1976: Parric 1 - The Shadow of Alpha (Grant, Charles L.)

Holes in synopsis, gaps in the plot (3/5)
From October 20, 2011

Rear cover synopsis:
"Introducing Parric: an ordinary civil servant being ground up in a mill of paperwork, who is given a chance to work on an experimental government project- to live secretly in a town entirely populated by androids- who very existence, if it were known, would disrupt society- something the repressive society does not want.

But Parric is happy in his secret village, protected by a force-field from outsiders, in contact with only a few others in similar positions in other secret villages. Protected, until war breaks out and civilization outside calls in the horrifying Plaguewind. Then the experimental androids, affected by the plague in strange ways (when the silliest quote occurs, "Do you have any trouble with singing androids?"), become killers! Parric must escape his village, then trek across the desolated countryside, in danger from the surviving mobs of plague victims, to the control center of the secret android project, in an attempt to join other men in starting a new civilization."

This is a poorly executed synopsis is flawed in a number of ways. Firstly, it fails to mention exactly what Alpha is... it's a starship which Parric was once interested in joining but has since left on its voyage to the stars. Parric is oddly obsessed about the mission and continually refers to the possible fate of the starship, but no actual details about the starship are given. It's obvious that it's important to the main character, Parric, but how is the reader able to relate when Alpha is merely a word rather than a plot fixture?

Secondly, the synopsis fails to mention Parric's visitors to his secret village- a conversationally evasive journalist and her photographer. In the village proper when the plague hits the nation, the three of them dodge, at first, wacky androids who develop a taste for human death (exactly how or why- again, no details) and escape the village with their lives to head for some form of safe civilization.

Not only are there holes in the synopsis, but there are also gaps in the plot. The three of them witnessed the plague beginning to change the androids but they were unsure if they had contacted the same plague. Considering the tiny village size and the 100% infection of the functional androids, it should have been 100% obvious that they were indeed infected... yet they took the chance to escape and become exposed outside the force-field. Yes, the force-field...

The force-field is semi-permeable. It allows air to pass through but when a human enters it supposedly trips an alarm. Yet when rocks and stick and logs are tossed through the field, it takes a while before the alarm is tripped. If a human can pass, hence tripping the alarm, then it doesn't actually KEEP anyone out. It also allows bullets to pass through... so what exactly does the force-field keep out?

The Shadow of Alpha is quite a rather poor, yet strangely intriguing read and a shallow beginning to a possibly deep trilogy, where Ascension and Legion follow. I'm interested in how the Alpha starship fits into the scheme of things. Will Parric rebuilt society for the arrival of the crew? Will androids kill everyone? Will force-fields actually force anything from entering?

1977: Parric 2 - Ascension (Grant, Charles L.)

Lurks in the Shadow of "The Shadow of Alpha" (3/5)
From January 5, 2012

Ascension is the sequel to Grant's The Shadow of Alpha and takes place 58 years after Franklin Parric had escaped his dome, his job, and the Plaguewind which destroyed much of the world's population and turned nearly all androids into murderous machines. Ascension is the story of Franklin Parric's grandson Orion Parric, son of Dorin Parric and brother to Mathew Parric.

Rear cover synopsis:
"Dorrin [sic] Parric is dead, and his son Orion has sworn to avenge him. But first he must run a gauntlet of human assassins, blood-crazed androids and aging, paranoid dictators. Petty tyrants rule the few straggling settlements where mankind holds out against the darkness. Time and again Parric eludes the strange traps set for him by the forces of decay. But his luck is running out. At the end of the road is Philayork, a bewildering metropolis wracked by far and evil. Whatever had killed Orion Parric's father was also waiting for him in the ruins of earth's last great city."

The Shadow of Alpha set the stage of the apocalypse, where humans died by the millions and the human that did live were hunted down by the crazed androids, which the Plaguewind altered. The only sanctuaries left to humans were force-field reinforced domes and the remote enclaves of well-armed Hunters. Orion's father Dorin set upon a mission with William Dix (the same unaffected android friend of Franklin Parric) to visit the once grand city of Philayork to see what was left of humanity and its once miraculous technologies. However, Franklin was killed in mysterious circumstances and was carried back to Central by Dix. Orion has taken it upon himself to seek out the same city and murder the man who spilled his father's blood.

The synopsis is a tad extreme, highlighting the action sequences when in reality, the novel is written with an interest in exploring what has happened to the world outside the protective dome of Central. Grant writes of how nature has recovered from the Plaguewind and how humans must herd flocks of birds to their fields of grain in order to control the insects. He also explores the ruins of Philayork, where windows have been shattered, moving walkways have been torn up, stores of food have been ransacked, and heaps of clothing mark the place where people have died in situ. While his descriptions aren't as vivid as what my imagination has concocted for the year 2247 A.D., he gets the message across that the world has taken an ugly turn for the worse. While there aren't' many "human assassins" and
blood-crazed androids" found in the 220 pages, the action which does take place is often the duck-and-shoot kind of action... nothing worth mentioning.

Characterization was weak in the prior novel, but Grant seems to have taken in interest in developing his characters in Ascension. Orion is a bitter man, always on the edge of an angry outburst whose rage sometimes gets the bets of him: "The dispassionate manner of their conversation grated, an impersonal abrasive that made him want to grab for the nearest tree and yank it out by the roots." (25) He also has an internal sense of sarcasm which grates him into stinging internal dialogue: "...no supplications for libations for Parric's godlike intrusion. The voice was dead. Rising from a dead space." (21)

One problem with The Shadow of Alpha was that the spaceship Alpha was only ever mentioned in passing; no detail of the mission or the importance ever cropping up. Alpha became a symbol of hope for Franklin Parric, establishing within himself a need to resurrect humanity for the return of the crew of Alpha. Likewise, Orion Parric maintains Franklin's desire to rid humanity of its barbarous ways so that the crew of Alpha can return to a civilized society. While this symbol of hope continues, so does the absence of any explanation of what Alpha is or what it was sent out to do.

Ascension is an interesting contrast to The Shadow of Alpha but, like its predecessor, it may have set a pretty good scene but failed to really create a plot which ties in directly to the lumbering giant which is mentioned in both books- The Alpha. A series isn't really a series when sequences, characters, and objects are chronologically separated and nearly forgotten about. Book three of the series (according to ISFDB) is also the last... Legion. How will Grant organize his sequences, characters, and objects to culminate into a finale?

1979: Parric 3 - Legion (Grant, Charles L.)

Without immediacy, the series lurches ahead... or does it? (3/5)

The first two books in the Parric series, (1) The Shadow of Alpha and (2) Ascension, were fair reads taking place with fair characters but the entire setting felt entirely urbane. An apocalyptic PlagueWind kills most of mankind in 2189 and turns the androids into killing machines (sounds like a great scenario, a little hokey yet still a little interesting) but the sense of immediacy was never present, like the end of the world was very important because there was hope. That "hope" was taken in the form of a spaceship named Alpha, which set off for a mission to the star and has yet to return. Franklin Parric in 2189 saw the Alpha as a source of hope, Orion Parric, his grandson, also saw Alpha as a source of hope in 2247, and yet again with Orion's brother Mathew in 2257 - the Alpha has a very strong symbolic nature to the Parric family but, like the lack of immediacy of the setting, there's a lack of reason behind the emotional draw to the spaceborne craft.

The reader was introduced to Orion Parric in Ascension and Orion's brother, Mathew, was mentioned in passing. In Legion, Mathew Parric takes center stage. Rear cover synopsis:
"The village had been called Town Central, where people learned to live with androids, and androids learned to live like humans [reader can refer to Charles Grant's 1979 Nebula Award winning novelette "A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye "]. It had been an experiment to bolster a dying population, and it might have worked, given the chance. But there was the Plaguewind. And there was the Dying..."

Legion takes place 68 years after The Shadow of Alpha. Still, there are androids who roam the lands and attack humans with a thirst for blood, an agenda for dismemberment. Outside the force-fielded domes are Hunters, who live off the land as the did before the Plaguewind. Town Central is recruiting nearby villages into their collective so they cab begin to understand the dire need for androids, but the Hunters remain skeptical and stand juxtaposed with Central. The death of Mathew's family in a recruitment village years ago is largely blamed on a Hunter leader named Quilly, yet Mathew has become morose, lacking any motivation for revenge. Still, ContiGov decide to send Mathew and a team out into the wilderness to confront Quilly's anti-android agenda... or just have the bugger assassinated.

Alas, things are never as simple as they seem. Somehow messages are being relayed from Central to Quilly, no facts about the killings have ever been uncovered, and the personage of Quilly remains as mysterious as the whereabouts of Alpha. There is a spy amongst Mathew's crew; is it the dwarf, the giant, the ex-Huntress, the ever present android William Dix from the time of Franklin Parric, or female confidant Marla? Whichever way subterfuge leads the pack, the destination is... umm, destined for Philayork, where Orion Parric has remained all these years under the pipe dream of Alpha's triumphant return.

Charles Grant may disappoint with the immediacy of the plot, but he doesn't let the reader down with a smattering of randomly poetic passages describing the rich, yet richly unexplored surroundings: "Her laughter matched the breeze that tugged a their hair, the sleeves of their shirts loose and billowing." (23) and "There was a moon. A grass-spiked dune. A wind that blew fresh with the storm now gone." (163) and "The air helped. It was lightly chilled, nearly brittle, kept at bay the languid temptation that heat would have promised." (181)

Grant also breaths life into his one sympathetic character, Mathew, with these passages: "It was, he thought, much like a knife-walled maze that bled him as he solved it. But once solved... the exit by no means the last door or salvation." (167) and "And in sleeping, fought to dream; and in dreaming, remembered nothing. If there were demons, he ignored them; if there were solutions, he didn't recognize the. And if there were promises, he didn't hear them." (180)

The third novel of the Parric series ends on a rather nebulous note, much like its predecessor Ascension did. It's all rather open-ended with wide plot gap to fill since The Shadow of Alpha. Questions linger... Where the bugger is Alpha and when the bugger will it return? Will civilization be re-established by the ever-so altruistic Parric family? Will physical contact be made with anyone overseas or can no one pilot a boat anymore? These questions remain.

*Cue dramatic music and nefarious laughter* There ARE no more books in the series! *laughter turns maniacal* In the preface of Legion, Charles Grant outlines a further two novelettes and three novels involving the Parric family with mentions that they are "not yet written". Legion was published in 1979 and the author passed away in 2006 - no follow-ups to the Parric series was ever pursued. I find the matter of the eternally lost Alpha a far bit distressing... it's lost forever in the realm of literature, only to remain a figment of the author's imagination and the Parric's seemingly genetic memory of its former greatness.

(I have emailed Charles Grant's wife in hope of receiving manuscripts or plot outlines for the remaining books... but she is still going through the deceased author's office. Fingers crossed!)