- Torque Control (Vector 274) • [Torque Control] • essay by Shana Worthen
- Letter (Vector 274) • essay by Ian Massey
- Letter (Vector 274) • essay by Terry Jackman
- Letter (Vector 274) • essay by Tom Hunter
- Doctor By Doctor: Dr. Philip Boyce and Dr. Mark Piper in Star Trek … • essay by Victor Grech
- So Long, and Thanks for All the Visch: Douglas Adams and Doctor Snuggles • essay by Jacob Edwards
- Fishing for Time: Alternate Worlds in Nina Allan’s The Silver Wind and David Vann’s Legend of a Suicide • essay by David Hebblethwaite
- Bibliography: Law in Science Fiction • essay by Stephen Krueger
- Stark Adventuring: Leigh Brackett’s Tales of Eric John Stark • essay by Mike Barrett
- Joanne Hall Interviews Andy Bigwood • interview of Andy Bigwood • interview by Joanne Hall
- On the Colonisation of Nearby Stars • [Resonances] • essay by Stephen Baxter
- Sign of the Labrys by Margaret St. Clair • [Foundation Favourites] • essay by Andy Sawyer
- Songs of War • [Kincaid in Short] • essay by Paul Kincaid
- 2014 – A Year for Award-Winning Women? • [The BSFA Review] • essay by Martin Lewis
- Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie • review by Gwyneth Jones
- Review: Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed • review by Nic Clarke
- Review: Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson • review by Nic Clarke
- Review: The Adjacent by Christopher Priest • review by Paul Kincaid
- Review: The Green Man by Kingsley Amis • review by Andy Sawyer
- Review: The Alteration by Kingsley Amis • review by Andy Sawyer
- Review: Benchmarks Continued: The F&SF “Books” Columns, Volume 1, 1975-1982 by Algis Budrys • review by Dan Hartland
- Review: Astounding Wonder: Imagining Science and Science Fiction in Interwar America by John Cheng • review by Paul Kincaid
- Review: Science Fiction by Mark Bould • review by Jonathan McCalmont
- Review: Vurt by Jeff Noon • review by Shaun Green
- Review: Pollen by Jeff Noon • review by Shaun Green
- Review: Mindjammer by Sarah Newton • review by Kate Onyett
- Review: Down to the Bone by Justina Robson • review by Patrick Mahon
- Review: Starship Seasons by Eric Brown • review by Ian Sales
- Review: The Devil’s Nebula by Eric Brown • review by Tony Jones
- Review: Helix Wars by Eric Brown • review by Tony Jones
- Review: The Mammoth Book of Time Travel SF by Mike Ashley • review by L. J. Hurst
- Review: The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes • review by L. J. Hurst
- Review: Harvest of Time by Alastair Reynolds • review by Glyn Morgan
- Review: 11.22.63 by Stephen King • review by David Hebblethwaite
- Review: The Fictional Man by Al Ewing • review by Gary S. Dalkin [as by Gary Dalkin]
- Review: Seven Wonders by Adam Christopher • review by Jim Steel
- Review: Across the Event Horizon by Mercurio D. Rivera • review by Karen Burnham
- Review: After the End: Recent Apocalypses by Paula Guran • review by Stuart Carter
- Review: Nebula Awards Showcase 2013 by Catherine Asaro • review by Cherith Baldry
- Review: Fearsome Journeys by Jonathan Strahan • review by Anthony Nanson
- Review: Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane by Jonathan Oliver • review by Sandra Unerman
- Review: Tales of Majipoor by Robert Silverberg • review by L. J. Hurst
- Review: Savage City by Sophia McDougall • review by Maureen Kincaid Speller
- Review: Sharps by K. J. Parker • review by Liz Bourke
- Review: Fade to Black by Francis Knight • review by Lynne Bispham
- Review: The Heretic Land by Tim Lebbon • review by Gary S. Dalkin [as by Gary Dalkin]
- Review: The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente • review by Sue Thomason
- Review: The Devil’s Apprentice by Jan Siegel • review by Anne F. Wilson
- Review: Rebellion by Lou Morgan • review by Kate Onyett
- Review: Angelfall by Susan Ee • review by Tony Jones
Tag: david hebblethwaite
Vector #266
3 • Torque Control • editorial by Shana Worthen
4 • A Year in Review: Looking Back at 2010 • essay by Martin Lewis
5 • 2010: Books in Review • essay by Graham Andrews and Lynne Bispham and Mark Connorton and Gary Dalkin and Alan Fraser and Niall Harrison and David Hebblethwaite and Tony Keen and Paul Kincaid and Jonathan McCalmont and Martin McGrath and Anthony Nanson and Martin Potts and Paul Graham Raven and Ian Sales and Jim Steel and Martyn Taylor and Sandra Unnerman and Anne Wilson
15 • 2010: Television in Review • essay by Alison Page
20 • 2010 in Film: Not My Kind of Genre • essay by Jonathan McCalmont
24 • Strip Club: A Fanciful Flight • essay by Terry Martin
26 • The Promises and Pitfalls of a Christian Agenda in Stephen Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle • essay by Anthony Nanson
30 • Scholars and Soldiers • [Foundation Favourites • 12] • essay by Andy Sawyer
32 • Alpha Centauri • [Resonances • 61] • essay by Stephen Baxter
34 • Kincaid in Short • [Kincaid in Short] • essay by Paul Kincaid
37 • Review: Finch by Jeff VanderMeer • review by Paul Graham Raven
38 • Review: Lightborn by Tricia Sullivan • review by Jonathan McCalmont
39 • Review: Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks • review by Marcus Flavin
40 • Review: The Technician by Neal Asher • review by Stuart Carter
40 • Review: Version 43 by Philip Palmer • review by David Hebblethwaite
41 • Review: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu • review by Martin McGrath
41 • Review: Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson • review by Anthony Nanson
42 • Review: Music for Another World by Mark Harding • review by Dave M. Roberts
42 • Review: The Immersion Book of SF by Carmelo Rafala • review by Maureen Kincaid Speller
43 • Review: Zombie: An Anthology of the Undead by Christopher Golden • review by Colin B. Harvey [as by C. B. Harvey]
43 • Review: The Loving Dead by Amelia Beamer • review by Niall Harrison
44 • Review: Feed by Mira Grant • review by Alex Williams
44 • Review: Tomes of the Dead: Anno Mortis by Rebecca Levene • review by Shaun Green
45 • Review: Songs of the Dying Earth by Gardner Dozois and George R. R. Martin • review by L. J. Hurst
46 • Review: The Black Prism by Brent Weeks • review by Donna Scott
46 • Review: The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood • review by Anne F. Wilson
47 • Review: Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal by Sherryl Vint • review by Gwyneth Jones
[Mary] Gentle’s prose is sharp, her powers of invention brilliant, her characters real, especially the greasy, obese Casaubon with his pet rat. They are not necessarily likeable. Casaubon is a Lord, and not on Our Side (there’s a neat scene where he’s confronted with the woman who does his laundry who has to live on far less than the cost of one single garment), and when Valentine re-appears a couple of novels down the line she does a dreadful and unforgivable thing. But, in the best tradition of the malcontents in the Jacobean drama, boy, are they vivid! This was a new thing.
For a time I used the word scholarpunk for this fusion of erudition and bad-ass attitude. Fortunately no-one noticed.
Andy Sawyer
Nowhere was this tiredness more evident than in the lugubriously self-indulgent Iron Man 2. Jon Favreau’s Iron Man (2008) was something of an unexpected hit; its combination of clever casting and pseudo-political posturing caught the public’s imagination while its lighter tone and aspirational Californian setting served as a useful counterpoint to the doom and gloom of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008). However, the second Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark steps on stage in the sequel, it is obvious that something is terribly wrong. The film’s onanistic triumphalism and bare-faced declaration that social ills are best confronted by private sector moral entrepreneurs feels astonishingly ugly and politically insensitive at a time when private sector entrepreneurs are having their companies propped-up at the expense of the poor and the hungry. The decision to cast Mickey Rourke as a shambling Russian baddy is laughably pretentious in a film that ultimately boils down to a bunch of computer-generated robots punching each other in the face for about an hour.
Jonathan McCalmont
I found a Darwin site where a respondent asked “who else thinks Beatrix Potter may have developed her stories, about animals with increasingly human characteristics, from acquaintance with Darwin’s theory?” The idea that Beatrix Potter had to wait for The Origin Of Species before she thought of writing about reprobate foxes, trusting piglets, thieving magpies and insolent rats may seem ridiculous but this internetgeneration query is revealing. Our animal folklore is no longer refreshed by experience. In my own lifetime, here in the UK, the estrangement that began as soon as agriculture was established, has accelerated almost to vanishing point. We see animals as pets; as entertainment products we consume through the screen (where their fate, nowadays, holds a tragic fascination). We see them, perhaps, as an increasingly problematic food source. We no longer ‘meet their gaze’ as independent neighbours. The neo-Darwinists have even been doing their damnedest to break the link that Charles Darwin forged, when he transformed our deep intuition of continuity with the animal world into ‘scientific fact’.
Gwyneth Jones
And was Karel Čapek really writing about newts?
Gwyneth Jones
On the whole, however, Vint does a good job of disentangling “the animal” from the mix and Animal Alterity is an impressive achievement. A study of this kind isn’t meant to offer solutions and there are none (beyond a rather vague promise that post-humanism will blur the line between human and animal). Instead there’s a mass of evidence identifying sf as a resource: a treasury for Animal Studies academics; a rich means of bringing those moral arguments to life —drawn from an overlooked genre that has (always, already) developed sophisticated ways of thinking about looming problems that have only just occurred to the mainstream.
To the general reader, Animal Alterity offers food for thought and a quirky compendium of offbeat and classic titles. Could a “related book” on this topic become widely popular? I don’t know. In my day, sf fans tended to be petrol-headed meat-munchers, their concern for our stewardship of the ecosphere constrained by a passion for beer, mayhem and go-faster starships. Times have changed. The younger generation may feel very differently: I hope so.
Gwyneth Jones
Vector 264
In other news, the latest issue of Vector should be arriving with BSFA members right about now (snow permitting, of course):
Torque Control — editorial
Chaoplexity: the science and science fiction of warfare by Lara Buckerton
Twenty years, one panel: a discussion of the BSFA and Mexicon surveys of British sf and fantasy writers, with Claire Brialey, Niall Harrison, David Hebblethwaite, John Jarrold, and Caroline Mullan
Look to Wasteland: TS Eliot’s The Waste Land as a template for the sf of Iain M Banks by Felix Danczak
First Impressions — book reviews edited by Martin Lewis
Foundation’s Favourites: Fungi from Yuggoth and Other Poems by HP Lovecraft by Andy Sawyer
Resonances #60 by Stephen Baxter
Progressive Scan: Star Trek: The Next Generation by Abigail Nussbaum
As ever, we welcome letters of comment, or feedback on the forum. We apologise for the delay in the arrival of this issue (you may notice that the editorial is, er, slightly out of date). The good news is that V265 is progressing handily along the path to readiness, being proofread and typeset as I speak.