Conference noted::sf

1164.0. "Eando (Earl and Otto) Binder" by VERGA::KLAES (Quo vadimus?) Fri Sep 10 1993 16:37

Article: 355
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: REPOST: Belated Reviews #25: Eando Binder and "Anton York, Immortal"
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: 10 Sep 93 02:47:13 GMT
 
     Belated Reviews #25:  Eando Binder and "Anton York, Immortal"
 
By my lights, Eando Binder is another one-book author, though this
statement is inaccurate in several respects.  Eando Binder was E-and-O
(Earl and Otto) Binder.  (I've heard 'Binder' rhymed with 'flinder', not
with 'finder', btw.)  They also produced a considerable number of stories
and later books.  (The distinction blurs, because many of their books are
fixup novels created from series of short stories.)  The most influential 
of their works were their Anton York stories and their Adam Link stories,
both of which may be found in novel format.  (I've seen references to a 
third major series, their "Via" stories, but have never read them.)  
 
After 1940, Otto Binder continued to write alone under the Eando name -- a 
change for the worse.  Not much worse, come to think of it; most of what
they wrote was quite bad.  Their more important works are distinguished
for their impact, rather than for the quality of the writing.  (In addition
to the obvious science-fiction venues, Otto Binder also wrote pulp-style
stories for comic books.  An evening spent with old "Strange Adventures"
comics will tell you most of what you need to know about bad pulp sf.)
 
"Anton York, Immortal" (***) consists of stories written between 1937 and
1940, and is the answer to "Why are you reviewing Binder's work if it's so
bad?"  I discovered it in the school library in grade eight (just about
the perfect age to read it, and just about the age of the original target
audience), and proceeded to reread that copy to tatters.  It has the faults 
of pre-Golden-Age science fiction -- heavy-handed prose, minimal 
characterization, a somewhat idolatrous attitude towards science and 
technology -- but, like the best of those stories, it has the virtues of 
its faults -- a reliance on idea and on wonder.
 
Anton York is the son of Matthew York who, late in the nineteenth century,
develops (and innoculates him with) a serum which grants immortality through
its interaction with cosmic radiation.  (Radiation of one sort or another
was behind much of the fictional science of that day.)  This longevity,
later shared with his wife, allows him to take the decades needed to develop
the superscience which in later stories enables them to explore the galaxy.
(Presumably Vera spends those decades bringing him his coffee.  Ah well, she
gets a larger -- if always supporting -- role as the stories progress.)
 
In his first major test, York uses scientific superiority to save the
Earth from renegades who have stolen the immortality secret.  In a later
story he faces insane immortals whose science is millenia more advanced
than his own.  Finally, in compliance with the Law of Exponentially
Increasing Antagonists, he must save Earth from an invasion from another
universe -- one in which the laws of nature which he knows so well do not
hold. 
 
It's a wonderful foundation for wish-fulfillment fantasy:  The Yorks
acquire a deus-ex-machina role in Earth's history, periodically returning
from their travels just in time to save the planet, to a chorus of "Not
the *legendary* Anton York!"
 
For all that I've been disparaging the writing, it's easy for someone
reading this book to see what the attraction of the science fiction of
that day could be for its readers.
 
More for completeness than out of personal conviction, I will touch on
"Adam Link, Robot" (*).  I'm sorry, I know that it's influential and I
know that many readers think highly of it, but I couldn't stand it.  The
first and best of the Adam Link stories which came to make up this novel
appeared in 1939 as "I Robot".  (Yes, Eando Binder used the title, and a 
number of the ideas that went with it, before Asimov.)  The story is
essentially lifted from Frankenstein, with metal replacing spare body
parts, and with panicky Americans with shotguns replacing German peasants
with pitchforks.  It has the virtue of brevity, and it made a tremendous
splash.  The stories that followed, monuments to the virtue of leaving well 
enough alone, are less in the tradition of Frankenstein than in the tradition
of Tennessee Tuxedo, as Adam Link (soon joined by Eve Link) struggles to
prove to a hostile world that he can measure up to man.
 
A good number of Eando Binder's books can be found on the shelves of used
book stores.  I'd recommend trying "Anton York, Immortal", if your curiousity
so moves you, and skipping the rest. 
 
%A  Binder, Eando
%O  actually Earl and Otto Binder
%T  Anton York, Immortal
%T  Adam Link, Robot
 
Standard introduction and disclaimer for Belated Reviews follows.

Belated Reviews cover science fiction and fantasy of earlier decades.
They're for newer readers who have wondered about the older titles on the
shelves, or who are interested in what sf/f was like in its younger days.
The emphasis is on helping interested readers identify books to try first, 
not on discussing the books in depth.
 
A general caveat is in order:  Most of the classics of yesteryear have not
aged well.  If you didn't encounter them back when, or in your early teens,
they will probably not give you the unforced pleasure they gave their
original audiences.  You may find yourself having to make allowances for
writing you consider shallow or politics you consider regressive.  When I
name specific titles, I'll often rate them using the following scale:
 
**** Recommended.
***  An old favorite that hasn't aged well, and wouldn't get a good
	reception if it were written today.  Enjoyable on its own terms.
**   A solid book, worth reading if you like the author's works.
*    Nothing special.
 
Additional disclaimers:  Authors are not chosen for review in any particular
order.  The reviews don't attempt to be comprehensive.  No distinction is 
made between books which are still in print and books which are not.
 
-----
Dani Zweig
dani@netcom.com
 
   If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down.  It's going to be the
   best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills
   you! -- Dorothy Parker
 

    -- he said blankly.

    re: .1
    
    Tennessee Tuxedo - Saturday morning cartoon show of the late? sixties.
    
    								/alan

    What I meant was, I don't see much similarity between the penguin's
    adventures and the robot's.  Unless he just meant generally low
    literary quality?
    
    Earl Wajenberg