n the foreward to his most recent collection of short stories,
Claremont Tales, author Richard A. Lupoff informs his readers that
the idea of the book is "to create not a 'best of' volume, but a broad
spectrum of my stories, selected from a career that now spans half a century
and includes work in many realms." Such a colorful metaphor could not be
more apt.
This spectrum of a dozen tales includes everything from murder
investigations, both on a moon base ("Black Mist") and in 1930s San
Francisco ("The Second Drug"); to the concerns and effects of finding
oneself out of one's own time and dimension ("At Vega's Taqueria," "Mr.
Greene and the Monster" and "The Monster and Mr. Greene"); to the
possibilities for and impediments to humankind's exploration and
colonization of space and other worlds ("Lux Was Dead Right," "The Child's
Story"); to ruminations on immortality ("I Don't Tell Lies"); to a portrait
of an imperiled gambler whose only hope left is Lady Luck herself ("The
Tootsie Roll Factor"); to a Walter Mitty-esque voyage into cyberspace ("The
Adventures of Mr. Tindle"); to tales inspired by--more appropriate to say "grown from"--Lovecraft ("Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley," "Discovery of the
Ghooric Zone"). That said, artificially grouping these stories in such a
manner (though some of the stories are indeed meant as companion pieces to
one another) runs the risk of ignoring the wide array of tones, themes,
characters and outcomes they possess.
It isn't just in the short stories themselves that readers can find a
narrative. Lupoff has written a short introduction to each of the tales in this
volume, detailing things like the history of their composition, revision and publication. These are interesting stories in and of themselves, given the
author's many years of writing and the vast array of genres and narrative
styles he's explored in that time.
A defense of the short story
Also in his foreword to Claremont Tales Lupoff (whose sense of
self is everywhere in this book, which at times can be a bit grating) writes
a defense of, or rather a treatise on, the short story as a unique and
powerful art form. Fortunately enough, he practices what he preaches, as his stories are both efficient and effective, resonating at their own
mesmerizing frequency. A drawback to the short story in the case of Lupoff, however, is that he has not in his career committed to any
one genre or even style, which can at times mean a certain lack of depth in the tales. Perhaps this can be more positively
framed by saying that readers of Claremont Tales may leave its
stories often hungry for more.
While the science fiction, fantasy and/or mystery motifs or notions in
many of these stories may not be terribly new or mind-blowing to most
readers (though it should be said that the Lovecraft-related stories are
most fascinating), it's always interesting with collections of this nature
to extrapolate what were the contemporary literary influences on their career.
All of the tales in this book, though, are wonderful at creating distinct
voices, characters, momentum and suspense, and at being both easily
digestible and subtly thoughtful and profound (and only occasionally
sentimentalized), all at the same time, all in the limited amount of space the
short story form affords. Sometimes they do this with utter seriousness,
sometimes they do this with great humor. (All are also well-aided in
their mission by Nicholas Jainschigg's minimalistic but effectual
woodcut-like illustrations, which appear at the start of each story.)
The themes in these works are many and various, as one might imagine
given the decades of writing they span. Some major uncommon (for science fiction) issues covered are time (both in getting old, and as it affects both civilizations and
individuals), gender, feminism, sexuality, Jewishness and, well, smart
people. Describing a tapestry can only say so much, though--the stories should be allowed the chance to speak for themselves.
