Keillor, who had in his time read many fictional accounts of such confrontations with the illustrious dead, knew that this sort of visitation traditionally brought comfort and solace to those on the receiving end. So, feeling encouraged, he said, “You mean because my posthumous reputation is secure?”
Mark Twain laughed. “I mean no such thing. No, the intent of my words is exactly the opposite. You might as well stop worrying because the fame you want is simply not yours to be had.” He produced a cigar out of nowhere and sucked on it complacently. “The public mind is small, you see, and has just enough room in it for one humorist. Which position I’ve got pretty solidly nailed down. Not just by my works, mind you, but also by my personality, which is so damnably, if undeservedly, lovable as to be unassailable. So you see, you might as well stop worrying about your place in literary history. It’s already occupied.”
“Surely there’s room for two,” Keillor said pleadingly.
The spirit shook his snow-white locks. “How did that moving picture show put it? ‘There can be only one.’ I took out Bret Harte, and I knocked down Jim Thurber, and I reckon I can settle for you as well.”
So saying, the phantom faded away.
After that, there was no possibility of sleep. Keillor got up, got dressed, and sat down to write. “You bastard,” he said. “I’ll get you.”
And he began to compose the most heartwarming story about Mark Twain anybody had ever written.
6.
The electric fire in the office hearth didn’t shed much heat. But the writer who swaggered in, manuscript in hand, didn’t notice that. He’d been programmed not to.
He thought he was Samuel Clemens, of course. How could he not? We’d wiped his memories and replaced them with the Missouri of the writer’s youth. Then we slotted in all the shaping events: His time as a riverboat captain, the brief flirtation with the Confederacy that ended with his desertion and travels into the West, the death of his beloved brother, the period as a prospector, the newspaper work. Then, working extensively in neurovirtual, we fed him ideas for the novel. We only took him out of NV periodically and then only into one of two sets—the billiard room where he wrote and his publisher’s office. Where we confronted one another now.
“What do you have for me, Sam?” I asked, trying to hide my anxiety. This moment was the culmination of a great deal of effort. If the results weren’t good...
“Something you’ll like, I think.” He stuck a cheap stogie in his mouth, lit a match with his thumbnail, and puffed the cigar to life. Then, putting down the manuscript at last, “I call it The Adventures of Becky Thatcher.”
With trepidation, I began to read. Three pages in, my eyes filled with tears. I leaped to my feet and fervently shook the man’s hand. “It’s a marvel!” I cried. “It’s one of your best!”
Then I spoke the man’s true name and all the programming came unraveled. “You’ve created a masterpiece,” I told the man who was totally unlike Samuel Clemens in every way, and he grinned shyly.
The program was a success. We could now, at will, dial up new work by all the greatest writers of history: Shakespeare, Austen, Hemingway ... as many as the market would bear.
Best of all, by using unpublished writers as hosts and holding them to work-for-hire contracts, we could buy the books for a fraction of what a real writer would cost.
Michael Swanwick sometimes fears he will run out of small jokes to place in the biographical line at the bottom of these articles.
Richard L. Kellogg
Philip Wylie and the Enola Gay
Philip Wylie was once considered to be among America’s most popular and influential writers. He produced a torrent of novels, essays, short stories, philosophical works, and magazine articles for more than three decades. Never limited to a specific genre, he wrote mysteries, adventure stories, romances, and exciting tales of science fiction. A frequent guest on radio and television shows, Wylie penned scripts for movie producers in Hollywood.
Unfortunately, his literary fame has declined since his death in Florida in 1971, and some of his most intriguing novels are no longer in print. Wylie is best remembered today for Generation of Vipers (1942), an explosive book in which he savagely attacks many cherished American institutions and values. He even had the audacity to criticize the traditional model of motherhood and introduced the term “Momism” into our popular culture. This provocative best seller immediately propelled the author into national prominence as a social critic.
Contemporary readers may not be aware that Philip Wylie was also a pioneer in the creative world of science fiction. His Gladiator (1930) was a classic allegory concerning Hugo Danner, an individual both blessed and cursed by his extraordinary physical strength. Indeed, Danner ranks among the great superheroes of his era. In collaboration with Edwin Balmer, Wylie speculated on the possibility of travel by spacecraft to other planets in When Worlds Collide (1933) and in After Worlds Collide (1934). Finally, in a futuristic novel titled The Disappearance (1951), Wylie envisioned a world in which males and females are completely separated from each other. Men and women inhabit separate and parallel worlds. The monosexed universes are portrayed as violent, sad, and extremely dysfunctional.
It is ironic to discover that one of Wylie’s finest achievements in science fiction is cleverly embedded in his long philosophical novel titled Opus 21 (1949). The untitled story, which appears toward the end of the novel, suddenly comes to the author in the form of a bizarre dream.
During the dream sequence, a mysterious stranger named Chris unexpectedly appears on a large military aircraft flying toward Japan. The crew members initially think that the intruder might be an alien from outer space. Chris tries to convince the pilot that the bombing mission should be aborted. His request is denied and the bomber flies on toward the target of Hiroshima.
As Wylie fans know, the author wrote frequently about the risks of a global atomic war. The theme of future nuclear conflicts is the major focus of Tomorrow! (1954), The Answer (1955), and Triumph (1963).
In fact, Wylie held the coveted “Q” clearance for access to classified government information. This clearance helped him to become the chief chronicler of the Cold War which followed World War II. He served as advisor to the Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy and acted as a consultant to the Federal Civil Defense Administration agency. Wylie was allowed to be an observer at the atomic bomb tests held in Nevada.
Wylie’s expert knowledge of atomic weapons is integral to the frightening dream he describes so vividly in Opus 21. A brief review of the vignette should inspire others to search out this obscure masterpiece of science fiction.
As the dream unfolds, an American B-29 bomber of the Twentieth Air Force is flying in the direction of Japan. There are sixteen crew members aboard the aircraft.
Colonel Calm is flying the plane and Major Waite is acting as the copilot. A journalist and a scientist are special guests who are allowed to observe the crew carrying out this mission. Mr. Learned is excited about the opportunity to write an eyewitness account of the bombing raid for the media. Dr. Sapho, the other dignitary, is an elderly physicist who was instrumental in helping to develop the atomic bomb.
Early in the flight, Colonel Calm leaves the cockpit to check out the aircraft and to talk with other members of the crew. Much to his shock and surprise, the colonel encounters an unknown passenger in the compartment housing the three gunners on board.
The stranger, dressed in coveralls without any military insignia, is described as having a full beard, brown eyes, and a hawk nose. With a gentle smile, he asks the pilot to call him Chris.
The colonel, assuming that Chris might be a top government official, asks why he is a passenger on such a secret flight. The stranger quietly responds “Because I said it. Lo, I shall be with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
Calm, a devout Catholic, turns pale and falls to his knees. He starts to make the sign of the Cross. He realizes that the man called Chris is act
ually Jesus Christ.
Chris continues to plead his case that the bomber should terminate the mission and return to the airfield. The colonel is shaken but prizes duty and patriotism above all else. It would be a terrible dereliction of responsibility not to accomplish his assigned mission.
Chris then converses with the journalist and the scientist about the ethics of employing atomic weapons. Mr. Learned senses something divine and supernatural about the stranger. However, Dr. Sapho is a confirmed atheist and is sure that Chris must be suffering from a strange type of mental disorder.
Chris cannot convince the pilot to turn back from his destination. Dr. Sapho argues that using the atomic bomb will shorten the war and save countless American lives. In fact, the great scientist believes that the newly developed bomb is the ultimate weapon which will put an end to all wars.
Chris responds that the bomb will do irreversible damage to the environment. The subsequent radiation is capable of mutating the human genotype for generations yet to come. The only path to peace is for people to search for inner truth and to love one another. The bomb will only result in more wars.
Despite his eloquence, Chris is unable to persuade the colonel, the journalist, and the physicist that Hiroshima, the City of Horror and Shame, should not be destroyed. The Enola Gay lumbers on across the Pacific toward the designated target. Back on the air base, officers are already developing plans for another nuclear attack. The target for the second bombing raid will be Nagasaki, the City of Naked Sorrow.
This vignette is one of the saddest and most poignant of Wylie’s many forays into speculative fiction. He sees the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as utterly tragic and horrific. Even the appearance of Christ himself on the airplane is unable to prevent the resulting holocaust.
In Opus 21, Philip Wylie incorporates a dream sequence to inform his readers about the perils and dreadful potential of atomic weaponry. He suggests that spirituality may be more powerful than technology in the prevention of future nuclear conflicts.
The message which Christ brings to the crew of the Enola Gay is the simple command of “Love one another.” New and improved weapons cannot prevent war. Peace can be achieved only when individuals are able to change their beliefs, values, and morals.
Since Opus 21 was published in 1949, some will argue that the message included in the fable is now outdated. However, we are living in an age of international terrorism, and nuclear proliferation is within the technological reach of more and more countries. Philip Wylie’s insights as to the causes and consequences of nuclear war are still significant and perhaps relevant to our very survival.
Richard Kellogg lives in Alfred, New York.
Works by Philip Wylie Discussed
Gladiator. New York: Knopf, 1930.
When Worlds Collide (with Edwin Balmer). New York: Frederick Stokes, 1933.
After Worlds Collide (with Edwin Balmer). New York: Frederick Stokes, 1934.
Generation of Vipers. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1942.
Opus 21. New York: Rinehart, 1949.
The Disappearance. New York: Rinehart, 1951.
Tomorrow! New York: Rinehart, 1954.
The Answer. New York: Rinehart, 1955.
Triumph. New York: Doubleday, 1963.
Ana Kai Tangata: Tales of the Outer the Other the Damned and the Doomed
by Scott Nicolay
reviewed by Peter Rawlik
Nampa, Idaho: Fedogan and Bremer, 2014; $30.00 hc; 370 pages
Scott Nicolay’s debut collection consists of seven stories and one short novel. From what I understand, at one point the entire collection was be named after the novel; this is understandable, for that novel, “Tuckahoe,” is perhaps the most powerful and well-developed of all the stories presented within. A weird tale, “Tuckahoe” focuses on Detective Donny Cantu’s investigation of a tragic highway accident that took the lives of three people and left behind one arm too many, an arm that is clearly not human and which quickly deliquesces. Cantu’s estrangement from his wife, his sudden and heated relationship with the assistant coroner, and the investigation of the extra arm spiral into a descent into the unnatural. Through this, Nicolay evokes a sense of body horror and displacement with the skill of a master. Indeed, there is an intimacy to this story that makes the reader feel uncomfortable, intrusive, and perhaps even lecherous.
Nicolay’s mastery of drawing the reader into the character through a sense of intimacy isn’t his only skill. There is also a magnificent sense of place with these stories. The author’s attention to detail concerning the landscape, the buildings, and the stimulation of human perception and interpretation as a result of those details is evocative, as in this passage from “Soft Frogs”:
The buzzing, clicks, and whirs of unseen creatures surrounded him. The lot had been still and silent when he first stepped out of his car, the cacophony disrupted by his car door slamming, nothing but the crunch of his combat boots on the patchy gravel and the faint distant rumble of semis on Route 1. Only took seconds however before the night noises returned. One by one, then all at once. Now they thickened the dark air around him, already dense with polluted swamp reek and the general miasma of a humid late June night in Jersey. Crickets, less identifiable insects, peepers by the dozens.
“Soft Frogs” itself is another well-developed weird tale with a significant amount of foreshadowing and character development letting the reader know that something weird is going on, but what exactly that is cannot be determined until the very end. In retrospect it seems a fitting, almost unavoidable conclusion.
Other stories are not quite as successful. “alligators” follows the pattern of “Soft Frogs” and establishes that something is going on through the repetition of a horrific dream concerning events that simply did not happen, but in this case the ending is telegraphed and not quite as satisfying. Similarly, the collection’s title story “Ana Kai Tangata” has only the barest hint of the uncanny before the intrusion of the weird occurs, and this is true for “Eyes Exchange Bank,” “Phragmites,” and “Geschafte” as well. Indeed, barring the inclusion of these stories in an obvious collection of fantastic fiction, the sudden weird turns in these four stories could easily be replaced with more mundane endings drawn from other traditions. In particular, “Phragmites,” which is set in and around a Native American nation and concerns the quest for a long-lost anthropological site, could have easily taken a different turn and developed into a kind of Southwestern noir instead of a weird tale. This is not meant to denigrate the style, but four such stories in a single book do become somewhat repetitive. The noir is strong here; the sense of place, the troubled and broken protagonists, and the seemingly listless lives all combine to give Nicolay’s writing a gritty, noirish edge.
Even the traditional misogyny so often found in noir fiction is mirrored in Nicolay’s stories. I say mirrored because Nicolay’s handling of the subject is intricate and subtle and grapples with the issue that has so recently come to the forefront in genre fiction, fandom, and sadly, the whole of the American consciousness. Nicolay’s protagonists all have issues with women, and the failures of their relationships with the opposite sex often are significant motivators within the narratives. In some pieces, women are clearly treated as sex objects, but Nicolay makes it plain even there that his protagonists are damaged, unable to come to terms with the responsibilities of being an adult in a relationship, having the drives and desires of boys who have yet to grow up. Indeed, the author understands the failures of men to understand women and has used the misogynistic undertone of noir to mask his exploration of such themes. The entire collection might serve as a road map to the discussion of a critical issue in our culture, the force that drives some men to relate to women only through sex or hate, a force made manifest in “Tuckahoe”:
You men are great deceivers you are. You only want to push us full of babes and make us do the work. But you always hurt, hurt, hurt. I surprised the men though, learned how to make them into babes aga
in. The Bottom can do it, so why should not I? You will make a splendid babe. Perhaps you will even have the wit left to speak still once you are born.
The one story that deviates from all the others is “The Bad Outer Space,” which is perhaps the most daring of all of Nicolay’s weird stories as it limits itself to the mind, vocabulary, and physical constraints of a small child. Here Nicolay must only hint at the failed relationship with a woman (in this case the child’s mother), sexuality (as represented by the teens who sneak off into the woods), and the intrusion of the weird, for the protagonist simply doesn’t have the knowledge to recognize that something unnatural is going on, nor does he have the willingness or capability to do something about it. Consequently, while the child is mostly innocent, that innocence is both corrupting and corrupted. It fails to recognize and act on a horror and instead simply accepts it with a touch of boyhood malevolence. It is a standout story not because the language and themes are different, but because it is a clear example that Nicolay is capable of doing more than just one style. Indeed, it hints that while the author may be comfortable with one tool in his workbox, he is willing to branch out and experiment with others. I hope in the future that he brings collections to the table that serve to highlight his clearly diverse skills more readily.
Despite some stylistic misgivings I find Ani Kai Tangata is a delightful, disturbing treat and a superb debut collection that is sure to resonate not only with fans of H. P. Lovecraft and Thomas Ligotti but also with those who are fond of the more visceral Richard Laymon and Jack Ketchum. Laird Barron writes in his introduction “Nicolay is one who has seen much, endured much, has undergone prolonged pressure and the result is a diamond among stones.” I find myself forced to agree, noting perhaps that the diamond could use a bit of polish here and there, but only perhaps, for then the charm of this gem might be lost completely.
Peter Rawlik lives in Royal Palm Beach, Florida.
The New York Review of Science Fiction Issue 310, June, 2014 Page 3
