[PREV - POOR_BEAST]    [TOP]

HUGO

                                  July 29, 1992

Buffalo by John Kessel.
    
A story built on the skeleton of Bruce Sterling's "Dori
Bangs".  But instead of working over the lives of some
weirdos no fan-boy has ever heard of, this story is based on
a more local deity: H.G.Wells.

Fair enough, Wells is one of my deities, too.  So this is a 
story I wanted to like a lot.  And I did appreciate the
autobigoraphical sketch of the elder Wells.  

Kessel had me with him, right up to the point where he
decided to state his thesis baldly.  Then I felt like
arguing with him.  The point is that art don't have to have
a message, and you shouldn't feel guilty for liking crap?
That Kessel isn't going to feel guilty for doing whatever
pandering needs to be done to sell the stories? 

Kessel seems a man without ideas, thumbing his nose at his
betters, secure in his right to be a boob. 

Still, I got to give this an O+ on the Brenner scale.

                                      BRENNER_SCALE


--------
          
I just finished rating the Hugo nominated stories.  After
mulling it over a bit, I decided to give Geoffrey Landis' 
"A Walk in the Sun" the number one rating.  It's not
perfect, but I thought it was a really good job of doing a
traditional hard SF story, somewhere between Hal Clement and
the early Heinlein.  I don't see any where near enough work
like this, and I'd say it deserves to be encouraged.  

Some of the things that aren't quite right with it: the main
character's histrionics/hallucinations get a little tiresome
about midway through the story.  Why does everyone always
*overdo* things?  For instance, take the ending: wouldn't it
be better if the guy said "I'm sure you will" *just once*
and then CURTAIN?  Saying it twice is corny, and the last
paragraph is even worse.

Second best I gave to John Kessel's "Buffalo".  It's true
that it's not strictly SF, but it addresses things of
interest to people with a science fictional mind-set, and
what the hell, why be rigid with these things.  

What bothered me about it most probably was that it was so
strongly influenced by Bruce Sterling's "Dori Bangs".  (When
you come right down to it, most of the stories on the ballot
were a bit lacking in originality.)

But I did get into the biographical sketch of the later
Welles.  I've been reading his _Outline of History_ lately,
and I think I'm turning into a fan of his, so this is a
story I wanted to like a lot. 

Kessel had me with him, right up to the point where he
decided to state his thesis baldly, then I felt like arguing
with him.  His moral is that stories don't need morals?
That Kessel isn't going to feel guilty for doing whatever
pandering needs to be done to sell the stories?

Kessel is taking pot shots at a man who was far greater than
he'll ever be.  I wonder how accurate his autobiographical
sketch is?  If you read the _Outline_, I think you'll be
surprised at Well's depth.  Don't immediately write him off
with some stereotype of a naive socialist one-worlder.

At a fairly distant third, I placed Mike Resnick's "One
Perfect Morning, With Jackals".  I'm not impressed much with
what it is, but it was fairly well done.  Fourth place I
gave to "No Award".  Most SF "humor" strikes me as (a) not
funny and (b) pointless fluff, and that's what I thought of
"Press Ann", "Dog's Life", and "In the Late Cretaceous" (if
you're going to complain about "Buffalo" not being SF, what
are you going to do with this one?).  And "Winter Solstice"
struck me as an odd attempt at capturing the feel of going
senile, translated into fantasy for no apparent reason.  The
whole business about Merlin and King Arthur and so on struck
me as little more than name dropping.

--------
[NEXT - BRIGHT_GRAY]