B. ... And Other Fish

In the following four brief analyses, I shall not endeavor to trace out the indicators of literary merit to the extent which I did above. Rather, I shall attempt to indicate briefly both the cognitive aspects of the stories and their technical aspects, in order to present them in the light of "good" works of literature, following all four of the accepted criteria of Chapter II. The examples, by the way, are not picked because of any special claims to greatness they may have, but merely to show that good stories are to be found readily in science fiction if you look for them with an open mind--and also as counterexamples to some of the allegations cited in Chapter I.

1. "Disappearing Act"

Alfred Bester writes for radio and television, Holiday (columnist), and has done some highly praised science fiction, including the Hugo-winning novel, The Demolished Man. "Disappearing Act" is one of eleven of his short stories appearing in Starburst.(Signet Books, New York, 1958) In it, a war is being fought: "This one wasn't the last war or a war to end war. They called it the War for the American Dream." The war, given the date 2112 later, is being run by a General Carpenter:

There are fighting generals (vital to an army), political genera1s (vital to an admnistration), and public relations generals (vital to a war). General Carpenter was a master of public relations. Forthright and Four-Square, he had ideals as high and as understandable as the mottoes on money. In the mind of America he was the army, the administration, the nation's shield and sword and stout right arm.. His ideal was the American Dream.

The note of the American Dream is sounded throughout; to give just one example, "We are struggling for the Ideal of civilization; for Culture, for Poetry, for the Only Things Worth Preserving." He is continually calling for experts: "Every man and woman must be a specific tool for a specific job." The climax of the war, the narration informs us, takes place in a ward of an Army Hospital. To do an injustice to the story, and skipping the detail and order of presentation, what happens is, briefly, this: the patients have been disappearing from the ward. Thinking he is onto teleportation, Carpenter assigns experts to the ward to find out what's happening; one of them overhears a reference to Diamond Jim Brady (the reader has already been presented with three scenes following three of the patients in the "past"). After going through a Lapidary, a Semanticist, a Genealogist, and an Archaeologist, he finally is referred to an Historian, Bradley Scrim, who had been at twenty years hard labor, who identifies the man. The historian then is sent to the ward and comes back the next night to dispel Carpenter's notion that they have time travel as a weapon for the war by explaining that the "pasts" are thoroughly anachronistic--Brady coexisting with the Eisenhower election, Disraeli in a Rolls Royce with another of the patients--and says, 'My God, Carpenter, this is your American dream. It's miracle-working, immortality, Godlike creation ..." But, Scrim continues, he can't figure out how to do it himself; a poet is needed, "an artist who understands the creation of dreams" (no scientism here!):

Carpenter snapped up his intercom. "Send me a poet, " he said ... He waited, and waited ... and waited ... while America sorted feverishly through its two hundred and ninety millions of hardened and sharpened experts, its specialized tools to defend the American Dream of Beauty and Poetry and the Better Things of Life. He waited for them to find a poet, not understanding the endless delay, the fruitless search; not understanding why Bradley Scrim laughed and laughed and laughed at this final, fatal disappearance.

End of story.

Now, there are two types of satire operating here: The first is a general sort, good more for laughs than for thoughts; the second is social satire of a rather high order. To give a few examples of the first sort: "Our Dream," says Carpenter, "is at one with the gentle Greeks of Athens, with the noble Romans of ... er ... Rome." The army has sorted out all the possible kinds of injury, and segregates them into wards A through S; naturally, the dreamers are in Ward T. When Carpenter first sees three patients disappear, he calls for a combat-shock expert and an alienist; the first says, "War jitters," and the second, "Mass illusion," in perfectly stereotyped manner which scarcely requires an "expert" to parrot. But the broadest satire of all is Carpenter himself: he is so stultified by his reliance on experts that he starts to call for an Entomologist when Scrim says, "I'm the last singing grasshopper in the ant heap"; he goes through a full five experts to identify Brady; he is a parrot, a nothing who is shocked when Scrim talks about a poet's being needed, who doesn't understand when Scrim answers his "We're fighting for Poetry and Culture and Education and the Finer Things in Life" line with "Which means you're fighting to preserve me ...That's what I've devoted my life to. And what do you do with me? Put me in jail."

The whole "tool chest" refrain wherein every man and woman is a "tool" trained for a job is one of the tools of Bester's social satire. When "the experts worked over Dimmock [the director of the hospital] with pre-conscious softeners, id releases and superego blocks" followed by "every form of physical and mental pressure," but boggle at applying "pressure to the sick men and the woman," Carpenter rages "For God's sake, don't be squeamish. We're fighting a war for civilization. We've got to protect our ideals no matter what the price. Get to it!" The American Dream becomes an object of scorn in being talked about as "theory" but ignored in practice; however, the criticism is not merely domestic--it applies to the whole political farce of false, resounding labels.

Technically, Bester performs beautifully. Perhaps the most obvious point is the pun in the title, applying it both to the patients and ultimately to the American Dream--both of which disappear from the "real" world. He also does a good deal with pace: Carpenter's staccato sentences suggest both command and emptiness, simpleness; when Scrim is explaining that the patients are visiting anachronistic "pasts"--and the process is a painful one because Carpenter isn't too bright--the passage is punctuated with one-sentence paragraphs as follow: "Carpenter nodded ... Carpenter looked expectant ... Carpenter looked puzzled ... Carpenter goggled." Also, for his satire he is relying on the technique of "extrapolation," but they are quite different from Sturgeon's evolutionary exptrapolations; over-specialization, taking a general to represent the Army, and the substitution of slogans for ideals are all present today although they have not expanded to the point which Bester portrays in the story ...or have they?

Another "technical " point lies in Carpenter's name, in which a double allusion seems to operate: to John Crowe Ransom's poem "Captain Carpenter," and through its quixotic Christ figure back to the original (but in this case the Saviour doesn't save).

2. "Poor Little Warrior"

Another good anthology is Brian Aldiss's No Time Like Tomorrow (also Signet, same price, 1959). Aldiss won a special plaque at the last World Science Fiction Convention as "the year's most promising writer," and is also Literary Editor of the Oxford Mail. The plot of "Poor Little Warrior" can be recounted quite succinctly: Claude Ford is hunting a brontosaurus, having travelled back in a twenty-second century travel agency's time machine. He is a failure in life, unhappily married and unable to stand "the whole awful, hopeless business of trying to adjust to an overcomplex environment, of trying to turn yourself into a cog." Though he finds the bronto awesome, he kills it anyway, hoping to achieve some sort of catharsis--which he does not do: "Poor little warrior, science will never invent anything to assist the titanic death you want in the contra-terrene caverns of your fee-fi-fo-fumblingly fearful id!" Before returning to his time-mobile, he turns back to the dead creature, regretting the necessity of returning to his wife Maude, and the whole mess of 2181 AD:

So you pause, and as you pause, something lands socko on your back, pitching you face forward into tasty mud. You struggle and scream as lobster claws tear at your neck and throat. You try to pick up the rifle but cannot, so in agony you roll over, and next second the crab-thing is greedying it on your chest. You wrench at its shell, but it giggles and pecks your fingers off. You forgot when you killed the bronto that its parasites would leave it, and that to a little shrimp like you they would be a deal more dangerous than their host. You do your best, kicking for at least three minutes. By the end of that time there is a whole pack of the creatures on you. Already they are picking your carcass loving clean. You're going to like it up there on top of the Rockies; you won't feel a thing.

The most striking feature of the story is its diction, especially its overwhelming number of almost Joycean puns. They have two characteristics: at the beginning of the story the puns run to the almost preciously clever; by the end, they are malignantly sardonic. In the beginning, there is a play on Claude's hearing the bronto's heart beat "as the ventricle keeps miraculous time with the auricle. [Paragraph] Time for listening to the oracle is past ..." In reference to the dung-eating parasite birds, the close of a mock-travelogue which was describing their process: "and now as the sun stinks in the Jurassic West, we say 'Fare well on that diet . . .'" By the end (the story is only five pages long), the birds leave the dead bronto: "They know when a good thing turns bad, and do not wait for the vultures to drive them off; all hope abandon, ye who entrail here." And the final play is on the grotesque image of the crab-things eating "a little shrimp like you."

There is more to the story than meets the paranomasiac's eye, though. There is double-edged satire operating, both on the weak individual who tries to "escape" the real world and on the society which not only drives him out but also provides a commercial means for doing it. The "moral ", if you will, seems to be "Thus be it with all escapists"; so the story can be read both as a personal tragedy, on the "everyday" level demanded by Arthur Koestler, and as one which is universal in application. Whatever the source of his psychological needs, his own weakness or Society's over-complexity, Claude's tragedy is amplified by the fact that he is legitimately trying to prove himself a man, to assert himself, to combat Nature . . . and he fails so miserably. The final mock-solace of "you won't feel a thing" heightens the effect, for in a sense his death solves all his problems, though perhaps not in exactly the way he had intended.

Aldiss employs a technical device in inducing both the sense of tragedy and the satire which bears mention. He accomplishes a complete shift in tone from the matter-of-fact "Man--though perhaps contemptible--dominating Nature" tone of the opening to the tragic "Man powerless and thoroughly dominated by Nature" tone of the close. This is managed syntactically, by employing a nominal second-person narration throughout but playing on the properties of "you" as a pseudo first-person and pseudo third-person. That is, he starts "Claude Ford knew exactly how it was to hunt a bronto-saurus. You crawled heedlessly through the mud among the willows . . ." The "you" represents the generalized third-person "one", or, in other words, represents the first-person to the speaker; in the middle of the story, the "you" becomes accusing (though not accusative). "This time the bogey-man is real, Claude, just as you wanted it to be, and this time you really have to face up to it before it turns and faces you again." Though the shift may not be unambiguous earlier in the story (the above occurs almost exactly halfway through), here is marked the beginning of the vicious criticism which builds to the wonderfully mocking "Poor little warrior" line.

A final point about the applicability of the story is hinted at by the description of the bronto's eyes after Claude has shot it: "With no indecision, those century-old lights, dim and sacred, go out. Those cloisters are closed till Judgment Day." If you're fond of allegory, or partial to Freud's Totem and Taboo, the bronto can represent God, herein ritually (and actually) slain; but without God, man is the prey of the universe, hence the parasites are freed to kill Claude. Aside from the religious terms just quoted, there is a bit of internal evidence in the line "God, if adolescence did not exist it would be unnecessary to invent it!" and the atheistic sentiment from which it is derived. Although it's cheating, I can't resist pointing out that there is a good deal of Nietzschean influence in at least three of his other stories--which are concerned more or less with dying at the right time ("Beyond Good and Evil")--, and the "God is dead" line comes from the same place.

Of the grounds for recommending the story, two have been mentioned briefly: personal tragedy, and the satirizing of an undesirable individual (which are not at all incompatible). Two others are: 1) the gadget (time machine), which is not dominant in the story; and 2) Aldiss's whole prose style, which is brilliant. In the latter regard, I should at least mention his "poetry": Not only does he employ a great number of images, but almost invariably his images operate through the poetic modes of simile or metaphor: "Its eyes gleamed with the liveliness of a week-dead corpse's big toe"; "Slowly, a squeeze of cold reptile blood toothpastes down one cheek"; "the midget maggot of life is dead in the creature's skull." The sardonicism is necessary; perhaps it is nowhere more forceful than the "tasty mud" Claude is pitched into--it's gallows humor here, and that is just one more factor contributing to the horror of the final paragraphs--read them again, they get even worse (which means better, in terms of the artistry).

3. "The Queen Bee"

The final two stories I shall discuss are included only for their content, as I want to clear up a few points which I couldn't include in Chapter I. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the writing, but it is by no means so "dense" or "rich" as the previous ones mentioned--that is, the complexity is less great, to revert to Chapter II's terms--, and I am far more interested in what's going on in them.

Randall Garrett's "The Queen Bee" appeared in the December, 1958, Astounding. An intersteller liner explodes. There are only seven survivors (four men and three women) who manage to get a lifeboat to an inhabitable planet. The title of the story applies to Elissa Krand, a spoiled and egotistical rich man's daughter. Now, the law dictates that survirors are to try to populate any planet they become marooned on. When one of the other women becomes pregnant Elissa kills her and also the third woman. She then sets out to play the "queen bee," and demands service from the four men, threatening to abort any children they might force on her. The men are restrained from killing her by their desire to propagate the race, although they all hate her. Finally they decide to make of her a literal queen bee, and perform a lobotomy: "One year later, the first child born on the planet Generatrix was a lovely baby girl, named Tina."

The story is dealing with the solution of a problem of the future. Problem: to perpetuate the race when the only available female refuses to cooperate. Solution: a lobotomy, leaving her placid and mindless but not damaging her genetically. Implications: Society and the Race are of paramount importance; the solution is a hard one, but so is the universe (cf., "Poor Little Warrior"), and if Man is to survive he must fight the Universe on its own terms.

Further, sex is dealt with here, and the one female who is afraid of men, and hence manifests the "spinsterly distaste" Time reports Amis objecting to, is talked out of her stand. For the interested trend hound, I would suggest Sturgeon's "To Marry Medusa" (Galaxy, August 1958) for one example of a different view of sex; not only is there a fine example of a nasty seduction there, but the plot hinges upon still another seduction's being successful.

"The Queen Bee" makes sense in its own terms and is well-written, although not brilliantly so. Aggressions and castrations and Oedipus complexes aside, it's a pretty good story.

4. The Puppet Masters

Just as every discussion of literary theory seemingly must contain a reference to Aristotle (to say nothing of Freud, nowadays), every discussion of science fiction should probably contain a reference to Robert Heinlein. His forte is the delineation of a future society as background, as opposed to the out-and-out satires of the societies (as foregrounds) often encountered elsewhere. His scientific background may or may not have anything to do with it, but he is a great story teller. Though among science fiction fans you may hear Sturgeon or Clarke mentioned as "best" author instead of Heinlein, if you ask for the top few, invariably you will hear "And of course, Heinlein." Instead of discussing style after a plot summary, I should like merely to state in advance that he is quite direct and un-"complex."

The Puppet Masters is also out in Signet paperback, 1952. The narrator is an agent of the Section, a super-secret supra-FBI which is directly responsible to the President. He tells the history of an invasion of Earth by slug-like, football-sized parasitic creatures from Titan which attach themselves to hosts (they want humanity for their next host) and completely take over the hosts' minds, ultimately causing the host's death because the parasites are completely uninterested in the care and feeding of their hosts. The invasion is beaten back, leaving many dead humans and planetwide seminudism (so that any remaining parasites may be detected) in its wake. It's a good adventure story, quite exciting and gripping; however, the reason I mention it here is contained in the last two pages, when the narrator is concluding his history preparatory to leaving the planet with Operation Vengeance, a task force to wipe out the parasites on their home satellite, Titan. The philosophy expressed is quite prevalent as an underlying motif in science fiction, related, I believe, to the humanism so often noted. I shall quote selected passages, which delineate, in what one might call the rather homely prose of the first-person narrator, the point of view that Man must make his own place in the universe:

This is for keeps and we intend to show those slugs that they made the mistake of tangling with the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting--and ablest [!]--form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. . . Whether we make it or not, the human race has got to keep up its well-earned reputation for ferocity. The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle, anywhere, any time, and with utter recklessness. If we did not learn that from the slugs, well--"Dinosaurs, move over! We are ready to become extinct:" . . . We are ready to tranship. I feel exhilarated. Puppet masters--the free men are coming to kill you! Death and Destruction!

Science fiction is used to express philosophies, and here we see one which makes the happy synthesis of being both optimistic and realistic--there is hope, but success is not automatic to the pure of heart. The optimism is a refreshing change from the pessimistic sort of mainstream writing cited by Rosalie Moore in Chapter I; the realism is a refreshing change from the perennially "upbeat," "slick" fiction. In short, science fiction is a field worthy of consideration from both entertainment-seekers and "serious readers."

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©2003 Michael A. Padlipsky. All rights reserved.