In 1959 the fourth volume of Judith Merril's critically adored anthology series, SF: The Year's Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy, was published, and in the back of the book was included a list three pages long of Honorable Mentions--stories from 1958 Merril thought good but which were not reprinted in the book. We here at MPorcius Fiction Log been looking through this alphabetical list and investigating listed stories by authors who interest us, and today we'll read some of the "H" stories.
"Trainee for Mars" by Harry Harrison
Science fiction writers love the idea of super-realistic simulations, as we have seen so often on TV (space battleship Yamato has that recreation room where stressed out space crew can relive happy times back on Earth, and I hear that the ship in the new Star Trek has a "holodeck" where robots can play Sherlock Holmes and have sex) and in the cinema (I actually saw The Matrix when it was new and I have heard about The Truman Show.) Here in "Trainee for Mars," Harrison envisions the government preparing in large pressure tanks elaborate mechanical simulations of conditions on Mars for use in immersive trainings of the first men who will land on Mars.
After the opening scene in which we witness a guy commit a blunder and get killed on Mars, only to learn it is just a simulation and he'll be OK, we learn that the military men running the space program are having a hell of a time finding anybody conscientious enough to send to Mars. The first team to land on the red planet will consist of two astronauts, and they have run simulations of the Mars mission again and again and every time at least one member of each two-man team gets himself "killed."
The head of the Mars landing program tells our main character, one of the few trainees who has survived every simulated expedition he has been on, that the government shrinks have a theory--men are negligent during the simulations because they know it is a simulation and that their errors won't really kill them. So it has been decided that the next simulation, in which our hero will participate, will be truly deadly--if a guy's space suit is ruptured the boffins won't open up the chamber to rescue him but instead let him freeze or asphyxiate to death!
The twist ending of Harrison's story is perhaps obvious. Our hero and his partner--another man who has always survived the simulated missions--face many new challenges on the expedition they think is a deadly simulation, but overcome them. The mission is almost over on its twenty-fourth day when the men realize this is no training exercise--they are really on Mars! In the concluding scenes back on Earth, Harrison engages in psychological and sociological speculation about the ability of human beings to face the stresses of space flight and exploring other planets.
Thumbs up for "Trainee for Mars." The adventure stuff works, the characters all behave realistically and sympathetically, and the psychological themes as well as the perhaps controversial theme of how individuals have to take risks and make sacrifices--and leaders perhaps have to treat their subordinates shabbily--for civilization to progress, are compelling. A good selection by Merril.
"Cease Fire" is a well-written story in the classic mold of an Astounding story--it romanticizes science and the scientist, has some adventure elements, and also takes a provocative and perhaps counterintuitive stance that challenges conventional thinking. John W. Campbell, Jr. strove in his own writing, and as editor of Astounding, to present to his readers stories that would "shake 'em up," as he put it to Barry Malzberg when they met in 1969, a meeting Malzberg chronicled in his 1982 essay on Campbell which you can read in Engines of the Night.
"Cease Fire" takes place in the early Seventies, when the "Allies" are at war with some dangerous unnamed enemy in the Arctic--I'm guessing it's the god-damned commies, but there are really no clues. Our main character was a chemist in civilian life who today is a corporal in the Army, manning a solo observation post; both the Allies and the enemy have detectors that can sense life, but luckily the Allies have a shield that can keep life forms like our hero from being detected by them.
There is an engaging action scene in which the protagonist has to figure out if some life forms he has detected are enemy soldiers or just wild animals. But the meat of the story is how he suddenly, in the middle of an engagement with the enemy, extrapolating from the principles of the life detector and shield, has an idea for a new device that can win the war for the Allies. The middle part of the story consists of him trying to convince skeptical superiors his idea is legit and not the product of combat stress-induced madness or a shirker's plot to get off the front line. The final part of the story covers the experiments that prove his idea is a workable one--he has invented a device that can remotely detonate any explosive, and not just the shells in an arms depot or the cartridges in a rifle magazine but even the gasoline in a motor car or the matches in a matchbook. Our hero thinks this invention can not only win the current war, but will prevent all future war. His superiors are not so sanguine--these cynical professional fighting men figure war will continue but take different forms, with a return to swords and archery and/or new and horrible poison gasses and bacteriological weapons.
In his 1930s stories like "Machine" and "Invaders" Campbell tried to get readers to consider that maybe even prima facie horrible things like being enslaved or conquered by space aliens could have a long term positive effect, and here in "Cease Fire" in Campbell's magazine, Herbert tries to get readers to consider that what would strike many as obviously beneficial development, the abolition of atomic bombs, heavy artillery and machine guns, might have a negative effect. This adds a level of interest and sophistication to an already entertaining story that could have simply ended with victory over the foe and the dawning of an age of peace.
Pretty good.
"Risk Economy" by Philip High
Well, "Risk Economy" is a mediocre thing, the style bland and the ideas OK but not developed very far nor serving as the springboard for a compelling human story. Another merely acceptable production from High.
Our protagonist is a spaceman, the first human to leave the Solar System! For five years he has been travelling via hyperspace, passing by various stars and planets, his computer scanning them and cataloging data about them. Today he returns to Earth. He is well aware that while five years have passed for him, nine hundred years have passed on Earth, and his friend, the inventor of the hyperspace ship, and his sexy girlfriend, must be long dead.
Earth is not at all like what he expected. Nobody cares about the data his computer has collected. And his buddy the inventor and his sexy girlfriend are alive, and don't look that much older--but they don't remember him! Ten years after he left, an immortality drug was discovered and everybody took it. Even more amazing, this drug changes your genetic makeup so your kids are also immortal. Quickly the world became overcrowded and there were food shortages and tremendous wars took place. Eventually it was discovered that the human brain can only hold about 150 years worth of memories. Bummer! Luckily the inventor kept a diary back in the 20th century and has preserved it, so he knew to meet our protagonist, even if he doesn't remember him or even how he invented and built the star ship.
After the wars ended, the new government instituted a new economy which rendered the world relatively crime-free and war-free but also led to social and technological stagnation. Robots and computers do all the work, and people get money that is keyed to their unique biological identifiers so nobody else can use it. To receive money, people have to risk their lives, performing feats like walking a tightrope over a canyon or participating in a dangerous rocket car race or whatever. A computer rates how risky the feat is; if you only have a small risk of getting killed (being a spectator in the stands at the rocket car race, for example) you only get a little money. Taking a big risk (like driving one of the crash-prone rocket-propelled automobiles at the race) yields more money--if you live, of course. People who choose to perform low-risk feats, of course, have to risk their lives relatively often. Those who live through actions that were predicted to almost certainly kill them are permitted to live risk-free forever.
With its focus on risk vs reward calculations and a planned economy in which nobody has to work, I would have expected this story to be a pointed attack or absurdist satire on capitalism and/or socialism but High doesn't really go there, that I can tell. Similarly, unexpectedly being reunited with your genius friend and your sexy girlfriend and having them not even remember you offers the possibility of a powerfully tragic human story, but High doesn't fulfill the possibilities of this facet of his story, either. It's like he came up with these ideas that have potential and then did nothing with them. An acceptable but forgettable filler story is what we end up with here in "Risk Economy."
**********
The Harrison and Herbert stories are actually good, both authors exhibiting good writing style as well delivering scientific and adventure content, believable characters, some human emotion, and some thought-provoking ideas; Harrison and Herbert here offer good examples of what can be achieved in the traditional science fiction format. High's story falls short on every metric, but not so short that it is irritating or boring, so he gets a pass. All in all, Merril's 1958 "H"s have treated us pretty well. On to "J" and "K"! (Merril didn't give the nod to any "I" authors this year.)
Did Harrison explain how they simulated Martian gravity on Earth? I don't see how they could do that without some kind of magic gravity nullifier. But without that, it's unbelievable that the astronauts wouldn't notice the difference between being in the simulator and really being on Mars. In an earlier day Harrison could have solved the gravity problem by swapping Mars for Venus, but by 1968 it was too late for that.
ReplyDeleteOn the second page of the story Harrison implies that the gravity in the pressure chambers is low by saying a guy who tripped is falling "slowly," but otherwise I don't recall the issue of gravity coming up. Good catch!
Delete