Advance Copy of Father Winter!

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The Locus fundraiser on Indiegogo has moved into its third day and posted as a new perk the third and last otherwise unobtainable Dragonstairs Press chapbook contributed by Marianne and me--Father Winter.

Father Winter is the latest in a series of Solstice chapbooks sent out in the winter holiday season by Dragonstairs Press to select friends of the press. Lovingly crafted, hand sewn, signed and numbered in an edition of 120. As is traditional, last year's remaining copies (of which this is one) will be put up on sale sometime in November or December. When, because there are only 37 copies, they will sell out in the first fifteen minutes. As Will Sonnett used to say: "No brag, just fact."

Last winter's theme was fathers and sons, so it is particularly appropriate that my son, Sean William Swanwick, collaborated with me on this chapbook. In token of which, it is autographed by both of us. Just look at those signatures! One is calm and clever and the other obviously the scrawling of a Bond villain-grade monomaniac.  

If you're curious, you can find the Locus fundraiser here. You'll find a lot of cool perks on offer: autographed books, Zoom meetings, critiques, tuckerizations, a goat naming, a personalized letter from a fictional character, and much more! Take a peek. You might just find the perfect gift for your favorite book-lover.

And since I know you're curious . . .

Here's the first story in Father Winter. It's about my late father, John Francis Swanwick, and I will not apologize for the sentimentality of it.

 

Winter Wonderland

Spring belongs to mothers. It's the time of birth and beauty and kneeling in the garden to plant seeds that will come to fruition in the summer. Summer also belongs to mothers, for it's the time of growth and joy, both qualities that come easier to women than to men. Autumn? Think of hot cider, bright leaves pressed in books, strolls in the woods, jars of home-canned preserves, knitted sweaters. Mom  again.

But winter? That belongs to fathers. Black ice. Snow squalls. Shoveling the walk, rotating the tires and putting chains on them, scraping ice off the windshield, chopping wood and bringing it indoors by the armful if you had a fireplace.

My father was a farm boy. He belonged to 4-H and won ribbons at county fairs. It was important to him that his children could identify the breeds of cows the family car drove past on the highway. But because he grew up at a time when radio was the wondrous technology that computers were only a few decades ago and he was particularly bright, he became an engineer.

Still, he retained a few tricks from his boyhood.

One day, a blizzard came down from Canada, turned the sky black, and dumped foot upon  foot of snow on Schenectady. We children went to bed while the snow was still coming down hard. And in the morning...

Something wonderful! In the backyard, my father had made a slide out of snow, curved at the center so there was no chance of falling off. On the straight-up side of it, he placed a wooden ladder. And over the sliding surface, he had poured a bucket of water, so that it froze solid and an inch thick.

There was never a faster or more magical slide than that. Nobody but our father could have made it.

Nor was there a more lasting one. Okay, sure, when the weather turned warmer the snow melted away to nothing. But in my memory it's still there, gleaming in the bright winter sun, as enduring as love itself.

 

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The Last Copy of In His Own Words!

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The Locus fundraiser continues apace! As mentioned yesterday, Marianne and I contributed three otherwise unobtainable Dragonstairs Press chapbooks to the cause. The first one up, Brief Essays on Genre, went fast... as Marianne's lovingly-made, hand-stitched, signed and numbered chapbooks tend to do. So they've put up the second chapbook. 

This one is In His Own Words, a chapbook created to mark the dedication of a plaque in Gardner's honor in the Pen & Pencil Club, Philadelphia's venerable journalists club. It was a particularly apt place for the plaque not only because Gardner was a member but because he got his start as a military journalist in the U. S. Army. I assembled all the most pertinent parts from a much longer interview and Marianne made a beautiful chapbook of it. Issued in an edition of 60 and bound in hand-made paper from Sri Lanka, crafted from recycled elephant dung. Because Gardner would have thought that was hilarious.

 You can find Locus's Indiegogo campaign, chockablock with cool incentives for giving, here.  

And if you're curious about the contents . . .

The chapbook was given out to family and journalists at the unveiling, where I gave a brief talk about Gardner Dozois's career as an award-winning military journalist. You should have seen the journalists' shocked faces when I told his helicopter story! And of course the story behind the photograph on the cover is hilarious. But this being a science fiction audience, I thought you'd be most interested in learning about Gardner's relationship with two giants of the field--John W. Campbell and Isaac Asimov.

Enjoy:  

You also met John W. Campbell, didn’t you?

 

Gardner Dozois: Very, very briefly. Only right at the end of his life, in fact. I met him for about five minutes. It was at a Lunacon in 1971. He died about two months later, in fact, so that was the only chance I ever got to meet him. Someone with a mischievous sense of humor, probably Damon Knight, dragged me up to meet John Campbell in the huckster room where he was standing.

 

You must understand two things. One, this was at the height of the New Wave wars, which has receded so far into the past that nobody even remembers it anymore. But it was a hot issue of the time. And two, I was a young hippie freak, of about a hundred and fifty pounds at that point. And I would have been wearing my army fatigue jacket, because I didn’t have anything else to wear, and probably combat boots, because I didn’t have any other shoes. And probably a pair of blue jeans, and some sort of body shirt. And I had hair literally down past my ass. Very, very long hair, and an untrimmed beard which sort of flopped around like a huge flag. So I looked like an Amish person gone insane. Damon dragged me up to John Campbell, and said, “Here’s a hot new writer, really good, I want you to meet.”

 

I stuck out of my hand, and he sort of reflexively shook my hand while cringing back. Before I even said anything, he said, “I like the Old Wave stuff. I don’t like this New Wave stuff. Only Old Wave science fiction for Analog.”

 

Oh, well, okay, Mr. Campbell, and he said, “Oh, none of this New Wave stuff!” He was sort of backing away. “Only Old Wave stuff!” And he backed away, crossing himself.

 

That was my one and only meeting with John Campbell.

 

What was it like working with Isaac Asimov?

 

Gardner Dozois: Isaac was great to work for. For one thing, he didn’t really meddle with the editorial content of the magazine at all. Which from my perspective was fine, because most of the stuff I was buying he would not have liked, if he actually read any of it. He was smart enough to hire people that he trusted, and then not interfere with them. Which is very, very rare in today’s society.

 

He would come into the office once a week to pick up the letters, because he answered the letters for the letter column. It was always a big event when Isaac showed up at the office. People from all other departments, crosswords magazines and everything, would get excited because Isaac was coming into the office. He would arrive and you could hear him whistling and singing down the hallway. He would do Gilbert and Sullivan songs. He would do little dances, while he was coming down the corridor. He would make up limericks on the spot for whoever was in the office. He would make up often insulting, mildly risque limericks about them, and he would make up little poems which he would recite, and then he would pick up the mail and he would sing off down the corridor. That would be about it, actually, for our dealing with Isaac.

 

But he certainly was a good boss to work with. He left you alone. He was entertaining when he showed up. You can’t ask more from a boss than that.

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Three Otherwise Unobtainable Dragonstairs Chapbooks!

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Locus Magazine is having its annual fundraiser! I hold it to be a self-evident truth that Locus is a necessary element of the community focused on the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. So Marianne and I have contributed two Dragonstairs Press chapbooks held back for this purpose but otherwise sold out long ago, and one that will not be available for sale until next December. When, experience has taught us, it will then sell out in half an hour.

 

Our contributions—all hand-stitched, numbered, and signed, written by Michael Swanwick and lovingly hand-crafted by Marianne Porter—are:

           

Brief Essays on Genre is a collection of 25 short and often witty discussions of literature including the definition of science fiction and fantasy, why write true crime, the place of gratuitous sex in fiction, and the proper use of the present tense. Indispensable to the gonnabe writer.  Issued in an edition of 75, all of which save this copy are no longer available.

 

 In His Own Words was created to mark the unveiling of a plaque in the Pen & Pencil Club in Philadelphia, to honor Gardner Dozois, who began his writing career as an award-winning journalist in the U S Army. This is a transcription of an interview by Michael Swanwick in which Gardner described his (occasionally wacky) career as a military newsman as well as his philosophy of editing. Issued in an edition of 60 and was bound in hand-made paper from Sri Lanka, crafted from recycled elephant dung. Because Gardner would have thought that was hilarious.

 

Father Winter is a collection of seven father-themed Solstice stories written by Michael Swanwick and his son, Sean Swanwick. It was created as a winter gift to select friends of Dragonstairs Press in an addition of 120. Those that were not given away will be put on sale this coming winter and go out of print shortly thereafter.

 

The chapbooks were donated as a group but the Locus editors are offering them up separately on their Indiegogo page. The first one went up today and the others will be added later in the campaign.

 

You can explore the campaign and its perks—pins, autographed books, story critiques, tuckerizations, coffee mugs, and much more at:

 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/locus-magazine-science-fiction-fantasy-horror#/

 

 

And you may notice . . .

 

The photo shown on Indiegogo does not depict Brief Essays on Genre. Somebody did a quick search and came up with another, also sold-out, chapbook. But to make up for that, here are the first two essays in the chapbook:

 

Brief Essays on Genre: Part 1

 

On the Origin of Science Fiction

 

The first written glyph was a straight line drawn with a stick in the mud or sand and it meant: I am here. This was the beginning of history.

 

A moment’s reflection, however, reveals that implicit in the statement was another: I was not always here. This was the beginning of literature.

 

So science fiction, the literature of change, was present in written language from the very beginning.

 

 

Brief Essays on Genre: Part 2

 

On the Nature of Fantasy

 

Why fantasy?

 

Because the world as it is makes us unhappy.

 

Why not make the world as good as you wish it were?

 

Because only in fantasy do we have the power to change the world to that extent.

 

But fantasy won’t do that.

 

Neither will reality.

 

Why not simply accept reality as it is?

 

I spit in your face.

 

Above, last line: Not literally, of course. 

 

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Brian Stableford: The Formidable Man And His Remarkable Future History

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Brian Stableford died two days ago. He was a fine science fiction and horror writer and a most erudite critic and literary historian. I knew him a little but couldn't claim to be his friend. And I have only one story to tell about him. It's a small one but since it might turn you on to a very interesting book, I'll share it.

The book is The Third Millennium: A History of the World AD 2000–3000 by Stableford and David Langford. The spine of it was a future history he had mapped out and embodied in many stories and novels in which science, particularly biotech, makes the human race ever more happy until everyone is immortal and has anything they could wish for. Any writer could tell that's an impossible future to find stories in, but he had no problem there. Fiction just flowed out of him. 

Oh, and the book was full of pictures cleverly repurposed for the future history. One, for example, showing an electrician almost buried in cables, purported to show a biotechnician among the roots of an ailing organic house.

So, anyway... I ran into Stableford at a Worldcon and told him I was reading the book and enjoying it enormously. I said that I especially liked the end of the chapter on the death of capitalism when the Last Capitalist, just before leaving  for exile on Mars, snarls, "The meek have inherited the earth."

"That was Langford's," he said gloomily. Then, still gloomily, "When we sent in the manuscript, the editor sent it back with a note requesting 'more jokes.'"

Wikipedia informs me that Stableford wrote over seventy novels and translated over a hundred books. You have no idea how intimidating I found that--and still do. The man was astonishing.

But if The Third Millennium sounds interesting to you, check it out. There's nothing quite like it.

Above: Photograph by Lionel Allorge. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons (File:Brian Stableford à la remise du prix Actu SF aux 13emes Rencontres de l’Imaginaire de Sèvres le 26 novembre 2016 - 07.jpg - Wikimedia Commons). Merci beaucoup, M. Allorge.

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Tom Purdom in Roxborough

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Gregory Frost, one of the guests

Because Tom Purdom used to hold a monthly brunch for the Philadelphia SF writing community, Marianne and I held a memorial brunch in Roxborough in his memory this Saturday. Those attending included Gregory and Barabara Frost, Victoria McManus, Darrell Schweitzer, Mattie Brahan, Sally Grotta, Samuel R. Delany, Sean Swanwick, and Lawrence Schoen. All people who knew Tom and many of us who knew him for decades.

We honored Tom with conversation (free of background music, of course--he was a music critic but only listened to it live), and then with memories of him. Chip Delany told of how back when all he knew of Tom was that they'd shared an Ace double, he'd made a public appearance in a Philadelphia university and there among the young people was an older man--Tom. Chip read a short story and in the Q&A afterward, Tom suggested that the story would be improved by making a small change in it. Chip agreed and made the change before publication and was impressed afterward not only by Tom's insight but by his generosity in offering the observation. "He'd listened to the story," Chip said.

Then, after sharing our memories, we went back to talking, talking, talking about everything under the sun and moon. Not only because that's the sort of people we are but because that's what Tom would have wanted.

Another thing he would have approved of was that we were reuniting a lot of people whom hadn't seen each other in a long time. The whole "absence makes the heart grow fonder" thing? No. What absence does is remind you just how much you rely on seeing the people you care about most on a regular basis

And before you ask . . .

Chip did not remember what change Tom had suggested. He can't even remember what story he read. But he remembered the event, the suggestion, the kindness.

 

And a few more photos . . .

I regret not getting pics of everyone, but you know how it is when you're having fun.

 

Above: All photos by Michael Swanwick. Top to bottom: Samuel R. Delany, Darrell Schweitzer, Sally Grotta, and Victoria McManus. Camille Bacon-Smith could not attend but was there in spirit.

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My True and Gentle Friend, Sandy Meschkow

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My old friend Sandy Meschkow died the other day. You probably didn't know him. But Sandy was a gentle soul, a kind man, and a good friend of mine for close to fifty years.

I cannot remember Sandy ever being angry about anything. Where other people would have felt anger, Sandy was amused. When he was working at the Franklin Institute, he taped up a picture of Gore Vidal, whose writing he admired, in his workspace and his boss suggested he take it down because he wouldn't want people to think he was "one of them." Sandy, who was as straight as they come, thought this was hilarious—not that somebody would think he was gay but that anybody would think that being gay was something to be ashamed of. The picture stayed.

Sandy was an engineer and eminently competent. One day his boss said, "Meschkow! You're writing a manual on aluminum welding." To which Sandy responded, "But... but... I don't know anything about aluminum welding." To which his boss responded, "Then learn." And, of course, as these stories go, Sandy learned and wrote and the manual became standard.

He was a passionate fan of science and a mainstay of Philadelphia’s science fiction community. He was also a major reason why the Institute became an employment haven for bright and overeducated but unskilled young fans. He and I worked together there at the National Solar Heating and Cooling Information Center. Sandy was a pay grade or five above me yet he never acted as if we weren't anything but peers. He believed in me as a writer back when I hadn’t published a single word of fiction. His support came when I needed it most.

Sandy outlived two wives—both marriages happy—and on retirement gradually faded from public life. It was typical of him that he would slip away quietly.

And now this kindly, generous man is gone. The world is diminished by his leaving it.

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One Last Visit To Tom Purdom's Apartment

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Marianne and I went to Tom Purdom's Center City Philadelphia apartment today to help sort through things. It was a melancholy day.

As we were leaving, I saw Tom's signature coat and cap on pegs behind the door. Waiting like faithful pets for their master to gather them up and take them out into the streets again. Tom was a great walker and he'd carried them many a hundred miles up and down the city he only rarely left.

 I looked at them and thought, "I miss him too." And left, closing the door quietly behind me.

 

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