The Short Story Thread

[J-Sun]

My Tall and Green arrived yesterday. I've looked them over and sampled the first paragraphs of each. Looking forward to them.

[Apologies for the length of this - it was intended to be a jotting of notes but I sort of couldn't shut up and got bug-eyed scrolling back up. And up.]

Meanwhile, I read Charles Sheffield's The Complete McAndrew. He originally wrote five tales from '78-83 about Arthur Morton McAndrew and Jeanie Roker. McAndrew is a scientist (both theoretical and practical) who's not so much absent-minded as oblivious to everything when he goes into his conceptual fugues and is always oblivious to the psychological/social games of the irrational humans around him. Roker is a spaceship captain/pilot and McAndrew's minder whose abundance of native caution (she calls it cowardice) frequently saves him (and them and others). Each story turns on one or more specific elements of science, especially of the physics/astronomy sort and, while not specifically a future history and with some repetition from story to story of the thumbnail descriptions of McAndrew, each story does build on the other so that chronology does matter and the whole is somewhat greater than the sum of the parts. So this was just like someone asked me, "What sort of SF book do you want to have written for you?"

The first story, "Killing Vector" (about singularities used in propulsion and a mass murderer in a prisoner transport) is a fine introduction but the series really takes off with "Moment of Inertia" in which McAndrew's invention of the "balanced drive" (which people mistake for an "inertia-less drive")[1] encounters a glitch and one test ship, with Roker in charge, must figure out what's gone wrong with the first test ship without itself experiencing the same problem. That's likely the best, but all the remaining early stories are very good, too: "All the Colors of the Vacuum" (contacting a genius who's bloomed in an "Ark", i.e., one of the slow-moving hollowed-out starbound asteroids populated by varieties of extremists - in this case, technocratic eugenicists), "The Manna Hunt" (searching the Oort cloud for the materials for food synthesis for a food-stressed earth and finding more than we bargained for), and "Rogueworld" (the fiance of McAndrew & Roker's daughter solving "Vandell's Fifth Problem" (the fictional physics/astronomy version of Hilbert's math problems) and disappearing with her on the star-less planet thus discovered, resulting in McAndrew & Roker going on what they fear is a recovery mission but hope is a rescue mission). That may be the second best, but they're all good.

These were all collected in The McAndrew Chronicles in 1983 and would have formed an almost flawless book. In 1993, Sheffield released a second edition called One Man's Universe, which included two sequels (written '92-3) to "The Manna Hunt" (inserted before "Rogueworld") and, in 2000, released another expanded edition, this time called The Complete McAndrew, with two stories published in 1999 and set after "Rogueworld".

The problem here (made ironic by Sheffield claiming that his increasing interest in people and decreasing interest in science over time is reflected in these stories) is that the later stories are usually not as good and that's partly due to the characterization. The villains are just that and not nuanced or unusual at all and the plots, driven by this, become melodramatic rather than dramatic (granting that "All the Colors of the Vacuum" could be seen as melodramatic, too). Yet the science part matches his observation in that it becomes less interesting in two or three of the four. "Shadow World" (aka "The Hidden Matter of McAndrew") and "The Invariants of Nature" both feature Anna Griss (from "The Manna Hunt") and her henchmen and make them the only recurring antagonists of the series and imbalance the story cycle (it would have been particularly extreme in the second edition with three of seven stories being Griss stories). The first is about "missing matter" and, worse, superstring theory; the science in the second is basically just a MacGuffin. They aren't bad insofar as they still make pretty interesting reading and it's still basically the same McAndrew and Roker but they are a definite step down.

Of the two sequels, "Out of Focus" (aka "With McAndrew, Out of Focus") is about the same, with an Ark of computer geeks having turned into an apparently homicidal AI and with a shoot-first-ask-questions-later "ally" who is more like a cartoon villain. The story ends up being subtler than it appears in ways, but is still only okay. However, the last, "The Fifth Commandment" (aka "McAndrew and the Fifth Commandment"), is a good story (easily the best of the late ones) which introduces McAndrew's mom, who accidentally sets McAndrew on a search for the solution to the scientific mystery that resulted in his father's disappearance. Here, there is no villain and the antagonist is simply nature (as in "man against") and, while there is a moment of extraordinary stupidity from McAndrew (if I could see the danger, how could he not?) it was still a very good story and a fine ending.

But, of course, it wasn't the ending: Sheffield wrote one more called "McAndrew and THE LAW", set after "The Fifth Commandment" and published posthumously by Baen in a 2004 anthology. This wasn't intended to even temporarily end anything and it's an okay story which seems more like an older one except a little conceptually further out. The science fictional idea of an interface between two universes is front and center, the surface "antagonist" is merely the precocious, literal-minded, ADHD eleven year old son of McAndrew's mom's boyfriend, and is really, again, just the dangers of nature and not thinking things through.

Even without that story the book didn't end with the ninth story: Sheffield included a 46-page appendix on "Science & Science Fiction" in which he describes the science behind all the collected stories and details where elements in the stories launch into speculation. That's obviously fascinating reading in its own right.

All in all, this is a superb collection that still doesn't displace Between the Strokes of Night, I don't think, but lodges itself firmly in second place of my favorite Sheffield books. Maybe tied.
_____

[1] Bizarrely, despite having the capability, going halfway there more than once, and even stocking up for it once, we never visit the Centauri system - all McAndrew's adventures are in and around the solar system.

 

[dask]

THE LOVED DEAD, continued.

"The Man Of Stone" by Hazel Heald stirs sf into its horror the way I AM LEGEND allowed Richard Matheson a few decades later. To say more than the title runs the risk of saying too much. Typical story of the day still capable of holding interest.

"Out Of The Aeons" by Hazel Heald, the most Lovecraft-like story so far, concerns itself with an "infinitely horrible and repulsive" exhibit in the Cabot Museum of Archeology in Boston. Quite good.

 

[j d worthington]

If I were an editor I would delete the last two paragraphs. You see, in them the author reveals a "hideous" "other horror" in an attempt to shock the audience one more time. But this additional denouement is so ugly and vile, all it does is showcase the author's ignorance and the depravity of her intent. Yeah, I know racism was politically correct at the time but it serves no purpose now and only throws sewage in the face of an otherwise powerful and well told story.

Well... I'm afraid that you've just maligned poor Ms. Heald here. Unfortunately, that last "shocker" -- in fact, nearly the entirety of the tale, but for purposes of this discussion, this part in particular -- was HPL's own contribution. I'm glad they have had the guts to reprint the original ending as Lovecraft wrote it, rather than rewriting it as Derleth did, simply for historical accuracy in presenting the man both good and bad... but nevertheless, and even understanding why such was so impressive a horror to HPL, I find it a terrifically offensive passage. For popular consumption, rather than the sort of scholarly interest I bring to such things, it is both unnecessary and a gratuitous bit of viciousness which comes near to ruining a story which has other flaws, but still offers a fair amount of quite good material.

 

[dask]

Well, I owe Ms. Bishop a big apology and HPL owes us a humongous one.

 

[j d worthington]

Well, I owe Ms. Bishop a big apology and HPL owes us a humongous one.

I know the feeling....

(And I owe Ms. Bishop a rather large apology myself for misspeaking earlier; of course it was Zealia Reed Bishop, rather than Hazel Heald, who was the client for whom "Medusa's Coil" was written....)

 

[J-Sun]

The last two collections I read were both from Victoria's suggestions in reply to my request for more planet survey story cycles (thanks! ). Joseph Green's Conscience Interplanetary (1974) is almost exactly what I was looking for in purely checkbox terms (except a little too "solo" vs. crew and a little too "fixed up") and Stephen Tall's The Stardust Voyages (1975) was really exactly it. So that was good. Also on the good side, I enjoyed them both. On the bad side, neither was spectacular, either, and didn't quite have that certain something that Murray Leinster and friends have. I think part of that was due to a strange blend of 40s/50s sensibility (a usually superior Right Stuff group of mostly American males go out exploring, narrated in a partly straightforward way) and 60s/70s sensibility (it's all about the value of these "lesser" contacts and is anti-imperialist and has that weird in-between approach to gender (my hot wife, the scientist) and has trippy aspects and sometimes describes things that aren't very plausible). So I appreciate the recommendations and regard it as money well spent and would also recommend them for specific purposes but not for general "you gotta read this great book" purposes.

Getting more specific, I actually finished the Green almost a month ago and took no notes so I don't think I'll be very accurate. As best I can figure, the copyright page is screwed up in only citing four stories that go into the fixup when there are clearly six and perhaps seven. The chapter/stories breakdown goes something like:

• 1-4 The Decision Makers (1965)
• 5 [don't know if this was specially written for the book or was the tail of one or a preface to the other]
• 6-9 The Shamblers of Misery (1969)
• 10-13 The Cryer of Crystal (1971)
• 14-17 The Butterflys of Beauty (1971)
• 18-21 The Dwarfs of Zwergwelt (1972) [this has to be the right title]
• 22-27 Robustus Revisited (1973) [this may actually be two stories but I think it's just a long one with two phases and there's a good shot this was the title]

Our hero is introduced in the first story. He's a "Conscience", or member of the Practical Philosopher Corps - a group of folks charged with determining if alien lifeforms are sentient and thus off-limits to exploitation or not. A running line throughout, which ends up taking over the book, is the political conflict between anti-Conscience exploiter-types and the always-in-budget-trouble Conscience folks. It specifically deals with pseudo-seals who may or may not have a group mind.

"The Shamblers of Misery" (shamblers being the species in question; Misery, the name of the planet) set itself up to be a perfectly obvious story with the natives being given drugs to make them work (drawn from actual British colonial history) but didn't go quite the way I was expecting and ended up being fairly nuanced and interesting.

"The Cryer of Crystal" tackles the sentient plant and its political aspects make it a sort of test run for the final story.

"The Butterflys of Beauty" deals with a particularly interesting "butterfly" species with psychic effects (lots of ESP stuff in both these books, unsurprisingly) and takes on a (surprisingly) almost military SF feel in part. Quite a tense tale with interesting critters.

"The Dwarfs of Zwergwelt" brings on more of the anti-Conscience activity, with secret paramilitaries and kangaroo courts holding non-legal "trials" of Consciences and so on. The actual lifeform encounter has a kind of familiar transcendent mysticism that didn't work very well for me, though. But smoothly written.

The final section is hardly a planetary exploration tale at all, unless you count the earth as something of infinite exploratory potential. Our hero has taken a promotion as a result of his spiritual awakening and is promptly captured by the really bad guys and, in the course of much derring-do, encounters a certain lifeform here that Green needs to be castigated for introducing and given credit for carrying off as well as he does. This story, despite the "Crystal" foreshadowing, feels very different from the rest - ironically, insofar as it's similar, it's less successful - but that different aspect works well here.

In sum, it does all hold together as a very, very episodic novel but the parts are always (I think) pretty clear and all are readable and a couple especially so.

Stephen Tall's The Stardust Voyages (the preface of which indicates that he believed it would be called The Log of the Stardust) is just a pure connected collection. Contents:

• A Star Called Cyrene (1966)
• The Bear with the Knot on His Tail (1971)
• Birds Fly South in the Winter (1971)
• The Gods on Olympus (1972)
• The Invaders (1973)
• Mushroom World (1974)

Basically every story features the same three main characters (plus Ursula, the psychic/witch painter) and every one has them bantering in a pseudo-Heinleinian way that really doesn't work and every one of them says something to the effect of "You may think that's no way for scientists to talk but it's just the way we do things and it works for us" which annoyingly draws attention to the problem without fixing it. I have less of a problem with how they talk to each other than how they talk about talking to each other. (This whole thing is particularly underscored by the fact that "The Invaders" is told from the aliens' point of view, so has very little dialog from the main characters - just what an alien sometimes overhears - and it's one of the best stories.) But that aside, these get pretty good.

The first deals with teleporting cubes which gives the story a very trippy vibe and seems totally unscientific. There's also some weird subtext that racism is okay if its between pretty cubes and ugly not-cubes but I somehow doubt that was his point. The second was actually Hugo-nominated and deals with a species (eggs(!) with stringy bits instead of cubes) facing extinction from its unstable sun (the "knot" detected in the constellation) and is not without its poignancy but it's not Clarke's "The Star" or anything. It's fine but didn't exactly smack me upside the head with Hugo-ness. The third deals with a planet where every critter can speak English (or whatever) even if they're not particularly sentient and features water-sprite-like things and fairy-like things and the kings of the hill are well-spoken big predatory beasties. It's not quite as pseudo-fantasy as I make it sound, but close. "The Gods on Olympus" deals with sentient racoons of a sort and has one of the better exploratory vibes - it's interestingly plotted - but has strange aspects.

Judging by the covers, I'd expected to like this more than the Green but, at this point, had given up on that and was just settling in for a "decent read" sort of book, when he sprang "The Invaders" on me. As I said, this is told from the viewpoint of the native crab-like critters and they're fascinatingly conceived and detailed. It also features the, um, king crab - a voracious out of control eater - which works on a symbolic and literal level. So the natives observe the humans exploring and trying to find out about them and experience quite a change as a result. I dunno if this smacks me with Hugo-ness either, but it seemed better than "Bear" and I really enjoyed it.

He keeps it going by at least 90% with "Mushroom World" which may have inspired Harry Harrison's Eden books. This one's hard to explain - the way it's told in exploration mode just works really well here. The humans arrive. Things that seem to indicate a sentience are found. These things are explored further. It leads to flights to the water's edge and treks through the woods, which results in further interactions and activity and suddenly we're doing very wild and crazy things (that I don't want to spoil) which very well might seem silly to some readers but which I thought was great fun. I guessed the nature of what was behind the indications but that doesn't impair the story.

TL;DR: if you're looking for planet explorer story cycles and don't mind some rubbery science and psi powers and the occasional fairy-like critter, these are both spiffy and reward patience. If not, though, it's not like you're missing "Flowers for Algernon" on the one hand, or Heinlein's Future History on the other, or anything.

 

[J-Sun]

I started a general "Short Fiction" thread due to a great essay by Algis Budrys which might be of interest to readers of this thread. Similarly, in that thread I mention I've got a review on TangentOnline up, which also might be interesting to readers of this thread, though only five of the stories stood out at all. Also, Tangent has a policy of reviewing only original stories. One was declared a reprint in the book but I thought it would be odd to skip just one story, so reviewed it anyway, but that needed to be cut. Also, I then discovered another was a reprint (though not listed as such) so I cut it. But those were two of the five that stood out, so I thought I'd post the drafts here.

"Come All Ye Faithful" by Robert J. Sawyer

Father Bailey is the priest without a flock on Mars when a Catholic televangelist claims to have seen a miraculous appearance of the Virgin Mary at Cydonia from a telescope on Earth. The Vatican sends Bailey from Bradbury Colony to Cydonia to investigate and the story seems to resolve too easily before whipping out the barb in its tail. Via the Father's first person narration, he takes on a definite solidity, such as when he wryly admits his job might be described as "Hatch 'em, match 'em, and dispatch 'em". Similarly, in deft strokes, Sawyer's Mars takes on more reality than Mak's Japan. For both the believer and unbeliever, how one thinks of the Father at the end is probably not a simple matter.

"So Loved" by Matthew Hughes

Whether this story works or not depends entirely on which dominates for the reader: the spelling out of the moral and the obviousness of what the scenario is (even when it is very briefly being lackadaisically concealed) or the cleverness of the depiction and the compassion with the content. In other words, the author cares about what he's talking about and it's easy for the reader to care, too, and it creates an interesting headspace but it's not exactly an action-packed or subtle tale. An entity and his assistant are ready to throw out a rough draft on the road to perfection but the assistant falls in love with the draft and argues to keep it. Do not the read the next paragraph if you want any surprise at all even for the first page or two but proceed if you think the preceding description sounds too boring to be believed.

This is a rendering of the Gnostic/Neoplatonic demiurge in which, of course, the master entity is the ultimate God/creator/head honcho but the apprentice-type is lord of this, our world (universe). A Lucifer-type.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

They're not exactly short stories, but this might be a good place to discuss the contents of the rather odd collection Masterpieces of the English Short Novel edited by Kenneth H. Brown. The pieces range in time from 1744 to 1912, and a couple of them aren't even fiction. Maybe this should have been called Novella-Length Writings by English Folks Which I Like That Are Out of Copyright. Anyway, here's the first one:

"Life of Richard Savage" by Samuel Johnson (1744)

Not fiction at all, but a biography of a writer of Johnson's own time (although there is apparently some debate about how much that Savage said about himself was true.) Notable mostly as a character study of a fellow who combined a lot of good traits and a lot of bad traits. He was born the illegitimate child of an aristocratic lady who acknowledged him to be the product of adultery in order to win a divorce. After that, she seems to have done everything she could to have nothing to do with him, and to make his life as miserable as possible. (Again, you have to assume that what Johnson believes to be the truth is accurate.) Despite this, Savage has some literary success, but is usually dependent on others to support him, flattering various patrons, then later vilifying some of them. In addition to having the character flaws of pride and imprudence, Savage is depicted as being kind, talented, and pleasant. He eventually winds up in debtor's prison, where he seems to have been rather content.

 

[dask]

Sounds cool. Can't wait for the rest.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Thanks for the support.

"Castle Rackrent" by Maria Edgeworth (1801)

This is the story of four generations of Anglo-Irish landowners, narrated by an elderly servant of the family. It is said to be an early example of the historical novel, dealing with the situation in Ireland some time prior to the Constitution of 1782 and the Acts of Union of 1801; an early example of the regional novel, with its many depictions of Irish customs and peculiarities of Irish English*; and an early example of the unreliable narrator, since the servant always praises his masters even as the events of the story reveal their follies and vices. The worst seems to be the master who marries a rich English Jewish woman for her money, then keeps her a prisoner in her room when she refuses to give him a valuable piece of her jewelry. The other masters are variously litigious, dissolute, or spendthrift. The servant's clever son winds up owning the estate when the last master accumulates huge debts.

I found the story's satiric mood compelling. It was also interesting to see a Jewish character depicted sympathetically in a novel from 1801. (In one example of the story's darkly comic tone, her husband adds insult to injury by having pork products served constantly over her religious objections.) Of note is the "Glossary" appended to the story, as well as its many footnotes, which seem to have been added to make various Irish customs and terms comprehensible to the English reader. (*Times change. The author apparently found it necessary to explain that "mad" can mean "angry" in Ireland.)

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"The Room in the Dragon Volant" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)

This is one of the stories in the author's well-known collection In a Glass Darkly, and the only one which does not involve supernatural elements. (The collection includes the very famous vampire story "Carmilla.") In this one the narrator looks back on an adventure he had in France just after the Napoleonic Wars ended. The melodramatic plot involves a mysterious, beautiful Countess and her much older and seemingly cruel husband, disguises, prophecies, diamonds, a paralyzing drug and premature burial, and a locked room mystery. It's all very Gothic with, perhaps, just a bit of sardonic wit directed at the narrator's foolishness as a romantic young man.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Cousin Phillis" by Mrs. Gaskell (1850)

Simple enough tale in outline. The narrator, a young clerk under a railroad engineer, witnesses love developing between the engineer and the narrator's beautiful young cousin. The engineer is called to Canada to work on a rail project, and marries a French-Canadian woman there. When Cousin Phillis hears about this, she develops "brain fever." Since this is a realistic story and not a melodramatic one, she recovers. The reader must assume that she goes on to have an ordinary, unremarkable life. Of interest mostly as a character study of several good but complex people.

"The Lifted Veil" by George Eliot (1859)

Rather "literary" novella narrated by a man who has the ability to see into the future and to know the feelings of others, with tragic consequences. Although an introspective, psychological story for most of its length, there's an unexpected turn of events near the end which turns it into pure Gothic horror.

"The Secret Sharer" by Joseph Conrad (1912)

Famous story of a ship's captain who takes a murderer aboard and hides him from the crew. The "double" theme is made abundantly clear several times. The realism of the story's nautical setting seems to add to its psychological depth.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"The Case of General Ople and Lady Camper" by George Meredith (1890)

Comedy of manners. The main characters are a retired general, his daughter, an aristocratic lady, and her nephew. The daughter and the nephew have a romance. The lady wants the general to give his daughter ten thousand pounds as a dowry. The general says he can't pay that much. Complicating matters is the fact that he intends to marry the lady. She manipulates him in such ways as claiming to be seventy years old (he's about fifty-five) and by sending him unflattering caricatures of him. Pretty much a Victorian romantic comedy about (as the author says) "a simple man and a complex woman."

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Nightmare Abbey" by Thomas Love Peacock (1818)

Satire of romantic melancholy, Gothic novels, mystical philosophy, and the like. There's a lot of conversation full of witty quips, and also a fair amount of farce and slapstick. Lots of characters with names like Marionetta and Mister Toobad. One character is an ichthyologist who thinks he sees a mermaid on the shore one night. Hidden passageways, a Shelley-like poet, a "hero" who thinks himself in love with two women (and who loses both of them) and lots of other amusing stuff in a short space. It's quite funny.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Liber Amoris" by William Hazlitt (1823)

Wow, this is an odd one. Once again it isn't fiction at all, but rather an account of the author's mad passion for a younger woman of a lower class. The structure is very odd. It begins with some transcribed conversations between the two, then turns into a series of letters to a friend about his obsession. The author's emotions fluctuate wildly from devoted worship to frenzies of jealousy.

 

[J-Sun]

My second Tangent review (a review of the SQ Mag ezine) is up. (I keep volunteering to review what are usually "variety" anthologies and keep getting "special issues" with themes well outside my bailiwicks. )

Thread poll: should I link to these reviews in this thread or should I just start using the Chrons blog for notification again? It's certainly relevant in terms of "short story reviews on the short story thread" but maybe, with it always being a link to elsewhere, it doesn't belong here anyway?

 

[GOLLUM]

They're not exactly short stories, but this might be a good place to discuss the contents of the rather odd collection Masterpieces of the English Short Novel edited by Kenneth H. Brown. The pieces range in time from 1744 to 1912, and a couple of them aren't even fiction.

As you would know I also have this anthology but will not have anytime to read it during 2015. Therefore your commentaries are most timely for me. Thank you for posting...

 

[J-Sun]

Sorry for interrupting again, Victoria, Gollum, dask - just wanted to say I've decided to post review links on my blog (specifically this entry for today's review of Allen Steele), so this should be the last time I mention it here.

(I'll still post about cool short fiction I come across in my personal reading directly to this thread, of course. )

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Very good, detailed, thoughtful reviews.

I'll offer some quick recaps of the stories in an 1967 paperback anthology I picked up a while back.

"The Streets of Ashkelon" by Harry Harrison (New Worlds, September 1962) -- Frequently reprinted story, sometimes under the title "An Alien Agony." It even has its own Wikipedia article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Streets_of_Ashkelon

Anyway, it relates what happens when a preacher tries to bring Christianity to intelligent, logical aliens with a Stone Age level of technology. As you might predict, the results are tragic (and it seems to set the mood for the rest of the anthology, as many of the stories deal with misunderstandings between humans and aliens.) A powerful "dangerous vision."

"Balaam" by Anthony Boucher (From the anthology of original stories 9 Tales of Space and Time, 1954) -- A rabbi and a Catholic priest on Mars (sounds like the start of a joke) become involved when extrasolar aliens arrive on the Red Planet. The military leader of the humans asks the rabbi to curse the aliens. (The rabbi seems to have some kind of psychic abilities, so he's seen as something of a "prophet" by his fellow Jews.) The title gives away the Biblical story that the author is retelling, but it's not bad, with some sections of told from the aliens' point of view.

"Unhuman Sacrifice" by Katherine MacLean (Astounding, November 1958) -- A preacher evangelizing to aliens (yes, another one) tries to stop them from practicing a seemingly cruel ritual of adulthood, with unexpected results that have to do with their biology. Imaginative.

"The Shrine of Temptation" by Judith Merrill (Fantastic, April 1962) -- Humans on another planet try to understand the strange rituals of the inhabitants, through a friendly, intelligent young native. When not-so-benevolent humans arrive, they find out more than they bargained for. Keeps open the possibility that something genuinely supernatural occurs.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"The Army Comes to Venus" by Eric Frank Russell (Fantastic Universe, May 1959) -- A young woman from the Salvation Army arrives on Venus, which is populated solely by rough male miners and a few prostitutes, determined to bring religion and civilization. It's a pleasant enough comedy-drama, but there's no reason for it to be science fiction. It could have easily been set in the Wild West.