"EB - Edward L. Ferman - The Best From Fantasy & Science Fiction 23rd EditionUC - SS" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine)

". . . criticism written without personal feeling is not worth reading. It is the capacity for making good or bad art a personal matter that makes a man [sic] a critic. . . . when people do less than their best, and do that less at once badly and self-complacently, I hate them, loathe them, detest them, long to tear them limb from limb and strew them in gobbets about the stage or platform. ... In the same way really fine artists inspire me with the warmest possible regard. . . . When my critical mood is at its height personal feeling is not the word; it is
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passion. . . ." (Music in London, v. i, Constable ft Co., Loo-don, 1956, pp. 51-52)
Bat there are other reasons. Critical judgments are so complex (and take place in such a complicated context), the vocabulary of praise and blame available in English is so vague, so fluid, and so constantly shifting, and the physical space allowed is so small that critics welcome any way of expressing judgments that will be both precise and compact. If vivid be added thereunto, fineЧwhat else is good style? Hence critics, whenever possible, express their judgments in figurative language. Wit is a form of condensation (see Freud if you think this is my arbitrary fiat) just as parody is a form of criticism (see Dwigbt McDonald's Modern Library collection thereof).
Dramatization is another. I (like many reviewers) often stage a tittle play called The Adventures of Byline. Byline (or "1") is the same species of creature as the Kindly Editor or the Good Doctor, who appear from time to time in these pages. That is, she is a form of shorthand. When Byline rewrites story X, that doesn't mean that IЧthe real, historical personageЧactually did or will or wish to rewrite story X, or that I expect its real, historical author to rewrite it to Byline's prescription, any more than my saying that "my" copy of Bug Jack Ban-on tried to punch "me" in the nose means that such an event really happened. Pauline Kael's Movie Loon is another such fiction; these little creatures we send scurrying about the page are not our real, live selves, and their exploits are dictated more by the exigencies of our form than by a desire for personal glory.
7. Never mind all that stuff. Just tell me what I'd enjoy reading.
Bless you, what makes you think I know? (See, there goes Byline.) Actually, critics can make educated guesses from time to time about the tastes of some groups of readers. Editors must, such judgments being their bread and butterЧand look how often they fail. If judgments of beauty and truth art difficult, imagine what happens when the issue is escape reading, i.e., something as idiosyncratic as guided daydreams. Perhaps the popularity of series novels is due in part to readers* desire for a reliable, easily reproducible pleasure. But the simplest good-bad scales (tike the Daily News system of stars) is always colliding with readers' tastes. Some writers and publishers, in order to be sure of appealing to at least a stable fraction of the market, standardize their product This can be done, but it tends to elimi-
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nate from fiction these idiosyncratic qualities other readers find valuable, art being of an order of complexity nearer to that of human beings (high) than that of facial tissues (low).
Now back to the topic of heroic fantasy, which occasioned the foregoing.
I know it's painful to be told that something in which one has invested intense emotion is not only bad art but bad for you, not only bad for you but ridiculous. I didn't do it to be mean, honest Nor did I do it because the promise held out by heroic fantasyЧthe promise of escape into a wonderful Other worldЧis one I find temperamentally unappealing. On the contrary. It's because I understand the intensity of the demand so well (having spent my twenties reading Eddison and Tolkien; I even adapted The Hobbit for the stage) that I also understand the absolute impossibility of ever fulfilling that demand. The current popularity of heroic fantasy scares me; I believe it to be a symptom of political and cultural reaction due to economic depression. So does Robin Scon Wilson (who electrified a Modem Language Association seminar by calling Dune a fascist book), and Michael Moorcock (see his jacket copy for Norman Spin-rad's The Iron Dream, a novel which vehemently denounces the genre in the same terms Wilson doesf), and the writers of Bored of the Rings, the Lampoon parody, from which came "Arrowroot, son of Arrowshirt"
Briefly, to answer other statements in the letters: I apologize for implying that Tolkien's hobbits and Ents (or his other bucolic-comic creations) are as empty-sublime as the Big People's heroics. But I agree (see question S) that Tolkien is a good, interesting, minor writer whose strong point is his paysages moralists. Ditto C S. Lewis, in bis Naraya books. As for other writers mentioned, only strong, selective blindness could miss the Vancian cynicism or the massive Dunsanian irony (sometimes spilling over into despair) which make their heroism far from simple or unquestioned-by-the-authors-them-selves. As for the others, I find them ghastly when uncorrected by i comedy, or satire (Morris, sometimes), or (in Beagle's case) the nostalgic wistfulness which belongs to fantasy per se rather than the
* Though Dune is, strictly speaking, science fiction. Wilson was talking about tbe-gnat-kader syndrome, and the heroic atmosphere Dune shares with heroic fantasy.
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publisher's category (that, historically, is what it is) of heroic fantasy. I don't need to bad-mouth Pool Andersen, James Blish having already adequately done so, calling him (in his heroic phase) "the Thane of Minneapolis. . . . Anderson can write well, but this is seldom evident while he is in his Scand avatar, when he seems invariably to be writing in his sleep." (The Issue at Hand, p. 72.) That our literary heritage began with feudal epics and marchen is no reason to keep on writing them forever. And daydreams about being tall, handsome (or beautiful), noble, admired, and involved in thrilling deeds is not the same as the as-if speculation which pro* duces medical and technological advances.
It isn't the realists who find life dreadful. It's the romancers. After all, which group is trying to escape from life? Reality is horrible and wonderful, disappointing and ecstatic, beautiful and ugly. Reality is everything. Reality is what there is. Only the hopelessly insensitive find reality so pleasant as to never want to get away from it But pain-killers can be bad for the health, and even if they were not, I am damned if anyone will make me say that the newest fad in analgesics is equivalent to the illumination, which is the other thing (besides pleasure) art ought to provide. Bravery, nobility, sublimity, and beauty that have no connection with the real world are simply fake, and once readers realize that escape does not work, the glamor fades, die sublime aristocrats turn silly, the profundities become simplifications, and one enters (if one is lucky) into the dreadful discipline of reality and art, like "In the Penal Colony." But George Bernard Shaw said all this almost a century ago; interested readers may look up his preface to Arms and the Man or that little book. The Quintessence of Ibsenism.
It's disheartening to see how little has changed. On the other hand, there is no pleasure like finding out the realities of human life, in which joy and misery, effort and release, dread and happiness, walk hand in hand.
We had better enjoy it It's what there is.
ЧJoanna Russ
**It is the year 2783. Suddenly the galaxy is invaded by a horde of alien beings, the Zorphs. They enslave all planets in their path. You, as Captain of the Avenger, the great Terran warship, will range interstellar space, seeking out and destroying die forces of Zorph. This is but a bare outline of the ultimate in computer games . . .
Zorphwar!
by STAN DRYER
Megalo Network Message: June 10,1977
Source: P. T. Warrington, Headquarters, Los Gringos, California
Destination: W. S. Halson, Programming Services, Wrapping Falls, New York
Subject: Schedule Compliance in Programming Services Bill, Old Buddy, I think you have problems. J.L. was down this morning bitching about your performance. The PERT printout indicates you have slipped schedule on Accounting Project 8723 by two months. In addition, your usage of central computer facilities is running 42 percent over budget Remember that the Megalo Corporation is not in business for its health. Accounting is depending on Program S723 to keep track of profitability in the entire Computer Products Division.
Megalo Network Message:
June 10, 1977 Source: W. S. Halson Destination: P. T. Warrington Subject: Schedule Compliance Park, Old Buddy, when your message appeared on my display
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Stan Dryer
Zorphwar!
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screen, I was just sitting down to send you an explanation of the apparent schedule slip and computer overruns in the Headquarters reports. What you see are computer-generated summaries of our progress, mere pieces of paper that do not represent the full situation. For example, nowhere in those reports is the well-being of our programmers evaluated. Now I can say without equivocation that our morale down here has never been higher. Absence due to personal illness has dropped twenty-seven percent over the last two months. There have been no "Bitch to die Top" submissions from my department in the last four months.
The cause of this high morale rests with one programmer in our department, Morris Hazeldorf, the inventor of Zorphwar. While I admit that his shaggy hair and unkempt personal attire might turn you off on first encounter, Morris is an extremely bright and able young man. Single-handed, he programmed the entire HAFAS (Hierarchical Accounting File Access System). And in his spare time over the past year, Morris has been creating Zorphwar, an exciting game that operates on our system.
To give you an idea of the creativity of this young man, I have arranged for Zorphwar to be made available to you on the Executive Interactive Display Terminal in your office. After you dial into the Computer Center, simply type "ZORPH" to gain access to the game.
Let me give you a quick rundown of this exciting interactive game. It is the year 2783. Man has reached out to settle thousands of planets scattered across the galaxy. Then, suddenly, the galaxy is invaded by a horde of alien beings, the Zorphs. They enslave all planets in their path. Those that resist are destroyed without mercy. You, as Captain of the Avenger, the great Terran warship, will range interstellar space, seeking out and destroying the forces of Zorph.
On your screen you will be given a display of your current sector of the galaxy and the stars in that sector. You may fire off laser probes to determine the location of Zorph warships. You have a number of weapons at your disposal including quantum rays, antimatter missiles and, for desperate situations, doomsday torpedoes. Your ship is protected by shields against any attack, but you must be careful to maintain your energy supply. Any Zorphs in your sector will attack you and each attack will use up some of your reserve energy. If your energy is depleted, your shields fail and the next Zorph attack destroys you. You can replenish your energy reserve by returning to a friendly base. You can hop sectors using hyperspace, al-
though void storms may toss you about a bit in space and time. In addition, you will have to handle a variety of problems with your ship such as invasion by mind-warping beings, power-system failure, and occasional crew mutinies. The console commands that control your warship are simple and are given in the attached instructions being transmitted to your local printout facility.
Now do not get the idea that everyone here is simply sitting around playing Zorphwar. That is far from the case. While our schedules have slipped a bit in the last couple of months, morale is at an all-time high. With a crew of satisfied programmers, I feel there is nothing we cannot accomplish.
Finally, before you make any snap judgments, I ask that you log in on your console and try Zorphwar. Good hunting!
Megalo Network Message: June 30, 1977
Source: P. T. Warrington
Destination: W. S. Halson
Subject: Promotion to Fleet Captain
Bill Buddy: As stated on Page 12 of the Zorphwar Handbook, any Captain completing six consecutive successful missions against the Zorphs is entitled to promotion to Fleet Captain. If you will check my War Record File, you will discover that I destroyed all Zorphs in the galaxy in the six games I played yesterday afternoon. Please send along whatever certificate you have to indicate my Fleet Captain status.
As for schedules, I have discussed the matter with JX. and demonstrated Zorphwar to him. Both of us are in entire agreement with your analysis. Maintaining morale is one of our primary goals, and we are sure you have things under control. J.L. is, by the way, interested in access to Zorphwar on his own executive terminal. I trust that you will see to the necessary arrangements.
As for the exception reports triggered by your schedule slippage, J.L. has signed off on the necessary forms to justify a new schedule. We have doubled the expected times required to complete phases four through seven. While this stretches out the predicted completion for Project 8723 by two years, we feel that you people are doing important work in other areas and should not be forced to produce a program of use only to those uptight jokers hi Accounting.