"Earthchild" by Sharon Webb (1981)

"This was the beginning, he thought.  The day it all began, the first day into forever.  It seemed so long ago now, that first day... and there would be no last."

Sharon Webb was a science fiction writer and nurse.  This novel, Earthchild, is the first entry in her Earth Song trilogy.  It was followed by Earth Song in 1982 and Ram Song in 1984.  She wrote a few other books, but they're all relatively difficult to find.

Earthchild concerns itself with a corporate solution to the problem of human mortality.  At an undisclosed point in the near future, a corporation releases a chemical into the atmosphere, and the result is a race of people who will grow to physical maturity and stop aging thereafter.  Those mortals untouched by this process descend into a state of relative barbarity, often lashing out against those they perceive as a threat to all that humanity stands for.

It gets off to an excellent start -- the concept is the kind of thing that Arthur C. Clarke would have written to perfection -- and then loses momentum about halfway through.  I can't tell if this is because the author was building up to the book's sequel, or if she just didn't realize this concept as fully as she could have.  The book's central premise, that immortality is the death of human creativity, is a fascinating one, but this premise isn't explored in any meaningful way.  Exacerbating this critical flaw is the fact that the antagonist's motivations are never really explained, and at the end of the book he simply vanishes from the scene without facing any kind of consequences for what he's done.

Maybe the author got to that part in the sequel.  I'll probably never know, because I'm not likely to come across Earth Song at any point in this (or any other) future.

Related Entries:

"Rebels' Seed" by F.M. Busby (1986)

"The Void Captain's Tale" by Norman Spinrad (1983)

"Cloudcry" by Sydney J. Van Scyoc (1977)

"Darkchild" by Sydney J. Van Scyoc (1982)

"Rebels' Seed" by F.M. Busby (1986)

"Cray Malden stood to face his prisoner.  The man's stance told nothing: hope, defiance, or even fear.  Malden said, 'Traitor, you're in your last hour.  Is there anything you wish to say?'"

F.M. Busby won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine.  And no, I didn't know that a Hugo for Best Fanzine was a thing until I came across it on Busby's Wikipedia page.  He spent most of his writing career living in the Seattle area, where he passed away in 2005.

In Rebels' Seed a group of "space pirates" are attempting to reintegrate into intergalactic society.  Their emissary to this end is a young girl, Lisele, who becomes part of a military expedition.  After her ship is stranded in orbit around a distant planet, both her training and her decisive nature become crucial factors in her shipmates' survival on a hostile world.

It's fairly standard stuff in the realm of science fiction, with the scientific aspects being the orbital mechanics involved in the ship's journey, and the engineering challenges related to rescuing a downed spacecraft. Aside from these mostly convincing assays into future technologies, the characters in this novel are well written and believable.

It's just too bad this book was burdened with such a terrible cover. Really, that spooky face above the stupid-looking spaceship is one of the worst ever. Who commissioned that?

Two other problems with this novel: the first chapter, which tries and fails to recapitulate the three books that came before it, and the engineering problem near the end, which is described in WAY too much detail. These problems don't completely undermine the story, but they're annoying imperfections in what was otherwise a worthwhile book.

Rebel's Seed won't impress anyone already versed in the genre, but it's an engaging read. The author took his craft seriously and it shows.

Related Entries:

"The Void Captain's Tale" by Norman Spinrad (1983)

"Cloudcry" by Sydney J. Van Scyoc (1977)

"Darkchild" by Sydney J. Van Scyoc (1982)

"Eyes of Fire" by Michael Bishop (1980)

"The Void Captain's Tale" by Norman Spinrad (1983)

"At this imbalance in the ecstasy of our pas de deux, Lorenza displayed a sincere concern and bent her neck and her energies to oral caresses designed to redress it."

Norman Spinrad is a science fiction author and critic.  His biggest claim to fame is being the author of the script for "The Doomsday Machine," an episode of the original Star Trek TV series.  He's had a lot of trouble getting his books published over the years, partly because they deal in controversial subject matter, partly because they simply lack commercial appeal.  I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but after reading The Void Captain's Tale I can easily imagine the attitude of most editors toward his work.  Words to the effect of "Naw, we'll pass" were probably sent Norman Spinrad's way on a number of occasions.

In The Void Captain's Tale, which is one of the author's better known works, spaceships traverse interstellar space with the aid of a "jump circuit," a heavily symbolic technology which operates upon the principle of the female orgasm.

And no, you didn't read that last sentence wrong.  This is really he premise of the book.

Anyhow, this "jump circuit," which I suppose is part of a "jump drive," is in turn operated by a flight crew working at both a physical and social distance from the female upon whose orgasm the ship's propulsion depends.  Things go awry once the captain of this flight crew inadvertently develops an emotional attachment to the woman whose unique sexuality propels their ship toward its next destination.  Should he continue utilizing her sex drive out of a sense of duty?  Or does a greater destiny lay in store, a destiny which outweighs his sense of responsibility?

Put another way, The Void Captain's Tale is the "French" erotic-philosophical science fiction novel that no one really wanted.  The characters speak in a weird patois of English, French and Spanish (NO non-European languages), they act like libertines occupying a salon traveling faster than the speed of light, and they're altogether unlikeable.  The main character, the titular Void Captain, spends an inordinate amount of time brooding over his ultimate choice, while his ladylove is a somewhat interesting if underutilized character who might have been better cast as the protagonist.

Oh, and there's a lot of fucking.  The author, of course, would never, ever stoop to the word "fucking," but there's a lot of that as well, usually reduced to a kind of tantric exercise that's far from titillating.

All in all it's an extremely difficult book to get through, especially since almost nothing of consequence happens in its first half.  IF you can make it through this first half, however, it does have some redeeming features.  The "captain's dilemma" at the heart of the story is the kind of nihilistic thing one doesn't often come across in science fiction, and I liked the ironic ending.  There's a nice turnabout there, I just wish the rest of the book had been that entertaining.

...maybe this novel would have worked better as an adult film?  It would have been a very, very strange adult film, but I could see one of the more ambitious adult film directors doing something more with the concept.

Related Entries:

"Cloudcry" by Sydney J. Van Scyoc (1977)

"Darkchild" by Sydney J. Van Scyoc (1982)

"Eyes of Fire" by Michael Bishop (1980)

"Frontera" by Lewis Shiner (1984)

"Cloudcry" by Sydney J. Van Scyoc (1977)

"Tormenting uncertainty filled Tiehl's craw with gravel.  He uttered a harsh, cawing challenge.  When none of the humanoids responded, he stepped forward and deliberately slashed his talons across one bare back, drawing lines of black blood."

I finished Syndey J. Van Scyoc's Darkchild prior to reading Cloudcry.  If you're interested in this author feel free to peruse that entry.  I bought two of her books during my last trip to the States, and for all intents and purposes this will be the last entry relating to this author.  She remains a relatively obscure (if very overlooked) writer, and I doubt I'll happen upon her other books anytime soon.

In Cloudcry two humans and a bird-like humanoid are quarantined on a distant planet after contracting a contagious disease.  Upon arriving on this planet they discover the existence of several other races of humanoids, each having made its mark on their shared planet long before the humans' arrival.

Unlike Darkchild, Cloudcry is kind of a mess.  At best it represents an uneasy marriage of the older, more traditional form of science fiction embraced in the late 50s and early 60s with the newer, more "psychedelic" kind of science fiction emerging in the late 60s and early 70s.  Most of the "adventures" undertaken by the two human characters resemble nothing so much as an episode of the original Star Trek TV series, while the trippier aspects of this book feel like something imported from a more recent, more polished, and more heartfelt book that the author hadn't gotten around to finishing.

There was potential in Aleida, one of the nonhuman characters.  She's an impulsive, elemental sort of person not unlike the princess character in Darkchild, but her reasons for doing what she does are often obscured by the humans' disjointed attempts at reasoning out what they experience in her presence.  Making her the focal point of this novel would have improved it considerably, especially since the two humans she contends with are little more than cardboard cut-outs.

The ending of this book is also disappointing.  It's obvious that the author couldn't manage to get where she was trying to go, and the last few chapters of this novel feel both random and extremely forced.  There were some interesting aspects to the lost race of explorers, the ill-defined disease from which the humans suffer, and the race of "gods" encountered through hallucinatory experiences, but none of these aspects of the story are really brought together in the end, and the reader is left to wonder what kind of story the author was trying to tell.

Darkchild was a lot better.  Cloudcry is a less accomplished effort, and there were far superior science fiction novels widely available in 1977.  Were I to assign Cloudcry a score out of 10, I'm thinking it's a solid 6.  It's not derivative, but it's also very flawed.

Related Entries:

"Darkchild" by Sydney J. Van Scyoc (1982)

"Eyes of Fire" by Michael Bishop (1980)

"Frontera" by Lewis Shiner (1984)

"Redshirts" by John Scalzi (2012)