A Fairly Obscure Ace Double: Space Captain by Murray Leinster/The Mad Metropolis by Philip E. High

Ace Double Reviews, 106: Space Captain, by Murray Leinster/The Mad Metropolis, by Philip E. High (#M-135, 1966, 45 cents)

a review by Rich Horton

(Cover by Gray Morrow)

Here's another fairly obscure Ace Double, distinguished mostly by the presence of one of SF's Old Masters: Murray Leinster, called the Dean of Science Fiction. "Murray Leinster" was a pen name for William Fitzgerald Jenkins (1896-1975). Jenkins was a true professional writer, working in numerous fields. His first story appeared in H. L. Mencken's The Smart Set in 1916, when he was only 19. His first SF story, "The Runaway Skyscraper", appeared in Argosy in 1919. He wrote regularly for Astounding and Analog, beginning in 1930, with his last appearance in Analog coming in 1966. (He retired from writing at about that time: his last non tie-in novel appeared in 1967, his last short story in 1968.) Most of his SF was as by "Murray Leinster", though some was as by "William Fitzgerald" and a few as by "Will F. Jenkins". His romance novels were as by Louisa Carter Lee, and his Westerns and Mysteries as "Will F. Jenkins". He also wrote for radio, television, and the movies. And he was an inventor, most notably of the front projection system used in special effects composite photography. He also won the Hugo for Best Novelette in 1955 for "Exploration Team". In all, quite a remarkable career.

(Cover by Jack Gaughan)

The other writer in this pair, Philip E. High, had a reasonably interesting career himself. He lived from 1914 to 2006. His primary job was as a bus driver. He wrote 14 novels and a number of short stories, mostly for British publications, between 1955 and about 1980, with a number of additional short stories showing up in later years, in publications devoted to venerable UK SF writers.

Murray Leinster, to me, was in his latter years a dependable producer of enjoyable but undistinguished SF, mostly somewhat adventure-oriented. That said, he wrote some truly significant stories earlier in his career, most notably "Sidewise in Time", an influential alternate history story; "A Logic Named Joe", which famously foreshadowed something like the Internet; and "First Contact". The novel at hand, Space Captain, fits in the "enjoyable but undistinguished" category.

(Cover by Kelly Freas)

It was first published in the October and December issues of Amazing, the second and third to be published by Sol Cohen and edited by Joseph Ross (after Ziff-Davis sold Amazing and Fantastic, and Cele Lalli stayed with Ziff_Davis (wisely, no doubt).) Thus I wonder if the story was bought by Lalli or by Ross -- I suspect the latter (though I suspect as well that possibly such stories as Cordwainer Smith's "On the Sand Planet" (December) and the Robert Young and Keith Laumer stories from August were Lalli acquisitions). The serial version was called "Killer Ship", and Amazing, as was their habit, acknowledged the forthcoming book version, and its new title. The copyright page for Space Captain claims that the magazine version was shorter, but I made a cursory comparison of the two versions and I think the serial was actually a bit longer. The differences are mostly rather minor editorial changes, with a few extra sentences here and there.

The protagonist is a certain Captain Trent. Much is made of his ancestry -- he is descended from a series of English ship captains (as well as some spaceship captains and explorers), and many of his actions in this book are compared to his ancestors' heroism with sailing ships. Trent is hired by a group of merchants who have been losing money because of the activities of a group of pirates in a rather isolated area of the Galaxy. His new ship, the Yarrow, will be augmented by a special weapon, which will be controlled by its inventor, an engineer named McHinney. But, Trent tells the merchants, he doesn't hold with gadgets. Nonetheless, he is compelled to take McHinney and his new weapon.

The rest of the novel, then, is a somewhat episodic account of Trent's various encounters with the pirates -- usually preceded by the spectacular failure of McHinney's weapon, after which Trent does things the way he wanted too. In one case he rescues the daughter of an influential politician, and he starts to feel responsible for her. And she seems quite interested in him. That changes Trent's emotional involvement when the politician, assuming the pirate problem has been solved, lets his daughter travel again. So Trent (all along claiming to be a gruff unsentimental ship captain) heads out on a final mission to finally take on the pirates at their planetary base, and once and for all eliminate them.

It's all, well, what you expect. The love story is perfunctory, really, but it has its cute aspects. The science doesn't really bear close inspection. The plot details, and the battles, are pretty implausible. Certainly this is not Leinster at anything close to his best. He's enough of a pro that I still kind of enjoyed the story -- but it's pretty minor work, no doubt.

Philip E. High's stories had a tendency to be very weird, and to be a bit shoddily constructed. I think that applies to The Mad Metropolis. It opens with Stephen Cook, a Prole in an overcrowded future, being pushed out of his home building to the street. Streets, it seems, are near certain death for the unprepared, and Cook, in terror, is nearly a plaything of an upper class woman ready to torment him with psychic weapons -- until he is rescued by the Metropolis' private police force, the Nonpol. He is soon released, with almost no money, after an investigation hints that his intelligence is higher than a Prole's should be.

Things spiral from there, in a somewhat Van Vogtian fashion. We soon learn that Stephen Cook is a superman whose intelligence has been artificially restrained. Cook is soon involved in a multi-sided battle for the fate of the world. It involves Mayor Tearling of his home city, and other politicians just trying to maintain the status quo, as one side; the Nonpols as another side; a group of super intelligent people called Oracles; and, perhaps most importantly, a computer (called Mother) that has been taking over the world in "With Folded Hands" fashion -- keeping people safe from themselves to an excessive degree. Oh, and the mob too. And a love interest for Cook.

It's quite a strange and overwrought book. There are some neat ideas, such as the hypnads that mediate everyone's access to their senses, such that a decrepit city can appear glorious, and such that most people look beautiful. There is also a sense of moral ambiguity -- Cook, for example, is brought to realize that his super powers are being manipulated in potentially dangerous ways. But on the whole the story is really just too much of a mess to work. High could be interesting -- though he was never exactly good -- but I think this book rates as one of his lesser efforts.

Old Bestseller: Sweet William, by Marguerite Bouvet

Old Besteller: Sweet William, by Marguerite Bouvet

a review by Rich Horton

Here's a return to a subtheme of this series -- popular books for children. As with most children's books it didn't appear on any bestseller lists (and indeed there weren't any such lists when this book was published in 1891). It appears to have been quite popular, however.

Despite her name, and the fact that Sweet William (as with many of her books) is set in France, Marguerite Bouvet was an American. That said, she was of French ancestry (both her parents came from distinguished French families, but they lost their fortune in the Civil War), and she was born in New Orleans, and she spent about 7 years of her childhood in France, living with her grandparents after her father's death. So she came by her interest in things French honestly enough! She was born in 1865 and died in 1915.

She spent some time as a French teacher, but turned to writing. Most or all of her books were for children. Sweet William was one of her earliest books, published in 1891, by the Chicago firm A. C. McClurg. It was illustrated by Helen and Margaret Armstrong, a pair of sisters who were significant women illustrators of the time. (I like the illustrations quite a bit.) My copy has pasted-in labels on the inside front cover, reading: "To Stephney Roller on her 7th Birthday, From Pearl Sling[?]".

Sweet William is the story of a little boy who grows up isolated in a tower of the castle at Mont Saint Michel (called Mount Saint Michael in the book). William is put there by the evil Duke William. It seems Duke William of Normandy (not THE William of Normandy), a cruel man, went off to war alongside his much more popular brother. Both left pregnant young wives at home. William killed his brother on the field (even though both were fighting for France). On coming home, he found that both women had had their children, but William's wife died in childbirth. Furious, he orders the little son of his brother locked up in the tower. His own daughter is raised in the castle, but fortunately the cruel Duke is away most of the time, and in addition his sister-in-law is exiled back to her family.

Despite his isolation, young William, soon called Sweet William, grows up a virtuous and happy child. His only companions are his nurse and an elderly manservant. Aged 6 or 7 or so, he spies his cousin Constance going off to hunt on her beloved horse -- and she sees him in the tower. Soon she has inveigled her servants to allow her to visit the tower, and she and William become close.

Things continue in that vein for a while, with the cruel Duke away most of the time. The only person he is nice to is his daughter. But eventually something must give. The Duke takes Constance to a joust in a far away town, and in the process she attracts the attention of a handsome young man. (The attention is made to seem almost sexual -- although Constance at this time is perhaps 9 or so, making this all a bit creepy.) The young man, a Count, manages to talk to Constance, and learn something of her family, and of the mysterious cousin hidden away in a tower. But the Count has a secret of his own -- a lost sister who married a nobleman from Normandy. And the Count recognizes something of his sister in little Constance ...

You can probably guess the secret revelation. Which to be honest I found a bit anti-climactic, a bit disappointing. Of course the Duke is brought to a shocking revelation of his own injustice ... though his villainy has always been apparent, and (as the book makes clear) his eventual sort of repentance does him little credit. It is clear the William and Constance (though only 9 or so! and first cousins!) will marry (when they get older) and that Sweet William will become rightful Duke of Normandy in good time.

The book is unrealistic, the plot a bit silly, and there is plenty of sanctimoniousness throughout. And the characters, especially the children, especially Sweet William, don't really make sense. Despite all that, it held my attention through its relatively short length (perhaps 36,000 words), and I can imagine it had some popularity at some time. I don't think it particularly worthy of revival, but I don't regret the time spent reading it.

A Forgotten SF Novel: Point Ultimate, by Jerry Sohl

A Forgotten SF Novel: Point Ultimate, by Jerry Sohl

a review by Rich Horton

Jerry Sohl (1913-2002) was a journalist turned SF writer. He wrote about 14 novels and 16 short stories between 1952 and the mid-80s (with a couple of outlier shorts a bit later). He also had a fairly significant career as a TV writer for such series as The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, The Invaders, and the original Star Trek (he wrote "The Corbomite Maneuver"). Nothing he wrote was particularly memorable -- the Science Fiction Encyclopedia allows that he was "competent" and a "professional craftsman", but Gary Westfahl is much harsher on his TV contributions, and Damon Knight absolutely eviscerated the book at hand (Point Ultimate) in In Search of Wonder. To put the final nail in his coffin, my wife Mary Ann, a devotee of Star Trek: The Original Series, describes "The Corbomite Maneuver" as "not one of my favorite episodes".

Still, his was a name I was sufficiently familiar with that I figured I ought to give him a try, and when I found a copy of Point Ultimate in an antique store for a dollar I thought "What the heck?", and bought it. I didn't remember Knight's review -- it turns out Knight was right.

(Cover by Farragasso)

Point Ultimate was published in 1955 by Rinehart and Company (and simultaneously in Canada by Clarke, Irwin). It arguably fits in two separate categories of James Nicoll's themed review series. James is currently doing "Red Menace" books (though he's looking for more "hidden Commies" than this book, in which they've already taken over), and back in 1999 or so, at rec.arts.sf.written, he did a series of books set at the turn of the millennium, and this book is set in 1999.

The following will be full of spoilers for the book.

The book opens with 26 year old Emmett Keyes planning to escape Spring Creek, IL (near Springfield) and somehow meet up with the resistance movement he is sure must exist somewhere. For it seems that in 1969, four years before Emmett was born, the Russians invaded the US (and the rest of the world), and took over without much of a fight, due to two factors: a shield they invented which stops any bombs reaching Soviet territory, and, more importantly, a plague that they have distributed all over the world. They alone hold the secret of immunity, and they give it out as booster shots that last a month, so that all their subject peoples must toe the line, and show up for their shots every month.

Emmett has one secret in his favor: he's immune to the plague. So he heads out on his trek, and before you know it, he has blundered into a farm owned by a nasty Commie collaborator. The Commie tries to kill him, and Emmett, in self defense, kills the man instead. His wife turns out to be thrilled -- she hated her husband and all the commies, and she gives Emmett some money and a stun gun her husband had been issued, and sends him on his way. He soon blunders again into a group of suspicious people in the woods. They quickly subdue him, and take his gun, and they immediately know who he is. But they seem to be against the Commies -- and, more importantly, one of them is a delectable young woman who falls for Emmett immediately. He is quickly released -- without learning anything about the group -- but the girl, Ivy, suggests he try to find a nearby group of gypsies.

But before Emmett reaches the gypsy camp, he blunders again (Emmett blunders a lot) and is captured by the local Communist director, Mr. Gniessen. Fortunately, Gniessen is desperate for human company -- it seems all his Soviet-provided servants are robots, and the only humans who live with him are his chef and his doctor. He is safe, however, because the house brain recognizes all the people on the estate via the bracelets they wear (one is immediately placed on Emmett), so escape is impossible. Emmett becomes Gniessen's massage therapist. Gniessen is a fat and dissipated man. Emmett soon learns of his major recreation -- weekly orgies in which the prettiest of the local girls are brought in for the entertainment of the local Communist officials and trusted collaborators. (The girls are well compensated.) He also learns from the Doctor of an underground network of abortionists who help girls who get in trouble (the Communist regime strictly regulates births, for reasons which take a long time to come clear), and also he finds hints that some girls are sent somewhere special to have their babies -- somewhere from which they never return.

Emmett's chance to escape comes by coincidence, when Gniessen's heart gives out, and Emmett can replace his own bracelet with Gniessen's. He gets away far enough to finally meet a gypsy caravan, and he soon finds to his shock that the magician's girl assistant is no one other than Ivy. After overcoming their suspicions he joins them, and is looking forward to meeting the leader of the resistance movement he had been sure existed, and to go to "Point Ultimate", their headquarters. But before this can happen the Communists track him down, and he is taken to New York to talk to one of the Commie leaders. But magically the resistance leaders desperately want him, so they manage to spring him, and he gets taken to Point Ultimate, where he learns the real secret ... The American scientists (many of them) managed to escape and hide, and they have colonized Mars, and also developed a way for 20% of the population to become immune to the plague, and they are slowly building a force based on Mars to return and destroy the Commie threat. And,look, here comes Ivy, who can't live without Emmett, so she will gladly take the 20% chance that she can become immune to the plague to join him on Mars.

In a way, I'm exagerrating. The book is indeed pretty bad. But on a scene by scene basis it's professionally told, and often pretty exciting. And of course the villains are truly evull, and the good guys and girls are pretty good, and ... well, that's about it. The plot is, event by event, simply impossible to believe. Emmett should have been dead or in a labor camp at every single step. And the depiction of the "Enemy", the Communist invaders, is absurdly over the top, and their subsequent laziness and decadence is also exaggerated. (For all that, Damon Knight's review doesn't really convince -- he's shooting at fish in a barrel and he still manages to miss some. Though it is amusingly executed.)

Bottom line -- a book that has been forgotten for good reason.

Old Bestseller: Rodney Stone, by A. Conan Doyle

Old Bestseller: Rodney Stone, by A. Conan Doyle

a review by Rich Horton

The title page of this book lists A. Conan Doyle, as "Author of Round the Red Lamp, The Stark Munro Letters, The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard, etc.". See anything missing?

Doyle had one book make the Publishers' Weekly list of the top ten bestsellers of the year -- The Hound of the Baskervilles, in 1902. I also found an intriguing blog, http://earlyamericanbestsellers.blogspot.com, produced at BYU, that attempts to list bestsellers from before actual bestseller lists started (in 1895), which lists The Sign of the Four as one of the top four bestsellers of 1890, and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for 1891. (The other writers on the list for those years were James Barrie and Rudyard Kipling.) So why wouldn't those books be listed on the title page of Rodney Stone? I suspect perhaps Doyle himself forbade mention of the Holmes books in a book published in 1896 -- he had killed Holmes off in 1893, and he didn't appear again until 1901, as Doyle concentrated on historical novels. Doyle considered the Holmes stories potboilers, and felt that his historical novels were his best work. (By the way, A. Conan Doyle was the form of his name that Doyle usually used as a byline.)

There's not much point in me detailing Arthur Conan Doyle's biography -- most people have heard of him. He was born in 1859, died in 1930. He certainly remains by far best known for Sherlock Holmes, but other works like the Professor Challenger stories and the Brigadier Gerard stories are still well-remembered, and his historical novels, though not well-known these days, seem to be reasonably highly regarded. He also helped popularize, and exaggerate, the mystery of the Mary Celeste (which he misspelled Marie Celeste, and his misspelling is probably seen more often than the correct spelling); and he was famously fooled by the photographs of the Cottingley fairies. Some think he was involved in the Piltdown Man hoax.

My edition of Rodney Stone seems possibly the first American edition, from D. Appleton and Company. It features several rather fine illustrations by Sidney Paget, who also illustrated many of the Holmes stories. The novel was serialized before (or perhaps roughly at the same time as) book publication, in the Strand magazine in the UK (but not in the American version of the magazine, as Doyle had sold US serialization rights separately (to a newspaper syndicate) -- this was the first time the US and UK editions of the Strand differed substantively, and it also was, I am given to understand, the first serial to appear in the magazine.),

Rodney Stone is the name of the narrator, who tells this story in 1851, reminiscing about momentous events of his youth. (So that the story is purposely twice historical -- Doyle of course is writing decades after 1851, which is decades after the events of the novel.) He cautions us that he is but a minor character (and he's not lying), which makes the choice of title a bit odd. Rodney is a member of a naval family, and indeed his father is away at sea when the book starts. Rodney lives in Friar's Oak, a small village near Brighton. His best friend is Jim Harrison, the nephew of the local smith, Champion Harrison, so called because he was a great boxer until his wife made him give it up.

A significant early episode is a visit by the two boys to a nearby haunted mansion, Cliffe Royal, where a notorious murder occurred years earlier. It seems that Lord Avon, the owner of Cliffe Royal, was playing cards with his younger brother, and with Sir Lothian Hume and Sir Charles Tregellis. (Tregellis is Rodney's mother's brother.) Avon's brother won heavily, and was found with his throat cut the next morning. Avon was seen holding a knife, and he fled to American instead of standing trial. Lothian Hume would be the new Lord Avon were the original shown to be dead. The boys, on their visit, see the bloodstains -- and also see a ghost.) Another important episode in the lives of the boys comes when a dissipated woman (once a famous actress) takes up residence in the town, and Jim Harrison manages to influence her to give up alcohol.

The Peace of Amiens comes, and Rodney's father comes home. But it is decided to importune Sir Charles Tregellis, a famous dandy, to take Rodney (now about 17) to London to polish him a bit. Tregellis agrees to do so, as long as such of his activities as his upcoming bet with Lothian Hume on a boxing match are not in conflict. Hume is backing a young boxer from the West Country. Sir Charles doesn't have a contestant yet -- he hints that Champion Harrison might do, but Harrison, mindful of his promise to his wife, refuses. There follows a fascinating dinner with a number of members of the Corinthian set, and with many famous boxers. Hume (who is severely in debt) pressures Tregellis to name his man -- and suddenly Jim Harrison shows up, and volunteers to face the West County boxer.

So Jim goes into training, while Rodney follows his Uncle around town, astonished by the exaggerated artificiality and silliness of his manners, while seeing occasional hints of a stronger man behind the foppish exterior. It soon becomes clear that Rodney is ill-suited for the fashionable life, and fortunately, the Peace is over, and Rodney's father arranges with Lord Nelson for a position for Rodney in the Navy. (So we get to meet two more famous people: Nelson, and also his mistress Lady Hamilton, who is portrayed with absolute viciousness by Doyle. Rodney had previously been introduced to the Crown Prince, later the Prince Regent, later George IV -- he too is portrayed in a rather negative fashion. He also meets Beau Brummel, a friend and rival of Tregellis.) But before Rodney and his father go to see, it's time for the climactic boxing match.

There are rumors of foul play -- it seems that Sir Lothian Hume has hired some toughs to try to injure Jim Harrison and cause the match to be forfeited. And, indeed, on the morning of the fight, Jim is missing! What will Sir Charles do?

Well, I won't reveal who fights, though I will say that the boxing match is a pretty satisfying set piece. And, of course, that's not the climax of the novel -- the real climax is the revelation of what really happened that night long ago when four men were playing cards at Cliffe Royal. This of course has significant implications for several people, some of whom might be a surprise. I will say that I had guessed most of this -- most readers will -- and I'll add that I was disappointed by some of the details I didn't guess.

All in all this is a pretty satisfying historical novel. Arthur Conan Doyle, undoubtedly, was more than just the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. He was proudest of his historical novels -- I'm not sure I would go so far, but certainly Rodney Stone confirms that he was an effective historical novelist.

I will add that this book, set about a decade before the Regency, seems possibly an influence of the novels of Georgette Heyer -- the portrayal of the dandy set in particular seems familiar. And, interestingly, the male protagonist of Heyer's first significant novel, These Old Shades, is the Duke of Avon -- echoes of Lord Avon in this book (though Heyer's Duke and Doyles Lord Avon are otherwise radically different characters.)

An Old Ace Double: The Paradox Men, by Charles Harness/Dome Around America, by Jack Williamson

Ace Double Reviews, 18: The Paradox Men, by Charles L. Harness/Dome Around America, by Jack Williamson (#D-118, 1955, $0.35)

by Rich Horton

This old Ace Double is a fortuitous combination -- back in 1955 Ace managed to pair two writers who, in 2003 (when I first wrote this review), were nearly the oldest living active SF writers. (Andre Norton still qualified as active, though only one of her late novels was not a collaboration. Her age was between Williamson's and Harness's. Nelson Bond was not then active, but he did have a story in Asimov's not too many years before 2003. Among truly active writers, Williamson and Harness seemed then clearly the oldest.)

The Paradox Men has become a classic in the field. Dome Around America hasn't. In both cases, for good reason. The Paradox Men was first published as "Flight Into Yesterday", in the May 1949 Startling Stories. That version was about 56,000 words long. The first book version was a 1953 hardcover, also called Flight Into Yesterday, from Bouregy and Curl. It was slightly expanded -- I haven't seen that book, but I presume the 1955 Ace Double, with the title changed to The Paradox Men, is substantially the same, and it's about 60,000 words. The Paradox Men was later reprinted, again slightly expanded to about 64,000 words, in 1981 in a Crown hardcover, as part of their Classics in Science Fiction series. As far as I know the 1999 reprint from NESFA Press, as part of the four novel omnibus called Rings, follows the 1981 text. Dome Around America was also originally published in Startling Stories, in the July 1941 issue, under the title "Gateway to Paradise". The 1955 edition is certainly a revision, though I haven't seen the earlier story. Dome Around America is about 42,000 words long.

(Cover by Richard Powers)

The Paradox Men is arguably still Harness's most famous and most respected novel. The plot is complicated, but consistent, logical, and thematically sound. The characters are two-dimensional but interesting and involving. The action is well-done, and the scientific ideas are sometimes philosophical and thoughtful, and at other times wild, implausible, but still engaging. The basic story is of a Thief, Alar, who has appeared in Imperial America 5 years prior to the action of the story, with no memory of his past or identity. The Thieves work underground against the repressive society, using tech invented by their mysterious, dead, founder, Kennicot Muir. The key piece of Thief tech is armor which protects them against high velocity weapons (like projectile weapons), but not against swords and knives. Thus fencing is again a major skill. (Herbert swiped this notion for Dune, of course.) At the time of the action, various threads are converging: the plans of Imperial America to attack its Eurasian enemy, the Toynbee society's attempts to avoid the continuing historical cycle of civilizations rising and falling (they believe that the coming war will bring Toynbee Civilization 21 to an end: the next one will be Toynbee 22, hence Harness' original title (never used on a published version): Toynbee Twenty-Two), the completion of an experimental FTL starship, the relationship between the evil leaders of Imperial America and Keiris Muir, the enslaved widow of Kennicot Muir, and her attraction to Alar, the predictions of the computer-enhanced human called The Meganet Mind (or the Microfilm Mind in the original). What a horrible sentence: but trying to summarize Harness can do that to you. Everything comes to a head with a trip to the surface of the Sun, and then a much stranger trip ...

I recommend it. It seems comparable in many ways to its near contemporary The Stars My Destination: Harness probably had a more original mind than Bester's, and his themes seem a bit more ambitious. But he really couldn't write with him -- and I think it is because of the writing (both prose and pace) that the manic energy of the Bester book is more successfully sustained. Still, The Paradox Men remains a powerful and interesting novel, and such scenes as the final selfless act of Keiris are all but unmatched in SF.

As far as I can tell from comparing the three versions of the novel I have, the first expansion involved some minor wording changes throughout, and the addition of a couple of fairly minor scenes. There is one new chapter, which is a division of one of the original chapters into two (with some additions). It might well be that the editor of Startling Stories (Sam Merwin) made the original cuts to fit the space available. The 1981 expansion involves some changes in the tech, to make it slightly (only slightly!) more plausible for 1980s sensibilities. The most obvious change is that the Microfilm Mind becomes the Meganet Mind. On balance, I think the latter-day changes sensible and not harmful to the feel of the story, and I'd recommend the NESFA edition -- but reading any of the three main editions will give you pretty much the same experience.

(Cover by Ed Valigursky)

Dome Around America is set a couple hundred years in the future. The United States is enclosed in a force field which has preserved its air and water from the disaster caused by a "dwarf star" wandering through the solar system. The US offered this technology to the rest of the world, but Cold War tensions caused the other countries to refuse it, and to disbelieve US reports of the dwarf star danger. (There was also that accident in Australia, but that was probably commie sabotage anyway!) I'm guessing that one of the changes from 1941 to 1955 was substituting Soviet villains for Nazi villains. The dwarf star sucked away the atmosphere from the rest of the Earth, and it is assumed that it is all a moon-like desolation, just as it looks.

Barry Thane is a young man, part of the "Ring Guard", the dwindling crew of men who guard the dome from sabotage. But he has come to believe that something weird -- aliens, maybe? -- live Outside. So he is mentally prepared when he notices a moving rock penetrating the dome, and what he discovers is a camouflaged spaceship/ground vehicle, sent by an organization of surviving humans who are consumed with hate for America, and who live in domes with limited water and air on the former ocean bed. Barry foils the plot of the man in the invading ship, Glenn Clayton, and he hatches a plan to impersonate Clayton and infiltrate the Outside. But Clayton has plans of his own ... And both men are vulnerable to the charms of a woman of their enemies ...

It's really silly stuff, with not much in the way of redeeming values. The science is nonsensical. The resolution is just plain wholly unbelievable. The story itself moves nicely enough -- Williamson was too much the pro to fail to tell a solid story scene by scene. But all in all it is a fairly prime example of why routine 1940s SF is so often unmemorable.

Hugo Ballot Reviews: Short Story

My ballot for the 2017 Hugo for Best Novelette

The shortlist is as follows:

"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; reprinted in Uncanny Magazine)

"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)

Again, two SF stories, one of them the Rabid pick. Yes, the Fantasy-heavy lineup is making me a bit grumpy. and as we'll see, I think the Fantasy nature of a couple of the stories is a weakness in them. Again -- Fantasy is absolutely eligible for the Hugo, and if that's what you like, I can't argue. And I do like a good Fantasy story. But it's also important to recognize good SF, and SF does some important things, different from Fantasy, that I don't think we do well to be ignoring.

All the writers save Wright are women. Four of the stories were first published online in free venues, and one more was reprinted last year in a free venue.

My ballot will look like this:

1) "That Game We Played During the War", by Carrie Vaughn

Easy pick for me. It was the only story on my nomination list to make the final ballot. (As I've noted before, that's not unusual.) And it's SF. More importantly, it's really good. From my Locus review: ""That Game We Played During the War" is a moving piece about Calla, a woman who was a nurse for Enith during their war with the telepathic Gaant people. The war is over, and Calla is visiting Gaant, trying to meet and continue a game of chess she had been playing with Major Valk, whom she had encountered both in Enith and later after she was captured, in Gaant. This version of chess is unusual -- because of the Gaantish telepathy -- and it’s not so much the point -- the point, of course, is how enemies can come to a peaceful meeting (and, too, how telepathy complicates that!)" So -- a core SF idea used very well in service of a worthwhile moral point. With good writing and good characters. Works for me.

2) "Seasons of Glass and Iron", by Amal El-Mohtar

Here's the first inflection point, for me, in this category. I think the gulf between Carrie Vaughn's story and the rest of the ballot is pretty wide. The next two or three are pretty decent stories, but not stories I'd consider quite Hugo-worthy (which doesn't mean I'll leave them off my ballot). Next on my list, then, is "Seasons of Glass and Iron", which has grown on me a bit after rereading. It's about two women, fairy-tale heroines from traditional stories. One is Tabitha, forced to wander the world until she wears out seven sets of iron boots becaue she let slip the secret that her husband was both beast and man; Amira is the princess on the glass hill, forced to wait until a suitor can make it all the way up the hill. The ending is a bit too obvious -- we can see it as far in the distance as Tabitha sees the hill. Still, it's a nice enough story, just not, to me, a great story.

3) "Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies", by Brooke Bolander

This grew on me a bit upon rereading as well. Still, it's a short-short (perhaps 1100 words), that does one thing -- tell a story of rape and murder, or, more appropriately, vengeance and finding power without ceding power to the villain -- and it does it with panache and energy. But there's little enough of true fantastical interest here. That's one thing I do want in my Hugo winners -- a core element of SFnal or Fantastical interest. Anyway, this is, again, a fine story, and it does what it wants to do quite well in its short space, but there were better stories this year.

4) "A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers", by Alyssa Wong

I reread this one too, and I'm wobbling on it a bit. It's the story of two sisters, one of whom leaves their family, and the other who stays -- and dies, in her sister's thoughts (and perhaps actually) ending the world. But there are multiple worlds, especially as the two sisters keep trying to rewind time. Lots of flash to the story -- it's well written, and agonized, and ... Well, I didn't care that much. Which to be sure could be my fault. Also, the magic seemed simply arbitrary -- which is a big reason I didn't care. Again, I want more true SFnal or fantastical zing. This is well-done, sure, but, for me, kind of meh. 

5) No Award

Sometimes you have to make a stand. I didn't think either of the two remaining stories -- wholly aside from any Rabid Puppy influence -- good enough to rank ahead of No Award.

6) "The City Born Great", by N. K. Jemisin

About a young man who becomes aware that something is coming to life in the fabric, as it were, of New York City. And he becomes, I guess, the steward of New York's new life, after meeting and befriending (?) an older (much much older) man who seems to know what's going on. Some decent prose here, and nothing much else that interested me. The idea -- that a city can attain an actualized "life" -- become a true living thing -- is very old, to the point of cliché. (Which doesn't mean it can't still be used profitably.) And the story really does nothing interesting with this idea. (And, to my mind, is totally unconvincing in suggesting that New York is only now (in story terms, which seems roughly present day, or at most a couple of decades in the past) coming to life, and no other American city is similarly alive -- this seems, in context of the story, just false to fact.) I also didn't think the main character believable. And once again -- arbitrary magic, leaving us with another story with insufficient Fantastical zing. But, hey, lots of people obviously liked it!

7) "An Unimaginable Light", by John C. Wright

This story is a talky piece, mostly dialogue between a robot -- a whorebot -- accused of violating the "general directives" governing robot behavior; and the robot's examiner. Loads the dice in the direction we expect, then pulls an unconvincing twist at the end. It is interesting in exploring deep ideas, but I think kind of fumbles this. It also depends overmuch on the context of the rest of the closely linked anthology it appeared in -- but I'm voting for "Best Short Story" here, not "best part of a linked narrative".

For what it's worth, I'll publish my nomination ballot. I actually listed a number of other stories in my post on my nomination thoughts -- most of which were on a par with the stories I nominated. I didn't have a clear winner among all my short story choices, that is; and that's emblematic of a wider, and basically unsolvable, problem with this category in particular: there are so many stories published each year that there are typically way more worthy stories than potential nominations. (This of course is the biggest reason the short story category used to have potential nominees thrown out due to the now vanished "5% rule.) It's easy to understand why some of these five didn't get noticed as much: Kanakia's story was in Interzone, which is not only a print 'zine but based in the UK, and Rich Larson may well have been competing with himself too much -- he published several nomination worthy stories last year, and it's easy to imagine they sort of split the Larson vote. I will note that three of these stories appeared first in print. It would have been nice to see Rambo get the nod, after the disappointment of her disqualified Nebula nomination. 

"Empty Planets", by Rahul Kanakia (Interzone, January/February)

"Red in Tooth and Cog", by Cat Rambo (F&SF, March/April)

"Red King", by Craig de Lancey (Lightspeed, March)

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

"All That Robot Shit", by Rich Larson (Asimov’s, September)

Three SF Novels from the Scholastic Book Club (Del Rey, Key, Silverberg)

Three SF Novels from the Scholastic Book Club (Del Rey, Key, Silverberg)

a review by Rich Horton

Like many kids in my generation -- and perhaps to this day! -- I used to get paper (kind of newsprint) order forms for various arms of Scholastic Publishing at my schools. I was happy to order books through them, for 35 cents or whatever. I don't remember getting a lot of SF though -- in fact, the only SF book I remember getting from Scholastic for sure was Stranger From the Depths, by Gerry Turner (a fairly well-remembered book, reprinted by Scholastic in a sharply abridged edition in the early 70s -- the novel was first published in 1968).

I did read one such book from the library, when I was 10 or so -- Revolt on Alpha C, by Robert Silverberg, his first "novel" (very nearly his first published fiction) -- a juvenile that came out in 1955 from Thomas Crowell and was later reprinted by Scholastic.

The other day, however, at an estate sale I saw three Scholastic Books in pristine condition: the aforementioned Revolt on Alpha C, as well as The Forgotten Door, by Alexander Key, and The Runaway Robot, by Lester Del Rey. I was familiar with all these books by title, and I figured I'd snap them up and read them.

I could somewhat jokingly say that "Lester Del Rey" was a pseudonym, used by such writers as Robert Silverberg and Paul Fairman, as well as by Leonard Knapp. That's an exaggeration. But in fact Lester Del Rey was the name used by the man born Leonard Knapp. I don't know if he ever legally changed his name. He used to claim his real name was Ramon Felipe Alvarez-del Rey. He did use a variety of other pseudonymns, such as Philip St. John and Erik van Lhin. He did some major SF work early in the Campbell era, most notably the robot story "Helen O'Loy" and a tense novella about a nuclear disaster, "Nerves". Most of his later contributions -- quite major contributions! -- to the SF field were as editor, of a number of SF magazines in the 1950s, and of books most significantly in the 1970s (it was he who discovered Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara). His writing career went by fits and starts -- he apparently suffered repeatedly from writer's block, and so turned to the likes of Silverberg to write stories he had agreed to do. And, for The Runaway Robot, he apparently contributed an outline that Paul Fairman, a hack writer who had had an undistinguished (to say the most) career at the helm of Amazing in the 1950s, and who later wrote a novelization of the short-lived 1970s sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie (a show I remember with some affection), turned into the finished novel. The book first appeared in hardback from Westminster Press in 1965, and was reprinted by Scholastic in 1966. This edition is illustrated by Wayne Blickenstaff. It's the longest of these three books at just under 50,000 words -- the other two are a bit shy of 30,000 words each.

That's not an encouraging gestation -- and in some ways The Runaway Robot is a pretty bad book. The plot stretches our credulity, and the science stretches it even farther. But in the end, I thought it pretty good in one important way. It's told by a robot named Rex, who has been a companion to Paul, a boy on the Jupiter satellite Ganymede. When Paul's family is recalled to Earth, they decide they can't take the robot. He is sold to a fungus farmer, but he doesn't like his new life, and he misses Paul, so he runs away to at least see Paul one more time before he leaves. But Paul sneaks away, and convinces Rex to help him stow away on a freighter headed to Mars and then Earth. Rex manages to get the two of them onto the Terrabella. He hides Paul, and he convinces the Captain to "hire" him -- and makes a great impression with his cooking. Inevitably Paul is discovered, and the Captain is angry and turns them into the authorities on Mars, but Rex comes to the rescue once again and escapes, then sends Paul home to Earth, while rejoining the Captain as his ship heads to Earth then Ganymede. But once on Earth, more adventures happen, and in the end ...

Well, I won't spoil it. And, as I suggest, the plot is really kind of silly. But the book is redeemed by one aspect -- Rex. His character is really well handled. He's a fairly intelligent robot, but as he tells the story, robots, of course, are not really intelligent, and really don't have feelings, or imagination, etc. All along Rex is demonstrating tremendous intelligence, impressive imagination, and true emotion. (He's certainly a lot smarter, and a lot more likable, than Paul!) All this is presented pretty humorously -- I thought it really worked. I certainly rooted for Rex -- and so the inevitable ending was satisfying (though plotwise it happened entirely too quickly).

The Forgotten Door is another 1965 book originally published by Westminster, that had a reprint edition from Scholastic, apparently also in 1965. The author is Alexander Key (1904-1979), an illustrator and author, probably best known for Escape to Witch Mountain (1968), which has been filmed multiple times. My scholastic edition is illustrated by Dom Lupo.

The Forgotten Door shares themes with multiple Alexander Key books -- themes that suggest he kind of hated most people. The story opens with a boy stumbling into a pit of sorts, and coming out in an alien world -- Earth, presumably the North Carolina mountains where Key lived. The boy is schocked when the first people he meets seem hostile -- and especially shocked when they shoot at a deer he has befriended. We quickly gather that this boy -- who can't remember his own name -- can sense people's -- and animal's -- thoughts. He finally encounters a friendly family, the Beans. Over the next few days the boy gains a name -- Jon -- and becomes close to the Beans, but finds little but suspicion elsewhere. He is accused of stealing (the real villains are a couple of no good local kids from a no good local family (the adults are also persistent thieves) -- it soon seems that all the locals are no good except for a kindly judge). He is threatened with entry into the web of social services. The government hears of him and soon wants to examine him and probably make use of his telepathic talents. (And there are hints that Russian agents are also on his track.) In a desperate conclusion, his only hope -- and indeed the Beans' only hope -- is that he can find the "door" he entered Earth through and return to his home planet -- along with the Beans, who conveniently have no real ties and pretty much seems to hate everyone anyway. (Granted, the story makes it easy to see why they'd hate the people around them, but I really felt the author had his finger pretty heavily on the scales.)

It's an exciting and involving story, and there are moments that are really moving. And I think I'd have loved it if I read it age 10 or so. But I felt now that Key was having things his way with plot and character manipulation, and the sense I got of real dislike of the human race really bothered me, and struck me as essentially unfair. I didn't believe in his aliens (granting that we couldn't see them enough to really know them), and I thought the conclusion was kind of unearned, and an escape, not a resolution.

Finally, Revolt on Alpha C. This as I noted above I first read when I was about 10. It might have been the first real Science Fiction book I read (that is, if you don't count the likes of Danny Dunn). It first appeared in 1955 from Thomas Crowell. Silverberg was 20 at the time (his first two stories had appeared in magazines in 1954). Scholastic reprinted it in 1959, and it went through numerous printings subsequently: my copy is the 4th Scholastic printing, from 1963.  The illustrations are by William Meyerriecks.


As it happens, the original order form which the original buyer used to order his copy was neatly folded inside the book. I've reproduced it here. As you can see, it was sold through "Arrow books" -- Scholastic had a few different "book clubs", I think arranged by age -- one of the other ones, if I recall, was TAB.

It's the story of Larry Stark, a young man (20, just like the author) on his final cruise before graduating from the Space Patrol Academy. They are heading to the colony on Alpha Centauri IV. He has a couple of fellow Patrol soon to be graduates along with him. One of them is a rather combative young man, somewhat shorter than the average, whose name is "Harl Ellison". Sound familiar? (I asked Silverberg about this, and he said that for this book he used names of several friends for character names -- that is, he "Tuckerized" them -- a practice which he soon abandoned.)

On the way Larry realizes that his friend Harl has some odd ideas, repugnant to Larry, whose father and grandfather were in the Space Patrol. Harl is not convinced that Earth is always right -- in fact, it turns out, he was born on Jupiter, part of the failed colony there, which was crushed by Earth when they made a bid for independence. This turns out to be important when they end up at Alpha C and find that the colony there is in the throes of a revolution. Many parallels are drawn to the American revolution, but Larry is stubborn in trusting his father and the chains of authority.

He has some adventures, including a trip to one of the four colony cities as a spy for the Earth government. This involves an implausible flight in a helicopter without enough fuel, and a dash through the jungle with a Tyrannosaurus Rex on his tail. (Alpha C IV is represented as being in the equivalent of the Mesozoic Era, and apparently a whole lot of parallel evolution has occurred.) He is thrown in jail, but escapes, and returns to his commander, only to have a crisis of conscience when he realizes that the commander's plan to quash the revolution involves destroying at least one of the colony cities. He must choose between abandoning his career (and disappointing his father), or allowing an atrocity to occur.

It's a beginning writer's book, and it shows. Silverberg is one of the SF field's greats, but it doesn't really show here (not surprising for a book he wrote so early in his career.) The book still moves briskly, and reads nicely enough (though the prose is quite wobbly compared to the mature Silverberg). The science is, let's say, inconsistent -- an attempt at reasonable plausibility (by '50s scientific standards) is made, but there are still howlers. (Like the implication that when you're on Pluto you're closer to Alpha Centauri.) The economics of the colony planets don't hold together at all. The Captain's actions, and how he utilizes his personnel, strained my belief. The central conflict of the story actually could have been pretty wrenching if told with a bit more subtlety.