Galaxy's Edge Magazine

  GALAXY’S EDGE MAGAZINE ISSUE 5: NOVEMBER 2013

  Mike Resnick, Editor

  Shahid Mahmud, Publisher

  Published by Arc Manor/Phoenix Pick

  P.O. Box 10339

  Rockville, MD 20849-0339

  Galaxy’s Edge is published every two months: March, May, July, September, November & January

  www.GalaxysEdge.com

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  ISBN (Digital): 978-1-61242-173-5

  ISBN (Paper): 978-1-61242-172-8

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  A BRAND-NEW ADVENTURE BY

  NANCY KRESS

  CONTENTS

  THE EDITOR’S WORD by Mike Resnick

  TIMETIPPING by Jack Dann

  LOVE IN BLOOM by Sabina Theo

  THE UNCHANGING NATURE OF STONES by Andrea G. Stewart

  ECHOES OF PRIDE by Catherine Asaro

  WILL YOU VOLUNTEER TO KILL WENDY? by Eric Cline

  THOR MEETS CAPTAIN AMERICA by David Brin

  ALL QUIET ON THE GOLDEN FRONT by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro

  DOGGED PERSISTENCE by Kevin J. Anderson

  IL GRAN CAVALLO by Martin L. Shoemaker

  FLARE TIME by Larry Niven

  FROM THE HEART’S BASEMENT by Barry Malzberg

  BONESTELL AND BEYOND: GETTING IT RIGHT by Gregory Benford

  BOOK REVIEWS by Paul Cook

  SERIALIZATION: Voodoo Planet by Andre Norton

  WE CREATE THE BUNDLE

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  www.BookBale.com

  A NEW BUNDLE EVERY THREE MONTHS

  NOVEMBER’S AUTHORS

  ROBERT HEINLEIN

  JOE HALDEMAN

  FRANK HERBERT

  ROBERT J. SAWYER

  MIKE RESNICK

  BILL RANSOM

  NANCY KRESS

  KEVIN J. ANDERSON

  MERCEDES LACKEY

  On sale from November 1 to November 30

  www.BookBale.com

  THE EDITOR’S WORD

  by Mike Resnick

  Welcome to the 5th issue of Galaxy’s Edge. We’ve got our usual mixture of new and old, this time featuring stories you may have missed by David Brin, Catherine Asaro, Jack Dann, Kevin J. Anderson, and Larry Niven. And we’ve got new stories by Andrea Stewart. Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Sabina Theo, Eric Cline and Martin Shoemaker, the first installment of an Andre Norton novel, plus the usual science column by Greg Benford, the usual book reviews by Paul Cook, and the usual anything-he-feels-like-writing-about column by Barry Malzberg.

  Back in issue #2 (which wasn’t so long ago, now that I come to think about it), I gave little thumbnail sketches of some of the writers who are no longer with us (and one who still is). Since then I’ve received a number of requests to tell you more about the giants of our field whom I knew personally, so, as per your wishes, here are another ten.

  Isaac

  What kind of man was Isaac Asimov?

  Let me tell you a story that took place in 1987.

  I was in Westchester County, New York, to toastmaster a convention known as Lunacon. I got there a day early, and walked to the train station, where I planned to take a train to Manhattan, do a little shopping, meet my friend Barry Malzberg for a late lunch, and get a ride back with him.

  Problem was, there were dozens of trains to choose from, and no one had given me a schedule. A little old lady—she must have been in her seventies—took pity on me, asked me where I was going, and since it turned out we were both waiting for the same train, she offered to ride with me and let me know where to get off.

  We got to talking during the train ride, and I mentioned the reason I was in town, and she replied that she didn’t know much about science fiction, but she had always wanted to meet the world-famous Isaac Asimov. And, without even knowing for a fact that he would be there, I told her that if she showed up on Saturday night, I’d be happy to introduce her.

  I got off at my stop, went about my business, and thought no more of it—until 7:15 Saturday night, when the little old lady entered the hotel in the immediate aftermath of a blizzard, walked up to me, and told me that she really only half-believed that this stranger she met on the train actually knew the celebrated Dr. Asimov, but since she only lived a mile away she thought she’d wander over and hope for the best.

  As it happened, Isaac had come to Lunacon. In fact, he was sitting about 40 feet from me, flirting with some luscious and admiring young ladies, when I approached him to make the introduction. I figured he’d give her a quip and an autograph and then go back to flirting with the worshipful femmefans, as was his wont … but instead, when he found out that this withered old lady had walked a mile through the snow to meet him, he made his excuses to the young ladies and spent the next hour charming my guest, even insisting she sit with him during the Jack Chalker Roast that I was about to emcee. You could tell by her face that he had more than made her evening; hell, the way he charmed her, he made her whole decade.

  When she excused herself for a moment to call home and tell them she was staying for the roast, I walked up, thanked him, and told him that as a token of my gratitude I wouldn’t insult him from the podium that night. He looked truly hurt, and insisted that not insulting him in front of all his friends would be the greatest insult of all.

  And that’s my fondest memory of the most approachable world-famous man it’s been my pleasure to know.

  Doc

  We attended our first Worldcon in 1963. I was 21, my still-beautiful child-bride Carol was 20. Right off the bat, we were the victims of false doctrine. Everyone we knew in fandom—all six or seven of them—told us the Worldcon was held over Labor Day weekend. So we took them at their word.

  The problem, of course, was the definition of “weekend.” We took a train that pulled out of Chicago on Friday morning, and dumped us in the basement of our Washington D.C. hotel at 9:00 Saturday morning. At which time we found out that the convention was already half over.

  (Things were different then. There were no times in the convention listings. In fact, there were no convention listings. Not in Analog, not anywhere. If you knew that Worldcons even existed, you were already halfway to being a trufan.)

  We started wandering around. There was a sweet old guy in a white suit who saw that we were new to all this, and moseyed over to help us out. He wasn’t wearing a badge, but he seemed to know his way around. He spent a couple of hours guiding us through the dealers’ room and the art show, made sure we knew where the masquerade would be held that night, even bought us coffee while telling us about the wonders of Worldcon. Then he checked his watch, told us that he had to go to some ceremony, and invited us to come along.

  We accompanied him to one of the larger function rooms, where we arrived just in time for him to get up on the stage and accept the first-ever Hall of Fame Award from First Fandom. We still didn’t know who our new friend was. Then someone asked him if
he was ever going to write anything else. He answered that he had just delivered the manuscript to Skylark DuQuesne—and only then did we realize that our guide and mentor for the first few hours of our first Worldcon was E. E. “Doc” Smith.

  Fred

  Whenever I think of Fred Pohl, I instantly smell cigarette smoke. I was a heavy smoker when we were both hitting a lot of Midwestern conventions; so was he, and we seemed to always find ourselves in each other’s company, sneaking out of some boring banquet for a smoke, sitting in splendid and befogged isolation in the smoking suite, or otherwise polluting the atmosphere.

  I also remember a Windycon where there was a Fred Pohl Roast, and the committee asked me to be the roastmaster because no one else would say anything nasty/funny about him. I pored through his wonderful autobiography, The Way the Future Was, and found a most interesting fact hidden away in the middle

  of it. Once, when (like so many writers) Fred needed a little salaried income, he took a job at a racetrack as the guy who irritates the winning horse’s genitalia with an electric prod to get urine samples for the track vet. I built an entire routine about how after years of causing the same reaction in editors and readers, he’d finally found his calling. Just before the roast a couple of panelists insisted I couldn’t say those things about an icon, but I did—and no one laughed louder that my friend Fred.

  (Fred Pohl died after a long illness during the 2013 Worldcon, a very fitting date for the man who was truly the last of our giants.)

  Andre

  So we’re wandering through the art show at TriCon, the 1966 Worldcon, and we see a middle-aged lady sitting quietly on a chair, looking (or so we think) just a little bit lost, so Carol and I go over and ask if there’s anything we can do for her. She gets up, thanks us, and says that no, she was just resting and is going to the coffee shop to have some tea. We offer to accompany her—we still half-think she wandered in off the street by mistake—and she thanks us and invites us to come along.

  We buy her tea, and chat for maybe 20 minutes, by which time we know she didn’t wander in by mistake, and then I notice her badge pinned to her purse, and it is Andre Norton, who kept in touch with us, offering career advice and encouragement, for the next 30 years.

  Leigh and Ed

  Leigh Brackett, though first and last a science fiction writer, made her fortune in Hollywood, where she was Howard Hawkes’ hardboiled writer of choice, scripting not only Humphrey Bogart’s The Big Sleep, but four John Wayne movies as well (and, decades later, the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back). To get away from the Hollywood madhouse, she and husband Edmond Hamilton—who’d been writing space operas since the 1930s—had a farm in northern Ohio, and they’d hit some regional conventions when she wasn’t putting words in he-man actors’ mouths.

  And during some of those conventions, the Resnicks got together with the Hamiltons for meals—we were just starting out and they usually picked up the tab—and loaded me down with career advice. Over the years one or the other introduced me to various editors and agents, and were always there with a sensible answer when I had a question about the business.

  Leigh and her writing made such an impression on me that when I had to write novelettes for the forthcoming (one may be out by the time you see this) Old Mars and Old Venus anthologies edited by Gardner Dozois and George R. R. Martin, I simply channeled Leigh Brackett and had no trouble selling them.

  Tucker

  Wilson (Bob) Tucker was my friend for 43 years.

  He was science fiction fandom’s friend for about 30 years longer than that.

  He was a professional writer, of course—a Hugo nominee, probably an even better mystery writer, always willing to give a newcomer the benefit of his wisdom. But it’s for his undisputed position as the best-loved fan in science fiction’s history that he’ll be remembered the longest.

  They’ll be reminiscing and telling Tucker stories for decades to come. Here is one of mine:

  When superfan Lou Tabakow was dying in a Cincinnati hospital, Bob asked if he could stay in our guest room at night while he visited Lou by day. Of course we said yes. The first night he spent with us, he got up at about three in the morning to use the bathroom. I was writing—I usually write from about 10:00 PM to maybe 5:00 AM, when there are no phone calls or visitors to disturb me. Bob saw the light in my office, stopped in the doorway, and asked where the bathroom was. I replied that I’d tell him as soon as he scribbled down a cover quote for my current manuscript. He explained that he was desperate for a bathroom. I explained that I was desperate for a cover quote from Wilson Tucker. We each won; I got my quote, and ten seconds later he got his bathroom.

  Hal

  Harry—Hal Clement’s real name was Harry Stubbs—was a sweet guy. Time and again I’d get up and give a Guest of Honor speech about how science fiction, like all fiction, was about people, or else it was just a polemic or a scientific crossword puzzle, and he would seek me out later and gently explain why I was wrong on every point. Then two weeks later he’d give a Guest of Honor speech about the beauties of hard science and how the idea was the most important part of a science fiction story, and I would seek him out and gently explain to him why his priorities and conclusions were totally wrong. We never agreed, and there was never had a harsh word between us.

  The record will show that he’s the only person ever to have been both a Worldcon Fan Guest of Honor (when Boston honored the Strangers Club in 1989) and a Worldcon Pro Guest of Honor (in Chicago in 1991). He became a Nebula Grand Master in 1998. Not a bad trio of lifetime achievements to go out on.

  Kelly

  Kelly Freas was one of the first pros I met when I entered the field close to half a century ago. I was in awe of him, but he went out of his way to put me at my ease. We quickly became friends, and remained friends for the next four decades, during which time he illustrated some of my books and some of my stories, and took it upon himself to bring me to the attention of more than one editor who might otherwise not have known I existed.

  At the 1982 Worldcon in Chicago, we had lucked into a room on the 5th floor of the immense Hyatt, which meant we weren’t at the mercy of the elevators. The con committee spent a few days trying to get us out of there, since they felt that only committee members and the Guests of Honor should be there, but we knew the law and knew they couldn’t force us out as long as we had a reservation and our credit card was good. Finally Kelly arrived on Friday morning. The committee pounded on our door and demanded—for the fourth day in a row—that we leave the room. We wouldn’t do it for the committee, but we were happy to turn the room over to Kelly. I told him he could hunt us up on one of the party floors—the 25th and 26th, as I recall—once we got a new room. His eyes lit up as I said that, and he told the committee that, Guest of Honor or not, he’d much rather be on the party floor, which is precisely the kind of guy Kelly was: at least as good a friend to fans as he was to pros.

  And those eleven Hugos are probably a few less than he deserved. He was as talented as he was friendly, and that’s a lot of talent.

  Jack

  Jack Williamson was the undisputed Dean of Science Fiction. His first story appeared in Amazing in 1928, and he won a Hugo in 2001, his ninth decade as a science fiction writer. Jack was one of the first pros I met, back in 1963, and from that day on he was a friend, a source of knowledge, and an avid supporter. He was the first one to convince me that being a science fiction writer was indeed an honorable profession, and also the first to suggest that certain of my stories should go to better-paying markets than science fiction possessed.

  He invited me to write a story for The Williamson Effect, a “tribute anthology” where he allowed a number of friends to write stories using his characters and worlds. I chose my favorite of his fantasies, Darker Than You Think, a wonderful book about lycanthropy, and I had the narrator, a were-wolverine, wind up by killing and eating Jack. From that day on, whenever I introduced him to an audience, which I seemed to do just about every year, I
always concluded by saying that he was a man of excellent taste, and we always had to wait a moment until he stopped laughing.

  Jack lived—and wrote—until he was 98. I’m exceptionally proud that his very last novel was dedicated to me, among others.

  Every year he invited a couple of friends out to his college for what was known as the Williamson Lectureship. The year I went he was 93, and he had just lost an uncle who was 108 years old. I found myself wondering if anyone in that family ever aged, and then I saw his kid brother, 90-year-old Charlie, walking into the lecture hall on crutches, and I thought to myself: Well, at least one Williamson is slowing down. Then I got to speaking to him, and found that he was on crutches—temporarily—because he’d gotten a shin splint while jogging.

  That was one hell of a family.

  *****************

  SMALL PRESS

  GIANT AUTHORS

  WINNER OF THE

  HUGO & NEBULA AWARDS

  www.PhoenixPick.com

  *****************

  Jack Dann, who moved from New York to Australia in 1994, is the winner of the Nebula, two Aurealis Awards, three Ditmar Awards, and a World Fantasy Award, and is equally at home writing novels or short fiction.

  TIMETIPPING

  by Jack Dann

  Since timetipping, everything moved differently. Nothing was for certain, anything could change (depending on your point of view), and almost anything could happen, especially to forgetful old men who often found themselves in the wrong century rather than on the wrong street.

  Take Moishe Hodel, who was too old and fat to be climbing ladders; yet he insisted on climbing to the roof of his suburban house so that he could sit on the top of a stone-tuff church in Goreme six hundred years in the past. Instead of praying, he would sit and watch monks. He claimed that since time and space were meshuggeneh (what’s crazy in any other language?), he would search for a quick and Godly way to travel to synagogue. Let the goyim take the trains.