Old Bestseller: Penrod, by Booth Tarkington

Old Bestseller: Penrod, by Booth Tarkington

a review by Rich Horton

Here is a true Old Bestseller, despite being to some extent a children's book: Penrod was #7 on the Publishers' Weekly list of bestselling novels of 1914. Booth Tarkington was a very successful writer, and showed up on that list a lot. He had the bestselling novel overall in 1915 (The Turmoil) and 1916 (Seventeen), and he also was in the top ten in 1902 (The Two Vanrevels), 1922 (Gentle Julia), 1924 (The Midlander), 1927 (The Plutocrat), 1928 (Claire Ambler), and 1932 (Mary's Neck). Curiously, his most famous novel (besides perhaps Penrod), Pulitzer Prize winner The Magnificent Ambersons (1918), did not make the list, and neither did his other Pulitzer Prize winner, Alice Adams (1921), though doubtless both sold well enough.

Booth Tarkington (1869-1946) was born in Indianapolis, and was a lifelong partisan of Indiana (his first novel was called The Gentleman from Indiana). He was named after a Governor of California (Newton Booth). He attended both Purdue and Princeton (where he became friends with Woodrow Wilson). He served one term in the Indiana House. He was a truly major author in his time, but his reputation has, it seems to me, diminished a great deal. He is now mostly remembered for The Magnificent Ambersons (and that in great part because of the famously botched Welles film) and for Penrod, and both of those books are much less read now than they once were.

(drawing by Gordon Grant, photograph of Wendell Berry as Penrod)

My copy of Penrod is a Grosset & Dunlap reprint (the original publisher was Doubleday, Page). It includes the original Gordon Grant illustrations, and also a few photographs from the 1922 silent film version, suggesting that this reprint dates to about then.

I said above that Penrod is to some extent a childrens' book, and that is true -- to an extent. But it is definitely a book that appeals to adults -- or did at the time when adults saw nostalgic echoes of their own childhoods in Penrod's. When I was young, my mother recommended Penrod to me -- it was one of those books boys were thought likely to like -- but though I remember getting it out of the library, I didn't read it.

Penrod is a very episodic book, depicting a number of comic adventures of Penrod Schofield, "The Worst Boy in Town" (presumably the Town is Indianapolis). Much -- perhaps all -- of the book originally appeared as separate stories, or sketches, in Cosmopolitan (and perhaps elsewhere). Penrod is 11 throughout most of the book, turning 12 at the end. The other major characters are his family, especially his older sister Margaret (whose love life is much disrupted by her younger brother), his best friend Sam, his two black friends Herman and Verman, his "bow" Marjorie Jones, and a few other schoolmates. And of course his dog Duke.

The incidents depicted include Penrod's agonized and disastrous role as Childe Lancelot in "The Pageant of the Table Round"; Penrod assuming that his Aunt is visiting because she is fleeing Uncle John, whom he presumes to have fallen victim to drink; Penrod and Sam putting on a show featuring numerous attractions including Herman and Verman as Tattooed Wild Men, and (much more funnily) rich boy Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Jr., as the ONLY LIVING NEPHEW oF RENA MAGSWORTH THE FAMOS MUDERESS; Penrod getting Marjorie's younger brother terribly sick; Penrod skipping the dance; Penrod deciding to become a bully; Penrod reacting to the new minister in town, a terrible bore who seems interested in Margaret; Penrod's 12th birthday; and many more.

A lot of this -- most of it -- is really very funny. Penrod is not really terribly intelligent (and he truly is a bad student), but he does have an active imagination. (And he likes to spread paint and tar quite liberally!) Bores and phonies tend to get their due. Penrod himself gets his due, some of the time -- and at other times, such as after his embarrassment of the Bitts family, he unexpectedly gets a reward. So -- I enjoyed it, and I can easily see why it was such a big success. (There were two sequels, Penrod and Sam (1916) and Penrod Jabsher (1929).)

But -- what about the elephant in the room? Which is to say -- racism. And let's face it, the depiction of Herman and Verman, Penrod's friends, is undoubtedly condescending, steretypical, and racist. For all that, Herman and Verman come off as basically good kids, and Penrod really does treat them as friends. Worse, I think, are Tarkington's authorial comments -- his declarations about the true nature and abilities of black people -- are really offensive. I have little doubt that these observations were more or less consistent with fairly mainstream views at that time. But that doesn't excuse them, and certainly it is easy to understand why many people might prefer not to read a book like Penrod any more -- or especially not to have their children read it.

A first look at the Hugo Shortlist, 2017

A first look at the Hugo Shortlist,

By Rich Horton

The Hugo Shortlist for 2017 has been announced, and I thought I’d give the off the top of my head comments on it. First, let me sincerely congratulate all the folks on the shortlist – you did good work, and I’m happy for you. That said, I obviously don’t agree 100% -- or even 50% -- with the shortlist, as a look at my earlier nomination thoughts will reveal. Of course, that’s hardly unusual – in fact, it’s common. In most cases, my complaints – such as they are – merely mean that I think a good story was chosen over a better one. So – I don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade! But I do want to say what I really think.

Best Novel

All the Birds in the Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor Books / Titan Books)

A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager US)

Death’s End by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu (Tor Books / Head of Zeus)

Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris Books)

The Obelisk Gate, by N. K. Jemisin (Orbit Books)

Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer (Tor Books)

So, anyway, I really don’t have any complaints in this category! Partly, perhaps, that’s because I haven’t read as many novels as I should have. But in reality, I think this shortlist looks very impressive indeed. I had already read All the Birds in the Sky and Too Like the Lightning before my previous article, and I had suggested that I’d nominate All the Birds in the Sky (which I did). I also praised Too Like the Lightning, but suggested that I wanted to see its completion (which looks like it will take two more books!) before I was sure of it. Still, I liked it, and I’m happy to see it here. Since then I’ve gotten to Ninefox Gambit, and I very enthusiastically support its nomination. (I’m working on a review post about it.) Ninefox Gambit is complicated Military SF, which sort of teaches you how to read it as you go along. It’s got a fierce moral core, which is slowly revealed, and it opens up beautifully at the end, so that I don’t think the second book in the trilogy will be a “middle book”. And – this novel is reasonably speaking complete in itself.

I haven’t read the other three. But everything I’ve seen about A Closed and Common Orbit suggests I’ll like it – and also suggests that I really need to get to Chambers’ previous novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. The other two novels are sequels to the past two Hugo winners, and I have no reason to doubt their quality as well. This is probably the Best Best Novel shortlist in at least 5 years.

And, hey, three first novels! Is that the first time that’s ever happened?

Best Novella

The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle (Tor.com publishing)

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, by Kij Johnson (Tor.com publishing)

Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com publishing)

Penric and the Shaman, by Lois McMaster Bujold (Spectrum Literary Agency)

A Taste of Honey, by Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com publishing)

This Census-Taker, by China Miéville (Del Rey / Picador)

I don’t have serious problems with this shortlist either. There is one serious snub, in my view: Lavie Tidhar’s “The Vanishing Kind” seemed the second best novella of the year to me. But the best novella of the year is here, The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe. Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom is a strong novella too, as I noted in my previous post. I was less pleased with Penric and the Shaman, which to me is the weakest Penric story so far. But it’s at least enjoyable.

I didn’t get to A Taste of Honey nor Every Heart a Doorway until after they made the Nebula final ballot, but I have read them since. I really enjoyed A Taste of Honey – it will probably end up second on my Hugo ballot. (I’d still rank it behind “The Vanishing Kind”, mind you, and in the same range as Suzanne Palmer’s more adventure-oriented “Lazy Dog Out”.) But it’s a lovely story, and very original, if somehow sort of small-scale – but that’s not really necessarily a bad thing. Every Heart a Doorway, however, didn’t really work for me. I expected to like it a lot, but it really dragged – I thought it significantly too long. Some nice ideas, however.

As for This Census Taker, I haven’t yet read it. (I chose to read Mieville’s other book-length novella from last year, The Last Days of New Paris, on the recommendation of a friend who really liked it, and who thought This Census Taker an interesting failure.)

Best Novelette

Alien Stripper Boned From Behind By The T-Rex, by Stix Hiscock (self-published)

“The Art of Space Travel”, by Nina Allan (Tor.com , July 2016)

“The Jewel and Her Lapidary”, by Fran Wilde (Tor.com publishing, May 2016)

“The Tomato Thief”, by Ursula Vernon (Apex Magazine, January 2016)

“Touring with the Alien”, by Carolyn Ives Gilman (Clarkesworld Magazine, April 2016)

“You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay”, by Alyssa Wong (Uncanny Magazine, May 2016)

No comment on the Hiscock story, a Rabid Puppy recommendation that seems very unlikely to be worth reading – though I dare say I’ll give it a look to be fair. Aside from that, there are three stories I liked a lot. One of them is “The Jewel and Her Lapidary”, which I mentioned in my nomination thoughts as a potential entry for my nomination ballot. I didn’t mention either the Allan or the Gilman stories, but both are really very good, and while I miss the stories I had on my list, these are worthy nominees.

As for “The Tomato Thief” and “You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay”, these strike me as well-written stories, solid work, that didn’t wow me. That, really, didn’t interest me that much. Very possibly the fault is mine. I will reread them, to be sure. But in all honesty, on almost every ballot there are going to be a couple stories in this category – stories I think are nice work, that I can see how other people chose to nominate, but that just don’t stand with my personal favorites. I dare say that’s a feature, not a bug.

And I really really regret that magnificent work like, most especially, Genevieve Valentine’s “Everybody From Themis Sends Letters Home”, did not make the shortlist. But, hey, that happens every year.

Best Short Story

“The City Born Great”, by N. K. Jemisin (Tor.com, September 2016)

“A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers”, by Alyssa Wong (Tor.com, March 2016)

“Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies”, by Brooke Bolander (Uncanny Magazine, November 2016)

“Seasons of Glass and Iron”, by Amal El-Mohtar (The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales, Saga Press)

“That Game We Played During the War”, by Carrie Vaughn (Tor.com, March 2016)

“An Unimaginable Light”, by John C. Wright (God, Robot, Castalia House)

OK, I haven’t read the John C. Wright story. As I’ve said before (the last time he got nominated!), he has done some very good work in the past. He has talent. I don’t think he gets the editorial attention he needs these days. And he has some obsessions that don’t match mine. But I can’t reject his work out of hand. So, we’ll see.

I really like Carrie Vaughn’s story, and indeed it was on my nomination ballot. So no complaints there. All the other stories strike me as – stop me if I’ve said this before! – nice work that isn’t quite Hugo-worthy. Again – maybe my fault. I just reread Brooke Bolander’s story, and it is pretty darn good, in a very short space. It probably stands second on my putative ballot right now. But I have more rereading to do.

I have less to say about the remaining categories. In many cases I’m just not familiar enough with all the works. Some of my nominees made the ballot – Traveler of Worlds in Related Work, Arrival in Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form, pretty much the entire Best Editor Short Form ballot, Rocket Stack Rank in Best Fanzine,  Abigail Nussbaum in Best Fan Writer, and Ada Palmer for the Campbell. My only strong regret, really, is that Black Gate didn’t get a Fanzine nomination, and obviously I’m prejudice there. And the only other nomination (besides the Rabids) that really really annoys me is the Chuck Tingle nomination. Frankly, I think that’s a slap at the many many real fanwriters out there. (And, frankly, I don’t find Chuck Tingle all that funny. YMMV, of course.)

So I present the rest of the ballot for information purpose. And I apologize for the wonky formatting – I started by copying from io9, but they chopped off the list in the middle of Best Fancast. So I finished with the official list from the Hugo site – which is really where I should have started!

Best Related Work

The Geek Feminist Revolution, by Kameron Hurley (Tor Books)

The Princess Diarist, by Carrie Fisher (Blue Rider Press)

Traveler of Worlds: Conversations with Robert Silverberg, by Robert Silverberg and Alvaro Zinos-Amaro (Fairwood)

The View From the Cheap Seats, by Neil Gaiman (William Morrow / Harper Collins)

The Women of Harry Potter posts, by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com)

Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016, by Ursula K. Le Guin (Small Beer)

Best Graphic Story

Black Panther, Volume 1: A Nation Under Our Feet, written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, illustrated by Brian Stelfreeze (Marvel)

Monstress, Volume 1: Awakening, written by Marjorie Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda (Image)

Ms. Marvel, Volume 5: Super Famous, written by G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Takeshi Miyazawa (Marvel)

Paper Girls, Volume 1, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Cliff Chiang, colored by Matthew Wilson, lettered by Jared Fletcher (Image)

Saga, Volume 6, illustrated by Fiona Staples, written by Brian K. Vaughan, lettered by Fonografiks (Image)

The Vision, Volume 1: Little Worse Than A Man, written by Tom King, illustrated by Gabriel Hernandez Walta (Marvel)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

Arrival, screenplay by Eric Heisserer based on a short story by Ted Chiang, directed by Denis Villeneuve (21 Laps Entertainment/FilmNation Entertainment/Lava Bear Films)

Deadpool, screenplay by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick, directed by Tim Miller (Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation/Marvel Entertainment/Kinberg Genre/The Donners’ Company/TSG Entertainment)

Ghostbusters, screenplay by Katie Dippold & Paul Feig, directed by Paul Feig (Columbia Pictures/LStar Capital/Village Roadshow Pictures/Pascal Pictures/Feigco Entertainment/Ghostcorps/The Montecito Picture Company)

Hidden Figures, screenplay by Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi, directed by Theodore Melfi (Fox 2000 Pictures/Chernin Entertainment/Levantine Films/TSG Entertainment)

Rogue One, screenplay by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, directed by Gareth Edwards (Lucasfilm/Allison Shearmur Productions/Black Hangar Studios/Stereo D/Walt Disney Pictures)

Stranger Things, Season One, created by the Duffer Brothers (21 Laps Entertainment/Monkey Massacre)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

Black Mirror: “San Junipero”, written by Charlie Brooker, directed by Owen Harris (House of Tomorrow)

Doctor Who: “The Return of Doctor Mysterio”, written by Steven Moffat, directed by Ed Bazalgette (BBC Cymru Wales)

The Expanse: “Leviathan Wakes”, written by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, directed by Terry McDonough (SyFy)

Game of Thrones: “Battle of the Bastards”, written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, directed by Miguel Sapochnik (HBO)

Game of Thrones: “The Door”, written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, directed by Jack Bender (HBO)

Splendor & Misery [album], by Clipping (Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes)

Best Editor – Short Form

John Joseph Adams

Neil Clarke

Ellen Datlow

Jonathan Strahan

Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas

Sheila Williams

Best Editor – Long Form

Vox Day

Sheila E. Gilbert

Liz Gorinsky

Devi Pillai

Miriam Weinberg

Navah Wolfe

Best Professional Artist

Galen Dara

Julie Dillon

Chris McGrath

Victo Ngai

John Picacio

Sana Takeda

Best Semiprozine

Beneath Ceaseless Skies, editor-in-chief and publisher Scott H. Andrews

Cirsova Heroic Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, edited by P. Alexander

GigaNotoSaurus, edited by Rashida J. Smith

Strange Horizons, edited by Niall Harrison, Catherine Krahe, Vajra Chandrasekera, Vanessa Rose Phin, Li Chua, Aishwarya Subramanian, Tim Moore, Anaea Lay, and the Strange Horizons staff

Uncanny Magazine, edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Michi Trota, Julia Rios, and podcast produced by Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky

The Book Smugglers, edited by Ana Grilo and Thea James

Best Fanzine

Castalia House Blog, edited by Jeffro Johnson

Journey Planet, edited by James Bacon, Chris Garcia, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Helena Nash, Errick Nunnally, Pádraig Ó Méalóid, Chuck Serface, and Erin Underwood

Lady Business, edited by Clare, Ira, Jodie, KJ, Renay, and Susan

nerds of a feather, flock together, edited by The G, Vance Kotrla, and Joe Sherry

Rocket Stack Rank, edited by Greg Hullender and Eric Wong

SF Bluestocking, edited by Bridget McKinney

Best Fancast

The Coode Street Podcast, presented by Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan

§  Ditch Diggers, presented by Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace

§  Fangirl Happy Hour, presented by Ana Grilo and Renay Williams

§  Galactic Suburbia, presented by Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce and Tansy Rayner Roberts, produced by Andrew Finch

§  The Rageaholic, presented by RazörFist

§  Tea and Jeopardy, presented by Emma Newman with Peter Newman

Best Fan Writer

802 ballots cast for 275 nominees.
Votes for finalists ranged from 80 to 152.

§  Mike Glyer

§  Jeffro Johnson

§  Natalie Luhrs

§  Foz Meadows

§  Abigail Nussbaum

§  Chuck Tingle

Best Fan Artist

528 ballots cast for 242 nominees.
Votes for finalists ranged from 39 to 121.

§  Ninni Aalto

§  Alex Garner

§  Vesa Lehtimäki

§  Likhain (M. Sereno)

§  Spring Schoenhuth

§  Mansik Yang

Worldcon 75 has elected to exercise its authority under the WSFS Constitution to add an additional category for 2017 only:

Best Series
A multi-volume science fiction or fantasy story, unified by elements such as plot, characters, setting, and presentation, appearing in at least three (3) volumes consisting in total of at least 240,000 words by the close of the previous calendar year, at least one volume of which was published in the previous calendar year. If any series and a subset series thereof both receive sufficient nominations to appear on the final ballot, only the version which received more nominations shall appear.

Note that there is a pending amendment to the WSFS Constitution that, if ratified by the 2017 WSFS Business Meeting, will add Best Series as a new permanent category. The definition above is based on the wording of the proposed new category.

1393 votes for 290 nominees.
Votes for finalists ranged from 129 to 325.

§  The Craft Sequence, by Max Gladstone (Tor Books)

§  The Expanse, by James S.A. Corey (Orbit US / Orbit UK)

§  The October Daye Books, by Seanan McGuire (DAW / Corsair)

§  The Peter Grant / Rivers of London series, by Ben Aaronovitch (Gollancz / Del Rey / DAW / Subterranean)

§  The Temeraire series, by Naomi Novik (Del Rey / Harper Voyager UK)

§  The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2014 or 2015, sponsored by Dell Magazines. (Not a Hugo Award, but administered along with the Hugo Awards.)

933 votes for 260 nominees.
Votes for finalists ranged from 88 to 255.

§  Sarah Gailey (1st year of eligibility)

§  J. Mulrooney (1st year of eligibility)

§  Malka Older (2nd year of eligibility)

§  Ada Palmer (1st year of eligibility)

§  Laurie Penny (2nd year of eligibility)

§  Kelly Robson (2nd year of eligibility)

Old Bestseller: Within the Law, play by Bayard Veillier (novelized by Marvin Dana)

Old Bestseller: Within the Law, play by Bayard Veillier (novelized by Marvin Dana)

a review by Rich Horton

I wanted to get back to the original focus of this blog -- popular fiction of the early part of the last century. This is an example of a once common sort of book, directly analagous to the movie "novelizations" of today: a novel written from a successful play. (I have covered one of these before in this series, A Fool There Was, by Porter Emerson Browne.) The play Within the Law was a major Broadway hit in 1912/1913. The novel version, by Howard Dana, came out in 1913 from Grosset & Dunlap. (The play was published by H. K. Fly, apparently a leading publisher of plays in that time, perhaps a competitor with the better known (and still extant) Samuel French.) The book version is illustrated, not to my taste very well (for example, Mary is not terribly beautiful as drawn), by William Charles Cooke.

Bayard Veiller (1869-1943) was a Brooklyn native, who turned to writing plays in 1907 with The Primrose Path, a failure. Within the Law was his second play, and it was a big success. (Two other productions followed immediately, including a "burlesque" version of Within the Law called Without the Law.) He soon turned to screenwriting as well, with, it seems, considerable success. (Within the Law itself was made into a movie five times.)

Marvin Dana (b. 1867) is a more obscure figure. He seems to have adapted a number of plays (and perhaps movies as well) to novel form, including a version of The Shooting of Dan McGrew, based on the Robert Service poem but probably timed to coincide with the 1915 movie. He may have written his own novels as well.

Within the Law is a highly melodramatic piece. It opens with Mary Turner, a poor girl (but, naturally, the daughter of a gentleman) who had been reduced to making a living in a department store (The Emporium) being falsely accused of theft. She is sent to prison for three years: despite a recommendation for clemency, the Emporium's owner, Mr. Gilder, insists she be made an example of. She insists on speaking to him, and suggest a better way to stop the thefts -- pay the girls a living wage. And then she vows revenge.

She serves her term (apparently she could have had her sentence reduced at the cost of her virtue, but refused), and upon release, finds a couple of jobs, only to be (implausibly, I thought) hounded out of them by the NYC police department, which pressured her new bosses to fire her. In despair, she throws herself into the river, only to be rescued by a passing criminal, Jim Garson. When she recovers, she decides to devote herself to crime -- but not to violate the law. She has noticed the cynical way people like Gilder manipulate the law, and so she hires a lawyer, and along with Garson and a woman she met in jail, she starts making money by such schemes as inveigling older men into breach of promise suits, etc. -- always staying technically on the side of the law, that is "within the law".

The time comes for her plan to revenge herself on Gilder. She does this by attracting the attention of his son, Dick, and bringing him to the point of marriage. Then she will reveal herself to her new father-in-law, as the felon he had sent to jail. This will ruin the Gilders socially, etc. etc.

Of course you see the coming complication -- she falls in love with Dick. But she still goes through with her plan, and all might go well except that Garson is drawn back into actual crime -- a scheme to steal some valuable tapestries from the Gilder house! Of course this is a scheme by a vengeful policeman to capture Garson, and hopefully Mary as well. Things get worse when Dick Gilder intervenes, and Garson shoots the stool pigeon who set up the thing. Dick and Mary are discovered with the dead body and the gun, and the policeman is ready to use this leverage to send Mary to prison and thus free Dick from his unfortunate entanglement.

Will true love prevail? Yes, of course, in a couple of ways -- Dick and Mary remain loyal, and so does Jim Garson, who (at the cost of his life) confesses his crime in order to save Mary (with whom he too is in love). Mary goes straight, of course, and the policeman (a nasty character) is only slightly embarrassed, and the elder Gilder is also only slightly abashed by his previous bad behavior.

It's all a lot of guff, of course. And the novel version, as far as I can tell by a quick comparison with a copy of the play I found online, is much worse. Dana adds a ton of prosy moralizing, with constant encomiums to Mary's innate virtue, etc. He also adds a boring and unnecessary section set in prison. The play seems to move more quickly, and also to give a bit more background and believability to the love story between Mary and Dick. Notable (and I don't know if this was in the play as well) is some quite remarkably cynical treatment of the police, and of their blatant disregard of Constitutional niceties. That has a chance to be interesting, but it's not handled subtly enough. And I was quite disappointed that, in particular, the elder Gilder is never really properly punished for his bad actions. I do suspect that all this played rather better on the stage that it does on the page, and not just because of Dana's unfortunate additions and structural changes -- it's simply a story better designed for that presentation.

A Forgotten Ace Double: Flower of Doradil, by John Rackham/A Promising Planet, by Jeremy Strike

Ace Double Reviews, 104: Flower of Doradil, by John Rackham/A Promising Planet, by Jeremy Strike (#24100, 1970, 75 cents)

a review by Rich Horton

This is notably a late period Ace Double. It features two pseudonymous authors. One of them, "John Rackham", real name John T. Phillifent, was a fairly prolific SF writer under both the "Rackham" name and his real name. He was born in 1916 in England, and died in 1976. He published about 20 novels, all but two as "Rackham" (and probably one of the novels as by Phillifent was meant to be published under the Rackham name). He also did a few Man From Uncle novelizations under his real name. He also published over 50 short stories, beginning in 1954 with "Jupiter Equilateral", published as a slim book (or chapbook) by the Titbits Science Fiction Library in the UK. Those stories were probably 25,000 words at least -- perhaps longer (35,000 words?) as Malcolm Edwards reports that the print was quite tiny. (Thus, these are essentially short novels -- as long as many Ace Doubles.) Rackham wrote four of these Titbits books in 1954/1955. His next work in SF was some short fiction in 1959, for various magazines in both the US and the UK (New Worlds, Science Fantasy, Nebula, Astounding, If). His real name first appeared on "Point", in Fantastic in 1961, but after that the Phillifent byline was reserved for his appearances in Analog. Fully sixteen of his novels were published as Ace Double halves.

Jeremy Strike is a different case. His real name was Thomas Edward Renn (1939-2000), a West Virginian. This was his only work in the SF field. He was, thus, one of a few writers whose only SF book was a single novel that appeared as an Ace Double half. I checked, and in the ISFDB (which is not necessarily complete) I found eight examples, spread throughout the entire history of the format. These are Francis Rufus Bellamy (Atta, 1954), Nick Boddie Williams (Atom Curtain, 1955), Anna Hunger (The Man Who Lived Forever, 1956, with R. De Witt Miller (an expansion of a Miller story from Astounding in 1938)), Bruce W. Ronald (Our Man in Space, 1965), Alan Schwartz (The Wandering Tellurian, 1967), Ellen Wobig (The Youth Monopoly, 1968), Strike, and Susan K. Putney (Against Arcturus, 1972). I have previously reviewed the books by Ronald, Wobig, and Putney. Many of these writers published only that Ace Double half, though some had very minor additional publications (Ronald had a story in If, Hunger had a few shorts in The Magazine of Horror, Williams published some SFish stories in the slicks, Putney had a Spiderman graphic novel illustrated by the just late Bernie Wrightson).

(Cover by Kelly Freas)

The covers are by probably the two leading SF illustrators of that time: Jack Gaughan (in a more psychedelic than usual mode for him), and Kelly Freas.

So, I spent a fair amount of time on the background of these writers. Could it be that the novels themselves are not so interesting? Well -- yes, it could.

(Cover by Jack Gaughan)

Rackham, as I have said before, was a pretty reliably producer of competent middle-range SF adventure. And that describes Flower of Doradil fairly well. Claire Harper is an agent of Earth's Special Service, come to the planet Safari to investigate some mysterious activity on the proscribed continent Adil. Safari is mostly devoted to hunting, but Adil is occupied by the humanoid (completely human, it actually seems) natives. But some plants with tremendous medical properties are being smuggled out, and the agents sent to investigate have disappeared.

Claire is tall, red-haired, and beautiful, as well as great at hand-to-hand combat. This qualifies her to infiltrate Adil, whose natives are reputed to live in matriarchal societies, with the women bigger than the men, and in charge. She hires two guides, Roger Lovell and Sam Coleman, and they make a plan to try to get to the mysterious interior, where the special plants grow, and where a true society of Amazons supposedly rules. And so they make their way there, fighting off a couple of murder attempts, as well as dangerous animals, before they are indeed captured by Amazons. After which the book turns on an attempt to negotiate with the factions of that society -- men who wish to revolt, women who will brook no compromise, and a wise Queen who just happens to be the spitting image of Claire. And evil smugglers who will stop at nothing to retain their monopoly.

It's mostly OK. The sexual politics are a bit retro, but not outrageously so, and certainly the implication is that women and men have equal rights. The view of the natives is a bit patronizing, as well. But the story moves nicely, and the action is tolerably well done, as is the sexual tension beneath things. And then -- the climax comes, quite quickly, and driven by coincidence and luck -- and the book just stops. As if the final chapter was lopped off. Weird. But you do kind of know what happens.

As for Jeremy Strike's A Promising Planet, not surprisingly, it's a lesser work. Bill Warden works as a planetary surveyor for a small company, trying to find promising planets on the cheap. He comes to an interesting new planet, as it happens just ahead of a ship owned by a larger corporation and captained by a woman he seems friendly with, named Sara. Bill claims the planet, and lands, only to have his spaceship commandeered by the locals, and given as a sort of offering to their god.

Who turns out to be real, and who talks to Bill. It seems this god has controlled the planet in a very benign way since "Those Who Went Away" went away. Sara offers to help, and ends up in the same fix as Bill, along with her crewmen, a thuggish mate only interested in plunder, an engineer, and a communications man with limited social skills but lots of brains. Bill Warden ends up gaining some trust with the god, and he is allowed to see the city of those who went away. Buck, the mate, starts stealing, while Jason, the engineer, ends up in the custody of the High Priest of the locals. And the other guy figures out what the god is -- no surprise, a planetary computer, gone fairly mad.

What hath Zelazny wrought, is one thing that ran through my head. Unfairly, no doubt. The novel rather disjointedly rambles to a resolution of sorts, though as the end approaches its clear that nothing terribly interesting or original is possible, and Strike chooses a thuddingly cynical conclusion. I'd have liked something more conventional, to be honest, but in reality, nothing could really rescue this pedestrian effort.

A Forgotten SF Novel: The Super Barbarians, by John Brunner

Obscure SF Novel: The Super Barbarians, by John Brunner

a review by Rich Horton

Here's a very minor part of the John Brunner canon. I am, as I've mentioned before, quite fond of early John Brunner: generally unpretentious and fun stories, usually with pretty decent central ideas, fast-moving (often too much so in the conclusion). No doubt Brunner's later, more ambitious, work is of more lasting quality -- and don't get me wrong, novels like Stand on Zanzibar really are good! -- but the stuff he produced at speed early on is still worth a look.

Brunner was born in 1934, and wrote his first novel (Galactic Storm, as by "Gill Hunt") when only 17. He served in the RAF for a couple of years, and turned to full time writing in 1958. He was enormously prolific, averaging about four novels a year through the early and mid 1960s. Even as his novels grew longer and more ambitious, he still published multiple books most years until about 1975. He slowed down quite a lot around then, as his health worsened, and as he tried for success in the broader literary market, particularly with his 1983 novel The Great Steamboat Race. He died at the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow in 1995.

The Super Barbarians is surely one of his least well-known novels. It was published by Ace, a single novel, in 1962. I know of no prior serialization. It does not seem to have been reprinted until a ebook edition from Gateway/Orion in 2011.

Gareth Shaw is an Earthman working as a servant to the senior wife of Pwill, the head of one of the leading Houses on Qallavarra, the home planet of the alien Vorra, who subjugated Earth a half-century before. Shaw got the job back on Earth, where he had attempted to tutor the foolish heir of Pwill. He hadn't done much good there -- the young Vorra was too undisciplined -- but he made an impression on the boy's mother. Hence the plum job. As the novel opens, he accepts a commission from one of Pwill's younger wives -- to go into the "Acre", the small area reserved for Earthmen on Qallavarra. She wants a love potion, and humans can supply it.

Which suggests the fundamental question here -- the Vorra conquered Earth (though not without a fierce battle), but except for their spaceship tech, they are extremely backward -- the rest of their tech is at Middle Ages level more or less, their medical science is similarly weak, etc. etc.

Shaw is surprised to encounter vicious hostility from the Vorra as he enters the Acre, and similar hostility from the humans he meets once within. It seems he is regarded as a Quisling of sorts. But he completes his task -- and, as hazy memories begin to return, he becomes something of a human partisan.

And so the book continues -- Shaw slowly realizes his true situation, and humanity's true situation. And he manages to conspire effectively, with the unwitting help of the foolish Vorra, especially the younger Pwill, who, it turns out, is desperately addicted to coffee. Shaw is able to help the younger wife in her plotting -- which of course also aids the human cause, not that she realizes this. And along the way he stumbles across the central secret -- easily enough guessed! -- concerning the source of the Vorra space traveling technology, which slingshots to a nicely scary future threat humans must face.

This really is pretty minor work. It's efficiently executed, and I enjoyed reading it. Brunner really is a reliable entertainer. But, except for a bit right at the end, it is never as interesting and thought-provoking as even the early, more slapdash, Brunner novels usually managed. The Super Barbarians isn't bad work of its kind -- but it is nothing more than typical work of its kind.