Return-Path: Date: Sat, 23 Feb 91 15:43:06 -0800 From: chuq Reply-To: chuq@apple.com Precedence: bulk Subject: OtherRealms #29 (Winter, 1991) [5 of 10] Apparently-To: bzs@world.std.com Electronic OtherRealms #29 Winter, 1991 Part 5 of 10 Copyright 1991 by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights Reserved. OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact. OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use. No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other publication without permission of the author. All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author. Past Imagining Lawrence Watt-Evans Reprinted from "Rayguns, Elves and Skin-Tight Suits" Copyright 1985 by Krause Publications and Lawrence Watt-Evans Used by permission of the author "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." So said St. Paul (I Corinthians 13:11). You've all probably heard that quoted before, in all manner of applications. Paul was talking about "charity," according to the King James Bible, a mistranslation of the Latin caritas, meaning "caring". He was explaining how a man without it is nothing but a child. A good many people, however, seem to live by those words without their context. They shun anything that's "childish" and deride those who do not. Anything not fraught with social significance is "kid stuff" and obviously worthless. Or for some it's not social significance that matters, but intellectual content; a work that can be appreciated without careful study is "Mickey Mouse" and "infantile". Some have no set criteria, but simply divide the world's pleasures into "grown-up" and "kid stuff" on an empirical basis -- beer is grown up, dolls are kid stuff. This is built into our society; from a very early age we learn to give up things we've "outgrown". At any elementary school you can hear kids saying, "Aw, that's baby stuff," about games they enjoyed a month before. Among comic book collectors, virtually everyone over the age of sixteen has encountered derision because of his/her collecting. "You read funny books? Hey, what's Bugs Bunny doing these days? Gonna be Spider-Man when you grow up?" However, take a look; are the people saying this so very mature? If they say comics are stupid, what are they reading? Most of the time they aren't reading anything; they're watching "The Dukes of Hazzard" on TV. Gosh, how mature. "Dukes" happens to be a big hit with the four-year-olds I know. TV, however, has not been labelled kid stuff, while comic books have, even though a good many TV shows require considerably less intelligence and sophistication than most comics. A great many other things have been labelled kid stuff. Amusement parks, for example; nowadays about the only time you'll see anyone over the age of thirty in an amusement park he/she is there as an escort for his/her kids. Most of you probably assume that that's always been the way of the world. Not so. When amusement parks were first really popular, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, the clientele was almost entirely adults. Go look at any of the old photos of the crowds on Coney Island or at any of the old trolley parks from before the First World War -- do you see any kids? Now find a photo of Coney Island or Disneyland from any time after World War II -- kids everywhere. Bicycles -- look at bicycles. When they became popular, late in the nineteenth century, they were ridden primarily by adults. Cycling was rather adventurous (and if you've ever ridden those poorly-balanced antiques you'll know why), something that dashing young men and women did. Then look at any picture from 1950 through 1970 with bicycles in it, and the odds are that kids are riding them. Nowadays they're becoming acceptable for adults again, thanks to the energy crises of the seventies, the revival of serious bicycle racing, and the advanced technology that's spun off from racing and made top-of-the-line bikes too expensive for kids, but in the fifties they were strictly kid stuff, and an adult on a bicycle was something that elicited laughter. Trading cards -- ignoring the current collectibility of baseball cards and all the other variations, who buys trading cards these days? Kids, of course. However, were they originally intended for kids? Does the fact that baseball cards originally came in cigarette packages answer that for you? Cartoons -- nowadays anything animated is assumed to be for kids, which must frustrate Ralph Bakshi no end; it's a major reason that films like his "American Pop," or "Heavy Metal," bombed at the box office. More than a decade after "Fritz the Cat" got an X rating, most Americans equate animation with kid stuff, but fifty years ago Disney's Mickey Mouse (before he was watered down) was popular with all ages, and Betty Boop was racy enough that she had censorship problems. Of course, nowadays having something labelled as "suitable for all ages" is the kiss of death, because that will be interpreted as meaning "kid stuff". This is stupid, as it's perfectly possible to produce something that really does appeal to all ages. Look at "Raiders of the Lost Ark", for example. Science fiction and fantasy are thought of as kid stuff by a lot of people; when I tell people what I do for a living, one of the questions I've learned to expect is, "What age group do you write for, kids or teenagers?" Basically, anything that's primarily for fun is considered kid stuff, except for sex, drugs, liquor, and TV. I've spoken with people who consider all fiction, or even all books, to be kid stuff! (Remember, I've lived in rural Kentucky; there are still people around who don't hold with book learning.) I don't think that this is what St. Paul had in mind when he spoke of "childish things". (Of course, right there I'm sure I'm in disagreement with any number of hardcore fundamentalists who see Dungeons & Dragons as a Satanic ritual and comic books as kiddie porn.) Why on Earth should fun be just for kids? Well, hey, I wouldn't ask the question if I didn't have an answer. It's a pet theory of mine. I have a lot of pet theories- -I breed them. First, let's take a look at what's considered kid stuff, and when it became kid stuff. Comic books are considered kid stuff, and except for special cases, such as soldiers who couldn't get anything better and collectors, they've apparently been considered kid stuff all along. Certainly Dr. Fredric Wertham thought of them as being aimed exclusively at children as far back as 1947, and the comic- book letter columns I've seen back to 1950 all assume a juvenile readership. The contents of comics from the thirties seems geared toward kids. Scribbly stories featuring the Red Tornado, "Comics" McCormick, and Supersnipe all treat comics as kid stuff. So let's say that they were probably kid stuff in 1933, and definitely by 1945. Amusement parks -- in the twenties they were still frequented largely by adults, going by contemporary literature and old photos, though kids were present in large numbers, as they had not been at the turn of the century. However, by the fifties amusement parks were strictly kid stuff. I don't have much evidence either way from the thirties or forties, though there are plenty of references to soldiers taking dates to amusement parks during World War II. Let's say the transition period was sometime between 1930 and 1950. Bicycles -- well, they were supplanted as serious transportation in this country by the automobile, more specifically by the Model T, but you'll find ads showing young women out for a Sunday jaunt on bicycle up through the 1920s. By 1955 bicycle ads -- or any other ads -- only showed kids. Trading cards -- well, they were pretty silly to begin with, and appear to have been strictly kid stuff by about 1925, if not sooner. I admit to not being up on the field. Animated films -- animators have never given up aiming at an adult audience, at least in increasingly-rare theatrical releases, but I know that by 1960, when I started paying attention, adults did not watch cartoons. TV, which is usually just as juvenile as comic books or animated films, came along in 1949 -- that is, that's when it began to catch on with the public, since it was around for a few years before that. The great boom in TV began in 1949 and gradually slowed down in the early sixties, and it's never been considered strictly kid stuff -- except on Saturday mornings. So where does that leave us? Well, most of the transitions from adult-oriented to kids-only seem to have happened between 1930 and 1945. What happened over those fifteen years? Hey, if you don't know, you shouldn't be reading this; we aim at an audience that knows at least the basics. The thirties were the worst economic depression in modern history, and the early forties were World War II. Rough times. The Depression put incredible numbers of people out of work, and even those who were still working were often living in an atmosphere of constant worry and tension for fear they would be the next to go. Money was tight -- prices dropped steeply, hard as that may be to believe for those of us who have only lived during the past forty years of non-stop inflation. And until Roosevelt took office in 1933, there were no government handouts of the sort we have today -- no unemployment benefits, no social security, no welfare payments. If you were retired on a pension and the company went bust, as many did, you had no income at all. It was entirely possible to starve to death. This was not exactly conducive to fun. The birth-rate dropped sharply, and business at various entertainments did as well. Amusement parks that had thrived all through the twenties went bankrupt. Movie attendance leveled off (scholars disagree on whether it actually dropped or not), and patrons were lured in with gimmicks such as free dishes -- people who speak of the thirties as the Golden Age of Hollywood are not talking about box office receipts; film quality went up in order to compete for the no-longer-growing market. Radio was very big -- it was free, once you'd bought the set. Survival was a struggle, and when you're struggling to survive, you don't go out and spend your money at Electric Park or at the Bijou. You don't buy yourself a comic book -- if you've just got to spend your dime on something to read you get a pulp, which will last you a lot longer. However, kids were still kids, no matter what the economy did. A great many parents had the attitude that their lives might be miserable, but their kids would enjoy life. Just because Daddy's out of work, why should Junior be miserable? Take the kid to Coney Island for the day -- you can't afford to play the games or ride the rides yourself, but you can enjoy it vicariously by watching the kids. Buy the kid a comic book -- it'll keep him out of the way while Mother takes in washing, a dime well spent. (Actually, some older people I've spoken to swear up and down that new comics cost a nickel during the Depression, not a dime; either all their memories are wrong, or I've fallen into the Twilight Zone, or they were sold at discount in some places.) World War II had something of the same effect; men were in the army, women in the defense plants, but kids were still at home or on the streets, and comics or trading cards or whatever kept them busy. There seems to have been a great acceptance of the idea that the world was in really lousy shape, but could be improved so that the next generation would be able to enjoy themselves. When I was growing up, along with all the other Baby Boom kids, I remember hearing people of my parents' generation talk about how we youngsters didn't appreciate what they had done for us, how they had struggled through the Depression and fought the Nazis so that we could have TV and washing machines and comic books. I had assumed at the time that this was just something every generation had to put up with -- you can find complaints about the younger generation back to the first century BC, at the very least -- but now I'm not so sure. I think perhaps the generation that came of age during the Depression and the war had this attitude far more strongly than most. I can't imagine anyone born in 1960 telling his kids how he had to struggle to survive. The Depression generation really did have more worries and less time for fun than others -- and for that reason came to think of fun as being something one outgrew. There are things that one outgrows, certainly -- but fun needn't be one of them. Just because children enjoy something doesn't mean adults can't enjoy it as well. There's a growing realization of this, I think; that's why we're seeing more respect given to the work of Carl Barks and John Stanley, why George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg are zillionaires. The people who still sneer at it all as "kid stuff" are the ones who can't free themselves of their earlier training, or are unsure of their own maturity and therefore exaggerate it (like the swaggering macho males who flaunt their manhood because they aren't really confident of their masculinity). As the Depression generation ages and fades in importance, I expect "kid stuff" to become ever more socially acceptable. So the next time someone sneers at you for reading funny books or science fiction, just comfort yourself with the thought that you're part of the wave of the future, free of the dead hand of the past, and with that charity St. Paul recommended, forgive the poor outdated slob. Fantasy in the Mainstream: The Novels of Olaf Stapledon Chuck Koelbel Copyright 1991 by Chuck Koelbel In the past I've talked about authors who are well-known for their mainstream fiction, but have also written some speculative fiction. This time I'll be talking about another type of author: a man who is best known for his SF, but is underappreciated by fantasy and science fiction fans. That man is the late Olaf Stapledon, a British writer who wrote his most interesting works between 1930 and 1950. Despite writing some of the most visionary work of that time, Stapledon is seldom read today. His works continue to affect SF and mainstream literature, however; such diverse writers as Ursula K. LeGuin, Arthur C. Clarke, Gregory Benford, and Doris Lessing have noted him as an influence. Hopefully his influence will continue to grow. Jeremy Tarcher is currently reissuing his works as trade paperbacks, with new introductions and afterwards by prominent writers. One of Stapledon's hallmarks is the vast scope of his novels. Modern writers are generally considered to be working on a large canvas if their work covers centuries and hundreds of worlds. Herbert's Dune series takes place over several thousand years, while Wolfe's Book of the New Sun takes place millions of years in the future (although the main action lasts "only" a few decades). In contrast, Stapledon's Last and First Men tells the story of humanity's evolution from the present until the solar system is destroyed, roughly 2,000,000,000 years in the future. I know of no other authors who have attempted a work of that magnitude, let alone produced a moving work from it. The framing story of Last and First Men is one of the last humans telling the history of the species to an ordinary man, circa 1931 (when the book was first published). This is possible because the Last Men have discovered the secrets of time and can project their consciousness back to any period they desire. He gives the entire history of Man, starting with a series of nationalistic wars following the War to End All Wars. These wars result in a world dominated by America and China, and eventually by a world state based on America alone. But this system falls into decadence and finally collapses in an orgy of self-destruction. All of civilization is effectively destroyed, and the remnants of humanity are forced back to the stone age. But finally, after a hundred thousand years, man regains a measure of civilization, centered this time in South America. And Man destroys it again, a mere fifteen thousand years later, in a horrific nuclear disaster. This time Man does not rise for ten million years. By then, he has physically evolved to a new form, although he is still recognizable as human. This new species is called the Second Men. The same pattern repeats throughout the book. On exponentially increasing time scales, new races of Man rise, reach new heights of civilization, and eventually fall. In all there are eighteen species called Man, all of which trace their lineage back to the First Men (i.e. present-day humanity). The Last Men live on Neptune, forced there by an unfriendly sun making the inner planets uninhabitable. Through it all, Man strives to understand the universe and his place in it, and to perfect himself. Rating Last and First Men is not easy. For breadth of scale, it certainly rates [*****]. For scientific and historical accuracy, it probably rates [*-]. Of course, it is hard to blame Stapledon for not predicting the next 50 years of world history correctly, or for not foreseeing the actual form of nuclear power. There are few individuals, so characterization is basically non-existent. Despite this, there are stereotypes of many groups (Americans, Chinese, and Jews, for starters) that may be offensive to some readers. This is mainly a problem in the first few chapters, before First Man has evolved into Second Man. In fairness to Stapledon, part of what he was trying to do was to show the Man's progression over time; in doing this, it is natural for the first generations to look crude. Still, for believable characters give this book a [*]. Likewise, there is little direct action. The story reads like a history book, with events described from a distance. What action there is, however, is fascinating. For pure plot, the book rates about [***]. Stapledon's writing style is deliberately like a textbook, setting out the facts of humanity's future. It is also somewhat dated; in that way, it reminds me of Wells. While this style fits the subject matter, it isn't terribly interesting to the casual reader. For prose style, rate the book [*]. Where the novel really comes into its own is in the realm of ideas. Stapledon is using this book to dramatize his philosophy of existence. Things like the perfectibility of humanity and constantly striving for higher goals are recurring motifs that are nicely illuminated by the plot. In short, Last and First Men has a great vision. As food for thought, I give it a [*****]. Overall, then, I rate the book at [****]. Stapledon's philosophy gets even greater scope in Star Maker, an indirect sequel to Last and First Men. Here, the framing story is an ordinary man who has what might be called an out-of-body experience. One night he is gazing at the stars when suddenly he is mentally soaring through interstellar space. After some time he enters the body of an alien on another planet, and begins exploring that world. Eventually, he and the host alien mentally leave that planet and travel even further through the cosmos. They can also travel in time using the same mechanism. Over time they meet other explorers and witness the evolution of the cosmos. The fate of the Last Men is glimpsed, hardly significant in the great scheme of the universe. Other species evolve to dominate the stars; it should come as no surprise that eventually they also fall into decline. Cultures come to dominate the cosmos in a sort of galactic-scale survival of the fittest. At the same time, nebulas, stars, and galaxies evolve according to the laws of astrophysics. All this happens on a time scale of roughly 500,000,000,000 terrestrial years, after which our cosmos has completely dissolved. There is also a glimpse of the Star Maker, the creator of our universe, involved in his (its?) own cycle. The ratings for Star Maker are much like those for Last and First Men. The action of Star Maker is generally more direct, since the story is one man's recollections. At some points, however, the narrator starts losing words to express his experiences, and must fall back on indirect descriptions. The prose is much less stilted, since the narrator is an ordinary man rather than a superhuman from the far future. For modern readers, this is somewhat counteracted by the book's age; patterns of speech have changed since 1937, when it was written. Stapledon also showed more imagination in the alien races in this book than in the human races in its predecessor; probably this was intentional, to emphasize the continuity of humanity in Last and First Men. The science is, if anything, less convincing in Star Maker, however, and the descriptions of the aliens, while imaginative, are somehow less involving than the history of humanity in the first book. Overall, I would rate Star Maker as [****]. There is also another sequel to Last and First Men entitled Last Men in London. Unfortunately, that book is out of print and I haven't been able to track down a copy for review. Anybody knowing where I can find a copy, please let me know. By and large, Last and First Men and Star Maker showed evolution from the viewpoint of its end product, a race of fittest survivors. Stapledon also wrote two books looking at individual leaps in evolution. The first of these, Odd John, tells the life story of a Nietzschean superman trying to survive in the world of inferior men. John is the mutant son of an ordinary doctor and his dull-seeming wife. John's mental abilities are awesome, including extremely fast learning, astounding insight into difficult topics, and telepathy. His physical appearance, however, is frail and in some respects inhuman. The novel traces his life from being a child prodigy through his search for others of his kind to his death. Throughout, John must fight the conventional world to achieve his goals. Those goals pointedly do not include world domination. John has little use for ordinary homo sapiens; he simply wants to prepare a place for his own race, homo superior. Eventually, he gathers a colony of fellow mutants around him on an island in the Pacific. The world at large, of course, misunderstands the colony and moves to destroy it. In short, Odd John is the prototypical story of a superman battling the world's prejudices. Stapledon does a good job of characterization in this novel, suggesting John's abilities quite convincingly. The narrator, a friend of John's father who falls under John's influence, suggests the enigma of John by alternately admiring and being disgusted by John's actions. This ambivalent reaction distinguishes Odd John from many other oppressed superman novels, which tend to have unbelievably good or bad characters. Overall, I rate Odd John as a [****-]. The basic plot, while probably fresh when the book was written, has been overused by generations of writers since Stapledon. (I'm getting tired of big, bad governments automatically mounting military expeditions against peaceful, remote colonies. Why don't any generals ever say, "Look, we've got better things to do with our battleships"?) The science is again speculative at best, although everything hangs together pretty well if you allow for a little mysticism. I also wasn't terribly convinced by the young John's actions, although I suppose I shouldn't expect normal human child development in homo superior. Balancing these weaknesses, Stapledon obviously thought out the ramifications of a superhuman better than many other authors who have tackled the subject. The relatively balanced view of superior beings is a nice antidote to the usual power fantasies in the genre. The other portrait of a superior individual is Sirius. The title character is an dog, deliberately raised to supercanine levels by controlled breeding, genetic manipulation, and training. Sirius has the intelligence of a normal (probably above-average) human, and the physique of a German Shepard. This combination makes him much prized, first as a sheep dog and later as a research subject and researcher at the university. Because he can't be satisfied as an ordinary dog and won't be accepted as an equal by humans, Sirius must struggle his entire life to find his identity. Even when he finds a workable self-image, the people in the local town cannot accept him and his "sister" (the daughter of the scientist who created him). Again, Stapledon provides good characterizations. Sirius in particular is well-imagined, with both canine and human aspects to his character. The atmosphere of distrust near the end of the book is also quite believable. I rate this book a [****+]. In summary, I recommend Olaf Stapledon to anybody interested in speculative fiction. No other author has approached the scope of Last and First Men and Star Maker. These books should be required reading for anyone thinking about large-scale evolution, either biological or astrophysical. Odd John vividly describes the struggles of a superior being to escape his inferiors. Sirius is a tragedy of a being with no place to call home. I won't say these books are the most exciting adventures on the market, but they are among the most thought-provoking stories in SF. A Bibliography of Walter Jon Williams Walter Jon Williams Copyright 1991 by Walter Jon Williams Historical Novel (written as "Jon Williams") The Privateer, Dell, 1981 The Yankee, Dell, 1981 The Raider, Dell, 1981 The Macedonian, Dell, 1984 Cat Island, Dell, 1984 SF Novels Ambassador of Progress, Tor, 1984 Knight Moves, Tor, 1985. Hardwired, Tor, 1986 Voice of the Whirlwind, Tor, May 1987. The Crown Jewels, Tor, Sep 1987 House of Shards, Tor, Nov 1988. Angel Station, Tor, July 1989. Elegy for Angels and Dogs, Tor Double, (w/ Roger Zelazny's The Graveyard Heart,), Aug 1990. (An abridged version was published in Asimov's, May 1990.) Days of Atonement, Tor hardback, Feb 1991. Collection Facets, Tor hardback, Mar 1990. (Contains Surfacing, Video Star, No Spot Of Ground, Flatline, Side Effects, Witness, Wolf Time, The Bob Dylan Solution, Dinosaurs, and an introduction by Roger Zelazny) Stories "Side Effects," F&SF, June 1985. Reprinted in Year's Best SF, 3rd Annual Collection, 1986. "Sarah Runs the Weasel," Omni, serialized (!) March-April 1086. "Panzerboy," Asimov's, April 1986. "Video Star," Asimov's, July 1986. Reprinted in Year's Best SF, 4th Annual Collection, 1987. "Wolf Time," Asimov's, January 1987. "Witness," Wild Cards, Bantam, 1987. "Unto the Sixth Generation," Aces High, Bamtam 1987. "Dinosaurs," Asimov's, June 1987. Reprinted in Year's Best SF, 5th Annual Collection, 1988, and the Wollheim Best of the Year for 1988. "Ligdan and the Young Pretender," Guns of Darkness, ed. J.E. Pournelle, Tor 1987. "Surfacing," Asimov's, April 1988. Reprinted in Year's Best SF, 6th Annual Collection, 1989. "Consequences," Call to Battle, ed. Jerry Pournelle, Tor 1988. Written for, and also available in Liavek: Festival Week, ed. Shetterly & Bull, Ace, May 1990. "Flatline," Asimov's, Aug 1988. Reprinted in Year's Best SF, 6th Annual Collection, 1989. "The Bob Dylan Solution," Aboriginal SF, Sept-Oct 1989. "Mortality," Wild Cards: Down and Dirty, Bantam, Dec 1988. "Solip:System," (special edition hardback novelette), Axolotl Press, Oct 1989. Reprinted in Asimov's, Aug 1990. Wild Cards: Aces in the Hole, (collaborative mosaic novel w/ Martin, Snodgrass, etc.), Bantam, Feb 1990. "No Spot of Ground," Asimov's, Nov 1989, also in What Might Have Been Vol 2, Benford & Greenberg, Bantam, 1990. Game Titles Privateers and Gentlemen (age of sail RPG), Fantasy Games, 1981. Pride and Prejudice, Baen Software, 1986. Hardwired (SF RPG), R. Talsorian Games, 1989. ------ End ------