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September 2006
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Off On A Tangent: F&SF Style There was no Book Review or "Recommended Reading" column in the first issue of The Magazine of Fantasy, Fall 1949. With its second issue (and a retitling to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Winter-Spring, 1950), co-founders Anthony Boucher and J. F. McComas began a Recommended Reading column. Both editors shared reviewing duties until it was announced in the August, 1954 issue that McComas was leaving the magazine to travel and write, which left Boucher the sole Book Reviewer until he too left the magazine in 1958, whereupon Robert P. Mills became the magazine's editor. Following a gap of several issues in the Recommended Reading column, the November 1959 issue saw the first of Damon Knight's reviews. Astute, sometimes pithy, but always interesting to read, Knight's run as Book Reviewer lasted a mere eleven issues, his last column appearing in the September, 1960 issue. This is when things began to get interesting for F&SF's Books column, for with the October, 1960 issue Alfred Bester was named as Knight's replacement. His official tenure lasted 23 issues—one issue shy of two full years—and ended with the August, 1962 issue. But it was a rocky, controversial two years for Bester's column, which eventually led directly to his resignation. Column #1: October, 1960 Bester offers his reviewing philosophy thusly: "This department will entertain any fiction that is a Flight of Fancy from the reality of Now . . . any imaginative flight into the future, the past, or the para-present; any arresting concept based, perhaps, on a scientific premise, a philosophic foible, a cultural conceit (using "conceit" in the architectural sense), or even a bit of technical bravura.He then proceeds to review four books: The Worlds of Clifford Simak (favorably), remarking that "His style is gentle and rambling; one never knows where he's headed. This means his stories never suffer from the mechanical working out of plot which enables the reader to predict the action and resolution after the first two pages." And, "This is the way his imagination is colored; and the results, far from being repetitive, are always charming." Mark Clifton's novel Eight Keys to Eden he is less enamored of, observing gently that "Mr. Clifton has hung the body of his novel on a skeleton barely strong enough to support a short story." This after praising Clifton's short story "What Thin Partitions," which he calls "a delightful classic in fantasy writing." L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's The Incomplete Enchanter he also praises, saying "the book holds up amazingly well after twenty years." When discussing Judith Merril's collection Out of Bounds, he opens with: "It's been suggested that most women fail to write significantly because the female mind is viscerotonic, and occupied almost exclusively with the moment-to-moment reality of emotions. If this is true, literature's loss is science fiction's gain, for Out of Bounds, Judith Merril's collection of short stories, is a warm and colorful rendering of the minutiae of the future."Following brief, one-line comments on eight of the stories, he then concludes with: "Let the men write about the Big Decisions, if they're so equipped; we still need more of Miss Merril's art to keep reminding us that fantasy and science fiction must be based on human values."Four books are reviewed in three pages. One novel and three collections. Three are given praise, one a gentle rebuff. Column #2: November, 1960 Seven works reviewed in three and a half pages. Quips which drew my interest: "This department devoutly believes that Theodore Sturgeon is too fine a writer to devote himself to science fiction exclusively. Certainly he is one of the greatest of the living science fiction authors, and we always welcome his books. His latest is Beyond, a collection of short stories, some new, some reprints, all put together with Mr. Sturgeon's unique magic."Column #3: December, 1960 Six works reviewed in three and a half pages. Quote of interest: In reviewing James Blish's A Clash of Cymbals, Bester opines, "Mr. Blish's theorizing about the conclusion of space and time is original and arresting, and the steps his characters take to cope with this ending are equally remarkable. But unfortunately this department must continue and old debate with Mr. Blish; we feel he is too brilliant an intellect and too constrained a human being to do justice to the fiction half of science fiction. His characters lack emotion, conflict, reality; it is impossible to believe in them, feel for them, identify with them. He refuses to conceive of a story in terms of human values. We urge Mr. Blish, for the sake of his formidable talent, to abandon intellect and take to drink, drugs, seduction, crime, politics . . . anything that will shock him into experiencing the stresses that torture people, so that he will be able to write about them with the same lucid dedication which he presently reserves exclusively for science." That last line cracked me up when I first read it. Imagine Alfred Bester (with tongue heavily in cheek) exhorting James Blish to get drunk or stoned, or turn to crime or politics, in order to learn about what it's like to be human--all in the service of his fiction. Everyone knows what a heavy drinker Alfie was, and an international party guy to boot. He was, in his own ineffable manner telling Blish to take the stick out of his backside and loosen up a bit. But in a review column, in public as it were. If one is familiar with Bester's brand of humor, you just gotta love it. [Tangent #6, Winter 1977: How do you get along with people with no sense of humor? Bester: I can't. I forget'em. I find myself trying harder and harder to get a laugh out of these cats and I end up feeling gauche, awkward, and it gets worse and worse and I make a goddamned fool of myself, and it's a real mess. So I just don't worry about them anymore.] Column #4: January, 1961 Five works reviewed in three pages. A couple of quotes worthy of note: "This department is so angry with Theodore Sturgeon that we hesitate to review the source of our anger, his latest book, Venus Plus X. Claiming to be a novel, [it] is actually a long exploration of Mr. Strugeon's attitude toward sex and mores in America; their foibles and furbelows, their dilemmas and disasters." There follows a short paragraph in which Mr. Bester hastens to add that in the entertainment business in which he is involved he has learned to accept all sorts of "versions and inversions of sexual practices as mere commonplace," by way of letting us understand that he is definitely not a prude.Bester finishes his review with some advice for Sturgeon: "Mr. Sturgeon, whom we admire as one of the most brilliant and perceptive of American writers, has permitted himself to blunder into the trap that undoes so many lesser American authors . . . a deadly and stultifying seriousness about sex. On other subjects Mr. Sturgeon writes with warmth, wit, and a deft light touch; but when he dedicates himself to sex he writes like an unfrocked clinician." As with his comments for Blish, Bester also desires that Sturgeon lighten up and let it all hang out; and this advice concerns the topic of love/sex (!), which everyone knows is Sturgeon's fictive forte. Again, you gotta love Bester's brass and candor, again touched with an edge of humor. "Andre Norton, a science fiction author of only mediocre attainment, finds her forte in the historical novel with Shadow Hawk, an interesting and meticulously researched novel about the struggles of the Egyptians to drive out their Hyksos conquerors some two thousand years before the birth of Christ."Bester finishes with the following observations, which will eventually come back to haunt him: "We have only one small criticism to make: Miss Norton was forced to compress her scholarship into too small a compass. Occasionally her details clutter up the narrative. And we have one question to raise: Can a woman really write convincing action?" Though perhaps over-sensitized to such a remark today, it still, for all its innocently-intended frankness as an honest question, raises an eyebrow, and elicits an immediate reaction. To be fair, Ms. Norton had yet to hit her stride, popularity and fame at this point in her career and maybe the action in this particular book wasn't very convincing, but it's Bester's generalizing of the question to include all women writers that tips the scales, and will lead to controversy down the road. Column #5: February, 1961 One book reviewed glowingly, Judith Merril's The Year's Best SF 5, and then the fireworks begin. Bester uses the remainder of his three and a half pages to angrily admonish sf authors for the poor quality of their writing. He is frustrated and lashing out, and I wish we could reprint the whole wonderful rant. But we can't, so I'll include a few of the better snippets. "The rest of the books sent in for review this month were so bad that we've decided to ignore them." " . . . many people want to know why. Publishers, editors, and the public have been blamed. We disagree. We think authors are responsible."Whew. Heady stuff, much of which is, to our eyes, yet relevant today--perhaps more than ever (especially in the magazines). Column #6: March, 1961 Following on the heels of the fiery diatribe in the previous column, Bester reviews nothing in this column, instead offering the reader this: "Last month we complained rather bitterly about the poor quality of contemporary science fiction and its authors. Although we were careful to point out that there were exceptions to our attack, we fear that angry fans may have overlooked this. So we would like to take advantage of this month's All Star Issue by putting together a composite All Star Author out of the colleagues we admire most. Unfortunately, space limits us to a selection of seven, but we beg you (and the authors who must be omitted) to remember that our admiration includes far more than that number."All but the final graph is taken up with listing the great qualities of seven authors. The final graph combines them into one All Star Author thusly: "Our All Star Author, then, would be made up of the dramatic virility of Robert Heinlein, the humanity of Theodore Sturgeon, the gloss of Robert Sheckley, the dispassion of James Blish, the encyclopedic enthusiasm of Isaac Asimov, the courage of Philip Farmer, and the high style of Ray Bradbury. He would be edited with the technical acumen of John W. Campbell, Jr., the psychoanalytic perception of Horace Gold, and the sparkling sophistication of the Boucher-McComas team. And publishers would beat a path to this door."Column #7: April, 1961 One non-fiction tome, reviewed favorably, Isaac Asimov's The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science. That was it. Column #8: May, 1961 Six books reviewed, all favorably. Nothing to raise or lower an eyebrow about this somewhat flat, tame column (given the past several, that is).
Column #9: June, 1961 One book reviewed, Algis Budrys' Rogue Moon. The column has expanded to five-plus pages this time around, in order to accommodate a double review of the book. Bester leads off and James Blish closes, taking up the bulk of the space. Before his short (but highly favorable) review of Rogue Moon, Bester prefaces the column with this: "The Kindly Editor (to quote the Good Doctor Asimov) has requested this department to explain our reviewing policy to readers and authors.Looks like Alfie got taken to the woodshed, or at least told to head that way. Column #10: July, 1961 Seven books reviewed, a quote from Damon Knight's collection Far Out the only (minor) item of interest. While admiring the collection, Bester offers this observation of Knight's work in general: "We would prefer to let our review stand on the preceding paragraph, but Mr. Knight is too important an author to be dismissed with a mere notice. Consequently, we must mention what we feel to be a weakness in his work; he is interested in situation rather than character. All thirteen stories are splendid examples of the art of an expert author in the colorful development of situation, but with the exception of a touch here and there, very little attention is devoted to character development.Nothing outrageous or mean-spirited about the above; merely honest, cogent criticism at the tag of a favorable review. It appears Bester has not allowed the "reproach" to bother him, or shake him from his reviewing philosophy. Column #11: August, 1961 Unexpectedly, there is no Books review column in this issue. Only a brief explanation by editor Mills that the absence is due to "a sudden, unexpected deadline on a script for another medium. Mr. Bester will definitely be back next month. . . . " Approximately halfway through his stint as F&SF Book Reviewer and already Bester has ticked off the fans, been reproached by his editor, and has missed a column altogether. Never mind his excellent insights into the craft of writing, his humorous suggestions to Blish and Sturgeon on how to improve their writing by becoming more human and less serious about sex, respectively, and his brilliant rant against most of the authors in the field. One can only trust the editor's explanation, and promise of Bester's return in the September, 1961 issue. But one wonders if Bester will take another month (or more) off—while still officially listed as Book reviewer. Has his frank, outspoken nature betrayed him? Soured the editor and readers against him, such that the frustrations he had already endured will prove too much and he will throw his hands up and quit? Will Judith Merril have anything to say about his comment that it seems Men write about the Big Stuff and Women the Small? What reaction did Andre Norton have to being labeled mediocre? And what of the question Bester raised about women not being able to write convincing action scenes? Are there more battles abrewing? How (if at all) will Bester deal with them? All of these questions and more will be answered next month, in Part Two of "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Reviews of Alfred Bester." Dave Truesdale began the short fiction review magazine Tangent in 1993. Since then, it has been honored with 4 Hugo nominations and 1 World Fantasy Award nomination. For several years in the 1990s, he was deeply involved with the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and in 1998 was a World Fantasy Award judge. He edited the Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America from 1999-2002. Tangent Online can be found at www.tangentonline.com.
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