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Wednesday 29 January 2003

1992 Revisited

by Claude Lalumière


1992 was a strong year for SF and fantasy. It saw the publication of a number of important first novels, several great genre novels by established writers, a number of fascinating works on the outer edges of the SF/fantasy genres, and the first books in two of the 1990s' most engaging series.

The most decorated book in SF/fantasy for that year was Connie Willis's novel Doomsday Book, which won the Nebula, tied for the Hugo, and led the best SF Novel category in the Locus poll. Here, my tastes diverge widely from the canon; although I find that Connie Willis is a brilliant comic writer, I find her "serious" work, such as Doomsday Book, tedious and overwrought, and I couldn't even finish this book. Maybe it got better later on?

Other novels that received notable award attention include Tim Powers's Last Call, which earned the World Fantasy Award and first place in Fantasy Novel category of the Locus poll, Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang, which was awarded the Tiptree and first place in the First Novel category of the Locus poll, and Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, which won both the BSFA and the following year's Nebula (because of its 1993 US publication date). All three of these are still often discussed and have proved to be important, lasting books and their authors continue to be major voices in the field. All three books are still in print in North America, while both the Robinson and the McHugh are still available in the UK.

A few more 1992 titles that garnered recognition when the awards rolled out merit mentioning. Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, which tied for Hugo in the Best Novel category, is still often cited as a landmark work in the 1990s space opera revival. Jack Cady, whose The Sons of Noah & Other Stories won the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection, continues to write and delight his loyal cult following (although, like many quirky, interesting writers, he can't seem to break out beyond cult status). The most important collection of the year, Robert Silverberg's massive Secret Sharers, deservedly earned first place in the Locus poll for Best Collection.

With ten years' worth of hindsight, I'd like to present my own top 10 for the genre titles published in 1992. Sometimes my selection is in sync with the opinions of a decade ago, sometimes it agrees with the passage of time and the books I love best are also those still read and discussed widely, and sometimes, well, it's just my own opinion and the books I select are those I sincerely believe deserve to be rediscovered. This top 10 is sorted alphabetically by title. All these books are excellent; it seemed pointless to grade them.


The Top 10 of 1992

Anno Dracula, by Kim Newman

synopsis
In a world where Dracula was victorious in the events recounted by Bram Stoker, a vampire aristocracy is the chic elite of Victorian London, while Dracula himself is consort to Queen Victoria. In Whitechapel, Jack the Ripper is killing vampire prostitutes. Vampire adventurer Geneviève Dieudonné joins forces with humans Charles Beauregard and Mycroft Holmes of the Diogenes Club to investigate this menace, only to uncover a diabolical conspiracy.

context & impact
The vampire craze was in full swing when Anno Dracula came out, but this book stands out from the pack because of its effective mix of dry wit, exuberant erudition, delirious invention, and epic adventure. It launched a series of noteworthy sequels: The Bloody Red Barron (1995), Judgment of Tears: Anno Dracula 1959 (1998), and the forthcoming Johnny Alucard. Anno Dracula won the first International Horror Guild Award (in 1995) for Best Novel and the 1993 Lord Ruthven Award and was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award. Although successful in the UK, Newman has never quite caught on with the general public in North America.

publishing status
Out of print.

what's the author up to now?
Newman's latest books include a Warhammer mosaic, Silver Nails (as by Jack Yeovil), and a Doctor Who novella, Time and Relative. He's a contributing editor for the renowned film magazine Sight and Sound. His collaborative (with Eugene Byrne) multi-volume alternate history, of which the first book, The Matter of Britain, was completed a few years ago, has yet to find a publisher. The world is still waiting for the long-promised Johnny Alucard.
 


A Philosophical Investigation, by Philip Kerr

synopsis
Serial killing has become such an epidemic that, in 2013, the London police force has different divisions for different kinds of serial killers. The media is obsessed with these crimes, which have permeated culture at every level. Inspector Isadora Jacowicz confronts the self-styled Wittgenstein of serial killers.

context & impact
At the time crime fiction was plagued by serial-killer potboilers. This novel speculates perspicaciously on the consequences of turning serial killing into entertainment and serial killers into celebrities. Kerr is principally a crime writer, and this was the first, but not the only, time that he blended SF and crime fiction.

publishing status
Available in North America; out of print in the UK.

what's the author up to now?
Kerr's latest book, Dark Matter, is a historical mystery featuring Isaac Newton.
 


Cock & Bull, by Will Self

synopsis
In "Cock: A Novelette", a woman grows a penis and rapes her husband. In "Bull: A Farce", a man grows a vagina in the back of his knee and is raped by his doctor.

context & impact
This was the second book by Will Self, a writer of SF and weird tales published as imaginative and edgy mainstream fiction. It's baffling that this all-new duet of uproariously funny and unabashedly brutal gender-bending novellas did not win the Tiptree.

publishing status
Available in the UK and in North America.

what's the author up to now?
Self continues to write sardonic weird tales on the outer edge of SF and fantasy that are accepted as mainstream fiction and largely ignored within SF/fantasy. His latest novel is Dorian, a retelling of Oscar Wilde's classic fantasy transposed to the 1980s.
 


Dead Girls, by Richard Calder

synopsis
A virus transforms teenage girls into deadly cybernetic vampire dolls, i.e., "dead girls".

context & impact
Calder had been dazzling Interzone readers with his sexually charged stories of baroque decadence, and his first novel more than delivered on the promise of those early stories. A nightmarish conspiracy adventure drenched in taboo and pop culture, Dead Girls had it all: vampires, death, teenage sex, cyberpunk, wry attitude, a whirlwind plot, and brilliant writing. It was not the big success that it should have been, and it unfortunately spawned lesser sequels.

publishing status
Currently only available in the St. Martin's Press omnibus of the whole trilogy released in 1998.

what's the author up to now?
Calder still writes idiosyncratic and decadent works that appear regularly in the UK (usually available in Canada) but only rarely receive US publication. His latest book is Lord Soho.
 


High Aztech, by Ernest Hogan

synopsis
In 2045, Mexico is in the midst of an Aztec revival. Cartoonist Xólotl Zapata finds himself pursued by the government, gangsters, religious cults, street gangs, and garbage collectors. Zapata is the carrier of a virus that could change the world.

context & impact
High Aztech, Ernest Hogan's second novel, a high-energy adventure peppered with great ideas, well-imagined unusual settings, outlandish characters, and a wicked sense of fun, was almost completely ignored.

publishing status
Out of print. Sadly, the editor's name, Ben Bova, appeared in larger type than the author's in this book's only edition.

what's the author up to now?
His latest novel, Smoking Mirror Blues, was released in 2001 from small press Wordcraft of Oregon. His gonzo utopian phantasmagoria "Coyote Goes Hollywood" will appear in the forthcoming Witpunk (coedited by myself and Marty Halpern).
 


Poor Things, by Alasdair Gray

synopsis
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is crossed with George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion in this story that the author describes thus: "What strange secret made beautiful, tempestuous Bella Baxter irresistible to the poor medical student Archie McCandless? Was it her mysterious origin in the home of his monstrous friend Godwin Baxter, the genius whose voice could perforate eardrums? This story of true love and scientific daring storms through Victorian operating theaters, continental casinos, and a Parisian bordello, reaching an interrupted climax in a Scottish church."

context & impact
Gray's best novel, Poor Things, won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Whitbread Prize and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Fans of Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris stories should take note that VanderMeer's style, attitude, and attention to book design was greatly influenced by Gray, who designs and illustrates his own books. For example, Poor Things includes fictional "documents" that support the veracity of the story - a literary technique that readers of City of Saints & Madmen will recognize.

publishing status
Available in the UK and in North America.

what's the author up to now?
The Book of Prefaces is an anthology of English-language prefaces and introductions from before 1920, compiled and annotated by Gray (doesn't that sound like something Jeff VanderMeer would do?). His most recent book of fiction is 1994's A History Maker, a science-fiction fable.
 


Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson

synopsis
One hundred colonists leave Earth, probably forever, to terraform Mars for the benefit of their home planet. As the distance from Earth grows, loyalties to the original plan are tested and deep-seated political convictions and divisions erupt dramatically when the colonists find themselves in the position to create a utopia divorced from Earth's historical problems.

context & impact
In the wake of cyberpunk, SF rediscovered the wonder of space travel in the 1990s, perhaps nowhere as importantly as in this profoundly intelligent, slow-burning novel of deep passions. Followed by Green Mars (1993) and Blue Mars (1996). Mars was a popular topic in 1990s SF, but, this trilogy, whose separate volumes garnered numerous awards, tops the list in ambition, scope, power, and sense of wonder. A lesser work, a mosaic called The Martians (1999), fills in the gaps.

publishing status
Available in the UK and in North America.
 

what's the author up to now?
Robinson's latest novel is the alternate history epic The Years of Rice and Salt.
 


Secret Sharers, by Robert Silverberg

synopsis
A gigantic collection gathering 24 stories, including several novellas, from the mid to late 1980s.

context & impact
Silverberg's large catalog of short fiction is one of SF's greatest treasures. This batch of stories represents the bulk of what is, to date, his last great concentrated burst of creativity in the field of short fiction.
 

publishing status
Mysteriously billed as "The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume 1", Secret Sharers was far from the author's first collection, nor did it collect his earliest stories, nor were there subsequent volumes in the series. This is true for North America; in the UK, this volume was split in two, and older collections were confusingly retooled as part of a series of "Collected Stories" in much too chaotic a fashion to allow for any insight into the career of SF's most significant writer of short fiction. The US Bantam edition is now available in the UK as well as in North America.
 

what's the author up to now?
Scheduled for 2003 is Silverberg's Roma Eterna, a mosaic of his Roma stories.
 


Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

synopsis
Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza in a near future restructured by corporate hegemony and computer technology. He must defeat a new computer virus that may cause infocalypse. Somehow, this is all related to Sumerian myth.
 

context & impact
Snow Crash was Stephenson's third novel, but it's the one that really launched his career as the novelist we had all hoped William Gibson would grow into, but didn't. Stephenson's next book, the excellent The Diamond Age (1995), is set in the same future history. Snow Crash was shortlisted for the BSFA Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the Prometheus Award.

publishing status
Available in the UK and in North America.

what's the author up to now?
In 1999, Stephenson released Cryptonomicon, an immense semi-historical/semi-contemporary novel about cryptography that was supposed to be the first of four volumes. No sign yet of the sequel, but Quicksilver, a historical novel that is the first volume of a trilogy related to Cryptonomicon, is due in September 2003.
 


Was, by Geoff Ryman

synopsis
In the nineteenth century, L. Frank Baum is inspired by an encounter with an orphaned and abused girl named Dorothy. In the classic years of Hollywood, Judy Garland endures unhappy celebrity. In 1989, Jonathan, a Los Angeles actor dying of AIDS, embarks on a journey of self-discovery and finds the Oz within himself.

context & impact
Despite Ryman's SF/fantasy background, Was got published as a mainstream book and received lots of good attention. This dreamlike novel was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award and, in 2002, was elected to the Hall of Fame of the Gaylactic Network Spectrum Awards.

publishing status
Available in the UK and in North America.

what's the author up to now?
His recent PS Publishing novella, V.A.O., is a science-fiction story set in a retirement home. His new novel, Air, is imminent from St. Martin's Press.


To discuss this column, and genre fiction in general, visit Claude Lalumière's Critical Speculations on the TTA Press message boards.




Claude Lalumière is a columnist for Locus Online, Black Gate, and The Montreal Gazette. His short fiction has most recently appeared in The Book of More Flesh and Interzone. 2003 will see the release of three anthologies he edited: Island Dreams: Montreal Writers of the Fantastic (Véhicule Press), Open Space: New Canadian Fantastic Fiction (The Bakka Collection/Red Deer Press), and, in collaboration with Marty Halpern, Witpunk (4 Walls 8 Windows). See lostpages.net for news and links to his online publications. Publishers: please send review material to 4135 Coloniale, Montreal, QC, Canada, H2W 2C2.

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