Paper
Picks: Pamela Sargent
Selected
Hardcovers and Paperbacks
|
 |
The
Mountain Cage
Hardcover (June 2002)
Also in Paperback
Reviews:
"Pamela Sargent brings consummate skill and deft coloring
to every instrument in the speculative-fiction orchestra:
the mischievous piccolo of social satire, the brooding
oboe of moral fable, the glittering trumpet of world building,
the intricate strings of extrapolation, the thundering
drums of alternative history. She 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
"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
"I have been a fan of Pamela Sargent's
since the first story I read of hers. I enthusiastically
accepted it for publication. It appeared in March 1972,
in New Worlds 204. In the same issue were Thomas M.
Disch, M. John Harrison, Charles Platt, Keith Roberts,
Brian Aldiss, John Sladek, Christopher Priest, Hilary
Bailey, Jack Dann and George Zebrowski.
Of the relatively few women writers we were able to
find in those days, Pamela Sargent was undoubtedly one
of the best. While she has not been a highly prolific
writer, like many in that issue, she has been a writer
of quality since she began. Her ambitions, her attention
to language, her unique imagination, all make her a
writer whose longevity is guaranteed!
Her delicacy of touch does not disguise the muscularity
of her ideas. Discriminating readers -- who are also
in many cases her peers -- certainly admire her. She
writes memorable fiction. Perhaps typically she is celebrated
for her most approachable but not her finest work.
Her finest short work is published here at last. In it
she shows she is as capable of handling tragedy as comedy,
of bringing her own brand of modernism to a genre unfairly
starved of interesting characters and relationships, of
considered prose.
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 takes her time (she and I might hold a record for
delayed sequels...) but she is always worth waiting for.
She is one of the best.
These stories have sudden, unexpected sunshine amongst
their shadows, unexpected clouds rising over tranquil
horizons. They will entertain you, they will move you
-- and they will certainly surprise you. Pamela Sargent
(did i mention this before?) is one of the best." --Michael
Moorcock
"There's a lot to like in these stories.
They are intelligent, thoughtful, well-written, surprising,
often funny. Best of all, they are genuine science fiction.
Too often nowadays science fiction seems to me a matter
of space age backdrops and gimmicks. But Sargent writes
the real thing -- "what if" and "this
goes on" stories that are actually about ideas.
It's hard for me to pick a favorite idea -- cats discovering
branching universes, aliens stealing chateaux. (The
mood of the latter story -- the flat out, inexplicable
strangeness -- reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke in Rendezvous
With Rama.) I'm awfully fond of the Dan Quayle and Hillary
Rodham stories. I'm crazy about "All Rights,"
but then I'm a midlist genre author, and it's true,
it's all true, except for the happy parts. "The
Sleeping Serpent" is good, solid alternative history.
"The Dream of Venus" is good, solid future
history. "The Summer's Dust" is creepy, as
it should be. It is scary childhood SF in the tradition
of Ray Bradbury.
Instead of standing in the bookstore and reading my words,
why don't you buy this book and read Pamela's words? It
will be money well-spent and it will remind you why you
like science fiction." --Eleanor Arnason
|
|
|
