The New York Review of Science Fiction

NYRSF Issue 303 (November 2013): Table of Contents

• Michael Bishop: Unaimed Prayers: The Silurian Tales of Steven Utley
• Darrell Schweitzer: Phlegon of Tralles and "The Hideous Tale of the Corpse-Bride"
• She Walks in Darkness by Evangeline Walton, reviewed by Michael Levy
• Patrick L. McGuire: The Strugatskys' Traditional Science Fiction Revisited, Part 2
• New Under the Sun (consisting of "Annabel Lee" by Nancy Kress and "Strange Attraction" by Therese Piecynski), edited by Mike Resnick, reviewed by Joe Milicia
• Don Webb: Shavermania
• Photos: The David G. Hartwell Science Fiction Symposium
• Editorial: Time and Tides

Time and Tides (Editorial, NYRSF 303)

When NYRSF launched, the issue generally went to the printer in the last week of the month before the cover date, which meant that subscribers received the issue sometime late in the month on the cover. In the post-paper era, we've aimed to get the issue out to Weightless Books sometime in the last full week of the cover month.

Last month's issue (October) shipped about a week into November, and this one (November) is shipping the first week in December. That's down to me completely; in our current production process, there are several key bottlenecks that I can block by inaction, and there has been sufficient chaos in my household over that period that we fell behind. This issue in particular is late because I dragged my feet until we washed up against the rocks of Thanksgiving/Hanukkah. So, my apologies. I believe that the December issue will be out between Christmas and New Years without problem; let us hope.

Michael Bishop Unaimed Prayers: The Silurian Tales of Steven Utley

Hope, she believed, was an unaimed prayer.

—Steven Utley

The "she" in the foregoing epigraph stands for a female character surnamed Wheeler in "Cloud by van Gogh," a story in Volume 1 of Steven Utley's Silurian Tales, The 400-Million-Year Itch. Wheeler, a soil and insect specialist laboring in a weird but physically visitable facsimile of the Silurian period, aspires to paint a cloud just as she sees it and thereby to make, as Vincent van Gogh did (or would, some four hundred million years later), "you know, art."

In the next story, "Half a Loaf," we learn Wheeler's given name, Helen, an ironic one, because no one—certainly not Wheeler herself—regards her as a beauty. But in this stark Silurian environment, all the scientists refer to one another, as do the navy service people supporting their research, primarily by surnames. And, in "Cloud by van Gogh," Wheeler deflects her tent-mate (Carol) Bearden's lament of sleeplessness by confessing to "only minimal sympathy for the problems of anybody who's as slim, graceful, blonde, and sought-after" as Ms. Bearden.