Tag Archives: book review

Blog, Book Reviews

Book Review: UBIK by Philip K. Dick

Ubik by Phil K DickIn a time when cryo-technology allows the recently deceased to maintain brain activity for years in cold storage, successful businessman Glen Runciter consults with his late wife, Ella, who has been dead for over two decades. Glen and Ella manage a company that employs a team of anti-telepaths with a unique ability to seek out and neutralize telepaths who pose a danger to society.

Many of the best telepaths work for Ray Hollis, Runciter’s main competitor. When several of Hollis’s top employees go missing all at once, Runciter fears a plot is afoot and seeks Ella’s advice.

Meanwhile, one of Runciter’s senior recruiters, the perpetually penurious Joe Chip, brings in a new prospect with a unique ability to telepathically travel into the past and alter history. Shortly after, Runciter takes on a high-profile billionaire client who fears telepaths have infiltrated his business on the moon.

Runciter rounds up his entire staff of anti-telepaths for the mission, yet shortly after they arrive on Luna, a bomb explodes, leaving Runciter mortally wounded. Suspecting Hollis, Runciter’s team manages to get him back to their ship and into cold storage. Joe Chip assumes immediate control of the firm and flies directly to a moratorium in Zurich to have Runciter placed into cryo storage so that he can be connected with Ella and made available for consultation.

However, the moratorium is unable to stimulate the necessary brain activity and Runciter is declared dead. Almost immediately, Joe Chip and his team begin experiencing time regression, slowly at first, then accelerating until they end up in 1939. All the while, cryptic messages begin to appear, presumably from Runciter himself. Is the man truly dead, or is this a mind game inflicted by Hollis’s telepaths? How does a mysterious product called Ubik play into this nightmare?

Ubik is one of the most brilliant and exciting stories I’ve ever read and now ranks among my top five favorite SF novels along with Flow My Tears, Said the Policeman, another masterpiece from the unrivaled genius of Philip K. Dick.

Blog, Book Reviews

Book Review: The Dirdir by Jack Vance

The Dirdir by Jack VanceAmerican astronaut Adam Reith, stranded on the alien planet Tschai for at least a year and desperate to return to Earth, has no choice but to find a way to build a new spaceship from scratch. The scout ship in which he and his late colleague, Paul Waunder, crashed on Tschai was long ago confiscated by one of the alien races and stripped for its technology. Reith’s previous two attempts to acquire a ship failed (as chronicled in City of the Chasch and Servants of the Wankh).

After acclimating as much as possible to Tschai’s motley cultures and customs, Reith sets off through treacherous Dirdir territory with friends Traz Onmale and the fugitive Anacho in order to raise enough funds (called sequins) to construct a vessel.

After killing a group of Dirdir hunters who tracked them, Reith, Traz, and Anacho take their attackers’ sequins, bury a percentage of them in a secret location, and venture to the shipyards of Shivishe where they strike a deal with an unsavory and obese opportunist named Woudiver. The investor rents them space in his warehouse and assists in acquiring the parts to build their vessel—at the highest prices, of course. Woudiver threatens to turn the trio over to the Dirdir authorities unless they concede to his demands.

Will Reith finally be successful in constructing a vessel to take him home or will he, Traz, and the Dirdir traitor, Anacho, be executed for murder?

The Dirdir is the third book in Jack Vance’s Planet of Adventure series, which has the feel of John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This time, much of the story sees Adam Reith negotiating and haggling over costs of travel, lodging, and information with various strange and eccentric beings as he makes his way to Shivishe, where his skills of negotiation are put to the test against the repulsive and dangerous Woudiver.

As with the previous two installments in the series, Vance masterfully builds the world as the story unfolds, often through dialogue between Reith and Anacho or another indigenous creature who instructs Reith on the ways and philosophies of the four major races who rule the planet Tschai.

Blog, Book Reviews

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.

Blog, Book Reviews

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.

Blog, Book Reviews

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.

Blog, Book Reviews

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.