Book Review: Voyages: Scenarios for A Ship Called Earth

Book Review: 'Voyages: Scenarios for a Ship Called Earth' edited by Rob Sauer

3 / 5 Stars

‘Zero Population Growth’ was a population control advocacy group founded in 1968 by entomologist Paul Ehrlich (author of the best-selling The Population Bomb), Charles Remington, and Richard Bowers. It quickly became a very ‘in’ thing among academic and intellectual circles to join ZPG, and to participate in rallies, teach-ins, and lobbying campaigns that urged the citizenry to ‘just have two’ (children). 

Eventually the movement gained sufficient traction in the popular culture to lend its title to a feature film, 1972’s ZPG, starring Oliver Reed. Even leftist folkie Pete Seeger- always ready to capitalize on the Issue of the Moment- turned out a bit of doggerel titled ‘We’ll All Be A-Doubling’ (!) as the theme song for ZPG.

Alas, like many other groovy 70s phenomena, ZPG lost momentum as the decade wore on. As exemplified by Allan Chase’s massive 1980 book The Legacy of Malthus, attacks against the Population Bombers for being racists and elitists gathered strength, and the movement lost influence and prestige. Nowadays ZPG operates as ‘Population Connection’; still a reasonably effective lobbying group, but with a profile decidedly less prominent than in those heady days of the early 70s.

‘Voyages: Scenarios for a Ship Called Earth’ is an anthology of Eco-catastrophe stories assembled by ZPG staffer Rob Sauer and published by Ballantine books in 1971. Paul and Anne Ehrlich were SF fans, and they provide an introduction stating that genre tales about overpopulation can be valuable tools for demonstrating what could happen if measures are not taken to implement population control. The ‘ship’ metaphor is of course derived from the potent ‘Spaceship Earth’ iconography of the Apollo moon missions.

The book has five Parts, with several stories in each Part, along with framing commentary by the editor. A Bibliography of stories and novels for further reading appends each story, and there is a listing of nonfiction ecology and overpopulation books provided at the book’s end.

Since there simply weren’t enough SF Eco-catastrophe tales available at the time, Sauer had to incorporate some non-SF stories in order to provide the anthology with sufficient material. These include stories by Doris Lessing, Moshe Shamir, and Emilio Belaval. The latter author’s ‘The Purple Child’ is a particularly grim, but effective, account of poverty and childbearing in rural Central America.

Some of the SF entries are old standbys, such as J. G. Ballard’s ‘Billenium’ and C. M. Kornbluth’s ‘Shark Ship’. Other stories represent products of the ‘speculative fiction’ movement fashionable in SF circles from the late sixties to the late seventies. Unfortunately, Pamela Zoline’s ‘The Heat Death of the Universe’, ‘The Other’ by Katherine MacLean, and Norman Spinrad’s ‘The Big Flash’ haven’t aged all that well, and come across as trying too hard to be Arty and Profound.

Other entries that possess even less kinship with mainstream SF are ‘Food Farm’ and ‘Golden Acres’ by Kit Reed, and ‘Consumer’s Report’ by Theodore Cogswell. These stories are more in the vein of social satire than efforts to depict an overpopulated, future earth.

‘Population Control, 1986’, by Horacio Paredes, is an interesting entry; first appearing in Atlas magazine in 1970, it’s a rare tale about the Population Bomb by a ‘third world’ writer (Paredes is a Filipino author). ‘Population Control’ is a brief but competent tale of drastic measures taken to curtail population growth in India and the Philippines.

Alice Glaser’s ‘The Tunnel Ahead’ is a dystopian vision of the US in 2100 AD with a population of 1 billion. The cherished Retro-SF fantasy of an 8 – lane superhighway with auto-controlled, teardrop-shaped cars speeding into and out of a Mongo cityscape (a la ‘The Gernsback Continuum’) is given a cruel twist.

‘Student Body’ by F. L. Wallace is genre SF set on the earth-like planet Glade; it’s one of the more clever attempts by an author to design a rational tale around an alien ecology.

Other entries include several short-short stories by Frederic Brown and Wayland Young and some unremarkable tales by Roger Zelazny and Ray Bradbury.

All in all, ‘Voyages’ is of interest less for its qualities as an SF anthology, and more as a example of how fiction writers in the early 70’s were addressing the prominent social and environmental issues of the forthcoming decade. It’s also a glimpse into the Zero Population Growth movement at the height of its influence. Anyone curious about the literature spurring the advent of Earth Day, and the environmental awareness movement, may want to give ‘Voyages’ a look.

Population: The New Pollution' tee shirt

'Population: The New Pollution' tee shirt !

Available from zazzle.

The perfect wardrobe choice for those times when you're feeling nostalgic for those exciting ZPG days of the early 70's.

Also great for wearing to Indian weddings, your local Quiverfull group's Bible study session, or a Natural Family Planning teach - in !

Rebel by Pepe Moreno

'REBEL' by Pepe Moreno (graphic novel)

‘Rebel’ (1986; 70 pp) is a graphic novel by the Spanish artist Pepe Moreno. According to his Wiki entry, Moreno produced a number of well-received graphic novels and comics, including 1990’s ‘Batman: Digital Justice’.

‘Rebel’ takes place in 2002, after a global calamity has reduced New York City to a lawless wasteland inhabited by various ethnic street gangs who war with one another over the dwindling supplies scattered about the abandoned stores and tenements. The surviving city government has retreated to ‘Cosmo City’, a high-tech, quasi-fascist enclave run by the ruthless Kane, with the assistance of his sadistic henchman, Kessler. The Cosmo City crew periodically intervenes in the gang wars for its own purposes, usually by loosing the well-armed Sanitation Police to enforce the ‘New York City Social Hygiene Act’.

Rebel, the hero of the story, naturally enough leads the Rebels, a Brooklyn-based gang. When a Rebel raiding party sparks a violent battle with the Black Knights gang, it draws the attention of Kane and the Cosmo City overlords. It appears Rebel has something of a past with these overseers, and plans are immediately set in motion to wipe out Rebel... and all of his Rebels.

‘Rebel’ is a great read, and a great example of 80s sci-fi culture. The setting and story owe much to the 1979 box office smash ‘The Warriors’, and John Carpenter’s very influential 1981 film ‘Escape From New York’. Rebel is modeled on the punk singer and star Billy Idol, and the Skinheads gang that proves to be Rebel’s major adversary have definitive 80’s punk / new wave style in dress and appearance.

Moreno’s art is very good, relying on a wide palette of colors without coming across as too ‘cartoony’. 

I’ve uploaded some scans of a few pages.

‘Rebel’ is well worth searching out at used book stores or online.

Book Review: Nerves

Book Review: 'Nerves' by Lester del Rey
(Remembering Three Mile Island: 30 years later)1 / 5 Stars

‘Nerves’ (1956, 153 pp.), a novel about an accident at a nuclear power plant, was expanded from a story Lester del Rey published in 1942. This paperback edition appeared in 1970 and features an arresting cover illustration by Dean Ellis.

The story takes place in the late 20th century in the medical clinic of the National Atomics Products plant in Kimberly, Missouri. There, the senior physician, Roger Ferrell, and his younger assistant, Jenkins, deal with the occasional case of radiation exposure and trauma suffered by the plant’s ‘Atomjacks’. Things are not looking up for the atomic products industry; a serious accident at a Croton, New York plant has turned public opinion against locating the plants close to inhabited areas.

In an effort to curry favor with an influential politician, Palmer, the plant’s manager, orders intensive production of something called ‘Isotope 713’ which is used to kill boll weevils (!) infesting Representative Morgan’s home district, a Southern cotton-growing state. Unfortunately the stepped-up production of the isotope results in the untoward generation of something called ‘Isotope R’. This isotope is highly reactive, and an explosion partially destroys one of the plant’s ‘converters’ (i.e., reactors). Soon what remains of the building is afire, magma is dribbling out onto the grounds of the plant, and clouds of Isotope R are seeping out from the interior of the reactor and dissolving whatever structure remains. But that’s not the worst of it; Isotope R is capable of decaying into a third isotope, termed 'Mahler’s Isotope', of which the detonation of a thimbleful will level the entire state of Missouri.

‘Nerves’ is an awful book. It’s clear that del Rey gave a lackadaisical effort when he expanded the original short story to cash in on the hardbound SF novel market that was rising by the mid-50s. The writing is riddled with poor grammar and even poorer syntax. The dialogue is clumsy and filled with cringe-inducing mannerisms; speakers say things ‘jerkily’, turn their heads ‘jerkily’, and end their remarks with the construction “…. ,even.”

By the mid-50s, even a modicum of effort on del Rey’s part would have allowed him to provide an updated scientific underpinning for the operation of a nuclear power plant, and a rationale for an accident of catastrophic proportions. However, he seemed content to recycle the lame sci-fi concepts (‘Isotope R’, ‘Mahler’s Isotope’, etc.) he used in the 1942 story.

Sometimes an engaging plot can rescue a novel from poor writing, but that’s simply not the case with ‘Nerves’. Most of the narrative centers on the doctor’s efforts to tend to patients with ‘radioactive’ lodged in their tissues; too much 'radioactive', and the afflicted lapse into spastic fits that require ‘neo-heroin’ and curare treatments (!). The happenings at the doomed reactor, while central to the story, are poorly communicated, and the book loses any momentum it has gained when del Rey focuses the narrative on the antics of Doc Ferrell and company.

In summary, even when making allowances for the fact that much of mid-50's SF writing was still en route to acquiring the stylistic skill taken for granted in 'conventional' prose, ‘Nerves’ is a poor example of a novel. I can only recommend it to those wishing to complete their collection of Lester del Rey publications.

Book Review: In the Drift

Book Review: 'In the Drift' by Michael Swanwick
(Remembering Three Mile Island: 30 years later)

4 / 5 Stars

'In the Drift' (195 pp.) was published by Ace Books in February 1985 under its 'Science Fiction Specials' imprint. The cover art is by Ron Lieberman. Subsequent printings were made by Ace Books in 1987, and in the UK, in 1989 by Legend.

'Drift' is a fixup of several stories that Swanwick first published in the early 1980s in genre magazines such as Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and anthologies such as Universe 11.

'Drift' posits a scenario in which the reactor at Three Mile Island experienced a catastrophic meltdown in March 1979. The novel is set in Pennsylvania, circa 2079, and the central and southern portions of the state are thinly populated wastelands contaminated by fallout (the ‘Drift’ of the title). The United States government has collapsed, leaving various regional governments and satrapies in its place. 

Philadelphia is the nearest metropolis to the Drift; it’s governed by the Mummers, a neighborhood organization that in the pre-meltdown days staged New Year's Day parades, and served as something of a clandestine force in city politics. The main protagonist of the novel is Keith Piotrowicz (pr. 'pet-ro-vich'), a somewhat aimless young man who works as a truck driver, toting garbage and toxic waste from Philly out to dumping grounds in the Drift.

The initial chapter, 'Mummer's Kiss', sees Keith learning perhaps too much about the nature of the Drift than is wise; there is an emphasis on action and intrigue that makes this the best chapter in the book. 

The remaining chapters focus on characters such as Sam, a 'vampire' girl whose mutated intestines cannot digest any food other than blood; Vicky, a girl whose family resides in the margins of the Drift; Esterhazy, a dwarf scientist researching the means of survival in the fallout zone; and Patrick Cruz O'Brien, a naive reporter from Boston who decides to chronicle the increasing tension between the population of the Drift, and those in power who desire to exploit the territory for the benefit of influential political and economic interests. 

These characters and their sub-plots culminate in events that will dictate the future of what is left of the Drift, and by extension, the United States..........

While Swanwick was publishing and garnering critical praise at the same time as the flowering of the Cyberpunks in the mid - 80s, and is often included among their ranks, his writing is much less wordy than that of Gibson, Shirley, Shepard, or even Sterling. However, in my opinion, Swanwick is just as adept as those authors at conveying atmosphere and setting, despite his comparatively restrained exposition. 

'In the Drift' is one of the best SF novels to emerge from the 80s (and, by extension, the Cyberpunk movement). Every time I cross the I-83 bridge into Harrisburg and I look south at the Susquehanna River, towards Middleton, and I see the far-off silhouette of the cooling towers at TMI, the strange, alternate future Pennsylvania of the 'Drift' readily comes to mind.....

Remembering Three Mile Island: 30 Years Later
March 28, 1979 - March 28, 2009

It’s the 30-year anniversary of the nation’s worst nuclear disaster: the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear reactor unit 2 at Middletown, PA on Wednesday March 28, 1979.

I was 18 at the time, and attending college and working at a local grocery store part-time. I remember hearing about ‘problems’ at the reactor, but TMI was located way far away near Harrisburg, a good three hour-drive south from New York’s Southern Tier. So I didn’t feel particularly alarmed. The news announcements tended to reiterate a reassuring message from the plant operators (and by extension the nuclear power industry): the reactor is safely contained, no radiation had been released, no need to panic, etc., etc. Of course, playing in the theatres at that time was ‘The China Syndrome’ with Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas, in which a fictional California reactor undergoes a near-meltdown, an event which is covered up by the mendacious plant operators. So public awareness of potential nuclear disasters had been heightened.

Over the next few days it became clear that there had indeed been a major accident at the plant, and a significant amount of radiation had been discharged into the atmosphere. It was also clear that the plant operators had underestimated the severity of the damage to the reactor core, and things had come frighteningly close to a genuine disaster. Realization that a partial (i.e., 50 %) meltdown had taken place was not attained until 1982 when a remotely manipulated video camera was used to examine the reactor core.

With the advent of the thirty-year anniversary of the TMI accident, here at the PorPor Books Blog we'll take a look over the course of next month at several SF / thriller novels that deal with nuclear accidents, as well as some nonfiction accounts about rad exposure and its (gruesome) consequences.

Grab your Geiger-counters, your potassium iodide, your Neupogen, and your rad suit. It's time to step into the Zone of Contamination ......

Unchecked Fecundity

Unchecked Fecundity: the 'Quiverfull' Movement !

An interesting article at the March 17, 2009 Newsweek site about the bizarre 'Quiverfull' movement among some fundamentalist Christians. Basically, the idea is to abstain from any form of birth control and just crank out the kids - or, in Quiverfull lingo, 'blessings'. The Duggars of TLC's '18 and Counting' reality series are the best-known proponents. Obviously, a philosophy in conflict with that of the neo-Malthusians and Population Bombers !

illustration from Dorie Clark 's Portland Phoenix article