Raymond Z. Gallun (1911-1994) was one of the writers who graduated from the Gernsback Era SF magazines to John W. Campbell's Astounding. His early story "Old Faithful", from Astounding in 1934, was very popular. He published short fiction regularly until the mid-1950s, and after that mostly just a few novels through 1985. Today would have been his 109th birthday. In his honor, here's a review of four of his 1950s short stories, plus a link to a review I posted some while ago of his 1961 novel The Planet Strappers.
Review of The Planet Strappers
Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1951
Finally, Raymond Z. Gallun's "The First Long Journey" is another story about man overcoming the incredible difficulty of space travel. This is about a man on the first trip to Mars, and his difficulty believing he'll make it, all alone as he is. He whiles away the time remembering a girl he used to know, talks to himself a lot ... and nothing much happens, certainly nothing that convinced me.
Planet Stories, March 1952
Raymond Z. Gallun (1911-1994) was one of the few Hugo Gernsback discoveries to continue to produce work after Campbell's revolution. That said, he was mostly silent after the mid-50s. His most famous story is probably still "Old Faithful", from Astounding in 1934, which featured a sympathetically portrayed Martian. "Return of a Legend" is also set on Mars. A small human research station is the only Earth presence on mostly uninhabitable Mars, but there are stories about one old "wilderness tramp" who survived on the land for a few years. Then a man and his young son show up, and the two end up going native for long stretches. The father dies inevitably, but the boy is never discovered. He must have died, surely, but then he is found. His father's younger sister shows up and tries to make a relationship with him, but the boy misses Mars too much and escapes again, and so his aunt, now married to one of the long time Mars regulars, goes on a trek to try to find him, and they too end up required to find a way to survive on the surface. It's not really that plausible, but Gallun works pretty hard to make is at least a bit believable, and their eventual struggle to make a family and to become "real Martians", even as the research station is abandoned, ends up pretty moving.
Science Fiction Adventures, July 1953
The Feature Novel is Raymond Z. Gallun's "Legacy From Mars" (15500 words). Some miner types on Mars discover intelligent fish. They take the fish back to Earth with them, and the fish learn how to speak English. They also make music. The money-grubbing Captain has some nefarious plans, but rather implausibly, he is foiled, and the two good guys (along with the daughter of one who becomes the wife of the other) end up touring with the fish as a novelty act. But eventually the fish have their own plans ... Rather a silly story, I thought.
Science Fiction Stories, 1953
Raymond Z. Gallun's "Comet's Burial" (7500 words) is a somewhat predictable story about a pair of prospectors on the Moon. The older one is convinced that the way to make the Moon a going concern is to find water -- and that water exists below the surface, and can be brought to the surface by crashing a comet into the Moon. The younger man is not so sure, but he finds himself shanghaied into helping his partner in this mad scheme -- and they end up in prison for there efforts. However ... d'ya think maybe they might end up vindicated? It's somewhat hackneyed, but reasonably entertaining.
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Old Romance Novel: Chelsea, by Nancy Fitzgerald
Old Romance Novel: Chelsea, by Nancy Fitzgerald
a review by Rich Horton
Chelsea is a romance novel from 1979, published by Doubleday. The Regency was the default period for sweet historical romances back then, but Chelsea is set in the Victorian Era, in fact, exactly 100 years prior to publication, in 1879. I could find nothing online about the writer, Nancy Fitzgerald. The endpapers claim she's a full time writer living in Venice, CA, with her daughter, Shaw, and a cat; and they mention a previous job at the Los Angeles Museum of Art. The books, which I found at an estate sale, is a Doubleday hardcover. (There was a paperback edition.) She published two previous novels, also with titles evoking London geography: St. John's Wood and Mayfair. This book is concerned with the art world -- given her Museum experience, I wonder if the others were as well. I could not find any evidence of any novels besides those three, but Sean Wallace came to the rescue. It seems Fitzgerald's real name is Waverly Fitzgerald. She has published a number of nonfiction books, five humorous mysteries co-written with Curt Colbert as by Waverly Curtis, other mysteries under her own name, other historical fiction, and some short stories. She also teaches writing.
The nominal protagonists of the book are Cecily Hawthorne, a beautiful redheaded orphan who is serving as a governess; and Devin Shepard, a noted portrait painter, friend of all the famous painters of that time (Rossetti and Landseer and Morris and Alma-Tadema and Leighton and Millais and so on -- lots of name dropping though no convincing portrayals of the actual men). Shepard, who seems to be very well off, has just seen off a mistress/model and needs another one for his planned Royal Academy show entry. It so happens that when he tells his butler what sort of woman he wants for his picture, the butler mentions Cecily, who is in a very unsuitable situation (evil mother, nasty child).
Somewhat unconvincingly, Shepard finds Cecily and convinces her to come model for him. Things go nicely for a while, with (predictably) Cecily finding herself attracted to Shepard, but determined to preserve her virtue. She lucks into a different governess job when she gets made enough at Shepard to leave.
And then the real plot of the book is set in motion. Cecily's new place is with a silly woman, Mrs. Fluster, who has had an unexpected child in her 40s. Her first two children are a nice but plain girl who loves cooking, and a useless boy who has no interest in his father's business. The father had somehow lost control of his business, and the new owner is running it into the ground, and thus the family is close to bankruptcy. Their only hope is an American heiress who shows some interest in the boy. The household also includes a maid and a footman as comic relief -- and the two are besotted with each other.
The other key family is the Hollys, a fairly well to do but not really rich family with a plain daughter who is 32 and unmarried -- preventing her several sisters from marrying their various suitors. The mother decides that Devin Shepard would be a worthwhile husband -- but the daughter, Constance Holly, another plain but worthy woman, is convinced Shepard sees nothing in her. Add a young gigolo type who preys on married woman and who is chasing Mrs. Fluster; and a prig of a clerk who has decided he loves Cecily, though once he meets Mrs. Fluster's daughter he falls for her -- but can't give up his obsession with Cecily.
The arc of the novel is pretty clear -- the clerk will end up with the Fluster girl and will save the family business because as a clerk he at least understands business; Constance Holly and the gigolo type unexpectedly fall in love; the younger Fluster boy will end up with his American heiress; and the maid and footman of the Flusters will, after comical problems, get together. And of course Devin and Cecily will finally get together -- at the Royal Academy show in which Devin's picture of Cecily is exhibited.
That's just romance novel convention. But the novel doesn't really work. It wants to be a comedy, and tries and tries but so much of the comic business is overdone, and falls flat. The best comic character, Shepard's butler Willett, really doesn't have enough to do. The Fluster's maid, who befriends Cecily, is supposed to be really funny but mostly she just leadenly uses the wrong words. Mrs. Fluster and Lady Holly are likewise supposed to be funny but again, they are just labored cliches. The two plain young woman, Joconda Fluster and Constance Holly, are actually likeable characters, but minor. And Cecily and Devin are essentially ciphers -- their "romance" has no chemistry, it just doesn't convince.
One might also have hoped that the historical details would be solid, but they really don't work well either. As I noted, the artistic milieu is just sketched in -- name dropping -- I never believed it. And there are some howlers, as well. For example, the book is set in 1879, and Oscar Wilde is given a scene, which is perhaps not entirely impossible but seems unlikely, as he really didn't get established as an artistic figure until 1881. More seriously, the Fluster boy is supposed to be a candidate to buy a commission in the Army -- but the selling of commissions was ended in 1871.
All in all, this is a pretty weak example of the then flourishing romance genre. It does seem that Fitzgerald may have found her real metier in other genres since then, however.
a review by Rich Horton
The nominal protagonists of the book are Cecily Hawthorne, a beautiful redheaded orphan who is serving as a governess; and Devin Shepard, a noted portrait painter, friend of all the famous painters of that time (Rossetti and Landseer and Morris and Alma-Tadema and Leighton and Millais and so on -- lots of name dropping though no convincing portrayals of the actual men). Shepard, who seems to be very well off, has just seen off a mistress/model and needs another one for his planned Royal Academy show entry. It so happens that when he tells his butler what sort of woman he wants for his picture, the butler mentions Cecily, who is in a very unsuitable situation (evil mother, nasty child).
Somewhat unconvincingly, Shepard finds Cecily and convinces her to come model for him. Things go nicely for a while, with (predictably) Cecily finding herself attracted to Shepard, but determined to preserve her virtue. She lucks into a different governess job when she gets made enough at Shepard to leave.
And then the real plot of the book is set in motion. Cecily's new place is with a silly woman, Mrs. Fluster, who has had an unexpected child in her 40s. Her first two children are a nice but plain girl who loves cooking, and a useless boy who has no interest in his father's business. The father had somehow lost control of his business, and the new owner is running it into the ground, and thus the family is close to bankruptcy. Their only hope is an American heiress who shows some interest in the boy. The household also includes a maid and a footman as comic relief -- and the two are besotted with each other.
The other key family is the Hollys, a fairly well to do but not really rich family with a plain daughter who is 32 and unmarried -- preventing her several sisters from marrying their various suitors. The mother decides that Devin Shepard would be a worthwhile husband -- but the daughter, Constance Holly, another plain but worthy woman, is convinced Shepard sees nothing in her. Add a young gigolo type who preys on married woman and who is chasing Mrs. Fluster; and a prig of a clerk who has decided he loves Cecily, though once he meets Mrs. Fluster's daughter he falls for her -- but can't give up his obsession with Cecily.
The arc of the novel is pretty clear -- the clerk will end up with the Fluster girl and will save the family business because as a clerk he at least understands business; Constance Holly and the gigolo type unexpectedly fall in love; the younger Fluster boy will end up with his American heiress; and the maid and footman of the Flusters will, after comical problems, get together. And of course Devin and Cecily will finally get together -- at the Royal Academy show in which Devin's picture of Cecily is exhibited.
That's just romance novel convention. But the novel doesn't really work. It wants to be a comedy, and tries and tries but so much of the comic business is overdone, and falls flat. The best comic character, Shepard's butler Willett, really doesn't have enough to do. The Fluster's maid, who befriends Cecily, is supposed to be really funny but mostly she just leadenly uses the wrong words. Mrs. Fluster and Lady Holly are likewise supposed to be funny but again, they are just labored cliches. The two plain young woman, Joconda Fluster and Constance Holly, are actually likeable characters, but minor. And Cecily and Devin are essentially ciphers -- their "romance" has no chemistry, it just doesn't convince.
One might also have hoped that the historical details would be solid, but they really don't work well either. As I noted, the artistic milieu is just sketched in -- name dropping -- I never believed it. And there are some howlers, as well. For example, the book is set in 1879, and Oscar Wilde is given a scene, which is perhaps not entirely impossible but seems unlikely, as he really didn't get established as an artistic figure until 1881. More seriously, the Fluster boy is supposed to be a candidate to buy a commission in the Army -- but the selling of commissions was ended in 1871.
All in all, this is a pretty weak example of the then flourishing romance genre. It does seem that Fitzgerald may have found her real metier in other genres since then, however.
Friday, March 13, 2020
Birthday Review: Chasm City, by Alastair Reynolds
Today is Alastair Reynolds' birthday. Last year I presented a collection of my reviews of his short fiction, so here instead is a review, from my old blog, of his second novel, Chasm City.
I have a copy of Alastair Reynolds' second novel, Chasm City, just out in England, for review at SF Site. (Presumably it won't be published in the US until next year: his first novel, Revelation Space, published last year by Victor Gollancz, has just recently been published in the States.) Like Revelation Space it is very long (in this case over 260,000 words), and it is set in the same future. Chasm City is the main city of the planet Yellowstone, which orbits Epsilon Eridani. Some 7 years prior to the action of the book, it was devastated by the Melding Plague, which destroyed the nanomachines on which much of the high-tech infrastructure depended. This places it some time prior to most of the action of Revelation Space. (That book had a couple of threads on Yellowstone, one a flashback to decades prior to the Melding Plague, and one occurring a few years after the action of Chasm City. Most of Revelation Space is set still a few decades later, however. Because travel in Reynolds' universe is restricted to sub-light speeds, and because his novels feature characters going between star systems, they tend to take place over long time frames.) Tanner Mirabel comes to Yellowstone from Sky's Edge (a planet of 61 Cygni A -- it's nice to see all these classic SFnal star systems: Delta Pavonis also figures in Revelation Space), looking to kill Argent Reivich, who had killed the woman Tanner loved.
The story unfolds in three threads, all nominally from Tanner's POV. The first thread takes place over a rather short period in Chasm City as he looks for Reivich. Another tells, in flashbacks, of Tanner's association with the arms dealer Cahuella back on Sky's Edge, and Cahuella's wife Gitta, and Reivich's attempt on Cahuella's life (in revenge for Cahuella supplying the weapons that killed Reivich's family), which led to Gitta's death. Finally, Tanner has apparently been infected with an "indoctrination virus", which implants memories of Sky Hausmann, the sometimes revered, sometimes hated, last Captain of the first ship to reach Sky's Edge. As those memories return to Tanner, at first in dreams, later more insistently, he learns a somewhat different, much stranger, story of the journey of the colonizing generation starships from Earth to 61 Cygni.
This is a better novel than Revelation Space, but it does have faults. First the good stuff: it's full of neat SFnal ideas, not necessarily brilliantly new, but very well realized: the generation ships (treated rather differently than usual in SF), some genetic technology, some alien ecosystem stuff, even a hint of a communication system reminiscent of the Dirac Communicator in James Blish's "Beep". It sets up expectations for a pretty spectacular closing revelation, tying together the three threads, and pretty much delivers on those expectations. The resolution had elements that I expected, and were nicely foreshadowed, plus elements that were a great surprise, but which still worked for me. Thus, I'd say, that in terms of large-scale plot and setting, the book works very well. As for the prose, it is sound, serviceable, hard SF prose: nothing impressive, but not too clunky either. The faults, then, lie in some small-scale plot elements, and in characterization. The plot, particularly Tanner's attempts to find Reivich, depends on a lot of implausible coincidence, or luck, or super-powerful characters who still don't kill their rivals when reasonably they should, or secret organizations suddenly being penetrated by little more than brandishing a gun in the face of underlings. More tellingly, the characters are a bit undermotivated, and they are pretty much all evil and violent, but not really presented in such a way. More than several times, we are told that such and such a character, single-mindedly bent on killing several other characters, is really not bad and is justified in so doing. This seems to represent an awfully cynical view of humanity: everyone is purely out for number one, everyone is pretty much ready to kill anyone in their way. Most particularly, the main character or characters (we can include Sky Hausmann), are objectively quite villainous, yet presented (well, not Sky, but Tanner) as quite sympathetic, in a way that doesn't really work. Particularly as Tanner seems to have little enough trouble getting women to fall in love with him. I should say that to an extent Reynolds gives explanations of some of these things (which it would be a spoiler to reveal), but that I was still not convinced.
On balance, though, a pretty impressive book. The faults are the faults of much SF, especially hard SF, and the virtues are the virtues of the same sort of SF. It doesn't, then, transcend its subgenre at all, but it does do very well within those boundaries. And for a long book it reads smoothly enough, and keeps the interest.
I have a copy of Alastair Reynolds' second novel, Chasm City, just out in England, for review at SF Site. (Presumably it won't be published in the US until next year: his first novel, Revelation Space, published last year by Victor Gollancz, has just recently been published in the States.) Like Revelation Space it is very long (in this case over 260,000 words), and it is set in the same future. Chasm City is the main city of the planet Yellowstone, which orbits Epsilon Eridani. Some 7 years prior to the action of the book, it was devastated by the Melding Plague, which destroyed the nanomachines on which much of the high-tech infrastructure depended. This places it some time prior to most of the action of Revelation Space. (That book had a couple of threads on Yellowstone, one a flashback to decades prior to the Melding Plague, and one occurring a few years after the action of Chasm City. Most of Revelation Space is set still a few decades later, however. Because travel in Reynolds' universe is restricted to sub-light speeds, and because his novels feature characters going between star systems, they tend to take place over long time frames.) Tanner Mirabel comes to Yellowstone from Sky's Edge (a planet of 61 Cygni A -- it's nice to see all these classic SFnal star systems: Delta Pavonis also figures in Revelation Space), looking to kill Argent Reivich, who had killed the woman Tanner loved. The story unfolds in three threads, all nominally from Tanner's POV. The first thread takes place over a rather short period in Chasm City as he looks for Reivich. Another tells, in flashbacks, of Tanner's association with the arms dealer Cahuella back on Sky's Edge, and Cahuella's wife Gitta, and Reivich's attempt on Cahuella's life (in revenge for Cahuella supplying the weapons that killed Reivich's family), which led to Gitta's death. Finally, Tanner has apparently been infected with an "indoctrination virus", which implants memories of Sky Hausmann, the sometimes revered, sometimes hated, last Captain of the first ship to reach Sky's Edge. As those memories return to Tanner, at first in dreams, later more insistently, he learns a somewhat different, much stranger, story of the journey of the colonizing generation starships from Earth to 61 Cygni.
This is a better novel than Revelation Space, but it does have faults. First the good stuff: it's full of neat SFnal ideas, not necessarily brilliantly new, but very well realized: the generation ships (treated rather differently than usual in SF), some genetic technology, some alien ecosystem stuff, even a hint of a communication system reminiscent of the Dirac Communicator in James Blish's "Beep". It sets up expectations for a pretty spectacular closing revelation, tying together the three threads, and pretty much delivers on those expectations. The resolution had elements that I expected, and were nicely foreshadowed, plus elements that were a great surprise, but which still worked for me. Thus, I'd say, that in terms of large-scale plot and setting, the book works very well. As for the prose, it is sound, serviceable, hard SF prose: nothing impressive, but not too clunky either. The faults, then, lie in some small-scale plot elements, and in characterization. The plot, particularly Tanner's attempts to find Reivich, depends on a lot of implausible coincidence, or luck, or super-powerful characters who still don't kill their rivals when reasonably they should, or secret organizations suddenly being penetrated by little more than brandishing a gun in the face of underlings. More tellingly, the characters are a bit undermotivated, and they are pretty much all evil and violent, but not really presented in such a way. More than several times, we are told that such and such a character, single-mindedly bent on killing several other characters, is really not bad and is justified in so doing. This seems to represent an awfully cynical view of humanity: everyone is purely out for number one, everyone is pretty much ready to kill anyone in their way. Most particularly, the main character or characters (we can include Sky Hausmann), are objectively quite villainous, yet presented (well, not Sky, but Tanner) as quite sympathetic, in a way that doesn't really work. Particularly as Tanner seems to have little enough trouble getting women to fall in love with him. I should say that to an extent Reynolds gives explanations of some of these things (which it would be a spoiler to reveal), but that I was still not convinced.
On balance, though, a pretty impressive book. The faults are the faults of much SF, especially hard SF, and the virtues are the virtues of the same sort of SF. It doesn't, then, transcend its subgenre at all, but it does do very well within those boundaries. And for a long book it reads smoothly enough, and keeps the interest.
Thursday, March 12, 2020
Birthday Review: Stories (and a novel) by Christopher Anvil
Christopher Anvil (real name Harry Crosby) was born 11 March 1925. He died in 2009. He began writing under his own name in 1952, but started selling to John Campbell in 1956 under the Anvil name. He became well known for very Campbellian "Stupid Aliens outsmarted by Smart Humans" stories. John Clute, in the Science Fiction Encylopedia, suggests that his non-Campbell stories show a more interesting side -- be that as it may, he was mostly a Campbell writer, kind of a low-rent Eric Frank Russell clone, and I confess I never found his work that interesting. Here's a look at a couple of his short stories, and a fixup novel
Astounding, December 1957
Anvil's "Truce by Boomerang" is a slight story, not really convincing even on its own terms, about a means of enforcing peace between neighboring nations. For some convoluted reason, a not very useful matter transmitter can be adapted to automatically return any missiles, etc., launched by one side to its own territory (perhaps explicitly to the bigwigs' headquarters). I never really understood how this worked, however ...
Analog, July 1961
The other story is from Christopher Anvil: “The Hunch” (5300 words). Stellar Scout James Connolly is assigned to figure out why two new model scout ships have disappeared recently. Pirates are suspected, but the route they were taking avoided known pirate haunts.
He and his boss set out to follow the same route, and in so doing they encounter issues with the advanced new equipment on the new model ship … more or less the sort of mildly amusing stuff I expected.
Galaxy, October 1968
Christopher Anvil (real name Harry Crosby) was an Analog regular (I think of him as John Campbell's "Eric Frank Russell replacement"), and "Behind the Sandrat Hoax" really does look like a story aimed at Campbell. There is a persistent rumor that eating a sandrat on Mars will allow one to survive if marooned without water in the Martian desert, and when a man does survive in impossible circumstances, there is an investigation into how he might have survived. But the scientific authorities can't believe in the silly "sandrat" notion -- the man is sent to an asylum, while the scientist who dares to give some credence to the notion that eating a sandrat could help one get water in a desert has his career ruined, as a series of letters reveal the bureaucrats suppressing evidence, etc. A bit over-obvious, with over the top villains.
Pandora's Legions
I was warned. Recently I mentioned that I might find something of interest in Eric Flint's planned reissue of some Christopher Anvil stories, and Greg Feeley asked, incredulously it seemed, why I would think these stories would be of any interest. Well, you see, I'd hardly ever read any Anvil, only a story or two, and I don't mind Eric Frank Russell, held to be an influence on Anvil, and ... well, I was curious. So I bought Pandora's Legions, a clumsy fixup novel consisting of one shorter novel and several short stories about the invasion of Earth by the Centran Empire, and the aftermath, as the Centrans try to deal with their uneasy new conquest.
It sucks. To put it crudely. It sucks bowling balls through a coffee stirrer. The story opens with a novelette published in Astounding in the mid-50s, "Pandora's Planet". Earth is besieged by the overwhelmingly powerful Centrans, humanoid aliens who have a huge empire. But them thar plucky Earthmen won't give up, and not only that, they are just plain smarter than Centrans. The Centrans fear them for their brains, but they eventually realize that human intelligence carries a disadvantage: humans are less apt to cooperate with each other. The Centrans end up winning, only by using incredible force of numbers, and they plot to take advantage of human intelligence by allowing humans to be spread thinly through part of their empire, hoping that the human ideas will be beneficial. In a way, this story was OK, though not very good, as low-grade Eric Frank Russell imitation.
In the early 70s Anvil expanded it into a novel. In the novel, the humans spread through the Galaxy are portrayed as causing all sorts of chaos. The viewpoint character,\ Centran general Klide Horsip, must deal with humans who have introduced fascism, rampant capitalism, communism, and all sorts of evils. But humans, by subverting the Centrans on the planets they take over, are becoming way too strong. Luckily, a loyal human has a plan ... an unconvincing one, mind you, but still. More luckily still, all this is really what the true powers behind the Centran throne have intended all along. Plus the climax involves a clumsily introduced menace that has historically kept Centrans from getting too smart. Eh? It's a bad novel.
Eric Flint has admitted that the novel is bad (or, at least, not real good). His solution? He has interleaved a three mostly unconnected stories set in the same universe with the chapters of the novel. These stories are Analog-style problem stories, where human John Towers, working for the Centrans, deals with problems in subverting other dangerous alien races, such as a race of teleporters, or a race of beings who have evolved to constantly fight for food and who will not communicate. These are novelettes published in Analog in the 60s. They aren't particularly good, though they aren't horrible. They are, again, low-grad Eric Frank Russell imitations. They are symptomatic of what was wrong with Analog in the 60s -- Campbell couldn't get Russell to write any more, it seems, and so he tried to find substitutes. Anvil was a substitute, but the ersatz nature of the product shows. But mixed into the novel they are just silly. They really don't fit. Basically, you end up reading the novel in pieces, taking time out to read the novelettes. What was going through Flint's mind I have no idea. There is also a short, added at the end, also set in the Centran empire but otherwise unconnected, which was apparently rejected by Campbell. It ran in If, and it's a screed against psychiatry. It seems beating the patient until he is cured is a preferable approach.
Astounding, December 1957
Anvil's "Truce by Boomerang" is a slight story, not really convincing even on its own terms, about a means of enforcing peace between neighboring nations. For some convoluted reason, a not very useful matter transmitter can be adapted to automatically return any missiles, etc., launched by one side to its own territory (perhaps explicitly to the bigwigs' headquarters). I never really understood how this worked, however ...
Analog, July 1961
The other story is from Christopher Anvil: “The Hunch” (5300 words). Stellar Scout James Connolly is assigned to figure out why two new model scout ships have disappeared recently. Pirates are suspected, but the route they were taking avoided known pirate haunts.
He and his boss set out to follow the same route, and in so doing they encounter issues with the advanced new equipment on the new model ship … more or less the sort of mildly amusing stuff I expected.
Galaxy, October 1968
Christopher Anvil (real name Harry Crosby) was an Analog regular (I think of him as John Campbell's "Eric Frank Russell replacement"), and "Behind the Sandrat Hoax" really does look like a story aimed at Campbell. There is a persistent rumor that eating a sandrat on Mars will allow one to survive if marooned without water in the Martian desert, and when a man does survive in impossible circumstances, there is an investigation into how he might have survived. But the scientific authorities can't believe in the silly "sandrat" notion -- the man is sent to an asylum, while the scientist who dares to give some credence to the notion that eating a sandrat could help one get water in a desert has his career ruined, as a series of letters reveal the bureaucrats suppressing evidence, etc. A bit over-obvious, with over the top villains.
Pandora's Legions
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| (Cover by Patrick Turner) |
It sucks. To put it crudely. It sucks bowling balls through a coffee stirrer. The story opens with a novelette published in Astounding in the mid-50s, "Pandora's Planet". Earth is besieged by the overwhelmingly powerful Centrans, humanoid aliens who have a huge empire. But them thar plucky Earthmen won't give up, and not only that, they are just plain smarter than Centrans. The Centrans fear them for their brains, but they eventually realize that human intelligence carries a disadvantage: humans are less apt to cooperate with each other. The Centrans end up winning, only by using incredible force of numbers, and they plot to take advantage of human intelligence by allowing humans to be spread thinly through part of their empire, hoping that the human ideas will be beneficial. In a way, this story was OK, though not very good, as low-grade Eric Frank Russell imitation.
In the early 70s Anvil expanded it into a novel. In the novel, the humans spread through the Galaxy are portrayed as causing all sorts of chaos. The viewpoint character,\ Centran general Klide Horsip, must deal with humans who have introduced fascism, rampant capitalism, communism, and all sorts of evils. But humans, by subverting the Centrans on the planets they take over, are becoming way too strong. Luckily, a loyal human has a plan ... an unconvincing one, mind you, but still. More luckily still, all this is really what the true powers behind the Centran throne have intended all along. Plus the climax involves a clumsily introduced menace that has historically kept Centrans from getting too smart. Eh? It's a bad novel.
Eric Flint has admitted that the novel is bad (or, at least, not real good). His solution? He has interleaved a three mostly unconnected stories set in the same universe with the chapters of the novel. These stories are Analog-style problem stories, where human John Towers, working for the Centrans, deals with problems in subverting other dangerous alien races, such as a race of teleporters, or a race of beings who have evolved to constantly fight for food and who will not communicate. These are novelettes published in Analog in the 60s. They aren't particularly good, though they aren't horrible. They are, again, low-grad Eric Frank Russell imitations. They are symptomatic of what was wrong with Analog in the 60s -- Campbell couldn't get Russell to write any more, it seems, and so he tried to find substitutes. Anvil was a substitute, but the ersatz nature of the product shows. But mixed into the novel they are just silly. They really don't fit. Basically, you end up reading the novel in pieces, taking time out to read the novelettes. What was going through Flint's mind I have no idea. There is also a short, added at the end, also set in the Centran empire but otherwise unconnected, which was apparently rejected by Campbell. It ran in If, and it's a screed against psychiatry. It seems beating the patient until he is cured is a preferable approach.
Old Children's SF Book: Trapped in Space. by Jack Williamson
Old Children's Book: Trapped in Space. by Jack Williamson
a review by Rich Horton
Here's another old children's SF book. by a real legend of SF. Jack Williamson (1908-2006) published stories in 9 decades -- his first in 1928, his last 80 years later. He was popular from the first, and published major work in essentially all those decades, including a Science Fiction Hall of Fame story, "With Folded Hands" (1947), that still holds up even now; and a Nebula and Hugo winner as late as 2000. But in a funny way he was also always just slightly out of the mainstream of SF -- never listed with the likes of Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and Bradbury as truly one of the greats; often somewhat forgotten. Part of this is merit, I think -- I thought his 2000 story "The Ultimate Earth", definitely not worthy of its awards. But part may reflect gaps in his production (he spent some time doing continuity for a comic strip, and lots of time teaching.)
As far as I know Williamson only wrote this one "juvenile". It was published by Doubleday in 1968, and reissued by Scholastic in 1970. I encountered several Scholastic SF books over the years (Silverberg's Revolt on Alpha C, Turner's Stranger from the Depths, Del Rey's The Runaway Robot (actually by Paul Fairman), and Key's The Forgotten Door)), but I had no idea Williamson had written one. I got this book at an antique mall.
So -- it's really not very good. One of the keys to writing a good YA book is to avoid the appearance of "writing down" to your presumed audience. Williamson fails utterly in that area -- the book is over simple, and full of somewhat pandering explanation. But more than that, the plot is kind of weak, too, and the science isn't all that great (though he at least tries.)
Jeff Stone is a young man, just graduating from pilot training at the Space School. His older brother Ben graduated two years before, and went on a mission to a new star system. (Apparently these missions have a 30% fatality rate!) Ben seems to be lost as well, and there is going to be a rescue mission. Rather implausibly, Jeff is chosen. He'll accompany a fellow recent graduate, plus a girl, Lupe Flor, who was raised by hive-mind aliens after her parents crashed on their planet, and Lupe's alien friend.
They head off to the planet Topaz, 1000 light years away. There's a certain amount of (actually tolerable) guff about how the FTL drive works -- artificially reducing mass (which really doesn't make any sense but whatevery). When they get to Topaz, they are immediately attacked ... and they also hear a message from Ben.
The main issue, really, is how to make contact with the aliens of this system, who seem to want to shoot first and ask questions never. And then to figure out what happened to Ben. Not surprisingly, Lupe's alien friend turns out to be vital.
The actual theme here, if laid on a bit heavy, is just fine -- the notion that all aliens, no matter how weird, even aliens who live in empty space, are fellow beings that we should be friends with. And in fact the novel's skeleton, advancing that notion, is just fine. The problem is the creaky rescue plot, and the annoyingly condescending writing style. Definitely a very minor entry in the Williamson oeuvre.
a review by Rich Horton
Here's another old children's SF book. by a real legend of SF. Jack Williamson (1908-2006) published stories in 9 decades -- his first in 1928, his last 80 years later. He was popular from the first, and published major work in essentially all those decades, including a Science Fiction Hall of Fame story, "With Folded Hands" (1947), that still holds up even now; and a Nebula and Hugo winner as late as 2000. But in a funny way he was also always just slightly out of the mainstream of SF -- never listed with the likes of Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and Bradbury as truly one of the greats; often somewhat forgotten. Part of this is merit, I think -- I thought his 2000 story "The Ultimate Earth", definitely not worthy of its awards. But part may reflect gaps in his production (he spent some time doing continuity for a comic strip, and lots of time teaching.)
 |
| (cover by Robert Amundsen) |
So -- it's really not very good. One of the keys to writing a good YA book is to avoid the appearance of "writing down" to your presumed audience. Williamson fails utterly in that area -- the book is over simple, and full of somewhat pandering explanation. But more than that, the plot is kind of weak, too, and the science isn't all that great (though he at least tries.)
Jeff Stone is a young man, just graduating from pilot training at the Space School. His older brother Ben graduated two years before, and went on a mission to a new star system. (Apparently these missions have a 30% fatality rate!) Ben seems to be lost as well, and there is going to be a rescue mission. Rather implausibly, Jeff is chosen. He'll accompany a fellow recent graduate, plus a girl, Lupe Flor, who was raised by hive-mind aliens after her parents crashed on their planet, and Lupe's alien friend.
They head off to the planet Topaz, 1000 light years away. There's a certain amount of (actually tolerable) guff about how the FTL drive works -- artificially reducing mass (which really doesn't make any sense but whatevery). When they get to Topaz, they are immediately attacked ... and they also hear a message from Ben.
The main issue, really, is how to make contact with the aliens of this system, who seem to want to shoot first and ask questions never. And then to figure out what happened to Ben. Not surprisingly, Lupe's alien friend turns out to be vital.
The actual theme here, if laid on a bit heavy, is just fine -- the notion that all aliens, no matter how weird, even aliens who live in empty space, are fellow beings that we should be friends with. And in fact the novel's skeleton, advancing that notion, is just fine. The problem is the creaky rescue plot, and the annoyingly condescending writing style. Definitely a very minor entry in the Williamson oeuvre.
Saturday, March 7, 2020
Birthday Review: Engaging the Enemy, by Elizabeth Moon
Engaging the Enemy, by Elizabeth Moon
a review by Rich Horton
Engaging the Enemy is the third in Moon's current series collectively called Vatta's War. I really liked Moon's first Mil-SF series, the Heris Serrano/Esmay Suiza books that eventually ran to 7 volumes. And I am really enjoying this series as well. That said, this book is pretty clearly a middle book, a chapter in a serial.
Ky Vatta is one of a few survivors of the successful interstellar trading company Vatta Transports. The bulk of that company was murdered in a coordinated attack by pirates in league with the government of their home planet, Slotter Key. Now it is clear that the pirates are attempting to control all of human space: they have destroyed much of the ansible network that connects various systems (all of which independent countries, basically), and they have taken over at least a couple star systems. Ky has managed to escape a couple of attempts on her life, and to defeat the pirates in a couple of small encounters. She has captured one pirate ship, the Fair Kaleen, which was captained by the slimy Osman Vatta, a cousin who was booted out of the family due to his nasty ways. Ky has also linked up with her beautiful cousin Stella, another survivor, and she assigns Stella to be captain of her original ship. And it wouldn't be a Moon space opera without Aunts in Space[tm], so back on Slotter Key, Aunt Grace, who is assumed to be a half-mad old bat, is working against the corrupt parts of the Slotter Key government.
The bulk of this book concerns Ky's attempts to organize resistance to the pirates, mainly by recruiting other privateers (Ky has a letter of marque from Slotter Key) to join her in forming an impromptu space navy. She is hindered in this by stupid governments who think the pirates will leave them alone if they just ignore things, and too by the individual crotchets and bloody-mindedness of the privateers. Stella is mad at her for various reasons as well, and then she runs into an old captain for Vatta who shockingly claims that she must be an imposter -- possibly a daughter of Osman Vatta who is impersonating the real Ky Vatta. The resolution to this last thread is a nice twist on what we expect. The other thread about the privateer navy leads to a nice concluding space battle. And back on Slotter Key Grace has made some progress in her attempts to root out the bad guys in local government and to begin rebuilding Vatta's position on planet.
I liked it because I like these books and this story and I root for Ky and Stella and Grace. That said this isn't the place to start -- begin at the beginning, with Trading in Danger. This latest book is mostly setting things in place for future books, which I imagine will involve bigger and better space battles, and interesting revelations about the bad guys (who are as usual for Moon pretty evull).
a review by Rich Horton
Ky Vatta is one of a few survivors of the successful interstellar trading company Vatta Transports. The bulk of that company was murdered in a coordinated attack by pirates in league with the government of their home planet, Slotter Key. Now it is clear that the pirates are attempting to control all of human space: they have destroyed much of the ansible network that connects various systems (all of which independent countries, basically), and they have taken over at least a couple star systems. Ky has managed to escape a couple of attempts on her life, and to defeat the pirates in a couple of small encounters. She has captured one pirate ship, the Fair Kaleen, which was captained by the slimy Osman Vatta, a cousin who was booted out of the family due to his nasty ways. Ky has also linked up with her beautiful cousin Stella, another survivor, and she assigns Stella to be captain of her original ship. And it wouldn't be a Moon space opera without Aunts in Space[tm], so back on Slotter Key, Aunt Grace, who is assumed to be a half-mad old bat, is working against the corrupt parts of the Slotter Key government.
The bulk of this book concerns Ky's attempts to organize resistance to the pirates, mainly by recruiting other privateers (Ky has a letter of marque from Slotter Key) to join her in forming an impromptu space navy. She is hindered in this by stupid governments who think the pirates will leave them alone if they just ignore things, and too by the individual crotchets and bloody-mindedness of the privateers. Stella is mad at her for various reasons as well, and then she runs into an old captain for Vatta who shockingly claims that she must be an imposter -- possibly a daughter of Osman Vatta who is impersonating the real Ky Vatta. The resolution to this last thread is a nice twist on what we expect. The other thread about the privateer navy leads to a nice concluding space battle. And back on Slotter Key Grace has made some progress in her attempts to root out the bad guys in local government and to begin rebuilding Vatta's position on planet.
I liked it because I like these books and this story and I root for Ky and Stella and Grace. That said this isn't the place to start -- begin at the beginning, with Trading in Danger. This latest book is mostly setting things in place for future books, which I imagine will involve bigger and better space battles, and interesting revelations about the bad guys (who are as usual for Moon pretty evull).
Hugo Nominations Post
Hugo Nomination
Thoughts, 2020
Here’s my annual look at potential Hugo nominees. This will
be short – not much discussion, and mostly about the short fiction.
First, my obligatory “Philosophy” disclaimer – though I
participate with a lot of enjoyment in Hugo nomination and voting every year, I
am philosophically convinced that there is no such thing as the “best” story –
“best” piece of art, period. This doesn’t mean I don’t think some art is better
than other art – I absolutely do think that. But I think that at the top, there
is no way to draw fine distinctions, to insist on rankings. Different stories
do different things, all worthwhile. I can readily change my own mind about
which stories I prefer – it might depend on how important to me that “thing” they
do is (and of course most stories do multiple different things!) – it might
depend on my mood that day – it might depend on something new I’ve read that
makes me think differently about a certain subject. And one more thing – I
claim no special authority of my own. I have my own tastes, and indeed my own
prejudices. So too does everyone else. I have blind spots, and I have things
that affect me more profoundly than they might affect others. I’ve also read a
lot of SF – and that changes my reactions to stories as well – and not in a way
that need be considered privileged.
Short Fiction
Novella
I’ve not read as many of this year’s novellas as I should,
so I don’t think this is really terribly representative. But here’s a list of
novellas I really did like:
“New Atlantis”, by Lavie Tidhar (F&SF,
May-June)
Desdemona and the Deep, by
C. S. E. Cooney (Tor.com Publishing)
The Menace from Farside, by
Ian McDonald (Tor.com Publishing)
“The Savannah Problem”, by
Adam-Troy Castro (Analog, January-February)
Perihelion Summer, by Greg
Egan (Tor.com Publishing)
“Glass Cannon”, by Yoon Ha Lee (Hexarchate
Stories)
Alice Payne Arrives, Kate
Heartfield (Tor.com Publishing)
“Waterlines”, by Suzanne Palmer (Asimov’s,
July-August)
“How Sere Looked for a Pair of
Boots”, by Alexander Jablokov (Asimov’s, January-February)
The novella that got the most buzz this year, This is How
You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, though
well-written, just didn’t ignite for me. And there are other novellas that I
ought to read but haven’t gotten too.
Novelette
The top candidates for my ballot are: (and the order below
is not my final order!)
"The Girl Who Did Not Know
Fear", Kelly Link (Tin House, Summer)
"The Ocean Between the
Leaves", Ray Nayler (Asimov’s, July-August)
"At the Fall", Alec Nevala-Lee
(Analog, May-June)
"Cloud Born", by Gregory
Feeley (Clarkesworld, November)
"Anosognosia", John
Crowley (And Go Like This)
"Secret Stories of
Doors", Sofia Rhei (Everything is Made of Letters)
"A Country Called
Winter", Theodora Goss (Snow White Learns Witchcraft)
“Contagion’s Eve at the House
Noctambulus”, Rich Larson (F&SF, March-April)
“Ink, and Breath, and Spring”, by
Frances Rowat (LCRW, November)
Short Story
Here are the stories I’m strongly considering:
“Green
Glass: A Love Story”, E. Lily Yu (If This Goes On)
“Mighty are the Meek and the
Myriad”, Cassandra Khaw (F&SF, July-August)
“Shucked”,
by Sam J. Miller (F&SF, Nov-Dec)
“The
Visible Frontier”, by Grace Seybold (Clarkesworld, July)
“The
Death of Fire Station 10”, by Ray Nayler (Lightspeed, October)
“Tick
Tock”, Xia Jia (Clarkesworld, May)
“A Catalog
of Storms”, Fran Wilde (Uncanny, January-February)
“Vis
Delendi”, Marie Brennan (Uncanny, March-April)
“The
Fine Print”, Chinelo Onwualu (New Suns)
"Cloud", Michael Swanwick (Asimov's, November-December)
"Cloud", Michael Swanwick (Asimov's, November-December)
Best Novel
Every year I
mention that I haven’t read a lot of novels. More so than ever this year! There
are only a couple that I got too, and I’ll mention them while acknowledging
that there are tons more great novels out there. But, anyway, I was quite impressed
by A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine; and by The Future of Another Timeline, by Annalee Newitz.
Fan
Categories
In the remaining
categories (as, really, with all the categories except short fiction) I do want
to emphasize what may be obvious – these are people and things that I
personally enjoyed, but I know there’s a lot of excellent work I’ve missed.
I’ll be nominating things that impressed me, but I’ll be glad to check out the
stuff other people nominate.
Best Fan Writer
I’ll reiterate my
admiration for John Boston and John O’Neill. John Boston’s most publicly
available recent stuff is at Galactic Journey, where he reviews issues
of Amazing from 55 years ago, month by month. (It will be noted,
perhaps, that I also review issues of Amazing from the same period, at Black
Gate.) John’s work there is linked by this tag: http://galacticjourney.org/tag/john-boston/.
As for John
O’Neill, of course his central contribution is as editor of Black Gate,
for which he writes a great deal of the content, often about, “vintage” books
he’s found on Ebay or at conventions, and also about upcoming fantasy books.
Another Black Gate
writer, and fan writer in general, who did great work last year was Steven
Silver, particularly his “Golden Age Reviews”.
I should also
mention Charles Payseur, a very worthy Fan Writer nominee the last two years,
whose Quick Sip reviews of short fiction should not be missed.
And as for myself,
I too am a fan writer (at least my blog writing and my stuff for Black Gate
qualifies, if perhaps not my work for Locus, which I guess is now
officially professional). I was pretty proud of my writing last year. I would
note in particular my reviews of old magazines at Black Gate,
particularly Amazing and Fantastic in the Cele Goldsmith Lalli
era, and my various reviews of Ace Doubles (and other SF) at my blog Strange
at Ecbatan (rrhorton.blogspot.com) (and often linked from Black Gate.)
The other thing I did this year at my blog was a set of “Golden Age Reviews” of
my own, inspired by Steven’s series, in which I covered the works that won
awards in 1973, the year I turned 13.
Best Fanzine
As I did last year,
I plan to nominate Black Gate, Galactic Journey, and Rocket
Stack Rank for the Best Fanzine Hugo. I’m particularly partial in this
context to Black Gate, primarily of course because I have been a
contributor since the print days (issue #2 and most of the subsequent issues). Black
Gate is notable for publishing a lot of content on a very wide variety of
topics, from promoting new book releases to publishing occasional original and
reprinted fiction to reviewing old issues of Galaxy (Matthew Wuertz) and
Amazing/Fantastic/etc. (me) to intriguing posts about travel and
architecture by Sean MacLachlan. Rocket Stack Rank and Galactic
Journey are a bit more tightly focused: the former primarily reviews and
rates short fiction, as well as assembling statistics about other reviewers
(myself included) and their reactions to the stories; while the latter, as I
mentioned above, is reviewing old SF magazines from 55 years past.
Finally, I’ll
mention the other SF-oriented site I read and enjoy regularly – File 770 (http://file770.com/ ), which is (deservedly) very well known, having been nominated for
the Best Fanzine Hugo numerous times and having won some as well.
Astounding Award
The newly renamed
award for Best New WriterThis is given to the best writer whose first
professional publication in the SF or Fantasy field appeared in the past two
years (2018 or 2019). The best lists now are at Rocket Stack Rank (for short
fiction) and the Astounding Award site itself (for novels.)
I went through those
lists and came up with the following writers who have done something that
impressed me:
Rammel Chan
Allison Mulvihill
P. H. Lee
Corey Flintoff
Bryan Camp
S. Woodson
Louis Evans
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