Books I'll Never Write: SCIENCE FICTION IN THE EIGHTIES

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This begins an occasional-at-best series of brief introductions to books I could but almost certainly won't ever write. Enjoy!

Introduction: The Simple Act of Going to Dinner

Friends!

I was at a Capclave one year (this was before the alt-sex group hung an NYC policeman from a water sprinkler, triggering a massive flood and evacuation of the hotel in the middle of the night; see chapter 14) and a group of writers, editors, friends, and such assembled to go out to dinner. There were ten of us in all--two cars' worth. Jack Dann found a restaurant in D. C. and made reservations. Chatting, we ambled to the parking lot. Along the way, somebody started to tell a mesmerizing story that obviously wasn't going to finish anytime soon. As a result, Jack, Ellen Datlow, and everybody else wanted to be in the car being driven by the storyteller, even though that meant that several of them would have to sit on each others' laps. I was driving the second car. Only Tim Sullivan was willing to ride with me, and he only because he took pity on me.

I turned out of the parking lot, followed by the overloaded second car. Feeling dreadfully sorry for myself, I made my way to the ring road around Washington. Then a thought occurred to me.

Turning to Tim, I said, “You and I are the only two who know where the restaurant is, aren't we?”

In a puzzled tone, Tim said, “Yes?”

“Good,” I said. And I floored it.

How fast was I going? Eighty? Ninety? More? It didn't matter. My faithless friends had no choice but to match speeds with me.

When, finally, I pulled off at the exit ramp and came to a stop at the traffic signal, the other car pulled up alongside me and everyone within it, laughing, gave me the finger.

That was what it was like in the science fiction community of the early 1980s. We were all young and full of beans. Science fiction fandom gave us a matrix within which we could meet, mate, love, quarrel, feud, and be geniuses-in-utero. And, by God, we took advantage of it. The world we created was a small and private one, admittedly, the sort of personal Eden that never gets documented.

Except, this once, here and now, in this book.

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Tom Stoppard (1937-2025)

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Tom Stoppard is dead. Let the satyrs and rainclouds weep. Let all who value wit for wit's sake drape their brows with black crepe.

Stoppard's big (and early) break was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, a play reimagining Hamlet from the perspective of the two least-developed and worst-treated (Hamet has them murdered) characters in the play, As it plays out, they might have stepped out of Waiting for Godot if only they'd been baggy-pants black and white movie comedians. 

His other great triumph was Shakespeare in Love. He did not write the script for that movie. Marc Norman did, and God bless him for that. But the suits, in an uncharacteristic burst of wisdom, looked at Norman's script and said, "This needs a sprinkling of wit. Let's bring in Stoppard."

The result? Imagine me blowing a big wet French chef kiss. Mwah! 

Parfait!

His other plays were a varied lot. All were witty. Some were better than others. Many or all may well survive our age. But Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Shakespeare in love are timeless.

I know his work and am heartbroken. You should be too.

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Introducing Dragons

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Look what came in the mail! Loong's Tales: The True Form of the Dragon, edited by my friend Lynn Sun. As you probably know, there are several different forms of dragons in China. The one we are most familiar with is the Loong, which is the emperor of dragons. Not coincidentally, this is the type that the anthology focuses on.

The publisher is Eastern Wood, in Singapore, and the text is entirely in Chinese. The book contains five stories:

"Regarding Why Humans Have to Seek Dragons" by Baoshu

"Becoming a Dragon" by Wang Xiaohai

"Are You Aware of the Dragon's Transformations?" by Zhan Baitang

"The Last Speech" by He Jianhong

and "Report on the Origin and Usage of Loong Memes" by Xinfeng Xike

 with an afterword by Lynn Sun and a foreword by (cough) me.

In the U.S., this would be a fantasy anthology, but things are different in Singapore. These are all science fiction stories--and a varied lot at that. It was a pleasure to write the introduction and I feel honored to be associated with these writers.

 

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A Month of Universe Box Mondays

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October has come and gone and with it,  the first month's (plus one week's) Universe Box Mondays. These short essays on File 770 are, obviously, meant to promote my forthcoming Tachyon Publications short story collection The Universe Box. But they were written to be as entertaining as I could make them, each one meant to serve as an amuse-bouche to start out your week.

 Structurally, these writings are meant to serve as a short nonfiction anthology. And the rule for constructing an anthology is to "start and end long and strong." None of these essays is long. But the series starts out with one of the strangest objects I own: 

September 29: a devil stone 

Then burns gracefully toward one of the homier pleasures of summer:

October 6: home grown tomatoes

 And from there segues into how, for the proverbial fifteen minutes, I became a cocktail mahoff:

October 13: a martini  

 And how I spent my summer vacation:

October 20: mermaid's toenails 

 And, finally, how J. G. Ballard shamed me into writing a story on a life-mask of my wife:

October 27: a mask 

 It occurred to me a little late that I ought to be bundling these essays in monthly installments. So the next bundle ought to come out in only two weeks.

In the meantime, enjoy!

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AUTUMN DREAMS In One Continuous File.

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October has come and gone, and with it my serialized written-on-leaves Halloween story, Autumn Dreams.

My son Sean has crafted an Imgur post containing the whole story. If you want to re-read it in ease, of if you'd like to share the story with a friend... well, there it is.

You can read the story here. 

Enjoy!

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AUTUMN DREAMS (Conclusion)

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The End

Above: Every autumn, I create a Halloween story, write it out on leaves (one word per leaf), photograph the leaves, and then abandon them where I found them. The story is then serialized here, starting on October 1 and concluding on the 31st--All Souls Day.

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AUTUMN DREAMS (Part 30 of 31)

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Above: Every autumn, I create a Halloween story, write it out on leaves (one word per leaf), photograph the leaves, and then abandon them where I found them. The story is then serialized here, starting on October 1 and concluding on the 31st--All Souls Day.

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