Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Reviews
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1966
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1967
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1968
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1968
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1968
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1969
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1969
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1969
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1970
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1970
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1971
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1971
- The Village Voice, September 9, 1971
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1971
- College English, 33:3, December 1971
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1972
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1973
- Village Voice, June 16, 1973
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1973
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1974
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1975
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1975
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1975
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1976
- Frontiers, III:3, fall, 1978
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1979
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, April 1, 1979
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, May 9, 1979
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1979
- The Feminist Review, #5 [in The New Women's Times, 5:14, July 16–19, 1979]
- Frontiers, IV:1, 1979
- Frontiers, IV: 2, 1979
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1979
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, January 24, 1980
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1980
- Sinister Wisdom, 12, winter 1980
- Frontiers, V:3, 1981
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, May 10, 1981
- Essays
- Letters
- Index of Books and Authors Reviewed
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1979
from Reviews
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Reviews
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1966
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1967
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1968
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1968
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1968
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1969
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1969
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1969
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1970
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1970
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1971
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1971
- The Village Voice, September 9, 1971
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1971
- College English, 33:3, December 1971
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1972
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1973
- Village Voice, June 16, 1973
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1973
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1974
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1975
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1975
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1975
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1976
- Frontiers, III:3, fall, 1978
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1979
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, April 1, 1979
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, May 9, 1979
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1979
- The Feminist Review, #5 [in The New Women's Times, 5:14, July 16–19, 1979]
- Frontiers, IV:1, 1979
- Frontiers, IV: 2, 1979
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1979
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, January 24, 1980
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1980
- Sinister Wisdom, 12, winter 1980
- Frontiers, V:3, 1981
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, May 10, 1981
- Essays
- Letters
- Index of Books and Authors Reviewed
Summary
Immortal: Short Novels of the Transhuman Future. Ed. Jack Dann (Harper & Row, New York, $9.95). Anticipations: Eight New Stories. Ed. Christopher Priest (Scribner's, New York, $8.95). Ursula K. Le Guin's Science Fiction Writing Workshop: The Altered I. Ed. Lee Harding (Berkley, New York, $3.95). A Place Beyond Man. Cary Neeper (Dell, New York, $1.50)
Immortality – like death – is one of the great unrealizables, powerful in artists' hands not because they are capable of saying anything about it, but because they can use it to say so much about everything else. Probably the only interesting use of the subject can be made by the religious mystics, since they use immortality as a metaphor for transcendence; thus in science fiction we have Shaw's “Ancients” (experienced, serious, memory-reliant, detached from the body) and Stapledon's “Last Men” (playful, wild, physical, paradoxical, immediate, sensuous). Without the mysticism and hence the belief in progress-as-transcendence, extrapolating from old age results not in Shaw's wonderful Ancients but in Swift's horrible Struldbrugs, while the neoteny of the Last Men decays to silly hedonism: the immortal as game-player.
In Immortal editor Dann has assembled four novellas in which immortality (conceived differently by each author) is neither transcendent nor particularly appealing – therefore making R. C. W. Ettinger's technophile introduction look even odder than it is. Ettinger says that human nature is radically imperfect and should be improved, but if so, are not the improvements suggested to us by the radically imperfect judgment of our radically imperfect natures also radically imperfect? Ettinger thinks not, nor does he answer the question of who the “we” is who will judge what constitutes improvement (Gene Wolfe does in “The Doctor of Death Island” and the answer is a chilling one). Ettinger does agree with one of the stories; both he and George Zebrowski (“Transfigured Night”) disapprove of an immortality devoted to immediate sensation in the interests of wish-fulfillment. Zebrowski tries hard to avoid the fallacy of imitative form (as one of his characters comments, without the refractoriness of reality, wishfulfillment can get pretty dull) but he can only up the ante by luridness and violence, since the story is without real conflict. The best line in it is a visiting alien's dry comment, “I am glad that you are not mobile.” There are signs also that attempting to make meaningless events matter has pushed the author into forcing the tone;…
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- The Country You Have Never SeenEssays and Reviews, pp. 145 - 151Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2007