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Astral Avenue 03
Wherever SF goes -- Astral Avenue has been there and left!
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ASTRAL AVENUE
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Number 3 Jan 1987. THIS MONTH'S ODDS: Casey-type "seizure," 2-1;
resignation, 3-1; impeachment, 50-1; NSC coup, even.
"You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think."
CURRENT NEWS AND VIEWS: The Fortnight's Pen Pictures Illustrating the Dark
and the Bright Side of Civilization
Publisher's note: Already there has been some misunderstanding about our
intentions in publishing AA. Let us state what we thought was obvious from
the start. ASTRAL AVENUE is simply a time-consuming, money-wasting folly
intended to provide an outlet for spare energies and thoughts, squeezed
inbetween what must forever be deemed our more important work, namely the
composition of fiction. Additionally, it is intended to encourage
communication among Diverse Deviants and provide an occasional laugh,
frisson, epiphany, or sour stomach. It is not some kind of calculatedly
offensive broadside meant to topple the status quo. The status quo is quite
capable of undermining itself, thank you, through inanition and boredom.
(The preceding has been vetted by the Organization of Apocryphal Power, which
has established a transplenary nexus inside our shower stall.)
Trash, Flash, and Time The Avenger
The stack of SF magazines balanced atop the stolen plastic milk crates
came tumbling down atop my head as I was bending over the examine the
October, 1958 issue of SUPER SCIENCE-FICTION (containing "Blood By Transit,"
author, Harlan Ellison ('The teleport worked, but at risk of hideous death!')
and "The Fight With the Gorgon" by Robert Silverberg ('The weird monster had
extraordinary powers!')). I was knocked ass over teakettle, and rendered more
unconscious than usual.
When I came to, lying amid the flaking pulp, I was mysteriously moved to
open the April 1977 issue of ANALOG, which I had never previously read. In
"The Reference Library," then being manhandled by Lester del Rey, I
encountered the following:
"UNEARTH (issue #1) is not at all recommended.
"This should have been expected. The whole idea of a magazine by
previously unpublished writers is wrong. The other magazines pay far better
and offer more prestige. Any new writer with a good story is going to try
for the better markets first, as a rule. What's left, since all magazines of
science fiction welcome new writers, won't have much to offer."
Besides being pissed that my own story -- my first fiction sale -- which
was included in UNEARTH #1 wasn't even thought worthy of specific
denigration, I was struck by the whole asininity, the smarmy elitism, of del
Rey's argument, and how history has proved him wrong.
Let's look first at the utter illogic of what del Rey was saying.
The field needs markets, of whatever sort. One has only to read
Malzberg's essay "Memoir from Grub Street" -- wherein he calculates, based on
personal editorial experience, that there are hundreds of publishable stories
going unprinted every month -- to realize that there simply aren't enough
empty slots for all worthy contenders. To lambaste a magazine simply because
it specialized in "first sales" is abysmally stupid. (And remember that
UNEARTH's stated policy was always to publish future works by those it
"discovered," so that it hardly differed, in the end, from the other mags).
Putting aside this paper tiger, let's look at how UNEARTH is beginning
to shape up in the eyes of history. After all, it's been ten years now.
Folks, this is the really sweet part! Have a gander at this list of
authors initially published by the magazine del Rey turned thumbs down on.
My name leads because I am the sole survivor of issue #1: Di Filippo,
Blaylock, Sucharitkul, Gibson, and Rucker. Not a bad little roster, in my
book. Now, admittedly, these folks would probably have gone on to be
published without UNEARTH. But the plain historical fact is that UNEARTH was
there and got 'em first, for which service we are forever indebted to it.
Just to twist the knife a little, let's make a completely arbitrary,
biased, and slanted comparison of the list above with the names of the
nonestablished writers published in the April '77 ANALOG: Robert Freitas,
George Ewing, Stephen Leigh, Roy Prosterman, Bernard Deitchman.
What a fuckin' joke! By any objective measure, ANALOG should be
retroactively closed down, and UNEARTH resurrected with a million-dollar
budget! But of course, I am not going to argue that, since it's contrary to
my first point: the more markets, the better. I'd have to be as
hog-ignorant as del Rey to do it.
All of which brings me to the point alluded to in the title of this
article. Every literary judgement is conditional. We never know nuthin'
fersure until history casts the final ballot. Melville was dead and
out-of-print until some keen-eyed twentieth-century critics were turned on to
him and turned on others. It should inspire us all with a little humility.
See me again about this in twenty years.
HOW MUCH DID YOU GET FOR YOUR SOUL? or, First I Look At the Purse
In the last issue, I expressed the desire that Thomas Wylde write a
novel. Well, recent news should teach me about who might be listening to
one's hasty wishes.
In LOCUS #311, we are told that Mr. Wylde will be writing one novel in a
series of books developed and plotted by Roger Zelazny.
Put plainly, this sucks.
Let me insert a few disclaimers first. 1). I realize writers must eat
and pay the rent. 2). I have never been offered such a job, and might have
a sour-grapes attitude, altho I doubt it. 3). I have no right to run Mr.
Wylde's career.
With that out of the way, let me say: This still sucks.
The fact that a marvelous new writer has an easier time debuting as part
of someone else's pre-packaged line is disgusting. I want to see a Thomas
Wylde novel, not second-hand Zelazny!
OUR ARABIAN COUSINS
From ARABIA by Jonathan Raban, pp269 - 271.
"A man was introduced to me as 'the only science fiction writer in
Arabia'.... I asked the writer of science fiction to tell me about his work.
"'My last book is about a world under the sea. It has its own minerals.
Enough wealth. It would like to live peacefully by itself, but there are
two other worlds fighting over it. They want these valuable minerals. They
are very powerful, these worlds, they have very advanced technologies, they
have much money, they need the minerals of the world under the sea, and they
make war over them. It is a war-of-the-worlds book, you see.'"
"'And the world under the sea caught between two great powers is really
Egypt?'"
"'No, it is imaginary. It is a world that I make up in my
imagination.'"
"'But it is a political metaphor...'"
"'It is not political, it is science fiction.'"
"'Perhaps, though, you are free to say things in the form of science
fiction that you couldn't say in a realistic novel?'"
"Yes, I think a writer of science fiction is free, because his world is
all in his imagination.'"
"'Policemen,'" said the poet, "'are not clever men. I think it is a
good thing that they don't understand metaphors.'"
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
What connection is there between Poul Anderson's story and the
mercenary/spy Sam Hall, recently arrested in Nicaragua?
Does Rudy Rucker's recent move to Los Gatos, California, have anything
to do with the fact that Albert Hakim, fiscal intermediary in the Iragua
deal, also lives there?
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS
Bruce Sterling: Your attack on King proves you know how to pick on guys your
own size.
-- Actually Bruce, you've hit the nail on the head. Both Steverino and I
have been topping the dreaded 190 mark lately, although he chooses to belt
Below-the-Paunch, whereas I opt for the Fred Mertz Look. Many's the time
that my phone's rung at midnight, with the Maine-iac on the other end,
begging for my recipe for Lo-Cal Brownies. But, being a tuff guy, I leave
him whimpering.
Ellen Datlow: The illo for Jack Dann's "Tattoos" is an outtake of the
Deborah Harry album-cover sitting. We never commission art. The art dept
tries to find art that fits the story from material in existence.
-- While I generally enjoy OMNI's juxtaposing of, say, a Magritte with a
story, I have trouble when the image chosen is one that bears heavy
commercial connotations. As an extreme example: I enjoyed Gervasio
Gallardo's covers for the old Ballantine adult fantasy line, but I wouldn't
want one of his Grand Marnier ads on the cover of my book.
Rudy Rucker: I've also thought what you said about King for a long time now.
I've always found his bullies unrealistic -- stuck in childhood.
Michael G. Adkisson: I agree with your analysis of Stephen King. It's
disgusting that a writer of his rank should receive so much fame while others
of high literary caliber are shit upon. But... I guess all the big chunks
always float to the top, don't they? (How's that for some King dialogue?)
-- Mike, we predict a big career for you as scriptwriter for teen films such
as PORKY'S XXI.
David Clear: Is it true that if you live on Astral Avenue you can go out
without getting out of bed?
-- Yes Dave, the residents of Astral Avenue CAN project their souls.
However, as we mentioned in issue #1, the eponymous Providence street is a
mundane, middle-class block. The inhabitants, when travelling astrally,
tend not to journey to Far Yuggoth or Beyond the Gates of Sleep, but to
church bake-sales, Jaycee meetings, and the malls, where they give the
incarnate patrons the heebie-jeebies.
Paul Di Filippo
2 Poplar Street
Providence, RI 02906
