The Yngling by John Dalmas / Hiero’s Journey by Sterling E. Lanier

   Alan Brown in his great series from Tor.com, Front Lines and Frontiers,  recently posted on "The Yngling" by John Dalmas. I really enjoyed this post. For one Brown provided a lovely profile of the author John Dalmas, a writer I had never read. Also I thought his discussion, It's the End of the World as We Know It, looking at the reasons why world ending catastrophes are such a common science fiction trope was quite good.

https://www.tor.com/2018/12/20/back-to-the-old-ways-the-yngling-by-john-dalmas/

 The first science fiction book I remember reading was The Star Man's Son by Andre Norton (link below) which I covered on my Norton blog, followed by a number of Wyndham's cozy catastrophes, so I always enjoy a good, lets blow it all up or something and try again story. I knew Doug had lent me the Analog containing part one of  "The Yngling" so I read it right away.

http://furmagic.blogspot.com/2016/01/star-mans-son-2250-a.html

I liked it enough that I borrowed part two and read that. I enjoyed part one, the world building, the introduction of Nils Hammarson as a character, and I found his early adventures entertaining (think troll). However I found the second part where we see the culmination of the story at best anticlimactic, not bad, but a little rushed and overly talky perhaps. In his post Brown states "Another of my favorite stories of this type is Hiero’s Journey by Sterling Lanier, along with The Postman by David Brin." Since Hiero's Journey is a novel I really like, and had intended to cover here for some time, I thought I would discuss it now. 

  First off I should mention that Hiero's Journey was published in 1973 by Chilton, the same people who brought you Dune and some non-fiction books by Silverberg among their other titles. Indeed in the entry on Lanier in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, they note that while working as a editor at Chilton, it was Lanier that convinced them to publish Herbert's Dune.

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

In 1983 Hiero's adventures continued where the first book left off with The Unforsaken Hiero. But where the first book ended with the central plot resolved, (and for years I simply considered the story over and was good with that) the second book created a number of cliffhangers. While Sterling Lanier lived until 2007, he does not seem to have released any new fiction after 1983/1984 and the trilogy was never completed. I have found some suggestion that Lanier may have suffered a stroke, but if anyone has additional information please let me know. So you may just want to read book one.

  To prepare for this post I reread the book over Christmas at my wife's family farm in Central Saskatchewan (just up the road from our cabin). It is a parkland setting, poplar forests with lots of sloughs. The area is populated by among other critters, moose, black bears, beavers and fishers and on the drive up we saw a deer and a coyote. It is also an area central to the history of both Canada's native people (especially the Plains Cree) and the Metis. In short a perfect spot to read Hiero's Journey. 

The story takes place five thousand years after The Death, from the description, some type of nuclear war that has decimated most of North America and created large numbers of mutations. The story follows the adventures of Per Hiero Desteen citizen of the Metz Republic, an area encompassing the former prairie provinces of Canada. This area is controlled by the Abbeys and Hiero, full title Secondary Priest-Exorcist, Primary Rover and Senior Killman has been dispatched south on a mission by his abbot. He is mounted on his giant mutant bull morse (moose) Klootz and within the first few pages he has been joined on his journey by Gorm, a telepathic black bear. For telepathy has spread widely since The Death. Hero can also communicate with Klootz although the morse is not terribly bright, Gorm on the other hand is as smart as a person. The land they travel in is one of immense danger. Most humans were killed in The Death and the cities largely destroyed. Some wild animals have grown to immense size, others called Leemutes have achieved intelligence and attack the remaining humans in coordinated groups often mounted on other Leemutes. The realization that these attacks are coordinated by a group of humans is the reason for Hiero's journey. Other creatures having not obvious connection to pre-death 

lifeforms have also arisen. Hero's journey is not only an adventure but also a journey of personal growth as he learns to use his mental powers to counter a number of threats. He will meet more allies and also enemies who are stranger and more deadly than he could imagine. 

 

Lanier created an immensely interesting world, Hiero and his friends move through a number of different environments and encounter a number of different cultures. 
There is an adequate amount of extrapolation and back story but the narrative does not bog down with lengthy explanations. Hiero is not presented as a superman, he has flaws and makes mistakes. He is reliant on his companions for help but also grows personally, strengthening his abilities.  As a Canadian who has read western Canadian history and also as someone who has spent a fair amount of time lately at the cabin with lots of critters around I could identify with many elements of the story. I enjoy it more now than when I first read it. I also loved the richness of the Lanier's world, a dam building culture of giant beavers, pirates, giant snapping turtles, giant lampreys, (okay giant everything) horse sized minks, mutated howler monkeys with cleavers riding dog-things and an evil psychic brotherhood. I think it is this richness and Hiero's growth that are the reasons I prefer this to the Dalmas story. And Lanier gives you your own morse to ride, what more could a story need. 

Photo/Cover credits

The Yngling, part one Kelly Freas

The Yngling, Part two Vincent Di Fate

Dune, (1966) John Schoenherr

Hero's Journey, Jacket art Jack Freas

Moose, trail camera, on lane to cabin

Bear, trail camera, mounted to cabin

Beaver, Guy lease slough

Mutation Planet by Barrington J. Bayley; Weird Fiction Review Your Non-Denominational Source for The Weird

   "Zeed’s golden eyes seemed to dim and tarnish. “We all inhabit a vast dark,” he repeated, “in which there is neither rhyme nor reason.”"

All quotes in this post are from Mutation Planet by Barrington J. Bayley read at Weird Fiction Review Your Non-Denominational Source for The Weird.

A couple weeks ago I found a webpage called Weird Fiction Review, as someone whose interest in science fiction has always skirted the weird tales of authors like Howard Philip Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Donald Wandrei etc., authors who produced works clearly identifiable as science fiction, I was intrigued. What I found were some stories that were clearly science fiction even if some of them were quite unusual, including the quirky and whimsical "The New Abyss" by Paul Scherrbart (1863-1915).

http://weirdfictionreview.com/2016/07/the-new-abyss/

But a story that really grabbed me was Mutation Planet by Barrington J. Bayley originally published in 1973 in a Roger Elwood anthology Frontiers 1. I have read Bayley’s novel Pillars of Eternity, and several short stories including "All the King’s Men", which appeared in Judith Merrill’s anthology England Swings SF, and "Bees of Knowledge" in Wollheim’s 1976 Year’s Best Science Fiction. I liked them all, the short stories in particular interested me because both dealt with the problems involved in understanding alien cultures.

I have always been interested in aliens in science fiction but they are often not all that alien. Larry Niven’s Puppeteers (possibly my all time favourite aliens) are in the final analysis, a manifestation of the all too human attributes of caution and cowardice, and his Kzin the human qualities of impulsiveness and violence. C.J. Cherryh gives us the Hani bipedal lions, Frank Herbert's The Dorsal Experiment offers the Gowachin giant frogs, etc., and often these aliens are all too easily understood because they act from all too human impulses and tendencies. Would Bayley again offer something different, you bet.

http://weirdfictionreview.com/2015/06/mutation-planet/

We start with the Dominus surveying his world wide empire while travelling along a continent long roadway he built himself from materials extruded from his own body.

“Filled with ominous mutterings, troubled by ground-trembling rumblings, the vast and brooding landscape stretched all around in endless darkness and gloom. Across this landscape the mountainous form of Dominus moved at speed, a massed, heavy shadow darker than the gloom itself, sullenly majestic, possessing total power. Above him the opaque sky, lurid and oppressively close, intermittently flared and discharged sheets of lightning that were engulfed in the distant hills. In the instant before some creature fed on the electric glare the dimness would be relieved momentarily, outlining uneven expanses of near-barren soil. Dominus, however, took no sensory advantage of these flashes; his inputs covered a wider, more reliable range of impressions.”

However, the peace if it can be called that is due to be disturbed because a spaceship is landing. The ship contains two humans, Eliot Harst, his assistant Alanie Leitner and aliens from three different planets, Balbain, whose people created the ship, Abrak and Zeed. The ship is on a voyage of discovery surveying different planetary systems and the life forms they contain. Originally Balbain piloted the ship by himself but in the course of the journey he has invited the scientists of other races to join him. The narrative begins after the expedition has been on Planet Five for six months and they have just completed experiments on one of the life forms. They were only able to capture some of the extremely well "armed" life forms with the apparent assistance of Dominus. The planet itself is racked by incredibly violent weather systems and the native lifeforms use energy from the constant lightning strikes to metabolize the elements they need from the scanty vegetation, the soil and air. Indeed the inhabitants of Planet Five are unique in the experience of the members of the expedition. 

To avoid spoilers I will stop there but I do want to provide some of my own thoughts on the story. I want to note that it marred by unnecessary sexism, despite the fact that we are told Alanie’s IQ is higher that Eliot’s she is relegated to role of assistant and love interest, the following passage is one of her most prominent appearances in the story.

Alanie gave a deep sigh that strained her full breasts voluptuously against the fabric of her smock. “Well, what now?” she asked. “We’ve been here six months. I think we’ve solved the basic mystery of the place. Isn’t it time we were moving on?”

Really, come on, couldn’t someone just edit out any sentences combining the word breasts and voluptuously?

Other than that I did enjoy the story, I always like to see what elements appearing in a story connect me to other stories I have read, the gigantic Dominus and his dark forbidding environment immediately reminded me of William Hope Hodgson’s The Nightland, the expedition itself A.E. Van Vogt’s The Voyage of the Space Beagle and Balbain’s recruitment practices carried a whiff of Olaf Stapledion’s Star Maker. As I am big fan of Charles Darwin and have an interest in evolutionary theory I was also quite interested in the discussion of the evolutionary history of Planet Five and the inheritance of acquired characteristics, (the theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics is the subject of renewed interest in the field called epigenetics.)

If you are interested there is a good article on epigenetics here:

https://aeon.co/essays/on-epigenetics-we-need-both-darwin-s-and-lamarck-s-theories

For a relatively short story there is a lot going on and the alien human interactions offer lots of plot twists. I certainly intend to read more of Bayley’s work, I have been collecting his novels for some time but I now will also be looking for his short stories as well. I also have to say that the Weird Fiction Review has a lot of interesting content to offer readers of science fiction.

"An image came to his mind of the endlessness of space in which galaxies seemed to be descending and tumbling, and the words: an unfathomable darkness without any common ground. "