Strange But Not a Stranger by James Patrick Kelly
01/10/2002 . Source: James Nicoll 
Pub: Golden Gryphon. 297 page hardcover. Price: $25.95(US). ISBN: 1930846126. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. Check out website: www.goldengryphon.com
A new book by James Patrick Kelly is always
a reason to be happy. It has been five years since JPK's 'Think
Like a Dinosaur' was released and a disheartening eight years since
his latest novel, 'Wildlife', came out.
It is quite depressing how some of the best authors in SF seem
to be relegated to small press releases at long intervals. Most
of JPK's output is in the form of short stories and since single
author anthologies are difficult to sell, this dooms him unfairly
to the margins of the SF water-hole.
At least publishers like Golden Gryphon, founded by the late Jim
Turner (1945-1999) in 1997, are willing to step to fill a role larger
publishers are barred from filling by market realities. I could
go on at great length about why people should buy good single author
anthologies but instead I will let this collection serve as an example
of what people are missing.
This collects works from the 1980s, 1990s and the 2000s with a
bias towards later works. Two of the works included appeared as
portions of JPK novels. 'The Prisoner of Chillon' appeared in a
slightly different version in 'Wildlife' and 'Glass Cloud' was incorporated
as the first section of 'Look Into the Sun'. My favourite story
in the collection is '10^16 to 1', in which a young boy is given
the chance to avert a future and terminal WWIII at a terrible cost
to himself and his world. There are other gems as well.
From 'Lovestory', which examines some effects of an off-stage humanity
on a marsupial alien race to the creepy 'Unique Visitors' which
examines one often ignored possibility of the 'modern man wakes
up in far future society' story to the humorous 'Fruitcake Theory',
where a First Contact is sabotaged by an innocent appearing trip
to the mall one Christmas.
'Unique Visitors' is one of only two examples I can think of off-hand
where the future human derived society is both incomprehensibly
alien to a modern human and unwilling to put forth any particular
effort to help the time traveller adapt. (The other example is a
Poul Anderson short story from the 1960s, where the up-timers are
not nearly as enigmatic as the ones in 'Unique Visitors', making
up for it by being utterly useless at handling mental illnesses
after the fact.)
Of course, one can see why this is, because it is difficult to
sustain incomprehensibility at length without inspiring the reader
to put the book down in preference to re-reading 'Solaris'.
The sole story in this collection I did not derive great pleasure
from was 'The Propagation Of Light In A Vacuum', which in its way
reminded me of Blish's 'Common Time', which was another short story
I didn't care for. Thus I betray myself as a tragically middle brow
reader. Even with 'The Propagation Of Light In A Vacuum', I did
manage to get some value out of it, a pretty good recipe for meat
loaf that appears on page 143.
I will admit I didn't care for the introduction by Connie Willis
either but I have resigned myself to the fact that on the topic
of Willis fiction and humour, the mainstream of SF fandom is well
out of step with me. At least it was shorter than her comedy routine
at MilPhil's Hugo presentations which was in turn far shorter than
the comic-opera antics surrounding the Seiun awards, which I could
describe but you wouldn't believe me.
Just take my word that if you discover that the Seiun Award is
going to be granted at a ceremony you must attend, get Novocain
for your arse because you are going to be trapped in your seat long
enough to read Peter Hamilton's 'Reality Disfunction' series cover
to cover. Twice!
The introduction aside this is a near perfect collection of short
works, one that you will never see in paperback due to the unfortunate
perception that single author anthologies don't sell, a perception
that is based on past poor sales of single author anthologies.
The best way to fight that belief is to provide publishers with
counterproof by buying this book and books like it.
James Nicoll
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