Gutenberg Sci-Fi 3
Karel Čapek
Now, he wrote the first robot story and, with his brother, invented the word. Roughly, ’robot’ reputedly means ’worker’, which is going to clue you in that this is Eastern European sci‐fi, an entirely different genre. Note also this predates Fifties sci‐fi by thirty years and a casm of culture and writing influence. I tried RUR, which is a script for a stage play, and was immensely popular at the time. Subject matter or not, it’s a delight, with good manners, intelligence, warmth, and a shocking cosmic fatalism. Stands up better than well‐known play scripts from the time and since. It’s a stretch to leap into the style and form, but if you are inclined to try, I doubt you’ll regret it.
No ‘Revenge of the Newts’ on Gutenberg, but how can you argue with ‘RUR’ in American and Czech? A Gutenberg gem.
Hal Clement
Hal Clement (Harry Clement Stubbs) was about at the start of the middle period of Sci‐Fi, 1942 onwards. The Green World is an ‘other world’ story, a description of archaeology and fossil hunting. As story or drama, it’s not up to much—a dragging introduction leads to a detailed description of the mechanism of the activity, which ends with a twist. It’s biggest asset is the world description, which is mysterious in a scientific way, yet this too is wasted by a lack of concept. The small aims have potential, the uncovering of artefact could have been loaded drama, the hard science is welcome, but this one never sets forth.
There’ two more of Hal Clement on Gutenberg, so you could try those.
Stanton Coblentz
An article on the work of Stanton Coblentz says he was a sometime poet who had a long career. Other than this I can find little, though somewhere there is an autobiography. Yet his writing alone suggests he may have been an interesting guy. In the only unqualified commentary I’ve found on M. Coblentz work, Damon Knight stood a passage from a novel as other‐world travel with a thrill of the unknown. I’d also throw in there’s an unusual pensiveness about the fate of his creations. Flight Through Tomorrow is a short twelve pages, in which Stanton Coblentz goes on a drug trip where he razes the world to the ground, while he hopes for those who escape find some bright arrival. A spastic dystopic–utopic fantasy—in 1947 that was Science Fiction.
The The Cosmic Deflector unknowingly touches on perhaps the biggest threat ever faced by humanity, right now. The science is balderdash, but the idea is consistently worked and forms the main plot of the story. The plot is mainly about being held to ransom, which works through in shallow and unlikely ways, but is straightforward. The writing is here and there awkward but zesty. Indeed, the threat proposed may be narrated second‐hand but is worked up into a storm of words and conviction that comes right off the page. And it’s convincing that the writer cares about the fates of those involved, so you the reader care also. The characters may be bare sketches, but one is a resourceful woman. May be a better bet than the novels which, despite their satire, have tedious stretches.
Samuel Delany
Samuel Delany is linked with the change in later 1960’s Sci‐Fi towards denser, more wayward writing. I’ll start with the Jewels of Aptor because I think it was the first. It’s a fantasy quest with hints of Sci‐Fi culture, if not science‐fiction, on the magic stones of power which develops into an unusual and effective ying/yang take on what those powers are. The plot rolls on mistaken perceptions that are confusing so I couldn’t be bothered to follow. But a mediocre character, if they know what is going on, can upend the power of a priestess—a refreshing change. As the quest unrolls, with I assume M. Delany themes that drama may not work out for the best and nobody knows what’s happening, the story works through scenes for once meaningful and inventive… I’m not going to spoil, but this would make a gripping video game. If you can stand for the impressionistic writing style, recommended.
Captives of the Flame, another short novel, doesn’t promise much—same fantasy‐world as Jewels of Aptor, which is Empire‐riches and (emphasised!) a 1500’s English pitch that involves fishermen and courts and so forth. At start it’s most notable for free‐form sentence construction in an impressionistic style that’s all cloud edges and thought‐inserted. But then the story scatters an idea that this is future‐earth Sci‐Fi—the culture has photography—which is more involving (though not quite Roger Zelazny’s ‘Lords of Light’). Then the fishermen and good‐hearted‐street‐rogues, even the courtly characters, have odd pitches like mathematics or four arms, and clash in scenes that are unsure and off‐path…. while the plot rolls along gleefully serving injustice on characters via. moves like fish‐poisoning. And, for me unconvincing as plot but asserted and present, an idea that the victims of warmongering identities is themselves. At which point, I think anyone must admit, for better or worse, this is different.
Only these two, which were his first, by M. Delany on Gutenberg, but either or both invaluable as a radical personal take on how fantasy conventions can be reworked, and to understand the changes to come.
Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick was, like Harry Harrison (look up a bit), a little later than the first wave. His work became tied, perhaps unfortunately, with the concerns of sixties counterculture movements. An interesting guy who freaked out some, I suspect he would have explained clearly what he was doing, if anyone had been concerned to ask. Most of his work is solid sci‐fi except when it is considering a speculative ‘if’ of personal drama, politics, or religion.
I tried The Eyes Have It. This is a micro‐story or, as the introduction calls it, a whimsy. For me it’s unkind, but saved by the invention in the plot and the weirdness the author makes of his distance. I also tried The Piper In The Woods. This story works from an irresistible psychological premise and, despite a conventional end, is fun to read. The Gun shows what you can do with a scenario well known from recent movies. It uses non‐heros, and perhaps it pushes it’s metaphors too hard, but it is strange.
Another story, written only a year after his first publication, The Hanging Stranger, has a plain style, neatly assembled but unremarkable—a little more literary than Harry Harrison because of qualifying terms and pictured asides. It’s nicely constructed, and thoroughly deviant with a central character of a hapless man. There’s a sense of something personal and experienced pushing through the text here. For many, this dynamic is why they dismiss Philip K. Dick’s work—like one of his characters, the man couldn’t win as literature, but became too big for sci‐fi. You are reading a story that seems like a plant in the wilderness, an uncanny thing from a world that can be recognised yet is not. As usual, if you allow it, where it grows is a challenge to everyday life. Unless you include Alfred Bester, these originals are not represented here, but this, for sure, is one of them.
Project Gutenberg carries about twelve of Philip K. Dick’s early stories.
Harlan Ellison
Nowadays he’s known for arguing with people and making a big show of taking over night‐time parties. He also wrote science fiction, though it is better construction to say he wrote a lot, of which some is called science fiction. Glow Worm was the first story by Harlan Ellison published, and there’s a lot of Harlan Ellison in it. The drive to say something, here about loneliness, means his construction, as often with those who are driven, is not wasteful, skimping or incoherent. There’s also bad science—how can an amateur scientist with no help construct a spaceship, how can any living organism not break when irradiated? But this is maybe better seen as a lack of realism. There is reason—to illustrate overloaded personal reaction, which is a rare intent from the main ages of science fiction. Later, Harlan Ellison became an editor for, and promoter of, the New Age of Science Fiction—‘Glow Worm’ will throw (green) light on why.
The downloads count is a feature of Gutenberg I have no interest in and never refer to elsewhere. Yet the download count of Cosmic Striptese is a puzzle. Is it the snazzy title? No, not the title… I’ll not tell you how, but likely because this story delvers on it’s title. It also shows how M. Ellison was however of the fiction of his age. The characters and dialogue have some of the sparkle of Kuttner and Moore, but are otherwise unlikely and one‐dimensional. Cartoons can do way better than this, as can film (which Ellison wrote for). But the story is well‐made and coherent. And then there is Peter Merton’s Private Mint.. This is fantasy wrapped in an enabling excuse of SciFi—it’s time travel! But the work has a good way with it’s idea, adding practical limitations and sticking to them, then adding a condition that is consistent and leads to a fun end. Again, though the characters or wider drama are far from realistic or complex, the drama is developed into plot idea‐by‐idea, which others could learn from. Perhaps not as endearingly odd as the work of Robert Sheckley, this story is wide ranging, and worth a try—you may prefer the character‐based writing and gung‐ho style.
What’s on Gutenberg is maybe five very early stories from a huge output. Though the stories predate work Harlan Ellison is famous for, and which I can’t vouch for, they serve as a dose.
Philip José Farmer
Mr. Farmer was one of those homegrown hackers who love to tinker with the mechanism. A Laurence Sterne of sci‐fi, it can be difficult to say if it’s sci‐fi when he’s prising the badge off to see how it was glued to him. I tried Heel!, which reworks ancient mythology as a film production running into a personal and industrial hell overseen by space pilots. I end that it’s large‐part sci‐fi, well done and original, also airily slick and hard to finish. Or even carry on. Later, I tried They Twinkled Like Jewels. This was unlike—a horror story told from an incomplete perspective with fantastic plot digressions. Outstanding pulp‐horror writing—I read it twice—but where this meets Sci‐Fi, I’m at a loss. In Tongues of the Moon José Farmer takes on guns in space, but highlights with touches of plausible technology, halfway‐likely psychology, keeps action to the moon, uses scenarios with no easy resolution, cokes up a tricky political background that nowadays would be called Postmodern, and exploits these minerals for vivid scenes including the earth being destroyed by humans. So makes a worn and dull subject gleam and challenge in it’s depths.
There’s no swathe of José Farmer on Gutenberg, currently eight, but clearly worth rooting through.
Scott Fitzgerald
What, that Scott Fitzgerald? ‘The Great Gatsby’? Yes. Look here, in Tales of the Jazz Age, which has in it a story ‘The Diamond as big as The Ritz’. If you don’t know this one, let me tell a little. A rich boy is sent to a school where he makes a friend of another elusive boy. Which second boy invites the first boy to visit his home. Which visit requires a long journey through contrivance and disguise, and ends in an enclave of fabulous wealth. Here’s the proposal: what separates this story from the other ‘hidden world’ stories on this list? That the story never mentions aliens or spaceflight? I submit to you that’s a lousy definition, like saying a romance can not be a romance if the protagonist is not called ‘Mabel’. The hidden world here is a near exact copy of the likes you can find elsewhere on this list (see Edgar Pangbourn and, especially, Abraham Merrit)—empire riches populated by ‘natives’. Perhaps you wish to claim Mr. Fitzgerald’s notion has a personal or social edge, in that it is generated by finance? But even the through‐drama, when it arrives, has the cartoon construction of what passed ffor ‘Sci‐Fi’. I say you can’t have this both ways, either this is Sci‐Fi, because ‘hidden world’ stories are Sci‐Fi, or the other stories are not Sci‐Fi. Anyway, despite Mr. Fitzgerald’s claims in the index, Mr. Pangbourn and Merritt are more inventive in their world‐construction, and their characters (such as these constructions need character, which they do not), are more complex. Fitzgerald is merely more archetypical, the story a perhaps more acute basic construct, and has his prose style to recommend.
Raymond Z. Gallun
Damon Knight had criticism worth noting—to summarise, M. Gallun had a duff ear for the English language, but wrote good aliens. Errrm… Asteroid of Fear is a stomper from the days before the Sci‐Fi age; and yes, it’s a planet story, with dodgy but earnest science, characters cut from a western, and a writing style that gleefully deluges cliche. But… there is a but… it’s never incoherent, and the headlong lunge cokes an inferno about a drama few others would try. No aliens. but stars vegetables.
Randall Garret
Randall Garret is best known for being a collaborator with Robert Silverberg, but was prolific enough himself. He also had a reputation of being something of a wild man. The Price of Eggs is an odd short story, far more SocFi than SciFi, about a man who compromises himself with aliens so needs extracting from his omelette. Not only is the proposition unusual, so is the reverse‐ending and M. Garret’s summoning of his people is welcome for more subtlety than the usual action drama.
There’s something like 80 titles by Randall Garrett on Gutenberg, so I’ve only chipped a stone from a mountain.
Edmond Hamilton
The Sargasso of Space had me thinking. There’s no what people like to call character here, Edmond Hamilton may as well call the identities A, B, C and D for all the difference it would make. And cleverness is not in this drama, it does exactly what it says it will. Man sees red light on road, he stops. Light turns green, he goes. This is pure stuff, high‐proof. Grant that A thinks this of D, should he do action X? Yes he should, and does. Punk couldn’t overthrow this, because it is punk. M. Hamilton’s proposal? In the future we will drift, helpless. To get that out of us, we will need to beat people up. Right. Time after time.