Saturday, September 17, 2011

Heavy Metal magazine September 1981

'Heavy Metal' magazine September 1981


The front cover of the September 1981 issue of 'Heavy Metal' is by Chris Achilleos. Titled 'Taarna'; it's also the poster for the movie, which was released in early August. The back cover is by Angus McKie, and is titled 'So Beautiful and So Dangerous'.

This issue is heavy on series installments. Richard Corben kicks off another series, 'Den II', and there are installments in the ongoing 'The Immortal's Fete' by Bilal, 'Cody Starbuck' by Chaykin, 'Tex Arcana' by Findley, and 'Outland' by Steranko.

'The Eye of the Goddess Isliah' by Brocol Remohi, and Juan Gimenez's 'Infantrymen ! Infantrymen !' stand out as the best of the one-shot pieces.

The various text columns that previously were given primacy by former editor Ted White have been shortened to two pages, retitled  'Dossier',  and relegated to the back pages of the magazine. I've posted the Dossier below. 

Needless to say, Lou Stathis continues to write pretentious 'Rok' criticism, this time fawning over David Eno and Robert Fripp (those two artists were the objects of veneration for every early 80s rock critic). 

But even Stathis's writing stands out as readable and coherent, compared to the two brief columns appearing alongside his.

A review of the novels of Robert Anton Wilson by Philip Jose Farmer, and a 'Quick Takes' review of 'The Raiders of the Lost Ark' by one Daphne Davis (?), both engage in such slavish imitation of William Burroughs's prose style that they unintentionally sink into parody.....


Posted below is the latest episode in Steranko's 'Outland'.


Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Book Review: Burning Chrome

Book Review: 'Burning Chrome' by William Gibson


4 / 5 Stars

‘Burning Chrome’ first appeared in 1986 as an Arbor House hardbound edition; this Ace paperback was released in October 1987 and features a cover illustration by Richard Berry.

These stories saw print in the interval 1977 – 1985 and are seminal entries in the genre of SF known as Cyberpunk (the term was coined in 1983 with the publication of an eponymous short story by Bruce Bethke in 'Amazing Science Fiction Stories').

At the time, in the early 80s, I was not really aware of what would come to be known as Cyberpunk. The truth was, genre SF at the time was pretty uninspired; the New Wave movement was long past its prime, and many of the ‘year’s best’ and other anthologies offered duds in terms of shorter fiction pieces. One bright spot for short stories was Omni magazine (where, in fact, 6  of the 10 stories in ‘Burning Chrome’ first appeared). 

Novels of the early 80s could occasionally be worthwhile (e.g., ‘Footfall’ by Niven and Pournelle), but many were mediocre (e.g., ‘Dragon’s Egg’ by Robert Forward). 

The advent of the ‘Ace Science Fiction Specials’ in 1984, and the publication of ‘Neuromancer’ as the marquee title, gave Cyberpunk and associated fiction a marketing profile that had not previously existed, and from then on it was easier to discover the genre.

My two cents on the contents of 'Burning Chrome' :

First up is ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ (Omni, 1981), the short story that inspired the film of the same name. ‘Johnny’ is as good an introduction to the genre as any Cyberpunk tale in the Canon. Reading ‘Johnny’ some 30 years after it first appeared, I’m struck by how readily this story’s approaches to style and content eclipse the majority of the material churned out by the New Wave scene over the period 1965 – 1981.

Next is ‘The Gernsback Continuum’ (Universe 11, 1981), in which a burnt-out, alienated photographer encounters ‘semiotic ghosts’ of a futuristic America that never was. This story, while devoid of the main trappings of Cyberpunk (such as neural interfaces with software / hardware, punk rock, and corporate machinations), nevertheless was a real influence on the development of retro-futurism in pop culture (a recent sculpture / art piece at the Burning Man Festival was titled ‘Raygun Gothic’).

‘Fragments of A Hologram Rose’ (Unearth, 1977) was the first Gibson story to see print, and it’s the weakest entry in the anthology, of value here mainly for the way it introduces some of the main tropes of the movement, such as  interfacing with computers and experiencing virtual reality.

‘The Belonging Kind’, co-written with John Shirley, was released in the 1981 horror anthology Shadows 4. I’ve read this story multiple times, and it remains absorbing and creepy in its treatment of urban alienation and the existence of a race of mutants quietly patronizing the city night life. 

It’s the perfect example of the kind of short story the New Wave authors would have given their right arm to write; highly original in theme and scope, but also written with a clear, well-managed style that inserts its metaphors and similes with care and forethought.

‘Hinterlands’ (Omni, 1981) deals with a psychiatrist who participates in ornate counseling sessions designed to debrief astronauts. On the surface this is a hard-sf tale that could conceivably have been created by a Larry Niven, or even an Arthur C. Clarke, but they would never have succeeded in imbuing their story with the unsettling undertone that Gibson weaves through ‘Hinterlands’.

‘Red Star, Winter Orbit’ (Omni, 1983): aboard a dilapidated Soviet space station, the crew contemplates mutiny.

‘New Rose Hotel’ (Omni, 1984): two black market data cowboys make a fateful decision to cross a corporate entity. A downbeat tale; in much of Gibson’s fiction, while the street-level strivers occasionally win one away from the multinational behemoths, the victory is often hollow.

‘The Winter Market’ (Stardate 1986): Virtual reality / entertainment engineer Casey befriends a crippled young woman named Lise.

In ‘Dogfight’ (co-written with Michael Swanwick, Omni, 1985), a gutter rat named Deke discovers an novel 3-D holographic video game. The story’s climactic contest  is well-written and suspenseful. 

‘Burning Chrome’ (Omni, 1982) is another quintessential Cyberpunk tale. Bobby Quine and Automatic Jack attempt to hack a corporate AI known as 'Chrome'. As with ‘The Belonging Kind’, the prose does everything the New Wave writers were trying to do, with an economy of effort rarely observed in those writers.

Monday, September 12, 2011

'The Bus' by Paul Kirchner

Friday, September 9, 2011

Heavy Metal magazine September 1977

'Heavy Metal' magazine September 1977
Featuring a striking front cover by Pierre Druillet, the September 1977 issue of Heavy Metal had some good material within its pages. 

Posted below is 'It's A Small Universe' by Moebius, which depicts a massive head wound in gruesome fashion.....

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Book Review: Glory Season

Book Review: 'Glory Season' by David Brin


4 / 5 Stars

‘Glory Season’ was first published in 1993 in hardback; this Bantam Spectra paperback was issued in 1994. The cover illustration is by Gary Ruddell.

The planet Stratos is not your usual, run-of-the-mill colonized world. Settled thousands of years ago by a rogue technocrat named Lysos, who elected to shun any contact with the Federation, Stratos is designed to represent the ultimate Gyn/Ecology: a society governed by collections of matriarchies, each comprised of female clones generated via parthenogenesis. 

Serving as a sort of lumpen proletariat to the clones are the ‘vars’, women birthed from regular sexual reproduction. As the progeny of sweaty couplings, the vars are destined for subservience, and have few aspirations beyond founding their own modest matriarchies, modeled on those exhibited by their cloned superiors. 

On Stratos, men are relegated to a minor role in terms of population, occupation, and status; at select times of the year they contribute to the conception of the vars, but thereafter are consigned to stay separated from their offspring, and women, for most of their lives. 

Maia and her sister Leie are teenaged vars, and as the novel opens they are leaving their childhood home for mandatory exile and career-seeking amid the merchant fleets of the Eastern Continent. Despite their lack of nautical experience, the sisters procure positions on the tramp steamer Wotan. They embark on series of adventures set among the coasts and inland regions of the Eastern continent.

As they go about their exploration of Stratos, the twins become more aware of a note of uncertainty in their world’s politics: after centuries of isolation, a Federation  scout ship has arrived in orbit around Stratos, and its passenger is rumored to have landed on the planet to parley with the ruling oligarchies. 

The reintroduction of possible contact with the Federation is a double-edged sword; many factions on Stratos want nothing to do with the Federation and its distressing aura of Patriarchy. 

For these clone factions, the social order must be preserved at all costs; the uninvited visitor must be prevented from introducing change and disruption to Stratoin society. 

But for many var factions, the chance for access to new technologies, technologies promising to overturn the strictures of Stratos society, technologies promising hitherto unthinkable advancement for the underclass, is a chance that must not go unexploited.

Maia soon finds herself befriending the envoy from the Federation, a circumstance that makes her an unwilling participant in the bitter, and increasingly violent, conflicts between factions.  For the envoy knows things about Stratos and the planet’s history, information that the ruling class is adamant about keeping hidden from both men and vars….

At 773 pages in length, ‘Glory’ is a brick of a book. Somewhat inevitably in a book of this length, author Brin tends to devote a bit too much text to the internal musings and conflicts of Maia, his main character. 

As well, an overly large amount of the narrative is preoccupied with Game Theory and evolutionary modeling. Later in the novel fractals, another hot topic in the early 90s science scene, gets a belabored treatment. 

But (somewhat surprisingly) the book is quite readable, no mean feat for so lengthy a narrative, and  I didn’t have too much trouble going through hefty chunks of it in one sitting. 

Brin wisely avoids plastering his novel with too much exposition on gender theory and the rivalries between Men and Womyn, a weakness I've observed in books with similar themes written by female authors. 

[Gor fanboys should note, this is not their type of novel.]

‘Glory Season’ is a good example of an ‘epic’ SF novel written with the crisp, clear style required for such endeavors, and it’s worth searching out.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

'Shatter' issue 3


 'Shatter' issue three was released in June 1986; Steven Grant handled the scripting chores while Steve Erwin and Bob Dienethal handled the artwork.

The inside-cover Letters Page touches on the arcane topic of whether a curved line is too perfect to have been drawn on a MacIntosh...! 

This was computer artwork ca. mid-1986, after all.

 In this issue, Shatter - aka Sadr Al-Din Morales - finds himself unhappy with serving as a thrall to the Alien Nation and its overlord, Unrath.

Deciding to light out for home, he stumbles upon an orgy (?!) and later, a whip-wielding dominatrix (?!)...




His escape attempt unsuccessful, Shatter must stand beside Unrath and watch as the forces of conglomerate 'Simon Schuster Jovanovich' close in on the Nation....



we'll see what happens next issue......

Thursday, September 1, 2011

A Gallery of Grotesques from Richard Corben













top to bottom: 
'The Rats in the Walls', Skull No. 5, 1972
'Bigfoot', IDW, No. 4, May 2005
three panels from the 'Cage' graphic novel, Marvel, 2003
'Hellboy: The Crooked Man', issue No. 1, Dark Horse, July 2008
'Hellboy in Mexico', Dark Horse, May 2010
'Sinbad in the Land of the Jinn', Heavy Metal, February 1979
panel from the 'Cage' graphic novel
'How Howie Made It in the Real World', Slow Death No. 2, 1972

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

'5:00' by Mark Fisher
from the August 1981 issue of Heavy Metal



Saturday, August 27, 2011

Book Review: The Shores of Tomorrow

Book Review: 'The Shores of Tomorrow' by David Mason
2 / 5 Stars

‘The Shores of Tomorrow’ (240 pp.) was published by Lancer Books in 1971; the striking cover illustration is by Jim Steranko. 

David Mason (1924 – 1974) wrote a number of SF novels in the late 60s – early 70s, before dying at the comparatively young age of 50.

On a parallel Earth where the Civil War took place a century after it did in ‘our’ Earth, veteran Ian Kinnon is enjoying rural life with a wife and young son. As a result of the war, the America he resides in is at a 19th century level of technology. When Kinnon rides out on his horse for a early-morning deer hunt, he is thus astonished to see a dirigible-shaped spacecraft materialize on a slope overlooking his village.

To Kinnon’s horror, the spacecraft discharges a party of raiders, who descend on the village to enslave its citizens, killing any who resist. Kinnon takes command of the village militia and succeeds in defeating the invaders. 

Seizing their ship, he is further astounded to discover that it moves not through space, but through dimensions filled with parallel worlds – thousands of Americas where the course of history is slightly different.

Kinnon embarks on a mission of vengeance: find the parallel Earth housing the home base of the loathsome 'Char Qua' raiders, and destroy it. But destroying the Char Qua will require the cooperation of the lords of the multiverse, the aristocratic Shimri, and the Shimri have their own reasons for not wanting a homespun man from a primitive society warring through the dimensions on his own crusade………. 

‘Shores’ starts off well, generating a fast—moving narrative that credibly leverages the parallel worlds theme regularly employed in sci-fi. Unfortunately, by the mid-point of the novel author Mason devotes considerable text to the psychological intrigues between Kinnon and an alluring Shimri priestess named Nesha. The reader is treated to page after page of wooden dialogue marked by the heavy use of ellipses:

“Then…it’s true”, she said, in the same small, terrified voice. “You…do have the Powers.”

“Yes. I was…. very angry.”

“I….try not to grow too angry”, Nesha said.

The novel picks up momentum in its last 25 pages, but getting there requires some patience that I suspect many readers will not be willing to provide.  

‘Shores’ is perhaps best viewed as a less adroit imitation of the many sci-fi adventure tales Michael Moorcock regularly produced during the early 70s.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

'1996' by Chantal Montelier
from Heavy Metal magazine, Summer 1977 issues

Three warped episodes of '1996'...

......and an entertaining Letter to the Editor........