and often educational, they're also well balanced along the different political and ethical axes of modern Western culture. Some of them even pass the Bechdel test! An admirable accomplishment.
In particular, I thought that Ron Collins's "Following Jules" in the October 2013 issue was excellent and, hopefully, indicative of more of the technically compelling and emotionally trying stories that Analog will continue to offer.
I have one question and a request for you, too. Have you read either of Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan's "The New Space Opera" collections? I think that they've been the most influential and inspirational SF that I've read this millennium. While most near-future SF has to resort to the sort of powerless grimness about technology that paradoxically grips our society as it undergoes the major techno-economic revolution we're living through right now, far-future SF seems to be the preferred playground for optimists and inspirational stories of a better, not just a harder, future for humanity.
I know that Analog's mostly hard SF mission statement might make this kind of wildly far-future, "post-Singularity" space opera a little outside of its stated publishing parameters but I would deeply love to see a few works of this type from some of Analog's regular contributors, in addition to the extraordinary visions of new authors publishing in the sub-genre.
Mostly, I just want to thank you and Analog's authors for making what is still the best science fiction publication in English and, very probably, the world.
Michael Smith Baltimore, Maryland
Mr. Smith,
Thanks for both of your letters. Constructive feedback of any stripe can be hard to come by (and positive reinforcement certainly never goes unappreciated).
To answer your question: I've read one of those collections. (The other is currently sitting on my READ SOON! shelf at home.) I think you make an interesting point about "optimistic" science fiction being pushed further and further into the future, as readers and writers find the possibility of a happy near-future all too unrealistic. It's an interesting shift in the genre, and I wonder if we might not be able to blur those lines a little in these pages—"hard SF" and "space opera" aren't necessarily mutually exclusive concepts.
Dear Trevor,
I wanted to wait until I had read the entire September 2013 issue before I commented on the stories in it. First, congratulations on being annointed as Analog's new editor.
That out of the way, I'd like to respond to yo
ur editorial, "The Blame Game Part 2." You seem to be saying that the media have no influence whatsoever on the public's mind, in particular the instigation of violent behavior. Frankly, in doing so you are emasculating your own profession. Are you saying that such works as Uncle Tom's Cabin, Das Kapital, Mein Kampf, the Bible, the Koran, the Republic, Waldon, Emerson's Essays, The Origin of Species, etc. and etc. have had no influence in paradigm shifts in thinking with a result in the taking (or not taking) up of arms?
What about movies either glorifying war such as the ones that came out in the '40s during World War II, or the anti-war movies of the Viet Nam era? These had no effect whatsoever on the minds, thoughts, and behavior of the populace? No effect on the younger generation?
There is no effect resulting from yelling "fire" in a crowded auditorium?
There is no effect on formative minds when an electronic gun is put in there hands and they take a "first-person shooter" perspective, gunning down humanoid beings who die screaming in a splatter of blood (and who return exactly as before with a reboot)? No effect on their minds when they torture and rape from the same perspective, watching their victims writhe and listening to them scream?
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