Spring 2007 (32 page)

Five million or more Harry
Potter fans would most likely agree.

Review:
The Best of the Best Volume 2 20 Years of The Best Short Science
Fiction Novels

Edited By Gardner Dozois (St. Martin’s Press/642
pages/$40.00)

Reviewed by Dorman T Shindler

More astute reviewers than this one have pointed out
that novellas are the perfect form for science fiction writers: just enough
time to develop believable premises and worlds, as well as characters, without
going on for too long.

After putting out
The Best of the Best Volume 1
,
a culling of what Dozois believed are the best short stories from twenty years
worth of “Year’s Best” collections, the former editor of Asimov’s Science
Fiction has done the same for novellas.

Happily for this reviewer and long-time reader, many
favorites are included. Foremost among them is “The Hemingway Hoax” by Joe
Haldeman, one of the most perfect novellas I’ve ever read. Haldeman manages to
mix bits of crime fiction and mainstream fiction flavor into his outlandish
tale of time travel and literary forgery, making it that much more delectable.
His protagonist, John Baird, a college professor and Hemingway buff, bears a
not-so coincidental resemblance to Haldeman. Both were wounded in the Vietnam
War, and both are married. Of course, things diverge from there, since Baird’s
wife is willing to play her husband for a patsy when Sylvester Castlemaine enters
the picture, trying to convince both of them to commit forgery. Castlemaine’s
idea begins slouching toward reality when Baird mentions that Hemingway’s first
wife managed to lose a brief case full of his early stories while traveling by
train from France to Switzerland. After some persuading from his wife (who was
encouraged by Castlemaine), Baird decides to look into the possibility of
forging one of those lost stories: properly aged paper has to be obtained, as
well as the correct sort of typewriter.

Baird travels to New England doing research and his wife
stays in Florida, twisting bed sheets with Castlemaine.

That’s when a mysterious, time-traveling entity that
looks like Hemingway (sometimes the old Hemingway, sometimes the young) throws
a monkey wrench in everyone’s plans by appearing to Baird and warning him that
his petty criminal act threatens the fabric of time, and that the entity will
have to kill Baird if he doesn’t desist. Baird, of course, ends up not
listening; but the entity’s efforts to kill Baird only send him into a parallel
universe, where the strange ballet of death and deconstruction begin all over
again.

With its chapter headings taken from Hemingway’s own
tales, it’s Roman-a-clef flavor and it’s moebius strip structure (not to mention
a section that runs backwards and reads almost like poetry), “The Hemingway
Hoax” is a tour-de-force of storytelling, and much-deserving of the Nebula and
Hugo Awards bestowed upon it.

Haldeman’s story is just one of the treasures readers
will find in this trove of literary wonders. There’s Robert Sliverberg’s
moving, elegiac, “Sailing to Byzantium” (another Nebula and Hugo winner), in
which a 20th century man finds himself in a future that seems magical–and
soulless; “Griffin’s Egg” by Michael Swanwick, in which human settlements on
the moon and controlled mental evolution play a part; telepathic marine animals
and a god-like alien in “Surfacing” by Walter Jon Williams; and a return to
Ursula K. LeGuin’s Hainish interstellar community in “Forgiveness Day.”

From hard SF to the sort
that treads a line between fantasy and science fiction, the novellas
herein–many of them award-winners–as well as the authors truly
represent some of the best that the genre has to offer.

Review
: Harlan Ellison’s Dream Corridor Volume 2

(Dark Horse/152 pages/$19.95)

Reviewed by Dorman T. Shindler

After a cable network couldn’t put together a sort of
Twilight
Zone/Alfred Hitchcock Hour/Outer Limits
type show, Harlan Ellison turned to
the one form that best emulates screen and teleplays: the comic book. With the
help of Dark Horse and dozens of writers and artists, Ellison produced six
not-so regular issues of
Harlan’s Ellison’s Dream Corridor
, the likes of
which hadn’t been seen since the good old days of
The House of Mystery
and
The House of Secrets
. In truth, even those venerable stalwarts never
looked anything like “Dream Corridor,” with its wildly careening styles (from
zany to realistic to nearly abstract), and none of the stories in those pioneer
anthology comic books were ever quite as dark or sharp-edged. With the
exception of a story adapted by John Byrne (“I Have No Mouth & I Must
Scream”), the first five issues of Ellison’s comic were gathered together and
published as
Harlan Ellison’s Dream Corridor Volume One.
Along with the
adapted stories, there were short-shorts written by Ellison just for each issue
(“Chatting With Anubis” actually won a Bram Stoker Award), so fans and
newcomers got a double-dose of Ellison. The series was to continue on a fairly
regular basis, but sickness, lawsuits and, unfortunately, poor sales, conspired
to bring about the end of the comic.

Harlan Ellison’s Dream Corridor Volume Two
(none
of which was issued in stand alone issues) is the final installment of what is
arguably one of the wildest, most inventive, most talent-festooned titles in
comic book history. And like the first volume, the stories herein run the gamut
from science fiction (“The Silver Corridor”) to fantasy (“Djinn No Chaser,”
“Gnomebody”) to crime fiction (“Moonlighting”) and horror (“Rock God”). As
always, the art is nothing short of jaw-dropping: from the realistic styles of
Gene Ha and Neal Adams (“Silver Corridor” and “Rock God,” respectively) to the
whacky “funism” of Jay Lynch when bringing “Djinn No Chaser” to life. The
brightly lit, brightly colored panels of that story and “Gnomebody” eventually
lead into the stark black and white of Gene Colan’s noirish artwork for
“Moonlighting” as well as a colored version of same; and that leads into the
black and white “Rock God” piece drawn by Adams. For comic book aficionados,
the contrast of the original black and white drawings by and the
colored/finished version (with captions and balloon dialogues) makes for an
interesting behind-the-scenes look at how one of these stories is put together.
And a third–very brief–black and white piece, a few sketches by
Curt Swan for Steve Niles’ adaptation of “Eyes of Dust” before he died,
provides a behind-the-scenes look at how comic book scripts are written.

Finally, as with Volume One, Ellison has included two
original short stories, written around paintings by Terese Neilsen and Kent
Bash. The former is an ethereal painting with a touch of whimsy that matches
“The Lingering Scent of Woodsmoke,” Ellison’s story written about the painting.
It’s a short, sharp little jab at both the destroyers of nature and the most
recent, formidable enemies of the Jews. The painting by Kent Bash, on the other
hand, which accompanies “Goodbye to All That,” was painted after the author
told the artist of a vision he’d had. Then Ellison sat down to write the story,
producing a tale stylistically similar to much of the shorter work he has
penned in the last 15 or 16 years: like a blending of Jorge Luis Borges and
Donald Westlake. It has a strange, out-of-left-field whimsicality that will
appeal to those with broad senses of humor–all the rest will be sadly
lost (so it goes). The story garnered a Nebula Award nomination for Ellison.

Those opening this book
looking for the same-old slam-bang, formulaic, super hero, action-type comics
found on every creaky turnstile rack will be disappointed. Those in search of
artwork and writing that define the words brilliant and original will walk away
with rueful smiles on their faces, wishing the rest of the human race would go
ahead and catch up already with the genius of Harlan Ellison’s wildly creative
intellect.