In the months ahead we've got lots of good tales planned, including a look at politics by Richard Bowes, a fable of the reconstruction from Albert E. Cowdrey, and a vintage space opera by Robert Reed. Other writers with stories in inventory include Al Michaud, M. Rickert, Richard Paul Russo, and James Stoddard. Subscribe now so you won't miss any of the fun!
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FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION MARKET PLACE
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BOOKS-MAGAZINES
S-F FANZINES (back to 1930), pulps, books. 96 page Catalog. $5.00. Collections purchased. Robert Madle, 4406 Bestor Dr., Rockville, MD 20853.
18-time Hugo nominee. The New York Review of Science Fiction. www.nyrsf.com Reviews and essays. $4.00 or $38 for 12 issues, checks only. Dragon Press, PO Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570.
Spiffy, jammy, deluxy, bouncy—subscribe to Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. $20/4 issues. Small Beer Press, 176 Prospect Ave., Northampton, MA 01060.
ENEMY MINE, All books in print. Check: www.barrylongyear.net
SYBIL'S GARAGE Speculative fiction, poetry, and art. Ekaterina Sedia, Cat Rambo, Richard Bowes, Steve Rasnic Tem, and more. www.sensesfive.com/
When They Came by DON WEBB, 23 stories, $22.50 postpaid (U.S.A.) Temporary Culture, P.O.B. 43072, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043 “Don Webb is a genius."—Bruce Sterling
ED & CAROL EMSHWILLER First bio/art collection of the 5-time Hugo winning F&SF artist and his wife Carol, 2005 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. Emshwiller: Infinity x Two by Luis Ortiz. Fully illustrated hardcover, $39.95. www.nonstop-press.com
DREADNOUGHT: INVASION SIX™ by Richard F. Roszko. Existence to extinction is one short trip™. New SF Adventure comic! See sample pages! Buy from www.dreadnoughtseries.com!
Space Box 2—Hard Rock telling a Sci-fi story. www.dorncreations.com
The Contested Earth by Jim Harmon and The Compleat Ova Hamlet, parodies of SF authors by Richard A. Lupoff. www.ramble house.com 318-865-3735
Enter to win professional fantasy art and read free online fiction at resanelson.com—including the Nebula-recommended story that inspired the upcoming novel, The Dragonslayer's Sword.
WICCANS, MORMONS, and ATHEISTS on Mars! “Mother Mars” by Corwyn Green. America's best colonize Mars! Blasphemy! Ghosts! Babies! War! Basketball! Get it on Amazon.com before it comes true!
BUYING Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror magazines and paperbacks. Will travel for large collections. Send list to: Hart Box 421013 Indianapolis, IN 46242 or email [email protected]
Collected Stories by Marta Randall. 12 previously uncollected stories. Available from www.lulu.com.
Do you have Fourth Planet from the Sun yet? Signed hardcover copies are still available. Only $17.95 ppd from F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
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MISCELLANEOUS
If stress can change the brain, all experience can change the brain. www.undoingstress.com
Support the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund. Visit www.carlbrandon.org for more information on how to contribute.
Space Studies Masters degree. Accredited University program. Campus and distance classes. For details visit www.space.edu.
2007 Short Story Contest:
Sponsored by Westbank Publishing.
With a Grand Prize of $500.00
www.2007storycontest.homestead.com
Learning a foreign language is fundamental to our civilization. Please support the Jamie Bishop Scholarship for German, Virginia Tech Foundation, University Development, 902 Prices Fork Road, Blacksburg, VA 24061.
Giant Squid seeks humans to advise. Apply within. Poor Mojo's Almanac(k), www.squid.poormojo.org
NOGARD GIFTS—There Be Dragons Here! Fantasy Figures, T-shirts, Books, Gothic, Mystic & More! www.nogardgifts.com
Red Planet Adventures—Go Ba-room To Barsoom! We're optimized for safety! (Not affiliated with www.redplanetexpeditions.com.)
F&SF classifieds work because the cost is low: only $2.00 per word (minimum of 10 words). 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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Curiosities: How Like a God by Rex Stout (1929)
Here's one of the most bizarre fiction books ever written: unconventional in structure and in form as well as in premise. I say “fiction book” rather than “novel,” because the chapters of How Like a God are interwoven with segments of a seemingly unrelated short story, and the threads unite only in the terrifying conclusion.
The short story, printed entirely in italics but otherwise told in conventional third-person narration, is divided into segments lettered A through Q. These reveal the thoughts of one Mr. Lewis as he ascends a staircase with a pistol in his coat pocket, intending to kill someone in an upstairs room. Lewis's sense of impending doom raises the possibility that perhaps his intent is not murder but rather suicide, or perhaps both.
Alternating between these brief cliffhanger segments are the long chapters I through XVI of a novel, in second-person narration. You are William Barton Sidney. Your entire existence, from childhood through sexual awakening into prosperous middle age, is recounted in these pages. Your life is respectable, normal, prosaic. Yet nobody suspects that you are aware of multiple personalities within your body, and that your head is full of voices.
The final segment Q is a chilling climax, revealing Lewis's intended prey (human in visage only), the true relationship between Lewis and Sidney, and the full significance of the novel's title (a quote from Hamlet). Can it be coincidence that Brenda Clough's 1997 SF novel How Like a God features a telepathic protagonist also named Lewis?
—F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
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Visit www.fsfmag.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.
FSF, January 2008 Page 19