Ace Doubles: Our Man in Space, by Bruce W. Ronald/Ultimatum in 2050 A. D., by Jack Sharkey

Ace Double Reviews, 92: Our Man in Space, by Bruce W. Ronald/Ultimatum in 2050 A. D., by Jack Sharkey (#M-117, 1965, 45 cents)

a review by Rich Horton

Ace Doubles again. Most of the previous Ace Double reviews I've done feature books I've chosen because I had at least some interest in one of the writers. This one was a lot more random -- basically, it was inexpensive and it was available at a dealer's table at a recent convention (can't remember which -- Sasquan, Archon, or Windycon). I had never heard of Bruce Ronald, and while I know Jack Sharkey's name well, from any number of stories in early 60s magazines, he's never been a particular favorite of mine. I actually have another (the only other) Sharkey novel, The Secret Martians, as part of an Ace Double I bought for a more usual reason: the other side is by one of my favorites, John Brunner. I'll get around to reviewing it eventually.

Bruce W. Ronald was an advertising man, born in 1931 in Dublin, Ohio, and still alive as far as I (or the Science Fiction Encylopedia) know. He published only this one novel, and no further stories; but he did write the book for a musical, in collaboration with Claire Strauch and the well-known SF/historical writer John Jakes. This was Dracula Baby!, in 1970. (The SFE says that Ronald was also an actor.)

So it turns out Jack Sharkey had another slight connection with Bruce Ronald: he became a playwright and one of his plays was called Dracula, the Musical?, which on the face of it sounds like it might resemble Dracula Baby! in more ways than having an unexpected punctuation mark at the end of the title. Sharkey wrote four short novels, three of them (including Ultimatum in 2050 A. D.) serialized in Cele Goldsmith's magazines, Amazing/Fantastic. He published about 60 stories in the field, almost all between 1959 and 1965. It may be that Goldsmith/Lalli's departure as editor influenced Sharkey's decision to switch fields -- she bought the great bulk of his stories. (She published no fewer than a dozen of his stories in 1959 alone!) His most famous story might be "Multum in Parvo", from Gent in 1959, and reprinted in Judith Merril's Fifth Annual Year's Best SF. He also wrote an Addams Family tie-in novel.

Our Man in Space is a very minor work of SF, but for much of its length it's amusing enough, before a somewhat too extended ending. It's about an actor, Bill Brown, who is hired as a spy for Earth, because of his acting skill and his resemblance to an Earth diplomat, Harry Gordon, who has been killed. Brown's job is to impersonate Gordon, and to travel to Troll, where Harry Gordon has been hired by the officials of Troll to find out when overpopulation pressures will cause Earth to explode. It seems that the Council of 16, a group of local planets, has refused new Galactic member Earth the right to colonize any planets.

Brown goes to Troll, on the way meeting a beautiful Galactic woman. (It seems that most of the planets in the Council of 16 have nearly fully human residents -- certainly sex is possible between these species.) On Troll he manages to complete his assignment, and also to make time with the beautiful Galactic, who eventually dumps him ... and Bill finds out as well that his superiors have betrayed him, and he will be killed. He escapes and kills a few Trollians, before sneaking onto a spaceship and heading for Grendid, a monarchy that it turns out is the leader of the aliens who are voting against Earth's pleas for colonization rights. On Grendid he again eludes attempts on his life, and again makes time with beautiful aliens, including a spy from a Matriarchy world, and against all odds he finds a way to save the King of Grendid from an assassination attempt, which should improve Earth's odds in the upcoming vote. But then we witness the Council of 16's deliberations, and more treachery is in store, from multiple planets, and it's up to Bill Brown to implausibly save the day again. And by the way meet up again with the first beautiful Galactic woman, for a passionate but all too brief reunion.

OK, this is really silly stuff. It doesn't make sense on any level at all -- scientific, political, plot plausibility, sociology, characterization. But it isn't really trying, and for a while it's pretty good fun, though it does wear out its welcome rather. (There are a few seeming nods to Heinlein -- the basic plot bears some points of resemblance with Double Star, and one character is called the local "Citizen of the Galaxy", and a character reminded me just slightly of Star, Empress of the Twenty Worlds ...)

As for Ultimatum in 2050 A.D., in the end it may be even sillier. It was first published in Amazing, in the June and July 1963 issues, under the title The Programmed People. Surprisingly, it has been reprinted recently, in 2010, as part of a Double Novel from an outfit called Armchair Fiction. (The other novel is Slaves of the Crystal Brain, by "William Carter Sawtelle" (a pseudonym for Roger Phillips Graham, who usually published as Rog Phillips).) The Armchair Fiction Double Novels seem to consciously imitate Ace Doubles (for example, with a similar color scheme), and also to concentrate on works at the pulpier end of the spectrum. The cover art for the Armchair Fiction edition of The Programmed People is the same as used for the June 1963 Amazing, by Ed Emshwiller, and not to my mind one of his better efforts. (Belatedly, I'll add that the covers for the Ace Double at hand are by John Schoenherr (for the Sharkey novel) and Ed Valigursky (for the Ronald novel).)

Anyway, Ultimatum in 2050 A. D. is set in the title year in "the Hive", a sort of arcology, a huge building in which 10,000,000 people live. Life is apparently good there, except for the strict rules about "readjustment", whereby one can be sent to the hospital for such things as voting the wrong way, not voting at all, or minor injuries. Lloyd Bodger is a normal young man, engaged to Grace Horton (nice name that!), occasionally in trouble for missing a vote or two ... despite being the son of the Secondary Speakster, the number two man of the Hive. One night he almost misses a vote, until a girl gives him her place in line. Shortly later it becomes clear that the girl is wanted for treason ... and against his better instincts, Lloyd decides to help her. Before long he finds himself embroiled in a resistance movement against the rulers of the Hive ... the girl, Andra, and her fellow conspirators Bob Lennick and Frank Shawn, make such crazy claims as that "Readjustment" simply means incineration -- to keep the population at the maximum 10,000,000.

So it goes for the first half of the book -- some frantic running around as Lloyd and Andra and the unwillingly roped in Grace try to avoid detection by Lloyd's father and his boss, the Prime Speakster Fredric Stanton. There is some treachery, some narrow escapes, and some loopy but almost fun ideas like the "Goons", robots that enforce the Hive's rules, and "Ultrablack", a scientifically implausible induced absolute darkness. There's a bit of sexual tension -- Andra seems a real potential rival for Grace, who loves Lloyd but who Lloyd seems unsatisfied with.

Then I think Sharkey got bored, or wrote himself into a corner, or something. The second half of the novel begins with a long piece of pure exposition, explaining in the most politically and scientifically absurd ways how the election of 1972 (only a decade or so after the novel was written!) led swiftly to the creation of the Hive, and to the establishment of it quasi-religious ruling structure and strict rules. After that there is the denouement, which never surprises except by the silliness of the action and resolution. I won't give away what happens, though, as I said, it's not really surprising at all. In the end quite a weak story.

Old Bestsellers: The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne, by William J. Locke

Old Bestsellers: The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne, by William J. Locke

a review by Rich Horton

Returning again to the very center of my vision for this blog, books that were huge bestsellers sometime in (mostly) the first half of the past century. William J. Locke was an immensely successful popular writer in the first couple of decades of the Twentieth Century, with novels in the Publishers' Weekly lists of ten bestselling novels of the year for 1909, 1910, 1014, 1915, and 1916. The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne didn't make that list, but it was his first major success, appearing in 1905 when the author was 42 and had been publishing for over a decade.

Locke was born in 1863 in Barbados, to English parents. He was raised mostly in England and in Trinidad. He attended Cambridge, studying Mathematics, despite his dislike for the subject, which he called "that utterly futile and inhuman subject". He became a schoolmaster, though apparently he was not happy in that profession. His first novel, At the Gate of Samaria, appeared in 1894. Despite his extreme popularity in this life, I feel fairly confident in declaring him nearly forgotten, but perhaps not entirely: one of his short stories was made into a film as recently as 2004, Ladies in Lavender, starring Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. (The book at hand, The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne, was made into at least three films, two silents and one talkie, the latter in 1935 starring Ian Hunter and Lupe Velez.)

The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne opens with the title character announcing his intention to recount the history of his "extraordinary adventure" mostly by transcribing his diaries. He begins by telling of the seventh anniversary of his "release from captivity" -- that is, the time when he was able to resign his hated position as a schoolteacher of mathematics, due to the death of most of his relatives, at which time he became a baronet, now Sir Marcus Ordeyne, and inherited a modest fortune. Since then Ordeyne his lived a quiet and well-ordered life, working on a scholarly book about the history of Renaissance morals, contributing occasional articles to scholarly publications, and visiting his mistress Judith Mainwaring. (Whether his and Judith's relationship is sexual is a question politely dodged by the book, though on balance I suppose it is.) Occasionally he is importuned by his relatives to marry, in order that the title can be passed on to future generations, but he sees no benefit in such an action.

All this changes one day when he stumbles across a very young woman, Carlotta, weeping in a London park. It seems she has been abandoned by the young man she ran away with ... from Alexandretta, in Syria, where she was the stepdaughter of a Turkish official, her English mother's second husband. Her Turkish stepfather meant to marry her to an unpleasant old man, so she ran off with a foolish English man. And now she has nowhere to go.

Marcus, seeing no alternative, takes her home. But soon he is at a loss as to what to do with her. He cannot take her to his relatives -- too much scandal. Judith wants nothing to do with her -- indeed, she is quite jealous. But Marcus' butler and his French cook quite take to Carlotta, and before long the story is looking rather like its near contemporary, George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion. Carlotta is taking instruction from a governess sort ... but she is also declaring her intention to marry "Seer Marcous", as she calls Ordeyne. But Marcus is not convinced the girl even has a soul -- and anyway, he has no intention of ever marrying. Besides, there's Judith.

Things come rather to a head when Carlotta's stepfather shows up in London ... and other complications ensure. There is for example Marcus' friend, and former student, Pasquale, who all of a sudden seems rather more interested in Carlotta than is appropriate. And of course there is the question of Judith Mainwaring, who has been conveniently away in Paris for a while. Various questions need an answer: Does Carlotta really love Marcus? Can she love anyone? Why have Judith and Marcus never married? What is Judith's dark secret? And where does Pasquale fit in? And is Carlotta's stepfather a real threat?

All is worked out, in the end, more or less as one might have guessed from the start, but not without some tragedy, and some true maturation, not just for Carlotta, who is clearly and understandably immature, but for Marcus, and for that matter for Judith. The ending is not a surprise, then, but the route to it is interesting enough, and fairly effectively deals with some knotty issues, most importantly perhaps Marcus' treatment of Judith. (Though there is a whiff of convenience about the way some things work out.)

I really quite enjoyed the novel, though with obvious reservations. One of these is the blatant Orientalism of the portrayal of Carlotta's stepfather, and of the way she was brought up. The other reservation is one that applies to many popular novels -- the generally happy ending is facilitated in great part by some pretty fortuitous events. But those aside, it's a fun read. The main character's voice is ironic and amusing. The moral issues at the heart of things are resolved with some acknowledgement of their force. And, yes, I like Sir Marcus and Carlotta, and I rooted for them.

(I'll add a small personal note -- this is the novel I was reading as I sat vigil at my father's deathbed. I can only place one other work in a similar context -- I was reading Wallace Stevens' long poem "The Comedian as the Letter C" in the hospital while my wife was in labor with my daughter.)

Old Bestsellers: Alice Blythe Somewhere in England, by Martha Trent

Old Bestsellers: Alice Blythe Somewhere in England, by Martha Trent

a review by Rich Horton

A little while ago a I wrote about a "boy's book", The Space Pioneers,  part of a series of books written under a house pseudonym, for which the actual writer is difficult to determine. How about a "girl's book", part of a series written under a house pseudonym (probably), the actual writer of which is perhaps impossible to determine?

Well, why not? Alice Blythe Somewhere in England is one of a set of 6 books published in 1918/1919 by the Goldsmith Publishing Company of Cleveland, OH; and also by Barse & Hopkins of New York. The copyright is held by Barse & Hopkins, so I don't know how Goldmith got involved, though my copy has their logo. Goldsmith do appear to have been occupied publishing a number of series of books for girls.

The series of which Alice Blythe is part of is collectively called the "Somewhere in" series. The books are, in order, Helen Carey Somewhere in America, Marieken De Bruin Somewhere in Belgium, Valerie Duval Somewhere in France, Alice Blythe Somewhere in England, Lucia Rudini Somewhere in Italy, and Phoebe Marshall Somewhere in Canada. They are all linked to an extent -- for example, Alice Blythe's brother meets Marieken (and seems to fall in love, but as she is just 14 they will have to wait), and Alice becomes good friends with Helen Carey.

It is not at all clear who "Martha Trent" actually was. Most likely the books were written by an employee (or a few) of Barse & Hopkins, probably from a centrally produced series outline (though inconsistencies between volumes did crop up). The books have gotten a certain mild amount of attention in latter years, generally from historians looking at World War I stories and propaganda.

So what about the book itself? Alice Blythe is a teenaged girl (perhaps 16) living with her "aunts" (actually I think more distant relatives) in rural England in about 1917. Her parents are busy in London as a doctor and nurse. Her brother is at the front. Her "cousin" Peter has joined the Royal Flying Corps, and is just itching to go to France, but has only just reached the age where he can go.

Alice is described in very tomboyish -- indeed almost androgynous -- terms, and that seems to have been a general theme throughout this series. And she has boyish (for that time) talents and interests: she is a good driver, Peter has taught her to fly a plane, and she is a terrible knitter. When Peter at last departs for France, Alice determines that she must contribute to the war effort as well, and after a small contribution on the home front (denouncing a pacifist), she heads to London to convince her parents to let her go to Belgium.

Once there she starts to serve in a hospital, though not as a nurse (remember, no "feminine" skills) -- rather as a sort of janitor. There she meets the American girl Helen Carey. But her instinct for adventure, and her driving skills, get her involved with a crashed aeroplane, its pilot, a secret message, and eventually a German spy. Of course she saves the day, more or less, and by the by meets Marieken de Bruin, her brother, and Peter. And gets sent back to England as a reward.

I think my tone sounds a bit more snarky than the book really deserves. Don't get me wrong, it's no great shakes, and terribly implausible. But it's a swift read, and on its terms enjoyable enough. I suspect it served its market well enough, back in the day. I mentioned the Tom Corbett books above -- I have to say that, taken in context, this book is better done, less offensive to the intellect, than the Tom Corbett book I read. Which is faint praise to be sure, but there you are.

(I should briefly note as well that it is illustrated, by Chas. L. Wrenn, and pleasantly enough.)

Eulogy for my Father

This one is particularly personal, and perhaps only of interest to family and friends. This is the prepared text (with modest revisions) of the eulogy I delivered for my father, John Richard ("Dick") Horton, (3/7/1931- 12/11-2015). My contributions here are modest -- this was written by all of his living children (there are six of us: myself, Jim, Bill, Paul, Ann, and Patrick) in concert, and the voice is not mine, but that of all of us in amalgam.

It is said that St. Francis of Assisi said “Preach the Gospel. Use words if necessary.”

Here’s all you need to know about my Dad. Back when we were living in the house on Tupelo, a knock came on the door late at night. He could have cursed at the noise, ignored the knock and gone back to sleep. But he didn’t. He answered the door, and welcomed into our home … a panicked, rough looking young man. The man stood there bleeding from his arm and begging for assistance. So Dad administered first aid, gave him something to drink and gave him a ride home. After returning home, Dad called the police. Turns out, there was an attempted robbery down the street, where the man had cut his arm breaking a window. We’ll never know if Dad’s compassion and trust turned this man’s life around, but it certainly had an impact on those of us who heard the story. Dad saw God everywhere, and Jesus in everyone.

Now I ask you, if this is how he treated a criminal, imagine what he would do for his friends! Before you answer that question, you need to understand what it took to be his friend. And the answer is … nothing. He never met a stranger, as they say. I remember driving down the street with him on more than one occasion, and watching as he waved at a passerby. “Who was that?” I would ask. “I don’t have any idea” he would say. Going to church, the hardware store or anywhere else with him was a lengthy affair as he knew everyone and would spend time afterward talking, while we were anxious to get home and play.

If you’ve read his obituary, you already know the specifics, the impressive litany of a life of service. To his country, first of all, as he served honorably in Korea. To his company – at Argonne Lab where he worked for more than 30 years. To his community, wherever he went. To his church. And of course to Mom and us kids – to whom he provided the kind of idyllic upbringing and family life that seem all too rare these days, but which are certainly never easy, no matter what generation you represent. That takes work, and talent, and love – all of which he had in spades. 
 

It dawned on me that I had not appreciated how much of a leader he was. President of this, founding member of that, on the board of something else. There were so many things he did for the community and he never asked for credit. As we looked through his papers, we found myriad letters of appreciation, several begging that he not leave some position that, typically, he had been asked to assume - as his contributions were irreplaceable.

One post he could have easily avoiding taking was in the army. He was in college, and virtually guaranteed not to be drafted. But then he did something strange. He knew if he stayed in college he wasn’t going to get drafted. And his mother wasn’t going to let him enlist. So he dropped out of school to ensure he would be drafted. He went to Korea and served with distinction. Being at war is no picnic, obviously. Yet he loved it. I think what he loved was the camaraderie. The friendships with his brothers in arms. And the knowledge that he was fulfilling his duty.

After coming home, he completed his degree, and found and married the love of his life, our dear Mom; they started a family and settled in Naperville, where they have lived ever since.

The other day, my brother found a letter of recommendation that his former boss sent to a prospective new employer. It read, in part, “John Horton was one of the finest men I ever had the pleasure of working with. I know of no man that I could recommend more highly than John. He is the clean living type of young man that would be a credit to your [company].”

Now how many referral letters like that do you see these days?

I will remember all the little things my father did. He was all of us boys’ first baseball coach. There was a baseball team photo displayed at the visitation yesterday, where Dad was dressed in the standard baseball manager’s uniform of creased slacks and wing-tipped shoes. You don’t always appreciate it when you’re a kid, but he obviously had hurried straight from work to the baseball field so he wouldn’t miss practice. He and Mom made it to every one of our games and with 6 children that took a lot of time; somehow, one thing he always had for us was the most precious commodity we possess – time.

One of his daughters-in-law told of his insistence on taking her to a medical appointment, and waiting there with her for four hours, so my brother wouldn’t have to take off work. This was the sort of thing he did all the time. Because he loved spending time with his family, and he always thought of helping others whenever he could.

I’ll remember his unique laugh that built up silently inside him until he shook with furious effort, trying to keep from exploding. And a twinkle in his eye that let you know he didn’t take himself too seriously. He was, one might say, merry.

I think the thing that brought him the most happiness was “doing life” with our Mom. He felt so much joy doing things for her and making her happy, and often bragged about her behind her back. He enjoyed her company more than anyone else’s. We find comfort today knowing that he died while they were out, enjoying life together, and that Mom and all of his children were with him in the hospital at the very end.

He leaves behind our dear mother, his loving wife of 57 years; six grown children – among you here today; four daughters-in-law, one son-in-law, and fourteen grandchildren – who are perhaps his proudest legacy. (He enjoyed nothing so much as visiting his grandkids, going to a school play, an athletic event or a graduation.) And of course all of you, a small sample of his endless circle of friends.

I know he will now get to finally meet again his beloved daughter Peggy, who preceded him in death by forty-eight years and to whom he has prayed every day since. And he will at long last be in the one place where everyone and everything is as friendly and welcoming as he has always been.

St. Peter at the pearly gates will surely not need my advice. But were I asked, I would say to him, “I know of no man that I could recommend more highly than John. He is the clean living type of young man that would be a credit to Heaven.”