Insidious political muddle
DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE Both Sonya Dorman and Tom Disch, as it happens, started out with an interest in the dance, then turned to poetry, and then to s-f. Mrs. Dorman is still better known for her poetry than for her rare (and I use the word with care) fiction. Dischs poetry has just begun to be noticed by his first novel, The Genocides(1965), stirred up a storm of controversy, and his next (Camp Concentration,serialised in New Worldsand forthcoming from Doubleday) is likely to renew it, violently, (Doubleday is also publishing a black humour' novel by Disch and Sladek: Black Alice.) "I cant let you do it," Jay said. I saw from her expression I was at least half right. But she shook her head.Dont be silly, she said. “Mack would think it was awfully funny, wouldn’t he, if we came right home? He might think we didn’t trust him, or something.” Well, its an old story to you, I know, though I still like to linger on the thrill of the slow awakening of certainty; of the measurements taken; of the first crude timings by eye; of the more delicate work of the original endochronometer—the same instrument now at the Smithsonian. Candron said nothing for a moment, as he thought the problem out. Taggert said nothing to interrupt him. I was in the forest when the enemy came through our place. When I came back there was nothing but dirt and darkness where the village had been. The enemy were punishing us for something somebody had done—I dont know who and I don’t know what. My family had lived there a long time. Where our little house had been there was only half a wall, smoldering. Among the burnt stuff I recognized part of the table we had eaten at all our lives. We were clean people. The table had been scrubbed and scoured until the soft parts of the grain were worn away and there was a pattern in the wood I could have recognized anywhere, blindfold, just by feeling it. They left the bodies unburied. I buried my father and mother, first covering my mother with my shirt, she being stripped naked. I put my brother between them. They had picked him up by the heels and beaten his brains out against the floor. He was three years old. SHEAN DORL - Gazing at ones reflection for reasons other than vanity And through the tenderness that suddenly obliterated all hurt, Ratlits voice came from the jeweled mosaics shielding him: "Alegra, I want to talk about loneliness." "Why, Vyme?" The fight for breath became less laboured as tears began to flow. Hejar let her cry, thankful for an escape valve. He wondered what he could say when she came out of it. Evening edged a little closer to night. Her sobs softened to an occasional sniff. She blew her nose and then looked up. Unfortunately, Anthony Boucher is no longer reviewing SF regularly enough to continue his annual surveys for these anthologies. I did not seek to replace him (as how could one, in any case?) this year, because at the time I received his regrets, I had just started, myself, to do reviews for Fantasy and Science Fiction—the same column Boucher had brightened with his unique style and erudition for the first ten years of the magazines history. I cannot speak comprehensively of the 1964 books: I started too late for that. But there are some comments I can make on the basis of the past six months, and one of them is about the books that are sent to a magazine with a name like Fantasy and Science Fiction. Bernie, what are you painting now? Clinton asked, and sighed for saying it; he had had to. Hard or soft? she asked. And then the moonscape exploded into silent flame. A light as fierce as that of the Sun banished the long shadows struck fire from the peaks and craters spread below. It lasted for only a fraction of a second, and had faded completely before he had turned toward its source. Abruptly he disappeared. The notebook fell to the floor. Didnt he ever marry? J. G. shuffled his feet and said he didnt have any idea— not even a little idea. And yet the same—almost identical—arena was ideally suited to both stories. Now Fritz Leiber—a familiar name at last—makes use of a rather more complex arena, or labyrinth, to tell a more complex story of love-and-war.* * * * insidious political muddle Shot dead in his quarters..
