Conference noted::sf

1180.0. "Gunn/Jameson/Rocklynne" by VERGA::KLAES (Quo vadimus?) Thu Oct 21 1993 15:57

Article: 400
From: [email protected] (Dani Zweig)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: REPOST: Belated Reviews PS#12: Gunn/Jameson/Rocklynne: Fixup Novels
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: 13 Oct 93 21:57:54 GMT
 
   Belated Reviews PS#12: Misc.2: Gunn/Jameson/Rocklynne: Fixup Novels
 
I'm again taking the liberty of grouping a number of authors from
whose work I only intend to review one or two books.  This isn't to
imply that these authors didn't write anything else, or even that they
didn't write anything else worth reading.  (Well, okay, it does imply
that I wasn't sufficiently inspired to review any other novels these
authors may have written...) 
 
"The Immortals" (***), by James Gunn, is a fixup novel consisting of
linked short stories written in the late fifties.  It begins when a
blood transfusion cures a man who is dying of old age -- cures him of
his final illness and cures him of his age, as well.  The cure lasts a
month, after which he reverts to his original age.  By this time, word
has leaked out that, somewhere, there is a man whose blood can keep
you immortal -- if you tap it often enough.  A massive long-term
manhunt ensues.  (The manhunt, with the science-fictional elements
washed out, became the focus of the uninspired television show.) 
 
The succeeding stories are weaker than the first one.  Paralleling 
the hunt for the immortals, and partially catalyzed by it, is the
development over subsequent generations of a medical dystopia, in
which health -- and even immortality, through monthly transfusions
from a few immortals unlucky enough to have been caught -- are
available only to the few, at tremendous cost.  One of the quirks of
this book is that the almost-obligatory scene in which the ethics of
this high-tech vampirism are debated never appears.  The 'debate' is
carried out in successive stories, through the medium of personal
action and choice.  For all that the medical-dystopia/social-collapse
elements of the book weaken its initial focus, it remains an enjoyable
read.  Of Gunn's other books, I liked "The Magicians" (**+) well
enough, but thought the rest nothing special. 
 
"Bullard of the Space Patrol" (***), a fixup novel by Malcolm Jameson,
is a forerunner of what was to become a large number of Hornblowers in
space. (It was also one of my favorite books in the junior high
library, so there's a sentimental attachment.)  The stories are very
much early-golden-age gimmick-fiction.  Each has John Bullard, an
officer -- later captain -- of a space patrol rocket ship, coming up
with some clever plan or device for getting his ship out of trouble. 
(If the trouble is almost always the result of incompetence or
venality at higher levels, well, that's typical of the times.)   The
stories are also typical in their shallowness, in that there is no
effort at the sort of worldbuilding we expect today even in sloppy
stories:  The plot elements required to set up the problem, be they a
space war or space pirates or even a den of space iniquity, exist in a
vacuum.  (No pun intended.  In part, that vacuum would have been
filled by a context which the writer and readers shared and we do not,
as it is not unreasonable to read some of the stories as
wish-fulfillment fantasies for a country at war.)  For all their
weaknesses, I loved these stories back when, and can still appreciate
their appeal. 
 
My favorite of the Bullard stories -- also the last one, appearing in
the April 1944 issue of Astounding -- is "The Bureaucrat", in which
Bullard only has a small but important role.  The son of an old
shipmate approaches Bullard (now chief of the Patrol), asking to be
assigned to any ship but the one on which he's stuck.  (There's a war
going on, and a number of shirkers with connections have arranged for
that ship to be assigned to a useless but safe task.  1944, remember.)
Bullard tells him, formally, that he is unable to intervene directly
in such a matter.  He does, however, issue an inoccuous-looking
bureaucratic directive, and slowly a noose made of red tape begins to
tighten around the shirkers.  There were two hardcover editions of
"Bullard of the Space Patrol", and one of them is missing "The
Bureaucrat".  I don't believe there was a paperback edition. 
 
"The Sun Destroyers" (***), by Ross Rocklynne, consists of four
stories written in the forties and early fifties, and subsequently
massaged into a single volume.  Its protagonists aren't human.  In
fact, they're energy creatures thirty million miles in diameter.  As
'children', they disrupt stars and planetary systems in their play. 
After enough millions, or tens of millions, of years pass they get
bored.  Eventually they mate; eventually they die.  It's a purposeless
existence, for all it's enormous scale, and a very few of them worry
about that. 
 
Each of the four stories tells the tale of one of the unhappy few. 
The first is Darkness, who is obssessed by intergalactic space, and
finds a way to cross it before he dies.  The second is his mad
daughter, Sun Destroyer, who makes the crossing in the opposite
direction before *she* dies.  The third is her son, Vanguard, who is
warped because of his mother's premature death, and becomes the
forerunner of a different kind of energy being.  The last story is the
story of Oldster, who avoids his death for billions of years, and who
plays a part in the lives of Darkness, Sun Destroyer, and Vanguard. 
"The Sun Destroyers" is an oddly effective book, featuring beings who
are related to humanity only in the absolute basics:  They're born,
they die, and they want it to mean something. 
 
Rocklynne wrote a number of other stories, a couple of them excellent.
He is also the author of the anthology "The Men and the Mirror"
(***-), which is a collection of six of his 'problem' stories, mostly
from the thirties. ('Problem' stories are sf short stories which exist
solely as an excuse to introduce a scientific puzzle or concept.) 
Three of these feature Jack Colbie, of the Interplanetary Police, and
Edward Deverel, interplanetary criminal.  The pattern is for Colbie to
be chasing Deverel, and for both of them to be caught in some trap
which requires a dose of scientific reasoning to escape.  (Rocklynne
states in his introduction to the anthology that two of the other
three stories were Colbie-and-Deverel stories for which he had to
change the names before they could be published.  The last story was
written mainly to correct a major scientific blooper in the first
story -- one which will be obvious to anyone who's had a freshman
physics course.)  The best of these stories is the title story, "The
Men and the Mirror" (***), which also appears in Asimov's excellent
anthology "Before the Golden Age":  Colbie and Deverel land on a
planet whose entire top has been scooped out and polished into a
mirror, hundreds of miles across, and somehow fall into it.  (You see
what I mean about the story existing just to set up the problem?)  The
problem here is how to get out again, given that they are on an almost
frictionless concave surface.  (I won't give away the solution which
Rocklynne actually uses, but I believe that it is actually impractical, 
by virtue of generating too much stress.) 
 
(This is the paragraph where I sum up, or draw connections between, the
books I've discussed, but in this case all they really have in common is
that they are collected from a time when a sequence of short stories was
more salable than a novel, so I shan't.)
 
%A  Gunn, James
%T  The Immortals
 
%A  Jameson, Malcolm
%T  Bullard of the Space Patrol
 
%A  Rocklynne, Ross
%T  The Sun Destroyers
%O  I have this as part of an Ace Double
%T  The Men and the Mirror
%O  This is the title of a short story and of an anthology containing it
 
=============================================================================
 
The postscripts to Belated Reviews cover authors of earlier decades who
didn't fit into the original format -- whether because the author seemed
an inappropriate subject, or because I was unfamiliar with too much of the
author's work, or whatever -- or sometimes just isolated works of such
authors.  The emphasis will continue to be on guiding newer readers
towards books or authors worth trying out, rather than on discussing them
comprehensively or in depth.  I'll retain the rating scheme of ****
(recommended), *** (an old favorite that hasn't aged well), ** (a solid
lesser work), and * (nothing special). 
 
-----
Dani Zweig
[email protected]
 
  The surface of the strange, forbidden planet was roughly textured and green,
  much like cottage cheese gets way after the date on the lid says it is all 
  right to buy it.--Scott Jones