1972: Clone (Cowper, Richard)

Pointless exercise in humor, action, cloning, and psychics (2/5)

Richard Cowper (alias of John Middleton Murry, Jr.) has written thirteen novels, only some of which have found popularity at their time of publication. Clone is said to be Cowper’s first entry into the American science fiction market, Cowper being an Englishman. Later, his White Bird of Kinship trilogy (starting with The Road to Corlay [1978]) also made his name somewhat familiar to the worldwide readers of speculative fiction. SFE says that Clone is an “amusing near-future satire” but besides a bit of silly dialogue and a tired play on the homophones gorilla and guerrilla, there’s very little else to attach itself to the “satire” label and wholly takes itself too seriously for also being labeled “amusing”; something was lost somewhere between concept and product... not to mention to cover.

Rear cover synopsis:

“Alvin was a weirdo.

He claimed to be able to remember the future…but he couldn’t see ahead into his past. He led a dazed, happy life as a manual laborer in a crew of apes.

But then he felt strange awakenings in his mind—and his body. He suddenly knew that somewhere there were three other boys exactly like him, clones grown from a single ovum in an illicit laboratory experiment.

And Alvin knew he had to find them (and the beautiful girl he kept having disturbingly erotic fantasies about). His quest plunged him into the middle of the insane urban chaos of 2072.”

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Content with his work in rural England, Alvin is the only human among ape workers. Often the buff of their jokes Alvin’s naivety spurs one religious ape named Norbert into protecting the boy. Alvin’s earliest memory is waking up supine on a table overlooked by a man and a woman. The time “Before” simply never existed for Alvin, but his hallucination of a beautiful, buxom lady echoes back to a time before his eidetic memory is capable of reaching back to. Norbert’s concern for Alvin drives him to contact the scientists in charge of Aldbury Station, where they work. When one sultry scientist takes advantage of the poor androgynous boy, another scientist assumes that Alvin’s non-sexual nature has been compromised and sends him to London with Norbert.

Little does Alvin know, he was once an experimental subject of cloning four males. Professor Poynter dispatched the boys to different areas in the past, but a recent clairvoyant remark from one of them is repeated by another, and yet another. Each unknowingly a twin of the others, the clones are gathered into one room where they physically manifest a nude image of Professor Poynter. Embarrassed and amazed, she tries to temporarily wipe their memories but induces them with too much gas so they all forget everything in their eidetic memory.

With 100 million people filling the city every working day, the streets are cramped with humans and apes alike. Though granted intelligence and capable of speech, many apes are subject to persecution and lead difficult lives in the city’s slums. When Alvin and Norbert arrive in London, the streets of are alive with two protests being conducted by apes: (1) Hampstead and Highgate Protestors Rally and (2) Crewys Road Anti-Vasectomy League. Weaving through the crowds to their destination, the Ministry of Procreation, the two are caught up in a flash riot where hundreds are left dead but the unexpected rise in violence between the protestors.

Dr. Crowe, associate of Professor Poynter, conducted the test which unleashed the experimental gas upon the rival crowds, their respective conditioning making them ripe for the violent effects of the gas. Alvin and Norbert, unconditioned, are left reeling and inured in the wake of the outburst of needless violence. Alvin is in need of help when he spies a sign which reads, “Desperate? Life proving too much for you? Call Samaritans 0000.” Cheryl is the Samaritan who descends on her anti-gravity belt to assist Alvin in his time of need, but the need Alvin wishes for and the need Cheryl wants to grant are two very different ends of the spectrum—the Samaritans assist suicides. A puppy-dog-eyed Alvin is relieved at their mutual understanding and follows the girl home while leaving Norbert behind.

Professor Poynter doesn’t believe her eyes when she see Alvin in the streets, so she comes to the park only to find Norbert there, injured and pontificating the greatness of the Lord. The two realize that they both know Alvin and are desperate to make contact with him, but little do they know that Cheryl and Alvin have been captured by gorilla guerrillas in the city. Slow-witted, the guerillas allow Cheryl to conduct her own ransom with her influential father while Alvin is slowly regaining his memory for the time “Before”. He know remembers his three clone twins and must seek them out to understand the nature of his power of projecting hallucinations and if his twins share and amplify the same power.

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I recognize the humorous elements in Clone, but they just don’t seem to come together enough to verify the “amusing’ label of the novel or even glimpse the “satire” label. Like I said, something must have been lost between its inception and its production. Where there’s a love struck boy pining for attention there are also references to rape. Where there’s a fanciful quest of reunion, there is also scenes of strong determination and fortitude. Where there’s an underplayed bombastic scientist, there’s also Alvin and his tame underdevelopment.

Cowper becomes sesquipedal when displaying his humor, a trait which is uplifting at times but also tedious at other times:

Bent low over her work she presented an impressive expanse of bare pink buttock to the world at large and to the male apes in particular. At such moments atavistic impulse tended to re-emerge from the depths of the anthropoid hypothalamus, elbow its way through the Zobian-cultured cortial tissue, and flaunt itself vividly in the anthropoid anatomy, while across the simian faces conflicting emotions of wonder, doubt, and despair flitted like shadows. (p.15)

Cloning, as a theme in science fiction, hadn’t been run into ground by 1972 but the entire psychic and psychokinetic trope had always been a favorite theme of science fiction authors—little if any of those same books I enjoy. Cowper is found of using psychic powers, to one extent or another, in his novels, which I can tolerate to a point. But when the power is left unexplained, the psychic power becomes more of a plot crutch than a plot pillar—it happens because it happens! Why the clones have their powers isn’t explained; it’s accepted.

The four person romp of collecting the other three clone twins is well and good in itself, but the slow build-up to the cavalcade weakens it dearly. So too does the resulting conclusion, an ending which is as shoulder-shrugging and out of the blue as the very powers the clones use when united. Actually, when taking the pointless powers, the pointless build up of events, and the pointless conclusion, one could infer that the book, as a whole, is pointless in itself. One would be correct.

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Besides writing one pointless book bordering on humor and action that Americans seemingly enjoyed back in 1972, there is no reason not to be perturbed by Cowper’s widest read novel when played against the rest of his library: twelve other novels and five collections. The novels I’ve read (including Profundis [1979]) and one of his collections (Out ThereWhere the Big Ships Go [1980]) haven’t been bad, but have been middling with a glimmer of talent in humor and romanticism. Does Cowper have a singularly great novel where he pulls out all the stops? I’m beginning to think that answer is no.

1971: One Million Tomorrows (Shaw, Bob)

Futuristic romanticism slightly marred by lazy pot-boiler (4/5)

My earlier readings of Bob Shaw revealed a writer of two skill sets: one with a carefree ease of penning a simple novel (Vertigo [1978]) and another penning a novel with solid impact (Ground Zero Man [1971]). Both of these novels shared one common theme: Shaw’s gift for emitting humanization through the characters’ plight. It’s this human element which I wanted to return to in Bob Shaw’s writing.

Rear cover synopsis:

“In the 22^nd Century, no one had to die of old age: an immortality drug was available to all. Its only drawback was the side-effect that ended a man’s sex drive, so most men waited till their youth was fading before they took the final step and became ‘cools.’

But Will Carewe became the first man to test a new variety of the drug, one without any side-effect at all. The limitless future, a million tomorrows, stretched before him with golden hope… until a series of ‘accidents’ made him realize that someone was trying to murder him.

As an immortal Carewe had an infinitely greater stake in remaining alive. So he began the battle to find out who was after him, and why…”

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Uneasy with the sudden focus on him, Will Carewe, a lowly accountant for the company who manufacturers the ubiquitous immortality drug, is unsure why he was called to the company president’s chambers. Proud of his work for Farma incorporated and swallowing a cocktail of anti-handover pills, Will approaches the office with reluctance and foreboding. Will’s common sense earns him the attention of the president for a drug trial which allows him to become immortal and maintain the “benefits.”

When men take the common immortality drug, their loins which had once burnt with passion become impassive and flaccid, a sexual void which many wives find a way around. Therefore, many of the men who eventually take the immortality drug do so after their life’s prime state, but Will is over 40 now and unwilling to take the plunge to become a “cool”, a term used for a man who has undergone immortality and lacks the fire in his loins. With the promise of keeping his libido, Will accepts the new and improved immortality drug.

During his honeymoon, Will injects himself with the immortality drug thereby “tying off” at his present age but still able to produce a few thrusts before he “cools”… and so he does, much to his wife’s enjoyment. However, not everything is perfect in the Carewe household—soon after the honeymoon, his wife admits she’s pregnant, but seeded by another man’s passion. His anger drives him away from his wife and away from his accountant work; he decides to voluntary leave from his position to African continent. His work, he soon discovers, involves demoralizing the Malawi natives and forcing immortality/sterilization upon them. His stomach isn’t weakened by the deed, but his immortality is being tested by actions to take his life.

Chased by “random” accidents and eager to make up to his wife, his perilous life becomes more complicated when he discovers his wife is missing—presumed kidnapped. With the assistance of Farma Incorporated and their hired detective, the two track down the location of his wife and her captors, though a slippery notion plagues Will’s instincts in the frictionless ball-bearing factory. Who would want him dead and what do they want with his wife?

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“Who would want him dead and what do they want with his wife?” – that’s the tiny mystery behind the otherwise wonderful plot with social and ethical considerations abound. Rather than take the high road and explore these facets of immortality and sterility, Bob Shaw takes the low road and takes the reader through chase scenes and man-on-man fist fights. What “could have been” was boiled down to “what it wasn’t meant to be”, but this reader wasn’t too terribly disappointed.

Shaw mentions time and again the “cooling” effect of the immortality drug. He also goes further into the martial affection of this “cooling” – if the women aren’t serviced by their man, where can they go to slake their libidinous passions? There are further ethical dilemmas: Is immortality a basic human right? Should immortality be forced upon the unwilling? These are intriguing humane questions to consider, but this remains the only human element in One Million Tomorrows. As Joachim has said, the pot-boiler in the last entire half of the novel drags down some (though not a majority) of the wonderment experienced in the initial half.

As mentioned in the introduction, the novels Vertigo and Ground Zero Man have distinct differences. Among those differences is the prose Shaw has penned. Ground Zero Man had elegant sections with vivid descriptions while Vertigo was largely stale in flowery language. One Million Tomorrows is reminiscent of the insightful language and flowery depictions. Aside from the tiresome attempts on Will’s life, the world around Will is rich with detail: private transportation in “bullets” (with futuristic carphones) via pneumatic cross-country tubes, household appliances with domed abodes housing self-chilling glasses, and industrial Idaho producing frictionless ball-bearing (and the hazards such an invention poses).

Class the above as retro-futuristic uninhibited reverse peristalsis or eager-to-meet-the-future-with-wide-eyes optimism, but I’m a sucker for it all. I love the romanticism of glorifying the future’s luxuriousness and inventiveness; the more uninhibited and the more exotic, the better. Perhaps this is why I rate the novel a 4 rather than Joachim’s 3. I can look past the pot-boiler plot filler and weak ending for guilty pleasure found in futuristic potential and gadgetry.

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My third book by Bow Shaw and he yet he still manages to show another facet to his middling talent; good, not great, with some decent imagery and romanticism, but failing to tie everything together into one wholesome package. The perfect Shaw hasn’t been found, but two more line my shelves (Fire Pattern [1984] and Orbitsville [1975]) and others await my lustful sci-fi eye.

1968: Farewell, Fantastic Venus (Aldiss, Brian)

History of Venus in fiction and science prior to 1960’s probing (4/5)

Prior to the 1962 Mariner II passing of Venus, only terrestrial observations of Venus were made. These observations were monotonously ruddy, the cloud cover of Venus providing am impenetrable dusty cloak covering its surface. This veil of mystery led to some wild theories as what exactly Venus was concealing: world-spanning oceans, gigantic foliage, murky swamps, and featureless plains. When the Mariner probe read high temperatures on the surface, sullen theorists had to accept the hard news. Later when the Russian Venera 4 probe descended through the atmosphere, high levels of carbon dioxide and low levels of oxygen were recorded, again dashing the hopes of easily finding extraterrestrial life on a solar body. The Venera 4 probe confirmed the extreme temperatures on the surface, but the most brilliant scientists and theorists still held hope for extreme forms of life, where Venusian life “might have to embody substances which are liquid at 280 degrees, build a strange genetic code, possibly with compounds of phosphorous or selenium, and feed on carbon dioxide and dust” (Davy, “Venus Mystery for Scientists”, p.263).

Farewell, Fantastic Venus takes the reader through the fictional and non-fictional history of Venus’s development. Containing more excerpts and essays than complete stories, this book is more of a synopsis than an anthology, more of a reference than a collection. It’s certainly interesting to read all the speculation, from the extreme to the urbane, from the aquatic to the deserted, from the thriving to the uninhabited.

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SECTION I: Clouded Judgments

[précis] A Trip to Venus (1897) - John Munro

A review of a predictably camp story of Naysmith Carmichael, inventor of the flying “car”, flies to Venus only to find beautiful bucolic people with a noble Christian disposition. 8 pages

[essay] The Story of the Heavens (1882) - Sir Robert Ball

An astronomer recounts witness Venus’s transit across the sun in 1882 during a snow flurries yet still manages to obtain measurements regarding its diameter. 4 pages

[excerpt] Honeymoon in Space (1968) - George Griffith

Delicious Venus air greets the travelers who remark how lovely everything is. Using music as a “universal language”, the humans and Vesuvius music and wonderment. 15 pages

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SECTION II: Never-fading Flowers

[essay] The Destinies of the Stars (1917) - Svante Arrhenius

The astronomer induces that Venus is “dripping wet” without actually measuring the atmosphere, and further induces growths of “luxuriant vegetation”. 3 pages

[excerpt] Last and First Men (1930) - Olaf Stapledon

Once the Fifth Men arrive on Venus, where oxygen is plentiful, billions of years of evolution and genetic manipulation spawn extreme versions of humans and their cultures. 25 pages

[excerpt] Pirates of Venus (1932) - Edgar Rice Burroughs

Wanting for Mars, bur arriving Venus (I hate when that happens), Napier is attacked in the towering foliage but is saved men in loin-cloths armed with knives. 9 pages

[excerpt] Perelandra (1943) - C. S. Lewis

The narrator arrives in the oceanic world on Venus, adrift in the sea amid towering waves, seeking solace upon a great patch of foliage where bears fruit and bubbles. 17 pages

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SECTION III: Swamp and Sand

[shortstory] Alchemy (1950) - John & Dorothy de Courcy (4/5)

A blue-skinned Venus native meets the narrator. They traverse the desert-like landscape to share meals and ascend the towers which pictorially represent Venus history. 9 pages

[essay] The Man from Venus (1939) - Frank R. Paul

Inducing a “tropical richness” with watery areas in great abundance, this illustrator envisions scaled Vesuvius, replete with great strength, numerous children, and satisfaction. 2 pages

[shortstory] A City on Venus (1941) - Henry Gade (2/5)

The ubiquitous “perpetual cloud blanket” hides a rocky land with coral reefs, floating islands, fungus-caped dwellings, citizens flying upon tamed pterodactyls. 3 pages

[essay] Unveiling the Mystery Planet (1955) - Willy Ley

Admitting little is known of Venus, a scientist covers the known facts through the history of viewing Venus as a celestial body and reviewing prior misconceptions. 8 pages

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SECTION IV: “Venus is Hell!”

[essay] Exploring the Planets (1964) - V. A. Firsoff

Using scientific methods, a scientist covers the facts about Venus’s microwave emissions and hypothesizes three scenarios prior to a “manned satellite mission” in the future. 3 pages

[novella] The Big Rain (1954) - Poul Anderson (4/5)

Hollister arrives on Venus as an earthborn man wanting to make a new life on the authoritarian planet, yet successfully eludes suspicion of actually of being a United Nations Inspectorate spy. His mission is simply to infiltrate the industrial sector and eventually report back his findings on how human life on Venus has been shaped. The UN isn’t happy about Venus being independent, but the Venusians themselves are caught in the romanticism of the strife for self-sufficiency. When Hollister abruptly gets married, due to the fertility laws, and his wife visits him on-location, he becomes suspicious, interrogates his wife, and rallies his workforce for a counter-authoritarian strike against the city of New America. 68 pages

[excerpt] Intelligent Life in the Universe (1966) - Carl Sagan

Reviewing past scientific hypotheses about Venus, Sagan updates the facts with recent discoveries from the 1962 Mariner II pass and posits an “appalling hot” planet. 7 pages

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SECTION V: Big Sister

[excerpt] Escape to Venus (1956) - S. Makepeace Lott

In-bound to Venus, a husband and wife listen to the dry cinematic information of the specifics of Venusian politics, the Venus calendar, and the concept of no private property. 4 pages

[novella] Sister Planet (1959) - Poul Anderson (5/5)

An oceanic Venus is colonized by a sole research station. The native aquatic animals (cetoids) seem to trade minerals and gems for the humans’ works of art and musical pieces, but the verdict is still out on whether they’re actually intelligent. When Hawthorne one day receives a luscious gem from his cetoid friend Oscar, he becomes intrigued by the strong possibility of their innate intelligence, which is confirmed when Oscar invites Hawthorne onto his back for a plunge into the deep Venusian ocean where he witness a majestic underwater Taj Mahal. Keeping his secret safe for now, another scientist reveals that he has proven that Venus can be colonized by way of radial terraformation. This very idea haunts Hawthorne. 29 pages

[shortstory] Before Eden (1961) - Arthur C. Clarke (4/5)

At a high elevation on the southern pole with lowering temperatures, the likelihood of liquid water on Venus is increasing for two scientists. The two walk up a slope to a liquid lake where their attention to drawn to a nearby dark shaggy growth creeping their way. Thermophobic, the carpet steers clear of their suits’ exhaust and shrieks away from their white light beams. Inflating a tent, the scientists gather their materials and bury their wastes before heading back to the ship. Now that they’ve left, the shaggy growth’s attention is now drawn. 12 pages

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SECTION VI: The Open Question

[essay] Some Mysteries of Venus Resolved (1967) - Sir Bernard Lovell

After the American Mariner II probe passing of Venus in 1962 and the Russian descent through the atmosphere to the surface in 1967, the fantasies of a fantastic Venus have been flattened. 5 pages

[essay] Dream of Distance (1967) - Anonymous

“written… by an anonymous drug addict while under the influence of LSD. In its musings, its style, it belongs unmistakably to our times and outlook” (Aldiss, “The Open Question”, p. 255). 3 pages

[essay] Venus Mystery for Scientists (1967) - John Davy

The absence of nitrogen and argon on Venus stumps scientists, including Dr. Sagan. Whatever life exists on Venus would be very exotic, be it the soil or in the clouds. 3 pages

[essay] Scientist Says Icecaps on Venus Would Make Life Possible (1968) - Evert Clark

As the title says, some possibility remains that pressure and temperature may be stable enough to support life at the poles. Life on Venus isn’t an impossibility. 3 pages

2008: Shadow of the Scorpion (Asher, Neal)

Cormac prequel: all action and filler, no deeper sense to Polity (3/5)

There aren’t many authors in my library with the distinction of having been read a dozen different times through a dozen different novels. This accolade is given to such timeless authors as Poul Anderson (16), Iain Banks (17), Greg Bear (20), John Brunner (21), Larry Niven (20), Frederik Pohl (15), Alastair Reynolds (12), and James White (13)… names everyone is familiar with through experience or reputation. Each of these authors has also shown me that their talent does not lie in one direction, but they have the ability to cast about their vision into scenarios which awe the reader and impinge upon the mind the sense of childhood wonderment. There’s one more author who I have read fifteen times, yet fails to exhibit the two qualities of diversity and amazement: Neal Asher. Even outside his Polity novels, The Departure (2011) still maintained the essence of Asher: weapons, violence, destruction, gore, and horror. Perhaps it’s time to move on or be labeled a one-trick pony… oops, too late.

Rear cover synopsis:

“Raised to adulthood during the end of the war between the human Polity and the vicious arthropoid race the Prador, Ian Cormac is haunted by childhood memories of a sinister scorpion-shaped war drone and the burden of losses he doesn’t remember.

In the years following the war he signs up with Earth Central Security, and is sent out to help either restore or maintain order on worlds devastated by Prador bombardment. There he discovers that though the old enemy remains as murderous as ever, they are not anywhere near as perfidious or dangerous as some of his fellow humans, some closer to him than we would like.

Amidst the ruins by war-time genocide, he discovers in himself a cold capacity for violence, learns some horrible truths about his own past and, set upon a course of vengeance, tries to stay alive.”

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A recent recruit with his rough platoon, Cormac is sent to a planet with a planet-downed Prador ship which is still host to a handful of second- and third-children. His fellow soldiers are his friends and one is even his lover. Emotions blur his senses of justice and proportion when the two of them discover Carl’s clandestine rendezvous with suspected Separatists. When Carl is gunned down, Cormac is enlisted to perform the cloak and dagger act and penetrate the Separatist organization.

Cormac is able to sneak the Separatists into the Prador ship but discover that the Prador have all but left. With casualties on both sides, they are still able to make off with counter-terrain devices which the Separatists wish to trade rather than use, but their scruples don’t deter them from inflicting casualties upon the Earth Central Security.

Carl unsuspectingly rises from his coma and rejoins the Separatists who capture Cormac and kill his lover. Cormac being Cormac, soon gore spills upon floors, limbs fling through the wind, and veins gush treasonous rebel blood. Carl still escapes but Cormac is close on his heels as the two rush to their destinies upon the same planet Cormac’s father disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

It are these circumstances surrounding the memories of his father which have caused him to reminisce about the time when his brother returned home to Earth to partially erase some painful memories from the war during his time as a medic. At the same time, Cormac remembers a sinister scorpion-shaped war drone which stalks him in Wyoming, under the sea, and even at school. Is it to deliver a massage, protect him, or one day assassinate him? When Cormac discovers that his own memory has been partially erased, he contacts his mother and is allowed to revisit the deleted memories which give answers to his past and possibly his future.

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Much as Cormac is prone to violence, Asher is as prone to action-filled scenes. Aside from Cormac’s memories which dot the chapters, there’s very little else which doesn’t include gun blasts, laser streaks, or grenade concussions. The beginning of the novel is a juicy morsel with Prador ship investigation, Prador battling, and Separatist incursions, but soon the battle rigamarole becomes redundant and the reader aches for some early development rather than a gory rush to the end with its bow-tied gift of conclusion, which wasn’t bad--a tad predictable and dies in nice with the other Polity novels.

Being a prequel to Grindlinked (2001) and the other Cormac novels, this novel introduces the reader to two things: the Separatist strife against Earth Central (though still nebulous as to exactly what their intentions and influences are), and the early life of Cormac (childhood and new recruit). I expect a lot of depth from any prequel—succulent detail of the world, the deeper causes of the universe’s problems (this being Asher’s Polity universe), and more characterization than plot. I want to see the world behind the novels, the thread rather than the fabric. Sadly, Asher doesn’t address this matter to great degree and maintain his typical guns-a-blazin’ cavorting with a cavalier protagonist.

It’s not entirely yawn worthy because some of the action scenes are quiet vibrant, but the sheer amount of action diminishes the scenes that are there. Remember the motto “Less is More”. Two or three whir-bang sequences would highlight the destruction rather than eight bang-bang-bang battles. When the battles are Prador vs. human, Prador vs. AI, AI vs. Spatterjay or Spatterjay vs. human, these sequences are usually worthwhile enough… but the man vs. man elements are just too typical.

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I’ll stick to the Prador and Spatterjay novels, but hang my hat up for the Cormac and Departure (2011) novels. There something very rewarding when reading about crab-like aliens’ guts being splattered and the tortures of the Spatterjay planet. Outside of these brutalities, the rest of Asher’s bibliography is a tad too flat for me in retrospect. While I enjoyed the Cormac novel at first (3-4 stars for each), they didn’t impinge upon my long-term memory like the Spatterjay novels. I’ve kept Gridlinked in my library, but the rest of the Cormac series will be finding a new home at the second-hand bookstore.