The New York Review of Science Fiction

A photographic exploration of the world of H. P. Lovecraft, by Lomig Perrotin




Howard Phillips Lovecraft is one of the fathers of modern fantasy literature, though he is better known for his contributions to horror. Born in 1890 in Providence, he died in poverty in 1938, never having known success in his lifetime. His work, which was the first to link scientific materialism and the supernatural, is characterized by the idea that behind the apparent banality of our existence lies a sickening and blasphemous truth. This truth cannot be revealed to the world, and Lovecraft himself shared it with us only in fragments to protect us from our own curiosity. There is resistance, opposition, even rebellion in the author’s inability to testify about the cosmic horrors that seem to watch humanity from beyond. To convey this resistance, I needed to explore the limits of the photographic medium. So I used cliché-verre, a technique of etching photographic material to create a mixed negative, blending the realistic aspect of photography with the graphic effects of drawing. Neither photographs alone nor illustration could reproduce this particular blend of horror and oneirism that characterizes the work of the master of Providence.

This work was displayed in November 2012 at Galerie 154: 154, rue Oberkampf, 75011, Paris.

—Lomig Perrotin, Les Lilas, France

I.

That place was very old, and the ceiling-high shelves full of rotting volumes reached back endlessly through windowless inner rooms and alcoves. There were, besides, great formless heaps of books on the floor and in crude bins; and it was in one of these heaps that I found the thing. I never learned its title, for the early pages were missing. . . .

—“The Book,” 1934

Notes on the Origins of the Term “Scientific Romance” and Its Implications for the Development of Science Fiction, by Brian Stableford




It is impossible to determine with any certainty who coined the term “scientific romance” or when it was first used in print. The earliest use of the phrase that it was possible to find in December 2012 by searching for it among the digital documents indexed by the Hathi Trust and Google Books is in a footnote to a dissertation on Saxon law by the barrister James Ibbetson, first published in 1780. In that essay, Ibbetson refers scathingly to a suggestion that a medieval Saxon legal custom might have originated in Troy, and the corollary account of its importation to Britain, as “the dreams of prejudice and scientific romance” (36).

April 2013 Table of Contents

ISSUE #296 April 2013 Volume 25, No. 8 ISSN #1052-9438

ESSAYS

• Lomig Perrotin: I Will Whisper in the Dark


• Brian Stableford: Notes on the Origins of the Term “Scientific Romance” and Its Implications for the Development of Science Fiction


• Darrell Schweitzer: Rusty’s Space Ship Flies Again


• Christopher S. Kovacs and Susan M. MacDonald: A Third Sampling of Medical Myths and Errors in Genre Fiction


• Maarten Nellestijn: Doctor Atomic: Science Fiction Opera


• Thomas A. Easton: The Prime Error

PLUS

• More on possession in HPL, photos, and an editorial.

April 2013 Editorial: How the Game Is Played in Atlantic City




Back in June 2011, John Perich wrote on Overthinking It about an emerging genre. His basic premise was this:

You’d be forgiven for confusing the many, many period dramas that have aired on premium cable in the last six years. . . . Rome, The Tudors, Deadwood, Spartacus, Boardwalk Empire, The Borgias, Camelot, Game of Thrones, and doubtless others. The historical eras depicted by these films span thousands of years—and even enter the realm of fantasy—and several continents. But they all share one genre. In this genre, familiar stories are retold with an emphasis on violence, sex, and dishonest scheming. If there’s not a better name for this genre, I’m calling it Blood, Tits and Scowling. . . .

The beauty is that, when you put them all together, it creates a perpetual engine for drama. www.overthinkingit.com/2011/06/28/blood-Tits-and-scowling.

The whole essay is worth reading for anyone interested in the mechanics of storytelling. In addition to discussions of the particularities of telling stories at extended length, he goes on to discuss precisely why the BT&S mode is such a comfortable fit for stories set in either fantasy worlds or historical periods so distant they “might as well be another world.”

A fine example of the similarities came that year. The Game of Thrones episode “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things” concludes with a chance encounter at a crossroads inn: Tyrion Lannister, a dwarf, the king’s brother-in-law, meets Catelyn Stark, a lady of house Tully, wife of the king’s most trusted advisor. Catelyn believes that Tyrion has attempted to murder her son. In George R. R. Martin’s novel, the scene unfolds thus:

“You in the corner,” she said to an older man she had not noticed until now. “Is that the black bat of Harrenhal I see embroidered on your surcoat, ser?”

The man got to his feet. “It is, my lady.”

“And is Lady Whent a true and honest friend to my father, Lord Hoster Tully of Riverrun?”

“She is,” the man replied stoutly.

Ser Rodrik rose quietly and loosened his sword in its scabbard. The dwarf was blinking at them, blank-faced, with puzzlement in his mismatched eyes.

“The red stallion was ever a welcome sight in Riverrun,” she said to the trio by the fire. “My father counts Jonos Bracken among his oldest and most loyal bannermen.”

The three men-at-arms exchanged uncertain looks. “Our lord is honored by his trust,” one said hesitantly.

“This man came a guest into my house, and there conspired to murder my son, a boy of seven,” Catlyn proclaimed to the room at large, pointing. Ser Rodrik moved to her side, his sword in hand. “In the name of King Robert and the good lords you serve, I call upon you to seize him and help me return him to Winterfell to await the king’s justice.”

Six months later, the second episode of the second season of Boardwalk Empire featured this scene. “Chalky” White, the undisputed leader of the black criminal gangs of Atlantic City, is held in a large, segregated, cell with several other prisoners. Dunn Purnsley, newly arrived from Baltimore, starts taunting White.

WHITE: . . . get your finger out of my face.

PURNSLEY: What I don’t like about you? . . . the uppity way you tell the world you better than Dunn Purnsley when all you be is another jigaboo in a jail cell.

WHITE (speaking past Purnsley to another prisoner): Harold C. Madison. How your daddy keeping?

HAROLD: Tolerable, sir. He thank you for the doctor bill.

WHITE (to a second prisoner): Noah Hookway. . . . Things good down at the gold room?

NOAH: Supposed to work today.

WHITE: I’ll talk to ’em. (to a third and fourth prisoner) Timothy. Cornelius.

TIMOTHY: Mama grateful for the turkey, sir.

WHITE: All righty then. (The others grab Purnsley from behind and beat him. Chalky returns to his bunk.)

Centuries, universes apart. History is a series of stories. The same words shape them; the same narratives flow around.

Stories repeat because the shapes of the bricks are all alike.

—Kevin J. Maroney and the editors

A PDF or ePub copy of the NYRSF issue in which this editorial first appeared is available for purchase at Weightless Books.

A printed copy of issues 295 and 296 is available for purchase from lulu.com.

After the Apocalypse by Maureen F. McHugh, reviewed by Joan Gordon

Easthampton, Massachusetts: Small Beer Press, 2011; $16.00 tpb; 200 pages




This is a collection of stories—nine in all, 6 reprinted and 3 original—that share a common theme, the effects of the apocalypse from the small end of the telescope. Or they demonstrate how large causes can have small, if very important, effects. Or they are comedies (and tragedies) of manners for the end of the world, as if Jane Austen really had written about zombies or pandemics or dirty bombs or economic collapse. And just like a Jane Austen heroine (or like Gloria Gaynor), people will survive. I read one of the stories in the volume, “Useless Things,” three years ago, and it has stayed with me. Many of the rest of these stories will stay with me, too. Strong characterization, vivid description, emphasis on the mundane courage of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances: these things make all the stories in the volume ring true.

March 2013 Table of Contents

ISSUE #295 March 2013 Volume 25, No. 7 ISSN #1052-9438

ESSAYS

• Michael Andre-Driussi: Fallout 3 versus The Omega Man
• Graham Andrews: Have Blaster—Will Travel: Richard S. Prather and Science Fiction
• Robert Guffey: Still Pulling This Train: Harlan Ellison’s Pulling a Train and Getting in the Wind

REVIEWS

• Inflatable Frankenstein, created & performed by Radiohole, reviewed by Aaron Grunfeld
• After the Apocalypse, reviewed by Joan Gordon
• The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, edited by Edward James & Farah Mendelsohn, reviewed by Darrell Schweitzer
• Gregory Benford and Larry Niven’s Bowl of Heaven, reviewed by David Mead
• Hosuke Nojiri’s Rocket Girls and Rocket Girls: The Last Planet, reviewed by Patrick L. McGuire
• Paul Tobin’s Prepare to Die!, reviewed by Joe Sanders
• Sayonara and I, Worker, written and directed by Oriza Hirata, reviewed by Jen Gunnels
• Sci-Fi Womanthology, edited by Forrest J. Ackerman and Pam Keesey and Rainbow Fantasia. edited by Forrest J. Ackerman and Ann Hardin, reviewed by Don Webb
• The Apes of Wrath, edited by Richard Klaw, reviewed by Peter Rawlik
• David Brin’s Existence, reviewed by David Mead

PLUS

• Barsoom and box-offices, photos, screed, and an editorial.

Samuel R. Delany, Contributing Editor; Kris Dikeman and Avram Grumer, Managing Editors.

Alex Donald, Webmaster; David G. Hartwell, Reviews and Features Editor; Kevin J. Maroney, Publisher.

Staff: Ann Crimmins, Jen Gunnels, Lisa Padol, Heather Masri, Christine Quinones, Eugene Reynolds, and Jason Strawsburg.

Special thanks to Arthur D. Hlavaty, M’jit Raindancer-Stahl, and Eugene Surowitz.

Published monthly by Burrowing Wombat Press, 206 Valentine Street, Yonkers NY 10704-1814

Send all editorial inquiries and submissions to dgh@tor.com and kjm@panix.com.

Individual issues and subscriptions are available worldwide in various electronic forms at Weightless Books and other fine establishments.

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New York Review of Science Fiction Home Page: www.nyrsf.com

Copyright © 2013 Burrowing Wombat Press.

Fallout 3 versus The Omega Man, by Michael Andre-Driussi




The video game industry is a business environment where projects rival the cost/reward structure of motion pictures, and the consumer demand is commensurate. For one example, consider the dystopian novel The Hunger Games (2008). It was on the New York Times’s bestseller list for over 100 consecutive weeks and had sold an impressive 800,000 copies by February 2010.

The post-apocalyptic video game Fallout 3 (2008) sold 5.21 million copies in the same period.

I mention this only to impress the reader with the commercial/cultural value of video games, in the hopes of raising sufficient interest regarding my assessment of the science-fictional content in this popular game, “America’s First Choice in Post Nuclear Simulation” (as the advertising tagline had it).

March 2013 Editorial: And Boy Are My Arms Tired




It’s been a very hectic month, as March always is. As I write this, we are actually in the midst of the Work Weekend for the April issue, but because of the gigantic hole that the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts tears out of the month, we’re just putting the finishing touches on the March issue.

Off to ICFA 2013

This week is the 34th annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts . NYRSF will be there in force, soaking up sun and scholarship and all the fun thereof. In attendance: staffers David Hartwell, Kevin Maroney, Jen Gunnels, Ann Crimmins, and dozens of past and present contributors. Say hello! We don't bite.

February 2013 Table of Contents

ISSUE #294 February 2013

Volume 25, No.6 ISSN #1052-9438

ESSAYS

• Photoessay: Boskone 50, Boston, Massachusetts, February 2013
• JeFF Stumpo: Until Someone Loses an I: The Deconstruction of “self” in Borges and Lovecraft
• Mike Barrett: Iron Angels & Annihilators: John Morressy’s Novels of Heroic Fantasy
• Damien Broderick: The Mellor’s Tale<
• Tom Easton: A Post-Steampunk Manifesto
• Dave Drake: Manly Wade Wellman, Reporter
• Andrés Lomeña: Ways of Reading Fantasy: An Interview with Farah Mendlesohn
• Victor Grech: Star Trek’s Picard: Humanity’s Conscience

REVIEWS

• Karel Capek’s R. U. R. and Richard Manly’s The Truth Quotient, reviewed by Jen Gunnels
• Ian McDonald’s Planesrunner, reviewed by Damien Broderick

PLUS

• A glimpse of futures past futures, screed, and an editorial.

Samuel R. Delany, Contributing Editor; Kris Dikeman and Avram Grumer, Managing Editors.

Alex Donald, Webmaster; David G. Hartwell, Reviews and Features Editor; Kevin J. Maroney, Publisher.

Staff: Ann Crimmins, Jen Gunnels, and Lisa Padol.

Special thanks to Arthur D. Hlavaty, M’jit Raindancer-Stahl, Jason Strawsburg, and Eugene Surowitz.

Feb. 2013 Editorial: When You're Six Months in . . .




“You see, if you’re five miles out over the English Channel, with nothing but sea underneath you, er, there is a very great impetus to stay in the air.”

—Terry Jones, Monty Python’s Flying Circus

So, here we are, our sixth month of post-paper existence. Other than some teething pains related to the intricacies of turning a double-columned, magazine-formatted PDF into an e-reader-friendly epub, we’ve been pretty happy with the results. As one reader put it, “I love how the magazine now has color pictures.” We have the print-on-demand double-issue version available through Lulu.com, for those who want it (and there are a few of you, I’m pleased to report.) And best of all, we don’t have the expense (and, increasingly, sheer frustration) of dealing with a physical printer, or of figuring out how to warehouse new back issues.