The Voice before the Void: Arcana, Story, Poetry

Some pointed pulp science fiction from Master Dick.

-The Voice before the Void

“The Gun”

Philip K. Dick

The Captain peered into the eyepiece of the telescope. He adjusted the focus quickly.

“It was an atomic fission we saw, all right,” he said presently. He sighed and pushed the eyepiece away. “Any of you who wants to look may do so. But it’s not a pretty sight.”

“Let me look,” Tance the archeologist said. He bent down to look, squinting. “Good Lord!” He leaped violently back, knocking against Dorle, the Chief Navigator.

“Why did we come all this way, then?” Dorle asked, looking around at the other men. “There’s no point even in landing. Let’s go back at once.”

“Perhaps he’s right,” the biologist murmured. “But I’d like to look for myself, if I may.” He pushed past Tance and peered into the sight.

He saw a vast expanse, an endless surface of gray, stretching to the edge of the planet. At first he thought it was water but after a moment he realized that it was slag, pitted, fused slag, broken only by hills of rock jutting up at intervals. Nothing moved or stirred. Everything was silent, dead.

“I see,” Fomar said, backing away from the eyepiece. “Well, I won’t find any legumes there.” He tried to smile, but his lips stayed unmoved. He stepped away and stood by himself, staring past the others.

“I wonder what the atmospheric sample will show,” Tance said.

“I think I can guess,” the Captain answered. “Most of the atmosphere is poisoned. But didn’t we expect all this? I don’t see why we’re so surprised. A fission visible as far away as our system must be a terrible thing.”

He strode off down the corridor, dignified and expressionless. They watched him disappear into the control room.

As the Captain closed the door the young woman turned. “What did the telescope show? Good or bad?”

“Bad. No life could possibly exist. Atmosphere poisoned, water vaporized, all the land fused.”

“Could they have gone underground?”

The Captain slid back the port window so that the surface of the planet under them was visible. The two of them stared down, silent and disturbed. Mile after mile of unbroken ruin stretched out, blackened slag, pitted and scarred, and occasional heaps of rock.

Suddenly Nasha jumped. “Look! Over there, at the edge. Do you see it?”

They stared. Something rose up, not rock, not an accidental formation. It was round, a circle of dots, white pellets on the dead skin of the planet. A city? Buildings of some kind?

“Please turn the ship,” Nasha said excitedly. She pushed her dark hair from her face. “Turn the ship and let’s see what it is!”

The ship turned, changing its course. As they came over the white dots the Captain lowered the ship, dropping it down as much as he dared. “Piers,” he said. “Piers of some sort of stone. Perhaps poured artificial stone. The remains of a city.”

“Oh, dear,” Nasha murmured. “How awful.” She watched the ruins disappear behind them. In a half-circle the white squares jutted from the slag, chipped and cracked, like broken teeth.

“There’s nothing alive,” the Captain said at last. “I think we’ll go right back; I know most of the crew want to. Get the Government Receiving Station on the sender and tell them what we found, and that we—”

* * *

He staggered.

The first atomic shell had struck the ship, spinning it around. The Captain fell to the floor, crashing into the control table. Papers and instruments rained down on him. As he started to his feet the second shell struck.

World War I:

Soldier’s war poetry. Crushing, wrenching, unmatchable poetry.

-The Voice before the Void

“The Rainbow”

Leslie Coulson

Watch the white dawn gleam,

To the thunder of hidden guns.

I hear the hot shells scream

Through skies as sweet as a dream

Where the silver dawn-break runs.

And stabbing of light

Scorches the virginal white.

But I feel in my being the old, high, sanctified thrill,

And I thank the gods that the dawn is beautiful still.

From death that hurtles by

I crouch in the trench day-long,

But up to a cloudless sky

From the ground where our dead men lie

A brown lark soars in song.

Through the tortured air,

Rent by the shrapnel’s flare,

Over the troubleless dead he carols his fill,

And I thank the gods that the birds are beautiful still.

Where the parapet is low

And level with the eye

Poppies and cornflowers glow

And the corn sways to and fro

In a pattern against the sky.

The gold stalks hide

Bodies of men who died

Charging at dawn through the dew to be killed or to kill.

I thank the gods that the flowers are beautiful still.

When night falls dark we creep

In silence to our dead.

We dig a few feet deep

And leave them there to sleep —

But blood at night is red,

Yea, even at night,

And a dead man’s face is white.

And I dry my hands, that are also trained to kill,

And I look at the stars — for the stars are beautiful still.

World War I:

Influential early poetry of the war.

-The Voice before the Void

“Under Fire”

(later retitled “Breakfast”)

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

We eat our breakfast lying on our backs,

Because the shells were screeching overhead.

I bet a rasher to a loaf of bread

That Hull United would beat Halifax

When Jimmy Stainthorpe played full-back instead

Of Billy Bradford. Ginger raised his head,

And cursed, and took the bet — and dropt back dead.

We eat our breakfast lying on our backs,

Because the shells were screeching overhead.

We were sitting around the kitchen table, telling stories.

-The Voice before the Void

Lights in the North Dakota Night Sky

The Voice before the Void

World War I:

Soldier’s war poetry.

“The Wind in the Trees”

S. Donald Cox

Wind! Wind! what do you bring?

With the whirling flake and the flying cloud?

A victor’s bays and a song to sing?

—Nay, but a hero’s shroud!

Wild wind! what do you bear—

A song of the men who fought and fell,

A tale of the strong to do and dare?

—Aye, and a tolling bell!

Wind! wind! what do you see—

The flying flags and the soldiers brave,

The marching men, the bold and free?

—Nay, but a new-dug grave!

Wild wind! what do you moan

To the frosty night and the cloud-wracked sky?

—A soldier’s cross, a father’s groan,

And a mother’s hopeless cry!

One of the greatest of the great stories. In masterful narrative form, juxtaposing world upon world, Norris delivers the quintessence of the American civilization.

-The Voice before the Void

“A Deal in Wheat”

Frank Norris

I. The Bear – Wheat at Sixty-Two

As Sam Lewiston backed the horse into the shafts of his buckboard and began hitching the tugs to the whiffletree, his wife came out from the kitchen door of the house and drew near, and stood for some time at the horse’s head, her arms folded and her apron rolled around them. For a long moment neither spoke. They had talked over the situation so long and so comprehensively the night before that there seemed to be nothing more to say.

The time was late in the summer, the place a ranch in southwestern Kansas, and Lewiston and his wife were two of a vast population of farmers, wheat growers, who at that moment were passing through a crisis—a crisis that at any moment might culminate in tragedy. Wheat was down to sixty-six.

At length Emma Lewiston spoke.

“Well,” she hazarded, looking vaguely out across the ranch toward the horizon, leagues distant; “well, Sam, there’s always that offer of brother Joe’s. We can quit—and go to Chicago—if the worst comes.”

“And give up!” exclaimed Lewiston, running the lines through the torets. “Leave the ranch! Give up! After all these years!”

His wife made no reply for the moment. Lewiston climbed into the buckboard and gathered up the lines. “Well, here goes for the last try, Emmie,” he said. “Good-by, girl. Maybe things will look better in town to-day.”

“Maybe,” she said gravely. She kissed her husband good-by and stood for some time looking after the buckboard traveling toward the town in a moving pillar of dust.

“I don’t know,” she murmured at length; “I don’t know just how we’re going to make out.”

When he reached town, Lewiston tied the horse to the iron railing in front of the Odd Fellows’ Hall, the ground floor of which was occupied by the post-office, and went across the street and up the stairway of a building of brick and granite—quite the most pretentious structure of the town—and knocked at a door upon the first landing. The door was furnished with a pane of frosted glass, on which, in gold letters, was inscribed, “Bridges & Co., Grain Dealers.”

Bridges himself, a middle-aged man who wore a velvet skull-cap and who was smoking a Pittsburg stogie, met the farmer at the counter and the two exchanged perfunctory greetings.

“Well,” said Lewiston, tentatively, after awhile.

“Well, Lewiston,” said the other, “I can’t take that wheat of yours at any better than sixty-two.”

“Sixty-two.”

“It’s the Chicago price that does it, Lewiston. Truslow is bearing the stuff for all he’s worth. It’s Truslow and the bear clique that stick the knife into us. The price broke again this morning. We’ve just got a wire.”

“Good heavens,” murmured Lewiston, looking vaguely from side to side. “That—that ruins me. I can’t carry my grain any longer—what with storage charges and—and—Bridges, I don’t see just how I’m going to make out. Sixty-two cents a bushel! Why, man, what with this and with that it’s cost me nearly a dollar a bushel to raise that wheat, and now Truslow—”

He turned away abruptly with a quick gesture of infinite discouragement.

He went down the stairs, and making his way to where his buckboard was hitched, got in, and, with eyes vacant, the reins slipping and sliding in his limp, half-open hands, drove slowly back to the ranch. His wife had seen him coming, and met him as he drew up before the barn.

World War I:

A work unto itself, the first chapter of A Farewell to Arms is a great war story.

Like other works of devastating power, it can serve as a denunciation of the societal institution of war.

Like other of Hemingway’s works, it is constructed with a punchline.

The immensity of war’s tragedy arrives with the realization that the incident referenced is but one of many incidents, of many wars.

-The Voice before the Void

First chapter of A Farewell to Arms

Ernest Hemingway

Fair use of the text is claimed under U.S. copyright law for the not-for-profit purposes of education and commentary.

World War I:

During the First World War, Zeppelins bombed cities in France, Britain, Belgium, Russia, Greece, Romania, and Italy.

-The Voice before the Void

“Song of the Zeppelin”

Violet D. Chapman

The night-wind is humming,

My engines are thrumming,

Swift as a spark

Through the night and the dark

I am silently speeding;

Hovering grim and gray

Over my human prey,

Sowing the seeds of dearth

Over the stricken earth,

Where nations lie bleeding.

Ship without sails am I,

Bird without wings am I,

Lord of the gales am I,

Terror of Kings am I,–

I am the Zeppelin!

The cities are sleeping,

Their searchlights are sweeping,

Into the skies

I advance, I arise,

Where the distance grows vaster;

See where the sky grows red,

Lit by the bombs I shed–

Stealthy and swift,

I fling them my gift,

Death and disaster!

Mark well the flight of me,

Ships! Have a care of me!

Shrink at the sight of me!

Cities! Beware of me!

I am the Zeppelin!

World War I:

American volunteer pilots in the Lafayette Escadrille of the French air service target German observation balloons behind enemy lines in Hall’s wry – and, at times, beautiful – first-hand account of flying in the First World War.

-The Voice before the Void

“A Balloon Attack”

from High Adventure: A Narrative of Air Fighting in France

James Norman Hall

“I’m looking for two balloonatics,” said Talbott, as he came into the messroom; “and I think I’ve found them.”

Percy, Talbott’s orderly, Tiffin the steward, Drew, and I were the only occupants of the room. Percy is an old légionnaire, crippled with rheumatism. His active service days are over. Tiffin’s working hours are filled with numberless duties. He makes the beds, and serves food from three to five times daily to members of the Escadrille Lafayette. These two being eliminated, the identity of the balloonatics was plain.

“The orders have just come,” Talbott added, “and I decided that the first men I met after leaving the bureau would be balloonatics. Virtue has gone into both of you. Now, if you can make fire come out of a Boche sausage, you will have done all that is required. Listen. This is interesting. The orders are in French, but I will translate as I read:—

On the umteenth day of June, the escadrilles of Groupe de Combat Blank [that’s ours] will cooperate in an attack on the German observation balloons along the sector extending from X to Y. The patrols to be furnished are: (1) two patrols of protection, of five avions each, by the escadrilles Spa. 87 and Spa. 12; (2) four patrols of attack, of three avions each, by the escadrilles Spa. 124 [that’s us], Spa. 93, Spa. 10, and Spa. 12.

The attack will be organized as follows: on the day set, weather permitting, the two patrols of protection will leave the field at 10.30 A.M. The patrol of Spa. 87 will rendezvous over the village of N——. The patrol of protection of Spa. 12 will rendezvous over the village of C——. At 10.45, precisely, they will start for the lines, crossing at an altitude of thirty-five hundred metres. The patrol furnished by Spa. 87 will guard the sector from X to T, between the town of O—— and the two enemy balloons on that sector. The patrol furnished by Spa. 12 will guard the sector from T to Y, between the railway line and the two enemy balloons on that sector. Immediately after the attack has been made, these formations will return to the aerodrome.

At 10.40 A.M. the four patrols of attack will leave the field, and will rendezvous as follows. [Here followed the directions.] At 10.55, precisely, they will start for the lines, crossing at an approximate altitude of sixteen hundred metres, each patrol making in a direct line for the balloon assigned to it. Numbers 1 and 2 of each of these patrols will carry rockets. Number 3 will fly immediately above them, offering further protection in case of attack by enemy aircraft. Number 1 of each patrol will first attack the balloon. If he fails, number 2 will attack. If number 1 is successful, number 2 will then attack the observers in their parachutes. If number 1 fails, and number 2 is successful, number 3 will attack the observers. The patrol will then proceed to the aerodrome by the shortest route.

Squadron commanders will make a return before noon to-day, of the names of pilots designated by them for their respective patrols.

In case of unfavorable weather, squadron commanders will be informed of the date to which the attack has been postponed.

Pilots designated as numbers 1 and 2 of the patrols of attack will be relieved from the usual patrol duty from this date. They will employ their time at rocket shooting. A target will be in place on the east side of the field from 1.30 P.M. to-day.

“Are there any remarks?” said Talbott, as if he had been reading the minutes at a debating-club meeti...

Some of the most challenging of ideas.

-The Voice before the Void

“Sex and sexuality in speculative fiction”

Wikipedia

The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.

Sexual themes are frequently used in science fiction or related genres. Such elements may include depictions of realistic sexual interactions in a science fictional setting, a protagonist with an alternative sexuality, or exploration of the varieties of sexual experience that deviate from the conventional.

Science fiction and fantasy have sometimes been more constrained than non-genre narrative forms in their depictions of sexuality and gender. However, speculative fiction also offers the freedom to imagine societies different from real-life cultures, making it an incisive tool to examine sexual bias and forcing the reader to reconsider his or her cultural assumptions.

Prior to the 1960s, explicit sexuality of any kind was not characteristic of genre speculative fiction. In the 1960s, science fiction and fantasy began to reflect the changes prompted by the civil rights movement and the emergence of a counterculture. New Wave and feminist science fiction authors imagined cultures in which a variety of gender models and atypical sexual relationships are the norm, and depictions of sex acts and alternative sexualities became commonplace.

There also exists science fiction erotica, which explores sexuality and the presentation of themes aimed at inducing arousal.

Contents

1. Critical analysis

1.1 Themes explored

2. SF literature

2.1 Proto SF

2.2 The pulp era (1920–30s)

2.3 The Golden Age (1940–50s)

2.4 The New Wave era (1960–70s)

2.5 Modern SF (post-New Wave)

3. See also

1. Critical analysis

As genres of popular literature, science fiction and fantasy often seem even more constrained than non-genre literature by their conventions of characterization and the effects that these conventions have on depictions of sexuality and gender. Science fiction in particular has traditionally been a puritanical genre oriented toward a male readership. Sex is often linked to disgust in science fiction and horror, and plots based on sexual relationships have mainly been avoided in genre fantasy narratives. On the other hand, science fiction and fantasy can also offer more freedom than do non-genre literatures to imagine alternatives to the default assumptions of heterosexuality and masculine superiority that permeate many cultures.

In speculative fiction, extrapolation allows writers to focus not on the way things are (or were), as non-genre literature does, but on the way things could be different. It provides science fiction with a quality that Darko Suvin has called “cognitive estrangement”: the recognition that what we are reading is not the world as we know it, but a world whose difference forces us to reconsider our own world with an outsider’s perspective. When the extrapolation involves sexuality or gender, it can force the reader to reconsider his or her heteronormative cultural assumptions; the freedom to imagine societies different from real-life cultures makes science fiction an incisive tool to examine sexual bias. In science fiction, such estranging features include technologies that significantly alter sex or reproduction. In fantasy, such features include figures (for example, mythological deities and heroic archetypes) who are not limited by preconceptions of human sexuality and gender, allowing them to be reinterpreted. Science fiction has also depicted a plethora of alien methods of reproduction and sex.

1.1 Themes explored