Issue #111, November 1997

FEATURES

Fritz Leiber, Jr.: The Communicants: 1

Samuel R. Delany: A Tribute to Judith Merril: 1

Greg L. Johnson: The SF Novel as an Alien Art Form: C. J. Cherryh’s Foreigner Series: 21

REVIEWS

Nebula Awards 31, edited by Pamela Sargent, reviewed by Michael M. Levy: 6

Michael Bishop’s At the City Limits of Fate, reviewed by Paul Preuss: 8

Sheri S. Tepper’s The Family Tree, reviewed by Joan Gordon: 12

The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fourteenth Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois, reviewed by Bill Sheehan: 13

Brooks Landon’s Science Fiction After 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars, reviewed by Rob Latham: 15

Ramsey Campbell’s Nazareth Hill, reviewed by Bill Sheehan: 17

Chronicles of the Holy Grail, edited by Mike Ashley, reviewed by Lisa Padol: 18

PLUS
Read These by J. S. Russell (p. 5), Jeff VanderMeer (p. 10), and John G. Cramer (p. 20); Screed and a Wanted poster by Joseph T. Mayhew (p. 23); and an editorial (p. 24).

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A Message to the Bardo



A while ago I saw William Gibson read in a Barnes & Noble. While answering a fan’s questions about the writers that had influenced him, he said “Burroughs, and I don’t mean Edgar Rice.” Some people in the audience nodded solemnly, and some applauded, as if it were important to acknowledge William S. Burroughs’s influence on sf.

I thought it was a nice touch, if only because Burroughs had passed away shortly before the reading. As for Burroughs’s influence on sf, it went both ways. I know that his influence went beyond the obvious suspects like Gibson. And I knew from interviews that Burroughs had read extensively in the field, and I appreciated his appropriations—heavy metal boys on the white hot streets of Uranus, and all that.
I was a chronic youth, as in chronic reader. And when I started reading Burroughs, I didn’t make the kinds of distinctions that lead one to read different genres differently. (I eventually lost my innocence.) But I got the same kind of energetic lift, that sense of mind expansion, that shift in my reality, from his routines and conspiracies that I got from the best sf.

Now, I enjoy hearing stories from the people who fought the good fight for their sf pleasures, who had to hide those awful bug-eyed monster magazines from parents, who had their book reports trashed in school merely because they dared to write about sf. But by the time I was ready for that golden age of twelve, sf was quite respectable. My father was pleased as punch that I had read everything I could from his holy trinity: Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov. The books—and the pleasures—I fought for were different. The book I hid from the teacher, tucked inside my junior high school history text, was Nova Express. The one my parents sent me to the shrink for was The Soft Machine. No doubt this is largely a generational thing—but hey, folks, I’m staring forty in the face.

There are reasons why NYRSF will not slide completely into slipstream mode and devote ourselves wholly to defending obvious candidates for literary canonization and mainstream infiltration. Still, while we pay tribute to valued members of the club, people who gave so much to the culture of sf like Judy Merril, I would hope we don’t forget the people who never showed up at the conventions, who never created a social identity through sf, but who still participated in a way. (It should be noted that Merril devoted a major part of her career to inspiring readers to seek out writers and works outside genre boundaries.) Burroughs read, and wrote, and thereby reshaped a lot of what I read. And I’m not the only one who’s been altered by the experience of reading him. So when we say Burroughs here in Pleasantville, we don’t always mean Edgar Rice, either. (Though sometimes we do!)

Have fun in the bardo, Bill. Aim for the clear light.

—Ariel Haméon & the editors