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Those Who Can: A Science Fiction Reader
Twelve short stories accompanied by critical essays discussing development are provided by accomplished science fiction writers
332 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1973
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November 9, 2021
This was an interesting anthology, collecting stories from a dozen writers and then pairing insightful essays from the authors about different facets of the stories and of writing in general. It comes from the era in which the genre was struggling for serious academic acceptance. There are a lot of allusions to literary thingamabobs like "theme," and "plot," and "character," and "style," and tech-talk like "point of view," and you know it's a serious text because the cover is a blue swirl like a tissue box instead of a picture of a spaceship. I believe it was intended more for aspiring writers or for academic critics and analyzers than for casual readers, but I enjoyed it for the biographical details and illuminations. The authors include editor Wilson, Kate Wilhelm, and Damon Knight, the three founders of the Milford and Clarion teaching workshops, and several Clarion instructors including Frederik Pohl, Joanna Russ, Samuel R. Delany, Ursula K. Leguin, etc. Some of the stories aren't very good, honestly, and it was interesting to read the essays and apply them to the stories... I didn't care for Wilson's story, or those by Russ or Daniel Keyes. My favorite title is Samuel R. Delany's We, In Some Strange Power's Employ, Move On a Rigorous Line. My favorite story/essay pairings were by Jack Williamson, Robert Silverberg, and Ellison's "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes."
October 28, 2022
This is a rather difficult book to review, because it has several personalities:
- It's an anthology of excellent SF stories
- It's a book of advice for would-be SF writers
- It's a textbook for a class on SF
- And a couple of other things that I thought of while reading but can't remember now.
The format: Robin Scott Wilson, founder of the Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop (which is still going 50 years later), came up with six general topics on writing/reading: Plot, Character, Setting, Theme, Point of View, and Style, and reached out to eleven other writers who had taught at Clarion to select one story each (except in one case two) illustrating one of these topics, plus one of his own; and add a short essay related to the topic at hand.
(It is depressing, to this huge fan of 1970s SF, to realize that all but two of these twelve writers are dead, and those two are no longer particularly active writers.)
Let's go through this in order.
PLOT
"Jamboree" by Jack Vance is a postapocalyptic story about robots who rear children in the absence of adults. It is rather creepy. TThe robot called Pop is actually the most interesting character in the story. "On Plotting 'Jamboree'" is, to me, the least interesting of the essays; it discusses plot in general and the plotting of "Jamboree" in particular, but in a very dry manner.
"We, in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line" is one of my favorite of Samuel R. Delany's all-too-few shorter stories. Dedicated to "R. Zelazny," it features an antagonist named "Roger something Polish and unpronounceable that began with a Z and ended with a Y," the leader of a group of Angels, who fly around on contraptions called "broomsticks." The goal of the protagonists is to put electrical outlets where the Angels live their rather primitive lives. "Thickening the Plot" isn't really about writing plot; it's about writing in a way that a reader will find an interesting plot. This is an important distinction to Delany, because it is his contention (in this early essay) that the six topics of Wilson's structure are more things readers find in stories than things writers actually put in. He never does discuss the associated story.
CHARACTER
"Crazy Maro" by Daniel Keyes, famous for _Flowers for Algernon_ and not much else, tells the story of a man who finds children with special talents and connects them with people in the distant future who need those talents, and is paid handsomely for it; it is also the story of Maro, a young Black man with a whole lot of special talents. In "How Much Does a Character Cost?" Keyes talks about the rather painstaking process by which he came up with these two characters.
"Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes" is one of Harlan Ellison's best-known stories, telling about a determined woman whose soul gets stuck in a gambling machine, and a man who plays on that machine with results that do not make the casino operators happy. "The Whore with a Heart of Iron Pyrites; or, Where Does a Writer Go to Find a Maggie?" discusses Ellison's beliefs about what a writer does, and how his observations of real people create the characters that power his stories.
SETTING
Joanna Russ's "The Man Who Could Not See Devils" is a very strange story indeed, telling of a time when _everybody_ could see supernatural beings from the point of view of someone who can't, and so is regarded as stranger, dangerous, and possibly possessed. "On Setting" is, yes, on setting, and especially about how a setting supports the story's plot, character, and so on.
"Sundance," which Robert Silverberg describes as possibly his favorite of his own short stories, might actually fit better into the Point of View section, because it is told entirely from the eyes of one character, who may or may not be insane some or all of the time, and who "goes native" on a planet full of maybe-sentient grazers. "Introduction to Sundance" describes how the setting supports and underlies the character's dilemma.
THEME
"Nine Lives" is Ursula K. Le Guin's story of ten clones of one brilliant human polymath, five male and five female, who have been reared together so closely that they nearly think alike, and consider themselves all one larger self; but it's told from the point of view of two characters who in another setting might be called "grizzled old miners". Tragedy strikes, and the nature of self is brought into question. In "On Theme." Le Guin discusses where she got this particular crazy idea (or theme), how it led to some ideas, and how the characters, setting, and so on came into existence to support that idea.
"The Annotated 'Masks'" is Damon Knight's contribution, the story of a totally-prosthetic man; of his original body, only his brain seems to be present. The theme, as discussed in the annotations, is alienation, and our prosthetic man has indeed become quite distant from his fellow-humans (if indeed he is still human in there).
POINT OF VIEW
In "The Planners," Kate Wilhelm tells us about a psychiatrist who might not have done terrible things to rats, but is doing strange things to monkeys and chimpanzees (two very distinct types of primate, which Wilhelm does not seem to differentiate as well as she might). It is impossible to say almost anything about "On Point of View" without giving serious spoilers for the story.
Wilson himself gives us "For a While There, Herbert Marcuse, I Thought You Were Maybe Right About Alienation and Eros," a story which does not seem to be science fiction at all, except possibly in its (yes) point of view, one which might almost be seen as an alien looking at the life of a kid in the years 1968 and 1969. "Poiint of View: The Quick-Change Artist in the Typewriter" discusses how selecting a point of view affects a story, possibly giving it life, or possibly killing it.
STYLE
James Gunn's "The Listeners" resonates with "The Planners," in that it is about a scientist who is unsure about his work; in this case, he is the director of a SETI project that is constantly in danger of losing its funding, and how he keeps the staff together, and how he neglects some important things in his life. "On Style" talks about how the choices (of words, phrases, scenes) that a writer makes creates the effects for the reader (and this resonates with Delany's essay).
Frederik Pohl is the writer who gets two stories, "Grandy Devil" and "Day Million," but they're both so short that to tell you anything about them would of necessity commit spoilers. The accompanying "On Velocity Exercises" talks about how and why these stories are so short.
The book as a whole? I enjoyed it, I learned a few things from it, and I recommend it to any of the aforementioned would-be writers who might actually be reading this, especially if they're pretty new at it. It appears to be out of print, but copies can be had at quite reasonable prices from the Usual Suspects.
- It's an anthology of excellent SF stories
- It's a book of advice for would-be SF writers
- It's a textbook for a class on SF
- And a couple of other things that I thought of while reading but can't remember now.
The format: Robin Scott Wilson, founder of the Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop (which is still going 50 years later), came up with six general topics on writing/reading: Plot, Character, Setting, Theme, Point of View, and Style, and reached out to eleven other writers who had taught at Clarion to select one story each (except in one case two) illustrating one of these topics, plus one of his own; and add a short essay related to the topic at hand.
(It is depressing, to this huge fan of 1970s SF, to realize that all but two of these twelve writers are dead, and those two are no longer particularly active writers.)
Let's go through this in order.
PLOT
"Jamboree" by Jack Vance is a postapocalyptic story about robots who rear children in the absence of adults. It is rather creepy. TThe robot called Pop is actually the most interesting character in the story. "On Plotting 'Jamboree'" is, to me, the least interesting of the essays; it discusses plot in general and the plotting of "Jamboree" in particular, but in a very dry manner.
"We, in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line" is one of my favorite of Samuel R. Delany's all-too-few shorter stories. Dedicated to "R. Zelazny," it features an antagonist named "Roger something Polish and unpronounceable that began with a Z and ended with a Y," the leader of a group of Angels, who fly around on contraptions called "broomsticks." The goal of the protagonists is to put electrical outlets where the Angels live their rather primitive lives. "Thickening the Plot" isn't really about writing plot; it's about writing in a way that a reader will find an interesting plot. This is an important distinction to Delany, because it is his contention (in this early essay) that the six topics of Wilson's structure are more things readers find in stories than things writers actually put in. He never does discuss the associated story.
CHARACTER
"Crazy Maro" by Daniel Keyes, famous for _Flowers for Algernon_ and not much else, tells the story of a man who finds children with special talents and connects them with people in the distant future who need those talents, and is paid handsomely for it; it is also the story of Maro, a young Black man with a whole lot of special talents. In "How Much Does a Character Cost?" Keyes talks about the rather painstaking process by which he came up with these two characters.
"Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes" is one of Harlan Ellison's best-known stories, telling about a determined woman whose soul gets stuck in a gambling machine, and a man who plays on that machine with results that do not make the casino operators happy. "The Whore with a Heart of Iron Pyrites; or, Where Does a Writer Go to Find a Maggie?" discusses Ellison's beliefs about what a writer does, and how his observations of real people create the characters that power his stories.
SETTING
Joanna Russ's "The Man Who Could Not See Devils" is a very strange story indeed, telling of a time when _everybody_ could see supernatural beings from the point of view of someone who can't, and so is regarded as stranger, dangerous, and possibly possessed. "On Setting" is, yes, on setting, and especially about how a setting supports the story's plot, character, and so on.
"Sundance," which Robert Silverberg describes as possibly his favorite of his own short stories, might actually fit better into the Point of View section, because it is told entirely from the eyes of one character, who may or may not be insane some or all of the time, and who "goes native" on a planet full of maybe-sentient grazers. "Introduction to Sundance" describes how the setting supports and underlies the character's dilemma.
THEME
"Nine Lives" is Ursula K. Le Guin's story of ten clones of one brilliant human polymath, five male and five female, who have been reared together so closely that they nearly think alike, and consider themselves all one larger self; but it's told from the point of view of two characters who in another setting might be called "grizzled old miners". Tragedy strikes, and the nature of self is brought into question. In "On Theme." Le Guin discusses where she got this particular crazy idea (or theme), how it led to some ideas, and how the characters, setting, and so on came into existence to support that idea.
"The Annotated 'Masks'" is Damon Knight's contribution, the story of a totally-prosthetic man; of his original body, only his brain seems to be present. The theme, as discussed in the annotations, is alienation, and our prosthetic man has indeed become quite distant from his fellow-humans (if indeed he is still human in there).
POINT OF VIEW
In "The Planners," Kate Wilhelm tells us about a psychiatrist who might not have done terrible things to rats, but is doing strange things to monkeys and chimpanzees (two very distinct types of primate, which Wilhelm does not seem to differentiate as well as she might). It is impossible to say almost anything about "On Point of View" without giving serious spoilers for the story.
Wilson himself gives us "For a While There, Herbert Marcuse, I Thought You Were Maybe Right About Alienation and Eros," a story which does not seem to be science fiction at all, except possibly in its (yes) point of view, one which might almost be seen as an alien looking at the life of a kid in the years 1968 and 1969. "Poiint of View: The Quick-Change Artist in the Typewriter" discusses how selecting a point of view affects a story, possibly giving it life, or possibly killing it.
STYLE
James Gunn's "The Listeners" resonates with "The Planners," in that it is about a scientist who is unsure about his work; in this case, he is the director of a SETI project that is constantly in danger of losing its funding, and how he keeps the staff together, and how he neglects some important things in his life. "On Style" talks about how the choices (of words, phrases, scenes) that a writer makes creates the effects for the reader (and this resonates with Delany's essay).
Frederik Pohl is the writer who gets two stories, "Grandy Devil" and "Day Million," but they're both so short that to tell you anything about them would of necessity commit spoilers. The accompanying "On Velocity Exercises" talks about how and why these stories are so short.
The book as a whole? I enjoyed it, I learned a few things from it, and I recommend it to any of the aforementioned would-be writers who might actually be reading this, especially if they're pretty new at it. It appears to be out of print, but copies can be had at quite reasonable prices from the Usual Suspects.
January 24, 2020
A valuable resource, with three excellent stories, some so-so stories, but more importantly, valuable essays by the author of each story, regarding their creative processes and narrative decisions. This is a book -- if you can get your hot little hands on it -- that would be a godsend to a science fiction or creative writing class.
First, the very good news -- this collection features three stories that I regard as excellent.
Samuel R. Delany's "We, in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line" is so bright and funny and readable, it would be a stand-out in any collection. Yes, the technology is dated (a mobile power cable-laying apparatus and its attendant roughnecks hook isolated communities up to a world-wide electrical grid -- whether they want to be hooked up or not), but the ethical questions are red-hot topical: does progress have the right to ride roughshod over those who want to live a simpler, possibly less "enlightened" life? All sorts of current concerns could be substituted for the very retro power grid, from social media to (dare I say it?) anti-vaxxers. Beautifully written, and very accessible Delany.
I regularly used Ursula K. Le Guin's "Nine Lives" and Robert Silverberg's "Sundance" in my Science Fiction class at Ohio State -- and I never got tired of talking about them, and hearing what my students had to say about them. Le Guin's story is superficially simple, but it's a masterful, heartbreaking story about the importance of family, and the relationships we make in our lives -- however unconventional those connections might be. And Silverberg's story of how the preparation of an alien planet for human colonists might reasonably be "mistaken" for genocide is a treat, important thematically, but also interesting for the way that Silverberg uses Point of View to make his ... er, point ... (If you ever have to teach a class explaining POV to unenthusiastic readers ... use this story ...)
Of the other stories, some are ok, but don't blow my socks off. (Sorry, I'm not a big fan of Harlan Ellison. You might be. You might like his story if that's the sort of thing you like. I like Joanna Russ's SF very much, but I'm not crazy about fantasy. My bad ...) Some are very dated, and (imho) don't survive their datedness as elegantly as the Delany story. However, in the "Got lemons, make lemonade" Dept., I would say that it would make an interesting discussion to ask why some stores can survive datedness, and others sink under the weight of clearly outdated attitudes, style, assumptions, technology ...
One or two are very, very bad. (I couldn't get beyond the first page of the story by the editor of the volume -- and yes, it was very naughty of him to include it ...)
But you can probably track down the stories in this volume in any number of places, even online, so the true gold here is, of course, the essays by the authors. The book is organized thematically -- which is a little artificial and sometimes arbitrary and even perverse. (Why is "Sundance" pigeon-holed under "Setting" and not "Point of View," which I think is much more interesting than the setting? And I would have paid hard cash money to hear Silverberg's reflections on why he wrote it the way he did.)
So, flawed, but valuable.
First, the very good news -- this collection features three stories that I regard as excellent.
Samuel R. Delany's "We, in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line" is so bright and funny and readable, it would be a stand-out in any collection. Yes, the technology is dated (a mobile power cable-laying apparatus and its attendant roughnecks hook isolated communities up to a world-wide electrical grid -- whether they want to be hooked up or not), but the ethical questions are red-hot topical: does progress have the right to ride roughshod over those who want to live a simpler, possibly less "enlightened" life? All sorts of current concerns could be substituted for the very retro power grid, from social media to (dare I say it?) anti-vaxxers. Beautifully written, and very accessible Delany.
I regularly used Ursula K. Le Guin's "Nine Lives" and Robert Silverberg's "Sundance" in my Science Fiction class at Ohio State -- and I never got tired of talking about them, and hearing what my students had to say about them. Le Guin's story is superficially simple, but it's a masterful, heartbreaking story about the importance of family, and the relationships we make in our lives -- however unconventional those connections might be. And Silverberg's story of how the preparation of an alien planet for human colonists might reasonably be "mistaken" for genocide is a treat, important thematically, but also interesting for the way that Silverberg uses Point of View to make his ... er, point ... (If you ever have to teach a class explaining POV to unenthusiastic readers ... use this story ...)
Of the other stories, some are ok, but don't blow my socks off. (Sorry, I'm not a big fan of Harlan Ellison. You might be. You might like his story if that's the sort of thing you like. I like Joanna Russ's SF very much, but I'm not crazy about fantasy. My bad ...) Some are very dated, and (imho) don't survive their datedness as elegantly as the Delany story. However, in the "Got lemons, make lemonade" Dept., I would say that it would make an interesting discussion to ask why some stores can survive datedness, and others sink under the weight of clearly outdated attitudes, style, assumptions, technology ...
One or two are very, very bad. (I couldn't get beyond the first page of the story by the editor of the volume -- and yes, it was very naughty of him to include it ...)
But you can probably track down the stories in this volume in any number of places, even online, so the true gold here is, of course, the essays by the authors. The book is organized thematically -- which is a little artificial and sometimes arbitrary and even perverse. (Why is "Sundance" pigeon-holed under "Setting" and not "Point of View," which I think is much more interesting than the setting? And I would have paid hard cash money to hear Silverberg's reflections on why he wrote it the way he did.)
So, flawed, but valuable.
August 28, 2018
Okay, so this book is probably better than the cursory read through I gave it. Most of my reading this book comes down to formatting issues which I understand is not the most pertinent to how it actually reads. I guess part of the issues is I don't really like a lot of science fiction. So, why did I pick this up? I love fantasy and speculative fiction and there's a lot of crossover. Sometimes things just get lumped in together. But, I'm picky with science fiction. If it seems too hokey, I stop reading. Most of those essays were of the variety where I abandon ship. So then my reading the essays was not as enlightening.
I did not find the writing instruction to be any more useful than what people have written in other writing books. The world building examples were well done. I bought a used paper book and think that I will keep it around for just that reason. I may update the review later. I think that if someone were to be writing speculative fiction, this book would be a good resource to have if a situation came up or if people felt stumped. But, there are books on writing that explain the craft better. And, one could argue that a good novel, regardless of genre, all have the same elements.
I did not find the writing instruction to be any more useful than what people have written in other writing books. The world building examples were well done. I bought a used paper book and think that I will keep it around for just that reason. I may update the review later. I think that if someone were to be writing speculative fiction, this book would be a good resource to have if a situation came up or if people felt stumped. But, there are books on writing that explain the craft better. And, one could argue that a good novel, regardless of genre, all have the same elements.
July 14, 2010
This is billed as a "teaching anthology," so the fact that I'm not well read in science fiction didn't stop me. Plus, I found it at the library, so there was no investment involved. But I worked in a bookstore for four years, so learned some names: Samuel R. Delany, Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. LeGuin, Frederik Pohl, Joanna Russ, Kate Wilhelm, and more. Wilson founded the Clarion Writers Workshop, which I'd never heard of until learning it's where Nicola Griffith met Kelley Eskridge. And given their writing abilities, must be a pretty good thing.
Anyway, each writer has a story then an essay about that story, covering the elements of fiction (science or otherwise, also makiing this worthwhile): Plot, Character, Setting, Theme, POV, and Style. There is excellent, excellent stuff in here.
Anyway, each writer has a story then an essay about that story, covering the elements of fiction (science or otherwise, also makiing this worthwhile): Plot, Character, Setting, Theme, POV, and Style. There is excellent, excellent stuff in here.
May 31, 2012
I didn't check the copyright date when I picked this up years ago--the concept is interesting, but the original text is quite old. Anyway, it is basically an intro to fiction book using short stories and commentary by science fiction authors (some very well known ones!) to convey the basic elements of fiction. The problem I have isn't with the concept so much as the question, as a teacher, of what kind of class I could actually use it in. A general fiction class wouldn't appreciate the sf focus, while an sf class would probably know enough of the basics to find this rather pedestrian or even condescending. That said, I think if you are an aspiring sf writer, it may be interesting to read what some successful authors think they were up to as they wrote these pieces.
September 6, 2016
It's a great concept that I wish more books would take advantage of. This is a collection of stories accompanied by craft essays by the writers about particular aspects of the stories. It's a dated collection, but the concepts of fiction haven't changed much for hundreds of years. I knock it down one star because a couple of the essays didn't seem to really address their assigned topics, but overall, it is a good collection that teaches a lot. I look forward to Paragons.
not-read
November 1, 2010A provocative collection of stories by science fiction's finest, including Samuel R. Delany, Kate Wilhelm, Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. LeGuin, and many others. Accompanying each story is an eloquent critical essay in which the writer discusses one...
September 20, 2022
Worth it for Samuel Delany’s essay alone. Never have I read a more accurate and elucidating account of someone’s writing process. If you have an interest in writing any kind of fiction I would call his essay invaluable.
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