Book Review: No Room for Man

Book Review: 'No Room for Man' by Ralph S. Clem, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander


4/5 Stars

‘No Room for Man’ , with its minimalist, abstract cover illustration and slightly larger-than-mass market-paperback size, was conceived and published for use as a textbook. Editor Martin H. Greenberg (University of Wisconsin) is of course the ‘Martin Greenberg of 1000 anthologies’ fame, while co-editors Ralph Clem and Joseph Olander of Florida International University also were / are active in producing SF anthologies for both popular literature and classroom purposes.

‘Room’ is a rather curious anthology; it was published in 1979, by which time the ‘Population Bomb’ phenomenon pretty much had run its course and was in fact rapidly dwindling. It could be argued that ‘Room’ appeared at least five years too late. By ’79 the impact of Paul Ehrlich’s work, and that of fellow Bombers like William Vogt, Garrett Hardin, William and Paul Paddock, and Hugh Moore, had receded from the public consciousness, although it still resonated in the consciousness of what is now called the ‘international development’ community.

Without bogging down in an extended treatise on political or social controversies, how does ‘Room’ stand on its own as an SF anthology about overpopulation ? Quite well, in fact. [All of the stories in the anthology previously appeared in print between 1955 and 1976].

The book opens with J. G. Ballard’s ‘Billenium’, still a very effective tale despite appearing way back in 1962. It’s a deftly written look at the sociology and psychology of overcrowding; in a real sense it is the precursor to Ballard’s later novel ‘High Rise’.

Brian Aldiss contributes ‘Total Environment’, in which 500 young Indian couples are shut away in a sizeable structure and left to their own devices for more than a quarter-century as part of a (rather unethical) experiment to see how humans adapt to severe crowding. As the first 25 years approach expiration, a scientist is sent inside the structure to investigate what appear to be ESP powers among the teeming, fecund inhabitants. Nowadays the story would be considered VERY politically incorrect and would enrage Indians (marasmic Hindus in particular) as much as the spectacle of Richard Gere kissing Shilpa Shetty . The narrative suffers from abrupt jumps from one set of characters to another, all in the absence of adequate exposition about the why and wherefore of the Environment experiment. Despite these flaws, it still has a kind of voyeuristic appeal…something that the tourists of ‘Slumdog’ Bombay (Mumbai) must feel !

Two of the stories in the collection served as the basis for later novels. Harry Harrison’s ‘Roommates’ was expanded into ‘Make Room ! Make Room !’ which in turn became the basis for the feature film ‘Soylent Green’. ‘Roommates’ is a great overpopulation story, that’s all there is to say. Robert Silverberg’s ‘In the Beginning’ was later expanded to the novel ‘The World Inside’. ‘Beginning’ deals with a far-future society in which 75 billion people live their entire lives distributed among the floors of 3 km – tall skyscrapers, or ‘urbmons’. The story focuses on the psychological trauma experienced by a young woman who faces moving from one urbmon to another. In my opinion the story was a bit too subdued; the almost-magical advanced tech of the urbmon world has the effect of depleting the narrative of any real tension.

Cyril M. Kornbluth contributes ‘Shark Ship’, in which the near-future earth deals with overpopulation by creating vast fleets of crowded ships that endlessly sail the seas harvesting plankton to feed and clothe the multitudes on board. For at least the first half of the tale it’s a well-envisioned setting, and the thin margin for life or death aboard ship is effectively communicated. Unfortunately, the story’s second half takes a rather bizarre and obtuse turn into late 50’s ‘beat’ phrasing and social satire. One of the weaker entries in the anthology.

Mr. Population Bomb himself, Paul Ehrlich, contributes ‘Eco-Catastrophe !’ in which he lays out a fictionalized course of events that sees the world going through mass starvation and ecological collapse in the 1970’s and Edward ‘Teddy’ Kennedy as President ! Whether or not one is a devotee of the Bomber philosophy, it’s an effective essay, and some might argue it retains its relevance today, forty years after first appearing in print.

Frank M. Robinson cleverly depicts an ultra-polluted LA megalopolis in the early 21st century in ‘East Wind, West Wind’. Things are so bad that smoking a cigarette is a misdemeanor and owning a carton a felony ! People lurch around the streets in the dim light of mid-afternoon choking and pulling on gas masks. Someone out in the Hollywood Hills is in possession of an illegal internal combustion engine vehicle and the narrator is on the case. ‘East Wind, West Wind’ effectively communicates pollution paranoia ca. 1970 and it’s one of the better stories in the collection.

Frederik Pohl’s ‘The Census Takers' deals with a near-future world in which overpopulation is solved via radical means. The main storyline contains enough inherent drama, yet Pohl subtracts from it by including a rather contrived Sci-Fi subplot that leads to a not-so-surprising ending.

Maggie Nadler’s ‘The Secret’ is among the best entries in the anthology. In a near-future, overcrowded world where parents are permitted no more than two children, can someone get away with breaking the rules ? ‘The Secret’ takes place entirely within the apartments and hallways of a dingy tenement, and involves a small cast of characters, but nonetheless delivers a harrowing example of how people under stress can commit the most quietly vicious of acts.

‘Statistician’s Day’ by James Blish deals with England in 1990, after the world-wide Famine of 1980 led to the implementation of mandatory birth control. It’s one of the few SF stories I’ve ever read that references the Chi-Square test - ! As is typical with Blish, the tale has an understated tone, and seems a bit lacking in energy compared to some of the other entries in the anthology.

How can an illiterate Third Worlder, whose single recreation in an otherwise drab existence is sex, be persuaded to remain chaste during his wife’s fertile period ?

This line of dialogue from ‘Triage’, by William Walling, unapologetically signals a story that bases its narrative on the Population Bomb ethos. Set in the near future, when Ehrlich’s Eco-Catastrophe has indeed come to pass, Dr Victoria Duino helms the UN Department of Environment and Population (UNDEP), where she is forced to make routine decisions as to whether or not to deliver food aid to starving millions in Egypt and other squalid hellholes. Duino is a sympathetic character despite having to play God on a continuous basis; her battles with factions on the conservative and liberal sides of responding to the Eco-Catastrophe define the story's narrative.

‘No Room for Man’ closes with two very brief (i.e., two-page) short-shorts. Theodore Cogswell’s ‘Probability Zero !’ is a humorous look at the statistical fallacy of back-calculating from one’s family tree in order to arrive at an estimation of the number of people alive in preceding generations. ‘Doll’s Demise’, by George Guthridge, examines the psychology of child-bearing in the context of population control efforts, and in its oblique way reminds the reader that appeals to common sense and logic may be fallible in the absence of an understanding of the whys and wherefores of reproduction.

All in all, ‘No Room for Man’ is a very readable and informative anthology, and it’s too bad it was never released in a mass-market paperback format. It’s an interesting take on the latter years of the Population Bomb era, and readers of SF at that time may find some nostalgia within its pages. And anyone curious about how writers dealt with one of the first ‘Eco-Catastrophe’ themes of modern pop culture will find worthy material here.

Book Review: Firelance

Book Review: 'Firelance' by David Mace


4 / 5 Stars

‘Firelance’ (1986; 314 pp) is a near-future military SF novel that takes place nine weeks after a nuclear war between NATO and the Soviet Bloc. The resultant devastation- billions dead, cities little more than mounds of ashes- is compounded by the advent of ‘Nuclear Winter’, with essentially the entire surface of the earth gripped by perpetual darkness, freezing temperatures, strong gales, and snow.

Nonetheless, elements in what remains of the US government are determined to continue the conflict and to do so, the ultra-modern battleship ‘Vindicator’ is dispatched to cross the Atlantic and loose volleys of nuclear-tipped cruise missiles onto the Soviet mainland.

The Vindicator is a 56,000 ton ‘Nemesis’ class ship, with advanced electronics gear for navigation, self-defense, and missile targeting; it comes with a complement of F-28 ‘Skycat’ VTOL fighters to repel enemy air attacks. In short, it’s the ideal ‘Doomsday’ weapons platform and needless to say, whatever remains of the Soviet armed forces are intent on sinking it before it reaches the cruise missile launch point in the North Atlantic.

The main plot line follows the Vindicator as it sets off on its mission and faces threats from Russian submarines, aircraft, and anti-ship missiles, with at-sea operations hampered by the abysmal weather and the knowledge that there are few, if any, allied forces left to offer assistance.

There is a large cast of characters, including Captain Bedford, commander of the Vindicator; Gloria Craze, the ship’s psychologist; David Drexel, a British contractor; First Officer John Boyce; and Bradford Kylander and Eileen Jenninger, members of the national security cabal that has given the ship its mission.

The narrative shifts from one character to another as a plot device to inform the reader on various aspects of naval combat, post-apocalyptic political maneuvering, the meteorology of nuclear winter, and the moral and ethical implications of committing what is essentially racial suicide.

Firelance is in many ways very similar to the technothriller bestsellers written by Tom Clancy throughout the 80s (‘Red Storm Rising’ is perhaps its closest analogue). Practically every other page contains a mini-treatise on some aspect of military technology; there are lots and lots of acronyms, and episodes of combat are relayed in a dry, quasi-clinical style. The prose is often dense and overly descriptive, and the insertion of numerous sub-plots and tangential incidents means the novel takes too long to get to the anticipated resolution of the main plot.

However, as a Britisher and a European, author David Mace is determined to avoid infusing his novel with the optimistic, ‘Team USA’ rah-rah spirit of the Clancy, Harold Coyle, or Larry Bond novels.

Firelance’s setting is unrelentingly bleak and depressing and is more akin to Ralph Peters’s novel ‘The War in 2020’. The Navy officers manning the Vindicator are by no means militaristic zealots, but they are so well inculcated in the military ethos of following orders that it takes some time for them to fully grasp what the Vindicator is designed to accomplish. By the time the ship is underway many of them begin to question the absurd nature of their mission, and their ambivalence contributes to the tension surrounding the action aboard the Vindicator. There are no real winners in what will be the last battle of the last war.

Firelance’s downbeat attitude will probably not have much initial appeal to the Clancy school of technothriller fans, but if they stick with it, I think they’ll find the book is rewarding in its own understated way.

Author Mace published a number of books in the 80s and early 90s. All are out of print but some, such as ‘Demon 4’ and ‘Nightrider’, are available for reasonable prices at amazon.com and other used book outlets. The author has an unpublished novel, ‘Celestial Rain’, available at his website.

OMAC by Jack Kirby (first issue, September - October 1974)

I remember buying the first issue of OMAC in a corner drugstore in the small upstate New York town of Hancock in the late Summer of 1974. All through the early 70s Jack Kirby had been producing some great books - such as 'Kammandi' and 'The Demon' - so I was interested in giving OMAC ('One Man Army Corps') a try. As with his other DC titles, Kirby's OMAC was ably inked by Mike Royer.

Along with the first three pages of the comic, I’ve scanned an advertisement for what appears to be a steal of a deal for some toy soldiers (in reality they were all 5 mm thick, super -cheap plastic things), and an essay (in lieu of a Letters Page) by Kirby in which he lays out the philosophy behind OMAC. It’s an interesting read, and a quasi – nostalgic look at pop culture in the ‘Future Shock’ era of the early 70’s. Kirby is channeling many of Alvin Toffler’s concepts with the scripting of OMAC, most revolving around Toffler’s contention that the pace of technological change was moving so fast that mankind would have increasing problems absorbing these events and handling them responsibly.

According to its Wiki entry, OMAC only lasted eight issues before being canceled. The hero / concept still pops up occasionally in various DC titles. A 200-page hardbound collection of the Kirby OMAC issues was published by DC in July of 2008 and is available at amazon.com.

Book Review: Emphyrio

Book Review: 'Emphyrio' by Jack Vance
4 / 5 Stars

‘Emphyrio’ first was published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1969.  A mass-market paperback edition (208 pp.) was issued as DAW book No. 365 in 1979. It features a striking cover illustration by Gino D’Achille. 

I decided to pick it up 'Emphyrio' in the used bookstore after seeing it listed as a ‘overlooked classic’ in a list of such novels by Scott Cupp at the SF Site.

On the planet of Halma, in the city of Ambroy, a small cohort of idle aristocrats, the Lords, rule over the majority lumpen proletariat. Technology is deliberately kept at a primitive stage; artists and craftsmen may not duplicate their work using any kind of manufacturing process. All laborers are required to pay 1.18 per cent of their income to the Lords, who dwell apart from the populace in ornate towers (‘eyries’), and enjoy access to space travel to other planets in the federation. Anyone who deviates from the social order risks accusation of ‘irregulationary’ behavior, and punishment, through a sort of mind-wipe process, is quickly imposed by the authorities.

Ghyl Tarvok is the son of a wood carver named Amiante. As he comes of age in Ambroy, Ghyl becomes more aware of the unequal distribution of wealth in his society, its strictures on advancement, and the legends of a rebel named Emphyrio, who in the distant past acted against the overlords and was executed for his efforts to bring change to Halma.

When Ghyl reaches adulthood, he contrives to leave Halma, embarks on a life as a space pirate and searches for the truth underlying the strange social order on his planet of origin. Did Emphyrio really exist ? Are the dissipated and parasitic Lords the genuine rulers of Halma ? Do the answers to his questions lie on the legendary planet Earth ?

Emphyrio is an engaging novel, and I feel that it is one of Vance’s best. The first half of the book is devoted to a rather slow-paced exposition on the world of Halma and city life in Ambroy. A number of interesting and varied characters are presented, and the legal, religious, and economic mores of life under the Lords is explained in detail. Vance’s prose is descriptive and involves his usual expansive catalogue of adjectives and neologisms, but the storyline flows smoothly. There are bits of satirical humor (on Halma, the god Finuka is worshipped by rituals of hopscotch). 

Other passages are more thoughtful and melancholy in tone, and reflect a culture slowly dying from economic and political stagnation. Ghyl’s rebellion against the Lords is a natural outgrowth of his increasing dissatisfaction over the injustices of Halma’s social order, rather than a melodramatic ‘give me liberty or give me death !’ revelation.

The book’s second half deals with Ghyl’s adventures on other worlds, a confrontation with the Lords, and his search for the truth behind the legend of Emphyrio. The action picks up quite a bit, as if making up for rather leisurely tenor of the first half. One suspenseful incident describes a hairs-breadth exposure to one of the more unpleasant capital punishment methods (depicted on the DAW book’s cover) I’ve ever read in an SF novel. The only strained note in the narrative takes place in its last few pages, when the ultimate revelation about the Halma social order is disclosed to the reader; Vance’s plotting here comes across as a bit rushed and a bit too contrived.

While 'Emphyrio' appeared at the beginnings of what would eventually be called the New Age of SF, it really doesn’t fit too neatly into that category. It also doesn’t fit well into the ‘classic’ space opera mode. It’s an offbeat tale, and I recommend adding it to every SF fan’s collection.

'Heavy Metal' magazine: January 1979
 

Nowadays, ‘Heavy Metal’ magazine is very different from what it was thirty years ago. It’s aimed more at fanboys raised on ‘Lady Death’ or ‘Shi’ comics, manga, anime, and other onanistic geek- culture entries.

But back in the late 70s and early 80s, Heavy Metal was one of the few outlets for comics and graphic art that was too ‘adult’ for mainstream publication in the comics issued by DC and Marvel. Most of the contents of each issue were translations of material appearing in the French magazine ‘Metal Hurlant’. Occasionally some homegrown American comics would appear in its pages.

Heavy Metal rarely got much in the way of advertising; some record labels, or perhaps a rolling paper manufacturer, might buy a page or two; as a result, the magazine was essentially subsidized by the successful sales of its parent, The National Lampoon.

Heavy Metal was aimed at a core audience of stoners; back in the late 70s a ‘nickel’ bag of pot cost only 10 bucks, and it was expected that after getting high, you’d open up a copy of Heavy Metal and peruse it while listening to some music of the same genre.

Although at a cover price of $1.50 it was comparatively expensive, I started picking up the magazine in late ’78 and followed it on a monthly basis until mid-1980. Some of the material was very good; a lot of it was mediocre. 

For example, much was made of the appearance of serialized comics by Moebius (the pseudonym of French artist Jean Giraud), but the ballyhooed ‘The Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius’ was plainly a toss-off by Giraud, who at that time was busy moving into concept art and design for motion pictures (‘Alien’) and obviously tired with the low recompense –to-effort economics of comic drawing and writing.

Over time I became disenchanted with the inclusion of too much serialized material in the pages of Heavy Metal and I ceased buying it. But I did hang on to those 1979 issues, (although I didn’t slip them into plastic sheet protectors and store them in a cool, dry place).

While the 70s Heavy Metal had its share of cheesy T & A woven into many stories, it was also willing to print more downbeat, horror-themed tales than would appear in the contemporary edition of the magazine. Thanks to the magazine’s high production values, this stuff remains attention-worthy even in the age of computerized art layout and coloring.

Along with the front and back covers (done by Jo Ellen Trilling and Kevin Johnson, respectively) of the January 1979 issue, I’ve excerpted one such grim SF tale, a three-page installment of ‘1996’, a series by French artist Chantal Montellier.

Book Review: The Legacy of Heorot

Book Review: 'The Legacy of Heorot' by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes
4 / 5 Stars

'The Legacy of Heorot' first was published in hardcover by Simon and Schuster in 1987; this paperback edition (383 pp.) was published in August, 1988, by Pocket Books, with cover art by Bryn Barnard. 

Not too far in the future, Earth successfully sends a starship (the Geographic) to colonize a habitable planet near the star Tau Ceti. The planet – named Avalon – features an Earth-type atmosphere, water, flora, and a smattering of innocent fauna. In short, it’s Paradise.

The colonists are among Earth’s Best and Brightest, and as soon as they’re thawed from hypersleep, they get to work erecting dwellings, farms, and laboratories on a large island called ‘Camelot’.

Among the colonists’ team is a square-jawed, proud man, of Welsh ancestry, who serves as an assistant navigator and security officer. A former soldier with a  “…..face like sun-cured leather”. His name is Cadmann Weyland. With the colonization of Avalon proceeding smoothly, and no hostile aliens or Bug-Eyed Monsters to fight, Weyland’s function on the planet is increasingly marginalized.

‘Heorot' starts off rather slowly, as Weyland finds himself a bit adrift. He can’t help being caught up in the petty soap operas ensuing from the colonists’ desires to begin populating the planet (there is much machismo posturing, as the alpha males of the Geographic compete for the favors of the fertile women). The biologists, agriculturalists, and engineers of the colony team find themselves preoccupied with their labors, while Weyland is reduced to pleading for work details to restore torn fencing.

Then…...one night............. something untoward happens. Suspicions are raised. Could the colonists' initial findings that the fauna of Avalon are small and mild have possibly overlooked the presence of more...... formidable......... species ? And if so, will Weyland be given a free hand to investigate ? Or will he be shunted aside........with disastrous consequences for the fate of the colony ?

‘Heorot’ is an SF adventure that made me cheering for the monsters from its early pages. 

I doubt this was the intent of the authors, but the petty rivalries among the colonists over women, status, and job assignments, that occupy the novel’s earlier pages, made me start to dislike them. Intensely. I couldn’t wait for the monster promised on the book’s back cover to finally show up and start munching.

As the main character, Weyland is presented as such a prideful, prickly, and uber-macho hero that quickly I lost any empathy for him. I also wanted Mary Ann – Weyland’s sweet, but brain-damaged, paramour – to get shredded by the monster. In fact I wanted ALL the colonists to be monster food !

[ I found the sequel, ‘Beowulf’s Children’ (1996) offered up an even more unlikeable panoply of colonists as potential monster victims. ]

I can’t say much more about the plot without giving away too many spoilers, but the advent of the monster is tied to the ecology of Avalon, which the humans have unwittingly altered, and things are going to get worse before they get better.

Other online reviews tend to laud the authors’ decision to inform their monster biology and ecology with a learned extrapolation from an unusual species of earth amphibian.

Personally, I found this tended to constrain their monster design; while formidable, the Avalon creature is not particularly terrifying. But since the colonists neglected to carry phasers, mini-nukes, or railguns aboard the Geographic, in fairness they can’t be pitted against genuinely 'apocalyptic' creatures.

Overall, ‘Heorot’ is a well-written, intelligent thriller; once the monster action gets started, the narrative kicks into a higher gear, and a happy outcome for the colonists never is assured. Those seeking an engaging SF adventure will want to read ''The Legacy of Heorot'.

When a Fanboy Goes Too Far, No. 2

When A Fanboy Goes Too Far (2nd in a series)

From the January 27, 2009 'Daily Mail' (UK)

Book Review: 'Recall Not Earth' by C. C. MacApp (Carroll M. Capps)


3/5 Stars

According to the Wikipedia entry, C. C. MacApp was the pseudonym of SF writer Carroll Mather Capps (1917 – 1971). Capps wrote a number of short stories and novels during the 60s; ‘Recall Not Earth’ was published in 1970, just a year before his (her ?) death.

“Recall’ is a brief (192 pp) novel taking place in the far future, where a sort of Galactic Federation oversees the political ambitions of a number of alien races. Earth has been destroyed in a war with one of the Federation members, the Vulmot Empire. The novel opens some eight years after the apocalypse; a few hundred Earthmen who happened to survive the destruction of their home world still exist, having been left alive by the Vulmot as an example of what happens to those who dare to anger the Empire. Some of these Earthmen are scattered around the galaxy, serving as mercenaries; others have lapsed into despair, and spend their time as drug addicts or angst-riddled sybarites. With no women having survived the Vulmot attack on Earth, the future of the human race looks bleak, to say the least.

The hero of ‘Recall’ is a down-at-heels space commander named Johnathan Braysen. Braysen is told by a mercenary colleague that the Chelki, former slaves of the Vulmot Empire, have a scheme to allow the Earthmen to rise and defeat the Empire, as well as the promise of access to….Earthwomen ! Hundreds of them, stashed away at a secure location ! Of course, this information serves quite well to get our Terran heroes into a state of acute interest, and within the book’s first 50 pages, Braysen is leading a team of human space raiders, piloting ships supplied by the Chelki, on hit-and-run attacks designed to provoke the Vulmot Empire into war with a rival race, the Bizh.

Soon the tiny band of Terran survivors get their hands on a massive super-spaceship, and plans for revenge are in the offing…but the Vulmot are starting to realize that having a cadre of their erstwhile enemies still alive and kicking may have been a mistake. Can the Earthmen succeed in gathering an intergalactic opposition to the hated Vulmot, or will their frail rebellion collapse and leave mankind extinct ?

In order to avoid spoilers, I won’t divulge much else of the main plot, but it’s safe to say that it’s a standard space opera narrative; there’s not much here that’s particularly noteworthy or original.

MacApp’s (Capps’s) writing is pulp-ish even for 1970 (‘Recall’ is the first time in my reading life when I’ve seen the adverb ‘bunchily’ used ! ), when greater stylistic consciousness was well underway among the majority of SF authors. And the modern reader will probably titter when reading a line like this:

He hesitated. “John, do you think Humbert was actually a fag ?”

On its good side, ‘Recall’ has a fast-moving plot, with some moments of suspense carefully timed and worked into the narrative, particularly when the undergunned Earth fleet contemplates combat with the merciless Vulmot. There are some quasi-New Wave notes to the storyline, in that the surviving Earthmen are not exactly the square-jawed, clean-living heroes of the pulp era; Braysen struggles with a heroin-like drug addiction, and other Earthmen have taken up (rather creepy) lifestyles centering on pliant alien concubines. In this regard, at least, author Capps was attempting to stretch a bit beyond the more hackneyed space opera formula.

Overall, 'Recall Not Earth' is a quick and reasonably enjoyable read for those interested in taking in a conventional SF adventure. Those hoping for a more imaginative storyline, by an author employing superior writing skills, probably won’t find it as engaging.

NOTE: added February 2, 2009

courtesy of io9.com: blatant recycling of the same cover illustration !

according to this link, 'Vampires of Venus' was a pulp SF novel that originally appeared in 1951. I can't tell if 'Five Star' paperback is ripping off Dell's artwork, or vice versa...

Book Review: Combat SF

Book Review: 'Combat SF' edited by Gordon R. Dickson

4 / 5 Stars

Nowadays military-themed SF is quite in vogue and profitable, with some publishers – such as Baen Books – emphasizing works within this genre. Other publishers choose to focus on releasing books dealing with licensed characters and settings derived from military SF, such as the Black Library’s ‘Warhammer 40,000’ material that takes up a significant chunk of retail bookstore shelf space.

This definitely was not the case back in the 70’s. ‘Combat SF’ (1975), edited by Gordon Dickson, was one of the few anthologies in hardback or paperback that was conceived as a venue for military SF. In the aftermath of the Vietnam war it was considered unseemly, if not slightly obscene, to glorify (however mildly) warfare and the military. The political and sociological climate was such that it was quite difficult for writers of SF to market any story or novel that presented soldierly behavior in an approving light.

Joe Haldeman’s ‘The Forever War’ (1974) set the tone for this era’s approach to the military by presenting even heroic actions on the part of enlisted men and women as futile, if not patently absurd, sacrifices. The generals, politicians, and industrialists who ran things were not only indifferent to the sufferings of those under their command, but criminally inept in carrying out the overall strategic aims of the war.

In 1975 Jerry Pournelle and Gordon Dickson were two well-known, published authors who adopted what was then considered a highly reactionary stance, by insisting that sometimes war, and war heroes, were necessary evils (an attitude that earned them some opprobrium from the SF community at large). In ‘Combat SF’, Dickson focused on assembling stories that regarded war and violence from a number of different political and moral viewpoints.

The first story, ‘The Last Command’, is a Bolo tale from Keith Laumer. An elderly tank commander is forced out of retirement when a robotic tank long buried under war debris reactivates and threatens an entire city. Here the tenor is one of admiration for those Old Soldiers who selflessly served, and continue to serve, their country.

‘Men of Good Will’, by Ben Bova and Myron R. Lewis, is considerably more cynical. The Cold War has transported itself to the Moon and despite the inherent hazards of fighting in such a hostile environment , well, we know the Commies and the Yanks still are going to go at it - even if it involves something like suicide...

Joe L. Hensley contributes ‘The Pair’, a low key but effective tale of how sometimes, just the briefest of moments of inter-species understanding may bring a prolonged conflict to an end. This is less a tale of combat than one of peace-making.

David Drake’s ‘The Butchers Bill’ is one of the earliest appearances by the ‘Hammer’s Slammers’ mercenary outfit. There’s not much in terms of Deep Message here; just the nuts and bolts of combat, and dealing with employers who start to have second thoughts about hiring someone else to do their dirty work.

‘Single Combat’, by Joseph R. Green, is one of the more imaginative and gripping tales in the anthology. On a planet occupied by a primitive tribal culture similar in many ways to ancient Africa, Kala Brabant, a human bioengineered to resemble the natives, must carry out an edged-weapon duel with a member of a rival tribe. The narrative entails multiple points of view, but in the story’s climax everything ties together, and Green provides a powerful ending.

Poul Anderson’s much-anthologized time travel tale, ‘The Man Who Came Early’, winds up here in ‘Combat SF’. I suppose there are enough military nuances to the story to make it worthy of inclusion. It’s more of a reflection of how thin the pickings were for military fiction back in ’75, that it winds up being selected for its military merits.

Fred Saberhagen contributes a ‘Berserker’ tale with ‘Patron of the Arts’. There’s really not much in the way of combat or violent action in this entry, which is more of a rumination on the topic of man Vs machine.

Joe Haldeman’s ‘Time Piece’ (1970) is the short story that served as the basis for his later novel ‘The Forever War’. It’s a well-written story of far-future combat. The philosophical implications of travel to and from distant planets at faster-than-light speeds are neatly woven into the action, and the story’s ending is blunt but effective.

Editor Dickson contributes ‘Ricochet on Miza’. Not a combat story per se, but more of a taut and well-told tale of a hunter and his seemingly helpless prey.

Harry Harrison provides ‘No War, Or Battle’s Sound’. How can you go wrong with a story that opens with this line: “Combatman Dom Priego, I shall kill you,” Sergeant Toth shouted the words the length of the barracks compartment. 

‘Battle’s Sound’ does a good job of presenting the physics of combat among starships suspended in interstellar space. At times the story carries with it the tongue-in-cheek tone Harrison often employed in works such as ‘The Stainless Steel Rat’, but the levity is countered by the graphic description of being wounded, and dying, among the airless hulls and passageways of the contested spaceships.

‘His Truth Goes Marching On’ is Jerry Pournelle’s contribution to ‘Combat SF’. Evoking the Spanish Civil War, it takes place on a distant planet where Rebels and Government armies, primarily made up of bewildered conscripts, spend most of their time in wearying marches...... before stumbling into mayhem. Pournelle is skilled at framing the dislocation of ideological fervor by the shock and horror of combat.

The final story in the anthology is Gene Wolfe’s ‘The Horars of War’. The Horars are androids fighting for the US Army in a near-future war taking place against a nameless enemy, in a jungle setting reminiscent of Vietnam. Amidst scenes of violent combat, the truth about the deployment of the androids is revealed; there is a cynical and downbeat tone to this story. Of all the entries in ‘Combat SF’, ‘Horars’ best fits the prevailing mindset among US writers and intellectuals in the immediate post-Vietnam period.

Overall, ‘Combat SF’ is a worthy take on military SF way back when it had a more… clandestine…. character than it does today. Readers of ‘New Wave’ and 70’s SF will want to have a copy in their collection.

Book Review: 'Chernobyl' by Frederik Pohl


3/5 Stars

Pohl’s novel appeared in hardback in September 1987, and this paperback version in 1988; thus, it was written barely a year after the Chernobyl disaster. Of course, some things about the accident and the response to it have come to light in the ensuing years that were unavailable to Pohl while he was writing ‘Chernobyl’. These things, had they been incorporated into the narrative, may have been beneficial for the novel. As it stands, I found that ‘Chernobyl’ started promisingly, but ran out of momentum in the second half, as too much attention is diverted from the accident scene per se in order to focus on the various personal crises of the featured characters.

These characters are fictional, but represent person(s) in action at the nuclear power plant located just three kilometers from Pripyat, a small new city in what is now the independent nation of Ukraine. On April 26, 1986, an explosion took place in reactor No. 4; the reactor was essentially destroyed, and large chunks of its uranium and graphite core were blown into the immediate environs of the plant, starting serious fires that threatened to involve the other reactors at the site. Smaller radioactive particles and dusts were dispersed into the atmosphere and contaminated an enormous swath of western and eastern Europe. The reactor core was set afire, and only a herculean, thirteen-day effort by the Soviet government appears to have extinguished the fire ( some observers feel the fire went out on its own, and that efforts to put out the fire by dumping material onto the flaming core actually increased the likelihood of further catastrophe). An equally massive cleanup effort was then launched to dispose of dangerously radioactive debris, and the remains of reactor No. 4 were entombed in an immense concrete and steel ‘sarcophagous’.

Nearly 50 people died as a result of the blast, or acute radiation exposure following the blast. As far as the long-term public health consequences are concerned, depending on who is publishing the statistics, thousands, or even millions, of radiation-related cancers and other diseases among European residents are due to radioisotopes generated by the disaster.

The Gorbachev regime, in typical Soviet fashion, refused to release any information about the disaster until a radioactive cloud had been detected in Scandinavia nearly two days after the first explosion at reactor No. 4. When the Soviets did release information they withheld many details, which angered many otherwise liberal western European governments; Chernobyl was in many ways instrumental in the downfall of the Soviet Bloc. However, to this day most Americans have only a vague knowledge of the Chernobyl disaster and the profound impact it had on modern European history and politics. In this regard, ‘Chernobyl’ is useful entry in the English-language literature on the topic.

Pohl’s treatment follows a set of Ukrainian and Russian characters from the days preceding the accident to the construction of the sarcophagous starting in late May 1986. The first third of the novel does a good job in carefully explicating the setup of the RBMK reactor No. 4 and the reasons for its explosion (an ill-designed experiment to see if a powering-down reactor was still capable of delivering power to the electrical grid).

The main character is one Simyon Smin, director of the plant, and (presumably) the fictional counterpart of real-life director Viktor Bryukhanov. Other characters include the plant engineer; a KGB overseer; a power plant technician; an indifferent soldier; and assorted wives and relatives. They are all well-drawn individuals and the narrative introduces them, and involves them, in the unfolding drama in a smooth and readable manner for the book’s first 175 pages.

Unfortunately, it’s the remaining 182 pages that tend to be a letdown. Pohl increasingly turns his attention away from the accident and the desperate measures to deal with it, to instead focus on the personal and political dramas of his main characters. The reader has to slog through extended hospital-bed conversations and the like, all the while wondering to himself or herself: what is going on back at Chernobyl?!

Things aren’t helped by the insertion into the narrative of too many passages of questionable relevance to both the disaster and the campaign to ameliorate it. For example, we are treated to the antics of an affluent, but clueless American couple who are on vacation in the Ukraine; Simyon Smin’s elderly mother is used to give ponderous exposition on historical anti-Semitism in the region; and there is a young American embassy clerk in Moscow who gets second-hand info from various Soviet apparatchiks, thus giving Pohl an opportunity to learnedly hold forth on the state of glasnost ca. 1986. It’s frustrating to have to wade through this filler material.

It may well be that Pohl, lacking access to in-depth information about the circumstances surrounding the disaster and the cleanup, was forced to rely on weaving these personal dramas into his plot. But I think the book could have been improved by jettisoning such diversions and instead placing the emphasis on the inherently gripping drama surrounding the damaged reactor. Pohl’s ‘Chernobyl’ is a decent enough read, but in my opinion, the definitive English-language novel about Chernobyl remains to be written.