The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction - July/August 2016
Page 29
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CURIOSITIES
By Robert Eldridge | 268 words
STAR OF THE UNBORN,
BY FRANZ WERFEL (1946)
PLACE: California. Time: 100,000 years in the future. Hero: the author himself, revived by a spiritualist for a wedding entertainment. Earth has been subjected to a catastrophic solar event that irradiated the exposed hemisphere, killing most life forms and mutating survivors. The only flora is an "iron-gray turf." Humanoids ("Astromentals") spend most of their 200-year life spans underground with advanced technology and an exquisitely refined culture. Then they journey to "the Wintergarden"—a deep subterranean realm where their bodies are packed in "retrogenetic humus" and later transplanted to a field to become daisies.
Franz Werfel wrote Star of the Unborn (published posthumously in 1946 as Stern der Ungeborenen, and translated from the German in the same year by Gustave O. Arlt) while he was dying. He referred to it as "a travel novel," and it certainly is that, heavy on painstaking description. But its 645 pages of dense first-person narrative is studded with discursive asides and provocative epigrams. Its philosophical heft will enrich patient and adventurous readers.
The novel's fertility and profundity of vision is comparable to Stapledon. Its yearning for transcendence brings to mind David Lindsay, its faith in Christianity, C. S. Lewis. Yet its author was a Jew who barely escaped Europe for America in 1940. Werfel never converted, yet he believed that Orthodox Judaism and Roman Catholicism historically required and eternally complemented each other. He accepted "the conservation of evil," yet paradoxically embraced an optimistic teleology.
Werfel was the third husband, after Gustave Mahler and Walter Gropius, of Alma Schindler, who once described herself as "a collector of geniuses." This novel should confirm her critical acumen.
—Robert Eldridge
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Cartoon (Masear-1)
By Arthur Masear | 2 words
—Arthur Masear
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Cartoon (Masear-2)
By Arthur Masear | 13 words
"I think I'm going to erase my own memory after this one."
—Arthur Masear
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Cartoon (Downes)
By Nick Downes | 12 words
"You know how I felt losing my job to a robot."
—Nick Downes
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FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION MARKET PLACE
Classified Ads | 333 words
BOOKS-MAGAZINES
S-F FANTASY MAGAZINES, pulps, books, fanzines. 96 page catalog. $5.00. Robert Madle, 4406 Bestor Dr., Rockville, MD 20853
Benchmarks Continued: F&SF "Books" Columns 1975-1982 by Algis Budrys. Ansible Editions/Lulu.com, ISBN 978-1-300-34659-3
WHAT IF? #3 ed. by Richard A. Lupoff. Stories that didn't win a Hugo, but should have. Brand New. www.ramblehouse.com
Spiffy, jammy, deluxy, bouncy—subscribe to Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. $20/4 issues Small Beer Press, 176 Prospect Ave., Northampton, MA 01060.
20-time Hugo nominee. The New York Review of Science Fiction. www.nyrsf.com Reviews and essays. $30/12 months.
Tarzan in Kentucky . Poems by Judith Moffett. www.davidrobertbooks.com/moffett.html
"DAWN OF THE SIXTH MILLENNIUM" series by V. A. Blaine now on E-book. Major distributors.
Back in print after almost 40 years: The Surreal Feminist SF Classic, Passing for Human by Jody Scott. digitalparchmentservices.com
SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5, CATTLE 0. The first 58 F&SF contests are collected in Oi, Robot, edited by Edward L. Ferman and illustrated with cartoons. $11.95 postpaid from F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
MISCELLANEOUS
If stress can change the brain, all experience can change the brain. http://www.undoingstress.com
Space Studies Masters degree. Accredited University program. Campus and distance classes. For details visit www.space.edu .
New from the Cartoon Network: The Karmic Avenger meets the Three-Armed Man. No holds barred!
A better world awaits, among the stars. Help make it happen. Extend the web of life beyond this pond of death. Scientists, engineers, idealists—visit www.gypsyweb.net .
Longtime professional editor will help you polish your manuscript for submittal/self-publication. Betsymitchelleditorial.com
TechieAnnex.com for your small business. More to do than time or people? Hand off web or software tasks to a solid pro.
F&SF classifieds work because the cost is low: only $2.00 per word (minimum of 10 words per issue). 10% discount for 6 consecutive insertions, 15% for 12. You'll reach 100,000 high-income, highly educated readers each of whom spends hundreds of dollars a year on books, magazines, games, collectibles, audio and video tapes. Send copy and remittance to: F&SF Market Place, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
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