This time we time-travel to 1982, where we pick up the February 15th 1982 issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.
If you'd like to read along with us, you'll find the entire issue online courtesy of Luminist, here: https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/SF/ASI/ASI_1982_02.pdf
Among the other items mentioned in today's episode:
- RIP science fiction master John Varley
- Apple TV's For All Mankind, due for a fifth season in 2026
- Kaliane Bradley's Hugo nominated time-travel novel The Ministry of Time
- Robert Silverberg's book about the art and craft of SF writing, Science Fiction 101 (good title, Silverbob!)
- Somtow Sucharitkul's tuneful march for Asimov's magazine, rendered for MIDI
- Amazon Prime to relaunch Stargate
- Early science fiction? Fantasy, at any rate: The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter
- N.K.Jemisin becomes the youngest SFWA Grand Master
As always, you can find the episode via any decent podcast app (see list of suggested podcast platforms below) - or right here:
Podcast platforms carrying Science Fiction 101 include:
Amazon Music - Apple Podcasts/iTunes - Audible - Castbox - Deezer - Fountain - Listen Notes - Player FM - Pocket Casts - Podbean - Podcast Addict - The Podcast App - Podcast Index - Podcast Radio - Podcast Republic - Podchaser - Podfriend - Podlink - Podtail - RadioPublic - Spotify - TuneIn - YouTube
It really pulled me up short that you guys seemed to regard 1982 as old-timey science fiction. (It's just me, of course—I'm old.) After the mid-sixties, the best (and I stress, best) works of any year are as "modern" as anything published in the 2020s—matters of technological furniture aside, of course. Ursula Le Guin published her classic novel of gender fluidity, The Left Hand of Darkness, in 1969, so it's hardly surprising that Silverberg nodded in the same direction in 1982. Some nerdy points: Asimov's was published thirteen times a year in 1982, by the way, not quarterly. That's why the issue date has a month and a day, and not just a month. They eventually managed to fit thirteen issues into a twelve month year by having a Mid-December issue. Somtow Sucharitkul simplified his name in later years by publishing as S. P. Somtow. The Connie Willis time travel novel to read, also related to "Fire Watch", is Doomsday Book, not Blackout. And lastly, Robert Silverberg did not time travel to steal your podcast name! His excellent anthology was originally published as Robert Silverberg's Worlds of Wonder. I can't comment on anything else, because it's well after 1 a.m., and I have to go to bed!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Piet! We, of course, knew that Silverberg's SF101 came out years ago and was a retitling of an earlier volume - just having a bit of fun!
ReplyDeleteI, too, think of 1982 as "just yesterday", as I'm also old. But I started properly reading SF in 1980-ish, so picking up an old ASIMOV'S washed me further back in time than I thought it would. Reading the articles, ads and stories, I was struck by how much HAS changed since 1982. Asimov's defence of "'he' refers to 'he or she'" feels so old-fashioned now, and the absence of everyday tech - phones, internet, on-demand media - does mark these stories out as being from an earlier era in a way that I wasn't quite expecting.
You're right about Le Guin on gender fluidity. And I daresay there's some Sturgeon that goes there (Venus Plus X perhaps, or some of his short stories). But I don't think your average, mainstream, would-be-hard-SF American magazine was going there very much in 1982. Meanwhile in the UK, though, a number of post-new wave authors were almost certainly doing so, and while I can't point to any specific stories, I'll bet that there are some Interzone stories of this era which deal with gender and sexuality.
Thanks for clarifying the publishing schedule, and the reminder of Somtow's other byline. And for correctly directing us re the Connie Willis follow-up. Which we almost certainly will follow up in a future episode!