2023年9月20日 星期三

"Black Legion of Callisto" by Lin Carter (1972)


“'And what are they?' Arkola growled.  'I confess I can see no other choice but to either pay the price the Zanadarians ask, or refuse to pay it and face a battle.'"

Didn't I recently state that I wouldn't be bothering with any of Lin Carter's fantasy novels?  That I did, but unbeknownst to me at the time, I'd already purchased one of these fantasy novels within a larger assortment of science fiction paperbacks by various authors.

Black Legion of Callisto is probably best described as "John Carter on One of Jupiter's Moons."  It's more professionally written than Time War, another book by the same author reviewed here recently, but it borrows a lot from both Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard.  In the midst of the Vietnam War an agent of the U.S. government finds himself stranded on an alien world, and after a series of adventures detailed in a previous novel he enlists in the titular Black Legion.

Some of the story points in this novel don't make a great deal of sense, but it does seem like the kind of book I would have loved in my early teens.  I was obsessed with both Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft at that age, and Black Legion of Callisto ticks off many of those boxes.  Is it good?  No, not really.  Is it corny?  Yes it is.  Is it entertaining?  Eh, it's OK.  You're not likely to remember much of the plot after finishing it, but I didn't find it especially hard to get through.

One part of this book that hasn't aged well, however, is the introduction, in which the author describes the terrestrial career of his hero.  This introduction, saluting "our brave boys in Vietnam" and wishing them the best of luck in their endeavors, doesn't sit well today, and considering that the "final boss" of this book is something of a Fu Manchu/Asian stereotype, it's pro-American interventionist stance is even harder to swallow.

Black Legion of Callisto is the second of eight in Carter's Callisto series.  I'd like to say that I won't read the others, but who knows?  I might just find myself with another pile of science fiction/fantasy paperbacks at some point, and another entry in this series might be found within it.  At any rate I definitely won't seek them out.

Related Entries:

張貼者： 於 沒有留言:
標籤： , , , ,

2023年9月19日 星期二

"Cirque" by Terry Carr (1977)


"It was the Millipede, his dark, liquid eyes glaring at her with the impersonality of a holograph image.  Its fur glowed golden in the sun, creating a halo around its head.  It was touching her with one of its forefeet."

Terry Carr was a noted publisher of fanzines and editor of science fiction anthologies.  He wrote three novels between 1963 and 1977, of which Cirque was the last.

In Cirque an extraterrestrial visits a future Earth to witness an event which will transform the galaxy.  Along the way he's joined by Nikki, a woman cycling through a series of personalities with the aid of a powerful drug, and Robin, a young girl eager to find meaning in a society where individualistic searches for truth are at the center of daily life.

Reading Cirque in 2023, I was reminded of so many "trippy" science fiction novels from the 60s and 70s, everything from Lord of Light to The Eden Cycle, most following in the wake of Frank Herbert's aphoristic Dune, another novel heavy on both philosophy and religion.  Was "Religious Science Fiction" ever considered a valid genre?  "Philosophical Science Fiction?"  Or were these examples of the form too spread out in time to have been grouped together that way?

I have no answer to that question, but I can say that Cirque is at best a middle-of-the-road effort, lacking the depth of more philosophical works, while also lacking the action that would have made it more accessible to less intellectually inclined readers.  Its conclusion is also something of a non-event, in that the "revelation" experienced by various characters seems rather obvious from the beginning, and thus not worth constructing an entire narrative around.

I will say this though, Cirque could be the basis for a good science fiction movie.  With a little polishing the ending would work much better in a visual medium, and by edging Cirque's characters into more extreme ideological positions the story could be a lot more involving.  There's a more compelling story in there, somewhere, it's just that the author failed to bring it to the surface.

Related Entries:

張貼者： 於 沒有留言:
標籤： , , , ,

2023年9月9日 星期六

"Tales from the White Hart" by Arthur C. Clarke (1957)


"One of the reasons why I am never too specific about the location of the 'White Hart' is frankly, because we want to keep it to ourselves.  This is not merely a  dog-in-the-manger attitude: we have to do it in pure self-protection.  As soon as it gets around that scientists, editors and science fiction writers are forgathering at some locality, the weirdest collection of visitors is likely to turn up.  Peculiar people with new theories of the universe, characters who have been 'cleared' by Dianetics (God knows what they were like before), intense ladies who are liable to go all clairvoyant after the fourth gin -- these are the less exotic specimens."

Arthur C. Clarke has been discussed here several times already, so I'll dispense with the short biography and bibliography.  Needless to say, I regard him as one of "the greats," and I consider his Childhood's End to be a must-read science fiction novel.  During his lifetime he was often grouped alongside Asimov and Heinlein as one of the three masters of the genre.

This said, Tales from the White Hart is definitely one of his lesser efforts.  In the introduction the author describes this collection as an assortment of "scientific tall tales," a type of story which was never going to find a wide audience.  Science fiction is, after all, a genre that leans on scientific concepts for a sense of verisimilitude, while most of these stories invert that very premise, introducing narratives predicated on an incomplete or faulty understanding of the scientific concepts they are predicated upon.

One of the stories in this collection might have been the inspiration for Little Shop of Horrors, though there was an earlier story by another author that might instead be the inspiration for that film.  Sentient, carnivorous plants weren't unknown to science fiction writers in the 50s, though the initial publication of Clarke's story was much closer to the time in which Charles B. Griffith wrote the screenplay to Roger Corman's movie.

This anthology was, I thought, simply OK overall, with the story What Goes Up being the standout.  This story, featuring a nuclear power plant that goes "anti-gravitational," should be required reading for anyone writing comic books.  It's unique in that it only follows its particular line of reasoning so far, and after that point it throws up its hands, leaving the reader to sort plausibility from unfounded speculation.

Which leads me to wonder how much of a future the "scientific tall tales" genre ever had.  It is, in Clarke's hands at least, a fun exercise, but given the rate at which science fiction ages I'm not sure how much of need there is for it.  If you don't believe me go back and read some science fiction from the 1950s.  Tall tales?  Almost all of the science fiction written during that time could have fit that definition, given how little the general public knew about astrophysics, quantum mechanics and related topics.  I would agree that given the tenor of the Space Race more people at the time were better acquainted with the general scientific concepts available to them, but we've learned a lot since that time, and our reservoir of knowledge is only growing.

For that matter there's Jules Verne to consider.  Tall tales?  From Earth to the Moon says hello.

All told (heh heh), Tales from the White Hart is a short, rather amusing book and I can't fault it overmuch.  It's worth a read if you're already acquainted with Clarke's more famous books, but if you aren't I'd give it a miss.

Related Entries:

張貼者： 於 沒有留言:
標籤： , , , , ,
位置： Taiwan

2023年9月3日 星期日

"Darwin's Radio" by Greg Bear (1999)


"'Look, trees send out chemical signals when they're attacked.  The signals attract insects that prey on the bugs that attack them.  Call the Orkin man.  The concept works at all levels, in the ecosystem, in a species, even a society.  All the individual creatures are networks of cells.  All species are networks of individuals.  All ecosystems are networks of species.  All interact and communicate with one another to one degree or another, through competition, predation, cooperation.  All these interactions are similar to neurotransmitters crossing synapses in the brain, or ants communicating in a colony.  The colony changes its overall behavior based on ant interactions.  So do we, based on how our neurons talk to each other.  And so does all of nature, from top to bottom.  It's all connected.'"

Greg Bear has already been discussed in my review of Eon, a novel published 14 years before Darwin's Radio.  He is/was a noted author of hard science fiction.  He passed away from stroke-related complications last year.

I was pretty hard on Eon, the one other of his books that I've read, but looking back at that review I think that my assessment of it was fair.  It really wasn't up to the level of more noteworthy hard science fiction entries, and yes, it does come off like a less digestible version of Ringworld.  Perhaps the sequels were better.  I certainly hope so.

I'm happy to say that Darwin's Radio is a superior book in every respect.  The author has a firm grasp of the science involved, the characters are fully realized and their actions make sense, and the sprawling plot manages to both fascinate and make logical sense at the same time.  I sometimes disagree with the Nebula Awards, but this book amply deserved that level of recognition.

Darwin's Radio takes place in the early 2000s, as health officials across the globe come to grips with a "new" virus that seems to have lain dormant in our DNA.  The danger posed by this virus is far from certain, and as a team of researchers attempts to assess this threat a new chapter in the history of our species (or at least our genus) begins.

Darwin's Radio isn't kind of book you pick up occasionally and read over a long period  of time.  It's a very involved novel, both in terms of the science discussed and the arguments presented its characters.  It thus requires a sustained effort on the part of the reader, but if you can sit down and get to it you'll find your effort rewarded. 

There's also the COVID angle.  Keep in mind that this novel was written in 1999, long before we'd taken up wearing masks, washing our hands obsessively, and also long before we began attempting to keep abreast of "new developments" via cellular technology that didn't exist in 1999.  For this reason Darwin's Radio can seem very prescient, in that discussions of viruses, epidemics and the paranoia engendered by both are things we grew uncomfortably close to during the pandemic years.

As for a recommendation, I'll just say that I can't recommend this book enough.  It's one of the best things I've read in a while, and when I have the chance I'll be reading the sequel, Darwin's Children.

Related Entries:

張貼者： 於 沒有留言:
標籤： , , , ,
訂閱： 文章 (Atom)