Conference noted::sf

1197.0. "Friedberg/Lang/Harness/Wilson" by VERGA::KLAES (Quo vadimus?) Wed Nov 24 1993 15:32

Article: 444
From: [email protected] (Dani Zweig)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: REPOST: Belated Reviews PS#30: Friedberg/Lang/Harness/Wilson
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: 24 Nov 93 13:06:07 GMT
 
   Belated Reviews PS#30:  Short Takes on Friedberg/Lang/Harness/Wilson
 
Some oddballs in this batch:
 
"The Revolving Boy" (***), by Gertrude Friedberg (1966) is one of the best
proofs I know that there is no premise so unpromising that it can't be
redeemed by good writing.  Derv Nagy is a boy born with an absolute sense
of orientation.  If, by the end of a long day, his activities have caused
him to make fifty left turns and forty-two right turns (to take an example),
he'll be aware of the fact, and the deficit will nag at him until he
compensates by making two full turns clockwise.  It's an almost useless
talent, and despite its one brush with destiny it *remains* an almost
useless talent, but Friedberg somehow manages to make it the pivot of a
charming, low-key science fiction novel.  Which surely goes to show something.
 
"All the Gods of Eisernon" (***+), by Simon Lang (1973), is an object
lesson in knowing when to stop writing.  The planet Eisernon is an old
space power which, half a century earlier, lost a war with Earth, and is
now nominally an ally.  When another power, Krail, invades, Earth's navy
'defends' Eisernon -- a cure at least as bad as the disease.  Eisernon's
most important remaining asset, did it know it, is Dao Marik, possibly the
last of the race of telepaths who once ruled the planet.  Political
considerations, however, cause him to be assigned as an officer on the
Earth spaceship Skipjack.  None of which tells you whether the book is
dull formula space opera or well enough written to leave you wishing for
more.  In fact, the latter is true.  It's space opera, but it's very well
written space opera that left me wishing for more.
 
The bad news is that I got my wish:  There are sequels.  The first sequel,
"The Elluvon Gift" (***) is more than readable.  I came away thinking of
it as "Star Trek done right" -- with Dao Marik a more interesting
interpretation of a role functionally equivalent to that of Star Trek's
Spock.  Then came "The Trumpets of Tagan" (*+), which wasn't very good,
and "Timeslide" (*), which is probably one of the worst novels I've read
in the past couple of years.  I understand that Ace is planning on more
sequels.  Given the consistent decline in an initially good space opera,
this seems to constitute defoliating the lily.
 
Charles L. Harness was always fond of time loops and time paradoxes, and
all his books that I've read feature them in one form or another.  (I should
clarify that his books are almost never *about* time loops.  Those are plot
elements that generally become visible late in the story.)  The best known
of these novels is probably "The Paradox Men" (***, aka "Flight Into
Yesterday", 1953).  The time is two centuries in the future, and the world
is on the brink of nuclear self-destruction.  Not that it couldn't use some
housecleaning -- society has advanced technologically but regressed socially
and politically.  Government is in the hands of thugs, and the only real
'opposition' is an organization known as the Society of Thieves.  One of the
Society's members, Alar, has vast mental powers -- and no memory of his past.
The explanation turns out to involve a time paradox which *might* save the
world from blowing itself away.
 
Is it worth reading?  Well, the writing is dated.  There's a cover blurb
describing it as "[lively] fantasy melodrama", which is not unfair.  Most
of the story is only in place to make the central plot devices work out.
They're interesting plot devices, though, and if you have a taste for the
better sf period-pieces, this is a good place to indulge it.  If you try
the book and like it, you should enjoy "The Ring of Ritornel" (***+),
which is less...memorable...but better written.
 
"The Mind Parasites" (***+, 1967) represents one of Colin Wilson's 
relatively few forays into sf/f.  Wilson set out to write a Lovecraft
pastiche, and failed.  While the debt to Lovecraft is obvious, the elements
that are uniquely Wilson's are too prominent -- but though the book fails as
a pastiche, it does nicely on its own merits.  The title reveals the
premise:  The human race is host to malignant psychic parasites who labor
to keep humanity at too squalid a level to realize that it is being
parasitized.  People who get too close to the truth are induced to commit
suicide.  If someone makes enough progress to resist, other people can be
manipulated to do the job.  "The Mind Parasites" tells what happens when a
number of scientists learn the truth and set out to resist.
 
I enjoyed it -- a good mix of silliness, melodrama, and genuine if
abstract horror.  It has its weaknesses, including an occasional tendency
towards parody and self-parody, but for once a cover blurb describing a
book as a "novel in the great H.P. Lovecraft tradition" is telling the truth.
Readers who enjoy this book might look for "The Space Vampires" (**+), which
attacks the topic of vampirism with much the same sort of tongue-in-cheek 
erudition (by which I don't mean to imply that Wilson plays either novel
for laughs).
 
As I wrote at the start, an oddball bunch -- good novels to pick up in a
used book store.
 
%A  Friedberg, Gertrude
%T  The Revolving Boy
 
%A  Lang, Simon
%T  All the Gods of Eisernon
 
%A  Harness, Charles L.
%T  The Paradox Men
%O  Alternate title, "Flight from Yesterday"
 
%A  Wilson, Colin
%T  The Mind Parasites
 
=============================================================================
 
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]
 
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