Wherever SF goes -- Astral Avenue has been there and left! ******************* ASTRAL AVENUE ******************* 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 The whole idea of a magazine by previously unpublished writers is wrong.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