LAST UPDATE
6/5/23
Starchild by
Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson, Ballantine, 1965
The
solar system is ruled by the Machine and the Plan of Man, but many
humans have escaped to the reefs on the edge of the system. Now a new
player seems to have appeared. The Starchild can make the sun go dark
and the stars blink and the Plan is beginning to have problems. For a
time we are led to believe that the Starchild is actually a rival
Machine built to provide some interesting conflict for the one on Earth,
but eventually we discover that the galaxy is in a sense a living
creature and humanity as a whole is intended to fill the same role. I
found this rather implausible early on and nothing made me change my
mind. 6/5/23
Rogue Star by
Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson, Ballantine, 1969
Last
and weakest in a weak trilogy. A human has decided to create a Rogue
Star, a self aware star that is not constrained by the rules of the
community of sentient suns. A few humans are aware of the danger and are
determined to prevent the disaster. They fail, actually, and it is other
forces which save the day. For some reason the authors inserted humorous
interludes into the narrative, mostly involving bureaucratically
inclined robots. Nothing much happens until the closing chapters. The
setting is so chaotic and the characters so shallow that there is
nothing to engage the reader and a lot that is likely to confuse anyone
trying to find a satisfying conclusion to the series. 6/5/23
Land’s End by
Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson, Tor, 1988
A
not so near future disaster novel that takes place after several
undersea cities have been established. I had forgotten how boring this
one was and re-reading it - it's rather long - was a chore. Earth has
split into two cultures - those on the surface and those living in domed
cities under the ocean. The latter are pretty close to utopian while the
former are rather pedestrianly dystopian. Then a comet enters the
system. The surface people blow it up, but the debris causes an
electromagnetic pulse that kills all electronics and destroys the ozone
layer. All life on the surface is doomed to extinction. Two protagonists
- a woman who lives undersea and her lover, who commands a submarine -
have various adventures during the ensuing chaos until they are
reunited. Thrown into the mix is the Eternal, a godlike immortal alien
entity who decides to take a hand in things, The novel would have been
better without this element. Caricatures rather than characters,
simplistic politics, and too many digressions. 6/4/23
The Reefs of Space
by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson, Ballantine, 1963
First
in a trilogy set in a future solar civilization ruled by machines
supporting the Plan of Man. They have recently discovered spaceborn
lifeforms living in a kind of coral reef on the edge of the system. The
only known successful rebel against the system is believed to be hiding
there. Our hero is a scientist who has been judged a risk against
society – although he has no idea why – and whose status changes back
and forth almost randomly. I was not fond of this series sixty years ago
and it does not seem any better the second time through. The society is
just too constrained to be completely plausible. 5/30/23
Undersea City
by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson, Del Rey, 1971 (originally published
in 1958)
Final
volume in a trilogy. A new domed city has been established in a part of
the ocean where earthquakes are common. But someone appears to be
setting off explosions to cause unnatural seaquakes. Our hero
investigates and discovers that his uncle and his best friend are
responsible and there is some running around before we find out that the
small quakes were designed to forestall a much larger and more
devastating one that would have destroyed the city. I never cared for
this particular series, which is repetitive, and where the action is
always confined to the last few chapters. Nor does the undersea
environment ever seem real. 5/27/23
Undersea Quest
by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson, Del Rey, 1971 (originally published
in 1954)
First
in a young adult trilogy set mostly undersea in domed cities. The young
protagonist is briefly a cadet, is forced to resign, and then learns
that his uncle/guardian has disappeared, leaving him as the only heir.
And a very rich but unscrupulous person wants to buy his share in a
small company, and is willing to resort to fraud, kidnapping, and murder
in order to get his way. I wasn’t thrilled by the deus ex machina
ending, but this wasn’t bad for its type. 5/24/23
Undersea Fleet
by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson, Del Rey, 1971 (originally
published in 1956)
The
middle volume of this trilogy has a partially doubtful premise.
Polynesian divers evolved the ability to breathe underwater and at great
depths and there is a colony of them living there. A businessman was
using them to harvest pearls but his control over their population has
been slipping. They also have some friendly sea serpents to help them.
They can secretly move about on the surface and try to sabotage any
efforts to interfere with their independence. 5/24/23
Preferred Risk
by Frederik Pohl & Lester Del Rey, Dell, 1962 (magazine appearance in
1955)
This
originally appeared as by Edson McCann. There was a competition
sponsored by Galaxy but the submissions were all ruled to be subpar, so
Pohl & Del Rey pseudonymously produced a story that could pass muster.
That always struck me as cheating, actually. It’s set in a future where
an insurance company virtually rules the world. The hero becomes a
traitor to the company and then a traitor to the underground. The ending
was disappointingly implausible, alas. The company has built
suspended animation vaults large enough to house the entire human
population until deadly radiation is no longer a threat. 5/21/23
The Wonder Effect
by Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth, Ballantine, 1962
This
famous writing duo collaborated on seven novels and about forty short
stories, most of the latter of which have never been reprinted and Pohl
himself refers to them as awful. This is one of two collections of those
he thought were salvageable – Baen did a third many years later that
selected from both and added a couple of new stories. The opening
novelette is set during a still raging Cold War and is dated as well as
uninteresting. There’s a short piece about a man who loves children just
a bit too much. There are deathtraps in the Martian ruins, a strange
form of time travel, a secret history in which a nuclear explosion
occurs in the 19th Century, uplifted dogs that still serve a
decadent humanity, and much more. These are mostly below the standards
of the two men at their best but they reflect a time when SF was just
beginning to shake off its pulp origins. My favorite here is “The Quaker
Cannon.” 5/17/23
Before the
Universe by Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth, Bantam, 1980
A
collection of their early collaborations, including a trilogy of
novelettes. These are more of interest as historical objects than
stories. They are heavy on scientific speculation of the wildest sort
and don’t spend much time on character. One of the stories had Robert
Lowndes as a third collaborator. A few of the stories had already been
collected in The Wonder Effect. Pohl provides some interesting
commentary on the stories. Both writers turned out much better work on
their own, particularly Pohl, but it is interesting to see what they
were doing when they first started out. The title story was their first
collaboration. 5/17/23
Wolfbane by
Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth, Ballantine, 1959
A
rogue planet inhabited by sentient pyramids steals Earth from its sun
and turns the moon into a renewable mini-sun while it harvests human
beings as components in its technology. They periodically transport
humans to their planet and install them as cogs in their machinery,
until one of them wakes up from his trance and organizes a rebellion
that eventually finishes off the pyramids and gives the human race an
entire new technology. This was pretty good except for a couple of slow
spots where the story seemed to flounder around a bit, possibly because
it was originally somewhat shorter. 5/10/23
Gladiator-at-Law
by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, Ballantine, 1955
An
excellent satirical adventure set in a depressing future of decaying
cities, blood sports, and corporate domination of the world. A small
time lawyer is hired by the disenfranchised owners of a major share of
stock in one of the largest corporations. His maneuvers to assert their
rights are nicely portrayed – and they are far more successful than they
expected. Lots of backbiting, corruption, petty revenge, and conflict
although almost all of the physical confrontations take place off stage.
The major subsidiary character is a browbeaten event planner who loses
his job and finds his true self when faced with poverty. This aged quite
well 5/8/23
Search the Sky
by Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth, Ballantine, 1954
Earth’s
many colony worlds are falling out of touch with one another and recent
evidence suggests that some long established colonies have collapsed.
The protagonist has a rare ftl drive spaceship and goes to take a look.
He finds one world destroyed by wear, one dominated by elderly
dictators, one a brutal matriarchy, and one obsessed with conformity. He
eventually realizes that the dispersion has weakened the gene pool – I
don’t think the science here holds up at all – and that the general
intelligence on the colonies has been declining for generations. He
eventually returns to his homeworld, sadder but wiser. 5/6/23
Drinking
Sapphire Wine by Tanith Lee, DAW, 1977
Sequel
to Don’t Bite the Sun. The protagonist – never named – continues
to be bored by her utopian society of immortals and finally finds a way
to break a rule so serious that it ends up with a sentence of exile. The
cities are scattered around a kind of desert and that’s where he/she
ends up, but not alone. A new society begins to arise despite the active
opposition of the city rulers. A bit more optimistic than the first
book, but what was once an innovative new prose style does not seem so
fascinatingly original forty some years later. 5/6/23
Red Planet by
H.J. Campbell, Panther, 1953
The
red planet in this case is not Mars but one circling a far star. The
planet has intelligent inhabitants and is largely covered by red grass,
which the natives believe is sacred and untouchable. Two humans are
stranded on the planet and the red grass is the only thing that they can
eat. But if they do so, they will be executed. Eventually they use their
scientific knowledge to convince the local rulers that they need to
loosen their prohibition if they want to improve their own
circumstances. Pretty boring stuff, mostly talking. 5/2/23
The Space
Merchants by Frederik Pohl & C.M.
Kornbluth, Ballantine, 1953
A
simple description of the world described in this undeniable genre
classic is that the advertising agencies have taken over the world. The
current big project is to convince people that colonizing the
inhospitable planet Venus is an appealing prospect. The world is
overpopulated, undernourished, dominated by repressive government
agencies that are actually arms of the big corporations. The protagonist
is firmly established in her hierarchy, but he begins to question things
when he is shanghaied into a forced labor unit, discovers that the
supposedly violent underground is peaceful, and begins to see through
the exterior personalities of the people with whom he works. The
novel ages quite well. 5/1/23
The Last Mutation
by H.J. Campbell, Hamilton, 1951
This
is a pretty depressing story, narrated in present tense. The human race
has begun to degenerate – congenital diseases, shorter lifespans,
diminished intelligence. The protagonist is a mutant who is employed at
a facility attempting to solve the problem. His solution is to breed a
race of mutants who will be free of those human defects. Technically he
succeeds, but at the end he discovers that his new race is sterile, that
there will only be a single generation. He dies hoping that another
natural mutant like himself will be able to solve the problem before it
is too late. 4/29/23
Chaos in
Miniature by H.J. Campbell, Hamilton, 1952
Campbell
was never a particularly good writer but this one is downright silly.
First the House of Commons disappears, and people more or less forget
about it within a few days. Then more structures begin to vanish. The
title telegraphs the solution – someone is using a new invention to
shrink them and spirit them away. No explanation for the change of mass.
The villains must be thwarted. The missing people must be saved. The
mystery must be solved. Fortunately it’s really just a novella. 4/29/23
Don’t Bite the
Sun by Tanith Lee, DAW, 1976
The
first of two short novels set in a far distant future where death is
almost unheard of and it is possible to change your body into almost any
other form that you desire. The protagonist grows increasingly bored
with a life of perpetual pleasure and entertainment and attempts to find
meaningful work, only to discover that even there she is subordinate to
the judgment of machines. Ultimately she resigns herself to her lot in
life, though not without resentment. Makes considerable use of invented
slang. With the passage of years, this seems like a lot less daring a
stylistic variation, but it's still a very good story and one of my
favorites by this author. 4/26/23
Brain Ultimate
by H.J. Campbell, Panther, 1953
In
a repressive interstellar society, a scientist conducts a project to
preserve the brains of dying experts so that their knowledge can be used
even after their bodies are dead. The brains find a way to merge into a
gestalt and decide to undercut the interstellar dictator. The scientist
in charge has mixed feelings and lapses into some metaphysical nonsense
that culminates in the destruction of the empire. I remember liking this
when I was fourteen – it was the first British SF paperback I had ever
seen. 4/26/23
Beyond the
Visible by H.J. Campbell, Hamilton, 1952
In
a dystopian future state, a scientist is compelled to use an
experimental machine on the head of state. It malfunctions, killing the
patient and temporarily blinding the scientist. But then he realizes
that one of his eyes can now discern energy creatures invisible to
everyone else – creatures created as a byproduct of electromagnetic
devices. And they are hostile to humans. Naturally he cannot convince
anyone and when he tries to duplicate the effect with a second person,
it fails and he becomes a fugitive. 4/24/23
The Taking
of Satcon Station by Barney Cohen & James Baen, Tor, 1982
This
is one of the better blends of SF with the tough detective story format.
The protagonist is sent to an aging habitat to investigate the
disappearance of a journalist. He finds much more than that, starting
with murder, blackmail, and a money laundering scheme. The resolution,
although a bit confusing, has an interesting twist about who is
supporting the criminal organization. The protagonist is a reasonably
interesting character, and Cohen wrote a sequel, then never wrote SF
again. 4/22/23
Blood on the Moon
by Barney Cohen, Tor, 1984
This
is the sequel to The Taking
of Satcon Station. A mass
murder in a bar on the moon is investigated by a task force that
includes the protagonist of the first book and his new partner. Much of
it is a police procedural and the tone is rather different. The victims
have a bewildering number of connections – prostitution, political
dissidence, attempts to create an artificial intelligence, a sex cult, a
religious cult – and it is not clear which of these provided the motive
for the mass murder. The resolution is not very satisfactory and
Bockhorn’s character is considerably less interesting this time. 4/22/23
Devine War by
Dennis R. Caro, Arbor House, 1986
This
author’s second and final novel was an improvement on the first, a space
opera of sorts, although the story is not entirely serious. This tone
had gone out of style in the genre during the 1980s, which may explain
why he was never published again. The plot involves a plan by an
ambassador to a backward colony world who wants revenge against the
military officer whose actions resulted in the death of her lover. She
manufactures an incident to lure him, into range, but naturally things
do not go as planned. A fairly large cast of characters keeps the
viewpoint jumping around. I didn’t really care for this – it seemed to
constantly escape the author’s control. 4/21/23
The Night
of the Toy Dragons by Barney Cohen, Berkley, 1977
This
was one of the better nature gone mad novels, popular at the time. A
worker is attacked and mauled in the sewers under New York City.
Initially it is believed to have been rats, but eventually the
conclusion is that alligators are living there. But these are mutant
alligators – the adults are only a few inches long – and there are a lot
of them. They hunt in packs. Disturbed, they begin to explore new
territory, which leads to more human deaths. The usual escalation
follows along with the predictable discovery that they are no longer
confined to the sewers. The book ends in the middle of a battle, with no
hint of what will result. 4/21/23
Harilek by Ganpat,
Grosset, 1923
Another
lost world novel. Outsiders following an old diary and find a lost
civilization in central Asia. There is a war between two tribes and a
beautiful woman. There are hints of forgotten technology so this is only
marginally SF. No magic, so it's not fantasy. The outsiders eventually
turn the tide of battle against the bad guys thanks to their superior
sense of strategy. Ho hum. Although the prose in this one is better than
in most similar novels from this period, the story is completely
formulaic.
The Moon Is Heaven
by H.J. Campbell, Authentic, 1951
Yet
another early imagining of the first trip to the moon, this time by a
fairly large crew launching from Ecuador thanks to a mix of public and
private financing. They have the usual adventures en route and land
successfully. Unfortunately one of their number is a saboteur and he
twice attempts to kill the others. Not awful but with nothing in
particular to recommend it. Uncharacteristically, the story is written
in present tense, one of the earliest examples I have seen in the genre.
4/19/23
Hero’s Walk by
Robert Crane, Ballantine, 1954
Crane
wrote spy novels and adventure stories, and this early SF novel has
largely been forgotten. It is horribly dated though not badly written. A
century or so in the future, Earth is at peace and is colonizing Mars
when enigmatic signals are received from outer space. They are
indecipherable but some scientists believe they are a kind of warning
not to explore further. They are ignored and eventually unknown aliens
begin bombarding the Earth missiles. Part of the novel concerns the
protagonist’s walk through the beleaguered city of New York but most of
it is about the political and personal conflicts among the ruling
council which has replaced the United Nations. A mildly interesting
period peace. 4/17/23
Secret of
the Buried City by John Russell Fearn, Venture, 2016 (originally
published in 1938)
The
title novella is rather inferior even for Fearn, who generally told
interesting if often implausible stories. This one is about a man who is
digging a hole on some newly acquired property and uncovers access to a
secret city left over from a previous civilization. It is still
inhabited by people who prefer not to have contact with the contemporary
world. The other two stories included to pad out the book are a bit more
imaginative, and futuristic, but Fearn was not at his best at shorter
lengths and the collection is quite forgettable. 4/15/23
The Siren Stars
by Richard and Nancy Carrigan, Pyramid, 1971
This
was originally a serial in Analog, and there was a book length
sequel that never was reprinted. After rereading this, I had no desire
to reread the continuation. An intelligence based radio signal has been
received by Earth, obviously of alien origin. One of the scientists
involved becomes to suspect that it is not entirely benevolent, but he
is too late to avoid a tragic death. The signal, when translated,
becomes a source of addiction, a device I did not find particularly
convincing. Even worse, the characters talk the issue to death, and then
talk some more, and the actual plot is tenuous and diluted. The authors
never wrote anything else insofar as I can tell. 4/14/23
The Man Who
Sold the Earth by John Russell Fearn, Venture, 2017
A
collection of seven stories, five of them originally published around
1940. Two of them are collaborations with Sydney J. Bounds. The
stories are generally scientifically inept but include some fanciful
speculations. They deal with a woman trapped in another dimension,
aliens observing human expansion into space, a runaway asteroid, the
discovery of abandoned cities on the moon, and a couple of greedy
businessmen who engage in extraordinary attempts to seize political
power. They read like scripts for comic books from the 1950s. And not
very good comics either. 4/14/23
The Man in the
Darksuit by Dennis R. Caro, Pocket, 1980
This
was a satire that appeared just as satire was going out of style in SF.
The darksuit bends light and thus renders its wearer invisible. The
villain has one, engineers a kidnapping, and then plots further mayhem
when the abductee is rescued by our hero, a kind of private detective.
There are intelligent, mobile plants from another world, various weird
characters, a pair of likable thugs, and problems chiefly involving
taxes, investments, and cash flow. There is perhaps a bit too much
dialogue, not witty enough, and entirely too much detail regarding
uninteresting aspects of the novel. 4/9/23
War with the
Newts by Karel Capek, Bantam, 1955 (originally published in
1937)
I’ve
read this several times over the years. A sea captain encounters the
newts, who live in the water near an isolated island. He teaches them to
use tools and helps them spread throughout the oceans. They are as
bright as humans and eventually speak, read, and ultimately wage war
against the surface world. The story satirized xenophobia, racism, human
propensity for belligerence, and other attitudes that Czech writer Capek
felt offensive. It still reads quite smoothly although a few things are
rather dated. Capek is most famous for having invented the term “robot”
in another work. Several of his books involve SF themes, but this is far
and away the best of them. 4/9/23
Wine of the
Dreamers by John D. MacDonald, Gold Medal, 1951
Aka
Planet of the Dreamers. A distant world holds only a few hundred
survivors of its original race, and these devote themselves to
manipulating the lives of people on three other planets to prevent them
from developing space travel. Their society is decadent and they no
longer remember the purpose of their activities, actually believe them
to be harmless illusions. One of the three planets – all colonized from
the dying planet – is Earth where a project to travel to the stars is
beset by incidents of sabotage. The colonization bit is complete
nonsense but the story is otherwise not bad at all, though somewhat
dated. 4/7/23
Ballroom of
the Skies by John D. MacDonald, Gold Medal, 1952
Earth
has barely recovered from the first nuclear war when a second one
threatens to break out. A minor government agent discovers that there
are aliens among us, and that they are provoking conflict in order to
limit the growth of human civilization. Various predictable although
sometimes implausible adventures follow. I did not like this one at all.
The aliens have too many powers, the hero really has no realistic
chance, and the plot is unusually slow for a MacDonald novel. He wrote
no SF novels after this, and only one fantasy. 4/7/23
Encore in Death
by J.D. Robb, St Martins, 2023
Eve
Dallas futuristic police procedural #56. Other than none brief mention
of a robot and a kind of flimsy body armor, this really isn't SF. A
popular and well liked actor is poisoned by a cocktail at a party. The
cocktail was meant for his wife, so it is not clear which of them is the
real victim. She is a famous actor as well, her career having been
kickstarted as a teenager when she was understudy to a troubled young
woman who committed suicide. Or did she? Dallas makes her way through
the usual suspects - the deranged stalker, the jealous mother with a
long standing grudge, the furious rival from whom the widow stole her
husband, etc. Robb - actually Nora Roberts - is a bit too cute this
time. The killer is so wonderfully nice and blameless that I suspected
her from the outset. 4/6/23
Into the
Tenth Millennium by Paul Capon, Digit, 1956
This
is a very slow moving novel about three people who take a drug that
allows them to live through thousands of years in what is subjectively
only a few weeks. They find themselves in a more primitive future
England after the collapse of technological civilization. Not much
happens there either and most of the first half of the book is a
description of their preparations and the second half just describes the
society they find. Not much of any conflict and the characters are flat
and uninteresting. 4/4/23
Salamander War
by Charles Carr, Digit, 1955
This
is a sequel to Colonists of Space, which I have never managed to
acquire. Earth has been destroyed in a nuclear war and the only
survivors have settled on the planet Bel. The planet always keeps the
same side to the sun so there is no night where the colony is growing.
For some reason, this means that no one ever sleeps. There are rumors of
salamanders – creatures who live on the hot side – but they are
considered fables as the story opens. They turn out to be real and their
nature is difficult to understand. They are also potentially dangerous.
Some of the humans try to hypnotize them using hand movements that are
supposedly effective on humans – which is absurd nonsense – but it
doesn’t work. It does, however, provide a means of communicating with
them at the end, and it is even more nonsense.
The Wonderbolt
by Paul Capon, Thunderchild, 1955
Although
the story opens with the arrival of a superdense meteorite, the balance
of the novel is a routine and not very interesting spy story. The
meteorite is stolen by persons unknown and a variety of people from
different countries are all engaged in hunting it down. The chief
protagonist is a private detective, who gets abducted early on and is
absent for a chunk of the story, before re-emerging to bring it to a
conclusion. Only SF by courtesy. 4/3/23
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