Clues to the depth of that conversation surface throughout the texts on view. Gene Wolfe’s “Knight,” for instance—which comprises a substantial excerpt from a long novel to be published next year—may seem at first glance to inhabit a straightforward medieval secondary world with seers and swords, just another Arthurized Version of fantasyland. What we soon discover, of course, is that the Land into which Able of the High Heart irrupts from his childhood on Earth resembles fantasyland only superficially, and for just a few pages; and that the Portal Able reaches the Land through is no run-of-the-mill Portal. The Land, we discover, is molten with metamorphosis, and on our learning that it stands fourth in a sevenfold hierarchy of superimposed realities, we begin to think we may be conversing with the Cabbala, with something (we think vaguely) hermetic. And the Portal—which Wolfe first describes in an introductory chapter not printed here—remains part of the flow of the story, invisible but immanent, a continuing grammar for the continuance of Able upon his course. At this point, keeping in mind that Portal sufficiently elongated becomes Pilgrimage, we notice other things as well. The oddly named inhabitants of the Land whom Able meets—Scaur and Ravd and the others—seem clearly to have been set in place in order for him to meet them; they are vividly real on the page, but they are also exemplary. So the seeming transparency of telling of “Knight” is a snare, and—like any other tale here assembled—cannot be read as innocent of the Ocean of Story in which it bathes. Like any conscious work of art in the literatures of the fantastic in 2002, it is a conversation: which may be enough to go on till the full tale unfolds. But one can make an interim guess. “Knight” is a pilgrimage through a clade of worlds toward the truth, a progress which subjects Abie’s knightliness to a series of tests and temptations to linger. The text that “Knight” seems most conversant with, at this moment, seems to be David Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus (1920). But the conversation will not stop there, though we do.
The stories touched upon here were convenient to the arguments suggested. If those arguments had been uttered differently—for there is more than one story of the world, more than one way to address the natures of the world—every other story in the book could have been as ruthlessly cited for grist: because they are all conversant. The final lesson of any examination of the fantastic is connection. Touch one story and we touch them all.
Touch David Lindsay, back in the maelstrom of Europe between the wars, and we touch Joseph Conrad, back before the drowning he saw coming down. For we are touching the Ocean of Story. These two speak in different voices, with different ends in view, but they join in the project of the past two hundred years in the West, that of fishing for ways to tell us what is happening, here and now, as the daily unprecedented world turns that we inherit. And so here we are, us and the world, beyond the pale. So let us make some talk together, us and the world, and our tales witnessing.
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
JONATHAN CARROLL’S latest novel is White Apples (Tor Books). Among his other novels are Sleeping in Flame (Vintage), The Land of Laughs (St. Martin’s Press), and Bones of the Moon (Century Hutchinson Limited).
JOHN CLUTE’s recent books include a novel, Appleseed (Tor Books), and a collection of reviews and essays, Look at the Evidence (John D. Barry Design).
JOHN CROWLEY is the author of Little, Big (Orion Publishing Group), a family chronicle; the Aegypt series (Bantam Doubleday Dell), which so far consists of three volumes; and The Translator (William Morrow). He teaches fiction writing at Yale,
ANDY DUNCAN is the winner of two World Fantasy Awards and a Sturgeon Award, and is the author of Beluthahatchie and Other Stories (Golden Gryphon). His “Daddy Mention and the Monday Skull” will appear in Mojo: Conjure Stories, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and forthcoming from Warner Aspect Books. Also forthcoming is an anthology he edited with F. Brett Cox, Crossroads: Southern Stories of the Fantastic (Tor Books). He lives in Northport, Alabama.
KAREN JOY FOWLER is the author of Sarah Canary (Ballantine), Black Glass (Henry Holt), and, most recently, Sister Noon (Plume), and this year was a nominee for the PEN/Faulkner Award.
NEIL GAIMAN’s most recent book for adults is American Gods (William Morrow), which was awarded the 2002 Hugo Award for best novel, the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for best novel, and the 2002 UK SFX Award. His most recent book for all ages is Coraline (HarperChildrens), and his longest work is the Sandman (1988-1996), collected in ten graphic novels (DC Comics).
JOE HALDEMAN’s books include The Forever War (Avon), Forever Peace (Berkley Publishing Group), and Worlds (Victor Gollancz). His new novel, Guardian, excerpted here, combines science fiction, historical fiction, and magic realism.
ELIZABETH HAND has written seven novels, including The Affair of the Necklace (Harper Entertainment) and Walking on the Moon (Harper Mass Market Paperbacks), as well as the forthcoming Mortal Love and a short story collection, Last Summer at Mars Hill (Harper Prism). She is a regular contributor to the Washington Post Book World, VLS, and Fantasy and Science Fiction, among other journals. Her fiction has received numerous awards, most recently an Individual Artist’s Fellowship from the Maine Arts Commission/NEA. She lives on the coast of Maine.
M. JOHN HARRISON is the author of eight novels and four collections of short stories, including Climbers, Travel Arrangements (both from Victor Gollancz), and the forthcoming Things That Never Happen (Nightshade Books). His most recent novel is Light (Victor Gollancz). He lives in London and reviews fiction for the Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement.
NALO HOPKINSON, originally from the Caribbean, now lives in Canada. She is the author of the novels Brown Girl in the Ring (Warner Books), Midnight Robber (Aspect), and Griffonne (Warner Books), and of the short story collection Skin Folk (Warner Books). She recently edited an anthology of short fiction, Mojo: Conjure Stories, forthcoming next spring from Warner Aspect Books.
JOHN KESSEL’s books include the novels Good News from Outer Space (St. Martin’s Press) and Corrupting Dr. Nice (Tor Books), and the short story collection The Pure Product (Tor Books). He is the winner of the 1982 Nebula Award for his novella “Another Orphan,” and is director of the creative writing program at North Carolina State University.
JONATHAN LETHEM is the author of Gun, With Occasional Music (Tor Books) and four other novels, including Motherless Brooklyn (Vintage), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in Brooklyn.
KELLY LINK’S collection, Stranger Things Happen (Small Beer Press), was a Salon Book of the Year and a Village Voice Favorite.
CHINA MIÉVILLE has written several short stories and the novels King Rat (Tor Books), Perdido Street Station, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Fantasy Award, and The Scar (both by Del Rey). He lives and works in London.
JAMES MORROW’S most recent series of novels, the Godhead Trilogy, comprises Towing Jehovah, winner of the World Fantasy Award, Blameless in Abaddon, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and The Eternal Footman (all published by Harvest Books), finalist for the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire. His current project is The Last Witchfinder, a novel about the birth of the scientific world view.
PATRICK O’LEARY’s first novel, Door Number Three (Tor Books), was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the best novels of the year, and his second novel, The Gift, also published by Tor Books, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Award. His collection, Other Voices, Other Doors, was published by Fairwood Press, and his third novel, The Impossible Bird, appeared this year from Tor Books.
PAUL PARK’S books include Soldiers of Paradise (Arbor House), Sugar Rain, The Cult of Loving Kindness (both from William Morrow), Celestis (Tor Books), The Gospel of Corax (Soho Press), Three Marys (Cosmos Press), and a collection of stories, If Lions Could Speak (also by Cosmos Press).
PETER STRAUB is the author of fourteen novels, among them Ghost Story (Pocket Books), Koko, The Throat (both from Signet), and Mr. X (Ballantine Books), and two collections of shorter fiction.
/> GAHAN WILSON’S cartoons appear regularly in Playboy and the New Yorker, among other periodicals. His most recent books are The Cleft and Other Odd Tales (Tor Books) and Gahan Wilson’s Gravediggers’ Party (forthcoming from iBooks/Simon & Schuster). His cartoons are also featured in Gahan Wilson’s Year of Weird 2003 Block Calendar (Andrews McMeel Publishing).
GARY K. WOLFE is the author of several books on science fiction and fantasy, most recently Harlan Ellison: The Edge of Forever (Ohio State University Press), with Ellen Weil. He is professor of humanities and English at Roosevelt University, and is a contributing editor of Locus magazine.
GENE WOLFE has written numerous short stories and books, most recently On Blue’s Waters, In Green’s Jungles, Return to the Whorl, and Strange Travelers (all Tor Books). He also has received many awards, including three World Fantasy Awards, one of them for Life Achievement; two Nebula Awards; and the Chicago Foundation for Literature Award.
EDITOR: Bradford Morrow
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CONJUNCTIONS is published in the Spring and Fall of each year by Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504. This issue is made possible in part with the generous funding of the National Endowment for the Arts, and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.
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Copyright © 2002 by CONJUNCTIONS
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New Wave Fabulists Page 51