Asimov's SF, October-November 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Each of the three novellas making up the book has a different narrative structure. The first, “The Fabulous Idiot,” is third-person omniscient, introducing us not only to Lone, the idiot, but to Janie, Beanie, Bonnie, and the unnamed mongoloid child, four of the other components of the ultimate superbeing. Sturgeon glides from one viewpoint to another with breathtaking skill. The second section, “Baby Is Three” is, as said, the first-person narrative of Gerry, the unpleasant but hypergifted teenager. The final part, “Morality,” reverts to third-person narrative, but this time keeps entirely to the viewpoint of a new character, Hip Barrows, who will be essential to the resolution of the plot.

  This time around I was surprised to find two major characters killed off between scenes, an odd and awkward narrative strategy; and I found each of the three sections marred at its climax by the unhappy surfacing of pulp-magazine storytelling. In Part One, the idiot, who can barely speak, let alone think, unexpectedly and offhandedly flanges together an antigravity device under the telepathic guidance of the other mutants, using materials Sturgeon doesn't bother to describe. “Powered inexhaustibly by the slow release of atomic binding energy, the device was the practical solution of flight without wings, the simple key to a new era in transportation, in materials handling, and in interplanetary travel.” I found that an implausible gimmick and the lines about “a new era in transportation” an intrusive editorial comment, light-years distant from the sort of prose shown in that amazing opening paragraph.

  Then, at the climax of the famous central “Baby Is Three” section, comes a bulky slab of sci-fi jargon when Gerry tells the psychiatrist what he really is: “I'm the central ganglion of a complex organism which is composed of Baby, a computer; Bonnie and Beanie, teleports; Janie, telekineticist; and myself, telepath and central control.” All that is true; but nobody outside the pages of a science fiction magazine would have talked that way in 1953, and nobody but a science fiction reader would have any idea what “teleports” and “telekineticists” were. It is a disturbing reminder that Sturgeon, for all his stylistic skill, had developed those skills in magazines with names like Astounding Science Fiction and Startling Stories.

  In the final section, twenty troublesome pages are devoted to the vast, heavy-handed expository conversation in which Janie, the telekinetic, explains to Hip Barrows, its mystified protagonist, what his life and Sturgeon's book are all about. Hip digests this stuff—which a less hurried writer might have told in a less schematic way—and then launches into an interior monologue about the difference between ethics and morality ("There must be a name for the code, the set of rules, by which an individual lives in such a way to help his species—something over and above morals") that does not have the sound of fiction at all but the tone of the ponderous and often fatuous editorials with which John W. Campbell, Jr., regaled the readers of his magazine Astounding Science Fiction between 1937 and 1971. Which leads, finally, to the discursive and expository pages in which Hip neutralizes the villainous Gerry and completes the forging of the new superbeing.

  * * * *

  A classic science fiction novel? Yes, certainly, for all its flaws: a trailblazer, a pathfinder, and for the most part a rich and moving book besides. A literary masterpiece that one can set on the same shelf with the books of Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Updike, Bellow, Roth? Alas, no. I had hoped, reading it now, that More Than Human wholly transcended the clichés of science fiction's pulp era. It doesn't. For all his enormous prose skill and soaring insight into the human soul, Sturgeon couldn't fully shake off the set of traits that those pulp magazines had engrained in him. It hurts, when he lapses suddenly into the bad old ways of the pulps, the jargon and the hasty tricks, because the rest of the book is so good and the pulp stuff knocks us out of the painful reality of his strange characters and back into a more primitive era of storytelling. But still, it represents a mighty step forward from the magazine era. It deserves to be cherished for that reason alone; but we can and should go to it today not just as a landmark in the emancipation of science fiction but as a worthy novel in its own right.

  Copyright (c) 2007 Robert Silverberg

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  LETTERS

  Dear Sheila,

  I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed (virtual) Michael Swanwick's story, “Congratulations from the Future!” in the July 2007 issue of Asimov's. We take ourselves and our genre so seriously sometimes, that we forget that it's okay to be funny and joke around. Michael's story showed that in addition to serious, thought-provoking stories that are the staple of our genre, we can also laugh at ourselves. Kudos to Michael for a really funny, entertaining story.

  Jamie Todd Rubin

  Riverdale, MD

  rubin@panix.com

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  Hi Sheila,

  I was just tallying up all the Hugo nominations that Asimov's got this year for best novella, novelette, and short story. I certainly don't know if any of them will win, but isn't ten nominated stories some sort of record? I really don't remember that happening before.

  Robert May

  Columbus, OH

  We were curious as well, and research into the last few years of Hugo nominations determined that we had eleven (of sixteen) nominations in the year 2000. All personal records aside, it's tremendously satisfying to have our authors nominated, and we are pleased to give such excellent fiction a home in Asimov's.

  Dear editors,

  I enjoyed William Barton's “The Rocket into Planetary Space” very much, and look forward to further stories of this nature. I was prompted to write by his remembrances at age seven, ten, eighteen, twenty-five, etc. On the very first page of the story he gave me one of those remembrances: his mention of launch pads on Kwajalein island. In the 1950s I was a young chemical engineer at Western Electric (think AT&T), and at that time our Defense Activities Division had a government contract for the Nike missile. The test site was on Kwajalein island, and “SpaceX's Falcon-9 pads” referred to in the story may well have been those old Nike launch pads used for test flights!

  Jack E. Garrett

  Monroe Township, NJ

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  Dear Editor,

  I just read James Patrick Kelly's article about Heinlein, and how he wonders if today's stories in Asimov's (and all of SF, I'd assume) are too far-reaching for younger generations to get into. As a twenty year old, I'll have to disagree. The problem just lies in my generation's unwillingness to read! Hell, even as someone who loves to read, I mostly get distracted by videogames and movies, and this bloody Internet that I can't seem to escape from! I just subscribed a few months ago on a whim (my first issue being the thirtieth anniversary), and I found myself not only enjoying all the stories, but really getting into a few of them and relating with the characters. This, coming from a guy whose major reading time has been spent on Harry Potter and Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. I knew nothing about the science fiction world as little as a month ago, but it's like I'm learning more every day. Each new article in your magazine seems to tell me about new authors whose work I'd love to delve into further! I honestly enjoy every page that I read. Anyway, I just wanted to chime in and say that these stories are very accessible for people my age; the difficulty is getting the material into their hands!

  Brett Simon

  Lombard, IL

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  Dear editor:

  Would you please consider reminding Harry Turtledove, and whoever proofread, reviewed, and approved his story, “News From the Front,” in the June 2007 issue, that the Baltimore News-Post of 1942 would have been unlikely to have referred to students at the United States Naval Academy as “cadets” (p. 35). They have always been called “Midshipmen,” as are students of the United States Merchant Marine Academy. “Cadets” attend the United States Military, United States Air Force, and United States Coast Guard Academies. Newspaper, magazine, and even television reporters in the area are well aware of this, as would be anyone tak
ing the trouble to do minimal research. It is not a trivial point; it is a matter of due and deserved respect.

  In an otherwise painstakingly researched story, in an assiduously edited magazine, it seems, at best, careless. If your magazine were not of such outstanding quality, I would not bother to mention it. I remain a huge fan of the magazine and will subscribe as long as you publish. Thank you for all the great work.

  Larry Neff

  Baltimore, Maryland

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  The author replies....

  Thanks. One can't be perfect all the time, no matter how one tries. And when one isn't, one will hear about it, won't one?

  —Harry Turtledove

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  Dear Ms. Williams,

  If the intent was to encourage letters to the editor, I imagine that you couldn't do better than “News from the Front.” I won't speculate about Mr. Turtledove's politics, but I take issue with his implicit message. In making a parallel between a failed World War Two and the current war in Iraq, he ignores the differences that invalidate the comparison, beginning with who invaded whom.

  I'm tempted to go on, but I don't think I should. As a historian, Mr. Turtledove should know that Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies applies, not only to someone who compares Bush to Hitler, but also to anyone who claims that opposition to the Iraq War is tantamount to causing the allies to lose World War Two.

  Arthur Dorrance

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  Dear editors,

  I have just finished reading Mr. Turtledove's story “News from the Front” in the June 2007 issue of Asimov's. I have never before been so moved to write my comments to the editors and (should you pass it along, as I hope you will) to the author of a story.

  This is a powerful story. No matter your political opinions about our current administration and the war in Iraq (or any other war in U.S. history, for that matter), this story makes you take a step back and look again at what you believe. It may not change your mind, but it will (hopefully) make you think a bit more. It has certainly had that effect on me. I am especially impressed at how the story could easily evoke completely opposite responses from readers, depending on their current beliefs and opinions. Choosing such a well regarded president and administration as the subject for the story ran the risk of incurring readers’ ire, but it was an effective way to shake things up.

  Thank you, Mr. Turtledove. This is an excellent story.

  Kendra Myers

  St. Paul, MN

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  Dear Editors,

  For the past year or so, it has seemed to me that Asimov's has been publishing more and more stories that are less science fiction than fantasy. Because I know that the definition of these genres varies from person to person, I haven't complained heretofore. I realize that not all sci-fi has to be “space opera” in the tradition of Heinlein, Sturgeon, Asimov, Clarke, and others like them, although those are the stories that I personally hunger for and remember best. Hoping for more of that ilk is the only reason I subscribe to the magazine.

  Now, we have “Chainsaw on Hand” (March 2007). I have read and re-read this story, and can find no way in which it could qualify as science fiction by anyone's definition. It does not postulate any future world or civilization, it does not contain anything remotely resembling speculative extrapolation of current technology or societal more. Although both extraterrestrials and time manipulation are vaguely hinted at, they are never described or actualized. “Something weird” may be going on, but that weirdness is never described or “fulfilled” and could just as well be the hallucinations of a despondent divorced man in the middle of a cold winter. It is a sad little semi-romantic vignette set in the present day, well written and all that, but it should have been published in Cosmo, or used as the basis for a Harlequin romance. I humbly submit that it has no business in Asimov's.

  Doug Jacques

  Lewisburg, TN

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  Dear editors,

  It is a tremendous relief to know that Bertie Wooster and Jeeves andperhaps the pig from Blandings survived the singularity. I'm not so sure I can say the same for myself surviving Charles Stross's “Trunk and Disorderly” (January 2007). Helpless laughter prevents any further comment.

  Please convey my congratulations to Mr. Stross on his recovery from singularitis. I fear, however, that his counselors, therapists, and physicians may be a bit premature in unleashing him on the world again.

  Christine Ertell

  Richmond, VA

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  Dear Ms. Williams,

  As a lifelong fan of almost all forms of SF and a sometime subscriber to Asimov's, I wanted to say that I was pleased by the August 2007 issue and particularly pleased by “The Mists of Time” by Tom Purdom. I have something of an interest in the history of slavery and the abolition movement and enjoyed the story right up to the end. It was only at this point that I began to think back on what I had read and noticed something rather odd—I had assumed that the English-speaking captain (William Zachary) and the crew of the slave ship were Americans, but, on rereading the story, I found on pages 111-112 that this was pretty explicitly ruled out. I quote, “Zachary was speaking with an accent that sounded, to Emory's ear, a lot like some of the varieties of English emitted by the crew on the Sparrow."

  How odd! Is the reader supposed to believe that the slavers were English, Canadians, or Aussies? I suppose it's possible, but the year is supposed to be the sixth in the reign of good Queen Vicky (i.e., 1843). After a quick review of the naval attempts to suppress the slave trade off the coasts of Africa in the first half of the nineteenth century, I find that Americans were, by far, the mostly likely English speakers to flout the remarkably lax enforcement of U.S. law deeming the importation of slaves to be piracy and punishable by death. Again, how odd for the author (or copy editor, or publisher) to go out of his or her way to rule out—for no structure or content reason that I can see—the most likely nationality for the novella's prime villains! Rewriting history are we to protect the criminals? Ha ha. Just kidding. Of course, we know that Americans would never do such a thing.

  Ken Leland

  Toronto, ON

  Canada

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  The author replies....

  I can assure Mr. Leland that I wasn't trying to whitewash the American role in the slave trade. I've been circulating a novel proposal, in fact, in which the slave ship belongs to a Philadelphian. I'm well aware that we didn't do our bit to suppress the trade and even adhered to policies that seriously hindered the British efforts. As Mr. Leland undoubtedly knows, many non-American slavers hid under the American flag because the U.S. refused to let the British search American ships.

  In the passage Mr. Leland questions, I was merely trying to make it clear the slavers were obviously flying a false flag. I was also trying to give the reader some idea of the legal complexities British officers had to deal with as they engaged in one of the most honorable campaigns any military force has ever undertaken. A slave ship with an American captain might have been more probable, but the trade attracted men from every nation.

  —Tom Purdom

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  We welcome your letters. They should be sent to Asimov's, 475 Park Avenue South, Floor 11, New York, NY 10016, or e-mailed to asimovs@dellmagazines.com. Space and time make it impossible to print or answer all letters, but please include your mailing address even if you use e-mail. If you don't want your address printed, put it only in the heading of your letter; if you do want it printed, please put your address under your signature. We reserve the right to shorten and copy-edit letters. The email address is for editorial correspondence only—please direct all subscription inquiries to: 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855.

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  On the Net: PIXEL-STAINED TECHNOPEASANTS

  by James Patrick Kelly

  stained

  In April of this year, Howard Hendrix howardvhendrix.com, then
the sitting Vice President of the Science Fiction Writers of America sfwa.org, poked a stick into a metaphorical hornet's nest. In the course of explaining why he had decided not to run for President of SFWA, traditionally a course that many VPs follow, Hendrix let loose with a rant community.livejournal.com/sfwa/10039.html about publishing on the web. He said he felt estranged from a segment of SFWA members: web enthusiasts who “claim they're just posting their books for free in an attempt to market and publicize them, but to my mind they're undercutting those of us who aren't giving it away for free and are trying to get publishers to pay a better wage for our hard work.” In the course of making his argument, Hendrix used some inflammatory language which he later came to regret. He called these writers “webscabs” and wrote that they were “converting the noble calling of Writer into the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch.” Hendrix later issued a less colorful clarificationmediabistro.com/galleycat/webtech/exclusivehendrix clarifiesscabrousremarksonwebpublishing57032.asp of his thoughts on this matter in which he admitted that the term scab was “incendiary” and “has proven unfortunate.” Still he reiterated “My concern is that, in the long term, as more and more people become schooled to reading off the screen rather than from the printed page, free online whole-book posting may set a precedent of ‘why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?’ which in the end will benefit conglomerates rather than authors as a class."