What Happened to William Coombes by Angela Rogers
The Way Erving Went by Grahame Leman
The Banks of the Nile by Ritchie Smith and Thomas Penman
The Bones of Bertrand Russell by Brian W. Aldiss
On the Inside by Robert P. Holdstock
The Great Plan by Leroy Kettle
Face to Infinity by E. C. Tubb
The Call of the Wild by Manuel van Loggem
Wordsmith by Bryn Fortey
Manganon by Michael Stall
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Kenneth Bulmer
One of the delights of editing a collection of short stories is the discovery of a superb story just at the moment when the editor is convinced that there is no one left in the whole wide world who can write apart from those respected and reliable authors whose names have graced past volumes.
Since the inception of New Writings in SF, more than ten years ago, as a showcase for new and original work in the sf field that would appeal to a wider audience, many new writers have made their mark in its pages. Just how many new readers have come to a refreshing discovery and appreciation of sf in that time it would be difficult to say. Exactly how many of them have gone on to become writers is even more complicated to judge, for so many components go to the makeup of a working writer that to trace individual sources of motivation and inspiration demands lengthy scholarship so far not undertaken.
But the delight in reading a first-class story by an ‘unknown’ name is always immense-. Very often the writer turns out to be a polished practitioner in other, non sf, fields; the ‘unknown’ is unknown only to sf. To take the interesting case of lady writers in New Writings - I doubt they’d thank me for calling them authoresses - Volume 24 saw Cherry Wilder’s widely acclaimed the ark of james carlyle. I am happy to report that this story saw republication in Australia’s very first sf short story anthology, ‘Beyond Tomorrow’, edited by Lee Harding. The book was published to coincide with Australia’s first World Science Fiction Convention, and the hope is that it will be the beginning of an indigenous series to the benefit of Ozwriters. Vera Johnson, whose barbed and thought-provoking the day they cut off the power appeared in New Writings 27, has been singing and strumming from success to success, and I would draw your attention to her L.P. ‘Bald Eagle’, recorded live at the Black Horse Folk Club, from Sweet Folk All Recordings Ltd.
It has been suggested that one of the differences between pre-nineteenth century literature and that which follows is that the former had to look for change in a spatial direction, whilst the latter could find it in a temporal. If this is true of mundane literature it is particularly true of one kind of sf and the literature of the imagination. In the old days change was so slow that to perceive it for the purposes of fiction with any kind of relevant immediacy one had to travel to another country or a fantasy world behind the moon. With sociological and scientific change increasing visibly in tempo, one has only to wait to perceive changes whirling along in the debris of time.
So the story-submissions that come across my desk and the time-travelling editor at last reach a nodal point. One’s faith in the continuing good health of writing is re-established.
The first story in this volume is by the third lady writer to grace the pages of New Writings in SF. what happened to william coombes is written with great style and distinction and captures a very great deal of the underlying unease of our culture, inter alia. This is one to treasure. As for Mr. Coombes himself, a most realistically-conceived old gentleman, it occurs to me that the readership may consider Angela Rogers to have been too hard on the old fellow, or too disbelieving of her own powers, about his final happening.
Graham Leman’s story may strike a few chords out of its time-span; but once again sf is shown to be a master-medium in which humour can be employed in dealing, with a sobering malaise of modern life. Brian Aldiss is a writer who likes to go out and cut down the tall grass. And if he can lay his hands on a good scythe he will use that in preference to a little half-moon sickle. The name Aldiss appears on very many of the books generally considered by sf people to be in the very top class, those they would choose to be space-wrecked with. There is a good chance that the bones of bertrand russell may receive its premier at some upcoming world convention, and no prizes are offered for cast lists made up from your pet loves or aversions in the sf world.
Robert Holdstock presents us with a story that appears to be one thing whilst actually being something entirely different. The single item that may bother most people about Mr. Holdstock will, inevitably, be - does Mr. Hold-stock keep Mrs. Holdstock in the closet? Like Robert Holdstock, Leroy Kettle has recently gone free-lancing, and his the great plan, a provocative story in which the writer’s well-known aversion to work is given a solid substratum of speculation, augurs well for his success in his chosen profession, and one looks forward to examples of Leroy Kettle’s handling of humour in the sf context. Bryn Fortey deals much more directly with the writer’s problems, and, incidentally, comes up with a beautiful notion in Black Art. May I add, on a personal note, that almost all Bryn Fortey has to say about editors is just about ninety nine percent accurate - if not in this world then in the one he posits here.
With the seafarer in New Writings 26, Ritchie Smith and Thomas Penman made their debut as professional science fiction writers. Now they present by the banks of the nile which is just as rich and exotic, filled with the iron clangour and decadent luxury of a future age consciously drawing upon the past and bending it to the unyielding demands of that future. This story marks a positive step forward, as was suggested in their own words quoted in the foreword to volume 26.
Manuel van Loggem is a distinguished novelist of his native country, the Netherlands, and we are privileged to see his work here. This arose as a result of our meeting in Gent, and he has since visited sf gatherings in this country where his urbane appearance gave no inkling of the trenchancy of his conversation. The two aspects mingle most happily in the bite of the call of the wild. E. C. Tubb’s story can be seen as companion piece to his evane in New Writings 22, which was selected for the annual world’s best sf anthology published by DAWBooks of New York.
Michael Stall is extending his mastery of different areas of the sf field, for the five doors, rice brandy and his present work herein presented, manganon, are all very different in tone and colour and in their emphases. With manganon Michael Stall transports us to a macabre world that is the subject of high-level thinking presented in an academically scientific fashion, quite different — as Michael Stall points out - from the actuality, where passion and blood must appear in close-up to participants for whom the author arouses like feelings.
These ten stories, all new, three by writers new to New Writings in SF, continue the idea of the series, that of presenting a variety of sf themes to a wide audience as well as to lovers of sf of many years’ standing.
Kenneth Bulmer.
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