Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 149

Reading Mania With Gregory Frost!

.


Tomorrow, I'll be jaunting up to New York City to hear Gregory Frost, the author of Shadowbridge , do a reading.  Greg is very good at this sort of thing, so I expect to have a terrific time.

You may consider this a recommendation not only for Greg's (and Tom Doyle's) event but for going to readings as a general thing.  They're cheap,  they're fun, and the people who show up for them are intelligent and interesting folks -- like you, now that you come to think on it.

I've posted the info for the NYRSF Readings Series event below.  And for good measure, the Clarion West Readings in Seattle as well.  If I lived there, I'd attend every single one.  I gave a reading as part of that series once which was the single best I ever did.  You're sorry you missed it.



Tom Doyle
Gregory FrostTuesday, June 3rd -- doors open 6:30 p.m. $7 suggested donation SGDA / Gallery La LaTom Doyle�s first novel in a three-book contemporary fantasy series from Tor, American Craftsmen, was published in May 2014. His short fiction collection from Paper Golem Press, The Wizard of Macatawa and Other Stories, includes winners of the Small Press Award and Writers of the Future Award. The text and audio of many of his stories are available at www.tomdoylewriter.com.

Gregory Frost is the author of eight novels and more than fifty short stories of the fantastic­-everything from dark thrillers to high fantasy to science fiction. His latest published novel is the YA-crossover Shadowbridge duology Shadowbridge & Lord Tophet (Del Rey/Random House), voted one of the best fantasy novels of the 2009 by the American Library Association.

In the short fiction category: �No Others Are Genuine� (Asimov's Oct/Nov 2013) was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award this year; his novella, "Vulpes," rounds out the braided sf-horror anthology of novellas, V-Wars, edited by Jonathan Maberry (IDW); his short story "The Dingus" opens Supernatural Noir, edited by Ellen Datlow (Dark Horse Books); his collaborative novella with Jonathan Maberry, �T.Rhymer,� is in Dark Duets (HarperCollins, January 2014); and a novelette �Farewell, My Rocketeer� will feature in the forthcoming �Rocketeer� anthology from IDW in tribute to graphic artist Dave Stevens.

---
The New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series provides performances from some of the best writers in science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, etc.  The series usually takes place the first Tuesday of every month, but maintains flexibility in time and space, so be sure to stay in touch through our mailing list, the Web, and our Facebook group.

Jim Freund is Producer and Executive Curator of The New York Review of Science Fiction Readings. He has been involved in producing radio programs of and about literary sf/f since 1967. His long-running live radio program, �Hour of the Wolf,� broadcasts and streams every Wednesday night/Thursday morning from 1:30-3:00 AM. Programs are available by stream for 2 weeks after broadcast. (Check http://hourwolf.com/, follow @JimFreund, or join the Hour of the Wolf group on Facebook for details.) In addition, Jim is Podcast Editor for Nightmare Magazine and serves that same function for Lightspeed Magazine as well as being the Host of the podcast.

After the event, please join us as we treat our readers for dinner and drinks at The SoHo Room.

Six Summer Evenings of
Science Fiction
and Fantasy

Presented by Clarion West Writers Workshop

No charge • No tickets required
Tuesday evenings at 7:00 p.m.
June 24 to July 29 Please join Clarion West’s Six-Week Workshop instructors this summer as they read selections from recently published books, unpublished stories, or novels-in-progress. The featured readers will also answer questions about writing, teaching, editing, and other topics. Readings are held at the University Book Store or at the Downtown Seattle Public Library.

June 24 • University Book Store • 4326 University Way NE in Seattle
Paul Park’s multilayered, surreal fiction uses familiar archetypes in unfamiliar ways to convey the depth and variety of human experience. He is the author of ten novels, including Soldiers of Paradise, Celestis, and his acclaimed Tourmaline Quartet, as well as a collection of short stories. His creative daring has gained him numerous award nominations and the praise of major writers and critics. Paul Park is Clarion West’s 2014 Leslie Howle Fellow.

July 1 • University Book Store • 4326 University Way NE in Seattle
Kij Johnson is a winner of the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Sturgeon awards and the author of several novels and a recent short story collection, At the Mouth of the River of Bees. She teaches fiction at the University of Kansas, where each summer she also directs an intensive novel-writing seminar.

July 8 • University Book Store • 4326 University Way NE in Seattle
Ian McDonald uses richly detailed settings in Asia, Africa, and South America to illuminate the contradictions implicit in colonialism and rapid technological development while telling epic tales of human struggle and redemption. His cyberpunk-tinged stories of artificial intelligence, nanotech recipes, and virtual life and death win prestigious awards and international acclaim.

July 15 • University Book Store • 4326 University Way NE in Seattle
Hiromi Goto’s vivid scenes expand into dreamscapes; her poetic economy of language lifts readers into the lives of exiles who navigate adopted cultures by writing their own rules. Japanese-Canadian Goto received the 2001 James Tiptree, Jr. Award for Kappa Child. Darkest Light, companion to her 2009 Parallax Award-winning YA novel Half World, was published in January 2012.

July 22 • University Book Store • 4326 University Way NE in Seattle
Charlie Jane Anders’ work has appeared in Tor.com, Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, the McSweeney’s Joke Book of Book Jokes, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Tin House, ZYZZYVA, Watchword, Monkey Bicycle, Eleven Eleven, Mother Jones Magazine and a few of the annual “Year’s Best” anthologies. She’s the managing editor of io9.com, and the organizer and host of Writers With Drinks, a long-running spoken word variety show. Her Hugo award-winning novelette “Six Months, Three Days” is being produced as a television show for NBC.

July 29 • Downtown Seattle Public Library • 1000 Fourth Avenue
John Crowley is the author of ten novels and three collections of short fiction. His novel Engine Summer was nominated for The American Book Award and appears in David Pringle’s 100 Best Science Fiction Novels, while Little, Big won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1980. Crowley has received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature, and won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the World Fantasy Convention in 2006. John Crowley is Clarion West’s 2014 Susan C. Petrey Fellow.


*

Sellic Spell

.

I have just received, thanks to Big Blue Marble in Chestnut Hill, my copy of J. R. R. Tolkien's translation of Beowulf .

For those who are looking for consumer advice on whether to buy it or not, I will posit a single simple question:  How many translations do you already have?  If the answer is fewer than two, you can probably wait until you run across a copy in somebody's yard sale.

But Beowulf lay at the heart of Tolkien's vision and The Lord of the Rings lies at the heart of modern fantasy, so this is important to those of us who geek out on such things.

I've been waiting for this book for decades, and so I'm not going to rush through it.  But already I've read Sellic Spell ("Strange Tale"), which is the great fantasist's attempt to recreate the story he imagined may well have preceded the poem.   And it was a surprise and a delight.

The prose, to begin with, is bright and crisp, much better than such imaginings usually produce.  (Apparently, he wrote it first in old English and then translated it into modern English.)  But mostly it's full of surprises.  Did you know that Beowulf was raised by a bear?  Or that that he got his name because of how bearish he was?

Here's the description of the hero as a boy:

. . . the child grew to a surly, lumpish boy, and was slow to learn the speech of the land.  He would not work, nor learn the use of tools or weapons.  He had great liking for honey, and often sought for it in the woods, or plundered the hives of the farmers; and as he had no name of his own, people called him Bee-wolf, and that was his name ever after.

This is terrific stuff.  I'm going to enjoy this boy tremendously.


*

Writing In My Sleep: "Thursday"

.Occasionally, I write in my sleep.  Which is not the same as dreaming, really, but a specialized kind of dream in which I put words together to form a work of fiction.  The resulting piece is quickly forgotten upon waking up, as are most dreams.  But occasionally I bestir myself to write them down immediately.

Here is last night's contribution to world literature:

"Thursday"
Today is Thursday, named after Thurs Fiordwal, the Swedish calendar maker. Until 1857, there were only six days in the week, and the year consisted of twelve five-week months with five days left over as holidays, six on leap years. Since these days were taken by individual workers operating on the honor system, this proved incompatible with new standards of industrialization and so in 1857 the calendar was reformed. Historians tell us that this was the beginning of the modern era and the first step toward a future which none of us is going to enjoy.

This has been a Bicentennial minute.  Tomorrow:  the history of Cleveland.

*

Ruthless Self Promotion Du Jour

.


Several of my friends over at Facebook have informed me that my collection of short fiction, The Dog Said Bow-Wow ,  is a one-day Kindle special today.  Apparently this is a regular thing that Kindle does.

The deal is that you can buy an e-copy for $1.99 -- but only today.

I think it's a terrific deal because I think it's a terrific book. But, then again, I would.

You can find the offer here.


And in unrelated news . . .

You've probably heard this already, but Maya Angelou has died at age 86.  This is longer than most of us get.  But it still seems unfair.  There are some people whom one expects to simply go on forever and Maya Angelou was one of them.

Marianne's father was one of the deacons of Washington Baptist Churh in Washington, PA.  When he died, the minister compared him to one of the cedars of Lebanon.  "Now he's gone," he said.  "How different the horizon looks!"

Goodbye, Ms. Angelou.  How different the horizon looks without you.

*

This Glitterati Life, Part 5,438 . . .

.


Above:  The legendary Andy Duncan tries to sell me some absolutely spurious line of reasoning at a reception in his honor at Gregory Frost's house, last Saturday.  I, of course, am not buying it.


Photograph copyright 2014 by Gregory Frost.

*

The Single Best Story You Won't Read This Year

.

This is the last of four reviews which appeared in the New York Review of Science Fiction.  I don't do many short fiction reviews these days because I have so many other things I have to write.  So when I actually do write such a review it's because I was particularly moved by the story.


If you’ve never been stranded in Beijing Capitol International Airport and tried in vain to derive some aid from the signage, you can’t have a proper appreciation for how hard it must be to translate Chinese into English.  So major props are due to Nicky Harman and Pang Zhaoxia for rendering Zhao Haihong’s “1923 – a fantasy” into a prose so lithe and graceful that it reads as if it had been written in our own language.  This task was made all the more difficult by the fact that Ms. Zhao’s story is a wonderful construct, vivid and nuanced, that shifts effortlessly between modes of storytelling.
Here’s a sample of the mingled art of the writer and her translators.  A Kuomintang operative, a woman with her hair cut mannishly short, enters a nightclub:
. . . Bubbles was greeted by the hostess, who patted her coquettishly on the chest, pushing a white rose into the breast-pocket of her Sun Yat-sen jacket as she did so.  “Good evening, Sir...”        The Hostess’s words were no sooner out of her mouth than she flinched, her fingers fluttering from Bubbles’ chest like a startled bird.  The corners of Bubbles’ mouth twitched in a smile, which allayed the hostess’s surprise.        “I’m looking for someone,” Bubbles announced calmly, and slipped into the brightly-coloured world of the club’s interior, crowded with customers cruising in the glittering, night-time waves of light like brilliant tropical fish.  Bubbles melted into the pool of colours, with a flick of her tail as it were, almost giving my imagination the slip.
There are four main characters in this story:  Bubbles, the revolutionary; Jia Su, who is trying to invent a machine that will store memories – or possibly dreams – in water; Meiying, forced by poverty to work as a dance hostess at the nightclub; and the narrator whom Bubbles almost evades.  This last, unnamed person is Zhao’s best invention, the consciousness in which the story is created and yet one who performs a few crucial actions while revealing nothing about the person making them – not even the gender.
The plot is relatively simple.  The narrator finds a box that belonged to his or her great-grandmother (Meiying), containing biographical information about her husband (Jia Su), and two bottles of an unknown liquid.  The written material includes the enigmatic datum that in 1925, the “aqua-dream machine” that Jia Su was working on failed.  What interests the narrator most, however, is family lore that the great-grandfather had once provided shelter to a revolutionary.  The opening of the story, and subsequent segments set in 1923, are the narrator’s imaginative re-creations of the past.
The past, however, is not only a foreign country but one in which we have little influence.  After evoking the nightclub scene (and admitting that the re-creation may be too heavily influenced by classic movie star Brigitte Lin), the narrator is unable to create a romance between Jia Su and Bubbles.  The past is as it was.  The characters go off to their varied fates.  The narrator is left to make sense of it all.
Structurally, the story is a marvel of deftness.  It darts back and forth in time and ends more or less where it begins, with a deepened understanding and a clearer picture of what the imagination can and cannot impose upon what has been.  The narrative is vividly real and yet floats weightlessly in the mind.  “1923 – a fantasy” is every bit as marvelous a machine as the device Jia Su dedicated years of his life to.
It is worth noting that for several decades science fiction was effectively banned in China as a distraction from the serious business of nation-building.  More recently, officialdom has recognized the value of SF as a means of encouraging creative thinking in generation that will need it in the coming years, if their nation is to thrive.  “China in the twenties did not need an aqua-dream machine,” the narrator observes near the end of this tale.  But perhaps now its time has come.           
“1923 – a fantasy” appeared in the Spring & Autumn 2012 special issue (“Chinese Science Fiction: Late Qing and the Contemporary”) of Renditions , a magazine of translations from Chinese to English published by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  Which means that, unless you chance upon the Columbia University Press reissue of the magazine as a stand-alone book which is rumored to be forthcoming, you’re unlikely to have the opportunity to read it.  I have told you of its existence simply so that you may know that such marvels exist in the world.




Above:  I couldn't find a copy of the photo of Brigitte Lin looking exactly like Bubbles which appeared in Renditions, so you get the cover of the magazine itself instead.
 
*

Clothesline Night

.


For all its virtues, the Internet has a heavy bias for information created after it came into existence.  Some of this is slowly correcting itself.  When I first came online, I discovered that it contained more references to me than to Konrad Lorenz.  This deplorable situation is, I believe, no more.

Other distortions remain.  If you search online for Clothesline Night -- much less Bean Day -- you'll find next to nothing.  But in the Winooski, Vermont, of my youth it was a very big deal indeed, the opening of the season of vandalism centered on Halloween.

And what was Clothesline Night, you ask?  It was the night when boys ran through the neighborhood with knives (all boys had pocketknives then), cutting every clothesline they found in pieces.  It was definitely a Vermont thing.  My family came to Winooski from Schenectady, New York, and found out about this quaint custom their first year there.  Old-timers all knew to take their clotheslines in the night.

I am the most honest of men.  But it appears that I do not have a trustworthy aspect.  Long ago I learned that if I told somebody it was a beautiful day out, they'd grab their umbrella.  This is a cross I've learned to live with.  Occasionally, I make money by betting that I'm telling the truth.

So it was a particular pleasure to discover the following paired items from the Moberly (Missour) Monitor Index of November 19, 1934, in a column titled AROUND TOWN WITH GOETZE JETER:

HERE'S one for you! It was that always-anticipated "Clothesline Night" before Halloween and the (what scientists term “identical”) twin sons of a certain w. k. local family were out for a lark. Armed with a pocketknife – surreptitiously sneaked out of t h e house – and accompanied by other youngsters of their neighborhood they set off on a snipping expedition. They had grand sport until they reached one south-side residence. There they encountered a clothesline that defied the pocketknife, It was made of wire. Temporarily stumped, one of the twins solved the problem. Knocking at the front door he asked if he could borrow a pair of pliers. They were given to him. He retired to the rear of the house, put them into action, returned to the door with them, extended his thanks for their loan very solemnly and disappeared. And with him – so the dismayed householders discovered the next morning – had gone their coil of clothesline!
EVERY story has a sequel – and this is this one's.             Knowing the twins well, the householders still can't place the blame for the trick. The appearance of the twins is so similar they haven't yet remembered which one came to their door that night.             And the twins haven't confessed. As yet!

I share this with you in the hope that somebody else might step forward to share memories of this revered old holiday which, inexplicably, seems to have faded into obscurity.

The explication of Bean Day I shall leave for another time.


Incidentally, I rather like ol' Goetze.  He seems to have been a man with a sense of humor.  *

Mummers' Song

.


You may not know it, but I'm an honorary Newfoundlander.  I've kissed the cod at the screech and I have the certificate to prove it.  Even though I do live in Philadelphia.

One thing the citizens of both places have in common is mummers.  Newfoundland's mummers are very much like what our mummers used to be two hundred years ago (except that ours shot off guns in the air) and ours are very much like what theirs might mutate into a couple of hundred years after the Apocalypse.

I wouldn't give up the Philadelphia Mummers for anything.  But how heartwarming and fun Newfoundland mumming looks to be!

The song is by Simani (pronounced Sim 'n' I),  a music duet from you'll never guess where.  Enjoy.


*

Lost in Pegana

.



There is, as I'm sure you know, no money involved in such a publication.  But there is the pleasure of being associated with people half a world away who also care passionately about the lapidarian prose of a half-forgotten master of fantasy.  For just a moment, I am there with them.

And yet another reason to wish I knew Japanese!  How much of his stories' special beauty survives the translation?  Or, considering that Japanese tales of the supernatural were clearly one of his influences, is it possible that translation actually improves his tales?  As we are told translation into French does for Poe.

I'll never know, not really.  But it's a pleasant thing to think about. 

* 

Books from Lost Poseidonis

.


I am in the process of amassing a small but very fine collection of Pegana Press books.  The most recent is The Age of Malygris  (P oseidonis Cycle I), a slim collection of one prose poem, two stories, and a poem by Clark Ashton Smith.  Plus two large illustrations by Smith himself and an introduction by Donald Sydney-Fryer, of which more soon.

This first thing that has to be said about this book is that it's beautifully made.  My "nano-press" publisher wife, Marianne Porter, opened it and practically swooned over the paper.  And it has that deep, tactile print that you get from letterpress.  And then there's all that business with typography and layout and such that people who care about fine printing get quite emotional about.  Which I have to admit does look quite nice.

But for me, it's all about the prose.  So here's the first paragraph of "The Muse of Atlantis," Smith's first piece in the book:

. . . Will you not join me in Atlantis, where we will go down through streets of blue and yellow marble to the wharves of orichalch, and choose us a galley with a golden Eros for figure-head, and sails of Tyrian sendal?  With mariners that knew Odysseus and beautiful amber-breasted slaves from the mountain-vales of Lemuria, we will lift anchor for the unknown fortunate isles of the outer sea; and sailing in the wake of an opal sunset, will lose that ancient land in the glaucous twilight, and see from our couch of ivory and satin the rising of unknown stars and perished planets.

There is only one place where Atlantis, Tyre, Odysseus, and Lemuria can coexist and that's in the great continent of Romance, which is encircled by the Ocean of Story.  Nor were there ever many who could describe that continent so well as did Clark Ashton Smith.

That kind of lapidary prose, by the way, is even harder to write than it looks.  I know because, like everyone who encounters CAS at the right age, I tried to emulate it.  Only, of course, to fail.  It turns out that the first step in learning to write prose like that is to become a poet.

This brings me to the introduction, written by poet Donald Sidney-Fryer, who has the happy distinction of not only being influenced by Clark Ashton Smith but of having met him as well.  The intro is chiefly an examination of CAS's poetic virtues, but it also touches lightly upon the man's difficult life.  As a ruling whimsy, Sidney-Fryer postulates that the fantasist we know was merely a single reincarnation of (as H. P. Lovecraft dubbed him), Klarkash-Ton, High Priest of Atlantis.  Which seems fitting for a man whose fantasies may well have served as an escape from an often hardscrabble existence.

Donald Sidney-Fryer also insists that "The Last Incantation" and "The Death of Malygris" are not stories but prose-poems, and as a poet himself he would know.  But as a prose fantasist, I must insist that they are stories as well, and ones I enjoyed greatly.

Finally, I should mention that at $125, this is a costly little item when compared to your average mass market paperback. However, for a hand-made and lovingly-crafted book, issued in a limited edition of only fifty-five copies, it's a steal.

This is a volume that Clark Ashton Smith would have loved.

You can find information about the book here.  Or you can just to go the Pegana Press site and wander around by clicking here.


Above:  In this photo the label looks a little worn; but actually it's printed on a quite lovely paper with a pattern of gold streaks criss-crossing it.  Marianne admires it greatly.



  *