Book Review: 'The Silent Multitude' by D. G. Compton

1 / 5 Stars

‘The Silent Multitude’ (189 pp) was released by Ace Books in 1966; the cover illustration is by Leo and Diane Dillon.

The book’s title refers to the spores of an alien fungus, which has evidently been brought back to Earth by a space mission. The microscopic spores pose no threat to life forms, but they do love to degrade concrete and cement, often leveling a multi-storey building within a matter of days. Their advance across civilization is inexorable, and people are fleeing the major urban centers for refuge in the countryside.

As the novel opens, the spores are laying waste to the UK, with the city of Gloucester on the verge of becoming infected. It’s the ‘future’ (i.e., 1980), and the city is essentially a mass of ugly, soul-less concrete office buildings characteristic of the Modernist architecture of Le Corbusier (the pseudonym of French architect Charles Jeanneret).

The narrative follows the interactions of four people who choose to remain in the city after the evacuation, taking their chances with the coming dissolution of the buildings all around them: Dean Goodliffe, rector of the Anglican cathedral; ‘Paper’ Smith, a deranged elderly man who lives as a vagrant in a nook of the city’s commercial district; Simeon Crankshawe, an alienated young man whose deceased father was the chief architect of the modern Gloucester; and Sally Paget, an ambitious young news reporter.

‘Multitude’ is a very earnest effort by author Compton to write the sort of downbeat, existential novel characteristic of those then being produced, to great critical acclaim, by fellow Englishman J. G. Ballard. While there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with this, the awkward truth is that ‘Multitude’ is miserably bad. The narrative is profoundly dull, consisting of lengthy passages of internal monologues, and later lengthy dialogues, among the four characters, designed to notify the reader that he or she is encountering a Serious Work of Fiction rather than the juvenile literature associated with ‘genre’ SF.

Readers who are interested in tackling ‘Multitude’ will need to steel themselves for regular encounters with over-written passages such as this one:

He was a sadist, not in relation to people but in relation to the monstrous dwellings built by people. He sublimated his violent tendencies into the suffering of glass and concrete. He was perhaps a sadist toward society. But society was not people. He could not, would not have it that society was composed of people.

Compton tries much too hard to imbue every page with Deep Thoughts on the Futility of Modern Life, the angst that accompanies one’s awareness that God is Dead, the rejection of their elder’s values by Questioning Youth, etc., etc. The fragments of plot that survive being burdened with these overworked themes lack the necessary energy to propel the storyline, and I often had to force myself to keep reading the book.

‘The Silent Multitude’ is an unfortunate example of the Ballard pastiche that missed the mark…by quite a wide margin.

Epic Illustrated Spring 1980

'Epic Illustrated' Spring 1980

Back in the day, I never paid much attention to 'Epic Illustrated', the first issue of which appeared in the Spring of 1980.

It was clearly another effort by Stan Lee to try and cash in on the success of a magazine  introduced by a rival company. Much as he did with the black and white magazines designed to mimic the success of Warren's 'Creepy' and 'Erie', or 'Crazy', which was a pallid imitation of 'Mad', 'Epic' was designed to attract the readership of 'Heavy Metal'.

Showing prudence in regard to marketing and budgeting (earned by the comparatively poor performance of more than a few of Marvel's magazine-format trial run issues in the 70s), Lee produced Epic Illustrated on a quarterly basis during 1980. In ensuing years it was published at a rate of 5 or 6 issues per year, and then just one issue in 1986, when it ceased publication.

Nowadays issues in good condition go for $5 - $10 or more on eBay, and a complete set of all 34 issues in very fine / near mint condition will go for more than $120. I was able to get a bunch of copies in decent shape, and I will be posting stories from them on an ongoing basis.

I'm finding that Epic attracted some good talent, including Heavy Metal contributors like Arthur Suydam, Mirko Ilic, and Ray Rue, and its pages contained some worthy material. 

Issue one featured a 'Silver Surfer' story with outstanding artwork by John Buscema. Unfortunately, Stan Lee's script for 'The Answer' wasn't as impressive. I think maybe he should have let the Surfer's creator, Jack Kirby, do the honors....

Book Review: The Return

Book Review: 'The Return' by Richard Maynard

  5 / 5 Stars

This book first was published in 1988 in the UK by small press publisher Souvenir Press, as 'The Quiet Place.' In 1990 Grafton issued a paperback edition, with a striking cover by Tim White.

In the U.S., a paperback edition, retitled ‘The Return,’ was released by Leisure Books, under the imprint of the 'Gloria Diehl Book Club Selection,' in October 1989.

 

‘The Return’ starts with a voyage into interstellar space by a team of seven British astronauts. Their goal is to travel faster-than-light to the Alpha Centauri system and back, a journey which should take the equivalent of sixteen years of Earth-time. Unfortunately the ship encounters navigational problems and goes off-course; by the time the crew corrects the error, they have been traveling for 15 years ship-time. The crew must confront the awful fact that, since their departure, centuries may have passed on Earth.

When the ship reaches Earth orbit, there is a disturbing absence of radio communications. The crew proceeds with splashdown into the Atlantic and find that no ships or aircraft have come to greet them. They inflate their emergency life-raft and slowly make for the coast of France. Upon arrival they are stunned to discover that the countryside is devoid of lights and traffic; everywhere, the landscape is covered with bushes and trees, suggesting that civilization as they know it has ceased to exist. 

And the humans that populate these landscapes are not friendly, as the starship crew soon discovers…...

Can our intrepid Brits discover their inner Cro-Magnon in time to survive in a world they barely recognize ? Can they uncover the reason for the decline of civilization into barbarity ? Does there anywhere exist a remnant of their era, or has the entire planet lapsed into a Stone Age culture ?

‘The Return’ is one of the better examples of 80s post-apocalyptic SF novels. It is a violent book, with as much bloodshed and mayhem as Neal Barrett Jr’s ‘Through Darkest America,’ Piers Anthony’s ‘Battle Circle’ novels, or the 'Mad Max' movies. 

The episodes of conflict between the hapless spacemen (who arrive on their home world unfortunately lacking laser rifles, grenade launchers, and railguns) and the inheritors of the planet are well-written and suspenseful, and maintain the narrative’s momentum on to the last of its 240 pages.

Indeed, rather than SF proper, ‘Return’ belongs more in the sub-category of Western adventure novels in which naïve, too-trusting white settlers or adventurers come into contact with hostile natives and endure all manner of ghastly abuse, all the time wondering, bleeding and bewildered, why no one wants to hold hands and sing ‘Kumbayah.’

‘The Return’ isn’t perfect; I for one was turned off by the too-frequent sentences in which the first-person narrator indulges in Portents of Doom (‘had I only known, I would not have let Pip and Barry take that fateful journey…’). Our heroes often do rather dumb things, as the author uses these as mechanisms to thrust his characters into yet another dangerous encounter. And the reason given for the downfall of civilization struck me as more than a little contrived.

However, these faults aside, ‘The Return’ is a very readable, downbeat take on a familiar SF theme, and worth searching out by fans of the genre. It's a shame that author Maynard didn't write any more sci-fi novels, as this one shows he definitely had the necessary skills to make a mark in the genre.

Killraven Amazing Adventures No. 36

Killraven: 'Amazing Adventures' No. 36

(May 1976)

The May, 1976 issue of 'Amazing Adventures: Featuring War of the Worlds' (No. 36) is the beginning of the end of the 'War of the Worlds' incarnation of the title. There were only three more installments (i.e., up to issue 39) remaining. The Letters column in this issue indicates that WotW has been on the verge of cancellation for some time, so the writing is on the wall. 

Unfortunately, 'Red Dust Legacy', the story for this issue, must not have done all that much to attract new readers; it's easily one of the more incoherent episodes in the Killraven franchise. 

Don McGregor's plot opens with one of Killraven's ESP hallucinations (which I have excerpted below), before shifting to a veiled introduction of our hero's brother 'Deathraven', followed by  confusing segments involving inter-generational Martian angst; a Martian 'hatchery'; and conflict between Killraven and his follower Carmilla Frost.

As always, the art - layouts by Craig Russell and art by Sonny Trinidad - is very good, but in this issue in particular it's overwhelmed with McGregor's overwrought script. 

In order to accommodate McGregor's plot machinations within the confines of just 17 comic pages, the artists are forced to use too many small panels too crowded with narrative text and speech balloons. It has an overall effect of making the book a chore to read and understand. 

Book Review: 'The Ice People' by Rene Barjavel

3 / 5 Stars

In the Summer of 1974 I joined the Science Fiction Book Club and one of my initial selections was ‘The Ice People’ by French author Rene Barjavel. The novel , originally published in France in 1968 as La Nuit des Temps (‘Night Time’), is also available in paperback, but paperback copies in decent condition are quite pricey, so I instead got the hardbound SF Book Club version to re-read.

At the time I first read it, ‘Ice People’ seemed a decent enough tale, although the blurb on the book’s back jacket is a forewarning that this is very much a French novel : 

Barjavel knows how to tell a story. He also knows how to write about adventures so as to make young people dream, and to touch the hearts of women in the way he writes of love 

–Elle magazine 

The book is set in the near future (i.e., the late 70s or early 1980s), when a team of French scientists, exploring their patch of the Antarctic, come across an electrical signal coming up from the depths of the ice. An international force of scientists and engineers from multiple nations assembles at the ‘Square 612’ site to erect dwelling places, and to support a massive effort to drill through hundreds of feet of ice and discover the source of the signal. 

As the excavation progresses the team is astonished to finds the petrified remains of a vast, modern city that existed some 900,000 years ago. And when they reach the source of the electrical signal the team is even more astounded, for within a sophisticated chamber, frozen in stasis using technology considerably in advance of our own, are the bodies of a beautiful woman, and a man bearing scars indicative of exposure to some strange weapon.

Efforts are soon made to thaw the woman and discover the story behind the ruins of the lost civilization under the ice. But the political alliance among the nations contributing to the excavation team is a fragile one, and when the world realizes the nature of the amazing devices found beside the sleeping pair, the safety of the entire Antarctic expedition cannot be assured….

‘The Ice People’ doesn’t shy away from being a romance novel with SF overtones, but author Barjavel keeps the plot moving along a good clip, and there is a surprising amount of violence, as well as a suspenseful chase sequence, to make this a decent adventure story.

The social ‘message’ communicated in the novel’s later pages may seem preachy and naive to contemporary audiences. But at the time of the book’s publication, with the May 1968 revolutionary movement roiling France, such sentiments were very ‘hip’ and reflective of the approving stance many intellectuals displayed towards the youth behind the ferment then sweeping Western societies. 

While it can at times be a bit cloying, ‘The Ice People’ remains a good example of late 60s SF.

Starstream: Adventures in Science Fiction Issue One

'Starstream: Adventures in Science Fiction' Issue One (1976)

'Starstream' was a color comic book priced at 79 cents and published by Whitman / Western Publishing Company; four issues (all devoid of the Gold Key insignia) appeared in 1976 before the title vanished into obscurity. 

Issue one featured a painted cover by Richard Powers, so Western was perhaps trying to produce a book with better production values than the norm from DC and Marvel.

The books featured adaptations of stories by well-known SF authors. In the main these are decent enough stories, if not particularly adventurous in writing and style. Even though all four issues of 'Starstream'  lacked a Comics Code Authority stamp, like the Gold Key comics line they were clearly marketed for a young adult / juvenile audience.

Excerpted here from one of the issues (they had no date or month indicator on the cover, and a minimal indica) is a story adapted from  'The Music of Minox', a story by Howard Goldsmith from the anthology 'More Science Fiction Tales' (1974) by Roger Elwood.

 

'Salammbo' by Phillippe Druillet

(conclusion)

from the March 1981 issue of Heavy Metal

Book Review: Vector

Book Review: 'Vector' by Henry Sutton

2 / 5 Stars

‘Henry Sutton’ was a pseudonym used by the American poet and playwright David Slavitt (b. 1935) when he was writing ‘popular literature’ for the paperback market during the 60s and 70s. ‘Vector’ was published in 1970 (Dell, 320 pp.); the artist who provided the striking cover design is uncredited.

‘Vector’ takes for inspiration a March 1968 incident involving Dugway Proving Ground, an Army test facility located in a remote region of Utah. It seems that in the course of conducting an open-air release of the nerve gas VX that involved spraying the agent from a jet plane, the Army screwed up and exposed Skull Valley, 30 miles away, to the gas. As many as six thousand sheep in Skull Valley were killed or permanently injured by inhaling VX. 

The Army initially tried to blame the sheep casualties on pesticide spraying, a half-witted excuse that fooled no one. The Army wound up paying compensation to the ranchers. As a consequence of the sheep kill, in 1969 President Nixon banned open-air testing of CBW agents.

(The 1972 film Rage, starring George C. Scott, also is based on the Dugway incident ).

With this novel, Sutton adopts the documentary style used by Michael Crichton in ‘The Andromeda Strain’, to relate a tale in which a virus, rather than a nerve gas, is accidentally released by a test plane. The virus drifts onto the small, dilapidated town of Tarsus, Utah. Soon a number of townspeople are ill with fever and a physician at Dugway, Captain Norman Lewine, makes a visit to Tarsus. What he sees raises deep misgivings within the good doctor, and thus a few hours later an Army intervention team descends on the stricken town.

But even as medical care is provided to the sick and dying, generals and administrators in Washington, DC are meeting to determine how to respond to the incident. Will the government tell the truth about the Tarsus disaster ? Or will it try to cover it up ? And if a coverup is put in place, what will happen to any survivors ? For the Intelligence Agency directors in DC care more about the preserving their elite weapons testing programs than they do about 70 people in some squalid little Western town…..

 ‘Vector’ starts off promisingly, with author Sutton ably mimicking Crichton’s approach of relating events in a low-key, dry manner that emphasizes the immoral, clinical detachment of the higher-level admins surveying the accident’s consequences. The first 100 pages are engaging and hold the reader’s interest. 

Unfortunately, once the book hits its midway point the narrative starts to drag, and the novel suffers from being about 100 pages too long. I won’t disclose any spoilers, but I think most readers will see the denouement coming well in advance.

‘Vector’ is an interesting effort, but in my mind it can’t join ranks with ‘The Andromeda Strain’ as a must-have example of the late 60s – early 70s bio-catastrophe thriller.

Arthur Suydam's 'Mudwogs'

from 'Echo of Futurepast' issue 3

With the giant defeated, our hero now contemplates his pending Fatherhood.....

 

'Heavy Metal' magazine March 1981

 The March 1981 issue of 'heavy Metal' features a cover by Matti Klarwein titled 'God Jokes', and a back cover by Jeronaton, one of his 'Champakou' -themed illustrations, titled 'I See Spots'.

Inside, there are continuing installments of Corben's 'Bloodstar', 'What Is Reality' by Ribera and Godard, 'Salammbo' by Druillet, 'Ambassador of the Shadows' by Christin and Mezieres; and some one-shot pieces:  'Milady 3000' by Magnus, 'Tex Arcana' by Findley, and 'Edward in Love' by Dominique He, which I excerpt below.

As always, outstanding pen-and-ink draughtsmanship by He.