Winter 2007

by Subterranean Press

  Winter 2007

  For two years, Subterranean magazine has brought you the absolute finest in science fiction, fantasy and horror, from names like Harlan Ellison, Joe R. Lansdale, Elizabeth Bear, Joe Hill and Cherie Priest. Now Subterranean magazine is moving online — and continuing to bring you the best new fiction as it moves from print to pixels.

  Here’s what you can expect from Subterranean Online in the near future:

  * An entire novella by Hugo and Nebula Award winner Lucius Shepard

  * A full-length original audio-book by Kage Baker

  * New and original short fiction from Subterranean Press authors Poppy Z. Brite, Joe Hill, Joe R. Lansdale and John Scalzi

  * Columns and opinion from Elizabeth Bear, Norman Partridge and Scott Lynch

  * Weekly reviews of the best new fiction from Dorman T. Shindler.

  All new, all compelling, all right there on your screen. It’s what you expect from Subterranean magazine — and a taste of what you can expect in the future.

  Table of Contents

  The following features are in this issue:

  • Column: Harvesting the Darkness #1 by Norman Partridge

  • Column: Dear Patriarchy by Elizabeth Bear

  • Fiction: Boiler Maker by R. Andrew Heidel

  • Fiction: Missives from Possible Futures #1: Alternate History Search Results by John Scalzi

  • Fiction: The Surgeon’s Tale by Jeff VanderMeer & Cat Rambo

  • Fiction: Vacancy by Lucius Shepard

  • Fiction: Wandering the Borderlands by Poppy Z. Brite

  • Fiction: Surveillance by Joe R. Lansdale

  • Interview: David Morrell

  • Review: Book Reviews by Dorman T. Shindler

  Column: Harvesting the Darkness #1 by Norman Partridge

  Bill Schafer has asked me to sound off once a month in this space, and it’ll be my pleasure to oblige. I’ll give you a little bit of everything in this column—tales of the publishing business, advice for those of you trying to carve out writing careers (the kind dispensed in Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales), reviews of books and movies, and other good stuff. Whatever we talk about, it’s my hope that Harvesting the Darkness will provide you with a moment’s diversion, and maybe even some material for cerebral chewing once that moment has passed.

  This time out, I’ve got a tale from the writer’s side of the fence. So mind the barbed-wire, climb on over, and let’s get down to it.

  2006 was a very good one for me as a writer. I’d had a dry spell between novels, and that changed last Halloween when a new book appeared under my byline. Dark Harvest was a tale of horror’s favorite holiday, taking place on the night itself in a small town choked with shadows.

  It was a short book. Weighed in at 39,000 words, which is closer to an old-fashioned Gold Medal crime novel than one of those bestselling bricks you can use for a doorstop. But that was okay with me. Dark Harvest was a book with my name on the cover and no one else’s; it had chapters; it had your requisite beginning, middle, and end. It was—wonder of wonders—a novel.

  Like I said, it had been a long time since I’d written one of those. The truth is I’d gotten gun shy about so much as trying to write one. Oh, I could still manage to turn out novellas and short stories, but somewhere along the line the idea of tackling writing’s big monster just plain froze me up.

  Which was strange. I’d written five novels, and I’d had it pretty good. Hey, I couldn’t even complain about the work-for-hire novel I wrote. The Crow: Wicked Prayer made the jump to the movie screen… or the DVD box, anyway. Either way, I banked a nice check as a result.

  But when it came to following up that book, I figured I had all my chips on the table—literally. I was determined that novel #6 move me to that elusive “next level” as a writer. I started thinking less about the stories I wanted to tell, more about ways I could mold my writing to make the market pay off like a rigged slot machine. The way I saw it, my next book had to be bulletproof. It had to light a fire under my agent, make publishers scramble for their checkbooks, leave critics stuttering as they searched for complimentary adjectives they’d never employed.

  Strange as it might sound, I wanted that end result tucked safely in my pocket before I wrote a single word, and I had the crazy idea that I could accomplish that if I came up with the right big-ticket concept. That led to some bad habits. I’d talk myself out of good ideas before I so much as typed a title page. Or I’d write fifty pages and an outline for my agent and get a lukewarm response. Or he’d tell me those fifty pages weren’t quite what he was thinking of and ask me to try another fifty some other way. Add to that the general industry scuttlebutt every writer deals with—i.e. I’d hear that a certain kind of book wasn’t selling, and (of course) it would be exactly the kind of book I was trying to write.

  Several hunks o’ book ended up in my filing cabinet that way. I wasted a good chunk of time. A couple years, actually. It got to the point where I didn’t know what to do… so I didn’t do much of anything. I didn’t think of it so much as writer’s block—after all, I could still manage those short stories and novellas. I thought of it as novelist’s inertia. When it came to those suckers, I felt like Captain America (or maybe the Frankenstein monster) frozen in a block of polar ice. I figured I had it in me to bust out and roll the way I had before, but man… I just couldn’t move an inch.

  But I kept doing the shorter stuff. One opportunity that came my way was writing a 10,000 word piece for Rich Chizmar at Cemetery Dance. Rich was starting a novella series, and he told me he’d hold open a slot for me. I figured I’d do something hard-edged, the kind of stuff I’d written when I was first starting out. I’d set the tale in 1963, in a small town where things went completely wild on Halloween every year as the locals hunted down a walking nightmare called the October Boy. I’d toss in some bad J.D.’s in a street rod, burn rubber down a black road straight into Twilight Zone noir country.

  The story took off. Pretty soon that 10,000 words turned into 20,000. The end was not in sight. I emailed Rich. He said keep writing, and I did. And why wouldn’t I? Hey, for the first time in a long time, I was actually having fun working on a longer project. And man—was that something different.

  By the time I typed “The End,” I knew I’d busted out of the block of ice. I’d written a novel. And I knew something else, too—I’d never felt as good typing those two words at the end of a manuscript as I did with Dark Harvest. It was the Norm Partridge novel I was happiest with, and that was no surprise. After all, I’d written it for me.

  Readers liked the book. Critical reaction was great—Publishers Weekly chose Dark Harvest as one of the Best Books of 2006. I just signed a deal with Paul Stevens at Tor to reprint Dark Harvest in trade and mass market, and I’m talking to some young guns about a movie option.

  In other words: things are good.

  The old prizefighters had a saying: Dance with the girl who brung you. That meant when you got the big fight, you didn’t try to do things differently. You didn’t change your style or your trainer. Nope. You stuck with the stuff that got you there in the first place. You climbed between the ropes and did it your way.

  I think I finally learned that.

  From here on out, I’ll be dancing with the right girl.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Column: Dear Patriarchy by Elizabeth Bear

  At ComiCon last year, some yoob actually walked away from me when I tried to hand him a copy of Spin Control. Free! Free copies of Spin Control. I didn’t even get one! He had been about to take it, but then I said, “You’ll like Moriarty’s stuff; she’s really good!” And his eyes went blank and he backed away, protesting that he didn’t read books by women. Kid in his twenties, too, with the f
lannel shirted emo thing going on. Whatever.

  At the time, I argued with him.

  It occurs to me that I was wrong to do so. Because I’m not going to change that guy’s mind.

  And what’s more? I don’t need to.

  That’s right. I don’t have to care what that guy thinks. No, not him. Nor a thousand more like him.

  #

  Dear Patriarchy:

  I don’t care what you think.

  I’m not here to convert you. I’m not here to enlighten you. I’m not here to try to earn your respect. I don’t need it.

  I am not scared of you.

  You see, I can win without you. I can make a living without you. I can reach a broad readership of women–yes, and men too! lots of men! men who are enlightened, and emotionally secure!–without you. It’s really kind of awesome. After fifteen years working in corporate America, actually, where I usually had to do what a particular type of authoritarian men wanted if I wanted to keep my job, these days, I can pick the audience I care to appeal to.

  nolove, Bear.

  #

  This is not shrill, aggressive, evangelical feminism. I am not here to prove anything to you. Those who went before me have done the hard work, the hardest work, and created the opportunity for me to have that market. And that market exists not because a vast feminist conspiracy has taken over publishing and they’re not printing what men like to read, but because a certain percentage of the women and the men who do read are more interested in reading books like mine.

  Books with girl cooties.

  And, you know. ’splosions.

  You know how things come in waves? For example, if you see one reference to an obscure historical personage (Sir Phillip Kimberly, perhaps) suddenly, he’ll be everywhere. You’ll be noticing references every time you click on a web page and every time you open a book.

  Well, something like that has happened to me recently, with regard to women writing science fiction and fantasy. Which is to say, I’ve been hearing some complaints that women are taking over fantasy and science fiction, getting our relationship and character germs all in it, and ruining it for honest blaster-lovin’ men. That our books are all soft and fuzzy and full of ponies with braided manes and pretty princesses and happy endings where true love triumphs over the wicked king and then there is a wedding.

  Now, me, I love a good blastering as much as the next guy. But apparently, I’m in ur genre, spreadin’ my girl germs, and ruining it for the boys.

  It seems I’ve become a poster child for female SF authors (an interviewer told me not too long ago that I was notorious for penning strong women) which amuses me to no end, because the odd thing is, I can walk around for days on end without remembering that I Am A Girl. I just don’t think about it, frankly. Except when I have to put on a bra before I walk to the corner store.

  I don’t think of myself as a woman writer. I think of myself as a writer, full stop, or a speculative fiction writer, if it comes right down to it. If somebody asks what I do for a living, I tell them I’m a novelist. I don’t tell them I’m a woman novelist.

  #

  If you feel that the books you want to read are not being published in sufficient quantity, there’s a way to fight that.

  You can buy them when they are published. Because trust me, son, if there’s a market for a product, the product will be provided. Somebody out there is writing novels about bikini-clad mightily-thewed swordswomen, I guarantee it. And due to the magic of the internet, if you can find him, you can give him money. If this enormous audience for a particular type of old-school SF and fantasy are out there, by god, those books will be published.

  And in addition, I have to admit I have a hard time taking the pleas of hardship seriously in a world where Frank Miller is still selling comic books as fast as they can back up the truck, and where I can walk into the science fiction section of any given bookstore and find vast swaths of military SF and the sort of touchy-feely writing pioneered by authors such as Glen Cook. (There is nothing wrong with being able to find Glen Cook in your neighborhood bookstore. There is, indeed, a whole lot right with Glen Cook.) In fact, I understand that military SF is selling particularly well of late, and of course we can’t get Terry Goodkind off the best-seller lists, which would tend to indicate to me at least that Manly Topics are not in so much danger as they might be perceived to be.

  *insert sound of crickets chirping*

  I have a theory.

  I think all the whining about girly books taking over is fear. I think it’s the fact that I, an entertainer who is dependent upon the will of the masses for her continued ability to pay rent and feed the cat, can stand up with a straight face and write down something like “Dear Patriarchy: I don’t care what you think.”

  And mean it.

  I think it’s a little bit scary to some people that there’s an audience–a big audience–for things outside their comfort zone. I think it’s terrifying to them to be reminded that, indeed, I don’t have to care what they think. And that I, and dozens of fantasy and science fiction writers like me (who, when they remember to check, may be men and women both, and a few who don’t care to be identified as either) don’t have to genuflect to their mightily thewed barbarians and slave girls to get in print. And stay in print.

  Because nothing is more terrifying to an extant power structure than a frictionless surface. And the magic of it all is that they have no power over me. As long as I continue to find and link up to and entertain my audience, and it’s a big enough audience to make it financially sensible to keep me in print, the only things I answer to are the book reader, my editors, my own artistic integrity, and the bottom line.

  I mean, sure, I may never win a Hugo.

  But as long as I’m making my readers happy, I think I can live with that.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Fiction:Boiler Maker by R. Andrew Heidel

  I sallied up to the bar. “A pint of bass and a Glengoyne singe malt, neat please.”

  “Ah, a boiler maker,” replied the kindly old barkeep. He wore a white shirt with brown stripes covered by a glowing white lightly starched apron. He was a bartender of the old school, right down to the handlebar mustache and arm bands. Give him a straw hat, I thought, and he would be perfect in a barbershop quartet.

  “Yah, I need something to warm me up.”

  The bartender took a look up and down the bar. It was a quiet Tuesday evening. A couple sat at the end of the bar, whispering sweet nothings, chocolate covered love, candied happiness, fingers entwined like the tentacles of an erotic gummy squid. Satisfied that the clientele was taken care of he turned back to me.

  “Sure you don’t need something to cheer you up?”

  “Not right now. Sometimes it’s not about the pep talk, pops.”

  “Sure it is, if you don’t do it for yourself, who’s gonna do it.”

  I felt like socking him. The last thing I needed to do was look on the bright side. I was happy with the dark shades I looked through at the moment. But something about his sincerity, his compassion, kept me from getting up and moving over to one of the empty booths.

  “Okay, hit me with your best shot,” I challenged him.

  “Well, what seems to be the problem?”

  “Have you ever tried your hardest? I mean taken everything you’ve had and invested it into something big, really big? You know, into your dream?”

  “Sure.”

  “And then have that come to nothing?”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, that’s where I am right now.”

  The barkeep glanced sideways, then leaned forward on the bar, “Listen,” he said in a conspiratorial manner, “don’t just follow your dreams, chase them. Pursue them. Stalk them. Use all your cunning and guile to sneak up on them from behind and pounce upon them. Wrestle them to the ground and make them yours. And when they slip through your fingers, strengthen your grip, practice your holds, and don’t ever, ever, give up.”

 
I thought about what he said for a moment, looked at him and asked “So what happened to you? Did you give up?”

  “No. I didn’t give up. I found my dream, but I didn’t know what to do once I had it.” He picked up a towel, began drying a mug and we both lapsed into silence.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Fiction: Missives from Possible Futures #1: Alternate History Search Results by John Scalzi

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