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Virtual Unrealities: The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester
The best short stories from one of SF's greats
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Virtual Unrealities
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By Alfred Bester
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Vintage Books
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$14.00/$19.50 Canada
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Trade Paperback, Nov. 1997
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ISBN 0-679-76783-5
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Review by Clinton Lawrence
 lfred Bester is best known for his two great novels of the 1950s, The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination, but he was an accomplished master of short fiction as well. Virtual Unrealities: The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester collects 15 of his best stories, along with two previously unpublished pieces (one an unfinished fragment rather than a complete story). Although his first story was published in 1939, the collection contains only one of his early pieces, "Adam and No Eve," originally published in 1941. Most of the rest of the stories come from Bester's most productive period in science fiction, between 1950 and 1963.
Robert Silverberg contributed an introduction to this collection, giving an overview of Bester's career, with some insights into the relative sparseness of his production (as Silverberg says, science fiction never was more than a hobby to Bester). Silverberg also discusses how Bester's unusual literary techniques dazzled the readers of the era.
The stories themselves vary quite a bit in tone and atmosphere, and they often demonstrate Silverberg's points about Bester's innovative writing. Many also share common themes and ideas, but set in different contexts. For instance, several deal with end-of-the-world scenarios, and particularly last survivors, but the circumstances are different each time, sometimes even involving dreams and fantasies. The collection also shows Bester's unique perspectives with regard to traditional science fiction ideas. A couple of good examples are "Disappearing Act" and "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed," in which Bester examines time travel in unique ways.
A fine showcase for a pioneering writer...
Virtual Unrealities fully displays Bester's status as a literary pioneer in the field. His classic "Fondly Fahrenheit," for example, has a chilling ending that sticks with readers, but it's far more effective because of Bester's experimentation with shifting the viewpoint and blurring the identities between his main character, James Vandaleur, and Vandaleur's murderous android. Like many of Bester's stories, the important action takes place in the minds of the characters. Another remarkable story is "5,271,009," much of which takes place in the dreams of an artist who escapes from an asylum. The technique often gives a sense of randomness to the events, creating an atmosphere more like that found in magical realism than in the science fiction of Bester's contemporaries.
While there aren't any weak stories in the collection, some of the best include "Time Is the Traitor," in which the loss of his lover creates in James Strapp a special talent for making the right decision, but also an obsession for finding her double; "Hobson's Choice," in which a census bureaucrat tries to determine why the population is increasing despite the high mortality rate and declining birth rate caused by the war; and "The Flowered Thundermug," a very witty story about art theft in a future New York where everyone is named after 20th century movie stars, and the historians have the history all wrong.
Although the collection highlights Bester's repeated returns to the same ideas (perhaps another reason he wasn't more prolific), and his habitual use of a twist ending, it's also a fine showcase for a writer who ignored the stylistic constraints of the field. These stories make it easy to see why Bester is still regarded as one of the field's greats.
I don't think I would go as far as Silverberg does, calling him one of the two or three greatest short story writers in the history of science fiction. But it was almost certainly true at the time most of these stories were originally published, and it's easy to see how he influenced later work.
-- Clint
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Chaos Come Again
Discorping through space on a wing and a teep
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Chaos Come Again
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By Wilhelmina Baird
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Ace Books
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$5.99/$7.99 Canada
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Paperback, Oct. 1997
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ISBN 0-441-00479-2
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Review by L.R.C. Munro
 esi Smeet isn't an intergalactic bounty hunter, but she plays one on TP-TV. Not that she meant to, of course--she's really a licensed medic whose job is discreet medical fix-ups for wealthy clients. Unfortunately, when she stops to pick up a new used starship, she also acquires a stowaway--a roving telepathic reporter named Jones who sees a goldmine in broadcasting Desi's adventures across the galaxy. Jones' indiscretion gets Desi in lots of trouble, but it doesn't stop her from doing her job, nor from carrying out her personal mission of pursuing the mysterious, super-cool Ice--a trouble-making rogue with a body temperature nearing absolute zero who also happens to be Desi's ex-husband.
In a wild future where most of the human race (including Desi and Jones) has been transformed by alien symbiotes into telepathic, telekinetic shape-changers, and where intergalactic travel is commonplace, Desi still manages to take Jones on the wildest ride of his life as she follows Ice's trail across space, time and alternate dimensions. Pursued by ghostly lawyers, angry aliens from many worlds, and an audience of avid telepathic couch potatoes, Desi and Jones travel from one strange world to the next--narrowly escaping each Ice-laid trap as they chase their quarry. But what will happen when they catch him? Don't touch that TP-TV dial, kids--the show is just about to begin.
Shades of Vance and Adams in a rocketing space-opera
Chaos Come Again is a fast-paced, fun space adventure story. Baird's multi-cultural omniverse feels like Jack Vance-ian grand romance tempered with Douglas Adams tongue-in-cheekiness. It's full of aliens whose alien-ness is interesting and intricate, if slightly one-note; and appealing human characters who, although physically much changed from human stock, seem to sound and think pretty much like humans.
That in itself is not a criticism. From the first scene with a naked, blue Desi teleporting grumpily around a used starship lot chewing out the salesman in her patented, nearly incomprehensible spacer slang, readers know that Chaos is a bit of a romp, a tale colorful and elaborate enough to entertain, but not too deep. Baird has a deft hand with clever action and unexpected consequences, and the forward momentum never lets up. If there is anything disappointing about Chaos Come Again, it is simply that, while Baird has some interesting ideas, it often seems to be cleverness for its own sake and lacks that extra breadth of vision that could raise this broad, amusing romance/adventure to something a little more substantial.
All in all though, Chaos Come Again is just what it purports to be: a fast, fun read for fans of the space adventure genre.
And Smeet and Jones have some of the wittiest repartee this side of Nick and Nora Charles.
-- LRC
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