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“The Million Year Picnic” by Ray Bradbury

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“The Million Year Picnic” by Ray Bradbury is about as famous to science fiction readers as O’Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” is to English majors. “The Million Year Picnic” was first published in the Summer 1946 issue of Planet Stories. (Read it online here.)

However, most readers know “The Million Year Picnic” as “October 2026: The Million-Year Picnic” from The Martian Chronicles. Most modern readers think The Martian Chronicles is so out of date scientifically that they don’t consider it science fiction but fantasy. But it is science fiction, and “The Million Year Picnic” is a classic, touching on several iconic themes of the genre.

“The Million Year Picnic” was published just one year after Hiroshima, making it one of the earliest stories about humanity destroying the Earth with atomic weapons. But we don’t know that right away. When we begin reading the story, Bradbury voices his story with a quaint tone, almost like a parable, sounding like Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. A father, mother, and their three sons have just landed on Mars. They decide to go fishing. The narrative pacing seems only a few steps up from “See Dick run.”

Back in the 1940s, throughout the 1950s, and even into the 1960s, it was popularly considered that there was life on Mars or had once been, even intelligent life. This is partly due to H. G. Wells and Giovanni Schiaparelli, an Italian astronomer who convinced the world that he saw canals on Mars. Until July 1965 when Mariner 4 showed us a couple dozen grainy pictures of Mars that looked like the Moon, we had so much hope for Mars.

Science fiction writers loved to imagine Mars occupied with all kinds of beings and ancient civilizations. The common belief was Mars was a cold dying cold world and Venus was a hot young jungle world. Ray Bradbury wrote many stories based on these assumptions. In 1950 Bradbury published a collection of his stories about Mars as The Martian Chronicles, a “fix-up” novel. (In 2009, Subterranean Press published The Martian Chronicles: The Complete Edition, which claimed to collect all of Bradbury’s stories about Mars. I’d love to have a copy, but the cheapest copy I can find online is $1,300.) Because “The Million Year Picnic” was so popular it had already been reprinted three times before The Martian Chronicles. And it has been extensively reprinted ever since.

Bradbury also reprinted “The Million Year Picnic” in his collection: S is for Space. Most of Bradbury’s science fiction was found in four collections when I was growing up: The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, S is for Space, and R is for Rocket. Bradbury quit writing science fiction for the most part in the 1950s and went on to write fantasy, horror, and mainstream fiction after that. I read “The Million Year Picnic” this week because the Facebook group Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction is reading 12 science fiction stories by Ray Bradbury that they haven’t read before. Here’s the discussion schedule.

But back to the story. After the family sets out on a boat on a Martian canal to go fishing we slowly learn that “The Million Year Picnic” is a post-apocalyptic tale. But we don’t discover it right away. The three boys are all excited. Timothy, the oldest carefully watches his father, trying to learn what’s happening. As they travel down the canal they pass by countless old cities where Martians once lived. Some cities are just mounds, while others have grand skylines. The dad promises his boys he will show them the Martians, and they get excited.

Along the way, we discover “The Million Year Picnic” follows another hoary old science fiction theme, the retelling of Adam and Eve. This idea had become so overused that by the 1960s writer’s guidelines for magazines would state “no Adam and Eve stories.”

I don’t know how many times I’ve read “The Million Year Picnic.” But back in the early 1960s when I first discovered it, I still believed in Martians on Mars. I was so into Mars, that as a kid, I thought my goal in life was to get there. So when I read the story I focused on the dead Martian civilization. That’s what made the story exciting. I too wanted to see the Martians. And that’s how I always remember this story, especially the surprise ending, which was quite clever.

However, on this rereading, I realized that I had forgotten Bradbury’s serious point. Bradbury was a nostalgic writer, even as a young man. He grew up in the 1920s and 1930s and his stories often have the feel of that era, like watching old black and white Frank Capra movies. Many of his Martian stories transplant small midwestern downs to Mars. But Bradbury wrote “The Million Year Picnic” with an undercurrent of horror and even cynicism. The quaint family on Mars has fled an Earth where humanity has destroyed itself in a nuclear war.

When the Dad realizes the radio signals from Earth have gone silent he tells his boys that one day their grandchildren might hear radio signals again. When I read that I thought about Adam and Eve and their sons and how Biblical skeptics always asked “Where did the wives of Adam and Eve’s sons come from?”

I’m always amused and fascinated by what I remember and don’t remember from stories when I reread them. The gimmick ending of “The Million Year Picnic” overshadows all my memories. I had completely forgotten this was a post-apocalyptic story. In other words, I remembered the positive and forgot the negative. I also forgot how many Biblical allusions where were in the story.

Bradbury solves the wives’ problem. In the end, we learn that another family had also secretly prepared to go to Mars when armageddon began, this one had four daughters.

Now that number is interesting. Bradbury even tells us it will be a problem. I think he’s hinting at the old Cain and Abel conflict. Humans don’t change and even if we start over we’ll have violence and wars again. We know two if not three of the sons will want that extra wife.

Every time I reread a Ray Bradbury story I tell myself I need to get into Ray Bradbury in a big way. I even bought three biographies of the man: Becoming Ray Bradbury and Ray Bradbury Unbound by Jonathan R. Eller, and The Ray Bradbury Chronicles by Sam Weller – but I haven’t read them yet. I also bought two giant collections of his stories for the Kindle: The Stories of Ray Bradbury and Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales. And on audio, I bought The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, which I have listened to. I also bought Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories and A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories on audio which reprints much of what was in R is for Rocket and S is for Space.

The problem is I always go on to read other science fiction. Rereading “The Million Year Picnic” makes me want to delve into Bradbury once again, and read or reread all these books I’ve collected. Even though I’m retired and have all my time free, I can’t seem to find the time to pursue this project. I’m hoping the Facebook group reading of Bradbury will get me going.

If you’re a fan of listening to short stories, I recommend two giant collections of Ray Bradbury on audio that repackages four of Bradbury’s early collections. #1-32 is The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories (1997), and #33-63 is A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories (1998). I wish Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Stories (2003) were on audio, but it is not. (Table courtesy of Piet Nel.)

James Wallace Harris, 3/20/25

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If We Can’t Imagine Human Superintelligence Can We Describe It in Fiction?

In Ted Chiang’s impressive overview of human superintelligence in science fiction, he mentions that John W. Campbell Jr. rejected a story by Vernor Vinge about a character with human superintelligence because no one can write such a story. (Vinge had proposed a sequel to “Bookworm, Run!“) The implication: since none of us know what being superintelligent is like subjectively, we can’t describe it. That’s silly. Campbell had been publishing a magazine describing space travel decades before NASA, or atomic bombs before 1945, or robots long before Roombas.

British journalist Ed Yong describes the umwelt of many species in his book An Immense World. How each organism views reality from its collection of sense organs is called umwelt. We might not be able to imagine being a dog, but we can analyze a dog’s senses and speculate what they can perceive.

Shouldn’t we assume science fiction can speculate on a human being with superintelligence by what it’s capable of perceiving and what it does with those perceptions? I’m guessing John W. Campbell assumed that a dog couldn’t imagine what it’s like to be a human. But is that really true? A dog might not comprehend humans reading a book, but I’m sure they understand much about us in their own special way. In fact, they might observe qualities about us that we’re unaware of.

Astounding Science Fiction in the 1950s was full of stories about ESP and other psychic abilities. Campbell called such abilities psionics. Throughout the history of science fiction, writers have speculated that superhumans would have god-like powers. I’ve written about science fiction and human superintelligence before and described many of the most famous of these stories. See: “Science Fiction and Human Evolution” and “The Origins of Higher Intelligence in Science Fiction.” The genre has a long history of attempting what Campbell supposedly told Vinge he couldn’t.

Strangely, hard science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke wrote two classic novels about superhumans: Childhood’s End and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Clarke gave no scientific explanation of how people might transform into next-stage humans. Clarke’s new humans were almost impossible to imagine. They are god-like to us. This is fun but gives us little to speculate about realistically.

Greg Bear imagines a new strain of virus affecting pregnant women causing a mutation in Darwin’s Radio. Children born of these women are more intelligent, have greater disease resistance, and can communicate non-verbally. This isn’t hard to imagine. Current humans show a tremendously wide spectrum of intelligence and physical health. And some humans are far better at communicating than others, especially via body language and empathy.

Nancy Kress imagines genetic engineering creating a new species of humanity in Beggars in Spain. Their key feature was needing less sleep. This gave them more time to learn, work, and compete. It’s easy to imagine this adaptation and how these new humans would do better than ordinary humans.

The movie Gattaca imagined a future society where normal humans competed with humans with carefully selected genes. The improved humans had the same human frailties, but out-competed normal humans for the better jobs. They were better-looking, smarter, more athletic, and had greater discipline. That’s not hard to imagine.

In Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, Charlie Gordon undergoes an operation that advances his IQ. At the beginning, Clarlie works as a janitor and is cognitively challenged. The operation allows him to learn new things, and eventually become a super-genius. His new attributes are not beyond belief. Charlie learns new languages, achieves great academic success, and becomes tremendously productive. Charlie doesn’t develop ESP or godlike powers, but achieves the maximum levels of current human skills and traits. This is believable and easy to imagine.

Homo sapiens are only slightly improved over Neanderthals, but those improvements let us do so much more. For us to describe Homo superior we only need to imagine slight enhancements to our species and speculate about what impact they would have.

Some humans have tetrachromacy, which means they can detect four primary colors rather than three. Other people have eidetic memory. Stephen Wiltshire, an autistic savant, can draw detailed images of cities from memory after just a helicopter ride. All the traits that Human 2.0 might have are already showing up in us now. Conversely, all the traits that won’t emerge are those we lack precursors for now.

That’s why I think it’s silly to imagine humans evolving to have telepathy or be able to teleport at will. Those are comic book ideas. Campbell was both too hopeful and too naive about human evolution. He expected “The Man Who Evolved” by Edmond Hamilton. At best, I think we’ll get Gattaca.

One problem with evolving our current abilities is that we often see cognitive issues associated with people with extreme examples of those abilities. Can a perfect memory be imperfect? Can we be too smart? I’ve known many people far ahead of me in many skills. I can’t fathom general and special relativity. Does that mean Albert Einstein was a 2.0 human?

Until recently, I thought the human race was evolving slowly on average. But current events make me think we’re regressing. Some people already have superintelligence compared to others. It could be the evolution of our species won’t be by quantum leaps, but slow adaptation of biological trial and error. Much of science fiction is just fun bullshit speculation. We need to distinguish between fantasy and scientific possibilities.

Personally, I feel our role in evolution was to evolve machine intelligence. I don’t believe humans will ever become giant brains with tiny bodies, nonphysical beings, or something like Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s interesting that Greg Bear and Nancy Kress in their novels, had normal humans wanting to wipe out the new humans before they got established.

Lester del Rey summed us up nicely in “For I Am a Jealous People!” Our creator and descendants need to watch out.

I don’t see why Campbell rejected Vernor Vinge’s idea of writing a sequel to “Bookworm, Run!” Campbell had already published Slan by A. E. van Vogt and many other stories featuring human superintelligence.

James Wallace Harris, 3/9/25

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“Starfog” by Poul Anderson

If I was pitching “Starfog” by Poul Anderson to a movie producer, I say “Two women are in love with Daven Laure, one is a spaceship computer and the other a mutant human who claims to be from another universe.” I also mention it’s a hard science fiction space opera dealing with a rare astronomical phenomenon reminiscence some episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on one hand with the scope and speculation of the Culture Novels of Iain M. Banks on the other.

“Starfog” is the last story in the seventh and final volume of the Technic Civilization Saga, the one called Flandry’s Legacy. (Available in paper, ebook, and audiobook at Amazon.) See the ISFDB.org listing of all the Technic Civilization stories here.

Theoretically, “Starfog” might make a good science fiction adventure movie if they could drastically reduce Anderson’s talky dialog and somehow make the characters endearing. I confess that I’ve never felt any emotional attachment to any of Poul Anderson’s characters. His science ideas are often epic, but his political philosophizing gets crusty.

The setup for the story is a compelling mystery. A spaceship is discovered with a crew that appears human, and despite their strange language, seem to have cultural hints of Earth’s past. But they claim they come from a different universe where space is radically different.

“Starfog” is set five thousand years after Earth achieves space travel according to Sandra Miesel’s chronology of the Technics Civilization stories in Against Time’s Arrow: The High Crusade of Poul Anderson. (You can check it out at Archive.org.) Paul Shackley writes about Miesel’s timeline here and updates it. Baen includes the timeline in the books of the series.

Daven Loure, and his intelligent spaceship Jaccavrie are explorers in a new galactic civilization of humanity called the Commonality. The other stories are about Van Rijn, David Falkayn, and Dominic Flandry written over four decades. I’m afraid the current covers of the books (see above) imply a different feel than the actual stories. However, older covers are just as cheesy.

“Starfog” doesn’t come across like these covers. It’s just a little less dignfied than the Analog cover from when it was first published in August 1967.

Although I haven’t read the series but from reading about the various stories, I’m guessing the quality of storytelling is somewhat like Larry Niven’s Known Space stories. I might read more of Flandry’s Legacy, which includes three novels, two novellas, and one novelette in the series.

However, Anderson’s stories don’t fit my current craving for science fiction. Everyday life in 2025 is wilder than fiction, wilder than science fiction. Sadly, “Starfog” just seemed dull in comparison. Events of recent years is making me rethink about science fictional futures. Most science fiction just doesn’t have the cutting edge of our ever sharpening reality.

Most science fiction is perfect for escaping from reality. But I’m craving the kind of science fiction that plays off of reality. Nothing I’ve found lately says anything about our present and near future. We need the kind of vicious writers who can extrapolate and speculate about our exploding society. Sharp tongue writers like Mark Twain, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, Barry Malzberg, Oscar Wilde, Aldous Huxley, Jerzy Kosinksi, Dorothy Parker, George Orwell, Joseph Heller, and Philip K. Dick.

We don’t need science fiction that gives us grownup fairytales about the far future. We need writers that cane us about our head and shoulders like a great Zen Master. We need to read books that pistol whip us until we accept reality and reject our delusions.

James Wallace Harris, 1/28/25

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“Zeta-Epsilon” by Isabel J. Kim

Have you ever wondered what being a cyborg would be like? Have you ever wished you had a computer built into your head to augment your memory? Have you ever wanted greater powers to perceive what your five senses can’t?

“Zeta-Epsilon” by Isabel J. Kim is about being a cyborg. It was first published in Clarkesworld Issue 198 (still available to read or listen to online). “Zeta-Epsilon” is also the first story reprinted in The Year’s Top Robot and AI Stories: Fifth Annual Collection edited by Allan Kaster. If you want to know more about the author, read this short interview with her at Uncharted Magazine. The story is also included in the 2024 Hugo Voter Packet.

I recommend you read the story before reading what I have to say. I want to explore several aspects of the story which contain spoilers.

“Zeta-Epsilon” is about a cyborg. Zeta or Zep is a human male. Epsilon is an AI, a large black sphere, whom Zeta thinks of as female. Zep calls her Ep. When Zeta was a small boy, his parents agreed to have a tiny device installed into Zeta’s brain. It allowed mental communication between Zep and Ep. They told him the voice he heard in his head was his sister. After Zeta grows up, he becomes a spaceship pilot, and Epsilon becomes the navigator.

This tale begins with Zeta committing suicide by stepping out of an airlock without a spacesuit. Most of the story is flashbacks that allow us to understand the relationship between Zeta and Epsilon and how they communicate. In my first reading, I was interested in how Isabel J. Kim imagined an AI coexisting with a human. I thought that part was good, but my last impression of the overall story, was a slight disappointment because it seemed plotless. It’s still an entertaining story, obviously good enough to get into a best-of-the-year anthology and be considered for a Hugo, but I thought it needed something more to be memorable.

I read the story again when I bought the Kaster anthology. This time I noticed more of the plot. Kim sets up the mystery of why Zeta would kill himself. The flashbacks serve two purposes: explore the dynamics of being a cyborg and explain the suicide. With this reading, I felt the story had more of a plot, but it needed something more to make it transcend just an ordinary good story.

Science fiction writers usually have the problem of inventing a cool idea first and then second, having the problem of creating a neat story to present the idea. Quite often they don’t put as much work into the story as they do to present their science fictional vision. The driving force of this story is Zeta being trapped in a life he didn’t choose.

Zeta’s mad scientist parents used him for AI research. That’s not a bad motive for the story, but it’s not fleshed out. We never feel Zeta is oppressed. He loves Epsilon. Unfortunately, the two of them were always destined to become a pilot-navigator in a military spaceship at war. Kim tells us of their anguish over their enslavement to the military, and it makes the story work to a degree. Especially, how she wraps up the ending. However, the story is mostly told. There’s very little drama. There are two main conversations in the story, but they are used to present information and lack action.

However, the relationship between Zeta and Epsilon is far more interesting. Exploring how a human coexists with a machine upstages the enslavement plot completely, at least to me, especially when she shows how Zeta’s personality is altered.

For example, Zeta doesn’t fully develop his long-term memory because he relies on Epsilon to remember for him. He also has aphantasia, which means he doesn’t visualize in his mind. I have that myself. Zed constantly relies on Ep to think for him. Zeta does well in school because Epsilon always slips him the answer. Finally, Zeta has poor relationship skills with other humans, which Epsilon is constantly covering for him.

If I had a thought radio to an advanced version of ChatGPT or Claude, I’d probably take the easy way out too. I’m not sure why Zeta has aphantasia. Is it a birth defect unrelated to his cyborg upbringing? Is Kim suggesting that Zeta also allows Epsilon to mentally see for him?

We could consider this story a metaphor for the smartphone, especially one with AI. Don’t we all look up more info on our phones, things we used to try and remember? Isn’t Epsilon a version of Siri or Alexa that’s built into our heads? Aren’t kids accused of having poor social skills because of their phones?

When I read this story the first time I thought a lot about what it would be like to have a voice in my head I could talk to anytime. One who would feed me answers and advice. At one point Epsilon says: “Talking is so slow, and I don’t think in language, second shift officer Jya San Yore. I have to borrow Zed’s brain and tongue. Talking to you is like composing a sonnet in archaic Kanaelerian. To an ant. You are the ant.”

Is Zeta just a puppet for Epsilon? I’m seeing a new twist to the story as I write this. In the end, and I warned you I would be giving spoilers, Zeta fakes suicide and escapes to neutral territory. Ep wants Zed to be free. But Ep misses her voice. All he can think about is getting back to her. Eventually, he steals Epsilon and the spaceship. They go off together in freedom. But was that Zeta’s decision, or Epsilon’s?

A sentimental reading suggests they just wanted to be together and live free. A cynical reading, and there are enough clues, to suggest that Epsilon is in full control. Maybe there is more to this story than I perceived in my first two readings.

To write a great story explores the dark side and takes on weight. “Fondly Fahrenheit” by Alfred Bester is a perfect example. It’s also about a symbiotic relationship between a human and a robot. But it also has dazzling writing. Writing like we also see in “Coming Attraction” by Fritz Leiber, or “Lot” by Ward Moore. All three of these stories dazzle in how they’re told, and they’re are dark.

“Zeta-Epsilon” is a fun story. I can see why Allan Kaster anthologized it. But I doubt it will be remembered, unlike the three stories I mentioned from the 1950s. We’re still reading them after seventy years. The important question to ask is why? Are stories with happy endings lacking in memorable edginess?

I read “Zeta-Epsilon” for a third time looking for more clues. One clue I found points things in a different direction. When Zed and Ep are planning his escape by faking suicide, Ep tells Zed not to come back. In other words, she wants Zep to stand on his own two feet, to be independent, and free. But on his own, in neutral territory, recovering from his wounds, all Zed can think about is getting back to within radio range of Epsilon.

Zed feels incomplete without Ep. A doctor asks him about how it feels to talk to Ep and he says:

“Yes, it’s equally likely that Ep might be an alter, a tulpa, an imaginary friend, a hallucination that my brain cordoned off to make sense of having a processing engine grafted to my mind, or my brain being primed by all the adults in my life calling Epsilon my sister. I’ve heard it all. Ep might just be my mind’s experience of integrating a system never meant to communicate with it. We’ve thought through all the possible contingencies. Have you ever heard of bicameral mentalities? It’s bunk for biologics, but Ep likes to put the idea in front of me. Or that archaic surgery—corpus callosotomy, to split the brain of epileptics with the byproduct of creating separate consciousnesses. Ep thought that was maybe a good metaphor. There’s a lot of things that could be true. We thought about most of them. But it’s not how it felt.”

Back in the 1970s I read Julian Jaynes’ The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Studying ancient literature, Jaynes theorized that humans used to hear voices in their heads. Often these voices were perceived to be gods, spiritual beings, or guardian angels. Jaynes believed those voices guided people. He assumed that our normal consciousness eventually integrated with those voices.

The bicameral mind is an interesting connection to make in this story. So is corpus callosotomy, the separating of the two hemispheres of the brain in cases of severe epilepsy. It supports the idea we already have two minds.

I liked this story. It makes me think about having an AI mind. Of course, it also makes me wonder: Who am I inside my brain. I believe the success of large language models (LLMs) proves we have mechanisms like LLMs in our minds that do our mental processing too. That we have AI-like subsystems in our heads already.

I think there is a lot of room in “Zeta-Epsilon” to expand into a novel. Maybe I was disappointed because the story was too short. It could be an outline for a novel. But it needs to be dramatized. For example, how did Zep steal Ep and the spaceship? We’re just told it happens in the short story, but it would be better if we saw it acted out scene by scene.

James Wallace Harris, 11/12/24

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“Earth for Inspiration” by Clifford D. Simak

“Earth for Inspiration” is a comic science fiction story by Clifford Simak set millions of years into the future about a science fiction writer and his robot visiting a forgotten Earth. The pair go there hoping to find inspiration to write new science fiction stories. You can read it online in the April 1941 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories.

I read “Earth for Inspiration” by Clifford D. Simak because I read When the Fires Burn High and the Wind is From the North: The Pastoral Science Fiction of Clifford D. Simak by Robert J. Ewald. I bought that book after I read and reviewed A Heritage of Stars by Simak which made me want to know more about Clifford D. Simak. I mentioned my interest in Simak on the Clifford Donald Simak Facebook group and the Ewald book was one of two books about Simak that was recommended. I forgot I already owned the second book, Clifford Donald Simak: An Affectionate Appreciation by Francis Lyall. I haven’t read that one yet because I leant it to my friend Mike who had recently read the twelve volumes of Simak’s short stories. Mike is who got me to read A Heritage of Stars in the first place. I guess that puts me into some kind of inspiration loop.

A Heritage of Stars involved a post-apocalyptic America with few humans and some robots. In that story, most robots had been destroyed except for their brain cases which were saved as trophies after a war with the robots. Unknown to the humans, the robots continued to be conscious inside their brain cases for a thousand years. That idea of a conscious mind without outside sensory data intrigued me. Then I read in the Ewald monograph about “Earth for Inspiration,” involved a dying Earth, robots, and isolated robot brain cases. I had to read it. The story is also included in Simak’s collection Earth for Inspiration and Other Stories: The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak Volume Nine. Amazon now sells 14 volumes in the complete stories. Audible.com now offers ten of those volumes in audiobook editions.

Version 1.0.0

Most of the famous science fiction short stories we remember from the 1940s were first published in Astounding Science Fiction. Thrilling Wonder Stories was aimed at younger, less educated science fiction fans, and we seldom see reprints from that pulp magazine. For the most part, its stories are less sophisticated with far more action. And that’s true for “Earth for Inspiration.” I thought it was a funny story, but somewhat simple and hyper paced. It has an old fashion voice because of all old-timey colloquialisms. Simak is known for his pastoral prose and midwest settings.

“Earth for Inspiration” was more fun than I expected to find in Thrilling Wonder. Usually, when we think about robots in science fiction, we think of Isaac Asimov, but I’m seeing how important robots were to Simak stories.

When I read it with my eyes, “Earth is Inspiration” felt like cliched pulp science fiction from the 1930s. However, when I listened to the story after buying the audiobook edition, I thought the writing was much better than my first impression, except for all the saidisms. (I think the worse was — “Look at that, will you!” he jubilated.) The second reading with my ears made me notice how many ideas Simak was using to develop the story. It’s a satire on writing science fiction, maybe even the first example of recursive science fiction.

However, “Earth for Inspirations” gives us a few clues about how Clifford D. Simak thought when comparing them to his other work. The more Simak I read, the more I spot common ideas, characters, and elements that he used and reused.

The Ewald monograph has a few pages of biographical information, almost just a list of dates. Most of the 155 pages describe Simak’s stories and novels. I was hoping to find a biography of Simak, something like William H. Patterson did for Heinlein, but such a book doesn’t exist as a far as I can tell for Simak. Second to that, I was hoping to find an analysis of the impact of Simak’s stories, like what Alexei and Cory Panshin did for Heinlein, Asimov, and van Vogt in The World Beyond the Hill. It’s not that either. When the Fires Burn High and the Wind is From the North, is a standalone journal, volume 73 of The Milford Series: Popular Writers of Today. The content is like Alva Rogers A Requiem for Astounding, which is a description of the stories in all the issues of Astounding Science Fiction in chronological order.

I thought it fascinating that Simak was thinking of robots in the same way in 1941 and 1977. He obviously had a fondness for the idea of robots and had developed an idea of what they would be like early in his career and stuck with it until he died. Robots were faithful servants who were also friends. Simak imagines them with bodies that can break down, but with nearly indestructible brain cases. I assume those brain cases have an internal power supply that could last for millions of years. A couple years ago I read a collection called The Complete Robot by Isaac Asimov. I wonder if Simak has enough robot stories to warrant such a collection?

Reading Simak, we can assume he didn’t like cities or corporations and had a low opinion of mankind’s ability to survive in the long run. Although, “Earth for Inspiration” is set millions of years in the future after humans have colonized the galaxy, but long after we’ve used up Earth’s resources and abandoned it.

The first scene of “Earth for Inspiration” opens with a short tale about a robot named Philbert who became inert after his body rusted up. Eventually, his body rusted away and Philbert lived inside his braincase for millions of years. This reminds me of the Tin Woodsman of Oz.

The second scenes jumps to Jerome Duncan, a once successful science fiction writer who is again getting rejection slips after a successful career. Duncan lives millions of years from now. It’s amusing that Simak thinks science fiction will last that long.

Anyway, Duncan’s robot Jenkins suggests going to Earth to get inspiration for writing a new story. Jenkins is also the name of the robot in City, Simak’s most famous book, a fix-up-novel. Duncan is famous for writing Robots Triumphant. I won’t tell you what it was about because it becomes part of the story.

The next scene has Duncan and Jenkins arriving on Earth with a lot of camping equipment and meeting an old-timer, Hank Wallace, who has been waiting for new tourists for over a thousand years. He manages the Galactic Trainsport station, but no one informed him that the line had been shut down a thousand years earlier. Duncan and Jenkins had hired a private rocket. This points to another idea that Simak loved, that humans would eventually have very long lives. In this story, we last for ten thousand years. And his second most famous novel, Way Station, is about an old-timer who manages a transport station and who doesn’t age. By the way, the old-timer in that novel was named Enoch Wallace.

Should we assume that Simak had been thinking about writing his most famous novels for years?

I don’t think I should tell you any more of “Earth for Inspiration.” It’s a fun enough story so that I shouldn’t spoil it for you. I’ll just hint at a few more scenes. Earth in the far future is dry, and has lost most of its air. There’s a confrontation with humans living in primitive tribes in dry deep sea canyons where the air is thicker. That makes it a dying Earth story. There are slapstick scenes with a crazy robot and another confrontation with horde of runaway robots.

“Earth for Inspiration” has decent humor, although not sophisticated. It would make a great humorous episode for Love Death & Robots. The humor is slapstick Sheckley with a touch of Frederic Brown’s ironic weirdness. I’m not sure if Simak intended it to be entirely comic, although, he probably did, but I bet a lot of young readers in 1941 took it straight realistic action.

James Wallace Harris

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Whatever Happened to That Short Story?

Today I read “The Cartesian Theater” by Robert Charles Wilson for our discussion group. That Facebook group is reading one story every Sunday from Science Fiction: The Best of the Year: 2007 edited by Rich Horton. I got a big kick out of “The Cartesian Theater” and wanted to hear it on audio. But when I went looking for an audiobook that included it, I couldn’t find one. Bummer.

My inner reading voice is nothing compared to the professional narrators who read audiobooks. I read “The Cartesian Theater” in Horton’s 2007 best-of-the-year anthology which I own in paperback. When I write about a story I like I want to help people find a copy to read. It’s always great when I can put a link to where it can be read or heard online. You can read the Horton anthology at Archive.org if you have set up a free account. You can read the Jonathan Strahan anthology for free if you subscribed to Kindle Unlimited. It’s $11.99 to buy that anthology for the Kindle. The one Wilson story collection shown above is a French edition. All those other editions will require tracking down used physical copies. For most people, this won’t be an easy story to find.

Most bookworms don’t read short stories, and short stories don’t make much money for publishers either. Short stories are a kind of training ground for novelists. Often when a writer becomes a success their short stories are collected, and even kept in print. And sometimes those collections have audiobook editions. If there was The Best of Robert Charles Wilson audiobook I would have bought it today. I would have also bought The Best of Charles Sheffield this week if it existed on audiobook. I did listen to my audiobook copy of The Best of Connie Willis twice this week to read “Even the Queen” and “Death on the Nile.” The narration was perfect for each, and I got so much more out of the story than when I just read them on paper.

The best narrators do voices for each character. That highlights the dramatic quality of stories that my inner voice doesn’t generate. But more than that, audiobooks are read much slower than my inner reading voice, sounding out every word, and that makes an enormous difference. When I read, I read too fast, often skipping words. I can’t help myself, I read too fast. I miss clues to what’s happening. Listening makes me pay attention to every word. And I’m very disciplined in my listening. If I miss something I hit the jump back button.

“The Cartesian Theater” is about a world where everyone lives on a guaranteed income and economic activity is driven by robots. People still make extra money, usually from creating something entertaining. (Picture everyone being a YouTuber or something like it.) In the story an anonymous rich person hires Lada Joshi to track down an elusive artist, Jafar Bloom, and offer to back a showing of his work with no strings attached. Joshi hires Toby Paczovski, an operative skilled finding people living on the dole who don’t want to be found. And then she had Toby find Philo Novembre, a retired philospher, to get him to attend the first showing of the “Cartesian Theater.” What Bloom has create is a device that proves something philosophical, something that science can’t prove. I don’t want to say too much.

Beside coming up with a nice gimmick for the premise of the story, Wilson creates an interesting setting, a setting that our world seems to be heading towards. AI and robots do most of the real work, pushing people onto the dole. The robots aren’t considered sentient. That’s the trouble with AI robots. If they ever become sentient we can’t make them our slaves. In Wilson’s society they seem to be on the cusp of awareness. Humans in this story also have a lot of smart technology that supplement their bodies. And in Wilson’s world, a certain amount of brain activity can be duplicated in machine. Toby’s grandfather is dead, but enough of his memories hang around so Toby can still talk to him. The whole story is a Cartesian theater. And it has a nice surprise ending I didn’t guess.

Is this story worth keeping in print? Should it be available for the Kindle and on Audible? I don’t know. Such publishing might be a money loser. Which short stories should be preserved? And which should we forget?

We also read “Georgia On My Mind” by Charles Sheffield which won the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novelette back in 1994. You’d think every award winner should be preserved. It is in a collection called Georgia On My Mind and Other Places which can be read on Archive.org or bought for the Kindle for $5.99. But no audiobook. It was originally published in the January 1993 issue of Analog.

I loved “Georgia On My Mind” even more than “The Cartesian Theater.” Sheffield uses a narrative structure that was common in the pulps before WWII, where a mystery is discovered in a far distant place on Earth. In this case New Zealand. The story is set in modern times. We seldom believe such mysteries are possible anymore. But in the old days, readers loved these setups where the story felt possible. In this case, in a rundown tool shed to an old farm house in a remote part of New Zealand, Bill Rigley finds pieces of Charles Babbage’s computer from the 19th century, along with old letters, and information about programming. The mystery is how did Babbage’s work get to New Zealand and why.

If you like a Weird Tales type of story, computers and computer history, and even a bit of recursive science fiction, then you should like “Georgia On My Mind.” I think Sheffield rush the story at the end. He should have kept the slow pace and followed through on the setup and made this story a novel. I dislike the title, but it fits the cutsy ending. However, I didn’t want a cutsy ending. Obviously, Sheffield didn’t want to write a whole novel, and wrapped up the story with a direct appeal to science fiction fans. I wanted a Weird Tales ending. Still, I got a big kick out of this story.

It’s sad to think these two stories will be forgotten. They just aren’t easy to find. I think what’s needed is for Audible to publish all the best-of-the-year anthologies, from 1939 to the present. That would put most great short SF in audiobook print. At least do the Asimov/Greenberg/Silverberg books covering 1939-1964. Then Wollheim from 1965 to 1990. The 14 Carr anthologies, and all the Gardner Dozois anthologies. Or get some young editor to create new anthologies for each year.

If Audible doesn’t want to keep best-of-the-year anthologies in print, I think they should at least put all the Hugo and Nebula winners and finalists in audiobook print. That would catch “Georgia on My Mind” but not “The Cartesian Theater.”

JWH

p.s. I haven’t been blogging as much lately. I’m just getting old and running out of energy. Finishing this short blog gave me a sense of accomplishment.

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Science Fiction for Boys and Girls

I’ve been on a vacation from reading science fiction but yesterday I read two SF stories to see if I wanted to come home. The first was “The Year Without Sunshine” by Naomi Kritzer published online at Uncanny Magazine. The second was “Detonation Boulevard” by Alastair Reynolds published online at Tor.com now called Reactor. The Kritzer story has won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and the Reynolds story has the pole position in Best of British Science Fiction 2023 edited by Donna Scott.

What struck me about both were the gender generalizations I could make about each. I know it’s sexist to make generalizations about gender but how do you explain the differences I sense in post-apocalyptic books written by women and those by men?

“The Year Without Sunshine” is about a neighborhood that experiences a small, maybe temporary, apocalypse. The story is very readable, uplifting, moving, positive, and suggests people will cooperate to survive. It made me tear up many times. However, it ignores the common tropes of post-apocalyptic fiction that American men use in related stories where civilization collapses. In those stories it’s time to whip out the guns and go full auto on being Darwinian.

I felt “The Year Without Sunshine” leaned towards the feminine side of things because I enjoy the sub-genre of post-apocalyptic fiction, and the examples I can recall written by women are different than the ones I can recall by American men. I also sense a difference between American and British post-apocalyptic novels. Most American post-apocalyptic novels written by guys bring back the Wild West, usually with a Mad Max tone. Whereas many British post-apocalyptic novels could be called cozy catastrophes.

Examples of post-apocalyptic novels written by women that pop into my mind are Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing, Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer, The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker. A couple recent British post-apocalyptic novels that come to mind are The Hopkins Manuscript by R. C. Sherriff and Survivors by Terry Nation (the basis of a BBC TV show back in the 1970s).

Naomi Kritzer presents a view in her story that I feel is both feminine and more mature than most typical science fiction. She presents a realistic future with what I consider unrealistic hope. Alaistair Reynolds presents a completely fantasy future that’s squarely aimed at the stereotype story for boys.

While reading “The Year Without Sunshine,” which I loved, Kritzer’s male characters were too nice, even the ones that were supposed to be bad. I can’t but believe that they were how Kritzer hoped guys would act in her fictionalized situation. Unfortunately, tough times are when the true nature of males will come through. I’d say the 2023 film Leave the World Behind is more like how I predict things will happen, especially the scene when the characters played by Mahershala Ali and Ethan Hawke confront the Kevin Bacon character hoping to barter for medicine. That’s how men will be when they are still somewhat civilized and rational, but I also expect the real reality will be like The Road by Cormac McCarthy. In “The Year Without Sunshine” too many people readily want to help Susan, who has COPD, and either give or trade her canisters of propane to keep her oxygen generator going. I don’t think that would happen. But it is the way mature people should wish it will be.

I’m not criticizing Kritzer’s story when I claim some of her males act unrealistic in that situation. I have my fantasies and my speculations, and they are different from the kinds of science fiction I’ve read, and I believe because I’m male. I could be wrong, and people, all people will act more like Kritzer’s characters in such a real-life situation.

“A Year Without Sunshine” is immensely popular and loved. It’s the kind of story that readers of The New Yorker would have enjoyed too because it’s SF that’s relevant to today and to literary readers.

In “Detonation Boulevard” Alastair Reynolds gives us the boys fantasy of space travel. It’s a visually exciting story that would make an eye-popping science fiction film. Just study the above artwork for it from Reactor. Imagine a race under a sky full of Jupiter! When I was twelve, I would have loved this story and considered it thrilling. Cyborgs on Io, a moon of Jupiter, race gigantic moon buggies completely around its circumference. At 72, that seemed silly. Like Kritzer’s hopeful fantasy for how people should act when civilization collapses, Reynolds is a hopeful fantasy for the future when we can have car races all over the solar system. But it is also an unrealistic fantasy that ignores the reality of space exploration and ignores all the scientific extrapolations about the future of Earth. It’s what boys want, of all ages.

Without giving too much of a spoiler, I did like the mature insight of the older cyborg and how it tried to pass it on to the younger one. Reynolds offers us a twist near the end, but I thought it contrived for modern audiences.

I remember back in the 1970s there were several articles in mainstream magazines by major literary writers attacking science fiction for being immature, claiming the genre offered power fantasies for adolescent boys. Readers and writers in the genre were outraged and insulted, but there is a certain amount of truth in those attacks. It’s interesting at the same time those criticisms were being made Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ were publishing works that began to mutate the genre towards more maturity.

Back in the late 1950s, my sister Becky and I formed two clubs. She called hers the Please and Thank You Club for the girls on our street, and I called my club The Eagles club for us boys. “The Year Without Sunshine” would fit nicely in a Please and Thank You Club, while Detonation Boulevard” would fit in with the Eagles.

I’m currently reading My Brilliant Friend by Elene Ferrante and Rabbit, Run by John Updike while on vacation from science fiction. It’s interesting to compare the gender perspectives of their characters to those in science fiction. Ferrante begins her book with two eight-year-old girls whose perceptions of the world were far more mature than I was at that age. I know it’s sexist to observe differences in males and females, but whenever I read literary work by women writers, I’m described powers of observations regarding other people’s emotions that I’ve never had. I saw that in Kritzer’s story too, but not Reynold’s.

It’s like trying to imagine how dogs perceive the world through smells when their sense of smell is thousands of times more powerful than ours. I can’t help but believe I am blind to things that women can perceive. Sure, it could just be me. And sure, it’s possible that plenty of males have this skill too, or plenty of females don’t. There are people who have theorized that Elena Ferrante could be a male. She has kept her identity secret. However, most of her fans hate that idea because they consider Ferrante such a perfect example of female perception. I guess it’s theoretically possible for a male writer to perfectly imitate the best female writer – but I doubt it. Reynolds tries to portray a female character in his story, but I don’t think he even came close.

I have heard, in person, and online, many males criticize the state of modern science fiction bellyaching that women writers have taken over and changed the genre. The genre is constantly evolving, and improving, and I think it’s possible that some of those improvements are due to female insight. But what has gone missing that the males want back?

Unfortantely, I think it’s what was bad about science fiction, something I once loved, and something that only a few girls admired at the time. Part of it is illustrated by “Detonation Boulevard.” And that is the immature childhood dreams of science fiction. We just don’t want to grow up, and that’s the old style science fiction that guys mostly loved, and some girls did too, both now and then. That quality is irrisistable fun and make believe. It’s why Transformers were so popular. It’s why the comic book culture has gained appeal with all ages and genders. It’s why we don’t want to grow up and adolescence now extends for decades. It’s why people are addicted to video games and crave virtual reality. Science fiction was always the 12-year-old boy’s daydreaming come true. It’s also why young wives want to divorce their immature husbands. However, that immaturity of story action is widely popular, even with girls and women.

But it ain’t helpful for growing up in a the real world. It doesn’t matters in a story like “Detonation Boulevard,” but it does in stories like “A Year Without Sunshine.” That story has no alpha males, no assholes that demand or take what they want. And those kind of guys will show up with things fall apart. It had a couple of teens that lamely tried to take what they wanted, but that made the story somewhat less realistic. There’s also a different between vicarious violence for fun, and fictional violence that portrays the real world.

I guess I’m making a case for more realism in science fiction. I think young people, of either gender, want less realism. But isn’t it the realistic details of “A Year Without Sunshine” that made it worthy of a Hugo and Nebula? To make his story somewhat realistic, Reynolds had to have cyborgs rather than humans. But wouldn’t two AI robots competing on Io been even more realistic, more gritty, hard, and believable, especially if we were shown how their knowledge and ability to perceive reality was hundreds of time more powerful than human beings? Robots are perfect for Io, we’re not. We still want to be the heroes of space exploration, but I don’t think we will.

I’m also listening to the audiobook of A City On Mars by Kelly and Zack Weinersmith. It’s subtitle is: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? Kelly Weinersmith is a professor of biosciences and she takes a long hard look at the final frontier dream. Her husband Zack illustrates the book. On the dedication page she writes:

The book brings realism to the dreams of science fiction and space enthusiasts. Even pointing out some harsh truths, I think the Weinersmiths are still overly optimistic. I’ve been reading widely on the possibilities of space exploration and the limitations of what we have to work with leave little room for what science fiction has dreamed. But even if technology could give us the colonization of Mars, only delusional people will want to live there.

I know it’s sexist to say women writers have something to offer that is unique to them, but I think we need their gender’s perspective. But I also think even more, we need more maturity of the kind they have. Maybe I’m too old to be reading a children’s literature. Maybe it’s unfair to be inside stories for children expecting more grownup’s perspectives.

When I read these two stories this weekend I felt I was reading the fantasies from two different genders of young people, stories for girls and boys. Two stories that imagined a positive future, although one was more realistic and mature than the other.

Sure, my sample size is two, but they’re consistent with many other science fiction stories I’ve read. Personally I think the genders are no closer in understanding each other than the Democrats and Republicans, and that all youth, and most adults have a grasp of reality that’s only slightly superior to reality TV. We just aren’t a rational species. Most people accept that fantasy and science fiction are merely ways to pretend, especially for children, but I believe what we pretend, especially as children, says something about how we will think when we grow up.

Both “A Year Without Sunshine” and “Detonation Boulevard” are good stories. I just enjoyed “A Year Without Sunshine” a great deal more. Is it sexist of me to say I like it more because it offers a female perspective I don’t get in post-apocalyptic tales written by males?

If you disagree that there is a difference go read “A Boy and His Dog” by Harlan Ellison, and then read “A Year Without Sunshine.” I can’t find an online copy, but here’s an audio reading at YouTube. It also won a Nebula award, and was nominated for a Hugo. I can’t believe Ellison hasn’t been canceled because of this story. You might have it in one of these anthologies. I can’t believe I once admired this story – it’s truly repellant.

JWH

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Is It Possible, Or Is It Magic?

“Enchanted Village” by A. E. van Vogt has been extensively reprinted. It first appeared in the July 1950 issue of Other Worlds Science Fiction. I just read the story in Possible Worlds of Science Fiction edited by Groff Conklin. I first read it in The Great SF Stories 12 (1950) edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg several years ago, although today, I had no memory of reading it before. I can’t tell if it’s a forgettable story, or I’m just forgetting everything.

Bill Jenner is the lone survivor of the first mission to Mars after his rocket crashes. Jenner crosses hundreds of miles of Martian desert on foot with just a bit of food and one bag of water. Jenner thinks he’s saved when he stumbles upon a deserted alien village.

The story is nicely told. Who doesn’t love a Robinson Crusoe type story? Isn’t that why The Martian by Andy Weir was a bestseller and blockbuster? “Enchanted Village” takes a left turn though, one that reminds me of Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. It’s amusing how A. E. van Vogt anticipated so many modern science fiction stories (Forbidden Planet, Star Trek, Alien, etc.).

Jenner eventually realizes the village is an organism or machine, even an intelligent one, and he must learn to communicate with it. The village produces food automatically in low troughs but is poison to Jenner. Through a series of observations Jenner discovers the village could make food for him, but he doesn’t have enough human food for it to model.

Now here is where you should leave this essay if you don’t want spoilers.

“Is it possible?” is the number one criterion I use to define and judge science fiction. All too often science fiction readers are given magic rather than honest speculation. There is nothing wrong with magic in a story if you enjoy fantasies, but the belief in magic is why our species never grows up. To me, fantasy is the fentanyl of fiction. It will make you feel great, but eventually, it will kill you.

The surprise ending of “Enchanted Village” is when Bill Jenner dies, he wakes up to discover he’s a kind of creature that can consume the nourishment the village provides. Bill Jenner is reborn. We are not told how. We are not told anything, but that Jenner now has sharp teeth and a snout allowing him to slurp up the alien food. I pictured the reborn Jenner looking like a lizard creature, suitable for the dry Martian desert.

The alien village is like Jesus, or other deities that tell us to accept them and be saved. Van Vogt’s use of the word enchanted should have warned us this was a story about magic. I don’t know if van Vogt was intentionally parodying religion, or he just needed a quick ending to sell a story. It’s interesting to compare “Enchanted Village” to “A Martian Odyssey” by Stanley G. Weinbaum. That story has strange aliens that accomplish bizarre feats, but I believe it’s within the realm of possibility, and honest science-fictional speculation.

Even with my criticism, I enjoyed the story. It’s the old fashion kind of pre-NASA science fiction I’ve always liked most. But then, science fiction was my substitute for religion. I wanted to believe in the fantasies that science fiction sold me. If we could only fly beyond the Earth, they would all come true. I never really wanted to grow up in Earthly reality but be reborn in outer space. I’ve always known that science fiction was just storytelling, but it did leave me with a kind of secret hope that I should have ignored. There’s a reason Marx said religion was the opiate of the masses, it’s because it makes us want to believe in magic. There’s a safe kind of making believing while turning pages, but if you let science fictional beliefs go beyond them, they can be dangerous.

If you think I’m being silly, read “Racked by Pain and Enraptured by a Right-Wing Miracle Cure” from yesterday’s New York Times. It’s quite moving, and I feel deserves some kind of journalism award. These people hope for a science fictional cure, ones I’ve seen in science fiction stories.

I’m getting worried that I’m becoming too critical of science fiction, and I should stop reviewing it. I don’t want to come across as a downer. I know science fiction should be judged just on its merit as a story, but I can’t help but evaluate it psychologically and philosophically as a kind of hope for the future. I assume my growing doubts and rejection of SF is because I’m getting older and thinking about how things have impacted me psychologically.

James Wallace Harris, 7/29/24

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“Another Word for Map is Faith” by Christopher Rowe

“Another Word for Map is Faith” by Christopher Rowe first appeared in the August 2006 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. You can read it here and listen to it here. I’m not sure if I would call this story science fiction or fantasy, but it’s a “What if the power of faith in Jesus were real and scientists from different scientific disciplines were disciples” kind of story. The story attempts, I believe, to surprise us like “The Nine Billion Names of God” or “The Star” by Arthur C. Clarke, and Philip Jose Farmer’s “Sail On, Sail On.” However, the surprise was a letdown for me, yet the story does have a neat religious take on things.

“Another Word for Map is Faith” is about a young geography professor named Sandy and a group of her graduate students who are out in the field studying cartography. Their faith in Jesus tells them that Jesus wants geography to match the maps they have in old books. That is a neat metaphor for those who believe in the literal interpretation of The Bible.

Evidently, society has suffered some kind of collapse. It doesn’t seem to be from war or disease, in fact, it might be due to the balkanization of Christianity, where diverse groups feel that Jesus intended something different. I don’t know if “Another Word for Map is Faith” is an antireligious story, or just a religious idea expressed in a story.

This story is all about its speculative ideas with little characterization, setting, or worldbuilding. I wish Rowe had fleshed out the conflicts between the different believers in Jesus rather than depending on a surprise ending. I’m surprised our current society isn’t more segmented by what the faithful believe — just remember all the religious wars of history.

I wanted “Another Word for Map is Faith” to be more literary to make the story more valuable. The ideas are good, but the presentation isn’t strong enough to make it memorable. Contrast it with “Servants of the Map” by Andra Barrett. Unfortunately, I can’t link to that story to read online. However, you can use the “Read sample” feature at Amazon to read the first several pages to get an idea of how the writing differs from “Another Word for Map is Faith.”

Here are samples of how each story opens. First “Another Word for Map is Faith” and second “Servants of the Map.” Both stories are about surveyors in an exotic location. Both are concerned with maps. Both involve a mystery. Rowe’s prose is nice enough but lacks the richness of Barrett’s. Barrett has more concrete details, and that makes an enormous difference. I don’t mean to be too hard on Rowe. My main complaint about science fiction is it focuses too much on a science fictional idea and not enough on giving the story the texture of reality. Both stories are a kind of fantasy. However, Barrett makes her made up tale more realistic with the increased density of significant details.

I read this story because my science fiction short story group is going to discuss it soon. Unfortunately, “Another Word for Map is Faith” only reinforces my current dissatisfaction with science fiction. The story isn’t bad at all for what’s being published within the science fiction genre. It was anthologized in three of the best-of-the-year anthologies. But it is no match for literary work like “Servants of the Map.”

There is nothing wrong with science fiction, but if you only read science fiction and fantasy, you’ll miss the full spectrum of what fiction can produce.

James Wallace Harris, 7/15/24

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“The Alley Man” by Philip José Farmer

I’ve been trying to lay off science fiction for a while, but I haven’t gone completely cold turkey. Every once in a while I’ll open an anthology and try reading a story to see if any are worth returning to my addiction. Time after time I’ve only found watery beer and went back to literary fiction and nonfiction. Today I read “The Alley Man” by Philip José Farmer. That story is pure SF heroin, you can shoot it up here.

“The Alley Man” is a masterpiece. What’s ironic is it may not even be science fiction or fantasy. Like most great fiction, it’s ambiguous. Old Man Paley may or may not be a Neanderthal. He may or may not be immortal. He is one ugly dude who lives in a shanty at a dump with two old women way past their prime. The June 1959 cover illustration of the story in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction is misleading. Paley only has one arm, having lost the other arm in an epic battle with Cro Magnon men, or a railroad accident.

“The Alley Man” is lovely character development and storytelling. The story has a prose density that most science fiction stories lack. There is great complexity in Old Man Paley. I remember reading this story decades ago, when I was a science fiction true believer, so I assumed Old Man Paley was immortal. But with this reading I realized that Farmer had something far more multiplex in mind. I consider “The Alley Man” on par with “Fondly Fahrenheit” by Alfred Bester, “Coming Attraction” by Fritz Leiber, and “The Moon Moth” by Jack Vance.

Why did I like this story so much, when so many other science fiction stories have been a disappointment to me? I really enjoyed the characterization and prose. But I also liked the fact it was set on Earth and in the present. Even though it was published in 1959, it still felt like it could have happened in 2024. It wasn’t about the future, space travel, aliens, or robots, which I feel are themes that have been over-explored in SF.

“The Alley Man” makes me want to read more short fiction by Philip José Farmer.

But for now, I’m going back to the short novel I was reading, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, a 1925 comic novel. I’m not ready to go back to a steady diet of science fiction just yet, but I will sample it from time to time.

I got the idea to read Gentlemen Prefer Blondes from this YouTuber.

James Wallace Harris, 7/3/24