Gibson, William and Bruce Sterling. The Difference Engine. 1991. FICTION.
This wonderfully complex and well-researched story is based in an alternate England during the Industrial Revolution where gear-run, mechanical computers have revolutionized the society. A packet of programming cards has been stolen and powers, both within the Empire and without, are determined to discover what secrets the cards hold. Great fun

Godwin, Parke. Waiting For The Galactic Bus. 1988. FICTION. 
When two aliens crash land on prehistoric Earth they need something to keep them occupied, so they start playing with the genes of the local primates. Soon they're inventing religions and surrounded by mini-malls.

Rucker, Rudy. Master Of Space And Time. 1984. SCIENCE FICTION. 
Mild mannered Harry Gerber of Brunswick, New Jersey, has gained absolute power to change the fabric of reality, but he can only use this power three times. So how much trouble could he get into?

Rucker, Rudy. Software. 1982. PB/SF. 
Its geriatric cyberpunk as old geezer Cobb Anderson tries to save his bopper robots from destruction in return for the promise of immortality.

Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash. 1992. FICTION. 
Hiro Protagonist, hacker and finest swordsman alive, teams up with Y.T., a skateboarding pizza delivery woman, to defeat an Inuit assassin and the evil Raven who plan to infect every computer and their users with an especially nasty virus.

Varley, John. Steel Beach. 1992. PB/SF. 
Start with the moon, mix in healthy portions of reporters, dinosaurs and insane computers, then add a dash of sex, violence and irreverent language and you're cooking with the recipe for this satire.

STEVEN BRUST

Coyboy Feng's Space Bar and Grill

---------------------------

JOE CLIFFORD FAUST

Ferman's Devils (1996)
Boddekker's Demons (1997)

LINKS

ALPHA RALPHA BOULEVARD - JOE CLIFFORD FAUST

------------------------------

CONNIE WILLIS

To Say Nothing of the Dog (1997)

LINKS

CONNIE WILLIS

CONNIE WILLIS' BIBLIOGRAPHY

-------------------------------

ISIDORE HAIBLUM

The Wilk Are Among Us (1979)

LINKS

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ISIDORE HAIBLUM

--------------------------------------

CHRISTOPHER MOORE

Practical Demonkeeping (1992)

Comments: humour style is very Prachett-esqe, and the cover illustrations are even by Josh Kirby!


OLDER AUTHORS

JOHN COLLIER Short story collections
ANATOLE FRANCE Penguin Island


ANTHOLOGIES

The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy (1998) ed. by Mike Ashley

Comments: A wonderful new anthology of fantasy humor that will introduce you to the top writers in the field.

------------------------

Alien Pregnant By Elvis Esther M. Friesner, Editor
Chicks In Chainmail Esther M. Friesner, Editor

COMMENTS: These two anthologies have lots of humorous stuff in them.

-------------------------

It Came From The Drive-In Marin H. Greenberg, Editor

COMMENTS: Another funny anthology.

ALAN DEAN FOSTER

Codgerspace (1992)
Glory Lane (1987)
Quozl (1989)
Smart Dragons, Foolish Elves (1991)
Mad Amos
Jed the Dead (1997)

THE SPELLSINGER SERIES

Spellsinger (1983)
The Hour of the Gate (1984)
The Day of the Dissonance (1984)
Season of the Spellsong (1985)
The Moment of the Magician (1984)
The Paths of the Perambulator (1985)
The Time of the Transference (1986)
Son of Spellsinger (1993)

Comments: An extremely versatile author who has written many more books than I've listed here - all very readable. All of his work is not humorous, however. Read the cover blurbs and decide. The whole Spellsinger series is a delight, however. Probably more fantasy than humour, but worth the read.

ESTHER FRIESNER

Elf Defense (1988)
Gnome Man's Land (1991)
Harpy High (1991)
New York by Knight (1986)
Sphynxes Wild (1989)
Split Heirs (1993)
The Sherwood Game (1995)
The Harlot's Ruse (1986)
Unicorn U (1992)
Wishing Season (1996)

DEMON SERIES

Here Be Demons (1988)
Demon Blues (1989)
Hooray For Hellywood (1990)

MAJYK SERIES

Majyk By Accident (1993)
Majyk by Hook or Crook (1994)
Majyk by Design (1994)

Comments: All excellent. Pratchett fans will particularly like the Majyk series.

DANIEL PINKWATER

Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars
Slaves of Spiegel
The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death
The Last Guru
Young Adult Novel

Comments: The above titles are all combined under the title of "5 Novels," a screamingly funny collection of way out SF.The best novel is "Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars."

LINKS

THE (SORT OF) OFFICIAL DANIEL PINKWATER WEBSITE

------------------------------------------------

BARRY HUGHART

Bridge of Birds (1984)
The Story of the Stone (1988)
Eight Skilled Gentlemen (1991)

Comments: Three very funny novels about an ancient and magical China that never was.

LINKS

BARRY HUGHART BIBLIOGRAPHY

BARRY HUGHART

BRIDGE OF BIRD REVIEW

------------------------------------------------

ROBERT RANKIN

The Antipope
The Brentford Triangle
East of Ealing
The Sprouts of Wrath
Armageddon the Musical
They Came and Ate Us
Armageddon II The B Movie
The Suburban Book of the Dead
Armageddon III The Remake
The Book of Ultimate Truths
Raiders of the Lost Car Park
The Greatest Show Off Earth (1994)

Comments: If you can fathom his intense Brit slang and weird vocabulary, he's supposed to be very funny. Some people think he is great, however, so decide for yourself. More a 'love him or hate him' type author

LINKS

THE FLYING SWAN - ROBERT RANKIN

------------------------------------------------

RICK COOK

Wizard's Bane (1989)
The Wizardry Compiled (1990)
The Wizardry Cursed (1991)
The Wizardry Consulted (1995)
The Wizardry Quested (1996)

Comments: A computer programmer finds himself in a medieval world where his programs turn into spells. Full of computer humour.

------------------------------------------------

JOHN MORRESSY

THE KEDRIGERN SERIES

A Voice for Princess (1986)
The Questing of Kedrigern
Kedrigern in Wanderland (1988)
A Remembrance for Kedrigern
Kedrigern and the Charming Couple

Comments: At the age of 160, the Wizard Kedrigern marries a Princess who used to be a frog, and still tends to say "brereep" a lot. Very Pratchetty, complete with a whining sword.

---------------------------

MARGARET BALL

Lost in Translation (1995)
Mathemagics

Comment: I especially recommend Lost in Translation, a wonderful fantasy about a young girl en route to college who is switched into a wizard's college in an alternate universe and doesn't realize it.

------------------------------------------------

C. DALE BRITTAIN

A Bad Spell in Yurt (1991)
The Wood-Nymph and the Cranky Saint (1993)
Mage Quest (1993)
The Witch and the Cathedral (1995)
Daughter of Magic (1996)

Comments: Parts of these books are amusing, but the author swings back and forth between being serious and being funny. The Wood-Nymph and the Cranky Saint is about as good as it gets.

LINKS

AUTOGRAPHED C. DALE BRITTAIN BOOKS

------------------------------------------------

FREDRIC BROWN

Martians, Go Home (1955)
What Mad Universe (1949)

Comments: Science fiction humor.

------------------------------------------------

JAMES BRANCH CABELL

THE BIOGRAPHY OF MANUEL

Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances (1921)
The Silver Stallion: A Comedy of Redemption (1926)
The Music from Behind the Moon (1926)
The Way of Ecban (1929)
Domnei: A Comedy of Woman-Worship(1920)
The Music from Behind the Moon (1928)
Chivalry: Dizain des Reines (1909) [rev. 1921]
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice (1919)
The Line of Love: Dizain des Mariages (1905)
The High Place: A Comedy of Disenchantment (1923)
Something About Eve: A Comedy of Fig-Leaves (1927)
The Cream of the Jest: A Comedy of Evasions (1917)

Comments: These titles are only a sampling of the output of one of the most literate and talented fantasy writers of the early 20th century. Jurgen is still readily available, and well worth your time.

LINKS

JAMES BRANCH CABELL

JAMES BRANCH CABELL

------------------------------------------------

GORDON DICKSON

Magnificent Wilf

THE DRAGON SERIES

The Dragon and the George (1976)
The Dragon Knight (1990)
The Dragon on the Border (1992)
The Dragon at War (1992)
The Dragon, the Earl, and the Troll (1994)
The Dragon and the Djinn (1996)
The Dragon & The Gnarly King (1997)
The Dragon in Lyonesse (1998)

THE HOKA STORIES

Earthman's Burden (1957)

Hoka! (1983)
Comments: Best known for his Dorsai series (definitely not humorous), in recent years Dickson has turned out a series of fairly amusing novels about a modern man who is transported to a medieval kingdom -- and into a dragon's body. The Hoka series is SF humor about a race of intelligent teddy bears.

------------------------------------------------

LIONEL FENN

Blood River Down (1986)
Web of Defeat (1987)
Agnes Day (1987)

Comments: A retired football player steps through a door in his pantry and finds himself in a world run by ducks.

------------------------------------------------

RON GOULART

Big Bang (491) (1982)
Brainz, Inc. (629) (1985)
Calling Dr. Patchwork (283) (1978)
Flux (107) (1974)
Hail, Hibbler (399) (1980)
Hello, Lemuria, Hello (331) (1979)
Hellquad (592) (1984)
The Panchronicon Plot (231) (1977)
The Robot in the Closet (439) (1981)
Spacehawk, Inc. (132) (1974)
A Talent for the Invisible (37) (1973)
The Tin Angel (80) (1973)
Upside Downside (467) (1982)
What's Become of Screwloose (60) (1973)
When the Waker Sleeps (175) (1975)
A Whiff of Madness (207)(1976)
The Wicked Cyborg (311) (1978)

Comments: Ron Goulart is one of the best SF humorists writing today, and his work goes back to the 70s. Much of his early (and funniest) work was published by DAW Books, and I have included the DAW Book Numbers. Unlike most publishers, they keep all their backlist in print and you can buy these by writing them and ordering by book number. Ron has written many other non-DAW books, but I don't know if you can find them. Check his listing under Amazon.com

------------------------------------------------

HARRY HARRISON

Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers (1973)
The Technicolor Time Machine (1967)

THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT SERIES

The Stainless Steel Rat (1961)
The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge (1970)
The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World (1972)
The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You! (1978)
The Stainless Steel Rat For President (1982)
A Stainless Steel Rat is Born (1985)
The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted (1988)
The Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues (1994)

BILL THE GALACTIC HERO SERIES

Bill, the Galactic Hero (1965)
The Planet of the Robot Slaves (1989) [#1]
The Planet of the Bottled Brains (1990) [#2]
The Planet of Tasteless Pleasures (1991) [#3]
The Planet of the Zombie Vampires (1991) [#4]
The Planet of Ten Thousand Bars (1991) [#5]
The Final Incoherent Adventure (1992) [#6]

Comments: Science fiction humor of high quality. Bill the Galactic Hero is a parody of Starship Troopers/Forever War and it is a gem.

------------------------------------------------

JODY LYNN NYE

Magic Touch

MYTHOLOGY SERIES

Mythology 101 (1990)
Mythology Abroad
Higher Mythology(1993)

Comments: There are leprechauns in the university library.

------------------------------------------------

NICK POLLOTTA & PHIL FOGLIO

Illegal Aliens

Comments: Invading aliens run afoul of some American street people.

LINKS

NICK POLLOTTA - BIBLIOGRAPHY

------------------------------------------------

ERIC FRANK RUSSELL

Men, Martians and Machines (1955)
Six Worlds Yonder (1958)
The Space Willies (1958)

Comments: The late Eric Frank Russell was one of the top SF writers of the Golden Age of the 50s, and when you read his humorous books, you'll see why. His other stuff is great, too.

LINKS

ERIC FRANK RUSSELL - THE FORGOTTEN MASTER

------------------------------------------------

MARK TWAIN

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)
Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven (1909)

Comments: Oldies but still funny.

-------------------------------------------------

CHRISTOPHER STASHEFF

THE WARLOCK SERIES

The Warlock in Spite of Himself (1969)
King Kobold Revived (1984)
The Warlock Unlocked (1982)
Escape Velocity (1983)
The Warlock Enraged (1985)
The Warlock Wandering (1986)
The Warlock is Missing (1986)
The Warlock Heretical (1987)
The Warlock's Companion (1988)
The Warlock Insane (1989)
The Warlock Rock (1990)
Warlock and Son (1991)

THE ROGUE WIZARD

A Wizard in Mind (1995)
A Wizard in Bedlam (1979)
A Wizard in War (1995)
A Wizard in Peace
A Wizard in Chaos
A Wizard in Midgard (1998)

THE WARLOCK'S HEIRS

A Wizard in Absentia (1993)
M'Lady Witch (1994)
Quicksilver's Knight (1995)

A WIZARD IN RHYME

Her Majesty's Wizard (1986)
The Oathbound Wizard (1993)
The Witch Doctor (1994)
The Secular Wizard (1994)
My Son the Wizard (1997)

Comments: The Wizard series started off light and whimical but has gotten increasingly "heavy" -- try the earlier ones if you can find them.

------------------------------------------------

FRITZ LEIBER

FAFHRD AND THE GRAY MOUSER

Swords and Deviltry (1970)
Swords Against Death (1970)
Swords in the Mist (1968)
Swords Against Wizardry (1968)
The Swords of Lankhmar (1968)
Swords and Ice Magic (1977)

Comments: Medieval fantasy with a light touch.

------------------------------------------------

TOM HOLT

Expecting Someone Taller (1987)
Flying Dutch (1992)
Who's Afraid of Beowulf?
Odds and Gods
Wish you were here
Grailblazers
Here comes the Sun
Overtime
Ye Gods!
Faust among Equals
Open Sesame
Paint your Dragon
My hero
Djinn Rummy

LUCIA SERIES

Lucia Triumphant
Lucia in Wartime

Comments: Very funny and entertaining. Very Pratchett-esque humour style. Some aren't up to the standard of others, though, so I recommend starting with "Odds and Gods" and "Faust Among Equals" in particular. For those who know about mythology, Odds and Gods is expecially recommended.

LINKS

TOM HOLT


Somehow he seems, in the States at least, to have gotten a little lost behind Terry Pratchett, which is a shame: he's a mightily amusing writer.

CRAIG SHAW GARDNER

THE EBENEZUM TRILOGY

A Malady of Magicks (1986)
A Multitude of Monsters (1986)
A Night in the Netherhells (1987)

THE BALLAD OF WUNTVOR

A Difficulty With Dwarves (1987)
An Excess of Enchantments (1988)
A Disagreement with Death (1989)

THE CINEVERSE CYCLE

Slaves of the Volcano God (1989)
Bride of the Slime Monster (1990)
Revenge of the Fluffy Bunnies (1990)

THE SINBAD SERIES

The Other Sinbad (1991)
A Bad Day for Ali Baba (1991)
Scheherazade's Night Out (1992)

Comments: The first two series are very Pratchett-like, the other two are much less so, but amusing.

LINKS

CRAIG SHAW GARDNER - BIBLIOGRAPHY

GRANT NAYLOR

RED DWARF

Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (1989)
Better Than Life (1993)

Comments: Adventures aboard the worst run spaceship in the galaxy. Very funny. The main characters are a cat that's evolved into a human, an android missing his sanity chip, a cowardly hologram, a less than adept computer, and the last surviving human in existance. Based on the BBC series.

LINKS

RED DWARF PILE O' SMEG - THE RED DWARF LINK PAGE

WELCOME TO RED DWARF

TERRY PRATCHETT

The Colour of Magic (1983)
The Light Fantastic (1986)
Equal Rites (1987)
Mort (1987)
Sourcrey (1988)
Wyrd Sisters (1988)
Pyramids (1989)
Guards! Guards! (1989)
Eric (1990)
Moving Pictures (1990)
Reaper Man (1991)
Witches Abroad (1991)
Small Gods (1992)
Lords and Ladies (1992)
Men at Arms (1993)
Soul Music (1994)
Interesting Times (1994)
Maskerade (1995)
Feet of Clay (1996)
Hogfather (1996)
Jingo (1997)
The Last Continent (1998)
Carpe Jugulum (1998)
The Fifth Elephant

Truckers
Diggers
Wings

The Carpet People (1991)
Good Omens (1990)
Strata (1981)
The Dark Side of the Sun (1976)
The Unadulterated Cat (1991)

Only You Can Save Mankind (1992)
Johnny and the Dead (1991)
Johnny and the Bomb (1996)

Comments: Well, this page was originally set up to list 'authors similar to Terry Pratchett' so that fact alone should tell you my opinion of his work! Though, now i've found that some people don't know who Terry Pratchett is, therefore I've added his works into the list. The Discworld series are his most famous works, and are extremely funny and entertaining, and highly recommended. The Discworld is a world resting on the back of four giant elephants, standing on the back of a turtle. As the description of it might suggest - reality tends to wear a little thin there, and therefore magic runs havoc everywhere! Adventures, naturally, can be found at every turn!
His other series' are also humourous, though it should be noted that the Trucker's trilogy are more for younger readers.

LINKS

BUGARUP STUDENT UNIVERSITY GUILD

DISCWORLD FROM THE BROTHERHOOD

DISCWORLD MONTHLY

THE L-SPACE WEB

WYRD SISTER'S DISCWORLD PAGE

ROBERT SHECKLEY

Can You Feel Anything When I Do This? (1971)
Citizen in Space (1955)
Immortality, Inc. (1959)
Is THAT What People Do? (1984)
Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962)
Notions: Unlimited (1960)
Options (1975)
The People Trap (1968)
Pilgrimage to Earth (1957)
The Robot Who Looked Like Me (1978)
Shards of Space (1962)
The Status Civilization (1960)
Untouched by Human Hands (1954)
Godshome (1999)

Comments: Robert Sheckley is the acknowledged king of the humorous SF short story. These collections contain the best of his work.

LINKS

ROBERT SHECKLEY

ROBERT SHECKLEY'S ALMOST OFFICIAL HOMEPAGE

------------------------------------------------

ROBERT SHECKLEY & ROGER ZELAZNY

Bring Me the head of Prince Charming (1991)
If at Faust You Don't Succeed (1993)
A Farce to Be Beckoned With (1995)

James Bibby

Unfair to Tom Holt, who has been at it as long as Terry P. and writes in a very different vein - more the interruption of the fantastical into our world (thus an inversion of the standard Fantasy trope of an Earther at the court of the Dark Lord). In Open Sesame it’s the turn of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, who cross the Line that divides our world from Storyland, and land in Southampton. There’s a bandit called Akram who without the constraints of his story is able to go straight and show Ali Baba for the villain he is; there’s a girl called Michelle who was raised by domestic appliances; and there’s a Fairy Godfather who grants people wishes they can’t refuse - which works better than it sounds.

Andrew Harmans A Midsummer Night’s Gene is more of a madcap chase than Holt’s brand of feelgood humour. It takes place in a provincial university town called Camford: Harman tends to half-joky names, like an inspector called Everett Ness and an organisation called the Search for Offworld Friendly Aliens (SOFA; compare the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI). Doctor Striebley of Splice of Life Patentable Biosciences is searching for the gene for chicken-flavour corn, but something greyskinned and with oval eyes has other ideas. Then those same somethings make off with Ness’s daughter Tara. A lot of improbable things happen very quickly: which is the nature of this kind of humorous Fantasy, and the good stuff doesn’t make your sense of disbelief go ‘spung’.

 The sense of disbelief is, as his fans will attest, not a problem with Robert Rankin. From his debut with The Antipope in 1981 he has perpetrated a series of ever more improbable and bizarre novels, the first few taking place in a London that would be magical-realist if it were not so plain weird, and the very latest introducing elements of alleged autobiography. The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag involves a narrator who may be a private detective called Lazlo Woodbine, or Billy Barnes who wants to control Necrosoft, the company marketing a virtual afterlife, or someone else entirely. Reality is a matter of viewpoint, as in the urban legend involving the novelist Johnny Quinn whom everyone claims to have read and admired but nobody can ever lay hands on one of the books. Then there’s that Voodoo Handbag, and the voodoo loa analogues lurking in cyberspace: so far, so Neuromancer, but that’s by no means all there is to it. Rankin’s fascination with Forteana and weird religions puts his own spin on the story.

Then there is James Bibby’s Ronan’s Revenge, the third book about Ronan the Barbarian, parodying Conan and his imitators. Along with a heroic-rescue plot set in a fairly standard Fantasyland there is a goodly helping of jokes. Some of them unfortunately do need the language of Fantasyland to be modern English (e.g. a character called Wayta who gets annoyed when he thinks restaurant customers are calling him), and then there’s the orc stand-up comic called Beneltin... it also brings in genetics (in a Heroic Fantasy? Well, there’s got to be first time) and nicely unpleasant villains.

Esther Friesner
Craig Shaw Gardner
James Finn Garner, the author of the delightful Politically Correct series.

Politically Correct Bedtime Stories
Once Upon a More Enlightened Time
Politically Correct Holiday Stories
Andrew Harman
Tom Holt
Bibliography
An excerpt from My Hero
A fan page
Tom Holt does filk
My favorite book: Flying Dutch
Christopher Moore
Practical Demon Keeping: A Comedy of Horrors
Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story
Coyote Blue : A Novel
Island of the Sequined Love Nun
Terry Pratchett
Robert Rankin
Michael Marshall Smith
Before & After by Matthew Thomas

Some of the above, notably Piers Anthony and Esther Friesner, have done more serious fantasy also, and even science fiction. Other writers who have done occasional comic fantasy novels among much other writing are:

Neil Gaiman
      (Good Omens)
A target="_blank" href="http://xochi.tezcat.com/~josephb/lit/gentle/"Mary Gentle,
Grunts
Robert Sheckley
Norman Spinrad,
The Iron Dream
Kurt Vonnegut,
The Sirens of Titan
Connie Willis
Review of the Nebula Award Nominee Bellwether
Review of the Hugo Nominee,
Remake
Roger Zelazny
Recommended book I haven't read yet, Sewer, Gas and Electric by Matt Ruff.
Also, Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy, a collection of short stories.

Movies

Some favorites that I remember first are:

Young Frankenstein
Time Bandits
The Brave Little Toaster
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Princess Bride
The Little Shop of Horrors
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Wes wants me to include all of the Indiana Jones movies. What do you think?

The most popular writer of Humorous Fantasy is probably Sergio Argones. Who you ask? Sergio is the creator of the comic book Groo the Wanderer. Groo is a mighty barbarian who does not know the meaning of the word fear, or indeed any other word of more than three letters. Try it, you'll like it.


Peter David
      (q-in-law)

Space Merchants
by Frederick Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth
St. Martin's Press, 1983 (out of print)

The Merchants' War
by Frederick Pohl
St. Martin's Press, 1984 (out of print)

Why do I write satire? Ask, instead, how can I help it?
-- Juvenal

Science fiction writers are often credited with predicting inventions, as when Arthur C. Clarke originated the idea of communication satellites. But most of science fiction is not about predicting technological developments, but social ones: the impact of science on human life, and the extrapolation of social trends themselves. And some of those predictions can be more amazingly accurate than Clarke's communication network.

In 1905, H.M. Forster wrote a short story called The Machine Stops, in which he described a society where everyone lived in isolated underground cubicles, totally dependent on a great machine for communication, entertainment, and delivery of all supplies including air. There is now a group in Seattle offering addiction treatment to people who have reached this stage of dependency on the Internet. Tim Harris recently sent me their address.

In 1983, Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth wrote a science fiction novel in which great multi-national advertising companies have replaced government and most other social institutions. Advertising is the media and the media is advertising: the songs people hum on the streets are ad jingles. "News reports" are straight propaganda and sales messages, and few people stop to analyze them. Corporations take over the personal loyalties that used to go to churches, clubs, clans, or sports teams: most people graduate from school into a corporate job and stay with the same corporation until death. Corporate wars are passionate and very physical -- there may be shootouts on the company steps.

In the first book, a bright young man named Mitchell Courtenay is rising promisingly in the company hierarchy when he stumbles -- and in learning the downside of his chrome-plated culture, he becomes involved with the subversive (activist) element seeking to overthrow the corporations.

In the second book, Tennison Tarb, another bright young man rising high in the heirarchy, stumbles when on returning from an assignment on Venus he enters a "Commercial Zone" saturated with intense stimuli that induce an instant, unbreakable addiction to the drink "Mokie-Koke" and he becomes a social pariah. He was supposed to know better. Didn't he read the warning sign?

Tennison becomes involved with both a group trying to take over the corporations and a group trying to overthrow them, and ultimately takes a third way out -- telling the people the truth.

Some of the extremes of this satire have been avoided. We don't have physical corporate shootouts yet. We still have some content between commercials. And we managed to derail tobacco marketing to children before we got to the point of issuing Kiddiebutt rations in school lunchpails.

But we have the WTO, corporations overriding government. We have news run as a marketing project and advertising presented as "news." Have you ever listened to a debate between the followers of Macintosh and the followers of IBM? Or heard a "blame the victim" argument that excuses not doing anything for alcohol or drug rehabilitation?

Maybe telling the people the truth only works to change things in science fiction novels. But we publish Real Change because we think otherwise.

And one way to keep your hopes up and be entertained in the process is to dig back through old science fiction novels. Find out how sharply the grand old writers observed our society -- and what they thought could be done about it.

WANDERING STARS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF JEWISH FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION


A good place to start reading in this area is the fine book 
"Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction", 
edited by Jack Dann, with an introduction by Isaac Asimov, 
New York: Harper & Row, 1974.  This book contains the 
following stories:

"On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi", William Tenn, (c) 1974 by William Tenn
     [Milchik, the TV repairman, speaks for all Jews on Venus and in the 
     Universe]

"The Golem", Avram Davidson, (c) 1955 by Fantasy House, Inc.
     [The legend of the Golem is transposed to California]

"Unto the Fourth Generation", Isaac Asimov, (c) 1959 by Mercury Press
     [An assimilated New York Jew is reminded of his ancestral roots]

"Look, You Think You've Got Troubles", Carol Carr, (c) 1969 by Damon Knight
     [a nice Jewish girl marries a Martian.  Is he the ultimate goy, or 
     what?]

"Goslin Day", Avram Davidson, (c) 1970 by Damon Knight
     [Hobgoblin, changeling, or thief from the dead world of magic?]

"The Dybbuk of Mazel Tov IV", Robert Silverberg, (c) 1974 by Robert Silverberg
     [The Dybbuk, in medieval legend, is a wndering ghost that takes 
     possession of the body of a living human being.  Could they be real?]

"The Trouble With Water", Horace L. Gold, (c) 1939 by Street & Smith
     [Why did Herman Greenberg's wife Esther emerge satisfied from the 
     shower, and why will water not touch Herman at all -- could it relate 
     the the water-gnome in the lake whose hat Herman would not return?]

"Gather Blue Roses", Pamela Sargent, (c) 1971 by Mercury Press
     [Imagistic story about the children of the holocaust]

"The Jewbird", Bernard Malamud, from "Idiots First" by Bernard Malamud, 
     (c) 1963 by Bernard Malamud
     [a famous story by a famous writer, about the tragic but funny Jewbird 
     and his suffering from "Anti-Semeets"]

"Paradise Lost", George Alec Effinger, (c) 1974 by George Alec Effinger
     [an original satire about Jews, in which no Jews appear]

"Street of Dreams, Feet of Clay", Robert Sheckley, (c) 1968 by Robert 
      Sheckley, from "Galaxy Magazine", reprinted by permission of the 
      author and the author's agent, Sterling Lord Agency, Inc.
      [a high-tech city is the ultimate Jewish Mother]

"Jachid and Jechidah", Isaac Bashevis Singer, reprinted with the permission 
     of Farrar Strauss & Giroux, Inc., from "Short Friday" by Isaac Bashevis Singer,
     (c) 1964 by Isaac Bashevis Singer
     [an iconoclastic story by a famous author, vividly skeptical about 
     the afterlife]

"I'm Looking for Kadak", Harlan Ellison, (c) 1974 by Harlan Ellison
     [a non-human can still be a Jew, and can still speak so much Yiddish 
     that Harlan Ellison appends a glossary to this story]

Robert Weinberg