Tachyon tidbits featuring Ellen Klages, Michael Cadnum, Nick Mamatas, James Tiptree, Jr., and Tim Powers
Henry Wessells on his blog THE ENDLESS BOOKSHELF talks about She Saved Us From World War Three, which is an interview by Michael Swanwick with Gardner Dozois and his remembrances of James Tiptree Jr..
This is the third nonfiction work by Michael Swanwick published by Temporary Culture: legendary science fiction editor Gardner Dozois interviewed by his friend Michael Swanwick on the topic of James Tiptree, Jr. Dozois was an early and astute critic of Tiptree’s fiction, and a regular correspondent of Tiptree. Alice Sheldon (1915-1987) wrote him in advance of revelations of her identity as Tiptree, and their correspondence continued until her death. Dozois was one of very few from the science fiction community who met Sheldon. Two of her letters are reproduced here in facsimile from the originals preserved as part of the Gardner Dozois Papers [MS097], in the Eaton Collection, Department of Special Collections, Tomás Rivera Library, University of California Riverside.
A handsome little book, more information here :
http://www.avramdavidson.org/Swanwick-Dozois-Tiptree.html
Tim Powers’ short story “The Bible Repairman” is mentioned in Book Four: Expose for the Unknown Armies RPG.
This is a nearly pitch-perfect example of an adept with a
Unknown Armies Book Four: Expose p. 52
very heavy charging system. You want to really get shit done
with the spirits of the dead? Well, you’ve got two choices,
and one of them is to burn your own soul until you’re
doddering, drooling, and aphasic. Or you can subcontract
all that suffering by tormenting others with the same symp-
toms, which either makes you a confidence trickster (if they
don’t know what they’re getting into) or a coercive monster
(if they know damn well but are more scared of you than it).
Either way, it’s a prime example of how these sacrifices are
central to the idea of an occult price. They’re not something
you have to get out of the way in order to get to the story
with a character’s cool powers. They are the story of the
character’s cool powers.