Gene Wolfe, \u201cThe Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories\u201d (1970) (~15 pp)<\/p>\n
\nWinter comes to water as well as land, though there are no leaves to fall. The waves that were a bright, hard blue yesterday under a fading sky today are green, opaque, and cold. If you are a boy not wanted in the house you walk the beach for hours, feeling the winter that has come in the night; sand blowing across your shoes, spray wetting the legs of your corduroys. You turn your back to the sea, and with the sharp end of a stick found half buried writer in the wet sand Tackman Babcock<\/i>.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In second person, the story addresses the boy Tackman, who lives in a remote seashore house with his ailing mother and her younger, Jaguar-driving boyfriend, Jason. In town Tackman wants a pulp novel from the drugstore, and Jason steals it for him. The narrative then alternates passages from the book Tackman reads, with the events going on around him in the house, events which he does not entirely understand (such as a lewd remark by Jason about how soft Tackman’s mother is).<\/p>\n
In the storybook, a dashing Captain Philip Ransom, lost at sea, washes up on a remote island run by Doctor Death, who, in the manner of Dr. Moreau, is experimenting on turning animals into humans, the humans into\u2026something else. <\/p>\n
In the morning after starting the book, Tackman goes out to walk along the beach, and sees Captain Ransom on the beach (or thinks he does).<\/p>\n
In Tackman\u2019s world, a Dr. Black visits his mother, along with two aunts, one on his mother\u2019s side of the family, one of the father\u2019s. His mother has divorced recently and the father\u2019s aunt is anxious for her to remarry. At a restaurant, Tackman stands on the balcony, leaning over the rail. Dr. Death is there. <\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhile you were looking down, I slipped from between the pages of the excellent novel you have in your coat pocket.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Tackman is worried that Captain Ransom is here and will kill him. Dr. Death replies,<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHardly. You see, Tackman, Ransom and I are a bit like wrestlers; under various guises we put on our show again and again\u2014but only under the spotlight.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Further passages from the storybook alternate with activities at the house, as preparations are made for a costume party, one which we see involves drugs and open sex. [There\u2019s a sniff of disapproval of \u201860s culture here, by the straight-laced, Catholic Wolfe.]<\/p>\n
But during the party Dr. Death — or whoever is there whom Tackman identifies with him — takes Tackman to his mother\u2019s room, where Dr. Black is injecting her… with something. Alarmed, Tackman races outside to the next house and has the police called.<\/p>\n
Later, authorities try to explain what was going on (something about amphetamines). Tackman only partially understands. Dr. Death asks what\u2019s wrong. Tackman doesn\u2019t want the book to end. Dr. Death replies,<\/p>\n
\n\u201cBut if you start the book again we\u2019ll all be back. Even Golo and the bull-man.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly.\u201d He stands up and tousels your hair. \u201cIt\u2019s the same with you, Tackie. You\u2019re too young to realize it yet, but it\u2019s the same with you\u201d.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The end. <\/p>\n
I thought of this story again recently \u2013 a story I\u2019ve reread a handful of times over the years since it was first published \u2013 as being a story about stories. The commentary in James Gunn\u2019s 4th Road to Science Fiction<\/b> anthology characterizes it as about \u201cthe joys of escape reading\u201d, but I think it’s a bit more complex than that. Tackman doesn’t just read his storybook to ‘escape’ things he doesn’t understand — he incorporates characters from the storybook into situations in finds himself in in the real world.<\/p>\n
All fiction, whether we think of it as ‘escape reading’ or not, is to some extent a simplification into human terms situations among humans, or between humans and the universe, which typically are more complex than any story. That’s why, for instance, filmmakers are so eager to dramatize real events, such as in Flight 93<\/i>, and last year’s Sully<\/i>, and a forthcoming TV production about the recent Oakland warehouse fire. We understand the events from news reports, but we don’t fully absorb them until they are retold with the proper dramatic flourishes that emphasize the ‘meaning’ of what might otherwise seem merely random and inexplicable.<\/p>\n
Wolfe’s story isn’t exactly science fiction or fantasy at all \u2013 it\u2019s a psychological story about how a young boy interprets the world, in which the interpretation happens to come from a pulp science fiction story.<\/p>\n
And as the final lines suggest, this kind of thing will inevitably happen again and again. Not only is all fiction escapist in a way, so are the narratives we tell ourselves about the meaning of our society or tribe or individual role in life. It’s in human nature to constantly cast every aspect of the universe into terms that make sense as interactions among humans.<\/p>\n
Not only is science fiction not necessarily ‘escapist’ in the crude sense of that charge, on the contrary the best of it suggests that the familiar ordinary ways we humans understand the world around us are not the only ways, and may not apply at all. Just as science does.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
I should mention that this story is infamous for being the victim of a famous awards mix-up comparable to the mis-announcement of the Best Picture Oscar a couple weeks ago. (Maybe that’s why the story occurred to me again.) For some reason the members of the SFWA, voting in the annual Nebula Awards, selected (through the ranked voting process the awards use) “No Award” over any of the seven nominated stories. (Perhaps because of the unusual number of nominated stories.) But the presenter — none other than Isaac Asimov — handed a list of all the nominees in order of finish, mistakenly announced that Wolfe’s story had won. And then embarrassedly retracted the announcement after an SFWA officer hurriedly pointed out his mistake. <\/p>\n
sfadb.com: 1971 Nebula Awards<\/a><\/p>\n
The story is available in:<\/p>\n
Gene Wolfe’s collection The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n
James Gunn’s anthology The Road to Science Fiction #4<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gene Wolfe, \u201cThe Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories\u201d (1970) (~15 pp) Winter comes to water as well as land, though there are no leaves to fall. The waves that were a bright, hard blue yesterday under a fading … Continue reading