Richard Geis, R.I.P.

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Richard E. Geis died almost a month ago on February 4, 2013, but in the way that happens when real life intersects with genre fame, the word got out to the rest of us only a few days ago.

How times have changed!  When I first became aware of science fiction fandom some thirty years ago, anybody who claimed to know anything about science fiction had to read Geis's fanzine, Science Fiction Review.  This was back in the old mimeograph-and-staples days.   Now, I suspect, only those of us who were there back then remember him.

Geis was an argumentative guy with a feisty prose line.  He made a living writing soft core porn -- over a hundred such novels by his unashamed count -- and he was unabashedly and unapologetically conservative, in the libertarian mode.  This was back when science fiction was assumed by default to be visionary and liberal

Yet everybody who was anybody read Geis and took his opinions into account.  Why?  Two reasons.  One was that his zine reviewed as much of contemporary science fiction as could be managed.  The other was that he openly acknowledged his prejudices and recognized that other people felt differently

Dick Geis had one stroke of brilliance -- his creation of a fictional Other named Alter Ego, (that's him on the cover up above), a blue-collar demon with whom he would argue the merits of current SF.  Geis would take the default literary argument (Le Guin is brilliant, Wolfe is God, and good writing is essential) while, to his ostensible horror, Alter argued what would much later be the punk argument -- that SF was a trash art, that the beat mattered where grammar did not, that intellectual rigor meant nothing compared to the visceral stuff of plot.  Since he only engaged in these arguments over works that were worth arguing over, his writings pleased those who liked the works in question and those who did not as well.

Now he's gone, an exemplar of a way of fannish life that is rapidly disappearing in the rear-view mirror as science fiction careens wildly into the future.

Rest in peace, Dick.  May the afterlife be as impossibly hospitable to you as the world promised by your paperback covers.

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Today's Story: "Closing Time"

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I went to an estate sale Wednesday, filled with fine china, crystal, bad art, and very costly tchotchkes.  And bought only three small metal frames, of no special value, for a dollar apiece.  Then Marianne and I went out to lunch at the Chestnut Grill, where I wrote two short-shorts to fill two of the frames. 

The third frame I kept as was, because the repop photo within, of an elegant and brooding woman, inspired the following flash fiction:

Closing Time

Granted, we’re none of us getting any younger.  Still.  Look at me.  Eyes, mouth, breasts, all pleasant to behold and in good working order.  So why am I still in the bar at 1 a.m.?  When I came here, I thought that if I were approached by someone nice enough, I’d give him my number, no more.  An hour later, I threw in a kiss.  By midnight, I was all the way up to a night of passion he’d never forget.  Now?  Buddy, I’ll make you suffer as no man has suffered before. 

At last, I see you heading this way, ambition in your eyes. 

“Hello,” I’ll say, “My name is Jeannie.  You’d know what that meant if you’d read the Arabian Nights.”

-- Michael Swanwick, 2/27/13

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On the Too-Well-Made Story

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Just a short post today.  Last night I went to see Jamaica Kincaid at the Free Library of Philadelphia.  She read from her new novel See Now Then and, to no one's surprise, she was quite wonderful.

During the Q&A afterward, she addressed the question of narrative.  Specifically that what we think of as a well-made narrative is actually quite a recent invention.  For most of human history, we got along without it.  Speaking of Moses, who died without seeing the promised land, she said:

"You could never get away with that today. What?! After all he's been through? There's no clooosure, you don't get any sense of clooosure."

 Which brought to mind something I've been meaning to say here for some time:  All you new writers should stop writing formulaic stories!  You know the ones I mean.  The main character's name is dropped in the first paragraph, the plot builds gracefully to a moral climax, there is an apotheosis in which the protagonist achieves closure.  Or else dies tragically.  Which is to say that you're giving the reader exactly the story he or she is expecting.


I know that this is what you were taught to do in your writing classes, workshops, and retreats.  But that's only meant to be a jumping-off spot not a final destination.  Once Picasso was capable of drawing a recognizable dog, he moved on.  So should you.

Because a hundred years from now, nobody is going to be reading that predictably well-made story of yours.

I'm only this cruel to you because I want you to be great.

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Acolytes of the Wolf(e)

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Pleasant news today.

But first, a definition.  A festschrift is a book created in honor of a respected person, usually an academic but often enough a poet or writer, and presented during his or her lifetime.  Oftentimes, they're kinda lame . . . reminiscences on old days, essays on how this or that peer met the Great Man, appreciations of the work that simply restate the obvious.  Sometimes, however, the book comes through and is something splendid in and of its own right.

I'm betting that's the case with Shadows of the New Sun:  Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe.   I can't say for sure because the Advance Uncorrected Proof just arrived and I rushed to get out the news.  But check out the table of contents:

Story	…	Author
Foreword	…	J.E. Mooney
Frostfree	…	Gene Wolfe
A Lunar Labyrinth	…	Neil Gaiman
The Island of the Death Doctor	…	Joe Haldeman
A Touch of Rosemary	…	Timothy Zahn
Ashes	…	Steven Savile
Bedding	…	David Drake
… And Other Stories	…	Nancy Kress
The Island of Time	…	Jack Dann
The She-Wolf’s Hidden Grin	…	Michael Swanwick
Snowchild	…	Michael A. Stackpole
Tourist Trap	…	Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg
Epistoleros	…	Aaron Allston
Rhubarb and Beets	…	Todd McCaffrey
Tales From Limbo, But I Digress	…	Judi Rohrig
In the Shadow of the Gate	…	William C. Dietz
Soldier of Mercy	…	Marc Aramini
The Dreams of the Sea	…	Jody Lynn Nye
The Logs	…	David Brin
Sea of Memory	…	Gene Wolfe

I'm hopeful not just because there are a lot of first-rate writers here, but because those of them I know (most, actually) would very dearly want to contribute a story worthy of Gene.  I know that when I was given the opportunity to write something in one of his worlds, that's how I felt anyway.

Here's the opening of my contribution, "The She-Wolf's Hidden Grin":

When I was a girl my sister Susanna and I had to get up early whether we were rested or not.  In winter particularly, our day often began before sunrise; and because our dormitory was in the south wing of the house, with narrow windows facing the central courtyard and thus facing north, the lurid, pinkish light sometimes was hours late in arriving and we would wash and dress while we were still uncertain whether we were awake or not.  Groggy and only half coherent, we would tell each other our dreams.
        
One particular dream I narrated to Susanna several times before she demanded I stop.  In it, I stood before the main doorway to our house staring up at the marble bas-relief of a she-wolf suckling two infant girls (though in waking life the babies similarly feeding had wee chubby penises my sister and I had often joked about), with a puzzled sense that something was fundamentally wrong. “You are anxious for me to come out of hiding,” a rasping whispery voice said in my ear.  “Aren’t you, daughter?”
        
I turned and was not surprised to find the she-wolf standing behind me, her tremendous head on the same level as my own.  She was far larger than any wolf from ancestral Earth.  Her fur was greasy and reeked of sweat.  Her breath stank of carrion.  Her eyes said that she was perfectly capable of ripping open my chest and eating my heart without the slightest remorse.  Yet, in the way of dreams, I was not afraid of her.  She seemed to be as familiar as my own self.
        
“Is it time?” I said, hardly knowing what I was asking.
        
“No,” the mother-wolf said, fading.
        
And I awoke.

Those who know Wolfe's work well will recognize the first paragraph as being a close copy, with reversals, of "The Fifth Head of Cerberus."  That was an extremely important story for me, one that opened up the literary possibilities of science fiction to the young Michael Swanwick in a way he'd never seen before.  So I was anxious to do it justice.

Did I?  That's not my judgment to make.  You can decide for yourself this coming August.

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Nebula Nominees: Unto The Third Literary Generation...

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The Nebula Award Nominees have been announced, and I'm feeling rather paternal for a reason I'll divulge after you look over them.


Novel

• Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW; Gollancz ’13)
  
• Ironskin, Tina Connolly (Tor)
  
• The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
  
• The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
• Glamour in Glass, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
• 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

Novella

• On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)
• After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
• “The Stars Do Not Lie”, Jay Lake (Asimov’s 10-11/12)
• “All the Flavors”, Ken Liu (GigaNotoSaurus 2/1/12)
• “Katabasis”, Robert Reed (F&SF 11-12/12)
• “Barry’s Tale”, Lawrence M. Schoen (Buffalito Buffet)

Novelette

• The Pyre of New Day”, Catherine Asaro (The Mammoth Books of SF Wars)
• “Close Encounters”, Andy Duncan (The Pottawatomie Giant & Other Stories)
• “The Waves”, Ken Liu (Asimov’s 12/12)
• “The Finite Canvas”, Brit Mandelo (Tor.com 12/5/12)
• “Swift, Brutal Retaliation”, Meghan McCarron (Tor.com 1/4/12)
• “Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia”, Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 8/22/12)
• “Fade to White”, Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld 8/12)

Short Story

• “Robot”, Helena Bell (Clarkesworld 9/12)
• “Immersion”, Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld 6/12)
• “Fragmentation, or Ten Thousand Goodbyes”, Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 4/12)
• “Nanny’s Day”, Leah Cypess (Asimov’s 3/12)
• “Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream”, Maria Dahvana Headley (Lightspeed7/12)
• “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species”, Ken Liu (Lightspeed 8/12)
• “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain”, Cat Rambo (Near + Far)

Congratulations to everyone, incidentally.  That's not an easy list to make your way onto.

Now.  As to my paternal feelings.  Three of the above nominees and of the Andre Norton Award nominees are former students of mine: Andy Duncan in 1994 and Cat Rambo, Rachel Swirsky, and Eugene Myers in 2005.  I taught Week Four, known informally as "Suicide Week" when Andy attended and taught Week Six when Cat, Rachel, and Eugene (up for the Andre Norton) were there.  Each week requires a different style.  For the Suicide Week, I burned fierce and intense, while for the sixth and final week, I was warm and supportive, gently urging everyone to keep writing when they got home, rather than take the dreaded post-workshop year off.  So Andy and the other three saw very different Michael Swanwicks.  But both of me wanted very intensely for them, and everyone else, to succeed.  My definition of success consisting not of money or awards but of writing the best work they were capable of.

You feel very good when a former student makes a first sale or is nominated for an award.  It's living proof that you haven't destroyed their talent.  It's even possible that you were of some utility to them.  That's extremely cool.

I feel particularly good this year because Cat was not only one of my students but one of Andy Duncan's students.  Which means that she's a grand-student.

So congratulations, Cat, Rachel, and Eugene!  And congratulations, Andy -- who not only made it onto the Nebula ballot, but failed to destroy the third literary generation writer's talent.  It's even possible that he was of some utility to them.

And it is, alas, possible . . .

It's entirely possible that Andy, Cat, Rachel, and Eugene are not my only former students on the ballot.  If you studied under me at Clarion, Clarion West, or Clarion South, let me remind you of something I told your assembled class when first we met:

There are some people who are good with names and some people who are good with faces.  I'm not one of either of them.  I get my sisters mixed up.  So a year from now when you approach me at a convention and I look blank, that doesn't mean you were the one without talent.  That's just me.  Stick out your hand and say, "Hi, you don't remember me but I was your student and my name is..."  And I'll lie and say, "Of course I remember you."

Andy and Cat I remember because they kept coming up to me, convention after convention, and introducing themselves until it stuck.

Above:  That's my Nebula, guarded by a bust of Surplus and temporarily placed on a relatively uncluttered surface in my office. 

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Reader Feedback: LSD

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I received the following email via my wegsite, Michael Swanwick Online, the other day.  I've withheld the correspondent's name in case he/she is displeased with my response and doesn't want to be associated with it.

 I am a drug educator and harm reduction specialist, so I would like to correct Michael Swanwick in one thing: in one of his stories (Covenant of Souls) he states that LSD contains strychnine as a 'byproduct of its manufacture'.

Not only is this not true, it's just staggeringly unlikely, given that LSD is dosed in 50-100 microgram amounts, that enough could be present in an LSD dose to affect one at all noticeably. Particularly not when the dose is in a glue backing on a piece of paper one licks (as the story has it) versus some sort of tablet formation.

This may seem like a very small thing, but children read his books and stories, and the last thing our kids need is more bad drug information.

My first reaction, of course, was, So what caused those pangs that I felt, back in the day?  Then, with a little help from a friend (thanks, Vlatko!) I looked to see what the connection between LSD and strychnine actually is.  Here's what I found at a site called Drug Safety: 

Strychnine in LSD simply doesn't happen. There are probably under 25 people in this country at any given time, across all ages and spectrums of existence, who have had any hand in ruly producing real LSD. The people that know how, and this is a paraphrase of a report BY the DEA on the difference in busting LSD manufacturers versus the rest of the illicit drug spectrum: "LSD manufacturers are different from every other sort of drug criminal we have profiled through past dealings with. The chemists who make it, and the high level distributors who deal it do not do it for the money, but rather because they feel they are doing what they were destined to do, what they were *supposed* to do with their lives, regardless of consequence. They don't slip up and get sloppy because they are too high, nor do they cut deals for themselves to bring down others/chemists, as that would be a direct slap in the face of everything they stand for...."

Link here and scroll down for more info.

So, kids:  There are three lessons to be drawn from this:

1.  LSD is as safe as mother's milk.

2.  Provided only that you know its manufacturer by name and reputation, so you can be sure that that's what you're getting.

3.  People who get their drug information from science fiction stories are going to be seriously disappointed when a large enough dose doesn't transport them physically into a far better world.


Oh, and . . .

I wouldn't normally mention a t-shirt that combines the magic of Middle Earth with the convenience of the London Metro.  But you have to admit that it's clever.  Click here to see.

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"Maturity" and Science Fiction

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I was in Boston for Boskone this weekend and among a number of well-received panels I sat in on was one titled "Stories That Changed Everything" -- about stories and novels that altered the genre of science fiction forever.  The other panelists were Fred Lerner, David Hartwell, Paul Di Filippo and and moderator James Patrick Kelly.

We of course did a bang-up job.  There wasn't much disagreement about the merits of any particular story mentioned, though some of us of course ranked the importance of one story higher or lower than others.  But for me, there was only one real surprise.  That was Theodore Sturgeon's "Maturity."

"Maturity" is a great story.  To encapsulate shamelessly:  A young man is discovered to be extremely brilliant but unable to achieve much of anything because he is chronically immature.  (This, incidentally, would have been a shot to the heart of its readership.)  He is given an experimental drug which matures him and for several years astonishes the world with his accomplishments.  Then -- silence.  Finally, he reappears incognitu and sits in on a barroom discussion with an old friend who knew him when and several strangers, on the question of what exactly maturity is.  It's a good conversation and a serious attempt to grapple with its topic.  And finally an answer is given, which I will not provide here, because that would spoil the story for you.  But it's a good one.

It was, David Hartwell said, also an important story.  Because Sturgeon was unhappy with its original published form and so, when it was reprinted, he rewrote it.

This had never happened before in the nascent genre.  News went through the field in a flash:  He rewrote a published story?  Why did he do that?  What does such a thing look like?  Is it even possible?

And so, in one simple act, literary ambition was introduced to science fiction.

You can read a longer account by Jason Sanford here.

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