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Dec. 30th, 2009 04:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sergebroomYesterday I wrote that the Holidays were the chance for me to go thru a bunch of short-story magazines that had been accumulating on my shelves. I was disappointed that, for the second year in a row, Asimov’s has gone thru the Season without a Christmas tale by Connie Willis. On the other hand, their January issue had, not one, but two tales that I especially enjoyed.
First, there was Chris Roberson’s ”Wonder House”. It shares the same alternate History as the author’s novels, which I haven’t read, and in which Mandarin and Aztec cultures are the dominant forces. In this story, Yacov Leiber and Itzhak Blumenfeld are trying to find ways to revitalize their company, Wonder House, publisher of Terriblres, aka Pulps in our Reality. They consider a ripoff of the competition’s Doctor Buckingham, “…a ‘White Peril’, about a Briton criminal genius who orchestrated a worldwide network of crime and terror…” As for their own monthly title, Celestial Bureaucracy, they stubbornly keep it going, even though the fashion has gone out of stirring tales about people who “…by establishing proper ritual, filial piety, and loyalty to the Dragon Throne, rose in the bureaucracy and attained some exalted position in the Emperor’s service…” Idea after idea is brought up and shot down. Then two of their young employees, Segal and Kurtzberg, propose something that, in our History, became one of the truly American art forms.
That story had me smiling throughout.
I can’t say that about Robert Reed’s novelette The Good Hand.
The story begins with an American on a long business flight to France. Early on, it appears to be set in a near future where any good will toward America that resulted from November 2008’s recover of sanity might have evaporated. As the narrator goes thru French immigration, “…(t)o the limits of international law, I was to be shown the consideration usually reserved for rabid dogs…” During his business meeting, he is given more of the same treatment by those present, except for their oldest member.
Why then do people behave this way? A film by William Wyler comes up and everything falls into place.
I know what one of my Hugo nominees will be in 2010.
First, there was Chris Roberson’s ”Wonder House”. It shares the same alternate History as the author’s novels, which I haven’t read, and in which Mandarin and Aztec cultures are the dominant forces. In this story, Yacov Leiber and Itzhak Blumenfeld are trying to find ways to revitalize their company, Wonder House, publisher of Terriblres, aka Pulps in our Reality. They consider a ripoff of the competition’s Doctor Buckingham, “…a ‘White Peril’, about a Briton criminal genius who orchestrated a worldwide network of crime and terror…” As for their own monthly title, Celestial Bureaucracy, they stubbornly keep it going, even though the fashion has gone out of stirring tales about people who “…by establishing proper ritual, filial piety, and loyalty to the Dragon Throne, rose in the bureaucracy and attained some exalted position in the Emperor’s service…” Idea after idea is brought up and shot down. Then two of their young employees, Segal and Kurtzberg, propose something that, in our History, became one of the truly American art forms.
That story had me smiling throughout.
I can’t say that about Robert Reed’s novelette The Good Hand.
The story begins with an American on a long business flight to France. Early on, it appears to be set in a near future where any good will toward America that resulted from November 2008’s recover of sanity might have evaporated. As the narrator goes thru French immigration, “…(t)o the limits of international law, I was to be shown the consideration usually reserved for rabid dogs…” During his business meeting, he is given more of the same treatment by those present, except for their oldest member.
”Unlike my associates, I remember the liberation of France. I was a boy, yes, but I still remember the Nazis fleeing and I knew the joy felt by every Frenchman when your shabby-dressed soldiers entered Paris.” He nodded, eyes staring into the Past. “It’s a fair statement to point out that no other nation, given your tools and circumstances, would have gladly fought two wars against such distant enemies. If you wished, you could have fortified your continent, built bombers and missiles, and then littered the world with your nuclear weapons. You could have broken your enemies and their collaborators too and been done with the mess.”
Why then do people behave this way? A film by William Wyler comes up and everything falls into place.
I know what one of my Hugo nominees will be in 2010.
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Date: Dec. 30th, 2009 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2009 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2009 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 31st, 2009 02:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 18th, 2010 08:43 pm (UTC)F. Dreier
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Date: Jan. 18th, 2010 09:47 pm (UTC)