They raise the call of destruction. They called upon alternate laws of science — the powers of nature men had once called witchcraft, the necromantic anti-science of the past brought forward to save the world by destroying it! – From the back of Gordon R. Dickson’s Necromancer, 1962 edition
Welcome back to All Tomorrows dear reader. It’s been far too long since our last foray into the glories of sci-fi’s deviant age. For that, you have my apologies. My day (and night sometimes) job of journalism has been keeping me busier than usual, and on top of that, a box full of many of my best old books, including a lot of future subjects for this column, disappeared, probably eaten by something unspeakable.
Starting with this column, All Tomorrows will shift to every other week. This will give me the time to write pieces of deserving depth on the works we’ll be tackling. Believe me, we’ve got some doozies ahead.
This time, it’s Gordon R. Dickson’s 1962 Uber parable Necromancer, the tale of a future where the enterprising Chantry Guild has figured out a way to make magic work. Not just metaphorically, but also in the “I chant and stuff blows up” way. Necromancer follows an ubermensch-in-training, who joins the guild’s quest to tear down society.
Way back in the very first All Tomorrows I mentioned a certain subgenre of sci-fi hero that fit this description: With his Uber name, imposing looks and knowledge of a vague future super-social-science, Bron is a riff on the sort of character that, in the hands of older school sci-fi writers, would end up at the head of a space armada, woman breathily clinging to his leg, humorlessly announcing the next stage ™ in human evolution.
Well, Necromancer is kind of like that. Dickson was very definitely a product of that older school, but, on a mystical kick that would presage some of the cultural movements about to rock sci-fi (and everything else) he went out on a limb. While this book has all the implied flaws of the old ways, it keeps many of its strengths — big ideas, tight plotting, suspenseful twists and over-the-top action — while offering a glimpse of what was to come.
I have spoken elsewhere of the stultifying weight thrown on us by the marketing practices of past generations , which attempted to parse out speculative fiction into tidy little categories and have resulted in inextricable concatenations. * The immediate point is that writers will speculate, and if their stories thrash a limb or two over some publisher’s tidy little fence and sprawl into the “next” “category,” tough tiddy. But then we descriptors of the milieu have to invent categories like “science adventure” and “science fantasy” and “heroic fantasy,” possibly — nay, certainly — because we readers have been taught that things come in little boxes. When something breaks through into the next box, we call the combined wreckage a new box.
* God, I love the language!
-Algis Budrys, April 1982
This is far too belated, and it arises out of Pat (thank you!) informing me in the comments of the last column that science fiction writer/critic extraordinaire Algis Budrys had died last June.
He published only a handful of books, though there’s more than one classic amongst them. By his own admission, however, what Budrys did best — as critic, historian and editor — was teach: he helped demolish the aforementioned boxes, making bad writing good and good writing superb. He even made a valiant attempt to take a professional sci-fi (a term he wasn’t horribly fond of) magazine online.
His role as a tester/pusher of new writing is needed now more than ever, and he’s left a very large hole to fill.
The image (Sci-Fi Christmas, via AdsOfTheWorld) above came after I utterly failed to find pictures of Samuel Delany, Tanith Lee, Joanna Russ or the late, great Octavia Butler in a festive and appropriately seasonal hat. If anyone can remedy this gaping, unforgivable hole in the historical record, please let me know. Until then, bah humbug.
All Tomorrows will be taking a special holiday intermission as I’ll be traveling for the holidays this week and I imagine many of you wonderful people will be similarly occupied. It will return, full force, on Dec. 30. We have many stunningly written worlds – weird, beautiful and hellish – in store for you lucky souls.
In the meantime, have the Star Wars Holiday Special. You’ll never want to do anything but read (far, far away from the moving images) ever again.
It was a time when society seemed both crumbling and poised for something new. Old barriers fell, including in the very writing invented to consider the future. To the new breed it was now a vehicle to explore endless possible societies, to consider and endless array of tomorrows: weird, wonderful or horrible.
During this period, lasting roughly from the mid-60s to the early ’80s, science fiction went through a sea change like no other. The resulting works tackled issues of culture, society, ethics and sex in ways that make them still fresh today. Some of the writers went on to fame (if rarely fortune), while others remain obscure. However, in this period sci-fi considered tomorrows that involved far more than just bigger machinery. Today, we face some eerily similar questions – and would do well to delve into their possible answers.
Thanks to an unusually well-stocked used bookstore in my hometown, this is the stuff I grew up on. Most of it was contained in dusty volumes, worth seeking out and taking home when you found them. All Tomorrows will be a weekly feature taking a look at one of these works and the possibilities it raises. Everything featured here isn’t just thought provoking, but damn fine reading as well.
This time, we have the legendary Samuel R. Delany’s 1976 “ambiguous heterotopia” Trouble on Triton (just Triton in my ragtag version). Delany and “groundbreaking” go hand in hand, as any perusal of the man’s formidable body of work will reveal. There’s an excerpt from his forthcoming book, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, in the first issue of Coilhouse. You should read it.
Now, as for Triton, it struck me upon second glance that it describes a world that for many of us would be close to paradise. There are no such things as alternate cultures on the future society of Triton, ensconced in its domes, because there’s no such thing as a mainstream to begin with. Any lifestyle goes and all basic needs are provided. Dress how you want, live how you want. If you’re unhappy with your flesh, your sex, your body in any way, the technology exists to change it. Hell, it’s not even unusual (more like a surgical oil change). Want to see what attraction to a whole different spectrum of people feels like? There’s a machine for that too. If, after all this, you’re not satisfied with the few laws that do exist, each city has a sector where none of them apply (realizing such places develop anyway). Anything is possible.
Forrest J Ackerman: literary agent, magazine editor, writer, actor, producer, archivist, curator, and so much more, too much to pack into a brief obituary. He was a crackpot visionary to the max, to be sure, and deeply loved by millions of fellow freakazoids the world over. Tip o’ the iceberg: he discovered Ray Bradbury, represented Isaac Asimov, Ed Wood and L. Ron Hubbard, founded Famous Monsters of Filmland and is widely acknowledged as the man who coined the term “sci-fi.”
Ackerman cultivated one of the most enormous private collections of science-fiction movie and literary memorabilia in the world, cramming his hillside “Ackermansion” with 50,000 books, thousands more science-fiction magazines, and such priceless collectibles as Bela Lugosi’s cape, actual Star Trek tribbles, and original props from War of the Worlds.
He sold off quite a bit of his collection back in 2002 and moved to a smaller place, but schedule permitting, continued to open his home to strangers every Satuday afternoon to view his remaining treasures. He greatly enjoyed sharing his many colorful stories and anecdotes with fellow Hollyweird aficionados. Speaking to the AP during a lively tour of the Ackermansion on his 85th birthday, Ackerman said “My wife used to [ask] ‘How can you let strangers into our home?’ But what’s the point of having a collection like this if you can’t let people enjoy it?”
First, headlines screaming about giant flying inflatable turds descending on innocent children… and now, word that Werner Herzog and David Lynch are joining forces to make a slasher film?! Comrades, this is either the beginning of the end, or The Best Day Ever. Let’s dance!
Herzog + Sophocles + Lynch = EPIC WIN
The two reigning iconoclasts of modern cinema announced at Cannes that they’ll be teaming up to make a digitally shot, guerilla-style murder drama called My Son sometime early next year. Based on a true story, My Son will tell the grisly tale of a “San Diego man who acts out a Sophocles play in his mind and kills his mother with a sword” with the narrative jumping between the murder scene and direct accounts from the matricidal maniac.
Lynch has also announced plans to collaborate with Jodorowsky on an NC-17 “metaphysical gangster movie” starring Nick Nolte, and featuring Marilyn Manson as a 300-year old pope.
What next? Matthew Barney and the Mekas Brothers unite to reinterpret the Ramayana starring Soupy Sales as Hanuman? A pristine print of Welles’ original cut of The Magnificent Ambersons is found under a rock in a Brazilian rain forest? Jerry Lewis finally consents to release The Day the Clown Cried? GIT ‘ER DONE, COSMOS.
Zoetica’s solo art show (and birthday! woo!) takes place in Toronto this Thursday. The event unveils a new series of gorgeous monochrome ink and digital drawings, which began with our jetpacked Coilhouse poster girl and spiraled off into a new mythology. The subjects of the series – a team of “off-world cloud hunters” – posses high-altitude breathing devices, candy-shaped gravity-defying hairstyles and futuristic clothing that’s remeniscent of Plastik Wrap, the host of the gallery event. Adriana from Plastik Wrap and Zoetica previously collaborated on several fashionshoots, my favorite one taking place at the Bradbury Building in Downtown LA (most famously captured as J.F. Sebastian’s apartment building in Blade Runner). More information about this event can be found on Zo’s personal blog.
Just in case you can’t make it, here’s a cloud hunter – and three more after the jump.
Just when you thought it wasn’t possible to adore this gentleman any more than you already do, here is Tom Waits holding court at a recent “live press conference” to inform the public of his upcoming Glitter & Doom tour:
Waits hasn’t announced any new recordings. Bloggers are speculating that the tour is in support of actress Scarlett Johansson’s album of Tom Waits covers, which comes out later this month, and which I am about as likely to purchase as Chester Cheetah is to burst forth from my chest cavity in a scabby, florescent orange flood of processed cheese while singing “Jockey Full of Burbon”. No offense.
Tom Waits’ Glitter & Doom Summer Tour:
6/17 – Phoenix, AZ @ Orpheum
06/18 – Phoenix, AZ @ Orpheum
06/20 – El Paso, TX @ Plaza
06/22 – Houston, TX @ Jones Hall
06/23 – Dallas, TX @ Palladium
06/25 – Tulsa, OK @ Brady Theatre
06/26 – St. Louis, MO @ Fox Theatre
06/28 – Columbus, OH @ Ohio Theatre
06/29 – Knoxville, TN @ Civic Theatre
07/01 – Jacksonville, FL @ Times Union Center Moran Theatre
07/02 – Mobile, AL @ Saenger Theatre
07/03 – Birmingham, AL @ Alabama Theatre
07/05 – Atlanta, GA @ Fox Theatre
Question: How do you say “oh, fuckballs, I think I took the brown acid” in Telugu?
Answer: “Idhi Oka Idi Le!”
Just kidding. “Idhi Oka Idi Le” is merely the title of an exuberant duet between classic Tollywood stars Radha and Chiranjeevi (star of that notorious “Indian Thriller” video). Actually, I have no idea what “Idhi Oka Idi Le” means. What I do know is that I’d rather eat a live centipede than watch the “Idhi Oka Idi Le” video while tripping.
Embedding’s been disabled on this, so make with the clickies (provided you’re not on any hallucinogenics right now).
I recently saw this at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo and was floored, immediately. The presence of a telescope in such a traditionally-executed piece was remarkable enough; it’s an infiltrator, hard geometric lines clashing with soft strokes of the figures. But it was the main observer’s fixed gaze that drew me in. Hands firmly gripping the mechanism, she seems completely removed from the rest of the group, lost in stars.
