| Article: 421
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: REPOST: Belated Reviews PS#21: Aldiss/Jeppson/Bass: Distant Futures
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: 03 Nov 93 00:32:02 GMT
Belated Reviews PS#21: Misc. 5: Aldiss/Jeppson/Bass: Distant Futures
I'm again taking the liberty of grouping a number of authors from whose
work I only intend to review one or two books, and of squeezing those
books into a theme. Most of the books in this review are minor works of
minor authors, but sometimes a nothing-special book catches one's fancy.
Brian Aldiss is *not* a minor author. I've used the term "one-book author"
a number of times to refer to authors with only one book of interest, but
I don't wish the fact that I'm only discussing one Aldiss novel to give
that impression: He has numerous books to his credit, including such
acclaimed works as "Frankenstein Unbound", "The Billion/Trillion Year Spree",
"Report on Probability A" and the relatively recent "Helliconia" trilogy.
The only one of his books of which I greatly enjoyed, however, was
"Hothouse". (I will confess to using 'acclaimed' here as a euphemism for
"I didn't much care for it, but I realize that lots of other people did.")
"Hothouse" (***+) is a fantasy disguised as a science fiction novel. The
time is billions of years in the future: The sun is hotter than today's,
and its death is not far off. Tidal forces have locked the Earth and the
Moon face to face, and biological forces have had so much time to work that
the two bodies are connected by...cobwebs. (The term 'cobwebs' is, if not
utterly accurate, adequately descriptive.) The dominant life forms on Earth
are vegetable, and some of those have evolved mobility and even a degree
of intelligence. The only survivors of the animal kingdom in the world-
sized forest of this future are a few species of insects -- and the primitive
descendents of humanity. (Intelligence has allowed humanity to survive,
barely, but this isn't a world in which intelligence is much of an edge.)
Most of the book follows Gren, a youth who is separated from his small
family grouping and set adrift in this future world, which he understands
no better than does the reader. It's a grim enough journey -- the world
through which Gren travels is voracious and inhospitable -- but wonder-filled.
Aldiss has painted a vivid picture of a world through which plants climb
and fly and hunt, with vegetative intelligences below and with vegetative
spiders shuttling through space. It is this backdrop, more than the story
which plays out against it, which gives "Hothouse" its power.
("Hothouse" was originally published in the US in an abridged version titled
"The Long Afternoon of Earth". Personally, I preferred the abridged version.)
J.O. Jeppson has had better marketing success since she started signing
her work "Janet Asimov", but the best of her novels came out under her
own name, and I enjoyed it far more than any fiction her husband wrote in
the seventies or eighties.
"The Last Immortal" (***+) is a robot's story, albeit not a postronic robot.
The story begins not long in our future, and goes to the collapse of the
universe and beyond. It's a light-weight story in many ways, and an
improbable one: Tek is the last surviving robot of the dragons who came
to our universe when theirs collapsed, billions of years ago. For a time he
lived with humanity (we learn in passing), but finally he asked to be
allowed to end -- and for a long time his request was granted. By the
time he is mysteriously revived, the universe is collapsing, and a small
expedition has formed to return to the original dragon universe.
It's an enjoyable light read, with occasional unexpected depths. Tek
himself is an odd mixture -- humble, self-efacing, but (as the final product
of an immensely long robotic evolution) possessed of far greater abilities
than he realizes. The main weakness of the book is the humanity of the
far future, which is a bit *too* similar to that of the present, but not
much harm is done, because that premise isn't asked to bear much weight.
"The Last Immortal" is a sequel to "The Second Experiment" (**) -- a
competent but nothing-special novel which gives Tek's origin and recounts
his earlier dealings with dragons and humans -- but it can be read on its
own. Of her other work, the early 'Norby' novellas -- coauthored by "Janet
and Isaac Asimov" may be worth reading, if you don't mind juveniles that
talk down to their audience a bit. They're about a well-meaning robot
(three parts Jeppson robot to one part Asimov robot in character) who was
cobbled together from spare parts, some of them very alien. The first
Norby book is "The Norby Chronicles" (**+) (actually an omnibus of the
hardcovers "The Mixed-Up Robot" and "Norby's Other Secret"). They go
steadily downhill after that, so "Norby: Robot for Hire" (**-) is adequate
and further sequels are not.
T.J. Bass *is* a one-book author. Okay, make that a two-book author. The
first, and weaker of the two books, is "Half Past Human" (**). It portrays
a future Earth whose human population has risen to three *trillion*, squeezing
out almost all other biota on the planet. It is not necessary to read
"Half Past Human" in order to understand its superior sequel, "The
Godwhale" (***+), and my advice to anyone thinking of reading these books
is to read "The Godwhale" first, and the other one if it seems worth while.
The world of the Godwhale is a world coming back from the brink of death.
The Godwhale herself is an ancient cyborg plankton gatherer, abandoned
when the plankton was gone. Now, somehow, some life has returned to
the seas. The land is devoted entirely to the needs of the Hive -- the
human warren with a population density almost a thousand times greater
than our own -- and with the discovery that the sea once again represents
a potential food source, the Hive attempts to exploit it. The genetic
modifications which make survival possible under such crowded conditions,
however, limit the usefulness of Hive humans as an outside crew, so the Hive
engineers itself some old-style humans. And gets itself some old-style
troubles. (The reader should not anticipate the cliche of true humanity
sweeping aside a failed pseudo-humanity. The Hive is still the two-hundred-
billion ton gorrila on the planet.)
"The Godwhale" is an interesting book, rich in ideas, weaker on the story-
telling side. Its characters include Larry Dever, who accidentally got
himself bisected centuries earlier, ARNOLD, whose design was based upon
Larry's, Rorqual Maru, a sentient cyborg based on a whale, a number of
appealing cybernetic organisms -- and a support cast of trillions.
%A Aldiss, Brian
%T Hothouse
%O Slightly abridged under the title "The Long Afternoon of Earth"
%A Jeppson, J.O.
%O Later works published under the name Janet Asimov
%T The Last Immortal
%A Bass, T.J.
%T The Godwhale
=============================================================================
The postscripts to Belated Reviews cover authors of earlier decades who
didn't fit into the original format -- whether because the author seemed
an inappropriate subject, or because I was unfamiliar with too much of the
author's work, or whatever -- or sometimes just isolated works of such
authors. The emphasis will continue to be on guiding newer readers
towards books or authors worth trying out, rather than on discussing them
comprehensively or in depth. I'll retain the rating scheme of ****
(recommended), *** (an old favorite that hasn't aged well), ** (a solid
lesser work), and * (nothing special).
-----
Dani Zweig
dani@netcom.com
"The death of God left the angels in a strange position."
--Internal documentation, programmer unknown
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