Asimov's SF, April-May 2008 Read online

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  Asimov's SF, April-May 2008

  by Dell Magazine Authors

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  Science Fiction

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  Dell Magazines

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  Copyright ©2008 by Dell Magazines

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Cover art by Donato Giancola

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  CONTENTS

  Department: EDITORIAL: 31 by Sheila Williams

  Department: REFLECTIONS: REREADING STAPLEDON by Robert Silverberg

  Novelette: MEMORY DOG by Kathleen Ann Goonan

  Short Story: SLIDIN’ by Neal Barrett, Jr.

  Poetry: GARGOYLE PEOPLE by Bruce Boston

  Short Story: THE HOUSE LEFT EMPTY by Robert Reed

  Poetry: SPEAK WITHOUT GRAVITY by Mark Rich

  Short Story: AN ALMANAC FOR THE ALIEN INVADERS by Merrie Haskell

  Poetry: ROBO-CAT(R) by Kendall Evans and David C. Kopaska-Merkel

  Short Story: AN ART, LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE by Nick Wolven

  Novelette: AN ALIEN HERESY by S.P. Somtow

  Poetry: THE LUNARCHEOLOGIST REQUESTS by Greg Beatty

  Short Story: GHOST TOWN by Catherine Wells

  Poetry: THE FLYING DUTCHMAN by Bryan D. Dietrich

  Novelette: STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET by Kate Wilhelm

  Short Story: ANOTHER COUNTRY by Matthew Johnson

  Poetry: CHILDREN by P M F Johnson

  Short Story: THE ADVOCATE by Barry B. Longyear

  Poetry: ROBOT CAT by Roger Dutcher

  Novella: THE ROOM OF LOST SOULS by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Department: ON BOOKS: THE MULTIVERSE by Norman Spinrad

  Poetry: DEATHS ON OTHER PLANETS by Joanne Merriam

  Department: SF CONVENTIONAL CALENDAR by Erwin S. Strauss

  Department: NEXT ISSUE

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  Asimov's Science Fiction. ISSN 1065-2698. Vol. 32, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 387 & 388, April/May 2008. GST #R123293128. Published monthly except for two combined double issues in April/May and October/November by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. One year subscription $43.90 in the United States and U.S. possessions. In all other countries $53.90 (GST included in Canada), payable in advance in U.S. funds. Address for subscription and all other correspondence about them, 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. Allow 6 to 8 weeks for change of address. Address for all editorial matters: Asimov's Science Fiction, 475 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10016. Asimov's Science Fiction is the registered trademark of Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. (c) 2008 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. All rights reserved, printed in the U.S.A. Protection secured under the Universal and Pan American Copyright Conventions. Reproduction or use of editorial or pictorial content in any manner without express permission is prohibited. All submissions must include a self-addressed, stamped envelope; the publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT and additional mailing offices. Canadian postage paid at Montreal, Quebec, Canada Post International Publications Mail, Product Sales Agreement No. 40012460. POSTMASTER, send change of address to Asimov's Science Fiction, 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. In Canada return to Quebecor St. Jean, 800 Blvd. Industrial, St. Jean, Quebec J3B 8G4.

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  ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION

  Isaac Asimov: Editorial Director (1977-1992)

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  Department: EDITORIAL: 31

  by Sheila Williams

  Well, here we are, celebrating the 31st anniversary of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine. This milestone may not be as exciting as the 30th. It would probably be harder to mark the occasion with an anthology similar to last year's successful 30th Anniversary Anthology (still available at Amazon. com, by the way). No collection of editorials from the magazine's past editors grace this issue. Robert Silverberg hasn't marked the occasion with a special Reflections column, and, while we have a terrific line-up of stories, we haven't asked each of the authors to reminisce about his or her history with Asimov's.

  Still, the significance of thirty-one years of publication impressed me this summer while reading through Worlds of If: A Retrospective Anthology edited by Frederik Pohl, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander, and published by Bluejay Books in 1986. If and its companion magazine, Galaxy, were two of the SF magazines I grew up on. If, which first came out in March 1952, ceased regular publication after December 1974 when it was incorporated into Galaxy. Galaxy, which began about a year and a half earlier in October 1950, made it through thirty years, with one issue out in 1980—its thirty-first year—before it, too, ceased regular publication.

  Legendary editors who worked at one or both of these magazines include H.L. Gold, Damon Knight, Frederik Pohl, and James Baen. The breathtaking list of authors whose stories appeared in these magazines include Philip K. Dick, Cordwainer Smith, Poul Anderson, Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov, R.A. Lafferty, Larry Niven, Harlan Ellison, Samuel R. Delany, Philip José Farmer, Robert Silverberg, James Tiptree, Jr., Theodore Sturgeon, and Clifford D. Simak. I don't suppose it's surprising that each of these authors also has a place on the list of writers that formed the backbone of my teenaged reading and helped to create my earliest perceptions of what good SF writing was all about.

  When I joined the staff of Asimov's in 1982, the magazine was at the close of its sixth year. While If had made it through 175 issues and Galaxy to 254, Asimov's was on its 56th. If and Galaxy's numbers and years of publication seemed like noble goals to aspire to, but they were hardly within reach.
We were closing in, though, on some historic pulp magazines that surely must have influenced the formative years of many of the If and Galaxy authors. In numbers of issues, we had already passed Super Science Stories 1940-1951 (31 issues), and were in striking distance of Planet Stories 1939-1955 (71 issues) and Startling Stories 1944-1955 (99 issues), whose respectable runs had all ended before I was born. However, we had a long way to go before catching up with Thrilling Wonder Stories, another venerable magazine that began life as Wonder Stories in 1929 and which, like so many others, ended its run in 1955—nearly 27 years and 189 issues later.

  But 25 intervening years have flown by, and, altogether, we've lovingly put out 357 separate physical issues (the whole number on our contents page is higher because all double issues count as two editorial issues). Somewhere along the way we passed Imagination (63 issues), NewWorlds (201 magazine issues), Omni (201 print issues), and Fantastic (208 issues). Due to years on hiatus, we managed to catch up with Weird Tales (first published in 1923 and still going strong today at 340 issues). Even though it has ceased publication, it will be sometime before we come close to Amazing Stories' 609 issues that appeared between April 1926 and March 2005.

  Of course, there are two magazines currently available that make nearly every other publication look like a slacker. F&SF, which will be celebrating its 60th anniversary in a couple of years, is currently on its 666th issue, while Analog/Astounding dwarfs us all at 988 issues in 78 years. Now that we've been around over a third of Analog's lifetime and more than half F&SF's, we're not the new kid anymore, but we'll always be the kid sister to these two periodicals.

  It's not uncommon in this field to find people pining for a past where there was little to no TV, SF rarely appeared in book form, role-playing and electronic games were a thing of the future, the Internet was beyond our imagination, and large numbers of people actually read SF magazines. We know there was a time when the circulation figures for all periodicals were far higher than they are today and the newsstands exploded with a profusion of genre magazines. It doesn't take much digging, though, to find that some of this perception of the SF magazines’ glorious past is partly seen though the fog of memory.

  While we are mostly aware of the long-term survivors, the graveyard of science fiction magazines is filled with short-term reigns. Some, like the still deeply mourned Unknown (39 issues published between March 1939 and October 1943), found their lives ended unnaturally by wartime paper shortages. Others fell victim to newsstand distribution reorganizations and fiascos.

  According to Mike Ashley's excellent historical documentation in his three-volume Story of the Science Fiction Magazines, even some of the longer-running magazines were filled with reprints or just published stories about one continuing character such as Ki-Gor, White Lord of the Jungle; Captain Future; Doc Savage; or The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. It may be that these magazines simply couldn't sustain the reader's interest after a certain point.

  Whatever the reason for their demise, the vast majority of SF magazines, with wonderful sounding names like Astonishing Stories (1940-1943), Destiny (1950-1954), Fantastic Universe (1953-1960), and Stirring Science Stories (1941-1942), were unable to make it out of their first decade. While a large number of genre magazines may not hold sway on today's newsstands, those that can be found there, such as Analog, F&SF, Interzone (founded in 1982), and Realms of Fantasy (founded 1994), each have a long and rich publishing history. In addition, many exciting newer publishing outlets can be purchased through mail order or the Internet or are simply available as e-zines online.

  When I look back at the illustrious history of Galaxy and so many other fine magazines, I find I'm very proud of each of Asimov's thirty-one years. We've been part of this field for a significant chunk of time, and look forward to contributing to its future as well.

  Copyright (c) 2008 Sheila Williams

  [Back to Table of Contents]

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  Department: REFLECTIONS: REREADING STAPLEDON

  by Robert Silverberg

  Once again I'm revisiting classic SF novels that had a mighty effect on me when I first encountered them in the 1940s and 1950s, this time taking a new look at Olaf Stapledon's superman novel of 1936, Odd John. In an autobiographical essay I wrote forty years after I discovered it in 1947 or 1948 I had this to say of it:

  [It is] the quintessential peculiar-little-boy book, a haunting and tragic tale of a child prodigy—one far beyond my own attainments, but with whom, nonetheless, I was easily able to identify. You are not alone, Stapledon was saying to me. You will find others of your sort; and if you are lucky you and your peers will withdraw to a safe island far from the cruel and clumsy bullies who clutter your classroom, and do your work in peace, whatever it may be. Even though it all ends badly for John and his friends, Odd John must be a powerfully comforting work for any bright, unhappy child. Certainly it was for me. I was unhappy because of my brightness; through Stapledon I saw a mode, fantastic though it might be, of escaping all of that into a more secure life. If it is a novel that also feeds paranoia, arrogance, and elitist fantasy, so be it. It made me feel better. I think I am not the only one who used it that way."

  Stapledon's Odd John isn't just a very bright little boy who has trouble getting along with the slower-witted people around him, as I was sixty years ago: he's a mutant superman, a genetic freak. Maybe I could name all the English monarchs in order, but I was, at least, human. John is physically as well as mentally different from normal humans, a slender, spidery-looking boy with huge green eyes, a massive head, and strange woolly white hair—a member of a successor species, our replacements on Earth, Homo superior.

  John and his fellow mutants remind me of the Second Men of Stapledon's earlier novel Last and First Men, which is, I think, the most stupendous vision of the far future ever conceived. The Second Men are said to have huge heads, large, finely shaped hands, and big jade-green eyes. Like John and his companions they are slow to reach physical maturity, but have greater life-spans than ours. But the Second Men don't appear in the world until ten million years from now; the mutants we meet in Odd John are already among us, and have been for hundreds of years. And there are other differences. The Second Men, for example, are physically gigantic; the mutants of Odd John are all slender, even flimsy in build.

  The two books differ in technique. Last and First Men does without such fictional standbys as dialog, character, plot. It describes the next two billion years in the dry, impersonal manner of a history text. ("Of the great practical uses to which the Sixteenth Men put their powers, only one need be mentioned as an example. They gained control of the movement of their planet. Early in their career, they were able, with the unlimited energy at their disposal, to direct it into a wider orbit....") The whole book is like that, and it is not an easy thing to read if one is looking for the pleasures of conventional storytelling.

  Odd John, though, is straightforwardly novelistic in form, and Stapledon makes it clear right away that he can handle conventional narrative technique as well as anybody else. Consider this elegant bit of foreshadowing on the very first page:

  I knew almost nothing of the inner, the real John. To this day I know little but the amazing facts of his career. I know that he never walked till he was six, that before he was ten he committed several burglaries and killed a policeman, that at eighteen, when he still looked a young boy, he founded his preposterous colony in the South Seas, and that at twenty-three, in appearance but little altered, he outwitted the six warships that six Great Powers had sent to seize him. I know also how John and all his followers died.

  Stapledon (1886-1950) was by profession a professor of philosophy, but he was well versed in the physical sciences as they were understood in his day. Nevertheless, I have some doubts about the scientific assumptions behind Odd John. He would have us believe that the Homo superior mutation occurred more or less simultaneously among humans of widely varying races: John is English, but his companions include not only French an
d Russian superbeings and a Swede but also an Ethiopian, some Chinese, a Turk, a surprising number of Tibetans, and some others. The preponderance of Asians leads Stapledon to propose that the starting point for the mutation was somewhere in Central Asia, perhaps Mongolia, which is reasonable enough, but I don't see any genetic trail that could have led from the Asian steppes to France, Sweden, or England.

  In any case, scientific developments since Stapledon's time lead me to doubt that Homo superior is going to emerge among us by way of spontaneous and random mutation, as Homo sapiens probably emerged among the precursor human species long ago. We, poor primitives though we would seem in John's eyes, already have the capacity for genetic screening of fetuses and a certain degree of prenatal genetic manipulation. Despite the present climate of political hostility to such things, I think the future will see a steadily increasing reliance on genetic enhancement of zygotes and prenatal destruction of sub-par fetuses, and the end result of that can only be the gradual emergence of Homo superior right out of Homo sapiens stock, not by random mutation but by deliberate design.

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  John, who sets himself apart from human morality like Dostoyevsky's Raskolnikov, stands outside society and analyzes its flaws. To the extent that Stapledon concentrates on that, the book is as much social satire as it is a superman novel. An early chapter shows the pre-adolescent John cornering a supermarket magnate aboard a commuter train and demanding to know why he is so interested in making money, since plainly he already has more than enough. Poking at the befuddled capitalist as a banderilla harasses a bull at a bullfight, John hits him with Socratic thrusts straight out of the socialist property-is-theft playbook. ("Of course, you couldn't work properly unless you had reasonable comfort. And that means a big house and two cars, and furs and jewels for your wife, and first-class railway fares, and swank schools for your children....")