Book Review: Generation

Book Review: 'Generation' edited by David Gerrold

2 / 5 Stars

‘Generation’ (236 pp) was published in July 1972 by Dell Books. The cover illustration is by Robert Foster.

Like Gerrold’s 1971 anthology ‘Protostars’, also co-edited with Stephen Goldin, ‘Generation’ is an all-new compilation of ‘speculative fiction’ pieces from both established and new authors. In his Introduction, Gerrold reveals that the anthology was assembled in 1969 and scheduled for publication in 1970, but circumstances beyond his control delayed publication until 1972. 

One thing that will get the immediate attention of modern-day readers is the un-Woke nature of Gerrold’s introductions for some of the female authors. Of Kathleen Sky, Gerrold writes:

Kathleen Sky may be the most liberated woman I know.

First of all, she is a supple and delicious creature. There may be girls in this world who are prettier than Kathleen Sky – but certainly not sexier. This girl exudes such a warm femininity that every man in her presence notices her.

[ Perhaps Gerrold also could have casually mentioned that Kathleen Sky happened to be the wife of his co-editor, Stephen Goldin. Nothing like nepotism to get you into print........ ! ]

And for Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, we are told:

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is a cuddly little lump of blond femininity. She has a cute nose, a smile that never quits, and is a seemingly boundless source of energy and enthusiasm.

………Yeah, times sure were different back in 1972……….!

Upon finishing ‘Generation’ it is quite apparent that few contributors were willing to submit quality pieces; most of the entries in this anthology are short, fragmentary, tossed-off works that signal that the rates Gerrold and Dell were offering were Low at best…………..indeed, ‘The Shortest Science-Fiction Story Ever Told’ by Roger Deeley consists of just three words. 

[ This may have been the height of hipness in the New Wave era, or perhaps an in-joke between Deeley and Gerrold……..but I’ll let the reader make his or her own conclusions. ]

My capsule summaries of the 25 entries, starting with the best:

It’s Very Clean, by Gene Wolfe: I consider Wolfe to be an over-rated author, but this tale from early in his career - about the future of prostitution - has coherent prose, a tangible plot, and a worthwhile denouement. That’s really all anyone can ask from a New Wave era story………… 

Psychedelic Flight, by Robert Ray: some hippies find that their new choice of recreational drug triggers unpleasant revelations. Stands alongside Harlan Ellison’s ‘Shattered Like A Glass Goblin’, and Avram Davidson and Grania Davis’s ‘The New Zombies’, as an effective treatment of the dark side of the hippie movement. Gerrold’s own ‘All of Them Were Empty’ (below) arguably belongs in this select company, too.

The Galactic Clock, by Vonda N. McIntyre: Elroy Finchwood is one of those unfortunate people for whom life is one constant trial. Can a hippie commune save him ? This story prefigures M. John Harrison’s 1975 tale ‘Breaking Down’ as an insightful examination of infection with entropy.

Beside Still Waters, by Edward Bryant and James Sutherland: an urban fantasy – with a John Cheever-ish tenor - about a swimming pool.

Here’s A Health Unto His Majesty, by Roger Deeley: here, Deeley provides a complete short story. Tavern patrons in Merrie Olde England muse over the arrival of a man who claims to be from 1962.

Then there’s Gerrold’s own entry: ‘All of Them Were Empty’, in which junkies Deet and Woozy enter a decaying tenement in search of a strange new trip.

 

In his introduction to the story, Gerrold proudly states that he wrote it spontaneously after smoking pot, and listening to the Donovan Leitch song 'Sunny Goodge Street'. Ominously, Gerrold boasts that (save for some grammatical corrections) the published story is a first draft.  Be that as it may, under its ‘trippy’ prose this story has a functioning plot and a convincing denouement. Hooray !

The remaining stories in ‘Generation’ consist of fables and parables from Stephen Goldin (‘Stubborn’), Robert E. Toomey, Jr. (‘The Re-Creation’), Barry M. Malzberg (‘Vidi, Vici, Veni’), Kathleen Sky (‘One Ordinary Day, With Box’), Edward Bryant and Jody Harper (‘Nova Morning’), Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (‘Everything That Begins With An ‘M’’), Joseph F. Pumilia (‘The Porter of Hell-Gate’), and C. F. Hensel (‘A Sense of Time’). 

Two entries from Alice Sheldon / James Tiptree Jr. are unremarkable. ‘Through A Lass Darkly’ is a satirical treatment of a future Valley Girl and her diction, while ‘Amberjack’ is a plotless short-short story featuring stream-of-consciousness-New-Wave-Hipster Jive. 

‘Reprisal’, by Alice Laurence, is a very earnest and overly labored example of the hallowed New Wave era practice of using sci-fi tropes to say something Profound about Racial Prejudice. In this case, people born with wings suffer discrimination........ at the hands of those born without wings.

Other entries are uninspired, workmanlike efforts at satire: ‘Every Fourth House’ by Evelyn Lief; ‘Up Schist Creek’ by Piers Anthony Jacob; ‘The Birthday Boy’ by James Stevens; ‘The Lady Was for Kroinking’ by David R. Bunch; ‘…..After They’ve Seen Paree’ by Dennis O’Neil, and ‘Constitution in E Flat’ by Paul A. Carter. 

Surprisingly for an anthology issued during the Vietnam War, Gardner Dozois’s ‘Conditioned Reflex’ is the sole antiwar story. Although it is set in a fictional future conflict, its allegorical nature should have been quite clear to anyone reading it in 1972. 

The verdict ? Save for aficionados of New Wave fiction, there's not a whole lot of impressive content in 'Generation'. It's best regarded as an exemplar of a particular time and place in sci-fi history, rather than as a story collection to be treasured through the passage of the decades.