Changing Planes (Ursula K. LeGuin)

 

Ursula K. LeGuin’s Changing Planes is a collection and a reminder of a simpler age before 9/11, before Columbine, before COVID. The parables are framed by an airport experience no longer available: dozing off. Each parable takes place on a different plane (in the non-aeronautical sense of the word) with a different ethnic group or species; not dissimilar to the manga Kino’s Journey. It is best read slowly, and a return to a favorite parable, whether that is due to familiarity or perplexity, will reap additional rewards.

The Book of Man (Mike Resnick)

 Mike Resnick's Birthright: The Book of Man is a deeply cynical future history that will delight those who seek the scope of Foundation and amoral universe of Pegana but wish to avoid the erotic exoticism of Heinlein. Each story features a different era from the ascent of Man to the stars to his eventual extinction. Man cycles through various forms of government, but ultimately remains Himself. If you need a dose of wonder afterward, Stapledon's Star Maker (equally atheist) is recommended.

The Complete Pegānā

 If you want to avoid the loathing of all things and otiose verbiage of Lovecraft, but still desire a cosmos that is at best indifferent and at worst actively hostile, you could do worse than Lord Dunsany’s mythology about the Gods of Pegānā. Lord Dunsany’s style is the opposite of that of Lovecraft: Lord Dunsany writes horror by omitting adjectives and descriptions of rituals which are either known to those who dwell therein or are secrets known only to the Gods. Many of the most memorable elements of Lovecraft’s cosmos derive from here, including the sleeping god whose dream we are and his musical attendant. The best collection to read these tales is The Complete Pegānā: All the Tales Pertaining to the Fabulous Realm of Pegānā. The cosmos of the Gods of Pegānā is mostly Lucretian, in which the prayers of Men usually reach only as far as the ears of the priests; the attitude of the Gods towards Man is best epitomized in these lines from the chapter “Of Yoharneth-Lahai”: “Yoharneth-Lahai is the god of little dreams and fancies … To whom Yoharneth-Lahai come not with little dreams and sleep he must endure all night the laughter of the gods with highest mockery in Pegānā.”

The first half of the collection is structured like a holy book. The chapter divisions are similar to the surāt of the Qur’an. The chronology is similar to the books of the Bible, stretching from the creation of the Gods and the Worlds to the End. The content in the beginning is reminiscent of the Theogony of Hesiod (another noted pessimist), while the middle contains longer stories of Men and their desperate attempts to access the Gods. The Gods win, every time. There is some variety, such as the rebellion of minor streams. The final tale is that of the End, in which the god of Time is slain by one of his own hounds, who are the Hours which devour all things.

The second half of the collection is an expansion of the mythology, both in the realms of the Gods and of Men. The order here is more varied. On the divine side, it includes “A Legend of the Dawn,” in which the sole child among the gods loses her ball (the Sun), and “When the Gods Slept,” in which worse things than the gods creep into the world and further degrade Men. On the human side, there is “The Relenting of Sarnidac,” in which a disabled dwarf undergoes accidental apotheosis, and “In the Land of Time,” in which a king declares war against Time himself.

The final three tales of the collection are titled “Beyond the Fields We Know”: each tale involves a traveler from our world participating in the world of Pegānā. These serve as a link between the realms of Dunsany’s dreams and the “real world,” thereby allowing a transition to more familiar landscapes with a new appreciation. A good (but definitely not tame) Lion once put it thus: “I am [there] … But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason you were brought [here], that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” Homecoming is a necessity after the adventure in the perilous realm.

If you enjoy Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, you will enjoy Pegānā; but I would not recommend a graphic novel adaptation, for the sign of Mung and the other Gods of Pegānā are best left to dreams and dreamers.

I Owe My Soul to the Ballybran Store

 Anne McCaffrey is best known for her Dragonrider series, but a far more intriguing series in the Crystal Singer trilogy, composed of The Crystal Singer, Killashandra, and Crystal Line. This series takes place in the same FSP universe as Dinosaur Planet, the Ship Who series, and others. The protagonist of the series of the series is Killashandra, whose unpredictable temperament and a singular vocal flaw result in the abortion of her career as a singer. Her perfect pitch, however, makes her a candidate for residence on the planet Ballybran, source of the eponymous crystals. The crystals are magic space crystals, the spice of the FSP universe. If the original inspiration were dilithium, it would not be surprising. These crystals, in addition to their exclusive origin, cannot be mined in a conventional fashion – they must be sung out of their formation with precision. The value of crystals drives a constant competition among the singers, who need to prospect for the next vein; but one cannot sing and drive the sled, so cooperation is also necessary. A land of crystal mountains, as one might suspect, is not particularly conducive to human life, even with the modifications available in the FSP, but the fantastically high prices which crystal commands ensures food imports. 

Potential singers are exposed to the environment of Ballybran, which is, at best, long-term incompatible with human health and at worst a harbinger of impending mental death; but those crystals are very valuable! Of the candidates to become crystal Singers who gather on Ballybran’s moon, some recuse themselves from the trial, some are immediately invalided by the fever from adjusting to the environment of Ballybran, some are disabled in a lesser manner, and a few survive intact with enhanced senses – for now. All who descend to Ballybran cannot leave the world for too long; the Singers are the only ones allowed to leave in order to install the crystals in the infrastructure of the FSP – the rest of the world does not need to see the human price paid for the crystals. Even the singers, however, ultimately succumb to the toxicity of the environment of Ballybran. If a Singer stays away too long from Ballybran, she dies because her body is adjusted for Ballybran; if a Singer is on Ballybran, she is slowly going mad because “adjusted” is a relative term; if a Singer does not find new veins, she accumulates debt; if a Singer errs while prospecting, she goes mad. Ballybran is a company planet; it is surely no accident that rarest and most valuable color of crystal is black.

The actual plot of The Crystal Singer is relatively simple: it is a story of vicious claim wars spiced up with romance. Many McCaffrey series feature a romance between a female protagonist and a high-status male, with varying degrees of consent. In this case, Killashandra aims as high as she can, successfully attracting Lanzecki, the head of the Heptite Guild. The nature of Ballybran, however, makes all romances doomed ones; Lanzecki’s years of service to the Guild have exacted a toll on him that Killashandra has yet to suffer. Killashandra must prove her worth while becoming increasing isolated from her less successful guild members. Much like the original Lost in Space movie, Killashandra proved too popular to remain dead.

The second book, Killashandra, is also a romance and an intrigue on a planet where ‘everyone is happy’. The new love interest is Lars, a name which also begins with L. Unless Killashandra has a pseudo-Kryptonian L-fetish (she is stronger, faster, better than non-Singers living in a sterile crystalline world), this is either an oversight on the author’s part, or an indication that the original script featured Lanzacki. The paradise planet is, of course, not a paradise. The false paradise, a love doomed to fail, and trial by computer give this book a feel reminiscent of Star Trek. It nonetheless has a happy ending.

The final book, Crystal Line, begins as more grounded, but its ending could be seen as cheap way towards a happy ending. The cost of maintaining essentially immortal brain-damaged Singers is ruinous, and Killashandra is well on her way to joining them. An unethical doctor discovers a way to circumvent the duty to care for such Singers. The discovery of a possibly sentient being named the Jewel Junk in ranges hitherto believed to be lifeless further imperils the status of the Heptite Guild, but the Jewel Junk could also be the solution to the Guild’s problems, or at least a way to avoid them becoming worse. The happy ending to this book suggests that the author has succumbed to the desire of a happy ending for the main character and her world even against the rigorous world-building – especially when the original novel did not end so.

The Crystal Singer trilogy is worth reading. Its world-building is excellent and contains many real world parallels for book club discussion. It has a strong protagonist, utilizes the author's larger universe well, and series has an arc with an adequate conclusion. It would make a wonderful miniseries. The only problem is that the ending is a deus ex machina in a series that hitherto had been grounded in realistic politics.

There Are No Windows And I Must Scream

             A book which has haunted to me to this day is The World Inside, by Robert Silverberg. Written in the heyday of awareness of overpopulation and the illusory promise of urban high rises, it combines the two in a nightmarish future. In the future, everyone lives in Urbmons, gargantuan megabuildings that stretch from city to city of our time. The name Urbmon derives from “Urban Monad,’ indicating the intention of unity or conformity, but the second syllable is far too close to “monster” to be a coincidence. Within the Urbmons humanity breeds without constraint; birth control and chastity are sins. The fecund are valorized and those who fail to reproduce sufficiently are suspected of shirking their duty. Each Urbmon is encouraged to out-reproduce other Urbmons. None of this is due to a lack of population anywhere; the outsider in the story comes from Venus, where new Urbmons are being established. The origin of this book in the seventies is apparent through its addition of “night crawling” to the other dystopic elements. 

           Our protagonist is Siegmund Kluver, a character with a not-at-all conspicuous name and an age that would make Maplethorpe pull out his pencil. Siegmund’s prowess, at least that which gets him noticed, is distinctly heterosexual. The management of the Urbmon promote Siegmund, so he and his wife are going on up to a much better apartment in the sky. When he gets there, he is a hit with the ladies, especially the wife of Jason Quevedo, who has fallen short of her pupping potential. Jason is likely to be transferred to a newer Urbmon due to insufficient offspring; worse yet, his job is historian, this exposes him to how mad the world truly is. The elite of the Urbmon have no plan beyond maintaining the Urbmon out of self-interest; there is no coherent political ideology beyond accelerated reproduction. Nobody in the Urbmon starves, but not all prosper; intercourse (both literal and verbal) is limited between the forty-level “cities” of the Urbmon. This nightmare is the one in which you are trapped in a technically functioning society; the nightmare after is encapsulated in J G Ballard’s High-Rise.

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

             The journey in Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz is a reversal of the katabasis of the adventure of Princess Truella in the Ninth Surprise of The Magical Monarch of Mo, which now focuses on the redemption of the Wizard and mixes in elements of Duchess Breadenbutta’s adventures in Turvyland in the Tenth Surprise. But the Wizard still needs the aid of Princess Dorothy to escape (Ozma is a Princess, but she is primarily a Sorceress in this book).

            In the Ninth Surprise, the Wicked Wizard lives deep underground and can only depart via the summit of a mountain. He steals Princess Truella’s big toe using transformation magic. Princess Truella must seek the help of the sorceress Maetta and use her magic items to descend into the Wizard’s domain. The challenges Truella faces in her descent are similar to the challenges the Wizard and his party face while trying to travel to the surface.

            In Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, the Wizard is the character who undergoes character development, what is called these days a “redemption arc”.  In the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Wizard presents himself as a fraud who was merely taking advantage of a chaotic situation, but in the Marvelous Land of Oz, the Wizard conspired to hide the Rightful Heir after overthrowing Pastoria. This makes him a Wicked Wizard, like the Wicked Wizard of the mountains east of Mo. His redemption arc, therefore, fittingly starts deep underground and ascends – but this time the Princess is his ally and the Wizard is the principal. Since Dorothy and the Wizard have been to Oz, some other human must be the newcomer. This is Zeb’s role. This time around, each human receives an animal companion – Eureka for Dorothy, the Nine Tiny Piglets for the Wizard, and Jim for Zeb. Eureka may be an animal version of Princess Pattycake made sufficiently cute to be tolerable; she also serves as a contrast to the invisible people of the Valley of Voe (yet another valley, with one sound away from Mo). Since Dorothy and the Wizard are eager to get to Oz, Zeb and Jim must be ambivalent about Oz. And the end of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz makes it clear that boys’ adventure stereotypes don’t belong in Oz if they can’t accept female leadership. This may also be a metajoke about Baum’s extant boys’ adventure series.

Transformation with Dot and Tot: More Than Meets The Eye

             At first glance L. Frank Baum’s Dot and Tot of Merryland is the equivalent of that episode in a rewatch of a series that is rewatched for the sake of completeness but otherwise is reserved no spot in conscious memory. It is that bottle episode which justifies the argument for a shorter season – not quite organized enough to offset its blandness, nor whimsical enough to offset its lack of organization, nor clever enough to breathe life into its half-hearted mystery. It is a fifth magnitude star in the sky wherein shines the brilliant constellation of the Famous Fourteen. Nonetheless, Dot and Tot of Merryland contains structural features worth examining, if only as comparanda. Dot and Tot of Merryland is the work that follows the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, although its realm would not be incorporated into the Continent of Imagination for many years. Dot’s real name is not Dorothy, but she is a Little Princess, even before her adventure. Tot’s name is not Tot, but the resemblance of the name of the lead and her mascot to Dorothy and Toto is hardly accidental. Dot is the leader, in both age and social standing; her mother has perished from some delicacy in her nature, and her father has left her in the care of a governess in the Secret Garden of his estate, while Tot’s father is the head gardener, much like the Gaffer at Bag End. It is water rather than air that bears the duo to the land of adventure, the Merryland of the title, a method which Dorothy would not use until Ozma of Oz. The entrance to adventure is narrow and almost prohibitive to adults who are children at heart, a natural category of humanity in Baum’s perception.

            There is a guardian, human despite his designation as the Watch-Dog of Merryland, but he is a Baumian guardian, comic and ineffective. He is bought off by a sweet cake, suggesting Cerberus and a descent into Hell, which completely fails to deliver. Yet, as will be revealed, the presence of a Watch-Dog in a location before the Seven Valleys is a potential misdirect, encouraging the reader (or read-to, depending on age) to remember a more Classical or Medieval katabasis than Baum’s actual intent. After an exchange between Dot and the Watch-Dog which is the typical watered-down logic of which Caroll’s Wonderland is the adult version, the duo sail into the First Valley.

            The First Valley is the Valley of Clowns, and it may be well to remember that Dot and Tot’s adventures, such as they are, take place in that sweet intermediate period between the apotropaic clowns of archaic religion and the demonic clowns of contemporary horror. The Seven Valleys of Merryland are isolated and infrequently visited, even by their own Queen. There is more contact between some of the Valleys and our world than between the Valleys themselves. Dot and Tot’s inability to steer their boat effectively renders this journey more of a fairground ride than the deliberate travel of their silver-shod predecessor. Flippityflop, the Prince of Clowns, but not the Clown Prince, welcomes the children and tells them that Clowns are indigenous – and endemic – to this Valley. The most skilled Clowns are set upon the peak of the mountain that separates this Valley of Merryland and the mundane world. From there they tumble into the world. Descent from the mountain is a favorite method of travel in Baum’s works, although this may be the only instance of a non-evil character using it; the Cast-Iron Man of The Monarch of Mo and the Roly-Rogues of Queen Zixi of Ix are not friends to the protagonists of their tales. Once a Clown is in our world, he seeks a circus, the telos of a true Clown. For there are false Clowns in this fallen world, who can be identified because they do not make children laugh. The idea of Clowns as an ethnicity could be seen as an othering tactic, and maybe even a mockery of indigenous peoples, but it could also provide positive messages. The first of these messages is that a true Clown is true to his nature, as all people should be; this message is consonant with Baum’s valorization of Dorothy and condemnation (however slight) of the Wizard. The second message, which is more mature than the first but not nearly as dark as othering, is a warning to children that people – and Clowns – are not always who they say they are, but the results of their actions will reveal their true nature. In the Valley of the Clowns, Dot and Tot encounter no women, despite Flippityflop’s mention of his father and grandfather before him. In addition to displaying Baum’s preference for Princes to Kings, even when they are King or Queens in truth, the lack of women references the traditionally male-only profession of clowning. Fortunately for the true Clowns, Merryland has a mechanism in the Third Valley whereby new Clowns might be born.

            The Second Valley is the Valley of Bonbons. The inhabitants of this Valley, unlike those of the Beautiful Valley of Mo, are entirely made of candy, as is their environment. Even before the mandatory color palette of the Quadrants of Oz, the theme of each land is overwriting its original complexity. The Candy Man, the leader of the Valley and considerably less menacing than Tony Todd, welcomes the children. Candy People, unlike Clowns, have both sexes as well as children, and as a society closer to that of the familiar world, the Candy People have black servants, licorice dolls who take care of the children of other colors; no prize will be given for guessing what the licorice children are called. The primary difference between Candy society and our world is the lack of non-candy-based sustenance, which Dot recognizes as a potential problem for permanent residency, but Tot is too hungry to care. The Candy People have no teeth and therefore have no cavities. Tot’s consumption of several fingers belonging to their host does not result in arrest, as might be anticipated, because replacement parts are easy to find. They grow in the marshmallow fields, where the licorice folk collect them for the Candy families. With that distasteful acknowledgement done, this dismemberment and replacement is yet another theme found both in The Magical Monarch of Mo and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Candy People do not die of old age, but they do eventually break into pieces that cannot be repaired. This is reminiscent of the China Country in the south of Oz, although the Merryland method of disposal is not recommended for divided china. The good and beautiful people of the Valley of Bonbons honor their deceased not with broken hearts but respectful edification in an act of what might be called “candy-balism.” Our protagonist and her charge, as visitors from what Baum called “civilized” lands, are horrified, but the Candy Man points out that there is no other sustenance in the Valley and that it is an honor among his people. The child-like logic wins over the children. Whether Baum intends this cannibalism to serve as an indictment of barbarous habits or a plea for tolerance of differences greater than that of the class distinction between the families of Dot and Tot is difficult to determine. Perhaps this consumption of the dead is a reference to Theosophist interest in Tibetan burial customs. The children’s horror at this custom is particularly hypocritical given the near-universal habit of biting off the heads of gingerbread men, leaving each as a body for a John Dough mystery. At least the inhabitants of the Valley of Bonbons do not send forth their own to be eaten – the licorice laborers in the fields of white are in poor taste already! The children must move on, Dot because she recognizes that they need actual food, and Tot because his hunger is a clear and present danger to the local population.

            Unfortunately for Tot, the Third Valley is the Valley of Babies, and babies are not food, as we learn in Ozma of Oz. The babies in question are human babies, although some of the boys might be Clowns and resolve the absence of women in that coulrophilic land. The “adults” in the Third Valley are Storks, all female and all white, but servants nonetheless to the eponymous babies. The Storks collect the baby blossoms that fall in storms from the sky and no doubt disqualify Storks with allergies. This focus on the babies rather than the Storks is understandable from the perspective of two small children, but it also reveals a gender divide between men and women – the all-male Clowns who qualify leave their Valley, but the Storks send forth others. The tone of Dot and Tot’s journey is becoming slightly darker, since the Storks are always exporting babies to forestall some sort of infantile apocalypse should there be no more room in the Valley. Is Baum, a pioneer of modern media and franchising, also a predecessor of the sordid tale of the commercialization of Cabbage Patch Kids? Are the Storks some sort of nursery rhyme Amazons? At least Dot and Tot finally receive some nourishment from the milk fountains in the Valley.

            The Fourth Valley is the Valley of the Dolls, where Dot and Tot are arrested by the wooden soldier despite his gun lacking ammunition; for the Queen of Merryland is not fond of strangers. That she has never met a non-resident of Merryland indicates that this stance is one of ignorance rather than experience. Her instructions to keep out foreigners are comical and ineffective, as the inaction of the Watch-Dog of Merryland attests, as well as her Baumian fairytale army. The wall of the city is reminiscent of China Country, and the average age of the fairyland juvenile arrest record is dropping precipitously. When Dot and Tot are brought before the Queen of Merryland, she is almost as tall as Dot. This detail is more important meta-textually than one might expect, because Dot and Tot of Merryland was the last Baum book illustrated by W. W. Denslow before his falling out with Baum over the rights to the characters of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Baum’s prominence overshadowing him like Lee over Kirby. Denslow’s illustrations in the original show the inhabitants of Oz as possessing a similar height to Dorothy, and thus the Queen of Merryland should match the height of the protagonist. Had Dot and Tot of Merryland been a critical success, perhaps a similar dispute to that of the newspaper strips would have arisen.

            The Queen of Merryland, like other rulers of Baumian wonderlands, is isolationist, but she accepts Dot and Tot’s explanations of the Watch-Dog’s dereliction of duty; nonetheless, she intends to block up the entrance from which Dot and Tot entered – Narnia rules apply to her portals, but the Queen of Merryland is no Aslan. Since she cannot allow the children to leave and she cannot dispose of them, she adopts them as her heirs – even though she does not need any. This is the reason why the title is Dot and Tot of Merryland rather than Dot and Tot in Merryland. The adoption can seem abrupt, even for such an episodic text, until it is recalled that is an American fairytale. Naturalization is not only an American phenomenon, but it is also the explicit intention of Baum’s fairytale output, most prominently accomplished in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels. Dorothy, after all, becomes, a Princess of Oz, and several other humans from our world become citizens of Oz.

            From a narrative standpoint, this elevation both places Dot and Tot as equals in Merryland in contract to the regular world and gives them responsibility. The Queen of Merryland, as negligent a ruler as many in the Continent of Imagination, appoints Dot and Tot to be in charge of the Valley of the Dolls while she heads upstream to instruct the Watch-Dog on what to do if more potential visitors to Merryland decline to obey him. The Watch-Dog isn’t very bright, either because he is senile, or because nearly five centuries of isolation is probably not healthy for anyone’s mental state. Against her better judgment the Queen allows Dot and Tot to experience the dolls of the Valley of the Dolls at their most chaotic. One would think that the Valley of the Dolls would be alive with Doll society, but the Queen found them noisy and disruptive and therefore leaves them asleep most of the time. This could be commentary on controlling (but not eliminating) the imagination, but it also reflects, not entirely favorably, on the controlling nature of queens, princesses, and sorceresses in Baum’s writing. There are elements of Glinda and Ozma that are troubling to lovers of liberty.

            The awakened Dolls of course do not know who Princess Dot and Prince Tot are and therefore do not recognize their authority. The wand which roused the Dolls is an item of Baumian magic, very specific in its duration and operator. The rebellion of the Dolls does not end until the Return of the Queen. This brief period of authority offers Dot and Tot some perspective on what it is like to be an adult who is minding children. The next rebellion in the Baumian canon will be in the Emerald City and only slightly less absurd in its weaponry. The Queen of Merryland decides that she should complete her circuit by sailing downstream with Dot and Tot and perhaps figuring out what to do with them since the children do not really want to live in Merryland forever (take that, Peter!) nor can she feed them properly, a matter of great concern for Tot.

            The Fifth Valley is the Valley of the Pussy Cats, whose taste in what constitutes beautiful music is significantly different from that of the two children and the Queen. Mr. Felis, the leader of the Pussy Cats, welcomes the party and explains that the test of adulthood in this Valley is the ability to jump to the roof of the house where one grew up as a kitten. The loudest voices are the most beautiful ones and authorize their possessors to rule the valley. This is not a phenomenon exclusive to the internet. Yet the cats are still communal and gladly take the kittens of large litters into their own homes. Dot and Tot are much more enthusiastic about the invitation to the traditional nocturnal concert than the Queen, who has already experienced such passionate singing, and therefore the party moves on.

            The Sixth Valley is the chronically understaffed Valley of Wind-Up Toys, where both Mr. Splits, two halves of a man, just barely manages to keep the animal inhabitants of the Valley fully wound. The Queen is aware of this problem, but proposes no solution, perhaps because as a Doll she lacks her own imagination. At the very least, she could allow some of the wind-up animals to remain temporarily unwound. Mr. Split’s gimmick, other than being bifurcated like a Mangaboo, is an allegedly amusing vocal tic whereby one half starts words and the other finishes them; but the two halves are never in the same place at the same time, creating great difficulty of comprehension. Possibly the frenetic pace of Mr. Split, never able to complete a thought, represents the overwhelming busyness of adult life and its deleterious effect on concentration and community; there is no functional society in the Sixth Valley.

            The Seventh Valley, the Valley of Lost Things, is devoid of life, mundane or fantastical. It is full, however, of lost things, particularly young children’s jackets, and especially those which belonged to boys. This rings true to experience. Dot finds a doll she lost, which the Queen allows her to keep on the grounds that it is no longer lost. Dot and Tot, in contrast, are lost, because they do not know whether the last arch will take them back to our world. The Queen consents to them leaving, after which she will seal the exit from the Seventh Valley. If the Valleys beyond the Fourth represent increasing adulthood, the Seventh Valley as a particularly sanitary landfill is a stark condemnation.

            Dot and Tot exit the Seventh Valley but fall asleep before they enter our world. This event parallels the initial nap (at least on Tot’s part) before encountering the Watch-Dog. This equivalence of fairyland with a dream state, the first such instance in the Baumian canon, js supported by the deceptively half-hearted mystery of the Queen of Merryland’s name. The Queen deflects the question every time it is brought up. Why is knowing her name so important when her title is clear? For this point the doll which Dot lost and then found is critical. In the literal manner of young children, Dot had named her doll Dolly, which she ultimately decided was the name of the Queen of Merryland. If Dot was worried about her lost doll the entire journey, then the journey was not a series of episodic adventures, but rather a quest. It is the nature of a quest that the questor is changed in some way by the end, usually by being more mature than at the beginning; Dot cannot return to Narnia. It is no accident that an alternative pet name for Dorothy is Dolly, allowing Dot to find herself. This analysis is far beyond the capabilities of a small girl such a Dot. Thus Dot and Tot of Merryland is a quest narrative experienced by a questor unaware of her quest and not yet capable of the necessary abstract thinking. Baum insists on the truth of the experience by having Dot and Tot’s boat appear upstream from where it was originally moored – this should not be possible. This feature of the narrative cannot be casually dismissed because it is precisely this “over the rainbow” feature that has endeared the 1939 Wizard of Oz film to generations of Americans. Dot and Tot of Merryland is a far more substantial work than it seems at first glance.

 Final Version Composed and Performed In A Backyard June 4, 2021

Every Science Fiction Story is Someone's First

 

The Last Cuentista, by Donna Barba Higuera, is a middle grade book that serves as a gateway to heavier science fiction. The heroine, Petra Peña, is genetically flawed in a less obvious way than the protagonist of Gattaca, but closely enough that its disclosure would disqualify her for the exodus from Earth, whose lateness is definite and whose greatness is much disputed. This genetic deformity spares her the conditioning which she is intended to receive, but it is a cruel mercy, to the character if not the reader, to be awakened in a strange world. The plan for the ship has gone awry, since a smooth ride would be unsatisfactory in all but the best hands. Conformity is the watchword – the dangers of excessive originality have no place in the solipsistic world of YA novels – and our plucky heroine must struggle alone against them while feigning conformity using home ec chemistry. The world of the ship and that of the new planet are lightly sketched but it is sufficient to provide the feeling of a real place; the lacunae are due to irrelevancy or the logical ignorance of the heroine. The educator tapes, more like those of Cyteen than Hospital Station, explain away the otherwise implausible expertise of an adolescent girl. Many science fiction ideas are touched upon in the world building, but the primary drive of the book is action reminiscent of a Heinlein juvenile, based more on chemistry than engineering. Perhaps it seems a bit strange to pass over the story-telling component of a book called The Last Cuentista, but if it is remembered by the youth of today, it will not be because it is the deepest narrative, but because it has served as a preface to more detailed narratives.

Manseed

Jack Williamson's Manseed is a story of human colonization of space predicated on the vastness and emptiness, and that we cannot outrun our own sins. The narrative alternates between the contemporary humans of the Raven Foundation on Earth and the far future Defenders of Mansphere (which is a terrible name for a planet). The primary connective tissue derives from the elements of personality which inevitably slipped in among the practical data in creating the Defenders, the half-machine supermen tasked with scouting and preparing new worlds for humaniry. The choice of siblings as genetic material seems particularly ill-advised and unlikely for a collection of otherwise scientifically literate participants. The genetic pool is shallow enough to be suitable for noting but a parable (much like the current series Raised by Wolves). The psychosexual adaptation of the myth of Adam and Eve, mixed with Cain and Abel, and the misogyny now known to be pervasive in science fiction circles of the seventies, is blatant.

Manseed was published in 1982 and was written by a man in his seventies. Even in the feminist science fiction of the time, such as that of Suzette Hayden Elgin and Sheri S Tepper, the gender dynamics was covert and aggressive. Williamson was a writer of an older generation and his characters' discomfort in adapting to the novel circumstances limits the power of the narrative. This book has not aged well.

James White: The Things Are Also People

 An author often overlooked except by authors fond of obscures references (such as Grant Morrison) is James White, whose space medicine series Sector General, a Star Trek: Doctor Space Nine or Lensmen with a pathology lab, was an analgesic to the militarism of science fiction. Such a view is not surprising from a Northern Irishman who grew up in the Troubles (which lasted even longer in the Star Trek universe, according to Data). White's team of Star Surgeons is a mix of different species, all of whom are dedicated to the treatment of patients, no matter their provenance. The specialized knowledge required to treat the patients could never be contained in any sapient brain, so the pre-surgery preparation involves "Educator tapes" created by the best medical minds of the patient's species - or whichever species is closest to J'onn Doe. The tapes, however, contain a partial psychology of the species, so the human who partakes may develop brief and exciting appetites. Actual appetites are limited to vegetarianism, due to potential trauma from observation of lunchmates. The species in the universe are organized by an alphabetical code, which is rendered in the Roman alphabet (for humans anyway). The team includes one spirited red-headed human woman, but there are alien women as well - especially Charge Nurse Naydrad, who is a giant caterpillar. The scandalous behavior of the methane-breathers is a running joke here, long before it appears on Babylon 5, and when I first saw Sikorsky of the Starjammers, I thought he might be a visual reference to the insectoid Dr. Prillicla.

When I read the ET ER comic one-shot, I had hoped it would be more like this rather than the Masquerade with ailing extraterrestrials, but the closest I have ever seen to a use of Sector General in modern media is its cameo in Grant Morrison's run of Green Lantern, in which Hal visits and later contributes to the destruction of the homage, complete with giant caterpillar nurse and empathic insect pathologist, while Hal continues on his way to death and eventual godhood. It would have been nice to see Sector General treated with more respect, but media portrayals of space hospital have generally not fared well in ratings. I am not sure whether this is due to the restriction of romantic plots or the necessity of television writers to eliminate the fiendishly clever puzzles in search of an audience less willing to face an intellectual challenge.

Jake the Idiot, but no Finn

    The first few chapters of Andrew Moriarty's Trans-Galactic Insurance: Adventures of Jump Space Accountant reminds of nothing so much as the first three issues or episodes of a mini-series which I would drop and later, after the series was complete, revisit now that I understood the importance of the interminable exposition to a serviceable but hardly exciting mystery. The initial reference to Belters suggested a story that was Solar rather than Galactic. The characters were sufficiently fleshed out to serve the plot but scarcely more than that, as is common espionage plots. The implication of a plucky girl who aids the protagonist also being a minor in modern Western sensibilities, and therefore a nod to Heinleinian heroine, was well executed by a single line. The portrayal of the ideal spy as too boring to cause casual notice was a relief from the flashy action heroes of so much science fiction.

                My greatest annoyance at the plot-driven world-building is the use of the term ‘credit’ as a basic fiat unit of currency in a book starring an accountant investigating fraud! I realize that credit is a generic science-fictional unit of currency, but one would think that a story about financial fraud would be savvy to the specific financial meaning of credit and debit in balancing accounts. I am not saying that the author should have chosen some exotic name for the currency, such as ‘quatloos’, just something other than ‘credits’ when the fictional economy uses a double-entry system. I suppose this is the way that physicists and engineers feel about gross ‘errors’ in other science fiction novels. If you want to read a series that begins with a space-based human civilization cut off from its parent, you should go read John Scalzi’s latest trilogy instead.

Go, Gowachin, Go!

Now and in the immediate future Dune will be the Frank Herbert book most read (or claimed to be read), but as much as Dune stands out among science fiction novels, it is worth reading Herbert's other books such as The Whipping Star. The universe of The Whipping Star is one in which government has achieved such efficiency that it is necessary to inhibit it in some way. This efficiency is the least plausible part of the setting, but initial conditions in science fiction sometimes must be accepted. The organization in charged with disrupting the bureaucracy is the Bureau of Sabotage, or BuSab. The representative of BuSab is Jorj X. McKie. McKie uncovers a conspiracy that threatens virtually all life in the universe because aliens are, well, alien in thought and experience or lack thereof.

The sequel, The Dosadi Experiment, is the better of the two. The Dosadi Experiment is this: what happens if we put various alien species in the most vicious social pressure cooker ever evented? The chasm in which the Experiment takes place is the opposite of the paradise of Malacandra: crowded, competitive, and amoral. BuSab sends McKie to check on the Experiment, and it does not bode well for the rest of the universe, as one might expect from a perpetual gom jabbar.

These are shorter and less dense than Dune, a palate cleanser between Messiah, Children, and God Emperor.

Stopping At Slowyear: Willoughby Among the Stars

 For a book about which I only occasionally remember details, Stopping At Slowyear certainly sticks in my mind; at yet this patchy memory is thematically appropriate. Stopping At Slowyear is a book Fred Pohl wrote late in life, and this too ties into the theme, which unfortunately is also the twist. It is no accident that the outdated cargo ship is called the Nordvik, a Viking name reminiscent of Pohl's early work, nor that the main character is named Mercy. The setting is spare and basic: an old ship, a planet of long and bitter seasons, and a romance between a spacer and a grounder. There is, of course, a secret which the locals are loath to reveal.

It's a good story, but don't read this at a low point in your life. Or perhaps you should: consolation has been found in stranger places.

To Euripides, She Was Always The Woman

Medea is a play that has never been out of style, but directorial choices have varied, and on occasion playwrights have adapted the material to the current circumstances. A proletarian perspective on Medea is possible, but such an adaptation would be to Euripides as Anouilh to Sophocles; even less so, because Anouilh did not need to shift the focus from Antigone. The Nurse delivers the first speech on the subject of the foolish drama of the aristocrats; the Pedagogue advocates on the behalf of the children; and the Messenger, despite his fancy speech (which may be due as much to his job in addressing the melodrama of the those who rule as much as his own personality), has a rather common view of the world. 

Meanwhile the aristocrats put on a poor show. Aegeus is on the lower end of the IQ scale. Jason is not much smarter and does not learn from experience than angering a woman who would murder her own brother is a bad idea even if there is now an opportunity for gain. Creon and Glauce are generic placeholders for king and Corinthian progeny - Creon literally means 'one who has strength' and Glauce or Glaucus is a generic name for a princess, especially a Corinthian one such as Bellerophon. Anyone named Glaucus in Greek mythology either dies or is ultimately ruined and broken. Medea, meanwhile, seems trapped between two genres, the tragic and the epic, and rejects the possibility of breaking the cycle of abuse from which she has suffered. The only physical affection between two related aristocratic individuals results in the painful death of both. Medea's advice to Aegeus sets in motion the birth of Theseus, which ultimately leads to her later flight from Attica and the eventual death of Aegeus due to the black sails of Theseus' return.

In the current media environment, I would expect a book from the perspective of the Nurse and the Pedagogue; but mostly the Nurse, since women narrators seem to sell better.

Old Man's War

I recently finished reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Scalzi is one of those writers whom I get confused with another quite easily, like Garth Ennis and Warren Ellis. In this case, I often passed up reading Old Man's War because I confused it with Joe Haldeman's Forever War. Perhaps there is something to editor's fears of using too-similar titles! The premise of Old Man's War is intriguing - it is seldom that a scene about military recruiting is mysterious. Once our hero has signed up, the training sequences are pure Heinlein, the right mixture of jingoism (to fire up the troops) and pragmatism (to aid in the troops' survival). The aliens are lightly sketched, but distinct enough to qualify as separate species. The anthropophagous deer and bellicose Lilliputians are particularly striking choices.

I highly recommend.

Dustborn: Fury Road for Fifth Graders

 

Dustborn by Erin Bowman is an easy YA read set in a place that is only slightly less doomed than N K Jemisin’s geomancer trilogy. That the map at the front is critical to the plot was refreshing. The contingencies of modern book format out of universe and the awkward yet necessary placement of the map in-universe allows forgiveness for a lack of consistent absolute scale. The characters are appropriately ignorant or startled by Old World technology, as they call it. The setting appears post-apocalyptic (which is technically correct), and the astronomy is wonky, but the sheer ignorance of the locals about anything outside of survival, and sometimes even then, is an effective screen for the actual truth. When the truth is revealed, the rather shallow world building makes sense. Sometimes with YA books it is hard to tell whether a book is the first of a trilogy.

 

The names of the characters are a bit on the nose. The protagonist, Delta of Dead River, is the predictable adolescent girl point-of-view, while Asher of Alkali Lake is the mandatory love interest/antagonist. The baby doesn’t get a name until later, and Delta’s creativity does not extend to names. Nobody is particularly likeable in the harsh environment, but some people are more awful than others. The distribution of skills and knowledge makes The Masterpiece Society’s utopia look well-planned.  The plot is stolen, but no more so than many science fiction juveniles. The linguistics is shoddy, as it nearly always is, but serviceable. The thematic swearing is mildly irritating because the thematic appropriateness is not enough to distract from the awkward prosody reminiscent of “translationese.”

There is nothing revolutionary about the setting, plot, or characterization in Dustborn; it is, nonetheless, a pleasant diversion, and a wholly acceptable juvenile for those parents who find the classics a bit too patriarchal – or do not want their kids watching the Mad Max franchise. If Bowman set another story in the future (or past) of this setting, it would be welcome.

Foundation's Fruits: Prologue

 

                Before I start to analyze the Apple TV Foundation series, I think it only fair to lay out my own perspective as a long-time fan of the Asimov Foundation and Robot novels. I am a fan of Golden Age science fiction, with all its flaws. I enjoy exposition, which is why I could read most Stephen Baxter novels once. I was introduced to the Foundation, Empire, and Robot series (by which I mean the novels, not the short stories) as separate series. My favorite Asimov, however, has always been The End of Eternity. All three had the same author, and therefore used similar themes, but because they were separate series, their timelines and technologies did not need to line up perfectly. Eventually I had read all the originals and moved on to the novels which tied things together, both the Robot and the Foundation series. When Foundation’s Edge brought the conclusion of The End of Eternity into the Foundation series as a legend, at first I thought it might just be an Easter egg, since time travel is not a feature of the Foundation, Empire, or Robot series. The incorporation of the critical character of the Robot series suggested otherwise. Nonetheless, I understood the unified timeline as one of the many that could arise from the conclusion of The End of Eternity rather than the exclusive one. The limiting factor in The End of Eternity was the limitation to Earth, which in turned limited the possibilities of Humanity’s development; the galaxy is orders of magnitude larger, and therefore contains commensurately more opportunities. Multiple timelines would allow not only for the divergent dates for the formerly independent series, but also timelines in which the other Asimov stories could live – particularly the ones with alien species, which are conspicuously absent in the Foundation series, both original and expanded. At the time, I was under the influence of Heinlein’s later works, whose multiverse is wild and chaotic (and a bit creepy), but I had hoped that the unification of Asimov’s popular series would at least leave room for his lesser stories in other universes. (I’m not sure where I should put this, but I had these thoughts before Nemesis was published).

I thought the unification was a mistake, like the continuation of the Pern series past the recovery of AI, but Asimov had written it and it was therefore canonical. It was a long time until I read Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation because I had confused it with the Second Foundation trilogy. I am a bit of a purist in the sense of favoring the original author and perhaps his successor if he had worked with him long-term, such as Christopher Tolkien and (originally) Brian Herbert. After I had read all five Dune novels, I read the immediate prequels and found them a decent if not necessary addition to the Dune canon, but the prequels set during the Butlerian Jihad felt like a betrayal. I had become wary of sequels and prequels not written by the original author. Once I realized that Asimov had written Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, I read them. The expansion on Trantorian society was welcome, but the reason for humanity not encountering aliens was disturbing. The reason for humanity’s lack of innovation was even worse, and absolved, at least in part, the Empire itself of the sin of stagnation. Sometimes the unrealistic elements in a story are best left unaddressed in canon for fans to speculate upon; look what happened to the simple statement about Klingon foreheads and Worf’s refusal to elaborate. I did eventually read the Second Foundation trilogy, whose authors I respect greatly, but each book felt less and less like the Foundation universe. Newer additions are Nemesis and Mark Tiedemann’s Robot series, both of which would have benefitted from a multiverse or at least a looser canonicity akin to that of Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle; thus I have always thought of the unified series as one possibility among many.

The inevitable truth is that a TV adaptation of the Foundation series would have to change and elaborate even more than the later published books. The chronologically books have slightly more actions, but the chronologically earlier books are conversations and interrogations, devoid of actions and (thankfully) Heinleinian sexuality. Much like the Hobbit, the extant text was not designed to carry live action of the length necessary for modern television. There are other Golden Age texts that could sustain more action but lack the intellectual depth; there are others that have even less dialogue and more monologue. This denseness is not solely a thing of the past; Stephen Baxter’s Xeelee novels can be dense in this way. A well-timed and well-delivered speech, on the other hand, can be entrancing; this was a strength of the (original) Babylon 5. 

            The necessity of change is not just a matter of a change of medium, but of time and influence. I like to call this the “John Carter” problem. An influential work inspires imitators, or perhaps plagiarists in a less generous interpretation. If the imitators become popular in a separate medium, or the originals fade from memory, then when the originals enter that medium as a second work, many people assume that the older work is stealing from the later one. The older work then does not do well in the new medium, and the fans of the older work are annoyed at fans of the younger work who proclaim the originality of the younger work in the second medium. Even worse, the anti-creative nature of intellectual property often prevents the older work from a second, better thought-out adaptation.

I realize that I have said nothing about the Foundation Apple TV series yet, but I am around the thousand-word limit, and that seems sufficient for today.

Sundiver

David Brin is an excellent science fiction author, but like any author, his quality varies. My more oenophile science fiction book club has chosen poorly in this regard, although it must be admitted that Brin's best is within series rather than at the beginning of one. The problem with the first book in a series is the same as the pilot for a series, except worse: it must both establish the nature of the universe and provide a compelling story. Unlike a pilot, an initial book must stand on its own, lest the book do well enough to sell but not well enough to justify a sequel. In a genre such as science fiction, a book can rely on many conventions - the quality is determined not by how common the tools are, but how the author uses them.

The beginning of Sundiver reads as though Brin had written a story that was absorbed and overwhelmed. It is necessary to establish the nature of the society that your protagonist comes from, but that can be a challenge when the real story lies elsewhere in an environment that is not conducive to expo-speak. Many of the details of this particular future history probably come from Brin's non-fiction book The Transparent Society, which would explain how swiftly and smoothly the details are covered. It would have been nice to know more about the Shirts and the Skins (although perhaps not the Spider-tracer up the backside), but it's better to have details to inspire the imagination than describe everything in detail and lose focus. If you want to describe everything, you should write fantasy, not science fiction.

At its heart, Sundiver is a murder mystery embedded in galactic politics. The basic premise of the Uplift Universe is that the galaxy is full of aliens with superior technology. The measure of status in the galactic society is 'uplifting', genetically raising client species to intelligence. Apparently R&D is expensive, since the client species have a long time of indenture before they can join galactic society as a full citizen species - the Uplift Universe is based on species, not individuals. Humans are an affront to the concept of Uplift - either their patrons abandoned them, or they are a 'wolfling' species, an occasional phenomenon of naturally occurring evolution. In either case, the procedure would have been for an established species to take them as a client, if not for the fact that Humans had already uplifted chimpanzees when first contact was made and therefore qualified as a patron-level species. Some aliens are not happy about these upstarts, but since Humans are a patron level species, the only ways to demote them are either to identify the neglectful patron species of Humanity and therefore which extant lineage should take over their education or to prove that Humans need guidance and then 'generously' offer to guide them. This ain't the Federation, folks!

The setting for the meat of the story is a base on Mercury and the titular Sundiver, a sunship which, as its name implies, can withstand the environment of the Sun - the corona specifically, rather than deeper realms. I am not familiar with a story that does so (perhaps I should borrow the Hal Clement collection from the library again). The Solarians, the inhabitants of the Sun, seemed implausible to me, but I have been informed that they are not as ridiculous I had thought. They don't seem to be especially intelligent, but the mentality of a plasma being is probably quite different than that of a carbon-based life-form.

The Library, the database that contains the knowledge that galactic society uses for many purposes, but in the context of Sundiver, schematics for spaceships. Although Earth's Library branch is miniscule compared to that of established races, its knowledge base is immense compared to that of pre-Contact Humanity. The Library is so well-established that no new research is done within galactic society - whatever you need to do, the Library has the schematics to build it. The Library, essentially, is a lazy high schooler's dream. Bubbacub, an alien from a species called the Pil and resembling a psychotic teddy bear, is operating from an assumption of superiority and is profoundly embarrassed that he cannot find any reference to the Solarians in the Library. The solely Human discovery of the Solarians validates the idea of research and cements the status of Humans as responsible members of society. Humans do have access to the Library but the database is organized according to alien principles which Humans must learn. I understand why science fiction in other media assume that any trained pilot can operated any spaceship for the sake of keeping the pace, but it is nice to see an acknowledgment of the effort to learn new systems.

Sundiver is a good introduction to the Uplift Universe, but not an essential read if you want to get into this 'verse. Like many people, I read the following book, Startide Rising, before I read Sundiver
and, really, that's the best way to approach the separable books in the series. The Uplift Universe stories never return to Earth in a meaningful way, preferring to focus on the greater galactic society and the havoc which Humans and their anomalous status produce in it.

Foundation

The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov is a seminal series in the history of science fiction. Unlike other series of its day, it is focused on dialogue rather than action. Although the Foundation series was not the first to be planned out.. The Lensmen series by E. E. "Doc" Smith has that honor, but whereas that series uses military escalation on an exponential scale to lead to the final confrontation between cosmic Good and Evil, the Foundation series shows a gradual plan to reduce the Interregnum between the First and Second Galactic Empire from thirty millennia to a mere one thousand years. The escalation in the Lensmen series is wholly military and quite repetitive, while the progression in the Foundation series takes abrupt turns but also maintains its central conceit. The later books of the Foundation series explore the fatal flaws of the previous Foundation books, but this post is about the first book, also called Foundation.

Foundation is a compilation of  the first four stories in this universe, plus a framing story that functions as an introduction. In-universe, there is already a framing device, the Encyclopedia Galactica, which manages to be simultaneously the most intriguing and the most frustrating reference guide created up to that date. It is a literary device that places much (but not all) of the exposition otherwise delivered in Golden Age science fiction by the designated mouthpiece, thus stopping the flow of the story, into a format in which exposition is expected but not conducive to a dialogue format. The inspiration for the Encyclopedia Galactica was Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which does indeed have this style of dialogue. At the same time, however, the necessities of drama create lacunae where a real encyclopedia would be at its most useful.

The framing story, "The Psychohistorians" a recounting of the young mathematical star Gaal Dornick with the elderly and illustrious Hari Seldon, founder of psychohistory, is more substantial than many framing stories for other collections that followed. It fleshes out the nature of the Empire at the time of the foundation of the planet Terminus at the edge of the galaxy. The composition of the Encyclopedia, a massive undertaking in a Galactic society more than twelve millennia old, is used as the rationale for kickstarting the process of a shortened interregnum. Dornick, Seldon, and the Commissioner of Public Safety Chen are adequately sketched out for a framing story, but there is not extensive characterization. If you do want a fleshed-out version of the founder of psychohistory, you should read Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, two books written in the twilight of Asimov's life. The details of Trantor, the Imperial capital, have not weathered well scientifically, and were subject to revision by Asimov himself in the aforementioned books. The story is well-written, but does not have the punch that the individual stories have.

The second story in the collection and the first published, "The Encyclopedists", lays out the important concepts of the Foundation series. The Empire is losing control of the Periphery, although it has not yet admitted to it. Scientific research is dead - the current generation of 'scholars' considers reading the secondary sources adequate. Even the Encyclopedia Galactica is a compilation of previous knowledge - possibly an inspiration for the Library in David Brin's Uplift Universe? The Encyclopedia Foundation on Terminus, despite its own regurgitation, is actually in a better condition than its neighboring kingdoms, where technology appears to have gone into freefall. The characters of the Foundation series are neither heroes nor villains, but merely people who have convictions upon which they act. Salvor Hardin is not a good man, but he is the man Terminus needs. Pirenne, the chief Encyclopedist, is a straw man. Lord Dorwin not only shows the absence of original research in the Empire but also speaks with an comic accent that would be unacceptable today. The conclusion of the story is not really a conclusion - the deus ex machina, provided by a holographic Hari Seldon, confirms Hardin's authority over Pirenne's, but does not explicitly provide the answer to the Seldon Crisis (another concept which this first story fleshes out), a situation that has developed until there is only one solution. The story ends with the statement that the solution to this crisis is obvious; the answer is not given until the second story. This is fine in the current collected edition, but it would be enormously frustrating to contemporary readers who, one presumes, were not informed that this was the first part of a planned series! Thus "The Encyclopedists" is a framing story that establishes a new universe through two forms of exposition and does not contain a proper ending. And yet it sold well enough to justify a sequel!

The third story in the collection, "The Mayors", explores the use of religion as a coercive force. As stated above, the solution to the first story is given in the second: Terminus now controls the surrounding kingdoms by cloaking technology in the guise of religion. The upper classes of the kingdoms, in turn, control their populaces by using the technological religion. The older generation does not believe in the religion except as a means to power, but the younger generation, raised in an atmosphere soaked in this religion, is not so confident. Religion within the Kingdom of Anacreon becomes a proxy for a power conflict, in homage to Byzantine politics. The floating throne is also a Byzantine contribution (although the Byzantine mechanism was obviously not nuclear). Hardin, as a representative of Terminus, understands the power of religion in Anacreonian society and uses it to defuse the political crisis. Hardin's character has not changed in the thirty years since "The Encyclopedists". He is still a pragmatist leading a government that pretends to be idealist. The Regent of Anacreon, an ambitious man in the guise of a pragmatist, is strongly implied to have murdered the late King of Anacreon. The teenaged and as-yet uncrowned new King of Anacreon, Lepold I, understands the benefits of power but not the delicate balance that entails. This story, at least, ends with a proper conclusion.

The fourth story in the collection, "The Traders", takes place at a later time, when the states beyond the original Four Kingdoms have seen the dependence that the Foundation's religions have created within the Four Kingdoms. Several states have banned missionaries lest their states follow the Four Kingdom's descent. The principal of this story, Ponyets, a trader motivated by profit rather than patriotism or religious zeal, is not from Terminus, a reject from a seminary. The citizens of Termius still do not think of him as "one of them." Ponyets is sent on a mission to Askone, a region which forbids the use of atomics, the very technology in which the Foundation specializes. Fortunately for our protagonist, greed is universal and blackmail is a time-tested tool. The Askonian Grand Master would lose his life if he revealed the hypocritical source of his new wealth. At the same time, however, the scalability of Foundation technology, or rather, lack thereof, indicates that this brand of snake oil salesmanship can no longer be a primary tool in the rise of the Foundation.

The fifth story in the collection, "The Merchant Princes", shows the rise of the merchants over the mayors and the priests, exemplified by our protagonist, Hober Mallow. The Four Kingdoms no longer have any pretence of power - its governments are now part of the Foundation Convention and the nobles are disinherited. Mallow is dispatched to the Republic of Korell, a de facto hereditary dictatorship. Mallow passes a test involving a trespassing missionary using his knowledge of the Seldon Plan. This makes Mallow look bad to the Foundation populace but endears him to the Commdor of Korell. The limited power source of Foundation technology, a liability in "The Traders", is an advantage here, since the Commdor wants to sell atomic beads as jewelry, and an expiration date guarantees repeat customers. The more important feature for the Foundation universe in this store, however, is the realization that the Empire is still at the center of the galaxy and still powerful. Mallow visits Siwenna, a planet on the edge of the current Empire whose history illustrates the weaknesses of Imperial power - the generals of the Empire are more interested in stripping the provinces of raw materials than keeping order, so the general populace cannot rely on even a minimum of security. This story also features the first contact between the Foundation's miniaturized technology and the Imperial technology, which still uses bulky materials as though it still controlled the entire galaxy. The discovery of the existence and power of the Empire leads Mallow to the conclusion that the Foundation will not win against the Empire in its current political configuration, but first he must survive the legal challenge that his handing over of the false missionary has precipitated on Terminus. So there is another change in the government of the Foundation, and a shift from survival in a world of petty states to anticipation of a conflict with an equal or greater power which is not susceptible to the previously used means of control.

Since this is the Foundation universe, military force is less important than sociology, but the Imperial illustration of that must wait until the next collection, Foundation and Empire (one of the tricky aspects of the original Foundation trilogy has Second Foundation as the third book!).

Sand (Hugh Howey)

All good science fiction stories have an element of parable to them; sometimes this element subsumes the harder science, not to the extent that it becomes fantasy, but rather to avoid too many info-dumps. Sand takes place in a world that is devastated, desiccated, and depopulated, where the poor scavenge the sands for the remnants of old civilization in a process of diminishing returns. This is a world where the poor are hucksters, thugs, and prostitutes, while the rich hide behind walls and pretend that their security and status is not built upon the same shifting sands as the poor they revile. There is little about the wealthy in Sand; this is a story about those who little, if even that much. The inhabitants of these shantytowns have a better physical situation than the Fremen of Dune, but a poorer spiritual one.

Scavenging the remnants of the past is the only thing that makes living outside the walls tolerable to the wretched poor. The way in which the same item that once was cheap and plentiful has become a rare artifact creates a permanent impression on the reader. The protagonists, with one exception, make their living by diving for these relics in suits designed to control the flow of sand around them and selling the relics. As in any good sea yarn (and here it would not be remiss to remember that the name 'Sahara' ultimately means 'sea'), there is a hidden realm, rumored to be replete with riches, the fabled city of Danvar. The discovery of the hidden city initiates the bloodshed.

The characters are almost wholly the members of a family whose father fell from a position on power on which his grasp was less than sound, and then deserted his wife and children. His wife is a fallen woman, both through the desertion of her husband and the choices she made later out of desperation, which temporarily fed her children, but would drive them away in the long term. The eldest of the family, born before the family's fall from grace, is the best adjusted and least bitter, but she perpetuates the family habit of eventually betraying the trust of the younger members in order to seek her own self-interest. This betrayal teaches the next eldest that there is no support, even within family, and triggers the next betrayal. The next sibling, the eldest brother, is a ne'er-do-well whose discovery of Danvar precipitates the plot. The middle brother is waiting for his chance to abandon the youngest brother, who will then be alone.

The geology and linguistics are inconsistent. Enough time has passed that the stars of Orion's belt have spread visibly, the city of Danvar is buried a mile deep, the Rockies have crumbled to the extent that the peaks barely rise above the surface of the sands (the Waterworld effect), yet the name of the hidden city remains barely changed, and, more egregiously, the names which the mother of our protagonists gives her offspring are modern names which still have the modern meanings! These errors are less offensive if the story is viewed as a parable, a warning against things to come, exaggerated for the sake of memorability.

The conclusion is a combination of Steinbeck and Exodus, a satisfying ending to the story of a family that must make great sacrifices to overcome their lot. The ending is positive, but with the realistic ambiguity that Hollywood loves to excise.