The New York Review of Science Fiction

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.

The Mellor’s Tale, by Damien Broderick: A Foreword to Greg Mellor’s Wild Chrome




Forty-five years ago, when I was young and in love with science fiction, and Gregory Mellor was a toddler, the great sf fantasist Theodore Sturgeon faced a tough task, introducing the first collected stories of a then-new writer. Here’s how he began:

There has been nothing like Zelazny in the science fiction field since—

Until Someone Loses an I:The Deconstruction of “self” in Borges and Lovecraft, by JeFF Stumpo




There are a surprising number of parallels in the works of H. P. Lovecraft and Jorge Luis Borges—views on the universe (infinite and incomprehensible), time (nonlinear), mirrors (abhorrent because of their reflection and duplication), God (generally absent and/or indifferent to mankind), and false creations (Lovecraft’s Necronomicon has become a real-life hrön). Besides the thematic links in their work, there existed a professional awareness. Borges was aware of Lovecraft, enough so that he construed him in an interview as a writer barely worth attention (Burgin 40), and yet dedicated a story to his memory (“There are more things” in The Book of Sand). Some scholars, generally associated with Lovecraft studies, have looked to this story for a thread between the two. Juan José Barrientos even proposes that “El Aleph” is “una especie de parodia de Lovecraft” [“a sort of parody of Lovecraft”] (443). The most serious and comprehensive comparative study to date, “Synchronistic Worlds: Lovecraft and Borges” by Barton Levi St. Armand, is an excellent examination of the universal aspects held in common by the two writers. Unfortunately, his work does not cover issues of identity. The fact remains that, while some scholarly, comparative studies have been undertaken, they are rare in Spanish, nearly nonexistent in English, and none of them appear to have covered this particular ground. In the following essay, I will concentrate on the self/Self in the short stories of Lovecraft and Borges, specifically the way in which both utilize false and fractured personalities to eventually deconstruct the possibility of a stable self.

200 Significant Science Fiction Books by Women, 1984–2001, by David G. Hartwell




For a separate project, I was asked to assemble a list of major books of science fiction written by women over the period 1984 to 2001. I restricted myself to works of science fiction (which eliminates certain works valued by the sf audience but published out of genre or specifically as horror or as fantasy), and novels and single author collections only, not anthologies. This list includes most of the nominees and winners of the major awards during the period but is not limited to them, nor does it include every last one. Every book here appeared on some “best of the year” or award nomination list.

American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, edited by Gary K. Wolfe

New York: Library of America, 2012; $70.00 hc;

1750 pages in two volumes

reviewed by Arthur D. Hlavaty




The word venerable has two meanings: in the original sense it denotes the ability to inspire a feeling somewhere between admiration and worship, but it is also used to mean old, as if mere age brought worthiness. This process of automatic veneration is now overtaking the allegedly trashy amusements of my youth. In music, it had already happened; in fact, the sounds I grew up with and still love are several decades before the oxymoronic Classic Rock. Television and comics have likewise gained venerability, and the Buck Rogers stuff is joining them.

January 2013 Table of Contents

ISSUE #293 January 2013 Volume 25, No. 5 ISSN #1052-9438

ESSAYS

• Mac Rogers, Jen Gunnels, and August Schulenberg: Three Pieces on Science Fiction Theatre
• David G. Hartwell: 200 Significant Science Fiction Books by Women, 1984–2001
• Henry Wessells: At the Sign of the Fanlight Window; or, H.P. Lovecraft, Bibliopole

REVIEWS

• American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, edited by Gary K. Wolfe, reviewed by Arthur D. Hlavaty
• Hearts Like Fists, written by Adam Szymkowicz, directed by Kelly O’Donnell, reviewed by Jen Gunnels
• H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, read by William Roberts, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s Guest and Other Stories, read by Rupert Degas, reviewed by Peter Rawlik
• Dan Abnett’s Pariah, reviewed by Alec Austin
• Patricia McKillip’s Wonders of the Invisible World, reviewed by Joe Milicia
• Robert Silverberg and Alvaro Zinos-Amaro’s When the Blue Shift Comes, reviewed by D. Douglas Fratz

PLUS

• Plus: A birthday reverie on Chip Delany; the secret masters of everything; a Call for Papers; Photos: Holiday Parties, New York, December 2012/January 2013; screed; and an editorial.

January 2013 Editorial: Ends of Eras




A pair of landmark events in the fantasy field have been drawing my attention back to themselves over the last month, so I thought I’d write about them here.

Lynn Willis died a week ago as I write this, midway through January. His is not a name well-enough known in the prose f&sf field, or even in his home field of hobby gaming, but he was a major figure behind the scenes. He started off in the 1970s as a wargame designer for Metagaming Concepts. Metagaming, though small and short-lived, had a disproportionate influence on the field, with a number of innovative games in inventive formats. Willis’s games there—Godsfire and the mini-games Holy War and Olympia—didn’t have the splash of Steve Jackson’s Ogre or The Fantasy Trip, but they were all clever and memorable.

December 2012 Table of Contents

ISSUE #292 December 2012 Volume 25, No. 4 ISSN #1052-9438

ESSAYS

• Victor Grech: Changing Depictions of Santa Claus in Science Fiction Magazines and Superhero Comic Book Covers
• Michael Andre-Driussi: The Politics of Roadside Picnic
• Grady Hendrix: God and Tesseracts: Christian Love in L’Engle’s Time Quartet
• Douglas A. Anderson: Joanna Russ’s Version of The Hobbit

REVIEWS

• Hannu Rajaniemi’s The Quantum Thief, reviewed by Jenny Blackford
• Robin D. Laws’s New Tales of the Yellow Sign, reviewed by Lisa Padol
• Hope Larson’s Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, the Graphic Novel, reviewed by Avram Grumer
• Spaceman, written and directed by Leegrid Stevens, reviewed by Aaron Grunfeld

PLUS

• Plus: Philip Wylie and nuclear destruction, photos from Philcon, 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, M’jit Raindancer-Stahl, and Anne Zanoni.

Special thanks to Arthur D. Hlavaty 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.

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

Copyright © 2012 Burrowing Wombat Press.

December 2012 NYRSF cover article on Tor.com

Changing Depictions of Santa Claus in Science Fiction Magazines and Superhero Comic Book Covers, by Victor Grech, from the December 2012 issue of NYRSF, appeared on Tor.com recently.

New Tales of the Yellow Sign by Robin D. Laws, reviewed by Lisa Padol

Alexandria, Virgina: Atomic Overmind Press, 2012; $16.95 tpb; 176 pages




When NYRSF asked me to write a review, we discussed several options. I came to the conclusion that, for quicker results, I should do a simple review of Robin Laws’s New Tales of the Yellow Sign rather than a review of the new edition of the roleplaying supplement Masks of Nyarlathotep, which, to do justice, would have to survey nearly 40 years of gaming history. After all, New Tales of the Yellow Sign doesn’t require much of a backwards look, right? Oh . . . wait. . . .