Tor Doubles #30: Poul Anderson’s The Longest Voyage and Steven Popkes’ Slow Lightning

Tor Doubles #30: Poul Anderson’s The Longest Voyage and Steven Popkes’ Slow Lightning

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Cover for The Longest Voyage and Slow Lightning by Wayne Barlowe

 

Tor Double #30 contains Poul Anderson’s third and final appearance and was originally published in February 1991. He is joined by Steve Popkes with a story original to this volume and which has not been reprinted.

“The Longest Voyage” was originally published in Analog in December 1960. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story, which makes it a strange choice for the Tor Doubles series, which generally published novellas, but the second story in the volume may be the longest story published in the series.

There are many science fiction stories that take historical characters and use them as the basis for a different take on the world. Robert J. Sawyer notably published his trilogy of novels Far-Seer, Fossil Hunter, and Foreigner whose characters were based on Galileo, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud. In “The Longest Voyage,” Captain Rovic appears to be based on Ferdinand Magellan, leading the Golden Leaper (shades of Francis Drake’s Golden Hind) on a circumnavigation of the moon on which they live in search of the fables Aureate Cities.

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The Best Short SF: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Part II

The Best Short SF: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Part II

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F&SF, February 1973. Cover by Bert Tanner

For this installment, we look at a selection of tales from The Best Fantasy Stories from the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (1985), edited by Edward L. Ferman.

“Pages from a Young Girl’s Journal,” a novelette by Robert Aickman

First published in F&SF, February 1973
Read the story in the original magazine here

A young girl records her travels in Italy, where she and her family are hosted by a Contessa. At a soirée she meets a hauntingly enchanting suitor, and after a nocturnal encounter, she begins to experience a strange transformation. This vampire tale was the first winner of a World Fantasy Award for short fiction. The prose is elegant and seemed convincingly of its intended 1830s setting.

Rating: *** (Good)
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The Sword & Planet of S. M. Stirling and Al Sarrantonio

The Sword & Planet of S. M. Stirling and Al Sarrantonio

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In the Courts of the Crimson Kings and The Sky People by S.M. Stirling (Tor Books, March 2008 and November 4, 2006). Covers by Gregory Manchess

In 2006 and 2008, Tor books sought a revival of Sword & Planet fiction with two books by S. M. Stirling. It didn’t quite work out but the readers got some interesting results, including a book that is now in my top ten of S&P novels.

First up was The Sky People, set on Venus in an alternate solar system where the planets are inhabitable and inhabited, much like the solar system of ERB, Brackett, and Moore. In the acknowledgements, Stirling even thanks ERB, Brackett and Otis Adelbert Kline, and mentions the Northwest Smith stories of Moore, as well as ERB’s “Wrong Way” Carson of Venus.

Stirling posits a space race that pits the US and their allies against the Soviets for control of this habitable solar system. When they land on Venus they find a jungle world, much like the Venus of ERB. It turns out to be inhabited by both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, a mystery that is eventually solved. This one is definitely not Sword & Planet. It combines standard SF with hints of Pellucidar’s time lost world of dinosaurs and sabretooths. Fun but not stellar in my opinion.

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New Treasures: Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Stephen Kotowych

New Treasures: Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Stephen Kotowych

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Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction , Volumes 1-3 (Ansible Press, December 13, 2023,
November 22, 2024, and October 21, 2025). Covers by Tithi Luadthong, Xiaofan Zhang, and Pascal Blanché

I was delighted to see (on S. M. Carrière’s Facebook feed) news of the upcoming launch of Volume Three of Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Stephen Kotowych. The book is already available in digital and print formats, and the big launch party happens at Bakka-Phoenix Books in Toronto this Saturday.

As long-time readers of this blog know, I’ve been a huge fan of Year’s Best SF anthologies since I first discovered Terry Carr’s legendary The Best Science Fiction of the Year (1972-1987) in the mid-70s. I dearly miss Gardner Dozois’ long-running The Year’s Best Science Fiction, which ran for 35 years (1984-2018) and, in more recent decades, the Year’s Best series from Rich Horton, Neil Clarke, Jonathan Strahan, and Paula Guran — all of which folded in just the last few years.

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What I’ve Been Listening To: November 2025

What I’ve Been Listening To: November 2025

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It’s been August since I shared What I’ve Been Listening To. My apologies for depriving you! And you know that I listen to audiobooks every single day: Work, home, car, walking, bedtime: I’m constantly listening to them.

I am set up with two library systems here in Columbus now, so I’m borrowing some listens with Libbby, and Hoopla. The first entry today was a borrow.

And I am typing this after watching my Dodgers win the first NL back-to-back World Series’ since 1975/76. 50 years ago! I have seen the Dodgers play in 10 World Series’ in my lifetime, and they’re now 5-5, having won the last three. It’s a good time to be a Dodgers fan.

CONSPIRATA/LUSTRUM (Robert Harris)

I loved Robert Harris’ Fatherland. It’s an alternate history mystery novel in which the Nazis won (similar to Len Deighton’s terrific SS-GB). HBO made a really good version with Rutger Hauer. I’m going to watch it again soon.

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Half a Century of Reading Tolkien, Part Seven: The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks

Half a Century of Reading Tolkien, Part Seven: The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks

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Ten years ago to the month (I started this in October), I wrote about Terry Brooks’ groundbreaking The Sword of Shannara (1977), and declared that the joy I got reading the book the first time around was something I couldn’t recapture. Time had opened a gap between the book and what I could take away that seemed uncrossable. Revisiting the book, yet again, I no longer think that’s completely true, but it’s not entirely false.

When I set out earlier this year on my journey through Tolkien’s writing, I decided to mix it up with several works clearly inspired by Tolkien, and particularly the Lord of the Rings. Bored of the Rings (reviewed here), was my first choice because it’s an explicit parody of the trilogy (and a brilliant one!).

Sword was an easy choice, as well, even if its origin story is complex and was touched by divers hands (well, six, to be precise, between Brooks and the Del Reys). I’m not sure Brooks set out to write a story that tracks so closely to the LotR in so many places, but that was result. It kicked off the mass-market success of quest trilogies featuring secret heirs in search of the foozle needed to bring down the Dark Lord in his isolated redoubt.

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The Weyland-Yutaniverse, Part IV

The Weyland-Yutaniverse, Part IV

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Predator 2 (20th Century Fox, November 21, 1990)

In celebration of the recent streaming series, Alien: Earth (whether you enjoyed it or not), I have created a new list of films that most certainly exist in the Weyland-Yutani universe, and if not certainly, then enjoy an unbelievably tenuous link to it.

This will be an ordered list of sixteen films, four a week, in reverse order, and is guaranteed to enrage you. The Alien and Predator films, and all those in between, are beloved by some, held sacred by a few, and the subjects of intense debate. My opinions will most certainly not align with yours, but I hope to keep you guessing as to my top four!

#4 – Predator 2 (1990)

Strong link, or tenuous as all hell? Fairly bloody strong.

What’s the link? This is the one that threw the chum into the sea of nerds.

What’s it all about? Stephen Hopkins, British music video auteur, fresh off his bonkers stint on the Nightmare on Elm Street series, with the fabulously daft Dream Child, was handed this and must have thought to himself, ‘I’m gonna make the most 1990s film ever 1990-ed in the year of our Lord 1990’. And lo, he made it, and it was good.

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Tor Doubles #29: Ian Watson’s Nanoware Time and John Varley’s The Persistence of Vision

Tor Doubles #29: Ian Watson’s Nanoware Time and John Varley’s The Persistence of Vision

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Cover for The Graveyard Heart and Elegy for Angels and Dogs by Bob Eggleton

John Varley makes his third and final appearance in the Tor Double series in volume #29, which was originally published in January 1991. Ian Watson makes his only appearance in this volume.

The Persistence of Vision was originally published in F&SF in March 1978. It won the Hugo Award and Nebula Award as well as the Locus poll.  It was also nominated for the Ditmar Award.

Varley offers a United States which has gone through a series of boom and bust cycles. During one of the bust cycles, Varley’s narrator decides to travel from his native Chicago to Japan, but with the economy being the way it is, he isn’t able to take any form of public transportation, instead walking and relying on the occasional ride. Rather than heading straight west, he takes a more southerly route to avoid the radioactive wastes of Kansas and other Great Plains states.

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Why SFF Mentorships Matter

Why SFF Mentorships Matter

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What do James A. Corey, George RR Martin, and Mary Robinette Kowal have in common? Like thousands of their peers, each had a mentor help them navigate the wild world of publishing in some way, shape, or form. For newcomers, that type of support can prove to be the difference between success and failure. Because, lets face it: there have always been plenty of pitfalls and scams waiting to ensnare the next talented writer. 

That support can involve a writing teacher offering key insight or a best-seller giving time and tips to an up-and-comer. No matter the genre, mentors remain as important today as it was decades ago. Among the more renowned programs that facilitate such an exchange is the Science Fiction Writer’s Association’s (SFWA) Mentorship Program.

Mere months ago, I had the opportunity to participate as a mentee in SFWA’s program myself. Here’s what made the experience, and the work of so many writers behind the scenes, so special.

Andrea Pawley may be the most recognizable  member of SFWA’s Mentorship Program but she’ll be the first to tell you about the remarkable team she works with. That hasn’t stopped her from being a bearer of good news for the hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of hopefuls who apply every year.

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The Sword & Planet of Jack Vance: Planet of Adventure

The Sword & Planet of Jack Vance: Planet of Adventure

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The Planet of Adventure series by Jack Vance (DAW and Ace paperback editions)

Today, we come back from our excursion into the realm of Space Opera to our home territory of Sword & Planet fiction. One of the most unique S&P series I’ve ever encountered is the four-book series by Jack Vance (1916 – 2013) generally called the Planet of Adventure series. The stories take place on a planet called Tschai, and feature an earthman named Adam Reith.

In a future in which Earth has starships, a distress signal comes from Tschai, which orbits the “dim and aging” star Carina. An Earth ship is sent to investigate and is destroyed in orbit by a missile from the planet. Adam Reith and a companion escape on a scout ship and manage to make a hard landing. The companion is soon killed by the natives and Reith is left alone. The books chronicle his efforts to survive and return to Earth.

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