If there is a Significance to science fiction—a capital-S sort of thing—I think it lies in this area. Not only does it provide a platform for speculation and prophecy, but by giving voice to what Hoyle calls the “very original,” it attracts other original minds—both as readers and writers.
The “mutant concepts” then fall on the most favorable soil; if they are viable, they will grow and multiply. More important, perhaps, is the chain-reaction effect that sets in (to create a sort of environment within the environment) as the new concepts of original minds become a part of the “conditioning” of others—who are thus freed a bit more for more original thinking.
The first generation of what might be called the “science-fiction community” (beginning in the twenties) did much of the “mutant” thinking that energized the development of atomic power and space flight. The present generation is dealing with concepts in very different areas—and one clue to the “mutation” process is the identity of the new writers.
I have mentioned the newsmen. Dr. Nesvadba (with Romain Gary, Frank Roberts, José Gironella, Isaac B. Singer) represents another trend. A prominent Czechoslovak psychiatrist, he is also a widely published journalist and short-story writer. His work, he writes, is in “psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, and artetherapy; hobby is literature.” He has published five books of SF (only one Vampires, Ltd., in English); three of his stories have been made into Czech films, and “Last Secret” (which has also been translated into German, French, Russian, Polish, Serbocroatian, Yugoslav, and Hungarian) is now being filmed for TV.
I met Dr. Nesvadba at a science-fiction convention in 1964 (and can report that he is charming, witty, and devastatingly Continental). It was, I believe, his first trip to this country. The last night, he spent some hours with John Brunner, Fritz Leiber, and myself.
“I recollect perfectly that evening and morning. Although we have so quite different backgrounds and case histories, as we say in medicine, our outlook seems to be roughly the same, our problems seem to be the same, and perhaps it is not so bad with our world after all, when this is possible.”
DESCENDING
Thomas M. Disch
Catsup, mustard, pickle relish, mayonnaise, two kinds of salad dressing, bacon grease, and a lemon. Oh yes, two trays of ice cubes. In the cupboard it wasn’t much better: jars and boxes of spice, flour, sugar, salt—and a box of raisins!
An empty box of raisins.
Not even any coffee. Not even tea, which he hated. Nothing in the mailbox but a bill from Underwood’s: Unless we receive the arrears on your account . . .
$4.75 in change jingled in his coat pocket—the plunder of the Chianti bottle he had promised himself never to break open. He was spared the unpleasantness of having to sell his books. They had all been sold. The letter to Graham had gone out a week ago. If his brother intended to send something this time, it would have come by now.
—I should be desperate, he thought.—Perhaps I am.
He might have looked in the Times. But, no, that was too depressing—applying for jobs at $50 a week and being turned down. Not that he blamed them; he wouldn’t have hired himself, himself. He had been a grasshopper for years. The ants were on to his tricks.
He shaved without soap and brushed his shoes to a high polish. He whitened the sepulchre of his unwashed torso with a fresh, starched shirt and chose his somberest tie from the rack. He began to feel excited and expressed it, characteristically, by appearing statuesquely, icily calm.
Descending the stairway to the first floor, he encountered Mrs. Beale, who was pretending to sweep the well-swept floor of the entrance.
“Good afternoon—or I s’pose it’s good morning for you, eh?”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Beale.”
“Your letter come?”
“Not yet.”
“The first of the month isn’t far off.”
“Yes, indeed, Mrs. Beale.”
At the subway station, he considered a moment before answering the attendant: One token or two? Two, he decided. After all, he had no choice but to return to his apartment. The first of the month was still a long way off.
—If Jean Valjean had had a charge account, he would have never gone to prison.
Having thus cheered himself, he settled down to enjoy the ads in the subway car. Smoke. Try. Eat. Give. See. Drink. Use. Buy. He thought of Alice with her mushrooms: Eat me.
At 34th Street he got off and entered Underwood’s Department Store directly from the train platform. On the main floor he stopped at the cigar stand and bought a carton of cigarettes.
“Cash or charge?”
“Charge.” He handed the clerk the laminated plastic card. The charge was rung up.
Fancy Groceries was on 5. He made his selection judiciously. A jar of instant and a 2-pound can of drip-ground coffee, a large tin of corned beef, packaged soups and boxes of pancake mix and condensed milk. Jam, peanut butter, and honey. Six cans of tuna fish. Then, he indulged himself in perishables: English cookies, an Edam cheese, a small frozen pheasant—even fruitcake. He never ate so well as when he was broke. He couldn’t afford to.
“$14.87.”
This time after ringing up his charge, the clerk checked the number on his card against her list of closed or doubtful accounts. She smiled apologetically and handed the card back.
“Sorry, but we have to check.”
“I understand.”
The bag of groceries weighed a good twenty pounds. Carrying it with the exquisite casualness of a burglar passing before a policeman with his loot, he took the escalator to the bookshop, on 8. His choice of books was determined by the same principle as his choice of groceries. First, the staples: two Victorian novels he had never read, Vanity Fair and Middlemarch; the Sayers’ translation of Dante, and a two-volume anthology of German plays, none of which he had read and few he had even heard of. Then the perishables: a sensational novel that had reached the best-seller list via the Supreme Court, and two mysteries.
He had begun to feel giddy with self-indulgence. He reached into his jacket pocket for a coin.
—Heads a new suit; tails the Sky Room.
Tails.
The Sky Room on 15 was empty of all but a few women chatting over coffee and cakes. He was able to get a seat by a window. He ordered from the a la carte side of the menu and finished his meal with espresso and baklava. He handed the waitress his credit card and tipped her fifty cents.
Dawdling over his second cup of coffee, he began Vanity Fair. Rather to his surprise, he found himself enjoying it The waitress returned with his card and a receipt for the meal.
Since the Sky Room was on the top floor of Underwood’s, there was only one escalator to take now—Descending. Riding down, he continued to read Vanity Fair. He could read anywhere—in restaurants, on subways, even walking down the street. At each landing he made his way from the foot of one escalator to the head of the next without lifting his eyes from the book. When he came to the Bargain Basement, he would be only a few steps from the subway turnstile.
He was halfway through Chapter VI (on page 55, to be exact) when he began to feel something amiss.
—How long does this damn thing take to reach the basement?