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T h e  A l l e g h e n y  S p e c u l a t i v e  F i c t i o n  R e v i e w
                                                                           

VOLUME I, NUMBER 1                                             SPRING 1994    

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EDITORIAL: Why Omphalos?                           John Leavitt          2
BOOK REVIEWS
  Jack Cady: The Sons of Noah and Other Stories    John Leavitt          4
  John Crowley: Great Work of Time                 John Leavitt          4
  Patricia Geary: Strange Toys                     John Leavitt          5
  Ian McDonald: Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone      John Leavitt          5
  William L. Ramseyer: Jellyfish Mask              Shannon Turlington    6
  Kim Stanley Robinson: Green Mars                 John Leavitt          6
  Horace Walpole: Hieroglyphic Tales               Shannon Turlington    7
  Jack Womack: Elvissey                            John Leavitt          7
MAGAZINE REVIEWS
  Analog:  March 1994                              Steven Pitluk         8
  Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine: March 1994    Steven Pitluk         8
  Expanse: #2                                      Steven Pitluk         9
  Fantasy and Science Fiction: March 1994          John Leavitt          9
  Fantasy and Science Fiction: April 1994          John Leavitt         10
COMMENTARY: The New Internet Writer                E. Jay O'Connell     11
ADMINISTRIVIA                                                           14

Cover art by Andrea Leavitt.

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Editor, John Leavitt                         Art Director, Andrea Leavitt

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This magazine as a whole is copyright 1994 by John Leavitt.

All individual reviews and articles and artwork in this magazine are
copyright 1994 by their respective authors and artists.  One time
(English-language) rights only have been acquired by Omphalos. All
other rights, including translation rights, are hereby assigned to the
authors and artists.

Permission is given to reproduce or duplicate Omphalos in its entirety
for non-commercial uses as long as all associated copyright notices and
bylines are left intact. Re-use, reproduction, reprinting or republic-
ation of an individual article in any way or on any media, printed or
electronic, is forbidden without permission of the author
or rights holder.


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WHY OMPHALOS?

  by John Leavitt

     As this is the first issue, it seems appropriate to address the 
question: why Omphalos?  This is a helpfully simple phrasing that allows 
me to answer in a variety of ways.

     First, why start a new zine?  I first worked on a zine in 1983.  This 
was back in prep school and, of course, we had never heard the term 
"zine", so we called _Cintax_ (pronounced "syntax") an on-line literary 
magazine.  I was one of several editors, and, as it happened, we got very 
few submissions (although it did pick up with time) and so we ended up 
writing much of the magazine ourselves.  We had satire in the serial "The 
Adventures of Alpha Joe", social commentary in the column "The Erewhon 
Breach", random poetry and prose tidbits, and an occasional poorly written 
short short story by yours truly.  And we had an audience.  The official 
literary magazine never managed to produce even one issue that year and we 
had novelty on our side.  We managed to get a special account set up for 
_Cintax_ and the next thing we knew people were actually reading it.  It 
was work, but it was *fun*.  Now, 11 years later and feeling many times 
more computer savvy, I feel like going after some of that fun again.

     Of course, a better question might be why start *this* zine?  I 
started Omphalos because I wanted to be able to read it.  When I receive 
my various science fiction and fantasy magazines each month, almost 
invariably the first section I read is the book reviews.  I love these 
columns.  I don't always agree with the reviewers, but I don't always 
disagree.  I like reading what different reviewers thought of the same 
book.  Et cetera.  Similarly, one of the newsgroups I subscribe to on 
internet is rec.arts.sf.reviews, and every day if there are new reviews, 
I'll most likely dive in and read them (and work will get put off a little 
longer). 

     There are, however, inadequacies to these forums.  The magazines 
columns rarely review more than three books and they often include several 
pages of irrelevant, albeit quite interesting, lead-in material.  In 
addition, they naturally focus only on new books.  Well, there are dozens 
of new books out each months and thousands that have been out in the past, 
so three new ones per month per magazine is obviously a bit limiting.  On-
line this is less of a problem, especially with people like Dani Zweig 
writing specialized reviews of past works, but despite these fine efforts 
and those of others like Evelyn Leeper (who I hope will finally get her 
Hugo this year), there seem to be no more reviews on-line than in the 
magazines.  Finally, there is the problem of the magazines themselves.  I 
do not have time to read every story in every magazine I subscribe to.  I 
wish I did, but the fact is that I read rather slowly.  I am sure that 
over the years I have missed some gems because of this, which frustrates 
me.  Reviews of the magazines themselves would help me and others to know 
what deserves a look if everything can't be read.  I would love to be able 
to get a magazine every now and then that was just packed wall-to-wall 
with reviews.  I hope that someday, with your help, Omphalos will be that 
magazine.

     So, what's with the funny name?  Ah.  Actually, I think Omphalos is a 
perfect name for this, since it has both serious and light connotations.  
On the serious side, it means "focal point", which is certainly was a 
review zine should be.  In addition, however, this name helps to cut 
through the pretensions of a "literary review" in that it also means 
"navel".  That's right; you're reading a magazine named after the silliest 
part of the human body, the belly button.

     If all that makes it sound as if you are reading a poorly named rag 
that is the combined result of nostalgia and attempted wish-fulfillment on 
the editor's part, I stand before you, guilty, and I'm going to try to 
make it happen anyway.  If you want to help, submissions are always 
welcome, and artist's and writer's guidelines are available.  I would much 
rather publish reviews by people other than myself (if only because it 
makes a better read for me).  If you have suggestions, please send them 
in.  This will only work if we make it work.  If you just want to 
subscribe and read, that's great too.  At least, I'll know that I'm not 
wasting my time.

     On that note, I'll leave you to enjoy--I hope--the rest of this 
first issue.  If all goes well, I'll be back in July with the second 
issue.  Cheers.


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THE SONS OF NOAH AND OTHER STORIES by Jack Cady


Review by John Leavitt

Broken Moon Press, 0-913089-40-0, $13.95, 149pp (trade), 1992.

     Let's get right to the point: read this book.  This collection of six 
stories and a novella is perhaps the best I have read.  The stories are 
richly detailed and quietly spooky, while still possessing a rustic 
simplicity.  The voices used are so authentically American that I found 
myself constantly imagining an old man sitting by a fire in the Catskills, 
telling ghost stories to his grandchildren.

     The title story is a powerful cautionary tale, in which the 
technological world tries to invade a rustic community, never expecting to 
meet any resistance, let alone what they actually encounter.  "Tinker" is 
a subtle story of rural "justice" and the unearthly response, when the 
local tinker, a repairer of pots and pans and shoes, comes riding by on 
his patchwork wagon.  "The Patriarch" shows us a view of friendship and 
duty that people are rarely willing to speak of, even when experienced 
directly.  "Now We Are Fifty" was a disturbing story, through which I was 
constantly expecting something more to happen.  In a way, I feel that this 
was the point, that sometimes things just go along and, although you know 
there is something deeper and darker going on, you never quite get a fix 
on it.

     The novella "By Reason of Darkness" is a terrifying post-Vietnam 
ghost story about old friends, old debts, and the blurry line between 
insanity and reason, offering a deeply affecting counterpoint to Joe 
Haldeman's "Graves." Between them, Haldeman and Cady are reminding us that 
even in war, there is more to this world than we know.  It is interesting 
to note that both this collection and "Graves" were winners of the World 
Fantasy Award this past year.

     In my opinion, the masterpiece of the collection was "Resurrection."  
This piece is quiet and unassuming in its testament to the existence of 
ghosts, much as Carrie Richerson's stories do for zombies.  The result is 
a bittersweet reality that I could not help but believe.

     The last and shortest story in the collection, "The Curious Candy 
Store", did not really work for me.  The basic premise of an eternal candy 
store with balloons that determine (or merely reveal?) your destiny was 
powerful, but the dialog seemed stilted and the story rushed.  In another 
context, I might not have noticed, but in a collection this strong, these 
weaknesses could not be overlooked.

     On the whole, Cady is a potent storyteller, with a voice that creeps 
out of the soil of the Cascade mountains and the blooms into eerily 
beautiful images.  I'll say it again:  read this book.

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GREAT WORK OF TIME by JOHN CROWLEY

Review by John Leavitt

Bantam Spectra, 0-553-29319-2, $3.99, 136pp (paper), 1989.

     Over the past several years, I have heard all sorts of good things 
about John Crowley, many of them proclaiming his novel _Little, Big_ to 
the be-all end-all of modern fantasy.  Unfortunately, I have had almost no 
luck finding Crowley's books in local bookstores, a problem I expect will
be alleviated later this year when much of his work will be reissued.
Recently, however, I did happen across a copy of _Great Work of Time_ and
decided it was time to give Crowley a shot.  I was not disappointed.

     _Great Work of Time_ is an odd little novel, in that it plays with
time manipulation to a much greater degree than any other book I've read.
In fact, it is difficult to determine exactly which, if any portions of
the book actually occurred until the very end.  That being said, let me
try to give a rough synopsis.  This is the story of Denys Winterset, a
native of the nineteenth century and his indoctrination and work within a
secret brotherhood set up by the estate of the dead-before-his-time Cecil
Rhodes, the purpose of which is to protect and preserve the British
empire.  Alternatively, this is the story of this organization's president
*pro tem* (all their presidents are *pro tem*) and his encounter with an
angel and a draconion, strange creatures who are able to perceive the
changes wrought by the brotherhood.  Then again, it is the story of Caspar
Last and his single journey through time with the sole purpose of making
himself rich.  And these are all the same story.  As I said, it is an odd
book.

     The holistic effect created by this patchwork of alternative pasts, 
presents, and futures is remarkable.  It is important for a novel to 
create a believable closure, in which the different parts of the story 
culminate into a cohesive whole.  If a novel fails to create this feeling, 
then the reader is left feeling that something was withheld.  Conversely, 
if the closure is forced, the reader can feel cheated by a seeming deus ex 
machina ending.  Not only does this novel give a sense of closure which 
fits with the rest of the story, but it is all-encompassing; all the 
different planes of the story manage to fold in on themselves in a 
complex metaphysical origami.  If you've read Tim Powers's _The Anubis 
Gates_, then you can understand the sort of beautiful web I am talking 
about, in which each thread of the story is inextricably linked to the 
others by the end in ways that are inevitable without being predictable.

     There are places where the writing is a little heavy-handed (in 
particular, the beginning of the second chapter), but even so, this little 
book is well worth the read.

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STRANGE TOYS by PATRICIA GEARY

Review by John Leavitt

Bantam Spectra, 0-553-26872-4, $4.50, 248pp (paper), 1987.

     _Strange Toys_ left me with very mixed impressions.  On one hand, the 
overall effect was powerful and left me thinking about the book for days 
afterwards, which is always a good sign.  On the other hand, in terms of 
the story itself, I couldn't shake a feeling of dissatisfaction.

     The book is divided into three sections, corresponding to the 
experiences of the main character, a woman named Pet, at ages nine, 
sixteen, and thirty.  The first is the longest and richest.  It is a dark 
and strange fantasy, made all the spookier by being seen through the eyes 
of a young girl.  Pet has stolen her older sister Deanne's magic book and 
her family is on the run from Deanne's cohorts.  On the road, they stop at 
every roadside attraction from Disneyland to the Ripley's Museum before 
ending up in New Orleans.  On the way, Pet discovers that a man called 
Sammy very much wants Deanne's book.  As Pet slowly realizes what the 
book's prophesies contain and tries to discover what, if anything, she can 
do to about it, each encounter with Sammy becomes a darker experience.

     The remaining two sections show Pet returning to the world of magic 
at ages sixteen and thirty.  It would be difficult to give any description 
about these sections without revealing too much of the plot, but suffice 
it to say that Pet continues to try to assert herself in a domain over 
which she has almost no control.

     The three sections show a definite development in Pet's character, 
although I confess to liking her at nine best.  This is not the typical 
growth wherein a helpless apprentice becomes master (or mistress) of her 
own destiny.  Rather, it is a more natural growth, with Pet becoming more 
confident and stoic, without necessarily discovering all there is know 
about the events that have affected her life.   Unfortunately, this leads 
directly to my one real problem with this book.  Since the book is told 
from Pet's point of view and Pet never finds out all there is to know, 
neither does the reader.  This is the dissatisfaction I mentioned at the 
start of this review.  There are many issues left unresolved, not the 
least of which are the subconscious link between Deanne and Pet and the 
relationships between the various men (always men) she meets with 
knowledge of the magic she is dealing with.  I'm sure some would argue 
that this is more realistic fiction in that everything does not reveal 
itself.  Fine.  Even true, I suppose.   Nevertheless, I was left wanting 
more of a sense of closure.

     In all, the book is quite powerful and will leave you with plenty to 
think about, despite the lingering questions.  Geary has created one of 
the most realistic child characters I have ever read and unfolds a truly 
eerie plot in a seemingly effortless way.  If you'd like to read a cross 
between Blaylock and Shepard with a female touch, read this book.

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SCISSORS CUT PAPER WRAP STONE by IAN MCDONALD

Review by John Leavitt

Bantam Spectra, 0-553-56116-2, $3.99, 133pp (paper), 1994.

     I don't know what I was expecting from this book, but I am reasonably 
sure I did not get it.  It is not a simplistic cyberpunk romp, a 
satisfyingly deep philosophical character study, or a short lyrically-
rich, well-told story.  Although, in a way, it is all three.
Artist Ethan Ring discovered a series of primally powerful images, 
patterns that can kill or heal, elicit awe or orgasm, or erase memory.  
Guaranteed.  As a result, he has been blackmailed into being a reluctant 
super-assassin for the European government, and his former lover Luka 
Casipriadin has lost all respect, if not all love, for him.  To work his 
way through this ethical dilemma, Ethan has joined a friend Masahiko--
creator of Danjuro I9: *Kabukiman!*--on the Shikoku pilgrimage, a thousand 
mile eighty-eight temple journey in the footsteps on the Buddhist saint 
Kobo Daishi.

     Most of the book is a philosophical character study, with the 
pilgrimage and the past filling out the background as we learn more about 
Ethan.  And this story is told in a wonderfully poetic way, with charming 
and clever touches added in equal measure, such as a girl "who looked as 
if her name should end with 'y', but in fact it didn't" and the 
technological realization of Shinto ancestor worship, in which memory-
dumped ancestors can "shovel a truly cosmic amount of shit your way" if 
you fail to show the proper respect.  The idea of the primal images, and 
the thoughts and actions that led to their discovery are brilliant, (aside 
from the technical flaws in the method of generation).  The notion of such 
inherently powerful icons fits so well with so many different cultures 
that I never questioned its credibility.  The stories and poems of the 
Kobo Daishi mesh tightly with Ethan's own situation, and the pilgrimage is 
more spiritual than physical, as you'd expect.

     Unfortunately, MacDonald apparently wanted something more--or at 
least something different--from this book, and so included sections of 
seemingly pointless violent action.  During most of the book, the world is 
viewed as being neither black nor white, but at crucial moments, this 
analog view of the world is dropped for the simpler good-evil dichotomy.  
One scene is particularly grating, in that the way they escape from a gang 
of Yamaha-riding Akiras was already old and corny when used in _Romancing 
the Stone_.  And the finale of the book seems completely artificial, an 
intrusion of modern-day _Rambo_ mentality into this otherwise quietly 
magical book.

     This is not a bad book, but it is uneven and it seems rushed in 
places, which is completely unnecessary in a book this short.  There are 
images and conversations that scream "foreshadowing!" that are never 
brought up again, even in Ethan's thoughts.  There are opportunities for a 
sort of Kharmic pay-back for good deeds that are left unexplored.  And the 
end, after the jarringly dissonant battle scene, seems merely tacked on.  
Given its size, reading this book does not require a large time 
investment, but even so, I would recommend it only with the caveat that by 
the end it is something less than it could have--and perhaps should have--
been.

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JELLYFISH MASK by WILLIAM L. RAMSEYER

Review by Shannon Turlington

Buy Yourself Press (William L. Ramseyer, P.O. Box 2885, Atascadero, CA 
93423-2885), $9.95, paperback, 1992.  Illustrated by Kathryn Otoshi.

     The reviewers on the back cover include Sigmund Freud ("The book of 
my dreams. I bought one for my Mommy."), Franz Kafka ("Cheered me up."), 
and Mao Tse-Tung ("You've got to pick up this book, before you can put 
down this book.")  When you first approach this book, it looks like a 
graphic novel, a trade paperback with a full color graphic on the front 
cover.  But it is actually a collection of short shorts, twelve stories, 
each no more than a few hundred words long.  The interior is beautifully 
designed, with a glossy, slick paper that shows off graphics best, the 
pages alternating in color between black and white with red, black and 
white type.  Facing the beginning of each story is a full page 
illustration by Kathryn Otoshi.  I found myself studying each illustration 
before reading the accompanying story, then returning to it after 
finishing the story.

     The stories, written by William L. Ramseyer, mainly have a science 
fiction theme.  Usually, I don't like stories this short, but most of 
these are well-written and engaging.  Each story is like an extended joke, 
and the fun in reading them comes with the punchline or twist at the end.  
They are too short to really develop characters or plot, so Ramseyer 
relies on new concepts, psychological quirks, and surprising twists, and 
he is very good at it.  The stories range in concept from a casino where 
people gamble for time instead of money in "A Matter of Time" to a pound 
where you adopt people instead of dogs or cats in "People Pound".  My 
favorites are "Zero Sum Game" and "Lifeguard", both of which deal with 
medical developments that end up making the reality perceived by the mind 
untrustworthy and changing.  The common theme of all of Ramseyer's stories 
is that they turn reality on itself, taking normal subjects, like a pet 
dog, and making them new and strange.  The only story I didn't like was 
"Nuts", which had a predictable end and was an ironic joke I'd heard many 
times before.  For the most part, though, I enjoyed the stories, and most 
succeeded in surprising me in some way.

     Pairing the short shorts with the surreal illustrations makes reading 
the book different from any other--not quite a graphic novel, not quite a 
mere collection of stories, but something more than both.  The book itself 
is beautiful to look at, and the stories invite a second reading, and a 
third, and even more.  _Jellyfish Mask_ would be a unique addition to any 
eclectic book collector's shelf.

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GREEN MARS by KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

Review by John Leavitt

Bantam Spectra, 0-553-09640-0, $22.95, 535pp (hardcover), 1994.

     In 1988, I picked up a used copy of _Icehenge_ by an author I'd never 
heard of named Kim Stanley Robinson.  Since then, I have done my best to 
read everything he has written, with only his thesis on Philip K. Dick and 
his collection _Remaking History_ to go.  I am reading the collection now; 
the thesis can wait for the moment.  Throughout this time, I and other 
Robinson fans have been tantalized by little glimpses of his future (or 
rather his set of similar futures) of the solar system.  Novels like 
_Icehenge_ and _The Memory of Whiteness_, short stories like "Mercurial", 
the novella "Green Mars"--all have offered brief forays into these 
futures.  Now, with the Mars trilogy, Robinson is finally giving us at 
least one of these futures in vivid detail. (If anyone really want to know 
why I say there is more than one future, let me know.)

     I am going to assume that you've read _Red Mars_, so if you haven't 
go do so and come back.  _Green Mars_ (not to be confused with the 
identically named novella) picks up several decades after _Red Mars_ ends.  
What is left of the first hundred is in hiding under the southern ice cap.  
Hiroko has become a full fledged nature goddess.  Maya is still a self-
centered bitchy flake.  Nadia is still trying to build something solid.  
The Coyote is still up to his tricks.  And Sax is still Sax, and Ann is 
still Ann.

Almost.

     The events of the book, as it follows the next six or so decades of 
Martian history, are too varied to describe here, but I can give some 
highlights.  We have some wonderful new characters in the forms of 
Hiroko's tank-grown descendants, including a pair that seem to be the next 
generation's answer to John Boone and Maya.  Also new is an immigrant from 
earth who shows us that the transnationals aren't all bad, although the 
political infighting between them remains a major problem for Mars.  Ann's 
latent militancy is finally realized, as she becomes the leader of the 
conservationist Reds (but, of course, you saw that coming).

     The most remarkable and to me heartwarming part of this book, 
however, is what happens with Sax.  *Finally*, we get a section that 
follows Sax and we get to know how this enigmatic gnome works.  I'm sure 
that this is not a common reaction, but I *love* Sax's character.  I love 
his quirky movements, his determination to make Mars liveable, his passion 
for knowledge.  Unlike the others, for whom terraforming--or areoforming 
as some would have it--is a political move or an engineering problem or 
just something that would make life easier, Sax is obsessed with creating 
a viable biosphere on Mars.  Sax undergoes some significant changes in 
this book, but the result, while deeper and more human, maintains this 
single-mindedness that is his trademark.  I could not get through the 
section "Social Engineering" without cheering.

     Overall, this is a strong book, although not as strong as the Orange 
County books or even as _Red Mars_.  To be fair, however, it is the middle 
book of the trilogy, and as such lacks the anchoring that the first and 
last books naturally possess.  This volume bridges an important part of 
Martian history and provides insights that only a participant in history 
would have.  Robinson's feel for the interrelations between characters and 
events makes this a wonderful read, and when _Blue Mars_ completes the 
story, I know I will be sorry to say good-bye to these characters.  Even 
to Maya.

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HIEROGLYPHIC TALES by HORACE WALPOLE, FOURTH EARL OF ORFORD

Review by Shannon Turlington

Mercury House, $12.95, paperback, 1993.  Illustrated by Jill McElmurry.

     The _Hieroglyphic Tales_ were first composed between 1766 and 1772 by 
Horace Walpole, perhaps better known for writing the first Gothic novel, 
_The Castle of Otranto_.  Until the 20th century, there had only been one 
printing of these stories, by Walpole himself, of six or seven copies.  
This edition is the first publication of the tales for the general trade 
market.

     The seven short stories are based on fairy tales, but what sets them 
apart is a liberal amount of absurdity and exaggeration that even modern 
readers would find bizarre.  For example, in "The King and His Three 
Daughters", the king wishes to marry off his eldest daughter first, which 
is difficult because she never existed.  She then falls in love with a 
prince who "would have been the most accomplished hero of the age, if he 
had not been dead, and had spoken any language but the Egyptian, and had 
not had three legs".  As in all fairy tales, though, there is a happy 
ending.

     Each story is characterized by an outlandish series of events, each 
one more difficult to swallow than the last. In "The Dice-Box: A Fairy 
Tale", an enchantress locks herself in a tower with 17,000 husbands.  The 
series of events that follows is like an increasingly worsening acid 
dream.  Walpole's sentences are long, twisted, and often contradictory, 
bringing the reader up short with every other word.  Some stories do have 
a measure of satire, and Walpole's writing is characterized by witty turns 
of phrase, but mostly they seem devised to stretch the limits of 
absurdity.

     As a result, these "fairy tales" may not appeal to everyone.  But 
they are fun and fast to read, and come packaged in a handsome trade 
paperback edition with interesting illustrations by Jill McElmurry.  Not 
great literature perhaps, but Walpole's _Hieroglyphic Tales_ can make a 
unique gift or a fun addition to a fantasy lover's bookshelf.

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ELVISSEY by JACK WOMACK

Review by John Leavitt

Tor, 0-312-85202-9, $12.95, trade paperback, 1993.

     _Elvissey_ is the fourth book in a projected six-book sequence about 
the future of America.  The earlier books are _Ambient_, _Terraplane_, and 
_Heathern_.  Central to all the books is a corporation cum government 
called Dryco, which ruthlessly runs as much of the world as it can from 
its New York headquarters.  But these books are not typical cyberpunk 
tales of corporate America run amok at all.  Instead they focus on very 
real feeling characters trying to get by in a world much colder and 
harsher than those of Sterling, Gibson, or Kadrey.

     _Elvissey_ revolves around Isabel Bonnie and her husband John.  Dryco 
has embarked on a plan to "regood" the world and in conflict with this 
plan is the growing power of the Church of E, who worship Elvis.  Dryco 
is, as always, a resourceful company, and they decide the best course of 
action is to get an honest-to-goodness Elvis of their own from a parallel 
universe and use him to turn the Church of E to their cause.  Isabel and 
John are chosen to perform the abduction.

     That's the surface thread of the story, but there is much more, from 
the internal politics at Dryco and the fact that Elvis doesn't want to be 
a puppet to the strain put on Isabel and John's marriage by the Elvis 
mission and by the regooding process, which prohibits the acts of violence 
that John was trained by Dryco to commit, to a very interesting mirroring 
of art and life.  Womack's fiction looks straight-forward at first glance, 
but there is a rich interaction between the story lines, not only in 
Elvissey itself, but between all of the books in the series.  Each one 
sheds new light not only on the world Womack has created but on the events 
of the earlier books as well.

     There is one facet of Womack's writing that may throw some people 
off, and that is the use of language by the characters.  It *is* the 
future and English has changed a bit, largely by nouns and adjectives 
serving regularly as verbs (hence the term "regooding" above).  And, 
because all of the books are written in the first person, this language is 
not limited to dialogue.  Personally, I have found this altered language 
fairly natural sounding after a short adjustment period, and in fact it 
can be almost lyrical at times (personal favorite: Thatcher Dryden's 
speech of page 43 of _Ambient_).

     I very much suggest _Elvissey_, although I recommend reading the
earlier books first.  Many of the little ironies in _Elvissey_ will be
lost if you do not know some of the history of Dryco and its key players.
Do not read Womack expecting a pleasant book; the future is not pretty,
not kind.  But it is a place where people are still human and searching
for stability and comfort is still a main concern.


==========================================================================
|||||         M  A  G  A  Z  I  N  E      R  E  V  I  E  W  S        |||||
==========================================================================

ANALOG -- MARCH 1994

Review by Steven Pitluk

"Waterworld" by Lee Goodloe and Jerry Oltion
"We Three" by Rick Shelly
"To Change a Memory" by Hayford Peirce 
"Negative Feedback" by Christopher Anvil 
"Blinker" by Jack McDevitt
"The Loophole" by David J. Creek

     Although "Waterworld" is an interesting story about a damaged 
spaceship which needs to gain water from a nearby system in order to carry 
out its mission, It raises some questions.  The first concerns how the 
crew of the spaceship was initially selected.  All I can assume is that 
the selection committee was a rival to whomever sent off the spaceship and 
chose people on the basis of personalities which would not get along well 
under the best of conditions.  That aside, the clash in personalities does 
provide a reasonable good, if irritating, conflict for the crew to resolve 
in addition to their more mechanical conflict with the forces of 
Waterworld (a.k.a. Theresa).  At times the story drags, although it would 
have been interesting to see what had occurred prior to the opening of the 
story (before and during the disaster which is briefly discussed).

     Rick Shelley turned out a much better novelette in his "We Three." 
This tells of humanity's first representative to meet with alien  races.  
Shelley's two alien races, the elvirti and the camsofetu, are quite 
different from humans in their basic philosophies as the only three forms 
of sentient beings so far discovered in the galaxy (although there are 
signs of four extinct races).  The story of Ben Gerkel's visit to the 
camsofetu planet of Bekkai clearly paints a picture of three races, 
forming a tie based on their sentience.

     Again, although Shelley tries to explain why Gerkel was selected for 
this mission, it makes one wonder about his self-description as a loner.  
Furthermore, perhaps it is my own innate cynicism, but the humans (in 
general) respond too peacefully to the existence of these two alien races.  
However, this may be due to the fact that Shelley begins the story after 
first contact has been made.  This universe, however, is one in which I 
would like to see more stories set.

     Peirce's "To Change a Memory" is a sequel to "Under the Wings of 
Owls" (Analog, 1/94), and evidently part of an ongoing series.  Although 
I've enjoyed Peirce's novels, I was unable to get through "Under the Wings 
of Owls" and elected to give "To Change a Memory" a pass until I do.

     Anvil's "Negative Feedback" could just as easily be set in a modern 
company, and is something that should be considered as an additional step 
to R&D.  However, it would have been nice to see him advance an 
alternative to oil consumption other than coal or wood.  After all, there 
are many renewable sources which mankind can move towards 
(wind/solar/water) whose incorporation would have given the story more of 
an SF feel to it.

     Creek's "The Loophole" and McDevitt's "Blinker" were something of 
letdowns.  With the Creek, my mind continued to wander through three 
readings, and the solution to the problem in McDevitt's "Blinker" was 
obvious pages before the characters realized it.  Furthermore in 
"Blinker", the situation should never have arisen since I presume any 
lunar observatory would have taken more precautions.  Also, the idea of a 
series of lunar quakes seems a bit farfetched.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE -- MARCH 1994

Review by Steven Pitluk

"Climb the Wind" by Pamela Sargent 
"Selkies" by Mary Rosenblum
"Good With Rice" by John Brunner 
"Full Circle" by John Alfred Taylor 
"Rites of Spring" by Lisa Goldstein
"What Can Chloe Want?" by Brian Stableford 
"The Day of Their Coming" by G. David Nordley 
"Angel from Budapest" by Daniel Marcus


     Sargent returns to Mongolia in her story "Climb the Wind".  In this 
tale of ghostriders, Sargent ties herself to a single viewpoint character 
stuck on a tour of Mongolia when everything shuts down because ghostly 
Mongols come riding out of Orion.  We only learn via the BBC that similar 
appearances have been occurring throughout the world.  In the aftermath of 
these manifestations, Ulan Bator takes on the semblance of a city stricken 
by war.  Although a good and rewarding story, Sargent could have done more 
with the idea, possibly by examining (however briefly) the responses of 
other regions to their ghostriders (which appear as native Americans in 
Western America, aborigines in Australia, &c.)

     Taylor's "Full Circle" was also an interesting story of an X-15 test 
pilot, although the opening section seems to be rendered anachronistic by 
the ending, which shouldn't have been the case given the solution of the 
"aliens" who kidnapped the main character.  Taylor's version of *H. 
sapiens proteus* is interesting, but their culture is only briefly 
explained.

     Goldstein makes use of a famous, ancient story in her "Rites of 
Spring", although I was disturbed by the fact that most of the characters 
acting out their roles are aware of themselves and their identities.  A 
stronger story would have left the actors in this tale with amnesia which 
the detective hired to solve the mystery had to discover on her own 
without being told.

     In "What Can Chloe Want?", Stableford examines the life-prolonging 
surgery of a little girl who is caught between two domineering parents, 
both of whom she wishes to please.  Because the story is told from the 
daughter's point of view, many adult themes, which are hinted at, aren't 
revealed as Chloe refuses to pick a side against either parent, or rather, 
waffles between the wishes of her father, who wants to give Chloe all the 
data available, even if she can't process it, and her mother, who seems 
extremely overprotective.

     Nordley's "The Day of Their Coming" was another strong story in this 
issue, although I would have liked to have seen Nordley spend more time 
fleshing out the details of his Martian government and the group of 
religious fanatics who have managed to gain a hold over its operation.  As 
with Shelley's "We Three", Nordley creates a Mars which I would like to 
see explored more fully.  This story examines the day aliens first arrived 
in our solar system from the viewpoint of a teenage boy.  His parents, and 
their houseguests, with whose daughter the main character is infatuated/in 
love, are primary actors in the humans' attempts to understand the 
messages being broadcast from the aliens.  At the same time they are 
dealing with the aliens, who do not wish to disrupt human civilization any 
more than necessary, the family must also deal with the religious fanatics 
who are trying to force the aliens to leave so their existence needn't be 
explained.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXPANSE #2

Review by Steven Pitluk

"The Memory Seller" by T. Jackson King
"Tombe" by Howard V. Hendrix 
"A Martian Odyssey" by Stanley G. Weinbaum
"In the Still of the Night" by Michael Bracken
"Grounded" by Herb Kauderer
"The Disease" by David J. Adams 
"Prisoner's of War" by Ryck Neube
 interviews with Larry Niven and Paula Downing


     One of the things that Expanse does that I particularly like is to 
reprint stories from the Golden Age of SF.  These are selected by Forrest 
J. Ackerman, who also provides a short remembrance of the story.  His 
selection for the second issue of Expanse, Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey" 
(1934) stands up extremely well after sixty years.  Although suffering 
from many of the problems that sixty years of technology will bring to a 
story, Weinbaum has some interesting ideas in this tale of a man who must 
cross miles of Martian terrain after his survey craft crashed.  Although 
the ending won't necessarily cause as great a reaction now as Ackerman 
says it caused when he first read it, this is definitely a story to read, 
even after sixty years.

     Bracken's "In the Still of the Night" only suffered from a small case 
of predictability.  To give Bracken credit, I didn't see the end coming 
until it was nearly upon me (although I feel I should have).  This is the 
story of three soldiers stationed at a very out of the way post on a 
desolate, hostile planet dealing with the accidental death of one of their 
number.

     Although King's "The Memory Seller" begins with a great deal of 
potential, he continues the story past its natural ending by adding late 
details to the story.  I would have liked to have seen it end about two 
pages earlier than it did.  In the first half of the story, the main 
character, Jamie, visits to title character who sells memories.  However, 
although King implies that the memories must be drained from the recently 
deceased or still living, he doesn't explain how Jamie can relive the 
memories of Thermopylae or the Mongol Hulagu at Baghdad.

     Kauderer's "Grounded" seems to be a fluff piece that doesn't really 
go anywhere, and although Hendrix's "Tombe" could have been a nice piece 
of social commentary on the herd mentality of modern America, Hendrix 
tried to be a little too subtle in exploring his theme which warranted a 
longer story than the three pages he devoted to it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION -- MARCH 1994

Review by John Leavitt

"A Marathon Runner in the Human Race" by Dave Smeds
"Doing Alien" by Gregory Benford
"Second Contact" by Gary Couzens
"Director's Cut" by James Morrow
"Two Lovers, Two Gods, and a Fable" by Esther M. Friesner
"Sous La Mer" by Carrie Richerson
"The Convertible Coven" by Susan Wade
"Brixtow White Lady" by Felicity Savage
"The Wild Ships of Fairny" by Carolyn Ives Gilman

     By far the strongest piece in this issue is the cover novelet "The 
Wild Ships of Fairny" by Carolyn Ives Gilman. (The cover itself is simply 
beautiful.)  The island of Fairny is a depressed backwater ever since the 
herds of wild ships that made Fairny famous died off from overhunting. 
Then, to try to cure the melancholia, Larkin and her brother set off in 
search of new ships.  To tell any more would ruin this truly wonderful and 
touching story.  Suffice it to say that love and freedom are often at odds 
with each other.  

     Dave Smeds's "A Marathon Runner in the Human Race" is impressive in
that it is romantic, without being sentimental.  "Second Contact" by Gary
Couzens is a quite well written slice-of-life story about a total solar
eclipse visible in England, although I was left wondering both what the
point was and by what definition was this either science fiction or
fantasy.  "Director's Cut" is a scrap cut from the final draft of James
Morrow's forthcoming novel _Towing Jehovah_.  This tongue-in-cheek
interview with Moses and various Egyptian workers about the filming of
DeMille's _The Ten Commandments_ is reminiscent of Monty Python at its
finest and is the funniest short story I've read in a some time.

     "Brixtow White Lady" by Felicity Savage follows the flight of a woman 
disguised as a man.  It turns out that she possesses the eerie ability to 
mold flesh and bone and has used it to murder an old friend when he 
discovered her true gender.  Her actions throughout the story seem 
haphazard and at one point decidedly cruel.  I found this story to be 
clumsy at best.  By comparison, "The Convertible Coven" by Susan Wade was 
a cheerfully light piece which shows a different side to paganism 
(although I'm sure most readers, like me, saw the end coming by the third 
page).

     This issue also included several disappointments from writers who can
do better.  First, there is Gregory Benford's "Doing Alien", which focuses
on a seduction of an alien and the surprising consequences for the
backwoods Romeo.  Unfortunately, the chain from cause to consequence is
not explained and the story felt unfinished.  Next is "Two Lovers, Two
Gods, and a Fable" by Esther M. Friesner.  Friesner has been writing
brilliant short fiction for quite some time now (my favorite remains "A
Friendly Game of Crola" from Amazing way back in September 1985), but this
particular story I feel fell short.  It centers around a doomed love
between mortals manipulated by gods, but the ending, while truly inspired
in its own right seemed to belong to a different story entirely.  The last
is in a way the most disappointing.  I have only read two stories by
Carrie Richerson ("A Dying Breed" and "The Light at the End of the Day"
both in F&SF), but I have been amazed by how fluid and real her stories
and characters can be.  I wish I could say the same for "Sous La Mer." The
largest problem with this story is that the exact nature of the main
characters is withheld until the end.  By itself, this gives the reader a
sense that the author has not played straight with them, but in this case,
it causes many of the earlier events in the story to seem awkward and
unreasonable.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION -- APRIL 1994

Review by John Leavitt

"Inspiration" by Ben Bova
"Hanging by a Thread" by Leslie What
"Coyote Ugly" by Pati Nagle
"Sarah at the Tide Pool" by Marina Fitch
"Without End" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
"Natulife<66>" by David Brin
"Epiphany Beach" by Steven R. Boyett
"Wendy Darling, RFC" by R. Garcia y Robertson


     I was all set to say "Wendy Darling, RFC" was the strongest piece in 
this issue, until I read "Epiphany Beach".  This warm-hearted look at one 
of our favorite cold-blooded movie monsters and his not-so-quiet life in 
the black lagoon was at once hilarious and touching.  His almost childlike 
nature makes you want to reach out and hug him, until you notice the 
pulsing gills and seaweed.  And best of all, this story is apparently an 
excerpt from Boyett's forthcoming novel, _Green_.  All that being said, 
the cover novelet "Wendy Darling, RFC" was quite good in its own right.  
Garcia paints a vivid picture of World War I England through the eyes of 
Wendy Darling, formerly of Neverland.  While Wendy's actions were a bit 
far-fetched at times, I found the innocence regarding the realities of war 
quite familiar, as a member of the first generation this century that has 
made it to 25 without facing a draft.  In all honesty, I do not know what 
it is like to face that sort of situation, and neither did Wendy.  I can 
only hope that I would have reacted to it as bravely.

     "Coyote Ugly" was another wonderful story in this issue.  I have not 
read anything else by Fitch, but if this imaginative story of artwork and 
cultural collision in the southwest is indicative, I'll have to watch for 
more of her work in the future.  "Sarah at the Tide Pool" was a solid 
story about genetic engineering and revenge, although I did not find the 
ending at all believable.

     "Inspiration" by Ben Bova was a cute little piece about a carefully 
arranged meeting between Albert Einstein, H. G. Wells, and Lord Kelvin.  
In "Without End", Rusch has finally written a story that I can enjoy.  Her 
last few stories have seemed a bit flat to me, but this nostalgic piece 
about the nature of time and dealing with the loss of a loved one was 
different.  The characters felt natural and their relationship was 
comfortable in a way that good marriages tend to be.

     And, as with the March issue, there are a couple of pieces that 
aren't quite there, including another by someone who is capable of better.  
David Brin's "Natulife (TM)" is, frankly, corny.  The sequences spent in 
"Virtuality" are fine to a point, but having the artificial characters 
understand and attempt to explain in terms of primitive religion that the 
system needs more memory struck me as hokey.  I did, however, like the 
termites.  Finally, there is "Hanging by a Thread" by Leslie What.  This 
story was remarkably uneven.  The main character was well-drawn in her 
reactions to her visions, but her relationship with her mother and the 
climax and denouement seemed forced and unnatural.


==========================================================================
|||||         C    O    M    M    E    N    T    A    R    Y         |||||
==========================================================================

THE NEW INTERNET WRITER

  by E. Jay O'Connell

     Being a creative person is a strange thing. You want other people 
to experience your work. You also wouldn't mind a little money for the 
effort. This hunger for money is closely coupled with the desire to join 
the community of artists--your peers. The people whose work you have 
admired.

     For *the new internet writer*, these values are now in direct 
conflict.  The conflict is in fact, driving this writer a little crazy. 
We'll get back to this.

     The internet--the network of all computer networks--is the newest, 
fastest, best instant publishing medium ever created by the human race. It 
combines the immediacy and dispersal of broadcast technology with the 
convenience of being to a large degree asynchronous. But if you don't do 
internet news, you don't know what I'm talking about. Let me explain.

     Imagine broadcasting your own television or radio show, and knowing 
that everyone's TV or radio had a buffer, a cache that held the last day 
or weeks worth of shows. And that that buffer was searchable by keyword or 
name of artist. That's how netnews works. It's a fantastic combination of 
broadcast and broadcatch.

     The net's military/academic/non-profit origins have created a 
strange, decommercialized space inhabited by millions of people the world 
over.  They live there, work there, play there. An SF writer named it 
*cyberspace*, the name stuck, and it as real as New York City or Peoria. 
It isn't science fiction any more in the slightest. It's old hat. It's 
Time magazine.

     Thousands--millions--of people are becoming writers on the internet.  
By and large, they don't make any money at it, and the world of commercial 
publishing, the community of professional writers, has no idea what to 
make of them.

     They see writing--the creation and distribution of fiction and 
commentary and political opinion--becoming an amateur pastime right before 
their eyes. So they close them, and pretend it isn't happening.

     They don't like it. Why would they?

     Some of them are vaguely annoyed at the people who are willing to 
write for the net. Like prostitutes irritated by promiscuous women who are 
just *giving* it away.

     I'm discovering I'm one of them--a slut that likes giving it away. 
I'm tired of the rules of "trying to be a published author", though I 
follow them like some medieval peasant compelled by tradition to dance 
around the maypole.

     I've been writing genre fiction for five years. I've sold a single 
story out of my stable of 30 or so completed works to a professional 
market. Professional defined as paying 3 cents a word or higher and having 
a circulation of over 10,000 copies. I've sold 3 stories to the small 
press. The total payment for these four sales was 382 dollars.  Total 
readership, somewhere between 10 and 20 thousand readers for all the 
stories combined. Of that 382 dollars, 150 was spent on postage, on the 
over 100 submissions and three years of nail biting required to sell those 
stories. My experience is not that uncommon.

     Selling fiction is a slow, noisy, irritating, and stupid process. The 
market value of prose is so negligible, quality work so relatively hard to 
identify, that slush piles are these huge traffic jams, publishing is a 
bottleneck. Not that this stuff doesn't need to be filtered; I work as an 
editorial assistant--first reader--for a SF magazine as well. We need 
filters. We just need better ones. Faster ones based on the new 
technology. Electric ones, bottom up ones, not top down ones.

     Perhaps, some of us will drop the whole profit thing entirely. 
Payment for short fiction is more or less vestigial at this point anyway. 
Found money. You write, and every now and then, you find these little pile 
of twenties in your mailbox. These events are in no way linked in your 
mind, anymore. You don't write for money. You do want to see your work in 
big-paying markets--because they'll reach a larger audience.  The checks 
are nice, but certainly not important. "Ohh," you say, "More stamp and 
envelope money from the publishing fairy..."

     Reading and writing fiction is for many who do it a labor of love. 
The midlist is choked with writers who do not make anything like a living.  
As is every art gallery, every video show, every comic-book convention. 
This is ok. We're a rich country. We have the luxury of creating art, and 
still, somehow, finding food and shelter. Don't cry for us. I'm drying my 
eyes as we speak!

     Its just that we have these ideas, leftover ideas from a generation 
years ago, when print was a bigger slice of the media pie, that we should 
write stories and sell them and that would be our job. While this is still 
true, for some, imagining it for oneself or one's friends is similar to 
encouraging disadvantaged youth to drop out of school to work on their 
basketball skills.

     On a whim, I took a few stories that had been rejected a few times 
too many, and posted them to the internet group rec.arts.prose--The rec. 
prefix means that this group is fairly widely distributed, even in parts 
of the country where the alt. hierarchies--standing for alternative--are 
switched off by the local protectors of public morality. You want to put 
your stuff in a rec. group, if you want readers.

     I got feedback from all over the English speaking world. A few dozen 
readers, who not only enjoyed the work, but who wanted to talk to me about 
it. Who wanted to critique the work. Who wanted to know me. Far more 
personal response, in fact, than all my other sales combined.

     And I thought, my God, what would happen if I started showing these 
people the good stuff?

     There is no way of knowing how many people those few dozen 
correspondents represented--there's no money here, remember. I tacked my 
story up in the public square. How many people glanced at it, and hit the 
n key when they weren't grabbed by the first few lines? Depending on how 
you figure it, there were at least as many readers for each rec.arts.prose 
story as there were for my 'professional' sales. I certainly got a lot 
more feedback.

     All anyone has to do to talk to an author in this new medium is hit 
the lowercase 'r' key. Imagine. If every story you'd ever read as a child, 
that moved you deeply, that made you cry or laugh, had a 'r' button. Sure, 
you *could* have looked up the writers address, gotten it from the 
publisher, applied graphite to lined paper, tasted a stamp, walked to a 
blue metal box and tilted it's lid--but really, did you ever? I didn't, 
and reading was the only thing that kept me alive through adolescence.

     Would you hit 'r'?

     Certainly. Lots of people did and do, and I collect their names in a 
big file--I may one day sully our relationship by asking them to put a 
small amount of money where their mouths are, and actually purchase some 
of my stuff--again, through the wire, by credit card, via one of the new 
on-line text selling services popping up as this space goes commercial.

     People have a hard time finding the magazines I sell to.

     These readers, correspondents, are part of my network. For while 
there is no money here, there is a community. You give your work to them, 
because the prose posted loses its market value--you've just blown your 
first north America serial rights, man! You'll never publish that one! 
Kiss it good-bye! Idiot! Pros with trunks full of stories that will 
probably never kiss pulp *chant* this at you as you give away your early, 
flawed gems on the internet. A netfriend of mine calls it egoboo. Short 
for egoboost. Well.

     For me, it's sacrifice to the muse that gave me these words in the 
first place. For me, it's reaching readers.

     And I wonder why more serious writers aren't doing it.

     One simple answer is, they have more faith in their stories than I 
do.  Or they're better than I am. But, oh, I'm tired of editors saying "I 
have to pass on this, but I'm sure someone else will buy it." This is the 
editor's way of saying that a story is publishable, but doesn't strike 
their fancy. Quite simply, I'm discovering it isn't true for me--that they 
sell elsewhere--though I appreciate the compliment in the spirit in which 
it is given.

     Perhaps those who sneer at the internet writer, die-hard paper 
junkies, have grown to *like* the taste of stamps. The endless wait for 
the mailman to arrive.

     My mailman is always late, when he comes at all. And the stamps are 
beginning to taste like bile.

     Another thing happening on the net now is something called *digital 
anonymity*. It's creating dialogs the like of which have never been seen 
in human history. It is, like everything on the net, both something old, 
and something new--electrified for speed.

     Writers have been writing under pseudonyms forever. But two-way 
communication using these pseudonyms has never been this simple. An 
anonymous server--a machine that strips a message of its identifying name 
and address, creates a contact number, and forwards it to another address, 
allows an author to create multiple personae--tentacles, if you will--and 
to communicate with a public wearing a variety of masks.  You can talk 
back and forth through this hole in the wall, pass texts back and forth, 
and both parties remain anonymous but in perfect contact through a series 
of exchanges.

     The ease of digital anonymity is quite simply a new thing under the 
sun. It's happening on the net. It's another reason to be there now.  
Obviously, this connection is being taken advantage of in the field of 
erotic fiction--talk about giving it away free! The net is swimming in the 
repressed libido of post-sexual revolution America.

     There are newsgroups in the alt. hierarchies that one feels one 
should perhaps wash ones hands after reading. At least, I often have to.

     When everyone in this country is fully connected, people will write 
their own Penthouse letters, and Guccione will be looking for a job.  
Would you rather a cold printed text, or a hot one with that 'reply' key I 
was talking about? Oh, people are learning how to write who never dreamed 
of it before, driven by evolutionary hormonal pressures to learn arcane, 
command-driven computer languages.

     Love is a wonderful thing... It can make lonely undergrads learn 
Unix.

     I have a few digital identities myself. Different ways to explore 
this space. Different people to be. Our personalities expand through the 
network, taking on new forms, like William Gibson's Loa from the book 
Count Zero.

     On the net we are as big or as small as we want to be--as we need to 
be. Writing becomes more personal--fiction and faith and autobiography and 
confessional and therapists office, all rolled into one.

     The only way I've found to stay away from the net is to write on my 
Powerbook in the coffee shop, where I'm now sipping a latte, watching snow 
blanket the streets of Cambridge Massachusetts. There's a little hole on 
the back of my computer though, a phone jack. Soon, there won't be any 
place to hide. We'll all be plugged in.

     And nobody will ever taste stamps again.

     I've got 20 stories making their Prosic Bataan Death march as we 
speak, collecting their rejection slips. I'm pretty good now--though 
apparently not good enough-- this means it takes longer to get rejected, 
because the editors feel compelled to give me a little smile and a pat on 
the rump as they shoe me out the door. This takes three to six months per 
submission, of course, because editors are busy people, working 100 hour 
weeks for pretty much no money at all. There's no point being angry with 
them. They do the best they can, like the rest of us.

     But I've got a million people in the other room--on the net. Hundreds 
of them are asking me for stories. I tell them, "I just finished a good 
one. Maybe in a year or three, you'll get to see it in a magazine."  They 
say, "Oh."

     I've got stamps--75s and 23s, everybody know that's all you need?--
and envelopes and an Excel spreadsheet to log the rejections--and the 
occasional sale--and three market magazines I devour to help me mail 
things to the right people at the right time. But all the while I can hear 
a million people murmuring gently through this twisted pair of wires.

     The stuff we net-heads sift through is wildly uneven, of course, a 
digital slush pile. But in cyberspace, we don't need no stinking editors. 
We read a paragraph, hit 'n' if we aren't grabbed. We're all first 
readers. rec.arts.prose could become a fiction cooperative, owned and 
operated by readers and writers. I'd like to help make it that. Perhaps I 
will.

     And I'm seriously thinking of ending the Bataan death march early, 
instead sending these stories to their real and final home--to the net, 
where writing has been enjoyable. Where I have been appreciated and loved 
rather than treated like a perhaps-trainable retarded child.  All these 
stories are worth a few thousand dollars on the open market, at most, and 
my lifespan and patience are finite. I'd like my readers. Now. And I know 
one sure place to get them.

     I have plenty to eat, a computer to type on, a nice place to live. 
Why not?

     I'm still trying to figure out the answer to that one.


==========================================================================
|||||        A   D   M   I   N   I   S   T   R   I   V   I   A        |||||
==========================================================================

ABOUT OUR CONTRIBUTORS

ANDREA LEAVITT is a freelance graphic designer, artist, and 
calligrapher, living in Pittsburgh.  In 1992, she was foolish enough to 
marry the editor of this magazine and seems to be stuck with him now.  She 
enjoys boxing, gun collecting, hang gliding, and taxidermy.  No, really.

E. JAY O'CONNELL is a 30 year old writer living in the Cambridge, MA 
area.  He is married, has two cats, and a gang of colleagues that like
to call themselves Critical Mass. He works as an associate editor for 
Aboriginal Science Fiction, and his own work has, at times in the past, 
graced the pages of that magazine. He works with Macintoshes for money, 
writes uncontrollably on the internet, and talks incessantly.  He'll be 
going to Clarion this summer, where he will hopefully learn to stop 
talking about himself in the third person.

STEVEN PITLUK was born in Knyszyn, Poland in 1950 and emigrated to 
Cleveland in 1957.  He received a BA from Ohio State University in History 
and a Masters in Medieval History from Notre Dame.  He has worked various 
odd jobs and is currently trying to get his short stories/novel published.

SHANNON TURLINGTON is a modern-day jack-of-all-trades--she writes on a 
freelance basis, edits her own electronic magazine, _Cyberkind_, and works 
for an electronic publishing service, DreamTech Enterprises.  She lives in 
Carrboro, NC, with her fiance, her dog, and her two ferrets.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

_CYBERSPACE VANGUARD MAGAZINE: News and Views of the Science 
Fiction and Fantasy Universe_ is looking for reviewers.  Distributed 
electronically, the magazine carries news, interviews, and spoilers.  We 
would like to begin a "Mini-Reviews" section, and need contributors.  
Questions and submissions should be directed to TJ Goldstein, Cyberspace 
Vanguard, PO Box 25704, Garfield Hts., OH, 44125, USA, or preferably to 
cn577@cleveland.freenet.edu.

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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES are available via US mail for a SASE, via e-mail,
and on the World Wide Web.  The URL for our WWW server is: 

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SUBSCRIPTIONS are available in four varieties:

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CORRESPONDENCE should be sent to the either our US mail or e-mail address:

OMPHALOS MAGAZINE
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jrrl@cs.cmu.edu

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