Swift Thoughts
by George Zebrowski
(Golden Gryphon Press, $24.95, 311 pages, hardcover; 2002.)
Author introductions and afterwords can backfire.
When well done, they provide new insight into a writer or  the
writer's work. Or they can entertain, or provide context. But one thing
authors should never do when discussing their own work is brag. They
should never try too hard to convince their readers about the greatness
of their literary genius. Rather, they should let the fiction do the
talking.
A case in point is George Zebrowski's Swift Thoughts, a collection
of recent and classic science-fiction stories. Zebrowski is an interesting
writer who obviously puts a lot of thought behind his stories, most
of which are dense, idea-packed thought experiments.
Not all of these stories are successful -- some of them are a bit too
dry to involve the reader, but others are quite good, especially when
Zebrowski unfurls his sardonic wit, for example, in "The Word Sweep"
and "Stooges". At their weakest, Zebrowski's stories reveal an unquestioned
adherence to the scientific worldview of "progress" and anthropocentrism
that reduces his intellectual enterprise to blind propaganda.
For example, the story "In the Distance, and Ahead in Time", which
purports to champion
respect of other lifeforms, limits its scope to humanlike sentience
and dismisses other animals as so much biological matter.
Unfortunately, after each story, Zebrowski describes all the clever
and intelligent things he did in the story we just read, just to make
sure readers don't overlook how intelligent and clever he is. In addition,
he quotes at length friends and reviewers who have hyperbolically praised
these stories. It's all very embarrassing, condescending, and tasteless.
If the writer himself doesn't believe his stories are strong enough
to convince without argument, why should we?
Originally published The Montreal Gazette,
Saturday, 13 July 2002.
Claude Lalumière's Fantastic Fiction
is a series of
capsule reviews first published in the Saturday Books
section of The Montreal Gazette.
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