Two of the silliest ideas for anthologies in recent years were to be found in: Hunger for Horror (DAW), edited by Robert Adams, Pamela Adams Crippen, and Martin H. Greenberg (Killer Food), and 14 Vicious Valentines (Avon), edited by Rosalind M. Greenberg, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh (self-explanatory).
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There were no real outstanding items in the SF-oriented nonfiction SF reference book field in 1988, although it was another solid year, with some interesting stuff seeing print. The book that should have been 1988’s standout reference work, but which instead became one of the year’s most controversial books, was The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (Viking), edited by James Gunn. Clearly much earnest effort went into the compilation of this book, and some of the individual essays and entries are excellent, but my overall general reaction to the book is one of mild disappointment, a reaction that seems to have been pretty generally shared. A few reasons for disappointment: many of the entries are sketchy and too many of them are not significantly updated over the information available in 1979’s Science Fiction Encyclopedia edited by Peter Nicholls; many authors who by rights really ought to be covered here are omitted; and much too much space is devoted to plot summaries of bad B science fiction and monster movies—this last is particularly annoying, since the space devoted to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms or The Deadly Mantis could more profitably have been devoted to some of the authors who should have been discussed here. Gunn’s New Encyclopedia still has value as a reference work, but it’s not the book it might have been, and it does not adequately replace Nicholls’s Encyclopedia—we will have to continue to hope for an updating of the Nicholls’s Encyclopedia sometime in the future. More solid references are: Science Fiction, Fantasy And Horror: 1987 (Locus), edited by Charles N. Brown and William G. Contento; Jules Verne Rediscovered: Didacticism and the Scientific Novel (Greenwood), Arthur B. Evans; Fantasy: The 100 Best Books (Xanadu), James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock; and Horror: 100 Best Books (Xanadu), Stephen Jones and Kim Newman. Another controversial book this year was Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard (Holt), by Russell Miller; it makes fascinating reading. Also controversial were two autobiographies, The Motion of Light in Water (Morrow), by Samuel R. Delany, and Bio Of An Ogre (Ace), by Piers Anthony—two books that couldn’t be more different. There was also yet another book about the late Philip K. Dick: Philip K. Dick (Twayne), by Douglas A. Mackey; it’s a shame that he couldn’t have received some of this attention while he was still alive. John Clute is a controversial critic, speaking of controversy, and certainly he has never hesitated to speak his mind, but, as the reviews collected in Strokes: Essays and Reviews 1966-1986 (Serconia Press) show, he is also often brilliant and incisive—if sometimes acerbic. More essays, varying in quality and interest, are to be found in Women of Vision: Essays by Women Writing Science Fiction (St. Martin’s), edited by Denise Du Pont. And if you are a Silverlock fan, you’ll definitely want A Silverlock Companion (Niekas Publications), edited by Fred Lerner; if you’re not, however, or haven’t read it, then don’t bother, because you’ll find it incomprehensible. There were two good art books this year: First Maitz: Selected Works by Don Maitz (Ursus Imprints), by Don Maitz and Imagination: The Art and Technique of David A. Cherry (Donning), by David A. Cherry, as well as a rare reference book about SF art: A Biographical Dictionary of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists (Greenwood), by Robert Weinberg.
My favorite nonfiction book of the year, though, is also the hardest to categorize: The New Dinosaurs (Salem House) by Dougal Dixon, a brilliant—and often slyly witty—biological extrapolation of what the world’s fauna might look like today if dinosaurs had not become extinct, magnificently rendered. Art book? Speculative biology? Whatever it is, it’s well worth buying.
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Nineteen eighty-eight was apparently a good year for SF and fantasy films, as far as box-office receipts were concerned, anyway, but except for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, an extremely enjoyable technological movie, I didn’t really like any of them very much. Being lukewarm about Willow was okay—nobody else seemed to be able to work up much enthusiasm about it anyway—but then I didn’t like Beetlejuice either, which was everyone else’s favorite movie, and I began to wonder if my taste had drifted too far away from that of the average moviegoer to make this review section germane—especially as I now find it physically difficult to force myself into any more slasher/satanist/exploding-head movies. With television it’s even worse—Star Trek: The Next Generation strikes me as a lackluster second-rate retread of a series I never liked that much in the first place. I have lost interest in Beauty and the Beast, with all the best will in the world, and the idea of Freddy’s Nightmares, a weekly TV series based on the Nightmare on Elm Street slasher movies, is one that I find repugnant, something that would have been a satirical bit of business in a Pohl/Kornbluth novel a few years back. Grumble. Bah Humbug.
So I’ve asked Tim Sullivan, someone who really likes exploding-head movies—and a noted authority on SF/Horror films, having contributed many of the film reviews for the recent Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural—to give us his list of the year’s ten best SF/Fantasy films instead, hoping they’ll be more useful. Tim’s list of the year’s top ten films is: 1. Who Framed Roger Rabbit; 2. The Trouble with Dick; 3. Dead Ringers; 4. Monkeyshines; 5. Brain Damage (about “a singing and dancing brain parasite named Elmer,” according to Tim); 6. The Milagro Beanfield War; 7. Lair of the White Worm; 8. Wings of Desire; 9. DA; 10. They Live.
Actually, now that Tim reminds me of it, I liked The Milagro Beanfield War, too. So there. Two movies I liked in 1988! Call me an unhip old fart, will you …
The 46th World Science Fiction convention, Nolacon II, was held in New Orleans, Louisiana, September 1–5, 1988, and drew an estimated attendance of 5,343. The 1988 Hugo Awards, presented at Nolacon II, were: Best Novel, The Uplift War, by David Brin; Best Novella, “Eye for Eye,” by Orson Scott Card; Best Novelette, “Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight,” by Ursula K. Le Guin; Best Short Story, “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers,” by Lawrence Watt-Evans; Best NonFiction, Michael Whelan’s Works of Wonder, by Michael Whelan; Best Other Forms, Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons; Best Professional Editor, Gardner Dozois; Best Professional Artist, Michael Whelan; Best Dramatic Presentation, The Princess Bride; Best Semiprozine, Locus; Best Fanzine, The Texas SF Inquirer; Best Fan Writer, Mike Glyer; Best Fan Artist, Brad Foster, plus the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer to Judith Moffett.
The 1987 Nebula Awards, presented at a banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, on May 21, 1988, were Best Novel, The Falling Woman, by Pat Murphy; Best Novella, “The Blind Geometer,” by Kim Stanley Robinson; Best Novelette, “Rachel in Love,” by Pat Murphy; Best Short Story, “Forever Yours, Anna,” by Kate Wilhelm; plus the Grand Master Award to Alfred Bester.
The World Fantasy Awards, presented at the Fourteenth Annual World Fantasy Convention in London, England, over Halloween weekend, were: Best Novel, Replay, by Ken Grimwood; Best Novella, “Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight,” by Ursula K. Le Guin; Best Short Story, “Friend’s Best Man,” by Jonathan Carroll; Best Collection, The Jaguar Hunter, by Lucius Shepard; Best Anthology (tie) The Architecture of Fear, edited by Kathryn Cramer and Peter D. Pautz, and The Dark Descent, edited by David G. Hartwell. Best Artist, J. K. Potter; Special Award (Professional), David G. Hartwell; Special Award (Nonprofessional), (tie) David B. Silva, and Robert and Nancy Garcia; plus a Life Achievement Award to Everett F. Bleiler.
The 1988 Bram Stoker Awards, presented at a banquet at the Warwick Hotel in New York City on June 5, 1988 by The Horror Writers of America, were: Best Novel (tie) Misery, by Stephen King and Swan Song, by Robert McCammon; Best First Novel, The Manse, by Lisa Cantrell; Best Collection, The Essential Ellison, by Harlan Ellison; Best Nonfiction, Mary Shelley by Muriel Spark; Best Novelette, (tie) “The Pear-Shaped Man,” by George R. R. Martin and “The Boy Who Came
Back from the Dead,” Alan Rodgers; Best Short Story, “The Deep End,” by Robert McCammon; plus Life Achievement Awards to Fritz Leiber, Frank Belknap Long, and Clifford D. Simak.
The 1987 John W. Campbell Memorial Award-winner was Lincoln’s Dreams, by Connie Willis.
The 1987 Theodore Sturgeon Award was won by “Rachel in Love,” by Pat Murphy.
The 1988 Philip K. Dick Memorial Award-winner was Strange Toys, by Patricia Geary.
The Arthur C. Clarke award was won by The Sea and the Summer, by George Turner.
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Death hit the SF field hard yet again in 1988, taking several of the giants of the industry. The dead include: Robert A. Heinlein, 80, one of the most famous SF authors of all time and arguably the most influential SF writer since H. G. Wells, multiple award-winner, author of such books as the cult classic Stranger in a Strange Land, the controversial Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and a long sequence of so-called “juvenile” novels like Red Planet and Starman Jones that were an introduction to SF for generations of readers; Clifford D. Simak, 83, another Golden Age giant, winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and International Fantasy Award, probably best known for the novels Way Station, Time and Again, and the classic novel/collection City, one of the cornerstone works of the field; C.L. Moore, 76, another prominent writer of the ’30s and ’40s, who, alone or in collaboration with her husband, the late Henry Kuttner, produced a distinguished body of work, including the classic stories “Vintage Season,” “No Woman Born,” “The Twonky,” and “Mimsy Were the Borogroves”; veteran author Ross Rocklynne, 75, author of “Time Wants a Skeleton,” and “Jackdaw,” as well as dozens of other stories for the pulp magazines of the ’30s and ’40s; Randall Garrett, 60, prolific author best known for his “Lord Darcy” series, such as Too Many Magicians and Murder and Magic, in which he adroitly blended the mystery and fantasy fields; John Myers Myers, 82, primarily known as the author of the fantasy novel Silverlock, which has become a cult classic since its first publication in 1949; Lin Carter, 57, writer and editor, often credited, as editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy line in the late ’60s and early ’70s, with helping to revive public interest in high fantasy and sword and sorcery; Michael Shaara, 58, SF writer of the ’50s who also won a Pulitzer Prize for his Civil War novel, The Killer Angels; veteran writer, E. Hoffmann Price, author of Strange Gateways and Far Lands, Other Days; Neil R. Jones, 79, author of the long-running “Professor Jameson” series, as well as many other novels and stories; Linda Haldeman, 52, fantasy writer, author of Esbae: A Winter’s Tale; Alice M. Lightner, 83, author of The Day of the Drones; Louis L’ Amour, 80, perhaps the premier Western writer of all time, rivaled only by Zane Grey; John Ball, 77, author of the mystery novel In the Heat of the Night, as well as some SF; Donald E. Keyhoe, 91, author of The Flying Saucers Are Real and other flying saucer books; Lurton Blassingame, 84, well-known literary agent; Charles Addams, 76, well-known cartoonist with a macabre bent; Hank Jankus, 59, SF interior illustrator and cover artist for most of the SF magazines; John D. Clark, long-time fan and friend of L. Sprague De Camp, Fletcher Pratt, and other SF notables; Oswald Train, 72, long-time fan and small press publisher, long involved in Philadelphia fannish circles; Eva McKenna, 67, long-time fan and widow of SF writer Richard McKenna; Leonard N. Isaacs, 49, professor at Michigan State University, one of the founders of the Clarion Workshop; Roy Squires, 68, book dealer, specialty printer, long-time fan; James Friend, 55, academician interested in SF scholarship: James French, 55, SF fan and convention staffer; John Carradine, 82, veteran actor and film star who appeared in dozens of SF/Horror movies, including The Bride of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man; and Billy Curtis, 79, actor, one of the original munchkins in the Wizard of Oz, among many other roles.
WALTER JON WILLIAMS
Surfacing
Walter Jon Williams was born in Minnesota and now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Regarded as one of the hottest new talents in science fiction, Williams has sold stories to Isaac Asimov’ s Science Fiction Magazine, Omni, Far Frontiers, Wild Cards, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. His novels include Ambassador of Progress, Knight Moves, Hardwired, The Crown Jewels, and Voice of the Whirlwind. His most recent novels are House of Shards and Angel Station (out soon). His story “Side Effects” was in our Third Annual Collection; his story “Video Star” was in our Fourth Annual Collection; and “Dinosaurs” was in our Fifth Annual Collection.
Here he takes us sailing on mysterious alien seas on distant alien worlds, in search of elusive and dangerous prey.
SURFACING
Walter Jon Williams
There was an alien on the surface of the planet. A Kyklops had teleported into Overlook Station, and then flown down on the shuttle. Since, unlike humans, it could teleport without apparatus, presumably it took the shuttle for the ride. The Kyklops wore a human body, controlled through an n-dimensional interface, and took its pleasures in the human fashion.
The Kyklops expressed an interest in Anthony’s work, but Anthony avoided it: he stayed at sea and listened to aliens of another kind.
* * *
Anthony wasn’t interested in meeting aliens who knew more than he did.
The boat drifted in a cold current and listened to the cries of the sea. A tall grey swell was rolling in from the southwest, crossing with a wind-driven easterly chop. The boat tossed, caught in the confusion of wave patterns.
It was a sloppy ocean, somehow unsatisfactory. Marking a sloppy day.
Anthony felt a thing twist in his mind. Something that, in its own time, would lead to anger.
The boat had been out here, both in the warm current and then in the cold, for three days. Each more unsatisfactory than the last.
The growing swell was being driven toward land by a storm that was breaking up fifty miles out to sea: the remnants of the storm itself would arrive by midnight and make things even more unpleasant. Spray feathered across the tops of the waves. The day was growing cold.
Spindrift pattered across Anthony’s shoulders. He ignored it, concentrated instead on the long, grating harmonic moan picked up by the microphones his boat dangled into the chill current. The moan ended on a series of clicks and trailed off. Anthony tapped his computer deck. A resolution appeared on the screen. Anthony shaded his eyes from the pale sun and looked at it.
Anthony gazed stonily at the translation tree. “I am rising toward and thinking hungrily about the slippery-tasting coordinates” actually made the most objective sense, but the righthand branch of the tree was the most literal and most of what Anthony suspected was context had been lost. “I and the oily current are in a state of motion toward one another” was perhaps more literal, but “We (the oily deep and I) are in a cold state of mind” was perhaps equally valid.
The boat gave a corkscrew lurch, dropped down the face of a swell, came to an abrupt halt at the end of its drogue. Water slapped against the stern. A mounting screw, come loose from a bracket on the bridge, fell and danced brightly across the deck.
The screw and the deck are in a state of relative motion, Anthony thought. The screw and the deck are in a motion state of mind.
Wrong, he thought, there is no Other in the Dwellers’ speech.
We, I and the screw and the deck, are feeling cold.
We, I and the Dweller below, are in a state of mutual incomprehension.
A bad day, Anthony thought.
Inchoate anger burned deep inside him.
Anthony saved the translation and got up from his seat. He went to the bridge and told the boat to retrieve the drogue and head for Cabo Santa Pola at flank speed. He then went below and found a bottle of bourbon that had three good swallows left.
The trailing microphones continued to record the sonorous moans from below, the sound now mingled with the thrash of the boat’s screws.
The screw danced on the deck as the engines built up speed.
Its state of mind was not recorded.
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&nbs
p; The video news, displayed above the bar, showed the Kyklops making his tour of the planet. The Kyklops’ human body, male, was tall and blue-eyed and elegant. He made witty conversation and showed off his naked chest as if he were proud of it. His name was Telamon.
His real body, Anthony knew, was a tenuous uncorporeal mass somewhere in n-dimensional space. The human body had been grown for it to wear, to move like a puppet. The nth dimension was interesting only to a mathematician: its inhabitants preferred wearing flesh.
Anthony asked the bartender to turn off the vid.
The yacht club bar was called the Leviathan, and Anthony hated the name. His creatures were too important, too much themselves, to be awarded a name that stank of human myth, of human resonance that had nothing to do with the creatures themselves. Anthony never called them Leviathans himself. They were Deep Dwellers.
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Sixth Annual Collection Page 3