I promised a book review today, but then I misplaced my book. Life is like that. So, for your reading pleasure, I instead offer my meanderings through the March 1959 Fantasy & Science Fiction (you know, the one I was supposed to have done last month instead of the prematurely secured April issue).
As with the last (next) ish of F&SF, it starts with a bang. Robert Heinlein's "All You Zombies—" is an unique tale of time travel. Everyone has heard of the Grandfather's Paradox, but what if you end up being your own granpaw? I have to give extra credit to Heinlein for having a transsexual protagonist (i.e. someone who has been both male and female). I hope I'm using that word correctly–it's brand new.
I like Asimov's science article, Nothing, in which he points out that the mass of all the "empty" spaces between the galaxies actually exceeds the mass contained in the galaxies by a significant margin. I suppose that makes sense, but it is odd to conceptualize. I guess the Great Watchmaker needs to stir up the universe just a little more to get the lumps out…
Ray Bradbury has a tale involving mermaids in this issue called The Shoreline at Sunset. Any mermaid story in F&SF naturally invites comparison to Sturgeon's mermaid story A Touch of Strange (published in the Jan. 1958 issue). Unfortunately, unlike Sturgeon's quite brilliant piece, Bradbury's is well-written but somewhat pointless. But then, I might say that any time I compare Bradbury to Sturgeon.
Have you been following Zenna Henderson's stories of "The People"? Human in form but possessed of tremendous psychic powers, these interstellar refugees have been trapped on Earth in hiding for many years. They dwell in their sequestered valleys, occasionally venturing forth to rescue isolated members of their kind raised by native Earthers. Henderson's stories are always beautiful, often with a touch of sadness.
Well, with Jordan, the castaways finally have the opportunity to be rescued. More "civilized" members of their race arrive in a spaceship with an invitation to settle on a new planet, one on which they won't have to hide their powers or use rough technology to do what their powers could do more elegantly. Yet the exiled People have grown to love the Earth and even the crude methods they've had to employ to survive. Can they leave it all behind?
According to the editorial blurb preceding the story, it looks like Ms. Henderson finally has enough stories of The People to fill an anthology. I definitely recommend picking it up when it hits the shelves.
See you on the 8th!
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The traveling circus has moved to Osaka, Japan's second metropolis. It's a grubby, earthy place, with a colorful dialect and brasher manners. For an American, it's actually kind of refreshing; the formality is less forced. Like Tokyo, the city is alive with new construction and industry. In contrast to cities back home, which have infrastructure dating back to the turn of the century, Japan looks like the future.
It was thus the perfect place to finish Heinlein's Beyond this Horizon, which was first published under a pseudonym back in 1942 and republished under his own name in 1948. This was a second-hand copy I'd picked up specifically for this trip.
Beyond this Horizon is an odd duck of a novel, particularly in comparison to Heinlein's recent, more conventional works (i.e. The Puppet Masters, The Door into Summer, etc.). It divides neatly into three parts, and only the middle section has any real plot. I didn't read the version originally serialized in Astounding, but I imagine much of the disjointed nature stems from the story having been written for magazine publication.
The book is set in a utopic far future, and it follows the life of Hamilton Felix (the order of names is reversed, Japanese-style, for reasons central to the premise of story). He is the genetically superior result of a dozen generations of eugenic breeding. In this regard, he is no different from most of his fellows. Most everyone on Earth in the story is the result of the weeding out of undesirable traits and the promotion of positive ones. People are allowed to find their own mates, but the children are artificially assisted to be the best possible offspring. Only the “control normals” are left unmodified.
Hamilton's primary involvement in the story is to be resistant to the possibility of having offspring (the first part), to infiltrate and disrupt a revolutionary group bent on deposing the world government and eliminating the control normals (the second part), and to give in to having offspring (the third part). Hamilton's children offer glimpses into an understanding of the world beyond the veil of mortality, the philosophical and scientific exploration of which is a recurring theme.
It is difficult to tell with Heinlein when he is portraying the mores and opinions of his characters and when his characters are simply spouting the mores and opinions of Heinlein. I suspect the latter is more common. I find this book fascinating as it makes a point of distinguishing between bad eugenics (which led to two devastating wars in Beyond's timeline) and good eugenics as practiced by the government in the book. Hamilton is, himself, dubious of the benevolence of the concept as exemplified by his statement in Part 1, “There is something a little terrifying about a man with too long a view.” Given that the world war raging at the time the book was written was in large part motivated by eugenics, the positive portrayal of same is a bit disturbing.
On the other hand, Heinlein may simply be a seer. In the book, the field of ultramicroscopy makes genetic mapping possible and turns breeding into a scientific art. With the recent discovery of DNA by Watson and Crick, we seem right on Heinlein's predicted schedule. Who's to say that we won't soon find it desirable to edit out the genes that may cause disease and disorder for the good of humanity?
The other concept explored by Heinlein in the book is the idea of universal bearing of arms. Most of the men pack heat (so long as they are sober), and many women as well. It is made clear by the wearing of distinctive clothing that one is in an unarmed state, and those wearing the signifying brassards must defer to their armed fellows.
For most of the book, the practice is neither lauded nor condemned. It simply is. Near the end, however, one of the main characters praises the practice. He recites the old maxim, “An armed society is a polite society.” As depicted in Heinlein's novel, an armed society is an overly peevish one, prone to potentially lethal dueling for the most trifling of insults. The other justification is that it weeds out the overly combative, a crude element of the eugenics project, essentially. I suppose this makes sense coming out of the mouth of someone in Beyond's world. I hope Bob Heinlein doesn't agree with him.
There are no female viewpoint characters, but many strong women are featured, and one has a decidedly central role to play in scouting “Beyond this Horizon.” I don't know if Heinlein was exceptionally progressive (this was 1942!), or if we've simply gone backwards since the war. Perhaps both–Heinlein generally populates his stories with smart, resourceful females, even if they are never quite the star.
Hamilton's son, the only child character, does not fare so well. In fact, other than his spotless genetics, I can find nothing at all to endear him to anyone. I don't know if Heinlein has kids, but I'd bet that he was not a father back in 1942, otherwise the relationship between dad and boy would have rung more true. On the other hand, perhaps the lack of connection was meant to be a commentary on the world they inhabited.
In summary, Beyond this Horizon is a bit of a meandering, preachy mess. It is, however, quite readable. Moreover, like many of Heinlein's works, it does an excellent job of portraying a future, if not the future. Heinlein presents the technology and culture with a glib vagueness that will help preserve the novel from becoming dated.
3 stars out of 5.
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When I started this column, I had not expected this to turn into a travelogue. Given that I do much of my reading on a plane heading somewhere glamorous and exciting, I suppose it can't be helped. I hope you can all bear with me.
Northwest Orient, a Seattle-based airline, has been filling the air waves with advertisements about their shorter route to “The Orient” (i.e. East Asia). Well, I decided to bite, and this weekend found us on a plane to the Far East. There is no direct route to Japan, but Northwest has the next best thing: after a hop back to Seattle (how familiar!), there was a short layover in Honolulu. Less than a day after takeoff from San Diego's Lindbergh Field, we arrived at Tokyo's modern air hub, Haneda airport. The DC-7 is not as fast as the 707, but I think I prefer the gentle drone of propellers to the loud roar of jets. Call me old-fashioned.
When I get used to the time difference (they should come up with a term for that logy feeling you get after long-distance air travel), I'll tell you all about the wonders of Japan. Or perhaps not–you come here for the science fiction commentary, don't you?
With Anderson's “Bicycle Built for Brew” deterring me from rushing off to finish this month's Astounding, I decided to catch up on my burgeoning backlog of Heinlein novels. I liked “Have Spacesuit Will Travel,” recently serialized in F&SF, so I read Farmer in the Sky on the trip.
The book was published eight years ago in 1950, but it feelst up-to-date. It is the story of an Eagle Scout in his mid teens emigrating out to a newish colony on Ganymede with his family. Interestingly enough, nearly half of its length is devoted simply to getting there: the application, the preparation, the flight to Ganymede on the Mayflower. Once there, the tale emulates prior settler stories. You have the hard times, the loving description of food raised and eaten, the triumphs, and the tragedies. All throughout, Heinlein does a pretty good job of portraying the physics involved in spaceflight as well as a primer on agronomy on a recently dead world. The book ends satisfyingly if on a slightly bittersweet note.
A few of interesting points from the book:
Bill, the book's protagonist, is from San Diego, like me.
As usual, the author does a good job with technology predictions. His “quickthaw” and “autoresponder” are plausible and seamlessly executed. I always find it a little jarring when “slipsticks” (slide-rules) are in copious evidence. In these days of IBMs and UNIVACS, am I alone in thinking that portable computing machines are the wave of the far future?
California has around 50 million people in the book's indeterminately dated (but probably the mid-to-late 21 century) future. This is five times that recorded in the 1950 census. Extending this to the world population, there must be some 10 billion people on Earth. I talked about this in an earlier piece; 10 billion sounds like a lot, but not in the doomsday area. But Heinlein's future Earth has food rationing, and it is big impetus for leaving the planet.
I would be okay with this, but Heinlein's depicted future also has developed complete matter conversion drives and power plants. Humans have the ability, in the book, to manufacture a breathable atmosphere for Ganymede. As Bill's father says early on in the story, “Wherever Man has mass and energy to work with and enough savvy to know how to manipulate them, he can create any environment he needs.” It seems to me that once humanity taps the limitless power afforded by mass conversion, or even thermonuclear fusion, providing food for even 10 billion people should be a trifling concern.
There is a little bit of gentle male-chauvinism: Bill's father tells his step-daughter that she's not allowed on the bridge of the Mayflower because she's a girl, though this may be meant teasingly. Bill notes that girls should be kept in a well until they are sixteen, and then a decision made to let them out or leave them there. Again, I don't know how out of character this is for a teenaged boy. On the other hand, there is a skilled female pilot, Hattie. She's not the most likable of characters, but she knows her job, and she's been at it for a long time.
These are minor quibbles. The book is good and should fire the imagination of many a young (and old!) reader. It's worth it just for the chapters describing the trip to Ganymede.
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