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The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October/November 1997
Volume 93, Number 4&5, Whole Number 556
Contents:
Walter M. Miller, Jr. - God Is Thus
John Jonik - Cartoon
Charles de Lint - Books to Look For
Robert K. J. Killheffer - Books
Nancy Springer - Transendence
Bill Long - Cartoon
Jack Williamson - The Hole in the World
Joseph Farris - Cartoon
Michael Blumlein - Paul and Me
Mike Resnick - Forgotten Treasures
John Jonik - Cartoon
Jerry Oltion & Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Deus X
Arthur Masear - Cartoon
Robert Reed - To Church With Mr. Multhiford
Joseph Farris - Cartoon
Lisa Goldstein - Down the Fool's Road
Terry Bisson - The Player
Lewis Shiner - Like the Gentle Rain
S. Harris - Cartoon
Gregory Benford - A Scientist's Notebook
Stephen King - Everything's Eventual
Mark Heath - Cartoon
Cover by Jill Bauman for "Everything's Eventual"
Contents:
Walter M. Miller, Jr. - God Is Thus
John Jonik - Cartoon
Charles de Lint - Books to Look For
Robert K. J. Killheffer - Books
Nancy Springer - Transendence
Bill Long - Cartoon
Jack Williamson - The Hole in the World
Joseph Farris - Cartoon
Michael Blumlein - Paul and Me
Mike Resnick - Forgotten Treasures
John Jonik - Cartoon
Jerry Oltion & Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Deus X
Arthur Masear - Cartoon
Robert Reed - To Church With Mr. Multhiford
Joseph Farris - Cartoon
Lisa Goldstein - Down the Fool's Road
Terry Bisson - The Player
Lewis Shiner - Like the Gentle Rain
S. Harris - Cartoon
Gregory Benford - A Scientist's Notebook
Stephen King - Everything's Eventual
Mark Heath - Cartoon
Cover by Jill Bauman for "Everything's Eventual"
242 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 1997
1 person is currently reading
19 people want to read
About the author
Gordon van Gelder
308 books27 followersGordon Van Gelder (born 1966) is an American science fiction editor. From 1997 until 2014, Van Gelder was editor and later publisher of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, for which he has twice won the Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form. He was also a managing editor of The New York Review of Science Fiction from 1988 to 1993, for which he was nominated for the Hugo Award a number of times. As of January 2015, Van Gelder has stepped down as editor of Fantasy & Science Fiction in favour of Charles Coleman Finlay, but remains publisher of the magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 13, 2019
This is the 48th anniversary issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. This was a double issue, 242 pages long, officially considered both the October and November issues of 1997. Most of the special anniversary issues have some fine stories and this is no exception. It also has some unusually interesting non-fiction.
Another unusual feature is that a story listed on the Contents page as a novelette is not actually a story at all; it is an excerpt from a novel. The novel is Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, a sort of sequel to the famous science fiction book A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., originally published in 1959. This volume was begun by Miller, who, the introduction to this entry says, had finished about eighty-five percent of the intended book when he died in 1996. The book was completed by Terry Bisson. The excerpt is titled "God Is Thus" and it is attributed to Miller alone. The introduction to the excerpt says that it "functions as a stand-alone story"; I do not think that it does.
Introductory material explains that Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman takes place after the second section of A Canticle for Leibowitz, long after the end of an incredibly destructive atomic war, at a time when science is beginning to revive. The Catholic Church has continued to function through the passing centuries, serving as a beacon of civilization in a shattered world.
The main character in God Is Thus is Blacktooth, a "disgraced monk," traveling with a Cardinal, Brownpony, and some other men, two of whom are later revealed not to be the people that Blacktooth believed them to be. Seeking shelter in a snowstorm, they come across an encampment of "Gennies," genetically handicapped fugitives who have fled "from the overpopulated Valley of the Misborn." They stay there for several days, meeting both other travelers and neighbors of the gennies. Blacktooth almost has a sexual liaison with a genny woman.
Miller was a fine writer and much of this is intriguing, but it really does not stand well alone.
Terry Bisson is also represented in this issue by a very brief tale, "The Player." This is a tiny equivalent of novels like Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, in which humanity encounters what has come to be known in science fiction as a "Big Dumb Object."
From Wikipedia:
In discussion of science fiction, a Big Dumb Object (BDO) is any mysterious object (usually of extraterrestrial or unknown origin and immense power) in a story which generates an intense sense of wonder by its mere existence; to a certain extent, the term deliberately deflates this.
In this story, a not-so-big object is found beeping in the Asteroid Belt. The woman who finds it thinks "it might be that ancient dream of dreams come true: the smoke of another fire." But what should humans do with it? A rather sweet little story.
"Transcendence" by Nancy Springer is also sweet. It does not seem to me to have any science fiction or fantasy content. A male college student writes an admiring letter to a somewhat older, reclusive female poet. She initially refuses to meet him but then lets him visit. Their relationship proceeds in an unexpected manner.
Lisa Goldstein, who is praised in one of the book columns in the magazine, has an odd story, "Down the Fool's Road." A group of strangers persuade a young woman to accompany them, without knowing who they are or where they are going. She is asked to solve a riddle, one with a sad, touching solution.
I believe that the title of Lewis Shiner's story "Like the Gentle Rain" is a reference to this passage from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice:
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.
At some future time, a single mother has her six weeks old son taken away from her. Tests have shown that the boy has "remarkable intelligence potential." The plan is to train him to become a Scientist: a brain transplanted into a machine, "a cylinder mounted on a motorized platform." The mother, who narrates the story, spends months trying to get her son back. She is assured that he will not be unhappy, because feelings like love and compassion "may not be appropriate to our future." Others, including one of the Scientists, become involved. The surprising end of the story is a reminder that a super baby is both super and, after all, a baby.
Michael Blumlein's tale "Paul and Me" tells of a young man who becomes romantically involved with Paul Bunyan and what happens in each of their lives through the years. A story that starts as comedy but deepens into something quite different.
"To Church with Mr. Multhiford" by Robert Reed is narrated by a young man who agrees to participate in a prank that involves an obscene variation on a crop circle. The farmer stops this and he and the young man talk. They discuss the things that mankind does with corn.
And the things corn does with mankind.
Perhaps the most unusual story in this issue is "The Hole in the World" by an exciting author with new ideas, Jack Williamson - who was eighty-nine years old at that time. A man sees a small spot on his chin, that enlarges and begins to affect his vision. As he waits for his new wife to return from a trip, he reflects that he did not really beat his daughter from his first marriage all that often, but he can't keep in touch with her; it might prove to be expensive. He sees an eye doctor, who assure him his eyes are fine, but suggests that there might be another problem, perhaps solipsism. "For all you could prove, God may have created your whole world exclusively for you."
Williamson lived to be 98. In the years after he published "The Hole in the World," he continued to do very fine work. His story "The Ultimate Earth" won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 2001 and his novel Terraforming Earth was the co-winner of the 2002 John W. Campbell Memorial Award. A truly remarkable man.
The remaining stories are the two novellas, and they are both excellent. In "Everything's Eventual" by Stephen King, a young high school drop-out, working terrible jobs in a supermarket and delivering pizzas, is contacted by an organization that has discovered his secret; he can kill at long distance, making people commit suicide by mail or email, using special symbols. They recruit him as an assassin, slaying bad people - gangsters, serial killers, dictators. But he begins to suspect that the people whose deaths he is causing are not the ones who are evil.
"Deus X" by Jerry Oltion and Kristine Kathryn Rusch is my favorite story in this issue. An ambitious mayor, running for reelection, is afraid that his sister might be an embarrassment; she claims to see people who no one else can. He and his chief aide have her committed and soon her medications have eliminated her ability to see those people any more. So, seeking help in their separate world, those people now appear to the mayor and beseech his aid. He wants them to go away and leave him alone; speaking to one of them in public has already imperiled his campaign. But then he agrees to impregnate a woman from that world, and that complicates things.
Gregory Benford's science column is titled "Selfness." What makes a person a person? Benford, himself an identical twin, considers clones, the possibility of reviving cryogenically frozen people, and the possibility of uploading people's personalities into computers. This is a thoughtful and fascinating article.
There are three book columns in this issue. Charles de Lint's "Books to Look For" column praises seven books, including a reprinting of Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man and the incredible The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, by John Clute and John Grant. Robert K. J. Killheffer reviews three novels set in the world of King Arthur, all of which Killheffer likes.
Mike Resnick's column is titled "Forgotten Treasures." Resnick discusses ten books, none of them new at the time this appeared, all of which he enthusiastically recommends. One of them is the one I mentioned above, Lisa Goldstein's The Red Magician, winner of the American Book Award. I am embarrassed to admit that I have only read three of the ten - too many books, too little time. (Resnick makes a mistake in a comment about the works of Thorne Smith. He mentions three of Smith's books that "were too bizarre and too risqué to be of any interest to Hollywood," but one of these, The Night Life of the Gods, was filmed in 1935.)
There are eight cartoons, one each by Bill Long, Arthur Masear, S. Harris, and Mark Heath, and two each by John Jonik and Joseph Farris. My favorites are the John Jonik on page 89 and the Bill Long on page 62.
The cover, illustrating "Everything's Eventual," is by Jill Bauman. It's fine, except I have no idea who this is supposed to be a picture of.
Another unusual feature is that a story listed on the Contents page as a novelette is not actually a story at all; it is an excerpt from a novel. The novel is Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, a sort of sequel to the famous science fiction book A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., originally published in 1959. This volume was begun by Miller, who, the introduction to this entry says, had finished about eighty-five percent of the intended book when he died in 1996. The book was completed by Terry Bisson. The excerpt is titled "God Is Thus" and it is attributed to Miller alone. The introduction to the excerpt says that it "functions as a stand-alone story"; I do not think that it does.
Introductory material explains that Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman takes place after the second section of A Canticle for Leibowitz, long after the end of an incredibly destructive atomic war, at a time when science is beginning to revive. The Catholic Church has continued to function through the passing centuries, serving as a beacon of civilization in a shattered world.
The main character in God Is Thus is Blacktooth, a "disgraced monk," traveling with a Cardinal, Brownpony, and some other men, two of whom are later revealed not to be the people that Blacktooth believed them to be. Seeking shelter in a snowstorm, they come across an encampment of "Gennies," genetically handicapped fugitives who have fled "from the overpopulated Valley of the Misborn." They stay there for several days, meeting both other travelers and neighbors of the gennies. Blacktooth almost has a sexual liaison with a genny woman.
Miller was a fine writer and much of this is intriguing, but it really does not stand well alone.
Terry Bisson is also represented in this issue by a very brief tale, "The Player." This is a tiny equivalent of novels like Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, in which humanity encounters what has come to be known in science fiction as a "Big Dumb Object."
From Wikipedia:
In discussion of science fiction, a Big Dumb Object (BDO) is any mysterious object (usually of extraterrestrial or unknown origin and immense power) in a story which generates an intense sense of wonder by its mere existence; to a certain extent, the term deliberately deflates this.
In this story, a not-so-big object is found beeping in the Asteroid Belt. The woman who finds it thinks "it might be that ancient dream of dreams come true: the smoke of another fire." But what should humans do with it? A rather sweet little story.
"Transcendence" by Nancy Springer is also sweet. It does not seem to me to have any science fiction or fantasy content. A male college student writes an admiring letter to a somewhat older, reclusive female poet. She initially refuses to meet him but then lets him visit. Their relationship proceeds in an unexpected manner.
Lisa Goldstein, who is praised in one of the book columns in the magazine, has an odd story, "Down the Fool's Road." A group of strangers persuade a young woman to accompany them, without knowing who they are or where they are going. She is asked to solve a riddle, one with a sad, touching solution.
I believe that the title of Lewis Shiner's story "Like the Gentle Rain" is a reference to this passage from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice:
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.
At some future time, a single mother has her six weeks old son taken away from her. Tests have shown that the boy has "remarkable intelligence potential." The plan is to train him to become a Scientist: a brain transplanted into a machine, "a cylinder mounted on a motorized platform." The mother, who narrates the story, spends months trying to get her son back. She is assured that he will not be unhappy, because feelings like love and compassion "may not be appropriate to our future." Others, including one of the Scientists, become involved. The surprising end of the story is a reminder that a super baby is both super and, after all, a baby.
Michael Blumlein's tale "Paul and Me" tells of a young man who becomes romantically involved with Paul Bunyan and what happens in each of their lives through the years. A story that starts as comedy but deepens into something quite different.
"To Church with Mr. Multhiford" by Robert Reed is narrated by a young man who agrees to participate in a prank that involves an obscene variation on a crop circle. The farmer stops this and he and the young man talk. They discuss the things that mankind does with corn.
And the things corn does with mankind.
Perhaps the most unusual story in this issue is "The Hole in the World" by an exciting author with new ideas, Jack Williamson - who was eighty-nine years old at that time. A man sees a small spot on his chin, that enlarges and begins to affect his vision. As he waits for his new wife to return from a trip, he reflects that he did not really beat his daughter from his first marriage all that often, but he can't keep in touch with her; it might prove to be expensive. He sees an eye doctor, who assure him his eyes are fine, but suggests that there might be another problem, perhaps solipsism. "For all you could prove, God may have created your whole world exclusively for you."
Williamson lived to be 98. In the years after he published "The Hole in the World," he continued to do very fine work. His story "The Ultimate Earth" won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 2001 and his novel Terraforming Earth was the co-winner of the 2002 John W. Campbell Memorial Award. A truly remarkable man.
The remaining stories are the two novellas, and they are both excellent. In "Everything's Eventual" by Stephen King, a young high school drop-out, working terrible jobs in a supermarket and delivering pizzas, is contacted by an organization that has discovered his secret; he can kill at long distance, making people commit suicide by mail or email, using special symbols. They recruit him as an assassin, slaying bad people - gangsters, serial killers, dictators. But he begins to suspect that the people whose deaths he is causing are not the ones who are evil.
"Deus X" by Jerry Oltion and Kristine Kathryn Rusch is my favorite story in this issue. An ambitious mayor, running for reelection, is afraid that his sister might be an embarrassment; she claims to see people who no one else can. He and his chief aide have her committed and soon her medications have eliminated her ability to see those people any more. So, seeking help in their separate world, those people now appear to the mayor and beseech his aid. He wants them to go away and leave him alone; speaking to one of them in public has already imperiled his campaign. But then he agrees to impregnate a woman from that world, and that complicates things.
Gregory Benford's science column is titled "Selfness." What makes a person a person? Benford, himself an identical twin, considers clones, the possibility of reviving cryogenically frozen people, and the possibility of uploading people's personalities into computers. This is a thoughtful and fascinating article.
There are three book columns in this issue. Charles de Lint's "Books to Look For" column praises seven books, including a reprinting of Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man and the incredible The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, by John Clute and John Grant. Robert K. J. Killheffer reviews three novels set in the world of King Arthur, all of which Killheffer likes.
Mike Resnick's column is titled "Forgotten Treasures." Resnick discusses ten books, none of them new at the time this appeared, all of which he enthusiastically recommends. One of them is the one I mentioned above, Lisa Goldstein's The Red Magician, winner of the American Book Award. I am embarrassed to admit that I have only read three of the ten - too many books, too little time. (Resnick makes a mistake in a comment about the works of Thorne Smith. He mentions three of Smith's books that "were too bizarre and too risqué to be of any interest to Hollywood," but one of these, The Night Life of the Gods, was filmed in 1935.)
There are eight cartoons, one each by Bill Long, Arthur Masear, S. Harris, and Mark Heath, and two each by John Jonik and Joseph Farris. My favorites are the John Jonik on page 89 and the Bill Long on page 62.
The cover, illustrating "Everything's Eventual," is by Jill Bauman. It's fine, except I have no idea who this is supposed to be a picture of.
August 24, 2021
Walter M. Miller Jr. takes us back to the world of A Canticle For Leibowitz wherein a motley group of disguised clerics encounter a hamlet of gennies (genetically deformed people) on their journey to the city in “Thus Is God”. Dinky Earnshaw has a special power which can be fatal to those who incur his ire and when the mysterious Mr. Sharpton offers him a dream job it seems too good to be true. But when Dinky learns what he’s actually been doing he starts to have second thoughts in the sinister “Everything’s Eventual” by Stephen King. Masterful. Marcus has his sister Lita committed when she claims to talk to people nobody else can see which imperils his tilt at mayoral re-election. His problems only get worse however, when Marcus starts getting visits from them, his political manager starts cutting him out, and he gets an invisible woman pregnant. “Deus X” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch & Jerry Oltion is a tale of paranoia and loss. When a group of inebriated young men decide to make some crop circles in a farmer’s field one of them has a revelation. Robert Reed asks whether humans cultivate corn or vice-versa in “To Church With Mr. Multhiford”, and Lewis Shiner takes us into a cyber future where babies are sourced for computerized Scientists in the disturbing satire “Like The Gentle Rain”. Recommended issue.
October 30, 2017
13 • God is Thus • 23 pages by Walter M. Miller, jr.
Good/OK. Blacktooth is part of the cardinal's group, along with the nomad, Axe and Father e'Laiden. They stop to wait out the snow at a village of genetically modified people. The gennies are leery of visitors, but eventually trust the group. Blacktooth, a monk, is smitten by the normal looking Aedrea. The characters seemed to have more than one name and were referred to by their title, e.g. Wolshin/Axe/the driver, confusing. I didn't realize that Father e'Laiden and the cardinal (Brownpony) were separate people until half way through. This did seem like a chapter in a longer work. The reason they were on the road, nor their destination, was ever given. Maybe if I had read A Canticle for Leibowitz I'd have a better understanding of their world.
52 • Transcendence • 11 pages by Nancy Springer
Good/VG. Jeremy writes a recluse poet. She tells him to stay away, but he befriends her anyway. In spite of her disfigured appearance and telling him to stay away he comes to see her again and again. He only has kind things to say about her.
63 • The Hole in the World • 5 pages by Jack Williamson
OK+. Jake is [recently] divorced. Gretchen got Amy. He has a new wife and business seems to be going well. Creighton is coming back today with news of the franchise. This morning Jake saw a fleck on his chin. It has progressed to spots in his vision. He goes to the [eye] doctor who finds him fit and mentions solipsism.
68 • Paul and Me • 16 pages by Michael Blumlein
Good. The twenty-one year old "me" of the title is hiking and meets Paul Bunyon. They strike up a conversation and they go to his logging camp. After a brief romantic fling the young man goes back to the city. After twenty years and a failing marriage he goes to look up his old friend to get some advice.
90 • Deus X • 47 pages by Jerry Oltion, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Excellent/VG. Marcus is mayor running for reelection. His sister sees and talks with invisible people. He puts her in a hospital. When Kardalkeddy can no longer make contact with Lita, he makes contact with Marcus.
137 • To Church with Mr. Multhiford • 19 pages by Robert Reed
Good. John and his buddies decide one night to make a crop circle in Mr. Multhiford's fields. The man who is crazy and always talks about corn.
156 • Down the Fool's Road • 8 pages by Lisa Goldstein
OK/fair. Amanda is accosted by a group of people who lead her around. No compelling reason for her to go with this group. At the end we do find the reason, but the setup is abstract.
164 • The Player • 3 pages by Terry Bisson
Fair/meh. In the asteroid belt CB finds something going beep. She takes it to her friends. They fix it, she takes it back and sends it on its way.
167 • Like the Gentle Rain • 15 pages by Lewis Shiner
Good+. A dystopic future where humans are at the whim of the Scientists. Scientists are sort of robots with human brains, ruled by logic. They know what's best for humanity. Mrs. Donovan gets a visit from one. The Scientist takes away six week old Mikey for training, and to eventually become a Scientist himself. She wants to get Mikey back, but can't even get a hearing for months.
193 • Everything's Eventual • 49 pages by Stephen King
Excellent/Very Good+. Dink is a high school drop out with a talent for being able to kill with a letter. He is recruited by Trans-Corp who tell him he'll be making the world a better place, getting rid of serial killers and such.
Good/OK. Blacktooth is part of the cardinal's group, along with the nomad, Axe and Father e'Laiden. They stop to wait out the snow at a village of genetically modified people. The gennies are leery of visitors, but eventually trust the group. Blacktooth, a monk, is smitten by the normal looking Aedrea. The characters seemed to have more than one name and were referred to by their title, e.g. Wolshin/Axe/the driver, confusing. I didn't realize that Father e'Laiden and the cardinal (Brownpony) were separate people until half way through. This did seem like a chapter in a longer work. The reason they were on the road, nor their destination, was ever given. Maybe if I had read A Canticle for Leibowitz I'd have a better understanding of their world.
52 • Transcendence • 11 pages by Nancy Springer
Good/VG. Jeremy writes a recluse poet. She tells him to stay away, but he befriends her anyway. In spite of her disfigured appearance and telling him to stay away he comes to see her again and again. He only has kind things to say about her.
63 • The Hole in the World • 5 pages by Jack Williamson
OK+. Jake is [recently] divorced. Gretchen got Amy. He has a new wife and business seems to be going well. Creighton is coming back today with news of the franchise. This morning Jake saw a fleck on his chin. It has progressed to spots in his vision. He goes to the [eye] doctor who finds him fit and mentions solipsism.
68 • Paul and Me • 16 pages by Michael Blumlein
Good. The twenty-one year old "me" of the title is hiking and meets Paul Bunyon. They strike up a conversation and they go to his logging camp. After a brief romantic fling the young man goes back to the city. After twenty years and a failing marriage he goes to look up his old friend to get some advice.
90 • Deus X • 47 pages by Jerry Oltion, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Excellent/VG. Marcus is mayor running for reelection. His sister sees and talks with invisible people. He puts her in a hospital. When Kardalkeddy can no longer make contact with Lita, he makes contact with Marcus.
137 • To Church with Mr. Multhiford • 19 pages by Robert Reed
Good. John and his buddies decide one night to make a crop circle in Mr. Multhiford's fields. The man who is crazy and always talks about corn.
156 • Down the Fool's Road • 8 pages by Lisa Goldstein
OK/fair. Amanda is accosted by a group of people who lead her around. No compelling reason for her to go with this group. At the end we do find the reason, but the setup is abstract.
164 • The Player • 3 pages by Terry Bisson
Fair/meh. In the asteroid belt CB finds something going beep. She takes it to her friends. They fix it, she takes it back and sends it on its way.
167 • Like the Gentle Rain • 15 pages by Lewis Shiner
Good+. A dystopic future where humans are at the whim of the Scientists. Scientists are sort of robots with human brains, ruled by logic. They know what's best for humanity. Mrs. Donovan gets a visit from one. The Scientist takes away six week old Mikey for training, and to eventually become a Scientist himself. She wants to get Mikey back, but can't even get a hearing for months.
193 • Everything's Eventual • 49 pages by Stephen King
Excellent/Very Good+. Dink is a high school drop out with a talent for being able to kill with a letter. He is recruited by Trans-Corp who tell him he'll be making the world a better place, getting rid of serial killers and such.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews