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OtherRealms Issue 08 Part 03
OtherRealms
A Fanzine for the Non-Fan
Where FIJAGH Becomes a Way of Life
Issue #8
September, 1986
Part 3
Godbody
Theodore Sturgeon
Donald I. Fine Books [SFBC]
[*****]
and
Radio Free Albemuth
Philip K. Dick
Arbor House [SFBC]
[**]
Reviewed by
Chuq Von Rospach
Copyright 1986 by Chuq Von Rospach
It is unfortunate that the books I am reviewing were published
posthumously. Both authors were at the forefront of the field,
constantly searching for and expanding the horizons and testing the
limits of the genre.
It interesting that both books are echoes of past works. GODBODY is
similar in feel to Sturgeon's MORE THAN HUMAN. ALBEMUTH is a new
examination of the society Dick wrote about in MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE.
Sturgeon's work is more successful. GODBODY is probably his best work,
and it is definitely his most controversial. It is not SF or Fantasy.
It could be defined as a softcore religious novel. It involves a being
called Godbody and the effect that He has on a number of people in a
small American town. Godbody is about the return of Christ, a being
that is openly hostile to the structures and hypocrisy of the Christian
religious organizations.
Sturgeon has written some very explicit sex scenes. Readers that are
bothered by this material should avoid the book. The sexual material
is not there to titillate but to open the mind of the reader and make
them see the effects of Godbody's work.
The plot is simple. Godbody enters the town, some people accept Him
and heal, some reject Him and don't. The latter eventually kill Him,
but He rises to continue His work elsewhere.
This is an intense book, driven forward by the characterization and the
emotional response it forces from the reader. It cannot be skimmed; it
forces the reader to dig in and react. You may love this book or you
may hate it, but it will not leave you unaffected. GODBODY is an
appropriate epitaph for Sturgeon. GODBODY is about what Sturgeon was
about: that LOVE is all, and that to love is everything. This is the
book I think he would have wanted to be remembered by, it does his
memory justice.
RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH, unlike GODBODY, is an older manuscript (written
around 1976) and unpublished until after the authors death.
Undiscovered manuscripts worry me because if a work is written and not
published, there is usually a good reason. Bringing it out
posthumously rarely does an author justice. So it is in this case.
ALBEMUTH is a pale cry to Dick's best works.
The book looks at a society similar to THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE;
unlike that other work, it is not an alternate universe, but a near
future society in which the radical conservatives have taken over
America. This work is really the first try of the novel that was
published as VALIS.
The book opens in Berkeley, portrayed as an enclave of liberal sanity
in a world gone mad. Nicholas Brady sells records in a Berkeley
store. He also hears voices. He is given a chance to join a record
company in Los Angeles, and moves into the conservative country of
Orange County so that the voices can speak to him more clearly.
Brady, with the help of the voices, is attempting to save the country
from its oppressive self, while not giving himself (or the voices) away
to the authorities. The voices (known as Valis) are really coming from
some alien satellite in orbit around the Earth.
There are a number of problems with the work. One major one is that it
is a self-referential novel. The lead character is Phil, SF author.
He is telling about his interactions with his friend Brady. He makes
comments about the story, about other novels he has written, and
generally gets in the way and confuses things. The book would have
been better off switching the point of view to Brady and tossing Phil
out.
More importantly, though, is that this work is little more than an
anti-conservative rhetoric. It doesn't explore the issues, it
postures. Unlike MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, which looked at the
ramifications of repression, this book is so dogmatic in its views that
nothing else is given a chance to come through. It is shallow,
one-sided and not very well thought out. The book is flawed, and there
is good reason why it wasn't published before now. It can be of
interest only to Dick completists.
Letters
to
OtherRealms
--------------------------
On
Women in Fantastic
Armies
--------------------------
Courtenay notices the prevalence, in recent Fantasy literature, of
women in low-technology armies on equal footing with men. Courtenay
finds this unrealistic. I will not address all of Courtenay's points,
since many of them are valid points about writing style. Some of them,
however, seem to be based on ethnocentric assumptions.
I agree that there are unarguable differences between men and women. My
experience is that this difference is overrated by most people due to
unconscious sexism. When dealing with soldiers or martial artists, any
comparisons of the "average" man with the "average" woman are irrelevant.
A trained fighter who maintains training is NOT to be considered
average.
Courtenay mentions that men are stronger and larger than women and
therefore have a combat advantage. It is true on the average that a
stronger, quicker, or larger person is at an advantage when dealing
with a smaller, slower, or weaker person who is otherwise of
approximately equal skill. However....
A woman of normal size and weight, who has practiced with a foil,
sabre, epee, or sword, will be about as strong as the majority of men
who have undergone similar practice. The upper-body mass becomes a
significant consideration only with some men, and then only after they
reach about age 21 or so. Teenage boys will be on about the same
footing as women. In any low-tech setting, this means that the women
are on about the same footing as most of the men in the army; remember
that low technology implies other things, like a general shift
downwards in the average age.
With this consideration, looking objectively at human history and at
social forces, the presence of women in the armies becomes less of a
problem if, as in some of the early Macedonian-region city-states, a
way is found to keep the women in the armies from getting pregnant.
The real barriers, and those which keep women out of active combat
roles in modern, high technology armies, is that sexism is very much a
part of the military mindset. For various reasons, human societies in
Fantasy tend to be slightly changed versions of the late-20th century
Western society. In our society, the military mindset says that men
must protect women, who are (it claims) unable to protect themselves,
and necessary as producers of new soldiers. The modern army is very
male, very macho, and rather hidebound when it comes to changing ANY of
the rules, written or unwritten.
This overblown machismo is the reason why women are no longer accepted
as combat troops in the Israeli army: the super-macho attitude of the
Arabs they were fighting would not allow themselves to be captured by
women, who in their society were considered slightly less than
animals. They would die before they would surrender.
Societal rules partition the roles of men and women. Low-tech cultures
tend to reflect the roles which were part of the more primitive culture
from which they probably derived. If women were not hunters, then they
wouldn't be likely to be warriors, because the warrior tradition
derives from the competition between two tribes for hunting grounds.
Similarly if women were the keepers of ritual and knowledge, then they
would be likely to hold positions of leadership in armies.
Finally, my experience with several martial arts have shown me that, in
fact, women make good hand-to-hand combatants, with the advantages of a
lower center of gravity, greater flexibility and endurance, and a more
objective, less emotional and competitive attitude than most men seem
to have.
Stephen Hutchison
hutch@volkstation.GWD.TEK.COM
--------------------------
More on
Women in Fantastic Armies
--------------------------
I beg to differ with Courtenay's article on women in armies. While she
did say that it was merely for general army use, most armies in
speculative fiction are not merely handtohand. As an example, Diane
Duane's armies used Flame as well as the usual projection weapons, such
as arrow and spears and such
Very little combat is only hand to hand. In swordplay, there is no
distinct advantage to one that can sprint, do lots of pushups, and has
long arms. In fact, if one does not know exactly what one is doing
long arms can be a distinct disadvantage. Balance, flexibility,
control, and eye-hand coordination along with training are equally
important, and I would say that given two combatants, female and male,
with the same amount of training there would be no edge, as women are
generally better balanced, are better able to control reaction, and are
more flexible. The only reason that I don't see as many women in
fencing is because the prevailing attitude in the Real World is one
that says women shouldn't Fence!!
Taller is never an advantage, stronger and faster are only advantages
if one is able to control them. Anyone can learn control, however it
seems that women are more able to learn in the early stages the
patience needed for control and timing. My female fencing students are
usually the best students. So, for an ill-trained or semi-trained army
that uses only swords, perhaps women would be more feasible than
realized. I, a 5'10" female, have handily beaten 6'5" males, and have
been beaten by 4'11" females, and all of us had about similar
training. And one of the smaller ladies weighed the same that I
did...
Once you get to the higher levels of any martial art you find that
physical differences, no matter what they are, can be turned to an
advantage.
Take the featherweight boxing at the Goodwill games. There was one
boxer that I saw two rounds of. In the first, he was the taller of the
two by about four inches, he stayed back and planted punches from a
distance, making the shorter one back up, and never get into his
range. In the second contest he was the shorter by about three to four
inches, and he made a complete switch in strategy, he would go into
clinches, body blows and stay inside the distance of the taller boxer
where the taller fighter had to keep his arms back and mostly bent,
where they had the least power and control. The boxer I was watching
used his height, and even- though it was shorter, he used it to an
advantage by taking away his opponent's possible advantages...
So, I disagree with the assessment of females in speculative fiction.
From my own experience in fencing, tai-chi, tai-qwon-do, and watching
people in combat, I can say that females are just as capable of
learning how to use weapons and, perhaps, better able to learn them
quickly.
Liralen Li
li@uw-vlsi.arpa
[There are a lot of factors that complicate things. For
example, women have better stamina than men, better eye-hand
coordination, and better balance. Any man that doesn't
overwhelm a woman quickly in battle may find themselves in
trouble. Also, women make better calvary. There are many
situations where a woman could fight as well as (or better
than) a man, and if an author wants to do so, let them. They
do need to think it through, though, and many authors get
needlessly sloppy here and fall into some of the traps that
were pointed out in the article. From what I've read, the
number of books that screw it up significantly outnumber the
ones that don't. chuq]
--------------------------
Comments on #7
--------------------------
On THE SORCERY WITHIN
Chuq lists the author as Dave Smeds and then says, Feist works a number of
seemingly unrelated subplots together with great skill. Which one is it?!
[Argh! It is Dave Smeds. I think I'll start a new contest:
Screwup of the Month award. That way I'll be able to claim
that I do these things on purpose. chuq]
On FUZZIES AND OTHER PEOPLE
It seems unfair to accuse Piper of "Ewok cuteness," since he died twenty
years before RETURN OF THE JEDI. Accuse Michael Whelan, rather, of
painting covers for the new editions of the "Fuzzy" novels to look like Ewoks.
On OtherRealms Formatting
In print, the titles of novels are underlined or italicized; the titles
of short stories are enclosed in quotation marks. Electronically, the
quotation marks can still be used for short stories, but something else
needs to be done for novels. I prefer all caps, and have a distaste
for the USENET custom of preceding and following the title with a
single underscore. The underscores don't set the title apart enough
for my taste.
[I agree with you on the underline problem. Using underlines
is ugly, but with both single quote and double quote used, the
ASCII character set doesn't leave me a lot of choices. You end
up either doing something substandard or you use caps and YELL
AT PEOPLE ALL THE TIME.
I changed this starting this issue. To some degree, titles
should stand out. The readers of the hardcopy OtherRealms
don't have this problem, thanks to the wonders of the
Macintosh, but using all caps on the network makes the
electronic OtherRealms a little cleaner looking chuq]
On the "no media" rule:
I notice this was new in this issue. While I don't want to see
OtherRealms turn into another "let's-all-reviews-ALIENS-this-
month-and-wasn't-STAR-WARS-great" magazine, I think this rule may be too
harsh. The folk music group review, for example, was worth printing.
I hope that you won't be overly strict in interpreting this. I do not
think an occasional reference to film or TV, when appropriate, will do
much harm.
[The new rules are just part of my ongoing process of defining
what OtherRealms really is. When I started it I planned on
printing just about whatever came in. There are two problems
with this. First, I simply don't have the space to print
everything, so I feel that to continue publishing a good
magazine I have to specialize. Second, the interests of the
readership of this magazine tend to be pretty
specialized -- reading SF and Fantasy.
The thrust of OtherRealms is to review the field, help people
make purchasing decisions on books, discover new authors, and
learn more about SF and Fantasy. I don't feel movies fit into
this mold. Discussion of media as it relates to books would be
fine, though.
What this is is a prioritization. I did the same with the
writing oriented material. The group of people interested in
that material is a small percentage of the total readership, so
it makes sense that the limited number of pages I can print
each month go to things that most people will appreciate. If I
have the space, I'll happily run articles that range far and
away from the primary goals of the magazine. If an article is
really good, I'll make room. But given an review on a book and
an equivalently written article on wildflowers, I'll print the
book review. chuq]
Evelyn C. Leeper
(201) 957-2070
ihnp4!mtgzy!ecl
mtgzy!ecl@topaz.rutgers.edu
--------------------------
Bermuda Triangle in '88?
--------------------------
Chuq,
Just thought I'd drop you a line and let you know that Bermuda Triangle
in '88, a 1988 World Science Fiction Convention bid, can be reached at:
ihnp4!homebru!bermuda
Any and all mail will be properly appreciated Send all requests for
information to the above address.
Ben Liberman
Cruise Ship Liason
Bermuda Triangle in '88
(an out of the country bid)
OtherRealms Notes
Fiction!
OtherRealms is starting to publish fiction. I've been considering this
move for a while and trying to decide the best format to use. I've
decided to simply add a new article slot to each issue, after the Pico
reviews. If I have a story, I'll use it. If not, I'll drop in an
article of some other type. This will make OtherRealms a little
larger, but I think this is a much better method than a quarterly
supplement. Easier on my nerves, too.
Submissions should be made to the normal addresses, E-mail or
hardcopy. Works should be SF or Fantasy, or both if you can figure out
how. Works up to 10,000 words will be considered, but longer works
will be serialized over two issues.
The Swimsuit Issue
I've made a decision to take December off. Why? The month of December
is full of holidays and things get slow in the SF world. Since I don't
want to do what Sports Illustrated does (how do you get a Troll in a
bikini, anyway?) I'm just going to skip a month. The December issue
will be out the end of November, as usual, and OtherRealms will take up
again in January with the February issue.
Masthead
This issue is Copyright 1986, by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights reserved
One time rights only have been acquired from the signed or credited
contributors. All rights are hereby assigned to the contributors.
Reproduction rights: Permission is given to reproduce or duplicate
OtherRealms in its entirety for non-commercial uses. Re-use,
reproduction, reprinting or republication of an individual article in
any way or on any media, printed or electronic, is forbidden without
permission of the author.
OtherRealms is Published monthly, except for December, by:
Chuq Von Rospach
160 Pasito Terrace #712
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
USENET: {major_node}!sun!chuq
ARPA: chuq@sun.COM
CompuServe: 73317,635
Publishers: Review copies should be sent to this address for consideration.
Submission Policy
OtherRealms publishes articles on Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
with an emphasis on reviews. Please, no media articles. I am very
interested in the newer and lesser known authors. Anything of interest
to the serious reader of the genre is welcome.
Pico reviews are welcome from everyone. Duplicate the format used in
this issue and limit your comments to one paragraph.
OtherRealms is accepting fiction. Fiction must be previously
unpublished, under 10,000 words, and first serial rights are
requested.
Authors should include their U.S. Mail address, even if submitting by
E-mail. Bionotes are welcome. A writers guide is available. If you
want to write for OtherRealms, please ask for a copy.All letters will
be considered for publication unless requested otherwise. All published
material is subject to editing for length, content and style to conform
to OtherRealms standards.
Subscriptions
OtherRealms is available in two forms: electronic and paper. The
electronic OtherRealms is available through the newsgroup
"mod.mag.otherrealms" on the USENET network. For those on the UUCP,
ARPANET, BITNET and CSNET computer networks without access to this
group, a mailing list subscription is available. OtherRealms is also
available through the following bulletin boards:
SCI-FIDO, (415) 655-0667.
The Terraboard, Fidonet number 14/341, (612)721-8967.
Dim_Sum Fido, Fidonet number 146/5, (503) 644-6129
UNaXcess, 781-6201, log in as "bbs"
Other BBS systems are welcome to make OtherRealms available on their
systems. Either copy it from an available system or contact me. If
you do make it available, I would like to hearing about it.
The paper OtherRealms is available from the above address for $20 for
11 issues, $10 for five, or $2.00 for one. Please make checks payable
to "Chuq Von Rospach." Fanzine trading rules apply: if your article is
printed in OtherRealms or you send me your Fanzine you get a free copy.
