Clifford D. Simak: "Ogre," "Lobby," and "Eternity Lost"

As was foretold, today we read "Ogre," Clifford Simak's contribution to the January 1944 issue of Astounding.  (We've already read the A. E. van Vogt, Frank Belknap Long, Hal Clement and P. Schuyler Miller fiction in this issue of John W. Campbell's genre-defining magazine.)  We'll also take a look at two other Astounding pieces by Simak, "Lobby," another 1944 story, and 1949's "Eternity Lost."  I'm reading all of these stories in scans of the issues of Astounding in which they debuted.

"Ogre" (1944)

Here we have a story full of great science fiction ideas, ideas that exploit and reflect our fears of loneliness as well as of loss of individuality, our fascination with art and our vulnerability to dangerous addictions, our dreams of perfect health and concerns over who and what determines our true identities--does our blood or the place we were born determine who we are, or can we adopt piecemeal or in toto the culture of people of other races and civilizations?  "Ogre" also reminds us of all those Somerset Maugham stories about Westerners out in the colonies, trying to make a buck, dealing with the inscrutable natives and running the risk of--or embracing the thrill of--going native.  Well-written and fun at the same time it tackles these issues of identity and imperialism, with "Ogre" we are starting off this blog post with a hit--thumbs up!

"Ogre" has many characters but almost all of them have personalities and strong motivations so they aren't hard to tell apart and most of them provide drama or entertainment and/or offer illustrations of the story's themes.  "Ogre" is set on a planet where plants developed intelligence and animal-like mobility.  Native to this world are plants like sheets or cloaks that can crawl around and can tap into the brain activity of any other living thing they touch.  When humans arrived on the planet these things, called "blankets" throughout the story, were thrilled to develop a symbiotic relationship with Earthers, because these blankets have naturally dim wits and dull lives, but connected to a man they suddenly had deep feelings and the ability for complex thought.  Humans embraced these relationships because the blankets have super-efficient physiologies and can absorb energy directly from the environment, heal quickly and fend of disease with ease, and when touching a human they can share these abilities with him--a man with a blanket need not eat, and can quickly recover from any kind of injury or infection, beyond having a constant companion who shares his attitudes and goals.

The blankets are kind of like non-white individuals during the ages of exploration and imperialism who take on the culture of white colonists, subalterns who embrace service to their technological superiors.  Simak in "Ogre" also dramatizes the opposite sort of relationship, the colonist who goes native.  Among the many other types of sentient plants on this vegetable-dominated planet are trees that produce music of staggering beauty.  Much money can be made by human merchants who can record this music and sell it to Earthers living around the galaxy.  But there is a risk to this music--it is so beautiful that humans can become addicted to it and neglect their health and abandon all social norms as they become obsessed with it.  A major component of the plot of the story is the behavior of a man who becomes obsessed in this way, and another plot strand involves one of the intelligent ambulatory plants--probably the most intelligent of them--who hatches a scheme to use the trees to become master of the human race.

With all these plants who want to become like men and men who fall under the sway of plants we have , multiple examples of entities of one culture or species who desire to, or risk being forced to, take on elements of the identities of another culture or race.  And there's more!  We also have an iteration of a characteristic Simak character--the sympathetic robot who is probably "better" than humans but who yearns to be considered human.  This robot is at the Earth trading post at the behest of the interstellar business enterprise that owns the post, charged with the mission of making sure the humans working for the corporation do not steal or otherwise misuse and waste the corporation's resources and ensuring compliance with the many company rules and government regulations that govern the company and its employees.  This robot plays the role of a comic relief character--it even has bad grammar--but is also the hero of the story, being more honest, more brave, better at fighting, etc., than the rest of the cast.  This character brings a lot to the story, but I will warn my 21st-century readers that this character may be modelled on and intended to remind readers of stereotypes of nagging women and African-American subalterns, and the robot does use the dreaded "N-word," the word people of my ancestry use nowadays only at great risk, in the cliche "n----- in the woodpile."

Looking beyond the numerous humans and the various types of plants, plus the robot, this planet is also the site of a rival trading post to that of the Earthers, an outpost of evil insectoids from another space faring civilization.  This story offers multiple examples of what some of the characters consider treason to the race, and one of them is provided by a human who joins the insect people in an operation against the interests of the Earth station.

As for the plot of "Ogre," I won't get too far into it except to say it is full of incident--dangerous journeys, gun fights, hand-to-hand combat, monster attacks, double crosses, schemes that offer tremendous wealth and threaten entire civilizations.  Simak handles all this material ably--the fighting and scheming is entertaining and exciting and the comic relief and serious themes of the story work in concert with the action-adventure material instead of undermining or sidelining it.        

I can't think of anything bad to say about "Ogre."  A very fine piece of work.  Highly recommended to anybody with any interest in popular fiction.  

After its debut in this terrific issue of Astounding, "Ogre" reappeared in Donald Wollheim's Adventures on Other Planets, multiple European anthologies, multiple "Best of Astounding /Analog" volumes, and several Simak collections.  

"Lobby" (1944)

"Ogre" was about universal, timeless, concerns, like imperialism and identity, that are inherently interesting.  "Lobby" is about particular, timely, concerns, like atomic power, that are sort of interesting, and things that I guess are sort of universal and timeless, like industrial espionage and government corruption, but are sort of boring.  "Lobby"'s characters are a bore, mere cardboard cutouts.  Its plot is resolved by a deus ex machina device--lame!  Plus, it is one of those stories that craps on the traditions of Anglo-American liberalism, like jury trials and elected government and private enterprise, in favor of technocratic world government--gross!  A big step down from "Ogre."

It is the post-World War II world.  World government is trying to take control, but its hands are full in the ruins of Europe and Asia so the United States still has its independence.  Cobb is a businessman based in New York and Butler is the world's greatest scientist, out in Montana.  Butler is on the brink of bringing the world's first atomic power plant on line; Cobb is his partner, handling the business and political end.  Atomic power has the potential to revolutionize the world economy--the arrival of cheap and abundant energy will end poverty.  But the people who own and manage and work for and have invested in the fossil fuel and hydroelectric power industries (in this story they are lumped together as "the power lobby") will lose their livelihoods, or so they think, and so they oppose the development of atomic reactors, telling the world atomic power is dangerous, setting up a bogus religious sect to preach against messing with the atom, buying off senators, etc.

The atomic reactor in Montana is almost ready to go online and prove that atomic power is safe and efficient, so the power lobby sabotages it; the resulting catastrophic explosion kills 100 people.  Luckily, Butler and all his files survive.  But isn't this the kind of PR blow that will end all public support for atomic power?

Here comes the deus ex machina!  A genius lawyer from the world government (somehow) has all the evidence necessary to prove that the power lobby blew up the reactor.  The power lobby says that his evidence won't be enough to convince a jury, but the man from the world government says ha ha, there will be no jury--at the world court in Switzerland expert judges decide cases, not juries of gullible and emotional proles!  The world government lawyer proceeds to blackmail the power lobby--in return for not being put on trial, the lobby's ringleaders agree to work in concert with Butler and Cobb under the direction of the world government to bring atomic power to the masses without too much economic dislocation.  The legal eagle gloats that, once the world government has control of atomic power, individual governments like that in the U.S. will lose all power and there will be no more elections decided by easily swayed commoners and no more private business run by greedy money grubber, just scientists running the world scientifically. 

Disgusting!  Thumbs down!

(For the record, I think nuclear power is great, but I wouldn't abandon elected government, private property, and trial by jury to get it.)

The issue of Astounding that includes "Lobby" also features A. E. van Vogt's "The Changeling," various forms of which I have read and blogged about, and Fritz Leiber's "Sanity," the version of which known as "Crazy Wolf" I have read and blogged about.  "Lobby" resurfaced to preach its gospel of atomic power and rule by unelected eggheads in Groff Conklin's The Best of Science Fiction in 1946.  In 2023 it reappeared in the Simak collection Buckets of Diamonds and Other Stories, the thirteenth volume of The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak.  I guess The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak isn't presenting Simak's work in chronological order.

"Eternity Lost" (1949)

The July 1949 issue of Astounding in which we find "Eternity Lost" includes James H. Schmitz's "Agent of Vega," a book version of which we read in 2016, when we were young.  The cover story is nonfiction, about a nuclear reactor.

"Eternity Lost" shares a lot with "Lobby;" we've got a world government and a new form of technology being suppressed by a conspiracy.  But, thankfully, this story also has a decent plot, an effort to create a human character, and a surprise twist ending.  We'll call it mildly recommendable.

After the world government based in Geneva took over, longevity treatments were developed--when a person gets old, like around 90 or so, such a treatment can rejuvenate him, give him another approximately 100 years.  The government decided that it wouldn't fair if people could buy this boon, and giving it to everybody wouldn't be practicable, so it was decided that only a tiny number of people should be able to get rejuvenated, people chosen by the government, ostensibly because they are providing a service to humanity.  Simak includes dialogue from the government hearings that led to this decision, including testimony from various people attacking the rejuvenation program, as flashbacks throughout the story.

The main story takes place like 500 years after those hearings.  The man who chaired those hearings, Senator Leonard, is almost 600 years old and has had five of the rare treatments.  But as the story begins he learns that he won't be getting another!  Why?  It looks like he will lose the next election, and his party isn't going to pull the strings necessary for him to get a sixth treatment.  Already old and starting to forget things, Leonard only has a few years to live!

Simak does a decent job describing Leonard's emotions and philosophical reflections upon facing death as well as speculating about how individuals and society might respond to the fact that a tiny elite minority gets to live indefinitely.  Simak also presents a pretty good plot as Leonard scrambles to figure out a way to get a rejuvenation treatment illegally.  Leonard learns that advancements have been made in longevity science--actual immortality has been achieved!  But kept secret from the public and even top legislators like himself because the news might cause economic and political upheaval.  Leonard also learns that the cabal that controls the immortality technique will release the technique to the public when a viable extrasolar space program has been developed and discovered alien planets suitable for colonization.

Leonard fails to figure out how to get a treatment through unconventional channels.  So he decides to go out with a bang, to do the George Costanza "I am breaking up with you!" thing.  Before the public finds out that he has been denied a rejuvenation treatment, he announces to the world that he is refusing his next treatment to show solidarity with the common people.  He figures this will blacken the reputation of all the other people who have been getting the treatments, the people who turned their backs on him--revenge!

Leonard becomes wildly popular!  But then comes the twist ending!  The cabal that controls the immortality technique has secretly developed space craft that can reach hospitable alien planets and is secretly organizing recon expeditions to them.  They sent Leonard a letter inviting him to get immortality and join just such an expedition a week ago, but because he is getting forgetful on his senescence, he forgot to look at his mail.  Now that he has turned against the elite of which he is a part they, of course, are rescinding the offer, and Leonard will soon die, knowing he was so so close to living forever and spending that life as a vigorous and respected man, exploring the universe.

There are plot holes in this story, and elements that don't make a lot of sense, and of course it advocates elite manipulation of the public, but still it isn't actually bad, the main character, pacing, and twist ending offering entertainment.

"Eternity Lost" would reappear in Everett F. Blieler and T. E. Dikty's The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1950 and in Campbell's big (like 600 pages!) The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology and its little  abridged paperback version (fewer than 200 pages.)  Martin H. Greenberg included it in three different anthologies, and the story would be reproduced in the tenth volume of The Collected Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak, The Shipshape Miracle and other stories.

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It's a roller coaster ride!  We've got "Ogre," a five-neurotic-robots-out-of-five story, "Lobby," a story that sucks and even made me angry, and then "Eternity Lost," a decent twist ending story.  "Ogre" and "Eternity Lost" have merit as entertainment and have good science fiction ideas and of course I am recommending them.  But let's play devil's advocate--I can even make a case for reading the execrable "Lobby" to those of you who are students of popular literature.

Science fiction is the literature of ideas, the literature that speculates on technology and its effect on society, the literature of the paradigm shift, the literature that considers alternate ways of organizing society and living your life.  Well, that is what "Lobby" is all about...all about, it totally lacking any kind of literary or entertainment value.  "Lobby" represents a type of science fiction, the story that offers ideas and advocates for their adoption to the exclusion of all else, and it represents a large segment of the science fiction community that sees science and technology as the key to a better future, and prioritizes science and technology over traditional American values like democracy and the market economy, that in the period of the Depression, the Second World War, and the early Cold War, advocated for atomic power, technocracy, and world government as solutions to the crises facing the world in the 1930-1960 era.  So I guess I am sort of telling you to read "Lobby," even though I am suggesting you likely won't enjoy it.

More Astounding stories in our next episode--science fiction fans, stay tuned!