Mechanismo by Harry Harrison

'Mechanismo' by Harry Harrison

 

 

In the late 70s Harry Harrison authored several trade paperback, sf art books : 'Great Balls of Fire' (1977), 'Mechanismo' (1978) and 'Planet Story' (1979). This was something of an adventure in sf publishing, for at that time, art books with sf or fantasy themes were comparatively rare, and the chain stores (Waldenbooks, Coles, and B. Dalton) that dominated the retail sphere in those days were only just beginning to realize that additional shelf space and inventory should be devoted to the genre.

Mechanismo (120 pp) is printed on quality stock, and at 10 ¼ x 10 ¼ “, couldn’t entirely fit onto the platen of my scanner. So the images I’m posting here are cropped to some extent.

 

Angus McKie

Harrison’s contribution are 6 short essays on ‘Star Ships’, ‘Mechanical Man’, Weapons and Space Gear’, ‘Space Cities’, ‘Fantastic Machines’, and ‘Movies’. Additional text, apparently supplied by the publisher, provides commentary – some of it fictional – for the illustrations. Most (all ?) of the artwork in Mechanismo was previously published, usually as cover art for sf paperbacks published in the UK.

 Colin Hay

 Jennifer Eachus

 Richard Clifton-Dey

Overall, Harrison’s essays are entertaining rather than pedantic, and written with a note of humor. There are some tidbits dropped that may move readers to seek out 70s sf novels and story collections (for example, I’d never been aware of Harrison’s matter transmission anthology, 'One Step from Earth' (1970), prior to reading about it in Mechanismo).

 Robin Hiddon

Jim Burns

Angus McKie

The quality of pieces (which are reproduced in black and white and color) from the 19 participating artists varies; some are well done, while others are mediocre. The works by Jim Burns, a rising star in the sf illustration field, are among the most eye-catching. There are a large number of contributions from Angus McKie, the leading sf illustrator in the late 70s and a frequent contributor to Heavy Metal magazine. Ralph McQuarrie provides some paintings from Star Wars, and there are a couple of H. R. Giger submissions, too.

 Angus McKie (cover of the March, 1979 issue of Heavy Metal)

‘Mechanismo’ may not draw much enthusiasm from contemporary sf fans, who are used to the revolutionary changes in sf and fantasy illustration wrought by the use of computers and illustration software. But those with a nostalgic bent may want to pick up Mechanismo and take in the flavor of Old School sf illustration.

Angus McKie

  Ralph McQuarrie

Ranxerox Part II

'Ranxerox' Part II 
by Tambourini and Liberatore
from the August 1983 issue of Heavy Metal magazine

This second installment of the series starts off with our hero prostrate on the sidewalk......then segues to a gruesome act of violence against a child (!), a gruesome neck-breaking, and finally, some unique, early 80s Bondage fashion....!

Book Review: The Vang: The Military Form

Book Review: 'The Vang: The Military Form' by Christopher Rowley

4 / 5 Stars

‘The Vang: The Military Form’ (Ballantine / Del Rey, 1988, 369 pp., cover art by Steve Hickman) is the second novel in the so-called ‘Vang’ trilogy; the initial volume is ‘Starhammer’ (1986), and the third volume ‘The Vang: Battlemaster’ (1990). 


[It's not obligatory to have read 'Starhammer' prior to reading 'The Military Form', as the latter stands more or less on its own as a trilogy entry.]

The ‘Vang’ trilogy received a new lease on life starting in 2001 with the phenomenal success of the ‘Halo’ series of video games, which feature a race of parasitic alien monsters, The Flood, who are modeled on the Vang:

‘The Military Form’ is set some 1,000 years after the events of the opening novel, ‘Starhammer’. Terra has succeeded in using the Starhammer to overthrow the tyranny of the blue-skinned, alien laowon, and humanity has expanded into much of the galaxy. Certain areas of space remain off-limits to exploration, however; not because of laowon edicts emplaced for economic reasons, but because they were scenes of combat millennia ago, between the race of un-named froglike aliens who created the Starhammer, and the virulent bioweapon – the Vang – that extinguished their civilization.

Much of the action in ‘The Military Form’ takes place on the planet Saskatch, which has a climate reminiscent of eastern Canada. The arboreal habitat of Sakatch is the galaxy’s sole source of the potent hallucinogen TA45, and the clandestine trade in this narcotic drives the planetary economy. With the exception of a small contingent of police officers and judges, every legal and corporate entity on Saskatch has been corrupted to a greater or lesser degree by the enormous sums of money to be gained by trading in TA45.

As the novel opens, an asteroid mining ship, the Seed of Hope, is on an expedition to the asteroid belt in the Saskatch system. Violating Federation proscriptions against venturing into the area, the Seed comes upon a strange, silvery object of alien design. Consumed by greed, the Seed’s crew endeavors to blast a hole in the object….but what they don’t know is that the alien artifact is a survival capsule. 

And lodged within its interior, having endured thousands of years in suspended animation, is the quiescent stage of the Vang’s Military Form.............

As with ‘Starhammer’, ‘The Military Form’ takes its time getting underway, and patience is required to navigate the book’s first 100 or so pages, as author Rowley sets up his cast of characters with some deliberation. 

Once the Military Form arrives on the unsuspecting planet and its major metropolis, Beliveau City, the action content gradually dominates the narrative and the plot gains momentum, with some genuinely entertaining battle sequences shaping the book’s last 50 pages. 

The Military Form are truly nasty monsters, ones that make the alien bioweapons in Ridley Scott’s 2012 ‘Alien’ prequel Prometheus look..... benevolent. I won’t disclose any spoilers, but I will say that author Rowley relates the gruesome actions of the Vang (which frequently involve inserting unpleasant things into their hapless victims’ lower GI tracts) with just the right note of deadpan humor. 

As an adventure / action novel, ‘The Military Form’ satisfies, and I recommend it to anyone interested in sf that features aliens that abhor the 'Kumbaya' spirit of interstellar relations……

Death Cloud by Tim White

'Death Cloud' by Tim White
cover illustration for the novel by Michael Mannion, New English Library (UK), 1977

Book Review: Globalhead

Book Review: 'Globalhead' by Bruce Sterling

2 / 5 Stars

‘Globalhead’ was published in hardcover in 1992; this Bantam Spectra mass market paperback edition (340 pp.) was released in November 1994. The cover artwork is by Bruce Jensen.

With the exception of ‘Are You For 86 ?’, all the stories in this compilation were previously published from 1985 – 1992, in magazines such as Omni and Isacc’s Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. 

My concise summaries of the contents:

Our Neural Chernobyl: short, but well-written, tale about gengineering gone awry. A subtle twist at the end caps the story off perfectly.

Storming the Cosmos: a collaborative effort with Rudy Rucker. A dissipated KGB informer accompanies a scientific team to the Tunguska meteorite site. Mayhem and hijinks ensue. Rucker’s participation gives this story a dose of absurdist humor, moreso than a standalone Sterling tale.

The Compassionate, the Digital: the Iranian Revolution spreads to a worldwide AI. A bit too vague to be fully effective.

Jim and Irene: a dissipated hacker sets off on an existential road trip; he is accompanied by a neurotic Russian immigrant named Irene.

The Sword of Damocles: lame effort at re-telling the Greek myth, using a 90s ‘hipster’ vernacular.

The Gulf Wars: Babylonians Vs Persians, through the centuries.

The Shores of Bohemia: uneven tale of an enclave of the future determined to stick to its anachronisms, despite outside pressures. The nanotech component underlying the story is too contrived to be very effective.

The Moral Bullet: in an anarchic, near-future USA, Sniffy the chemist tries to elude forces anxious to punish him for upending modern civilization. One of the better entries in the collection.

The Unthinkable: brief tale about a Cold War waged with Eldritch Knowledge. Crisp and imaginative; another of the Sterling’s best short stories.

We See Things Differently: A representative of the Islamic World Ascendant investigates socio-cultural upheaval in the USA.

Hollywood Kremlin: smuggler Leggy Starlitz negotiates the treacherous political and economic landscape of post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Dark humor pervades the story.

Are You for R86 ? : Leggy returns; this time he’s in the USA, aiding a team of feckless young women (activists named Vanna and ‘Mr Judy’) who are intent on mass distribution of the banned birth control pill RU486. The evangelical Christian community is determined to stop them – by nonviolent means, of course. Plenty of satiric humor makes this another of the better entries in the collection. Leggy’s adventures continued in Sterling’s 2001 novel ‘Zeitgeist’.

Dori Bangs: ‘what if’ rock critic Lester Bangs avoided suicide in 1982, and instead hooked up, in a drugged-out, burnt-out way, with a dissipated Goth Girl who draws self-referential ‘progressive’ comics. Even if you (for some strange reason) are a diehard Lester Bangs fan (which I am assuredly not) the concept of this story seems really lame.

The verdict ? ‘Globalhead’ is a collection of Sterling’s misses, rather than hits. Unlike other Sterling anthologies (‘A Good Old-Fashioned Future’), more than a few of the entries in ‘Globalhead’ seem phoned-in. But this anthology remains the most affordable way (at present) to get hold of gems like ‘The Unthinkable’.

The Golden Queen by Druillet and Bihannic

'The Golden Queen' by Philippe Druillet (story) and Serge Bihannic (art)
from the July, 1977 issue of Heavy Metal magazine

Book Review: Kiteworld

Book Review: 'Kiteworld' by Keith Roberts

 

3 / 5 Stars

‘Kiteworld’ was published in 1985 in the UK by Gollanz; this Ace mass market paperback edition (293 pp.) was released in the US in May, 1988, with cover artwork by Blas. 

‘Kiteworld’ contain several stories that first appeared in Interzone magazine in the early 1980s, as well as, apparently, some newly-written chapters Roberts produced to bring the overall collection to book-length.

‘Kiteworld’ is set in a future Britain, where, in the aftermath of a vaguely described catastrophe – perhaps a nuclear war – civilization endures, albeit in a rural landscape where technology is at a level ca. 1910. 

Within this ‘Realm’, a rebooted Christian Church occupies the position of power, mainly by guarding the populace from incursions by ‘demons’ (i.e., mutants) originating within the fallout zone bordering the Realm. The Church has few scruples about using severe penalties – including execution – to restrict technological advancement, impede the acquisition of historical knowledge (such as maps), and punish dissent from its theologies.

As part of efforts to deter the ‘demons’ from trespassing into Realm space, the Church sanctions the use of large, man-carrying kites. These are regularly launched aloft, there to float for hours displaying ‘hex’ signs and symbols designed to repel demons. Those who man the kites are highly regarded in Realm society, but the mortality rate for kite flyers is high, and an innate fatalism rules their lives.

The stories in ‘Kiteworld’ follow the adventures of a group of recurring characters who man the kite stations, and dwell in the small towns, that occupy the outer districts of the Realm. The novel’s sf elements are muted, and serve mainly as a background against which author Roberts explores themes such as the tensions between orthodoxy and dawning humanism (a theme which he visited in his 1968 novel 'Pavane').

The writing style Roberts employs in Kiteworld is of mixed effect. While there are many descriptive passages, their focus on incidental details often fails to enlighten the reader; for example, the grease, smell, and manipulation of the kite-launching gear is fulsomely presented, but clear descriptions of the kites and the principles of their flight are deliberately vague. As well, I often was frustrated by Roberts's use of dialogue laden with British colloquialisms, slang, and figures of speech to impart important plot details in an oblique, inferential manner.

That said, as with Pavane, Roberts makes the world of the Realm more ‘real’ than many contemporary, 800-page fantasy novels, burdened by highly descriptive prose, struggle to achieve with their own imagined landscapes.

The action picks up in the last chapters of the novel, but unfortunately, Roberts elects to close on a contrived note.

‘Kiteworld’ will most appeal to those readers with the patience to sit down with a slower-paced narrative that centers on the trials, tribulations, and hopes of its characters. Those looking for a action narrative, with proto-steampunk sensibilities, are better off passing.