The New York Review of Science Fiction

NYRSF Issue 327 (November 2015): Table of Contents

• Patricia Monk: Shaping the Shockproof Reader: A Psychoactive Substrate of Science Fiction
• Michael Swanwick: “Everything Happens for a Reason”: A Conversation With Kaja and Phil Foglio
• The Revolutions by Felix Gilman, reviewed by Joe Milicia
• Letters to Robert Bloch and Others by H.P. Lovecraft, reviewed by Darrell Schweitzer
• Brian Stableford: How to Write Scientific Fiction: The Adventures of a Forgotten Pioneer
• Mother of Eden by Chris Beckett, reviewed by James L. Cambias
• Michael Andre-Driussi: Stalky v. Stalker, or, "Stalky & Co." against Roadside Picnic
• Photos from World Fantasy Convention 2015
• Editorial: Short Takes

Letters to Robert Bloch and Others by H.P. Lovecraft, reviewed by Darrell Schweitzer

New York: Hippocampus Press, 2015, $25.00 tpb; 550 pages

Lovecraft as Mentor

Why was H.P. Lovecraft, among his contemporaries and in the generation that followed such a revered, even beloved figure? Here’s a guide for those bewildered by the continuing fascination with Lovecraft as a personality, not just as the author of stories.

Imagine yourself as 16 or 17 (or even as young as 14) years old sometime in the middle 1930s. You write to someone you believe to be the premiere weird fiction author of the age, the equivalent of, say, Stephen King or Neil Gaiman today. It’s a much smaller world, yes; the “field” largely consists of the readership of three or four pulp magazines. That your idol is living in dire poverty has not crossed your mind. Your letter is polite but fairly typical kid stuff: Gee, I like your stories. Where can I get some of the earlier ones? Is the Necronomicon for real? Where can I get a copy?

The Revolutions by Felix Gilman, reviewed by Joe Milicia

New York: Tor Books, 2014; $26.99 hc; 414 pages

The Revolutions is certainly one of the more peculiar novels I’ve encountered in a long time. It starts out in a steampunk-inflected Victorian London with a Difference Engine being used (we eventually learn) to further the purposes of an occultist-magician who is in a deadly battle with a rival magician over the project. But the second half takes us into quite different fantasy/quasi-sf territory, startling and disorienting at first. I’m glad I came upon the novel “cold”—I hadn’t, for example, read the Amazon blurb for the paperback edition, which gives everything away in the very first sentence—but to offer any sort of meaningful commentary (i.e., go beyond blurb writing) I, too, must reveal all.

Michael Swanwick: “Everything Happens for a Reason”: A Conversation With Kaja and Phil Foglio

MS: You two have been working on Girl Genius for years. You put up three full-page comics on the web—written, drawn, and inked in full color—a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, week after week. So far you have thirteen compilations of the comics. Each volume is between 100 and 160 pages, with at least another 7 to go before the plot winds up.

Short Takes (Editorial, NYRSF 327)

Work has been heavy the last few weeks, which made the Thanksgiving break more necessary, more relaxation-centered, and hence a bit less NYRSFtastic than it might otherwise have been, which once again means we’re behind schedule. And the vicissitudes of the full-fledged Holiday Season mean that the December issue will also be a few days late; sorry about that.