Tag: 4*

A Thing of Beauty by Norman Spinrad

Posted on by Paul Fraser

A Thing of Beauty by Norman Spinrad (Analog, January 1973) opens with a very wealthy Japanese businessman called Mr Ito arriving in the office of Mr Harris, an American antiquities dealer in a near future USA. We find out in their subsequent conversation, after Mr Ito has gifted Harris a priceless and antique Grateful Dead poster, that Mr Ito is looking to purchase a “major American artefact” for his Kyoto estate (this is to impress his culturally superior and snobbish in-laws). Harris’s eyes light up (“This was the dream of a lifetime! A sucker with a bottomless bank account placing himself trustingly in my tender hands!”), and they are soon in a jumper touring New York.
The first exhibit that Harris shows Mr Ito confirms earlier hints about this future America’s decline:

I took her down to three hundred and brought her in toward the Statue of Liberty at a slow drift, losing altitude imperceptibly as we crept up on the Headless Lady, so that by the time we were just off shore, we were right down on the deck. It was a nice touch to make the goods look more impressive—manipulating the perspectives so that the huge, green, headless statue, with its patina of firebomb soot, seemed to rise up out of the bay like a ruined colossus as we floated toward it.
Mr. Ito betrayed no sign of emotion. He stared straight ahead out the bubble without so much as a word or a flicker of gesture.
“As you are no doubt aware, this is the famous Statue of Liberty,” I said. “Like most such artifacts, it is available to any buyer who will display it with proper dignity. Of course, I would have no trouble convincing the Bureau of National Antiquities that your intentions are exemplary in this regard.”

We learn that insurrectionists are responsible for the damage before Mr Ito declines to purchase it (“The symbolism of this broken statue is quite saddening, representing as it does a decline from your nation’s past greatness.”) Mr Ito concludes that it would be an insult for him to display it at his home.
We see more of this ravaged future America as they fly over a large area razed by bombing en route to their second stop. On reaching their destination (the Yankees stadium, Mr Ito is a keen baseball fan) they go inside:

[I took] the jumper out of its circling pattern and floating it gently up over the lip of the old ballpark, putting it on hover at roof-level over what had once been short center field. Very slowly, I brought the jumper down toward the tangle of tall grass, shrubbery, and occasional stunted trees that covered what had once been the playing field.
It was like descending into some immense, ruined, roofless cathedral. As we dropped, the cavernous triple-decked grandstands—rotten wooden seats rich with moss and fungi, great overhanging rafters concealing flocks of chattering birds in their deep glowering shadows—rose to encircle the jumper in a weird, lost grandeur.
By the time we touched down, Ito seemed to be floating in his seat with rapture. “So beautiful!” he sighed. “Such a sense of history and venerability. Ah, Mr. Harris, what noble deeds were done in this Yankee Stadium in bygone days! May we set foot on this historic playing field?”
“Of course, Mr. Ito.” It was beautiful. I didn’t have to say a word; he was doing a better job of selling the moldy, useless heap of junk to himself than I ever could.

Mr Ito leads Mr Harris on a two hour guided tour of the stadium but, at the end of their time, and much to Harris’s concealed frustration, Ito again declines, this time because his in-laws regard baseball as an imported American barbarity. The pair’s final stop, the now-disused UN building, then goes badly wrong for Harris when a visibly angry Mr Ito tells him bluntly what he thinks of the UN (“I remind you that the United Nations was born as an alliance of the nations which humiliated Japan in a most unfortunate war, etc.”). Mr Ito demands to be taken back to the office but, as Harris is contemplating the loss of a multi-million yen sale on the way back, Mr Ito excitedly sees a dilapidated Brooklyn Bridge below them. With the thought of the old joke about con-men in mind Harris can’t resist asking Mr Ito, “You want to buy the Brooklyn Bridge?” When Mr Ito answers in the affirmative, Harris replies, with completely sincerity, “I can think of no one more worthy of that honor than your esteemed self, Mr. Ito”.

The last part of the story, which takes place four months later (spoiler), sees the tables turned on Harris when Mr Ito sends him a video of the relocated bridge:

Before me was a heavily wooded mountain which rose into twin peaks of austere, dark-gray rock. A tall waterfall plunged gracefully down the long gorge between the two pinnacles to a shallow lake at the foot of the mountain, where it smashed onto a table of flat rock, generating perpetual billows of soft mist which turned the landscape into something straight out of a Chinese painting. Spanning the gorge between the two peaks like a spiderweb directly over the great falls, its stone towers anchored to islands of rock on the very lip of the precipice, was the Brooklyn Bridge, its ponderous bulk rendered slim and graceful by the massive scale of the landscape. The stone had been cleaned and glistened with moisture, the cables and roadbed were overgrown with lush green ivy. The holo had been taken just as the sun was setting between the towers of the bridge, outlining it in rich orange fire, turning the rising mists coppery, and sparkling in brilliant sheets off the falling water.
It was very beautiful.

Mr Ito has also sent what Harris thinks is a single gold-painted brick from the bridge—but he soon realises that it isn’t a gold-painted brick but a solid gold one. Harris is left wondering if Mr Ito is trying to tell him something.
This story’s culture clash interactions, cynical observation, and interesting setting makes for an entertaining tale, and the ending makes it more than that. The one weakness the piece has developed with age is its idea of an ascendant Japan—nowadays Mr Ito would probably have to be replaced with a Chinese character. Who knows what the situation will be in another fifty years.
**** (Very Good). 6,150 words. Story link.

The Man Who Came Early by Poul Anderson

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Man Who Came Early1 by Poul Anderson (F&SF, June 1956) opens with the narrator, a late 10th Century Icelander/Viking called Ospak Ulfsson, telling a visiting Christian priest about a strange man he once came across. He tells how he and his clansmen found the strangely dressed man on the beach and how, after questioning him, they discovered that the man was Sergeant Gerald Roberts, an MP in the United States Army who had slipped through time:

“I was crossing the street, it was a storm, and there was a crash and then I stood on the beach and the city was gone!”
“He’s mad,” said Sigurd, backing away. “Be careful . . . if he starts to foam at the mouth, it means he’s going berserk.”
“Who are you?” babbled the stranger. “What are you doing in those clothes? Why the spears?”
“Somehow,” said Helgi, “he does not sound crazed—only frightened and bewildered. Something evil has happened to him.”
“I’m not staying near a man under a curse!” yelped Sigurd, and started to run away.
“Come back!” I bawled. “Stand where you are or I’ll cleave your louse-bitten head!”
That stopped him, for he had no kin who would avenge him; but he would not come closer. Meanwhile the stranger had calmed down to the point where he could at least talk evenly.
“Was it the aitchbomb?” He asked. “Has the war started?”
He used that word often, aitchbomb, so I know it now, though unsure of what it means. It seems to be a kind of Greek fire. As for the war, I knew not which war he meant, and told him so.
“There was a great thunderstorm last night,” I added. “And you say you were out in one too. Perhaps Thor’s hammer knocked you from your place to here.”  p. 6-7

The rest of the story mostly tells of Roberts’ (unsuccessful) attempts to fit into this society, which begin with him helping to sacrifice a horse by shooting it in the head with his service pistol. Ulfsson is not impressed however, “as the beast quivered and dropped with a hole blown through its skull, wasting the brains.” Matters do not improve with Roberts’ subsequent attempts to repair two spearheads (he ruins them and almost sets the forge on fire) or mend a nearby bridge (he cannot master the primitive carpentry tools). Roberts manages to partially redeem himself by winning a wrestling match with one of the warriors by using his Judo skills, but a further suggestion about manufacturing a cannon and gunpowder are rebuffed:

Gerald said something about making a gun like his own. It would have to be bigger, a cannon he called it, and could sink ships and scatter armies. He would need the help of smiths, and also various stuffs. Charcoal was easy, and sulfur could be found in the volcano country, I suppose, but what is this saltpeter?
Also, being suspicious by now, I questioned him closely as to how he would make such a thing. Did he know just how to mix the powder? No, he admitted. What size would the gun have to be? When he told me—at least as long as a man—I laughed and asked him how a piece that size could be cast or bored, even if we could scrape together that much iron. This he did not know either.
“You haven’t the tools to make the tools to make the tools,” he said. I don’t know what he meant by that.
“God help me, I can’t run through a thousand years of history all by myself.”  p. 16

It’s hard not to see the above passage as a direct rebuttal of the premise of L. Sprague de Camp’s novel Lest Darkness Fall—whose can-do narrator produces a constant stream of inventions to prevent the onset of the Dark Ages in sixth century Rome. (And de Camp’s hero also goes back in time during a lightning storm.)
The final part of the story (spoiler) details a fateful boat trip: Roberts is no sailor; his suggestions for a bigger ship with different sails, a keel and cabins are picked apart; and one of the other men’s open contempt for Roberts ends in violence when Roberts challenges the man, Ketill, to a fight. Roberts quickly finds out that they won’t be using fists but swords and shields and then, during the fight, he barely holds his own. After being wounded multiple times, Roberts draws his pistol and shoots Ketill in the head.
The aftermath of this killing provides a fascinating insight into the customs of the time: an allegation of witchcraft is made; payment of weregild to Ketill’s kin is suggested; and Ulfsson’s daughter (who has a crush on Roberts) asks her father to pay it. This then leads Ketill’s father (who is also on the voyage) to ask if Ulfsson’s family stands with Roberts. If so, that will mean a blood feud between the two familes. Ulfsson, fearing his kin’s death (especially his son) in any later fighting, withdraws his protection from Roberts and tells him that the Thing (a Viking council) will decide on the matter at midsummer but he had best leave Iceland before then. Roberts departs into the darkness.
There is a postscript where Ulfsson tells the priest that Roberts was later found at another settlement but, because he did not tell them of the killing, they expel him when Ketill’s kin track him down:

At the end, when they had him trapped, his weapon gave out on him. Then he took up a dead man’s sword and defended himself so valiantly that Ulf Hjalmarsson has limped ever since. It was well done, as even his foes admitted; they are an eldritch race in the United States, but they do not lack manhood.
When he was slain, his body was brought back. For fear of the ghost, he having perhaps been a warlock, it was burned, and all he had owned was laid in the fire with him. That was where I lost the knife he had given me. The barrow stands out on the moor, north of here, and folk shun it though the ghost has not walked. Now, with so much else happening, he is slowly being forgotten.
And that is the tale, priest, as I saw it and heard it. Most men think Gerald Samsson [Roberts] was crazy, but I myself believe he did come from out of time, and that his doom was that no man may ripen a field before harvest season.  p. 23

This is a very good piece, both for its take on a man out of time and also for its impressive authenticity which latter, through the voice of Ospak Ulfsson, firmly puts you not only in the society of that period, but in the head of one of its inhabitants.
**** (Very Good). 10,300 words. Story link.

1. I think A Man Out of Time would have been a better title as it would have worked in three ways: (a) Roberts physically leaves his own time; (b) he is unable to integrate into that society; and (c) he ends up dying prematurely.

Brightside Crossing by Alan E. Nourse

Posted on by Paul Fraser 1 Comment on Brightside Crossing by Alan E. Nourse

Brightside Crossing by Alan E. Nourse (Galaxy, January 1956)1 opens in James Baron’s club, with him meeting an unknown man who asks if he is planning a Brightside Crossing. We learn in fairly short order that (a) Baron’s crossing will be across the sunward facing side of Mercury2 when it is at its closest point to the sun (perihelion) and (b) the stranger is Peter Claney, the only survivor of an earlier failed attempt. Claney insists that Baron has no chance of making a successful crossing, and proceeds to tell Baron about his team’s failed attempt.
In the central part of the story we learn how Claney was approached by a Major Tom Mikuta to join the expedition and how they were later joined by two other men, Jack Stone and Ted McIvers. The latter man, an adventurer described by Claney as a “kind of a daredevil”, arrives late at their start point—a lab in the twilight zone—presaging problems that will arise later in the story.
After they depart the base station, McIvers’ restlessness soon manifests itself and, after swapping roles with Stone and driving one of the flanking scout vehicles rather than the supply sledge at the back, he is soon asking to replace Claney as point, wanting to go five or ten miles ahead of the rest of the team to reconnoitre their route. Mikuta refuses, stating that they need to stay together, but McIver becomes ever more wayward and, during one of his side trips, he finds the wreckage and bodies of a previous expedition. Tensions increase as the story continues to unfold—the physical conditions are gruelling, Stone is becoming increasingly scared, and they are arguing about falling behind schedule. This all comes to a climax when Claney baulks at crossing a shelf he considers unsafe, and McIver charges ahead:

I started edging back down the ledge. I heard Mclvers swear; then I saw his Bug start to creep outward on the shelf. Not fast or reckless this time, but slowly, churning up dust in a gentle cloud behind him.
I just stared and felt the blood rushing in my head. It seemed so hot I could hardly breathe as he edged out beyond me, farther and farther—I think I felt it snap before I saw it. My own machine gave a sickening lurch and a long black crack appeared across the shelf—and widened. Then the ledge began to upend. I heard a scream as Mclvers’ Bug rose up and up and then crashed down into the crevasse in a thundering slide of rock and shattered metal.

They learn that McIvers isn’t dead but has smashed his vehicle and broken his leg. Mikuta and Stone descend into the crevasse to save him but (spoiler) are killed in a subsequent quake. Claney turns back.
The last part of the story, like the first, takes place in Baron’s club, and sees Baron (and probably most readers) observe that McIvers was the wrong kind of person to have in the team. Claney rebuts that, suggesting that McIvers was right to do what he did as they needed to keep to their schedule or they all would have died. Finally, after Claney makes an impassioned last attempt to talk Baron out of continuing his expedition, he asks him, “When do you leave, Baron? I want you to take me along.”
Although this story superficially looks like hard SF, it is really a character study about the type of men who are explorers, and how they are driven to do what they do.
This is a pretty good piece which is further improved by its closing line.
**** (Very Good). 7,850 words. Story link.

1. This story was a finalist for the 1956 Hugo Award for Best Novelette.

2. At the time the story was published it was thought that Mercury was tidally locked and that only one side of the planet faced the sun (i.e. Mercury rotated once for every orbit around the sun). Subsequently, Mercury was discovered to rotate three times for every two orbits, so all parts of the planet receive sunlight at some point.

Lot by Ward Moore

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Lot by Ward Moore (F&SF, May 1953)1 opens with Mr Jimmon telling the rest of his family that it is time to get in the car and leave their house. For the first few paragraphs it appears as if the family is about to go on vacation—but we soon discover there is a unspecified crisis, that the water and electricity have stopped flowing, and the family station wagon is fully loaded. Then, as they set off:

He opened the door on the driver’s side, got in, turned the key, and started the motor. Then he said casually over his shoulder, “Put the dog out, Jir.”
Wendell protested, too quickly, “Waggie’s not here.”
Molly exclaimed, “Oh, David…”
Mr. Jimmon said patiently, “We’re losing pretty valuable time. There’s no room for the dog; we have no food for him. If we had room we could have taken more essentials; those few pounds might mean the difference.”
“Can’t find him,” muttered Jir.
“He’s not here. I tell you he’s not here,” shouted Wendell, tearful voiced.
“If I have to stop the motor and get him myself we’ll be wasting still more time and gas.” Mr. Jimmon was still detached, judicial. “This isn’t a matter of kindness to animals. It’s life and death.”
Erika said evenly, “Dad’s right, you know. It’s the dog or us. Put him out, Wend.”
“I tell you—” Wendell began.
“Got him!” exclaimed Jir. “Okay, Waggie! Outside and good luck.”
The spaniel wriggled ecstatically as he was picked up and put out through the open window. Mr. Jimmon raced the motor, but it didn’t drown out Wendell’s anguish. He threw himself on his brother, hitting and kicking. Mr. Jimmon took his foot off the gas, and as soon as he was sure the dog was away from the wheels, eased the station wagon out of the driveway and down the hill toward the ocean.  p. 102-103

Most of the remainder of the story consists of a long road trip where Jimmon’s internal thoughts take centre stage. These cover: (a) the crisis (there has been a nuclear war where several cities have destroyed and he is taking his family to sanctuary in a remote location); (b) the grudge he has against his wife and the life that was forced on him; (c) whether or not his family are capable of surviving in this new world order (he concludes that his wife and two sons—“parasites”—are too attached to civilization, but thinks that his daughter Erika will manage); and (d) his concern about their slow progress through the traffic they encounter. Throughout this Jimmon reveals himself to be a disagreeable mix of prepper and misanthrope.
As the journey lengthens, discontent erupts—partially for the usual reasons (they have been cooped up together for hours), and partially because of others, such as requests to stop for the toilet (which Jimmon repeatedly ignores):

By the time they were halfway to Gaviota or Goleta— Mr. Jimmon could never tell them apart—foresight and relentless sternness began to pay off. Those who had left Los Angeles without preparation and in panic were dropping out or slowing down, to get gas or oil, repair tires, buy food, seek rest rooms. The station wagon was steadily forging ahead.
He gambled on the old highway out of Santa Barbara. Any kind of obstruction would block its two lanes; if it didn’t he would be beating the legions on the wider, straighter road. There were stretches now where he could hit 50; once he sped a happy half-mile at 65.
Now the insubordination crackling all around gave indication of simultaneous explosion. “I really,” began Molly, and then discarded this for a fresher, firmer start. “David, I don’t understand how you can be so utterly selfish and inconsiderate.”
Mr. Jimmon could feel the veins in his forehead begin to swell, but this was one of those rages that didn’t show.
“But, dad, would ten minutes ruin everything?” asked Erika.
“Monomania,” muttered Jir. “Single track. Like Hitler.”
“I want my dog,” yelped Wendell. “Dirty old dog-killer.”
“Did you ever hear of cumulative—” Erika had addressed him reasonably; surely he could make her understand?
“Did you ever hear of cumulative…?” What was the word? Snowball rolling downhill was the image in his mind. “Oh, what’s the use??”  p. 110-111

The story comes to a conclusion when Jimmon finally pulls into a deserted filling station so they can refuel. Here Jimmon is overcharged by the attendant, but he cares as little for the money he hands over as he did about a traffic ticket he got earlier from a policeman for driving on the wrong side of the road. When the family come back out from the station’s toilets (spoiler), Jimmon gives his wife a wad of cash and tells her to phone the couple they know, and also gets the boys to go after their mother to get some candy bars. Then he tells Erika to get in the car and drives off without them.
I was lukewarm about this story when I first read it years ago but thought it much better this time around. The dark internal monologue of the story (a darkness which is mirrored by external events) is quite notable for the period, as are the brief mentions or allusions to childhood sex play, adultery, and abortion (there is also a faint glimmer of incest here, and I wonder if this is developed in the sequel, Lot’s Daughter2).
Finally, I was genuinely surprised by the shock ending—which I think makes the story (it seems as if something unpleasant is about to happen to the attendant but, after what happened to the dog, and given Jimmon’s opinion of his family members, I should have realised what was coming).
**** (Very Good). 9,900 words. Story link.

1. This story was published six months after another notable Ward Moore piece, the alternate world novella/novel Bring the Jubilee (F&SF, November 1952).

2. I haven’t read Lot’s Daughter (F&SF, October 1954) yet, but my suspicions about where the story may be going seem to be borne out by the biblical story of Lot.

The Store of the Worlds by Robert Sheckley

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Store of the Worlds by Robert Sheckley (Playboy, September 1959)1 opens with Mr Wayne passing a pile of rubble and coming to a tumbledown building at the end, The Store of the Worlds. Inside, Wayne meets the proprietor, Mr Tompkins, who can supposedly transport people (by means of the rusty hypodermic needle on the table, and “certain gadgets” in the back of the store) to the world of their deepest desires. Tomkins gives a “Many Worlds” explanation to Wayne:

“What happens then?” Mr. Wayne asked.
“Your mind, liberated from its body, is able to choose from the countless probability worlds which the earth casts off in every second of its existence.”
Grinning now, Tompkins sat up in his rocking chair and began to show signs of enthusiasm.
“Yes, my friend, though you might not have suspected it, from the moment this battered earth was born out of the sun’s fiery womb, it cast off its alternate-probability worlds. Worlds without end, emanating from events large and small; every Alexander and every amoeba creating worlds, just as ripples will spread in a pond no matter how big or how small the stone you throw. Doesn’t every object cast a shadow? Well, my friend, the earth itself is four-dimensional; therefore it casts three-dimensional shadows, solid reflections of itself, through every moment of its being. Millions, billions of earths! An infinity of earths! And your mind, liberated by me, will be able to select any of these worlds and live upon it for a while.”

The rest of this lengthy but absorbing setup goes on to cover the cost of the service, which is very high, and the health implications (a year in the world of desire costs ten years of the traveller’s life as there is a strain on the nervous system). Then, when Wayne asks if the transition can be made permanent, Tompkins says he is researching that possibility using the money he gets from selling the service.
Wayne eventually tells Tompkins that he needs to give it some thought, and the story cuts to his journey home to Long Island. There we see that Wayne has a wife called Janet, a son called Tommy, and a comfortable middle-class existence. Over the following days, and against the background of his work on Wall Street and a sailing trip with his son Tommy, Wayne thinks about Mr Tompkins, The Store of the Worlds, and the sort of world he might desire.
The final scene of the story cuts back to the store, where Wayne is waking up. Tompkins asks him if he is okay and whether or not he wants a refund. Wayne replies that the experience was quite satisfactory but, when Tompkins probes further, Wayne will only say that his world of desire was in the recent past.
The story closes with Wayne paying Tompkins for the trip with “a pair of army boots, a knife, two coils of copper wire, and three small cans of corned beef” before he leaves the store:

[Wayne] hurried down to the end of the lane of gray rubble. Beyond it, as far as he could see, lay flat fields of rubble, brown and gray and black. Those fields, stretching to every horizon, were made of the twisted corpses of buildings, the shattered remnants of trees and the fine white ash that once was human flesh and bone.

We realise that Wayne’s comfortable, unexceptional middle-class life with his wife and son was the world he desired, and that he is actually the survivor of a nuclear war. The few remaining paragraphs of the story hint at what this entails, and ends with Wayne resolving to get back to his shelter before the rats come out and he misses his potato ration.
The story’s ending is a gut punch, even if you guess what is coming before you get to the reveal (I figured out where it was going just before Wayne handed over the payment2).
A very good—and well-constructed—story,3 and one that makes you reflect that there are much worse options than living in modern day Western society, for all its failings.
**** (Very Good). 2,400 words. Story link.

1. This story was first published under the title The World of Heart’s Desire.

2. There are several clues before the reveal: the rubble strewn street, the dilapidated building, the rusty hypodermic, and the year Wayne spends thinking about whether or not to take the trip (the experience is described as a year long in the setup).

3. I’d definitely put this in a Best of Robert Sheckley collection, along with Specialist and Pilgrimage to Earth.

Bloody Man by Avram Davidson

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Bloody Man by Avram Davidson (Fantastic, August 1976) begins with Jack Limekiller, a Canadian ex-pat living in British Hidalgo (British Honduras), asking Archbishop Le Beau, who is scaling fish, for work:

“They tell me . . . ” Limekiller hesitated, briefly. Was it My Lord? Your Lordship? Or was it . . . it was, wasn’t it . . . Your Grace?
Some saints levitate. Some are telepathic. It was widely said and widely believed that William Constance Christian Le Beau was a saint.
“Just ‘Archbishop’ will do, Mr. Limekiller,” the old man said, without looking up. Scrip . . . scrop . . . scrip. . . Jack found himself looking covertly around. Perhaps for loaves.
“Ah . . . thank you, sir . . . Archbishop. . . . they tell me that I might be able to pick up a charter for my boat. Moving building supplies, I understand. Down to Curasow Cove? For a bungalow you want built?”
Flop went the fish into the basket.  p. 6

After receiving the Archbishop’s agreement and a letter of introduction, Limekiller sets about obtaining the materials he requires. He soon finds out, however, that there aren’t any supplies in sleepy Point Pleasaunce, so his travels take around the town and beyond, which provides the reader with a number of delightful picture-postcard descriptions of the places he visits and the people he meets:

Well, there was the Royal Telegraphy. Her Majesty’s Government did not exactly go to much effort to advertise the fact that there was, but Limekiller had somehow found the fact out. The service was located in two bare rooms upstairs off an alley near the old Rice Mill Wharf, where an elderly gentleman wrote down incoming messages in a truly beautiful Spencerian hand. . . . or maybe it was Copperplate. . . . or Chancery. . . . or Volapiik. What the Hell. It was beautiful. It was, in fact, so beautiful that it seemed cavalier to complain that the elderly gentleman was exceedingly deaf, and that, perhaps in consequence, his messages did not always make the most perfect sense.
Gambling that the same conditions did not obtain at the Royal Telegraphy Office in Port Caroline, Limekiller sent off several wires, advising the Carolinian entrepreneurs what he wanted to buy, and that he was coming in person to buy it.
“How soon will these go off?” he asked the aged telegrapher.
“Yes, that is what I heard myself, sir. They say the estate is settle, sir. After ahl these years.” And he shook his head and he smiled a gentle smile of wonder.  p. 11

Stepping out into the pre-dawn was like stepping into a clean, cool pool. Already, at that hour, people were about . . . grave, silent, polite. . . . the baker setting the fires, the fisherman already returning with their small catch. The sun climbed, very tentatively, to the edge of the horizon. For a moment, it hesitated. Then, all at once, two things happened. The national radio system, which had gone off the air at ten the night before, suddenly awoke into Sound. Radios were either dead silent or at full-shout. In one instant, every radio in Port Caroline, and in the greater Port Caroline Area, roared into life. And at the same moment, the sun, suddenly aware that there was nothing to oppose it, shot up from the sea and smote the land with a blast of heat.  p. 17

Most of the first part of the story is travelogue like the above, but Limekiller eventually begins to hear mentions and rumours of a ghostly mystery, the “Bloody Man” of the tale:

“An’ one day, me see some-teeng, mon, me see some-teeng hawreed. Me di see eet, mon. Me di see di bloody mon—”
“Hush up you mout’,” said Piggott. But the other, a much older fellow, did not hear, perhaps, or did not care, perhaps. “Me di see di blooddee mon. Me di see he, ah White-MON, ahl cot een pieces ahn ahl blood-dee. Wahn, two, t’ree, de pieces ahv heem dey ahl come togeddah. De mon stahn op befah me, mon. He stahn ahp befah me. Ahl bot wahn piece, mon. He no hahv wahn piece een he side, mon. He side gape, mon, gape open. Eet bleed, mon. Eet BLEED!”
And now other faces than the proprietor’s were turned to the narrator.
“Hush up you mout’, mon!” other voices said, gruff.
Brown man, glass of brown rum in his brown hand. Sweat on his face. Voice rising. “Ahn so me di know, mon. Me di know who eet ees, mon. Eet ees de blood-dee Cop-tain. Eet ees Cop-tain Blood!”  p. 15

This supernatural thread slowly develops through Limekiller’s subsequent trip down to Curasow Cove with his shipment—he witnesses a fishing grounds dispute between the locals and Arawak tribesmen from the south, displaced because of sightings of the apparition—and then Limekiller himself sees the Bloody Man when his boat enters a supernatural mist. Then (spoiler) after talking to Harlow, one of the locals who provides information about who the apparition might be (there is talk of Blackbeard and the Flying Dutchman, etc.), Limekiller asks the Archbishop for help in laying the ghost to rest.
In the climactic scene, and after fighting off the Fallen (who summon waterspouts and sharks), the Archbishop administers the sacrament to the Bloody Man and he disappears.
There is an interesting historical postscript where the ghost is revealed as Captain Cook (who met his death in Hawaii, thousand of miles away), and whose ghost has supposedly returned to the area because of a light-hearted oath made by Cook before his death.
I really enjoyed the wonderful description and colourful detail of this story (it is probably my favourite of the ‘Limekiller’ series1) but I suspect the average genre reader’s enjoyment will depend on whether they take to the sprawling travelogue that occurs before the fantasy elements come to the fore.
**** (Very Good). 19,250 words. Story link. Book purchase link UK/USA.

1. The ‘Jack Limekiller’ series of stories (which were later collected into a book) at ISFDB.

Piper at the Gates of Dawn by Richard Cowper

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Piper at the Gates of Dawn by Richard Cowper (F&SF, March 1976) opens1 with Peter, an old and itinerant tale-spinner, and Tom, the piper of the story, on the road to York as the third millennium approaches in a drowned, climate-changed, and post-collapse Britain.2 The pair pause by a stream to catch some dinner, which Tom apparently does by charming the fish out of the water with his pipe; while Tom plays Peter has a vision of a dragonfly, and then hears splashing when Tom successfully catches a huge salmon.
We see a further demonstration of Tom’s powers when the pair later approach a homestead which Peter lodged at years earlier:

They had passed almost through the herd before the farm dogs got wind of them. They came hurtling out from behind the stables, three lean, vicious-looking fell hounds, snarling and yelping in their eagerness to savage the intruders.
The boy stood his ground, calmly waited till the leader was but a short stone’s throw distant, then set the pipe to his lips and blew a series of darting notes of so high a pitch that the old man’s ears barely caught them. But the dogs did. They stopped almost dead in their tracks, for all the world as if they had run full tilt into a solid wall of glass. Next moment, the three of them were lying stretched out full length on the wet grass, whining, with their muzzles clasped in their forepaws and their eyes closed.  pp. 7-8

Shortly after this—once Peter tells the woman of the farm he stayed here before, and she realises he knows her husband—they are invited in. Then, when the young daughter of the house asks Tom to play, we learn that he was a pupil of Morfedd, The Wizard of Bowness, and that his pipe has been made for and also “tuned” to him. We also learn that Tom is now on his way to join the Minster Choir in York.
When the father and son return they all eat and, over dinner, we learn more about this primitive society, the “Drowning” that created it, and millennial rumours of peace and brotherhood that will soon be brought by “The White Bird of Kinship”. Then, after Peter tells a story of the times before the Drowning, Tom plays his pipe. After several tunes he plays a lament that he composed after Morfedd died:

To their dying day none of those present ever forgot the next ten minutes, and yet no two of them ever recalled it alike. But all were agreed on one thing. The boy had somehow contrived to take each of them, as it were, by the hand and lead them back to some private moment of great sadness in their own lives, so that they felt again, deep in their own hearts, all the anguish of an intense but long-forgotten grief. For most the memory was of the death of someone dearly loved, but for young Katie it was different and was somehow linked with some exquisite quality she sensed within the boy himself—something which carried with it an almost unbearable sense of terrible loss. Slowly it grew within her, swelling and swelling till in the end, unable to contain it any longer, she burst into wild sobs and buried her face in her father’s lap.  p. 18

The next day the pair leave and continue their journey, performing at various locations. Then, when the amount of money they start earning because of Tom’s playing wildly exceeds anything Peter has seen before, he tries to convince Tom to join him on the road. Tom says he must go to York because he promised Morfedd he would, and this was something his mentor had planned before Tom’s birth. Eventually, Tom’s playing (in particular a song about a “forthcoming”) begins to be linked with the millennial appearance of The White Bird of Kinship. This beings him to the attention of one of the church’s “crows”, and results in the appearance of a cross-bow bearing Church militiaman, or “Falcon”. Tom negates this threat by playing for him:

Whiteness exploded in the man’s mind. For an appalling instant he felt the very fabric of the world rending apart. Before his eyes the sun was spinning like a crazy golden top; glittering shafts of light leapt up like sparkling spears from hedgerow and hilltop; and all about his head the air was suddenly awash with the slow, majestic beating of huge, invisible wings. He felt an almost inexpressible urge to send a wild hosanna of joy fountaining upwards in welcome, while, at the same time, his heart was melting within him. He had become a tiny infant rocked in a warm cradle of wonder and borne aloft by those vast unseen pinions, up and up to join the blossoming radiance of the sun. And then, as suddenly as it had come, it was over; he was back within himself again, conscious only of a sense of desperate loss—of an enormous insatiable yearning.  p. 29

The Falcon—who is called Gyre—departs peacefully, apparently having forgotten that he heard Tom piping. Peter asks Tom what he did, and Tom says he told the man about the White Bird, something that, one day, he intends to do for everyone.
Eventually the pair arrive at York and the story’s final scenes drive the narrative to its climax: Peter bribes the Clerk to the Chapter to delay Tom’s entry to the Minster Choir so he can accrue a retirement nest-egg; the Chief Falconer of the Church Militant takes an interest in the increasing numbers of people arriving in York for the millennium, and the heretical rumours of the impending appearance of The White Bird of Kinship (one of his Marshalls tells him that the event is also referred to as ‘the forthcoming’ and it will offer humanity a another chance); Tom also meets Gyre again, and the Falcon warns him to leave York as he has had a premonitory dream about the boy three nights running.
The climactic scene sees Peter paying off the Clerk and then climbing the wall to see the bonfires outside, whereupon he hears Tom playing a lament for the White Bird of Kinship. Then, as Peter shares a transcendent experience with the crowd (“he too began to hear what Gyre had once heard—the great surging downrush of huge wings whose enormous beat was the very pulse of his own heart, the pulse of life itself”), Gyre shoots Tom with a crossbow bolt and kills him.
There is an extended postscript that reveals Gyre has no memory of his actions, and then, after the church tries to co-opt Tom’s death by burying him in the Minster, mourners at his funeral are seen to drop white feathers onto the coffin rather than earth. Meanwhile, one of the Marshalls tells the Chief Falconer that the end of the Kinship fable states that when the blood of the white bird splashes the breast of the black one, then the black bird becomes white itself. . . .
Finally, three days after the funeral, Peter rides out of the city with Gyre as his bonded man. Peter sets Gyre free and, to Peter’s surprise, Gyre takes out Tom’s pipe and starts playing it. Peter then has a number of epiphanies, including the thought that Tom may have arranged his own death. The last paragraphs suggest that Peter and Gyre will become the first preachers of this new religion:

A huge calmness descended upon him. He stretched out his arm and gripped Gyre gently by the shoulder. Then he walked down to the water’s edge and dipped both his hands into the sea. Returning, he tilted back Gyre’s head and with a wet finger drew across his forehead the sign that Tom had once drawn on a misty window of an inn—a child’s representation of a flying bird.
“Come, friend,” he said. “You and I together have a tale to tell. Let us be on our way.”  p. 51

I liked this story a lot—Cowper writes wonderful prose and tells a very readable and well characterised story, albeit a complex and symbolic one (I fear the synopsis and comments above barely plumb the depths of the piece). The story’s seemingly mythical or religious ending,3 and the apparent lack of an rational explanation, rather put me off this the first time around but it wasn’t a problem this time. I’d also add, for those who are not of a religious persuasion and are not interested in a replay of the Christ myth, or spotting the parallels, there are subtle hints that far-future technology or paranormal powers may have been deployed by Tom and his mentor Morfedd (the precognition of Morfedd, the tuning of Tom’s pipe, etc.). I can’t remember whether or not this climactic event is further explained in the trilogy4 that follows this story.
**** (Very Good). 21,100 words. Story link.

1. The story actually opens with a brief introduction from an Oxford academic in 3798 who, somewhat unconvincingly, sounds exactly like someone from our current day world.

2. I’m loathe to note the story’s mention of climate change and melting ice caps because most of the predictions SF writers make are usually wrong—but this is quite striking for a 1976 story:

The Drowning was the direct result of humanity’s corporate failure to see beyond the end of its own nose. By 1985 it was already quite obvious that the global climate had been modified to the point where the polar ice caps were affected.  p. 38

3. The writing and tone of this, along with the ambiguous ending, reminded me of Keith Roberts’ The Signaller (Impulse #1, March 1966).

4. This story, which was a Hugo and Nebula finalist, and second in the Locus Poll novella category, was followed by the “The White Bird of Kinship” trilogy: The Road to Corlay (1978), A Dream of Kinship (1981) and A Tapestry of Time (1982). The US edition of A Road to Corlay conveniently includes this story as a prologue.

Proof by Induction by José Pablo Iriarte

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Proof by Induction by José Pablo Iriarte (Uncanny #40, May-June 2021)1 opens with Paulie arriving at the hospital to discover his father has died. Standing next to his father’s wife is the chaplain, who offers Paulie the chance to enter his father’s “Coda”, a computer simulacrum of his father’s consciousness made just before his death:

Gone was the endotracheal tube. The room was eerily silent, with none of the sounds he’d associated with the hospital from his visits over the past week.
He met his father’s eyes. “Hey.”
His father smiled ruefully. “Hey.”
“Are you—”
“Dead?” His father gestured toward the inactive monitors.
“Apparently so.”
“Does it hurt?” Are you afraid, he wanted to ask, but he knew better than to talk to his father about emotions.
“Nothing hurts,” he said, picking at a scab on his leg. “I guess they have a way of turning that off.”
“Did the doctors mess up? Should I ask for an autopsy?”
His father shook his head. “Nah. I’m seventy-one, diabetic, and with a bad heart. You’re not going to win any lawsuits here.”
It occurred to Paulie that Codas could be programmed to give whatever answer benefitted the hospital.
Paulie stared out the window, over the parking lot, to the eerily empty expressway. “I really believed we were close on that Perelman proof.”
“Maybe nobody’s meant to find it.”
Easy for him to say. He’d already been beyond questions of tenure and publication; now all of that was even more meaningless for him.
For Paulie, though, Perelman would have been the home run his tenure dossier needed. He turned back toward the bed. “Okay. Well.” He put a hand on the chair he’d sat in last night while his father complained about his breathing. He should say something. Something like I love you¸ he supposed. But his father had never gone in for the mushy stuff in life, so why start now?
“Goodbye, then,” he finished instead.
“Bye, Paulie,” said his father. “Thank you for visiting.”

Paulie subsequently arranges to take a copy of the Coda home with him, and the rest of the story mostly consists of scenes where Paulie visits his father’s Coda to work on the theorem (although we also see something of Paulie’s own family life and relationship with his daughter, and the peer pressure he experiences at his university job).
The two men’s attempts to solve the theory become increasingly complicated by the fact that Paulie’s father has no memory of what has happened during previous visits, which means that Paulie has to explain everything they have done each time he enters the Coda. We also see further evidence of the emotional distance between the men, and Paulie’s attempts to make some sort of connection with his father, such as the occasion he mentions his daughter’s forthcoming dance recital:

“It just. . .it reminds me of my piano recitals.”
His father leaned on his bed railing. “Is that what this is really about, Paulie? Are you here to tell me I was a shitty father? I know. I already acknowledged that, after the divorce.”
Paulie dropped into the chair by the bed. “No,” he said at last. “Sorry. I keep thinking of what other people use the Coda technology for, and I keep waiting to hear you talk about something besides math or life insurance. I keep hoping you’ll have something profound to say.”
“I’m not the mushy type.”
“You could fake it.”
“You’re the smartest person I ever met. You would see through any faking.”
Paulie blinked. A compliment.
“I wouldn’t have blamed you if you didn’t want anything to do with me,” his father went on, “after not being there for you as a kid. But then you made me a part of your life and we got along okay. You treated me like a colleague, so I tried to treat you the same. Now you’re mad at me for not acting more like a father? I didn’t think you wanted that from me.”
Paulie waited to see if he would say anything else. That was about as close to “mushy” as he’d come since the night twenty years ago when he’d apologized for abandoning him.
After a quiet eternity, he got up from the chair. “Okay, well, I think I have enough to work on for now. I’ll come back when I have some progress.”
“Bye, Paulie. Thank you for visiting.”

Eventually (spoiler) they go on to solve the theorem, and Paulie comes to accept that his father is never going to say the things that he wants him to say.
Normally I’m not remotely interested in “Daddy” or other problematical relationship stories, but this one works quite well—probably because Iriarte handles this in a fairly muted way and not as the usual whiny adolescent psychodrama. I’d also note that the description of the mathematical processes undertaken to solve the theorem are an equal focus of the story, and are quite gripping—a significant feat considering that I had no idea about what was being discussed.
This story has an odd combination of ideas and themes, but I liked it a lot.
**** (Very good). 6,250 words. Story link.

1. This story is a Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Award finalist.

The Keys to December by Roger Zelazny

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Keys to December by Roger Zelazny (New Worlds #165, August 1966)1 begins with the birth of Jarry Dark, a modified human who needs a specialised environment (in his case, a temperature of -50°C and gravity of 3.2 gees). When the planet for which he has been designed is destroyed by a supernova, his sponsoring company, General Mining, provide hermetically sealed environments for him and all the other genemods like him.
The rest of the first few pages sees Jarry and the other 28,000 of his kind form the December Club: they pool their money, Jarry makes even more for them on the markets, and they finally buy their own world and start terraforming it.
The next part of the story sees the 28,000 arrive on the planet and enter cold sleep, although small groups are rostered to stay awake for short periods to supervise the twenty World Change machines and their three thousand year task.
During Jarry and his wife Sanza’s first shift, they see the effect the changes are having on the planet’s wildlife:

One morning, as they watched, they saw one of the biped creatures of the iodine forests moving across the land. It fell several times, picked itself up, continued, fell once more, lay still.
“What is it doing this far from its home?” asked Sanza.
“Dying,” said Jarry. “Let’s go outside.”
They crossed a catwalk, descended to the first floor, donned their protective suits and departed the installation.
The creature had risen to its feet and was staggering once again. It was covered with a reddish down, had dark eyes and a long, wide nose, lacked a true forehead. It had four brief digits, clawed, upon each hand and foot.
When it saw them emerge from the Worldchange unit, it stopped and stared at them. Then it fell.
They moved to its side and studied it where it lay.
It continued to stare at them, its dark eyes wide, as it lay there shivering.
“It will die if we leave it here,” said Sanza.
“. . . And it will die if we take it inside,” said Jarry.
It raised a forelimb toward them, let it fall again. Its eyes narrowed, then closed.
Jarry reached out and touched it with the toe of his boot. There was no response.
“It’s dead,” he said.

Later, Sanza expresses doubts about what they are doing to the planet:

“It’s funny,” she said, “but the thought just occurred to me that we’re doing here what was done to us. They made us for Alyonal, and a nova took it away. These creatures came to life in this place, and we’re taking it away. We’re turning all of life on this planet into what we were on our former worlds—misfits.”
“The difference, however, is that we are taking our time,” said Jarry, “and giving them a chance to get used to the new conditions.”
“Still, I feel that all that—outside there”—she gestured toward the window—“is what this world is becoming: one big Deadland.”
“Deadland was here before we came. We haven’t created any new deserts.”
“All the animals are moving south. The trees are dying. When they get as far south as they can go and still the temperature drops and the air continues to burn in their lungs—then it will be all over for them.”
“By then they might have adapted. The trees are spreading, are developing thicker barks. Life will make it.”
“I wonder. . . .”

This conflict limns the rest of the story. After they do a solo shift each, they spend the next one together, and see that the planet’s life has started to adapt. They find strange signs outside their stations. Also, around the same time, one of the other watchers develops an alcohol equivalent which they use to celebrate the millennium.
On later shifts the atmosphere has changed enough for the pair to spend short periods outside, and they see further markings outside the stations, and dead animals that appear to have been left as offerings. This latter, which occurs around twelve hundred years in, leads Jarry and Sanza to suspect that the animals they know as Redforms are becoming intelligent.
When they subsequently visit the tribe of the creatures to investigate they see several of the creatures being attacked by a large bear-like creature. Jarry kills it with a laser, and then dismounts the sled to examine the Redforms, only to be attacked by a second bear he hasn’t noticed. After he recovers from the bear’s initial blow he stabs it in the throat with a knife. At the same time Sanza drives the sled into it and kills herself in the crash. As Jarry starts walking back to the station with her body one of the Redforms retrieves his knife from the body of the bear.
On his return he wakens the executive, and asks him what he should do with Sanza’s body, as none of them have yet died on this world. They suggest burial or cremation and, when Jarry chooses the latter, they let him borrow the large aircar: he takes her to a mountain top, gets airborne again, and uses the laser to level it—the “first pyre this world has seen.” Jarry then goes back into cold-sleep.
The next time Jarry wakes (spoiler) he reads a report stating that the Redforms will die out at the current rate of terraforming. Then, when he goes to visit the Redforms, he sees they now have fire and spears, and opposable digits on their hands (the rate of evolution is the story’s one weak point). After Jarry subsequently manages to learn how to speak to the Redforms, he wakens the executive committee once more, and asks for the project to be slowed down to give them a chance. When he fails to convince them, Jarry proposes waking the membership for a vote, but no-one seconds him. Later though, after he destroys two stations, they agree. To make sure he isn’t double crossed, Jarry tells them that he has trained the Redforms to use laser projectors to destroy the remaining stations if he does not visit by dawn. One of the committee members, after realising they are beaten, asks him a question:

“Why did you do it, Jarry?” he asked. “What are they to you that you would make your own people suffer for them?”
“Since you do not feel as I feel,” said Jarry, “my reasons would mean nothing to you. After all, they are only based upon my feelings, which are different than your own—for mine are based upon sorrow and loneliness. Try this one, though: I am their god. My form is to be found in their every camp. I am the Slayer of Bears from the Desert of the Dead. They have told my story for two and a half centuries, and I have been changed by it. I am powerful and wise and good, so far as they are concerned. In this capacity, I owe them some consideration. If I do not give them their lives, who will there be to honor me in snow and chant my story around the fires and cut for me the best portions of the woolly caterpillar? None, Turl. And these things are all that my life is worth now. Awaken the others. You have no choice.”
“Very well,” said Turl. “And if their decision should go against you?”
“Then I’ll retire, and you can be god,” said Jarry.

Jarry does not go back into cold sleep afterwards, and spends his remaining time with the tribe. The story is not explicit about whether or not he gets his way, although my suspicion is that he does.
This is a very good and emotionally affecting story, and it is probably one of favourite Zelazny pieces. I’d also note that it is a work that combines his stylistic prowess with a heavyweight theme—I often find his stories are often heavy on style and poetry and larger than life characters, but are sometimes light on content. In this case, I suspect the terraforming/extinction theme was influenced by the ecology movements of the time.
**** (Very Good). 8,900 words. Story link.

1. Because this was published in a British magazine it did not appear on that year’s Hugo or Nebula ballot, but did appear on the latter when it was subsequently reprinted in the Wolheim/Carr Best of the Year. The story should probably have one or the other awards, although Harlan Ellison’s Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes would have been strong competition.

The Curse of the Mhondoro Nkabele by Eric Norden

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Curse of the Mhondoro Nkabele by Eric Norden (Starsongs and Unicorns, 1978; F&SF, September 1980) is a very amusing, but now probably politically incorrect, story that begins with a writer called O. T. Nkabele, originally from Senegal, submitting his story Astrid of the Asteroids to F&SF. It is rejected, which brings forth a follow-up letter from the writer:

Esteemed Editor Ferman:
I’m afraid, as is sometimes unavoidable in all great publishing enterprises, that there has been a clerical error on the part of your staff. I have just received a letter, bearing what can only be a facsimile of your signature, returning my manuscript ASTRID OF THE ASTEROIDS, which I know you will be most anxious to publish. At first I was sorely troubled by this misunderstanding, but I soon realized that one of your overzealous underlings, as yet unfamiliar with my name, took it upon himself to reject my work unread. Thus I am resubmitting ASTRID, as well as two more of my latest stories, with instructions that they are for your eyes only. Do not be too harsh on the unwitting culprit, dear Editor Ferman, as such debacles are not unknown in literary history. The initial reception of James Joyce’s Ulysses is but one case in point. . . .
I should appreciate your check to be made out to cash, as I have not as yet opened a banking account in this city.
Hoping to hear from you forthwith, I remain,
Your obedient servant,
O.T. Nkabele, Esq  pp. 84-84

Editor Ferman writes to Nkabele to tell him none of his stories meet the magazine’s requirements, and that manuscripts need to be typed, not hand-written. When the stories are resubmitted (Nkabele has subsequently engaged Ms Rachel Markowitz as a typist), Ferman again rejects the stories, saying that they are entirely unsuitable, pointing out that no-one says “Zut alors!” or “Zounds!” anymore, the Mary Tyler Moore show is unlikely to be broadcast on 31st Century Venus, and Nkabele’s aliens appear to be oversize lobsters who would be uninterested in ravishing Ursula (the love interest of one of the stories). He adds that Nkabele needs to study recent work in the field, such as the Dangerous Visions anthologies, and the annual collections of Nebula Award stories.
Nkabele writes another long letter to Ferman, and we learn about his upbringing in Africa and how he was given access to a missionary’s collection of SF (Father Devlin arrived in 1953 with his 1936 to 1952 collection, but never obtained anything newer than that, hence Nkabele’s dated output). After Nkabele praises various pulp writers—E. E. “Doc” Smith, Nelson Bond, and “the revered” Stanley G. Weinbaum,1 etc.—he resubmits his stories. Nkabele also adds a PS in which he notes the only prominent black writer in the field is Samuel R. Delany, and hopes that Ferman’s obtuseness is not “motivated by racialism”.
The back and forth continues even after another form letter, and then Ferman is ambushed by Nkabele while he is at the hairdresser in Connecticut (Nkabele has travelled from New York). Ferman, after he gets over his surprise, eventually thaws and suggests Nkabele write an essay on how he discovered SF, and also gives him some volumes of current SF writing. Then he finds what looks like a voodoo doll under his pillow, and starts developing headaches. . . .
You can probably guess what happens next and, sure enough, circumstances worsen for Ferman when (spoiler) his dog is eaten (his neighbour sees something that looks like a leopard), and he starts to hear drumming in the night. Then Ferman inadvertently discloses Harlan Ellison’s home address to Nkabele, which draws Ellison into his orbit too (a few rejection letters later Ellison goes bald, and is subsequently eaten by a python—which goes on to attack an old woman as it is “still hungry”—a very funny line).
Finally, Nkabele writes to Ferman dismissing the latter’s superstitious worries in one breath, while explaining how they work and can be ameliorated in another: Ferman takes the hint and finally accepts his stories.
Also included in the same letter is Nkabele’s hilarious response to the modern SF given to him by Ferman (this is an exaggerated version of the Traditionalist/New Wave feuds and other reactionary comment of the time):

I also want to thank you for the novels and collections of short stories. I have not as yet read them all, but I must confess I am shocked and depressed at the profound deterioration in our field since my apprenticeship in Africa. It is obvious that I was blessed with exposure to the Golden Age of science fiction, and that the downward spiral towards decadence and decay has accelerated horrendously since the midfifties. Writers like Theodore Sturgeon, whom I remember from an earlier, healthier stage in his career, particularly disturb me, as they must know the birthright they are betraying. (If I may be permitted a note of levity, the eggs Sturgeon lays are far from caviar!) Certainly, his current stories would never have been accepted by Thrilling Wonder Stories in the glorious days gone by. And this Barry Malzberg you suggested I read—my word, dear Edward, surely he is afflicted of the Gods! The man is a veritable pustulence on the face of the universe, a yellow dog barking in the night. We have another saying in my tribe, “The jackal dreams lions’ dreams.” How true! How tragically true. And how a creature such as Malzberg would cringe and whimper if ever confronted with the shade of Stanley G. Weinbaum, the Great Master himself. And these women, Ursula LeGuin and Joanna Russ, they should be beaten with stout sticks! I would not give one hamstrung goat for the pair of them. (It is apposite here to reflect on the words of the good Dr. Johnson, who pointed out that “A woman’s preaching is like a dog walking on his hind legs; it is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all.”) Of all the stories I have read recently, only Kilgore Trout’s Venus on the Half Shell is worthy to bear the mantle of the giants of yesteryear.
Truly, my good friend, the field we love is facing terrible times, and it is indeed providential that I have arrived on the scene to arrest the rot. Perhaps, in fact, there was a Larger Purpose of Father Devlin’s introducing me to science fiction. We shall see.  pp. 94-95

The last part of the story also sees letters from a rational Isaac Asimov to a increasingly superstitious Ferman (one of Asimov’s letters contains a quip that at a recent autograph party he told some “nubile young ladies” that his hobby was “converting lesbians”). Meanwhile, F&SF publishes several of Nkabele’s stories, Ferman becomes an alcoholic, and the circulation of the magazine plummets—it eventually ends up as a mimeographed publication.
This story has some very funny passages and clever lines—and equally as impressive as the writer’s comic ability is his knowledge of SF and the writers involved.
**** (Very Good). 9,700 words. Story link.

1. The story’s original title (it was published in Starsongs and Unicorns, a semi-original short story collection, a couple of years previously) was The Curse of the Mhondoro Nkabele or The Revenge of Stanley G. Weinbaum. The collection’s contents can be viewed at ISFDB (I’ve already reviewed the excellent The Primal Solution here).