Gateways - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765326620 ISBN 13: 9780765326621

Verlag: Tor Books, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

An anthology of original works by leading genre authors who credit Frederick Pohl with influencing their careers includes pieces on his writing style and subjects, in a volume that features contributions by such names as Gregory Benford, Larry Niven and Gene Wolfe.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

ELIZABETH ANNE HULL is a long-time academic and authority on science fiction. She coedited Tales from the Planet Earth with Frederik Pohl, to whom she is married. They live outside Chicago.

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ONE WAY INTO GATEWAYS
AN INTRODUCTION
“You two should know each other. You have a lot in common,” Tom Clareson said. We were at a meet-the-authors party around the hotel pool on the first night of MidAmericon, the 1976 (and my first) Worldcon, in Kansas City. I had been teaching SF at my college for three years at that point and knew Tom, through the Midwest Modern Language Association and the Popular Culture Association annual meetings, and for his editing of the journal Extrapolation. I also knew of Fred already by his editing and by my reading his fiction, such as The Space Merchants. Over the years since then, I’ve always wondered what Tom saw in each of us that made him think we had anything significant in common. Fred was considerably older than I was, so I really don’t imagine he thought we’d be romantically interested in one another. Years later, Tom told me that introducing us was one of his most proud accomplishments!
As we chatted, I reminded Fred that I had sent him a letter to attend the next year’s PCA meeting, for which I was chairing the SF and fantasy track, to be interviewed by Tom. I boldly asked why he hadn’t answered my request, one way or the other. At first he denied ever having seen that letter, but by the end of the weekend, Fred agreed that he would attend the PCA meeting the following April.
As it turned out, we soon realized that we saw the world from a similar political bias, although in the ensuing thirty-three years, we have not always agreed perfectly on every issue. We bonded as friends almost immediately when I offered to share my stash of instant coffee in my room. My roommate, Mary Kenny Badami, and I had planned a room party later that evening with some friends of ours from Madison and the Chicago area, and of course the BNF (Big Name Fan) Fred graciously agreed to join us even though Mary and I were relative neos to the world of fandom. My feet were killing me from traipsing around Kansas City in high heels, so I propped them up on the bed and demanded—where did I ever get the nerve?—that he massage them. I won’t say I fell in love then and there, but I sure thought he was something special with his sensitive magic fingers.
At the time, Fred was still married and trying to make a go of it after having been separated from and reconciled with Carol. He told me, “At this point in my life it’s easier to be married than not married.” I responded that for me it was easier to be single, as I had been for over fifteen years at that time. Although we recently celebrated our silver anniversary, it’s still true—he’s a lot of work—but he certainly is worth it. We haven’t had an easy or simple life, but it sure has been an interesting journey together.
We began to see one another romantically in the summer of 1977, shortly after Carol finally decided their marriage couldn’t be saved. We met at first at SF cons we were both attending for our own interests. Then we began to look for cons that we both wanted to attend. We soon discovered another shared interest, travel. I had put myself through college as a travel agent and Fred had been lecturing on SF around the world, mostly behind the Iron Curtain, for the State Department. When Fred couldn’t go with me to Italy because of previous commitments, he arranged for me to meet friends of his in Rome. When I went to Australia and New Zealand to see my godchild with her mother, we stopped in Tahiti and Moorea, which made Fred so envious that he arranged to go to the South Pacific himself for a few weeks the next winter. And when I traveled to China by myself, Fred influenced me to organize and lead another tour to China a year and a half later, so he could see what I had fallen in love with. With very few exceptions, we’ve traveled together ever since.
Since the late seventies, even before we married in 1984, one of our favorite domestic destinations has been Lawrence, Kansas, every July for the Campbell and Sturgeon Awards weekend. Fred has also helped to discover many new writers by serving as one of the judges of the finalists of the year for the Writers of the Future. Together and separately, we’ve taught classes and helped run workshops, judged novels and stories, and been honored guests at countless SF conventions in the United States and Canada as well as around the world.
Fred has even mentored me by encouraging me to become president of the Science Fiction Research Association and by supporting my campaign and giving me the courage to run for Congress in the eighth district of Illinois in 1996 as the Democratic nominee against our local representative, a long-time incumbent. We’ve also written both fiction and nonfiction together, though we both recognize that he is the writer who teaches occasionally while I am a professor of English (now emerita) who sometimes writes. The shared experiences have given us each the greatest respect for the other’s professions.
We’ve visited seventy-some countries and been to see the ends of the earth, even living in London for a semester when I was teaching there. We’ve cruised into the polar ice cap within the Arctic Circle and in the Antarctic off Palmer Station, where I swam in the ship’s (covered) pool. We’ve crossed the equator a number of times, and I’ve snorkeled around the islands and reefs in the Galápagos, and on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia, as well as on the smaller Great Barrier Reef off Belize and on the reefs around the Seychelles and around various islands in the Ca rib be an and Hawaii, “where the hukuhuku numunumu apa aa go swimming by.”
In addition to all the usual tourist cities and well-known sights of China, we’ve been from Turfan and Urumqi in the Gobi to Chengdu to Tibet to Inner Mongolia. From the Mid-Atlantic ridge in Iceland, to Mauna Kea, to Patagonia, to Machu Picchu, to Mount Kirinyaga and the Maasai Mara in Kenya, and to Scandinavia and most of Eastern and Western Europe. We’ve visited east, west, and central Canada and all but three (Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana) of the United States together, and most of both Eastern and Western Europe, parts of Africa, five countries in Asia, many countries of South America, and many islands in the Ca rib be an and in the Pacific.
Wherever we’ve traveled, we’ve tried to meet SF fans and professionals, and we’ve made many good friends. We were part of the formation of World SF in the late 1970s (which Harry Harrison talks about in his afterword) and tried to help others network with their counterparts in various parts of the world. Although we’re definitely Americans through and through, Fred and I feel like citizens of the world, and we try to work for peace and shared understanding, both locally and globally.
When we cruise, our favorite mode of travel in recent years (because we can use the ship as a hotel and avoid airport hassles and worries about missed connections), Fred usually lets me do the sightseeing for us both while he stays on board to write, having a nearly empty ship to himself while we’re in port. People who’ve read a lot of Fred’s stories will recognize that many of these places have become the settings for Fred’s stories, as well as for a few of my own.
So it was natural that Fred and I were cruising in the South Pacific in January 2009, to revisit Tahiti together this time, when I conceived the project that would become this festschrift volume of tribute to my husband for his ninetieth year, marking his career in the world of science fiction—as a fan and as a professional writer, first and foremost, but also as an agent and editor of both magazines and books. He’s also served as president of both the Science Fiction Writers...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Tor Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0765326620
• ISBN 13: 9780765326621
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 416
• Herausgeber: Hull Elizabeth Anne
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Braun; https://in.pg.com/contact-us/; ; Sulzbacher Str. 40-50; Schwalbach/Ts.; 65824; Deutschland