Life during wartime

[gullyfoyle]

Somehow I'd never managed to read Lucius Shepard's Nebula-winning novella "R & R" (1986) until tonight. It performs not exactly a balancing, but instead a melding of science and fantasy, of surrealism and science fiction, of madness and clarity, of magic and whatever you want to call not-magic, but don't call it reality, the likes of which I'm not sure I've ever encountered before. Here was Shepard at the absolute top of his form, his writing at one moment stately and lush and measured as a hymn, then suddenly a punctuation of imagery as vivid and sharp as a needle to a nerve. It chronicles a few days in the life of an American soldier in a near-future war in Central America. On some levels -- the ones inside the protagonist, Mingolla (do I hear an echo of "Mandella" from The Forever War? -- apart from some of the technology, which includes berserker drugs, it could be any war, any time. But Shepard grounds the story in his expertly realized jungles, battlefields, towns and rivers of a war-riven Guatemala.

I find it incredible and saddening that, according to ISFDB, "R & R" has not appeared in an anthology since 1988, although its 80-page length may have worked against it in that regard. No matter. It was collected into The Best of Lucius Shepard in 2008, and the ebook of that is available for as little as $3.00. If you, like I, don't care for some of the stylistic excesses that appear in some of Shepard's stories, don't worry. The Best Of collection is easily worth it just for "R & R" alone. If I were a writer of stories, I'd consider myself lucky and blessed to write at least one during my life with the scope, depth, and emotional and visceral impact of "R & R."

Comments

[gullyfoyle]

I have not read it in ages! We had it in The 1987 Annual World's Best SF, where I also got Doris Egan's "Timerider" and Tanith Lee's "Into Gold." Now I want to dig it out and read it again; I love the tactility of your description of it.

Thank you! And that same collection is where I read it. I've been working my way through the Annual World's Best SF series, only one or two of which I'd ever read up 'til now. I've enjoyed re-visiting many stories that I'd read elsewhere, often over 30 years ago, and finding some new-to-me gems like "R & R." The anthologies don't live up to their titles, since Wollheim invariably included as least 2 stinkers each year and he remembered the world outside of North American only about every other year or so. But overall it's been a pleasantly nostalgic experience.