The four reprints run the gamut from the innocence and experimentation of the sixties and seventies (Silverberg’s “The Reality Trip” and Delany’s “Aye, and Gomorrah…”) to radical feminism as a political force (Ings’s “Grand Prix”) to right-wing fanatics who long to, and who have the power to, turn back the clock on sexual freedom (Hand’s “In the Month of Athyr”).
In general, I have found that most of the material submitted to both anthologies was tinged with a paranoid view of male-female relations. What’s especially interesting is that both men and women are looking at the issue with jaundiced eyes. As for the stories that actually have aliens in them (by Susan Wade and Roberta Lannes), the question arises: how can we know what aliens want when we can’t even agree on what humans want from each other in a relationship? There are some lighter-hearted stories here, but again, as in Alien Sex, most share a dim view of the present and near future as we fumble toward an answer to the question “what do women/men want?” Martha Soukup’s, Gwnyneth Jones’s, and Lisa Tuttle’s stories seem to indicate that women want just what men think they want—power as symbolized by the penis and the beard. Or perhaps women don’t know what they want. The stories are disturbing and seem to ask whether men and women can ever communicate? Or will we all remain alien to each other? Let’s hope that this fictional analysis of the problems confronting male-female relations leads to reconciliation in real life.
The Reality Trip
ROBERT SILVERBERG
Robert Silverberg is the author of more than a hundred science fiction and fantasy novels, including the bestselling Lord Valentine trilogy and the classics Dying Inside and A Time of Changes. During a career spanning five decades, he has won five Nebula awards and four Hugo awards for his work. Silverberg has also edited dozens of anthologies, including the groundbreaking New Dimensions science fiction series, the bestselling fantasy anthology Legends, and Far Horizons, the science fiction companion volume to Legends.
Silverberg was named Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 2004.
I AM A RECLAMATION project for her. She lives on my floor of the hotel, a dozen rooms down the halclass="underline" a lady poet, private income. No, that makes her sound too old, a middle-aged eccentric. Actually she is no more than thirty. Taller than I am, with long kinky brown hair and a sharp, bony nose that has a bump on the bridge. Eyes are very glossy. A studied raggedness about her dress; carefully chosen shabby clothes. I am in no position really to judge the sexual attractiveness of Earthfolk but I gather from remarks made by men living here that she is not considered good-looking. I pass her often on my way to my room. She smiles fiercely at me. Saying to herself, no doubt, You poor lonely man. Let me help you bear the burden of your unhappy life. Let me show you the meaning of love, for I too know what it is like to be alone.
Or words to that effect. She’s never actually said any such thing. But her intentions are transparent. When she sees me, a kind of hunger comes into her eyes, part maternal, part (I guess) sexual, and her face takes on a wild crazy intensity. Burning with emotion. Her name is Elizabeth Cooke. “Are you fond of poetry, Mr. Knecht?” she asked me this morning, as we creaked upward together in the ancient elevator. And an hour later she knocked at my door. “Something for you to read,” she said. “I wrote them.” A sheaf of large yellow sheets, stapled at the top; poems printed in smeary blue mimeography. The Reality Trip, the collection was headed. Limited Edition: 125 Copies. “You can keep it if you like,” she explained. “I’ve got lots more.” She was wearing bright corduroy slacks and a flimsy pink shawl through which her breasts plainly showed. Small tapering breasts, not very functional-looking. When she saw me studying them her nostrils flared momentarily and she blinked her eyes three times swiftly. Tokens of lust?
I read the poems. Is it fair for me to offer judgment on them? Even though I’ve lived on this planet eleven of its years, even though my command of colloquial English is quite good, do I really comprehend the inner life of poetry? I thought they were all quite bad. Earnest, plodding poems, capturing what they call slices of life. The world around her, the cruel, brutal, unloving city. Lamenting the failure of the people to open to one another. The title poem began this way:
He was on the reality trip. Big black man, bloodshot eyes, bad teeth. Eisenhower jacket, frayed. Smell of cheap wine. I guess a knife in his pocket. Looked at me mean. Criminal record. Rape, child-beating, possession of drugs. In his head saying, slavemistress bitch, and me in my head saying, black brother, let’s freak in together, let’s trip on love—
And so forth. Warm, direct emotion; but is the urge to love all wounded things a sufficient center for poetry? I don’t know. I did put her poems through the scanner and transmit them to Home-world, although I doubt they’ll learn much from them about Earth. It would flatter Elizabeth to know that while she has few readers here, she has acquired some ninety light-years away. But of course I can’t tell her that.
She came back a short while ago. “Did you like them?” she asked.
“Very much. You have such sympathy for those who suffer.”
I think she expected me to invite her in. I was careful not to look at her breasts this time.
The hotel is on West 23rd Street. It must be over a hundred years old; the façade is practically baroque and the interior shows a kind of genteel decay. The place has a bohemian tradition. Most of its guests are permanent residents and many of them are artists, novelists, playwrights, and such. I have lived here nine years. I know a number of the residents by name, and they me, but I have discouraged any real intimacy, naturally, and everyone has respected that choice. I do not invite others into my room. Sometimes I let myself be invited to visit theirs, since one of my responsibilities on this world is to get to know something of the way Earthfolk live and think. Elizabeth is the first to attempt to cross the invisible barrier of privacy I surround myself with. I’m not sure how I’ll handle that. She moved in about three years ago; her attentions became noticeable perhaps ten months back, and for the last five or six weeks she’s been a great nuisance. Some kind of confrontation is inevitable: either I must tell her to leave me alone, or I will find myself drawn into a situation impossible to tolerate. Perhaps she’ll find someone else to feel even sorrier for, before it comes to that.
My daily routine rarely varies. I rise at seven. First Feeding. Then I clean my skin (my outer one, the Earthskin, I mean) and dress. From eight to ten I transmit data to Homeworld. Then I go out for the morning field trip: talking to people, buying newspapers, often some library research. At one I return to my room. Second Feeding. I transmit data from two to five. Out again, perhaps to the theater, to a motion picture, to a political meeting. I must soak up the flavor of this planet. Often to saloons; I am equipped for ingesting alcohol, though of course I must get rid of it before it has been in my body very long, and I drink and listen and sometimes argue. At midnight back to my room. Third Feeding. Transmit data from one to four in the morning. Then three hours of sleep, and at seven the cycle begins anew. It is a comforting schedule. I don’t know how many agents Homeworld has on Earth, but I like to think that I’m one of the most diligent and useful. I miss very little. I’ve done good service, and, as they say here, hard work is its own reward. I won’t deny that I hate the physical discomfort of it and frequently give way to real despair over my isolation from my own kind. Sometimes I even think of asking for a transfer to Homeworld. But what would become of me there? What services could I perform? I have shaped my life to one end: that of dwelling among the Earthfolk and reporting on their ways. If I give that up, I am nothing.