A Significant Ace Double: The Rithian Terror/Off Center, by Damon Knight

Ace Double Reviews, 4: The Rithian Terror, by Damon Knight/Off Center, by Damon Knight (#M-113, 1965, $0.45)

by Rich Horton

Today would have been Damon Knight's 96th birthday. He was born in Oregon in 1922, and died in 2002. He was one of the most important figures in SF history, in many areas, and in fact I think his importance in other areas than writing has contributed to a certain neglect or diminishment of his accomplishments as purely a writer of science fiction. To wit -- he was one of the first significant critics of science fiction, famous in particular for his book In Search of Wonder. He was a major editor in the field, first of 1950's magazines such as Worlds Beyond (where he published Harry Harrison's first story, and the first Dying Earth tale from Jack Vance) and If, later of the absolutely seminal original anthology series Orbit, and also of numerous significant reprint anthologies. He was the founding President of Science Fiction Writers of America. He was one of the founders of the Milford Writer's Conference. He was married to the great Kate Wilhelm. (He was even, early in his career, briefly an artist.) He won a Hugo in 1956 as Best Book Reviewer. and a Retro-Hugo in 2001 for "To Serve Man". Some people have assumed that these accomplishments are the reason he was named a Grand Master by SFWA in 1995.

But that does his fiction a disservice. He wrote a great quantity of magnificent short fiction, notably at the novella length, with stories like "The Earth Quarter", "Double Meaning", "Rule Golden", "Natural State", "Mary", and "Dio"; but also at shorter lengths, with the SF Hall of Fame story "The Country of the Kind", and "The Handler", "Four in One", "Masks", "Stranger Station", "A for Anything", "I See You", "Fortyday", and many more. His earlier novels were less successful, but towards the end of his life he did some exceptional work at that length, with CV, Why Do Birds?, and Humpty Dumpty: An Oval.

In remembrance of his birthday, I am reposting one of my earliest Ace Double reviews (so it's briefer than usual), of one of the novellas mentioned above ("Double Meaning") backed with a short story collection.

(Covers by Jack Gaughan)

The Rithian Terror is a short novel (or novella), of about 36,000 words. It was originally published in Startling Stories for January 1953 -- I'm not sure if it was expanded or revised for later publication, but I will note that 36,000 words was by no means an unusual length for a story in Startling. The Rithian Terror has also been published under the title "Double Meaning" -- indeed, I believe the only time it appeared as "The Rithian Terror" was in this Ace Double.* It was later published as half of a Tor Double (under the title "Double Meaning") and backed with another Knight short novel, "Rule Golden"). As far as I can tell, the only other stories to be both Ace Double halves and Tor Double halves are two by Jack Vance: "The Last Castle" and "The Dragon Masters"; and two by Leigh Brackett: "The Sword of Rhiannon" and "The Nemesis from Terra". (Spinrad's "Riding the Torch" was both a Tor Double and a Dell Binary Star half.) Off Center is a story collection, with 5 stories, totalling about 44,000 words. It should not be confused with the UK collection Off Centre, which consists of the contents of Off Center plus "Masks", "Dulcie and Decorum", and "To Be Continued". Knight published two other Ace Double halves, Masters of Evolution and The Sun Saboteurs -- I have reviewed both of these (links below). The Sun Saboteurs is an expansion of "The Earth Quarter", and Masters of Evolution is an expansion of "Natural State".

As it happens, both The Rithian Terror and its erstwhile Tor Double companion, "Rule Golden", featured superior (both morally and physically) aliens coming to Earth. I liked The Rithian Terror a fair bit. It features a far future (said to be 2521, felt like 2050 at most) Earth-based Empire, which has a policy of crushing alien races which it encounters. The latest are the Rithians, and after some years of covert harassment by Earth, the Rithians have snuck a spy team onto Earth itself. The story is told from the point of view of the Security man who leads the effort to find the last remaining Rithian, and the points of interest are his relationship with an "uncivilized" member of a breakaway human planet which has good dealings with Rithians, and his courtship of an upper-class woman. Again, the story is fast-moving and enjoyable, with a sound moral point, and the resolution of the main action is nicely calculated, though there is an unconvincing character change pasted on.

The stories in Off Center are:

"What Rough Beast" (10,800 words, from the February 1959 F&SF) -- a man has the power to change the past (involving reaching into parallel universes), thus preventing bad things from happening. Is this a good thing?

"The Second-Class Citizen" (2800 words, from If, November 1963) -- a man who teaches dolphins tricks escapes underwater when the holocaust comes.

"By My Guest" (24,500 words, from Fantastic Universe, September 1958) -- a man drinks a mysterious vitamin and suddenly he can "hear" the ghosts that possess him. This story read to me as if it were Knight trying to do Sturgeon. I liked it, though the ending wasn't quite up to the buildup.

"God's Nose" (800 words, from the men's magazine Rogue in 1964) -- not really SF, a meditation on what God's nose would be like, with, perhaps, a cute but naughty punchline.

"Catch That Martian" (5000 words, from the March 1952 Galaxy) -- there is an epidemic of people being shifted to another dimension, and a policeman theorizes that the cause is a visiting Martian who punishes rude or annoying people in this fashion.

All in all, a very solid brief story collection. "What Rough Beast" is particularly strong, and moving.

Here is my review of The Sun Saboteurs.
And here is my review of Masters of Evolution.

Birthday Review: Faking It, by Jennifer Crusie

Birthday Review: Faking It, by Jennifer Crusie

a review by Rich Horton

Back in the day people used to recommend Jennifer Crusie as one of the best of contemporary romance writers, so I tried a couple of her early novels (which I believe were first published as category yard goods, Harlequin or a similar imprint, but which she was able to have reprinted when she became popular) without much success. But then I bought a later novel, a hardback I believe, and it was a lot better. So on the occasion of birthday I'm reposting something I wrote a long time ago about the novel of hers I liked best.

I have previously tried a couple of Jennifer Crusie novels, and while I have found them moderately enjoyable they have not really lived up to the praise she has received. Her fans have recommended other novels. But my method of picking stuff has been more contingent, not well organized at all. And that continued when I picked up her 2002 novel Faking It at a used book sale a week or two back. However, this time I think I hit the jackpot. Faking It is, it would seem, everything Jennifer Crusie's fans have claimed. Its most distinguising feature is an easy, fluent, constant flow of clever, limber, comedic prose. Line by line the book is not necessarily laugh out loud funny but entertaining and imaginative and sharp.

I should note that the book is rather longer than her genre romance novels. It was published in hardcover, and seems to have been marketed more as "chick lit" than as traditional romance. And indeed while it qualifies as a romance -- certainly it features two main characters who fall for each other from pretty much the start, plus plenty of sex -- it also qualifies as a well-done mystery/caper sort of story (at times almost recalling Donald Westlake's Dortmunder novels), and it has some reasonably acute character observations to make.

The story concerns Matilda (Tilda) Goodnight, about 35 years old, a painter of imitation impressionist murals for people's walls. Her family runs a somewhat down at heels gallery in Columbus, Ohio. This family includes her mother Gwen, her sister Eve, Eve's daughter Nadine, Nadine's father Andrew, who divorced Eve when he realized he was gay, but stayed friends, and Andrew's lover, the family lawyer, Jeff. The family is in debt, partly because of Gwen's feckless, and dead, husband Tony. One thing Tony did was to have Matilda forge a series of paintings supposedly by Scarlet Hodge, the fictional daughter of Homer Hodge, who had done some American primitive paintings that he had actually been able to sell for good money. But now there is a problem -- one of the Scarlet Hodge paintings has been sold by mistake -- a painting that could easily be identified as a fake, which would possibly lead to lawsuits involving the other Scarlets. So Matilda tries to steal the painting back from Clea Lewis, the woman who has bought it.

Clea is a rather nasty 40ish woman who is trying to reel in rich Mason Phipps as her new husband, after the previous two died in suspicious ways. Clea also stole $3,000,000 dollars from a former lover, Davy Dempsey, a con man trying to go straight. Davy wants the money back, so he has abandoned his straight ways to try to steal the money from Clea -- but he runs into Tilda in the process. Standard meet cute -- and quickly they are kissing. But Tilda has basically sworn off men. And she still needs that painting.

So the story continues. Tilda makes Davy promise to get her the painting back. Mason Phipps, meanwhile, is after the Goodnight Gallery, and Gwen. Davy is after Tilda, who is attracted but can't admit it. Davy's friend Simon is after Eve, only he doesn't know it, because he only know's Eve's fake uninhibited personality, Louise. Clea seems to have hired a hit man to kill Davy, but Gwen finds herself unaccountably attracted to the hit man. Tilda realizes she needs Davy to steal or otherwise acquire all the other Scarlet Hodge paintings. Davy has ideas for revitalizing the gallery. Davy's unreconstructed conman father shows up. And so on ... A lot goes on, all quite interesting, all cleverly told, nicely plotted, and as I said very well put together prosodically. The title is nicely reiterated thematically -- fake paintings, fake identities, fake orgasms are all central ... A very light novel, to be sure, but a consistent delight.

Birthday Review: To Crush The Moon, by Wil McCarthy

Birthday Review: To Crush The Moon, by Wil McCarthy

a review by Rich Horton

This review was first published in Locus in 2005. I'm reposting it today in honor of Wil McCarthy's birthday.

With To Crush the Moon Wil McCarthy brings one of the most satisfying recent series of Hard SF novels to a close. This series, collectively called, perhaps, The History of the Queendom of Sol, began in 2001 with The Collapsium (itself an expansion of a 1999 novella). That novel told of brilliant scientist Bruno de Towaji, who saves the Solar System three times from the dangers of super high-tech combined with a jealous rival. The Collapsium introduced the key technologies of the series: various types of programmable matter, and matter transmission. The latter technology, combined with an editing process, allowed for practical immortality. This first book was cheeky and playful and rather Tom Swift-like in ways.

The subsequent three novels are more closely linked, and quite a bit darker in tone. By the end of The Collapsium, Bruno had married the Queen of Sol. In The Wellstone (2003) his son, Bascal, was the ringleader of a group of young people frustrated by their lack of opportunity in a world of immortals. The main character is Bascal's friend Conrad Mursk. The two of them and a large group of rebellious youngsters are exiled to Barnard's Star at the end of the book, and Lost in Transmission (2004) tells of the establishment and ultimate failure of the Barnard's Star colony. Conrad chooses to return to Sol, and To Crush the Moon is the story of what happens after his return.

The Wellstone and Lost in Transmission both had sections set thousands of years in the future, with Conrad (now called Radmer) retrieving Bruno de Towaji from self-imposed exile and returning with him to an altered Moon (now called Lune), where the last significant remnants of humanity are fighting a war with emancipated robots. Earth and the other major planets have been "Murdered". To Crush the Moon tells first of the crisis in Solar System politics that led both to the alteration and terraforming of Luna into Lune, and then to the tragic missteps resulting in the "Murder" of Earth. Conrad and Bruno are central to these events, and so are their wives, Queen Tamra and Xiomary Li Weng (Xmary).  Much of this section is savvy portrayal of what seems like inevitable political problems -- particularly problems dealing with fanatics who wish to restore death to society, and with the impatient returnees from various failed star colonies. Then the conclusion continues the story of the far future war on Lune, with Radmer leading Bruno de Towaji on a desperate mission to, quite literally, save humanity.

The story is satisfying on multiple levels. The scientific (and politico-economic) speculation remains scintillating. The pure adventure aspects are thrilling. The prose is clever, sardonic, successfully darkly funny even in the shadow of the deaths of billions. Conrad and Bruno are very well realized characters, though most of the remaining characters are a bit flatter. (In particular the leading women, Tamra and Xmary, never really come to life.) Lines like "Bruno was elbow-deep in wormholes. Not literally, of course -- he'd lost more than one arm that way already --" are simply delights. The ultimate scope of the story is really impressive, in space, time, and theme. The ending is perhaps a mild disappointment -- it's logical enough, and the reader is not cheated, but it seems just a touch off tonally.

I've truly enjoyed this series of novels, and I confess to slight puzzlement that it hasn't received more notice. For my taste, this is what 21st Century SF ought to be. (Of course there are other recent SF stories that are also "what 21st Century SF ought to be", such as Charles Stross's Accelerando stories.) The latter three novels have all been mass market originals -- perhaps their failure to appear between hard covers has told against them. If so, that's a shame.  I urge readers to seek out these first rate novels.

I've also posted this review of McCarthy's The Wellstone.

Birthday Review: The Wellstone, by Wil McCarthy

Birthday Review: The Wellstone, by Wil McCarthy, Bantam Spectra, New York, NY, 2003, US$6.99, ISBN 0-553-58446-4, 353 pages

a review by Rich Horton

Today is Wil McCarthy's 52nd birthday. Thus I am rescurrecting a review I did of his novel The Wellstone, that appeared in the June 2003 issue of 3SF.

I quite enjoyed Wil McCarthy's The Collapsium a few years back, a generally light-hearted, almost Tom Swiftian, novel set a few centuries hence in the Queendom of Sol. This told of Bruno de Towaji, a great inventor who is called on repeatedly to save the Solar System from destruction, and who finally becomes the permanent consort of the Queen of Sol. There is a lot of wacky tech at the heart of the Queendom. Artificial matter such as super-dense collapsium, which allows the construction of tiny "planettes" with reasonable gravity. The Fax system, by which people and other objects can be transported as information at light speed, and reassembled at their destination. Filters applied to the information in the Fax allow bodily modifications, most especially elimination of disease and aging. Programmable matter, such as wellstone, which allows ready construction of such things as solar sails by reprogramming reflectivity easily.

The sequel is The Wellstone, set some time later. The Fax filters have led to practical immortality (or immorbidity), which is a problem for the children. What will they do when they grow up? Their parents aren't about to vacate their jobs, for the most part. Some of these kids turn delinquent as a result -- or perhaps they would have been that way in any case. A number of kids are being disciplined by confinement to Camp Friendly, a "summer camp" located on a tiny "planette". One of these kids is the POV character, a young engineer named Conrad Mursk. Another is the Crown Prince Bascal, the son of Bruno de Towaji and the Queen. Bascal is extremely talented, a noted poet and a born leader, and he is very rebellious, as well as very spoiled. He incites the boys to an act of sabotage -- they escape via fax to Denver and release a dangerous substance that turns programmable matter to junk. They are soon captured, and Bascal's furious parents return them to Camp Friendly, with even stricter confinement (no working Fax gates).

But Bascal is not to be thwarted. With Conrad's sometimes reluctant help, with the help of a semi-accidental recruit, a teenaged girl named Xmary who was arrested by mistake in the earlier incident, and with the continued help of Bascal's less intelligent henchmen, he hatches another audacious plot. They use the properties of programmable matter to create a "homemade" solar sailship from the planette, and they head for the nearest working Fax gate. But a surprise awaits them there ...

I thought this even a better book than The Collapsium. It lacks the previous book's almost insouciant inventiveness -- the "Tom Swift" nature I referred to above. But the characters are done better, in particular Conrad himself, and Bascal as seen by Conrad. Bascal is an interesting creation -- a nice mixture of admirable and dangerous characteristics. Conrad and Xmary are nicely handled positive characters -- their frustration at their lot as children in a world with no room for them as adults is well portrayed. The book remains inventive, and often funny, with a dark undertone (reinforced by a downright grim prologue and epilogue) that lends a certain (forgive me!) gravitas to the theme.

I've also posted this review of McCarthy's To Crush the Moon.

Birthday Review: The Impossible Bird, by Patrick O'Leary

Birthday Review: The Impossible Bird, by Patrick O'Leary

a review by Rich Horton

Today is Patrick O'Leary's birthday. O'Leary was one of the most promising and fascinating new writers around the turn of the millennium, but, sadly, we've seen little from him since this, his third novel. I'm taking the opportunity to repost this review I did back when it first appeared on my SFF.net newsgroup. (A shorter version appeared in the magazine 3SF.) I've revised the review a bit to reflect what we know since the book appeared.

Patrick O'Leary is an SF author from Detroit.  He's written three  novels, all much praised: Door Number Three, The Gift, and The Impossible Bird. When I read Door Number Three I labelled it magical-realist wacky science fiction, with significant Catholic content. (It's a pretty good book.) O'Leary is an extravagant admirer of that other Catholic SF writer, Gene Wolfe, and Wolfe has been known to praise O'Leary's work quite fulsomely. I was convinced O'Leary was on his way to becoming a major voice in the SF field after these novels, but since then there has only been one more book, a story collection called The Black Heart, in 2009. I don't know what happened but I suspect it may have been the usual sad story -- talented writer is just a bit too strange (in a good way!) to sell widely.

The Impossible Bird is another very strange book that might be called "magical realist science fiction".  (Other books (from the same period) I'm tempted to so classify: Signs of Life, by M. John Harrison; and Zeitgeist, by Bruce Sterling.) It is at core the story of the relationship of two brothers, Mike and Daniel Glynn, who grew up Catholic in Saginaw, MI, in the 1950s.  Now, in about 2000, Mike, the elder by two years, is a successful director of TV commercials, and Daniel is an English professor, living in Detroit.  Throughout their lives it seems Mike has been the better looking, more athletic, more aggressive; while Daniel has been the nerdier and more intellectual.  Daniel is happily married with a 9 year old son, while Mike is divorced.

And both of them are dead.  (Thus in some ways the book also resembles for example Pincher Martin.)  This isn't at all clear at the open.  Daniel seems to be in shock after the death of his wife, while Mike is returning from an ad shoot in the Amazon.  Both are contacted by men who seem to be government agents, and ordered to find each other.  In Daniel's case, the spur is the kidnapping of his son.  But soon the strangeness of their situations becomes obvious. Why are the streets so empty?  Why do people kill each other, with the victims not minding?  What are the hummingbirds that everyone seems to have? And what does the boys' old high school teacher, Dr. Kindler, have to do with all this?  To say nothing of the childhood occasion when the two boys saw a UFO.

It's not entirely clear to me that we are to read this as I read Pincher Martin -- i.e. it's all an hallucination; or if it is to be regarded as real; though on balance I think the after death scenes are to be regarded as real.  The explanation for the after death situation vaguely resembles Robert Charles Wilson's Darwinia (though it is really rather different), and the philosophical working out of that situation is notable for disagreeing violently with the philosophical working out of an arguably similar situation in Greg Egan's Schild's Ladder.

The book basically is about Daniel and Mike working out their issues with each other, and it succeeds rather well on this level.  It's moving, rather sad, and it's also a rather absorbing book.  The SFnal content, however, didn't always quite work for me. And perhaps the characters of the two men, though reasonably well portrayed, are drawn a bit too obviously from stock. Nonetheless, a fine book, and I wish there had been many more from O'Leary.

Birthday Review: Short Stories by K. J. Parker

Birthday Review: Short Stories by K. J. Parker

a compilation by Rich Horton

Today is K. J. Parker's birthday, so I figured I'd do another of my compilations of Locus reviews of short stories by the birthday boy (or girl).

K. J. Parker, of course, is a pseudonym for Tom Holt, and in that context, I'm happy to point you to the review I did in December 2010, long before the name behind the pseudonym was revealed, of Parker's Blue and Gold.

Locus, October 2010

Issue #45 of Australia’s Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine has a very strong story by K. J. Parker, "Amor Vincit Omnia". (This story appeared more or less simultaneously in the Summer issue of Subterranean Magazine.) A young wizard is sent investigate a case where an ignorant villager is rumored to have gained the power called "Lorica" -- immunity from any attack. Such power would be very sinister, but it has also been proven impossible. Nonetheless, something awful has clearly happened ... The story very nicely sets the scene, shows the somewhat creepy methods the wizard reluctantly uses to gain power, and convincing depicts the confused local who certainly has stumbled on something scary ... then springs a neat trap to close things.

Locus, December 2010

I had more pleasure reading K J. Parker’s Blue and Gold than just about anything I've read all year. It features a beautifully constructed plot, plenty of cynical jokes and even some worthwhile commentary on man as a political beast. The story is set in what seemed to me something of an alternate Rome or Byzantium, perhaps a bit like the Rome of Avram Davidson's Vergil stories or his Peregrine stories. It concerns one Saloninus, who opens the book by telling someone "In the morning I discovered the secret of changing base metal into gold. In the afternoon, I murdered my wife." Whether either or both or neither of these claims is true is much of what the story is about, as well as what to make of his relationship with his city’s ruler, Prince Phocas. This is an extremely funny story through and through. The humor, and some of the darkness behind it, reminded me a good deal of Tom Holt's masterpiece, The Walled Orchard, which is close to as high praise as I have in me.


Locus, April 2011

Better still is "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong", by the mysterious and remarkable K. J. Parker. It is perhaps not really fantasy, except for being set in an imagined world (which much resembles ours of some centuries past). Parker manages to meld black (and very funny) cynicism with truly wrenching moral and emotional themes. Here Parker tells of a distinguished composer who had realized he is just an accomplished mediocrity, mainly by the example of one of his students, a morally damaged man who seemingly effortlessly composes works of real genius. As the story opens, the genius composer is awaiting execution for a careless murder, and he importunes his old teacher to help him escape. The teacher does, of course ... but the story doesn’t end there. It twists on us a couple more times, following the result of the curious payment the genius gave his teacher, and then the future life of both these men. I’m not sure I quite buy the theory about artistic creativity behind this story, but given that the consequences are worked out brilliantly -- and as I said, the working out is both wrenching and bitterly funny.

Locus, April 2013

Another Australian magazine is Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Issue #55 includes a new story by K. J. Parker, always a cause for celebration. "Illuminated", as with many of Parker's recent stories, looks cynically at a magic user trying to take advantage of an obscure spell. Here, an man and his younger female partner investigate an ancient watch tower and discover the remnants of the work of an ambitious mad wizard ... and, just possibly, a remarkable, if very dangerous, "form" (or spell). Just who, or what, holds the real power in dealing with this discovery is part of the question, darkly answered -- the "form" itself is a scary invention as well.

Locus, September 2013

Two stories stood out for me in Jonathan Strahan's Fearsome Journeys. K. J. Parker is a regular in Strahan's books, and appears here with "The Dragonslayer of Merebarton". This is in Parker's familiar rather deflating voice. The story is told by what seems to be a kind of small time local lord, getting on in years a bit. There are reports of a dragon killing the local livestock, and he knows it's his duty to try to kill it. So he tries to come up with a fairly sensible approach, with help from some of his friends (and retainers and villagers ...) As I said, the tone is one of deflating fantasy traditions, but this story is not quite cynical -- almost warm; also realistic; believable. Good stuff.

Locus, January 2015

Beneath Ceaseless Skies, in its Sixth Anniversary Double Issue, features as usual four stories, the best being "Heaven Thunders the Truth", by K. J. Parker. (One wonders if the demise of one of Parker's primary markets, Subterranean Online, has led to an appearance in BCS.) This is the Parker we know and love, cynical and knowing, about a young wizard hired to deal with a girl who has got herself pregnant by the wrong sort of young man. It turns out worse than that for everyone involved, especially when it turns out kings (and deposed kings) are tied up in the whole mess. I liked the source of the wizard's power, and his unhappy bearing of the burden of his power, and the guessable but satisfying ultimate secret.

Locus, April 2016

No sooner had I read Interzone that I proceeded to Beneath Ceaseless Skies for February 4, and I read K. J. Parker’s latest, "Told by an Idiot", and immediately Rahul Kanakia's "Empty Planets" had a rival as my favorite 2016 story to date. This is probably his best story since "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong". For a change, this isn’t set in Parker’s infinitely useful fantasy world, but in what seems our world, Elizabethan England (with perhaps slight changes). Put simply, it’s the story of a lucky man from Wales, who, partly because he finds things, has become rich, and the owner of a playhouse. Then he finds a bottle with, it is said, a demon inside. And what if it is? Parker works out the implications effectively, and besides we get some cool local color, especially including lots of Elizabethan drama neep ... with of course plenty of subtle Shakespearean references.

Locus, October 2017

My favorite Tor.com novella this year to date is Mightier than the Sword, by K. J. Parker. This is told by the nephew of the current Empress, who is pretty much in charge of the Empire as her husband’s health fails. She sends her nephew, a surprisingly capable general, on a mission to figure out why raiders are ransacking monasteries. At the same time our protagonist is trying to save the whore he loves to distraction ... while he slowly realizes, to his horror, that he might just be the most logical heir to his uncle’s throne. It’s pure Parker, cynicism married with a certain offhand idealism -- and featuring desperate love of a perhaps unworthy woman (this theme goes back at least to Tom Holt’s incomparable diptych The Walled Orchard, one of the great unrecognized historical novels of the past few decades). Somehow amidst all the cynicism this is quite a moving novella.

Locus, June 2018

The standout this month, however, is by K. J. Parker. "The Thought That Counts" is one of Parker’s morality tales, and like so much of his work turns on the potentially ruinous effects of love. The narrator, anonymous (but, it seems, a familiar figure in a Parker’s fantastical history, a certain brilliant but unscrupulous philosopher) tells of his encounter with a woman, an artist, escaping her farming family to become a portrait painter in the big city. When a number of her subjects turn up mysteriously mindless, the narrator ends up defending her in court -- and then remembers another woman he had known long ago. It’s blackly funny, in the usual Parker mode, and mordantly reflective of the nature of evil.

Birthday Review: Sewer, Gas, & Electric, by Matt Ruff

Birthday Review: Sewer, Gas, & Electric, by Matt Ruff

Matt Ruff turns 53 today (damn kids!). He's one of the really first rate writers of our time. His works often straddles genre borders. My favorite of his novels is Set This House in Order, from 2003, but I can't find anything I wrote about it. So instead I've resurrected a rather brief review I did for the SF Reader site at about that time about his second novel. (The SF Reader post is here.)

There are plenty of wonderful older books that may not have received their due notice. I won’t venture too far into the past: Sewer, Gas, & Electric is a long, inspired, hilarious but not frivolous SF novel from 1998.

The novel is set mostly in 2023, with flashbacks as far back as the Civil War. We open with Joan Fine battling mysterious creatures in New York’s sewers. Harry Gant, her ex-husband, is erecting yet another tallest building, while fretting over the fact that his company’s androids are being called "Electric Negroes". Philo Dufresne, the blackest African still alive (a plague has killed most black people in the world) is unsuccessfully writing a novel and successfully practicing "benign eco-piracy" in his polka-dotted submarine, the Yabba-Dabba-Doo. "None of this is all that unusual", writes the author. Neither, apparently, are a surviving female Civil War vet from Canada, an AI version of Ayn Rand, a conspiracy to refile pornographic books in libraries so no one can ever find them, or talking Volkswagens that love Janis Joplin.

Obviously, this book is a bit different. The central plot is fairly straightforward, involving a plan to destroy the world. Harry Gant, Joan Fine, and Philo Dufresne end up mostly on the same side, trying to save the world. It’s hard to say much more about the plot, because identifying the villain would be a spoiler. But the book is packed with incident, and with ideas that are sometimes funny, sometimes shocking, and usually thought-provoking.

Somehow Ruff mixes up alligators in the sewers, a plague that kills all the black people in the world, boy scouts, Ayn Rand and a serious discussion of her works (including a beautiful plot summary of Atlas Shrugged), J. Edgar Hoover, Artificial Intelligence, Disney, a parti-colored submarine, and a series of "ironic murders" into an absorbing read, very funny but very serious. It’s still in print, and I recommend it highly.