Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, Impossible Places, Writers of the Future XVIII

I’d heard of the Horatio Hornblower novels (by C. S. Forester, author of The African Queen) mainly as an influence upon the military sci-fi coming-of-age genre. I certainly saw Honor Harrington in old Mr. Midshipman Hornblower. Back when I read the other H.H., I expressed a hope that 2D naval battles would be easier to follow than Weber’s space battles. In that I was disappointed - I was lost many times, not only in battle, and my ignorance of sailing ships accounts for only a part of my confusion. The characterization wasn’t quite what I might have hoped, but I don’t mind a stock, reticent, long-suffering hero now and again. By the way, there’s Horatio Hornblower fanfic out there, if you’re interested.

I can’t stop rubbernecking at anthologies. I’m always disappointed with them, but when I see one lying around the new books table in the library, I think, maybe this one will be different. Impossible Things, covering about ten years of Alan Dean Foster in short stories, wasn’t any different. Many of the stories were written for other anthologies - never a good sign. None of the stories were actually bad, though - he’s a competent writer. Several were trick stories where the end reveals that the story was not about what you thought. Having more than one such in the collection detracted from their effect.

The spine reads Del Rey Science Fiction, but out of nineteen stories, perhaps three were science fiction proper. If you consider medical thrillers, superheroes, and alien abduction stories sci-fi, then a few more could be included. The majority, though were fantasy, or more accurately, magical realism (unless you define magical realism to be fantasy written by someone with a Spanish surname). Now, I like magical realism, but it’s not science fiction. I think Alan Dean Foster is better at writing magical realism than sci-fi. I’d have been more likely to pick up the book had it advertised itself as such, rather than as sci-fi by a sci-fi writer I’ve never heard anything good (or for that matter, bad) about. I particularly liked “Laying Veneer,” an Australian outback story which I’d read before elsewhere, and the trick stories. I can’t tell you which ones they were; that would spoil the trick.

Another anthology I couldn’t leave well enough alone was the latest Writers of the Future volume. Though it had a higher proportion of sci-fi, the fantasy was better. There was more sex than the contest rule against it would have led me to expect, but it wasn’t particularly explicit. The nonfiction articles were not as helpful as the ones in the last volume I read. My favorite stories were “Graveyard Tea” and “The Road to Levenshir,” which were both first-place winners for their quarters. The former was magical realism and the latter fantasy in a more standard medieval mode.

So, to define my terms: Science fiction is fiction set in the future or an reality which depends on science or technology for major plot points, or at least for the setting, or at the very least to explain the setting. Fantasy is fiction set in the past or an reality which depends on magic or medievalism for major plot points, or at least for the setting. Magical realism is fiction set in the present which involves magic or the vaguely supernatural. Anything else probably falls into a non-sf/f genre or subgenre: medical thrillers, spy thrillers, horror, disaster, comic books, etc.

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