Another World

by Gardner Duzois

  The snow here was thicker; the valley had trapped it, and the day’s thaw had left the drifts filmed with a brittle skin of ice. The horses floundered as they climbed the slope to the hut. At its door the Captain dismounted, leaving the reins hanging slack. He walked forward, eyes on the lintel and the boards.

  The mark. It was everywhere, over the door, on its frame, stamped along the walls. The circle, with the crab pattern inside it; rebus or pictograph, the only thing the People of the Heath knew, the only message it seemed they had for men. The Captain had seen it before, many times; it had no power left to surprise him. The Corporal had not. The older man heard the sharp intake of breath, the click as a pistol was cocked; saw the quick, instinctive movement of the hand, the gesture that wards off the Evil Eye. He smiled faintly, almost absentmindedly, and pushed at the door. He knew what he would find, and that there was no danger.

  The inside of the hut was cool and dark. The Guildsman looked round slowly, hands at his sides, feet apart on the boards. Outside a horse champed, jangling its bit, and snorted into the cold. He saw the glasses on their hook, the swept floor, the polished stove, the fire laid neat and ready on the bars; everywhere, the Fairy mark danced across the wood.

  He walked forward and looked down at the thing on the bunk. The blood it had shed had blackened with the frost; the wounds on its stomach showed like leafshaped mouths, the eyes were sunken now and dull; one hand was still extended to the signal levers eight feet above.

  Behind him the Corporal spoke harshly, using anger as a bulwark against fear. “The . . . People that were here. They done this. . . .”

  The Captain shook his head. “No,” he said slowly. “ ’Twas a wildcat.”

  The Corporal said thickly, “They were here though. . . .” The anger surged again as he remembered the unmarked snow. “There weren’t no tracks, sir. How could they come? . . .”

  “How comes the wind?” asked the Captain, half to himself. He looked down again at the corpse in the bunk. He knew a little of the history of this boy, and of his record. The Guild had lost a good man.

  How did they come? The People of the Heath. . . . His mind twitched away from using the names the commoners had for them. What did they look like, when they came? What did they talk of, in locked cabins to dying men? Why did they leave their mark. . . .

  It seemed the answers shaped themselves in his brain. It was as if they crystallized from the cold, faintly sweet air of the place, blew in with the soughing of the wind. All this would pass, came the thoughts, and vanish like a dream. No more hands would bleed on the signal bars, no more children freeze in their lonely watchings. The Signals would leap continents and seas, winged as thought. All this would pass, for better or for ill. . . .

  He shook his head, bearlike, as if to free it from the clinging spell of the place. He knew, with a flash of inner sight, that he would know no more. The People of the Heath, the Old Ones; they moved back, with their magic and their lore. Always back, into the yet remaining dark. Until one day they themselves would vanish away. They who were, and yet were not. . . .

  He took the pad from his belt, scribbled, tore off the top sheet. “Corporal,” he said quietly. “If you please. . . . Route through Golden Cap.”

  He walked to the door, stood looking out across the hills at the matchstick of the eastern tower just visible against the sky. In his mind’s eye a map unrolled; he saw the message flashing down the chain, each station picking it up, routing it, clattering it on its way. Down to Golden Cap, where the great signals stood gaunt against the cold crawl of the sea; north up the A line to Aquae Sulis, hack again along the Great West Road. Within the hour it would reach its destination at Silbury Hill; and a grave-faced man in green would walk down the village street of Avebury, knock at a door. . . .

  The Corporal climbed to the gantry, clipped the message in the rack, eased the handles forward lightly testing against the casing ice. He flexed his shoulders, pulled sharply. The dead tower woke up, arms clacking in the quiet. Attention, Attention. . . . Then the signal for Origination, the cypher for the eastern line. The movements dislodged a little cloud of ice crystals; they fell quietly, sparkling against the greyness of the sky.

  READER’S GUIDE

  TO SF

  THIS READER’S GUIDE is primarily intended for those encountering the complex SF genre for the first time and for those living in small towns and rural areas where many SF books never penetrate. But it may also be useful to those occasional readers—bookstore browsers and bus-trip readers—of randomly selected SF who now want to gain a more systematic knowledge of the field. This guide may even prove helpful to some who already consider themselves confirmed devotees. I am thinking in particular of college- and high-school-age readers who may lack knowledge of the history of SF, of the existence of certain out-of-print books, or of the structure of SF as both genre and microcosmic society, even though they religiously buy each month’s new paperback selections.

  The guide consists of two parts: a perspective of the field and a list of recommended books. It is a sort of eclectic catalog and overview that I hope will give even the most isolated reader the chance to become more familiar with the SF world.

  PERSPECTIVE

  The hardest thing for the novice to acquire, something no list of books alone will provide, is a sense of the history of the genre, which is either half a century or thousands of years old, depending on whom you ask. Fortunately, two excellent formal histories have recently been published: Alternate Worlds, by James Gunn, and Billion Year Spree, by Brian W. Aldiss. Although these two histories often differ sharply in emphasis and sometimes come to contradictory conclusions, together they represent the best history of SF currently available. Here are some other books that may help you acquire a feel for the fiction of various historical periods.

  For pre-1930 SF, I recommend: Science Fiction by Gaslight and Under the Moons of Mars, both edited by Sam Moskowitz; The Battle of the Monsters and Other Stories, edited by David G. Hartwell and L. W. Currey; The Light Fantastic, edited by Harry Harrison; Perchance to Dream, edited by Damon Knight; The Science Fiction of Jack London, edited by Richard Gid Powers; and The Science Fiction of Rudyard Kipling, edited by Frederik Pohl. If you can afford them (or get library access to them), various series of quality reprint editions are also excellent for this period and, indeed, for most periods. Gregg Press, Garland Press, Arno, Dragon Press, and Hyperion offer hundreds of rare volumes that are printed on acid-free paper and are handsomely bound. Some libraries, especially college libraries, have collections of pulp SF magazines from the late twenties to the present. Some of these collections are available on microfilm.

  For SF of the late twenties and thirties, the definitive anthologies to date are Before the Golden Age, edited by Isaac Asimov, and Science Fiction of the 30’s, edited by Damon Knight. Also useful are the retrospective single-author collections published by Doubleday, The Early Asimov, The Early del Rey, The Early Long, The Early Williamson, The Early Pohl; and books such as The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum, The Best of John W. Campbell, and The Best of C. L. Moore.

  The last thirty years—the “Golden Age” and beyond—are covered in dozens of volumes: Adventures in Time and Space, edited by Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas; The Astounding-Analog Reader, vols. 1 & 2, edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison; A Treasury of Great Science Fiction, vols. 1 & 2, edited by Anthony Boucher; The Worlds of Science Fiction, edited by Robert P. Mills; New Dreams This Morning, edited by James Blish; Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison; SF: The Great Years, vols. 1 & 2, and Jupiter, edited by Carol and Frederik Pohl; and in anthologies edited by Groff Conklin, Damon Knight, and Robert Silverberg, too numerous to name individually. Frederik Pohl’s Star anthology series is also valuable, as is the Spectrum series, edited by Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest, and The Best of Planet Stories, edited by Leigh Brackett.

  Overviews of SF’s evolution are provided by a number of books: The Hugo
Winners, vols. 1 & 2, edited by Isaac Asimov; The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, vol. 1, edited by Robert Silverberg; The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, vols. 2A & 2B, edited by Ben Bova; Science Fiction Argosy, edited by Damon Knight; Modern Science Fiction, edited by Norman Spinrad; The Mirror of Infinity, edited by Robert Silverberg; A Decade of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Robert P. Mills, and Twenty Years of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Robert P. Mills and Edward L. Ferman; A Spectrum of Worlds, edited by Thomas D. Clareson; The Ruins of Earth, edited by Thomas M. Disch; A Century-of Science Fiction, One Hundred Years of Science Fiction, and A Century of Great Short Science Fiction Novels, all edited by Damon Knight; Where Do We Go from Here, edited by Isaac Asimov; Time Probe, edited by Arthur C. Clarke; and SF: Authors’ Choice, vols. 1–4, edited by Harry Harrison.

  One of the best retrospective reprint series available is the Alpha series, edited by Robert Silverberg, currently up to volume 6. Also valuable are the Nebula Award Stories volumes, by varying editors, now up to volume 10. You may also want to check out The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, now in 18 volumes; the derivative Analog series, now up to volume 9; and the Galaxy Readers, also in 9 volumes. Some of these titles may be difficult to find in paperback, especially the Galaxy Readers and the early numbers of the F&SF series, but many libraries will have at least some, and possibly all, of them.

  Also outstanding was the World’s Best Science Fiction series of anthologies, edited by Terry Carr and Donald A. Wollheim. This series ran to 7 volumes before Carr and Wollheim parted forces, and most of those volumes are still available in paperback, although you may have to visit used paperback stores or bookstores specializing in SF to find them. Also excellent was Judith Merrill’s The Year’s Best S-F series. This series ran to 12 volumes plus a retrospective Best of the Best anthology. You probably will not be able to find them in paperback even in SF bookstores—with the possible exception of the Best of the Best. Many libraries, however, will have the complete run in hardcover. After a lapse of some years, there is again a derivative Galaxy series: The Best from Galaxy, vols. 1–3, and a companion series, The Best from If, vols. 1–3. Also published recently are The Best from Amazing and The Best from Fantastic, edited by Ted White.

  A number of “Best of the Year” anthologies continue to be published annually. Consistently the most popular has been Terry Carr’s Best Science Fiction of the Year series, now up to volume 5. Others include Donald A. Wollheim’s Annual World’s Best SF series, also in 5 volumes; Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison’s Best SF series (now apparently defunct), in 7 volumes; and the Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year series, in 6 volumes, the first five edited by Lester del Rey and the sixth edited by Gardner Dozois.

  But books are not all that ties the SF world together. A large number of SF magazines are published each year—some monthly, some quarterly, and some on more erratic schedules. Often these magazines contain some of the year’s best short fiction. The healthiest and most successful SF magazine, in terms of circulation and financial stability, is Analog (published monthly by Conde Nast Publications, Inc., Conde Nast Building, 350 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y.; subscriptions: Box 5205, Boulder, Colo. 80302; editor, Ben Bova); followed by The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (published monthly by Mercury Press, Inc., Box 56, Cornwall, Conn. 06753; editor, Edward L. Ferman), a monthly with a lower circulation rate but a good deal of literary prestige. Other magazines include Galaxy (published monthly by UPD Publishing Corporation, 235 East 45th St., New York, N.Y. 10017; editor, James Baen), which seems to have steadied down on a monthly schedule again after a spate of bimonthly issues; and the sister magazines Amazing and Fantastic (Ultimate Publishing Co., Box 7. Oakland Gardens, Flushing, N.Y. 11364; editor, Ted White), which now seem to be on quarterly schedules. A new SF magazine also entered the lists this year: Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (Davis Publications, Inc., Box 13116, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101; subscriptions: 229 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10003: editor, George Scithers), a quarterly.

  In recent years several original anthology series have successfully taken up some of the slack in the dwindling magazine market. The oldest of these series is Orbit, edited by Damon Knight, now up to volume 18. There is also a retrospective anthology drawn from the series and currently available in paperback, The Best from Orbit. Some of the early Orbits are difficult to find in paperback, but many libraries carry the entire series. Besides Orbit, the two most successful and firmly established original anthology series are New Dimensions, edited by Robert Silverberg, now up to volume 6, and Universe, edited by Terry Carr, also in 6 volumes. Orbit, New Dimensions, and Universe are all published annually. Other anthology series include Stellar, edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey, now up to volume 2; Science Fiction Discoveries, edited by Carol and Frederik Pohl, the first volume of which has just been released; and the forthcoming Entropy, edited by Edward Bryant. Stellar and Science Fiction Discoveries have erratic schedules, and Entropy is supposed to be an annual.

  Critical books on SF have also proliferated in recent years. Probably the best single SF critical book is still Damon Knight’s pioneering In Search of Wonder. Other worthwhile books include: The Issue at Hand and More Issues at Hand, both by James Blish; Pilgrims through Time and Space, edited by J. O. Bailey; Turning Points, edited by Damon Knight; Science Fiction Today and Tomorrow and Modern Science Fiction: Its Meaning and Its Future, both edited by Reginald Bretnor; Of Worlds Beyond, edited by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach; The Science Fiction Novel: Imagination and Social Criticism, edited by Basil Davenport; The Universe Makers, by Donald A. Wollheim; Heinlein in Dimension, by Alexei Panshin; and SF: The Other Side of Realism, edited by Thomas D. Clareson.

  Of particular interest to would-be SF writers are: Writing and Selling Science Fiction, a collection of how-to articles by SF writers; The Craft of Science Fiction, a similar collection of articles edited by Reginald Bretnor; The Science Fiction Handbook, Revised, by L. Sprague De Camp and Catherine Crook De Camp; and Hell’s Cartographers, edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison, a collection of six autobiographies by famous SF writers.

  Many SF writers also produce a good deal of nonfiction, primarily on scientific subjects. Those most prolific in this area include Isaac Asimov (with more than a hundred such books to his credit), L. Sprague De Camp, Ben Bova, Poul Anderson, and Robert Silverberg. There was even an anthology of nonfiction articles by well-known SF writers, Adventures in Discovery, edited by Tom Purdom, a book also available in many libraries.

  Hordes of amateur fan magazines (fanzines) are also published each year. They contain some of the most intimate inside glimpses available into the SF world. Among the most popular fanzines are Locus, edited by Charles N. and Dena Brown, published on a more-or-less monthly schedule (15 issues for $6.00, Box 3938, San Francisco, Calif. 94119); Algol, edited by Andrew Porter, published twice a year ($6.00 for 6 issues, P.O. Box 4175, New York, N.Y. 10017); Science Fiction Review, edited by Richard E. Geis, published quarterly ($4.00 for 4 issues, P.O. Box 11408, Portland, Ore. 97211); Khatru, edited by Jeffrey D. Smith, published quarterly (4 issues for $4.00, 1339 Weldon Ave., Baltimore, Md. 21211); Delap’s F & SF Review, edited by Richard Delap, published monthly ($9.00 annually, 11863 W. Jefferson Blvd., Culver City, Calif. 90230); Outworlds, edited by William L. Bowers, published quarterly ($4.00 for 4 issues, P.O. Box 2521, North Canton, Ohio 44720). All of these fanzines are different in tone, emphasis, and thrust. Some are news-oriented, like Locus; some are primarily review magazines, like Science Fiction Review and Delap’s F & SF Review; some feature in-depth critical essays, like Khatru; and some are eclectic compendiums reflecting the editors’ interests, like Algol and Outworlds. None of these magazines adheres to an easily categorized niche.

  Many cities across the nation—especially such population centers as New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Washington, and Denver—support SF fan clubs and annual SF conventions. Lists of these SF conventions are regularly printed in
Analog, Galaxy, Locus, and elsewhere.

  Relatively new phenomena are the SF bookstores that have suddenly mushroomed across the nation, in small towns as well as major cities. Check the Yellow Pages to see if there’s one where you live. Even if there is not a specialty SF bookstore in your vicinity, SF books may still be found. Most college bookstores have extensive SF sections, and many large paperback bookstores have them, too. If there is an SF convention in your area, go to it and check out the huckster room. It is possible to find a large number of both new and out-of-print books and magazines for sale at most SF conventions.

  It is possible to be actively involved in SF even if your hometown is too small and isolated to boast a bookstore or a library. Many book publishers sell by mail order, especially such large paperback houses as Ballantine, Berkley, DAW, and Ace. The Doubleday Science-Fiction Book Club (ads for the club run in most SF magazines) performs an invaluable service by putting inexpensive club editions of otherwise difficult-to-find hardcover books right into your mailbox. Several large mail-order companies specialize in SF and fantasy books. Two of the largest are The F & SF Book Company, P.O. Box 415, Staten Island, N.Y. 10302; and T-K Graphics, P.O. Box 1951, Baltimore, Md. 21203. Many SF convention hucksters will fill mail orders for you. Both SF magazines and fanzines sell subscriptions. No matter where you are in the continental United States, the chances are that at some time during the year there will be an SF convention within reasonable traveling distance. All it takes to stay in touch is motivation and a clever use of money and the mails.