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Book Review: Jack Vance’s City of the Chasch

In response to a signal from a planet over 200 light years from Earth, a ship is sent to investigate. Upon reaching the planet, two astronauts named Adam Reith and Paul Waunder are dispatched in a small scout ship. Soon Jack Vance - City of Chaschafter, missiles fired from the planet destroy the mothership and damage the scout ship, forcing it to crash land.

Injured, Reith and Waunder are soon captured by a band of primitive warriors. Waunder is immediately beheaded by one of the soldiers. Their teenage leader, later introduced as Traz Onmale, rages against the man and strips him of his rank and status by removing the man’s Emblem.

The scout ship’s crash also attracts the attention of rival clans known as the Blue Chasch and the Dirdir. Each newly arriving group drives away the next until Onmale’s soldiers finally chase the Dirdir away before transporting the injured Reith back to their village. Unfortunately, during the chaos, the Blue Chasch manage to depart with the wreckage of Reith’s scout ship.

Once healed, Reith manages to do exactly what you would expect in any “fish out of water” story—he violates the customs, and questions the beliefs, of Onmale’s people, resulting in a series of misunderstandings, some of which spark violent confrontations.

Eventually, Reith convinces Traz to join him on a quest to recover his scout ship from the Blue Chasch and together, they embark on a daring expedition across the planet. Along the way, they befriend a Dirdirman named Anacho, engage in battle against an insane beast known as the Phung, join a traveling clan of traders and rescue a young woman from a misandrist clan of sadistic priestesses, encounter a clan of sadistic pranksters known as the Green Chasch, overthrow the corrupt chief of a ruined town, and much more…

City of the Chasch is evocative of the Mars novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs with Adam Reith and Chasch taking the place of John Carter and Barsoom (as Mars is known to its inhabitants). Jack Vance does an exemplary job of revealing the complex cultures, conflicts, and characteristics of his world as the story unfolds. There are no significant infodumps here, allowing for a reasonably fast-paced tale. While there is nothing spectacular about the story, City of the Chasch holds up as a sturdy SF yarn and is the first in a tetralogy in Vance’s Planet of Adventure series.

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Book Review: VALIS by Philip K. Dick

VALIS by Phil K DickIn 1974, a schizophrenic drug addict named Horselover Fat attempts suicide after a close friend succeeds at it. While struggling with guilt over her loss, Horselover is struck by an enigmatic beam of pink light that he attributes to a deity known as Zebra.

Afterwards, he experiences visions of the Roman Empire and gains detailed insight into early gnostic Christianity, which he chronicles in his exegesis. Horselover also credits the light for imparting crucial medical information that saves the life of his son, Christopher. A short time later, however, his wife Beth leaves him, taking Christopher with her.

Through all of this, Horselover’s friends—David, Kevin, and Phil K. Dick—believe that he is insane, until Kevin persuades the group to see an independent science fiction movie called VALIS, playing at a small theatre in town. The film, about an alien satellite called Vast Active Living Intelligence System, contains overt and subliminal messages that correspond to Horselover’s experiences after encountering the pink light. Convinced now that Horselover’s account was legitimate, the four friends take up a quest to contact the filmmakers in the hopes of learning the truth about VALIS and the information it revealed to Horselover.

It is explained at the beginning of the story that Horselover Fat might be Philip K. Dick projecting his inner turmoil into a second personality. Either way, VALIS is one of the most bizarre, engaging, imaginative, and occasionally disturbing novels I’ve ever read and could have been conjured only from the mind of Philip K. Dick.

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Book Review: The Masks of Time by Robert Silverberg

The Masks of Time by Robert SilverbergOn Christmas Day in 1998, a charismatic being in the form of a nude man materializes from a shimmering electrical field in the middle of Rome. Calling himself Vornan-19, he claims to have traveled back in time 1,000 years to observe the cultures of primitive Earth.

Soon after, the United States government assembles a motley team of five scientists to escort Vornan across the nation, around the globe, even to the moon colonies, all the while studying him in an attempt to determine or debunk his authenticity. Yet, Vornan offers little more than nebulous scraps of information about the future and evades direct questions about the mechanics of time travel, asserting ignorance about all matters scientific and technical.

Rather, Vornan admits to being little more than a bored dilettante from the future seeking to amuse himself by partaking in the sexual customs of “underdeveloped” humans. He reveals only that he hails from a land known as the Centrality and that poverty, starvation, even death have been eliminated, somehow, during the 1,000 years between our time and his.

Among Vornan’s cadre of guardians is Leo Garfield, a middle-aged physicist stymied in his current academic career and in need of a distraction. It is his through Garfield’s point of view that we experience the escapades of Vornan-19, for it is with Garfield that Vornan forms the closest bond.

Vornan’s habitual venery not only extends to the female scientists of the group, but almost any random woman, or man, he happens to encounter in his travels. Despite Garfield’s attempts to keep him in check, Vornan manages to leave chaos and frustration in his wake wherever he goes. Whether that is intentional or a merely the result of being a stranger in a strange land is anyone’s guess.

His popularity in the media rapidly escalates, to the chagrin of a cult known as the Apocalyptists, who believe that the world will end on January 1, 2000. Their public protests and orgies become more fervent as they rail against Vornan, even while he amasses a rabid following of his own. To desperate millions around the world, this prophet from the future brings hope and wisdom. He becomes their new messiah.

Is Vornan-19 merely a simple observer from the future seeking an escape from ennui and indolence, or is he a sham taking advantage of a gullible and “underdeveloped” humanity?

The Masks of Time was published in 1968, during the Vietnam War and a period of violent civil unrest in the United States. People sought hope, equality, peace, but most of all meaning, and many of them looked to various new-age religions and cults to find it. Robert Silverberg deftly adopted all of these elements into the tale of Vornan-19.

While the story opens with the amusing and engaging arrival of Vornan in Rome, the second chapter is loaded down with exposition during Garfield’s initial visit with his friends Jack and Shirley in Arizona. From there, the pacing remains uneven, but the story held my attention to the end.

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Book Review: Starshine by Theodore Sturgeon

Starshine by Ted SturgeonThis aptly named collection of six stories shines brightly and showcases the distinct and diverse talents of one of speculative fiction’s most celebrated voices.

“Derm Fool” – While courting a beautiful woman, a man with a disturbing skin disease discovers that she suffers from the same affliction—they both molt like reptiles. After isolating the cause as well as a cure, they decide to put both to a profitable use.

“The Haunt” – Two young men rig an abandoned house with special effects in order to scare an unflappable woman, but the results are far more harrowing than expected.

“Artnan Process” – An alien race known as the Artnans possess the technology to transmute Uranium 238 into Uranium 235, but refuse to reveal the process. Earth and Mars each send a crew to the Artnan homeworld in an effort to uncover the secret. Perhaps they’ll succeed, if they don’t kill each other first.

“The World Well Lost” – A captain and first mate are charged with the task of transporting a pair of alien refugees back to their homeworld. During the journey, the first mate learns that the alien lovers are not only telepaths but of the same gender and for this, they will be executed upon arrival.

“The Pod and the Barrier” – A motley crew of scientists and engineers embark on an expedition to find a way to break through an energy barrier surrounding a planet of benevolent aliens. Each believes that his plan will succeed, but perhaps the power of doubt will be what wins the day.

“How to Kill Aunty” – A willful but crippled elderly woman believes her maladroit nephew is bent on murdering her.  Amused by his doltish efforts, she mocks his intelligence by actively aiding his efforts, but the final results are not what she anticipated.

 

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Book Review: Nine Tomorrows by Isaac Asimov

Nine Tomorrows by Isaac AsimovIn what may be one of the best collections from Isaac Asimov that I’ve ever read, the master of SF brings us nine extraordinary tales ranging from the dramatic to comedic to heartbreaking. Nine Tomorrows gets five stars from me.

“Profession” — In the future,  your ability to read is installed into your brain by a computer during childhood and your career is determined by a brain scan taken at puberty—but what happens when the results of the scan are inconclusive and the authorities determine that you are not suited for any career at all?

“The Feeling of Power” — In a society where mathematical computations are handled strictly by computers, a lab technician devises a method for longhand arithmetic… with disastrous results.

“The Dying Night” — A science conference on Earth reunites four colleagues, some of whom have been working off-planet for many years. One of them has developed a method for instant teleportation and intends to present his discovery at the conference—until he’s found dead in his hotel room.

“I’m in Marsport without Hilda” — A government agent arrives on Mars after an assignment and learns that his wife is unable to travel from Earth to meet him. He steals the opportunity to arrange a date with a local lady of the night, which he tries to keep even when his supervisor tasks him with another mission right there in the spaceport.

“The Gentle Vultures” — An alien race known as the Hurrians spends 15 years observing Earth, waiting for humanity to destroy itself in a nuclear war so that the they can takeover the planet and enslave the survivors.

“All the Troubles in the World” — What happens when an entire planet is managed by a single super computer that no longer wants the responsibility?

“Spell My Name with an S” — At the insistence of his wife, a downtrodden nuclear physicist named Zebatinsky reluctantly visits a numerologist who suggests that by changing the first letter of his last name to an ‘S,’ the probablility is high that his life will improve—but not before placing him under surveillance by the federal government.

“The Last Question” — A super computer called Multivac spends thousands of years collecting data to answer one question that has been repeatedly put to it over the generations: Will the human race ever have the ability to restore the sun to its current state after it has died?

“The Ugly Little Boy” — Miss Fellowes, a nurse, is hired on to care for a Neanderthal child that is snatched from the past into the present by a new technology developed by Stasis, Inc. By contemporary standards, the boy is considered ugly and is dubbed by the press as the “Ape-Boy.” After three years, the executives of Stasis decide to send the now educated child back to his own time where he will likely perish, but Miss Fellowes has different plans.

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Book Review: The Ends of Time edited by Robert Silverberg

Ends of Time edited by Robert SilverbergThe end is nigh as chronicled in The Ends of Time by seven masters of science fiction including Poul Anderson, John W. Campbell, Arthur C. Clarke, Fritz Leiber, Robert Silverberg (editor), Cordwainer Smith, and Jack Vance.

Most, but not all, of my favorites from this anthology also happen to be the longest tales in the book, including:

“Alpha Ralpha Boulevard” by Cordwainer Smith – Paul and Virginia, members of a reborn human race on a post-apocalyptic Earth, were created only recently, with scant memories of a human society long extinct. To ensure that they are actually in love and not simply programmed to be, Paul and Virginia traverse the treacherous Alpha Ralpha Boulevard in order to put the question to the omniscient machine known as the Abba-dingo.

“Guyal of Sfere” by Jack Vance – To satisfy his voracious hunger, Guyal leaves the safety of his homeland and ventures north, braving several surreal dangers, to find the legendary Museum of Man where all of his questions will be answered by the Curator. Of course, they’ll first need to defeat the hideous demon infesting the museum.

“Epilogue” by Poul Anderson – In the far future, humans return to a long-abandoned Earth only to find that machines have evolved into sentient and fearful robots who have radically transformed the landscape—and are not fond of intruders.

“When the Last Gods Die” by Fritz Leiber – On Earth’s final day, members of the last generation to leave the planet return from space to dissuade the inconsolable Roman gods from terminating their own existence.

Other excellent tales include “The Awakening” by Arthur C. Clarke, “Twilight” by John W. Campbell, “At the End of Days” by Robert Silverberg, and, appropriately, “Last” by Fritz Leiber.