The New York Review of Science Fiction

NYRSF Issue 311 (July 2014): Table of Contents

• Brian Stableford: The Margins of Roman Scientifique
• Christopher S. Kovacs and Susan M. MacDonald: A Fourth Survey of Medical Myths and Errors in Genre Fiction
• Michael Andre-Driussi: Tracing Terms in Jack Vance’s “Sjambak”
• What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton, reviewed by Dan’l Danehy-Oakes
• Musings and Meditations: Reflections on Science Fiction, Science, and Other Matters by Robert Silverberg, reviewed by James L. Cambias
• Michael Bishop: How I Both Wrote and Did Not Write a Horror Novel Called The Typing: An Author’s Afterword, Thirty Years On
• Mike Barrett: William Fryer Harvey: Gallantry and Ghosts
• California Bones by Greg van Eekhout, reviewed by Alec Austin
• New Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko, reviewed by Peter Rawlik
• H.P. Lovecraft in the Merrimac Valley by David Goudsward, reviewed by Darrell Schweitzer
• Photos
• Editorial: Hithering and Thithering

Hithering and Thithering (Editorial, NYRSF 311)

So, we didn’t manage to thread the needle last month, resulting in this issue being around 2 weeks late. July was a tremendously busy month for pretty much everyone in NYRSF, with the combination of the July 4 holiday, Readercon, and DetCon1 (the NASFiC) on successive weekends. As a result, we weren’t able to hold our July Work Weekend until the start of August. We’ve worked very hard to get this issue out as quickly as we could. Being on time, as I’ve said before, is a deeply held ideal of our magazine, and we’d like to get back to it. The good news is that the August issue is in great shape and should ship on time. (Why do I suddenly hear threatening John Williams music in the background?)

California Bones by Greg van Eekhout, reviewed by Alec Austin

New York: Tor Books, 2014; $24.99 hc; 304 pages

Greg van Eekhout’s California Bones is simultaneously exhilarating and frustrating—exhilarating because of its rapid pacing, gruesome and well-developed magic system, and variety of perspectives on an ambitious heist targeting a magically enhanced Southern California police state; frustrating because for all its enthusiasm, when you pause to examine the underpinnings of its setting, the various pieces of the world don’t add up. It is still a very good book, and one expects many readers won’t notice its missteps. But whenever van Eekhout’s sleight of hand faltered, and the text drew attention to specifics of its alternate history that make no sense, I found myself ejected from the carefully cultivated immersion of California Bones’s heist plot and left contemplating why the B-29 would be developed absent America’s involvement in World War II, how the second Sino-Japanese War would have played out without American access to the Pacific via California, and other questions that the author surely didn’t mean to invite.

What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton, reviewed by Dan’l Danehy-Oakes

New York: Tor Books, 2013; $26.99 hc; 446 pages

A few years ago Jo Walton published Among Others, a Hugo– and Nebula–award-winning novel about (among other things) the love of books, and especially sf/f books.

Walton also writes blog posts for Tor.com about (among other things) the books she loves and why she loves them. What Makes This Book So Great is a collection of posts from that blog.

Brian Stableford: The Margins of Roman Scientifique

In an earlier essay in these pages, I commented on the manner in which Louis Figuier, the editor of the popular science magazine La Science Illustrée, introduced a feuilleton section to the magazine under the rubric roman scientifique [scientific fiction] in which, between 1888 and 1905, he published dozens of exemplary texts mapping out the genre to which he thought that title appropriate. I also commented then on the fact that the label did not catch on elsewhere, perhaps because other editors did not think such a genre label necessary but perhaps also because they were aware that the phrase had been used in other contexts with different connotations and thought it ambiguous.

Christopher S. Kovacs and Susan M. MacDonald: A Fourth Survey of Medical Myths and Errors in Genre Fiction

This is another in a series of articles that explore some of the medical myths and errors that have been perpetuated in fiction, both in prose and on screen. Our guiding principle is that getting the facts correct should be a fundamental rule for all aspects of writing fiction. Chekhov’s rule could be updated to say that if a loaded gun is introduced in Act 1, it should be established as having the appropriate model and caliber before it must be fired in the next act, lest the knowledgeable reader or critic take the author to task. So, too, if an injury or medical condition is mentioned within a tale, then the symptoms, signs, and treatment of that condition should be reasonably and accurately depicted.