One of the great things about the internet is that it allows the fans of writers such as
Isaac Asimov and
Jack Vance to exchange and share their thoughts about great works of science fiction, fantasy and other literary genres. With regularity, I search the internet for new commentary on the stories that were published by my favorite Sci Fi authors.
The Good. It is not uncommon for me to link to commentators who do a nice job of summarizing specific stories. For example, three years ago, as part of my own comments on Trullion, I linked to some online commentary about Trullion by Thomas M. Wagner. Wagner stressed the fact that Trullion is an interesting story. I'd add that Vance's stories are also often fun and clever, which makes them a pleasure to read and repeatedly re-read.
As I cruise the interwebs in search of interesting fan commentary on Sci Fi stories, Asimov's ideas about book reviews are never far from my thoughts.
Six years ago I mentioned that in 1981, Asimov wrote an essay about book reviews in which he admitted how much it hurt him whenever his stories were harshly reviewed. In that essay ("
Book Reviews"), Asimov provided a list of six requirements that a book reviewer should take pains to satisfy when reviewing a work of fiction. Asimov pointed out that book reviewers should be careful and carefully read every word of a book that they review.
With Asimov's six requirements for reviewers in mind, I seldom try to write a review. This blog is full of what I call non-reviews; commentary on stories that have purposes other than trying to be an actual review.
The Bad. One of the dangers of roaming the internet in search of commentary on Sci Fi stories is that some people are paid to write glowingly of books as part of marketing schemes that aim to separate readers from their money. I
previously blogged about this annoyance and suggested that fans need to step up and provide a counter-balance to marketing scams. In essence, Sci Fi fans need to be vocal when a published story is bad and should be avoided by readers, particularly when the story is hyped by unethical and deceptive marketing.
Of course, there are some honest differences of opinion about what constitutes good fiction, so what is needed are insightful and detailed commentaries on books that allow potential readers to make good judgements about whether they will enjoy a book or despise a book.
The Clever. While a clever writer like Vance could routinely write interesting stories, Asimov warned about the danger of clever reviewers. Asimov wrote, "...the purpose of the review is not to demonstrate the superior erudition of the reviewer or to make it seem as if the reviewer could write the book better than the author did." For example, when I recently pointed out what seems to be an error in The End of Eternity, I was not complaining. I'm amazed that prolific writers like Asimov and Vance made so few errors. The errors of good writers are often interesting in themselves, sort of like a Freudian slip.
"
Good luck looks to be bad luck". Similarly, when I recently blogged about
Glawen Clattuc and his failure to arm himself before visiting Thurben Island, you might wonder if I was simply trying to point out a problem with Vance's story. Not at all. One of the great things about Vance is that he often showed the failings of his protagonists. For example, in
The Killing Machine,
Kirth Gersen is depicted as being a crafty, competent man, but then one day he slips up and is captured by his enemy. After being mocked by his adversary for his remarkable stupidity in allowing himself to be captured, all Gersen can say about his carelessness is, "It was a poor move." Of course, Gersen's blunder eventually lead$ to a va$t reward, so in the end, the failing$ of Vance's protagonist appear to actually be exceptionally good luck that was initially disguised as failure. A perfect protagonist who never makes a mistake would be far less interesting than the fallible Kirth Gersen character created by Vance.
All of the above brings me to
some online commentary by Jacob Armstrong about Vance's novel
Star King. Jacob bluntly derides
Gersen with this statement: "
This Kirth Gersen character, interplanetary avenger, isn’t just flat and boring—he is a bumbling moron!" However, this may be a sad case of
a pot calling a kettle black.
I suspect that Jacob quickly read Star King and then wrote his commentary on the novel without really understanding what he had read. First of all, the story begins at Smade's Tavern, not "Smeade's" Tavern. Personally, I can't spell, so I don't really care if Jacob writes about "Smeade's Tavern" ... maybe Jacob has a copy of Star King from an alternate Reality in which Vance invented a distant exoplanet called "Smeade's Planet". However, spelling errors always make one wonder if there might be more consequential errors lurking nearby.
Lucky coincidence. I'm in complete sympathy with Jacob when he reacts to the apparent lucky coincidence that when Gersen arrives at Smade's Tavern, the only other guest of the establishment is a Star King. Vance lets readers know that there are perhaps a few hundred Star Kings living among humans on the many settled planets of the galaxy. Star King's are aliens who, due to their physical similarity to humans, are able to disguise themselves as humans and sometimes live undetected among humans. This is the first time that Gersen has seen a Star King, as far as he knows. We never learn how Smade knew that his patron was a Star King, but
we can make guesses. Smade does not like to gossip about his guests, but within minutes of Gersen's arrival at the Tavern, Smade can't resist telling Gersen that a Star King is in residence at the Tavern.
Vance often used odd coincidences and strokes of luck to speed along his stories. Vance seldom allowed his stories to drag and get bogged down in plot minutia. I can understand if this practice irritates some readers. However, in my case, I like to imagine that some of Vance's characters may have had forms of extrasensory perception (or
telepathy) that contributed to their "good luck", so I don't cry "foul!" when I see unlikely coincidences in a story like
Star King.
Also, it is healthy to remember that writers like Vance were often forced to write quickly (at "pulp speed") in order to feed their families, so we should cut them some slack when we find plot holes in their stories.
Back to Smade's Tavern. Arriving soon after Gersen at the Tavern is Lugo Teehalt, a space explorer who has recently discovered the location of a beautiful Earth-like planet. Teehalt is in a quandary because he is now expected to provide the location of this pretty planet to the evil Malagate, a well-known criminal and the person who financed Tehalt's space exploration mission. Jacob seems to mis-remember Lugo Teehalt as having told Gersen that Malagate was a Star King. However, in Vance's story there is no indication that Tehalt knew Malagate's well-kept secret: that Malagate is a Star King. Also, it is clear in Vance's story that when Teehalt sees the Star King in Smade's Tavern, he does not know that this is Malagate. Apparently, Smade also informed Teehalt that the third guest at the Tavern was a Star King. Readers never learn how Smade knew that his guest was a Star King, so I've written
a fan-fiction story that tries to explain that.
Jacob falsely states that, "
Malagate the Woe is a notorious Star King". It is not that simple. A few of Malagate's closest henchmen (such as
Suthiro) are aware that Malagate is a Star King, but until Gersen deduces this fact and tricks the overly loquacious Suthiro into confirming it, nobody outside of Malagate's immediate criminal circle was aware of the fact. Thus, Gersen was not a moron for taking 100 pages to realize that the Star King at Smade's Tavern was Malagate.
Adding to his fractured fairy tale version of the story, Jacob says: "Gersen gets knocked out, and when he comes to the bad guys have since made their escape in what they thought was Lugo Teehalt’s spaceship." This is conflating two separate events in the story. Only much later in Star King (and on another planet) is there a scene in which Gersen is knocked unconscious.
"...
Gersen sat watching the play of lightening over the ocean..." At Smade's Tavern, after meeting Lugo Teehalt, Gersen's spaceship is stolen by Malagate's men who assume they are taking Teehalt's ship. It is a stormy night and Gersen simply goes to bed. In the morning, Gersen learns that Teehalt was killed during the night and he goes to where Teehalt had hidden his spaceship. Gersen now takes possession of the navigation records that contain the location of the valuable planet discovered by Teehalt. Gersen uses this planet as bait to lure Malagate to his doom.
So, don't let any of the confused commentary from Jacob Armstrong prevent you from reading Star King. Yes, there are plot elements left unexplained by Vance and there are unlikely coincidences in the story and Gersen is not a Mary Sue who never makes a mistake, but none of these features of the story ruins the tale.
Recomplicated. Earlier this year Mark R. Kelly posted
some commentary about
The End of Eternity on the
Black Gate website. I appreciate the effort when someone makes a detailed analysis of a science fiction novel. Sadly, Mark's chapter-by-chapter outline of Asimov's story contains errors and provides little insight into why anyone should read
The End of Eternity. First, let's correct two of the most egregious errors:
Chapter 2. It all hinges on Finge. Mark writes: "Finge can’t explain completely, but he claims the assignment is to protect the very existence of Eternity." No. When Twissell first meets Harlan, Twissell says, "I need you for the existence of Eternity".
Chapter 10. Has Finge become unhinged? Mark writes: "Finge threatens to dispose of Noÿs by transporting her to some disaster, like an airplane crash..." No.
No. After Harlan discovers a mysterious barrier that is blocking his access to
Noÿs (she has been moved to the far Upwhen), he assumes that the Computers of Eternity must have created the barrier. While trying to regain access to Noÿs, Harlan threatens to inflict severe pain and agony on Computer Fringe unless he takes down the barrier. Finge tells Harlan that he should calm down and think before he commits a capital crime. Finge describes how criminals can be executed by means of techniques such as using the temporal gateways of
Eternity to place them in harms way; maybe putting them onboard a crashing airplane... but he does not threaten to do that to Noÿs.
Meta Time Travel. Perhaps the most interesting Sci Fi plot element of The End of Eternity is that for 180 pages, the reader is provided with a story about the smug Eternals and how they use their time travel technology to guide Humanity into the future. Then, in the last 10 pages, Asimov reveals the "story behind the story" and the fact that Noÿs is a time traveler from the Hidden Centuries and her mission is to destroy the Eternity time travel system.
Residing outside of the normal flow of time on Earth, in the security of the Eternity space-time bubble, the Eternals mock the "Timers" (people who live in ordinary time) for their inability to imagine how the time travelers of Eternity control the fates of ordinary humans in Time. All the while, the Eternals are unable to imagine how Noÿs is preparing to remove Eternity from existence.
Mark writes: "Asimov’s characters are always bristling at each other." The entire Eternity system for time travel is depicted by Asimov as being deeply flawed. As Noÿs puts it: the Computers of Eternity are psychopaths.
Harlan thinks about it and agrees that Eternity is plagued by deepening psychoses and is "a writhing pit of abnormal motivations". A major problem in Eternity is that for technical reasons, almost no women can be removed from time and taken to serve within Eternity. Almost everyone in Eternity is male. Any good time travel story should deal with this issue: if time travel is possible, then why aren't time travelers constantly popping up, arriving from the past or the future? In
The End of Eternity, Asimov cleverly suggests that even if time travel technology was invented, eventually those with the power to travel through time would try to prevent time travel from taking place because time travel would cause too many problems.
Mark writes about: "the sexism that presumes females should be only mothers". That happens to be the sort of cultural environment in which Harlan was born and grew up.
Harlan came from a time in the far future when the stay-at-home-mom was the cultural norm. That explains his dislike for the era in which he finds Noÿs, an era which is quite the opposite. In the end, it is Noÿs, a woman, who destroys the Eternity boys club, and Harlan comes to realize that Eternity and its abnormal social system should be destroyed.
Love. In his commentary, Mark mentions the word 'love' twice and states flatly: "Asimov’s prose and characterizations do not impress". At the bottom of the webpage, the first comment, from Thomas Parker, states: "...in this book Asimov tried to portray a passionate, deathless love, and the result was a failure so pathetic it’s almost laughable." Noÿs is able to View the future and she has seen that Harlan will completely change his world view, fall in love with her and they will have a happy future together. Why is this Sci Fi love affair laughable?
Epic Fantasy. I'm intrigued when I see theses sorts of negative statements made by commentators such as Thomas without a single word written to justify their harsh criticism. I suppose I should not be surprised by anything I read at a website that has evolved from a magazine that was devoted to "epic fantasy".
Is the source of these unexplained criticisms because Asimov does not follow some standard literary formula for how to write a character and a love story? I suspect that folks like Thomas are not hard science fiction fans and don't understand Asimov's story and what Asimov was trying to do with his unconventional love story.
My advice: if you are a fan of science fiction, don't pay attention to much of the online commentary about The End of Eternity. Sadly, it has become all too easy for internet commentators to post condemnations of authors and their stories even without reading them or even when the commentator can't understand the stories. The End of Eternity may be "recomplicated" and you may need to read it twice to understand the time twisted plot, but for those who enjoy the Sci Fi "what if" game, it is worth the effort.
Related Reading: comments on The End of Eternity by James Nicoll and John Hertz: "The reader, the re-reader, who looks, who notes, is rewarded."
Next: investigating the science fantasy fiction of Philip K. Dick
No comments:
Post a Comment