Ship of Shadows • (1969) • novelette by Fritz Leiber
A man wakes up extremely hungover in a bar which seems to be a strange place. A talking cat is nearby and they eventually become friends. There seem to be vampires and other mythical creatures around, and everything seems a bit blurred and surreal. Eventually, a pretty mundane explanation is given, but until then the story is muddled and surreal. It is pretty well written, but this storytelling style is not my cup of tea. ***+
The Queen of Air and Darkness • (1971) • novella by Poul Anderson
Humans live on a planet that is still largely uninhabited. A woman loses her son. She believes that he was captured by the original, intelligent beings who are living covertly in more desolate places on the planet. The officials are not believing that and think that the boy simply got lost in the woods and died there. She hires a private investigator of sorts and together they try to find her son. The original inhabitants have been capturing humans for a long time and they seem to be elf-like. But that isn’t the whole truth. An okay story that had some good in it but was pretty past its time in other places. The mind control trope felt very '60s-like. The long lecture at the end of the story was also boring and felt forced. ***
The Word for World Is Forest • [Hainish] • (1972) • novella by Ursula K. Le Guin
A human colony is using an alien planet for timber and local natives as slave labor. One day, the natives decide to fight back. About 2000 humans against a few million natives, how will it end?
A thinly disguised allegory of the Vietnam war, fairly black-and-white, and very rooted in the attitudes and even customs of the late sixties. Most of the characters are crude stereotypes. The book also has some totally ridiculous premises - transporting logs across light-years as on Earth "wood is more valuable than gold." It is hard to think about any application where wood would be so irreplaceable. Also, if all trees on Earth died and no new trees could be grown, the ecosphere would be irreplaceably destroyed anyway. The natives are supposed to have some kind of dreaming ability, which is emphasized in the blurb of the book, but it isn't really used for any real purpose other than for some hippy nonsense about alpha waves. Moreover, one person uses ergots for his migraine; apparently, medical treatments haven't advanced at all after the sixties... or the author severely lacks extrapolation skills :-). In a nutshell, a well-written book that is so tied to its time that it feels pretty old and fashionable.***½
A Song for Lya • [Thousand Worlds] • (1974) • novella by George R. R. Martin
The native inhabitants have a religion that involves committing suicide by letting a parasite eat them alive. There are no other religions on the planet and every alien on the planet, without exception, professes that religion and follows the same rules. Also, every alien on the planet seems to be content and very happy. And now humans are turning to that religion in increasing numbers. A husband and wife, both telepaths, arrive on a planet to investigate that problem. The husband is an empath, mainly able to feel emotions; Lya, the wife, is a very sensitive telepath and is able to read minds. The plot goes where you might expect it to, but the writing is very good and the story is really excellent. ****
Slow Sculpture • (1970) • novelette by Theodore Sturgeon
A woman meets a man who is making tests with electrostatic equipment. She tells him that she has breast cancer. The man tells her that he can cure it with his apparatus, and proceeds to do so. During the process, the woman faints and regains her consciousness a few days later. She first runs away but returns for a philosophical conversation. An okay story, but I fail to get the whole point of it. ***-
Goat Song • (1972) • novelette by Poul Anderson
In a utopian future, automated systems and a central computer control everything. Souls and personalities are supposedly recorded and the computer promises to bring back everyone who has died when the “situation is right.” So far it hasn’t been right, and as nothing ever seems to change it is unsure when the situation will ever be right. There isn’t supposed to be individual love, but one man and his wife have formed a pair. As the wife is killed, the man asks the representative of the computer, Dark Queen, to resurrect the wife. The Dark Queen at first doesn’t listen, but the man sings so eloquently that he is taken to the main compound and eventually his wife is resurrected, under reserve. Not everything works well and the computer wants to use the man as an antagonist to learn more about humanity. The man ends up becoming some kind of messiah, mainly because he can sing so well. The writing is pretty good and eloquent, but somehow the story felt very naive. ***
Ill Met in Lankhmar • [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser] • (1970) • novella by Fritz Leiber
Two thieves meet more or less by accident and straight away recognize each other as kindred spirits. They meet with their girlfriends, and after some friendly boozing, they decide to find out what the local thieves guild (they aren’t members) is up to, as one of the girlfriends has a serious wish for revenge against them. After a very eventful trip, they return to find tragedy. This is a very smoothly written action fantasy that is written partly in poetic language. Fantasy aspects arise towards the end, whereas the beginning is fairly straight action. This is a nice novella that well deserved the award. ****-
Inconstant Moon • (1971) • novelette by Larry Niven
The moon seems to shine brighter than normal, and it seems to become slowly brighter and brighter. A man starts to wonder what could cause this. He can think of only one possible cause: the sun has gone nova, and the dayside of the Earth is already boiling. What to do on the last night of your life—and on the last night of anyone’s life? Have the night of your life, of course. This is an excellent story that felt only slightly dated, and was enjoyable to reread. ****½
The Meeting • (1972) • short story by C. M. Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl
Two parents have transferred their severely developmentally challenged son to a new school. They have had, apparently, very unrealistic expectations. The school costs more than they can afford, and there is a need for "voluntary" money donations as well. They have received an offer for a brain transplant and are thinking about it. A very mundane story until the plot twist at the end, which is left open (?). An okay story, but perhaps not Hugo-winner material? ***
Eurema's Dam • (1972) • short story by R. A. Lafferty
Albert is very stupid, so stupid that he can hardly do anything by himself. Even at school, he has trouble writing, so he has had to build a machine that can write for him. He makes a fortune with his designs, as he is so bad at everything that he always needs to build machines to do things he can’t. A pretty good story, but I am not sure about the ending. ***½
The Girl Who Was Plugged In • (1973) • novelette by James Tiptree, Jr.
Advertising is strictly forbidden. “Ad” is a dirty word. How are companies able to market new products? Through “influencers,” of course. The mind of an ugly, deceased young woman is used to control the cloned body of a beautiful young woman who has no mind of her own. She becomes very popular, with huge numbers of followers, and everything goes well until a young man falls in love with her. A pretty good story which is even more current now than when it was written, so much so that it could very well be a nominee or Hugo winner even today. The worst part of the story was the middle, which felt fairly slow. ****
No comments:
Post a Comment