The New York Review of Science Fiction

Published monthly by Dragon Press, P. O. Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570. $4.00 per copy.

Issue #105, May 1997

FEATURES

Fritz Leiber: "The Tale of the Grain Ships": A Fragment: 1

Howard V. Hendrix: The Literary Establishment vs. The Culture Industry: A Digression from a Review of Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human: 13

REVIEWS

His Share of Glory: The Complete Short Fiction of C. M. Kornbluth,edited by Timothy P. Szczesuil, reviewed by Mark Rich: 1

John Shirley's The Exploded Heart and Silicon Embrace, reviewed by Joe Sanders: 6

Killdozer! Volume III: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, edited by Paul Williams, reviewed by Arthur Hlavaty: 14

S. T. Joshi's H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, reviewed by Darrell Schweitzer: 18

Connie Willis's Bellwether, reviewed by Arthur Byron Cover: 19

Richard Grant's Tex and Molly in the Afterlife, reviewed by Gwyneth Jones: 20

Englebert Kaempfer's Exotic Pleasures, Fascicle III, Curious Scientific and Medical Observations, reviewed by Henry Wessels: 22

PLUS

The 1996 IAFA/William L. Crawford Memorial Award Short List (p. 7); a David Griffen rebuttal to James Bradley (p. 15); Al von Ruff on the Most Reviewed Books of 1996 (p. 16); a bit o' Screed (p. 23), and an editorial (p. 24).

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love, death, and the changing of the seasons

The world changes and the comet Hale-Bopp passes by, clearly visible in the evening from the back porch during the NYRSF work weekend. There was an eclipse of the moon last month; a celebration of the January wedding of Dede Weil and Gary K.Wolfe; the terminal illness of Sam Moskowitz--the first great sf historian; the wedding of Kathryn Cramer and David G. Hartwell; the announced sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast; and the return of Laura Tucker from her adventures on the Legasusª (too complicated to explain: you'll have to fantasize). Clearly looking for a reason to blame sf, a major network called me up to be on TV talking about the California suicides, I declined and advised them to look elsewhere for connections.

As you may notice from the front cover, we continue to find Fritz Leiber material to publish. This time, we make one of the occasional exceptions to our usual policy of not printing fiction to present the draft of a fascinating piece written in 1937, introducing The Gray Mouser. It is not a complete story but is eminently worth reading. And next issue, we hope to print a selection of Leiber letters. We also have some Avram Davidson material and some Philip K. Dick material in inventory for forthcoming issues. There are only a couple of "Death of SF" comments in the letter column this time, but we anticipate more. And of course much else less predictable.

Lunacon passed by this year not with a bang. The annual Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Fort Lauderdale was bigger than usual, aided by the addition of the James Tiptree, Jr. Awards to the ceremonies. Not only did Daniel Keyes, author of Flowers for Algernon, show up as an additional guest, but Gary Wolfe and Dede Weil had a midday celebration of their wedding, including a procession from the hotel to the pool led by Mr. Keyes the flowerperson, strewing petals before them, and the group dressed up for the occasion (see picture on page 3). A grand finale on Sunday night after the end of the conference included a lunar eclipse and a howling (again, see p. 3). The howling women not only took care of the rebirth of Selene, but scared off the sullen, dope-smoking college students at seaside for the duration. A good time was had by all.

Taking advantage of spring break at home, with Geoffrey and Alison Hartwell and Karen Cramer available, Kathryn Cramer and David G. Hartwell got married on March 29.

A week after that, I went for five days to Greeley, Colorado, the home territory of Connie Willis, for a conference at the university called The Undiscovered Country II. There will be some pictures next issue. Perhaps the high point of that trip was an excursion in the sunny, freezing, windy weather to the grave of Philip K. Dick. I returned home with a Horace Greeley t-shirt from the local microbrewery--I live only a mile from the Horace Greeley house in Chappaqua, NY. The shirt says "Go Yeast, Young Man."

And home again to produce this issue over a rainy weekend in April.

--David G. Hartwell & the editors