The Lotus Caves

The Lotus Caves, by John Christopher

I really like John Christopher, and I think it's a shame that his books have disappeared so completely.  I'm thinking of collecting him.  I have some, of course, because my oldest really likes Christopher too, and I found that we had more than I thought when I was moving some books around.  So I read The Lotus Caves, from 1969.

In 2068, the Moon colony is doing well.  Marty has lived his entire life inside the Bubble; visits to Earth are too expensive, so everyone is there on a 25-year contract, no vacations.  Everything is extremely utilitarian, but there's a nice recreation center for sports and fun.  When Marty and his buddy Steve play a prank, they're punished with a month's ban from the recreation center, which strikes me as a really bad plan if you're trying to squish a couple of rowdy 13-year-old boys.  Marty and Steve find a way to take a crawler out of the Bubble and explore farther than they're allowed, but it should be perfectly safe.  Until they fall into an underground cave and discover a giant sentient plant.

The Plant can give them all the food, air, and sustenance they need in its air-tight cave.  And it doesn't want them to leave and bring a bunch of scientists out to study it.  So pretty soon it's hard to even think about escaping; like the Island of the Lotus-Eaters, it blurs their minds and makes them content to eat and sleep.  Marty is having a hard time remembering his life outside the cave, and Steve is perfectly content.  Will they remain trapped forever?

Yep, I do love a good John Christopher story!  This one was exciting and imaginative.  If you didn't spend your childhood reading Christopher, you should give him a try now.

The Case Against Tomorrow

The Case Against Tomorrow, by Frederik Pohl

Here we have six short stories published in the mid-50s, gathered under the theme of 'ways in which things could go kind of wonky in the future.'  They're not anti-future, of course, just oddball takes on it.

The first one, I had read before, though I don't know where.  "The Midas Plague" involves a future in which robots produce a world of plenty, but there's far too much, so it's the job of the poor to consume all the food, clothing, home decor, and everything else.  It's a terrible amount of work, and the richer you are, the simpler a life you can live, and work at an actual job.  I particularly liked the mandated group therapy, which involves a group of therapists for the poor client; only the rich can afford to have just one therapist at a time.  What is the solution to all this plenty?

I didn't much care for "The Census Takers" -- which was about overpopulation but wasn't any too clear about it -- or for the futuristic baseball game, because who cares.  "Wapshot's Demon" was just OK. 

"The Candle Lighter" was rather fun, being about a guy who makes his career protesting for justice, especially for the poor oppressed Martians, but when he's actually put in charge of something on Mars, he finds that he's never bothered to find out what the Martians actually want and need; which of course doesn't have much to do with his human ideas about what is just or not.

"My Lady Green-Sleeves" had a future in a society strictly segregated -- not by race, but by class -- with a girl who goes to prison for her radical ideas about the brotherhood of all classes.  And then there's a prison riot with strange consequences.

Reasonably entertaining.  Though I didn't much care about three of the six stories, those were also very short, and the three I liked took up a lot more space.

Siege Perilous

Siege Perilous, by Lester Del Rey

In the not-too-distant future, Earth has an orbiting space station, which is meant to ensure world peace (especially for the nation that built it) under shifting alliances within a Cold War that never really ended, but which currently has Russia allied with the US against Eurasia.  Most of the staff are there for only a few months at a time, since living in space is hard on the mental health, but Fred Hunter has been there for ten long years, ever since the station was built.  He built quite a lot of it himself, in fact, before the accident that rendered him unable to return home.  Fred is always and forever homesick, but he has stubbornly remained sane.

Then the station is invaded and taken over in a matter of just a few hours, but who are the guys wearing those spacesuits?  Not Eurasia.  A small, scrappy nation?  The invaders' suits are out-of-date, so maybe...but then when they speak, the mystery deepens.

"Mount your cayuses and ride out if you don't want a bellyful of hot lead!"

"All right, you guys. You were real cute.  But we're through playing around, see?"

Where could these invaders possibly have come from?  Nothing they do makes sense.  Fred, Sandy, and Callaghan are the only station staff who didn't get caught, and if they don't want the Earth destroyed, they'll have to figure something out fast.

I guess spoilers for a novel written in 1966 don't matter, so I'll tell you the solution: the invaders are underground dwellers from Mars, and have been watching old Earth movie broadcasts for years.  But, like the Thermians in Galaxy Quest, they don't understand story-telling and so are convinced that Earth people are cowboys and gangsters intent on invading Mars.  Their tactics are entirely based on melodrama.

It's a fun setup, and involves a good deal of MacGyver-esque improvisation as well, so I liked it.

The Metal Monster

The Metal Monster, by A. Merritt

I've never heard of A. Merritt, but he was pretty well known; just a long time ago.  The Metal Monster first appeared in 1920 as the inaugural story for Argosy magazine.

Four American explorer-scientists (three men, one woman) meet up in the Himalayas and witness some very unusual phenomena in the sky.  Then they run into a vicious crowd of ancient Persian soldiers, the descendants of the Persian armies defeated by Alexander, who fled into hiding.  They take refuge in a cave, where they discover a mysterious arrangement of metal shapes...which move.

As the soldiers attack, they flee and find a beautiful woman who commands more of the metal shapes.  Arrangements of cubes, pyramids and spheres move and change to do whatever they need to do.  They're clearly intelligent, and Norhala leads the scientists and the cubes back to a massive city hidden deep in the mountains.  The city is itself made of these living metal shapes!  As the crew explores, they try to understand: do these Metal Things grow?  Eat?  Think?  How do they work?  And while they seem benign, even friendly, in an alien sort of way....do they threaten humanity?  The "Monster" in the title is the city itself, not a robot or creature.

The ancient Persians come back, of course, but after that the story takes a truly surprising turn.  I was not expecting that ending at all.

This is a really neat, original story!  It has some very nifty ideas.  The Metal Things reminded me of nothing so much as Hiro's microbots in Big Hero Six, but more complex.

It's all written in very flowery prose.  Merritt never met a two-dollar word he didn't like. Many of his descriptions are massive cascades of fancy words!  He especially liked colors, the more nuanced, the better.  This is probably the most colorful novel I have ever read.  Amethystine was one of the words, I recall.  I give you a couple samples, the first of which is only part of a simple sunset in the mountains:

...as though a gigantic globe of crystal had dropped upon the heavens, their blue turned swiftly to a clear and glowing amber -- then as abruptly shifted to a luminous violet.  A soft green light pulsed through the valley.  Under it, like hills ensorcelled, the rocky walls about it seemed to flatten.  They glowed and all at once pressed forward like gigantic slices of palest emerald jade, translucent, illumined, as though by a circlet of little suns shining behind them.  The light faded, robes of deepest amethyst dropped around the mountain's mighty shoulders.  And then from every snow and glacier-crowned peak, from minaret and pinnacle and towering turret, leaped forth a confusion of soft peacock flames, a host of irised prismatic gleamings, an ordered chaos of rainbows.

Its head was a pyramid, a tetrahedron; its length vanished in the further darkness.   The head raised itself, the blocks that formed its neck separating into open wedges like a Brobdingnagian replica of those jointed, fantastic, little painted reptiles the Japanese toy-makers cut from wood.  It seemed to regard us -- mockingly.  The pointed head dropped -- past us streamed the body.  Upon it other pyramids clustered -- like the spikes that guarded the back of the nightmare Brontosaurus.  Its end came swiftly into sight -- its tail another pyramid twin to its head.

I think this can fairly be called an early science-fiction classic.  It's a lot of fun to read, if you can take the amethystine prose, and it has some really cool ideas.  I gather that Merritt wasn't really all that satisfied with the story, and it was only published in book form in 1946 after some cutting and editing, and that's the version I read.  So maybe it's better than the original, who knows.

The Voice That Thunders

The Voice That Thunders, by Alan Garner

Remember last month, when I posted about Four British Fantasists and there was quite a bit about Alan Garner, but I didn't really love Boneland?  Well, the book also quoted a collection of Garner essays, and I ILL'ed it for fun.  I really only expected to skim through it, but to my surprise...

I enjoyed this book of essays so much!  It turns out I like Garner's essays better than his novels, maybe.  They are, of course, still wildly obsessive about his corner of Cheshire, but he's so much more descriptive that it winds up being a lot of fun; it invites the reader in instead of closing out.

These are actually mostly speeches given at various meetings, with the odd essay thrown in.  Garner produces this nice mixture of discussion about his family history; Cheshire language, history, and folklore; archaeology; and his writing.  And also his struggles with his mental health; what he thought was depression turned out to be bipolar disorder, and he has an interesting talk about that.

As with any collection like this by one author, it hits certain themes over and over, but actually it's not too bad.  There's a nice variety here and a lot of highly entertaining stories.  My favorite was the one about how, as a teen, he was reading some old articles about local archaeology* and saw a drawing of a battered wooden shovel, which he knew he'd seen before -- but of course he couldn't remember where.  A few days later, the lightbulb went on in his head; he'd seen it as a little boy in the classroom, hanging on the wall.  So he ran off to the school, but the shovel was gone, either thrown out, or perhaps stuffed under the stage?  So under the stage he wriggled, and searched, and found the wooden shovel, which he kept with him for years until he found somebody he could convince to look at it and take it seriously as a prehistoric artifact, which indeed carbon dating proved it to be.

So, this was a surprisingly engaging collection that I enjoyed and read completely, instead of skimming it as I'd planned.


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*The mere fact that a teen boy would read Victorian articles about archaeology for fun shows you what kind of a person Garner is...kind of like M. R. James, who, while at Eton, spent most of a term's pocket money on "the four volumes of John Albert Fabricius on the Apocrypha."

Exiled From Earth

Exiled From Earth, by Ben Bova

Ben Bova is another new-to-me author!  This is a pretty short novel, the kind of thing a younger SF fan might read, but it does not feature kids.  Also, Ben Bova is 87 but he's still around.

In the future, there are 20 billion people on earth and the cities are no-go zones populated by vicious gangs.  Lou Christopher is a computer engineer at a scientific research center, where they are just on the verge of genetic engineering, and Lou's computer code is the key.  Pretty soon they'll be able to scan a zygote's DNA, find the broken bits, and rebuild them so that people can be born physically perfect geniuses!

Instead, the world government arrests all the geneticists and sends them into exile on a space station orbiting the Earth.  They figure genetic engineering will destabilize the careful balance they're keeping, and it's too dangerous.  Lou tries to escape, but failing that, is recruited by a government official who wants to keep going with the research.  He's got a secret island research center.  This sounds obviously Evil, but Lou signs up and asks for his secretary girlfriend, Bonnie, to be brought along too.

Bonnie is less than thrilled with being kidnapped to a secret, probably evil, island, but it's a good thing she's there, because she's the only one with any sense.  Lou and his physicist buddy are happily coding genes and making mini nuclear bombs (!) until Bonnie tells them that another department is making cortical suppressors.  This island is clearly a base from which to launch a planetary coup, in which half the world population will be stupidized so that the new rulers can build a race of supermen to replace them.

So the trio have to make a plan to save the world...but if they do, their reward will still be exile to a space station and no more research.



This is actually the first book in a trilogy, the other two being Exiles in Flight and End of Exile.  I'd be interested to read those!


I had fun with this book.  For one thing, they get lasergrams instead of letters, ha!  It's weird to see this older theory about genetic engineering, that it would be so easy to just fix DNA and make everybody super-strong and smart.  Now we know that it's much more messy than that, and so often, who's to say what's even a genetic mistake vs. an adaptation?

Bill, the Galactic Hero

Bill, the Galactic Hero, by Harry Harrison

I've never read any Harry Harrison!  He wrote The Stainless Steel Rat stories, and also the story that became the film Soylent Green.  So I'd heard of him, but this was the first book I've actually read, and it is from 1965.

Bill is a simple farmboy, drafted into the military for the endless war against the Chingers -- giant 7-foot lizards.  After a miserable time at bootcamp, he joins a ship and has a miserable time there, but he accidentally becomes a hero too.  So he's got a new arm that used to be his buddy's, and he's off to the center of the galactic empire, Helior, to get a medal.  Helior is just like Coruscant or Trantor, and poor Bill gets lost in the endless labyrinth.  Now he's AWOL...

I think this is really a darkish SF comedy for GIs.  I can see an army vet getting a lot of laughs out of this story, which plays with the miseries and pointless conundrums of military life.  It didn't do a whole lot for me -- I'd say it was fairly entertaining -- but then I didn't serve in the Army.

So, would I like the Stainless Steel Rat?  I thought I had read it, but it must have been something else.

Spock Must Die!

Spock Must Die! by James Blish

This was so fun!  I picked it up at a sharing shelf at the college where I work, and it has clearly made the rounds for a long time.  It's a library discard from someplace in Ohio, a good 40 years old, and started life as a paperback put into a library binding. 

I figured out from the introduction that this must be the very first Star Trek novel ever written.  James Blish had been doing the novelizations of episodes -- I read a lot of those as a kid and have reviewed one here for a previous Vintage Sci-Fi post -- and when the series was cancelled, he wrote this novel too.  It's from 1969, and he's hoping that Star Trek won't die after only three years.  Well, James Blish, I think you got your wish! 

The Enterprise is on a long surveying mission on the far side of the Klingon empire when the Klingons spring a massive surprise attack on Federation space!  The crew can't get back to help with the war, but they can try to help in a sideways manner.  They use the transporter, modified, to try to send a message through Spock to the thought-beings on Organia, but something goes wrong and suddenly there are two Spocks!  Which is the real one?  Are they the same?  Is one perhaps...evil?  There seems to be no way to tell.  Is the Enterprise big enough to hold two Spocks?

This really was a very fun story, with some interesting ideas thrown around.  This may be the first time the question comes up of whether the transporter actually murders the transportee, reconstructing a simulacrum every time from then on.  I also got a kick out of the solution to the Spock conundrum, which was pretty clever.

Some things are exaggerated -- Scotty's brogue sounds more like Robert Burns with every chapter -- and some things have worn oddly, like describing Lt. Uhura as both a highly respected member of the command team who outwits Klingons and also as "the Bantu girl" when looking for new descriptors.  That old-fashioned habit of always trying to come up with fresh descriptions of a known character has died a well-deserved death, hooray!

And some elements are just kind of odd.  Here is Dr. McCoy explaining stuttering to Cap'n Kirk:

"...if the left hemisphere of your brain is dominant, as is usually the case, you will be right-handed -- and vice versa.  And so, Jim, the retraining of left-handed children to become right-handed -- in complete contradiction to the orders the poor kids' brains are issuing to their muscles -- badly bollixes up their central nervous systems, and, among other bad outcomes, is the direct and only cause of habitual stuttering."

...I don't think that's quite how that works, Bones, old buddy....

To finish off, here is one bit that made me laugh.

Most battles in space are either over almost the instant they begin...or become very protracted affairs, because of the immense distances involved.  (The first sentence of Starfleet Academy's Fundamentals of Naval Engagement reads: "The chief obstacle facing a Starship Captain who wishes to join battle is that battle is almost impossible to join.")

I suppose every really committed Trekkie has read this fun little novel.  But I never got into Star Trek novels, and this was entirely new to me.  I'm glad I spotted it and took it home.

Back to the Classics 2020

Huzzah, Karen at Books and Chocolate has decided to go for another year of the beloved Back to the Classics Challenge!

I think some of this year's categories are pretty challenging.  Here they are:

1. 19th Century Classic. Any classic book originally published between 1800 and 1899.

2. 20th Century Classic. Any classic book originally published between 1900 and 1970. All books in this category must have been published at least 50 years ago. The only exceptions are books that were published posthumously but were written at least 50 years ago. 

3. Classic by a Woman Author.

4. Classic in Translation. Any classic originally written in a novel other than your native language. You may read the book in your native language, or its original language (or a third language for all you polyglots). Modern translations are acceptable, as long as the book was originally published at least 50 years ago. Books in translation are acceptable in all other categories as well.

5. Classic by a Person of Color. Any classic work by a non-white author. 

6. A Genre Classic. Any classic novel that falls into a genre category -- fantasy, science fiction, Western, romance, crime, horror, etc. 

7. Classic with a Person's Name in the Title. First name, last name or both. Examples include Ethan Frome; Emma; Madam Bovary; Anna Karenina; Daniel Deronda; David Copperfield, etc. 

8. Classic with a Place in the Title. Any classic with the proper name of a place (real or ficitonal) - a country, region, city, town, village, street, building, etc. Examples include Notre Dame de Paris; Mansfield Park; East of Eden; The Canterbury Tales; Death on the Nile; etc.

9. Classic with Nature in the Title. A classic with any element of nature in the title (not including animals). Examples include The Magic Mountain; The Grapes of Wrath; The Jungle; A High Wind in Jamaica; Gone With the Wind; Under the Volcano; etc.

10. Classic About a Family. This classic should have multiple members of the same family as principal characters, either from the same generation or multiple different generations. Examples include Sense and Sensibility; Wives and Daughters; The Brothers Karamazov; Fathers and Sons; The Good Earth; Howards End; and The Makioka Sisters.

11. Abandoned Classic. Choose a classic that you started and just never got around to finishing, whether you didn't like it at or just didn't get around to it. Now is the time to give it another try.

12. Classic Adaptation. Any classic that's been adapted as a movie or TV series. If you like, you can watch the adaptation and include your thoughts in your book review. It's not required but it's always fun to compare.

 

It's 7 - 11 I'm worried about!  I suppose I'll just read along and see what fits, which is my usual method. Are you joining up?

My Tenth Blogiversary!

On December 31, 2009, I started Howling Frog Books because I wanted to participate in reading challenges.  I had no idea how much fun, great literature, and neat people across the world I was going to find!  So, to my fellow book bloggers and readers, thank you so much for ten years of bookish loveliness.  You have been a great help to me.

Just for fun, here is the very first book I blogged about: Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven, by Susan Jane Gilman.

Ten years ago I was a homeschooling mom with a 9- and a 6-year-old.  I didn't have a job because the county had decided that the public library -- where I'd been doing sub work with the expectation of eventually working part-time at least -- didn't need much in the way of actual librarians.  I wasn't sure how I was going to solve that career dilemma, but meanwhile I was very busy doing classical education at home.

Now my kids are nearly grown; one is at college.  My career dilemma solved itself when the community college library offered me a little job, which has since expanded a good bit.  And thanks to the book blogging world, I know a lot more about classic and world literature.

So...thanks, everybody, and may 2020 bring us joyful reading.  And also more kindness.  And while we're at it, world peace.