Black Gate

‘Civilization is too high a price to pay for survival’

Moon from Half Past Human

I don’t know what made me buy Half Past Human (1971) by T.J. Bass fifteen years ago. It was one of those books I had always seen on the used book store shelves, but nothing about the cover (the basis on which I tended to buy unknown books back then) made me go “Gotta buy it.” Something on the back cover, though, must have caught my attention that day, because I plunked my money down on the counter of Red Bank, NJ’s (sadly, long gone) Book Pit. I started reading it on the ride home, and before I knew it I was a third of the way done. A week later I made a circuit of used book stores to get my hands on the sequel, The Godwhale (1974).

Initially published by Ballantine, Gollancz released the duology in 2014 as part of its Masterworks collection. If you’re a sci-fi reader of a certain age, or a student of the genre, you’ll recognize most of the books in the collection, definitely most of the authors. But with only two books published nearly fifty years ago, I wonder how many know Bass’s name today. Which is a shame.

The fear of overpopulation was immense in the late sixties. Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 The Population Bomb promised that if population growth was not brought under control, humanity faced oblivion. Regular famines, overcrowded cities, a polluted environment, and dwindling natural resources seemed to be our future. Science fiction was examining the problem with books like Harry Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room! (1966) (the basis for the Charlton Heston sci-fi noir Soylent Green) and John Brunner’s Stand On Zanzibar (1968). This fear set the stage for Bass’s vision of Earth crushed by the weight of three trillion people.

In this, the third millennium, Earth was avocado and peaceful. Avocado, because all land photosynthesized; and peaceful, because mankind was evolving into the four-toed Nebish — the complacent hive citizen.

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Contrary to conventional wisdom, sometimes a book’s cover gives matter enough for a fair judgment. The copy I read of Nancy Kress’ The Prince of Morning Bells is a 1981 first printing by Timescape; the book was reprinted in the year 2000 by Foxacre Press, and I learned from Black Gate supremo John O’Neill’s 2012 look at the title that a digital version came out in 2011. At any rate, the front cover of the Timescape edition promises: “In the magical tradition of The Last Unicorn, the tale of a restless young princess and her wondrous quest!” Parts of the blurb are only half-accurate, but the important part, the difficult-to-believe part, is quite correct. The Prince of Morning Bells is worth mentioning with The Last Unicorn, not just in terms of quality but in tone. It works with classic fantasy traditions, using a witty and often lightly-ironic style with a sprinkling of anachronism to tell a deep and profoundly moving tale. Kress has apparently noted the influence herself, though I don’t find the books excessively similar. Their bones are configured in different shapes. Distinctive, individual, The Prince of Morning Bells shows how a fantasy tale can transmute allegory into anti-allegory, telling a symbolic story that works as story while also working as symbol.

It is the story of Kirila, who begins as an eighteen-year-old princess discontented with what seems an increasingly unimportant life. She therefore decides to set out on a great Quest for the Heart of the World. She’s soon joined on her travels by a talking dog, Chessie, who claims to be a prince under a curse that can only be removed at the Heart of the World, which he tells her is to be found in the Tents of Omnium. Together they journey on, as Kirila encounters challenges and temptations; the story, which had opened on a comic note, gradually sounds bleaker tones and darker shades until, at the mid-point of the book, there is an unexpected structural turn. Kirila’s quest continues, but her resources and energy are taxed further than one might have imagined. The promised happy ending seems distant; and indeed the conclusion, although everything promised, is at the same time more equivocal than one might have imagined. Yet also satisfying, with real wisdom gained, Kirila thoroughly changed and developed, and a sense of both mystery and high majesty overriding all.

The book’s a fairy tale as much as fantasy, and if in the beginning it seems like a sending-up of fairy-tale cliches, it quickly grows more serious. As Kirila matures in the course of her adventures the quest gains in emotional intensity, giving the plot its centre without becoming episodic. Structurally, the book’s clever; although it divides into two halves, it’s so much of a piece it avoids a feeling of easy symmetry. Instead the midpoint does what a good midpoint’s supposed to, initiating the falling action in an unexpected way, leading through an increasing emotional intensity to an inevitable yet unpredictable conclusion. Kirila becomes an everywoman whose journey is a symbolic progress through life, yet if she begins as a generic spunky red-haired princess with a temper, she swiftly becomes an individual with distinctive gifts and flaws. While the quest defines the book, the shape of the quest follows the shape of her choices, prompted by who she is and what she wants. Fairy tale and characterisation combine.

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Back in around 1980, when I read Larry Niven’s multi-award winning Ringworld (1970) for the first time, it totally blew my mind. I had never read anything that conveyed the feeling of BIGNESS so powerfully and so well. Rereading it yesterday, I was thrilled to discover it still does. It’s got its flaws, some pretty big ones in fact, but for much of its length it remains a terrific read. Despite having won numerous awards and a career that’s spanned over five decades, it remains the book he’s best known for.

Beginning with 1964’s “The Coldest Place,” Larry Niven began laying out the history of humanity’s expansion and exploits across a 30-light year bubble of of the Milky Way he dubbed Known Space. Over the next six years, he wrote about another twenty novels and stories that span from the late 21st century to the 32nd. Along the way he introduced some of the most iconic sci-fi aliens, including the cowardly Pierson’s Puppeteers and the ferocious Kzin (who now feature in their own unending series of shared-world anthologies).

Louis Wu is bored. Bored with an Earth where everywhere and everyone has blended into a bland homogeneity. In the past, he has taken what he calls “sabbaticals,” and gone on months-long solo deep space jaunts. The 1968 story, “There Is A Tide,” describes one of his voyages in great detail.

In 2850, while celebrating his 200th birthday, wandering the globe to avoid his own guests, stepping from one teleportation booth to another, Louis suddenly appears in an unexpected location with an even more unexpected host — a Pierson’s Puppeteer. Once, the three-legged, two-headed aliens maintained a vast commercial empire, trading in highly advanced technologies. Then, two hundred years ago, they pulled up stakes and left Known Space. Having learned the galactic core had exploded and the resultant wave front would reach Known Space in 20,000 years, they decided it was time to find safety. No human ever heard from them again or knew where they went.

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