Electronic OtherRealms #20 Spring, 1988 Part 9 Interview with Gardner Dozois Gardner Dozois is the author or editor of 23 books. Currently editor of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and of the Isaac Asimov Presents novel series published by Congdon & Weed. Also editor of the annual anthology series The Year's Best Science Fiction, as well as the Magic Tales series of anthologies, edited in collaboration with Jack Dann: Unicorns!, Magicats! Bestiary!, Mermaids!, Sorcerers!, & Demons!, and so on. He has won two Nebula Awards for his own short fiction. He has been a World Fantasy Award Judge, and several times chairman of the Nebula Award Jury. If you are interested in joining the Science Fiction group on Delphi, the local access number can be located by calling 800-544-4005. Log onto Delphi with account JOINFICTION and password URANUS. This will qualify you for a special discount when the account is validated. Chip Delany> Where are you planning to take Asimov's in the coming year? Gardner Dozois> I had planned on taking it on a long leisurely drive down by the seashore, but... Actually, to wax serious, (if you can find one to wax), I don't really have any Grand Master Aesthetic Plan for Asimov's. Pat Cadigan> Did you have anything in mind when you first became editor? Gardner> Mostly to survive for the first few months. My major concern has always been to try to get a fairly wide range of stuff into the magazine while still keeping the quality level up. So that you have a chance of finding something you'll like in the magazine no matter what your tastes are, whether you're after literature or just fun, or both. Chip> Do you find the association between Asimov's and cyberpunk has turned into a liability? Gardner> No, it doesn't seem particularly like a liability to me There's some bad imitation cyberpunk stuff in the slush pile, but there's always bad imitation something in the slush pile, so it doesn't make that much difference. Better than bad imitation Jerry Pournelle, anyway. One reason why I've published some stuff that people can call cyberpunk if they like, is that it's just about the only hard science stuff that I can find that I actually like, that rings some kind of button aesthetically with me. I'd publish more good, new, interesting hard science stuff, if I could find it. But don't see much. Janet> Are you seeing a lot of fantasy? Do you think it's taking over? Gardner> We've always seen a lot of fantasy. I don't think we're seeing any more now, necessarily, than we did. 80% or more of it is just not right for our magazine. We do use some of it if it's something out of the ordinary. What you see more than fantasy, other than hard science, is soft sociological SF. Pat> Do you think that a lot of hard science stuff will be called cyberpunk reflexively? Gardner> I think bits and pieces of the cyberpunk milieu will be showing up for years... Pat> But it seems like you can't write a hard science story lately without someone calling it cyberpunk. Gardner> I think, that people react to things as cyberpunk or not because of the aesthetics of a story. Poul Anderson can talk about computers and so forth all through a story, and its still not going to feel like a cyberpunk story, because his universe doesn't have the same feel to it, the kinds of things that happen to people, and how they fell about them. Arlan Andrews> How does the slush pile look for Asimov's Presents? Gardner> We don't see a tremendous amount of slush for the novel line, compared with the amount of slush for the magazine, anyway. For the first six books, we read maybe 50-60 books to find them. Arlan> Gardner, is cyberpunk necessarily always depressing? Can't it be fun, too? Gardner> I don't think that cyberpunk is necessarily always depressing, or even always mostly depressing. Several of Pat's stories are not downbeat at the end. "Pretty Boy Crossover," for instance, ends on an upbeat note, with the character turning down an offer which is pretty clearly the equivalent of Temptation. Even some of Sterling's stuff is not ultimately downbeat. Schismatrix, for instance, is long-term optimistic. And Sterling himself makes a big deal recently about how "transcendental mutation" or somesuch is an essential part of the mix. Of course, if you follow Sterling's latest definition closely, you see that it clearly omits most of Gibson's work, including Neuromancer. Mike Resnick> Gardner, does your mail indicate your readers prefer cyberpunk, or don't they care? Gardner> Most of our mail seems to ignore the question altogether, as I suspect is true every time one of these teapot tempests comes along. As a subjective judgement though, I'd have to say that it seems to me that more people are in favor than not. Mike> If no cyberpunk except Gibson makes it onto the SF bestseller lists, how much effect can cyberpunk have in the book field? It's effect in short fiction is noticeable, but it seems to me that it's a bit self-limiting to comprise a hefty portion of our book production other than Gibson, it's too early to tell who's going to eventually make it. Gardner> I suspect that Sterling will eventually make it on to at least the SF bestseller lists, though it may take him a while to build an audience.. Others may make it too. As far as it not having a big effect on SF because it's not on the bestseller lists I think you're dead wrong about that. Evolutionarily speaking, the new stuff usually has its biggest effect at the bottom of the ladder, and I think that the field has been affected more by short stories by then-unknown writers than by the stuff they're doing later when they've made it onto the nationwide lists. Chip> It tickles me that the quintessential cyberpunk story is "All My Darling Daughters" by Connie Willis. Mike> I'm not making myself clear, I guess. How do you tell a publisher to dump Chalker and/or Foster in favor of cyberpunk and failing that how do you convince him to spend enough on cyberpunk so that the practitioners can afford to keep writing it Gardner> Do we really have to dump Chalker and Resnick to make room for newer authors? Godzilla> It is all dependant on whether enough people read it no? Gardner> I'd like to think that there's room for all of them. Naive, perhaps. Arlan> Hope we don't have to dump the good writers. Just want more room for us new ones. Mike> The dynamics of the marketplace say that not everyone can get big advances; small advances sooner or later have discourage serious writers. Janet> Small advances haven't discouraged us so far, Mike. Mike> It's early yet. But during the last Wave they sure as hell discouraged Silverberg and Malzberg. It's simple economics. Chip> Small advances have encouraged a lot of new writers too. They're better than nothing. Gardner> If all of us were discouraged from serious work by small advances, I myself would have given up years ago! In Silverberg's case, however, it just took him a while to build up a new audience for what he was doing. He complained at the late middle of the '70s that all of his books were out of print, no one liked them, etc., but they are all back in print now, including the most depressing ones, and they all seem to be doing pretty well. Mike> Yeah, but he was doing Dying Inside then, and he did Lord Valentine trilogies when he came back. Chip> Most of Silverberg's income came from non-fiction up until the last ten years. Sometimes it just takes a while. Mike> It's a problem we all have to face. I just have a feeling that cyberpunk's audience is smaller than most, at least in the book marketplace. I would be happy to find out I'm wrong. Gardner> This is, of course, incredibly naive, and may well be the sour grapes of someone who doesn't have the stuff to make it on to the bestseller lists, but I like to think that I'm not just in it (writing) for the money. I could have made a lot more as a PR man, if I'd stuck to it. Pat> The hell with the bestseller lists. You're the best writer here. Mike> No one is just in it for the money, Gardner. (Well, almost no one.) But one still has to pay the bills, and one still has to live with the knowledge that 10-part trilogies outsell the good stuff. It can get discouraging from time to time Gardner> One thing you may, or may not, be overlooking is that Gibson seems to appeal to a large audience outside the traditional genre audience even more than he appeals to the inside audience. You'll notice that it was places like The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Washington Post, and so on who were really hotly impressed by Gibson. Locus wasn't calling up to do stories about him, it was mainstream journals that were interested in him. The same thing may be happening right now with Lucius Shepard. Mike> And since no cyberpunk but Gibson seems to have hit it big in book form, I can't help thinking it must be harder on them than on most of us (As I say, I'd be delighted to have to apologize for being wrong) Pat> I don't think hitting it that big is really so important. Mike> I think it is important to the leadership of a revolutionary literary movement; how else can they tell that they're being accepted? Editors and critics didn't kill the new wave; readers did, by not buying it. Gardner> I've heard that one about how the readers killed the New Wave before, but I don't really believe it. You'll notice that all the writers who were supposed to be pushed off the newsstands because of lack of reader support are not only still on them, but doing better than ever saleswise in most cases. For instance, Delany, Spinrad, Moorcock, Silverberg, etc. And most of the classic stuff from the time is still in print, or back in print, so obviously there is an audience for it. Pat> I don't feel the New Wave was killed myself. Just assimilated. Gardner> Pat is right. A lot assimilated. You wouldn't have half the new writers you have now, if not for the New Wave, both cyberpunks and not. Mike> Part of it -- the best part -- was of course assimilated. But a lot of new wave writers, especially English, couldn't sell here, or couldn't sell for enough here. Ballard comes to mind, or Chris Priest, who has a couple of fine books that still haven't seen print in the USA. Pat> Ballard just hit the movies with his autobiographical novel -- Spielberg's doing it. Mike> But there was never enough of an audience to change the shape of the field. The dinosaurs and the series-writers still dominate the lists. Chip> Ballard's Empire of the Sun just spent half a year on the bestseller list, Mike! Mike> Not as science fiction, Chip -- and only after a rave in Newsweek. Gardner> The fact is, no one ever knows what's going to survive. Melville would probably be horrified to know that he was remembered for Moby Dick alone. Pat> Anyway, it seems like we're trying to have an instant movement here. And I don't think it works that way. Janet> What ever happened to that novel you were doing for Timescape? Gardner> Janet, the novel was unwritten, is unwritten, and probably will remain unwritten for the foreseeable future. I have much less time now than I used to, and didn't finish it then! Maybe if I live long enough, I'll get back to it. Dave> Was Lucius Shepard so burned by the publication of Green Eyes or is short story writing being that good to him? Gardner> Lucius's new novel Life During Wartime, just came out from Bantam, and he has at least two more novels in the works. He's not only a good short story writer, he's a fast one, so I don't discourage him from writing them. Scott> I was rereading your 1977 anthology, in which you said '77 established SF as a moneymaker and voiced the fear that the bean counters would "force a junk food mentality on SF.". Has this happened? Gardner> It hasn't happened nearly as much as it could have happened, which should be something of a relief to us. Good work, and unusual work, has continued to be [published, although there were a couple of years there where things were looking chancy. Chip> Do big names on the covers substantially affect the monthly sales of Asimov's? Gardner> There's not enough data to be really sure (what other factors afffected sales, for instance -- color of cover, artwork, etc.), but my own opinion is yes, Big Names on the cover do have some effect. I try to put them there when I can get them, although I like to think that I won't buy indifferent work from Big Names just to get them on the cover. Pat> Resnick said that SF seems to be a book field rather than a magazine field and it seemed to him that one thing stalling the cyberpunk movement was that they don't have a book editor committed to them whereas New Wave had 3 or 4. Gardner> Not entirely true that there are no book editors committed to cyberpunk. Shawna is buying some at Bantam, so is David Hartwell, so is Beth Meacham at Tor. Nobody's buying nothing but cyberpunk, but nobody bought nothing but New Wave either. Gardner> Certainly most of the major authors are having no real trouble getting their books into print. Although I still say that most of the important changes, the evolutionary ones, take place in the short story field, and always have. So is SF really dominated by books, or is that just what most people have easy-enough access to to buy? Toolmaker Koan John McLoughlin Baen Books, $16.95, 1987, 0-671-65354-7 [*****] Reviewed by Steve Bellovin ulysses!smb Copyright 1988 by Steve Bellovin Reviewing a book like Toolmaker Koan is somewhat difficult; it's hard to discuss the wondrous turns of plot without giving too much away. On the other hand, there are some things that are easy to say about it. For example, it should be a very strong contender for the Hugo next year. I'll go a step further: it's one of the best SF books I've read in several years. Oh, it's not without its quirks and a few weaknesses; few books are perfect. But the theme, the plot, and the author's knowledge of his subject matter are quite overwhelming. The koan is quite simple to state: intelligent species evolve (in a cultural sense) too quickly for their own good, and hence destroy themselves. The book opens with Earth about to prove it true again. The planet is partitioned into two hostile camps (U.S. and Soviet), and is teetering on the brink of what Niven has called "the Last War." A deep-space probe detects an anomalous mass under apparent intelligent control. Each nation launches a piloted spacecraft to investigate; they attack each other and are all but destroyed. The Third Party rescues the few survivors and brings them aboard a giant (i.e., 400 km long) space habitat. Once aboard, the real fun begins. It seems that there is not just a Third Party, but a Fourth, the Whileelin. They in turn are survivors of another group of cultural toolmakers who destroyed their own planet; only the one space habitat survived. The interactions between the humans and the Whileelin occupy the latter half of the book, about which I shall remain silent. One of the more fascinating aspects of the book is the explanation of the biology of the Whileelin. It sounds totally alien but quite believable. I wasn't at all surprised to turn to the back jacket flap and read that McLouglin is a professional evolutionist (whatever that is) with strong interests in biology and paleontology. One nit that I don't think affects the plot much: I do not believe that their language abilities could evolve naturally; it is quite clear that they are an artificially-constructed species. McLoughlin's writing style is strongly reminiscent of Larry Niven. Perhaps not coincidentally, the theme also reminded me of Niven; in particular, there are very strong resemblances to The Mote in God's Eye, by Niven and Pournelle. The Whileelin talk like some of Poul Anderson's aliens, though. There are some annoying points; the characters are constantly chanting Toolmaker Koan whenever they feel frustrated, whether it makes literal sense or not. And more attention should have been paid to character development; while we are told something of their backgrounds, we never really feel it. Enough! Go read Toolmaker Koan, especially if you like hard science fiction by an author who has done his homework. Prisoners of Arionn Brian Herbert Arbor House, 1987, 356pp, $17.95, 0-87795-886-6 Reviewed by Neal Wilgus Copyright 1988 by Neal Wilgus This is Brian Herbert's fifth novel, but it's the first book of his I've read and I'm impressed. The basic premise -- that a group of highly advanced aliens "steal" the San Francisco Bay Area -- is rather bizarre and would be pretty hard to swallow, except that the gimmick is mostly kept in the background and the meat of the book is in its characters. More specifically, in the Fouquet family, whose daily problems are engrossing enough -- and amusing enough -- that the wayward aliens are largely forgotten. Not completely, of course, since the entire Bay Area (with ocean) is contained inside a huge bubble which is zooming through space towards the alien's home planet and all contact with anything outside the bubble is cut off. But the Foquets have other troubles -- Granmere Liliane, the head of the family, is now the acting mayor of San Francisco and must deal with her human subject's waywardness as well as the aliens. her son Henry must deal with his even waywarder wife Rachel, his three legitimate children and his unacknowledged fourth child who has come seeking his father just as the bubble is lifted from Earth. Henry, a powerhouse of a man who must hold down three jobs in order to hold his family together, is a study in grinding endurance, while Rachel, who drinks heavily and ignores the daily needs of life, liberty and sanitation, is a study in -- well, let's say maddening independence. Like his father, Dune-master Frank Herbert, young Brian likes to throw in a few mystical superscience wildcards -- but with much more restraint than his old man. There is, for instance, the "button pack," a doomsday device capable of destroying the entire San Francisco bubble, which is presented to Granmere Liliane by the mysterious General Oso when she becomes acting mayor. There is also Granpere Gilbert, her shadowy husband who dies halfway through the book, but who just might be a more powerful and important figure than Granmere Liliane herself. And, of course, there's Beauregard, who is either the ghost of a Civil War General, a gigantic flea, of some kind of extra-dimensional creature whose life happens to impinge on the Foquets, for better or for worse. All of which adds up to a fascinating novel of superscience and commonplace drudgery which would be highly recommendable except for one thing -- the climax. Alas, the ending of this book is completely inconclusive, leading to the belief that this is only the first volume of a trilogy or series -- although the publisher nowhere hints this is so. Personally, I'm looking forward to reading a sequel -- one that tells us what happens when the San Francisco bubble finally arrives at Arionn -- and what happens to Rachel and several of her children, who have escaped from the aliens at the last minute. Meanwhile, I do recommend this book -- with reservations -- to anyone who enjoys a combination of the totally fantastic and the completely mundane. Whatever else it is -- it's unique! OtherRealms #20 Spring, 1988 Copyright 1988 by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights Reserved One time rights have been acquired from the contributors. All rights are hereby assigned to the contributors. OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic edition may be distributed or reproduced in its entirety as long as all copyrights, author and publication information remain intact. No individual article may be reprinted, reproduced or republished in any way without the express permission of the author. OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by: Chuq Von Rospach 35111-F Newark Blvd. Suite 255 Newark, CA 94560. Usenet: chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ CompuServe: 73317,635 GENie: C.VONROSPAC