Thumbprints
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PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF PAMELA SARGENT
“Sargent is a sensitive writer of characterization rather than cosmic gimmickry.”
—Publishers Weekly
“One of the genre’s greatest writers.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“Pamela Sargent is an explorer, an innovator. She’s always a few years ahead of the pack.”
—David Brin, award-winning author of the Uplift Saga
“Over the years, I’ve come to expect a great deal from Pamela Sargent. Her worlds are deeply and thoroughly imagined.”
—Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game
“Pamela Sargent’s cool, incisive eye is as sharp at long range, visionary tales as it is when inspecting our foreground future. She’s one of our best.”
—Gregory Benford, astrophysicist and author of Foundation’s Fear
“If you have not read Pamela Sargent, then you should make it your business to do so at once. She is in many ways a pioneer, both as a novelist and as a short story writer. … She is one of the best.”
—Michael Moorcock, author of Elric of Melniboné
“[Sargent is] a consummate professional [who] exhibits an unswerving consistency of craft.”
—The Washington Post Book World
Alien Child
“An excellent piece of work—the development of the mystery … is well done. Ms. Sargent’s work … is always of interest and this book adds to her stature as a writer.”
—Andre Norton, author of the Solar Queen series
“Count on Pamela Sargent to write a science fiction novel that is both entertaining and true to human emotion. I wish I had had this book when I was a teen because all the loneliness, all the alienation, all the apartness I felt from my family would have made more sense.”
—Jane Yolen, author of The Devil’s Arithmetic and Cards of Grief
“This story of Nita, a girl growing up in an insulated environment where she gradually comes to realize that she might be the last person left on Earth, has conflict and suspense from the beginning. … Vividly depicted.”
—School Library Journal
“This finely crafted work never falters with false resolution. … An honest and compelling examination of ‘What if …?’”
—Publishers Weekly
“An engaging narrative in Sargent’s capable hands. An essence of otherworldliness is present in the gentle guardians, and since Sven and Nita are raised solely by the two aliens, there is a freshness in their perceptions of their own species. … Clearly and simply presented—thoughtful—a worthy addition to any SF collection.”
—Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)
“Sargent does not lower her standards when she writes young adult fiction. Like the best of young adult writers, her artistic standards remain as high as ever, while her standards of clarity and concision actually rise. … The intelligence and resourcefulness she showed in The Shore of Women are undiminished in Alien Child.”
—Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game
“Thoughtful, serious, and written without condescension, the novel contains all of the qualities we have come to expect from this author.”
—Science Fiction Chronicle
The Golden Space
“Pamela Sargent deals with big themes—genetic engineering, immortality, the ultimate fate of humanity—but she deals with them in the context of individual human lives. The Golden Space reminds me of Olaf Stapledon in the breadth of its vision, and of Kate Wilhelm in its ability to make characters, even humans in the strangest forms, seem like real people.”
—James Gunn, writer and director of the film Guardians of the Galaxy
“Clearly, The Golden Space is a major intellectual achievement of SF literature. It will not be possible for any honest story of immortality hereafter to ignore it; it is a landmark.”
—The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
“Brilliantly handled—all of us have got to hand an accolade to the author.”
—A. E. van Vogt, author of The World of Null-A
“Sargent writes well, the many ideas are fresh, and their handling is intelligent to the extreme.”
—Asimov’s Science Fiction
“What next, after universal immortality becomes a fact of life? Pamela Sargent’s brilliant book, The Golden Space, shatters the imaginative barrier that has held stories about immortality to a simplistic pasticcio of boredom, degeneration, and suicide.”
—The Seattle Times
The Mountain Cage
“[Sargent] is one of our field’s true virtuosos, and in The Mountain Cage: and Other Stories she gives us thirteen stunning performances, a valuable addition to a repertoire that I hope will keep on growing.”
—James Morrow, author of Only Begotten Daughter
The Shore of Women
“That rare creature, a perfect book.”
—Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game
“A cautionary tale, well-written, with excellent characterization, a fine love story, as well as much food for thought … An elegant science fiction novel.”
—Anne McCaffrey, author of the Pern series
“Pamela Sargent gives meticulous attention to a believable scenario. … A captivating tale both from the aspect of the lessons that the author tries to impart and from the skills she has used to tell it.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“How many perfect science fiction novels have I read? Not many. There are at most three or four such works in a decade. Pamela Sargent’s The Shore of Women is one of the few perfect novels of the 1980s. … Her story of a woman exiled from a safe high-tech city of women, the man ordered by the gods to kill her, and their search for a place of safety, is powerful, beautiful, and true.”
—The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
“A compelling and emotionally involving novel.”
—Publishers Weekly
“I applaud Ms. Sargent’s ambition and admire the way she has unflinchingly pursued the logic of her vision.”
—The New York Times
Ruler of the Sky
“This formidably researched and exquisitely written novel is surely destined to be known hereafter as the definitive history of the life and times and conquests of Genghis, mightiest of Khans.”
—Gary Jennings, bestselling author of Aztec
“Scholarly without ever seeming pedantic, the book is fascinating from cover to cover and does admirable justice to a man who might very well be called history’s single most important character.”
—Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, anthropologist and author of Reindeer Moon
Child of Venus
“Masterful … as in previous books, Sargent brings her world to life with sympathetic characters and crisp concise language.”
—Publishers Weekly
Thumbprints
Pamela Sargent
For John Douglas
For his editing
and for his friendship in hard times
“How Sargent Peppers Phony Arts Dubbed Grand”
Yes, I know, it’s maddening. You shell out good money to travel millions of miles from your home world to the Pamela Sargent Labyrinth of Literary Delights – in some cases, you even hopped from one spiral arm of the Via Galactica to the other – and then you find your way through the maze to the Thumbprints Museum, and what’s the first thing that happens to you? You get herded into this stuffy rotunda by a gnomish little tour guide who proceeds to bark orders at you. But that’s how we do things on t
he Planet of Irreproachable Priorities. If you want to be treated like royalty, go take a goddamn cruise.
So as I was saying: turn off your cell phones, disconnect your pagers, throw away your coffee cups, and inform your children that for the next three hours no one is interested in their opinions about anything. I’m more than happy to lead you through the Thumbprints Museum – I’m even willing to share my knowledge of the Pamela Sargent Labyrinth in general – but, hey, folks, no docent should have to waste his breath competing with a lot of bleeping and slurping and whining, right?
Please step this way.
Our first exhibit is inspired by “Thumbprints” itself, that sardonic deconstruction of the American publishing industry in the early years of the twenty-first century. Go ahead, don’t be shy, walk right up and press your thumb against the big red sensor. In a matter of nanoseconds the emanations will travel from your epidermis to your brain, and after the prognostic analysis is complete the screen will display ... wait a minute, madam, the computer already has a prediction for you! Evidently you have what it takes to crank out a murder mystery. And you, sir – it appears you’ve got a horror novel in you. And you over there with the false eyelashes and the superfluous makeup – you may very well be a romance writer in embryo.
If you’ll permit me to lapse into French, “Thumbprints” is a tour de force of the roman à clef. Today, of course, the story also seems rather prophetic, having accurately, if obliquely, predicted that Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, for all its critical laurels and commercial success, would fail to entrance subsequent generations of readers, most of whom were not particularly interested in misanthropic autobiographical venom disguised as social satire. Indeed, Sargent’s talent for deflating unearned literary nihilism and strafing received aesthetic wisdom is one of the enduring rewards of her oeuvre. You might say that Sargent peppers phony arts dubbed grand.
In the next gallery we have a tribute to “Out of Place,” the largest terrarium to be found anywhere on our world. Catopia, the boss calls it, and at any given time we have between ten and twelve felines in residence, each with a transceiver implanted in its cortex. Merely slip on the headphones, and you’ll hear the animals’ thoughts ... well, not their thoughts exactly, these are cats – you’ll hear a litany of complaints. Why don’t they make the sunlamps hotter? Why won’t they give us more canned food instead of this dry crap? Why can’t they stick in a few more newly upholstered chairs?
If you’ve read “Out of Place,” you know that cats aren’t above making personal remarks, so try not to ... oh, dear, oh, dear, I’m sorry, sir. The Siamese had no cause to pass such a judgment on your wife’s physiognomy. Try to understand – we always intended this installation to be nothing but fun, though naturally we can’t control the malice factor entirely.
Moving right along ... in this salon we have an homage to my personal favorite among Sargent’s humorous stories, “Shrinker,” that wry extrapolation from Richard Matheson’s homunculus classic. This dollhouse is a hands-on exhibit – don’t be afraid to poke and prod. See, the little shower emits a stream of hot water, and that’s an actual live television broadcast there on the tiny plasma screen. You could warm a cup of sake on the miniature stove.
Turn the corner, and – voilà – there it is, our triptych honoring the Temujin cycle. How many of you have read the novel Ruler of the Sky? Yes, madam, I agree, the film adaptation was a disaster. They took out most of the tough-minded feminism and threw in a lot of pointless battle scenes. Okay, sure, the movie wasn’t half as bad as that Omar Sharif vehicle called Genghis Khan, and it was a masterpiece compared with Howard Hughes’s The Conqueror, but Sargent still deserved better.
On your left you’ll see the funerary monument that Brendellini carved after reading “Spirit Brother.” Two human figures, rendered in the finest Clastrelpian marble, supine atop the two-ton granite sarcophagus, Temujin on the right, his blood brother Jamukha on the left. Note the melding of their temples ... the intertwining of their fingers ... the tangent of their thighs. I imagine Jamukha would have loved this piece. I’m not so sure about Temujin.
On the right, meanwhile, we find Falconetti’s acclaimed sculpture called Erdeni’s Tiger, inspired by the haunting story of the same name. Art critics have praised Falconetti’s decision to carve the tiger-demon in crysalinium – not an obvious choice for rendering the metaphysical, but in Falconetti’s hands the medium proved as pliable as liquid mercury. For Erdeni, meanwhile, Falconetti chose pressure-treated fluxanium, ideal for subliminally conveying the shaman’s inner conflict.
By now you’ve figured out that our central Temujin installation spins off from “Climb the Wind” – a dozen audio-animatronics horses suspended in midair, waiting for you to mount them. Go right ahead, ladies and gentlemen. Haul yourselves into the saddles. That’s the idea, madam. And now the horses begin to gallop ... and now you feel the galactic wind in your face ... and now the stars come out. It’s easy to understand why the protagonist hoped the ride would last forever – why he never again wanted to be just another tourist stranded in Ulan Bator.
Anybody hungry? Step into this alcove and you’ll find our famous snack bar, Antoine’s Aliments. The recipes all come from “Originals,” that clever meditation on the need of every serious artist – culinary, literary, or otherwise – to be appreciated beyond his own backyard. I particularly recommend the cauliflower soup. The poulet persillade is also first rate.
Now that we’ve had lunch, let me suggest that we visit another planet. It’s directly down the hall, our attempt to actualize the virtual-reality diorama from “Venus Flowers at Night.” Put your face right against the glass. Plastic trees? No, madam, those plants are growing. Clockwork hawks? Believe it or not, sir, they’re real, genetically engineered for flight and predation.
Sidle into the gallery to your left, and you’ll recognize the lake from “Amphibians.” So far we’ve raised thirty-four generations of turtles here. At first we tried to get away with sunlamps, but the reptiles refused to climb onto the logs and warm themselves, so we had to add the skylight. Maybe some of you would like to pause here for a few minutes and commune with the turtles, as Lillian’s father does in Sargent’s poignant, lyrical story.
Our tour ends with three deceptively simple exhibits, as befits the spare, poetic, elliptical tales they celebrate. The figures are all rendered in ephemerium, and so I must ask you to keep your hands in your pockets.
Over here we have a tableau depicting the first meeting of the boy and girl who will become the happy couple in “If Ever I Should Leave You.” Hovering in the background: a veiled presence, holding an hourglass aloft. In case you haven’t read the story I won’t reveal who or what this third party represents.
On your left you’ll see the unnamed narrator of “Gather Blue Roses,” standing erect, forcing a smile, coping as best she can with her pathological empathy. Some critics have argued that the sculptor – Falconetti again – should have found a subtler way to represent the protagonist’s congenital sensitivity to other people’s pain: those half-dozen knives suspended within inches of her flesh, they’re a bit much perhaps? I disagree. I believe the knives are a perfect choice. For the rose gatherer this must be exactly how life feels.
And finally, on your right, another image of isolation: Kaeti, the protagonist of “Utmost Bones,” standing alone on the desiccated wasteland that planet Earth has become. The geodesic dome suspended above her head – that’s the Net of Minds, of course, each node flashing with a different set of downloaded memories, whispers from a once embodied consciousness. “All oases were within” – forgive my histrionics, but the last line never fails to move me – “all oases were within, secret meeting places bright and green, where beings without bones swam in lakes of glass, surrounded by the night of faint hurrying galaxies.”
So that’s it, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit. On your way out, you might want to stop by the gift shop, under the sign of the Golden Gryph
on. You’ll find every imaginable souvenir – Temujin coffee mugs, Venus key rings, Net of Minds T-shirts, Alvin and Meowser dollhouses, “Out of Place” talking-animal calendars. Yes, I know, such merchandise has little to do with science fiction and fantasy literature, but don’t forget that our profits keep the books in print – Cloned Lives, The Sudden Star, The Golden Space, Earthseed, The Alien Upstairs, The Shore of Women, Ruler of the Sky, the “Watchstar” trilogy, the “Venus” trilogy, the Women of Wonder anthologies, the short story collections. Better to embarrass a valuable writer with vulgarity, I say, than to insult her with obscurity. We don’t pretend to be paragons of good taste. No one calls us the Fixed Star of Subtle Marketing Strategies. We’re merely the Planet of Irreproachable Priorities. It’s a label we wear proudly. Please come again.
James Morrow
Gather Blue Roses
I cannot remember ever having asked my mother outright about the tattooed numbers. We must have known very early that we should not ask; perhaps my brother Simon or I had said something inadvertently as very small children and had seen the look of sorrow on her face at the statement; perhaps my father had told us never to ask.
Of course, we were always aware of the numbers. There were those times when the weather was particularly warm, and my mother would not button her blouse at the top, and she would lean over to hug us or pick us up, and we would see them written across her, an inch above her breasts.
(By the time I reached my adolescence, I had heard all the horror stories about the death camps and the ovens; about those who had to remove gold teeth from the bodies; the women used, despite the Reich’s edicts, by the soldiers and guards. I then regarded my mother with ambivalence, saying to myself, I would have died first, I would have found some way rather than suffering such dishonor, wondering what had happened to her and what secret sins she had on her conscience, and what she had done to survive. An old man, a doctor, had said to me once, “The best ones of us died, the most honorable, the most sensitive.” And I would thank God I had been born in 1949; there was no chance that I was the daughter of a Nazi rape.)