Unusual
for a non-retrospective or non-best-of collection, the ten stories contained
within George Zebrowski’s In the
Distance, and Ahead in Time (2002, re-released by Open Road Media in 2015) appeared over
a twenty-five year period. Opening with
the first he ever published, the moody “The Water Sculptor,” and closing with
one of the last stories he published prior to the assemblage of the collection,
“Between the Winds,” it is in some ways, however, a style retrospective.
Covering a variety of the author’s themes and motifs and revisiting the
settings of some of his novels, it serves as a reminder, overview, or
introduction to Zebrowski.
The
collection is divided into three sections: Near Futures, The Middle Distance,
and Far Futures. And the stories begin
brief, almost vignettes hinting at larger concepts, and move to novelette
length, digging ever deeper into character, setting, and the ideas inherent. Colonization, post-humanism, aliens, mobile
worlds, post-apocalypse—a number of typical sf tropes permeate the stories,
some with more than one. Similar to
Brian Aldiss, however, they always possess Zebrowski’s controlled, probing
voice, attempting to go further into the artifice to get at the human
implications beneath.
Variation
observable throughout, Zebrowski tailors his prose to strike at certain moods
and atmospheres. Often successful, the
opening story “The Water Sculptor” creates the tone of isolation. A weather control engineer, Christian
Praeger, drifts alone in the atmosphere above Earth (a la PKD’s Dr. Bloodmoney) with an artist in fixed
orbit as his only communiqué. As much
art as a reflection on the environment, mankind in space,
etc, it transcends the page. (And I suppose any piece that utilizes Mahler
must by default be somewhat melancholy.)
The second and third stories likewise featuring Praeger, in “Parks of
Rest in Culture” the drifting engineer now lives on the plague-riddled Earth,
working a lackluster job in a plant and contemplating his life’s direction,
while in “Assassins of the Air”—a story champing at the bit to be extended—the
man confronts gangs scavenging through the remains of the catastrophe that
destroyed much of civilization.
Shifting
away from Praeger, the fourth Near Future story “The Soft Terrible Music” is
about a wealthy man living in a futuristic castle who has everything except the
woman he loves. Fooling her into being
his lover, in the end discovers he was not the one doing the fooling—his past
much more than he could imagine. (Also very Dickian.) Seguing into The Middle Distance, “The Sea of
Evening” moves beyond Earth in catastrophe to something more alien. I daresay, however, his later story in the Paradox anthology, “Fermi’s Doubts,” is a
more successful interaction with the concept.
Kicking
The Middle Distance into full gear, “Heathen God” sees mankind traveling the
galaxy and encountering other sentient beings.
One alien too much for mankind, they put it in exile on the planet
Antares. Each with their own designs,
however, the story opens with an entourage of Earthlings making contact with
the exile again—and discovering more than their designs would have. Perhaps the most dramatic story of the
collection, “Wayside World” revisits Zebrowski’s Macrolife setting to tell the story of Ishbok, a thoughtful young
man caught in a savage world. With
echoes of Le Guin, Zebrowski transforms the decayed civilization around Ishbok,
but can he handle it?
In his
introduction to the collection, Zebrowski states “Design, language, and the thoughts and emotions expressed by
people. These are the ingredients of
true science fiction stories, with thoughts being the distinctive
characteristic, like musical structures balanced against actions.” And perhaps
the seventh story in the collection, the title story, represents this statement
best. “In the Distance, and Ahead in
Time” is about a human colony living on a wayward planet on a high plateau that
is crumbling around them. Life in the
forests below surpassing their knowledge of virology and biology, they have put
off searching for ways to survive when inevitably the plateau disintegrates. Offworlders arrving at the outset, the colony
is thrown off-balance by the ideology they bring in tow. Working nicely with ideas from Aldiss’ The Malacia Tapestry, Le Guin (again),
and any other social science fiction that looks at the pain and pleasure of
choosing not to develop scientifically, it’s a thought provoking story—exactly
as Zebrowski would have it, it seems.
The
opening line of the first story, “Transfigured Night” in Far Futures suits the
final section perfectly: “Thrushcross
watched the birth of his father.” A post-human story if ever there were, it
describes a possible fate of mankind.
Likewise post-human, the final story in the collection, “Between the
Winds,” returns to both the Macrolife
story setting and Ishbok. Switching
between micro and macro settings, it also balances micro and macro perspectives
of existence in the context of human evolution (and possibly, just maybe, has
the feel of a capstone to the Macrolife
stories?). Along with the ideas raised,
the zooming in and out is intriguing.
In the
end, In the Distance, and Ahead in Time
is a good, solid collection from one of the field’s quiet yet important
voices. Focusing on the humane aspects
of genre, the stories will not satisfy the reader looking for unending
(melo)drama and flashy visuals.
Zebrowski’s product is a more subdued, thoughtful brand of sf that
rewards upon rumination. The Macrolife stories contains many layers
and the Praeger stories linger for mood, culminating in a welcome re-print of
one of science fiction under-appreciated voices.
Published
between 1970 and 1995 (and not collected until 2002), the following are the ten
stories contained within In the Distance,
and Ahead in Time:
Introduction
(by George Zebrowski)
Part I –
Near Future
“The Water
Sculptor”
“Parks of
Rest and Culture”
“Assassins
of Air”
“The Soft
Terrible Music”
“The Sea
of Evening”
Part II –
The Middle Distance
“Heathen
God”
“Wayside
World”
“In the
Distance, and Ahead in Time”
Part III –
Far Futures
“Transfigured
Night”
“Between
the Winds”
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