The All-Time Top 40: The Hole Man, Larry Niven (#41)

And so to the mid-70s. The New Wave had well and truly hit the beach by the time Larry Niven's short story "The Hole Man" appeared in Analog. Dangerous Visions ⁽¹⁾ and Again, Dangerous Visions had been published, Tiptree's career was at it's height, and Le Guin, Wolfe and entire generation of writers who had been young turks in the late '60s were producing major works that stand today as some of the finest and most important in the history of the field.

Looking back, it seems like Larry Niven's cutting edge hard science fiction should have been perfect for John W. Campbell at Astounding, so I was surprised to find that most of his early major stories were published by Frederik Pohl at Worlds of If or Horace L. Gold at Galaxy, and that he only made his first appearance in Analog in 1972 with 'Known Space' story "Cloak of Anarchy" by which time he'd already won the Nebula award once and the Hugo Award three times.

"The Hole Man" was the second story that Niven sold to Ben Bova and it appeared in the January 1974 issue of Analog. The following year the members of the 1975 WorldCon in Melbourne, Australia voted it the best short story of the year over Nebula winner "The Day Before the Revolution" by Ursula Le Guin and stories by Michael Bishop, Alfred Bester, and Robert Silverberg. Niven himself is on record as saying of the win that "Out of five Hugo Awards, this is the only one that surprised me." Reading it today, it's not entirely surprising that he was surprised to find himself the winner that year.

The story opens onboard the Percival Lowell, an exploration craft orbiting Mars. We are quickly introduced to a crew of professional astronauts and scientists. During a final orbit of the red planet, one of the scientists notices a gravitic anomaly. Although he's known for eccentric theories, the captain agrees to an additional orbit so that the readings can be checked. The anomaly is confirmed and plans are changed. The Lowell sets down near the source of the anomaly, which quickly proves to be a long abandoned alien base. Niven keeps the focus of his story firmly on events in the base, ignoring any impact that this discovery may have had on the wider world, where it quickly becomes clear that the source of the gravitic anomaly is a communicator that may be powered by a quantum black hole. The relationship between the scientist investigating the communicator and the expedition's commander, which was antagonist from the start, quickly deteriorates to a murderous conclusion involving the scientist making a very definite point about the existence of his theoretical quantum black hole.

Hard science fiction is, in theory, about sticking closely to known science. In 1973 Niven met and interviewed Stephen Hawking, who outlined his theory of quantum black holes. Within a year or so Hawking has revised his theories, but Niven had used them for the basis for this short and rather direct crime story. It's something that does nothing to undercut the story, but does point to something that seems to be a problem with this and some other of Niven's stories. Reading "The Hole Man" you get the feeling that Niven created a puzzle - in this case how extremely small black holes might be used to dramatic ends - and then worked out a plot to hang on the puzzle.⁽²⁾ It was only having done so that he turned to character. The effect that this sometimes had was that it didn't seem that the story grew out of character and situation, but rather that character and situation were incidental. It may simply be a modern reader's complaint, but I felt that the same idea fully furnished with character and such could have been much more effective.

That said, "The Hole Man" is good, solid SF. It hasn't dated much since publication (other than Hawking's amendment to its underpinning theories), and reads fairly well. Interestly, it was published almost ten years after "The Coldest Place", and those two stories roughly bookend the most exciting part of Niven's career, when he burst out of the pages of Worlds of If, creating an incredible body of work that helped to reinvigorate hard SF. Those stories, which were collected in Neutron Star, A Hole In Space, and Convergent Series remain important and essential, even if this one seems a little less exciting thirty five years later.

Next: R.A. Lafferty's "Narrow Valley", one of my favorite short stories. I'll be checking back here every day for comments, but till then, see you next next time!

1. Niven's story "The Jigsaw Man" appeared in Dangerous Visions.
2. Honesty compels me to acknowledge that this observation came from conversations with Charles Brown.

The All-Time Top 40: The Pusher, John Varley (#42)

There are many writers who owe a debt to the late Robert A. Heinlein, and many who could legitimately be described as having been greatly influenced by his work. John Varley, who spent the '60s in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, is one of them.

Varley published his first short story in 1974, and then proceeded to unleash a string of stories through the second half of the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s that stand as one of the most consistently impressive bodies of short fiction ever published in the science fiction field. Those stories, which explore similar sexual and social themes to those that Heinlein had touched on his novels of the 1960s and 1970s, are collected in the collections In the Hall of the Martian Kings, The Persistence of Vision, The Barbie Murders, and Blue Champagne.

Varley won his first Hugo in 1979, and his most recent in 1985. The story I'm discussing this week, though, is his 1982 Hugo winner, "The Pusher". Published in the October 1981 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, "The Pusher" explores the social ramifications of a reasonably straight forward piece of science, wrapping it up in a story that is a study in how to write a disturbing piece of fiction.

Ian Haise is a 'pusher'. He works cleaning the stardrive compartments of a faster-than-light starship that makes regular runs from Earth to nearby trading posts. While each trip only takes several months for those on board, much more time passes at home because of time dilation. With each trip the impact of time passing becomes increasingly devastating, divorcing crew members (who spend their time 'pushing C') from people living on Earth (who are 'pulling gee').

The story opens with Haise searching for a playground. Immediately Varley has us on edge. When he writes that "Ian liked children", it suggests something unwholesome. And when he says "Ian concentrated on the girls. He'd tried boys with boys before, long ago, but it had not worked out" alarms bells are going off. He does nothing to silence those bells through the first several pages of the story as he shows Haise's search for a suitable young girl, his approach to her, and his attempts to win her confidence. Cleverly, Varley addresses the very concerns he raises when Haise considers the safety of the playground and the responsibility of the parents who let them play there. And bit by bit the story dances around the edge of the fear that it introduces - that Haise is in some sense a sexual predator - by showing us first that he has seemingly disturbing intentions, then that he is a likable and normal seeming character, before touching however briefly on the predator angle to make sure we remain on guard. It's only in the concluding part of the story, when the science fictional aspect of the story has been laid out fully, that he shows us the innocent, if odd, nature of Haise's motivation.

I first read "The Pusher" when it was collected in Blue Champagne in 1985, and to be honest I didn't really remember it. I think what impressed me the most, re-reading the story now, was how fresh it seemed. Varley cleverly avoids any real description of the technology in the story, focusing instead on its human aspects. This in essence future-proofs the story - something that sadly isn't true of a story like "Press Enter" which has dated less well. I don't know if it's the fact that I'm now a parent of young girls, but "The Pusher" got my hackles up very quickly and they stayed up through much of the story. It's a tribute to how well Varley handles the story that those concerns are effectively laid to rest by the time the story is done (in, if I'm right, a fairly brief seven thousand words).

Having now read it several times, I don't think "The Pusher" is one of Varley's very best stories, but I do think it deserved its Hugo Award and I am glad I re-read it for this project. Anyone who hasn't read it should grab a copy of The John Varley Reader and check it out.

Astute readers will note, by the way, that I'm late with this short review. My apologies for that. I'll try to be on time next week with Larry Niven's "The Hole Man". See you next week!

The All-Time Top 40: That Only a Mother, Judith Merril (#43)

When Judith Merril’s "That Only a Mother" appeared in the pages of the June 1948 issue of John W. Campbell’s Astounding it must have stood out like nothing else. The issue contained an editorial on nuclear power from Campbell and stories from Eric Frank Russell, Asimov, and others. I’ve not read the issue in full, but I’ll bet nothing else in that issue, or most likely any other issue that year, put a story told from a women’s perspective addressing issues like childbirth, motherhood, and parenthood in front of Astounding readers.

If for no other reason, then, "That Only a Mother" is an important story. It places women and women’s issues in a science fictional perspective, and vitally makes them part of science fiction’s story. I suspect that’s at least part of the reason that the Science Fiction Writer’s of America voted to make the story part of the SFWA Hall of Fame, and why it appears in Bob Silverberg’s great anthology of the same name.

While Merrill's first published science fiction story undoubtedly deserves its place in science fiction’s history books, how does it stand up as a piece of fiction in 2009, sixty-one years after its original publication? It seems to this hardened reader that the answer to that question is that it doesn’t stand up too well. Set against the backdrop of a major war possibly reaching its closing stages, "That Only a Mother" tells of a pregnant woman preparing for the arrival of her first child. The war has clearly exacted a heavy price, with radiation exposure a common fear and newspapers reporting that fathers are returning from the front to find children born with awful mutations. There are rising numbers of reported infanticides, and the fathers are always to blame.

Merril sets her stage quickly and well. It takes her two pages to set out the basic scenario for the story. We have, in horror story terms, entered a corridor down which we must walk, knowing that a monster lies behind the door at corridor’s end. We are supposed to be properly terrified of what we will find when we finally open the door, and much of the story’s suspense comes from how the walk down the corridor is structured and how the opening of the door is foreshadowed. The problem with the remainder of "That Only a Mother" is that it’s too easy to guess what’s behind the door. We can tell from the story’s foregrounding and title that certain events will inevitably take place. Merril tries to combat that by keeping her descriptions of events and the story’s closing stages as vague as possible. We never really find out precisely what’s wrong with the woman’s child, or exactly what happens at the story’s end. And yet, we know all we need to. In fact, we knew all we needed to at page two. The remainder of the story is the simple unfolding of what must be.

I don’t think a reader today can know at a gut level how a story like "That Only a Mother" read in 1948, but in 2009 what was once probably a chilling science fiction story reads more like a not very effective horror tale. Which begs the question: should it be read in 2009? I think "That Only a Mother" deserves to be studied and discussed by scholars and historians of the field, and its place in the history of the field should be acknowledged. It is unquestionably important. But, were I putting together an anthology of the best science fiction stories of the 1940s for modern readers I’d skip it. What was once a chilling and timely piece of science fiction has become, with time, an important but not particularly moving historical footnote.

Next time, John Varley's "The Pusher". For those reading along, try The John Varley Reader for a copy.

The All-Time Top 40 (-ish) - A Quixotic Endeavor

There's something just a little bit ADD about the age we're living in: everything goes by quickly and we seldom seem to take the time to absorb something and consider it. That's true of the music I fill my iPod with, the television that flickers across my television screen, and the fiction I read for my various endeavors.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but I find it's completely focused me upon the new, upon what's next, things that I feel I have to consume quickly. That may explain why I've developed an affection for lists of late, and for pursuits that make me slow down, look back at things, and think.

It's almost certainly what attracted me to the blog of a young barista who, working at a cafe in West Perth near my office, decided to make a list of the 52 most important albums of each decade (starting with the '60s), listen to each a minimum of five times in a week, and then review one each week on her blog. It seemed interesting, worthwhile, and when I read her blog, kind of fun. I decided to play along, listening to Cream's rather flabby Disraeli Gears and Creedence Clearwater Revival's joyous Willie and the Poor Boys over the past week.

And as I listened I thought what a pity it was that it wasn't possible to do this for science fiction. These albums were less than forty minutes long. To take a novel and read it multiple times so that it could be properly absorbed and considered just wasn't practical. But, then I thought some more. While novels wouldn't work, short fiction might. Especially short stories. But where would I find a list of stories? I'm inherently lazy and almost gave up on this gossamer notion, until I suddenly recalled that Locus had run an All-Time Readers Poll back in 1999. And it had featured a list of short stories!

I went to the website and found a copy of the full list. It rambled from 1940 or so up to the 1990s. All of the stories were short (i.e. under 7,500 wds). They were mostly famous. I'd not read ALL of them. It suddenly seemed this might be doable: each week I could read one short story at least twice and write a short review of it. It would give me a chance to revisit some classics and read ones I'd missed. And it might also lead up to an even grander project. If I could cover this list of 43 stories in 43 weeks (or less), maybe I could follow it with a Best Short Stories of the 2000s. That seemed worthwhile, something for 2010, when this would be done.

And so that's what I'm going to do, right here. Each week I will read a story from the 1999 All-Time Readers Poll Short Story List at least twice, starting at the bottom of the list and working my way up. I'll then discuss the story with Locus's publisher, Charles Brown, so I can get some context on how the story was received at the time, and then I'll write about it right here. Posts, my schedule permitting, will be every Monday or Tuesday. I'd also encourage you to play along. Read the story too. Post your thoughts. Argue with me and tell me how I'm dumb as post and missed the whole point of the story. It should be fun.

Before I start, though, two things I'd point out. First, these comments are just my point of view. Yes, I'll discuss them with Charles , yes they're published on the Locus blog, and yes, it's based on a Locus list, but still. I'm deliberately keeping this a personal project. It's not an official opinion, it's a set of thoughts in progress, a response to something of interest. Second, I'm calling this the All-Time Top 40 (-ish). There are 43 stories on the list. I know.

Anyhow, here's the list. We start in a couple days with Judith Merrill's first published SF story, "That Only A Mother":

1. "Jeffty Is Five", Harlan Ellison (1977)


2. "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman", Harlan Ellison (1965)


3. "The Star", Arthur C. Clarke (1955)


4. "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", Harlan Ellison (1967)


5. "'All You Zombies—'", Robert A. Heinlein (1959)


6. "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas", Ursula K. Le Guin (1973)


7. "The Game of Rat and Dragon", Cordwainer Smith (1955)


8. "The Nine Billion Names of God", Arthur C. Clarke (1953)


9. "A Sound of Thunder", Ray Bradbury (1952)


10. "The Green Hills of Earth", Robert A. Heinlein (1947)


11. "Day Million", Frederik Pohl (1966)


12. "It's a Good Life", Jerome Bixby (1953)


13. "Aye, and Gomorrah…", Samuel R. Delany (1967)


14. "Light of Other Days", Bob Shaw (1966)


15. "The Last Question", Isaac Asimov (1956)


16. "There Will Come Soft Rains", Ray Bradbury (1950)


17. "Or All the Seas with Oysters", Avram Davidson (1958)


18. "Requiem", Robert A. Heinlein (1940)


19. "Air Raid", Herb Boehm (1977)


20. "That Hell-Bound Train", Robert Bloch (1958)


21. "The Lottery", Shirley Jackson (1948)


22. "The Country of the Kind", Damon Knight (1956)


23. "The Liberation of Earth", William Tenn (1953)


24. "Harrison Bergeron", Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1961)


25. "Sundance", Robert Silverberg (1969)


26. "When It Changed", Joanna Russ (1972)


27. "Love is the Plan the Plan is Death", James Tiptree, Jr. (1973)


28. "The Third Expedition" ("Mars Is Heaven!"), Ray Bradbury (1948)


29. "Passengers", Robert Silverberg (1968)


30. "Cassandra", C. J. Cherryh (1978)


31. "Helen O'Loy", Lester del Rey (1938)


32. "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories", Gene Wolfe (1970)


33. "The Long Watch", Robert A. Heinlein (1949)


34. "Space-Time for Springers", Fritz Leiber (1958)


35. Speech Sounds", Octavia E. Butler (1983)


36. "The Way of Cross and Dragon", George R. R. Martin (1979)


37. "Corridors", Barry N. Malzberg (1982)


38. "Out of All Them Bright Stars", Nancy Kress (1985)


39. "Robbie", Isaac Asimov (1940)


40. "Narrow Valley", R. A. Lafferty (1966)


41. "The Hole Man", Larry Niven (1974)


42. "The Pusher", John Varley (1981)


43. "That Only a Mother", Judith Merril (1948)