Saturday Reading; Stableford, Moorcock, Harrison, Davis

Yesterday I had a productive reading day even if not everything was a gem. Typically I only discuss works I like, but in this post, I wanted to include everything I read. The first item was a short story by Harry Harrison. I read his novel Deathworld as a teen, but nothing else as far as I can remember. I have collected a lot of his books over the years, so I wanted to start. I picked his collection 50 in 50 years ago when my library still sold discards. I chose "Down to Earth" based on a cover illustration of a space capsule for its appearance in Amazing Stories, November 1963. 

This story concerns the first Apollo landing on the moon. During the initial exploration, one of the astronauts Glazer falls into a crevasse concealed by the thick coating of dust. His companion Gino Lombardi tries to rescue him but is unsuccessful. Gino then completed his assigned work and contacted the pilot of the orbiting ship Danton Coye.

"Glazer is dead. I'm alone. I have all the data and photographs required. Permission requested to cut this stay shorter than planned. No need for a whole day down here." (165)

Gino's somewhat callous response could be dismissed as the result of shock. He does break down later on the ship back to Earth, but the reaction concerning Glazer's death does indicate a problem I had with the entire story. The dialogue, the description, just seemed flat, unemotional and unembellished.  

The story itself gets rolling when they return to Earth and find themselves in an alternate timeline. The story was okay, the most interesting part for me occurs when Albert Einstein, still alive in this timeline offers them a cure for some of the worse cancers in exchange for weapons to use against the Nazis. Still not an auspicious start, but Harrison has a huge body of work, and this collection alone covers 50 years. 

Nest I decided on some more Moorcock, I read "The Jade Man's Eyes", one of his stories about Elric of Melniboné. " Elric is the last emperor of the stagnating island civilization of Melniboné. Physically weak and frail, the albino Elric must use drugs (special herbs) to maintain his health."

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

I have read several of Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories in the past. Most recently, I have been reading the stories of Dorian Hawkmoon, Duke of Köln. I am finding the Hawkmoon stories quite formulaic and the character one dimensional. Elric was much more interesting in part because he is unpredictable. His magical broadsword Stormbringer is often uncontrollable, and his demonic patron, Arioch unreliable. In this story, Elric and his companion Moonglum are enlisted by the noble Duke Avan Astran to accompany him on a treasure-hunting expedition to the ancestral island of Elric's people. This type of quest is a staple of the sword and sorcery set, but I found Moorcock's a step above. The threats and responses were more interesting; the pacing moved the plot along without rushing. 

Also, Moorcok's style reminds me of some of my favourite fantasists like Eric Rücker Eddison, Lord Dunsany, Clarke Ashton Smith and Robert Howard.

" It happened that one springtime two strange men came to Chalal. They rode their weary Shazaian horses along the quays of marble and lapis lazuli beside the fast-flowing river. One was very tall, with a paper white skin, crimson eyes and hair the color of milk, and he carried a huge, scabbarded broadsword at his side." (57) 

or

"One of those legends speaks of a city older than dreaming Omrryr." (61)

Moorcock is quite honest about his influences in creating the character of Elric of Melniboné; they seem quite wide-ranging; his comments appear here.

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

As I said earlier, Moorcock's Eternal Champion interests me, and I will be exploring it and Elric in greater detail. 

Joachim Boaz at Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations mentioned he had obtained a copy of the anthology Orbit 11. 

https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2019/11/09/updates-recent-science-fiction-acquisitions-no-ccxxx-ben-bova-suzette-haden-elgin-louis-trimble-josephine-saxton-orbit-anthology/#more-19061

One of the stories mentioned on the back caught my attention. 

"TO PLANT A SEED. Is many really master of the Universe? In this brilliantly conceived story, an incredible project is launched to preserve the human race—not only from the death of Earth’s sun billions of years in the future… but from the ultimate collapse of the entire Universe itself!" 

Since I had the book, I read the story by Hank Davis. Two scientists Cullins and Cain, are seeking funding for a seed ship. Using a McJunkins Field, which slows time, they will encase a spaceship containing human volunteers. The humans will not age within the field. The plan is that they will remain in stasis as the universe winds down and collapses. Then, when the next big bang occurs, they can seed the new universe with humans. (Characters in the story do mention how wrong this is.) This story could have been interesting, but it isn't. It interspersed the action, such as it is, with transcripts, news feeds and exchanges taking the form of questions and answers between characters with an omnipresent viewpoint concerning the activities of Cullens and Cain. There was little character development, but a fair bit of technical explanations/lectures, some reminded me of high school math. The main problem is that it is incredibly sexist bordering on hateful. Most of it is directed at Cullin's girlfriend, Erika. Cain does try to date one of his female colleagues, but she is never named. Oddly, Davis invests so much space in a short story in underscoring the misogyny of his central characters. I am in no hurry to read more by him.

I like Brian Stableford. I covered his story "The Growth of the House of Usher here."

https://ajaggedorbit.blogspot.com/search?q=poe

I enjoyed the first novel of his Hooded Swan collection and hope to cover the entire series at some point. I also want to post on Sherlock Holmes and the Vampires of Eternity for my HPL blog but the length makes it a bit daunting. I have also purchased a number of his translations of early french science fiction/roman scientifique. 

So when I noticed Journey to the Center on a trip to the basement yesterday, I picked it up. Michael Rousseau is a freelance scavenger on the planet Asgard. The planet is controlled by a humanoid race called the Tetron. However, a number of other races, including Terrans, live there. The planet lost its atmosphere in the distant past. The native race burrowed into the surface then disappeared, leaving behind many uninhabited levels. The alien races on Asgard explore these levels looking for artifacts they can sell. There are two groups the Consolidated Research Establishment composed of many races who work in a highly structured manner. Then there are freelancers, both groups and individuals like Rousseau. Rousseau's problems begin when the Tetron Immigration Authority contacts him, asking that he show a new earth immigrant the ropes. This is a common practice on Asgard members of one race are asked to look after new members of the same race. Rousseau is due to leave on a scavenging trip and suggests his friend Saul Lyndrach to look after Myrlin the new arrival. Then things go south Saul and Myrlin disappear, and Rousseau is framed for murder by Amara Guur, the criminal kingpin on Asgard. Under Tetrax law, criminals are sold into contact slavery. Guur wants Rousseau to lead an expedition into the planet.  

But before Rousseau can sign the documents, Starship captain Susarma Lear and her stormtroopers show up and conscript Rousseau. The Terrans have just won a vicious war (about which Rousseau knows virtually nothing) in which they basically wiped out another species. Now the war is over, and there is only one loose end. Myrlin is not human but an android created by the enemy, and they have to kill him. And all this occurs by page 47.

I love this stuff. We have anthropology with Rousseau's Tetrax lawyer explaining that contract slavery is the highest form of civilization, higher even than capitalism because it controls the efforts of so many individuals. We have interesting descriptions of the planet and the possible explanations for its current state. There is a nod to a panspermia explanation for the races we see on Asgard. There is a nearby Black Galaxy (dust cloud), which will eventually cover most of the spiral arm. Is Asgard a small Dyson sphere that was built first and then had a small sun ignited inside? Is Asgard a ship that transported its population out of Black Galaxy? Using Rousseau Stableford is obviously playing with lots of ideas, and I enjoyed all of it. He also packs a lot into 153 pages. Rousseau is a very stereotypical loner/rebel found in SF. Still, here he is an excellent foil to the "starship troopers" (Stableford's actual term to describe the soldiers that accompany Lear). That said Lear is not a cardboard martinet, she is a strong, smart capable woman, nice to see in SF. I also enjoyed the resolution. 

Stableford dedicated "For Lionel Fanthorpe-a kindred spirit" Fanthrope was the leading light of Badger Books.

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

In his work Stableford explores biology, biotechnology, big dumb objects and a mixture of ideas from roman scientifique, the planetary romance and even the weird tale. I find this a nice change from the libertarian mechanistic focus of much science fiction. In this book I even see hints of Frankenstein. There are two more Asgard books, and I will definitely track them down. 

Cover credits

Harrison; cover design Shelly Eshkar cover ill. Vincent di Fate

Flashing Swords 2; Bruce Pennington, I always enjoy his work

Orbit 11; Paul Lehr another favourite

Journey to the Center;  Jim Yost

(Weird Tales, Pt. 2) W. S. Merwin and Weird Tales; an unlikely combination

Here is the story I selected for the second Weird Tales science fiction story.

It is quite short, six pages, has almost no action and only one character. It is the kind of future history that I enjoy. Explorers visiting a uninhabited planet and trying to piece together what happened to the civilization from the ruins. For a very different take you might look at my post for "Omnilingual" by H. Beam Piper here,

https://ajaggedorbit.blogspot.com/2017/05/omnilingual-by-h-beam-piper.html

"The Red God Laughed" appeared in Weird Tales, for April 1939. The story in brief, concerns the visit to Earth by Thvall the Seeker, a kind of squishy, soft bodied alien who is visiting 21st Century Nu Yok. But while the incredible city, with four thousand foot high towers still stands, it seems Asia (the yellow races, yes we are back to the "yellow peril"), you can see my post, Weird Tales, Pt 1 for more on this topic, and America have unleashed poison gas rockets, (of course they started it), and destroyed almost all life on earth, except deep sea fishes, worms and plants. So Thvall, who is looking for a world with water for his dying planet wiggles around casting aspersions on the likelihood of a race with rigid skeletons developing intelligence. Until that is he fiddles with an unexploded canister and well, Merwin's poem sort of sums it up.

"Merwin’s great single-line poem—not the greatest short poem, but perhaps the shortest great poem, ever written—is about the converse problem, that of outliving. This is the poem in its entirety:"

"Who would I show it to"

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/the-final-prophecy-of-w-s-merwin

And with Thvall's death, his people will never learn of the planet that could save their race. Earth itself will be forgotten with no one to appreciate it's accomplishments or take warning from it's stupidity. I have always been fascinated by ruins, Darwinism, evolutionary theory and tales about the end of the world or even the universe. Science fiction in the pulps has lots of these stories that appeal to me. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction has a lovely essay here;

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

Another thing I find interesting is the period in which a story is written or read. I can rarely prove that any particular event influenced a writer. Also editors often held stories for years before publishing them which further confuses the issue. But one can make some statements about what the original reader would have been experiencing when they read the story. In this case the story concerns the outcome of a future war between Asia and America and 1939 the year it was published was a significant date. The Sino-Japanese War had been raging since 1937. In Sept 1938, Neville Chamberlain declared we would have "Peace in Our Time and five months after this story appeared Germany would invade Poland and the Second World War would begin. So the reader would perhaps have been reading or hearing many discussions about the possibility of war during this period. 

A lot of people today like to read science fiction through the lenses of the present, which is fine. I prefer to try to understand how writers and readers embraced the themes of science fiction, within the context of their world and their daily lives. So it makes me wonder what they thought when they read "The Red God Laughed".

Vintage Science Fiction on DVD (Weird Tales, Pt. 1)

Some time ago I mentioned I had purchased a DVD containing old issues of Weird Tales magazine. I thought the product was reasonable and enjoyed the stories so I purchased some more DVD's of classic titles such as Amazing, Astounding and Wonder Stories. I am also considering adding other titles such as New Worlds and Nebula Science Fiction. I have always enjoyed reading older science fiction with all it drawbacks not the least of which are, misogyny racism, and homophobia (and bad writing). But misogyny racism, and homophobia are everywhere, even today. I am capable of separating truth from lies, and I can read without accepting stereotypes and hate speech. Possibly my reading even gives me a greater understanding of how such ingrained attitudes are perpetuated in our society, but that sounds like a very pompous and self serving claim. I read early science fiction because I enjoy it. What positive elements do I find in these very pulpy stories? I recently found a post by my favourite criticMichael Dirda that captured some of my reasons. He is talking about mysteries, but I think it holds true for my reading of science fiction as well.

"By the time Inspector Richard Queen and his bookish son Ellery arrive at Manhattan’s Roman theater to examine the dead body of crooked lawyer Monte Field, I was registering a distinct sense of well-being and contentment. Here was a classic Golden Age puzzle — Ellery Queen’s first case, in fact — and virtually all the characters were caricatures, the dialogue was stilted and corny, and the elaborate plot verged on the ludicrous. What more could one ask for?

That sounds paradoxical, but artificiality is a welcome attraction in many vintage who-and-howdunits. The stories deliberately leave out the messiness of real life, of real emotions, thus allowing the reader to mentally just amble along, mildly intrigued, feeling comfortable and even, yes, cozy."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/stilted-dialogue-a-ludicrous-plot-on-the-pleasures-of-the-vintage-whodunit/2018/11/13/eaaf5122-e761-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html?utm_term=.9b544948ead2

I am also interested in how people at the turn of the century, the 1920's 1930's etc. incorporated the tropes of science fiction into their stories, elements like, future war, time travel, space travel, scientific advances, societal change, technology, and environmental degradation. I like to see how these ideas move through the science fiction stories that come after them. I am also interested in how real events bleed over into science fiction, the great depression, the various wars, atomic power, free love, the rise of computers etc. I like to read, ruminate and reflect, it keeps me out of trouble and mildly entertained.



Weird Tales, September 1940, cover by Ray Quigley. Let's be honest, I choose this issue because I was seduced by the, skull headed planes. If this illustration was indeed for Leifred's, "Seven Seconds of Eternity", I have to asume it is only a symbolic representation of events. The cover image was taken from the ISFDB, the interior illustrations are by Harry Ferman.

The story starts in New York, the year is 2001. The city is quiet, moving sidewalks have replaced subways, cabs and private vehicles and the turbines powering the city are underground. The world has been at peace for two months, following ten years of war. The war ended with the sudden death of Marshal Huen Feng Zaryoti, in his headquarters plane seven miles above San Francisco. " Zaryoti might have won that lightning war against North America had not a combination of forces set in motion by a young scientist, working with difficulty against the bureaucracy of government, found a way to combat the world's most deadly weapon-the atomic bomb." (5) I wanted to mention two things before I proceed. First I intend to cover two Weird Tales stories in parts 1 and 2 of this post and both feature some mention of that favourite trope of genre fiction of the period, the" yellow peril". I could discuss this in detail but I think at present I will simply provide a link to the topic at The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Marshal Zaryoti doesn't really figure in the rest of the story and basically the plot just needed someone to provide an enemy force in the war.

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

The second item that interested me was the mention of the deadly atomic bomb is a story from 1940. Much has been made (a lot of it by John W. Campbell) of the government's reaction to atomic bomb in the 1944 story "Deadline" by Cleve Cartmill that Campbell published in Astounding. While the bomb in "Deadline" was described in detail, it is interesting to note that the concept was alive and well in science fiction years before the Cartmill story. Wikipedia has a nice discussion of the controversy around "Deadline" here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadline_(science_fiction_story)



However our focus now shifts to the young scientist Arron Carruthers, having defeated not just Zaryoti but also a stifling government bureaucracy, he should be happy. But a strange mood was on him, he felt all was not right with the world. "He was troubled and a little afraid. Nature, he knew, was never wasteful. Only man threw things away and forgot about them after afterwards. And nature sometimes reclaimed this waste to man's sorrow." (5)

For the stories I pull from the DVD's I will include spoilers, since I want to discuss them in some detail, and I suspect most people will not be reading them anyway.

And indeed Carruthers was right, for ten years man had not only released the toxins from vast explosions but also the smoke from incendiary fires and wastes released from the vast munitions factories built by both sides. All this material has formed great clouds above the earth. Eventually these clouds release a deadly ash like snow that kills everything it encounters. The government reluctantly consults Carruthers, because well be is smarter than them and they feel insecure. He discovers that in one location the clouds have been dispersed by a meteorite, and convinces the government to send up 20 planes to seed the clouds with fragments of meteors. Everyone on the air crew dies because, well not all meteors contain the same elements. Something my collection of How and Why Science books could have told Carruthers, had he looked it up.

Carruthers does manage to isolate the active ingredient but faces two problems, no one in Washington wants to hear from him, and the element is unique to the sample he has and is much too small to be of any use. But Carruthers has the answer, he has Carborlium "Carboralium is a peculiar metal with a powerful affinity for any metal it is brought in contact with." (19) By exposing bars of it to the Neutronium in the meteor they can create all of the material needed to destroy the clouds. However the amount is the meteor is infinitesimal, the only way to place the Carborlium next to to Neutronium is to shrink to the subatomic level, so small that a wandering electron would appear to be moon. Carruthers enters the meteor with George Vignot a fellow scientist and Langham the government's Chief of Intelligence. They are to remain in the subatomic world for no more that seven seconds of Earth time, however time will pass at a very different rate where they are.

So now we have yet another science fiction trope, the alteration of scale as The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction in their entry "Great and Small" calls it. It is a trope I enjoy and intend to cover in a longer post. I have read a number of stories of this type from The Girl in the Golden Atom by Ray Cummings, to The Land of Dreams by James Blaylock, and I am currently reading "The Diamond Lens" (January 1858 Atlantic Monthly) by Fitz-James O'Brien. Looking at the entry below there are lots more waiting for me, and I have to say that the first story I read in my Amazing DVD also dealt with the alteration of scale. I have to admit I did not expect it would be part of this story when I started reading, but that was part of the fun of this type of exploration.

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

The other thing that I was really surprised with in Leitfred's story was the environmental aspect. I was surprised that someone in the 1940's would discuss the environmental consequences of war, not only the use of but also the production of vast numbers of weapons. If anything I think this was the one element of this story that I will remember, and it was one I wanted to highlight for others.

Visions of Tomorrow, Alec Nevada-Lee Astounding

  I have finished reading Astounding, Alec Nevada-Lee's book on John W. Campbell and some of the writers most associated with Astounding, Isaac Asimov,  Robert A, Heinlein, and L. Ron. Hubbard. It was a good read, but fair warning, all four were deeply flawed individuals, though often in different ways. I had been following Alec's blog for years, so this came as no surprise to me. That said, Asimov and especially Heinlein were important authors to me when I began reading science fiction and the accounts of their death did make that child in me feel a bit sad, even though the works I remembered them for were written decades before they passed away. Also "Twilight" and "Who Goes There" by Campbell, writing as Don A. Stuart, remain two of my favourite science fiction stories. Alec's book delivered what it promised, an understanding of John W. Campbell's influence in the field for good or ill. Some of the behaviour mentioned in the book is chilling, so if you would like to read something a little more upbeat about Astounding, it's authors and the science fiction of the period I will make some suggestions below.

I did want to pass along two items related to Alec's research for the book. From his website:

"And I can reveal now that this was all in preparation for a more ambitious project that has been in the works for a while—a visual essay on the art of Astounding and Unknown that has finally appeared online in the New York Times Book Review, with the highlights scheduled to be published in the print edition this weekend. It took a lot of time and effort to put it together, especially by my editors, and I’m very proud of the result, which honors the visions of such artists as H.W. Wesso, Howard V. Brown, Hubert Rogers, Manuel Rey Isip, Frank Kelly Freas, and many others. It stands on its own, but I’ve come to think of it as an unpublished chapter from my book that deserves to be read alongside its longer companion. As I note in the article, it took years for the stories inside the magazine to catch up to the dreams of its readers, but the artwork was often remarkable from the beginning. And if you want to know what the fans of the golden age really saw when they imagined the future, the answer is right here."

https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/visions-of-tomorrow/

Link to the (wonderful)  New York Times Book Review article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/books/review/astounding-science-fiction-magazine.html

In his year end review Alec also notes "that I saw John W. Campbell’s Frozen Hell, based on the original manuscript of “Who Goes There?” that I rediscovered at Harvard, blow past all expectations on Kickstarter. (The book, which will include introductions by me and Robert Silverberg, is scheduled to appear in June.) " 

Full post here: https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2018/12/31/the-last-resolution/

Kickstarter (closed) information:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wildsidepress/frozen-hell-the-book-that-inspired-the-thing

  

Wildside Press will be selling copies:

http://wildsidepress.com/kickstarter-project-international-backers/

And as promised, some other titles about Astounding and it's authors. Bud Webster's Past Masters, a number of his essays can also be found online, see my Handy Resources. The other items are out of print as far as I know. 

A Requiem for Astounding (1964) 

A very detailed look at Astounding by an early fan.

Two titles by Sam Moskowitz, a fairly feisty (polarizing?) member of First Fandom. But he did seem to know everyone and claimed to have read pretty much everything.  I do enjoy his profiles, and it is nice to hear from someone who actually knew at least some of the early science fiction writers.

 

 Cover credits:

Photo one L-R, Hubert Rogers, Rogers, Rogers

Photo two, design Ploy Sirpant, illustration Travis Coburn

Photo three L-R, Rogers, Howard V. Brown, H.W. Scott, Wesso

Photo four L-R, Timmins, Kelly Freas, Freas

Who Goes There?, Richard Powers 

Ontario Trip 3, Stuart Cloete "The Blast"

Congo Song, Stuart Cloete, 1944, Collins, Toronto

This is the final post on the books I picked up on a recent trip to Ontario to visit family. I have to admit my purchase of Congo Song, was based entirely on the lurid cover and the equally lurid synopsis on the back cover. While I could see it falling in line with my interest in gene or pulp fiction the SF element seemed absent. Then I looked Stuart Cloete up join Wikipedia and found the following information.

"Cloete was among the pioneers of the by-now voluminous literary subgenre depicting the aftermath of nuclear war. His 1947 novelette The Blast is written as the diary of a survivor living in the ruins of New York (published in 6 Great Short Novels of Science Fiction, ed. Groff Conklin, 1954)."

Wikipedia also noted that "He was educated in England at Lancing College, a school which at present gives out a yearly prize in his honour to a student who excels in literature and creative writing."

In 1943 Cloete also published a short story called "Congo", which appeared in the anthology Things With Claws, I mentioned this title in my post on horror anthologies with covers by Richard Powers on my HPL blog,

http://dunwichhorrors.blogspot.ca/2016/04/horror-anthologies-and-art-of-richard.html.



I was born in Windsor so a review from the Windsor Star on the back of Congo Song is an added bonus. I did notice editions with a more Harlequin inspired cover by George Meyers for anyone offended by Congo's sailor cap. Having read the two short stories, I suspect I will not read Congo Song anytime soon, if ever.

"Congo"; reprinted from Story Mar.-Apr., 1943 "Congo " seems not unlike the typical scientist goes to the jungle, odd stuff happens tale, that could often be found in early pulp magazines like Argosy, Amazing Stories or Weird Tales. Professor Le Grand, his assistant, our unnamed narrator, and the Professor's young blonde, pregnant wife, Helena Magrodvata, who we are told is of Graeco-Russian extraction have come to Africa to study rubber trees. In due course Helena has a baby boy who unfortunately dies of a snake bite. Helena is inconsolable, on the verge of madness until a female gorilla is trapped by the natives. She is pregnant and Le Grand, who is something of a man of all seasons, he has also been experimenting with a serum against tropical diseases on himself, his assistant and his wife, delivers the baby by Cesarean. Of course Helena immediately decides to raise the gorilla. At this juncture the narrator notes "Again, what did we know of Helena, with her mixed blood, her strong instincts, and her veins full of experimental serums?" (142) Within the year the entire party returns to Brussels and some 8 years pass. The gorilla now named Congo has been raised as a human infant complete with sailor suit. I think we can all see where this is going.

Congo as noted above is pretty typical of the pulp tales of the period, marred by hints of misogyny and racism which would probably become even more intrusive in a longer work. The characters are fairly one dimensional and despite the fact that Cloete is South African the description of Africa lacks the depth of atmosphere we might get in other stories set in exotic locations in works by Rider Haggard, Robert Howard, Henry Whitehead or Jack London.

"The Blast", 1947 original version published in COLLIER'S, April 1946. It is interesting to read a nuclear war story written within a year of the end of WWII. Certainly Cloete, at least for the purposes of his story, saw things very differently that an author writing in the 1960's or 1990's might. " Immediately after the war, an arms race begins, " There was only a state of fear. There were only rumors-stories that Russia and Spain were only a year behind us in the atomic race. These two countries were, of course, at opposite ideological poles and were a constant threat not only to each other, but to the world. "(10) as well there are Nazis in South America, and an ineffectual UN monitoring program that is stymied because countries have begun to produce miniaturized atomic weapons. Our unnamed narrator, a writer of South African descent, living in New York at the time of the blast is starting his record of events some twenty years after the blast. By his estimate the current year is 1972. The actual blast damage he witnessed was quite localized with damage outside the area caused mainly by falling debris or fires so much of the city is left intact. After the initial explosions, retaliatory attacks are launched until the entire world in involved. Shortly after the nuclear attacks, a disease called the Red Death, possibly an out of control bacteriological weapon, wipes out most of the survivors. Now the narrator, a man in his seventies lives alone in New York. The first half of the story is quite interesting. One quibble I would have is that it appears once the bombs dropped a version of prohibition era Chicago appears. "For forty-eight hours, cars roared through the streets and tommy guns spat from the cars." (14) but this chaos ends as the population crashes. The narrator although saddened by the death of his wife, and the fact he ate his pets, a dog and a kinkajou, seems mostly untouched by the demise of everyone else, indeed a cozy catastrophe soon breaks out. The term cozy catastrophe was coined by Brian Aldiss in The Billion Year Spree, when I reread Aldiss’s description in the now The Trillion Year Spree he characterizes it this way “ The essence of cosy catastrophe is that the hero should have a pretty good time (a girl, free suites at the Savoy, automobiles for the taking) while everyone else is dying off.” (316) And except for occasional bouts of loneliness Cloete's New York seems cozy. He has moved to a cave located beneath the Chelsea Hotel for warmth, where he has accumulated great paintings including a Poussin, Renoir, Vermeer etc. books and wine. New York has come to resemble the island in Swiss Family Robinson where every animal Cloete has ever heard of, mostly escapees from local zoos roam freely leopards, tigers, polar bears etc., have all successfully multiplied. Colette obviously has given his world building a lot of thought and he likes lists. There are also mutants, enormous mink five feet at the shoulder and eighteen feet long and gigantic wolves weighing half a ton. Since our narrator likes to hunt he has breed packs of huge dogs that he rules with an iron fist and makes the best it. "Everywhere there are small woods, clumps of trees, and little streams and rivers. There are large numbers of flowers, many of them completely new, at least new as wild flowers. Varieties of roses which usually had to be budded now grow wild, as do gladioli, dahlias, tulips and every other kind of bulb. Hyacinths, daffodils and crocuses cover large patches in solid mats of color; they lie like scatter rugs on the green floor of the city; and nothing more beautiful could be imagined than coming across a great striped Bengal tiger asleep on a carpet of purple crocuses in the first warm afternoon of early spring, or seeing a red and white wild ox standing belly-deep in orange gladioli." (22) It does sound nice, but into this Eden a worm or rather two appear for in our narrator's seventy-third year, he sees two young blonde girls, early twenties actually, armed with spears and mounted on horses, the one animal his New York lacks. He avoids contact but it is the knowledge that he is not the only survivor that encourages him to begin writing down the record of his experiences.

Spoilers and Quibbles.

It is with the introduction of the young women that things really go south for me. They are travelling as part of a all male Native American hunting party in case interpreters are needed. The girls, daughters of the white Indian agent and his wife who died in the blast where adopted by an "Indian squaw". Later a prospector joined the tribe and "instructed the girls in their mother tongue and in his version of history, geography and mathematics. They knew the multiplication tables and could add subtract, divide and multiply-arts which made them valuable to the Indians, who called them in when such obscure calculations were necessary." (59) Our narrator is captured but eventually wins the natives over in part because of his skill with large calibre hunting rifles something they apparently lack the intelligence to master. "I was, faced with an ethical problem. The Indians, who had discovered heavy rifles similar to mine in some of the stores they had entered, wished me to instruct them in their use. I could see nothing to be gained by such instruction, so I tried to explain to them that this was white man's magic and so strong that it had destroyed all the white men in the world but me, turning its forces against them in retribution for their own misuse of its power." (63) When the recoil from one of the rifles breaks the collar bone of a young men they learn their lesson and make our narrator a member of the tribe. This also apparently entitles him to the "girls' who despite having been raised in the tribe since infancy, prefer a seventy-three year old racist jerk to any of the young men they grew up with. I think my problems with the second half of Cloete's "The Blast" are pretty clear. Written in 1946 it treats the Native tribe as first contact savages meeting Columbus or Cortez for the first time, no war veterans here, its all bows and arrows, spears and a few Springfields. In Clifford Simak's A Choice of Gods, the earth is also mostly unpopulated and one of the Native American tribes has returned to a more traditional lifestyle. But this is depicted as a conscious choice, a young woman of the tribe unhappy with this lifestyle is allowed to leave to begin using the last remaining library to further her education. Colette's native's are apparently incapable of learning by observation, the rifle, or picking up concepts like mathematics, content to leave the intricacies of such magical knowledge to whites. There is also an element of middle aged wish fulfilment, Heinlein anyone, and, I suspect, a real fear of racial mixing that insists that the old white guy gets the girl(s).