Author: Brian J. Noggle

This book almost makes me regret saying:

It’s an interesting bit, an enjoyable little read from the era–the middle 1960s through, what, the 1980s? where the future is dystopian and overcrowded and the plots are novel and clever.

The book collects three stories, only the third of which I would call novel or clever. The other two are run-of-the-mill apocalyptic bits that put Man in his place.

They include:

• “And Us, Too, I Guess” by Geo. Alec Effinger, which presents a scientist and a working man who wants to breed fish in parallel story lines in the near, dystopian future, when the “scientists” (who work in their own labs on simple experiments that only recreate past discoveries) discover that a single species is dying every day (and might have been for a long time). Hey, here’s the shocking ending: MANKIND DIES. Because of nature or maybe what mankind did to it.
   
• “Chains of the Sea” by Gardner R. Dozois, in which aliens invade, but nobody can see them. A child, however, who has maintained his imagination even beyond his very early years in the dystopian near future can see the “Others” which are intelligent species that adults cannot perceive. Through them, he learns that the aliens have come to renegotiate compacts with the other species and with the new species, the artificial intelligence in human networks. In a moment of poignant coming-of-age drama for the lad, MANKIND DIES. Also, I’m not sure what the title means or how it applies to the story.
   
• “The Shrine of Sebastian” by Gordon Eklund tells the story of a reluctant “pope” of a decadant church is tasked by the previous, newly deceased “pope” with burying her remains at the shrine of Sebastian, a future profit who convinces mankind that it should leave the wasteland of the Earth behind. Most men do, but some remained with the robots in a decaying society. Then, MANKIND DIED. Sorry, I was going on habit there. In this case, the things that thought they were human discovered they were Androids, like Sebastian. Mankind might have survived, somewhere out beyond the sky, but here on Earth, ROBOT AND ANDROIDKIND WILL DIE.

In an essay in the Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky ponders
When Science Fiction Stopped Caring About the Future

Most people think of science-fiction as being about the future; it’s a genre that explores possibilities, from Dr. Frankenstein’s invention of artificial life to Ursula K. Le Guin’s world populated by humans who have all evolved into single-gendered hermaphrodites. What might happen if? What could happen when? Sci-fi thinks about new technologies, new societies, and new ways of being, good or bad.

And then science-fiction fans turn to the new Star Wars trailer, and find, not the future, but a reshuffling of 30-year-old detritus.

Read enough of the C-List science fiction from the past, and you’ll learn that the best of science fiction sticks with you but most of it, especially the pedestrian stuff, falls away from you mostly unremembered. A lot of the old stuff retreads common tropes just as much as new stuff does; we just forget it if we even bother to read or to have read it.

So I won’t remember these stories much, but innovative and imaginative stuff from the era will still captivate me. And in time, I’ll recycle my line about how all the science fiction from the past is better than all the science fiction now. Because I’ll mostly remember the good and won’t remember this particular volume much at all.

Books mentioned in this review:

You might be familiar with William Goldman for a little book he wrote and adapted for the silver screen called The Princess Bride. This book ain’t that.

Instead, this is a mid-1970s crime thriller about a magician/ventriloquist on the verge of television success who flees from New York City to his hometown upstate because he’s afraid he might be cracking up. Then he cracks up. With a body count.

I’m afraid I’ve given much of the story away, but in the book, Goldman presents it as a little bit of a mystery. He has some diary entries that are labeled as part of a police investigation; then we have some interplay between the main character and his partner; then we have a flashback to the main character’s youth and early career and how that has led him to the precipice of success and this crack-up. So there’s some suspense in what sort of crime will occur, and it’s unfortunate what does transpire.

I thought the book was okay, but it does have a 1970s feel to it in the same way that 1970s science fiction does. Or is it just me?

Books mentioned in this review:

As I mentioned in my book report on Murder for Halloween, I have a number of Steven Saylor paperbacks I picked up en masse somewhere. The short story in Murder for Halloween provided me an excuse to pick up this book.

Strangely enough, although I thought I put the books in series order on the shelf when I first put them on the shelf, when I grabbed the first book on the left, I got this volume, which is number 8 in the series, but not the first one of the series I own. Now, it becomes very clear that the books have the series number and the year in which they take place written in marker atop the pages, but I did not know this when I grabbed the book, so I got one in the middle of the pack I own.

This book finds Gordianus, the Finder, sneaking into Massilia, which is under seige by Caesar’s forces in the Roman civil war. Gordianus’s adopted son, a spy for Caesar, has disappeared in the city, so Gordianus and his son-in-law pose as soldiers entering Massilia by a tunnel. When the tunnel assault is washed out, only The Finder and his son-in-law survive and make their way into the city where they become acquainted with the Scapegoat, an outcast chosen to take on the sins of the city and who sacrifice themselves. The group witnesses a murder or suicide from atop the sacred Sacrifice Rock and are approached by a leading Massilian to search for his missing daughter.

It’s intrigue and a bit of mystery wrapped in a bit of historical research that runs pretty smoothly, but does on a couple of occasions–sentences really–come out and have the characters speaks a bit of exposition. So it’s not without a touch of that, but it does get one into the setting and the time period rather well.

It is a bit intriguey for my tastes, but not so bad that I won’t read the rest that I have, starting with the newly rearranged first I own.

Books mentioned in this review:

As you would expect, this book is a collection of Rockwell paintings and drawings throughout his career, including some advertising work, Saturday Evening Post covers, and work for Look magazine.

The text with the images details his career and his biography and turns attention to the evolution of his style and subject matter in a fashion I’ve not seen in other retrospectives or in the monthly feature in the Saturday Evening Post back when I subscribed (before I completely grew weary with the Government Is The Solution articles interspersed among the Rockwell retrospectives and health advice for older people).

You know, I could read books about Rockwell and look through collections of his work that just put the images in a different order every couple of months because the work hits me in a sweet spot: It’s comprehensible and figurative (literally) and it hearkens back to situations, eras, and a general zeitgeist that might never have existed exactly as depicted, but I miss it just the same even though my youth was nothing close to it.

So I enjoyed it, and I’ll pick up more of the same (and quite possible exactly the same given my book buying habits) at book sales in the future.

Books mentioned in this review:

This book is a short science fiction book by Robert Silverberg, whose Three Survived I have previously reviewed.

Within this book, a future cop in a distant, overpopulated future has an illicit second home in the only uncrowded part of the world and fears discovery when he’s given a tough assignment: investigate the “time hoppers,” people who find an illegal operation that sends them from the crowded present into a free past. As he investigates and worries about the political expectations. his own brother-in-law considers the trip.

The book jumps between different characters in different situations in this world, from the cop to his sister in a lower caste than he to one of the two leaders of the omnipresent government to the brother-in-law to the cop’s underling who is blackmailing his superior for his distant getaway. One would expect there might be some in-book time travel involved, but it takes place mostly in the future.

It’s an interesting bit, an enjoyable little read from the era–the middle 1960s through, what, the 1980s? where the future is dystopian and overcrowded and the plots are novel and clever. Perhaps I’m siloed a bit in reading the blogs of writers of science fiction subgenres these days, where the stories are a bit more predictable and follow the plots of something that would make a good video game. I confess I read a number of novels written from video games and movies, so my perspective is probably skewed. But I get a definite sense of a book that’s been written in the middle of the 20th century that I don’t get from novels from the 1980s on. Perhaps it’s just the length that cues me in–this one clocks in at 182 pages, half or less of a modern book. Also, the author has read other books. Allusions from classical literature and history flow throughout. They’re not necessary for the reading and enjoyment of the book, but they do serve to pat the well-read reader on the head for all his or her previous reading. I need that.

But I really enjoy this short books from the middle of the last century more than thicker later pieces. Maybe I’m just impatient.

At any rate, I liked the book and I like Silverberg.

Books mentioned in this review:

When I opened this book and saw the name plate in the front cover, I knew where I’d gotten it: an estate sale in 2007 in Old Trees. Mr. Paul, I remember your name for your excellent taste in literature and music.

At any rate, this book is set immediately before the Trojan War. Hector has returned from another war, a successful one, with his troops. His brother Paris has taken Helen and has her, and the Greek fleet has just arrived to take her back. Some elements of the Trojan populace, including the leader of the Senate and a poet, love the thought of war even though they do not fight it and want to start a new war with Greece. Others, like Hector and the women who have missed or lost their men, want peace and are willing to act without “honor” to get it.

This book was translated and performed in New York in 1955, so it’s easy to think it was a Cold War parable. However, the original French play was written in 1935, between World War I and World War II, so if you’re eager to limit its impact to its historical context, it’s about the rise of Germany perhaps. Within, though, Giraudoux explores the differences between men and women, between warmongering and peace-at-any-cost viewpoints, and between the different sensations and aesthetics of love and/or human relationships.

However, the play itself is a little wordy and not very clever; whether this is the case in the original French I don’t know, but there’s no pull real tension or drive between the scenes amid the philosophical speaking. This probably wouldn’t play so well to modern audiences.

Within the play are a couple of black and white photographs of people who appeared in the New York version on stage. In a desparate bid to tart up my book reports and to generate Rule 5 fodder, I’ve included photos of some of the women who appeared in the play below the fold. Continue reading “Book Report: Tiger at the Gates by Jean Giraurdoux / translated by Christopher Fry (1935, 1955)” →