Book Review: 'Protostars' edited by David Gerrold

2 / 5 Stars

‘Protostars’ (271 pp.) was published by Ballantine in 1971; the cover artwork is by Gene Szafran.

David Gerrold came on the SF scene in the early 70s and since that time has enjoyed considerable success as a writer and editor of both his own work, and work for licensed properties. [His 1973 book ‘The World of Star Trek’ was really the first 'Bible' for Trekkies.] 

‘Protostars’ is unapologetic New Wave sci fi, and about as representative an example of the genre as any other anthology of the era. 

Each of the stories – which are new and never previously published -  gets a rather pretentious introduction by editor Gerrold, who imparts various anecdotes and bits of wisdom about Being A Writer.

My review of the contents:

‘What Makes A Cage, Jamie Knows’ by Scott Bradfield: a short-short by teenager Bradfield; calls to mind a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode.

‘I’ll Be Waiting for You When the Swimming Pool is Empty’ by James Tiptree: in his intro to this story, editor Gerrold remarks that he can’t find any information about the mysterious James Tiptree, who communicates solely through a P.O. Box in MacLean, Virginia. Not until 1977 would the SF world know that  ‘Tiptree’ was the pseudonym of Alice Bradley Sheldon. ‘Swimming Pool’ is a satirical tale of a well-meaning hippie who arrives on a backwater planet with the most earnest of intentions.

‘In A Sky of Daemons’ by Larry Yep: a textbook example of the stylistic excesses of so many New Wave authors: characters identified by all caps (‘SHIVA’), italicized passages denoting Inner Musings, awkward switches in the narrative POV from first to third person, philosophical conversations with a sardonic AI that rules the world, etc., etc.

‘The Last Ghost’ by Stephen Goldin: in a formless Void, the spiritual essence of a recently deceased woman encounters that of a man in the grip of Angst and Anomie. Goldin also contributes the short-short story ‘The World Where Wishes Worked’, a fable with a trick ending.

‘Afternoon With A Dead Bus’ by David Gerrold: nature red in tooth and claw on the streets of the city. 

‘Eyes of Onyx’ by Edward Bryant: one of the better entries in the collection, a downbeat reworking of a Bible story set in a bleak, near-future LA.

‘Cold, the Fire of the Phoenix’ by Leo P. Kelley: things could get really embarrassing when a ‘mainstream’ SF author decided to embrace the New Wave movement, and did so via a story or novel that slavishly incorporated every artifice the Movement epitomized. This story is a great example. It’s the worst in the anthology.

‘Oasis’ by Pamela Sargent: a man with a unique ability – or curse - strives for solitude in the Sinai desert. While the underlying theme is not all that original to SF, author Sargent handles it well, and this is another of the better entries in the anthology.

‘Holdholtzer’s Box’ by David R. Bunch: a fable about human self-discovery; unremarkable.

‘The Five-Dimensional Sugar Cube’ by Roger Deeley: with the help of metaphysics, Boy Meets Girl. Lightweight, but not unrewarding, due to the presence of a red-haired swingin’ 70s chick.

‘And Watch the Smog Roll In’ by Barry Weissman: dark satire of a near-future California in the grip of toxic pollution, and a bureaucracy gone amok (rather uncomfortably close to the current reality).

‘Chances Are’ by Alice Laurence: editor Gerrold gives this slight tale (about a woman in a coma) five pages of introductory discussion. In the New Wave era, self-important, bloviating intros were part and parcel of many anthologies…..

‘The Naked and the Unashamed’ by Robert E. Margroff: satirical tale of near-future campus protests;  very early 70s in tenor.

‘My Country, Right or Wrong’ by andrew j. offutt: (no typos, spelling one’s name in lowercase was a ‘hip’ affectation for New Wave authors). This is a competent tale of a time traveler who goes from 1978 to 2078, and doesn’t like what he sees.

‘Side Effect’ by Pg Wyal: in this story’s introduction editor Gerrold assures us that author Wyal is indeed a real person, ‘a quiet-voiced…thoughtful individual’ who works in the offices of ‘Crawdaddy’ magazine (a smarmy 70s rock music mag), and someone who doesn’t much like to rewrite his stories (not a good sign). Nonetheless, according to Gerrold, ‘Side Effect’ is one of the best pieces in ‘Protostars’. 

In ‘Side Effect’ author Wyal does what so many New Wave writers did so frequently and so successfully: he blatantly copies William Burroughs’s prose style, an action calculated to turn New Wave editors like Gerrold into helpless, servile putty in one's hands……..

Plustek OpticBook scanner

plustek OpticBook 3600 scanner

Pros:
-lets you scan books without stressing the spine, magazines and comics without popping the staples from the cover
-good image quality, scans at 300 dpi take about 10 seconds
-scan software allows for auto 180-degree re-orientation of image when scanning alternating pages


Cons:
-buggy software and hardware
-platen size of 9 x 11 1/2 inches; books with greater dimensions can't be accommodated
-skimpy on printed  manuals
-tested only on my PC running WinXP; performance with Vista or Windows 7 not evaluated

********

Over the past year I have been contemplating getting the plustek OpticBook scanner, which is currently selling for $239 (including shipping) at amazon.com (note that the merchant selling the scanners is J & R Music and Computer World). 

The reviews at amazon.com are mixed; some like the OpticBook, but some feel it's awful. With my 2010 tax return received, I thought I'd invest in one.

My Canon flatbed scanner provides good-quality images, but it's not designed for scanning the pages of books, and I don't want to break the spine of my books in order to get them scanned. Another problem comes with efforts to scan old copies of 'Heavy Metal' and comic books; too much flexing, and the covers can detach from the staples.

The plustek machine features an open-sided platen, so you can edge close enough to the book's binding to get the entire page captured, without necessarily stressing the binding. The scanner has a hinged cover that allows it to accommodate thick books.

I've been testing out the plustek for the past two months. It comes with a modest quantity of printed manuals and guides, and a software CD that installs three programs related to scanning and image analysis:

 

The software installed without any problems, but then I'm running WinXP; some users at amazon.com report problems with Vista and Windows 7.

After installing the software I did have to go into the 'Presto ! Page Manager' software and de-select my Canon scanner as the scanner / twain default source, and instead select the OpticBook as the default; if this is not done the scanner will not be recognized, even if it's plugged in to your USB port.

Scanning is relatively easy. You first select the 'Book' or 'Paper' buttons at the top corner of the scanner's button panel, then lay your book or document on the scanner, and then choose the larger buttons for either for 'color', 'grayscale', or 'text' scans:

A scan will be generated in a few seconds and displayed in a window using the 'book pilot' app, a simple, bare-bones desktop app. (There may be a delay if the scanner needs to warm up). If you are not satisfied with the image, you can select 'preview' and re-scan as needed.

Once you're happy with the scan size and image quality, you can then scan successive pages simply by placing your book on the platen and pressing the color / grayscale / text button on the scanner with each page.

A color scan, 300 dpi pass of a single page takes about 10 sec, a bit faster than on my Canon machine. You can have the imaging software save the succeeding scanned pages from a book into the same common file.

As you proceed with scanning and turn your book from right- to left- hand orientation on the surface of the platen, you can select to have these alternating page scans corrected for odd / even page orientation, so all scanned images in a file have the same orientation.

The following photos give an idea of the size of the OpticBook and what sizes of documents it can accommodate: 

The image quality from scans of pictures is pretty good and I really can't tell the scan image quality apart from the same image generated using my Canon flatbed scanner.

For text pages, depending on the format (color, grayscale, or text / pdf) used to make the scan, things also are reasonably good, as illustrated by these scans of a page from an old (1980) issue of 'Questar' magazine:

One thing I've noticed is that the hardware and software are buggy. Sometimes the bulb fails to light when you turn on the scanner, and I have to resort to re-plugging the power cord in the outlet and turning the device on/off/on again.

Sometimes lifting the scanner cover too high off the platen can cause the bulb to spontaneously go out, too...?! 

Closing the 'book pilot' software app, while leaving the scanner's bulb on, can sometimes make the scanner unresponsive when you decide to do some scans later on; more than once I've had to reboot my PC and the scanner to deal with this problem.

The Verdict ? 

Of course, I've only used the device for around 65 days, so after using it for another 6 months some major problems may come to light. But if you're looking for an affordable (i.e., under thousands of dollars) book scanner, the Optic Book is really your only real option (unless you want to make your own scanner). 

I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to someone who is contemplating scanning an entire book a day, but if you are looking for something that will provide good-quality scans of 10 pages here, 25 pages there, without destroying the binding of your books - particularly older books that are most vulnerable to damage - then it's not a bad option.

'Flight Back' by Pepe Moreno

from the April 1981 issue of Epic Illustrated

Interview with P. Craig Russell

(from the October 1982 issue of Epic Illustrated)

Craig Russell did much of the artwork for the later issues of the Amazing Adventures / War of the Worlds / Killraven series, as excerpted here at the PorPor Books Blog.

The interview is from the pages of the October 1982 issue of Marvel's 'Epic Illustrated', featuring an 'Elric' story illustrated by Russell. Russell provides some interesting observations on comic art, working with writers on titles for Marvel, and his forthcoming single-shot, 40-pp Killraven book (which Marvel released as a graphic novel in 1983).

Arthur Suydam's 'Mudwogs'

from 'Echo of Futurepast' issue 4

A bedtime story featuring an unpleasant incarnation of Humpty-Dumpty.

Suydam's artwork in this comic is outstanding, calling to (slightly warped) mind Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, or Maxfield Parrish. 

The double-page spread of pages 24 and 25 must have taken Suydam over a week of careful draftsmanship and coloring to complete. The detail (below) of the fat woman scooping egg into her mouth, including the bracelets on her wrist, the ruffles of the sleeves of her dress, and the vertical slats of the back of the chair she is sitting in, gives some idea of the careful penmanship at work here.

 

Two paintings by Robert Williams

" Bedroom eyes, Party Gags, and Graveyard Demeanor"

"Strong Mezcal with Incendiary Chaser"

From Visual Addiction: The Art of Robert Williams, Last Gasp, San Francisco, 1989

Book Review: 'Space Viking' by H. Beam Piper

 1 / 5 Stars

‘Space Viking’ (243 pp.) was originally published in 1962 as a serial in the digest magazine ‘Analog’; this Ace paperback apparently was released in January 1977, and features a cover illustration by Michael Whelan.

In the far future, the Federation has collapsed, and the human-colonized worlds each stand and survive on their own. Some have loosely organized themselves into ‘Sword Worlds’, which send forth armed ships manned by ‘Space Vikings’ to raid and plunder other planets.

On the Sword World of Gram, Lucas Trask, an affable young man, looks forward to marrying his fiancée and living a comfortable life as a mid-level aristocrat. However, Andray Dunnan, a deranged former suitor of his wife-to-be, the Lady Elaine, crashes the wedding ceremony. Dunnan kills Elaine and seriously wounds Trask before escaping off-planet in a commandeered raiding ship.

Recovered from his wounds, Lucas Trask has thoughts only for revenge. He joins with Admiral Harkaman, an experienced Space Viking, on a quest to find Dunnan wherever he is hiding in the vastness of explored space. If that quest requires the plundering and destruction of hapless planets, so be it, for Lucas Trask is a man on a mission of vengeance. 

However, Andray Dunnan is not one to sit and wait for doom to come upon him…..and inevitably the fleets of pursuer and pursued will clash in battle.

Even by the rather forgiving standards of early 1960s SF, ‘Viking’ is a pedestrian effort at a space opera. The novel’s pacing starts to slow after the opening chapters as author Piper increasingly uses the standard-issue 'revenge' trope to fuel his labored musings on political theory and the decline and fall of civilization. 

The novel’s dialogue has the rather juvenile character of SF writing at the time. Damaged ships are ‘….leaking air and water vapor like crazy’, and more than a few passages can politely be called Wooden:

“I know, Prince Trask; you have no reason to think kindly of King Angus – the former King Angus, or maybe even the late King Angus, I suppose he is now- but a bloody-handed murderer like Omfray of Glaspyth….” 

‘Space Viking’ is best left forgotten as one of a large number of formulaic stories and fix-ups published by Analog during the late 50s and early 60s. 

Don't be fooled by the snazzy Star-Wars era packaging Ace books used to market this obsolete clunker as a masterpiece of modern SF.