An Obscure Ace Double: The Winds of Gath, by E. C. Tubb/Crisis on Cheiron, by Juanita Coulson

Ace Double Reviews, 25: The Winds of Gath, by E. C. Tubb/Crisis on Cheiron, by Juanita Coulson (#H-27, 1967, $0.60)

One of my goals in this series of reviews is to cover at least one book by all the more prolific Ace Double Contributors. E. C. Tubb was one of these, with 12 "halves", that appeared in 11 separate books (one Ace Double consisted of a Tubb novel backed with a story collection), as well as 1 Ace Double reprint recombining two Tubb halves that were originally published separately. The Winds of Gath is about 50,000 words long. The other half, Juanita Coulson's Crisis on Cheiron, is perhaps 52,000 words.

(covers by Jerome Podwill (left) and Kelly Freas (right))

Tubb is a British writer, born 1919, died in 2010. He published something over 100 SF novels, and about as many short stories, under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms. One pseudonym was the memorable "Volsted Gridban"! His best known pseudonym was probably "Gregory Kern", under which name he wrote the "Cap Kennedy" books for DAW in the early 70s. (I have not read any of that series.) But he is by far better known for his long series of novels about Earl Dumarest and his search for his lost home planet, Earth. These were published first by Ace, then by DAW, from 1967 through 1985, with a final book showing up only in 1997 from a small press (apparently having been published sometime earlier in France, and presumably having been rejected by DAW). This series runs to 32 books, of which I have read 25 or so. They constitute a rather guilty pleasure -- very formulaic, very repetitive, sometimes downright silly -- but I found them enjoyable mind candy.

The novel at hand, The Winds of Gath, is the first of the Dumarest novels. It opens with Earl Dumarest, a tough loner, probably about 40 years old. (His age is never specified, and doesn't seem to change. A rigorous timeline of the books and implied travel times and mentions of his past would, I'm guessing, imply an age of well over a century, but I don't think Tubb cared much about that sort of internal consistency.) Dumarest is revived from traveling "low" (i.e. in suspended animation, with a 15% risk of death -- something Dumarest defies countless times in the series) only to find that instead of the planet he intended to reach his ship was diverted to Gath at the whim of the powerful Matriarch of Kund. This is bad news for Dumarest, because he is out of money and Gath offers no good prospect of making enough money for passage to another world.

The Matriarch of Kund has come to Gath to listen to the famous winds blowing through a rock formation during a periodic storm: supposedly the rock formation allows hearers to hear almost anything they desire. She is accompanied by her ward, the lush and beautiful Seena Thoth, whom she may designate her successor, as well as by the Cyber Dyne, one of the red-cloaked Cyclan, castrated cybers with enormous analytical abilities.

Dumarest, after some death-defying adventures, stumbles into a staged fight with another nobleman's trained killer, and due to his incredible reflexes and his superior tactics, he wins, gaining the notice of the Matriarch. He and Seena establish a doomed relationship, as once Seena becomes Matriarch, she must forgo all lovers and the chance of children. Dumarest fends off an attempt on Seena's life, presumably by a jealous rival for the Matriarch's position, and he accompanies them to the rock formation to wait out the storm. And during the storm various plots and counterplots come to life, and Dumarest is fortuitously in a position to thwart the secret goals of the Cyber, and also to fend off certain other people with less than good intentions.

The novel introduces a number of ongoing themes and tropes of the series. There is an example passage describing the Cyber going into rapport with the greater Cybernetic mind, via the implanted "Homochon elements": a passage that Tubb pretty much cut-and-pasted into each of the Dumarest novels. There is Dumarest making money by fighting -- something that happens in at least half of the books. There is only a hint of the quest that will dominated much of the series: Dumarest's search for his lost home, though there is also a blatant hint of something important about Earth that I only figured out after reading several of the later books (I read those books I read in pretty much random order). The Cyclan, in this book, are not yet alerted to search for Dumarest, something that happens, as I recall, because of a discovery Dumarest makes in book 4, Kalin, so that subplot is not present.

It's not really one of the best of the Dumarest novels, in my opinion, turning on some really grossly silly pseudo-science -- not that Tubb ever bothered much with plausibility in that area. And the plot is a bit incoherent -- the ISFDB labels the British edition, entitled simply Gath, as a revision. I wonder if it's actually a restoration of the original text, and if this version is cut. Anybody know? Still and all, it's fast moving and has plenty of action -- on OK way to spend a couple of hours.

Juanita Coulson is a fannish legend. She and her husband, the late Robert "Buck" Coulson, edited the fanzine Yandro, which was nominated for a Hugo 10 years in a row, from 1958 through 1967, winning in 1965. (This made her one of the first women to win a Hugo, as far as I can tell: the only previous winners being Elinor Busby and Pat Lupoff, both also for fanzines co-edited with their husbands (I presume).) Juanita Coulson is also a very well-known filker. And she had published more than a dozen novels, and a number of short stories, beginning with "Another Rib", a collaboration with Marion Zimmer Bradley in which she used the pseudonym "John Jay Wells", which appeared in F&SF in 1963. (Robert Coulson himself published several novels and a few short stories, often in collaboration with Gene DeWeese.) Juanita Coulson's best-known novels are probably the Children of the Stars series, which as I recall was a family saga, published by Del Rey in the 1980s.

Crisis on Cheiron was Coulson's first novel, one of two Ace Doubles she wrote. Her other Ace Double, The Singing Stones, was also paired with an E. C. Tubb novel, Derai, the second Dumarest novel.

Crisis on Cheiron opens with Carl Race, a young ecologist for the Terran Survey, arriving at Cheiron, a planet newly opened to trade with Earth. The corporation controlling that trade, Consolidated Enterprises, has called in Carl and his boss, Donovan Petry, to investigate the sudden crop failures on Cheiron.

The natives of Cheiron are mostly friendly centaur-like people. But it soon becomes clear that there is a faction which may be under the influence of Consolidated's rival, the sneeringly evil Trans Galactic. And if things don't go better, the Ethnic Protection organization may shut down Cheiron altogether.

Race and Petry, with some help from a beautiful schoolteacher named Marcy de Laurent, and a precocious adolescent Cheironian named Nubi, quickly realize that the problem is that bees and butterflies have been disappearing, making pollinization impossible. But what could be causing that? Complicating matters is an 8 day deadline imposed by one of the Matriarchs of the Cheironians. (I note that both halves of this Double feature "Matriarchs".) There follows an attack of bees, nearly killing off all three humans, and a fire at Marcy's schoolhouse, and then Petry is murdered. Obviously, the villains, whoever they are, mean business.

Rather inexplicably, the authorities immediately decide that Race is guilty of murdering his boss. So he is forced to escape, with Marcy's help. Fortunately, he has a brilliant idea as to what the problem is, helped by Nubi's non-humans range of senses. The three are able to make their way to the lair of the villains ...

Well, you knew it would all work out well. It's fast-moving and kind of exciting, but at bottom it's a touch too silly. The central scientific notion is ludicrous. The villains are just too evull for words -- way over the top. And the plot is driven by implausibilities such as the authorities jumping to conclusions about Carl's guilt in killing his boss. Also, the budding romance between Carl and Marcy is hinted at but never developed, and at the end just sort of allowed to slide. I was happy to have read it, but it's pretty forgettable stuff.

A Classic Ace Double Pairing: Star Guard, by Andre Norton/Planet of No Return, by Poul Anderson

Ace Double Reviews, 27: Star Guard, by Andre Norton/Planet of No Return, by Poul Anderson (#D-199, 1956, $0.35)

a review by Rich Horton

This Ace Double features an SFWA Grand Master writing each half. Noticing this, I decided to see how many Grand Masters wrote Ace Doubles. The answer is, most of them. Indeed, 18 of the 33 SFWA Grand Masters were featured in at least one "classic" Ace Double (i.e., the ones published between 1953 and 1973 in dos-a-dos fashion). (One of the others, Lester Del Rey, had a quasi Ace Double published in 1977.) The numbers were 18 of 30 when Samuel Delany became a Grand Master, and I'm pretty sure he'll be the last Ace Double writer to become a Grand Master. In my estimation the only remaining writer of the "Ace Double Generation" who might be named a Grand Master is Kate Wilhelm, and she never was in an Ace Double.

Three of the Grand Masters are also among the most prolific Ace Double writers: Andre Norton, Jack Vance, and Poul Anderson. The other Ace Doubles I can find quickly to feature two different Grand Masters were #D-61, from 1954, L. Sprague de Camp's Cosmic Manhunt backed with Clifford Simak's Ring Around the Sun; and #D-110, from 1995, featuring Anderson's No World of Their Own backed with Isaac Asimov's The 1,000-Year Plan (yes, a retitling of Foundation).

Star Guard is the longest Ace Double half I have yet seen, at 68,000 words. It is a reprinting of a 1955 Harcourt, Brace hardcover. As with many Norton novels, a hardcover marketed to the Juvenile segment was followed by a paperback marketed to adults.

(Cover by Ed Emshwiller)

The book opens with a brief prologue explaining that after reaching the stars humans encountered an existing Galactic civilization. The rulers of this civilization decided that humans were too aggressive for full membership, but that their aggression could be put to good use by making them mercenaries. Some mercenaries become "Mechs", who serve on relatively higher-tech worlds, using tanks, airplanes, blasters and such. Others become "Archs", who serve on low-tech worlds using swords and rifles.

The hero of this book is Kana Karr, a newly-hatched Arch specializing is "Alien Liaison". His first assignment is to the planet Fronn, taking one side of a dispute between twins over which is the rightful heir. But things go horribly wrong when someone armed with a blaster kills the twin Kana's group is backing. This is evidence of a rogue regiment of Mechs illegally operating on a low-tech planet.

When Kana's Horde (as they are called) tries to peacefully leave the planet, they find their escape routes blocked, and more treachery ends in the murder of the Horde's leaders. It is up to the survivors to make their way through the hostile outback of Fronn, dealing with natural obstacles such as the mountains, dangerous animals, and a weeks long storm; as well as more sophisticated obstacles presented by the three indigenous sentient species of the planet. Their goal is to report the rogue Mechs to the authorities, but as time goes on evidence mounts that this conspiracy way be more wide-ranging than they imagine.

It's pretty decent adventure SF. The aliens are fun in a classic 50s manner. The action is well-handled. The plot is twisty enough to hold the interest. The final resolution perhaps doesn't quite convince, but it is in its way satisfying, and it resolves this book's action while certainly leaving room for a sequel or sequels.

(Cover by Ed Valigursky)

Planet of No Return is about 33,000 words long. It is a reprint, unchanged as far as I can tell, of the serial "Question and Answer", which appeared in the June and July 1954 issues of Astounding. This story was written to be part of a Twayne Triplet. The Twayne Triplets were to be a series of collections of three novellas. Each book would be introduced by an article by a scientist, describing a world and a situation he had created. The three stories would all be set in that world. Thus it was, as far as I know, the first use of a concept which became the "Shared World", and which was later used for such anthologies as Medea: Harlan's World. (Although in the case of the Twayne Triplets, the stories would not be set in a common "future".) The first group of stories was called The Petrified Planet, and included pieces by H. Beam Piper, Fletcher Pratt, and Judith Merril. Some other stories were commissioned, for different worlds, but the only other Twayne Triplet to be published was Witches Three, featuring stories by Pratt, James Blish, and Fritz Leiber. Witches Three may not be a canonical Triplet anyway, as the stories included were not commissioned expressly for the series (for example, the Leiber story is Conjure Wife, from way back in 1943).

(Cover by Kelly Freas)

Isaac Asimov's "Sucker Bait", which had been serialized in Astounding earlier in 1954, was written for the same setup as "Question and Answer". (Other stories that were apparently written for other Twayne Triplet commissions were "Get Out of My Sky" by James Blish, "Second Landing" by Murray Leinster, and "First Cycle", an unfinished H. Beam Piper story that Michael Kurland completed in 1982. Blish's original "Case of Conscience" novelette may also have been intended for a Twayne Triplet.)

The basic setup is a binary star system with a twin planet at one of the Trojan points. The planet seems earthlike -- all other planets humans have found are either unsuitable for human use, or previously occupied. One expedition has been sent from Earth, and has failed to return. Now a second expedition is going. Anderson populates his ship with an ill-mixed mixture of men, and he portrays an expedition in financial peril, and facing apparent sabotage attempts. This is the last chance for Earth to finance a ship to another star system -- unless this expedition proves successful. But on arrival they find a native race, previously unsuspected. Is Earth's star travel doomed? or is this race willing to share? There is a bit of a twist ending, though really it's pretty easy to figure out what's actually going on. The story is a pretty good read, and Anderson spends some time contemplating the central "question" of his story -- is humanity ready for the stars? Not bad stuff.

Old Bestseller: Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, by Edwin L. Arnold

Old Bestseller: Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, by Edwin L. Arnold

a review by Rich Horton

(In a completely unplanned coincidence, this book was also covered by Jerry House as his contribution to Friday's Forgotten Books.)

This wasn't really an Old Bestseller, but it was a piece of popular fiction by a writer who wrote some good selling novels. That said, at least according to Wikipedia, the failure of this novel to sell very well caused Arnold to cease writing. (Though John Clute points out that each of his books came out from a different publisher, with this last from quite an obscure house. (The other three came out from reasonably prominent firms.) This could well be an indication that each firm was not too pleased with sales.)

The other thing this book is is a once-forgotten, but fairly significant, work of proto-SF. It was rediscovered, it seems, by Richard Lupoff, a fine SF and mystery writer who is also an expert in comics and pulps -- and on Edgar Rice Burroughs. (Lupoff wrote a book called Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure, which was first published in 1965 and has been reissued with additional material at least three times.) In 1963 he was the editor-in-chief of the hardcover reprint edition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels, and when collector Stephen Takacs decided to sell his collection, he let Lupoff have a look at Lieut. Gullivar Jones, telling him it was a "Burroughs-type" novel. And, indeed, Lupoff upon reading it realized it was a direct ancestor of the John Carter novels, in featuring an American military man traveling by essentially magical means to Mars, encountering Martians of multiple races, and marrying a Princess. There seems little doubt that Burroughs read this novel, though it must be said that A Princess of Mars and its sequels are ultimately much different from the Arnold novel -- and, indeed, it must be said that Burroughs deserved his success, and that the failure of the Arnold novel, if not exactly deserved, is not much of a surprise.

Edwin Arnold (1857-1935) was the son of a poet, Sir Edwin Arnold (NOT Matthew!). He was English, of course. He had some success, it seems, with his first two novels, The Wonderful Adventures of Phra the Phoenician (1890) and Lepidus the Centurion: A Roman of Today (1901), both of which have fantastical aspects, mainly in the long lives of their protagonists. Lieut. Gullivar Jones appeared in 1905. Though there were other works set on Mars before it, the Science Fiction Encyclopedia calls it the first true planetary romance.

The novel was first published by S C Brown, Langham and Co., and in the US by George Bell and Sons. Lupoff suggested to Don Wollheim at Ace Books that he republish it (Burroughs was having something of a revival at the time. due to Lupoff's efforts to some extent). Ace published the paperback in 1964, Wollheim choosing the corrupted title Gulliver of Mars (note the misspelled first name). The cover is by Frank Frazetta. Since then it seems to have remained to a small extent in people's memories, aided by a comic book series (one of the writers of which was George Alec Effinger), by a New English Library paperback in 1977, by a Bison Books reprint in 2003, and even by the appearance of Gullivar Jones (along with John Carter) in Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. My copy is a rather shabby example of the Ace edition that I found in a quite nice used book store in Tempe, AZ, run by a former Arizona State Professor and his wife, with whom I had a nice talk.

Spoilers abound ahead, though I really don't think this is a book that depends for its effects on plot.

As for the book itself, I have to admit I found it slow going at times. Gullivar Jones is a Lieutenant in the U. S. Navy, upset at not having received the promotion he feels he deserves (and thus unable to ask his Polly to marry him). In a bad mood, he by happenstance is on hand when a strange man falls to the ground wrapped in a carpet and breaks his neck. Jones ends up with the carpet, and, feeling terribly used by, wishes himself on Mars. At which point the carpet wraps him up and takes him there.

On Mars Jones falls in with a race of beautiful but terminally lazy people. His first friend is named An -- an androgynous person who turns out to be a woman, one of a race of slaves who thus cannot have children. An takes him eventually to the palace -- and tells him that a special ceremony is due, whereby the non-slaves draw lots to determine who they will marry. Jones spies the Princess Heru and falls desperately in love with her. (Alas for An, who seems all along a more worthy person.) Heru requites his passion, and arranges to fix the lottery so that Gullivar will become her husband. However, this race, which Jones calls the Hither people, are under the domination of another race, the Thither people, who demand a tribute each year, of among other things a beautiful woman to become their King's slave. Naturally, Heru is chosen and taken away.

Jones attempts to follow, and ends up on a desperate boat trip across a sea to the Thither land. By happenstance he ends up instead on the river (or canal) of the Dead (one of the more striking passages in the book), and upon escaping, falls in with some of the Thither people, finding them, on balance, much better people (harder working, more energetic) than Heru's people. He is taken by them for a ghost, and he manages, with a couple more adventures on the way, to make his way to King Ar-Hap's city. Here he demands Heru's return to him -- but a crisis intervenes in the shape of a slow meteor (don't ask!). Eventually he steals Heru away and escapes back to her people -- but Ar-Hap follows, and all seems lost.

Well, Gullivar Jones lands on his feet, and gets back to Earth and Polly -- and I suppose Heru turns out as well as she might have expected to also. And what of An? Well, neither we nor Gullivar ever find out.

Much of this is fairly light satire. Gullivar Jones isn't really much of a hero -- he's a bit obtuse, and he's not terribly successful at most of his adventures. Jayme Lynn Blaschke points out that the Hither and Thither folk seem based on Wells' Eloi and Morlocks (absent the cannibalism). As I said, I found it tedious at times, though there are some good bits as well. I'm glad to have read it, if mostly for historical reasons.