Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (348 page)

My dad was also a writer, and published eighteen novels, two full length works of nonfiction, and nearly a hundred short stories. But in true Don fashion, he was as harsh a critic of his own work as he was of others’, and accurately categorized himself as a “fair to middling” writer. He knew that his real talents lay in the editorial realm. Ironically, he stubbornly refused to let his own work be edited.

* * * *

My father grew up in a very cold, formal household. Don’s father, Dr. Jacob Lewis Wollheim, was a urologist who specialized in venereal disease. Grandpa Wollheim practiced out of the second floor of the family’s brownstone in Manhattan, and my father and his sister had to walk through the medical offices to reach their bedrooms. Specializing in a field that treated two very common, but at the time incurable, diseases—syphillis and gonorrhea—he was terrified that his children would touch an infected surface in his office, put a finger in a mouth, nose, or eye, and contract a version of one of these terrible diseases. This was a very real concern, and because of my grandfather’s efforts to protect his children, my father grew to be a man who did not like to be kissed or touched.

In a letter written to my mother in 1942, he describes the nature of his childhood home: “Outsiders notice very rapidly that in the smooth, formal, surface normality of my household there are terrible tides that are sensed rather than seen. Once, a cousin of mine…lived with us for a period. After six months she moved. She said that she could not stand the chill cold formality of things.” And later in the same letter: “When you live in a family that is eternally at war within itself, a child must find some defense to save his mind.” Clearly for my father that defense lay in the escapist realm of imaginary fiction. He became a compulsive reader.

My dad was damaged neurologically and for a long time didn’t know why. As a boy he was physically unable to participate in sports—he could not catch a ball because his left hand wouldn’t respond in time. He was a loner, a bookworm, disinclined to be social. Shy and self-conscious, his severe acne and large buck teeth didn’t help. When he was thirty-five, he finally looked into his own medical file in his father’s office and discovered he had contracted polio in the epidemic of 1918 and, at age four, had been paralyzed for six months. After this discovery, memories began to surface: being carried down the back stairs of the house by his governess and put in a highchair in the sunny backyard, feeling angry because he was too old to be in a highchair. He remembered the house was dark during the day because his father insisted that the shades stay down.

Irrational as it was, my grandfather was ashamed that his son—the son of an acclaimed physician—had contracted polio. He somehow believed that he should have been able to protect his family, even from an epidemic. When Don recovered, his left leg was slightly shorter than his right, giving him the distinctive swaying limp that characterized his gait for the rest of his life. My grandfather had kept this secret, believing his son might otherwise develop an “invalid mentality”—common thinking at the time. And in some ways, it worked, but I have no doubt that Don was deeply traumatized by being left without an explanation for so many years for the physical abnormalities that he saw as shortcomings. It did, however, set him on a solitary but innovative path.

Don was a rebel: a Communist in his father’s Republican household, a science fiction writer and pulp magazine editor living in a very formal, in some ways still Edwardian, doctor’s home in a world that had never heard the term “science fiction.”

It’s ironic that he came to be known as The Dean of old school science fiction when he was such a staunchly determined advocate of the new. How odd that he was seen as a bastion of the old-fashioned when he had conceived and been at the forefront of so many new things: science fiction fandom and conventions, pulp magazines, and the birth of the paperback book. My father was considered old school partly because he was an arch idealist. For him science fiction was an intrinsically optimistic genre because it said: there will be a future. Although he loved H. G. Wells, my dad disapproved of modern dystopian near-future science fiction. Don was a lifelong literary romantic.

In a letter dated June 9, 1941, Don defended his unconventional choice of careers to his father:

When you became a doctor, you had to go through two or three years of unpaying and fruitless work…. This that I am going through is not actually different. These magazines may fold up or they may succeed. But this period, which may last a year and may even last longer, is something I must go through. An editor is a professional man—actually that.

I am carefully engaged in working on my own magazines—I am determined to make these magazines the very best on the market, and I might say that from the expressed opinions of the science fiction fans (the experts) I do now publish the second best—second out of a field of fourteen!

And consider…I am making this high mark in the very lowest budget and under the most difficult conditions of any fantasy pulp magazine published today….

As a science-fictionist, as a writer, as an editor, I have hundreds of friends and admirers all over the country. To them, Wollheim is a name of strength and pride. I do not think that I have used my name wrongly.

In this letter he expresses his total dedication to the world of writing and editing science fiction and his belief that his choice of profession would one day provide him with an appropriate income.

By 1971, Ace Books had been sold and was being mismanaged. The situation had become intolerable for my dad. He realized that if he didn’t leave, his reputation would be compromised. Without warning, or the knowledge of anyone but my mother, he simply walked off the job, turning his back on the list he thought of as
his
. Abandoning Ace nearly broke his heart, and Don was without work for the first time since 1940. After a tense few months—months when I returned from college to find my dad suffering bouts of dizziness and shortness of breath—he came home from a meeting with New American Library exuberant, and told us, “They said I could come to them any way I want!” On the basis of his reputation alone, NAL let him write his own ticket. He formed a new company devoted exclusively to science fiction and fantasy, the first of its kind. After weeks of debate with mom and me at the kitchen table, he named it after himself: DAW.

He also made a momentous decision at this time—a decision that proved critical to the success of his new enterprise: He hired my mom to be his business manager. My mom had both legal and business experience, and threw herself behind DAW with unbridled enthusiasm. Only 4-foot-11 at her absolute tallest, and four years older than Don, nonetheless Elsie was exactly what my dad needed: she was warm, compulsively social, and fiercely protective of our authors. Tad Williams called her “the iron hummingbird,” and Marion Zimmer Bradley said, “Elsie has the spirit of a lion in the body of a sparrow.”

When DAW was founded, my dad was fifty-seven, and he thought of his new company as a retirement job. After all, he only had to work on the genre he loved the most, and he had a small list—six titles a month. At Ace, he had been personally responsible for twenty-two books a month.

The fourteen years that he ran DAW were some of the happiest years of his life. At DAW, Don published many of the same authors he had worked with at Ace and continued to introduce new authors: C. J. Cherryh, Tanith Lee, Tad Williams, C. S. Friedman, Michael Shea, and more. Since 1985, I’ve run DAW with my business partner Sheila Gilbert. With our workloads in mind, we derive endless entertainment from thinking of DAW as a “retirement job.”

Despite difficult times, I could never imagine another father giving me as much as Don gave me. Not only did I inherit his editorial abilities, I inherited his love of words and of the genre, and I inherited a publishing company. I would never, in a million years, wish for a different father.

* * * *

Betsy Wollheim
is the President and Publisher of DAW Books. She lives with her husband, musician Peter Stampfel, and their family in New York City.

(1934–1995)

In the summer of 1995 John Douglas, then senior SF editor at Avon Books where I worked, invited me to join him for lunch with John Brunner, a huge name in the New Wave who was making a rare visit from England. We spent a pleasant afternoon talking literature and politics and food and culture with John and his wife Li Yi. He had been spending a lot of time in China, where he had met Li Yi after his first wife’s death, so the conversation had an especially intercontinental feel. The next week, at Worldcon, he died.

John sold his first book,
Galactic Storm
, when he was only seventeen, and had established himself as a (financially struggling) space opera writer when the New Wave washed over him. Although he’d already written some thirty books, the stunning dystopain novels he wrote in the 1960s and 1970s brought him a whole new level of recognition: the Hugo Award-winning
Stand On Zanzibar
(1968), a notably long book about overpopulation;
The Jagged Orbit
(1969),
The Sheep Look Up
(1972); and
The Shockwave Rider
(1975), which predicted the computer virus. Although his writing output dropped off after the mid-1970s and his health declined in the 1980s, Brunner remained influential until his premature death. “Good with Rice” was one of his last stories.

First published in
Asimov’s Science Fiction
, March 1994

THE SUNSET DRAGON

… crept the last few hundred meters into Guangzhou Central station at less than walking pace. The train was so named because it hailed from about as far west as one could go without leaving the country. It was not, however, those of its thousand-odd passengers who had ridden it for the full two-and-a-half days that tried to open the doors before it halted, and on failing—because the rolling-stock was of the most modern design, with an interlock connected to the braking system—stuck their heads out of the windows to voice futile complaints. Rather, it was those who had joined it closer to this final destination, who had not yet had time to sink into the ancient lethargy of the long-distance traveler, so appropriate to a land whose very dust smeared one’s skin with the powder of ancestral bones.

But their impatience was to meet a further check.

There must be some very influential people in the first carriage behind the locomotive. Where that car was to draw up, a section of the platform was isolated by metal barriers. Carpet had been laid. Railway officials in their smartest attire hung about expectantly. Two women fussed over a little girl in jacket and trousers of red silk who was to present a bouquet. Backs to the train, soldiers stood on guard bearing carbines at the port.

The exalted passengers should have emerged at once accepted the flowers and the compliments, and been whisked to a waiting limousine. Instead, there was some sort of hitch. Had they been able to see why they were obliged to wait, perhaps even enjoy the little bit of spectacle, the passengers would have shrugged the matter off. Wherever one went in China nowadays, there always seemed to be Important People thrusting to the head of the line: politicians soliciting support for this or that school of opinion; businessmen involved (or claiming to be) in discussions with foreign corporations, Japanese, American, European; experts in a hundred disciplines seeking ways to mend the sick heart of the land.… As it was, though, the crowd quickly grew restive.

There are, of course no such things as coincidences, and Policeman Wang was far too good a Taoist to imagine otherwise. When he looked back later, though, he could not help being struck by the number of preconditions necessary to set in motion the chain of events that was so soon to change the world—or rather, let the world find out how it was already being changed.

For instance, but for the delay in getting the Important Passengers away to their car, he might well not have spotted the old peasant as he hobbled by amid the throng, swept past like an autumn maple-leaf abob on a swollen stream. Or even if he had, which certainly was possible because in this thriving Special Economic Zone the fellow cut such an incongruous figure, would not have had the chance to act on his sudden inspiration—more properly called, he supposed, a hunch.

Being for the moment free of routine duties, such as discouraging peddlers anxious to fleece newly arrived countryfolk and noodle-cooks apt to overset their pushcarts in their eagerness to beat off competitors, he was able to take stock of his human surroundings in search of what had snagged his attention.

The passenger mix off the Sunset Dragon was typical for this time of a working day. There was a preponderance of men in suits and ties, clutching attache’ cases and portfolios, fretting as though they were being conspired against and looking for someone to blame. There were merchants carrying craftwork, carpets, bales of cloth and skin rugs from non-endangered species such as pony and camel. There were a couple of priests in wide-brimmed conical hats, showing themselves openly again thanks to foreign insistence on religious toleration. There were a lot of elderly folk, remarkably spry because of their practice of
tai ch’i,
presumably here to visit relatives working in the city and thus allowed to live in it. There were virtually no children other than babes in arms, for it was during school hours, but Wang caught sight of three in a group, sickly and sad, presumably on their way to be examined at a hospital. There were several young people whom Wang would dearly have liked to accost, to find out why they weren’t studying or at work, but they looked too well-dressed for him to risk it. Either they came from rich and influential families, untouchable by the police, or they were drug-dealers or black-marketeers, so he would be interfering in areas for which another branch of the force was responsible, or—in the case of the girls and possibly some of the boys as well—they were prostitutes who very probably had triad protectors. Sometimes Wang doubted whether the bosses in Beijing had understood what they were letting themselves in for when they insisted on reuniting Hong Kong with China.

But he didn’t want to think about Hong Kong.

Heterogeneous though those around him were, the old peasant still stood out like a rock in a rice-bowl. (Old? Probably he was no more than fifty, but he had lost several teeth, the rest were stained with tobacco, and under his greasy blue cotton cap his face was so ingrained with dirt that every wrinkle, every line, was doubly overscored.) He was shabbily dressed in garb reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, much repaired; only his shoes were new. Over one shoulder he balanced a bamboo pole, sagging at both ends for the weight of one bundle tied in cloth and one sack that failed to disguise its contents, an oblong hamper. He seemed unwilling to rest his load on the ground, though it must be tiring in the warmth of Guangdong. No doubt of it: rather than just being annoyed by the holdup, he was nervous. He kept glancing around in a totally different manner from his companions. When his gaze strayed to Wang, it darted away on the instant.

He’s worried about the hamper. What’s in it?

At Wang’s side his partner Ho said sourly, “This lot look as though they could turn nasty. How much longer are they going to be kept hanging about?”

Wang disregarded the question. His eyes were still fixed on the old peasant.

“Not talking to me today, hm?” Ho said huffily. He had small liking for Wang, whom he regarded as an idiot. To have spent a year in Hong Kong and not come back rich—what a wasted chance! In many ways he reminded Wang of his wife, who seldom tired of saying the same.

But never mind him. The dignitaries had finally emerged from the train, the bouquet was being presented, there were bows and handshakes and official cordiality in progress. Wang reached a decision. Raising the aerial on his radio, he requested the co-operation of their squad commander, Inspector Chen.

Who was not a bad sort, Wang felt; at least he didn’t share Ho’s low opinion of him. He asked no questions and didn’t even frown at being summoned by a subordinate. Together they closed on the peasant, with a scowling Ho in their wake.

Seeing police approach with batons drawn, the peasant panicked. He dropped his burden and would have fled, save that the crowd was not only too dense but also surging into motion as the barriers ahead were moved aside. Trapped, he turned through half a circle, closed his eyes, and pressed both hands against his chest, swaying as from a weak heart. A young man with a dark sly face reached for the fallen pole. Wang’s baton cracked down one centimeter from his outstretched fingers. Mind changed, the fellow scurried away. By now Ho was steadying the peasant to save him from falling—vastly against his will, as was obvious from his expression of distaste.

“What do you suspect?” Inspector Chen muttered, with upraised baton directing the rest of the squad to hold back the crowd—rather like the conductor of a western orchestra.

There was a powerful smell of urine, more pungent even than the stench of humanity below the station roof. On the basis of that, plus the obvious fact that the peasant was of far-western stock, Wang said, positively, “A banned animal.”

Chen stared for a moment. “Could anyone still be that stupid?” he demanded. Then he glanced at the peasant, who had recovered enough of his wits to glare daggers. “Let the fool sit down!” he called to Ho in passing, thus answering by implication his own question. With a gesture he indicated that Wang should fetch and open the sack.

Instead of consenting to sit, the peasant wrenched free of Ho’s grip, fell to his knees and implored mercy with repeated kowtows. His accent was so thick they could barely grasp what he was saying, though it included some excuse about his wife being ill. But there was no mistaking the import of his actions.

Chen eyed Wang sardonically. Speaking clearly and slowly, with the intention of being understood, “You were right. He is a fool. Now let’s find out what kind of animal it is. Better yet, why doesn’t the fool tell us? You—what’s-your-name!”

The old man was blubbering by now. Ho caught both his pipestem wrists in one hand and tugged a wad of greasy papers from the side pocket of his jacket—a stupid place to carry them in a crowded train, of course. Maybe he had got away with it because no one was much interested in stealing the identity of an old countryman.

“Name!” Chen snapped. When no reply was forthcoming he signalled to Ho.

“He’s called Lin Yung-fei,” the latter reported, having fumbled open the wad of papers. He added, punning on Lin’s primary meaning of forest, “Perfect for a raw-food-eating barbarian!”

The insult cut short the peasant’s sobs and he went back to glowering. It was a poor joke, though. Ignoring it, Chen indicated to Wang that he should proceed with his examination of the hamper. Circumspectly he complied: first untying the rope that attached the sack to the carrying-pole, then opening the sack and pushing it to ground-level on all sides, thus revealing that the hamper was made of wicker and that its lid was secured with rough wooden pegs.

The stink made it indisputable that his conclusion was correct.

The passengers from the arriving train had dispersed, but they were still surrounded by a score or more of onlookers. Wherever one went it seemed there were always people with nothing better to do, who veered to swarm like kites at every breath of an event. So long as they didn’t try to meddle it was pointless to order them away. As many again would spring up, faster than mushrooms.

Lin recovered his voice long enough to curse: first his luck, then whoever the “friend” was who had told him he could make a lot of money by smuggling a rare animal to a big city, and thirdly the police. At that stage Ho’s baton prodded him in the kidneys and he subsided.

The hamper-lid had holes around the fastening-pegs. Cautiously applying one eye, Wang confirmed that there was indeed an animal inside. It was brown, lithe and sleek; it had sharp white teeth in a wicked-looking jaw; and it had claws.

“It looks,” he said slowly, “like a large ferret.”

The peasant snorted. Apparently he had run out of lies and denials. “Just the sort of stupid remark you’d expect from a townie!” he rasped. “She’s not a ferret, she’s a marten!”

Wang nodded. He had heard the term and seen pictures. “Is that a protected species?” Chen demanded, and didn’t wait for an answer. “I guess it must be. If not, why is he bringing it here?”

Sadly Wang reflected that there had been a time when such a question could have been answered legitimately in more ways than one: as a pet for my grandson, to be trained to rid our home of rats, to be bred so the pelts of her young can be made into hats and gloves.…

That, though, had been before the tidal wave of humankind turned half of China into wasteland. He himself was married, to his cost, but he had not taken up his legal chance to become a father because he didn’t want to be guilty of causing yet more desolation. To his wife, of course, he claimed it was because modern advances in biology would soon ensure a hundred percent guarantee that their sole child would be a son—and wasn’t that what her mother had dreamed of all her life? Ho often taunted him for waiting, pointing out that there was always a fifty-fifty chance, but since his own child was a girl his gibes rang hollow.

“All right,” Inspector Chen said after a pause, raising his radio. “I’ll warn base that we’re bringing this lot in. Ho, put handcuffs on the old fool. Wang, you carry the whatever-it’s-called. You!”—more loudly, to the onlookers. “Move on! The fun’s over, such as it was.”

At that point Ho spoke up unexpectedly. Much as he claimed to look down on countryfolk as a rule, it wasn’t the first time he had boasted of special knowledge due to rural ancestors. “Be careful!” he warned. “I know about martens. They can give you a nasty bite. This one’s sure to be in a vile temper after being shut up hungry for so long. Matter of fact, I’m surprised it hasn’t chewed its way out of the hamper!”

Wang hesitated. He was about to say that the animal didn’t look very aggressive when he was forestalled by Lin.

“Who said I kept her hungry? I’m not so stupid that I’d starve a valuable animal! She’s worth much more alive than dead!”

He gave no indication of whether he wanted the marten alive because she was to be bred from, or for the more prosaic reason that no decent Chinese housewife would feed her family on flesh she herself had not seen killed.

“Is that true?” Chen demanded. Wang applied his eye to the hole in the hamper-lid again.

“Yes, it does seem to have something to eat. Some kind of fruit, by the look of it. Right?” he added to Lin.

Before the old man could reply, Ho interrupted. “Martens are carnivores,” he scoffed. “They eat meat, not fruit.”

“They eat that sort!” Lin snapped. “Same as we do!”

“What sort?” Chen demanded. Lin shrugged.

“That sort! We call it ‘good-with-rice’ because it is.”

Wang felt a faint prickling on the back of his neck. He sensed something unfitting to the proper order of things. By his frown Chen did also. Having contacted base to warn of their arrival, the inspector added a request for someone to take charge of the marten, and then, after a brief hesitation, a further request, this time for information about kinds of fruit that carnivores might eat. The sense of bewilderment at the far end was almost audible.