Book Review: Midsummer Century

Book Review: 'Midsummer Century' by James Blish

1 / 5 Stars

Few SF writers of the 50s and 60s were as consistently over-rated as James Blish. In his entry for Blish in 'The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction' (1995, St. Martin’s Griffin Press), Peter Nicholls describes him as ‘…an SF writer of unusual depth’. But I’ve always been unimpressed with those few Blish novels and stories that I have read (starting in the mid 70s with ‘Spock Must Die’, which was remarkably boring).

‘Midsummer Century’ (DAW book No. 89, February 1974, 159 pp., cover art by Josh Kirby) doesn’t do much to dissuade me of my convictions about Blish. 

The title novelette, first published in 1972 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, takes as its starting point an accident which befalls contemporary British astronomer John Martels. He awakens from a coma to discover that his consciousness has been lodged within a computer located in a moldering temple in the year 25,000 AD. 

Sharing the computer is a prickly AI known as ‘Qvant’. Together, Martels and Qvant serve as oracles to petitioning tribesmen, who are under some duress from The Birds; it seems that by 25,000 AD, avians have evolved into larger, and more intelligent, creatures who are determined to eradicate Homo sapiens from the earth. Human civilization has been reduced to the presence of some stone-age tribes that eke out an existence in those places not yet conquered by the Birds.

The story concerns itself with Martel’s efforts to escape his computer prison and find some surviving technological outpost, where he can make arrangements to return to his own time and place. But, while ‘Century’ has an interesting premise, Blish fails to do much with this premise. His prose is overly wordy and meandering and the narrative never achieves much in the way of momentum. A climactic sequence, which in the hands of a more capable writer would have dominated the novel,  instead is relegated to half of a page, providing an underwhelming ending to the novelette.

Rounding out this DAW volume are two additional stories:

 In ‘Skysign’ (Analog, 1968) an immense spaceship appears over San Francisco; the humanoid aliens piloting the craft invite some Earthlings to come aboard for purposes unknown, but presumably involving amiable inter-species relations. An affectless hippie named Carl Wade volunteers, and once aboard ship finds himself a prisoner. Can a disheveled stoner hope to defeat advanced alien technology and gain freedom for himself and his unlucky companions ? 

‘A Style in Treason’ (Galaxy, 1970) is an effort to write a Jack Vance-inspired story (the use of the phrases ‘russet breeches’ and ‘a tabard of deeper violet’ are sure tip-offs), albeit an effort  beleaguered with Blish’s attempts at using New Wave prose stylings. The plot is barely coherent, and involves the efforts of one Simon de Kuyl, a courier of state secrets, to foment an alliance between High Earth and the polities ruling the colony world Boadacea. ‘Style’ is very poorly written, featuring clumsy sentence structure and inane metaphors (‘autumn cannibalism’ ???). 

The mediocre quality of ‘Midsummer Century’ perhaps could be excused by the fact that during the early 70s Blish was chronically ill (he died in 1975 from lung cancer). But unless you are a dedicated Blish fan, ‘Midsummer’ is best passed over by those looking for memorable works of the New Wave era.