New Writings in SF5 edited by John Carnell (Part Two)

“Acclimatization” by David Stringer

I hated this story, I was unengaged with the main character, a spacer Gerry Kaufman, who returns to earth from his first trip to Deepspace then whines about it. I also found the future history setting and plot uninteresting. So I will stop here, one thing I said when I started this blog was if I have nothing nice to say…, sometimes I am unsuccessful. But I try.

If you want to read some stories about rather odd conquests of space I suggest Larry Niven’s stories of Beowulf Shaeffer, “Neutron Star” is a great place to start or the many really enjoyable stories of Cordwainer Smith, I don’t have his books at the cabin but start with “Scanners Live in Vain” and “The Lady Who Sailed the Soul”. Or better yet find them all by reading everything he wrote. Moving on. 

“The Expanding Man” by R.W. Mackelworth

from Carnell’s introduction, “ Not all science fiction stories require a complex plot or setting to make them acceptable. The following story, set in a park, is solely a conversational piece, but its implications prove far-reaching.” 

The conversation is between Algie Ryan and a stranger he has met in the park. They are seated on a bench while Ryan recounts a somewhat incoherent story concerning his wife. While the stranger ( he provides the name Smith) pretends to lend a sympathetic ear, this is not what he is interested in. It seems that Ryan had spoken to another stranger, who subsequently vanished. Smith wants to know what Ryan told him. As he says “you are the kind of man who confesses, Mr Ryan. All confessions fun along the same line-a protest, a windy grumble with tensions running out in an acid stream.” (107)

Spoilers ahead

I am going to quote a bit more because this is a really well-written story. The description of the park, the back and forth between Ryan and Smith are beautifully realized. 

Finally, Ryan describes his encounter, “ I sensed he wasn’t ordinary, that he was from out of this world, and I accepted it. Then, as I told my troubles he seemed to grow until he filled the whole of my view.” (108) As Smith is able to demonstrate Ryan means this literally. Because Smith and the previous stranger are aliens from two different factions and in contacting Ryan a rule have been broken. Ryan goes on “ “he took them on he grew larger with them…until he was enormous, a great skinful of my problems, of small household nags and big bank tyrannies. I thought he would explode.” “It is trick, a conjuring trick for ignorant natives! He broke every political agreement and every solemn pact of non-interference that’s ever been made in this sector of space-time merely by speaking to you.” Smith spoke like a small-town politician who hadn’t time to fix the ballot boxes and knew he had lost to the other candidate. The other side was breeding a nimbler race of mice.” (109)

From this description, it may seem like a fairly ordinary story of two extraterrestrial visitors vying for mankind’s support, but Mackelworth’s story is far more complex than that, and Ryan is very much an unreliable narrator. This story has, to me, more of a New Wave vibe than the other fairly conventionally plotted stories in this collection. But I absolutely loved it, well written, nicely plotted with great dialogue Mackelworth is another writer I will look for in the future. This collection seems to be it’s the only appearance of this story.

“Treasure Hunt” by Joseph Green

Professor Soames Chalcedony was a Philosophy Professor and spokesperson for a group advocating that longevity treatments be extended to everyone, at present, they are restricted to the rich and the influential. At 80 years of age, while still in good health, Chalcedony has opted to have his body submerged into the Mediterranean in a coffin. Here Chalcedony will live through a thousand years of dreams for each day his body takes to die. But his body has now been stolen for use in a treasure hunt. He is told “You are a mental pattern, a matrix of electrical fires taken from one mind and forcibly imposed on another. “ (118) in a few hours the original mind will reassert itself and Chalcedony’s mind will fade. They go on. “We are on a treasure hunt. We are after the fresh-laid egg of the firebird, The most beautiful object in the galaxy, and this is the only way one may be obtained. You were chosen to share this effort with us because our computer selected you as the philosopher most likely to succeed. It seems Chalcedony has been retrieved by four adventurers who found alien mind transfer equipment on a remote dead planet and decided to retrieve an egg to pay for longevity treatments. One has already died and a second has been brain damaged. The other two men have tried but failed to retrieve the egg. 

To retrieve the egg one must assume the form of chariot-horse.

Chalcedony sees his new body as a reflection in a pool of liquid mercury “seeing the plump, rounded armless body, heavy tapered tail, snake-length of neck topped by a blunt and broad-nosed dragon’s head, the open mouth showing pointed tongue and diamond glitter of teeth in the wide wicked jaws. He looked at the two wheels of bone that supplied his locomotion as he moved away, at the massive bones which protruded from both sides of the muscular abdomen” (117) 

He is on a planet where life is based on silicon, a world of crystal growths. “When he moved he gave off light, and he now realized this was true on every plant and animal on this sphere. His borrowed eyes knew and allowed for this. He was a humble vegetarian, with teeth of diamond and stomach of hydrofluoric acid, there were growths of prisms, seed carriers of crystal bells, fruits of gemmed translucency that were his food.” (122) If he succeeds Chalcedony will be rewarded with longevity treatments and a place on the crew if he wants it. But first, he must navigate a very strange landscape. 

The story is not long but Green has offered a really beautifully depth of description for the silicon-based forest. Honestly, this is what I originally signed up for when I began reading science fiction. Utterly alien, aliens and strange planets based on totally different physical laws and an adventure to boot. All that it needs is a great cover by Frank R. Paul dripping with crystal forests, prism mountains and battling dragons with wheels. Again it looks like this collection was its only appearance.  

“Sunout” by Eric C. Williams

With this title, and the description of the death of the sun in the review, (the story is falsely attributed to Mackelworth in the review), I am not too worried about spoilers, this is an okay story dealing with the discovery that the sun is about to go out, by the staff of an observatory. The plot revolves around what to do with the information some opt to publicize it right away and some including the head of the observatory wants to tell the president and other heads of state so they can prepare of the resulting panic. I said in discussing the first story in that collection that otherwise so so stories can be redeemed by the ending. “The Secretary went down a step and greeted the President with an urgency showing his held-down panic. “This is Professor Weiner,” he said, turning.

The President extended his hand.

The Sun went out.” (162) 

Great stuff. I did not know what to expect from a collection put together by John Carnell but as I said in Part One once I had read a few I knew that I was in good hands. The overall quality and the sheer variety of plots really made for a great reading experience. I have a few more of this New Writings in SF collections and I will keep an eye open for more, as well as looking for other stories by some of the writers I discussed here. 

New Writings in SF5 edited by John Carnell (Part One)

  Sorry I have been sitting on this for months.  I was reading a post on Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations (great blog) when in the comments section Joachim Boaz had provided a review of Heinlein's Farnham’s Freehold (a truly awful book) from the New Worlds issue  for Nov. 1965.

The image included a review by Hilary Bailey of John Carnell's New Writing in SF5 which I found much more intriguing. I had the Carnell anthology and was able to find the review on my New Worlds dvd.

Cover uncredited. I read Colvin's (Michael Moorcock) "The Wrecks of Time', which was interesting, I am not sure if it will be a post.

https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2019/04/15/updates-recent-science-fiction-acquisitions-no-ccvii-moorcock-pohl-leinster-morressy/

John Carnell was a UK literary agent and anthologist. He is perhaps best know for his association with New Worlds magazine. While Michael Moorcock receives most of the credit for using New Worlds to launch science fiction's, "New Wave", the Encyclopdia of Science Fiction notes Carnell "also gave active encouragement to many of the writers who were later to become strongly associated with Michael Moorcock''s New Worlds …, including Brian W. Aldiss, J. G. Ballard, John Brunner and Moorcock himself."

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/carnell_john

In an earlier post, I tried to explain why I am attracted to some science fiction works more than others.

"Other times it is more immediate, there may be is a feeling of familiarity or comfort, like sitting in a favourite chair, that occurs the minute I read a certain passage, as in “Epilogue ” by Poul Anderson when the robot gathers his spears and sets off on his quest. Sometimes it is not the text but the feeling the work leaves, say the exuberance I felt after completing Robert Sheckly’s somewhat silly, “Specialist". Some because I recognize them as part of a continuum, Niven’s Gil Hamilton stories, for example, lead me to Linda Nagata’s "Nahiku West"."

https://ajaggedorbit.blogspot.com/2018/06/science-fiction-and-me-why-i-read-what.html

I was reading my second story in this anthology when I realized this was going to be one of those books. Bailey seems to think five of the seven have were possibly better but none particularly memorable. As for how memorable these stories will be (for me), only time will tell, but I quite enjoyed six of the seven. I like British science fiction and these had a real range in that the settings or plots of the stories were all quite different. I am going to discuss each story, some in more detail, and I will try to warn of spoilers. Carnell does provide a one paragraph introduction to each story, which I may quote in full or in part. 

Cover unattributed. 

Potential by Donald Malcolm

The story begins with Dr. Edward Maxwell, the Director of D.R.E.A.M. who is monitoring the subjects of a dream study at a university sleep clinic. His wife Jill is expected to deliver their first child at any moment so he is a bit distracted. But not that much, as I will discuss later. The subject of the greatest interest is Gerry McLean when roused McLean begins to dictate a dream of swirling clouds or mist, sparks within the mist begin to form decimate patterns, then McLean begins to see the back of someone's head. Maxwell then lets his mind drift, so we are treated to a page and a half on information on dreams and dream research I could have done without. Then McLean begins to dream again even though two dreams in 45 minutes is unusually frequent. " There are no clouds, now, only a uniform blue-grey background that seems to extend everywhere. There are no random sparks, either. All are in some pattern or other. There's much more activity …looks purposeful, as if a stimulus were being applied… or-or supplied." and " The pattern moves…it's as if the mechanical action of a typewriter were being translated into terms of light.."(7) McLean also begins to dictate equations which neither he or Maxwell are able to understand. At present McLean is a manual labourer. He is generally unpleasant, brusque, sardonic and pushy. Intrigued by his dreams Maxwell begins to investigate McLean's background. From a former employer, he learns that McLean embezzled money, but was never charged, and impregnated, then deserted a young waitress. From his former Headmaster, he learns that McLean was often in trouble but also a mathematical genius. As the story continues McLean begins to dream more and more frequently and indeed he begins to show up at the clinic when he is not scheduled and demands to use the facility. 

There are several elements about the story I found jarring. There is a brief visit between Maxwell and his wife after the birth of the baby but it is pretty perfunctory. Indeed a day or two after the birth Maxwell is unable to supply the child's name when asked, saying he has not really thought about it that much? Really? Also, the treatment of women in science fiction is often less than stellar, as is the case here, when a young woman gives Maxwell a saucy eye, he dismisses her as a candidate for the world's older profession. This not only seems harsh in general abut also in terms of the story. Virtually every woman in the story, the matron in the hospital, female colleagues, students etc. indicates some sexual interest in Maxwell. I have no clue why the author included this element or the pregnancy of Maxwell's wife since, neither advance the plot and serve only to interrupt the story. 

Spoilers ahead.

Eventually, with the help of Jason Brown, a male colleague Maxwell realizes that McLean is somehow in telepathic communication with the university mainframe. "The computer is running ahead of itself, giving out more information than it should according to the programme." (31)  Brown the university computer expert has we are told "more degrees than a heat wave of thermometers, and he could converse intelligently on most subjects at the drop of a capacitor." (14) ( I am not sure why the author is channelling Gernsbackian science fiction at some points of the story, but you have been warned ) Maxwell and Brown realize the computer must be sending out some kind of broadcast, possibly all computers do, and if they do, can they communicate with each other? I find some stories can leave me cold for a large part of the narrative, only to be redeemed by the ending, Disch's Camp Concentration is one such work and "Potential" is another. "Then, as his signal began to fade, on a planet of a star four and a third light years away, a mind became aware, fleetingly, of an alien presence. He smiled and was content." (33)

The Liberators by Lee Harding 

from Carnell's introduction, 

"In the far distant future, the City roamed the face of the Earth, its memory banks conjuring fantasies from the minds of the unhumans storied within its vitals. Almost omnipotent, it was yet growing old and senile, and slow to meet the threat of the new life stirring upon the face of the world." 

Between the introduction and the first line, "They tumbled blindly through the endless twilight of the tunnel under the World, Pallid little creatures with faces like polished pebbles washed smooth by time, and pursued by a growing sense of guilt."(37) the plot is fairly clearly laid out. But I felt it was an enjoyable story, it conjured up memories of The Matrix and Jones' The Cybernetic Brains, but without killer frogs which I discussed here.

https://ajaggedorbit.blogspot.com/2015/10/cybernetic-brains-by-raymond-f-jones.html

Takeover Bid by John Baxter

As a Canadian, I think that John Baxter (an Australian) is writing about issues of national identity, that Canada as a member of the British Commonwealth, former territories of the British Empire, is still grappling with when it comes to our national identity and role in the world. As the story begins Bill Fraser Assistant Director of Civil Aviation is travelling in a fully automated bubble car to Crosswind Headquarters. As he travels he considers a number of recent events that will give us a sense of the "New" Australia in which the story takes place. "In the fifties the idea of Australia exporting anything but the most basic raw materials-wool, wheat, steel-would have been ridiculous. Nobody had bargained for the immense expansion that would following the opening up od Australia to Asian immigrants and the impetus this would give to the development of the inland desert. Up to 1970 settlement was in most cases confined to a narrow strip of coastline seldom more than one hundred miles wide. Now, in 1994, there were market gardens far to the west where a farmer had been lucky to graze two sheep to the acre," (59)

This increase in GOP has had another consequence, "So, when it suddenly fell heir to wealth its first impulse was to strive with other countries for goals that mattered, the cure for cancer, longevity, space. And so it happened that in 1993 an Australian scientist has stumbled on the forcefield and, almost by accident, given mankind the stars." (60)

This field is a perfect reflector, capable of great acceleration. Animals experiments using the forcefield bubbles went well and eventually, Colonel Peter Chart R.A.A. F. had been sent out. "And had returned. or at least his body had. His mind seemed somehow to have been lost among the empty reaches of space. He had been taken from the bubble completely catatonic and had remained that way for three weeks. Then, on July 2-yesterday-he had quietly risen from his bed, killed a guard and run off to the desert." (60) And it is not just Chart that Fraser and his second in command Col (Colemara Talura), one of the first aborigines to hold a Ph.D. and a B.S.c. that Fraser selected for the project in part because" His combination of soppistication and allegience to the old tribal ways made him a person worth studying. (62) face. There is also the meddling/spying of the ELDO, the European Launcher/Development Organization which will use an old agreement signed by the Australian Government to take over the project and all the technology involved. I loved this story on many levels, the discussion of issues like immigration, higher education and advances in science and technology that are so relevant today. The interactions between Col and Fraser mirror our own interactions with the Canadian Native Peoples The political interactions between Crosswind Project and ELDO remind me in part to the story of the Avro Arrow and the Canadian High Tech sector, which still rankles many Canadian today. I have attached a link should you be interested. 

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/avro-arrow

As you might have guessed this story engaged me on many levels. Using the ISFDB  database,  aside from it's the appearance in the editions of Carnell's anthology I only see one other appearance in "Beyond Tomorrow" edited by Lee Harding (1975). 

I have decided to break this entry into two parts. I will try to complete part two promptly. 

Frank Herbert #3, Destination Void (and Dune Series)

Destination Void 1966, cover by Richard Powers

Disclaimer I am having trouble will blogger displaying text odd text breakss, editing does not seem to help.

"Another student had said, "Hypothetical questions like this always bore the hell out of me." (157)(1978) Destination Void. They bore me as well, which is why I did have some trouble finishing Destination Void. Talk talk, talk, I had the same problem with Disch's Camp Concentration and as with the Disch book the ending redeemed an otherwise, for me, tedious read. I will now briefly discuss the Dune series and my Herbert Reread, skip ahead if you want to move onto Destination Void.

THIS BRIEF SURVEY OF THE DUNE BOOKS CONTAINS SPOILERS

Before discussing Destination Void I first I want to mention how my amble through the works of Frank Herbert is going. I love Dune I will make no bones about it, But I never previously gotten past the beginning of God Emperor of Dune. So I decided to read all six Dune related books published by Herbert in his life time. I skipped Dune which I have read many time, skipped Dune Messiah which I had read previously, I am clear on the concept, we all have regrets, then reread Children of Dune. I hit God Emperor of Dune with a full head of steam, 3,500 years have passed, only Leto and a clone (ghola) of Duncan Idaho, (one of many it turns out) remain from the other books, even the sandworms except Leto are gone. Lots of talk, new characters, some character development?? got to the end lots of people die, kind of inconclusive for me because I know there are other books. Heretics of Dune 1,500 years pass everyone except another of the Duncan Idaho clones have died. The institutions/organizations remain, the Bene Gesserit, Ixians, Bene Tleilax and some of the ruling houses, Sandworms have returned to Arrakis. Things seem to be picking up plot wise, human populations who scattered to distant parts of the universe when Leto's empire collapsed have returned. This including a very powerful group lead by women called the Honored Matres bent on conquering known space and destroying the Bene Gesseritt. Herbert starts to build up some interesting ideas, explains some of the cultures, that were only names in the original books groups like the Bene Tleilax are fleshed out a bit more. There is more action, but still lots of talk. Chapterhouse Dune is a direct sequel so we have the same characters although Herbert kills them off at the drop of a hat which makes me feel some of the time spent on character development and philosophical digressions between them seems like unnecessary padding. By the end of Chapterhouse I don't care enough about the characters to be terribly engaged, (I get the impression Herbert doesn't either at the rate they start dropping) it becomes obvious that there will not be a resolution.

I am not sure how Herbert planned to end the books. Chapterhouse Dune was published in 1985 and Frank Herbert sadly passed away in 1986. I do not plan to read any of the subsequent Dune franchise books. I know that may SF writers begin series that are never completed for various reason's but even in the books he finished Herbert seems to be rambling, the interesting bits were abandoned for more discussion. I tired of the digressions, capsule histories, epigrams, philosophical discussions worthy of drunken undergrads, and Byzantine plot after Byzantine plot. I think at some point the writer needs to engage the reader and just tell the story. In creating his books Frank Herbert often played with ideas, Dune was by his own admission based on a desire to stand the Van Vogt Superman concept on it head. Damien Broderick in The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (51) states “The deep irony of Dune’s popular triumph, and that of its many sequels, is Herbert’s own declared intention to undermine exactly that besotted identification with the van Vogtian superman-hero.” See my discussion of Hellstrom's Hive for another concept based plot. By the last of the Dune books I don't think Herbert's original idea or concept was strong enough to carry the six books and he did not introduce anything to take it's place.

Revised Edition, Cover by Paul Alexander 

NOW BACK TO DESTINATION VOID

"Would you trust an artificial intelligence to fly a combat jet?" …,

""Let us see proper scientific testing and evaluation of the idea before we embark on such a dangerous idea." says Sharkey." 

both quotes for "Computer plays wingman in US air force simulations". David Hambling, New Scientist, Dec. 3-9, 2016. (23)

Destination Void first appeared in Galaxy Magazine, August 1965. The original title was "Do I Wake or Dream". ISFDB noted that this tile was also attributed to the original publication of The Eyes of Heisenberg, I looked at copy of the text of the Galaxy version online and scanned the beginning and the end. It matched the text of the 1966 Berkley Medallion paperback edition of Destination Void. I read the revised edition published by Berkley Medallion in 1978. It seems to have more framing material than the earlier edition but I only glanced at the first and last few pages of the 1966 edition so there might be other changes. I suspect I may have enjoyed the 1966 edition more, it was shorter. One thing I did realize was missing in the 1966 edition but present in the 1978 edition was the trademark Herbert epigrams preceding some of the chapters. I liked them in Dune but I feel his use of them in so many novels slows the story. In Destination Void a quick comparison of the two versions makes me feel that some of the epigrams as well as a prologue Herbert added to the Revised edition destroy some of the suspense and sense of ongoing revelation to be found in the earlier version. Herbert does discuss the revisions at the end of the 1978 edition should anyone wish to compare texts. 

In Destination Void a colony ship called Earthling is headed for the Tau Ceti star system
it has been launched from the moon on a journey expected to last 200 years. It carries a cargo of 3006 doppelgängers (clones) some as adult bodies in suspended animation, some as embryos. They also have plants, animals and the tools needed to found a new colony. This is the seventh ship tasked with this goal, the first six have failed. The crew consists of six clones, who will maintain the ship under the direction of a "Organic Mental Core" or "OMC" a disembodied human brain that maintains ship function, keeps the cargo alive and pilots the ship. As the story starts only three of the crew are still alive, the others have died in malfunctions or were killed by the OMC. At the start of the journey the ship carried three OMCs one active and two spares. Each has manifested signs of mental illness and had to be removed. Control over all ship functions has now devolved to the three remaining crew, chaplain-psychiatrist, Raja Flattery, (Tim) Gerrill Lon Timberlake life-systems engineer, and Bickel the ships engineer, who took responsibility for destroying the OMCs. Although Tim should be de facto captain Bickel as the most dominate personality takes over command. His first actions are to tell Moonbase what happened and order the revival of a replacement crew member, Prudence Weygand M.D. who is also an expert in computer math, from suspended animation. Only Flatterly and Timberlake are present when Weygand is awaked and it becomes obvious to Timberlake from a cryptic exchanges between the other two that there is a existing plan to manipulate Bickel into certain actions. The message from Moonrise provides three solutions, one, return to base for repairs and a new OMC, a process further complicated in that all the clones have, since their creation been excluded from all physical contact with actual humans. Two, treat the ship as a closed system and proceed to Tau Ceti at a much slower speed, which will involve using some of the clones for ship resources i.e. cannibalism. Or three "to build the necessary consciousness into your robo-pilot using the ship computer as a basis." (32) (1966) The entire concept of human brains in computers reminded me of Raymond F. Jones novel, The Cybernetic Brains,

http://ajaggedorbit.blogspot.ca/search/label/cybernetics 

but without Jones' killer frogs. But why not create what we would now call an Artificial Intelligence on earth or the moon. It seems they did try and the project on an island in Puget Sound resulted in a number of deaths and the eventual disappearance of the island. 

Bickel opts for option three despite some resistance of the rest of the crew. And therein lies a tale.

However it is a tale slowed by bull sessions about the nature of consciousness, how do we know we are alive etc. The various misgivings, insecurities, and moral qualms of the crew figure large and of course things happen to the ship. Since the managers of the project did incorporate some design flaws into the ship as deliberate frustrations to spur the crew to greater efforts and unusual solutions there is some ambiguity, are these changes part of the original plan or do they indicate changes to the computer's functioning  

The main flaw for me is why all the elaborate and expensive subterfuge. This is the seventh ship, were they all launched with most of the crew ignorant of their actual goal. Herbert loves this plot within a plot but it seems a poor way to run a space program or AI experiment to me. They also discuss synergy for awhile, which for anyone that has had to sit through meetings discussing synergy so HR staff and the managers can avoid actual work, this term acts like one of Herbert's key words and can potentially drive the reader into a homicidal rage. 

Another look at an attempt at testing an AI in a non-earth environment is James P. Hogan's novel  The Two Faces of Tomorrow, 1979. 

This is a Herbert novel with a number of his signature tropes, clones and the ability to create successive multiples of the same person to capture know qualities can be found in several of his works, the Duncan Idahos of Dune, Max Allgood the security chief in the The Eyes of Heisenberg. Another theme is the manipulation of people by a combination of training/indoctrination and stress, in the Dune books the Bene Jessit and Leto do it to entire populations. Leto in The God Emperor of Dune does this not only to the Duncan Idaho ghola but also to his servant Moneo and Moneo's daughter Sionado. The more I read Herbert the more I become convinced that one of the reasons for the shields in Dune that limit the use of projectile weapons, is because Herbert loves the hand to hand duel with all it's feints within feints, poisons darts, trigger words implanted under hypnois, plots and traps. In a story like Destination Void the duelling now verbal continues, plot within plot, betrayal nestled within betrayal. Herbert's love for questions of perception and identity also continue, what is human, what is machine what is real, how do we know. The Optimen, Folk, and Cyborgs of The Eyes of Heisenberg, the insect-humans of Helestrom's Hive, the disfranchised clones of Destination Void all raise these questions, I think the original title "Do I Wake or Dream" was probably a better if less commercial choice. And of course via chaplain-psychiatrist, Raja Flattery religion also raises it's head in a project one would expect to be purely secular.

I included my discussion of the Dune novels in the preamble because I think a number of the flaws I that I found in those novels are also present in Destination Void, they were all talky, unnecessarily convoluted, and without clear resolutions. Having said this, the more I thought about the novel the more I saw it as an integral piece of Herbert oeuvre. It really made me think about the themes that Herbert so often returns to in different novels. Herbert wrote several sequels with the poet Bill Ransom and I will read them at some point. I think Destination Void is worthwhile read, but maybe try the 1966 edition, I believe I already mentioned it's shorter.

As I continue my journey along this jagged orbit, serendipity does play a role. While pondering this post I picked up one of the novels my wife purchased, Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty. It is a murder mystery involving six clones, the crew of a ship carrying colonists to the Tau Ceti star system in suspended animation. It was a good read. I appreciated Lafferty's introduction of (mindmaps) records of the cloned bodies previous lives so they ended up with the same personalities. A body alone does not contain the mind or personality of the individual, something cloning in SF sometimes seems to gloss over. And as one might expect there was more action in Six Wakes than in the Herbert. I was interested in whether Lafferty was inspired at all by Destination Void but in an interview at the back of the novel she attributes the idea to an iPad game called FTL. 

Wikipedia does have an interesting article on the reasons Tau Ceti is a favourite destination for SF writers and it does does mention Destination Void. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_Ceti_in_fiction

Cover Design Kirk Benshoff Cover Image Arcanal Images

A Plague of Demons - Keith Laumer

I took a number of SF books to the cabin this summer including the Berkley Medallion edition of A Plague of Demons with the Powers cover. While visiting my wife's family farm, which is down the road, I pillaged the library for SF titles and found the Warner Books edition with the cool skull cover by David Meltzer, these were my wife's books originally so they were not missed,  how could I resist? The back covers, below, combine to give away the entire plot fairly effectively, so be warned!

A Plague of Demons is a very enjoyable read, it is not deathless prose and it is festooned with so many of the standard tropes from the spy and sf genres that it is hard to count them. I had to add a number of labels to cover all the subjects. What I think makes this work for me is the almost breathless pace at which everything unfolds. Laumer gives you your money's worth in 159 pages. 

John Bravais, the protagonist, is a likeable character, reminiscent of the wise cracking but extremely dedicated agent/spy/detective from any number of novels. There are plot twists, hair raising escapes, nifty toys, and really scary demon dogs. Also, while it is not apparent to start, Laumer is moving his character in a very different story arc from the standard genre novel. There will be no blondes with a heart of gold for John Bravais. I have already added Laumer's  A Trace of Memory to my to be read pile.

Spoilers

Plague of Demons starts with fairly standard espionage plot with John Bravais tasked by his handler Felix Severance with investigating the disappearance of soldiers from the battlefield. Warfare is conducted in fairly scripted  battles which are monitored to enforce preset guidelines. Felix's group has determined that more soldiers are missing than
can be accounted for in normal circumstances. The novel follows a fairly standard pattern, Bravais is followed, warned off by the authorities, given brand new top secret gadgets to test etc. What happens next is what takes it into the SF realm. 

Bravais discovers that the brains of some death soldiers are being extracted by large dog "demons" with human hands. When he takes this information to the local general he finds the general is a super strong creature in league with the demons. Not to worry, John returns to Felix who admits he is member of a super secret organization overseeing the welfare of mankind and luckily he is also able to turn John into a a super soldier. What follows is a frantic chase with John menaced by increasing numbers of demon dogs who can move unrecognized by mankind. Felix is killed, John injured, stows away on a ship, is healed in a secret automated base, and eventually is killed along with a sailor he befriended on the ship. Wow what a strange ending, except this is page 109, I did mention there are 159 pages, so now we find out what the demon dogs do with the brains.

If you have read Fritz Leiber's Big Time, feel the thrill of recognition and enjoy or if not prepare to be surprised.