Book Review: 'Ancient, My Enemy' by Gordon R. Dickson

 

2 / 5 Stars

‘Ancient, My Enemy’ was first published in hardback by Doubleday in 1974. This DAW paperback (No. 190, 206 pp.) was released in April 1976 and features a cover illustration by Eddie Jones. DAW released another paperback printing in July of 1980, this time with a striking, orange-tinted cover by Greg Theakston.

All of the stories in ‘Ancient’ were first printed in the 50s and 60s in various sf magazines and digests.

My brief summaries of the contents:

Ancient, My Enemy: on a desert planet, Terran prospectors confront hostile natives. The story struggles a bit in trying to say something profound about humanitys' inherent prediliction towards violence.

The Odd Ones: two aliens look on and philosophize, as a Terran couple struggle to survive their first year on a colony planet.

The Monkey Wrench: a variant on the sf cliché of the powerful, all-knowing computer reduced to imbecility when asked to solve a paradox.

Tiger Green: the crew of a spaceship must solve the riddle of an alien ecology before they all succumb to a fatal madness.

The Friendly Man: a man who travels 50,000 years into the future finds his reception to be a bit too comfortable.

Love Me True: a crewman is lost without the cuddly alien he illegally brought back from a starship voyage.

Our First Death: on a bleak planet, members of a colony confront their internal divisions.

In the Bone: bereft of weapons, a lone earthman must find a way to defeat a seemingly invincible alien. The best story in the collection.

The Bleak and Barren Land: labored tale of a Federation agent mediating conflict between the natives of a planet and Terran colonists.

On the whole, ‘Ancient’ is very unremarkable, serving as an example of the type of short fiction that dominated sf publishing in the years prior to the New Wave movement.

Dickson’s writing is not particularly accomplished, suffering from the adverb-centered syntax that regularly plagued the prose of the pulp era. You will find characters who regularly roar with laughter, smile mockingly, laugh barkingly, say things croakingly, say things flatly, say things thickly, etc., etc.

The setting and plotting of these stories are bland and derivative, sticking to tried and true sf tropes.

To be fair to Dickson, the magazine and digest editors of the 50s and 60s tended to want a particularly style of material in their story submissions, and for writers who earned their living selling to these outlets, taking the salable route was more financially prudent that attempting to upset the publishing apple cart with highly novel or imaginative submissions.

I can only really recommend ‘Ancient, My Enemy’ to hard-core Dickson fans.

Primabell by Juan Jimenez

'Primabell' by Juan Jimenez

from the Fall 1986 issue of Heavy Metal

'The Bus' by Paul Kirchner

Book Review:  'A Feast Unknown' by Philip Jose Farmer

 

1980, Playboy Press, illustration by Jordi Penalva

1969, Essex House

1975, Quartet Books (UK), illustration by Patrick Woodroffe

excerpt from Mythopoeikon, 1976

1975 (hardcover, limited edition) Fokker D-LXIX Press,illustration by Richard Corben

1988, Grafton (UK), illustration by Peter Elson

5 / 5 Stars

In the late 60s, Essex House, a L.A.-based, small-press publisher of highbrow ‘erotica’ (i.e., porn) paperbacks, agreed to publish several novels written for its imprint by the well-known sf writer Philip Jose Farmer.

Before Essex House went out of business, it released Farmer’s ‘Image of the Beast’ in 1968, and its sequel ‘Blown’, and ‘A Feast Unknown’, in 1969.

[The concept behind Essex House books may seem quaint by today’s standards, but remember that back in 1969, there was no world wide web, and 'sleaze' fiction was an integral part of the porn landscape. ]

Essex House paperbacks sell nowadays for large sums of money (i.e., > $50) for copies in very good condition.

In the early 80s, Playboy Press obtained the reprint rights to Farmer’s Essex House titles, and issued ‘A Feast Unknown’ in January 1980, and a combined edition of ‘Image of the Beast’ and ‘Blown’ in June 1981. All are mass-market paperbacks.

‘A Feast Unknown’ (288 pp.) features a cover illustration by Jordi Penalva.

The novel can best be described as a sort of ultimate (if extremely warped) homage to Doc Savage and Tarzan, by their greatest Fanboy, Philip Jose Farmer. Think of a piece of slash lit / fanfic, albeit one published in 1969 (back before those terms even existed) and you have some idea of the attitude Farmer brought to this book.

‘Feast’ is a first-person narrative by ‘Lord Grandrith’ (Tarzan), and is set in Africa in the late 60s. Within the first few pages, there are acts of explicit mayhem and depravity committed by Grandrith, just the start of a steady stream of such episodes that last until the very end of the book.

The plot revolves around Grandrith’s quest to re-contact a secret cabal of otherworldly beings, the Nine, who have endowed a certain number of Earth’s inhabitants with a cessation of aging, the ability to heal rapidly from grievous wounds, and superhuman physical and mental capabilities.

However, as Grandrith makes his way to the meeting place, where he will again be questioned by the Nine, and again drink the elixir that maintains his youthfulness, he is aware that the price demanded by the Nine is exquisitely….. painful.

En route, Grandrith encounters homicidal Kenyan rebels, Balkan mercenaries, and not least, Doc Savage, here referred to as ‘Doc Caliban’. It turns out Caliban is not only Grandrith’s half-brother, but he also is one of those endowed by the Nine, and he also journeys to the rendezvous site for a shot of elixir.

But Caliban believes that Grandith has tortured and killed his cousin, Patricia Savage, and thus, the two greatest supermen of modern pulp / pop literature are destined to have a brutally violent showdown.

Hand-to-hand, with no Marquis of Queensbury Rules……..

‘A Feast Unknown’ is one of Farmer’s better novels, a consistently engaging read from its first to its last page. Thematically, it deals with the issue of how supermen might ‘really’ behave, when given the liberty to pursue their own desires without being under the moral restraints of Judeo-Christian ethics.

‘Feast’ does contain plenty of XXX material, and it’s not for the squeamish. However, its myriad atrocities and perversions are related in a deadpan, even droll manner, which gives ‘Feast’ more the character of a dark comedy than a work of pornography. More than once, I laughed out loud while reading some of the more outrageous events taking place in ‘Feast’.

Perhaps because he had so much fun with ‘Feast’, in 1970 Farmer reunited the characters in the Ace Double ‘The Lord of the Trees’ and ‘The Mad Goblin’. The volume was ‘coincidentally’ re-released by Ace in 1980.

Perhaps realizing that he had gone as far into Excess as he could have in ‘Feast’, Farmer wrote ‘Trees’ and ‘Goblin’ as G-rated novelettes. 

Accordingly, while competent in their own way, both works seem bland and unremarkable compared to ‘Feast’.

'Survival' by Pepe Moreno

from the August 1982 issue of Epic Illustrated

Book Review: 'Second Game' by Charles V. De Vet and Katherine MacLean

4 / 5 Stars

‘Second Game’ has a rather complex history. It was first published in Astounding in March 1958 as a short story of the same title. Then an expanded version was released in 1962 as ‘Cosmic Checkmate’, part of Ace Double F-149.

The novel was expanded again for this May, 1981 DAW Books publication (No. 435, 158 pp., cover art by Michael Mariano).

De Vet wrote a sequel, ‘Third Game’, which appeared as a novelette in the February 1991 issue of Analog Science Fiction / Science Fact.

The novel opens with the phrase: I’ll beat you the second game.

Drafted into duty as a Federation spy, Terran Leonard Stromberg undergoes plastic surgery, and travels to the planet Veldq, where he passes as a member of the humanoid race living on that world.

Stromberg’s mission is to discover why the Veldqans refuse contact with the Federation – and why the Veldqans destroyed an entire Federation diplomatic fleet that sought to ignore that proscription. The ease with which the Veldqans destroyed the fleet is disturbing to the Federation, which expected little opposition against its haughty imposition on Veldq.

A master chess player, Stromberg has studied the Veldqan counterpart to chess, a game called (simply) the Game. As part of his disguise on Veldq, Stromberg assumes a persona as a skilled player of the Game, part of his strategy to learn as much as he can about Veldqan culture and military capabilities, withour arousing suspicion.

Stromberg sets up his board at a Veldqan fair and issues a challenge to any and all players: he’ll beat them the second game.

I won’t disclose any spoilers, save to reveal that as Stromberg’s quest progresses, he becomes increasingly vulnerable to discovery and arrest by the Veldqans. But if Stromberg is to save the Federation from defeat, he’ll need to risk life and limb, because the Veldqans are marshaling for an invasion of the Federation….an invasion they will surely win.

Unless Leonard Stromberg can find a way to win the Second Game……

I first read the 1962 novelette version of ‘Second Game’, and in my opinion, it’s the best version.

This DAW expansion, while engaging, shows too many signs of padding, and the crisp, concise character of the original narrative is lost on the wayside.

Sections dealing with an inter-racial Love Jones (featuring an insatiable alien BBW - ! ), in particular, comes across as contrived - even cheesy.

However, those readers for whom this DAW volume is their first exposure to ‘Second Game’, may find less fault with this expanded text than I did.

Either way, novelette or DAW novel, ‘Second Game’ continues to be one of the best sf pieces from the late 50s / early 60s. There is little in the way of traditional action; no blasters are fired at our hero, and any space battles that take place are something of a sideline among the overall narrative.

However, ‘Second Game’ succeeds in making the chess matches of the Game, and the parallel political maneuverings between Stromberg and the Veldqans, interesting all the way till the final sentence.

SF fans will want this volume in their collections.

'Hungry Chuck Biscuits' by Daniel Clowes

from Teenage Horizons of Shangri-La No. 2, November, 1972

'Hungry Chuck Biscuits', a character created by the artist Daniel Clowes, appeared in a number of underground comix in the early 70s.

This episode, from the second issue of the comix Teenage Horizons of Shangri-La, follows our hero as he tries to rid himself of intestinal worms - using Bosco chocolate syrup (?!). The original slideshow is available here.

Uniquely demented humor.....even Heavy Metal never ran anything quite like this - !

 

 

'New Ark City' by Caza

from the August, 1979 issue of Heavy Metal

It's August, 1979, and amidst the never-ending, annoying rotation of 'My Sharona' on the FM radio stations, there are some good songs getting precious airplay, including Ian Gomm's 'Hold On'.

Anyone picking up the August issue of Heavy Metal magazine will find that one of the best pieces in the issue is, not surprisingly, by Caza. 

'New Ark City' is a clever retelling of the Noah and the Ark story, set in the summer swelter of the Big Apple.....

Harry Harrison dies
March 12, 1925 - August 15, 2012

Born Henry Maxwell Dempsey in Stanford, CT, Harry Harrison was a major sf writer for nearly 5 decades, from the 1960s on till the 2000s. 

His books were a major part of my reading during that time, starting with The Stainless Steel Rat series and the Deathworld series of the 60s and 70s; the Eden series of the 1980s; The Hammer and the Cross series of the 1990s, and the Stars and Stripes Forever series of the 2000s.

And a bunch of singleton novels, stories, and Harrison-edited anthologies all along the way.

Even during the height of the New Wave movement, Harrison never adopted the stylized prose styles then much in vogue, preferring to stick to comparatively straightforward narratives. His writing was deceptively simple at first glance, but as one continued to read a given Harrison novel or short story, it gradually became qite clear that he knew how to plot, and how to keep a story rolling along.

Harrison was a prolific author, and not every one of his novels or stories were gems. But plenty of them were, more than enough to justify him as one of the best sf authors of his time.

Book Review: The Unreal People

Book Review: 'The Unreal People' by Martin Siegel

1 / 5 Stars

‘The Unreal People’ (158 pp) was published by Lancer Books in 1973; the cover art is by Ron Walotsky.
 
Lancer was a major 'budget' publisher of paperback sf and fantasy titles in the late 60s and early 70s. Much of what they printed was mediocre. Some titles were downright awful, but once in a while there were also those rare titles that were above-average.

Unfortunately, ‘The Unreal People’ is in the ‘awful’ category. I gave up on it halfway through my reading.

The novel is set in the future, in the aftermath of World War Three. Humanity has since retreated from the devastated surface to live in a crowded underground city. The populace is kept compliant, and moderately free of depression, via a regimen of psychotropic drugs issued by the ruling cabal. 

The lower depths of the city are occupied by half-starved, mutant, homicidal scavengers, and a police force serves to keep them from penetrating to the more affluent sectors of the city.

The main character is a policeman named Conrad, second in command of the ‘Narko Skwad’. As the novel opens, the populace of the city is growing increasingly restive, a state partially induced by the rumors of people who have escaped the city, to live lives of fulfillment and ease on the now-reborn surface of the Earth. The rioters want permission to emigrate to the surface, something the ruling oligarchy is loath to allow.

Conrad and the Skwad brutally subdue the rioters, an action that deepens Conrad' s misgivings of the ruling oligarchy. He decides to flee to the surface. But his escape is complicated by the knowledge that friends of his, deemed subversives by the oligarchy, are going to be assassinated. Can Conrad rescue his friends, and escape with them to the surface, before the government realizes he has switched sides ?

The writing in ‘Unreal People’ is bad, even by the relaxed standards of New Wave sf of the early 70s. 

Author Siegel regularly uses a mangled, stream-of-consciousness effect to bring us deep into the psyche of selected characters. Here’s a sample passage of the wordy, empty prose that occupies much of the book:

You don’t, can’t, interfere in the jungle unless you want to live there, he told himself. And that’s flat. No more. He wished it didn’t feel it was an escape of his reality. And then – why the hell not escape ? That’s what the kid’s like, right ? He didn’t know. Satin wanted out and got out. Maybe the kid….not the point, a voice said. Hearing voices today. No point in getting into this. That’s the point. Unless you want to enter it, stay out of the jungle. And I’m leaving.

As a regular reader of New Wave sf, I have acquired a great tolerance for the prose styles employed by that Movement and its imitators, but I could only take so much of ‘The Unreal People’ before bailing out. This one is best avoided !