The Malacia Tapestry by Brian Aldiss

Back in the 1980s, as a teenager, I read Brian Aldiss's Malacia Tapestry and I loved it.  I enjoyed it so much that it is one of the few science fiction books I have retained over the decades.  While most of the SF paperbacks I read in my youth have been sold or are now in the custody of my brother back in New Jersey, my 1985 paperback copy of this 1976 novel has stayed in my possession over 25 years and traveled with me cross country, because I knew I would reread it someday.  This weekend this paperback's odyssey reached its conclusion when I reread it.

The novel is a smoothly paced first person narrative by Perian de Chirolo, an actor residing in his native town of Malacia, an Italian city state in an alternate universe. I had thought the time period was based on the Renaissance, maybe because the word "Renaissance" appears on the back cover, but some of the men in the novel seem to wear 18th century fashions (breeches and silk stockings, tricorn hats, powedered wigs or hair in a queue held by ribbons) and the illustrations in the book are reproductions of Tiepolos. Some of the capers in the book remind me of the Casanova I have read.  Of course, Aldiss isn't confining himself to one period; there are triremes and dinosaurs, after all, Byzantium is a going concern, and a man in the novel invents a camera and talks the Marxist jargon of exploitation, class enemies and revolution.

Malacia, though a vibrant and exciting center of commerce and culture, is a conservative place; characters say it has not changed in thousands of years, and Perian tells us that the city government's "immemorial duty is to protect Malacia from change." Progressives are burned at the stake or secretly murdered in a dungeon. Despite the efforts of the secretive city government and the predjudices of most of the populace, one of the main characters of the book, inventor and revolutionary Otto Bengsthon, an immigrant from a northern country (he was thrown out of his native town because of his radical ideas) is determined to bring change to Malacia. He not only is revolutionizing the world of art with his camera, but employs hydrogen balloons against the Turkish army which is laying siege to Malacia. (Some of his revolutionary comrades think that their cause will be helped by allowing the Turks to demolish the city, but Bengshton insists that first the "Turks must be defeated, then revolution comes from within.") Perian is in the middle of all these efforts, even though he himself has little interest in revolutionary politics; working with Bengshton allows him opportunities to impress Armida, the beautiful daughter of the inventor's patron, successful merchant Hoytola.

Perian goes to great lengths to woo Armida and impress Armida's father, and succeeds in winning Armida's love; she agrees to a secret betrothal. Despite his protestations of love for Armida, Perian is an incurable ladies man, and enjoys dalliances with many women behind Armida's back.  His promiscuity gets him in trouble with both the revolutionaries and the wealthy members of the middle classes.

Are we to admire Perian de Chirolo for his zest for life, his commitment to his art?  Or are we to deplore him for the way he treats women, how he betrays his friends, his indiference to the social problems which exercise Bengsthon?  Bengsthon, Armida, and others certainly lecture Perian often enough on his selfish and superficial attitude.  In part, the novel is the story of Perian's gaining knowledge and maturity, though Aldiss does not suggest that greater knowledge and maturity necessarily lead to greater happiness.  At the end of the novel the city council has taken care of their Turkish and Bengsthon problems, but it still seems possible that Bengsthon's followers are going to bathe the city in blood, and that Perian may actually join them.  Perhaps we can hope that Perian, who has had wide experiences in a broad cross section of Malacian society, can moderate the radicals and help lead Malacia through a period of peaceful reforms?     

Aldiss includes lots of entertaining elements in the novel: the characters discuss art; Aldiss describes their religion, which I guess you could call Manichean; and of course there is the theme of class struggle, social justice and change.  Even without the Turks or Bengsthon, it seems that Malacia's way of life is threatened; the dinosaurs are dying out and trade with Byzantium is drying up.  Perian's father's fortunes are in severe decline, and with his erudite monomania with historical trivia (a scholar, he spends countless hours researching what Philip and Alexander of Macedon ate) he seems like an examplar or synecdoche of Malacia as a society with a sterile or counterproductive obsession with the past.

I was surprised by how good the style and pacing were, how effortlessly and pleasantly the book flowed; I remember Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, and Primal Urge being ponderous and at times tedious. I even laughed out loud at some of the jokes in Malacia Tapestry.  There are lots of characters, but Aldiss makes sure each is different and interesting and memorable. 

(On the bad side, this edition has lots of typos.)

It might be worth considering whether Malacia Tapestry is really science fiction or rather should be categorized as fantasy.  The prophecies of the many priests and wizards in the novel seem uncannily accurate, though we learn that these prophets are susceptible to bribes and not above lying.  Most of the characters believe in spells and magic and wear amulets.  Perian has weird visions that reminded me somewhat of the allegorical visions the protagonist in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain has.  (Also as in Magic Mountain, we have a character whom competing theorists try to sway to their way of thinking about how the world should be.)  There is also the strange fact that Armida's hair is jet black when she is first introduced (page 35) but after Perian's most vivid vision and the dinosaur hunt in which he slays a towering therapod and "becomes a man," Armida's hair is described as "golden" (page 329.)  And then there are the satyrs (people who are half man and half goat) and the people who have wings growing out their backs and fly nude around the city.         

However we categorize it, Malacia Tapestry is a great, fun read.  I guess as a teenager I had pretty good taste!  Highly recommended.

Out of this World Science Fiction Classics from Bantam, 1983

In the back of my 1983 copy of Samuel Delany’s Empire Star is this advertisement for Bantam’s “great series of science fiction classics,” full of fancy, terror and adventure.  What is the story with these ads?  Why do some paperbacks have them, and others do not?  Was Delany annoyed that his book contained ads like this?  How were the books chosen for the ad... are these books Bantam is proud of, or are these books they printed too many of and are scrambling to unload?  If Ursula K. LeGuin saw this page back in 1983 would she say, "Awesome, my buddies at Bantam are really working hard promoting my work!"  or would it be more along the lines of, "Cripes, Bantam must really be having trouble selling all those copies of my Earthsea books to the stores."  How many people actually used this "handy coupon" to order books from Bantam?  What percentage of Bantam's gross revenue came from such orders?       

Four of these books are by Ursula K. LeGuin, whom I’ve never read, and three of them are by Warren Norwood, whom I’ve never even heard of, but I am familiar with several of the listed books.

Sundiver by David Brin

I read this in the ‘90s, in fact I think it was the first SF book I read after a few years of avoiding SF and reading mostly history and poetry, the period when I thought I might actually finish grad school and get a degree.  I thought Sundiver was just OK; I liked the sciency stuff of flying into the sun, but wasn't impressed by the murder mystery stuff (the guy with laser eyes did it.)  I never read any more of Brin's fiction, though his critique of Star Wars (that it is elitist and promotes hereditary aristocracy), which I must have read in Slate right after "Phantom Menace" came out, I found very interesting and has stuck with me.  

The Dinosaurs by William Stout, Byron Preiss and William Service

I love this book to death, and have spent many hours admiring the beautiful illustrations.  Stout works in various media and various styles, so even though its dozens and dozens of pictures of dinosaurs by the same guy, each page is fresh and exciting.  I can still remember seeing this in the bookstore in the mall for the first time, and then buying it on a subsequent trip.  The store only had one copy, and it was a little shopworn, but I put a piece of masking tape on the spine and the book is still in one piece, 30 years later.

Harlan Ellison also loved The Dinosaurs, and wrote a gushing blurb-sized review for it in the February 1982 issue of "Heavy Metal," which I learned on tarbandu’s blog, The PorPor Books Blog, back in February of 2012.   There is also an enthusiastic preface by Ray Bradbury. 


The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury 

As I have said earlier, I don’t think I have read every story included in all the different editions of Martian Chronicles, but I have read many of them here and there, and liked them.  I think Thomas Disch's criticisms of Bradbury (that Bradbury can be too sappy and sentimental) have some merit, but in the same way that I still like Star Wars even though David Brin scores some points against George Lucas, I still like lots of Bradbury's work.  "The Silent Towns," one of the stories included in Martian Chronicles, isn't sappy or sentimental at all. 

Mockingbird by Walter Tevis

This book is on Half Price Book's list of 100 SF books, and its Wikipedia entry makes it sound like it might be good. 

The Man Who Fell To Earth by Walter Tevis

I saw the movie of this with David Bowie. I really like Bowie, as a musician and just as an appealing character who livens up the TV screen whenever he appears, and the movie had some memorable images and scenes, but also felt too long and a little too silly.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, Jr.

I read this in the mid '90s, when I worked at a bookstore in New Jersey, after graduating college but before moving to New York and starting grad school.  This may have been the last SF book I read for a long time, before the SFless period ended by Sundiver. (Though I read Dave Wolverton's On My Way To Paradise and two Serpent Catch books around the same time.  I enjoyed those books, and remember them pretty well.) I remember very little of A Canticle for Leibowitz, except a vivid discussion of how you shouldn’t try to euthanize a sick cat.  I should probably read A Canticle for Leibowitz again.   

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If you want to join Harlan, Ray and me in gushing about Stout’s The Dinosaurs, or if you want to tell me who Warren Norwood is and why I should know him, or say anything at all about these Bantam books or David Bowie, feel free to do so in the comments.   

West of Eden by Harry Harrison

I read West of Eden in my early teens, I think, and have never forgotten the setting of the 1984 novel, though the plot very quickly faded from my mind. Now, almost 30 years later, finding time in the midst of a lot of holiday travel and visits, I have reread it, and have to say it is pretty good.

The Setting: West of Eden takes place in an alternate version of our world in which the extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, mosasaurs, etc., did not occur. Human beings evolve in one part of the world, but over most of the Earth the giant reptiles survive, and continue to evolve; at the time of the novel, in fact, a race of intelligent lizard people is the dominant form of life over most of the planet. While human beings have a stone age level of technology, hunting with spears and arrows with stone points, the cold-blooded, matriarchal reptile people have developed genetic engineering. Instead of having weapons and vehicles made of wood, stone and metal, they have bred giant squids to act as boats, huge ichthyosaurs to serve as ships, even living creatures that perform the roles of microscopes and cameras!

The Plot: The Earth is undergoing climate change, and the increasing cold is forcing the human tribes south to the warm areas where the dinosaurs and other cold blooded reptiles live. The humans have a violent hatred of the reptiles, and kill any they find. The lower temperatures are also making life difficult for a city of reptile people in Africa, so they are starting a new colony in the tropical region of the New World, exactly where the humans have just started hunting.  When the humans and lizard people meet a racist genocidal war immediately erupts!

There are numerous plot threads and subplots; this book is over 450 pages, after all. Happily, the book does not feel long, because Harrison moves the story along at a brisk pace and everything that happens is interesting or exciting. There are numerous human and reptilian characters, but each is distinctive enough that we can tell them apart and are curious what will happen to them. We watch the growth of the reptile colony and the politics among its members. A human child is captured and learns all about the lizard people’s language and society from the inside. That society is in the midst of major changes, not only because of the need to move to warmer climes, but because a new religion is blossoming amongst its members, a religion of peace which sees the war on the warm-blooded creatures as immoral.  We also get a look at religion and diplomacy among the nomadic human tribes.

As the book jacket informs us, Harrison corralled an international team of scientists to try to make this book “realistic.” For example, a British linguist helped develop fake languages for the humans and the lizard people. The lizard people communicate not only vocally, but with hand and body movements and by changing the color of parts of their skin, I guess like cuttle fish.  I'm a little skeptical about how much creating entire fictional languages for the characters actually adds to the novel - the reader only experiences these languages as aphorisms acting as pendants to some of the chapters and words sprinkled here and there in the text.  Maybe for some readers this helps create a believable atmosphere of alienness.  On the other hand, the biology and society of the reptile people is quite well realized and are at the core of the novel, so I think at least some of the scientists consulted by Harrison really did make a worthwhile contributions to the book.

I read a library copy of the 1984 Bantam hardcover. The book includes dozens of charming illustrations by Bill Sanderson, a pleasant addition.  I include two of these here, along with some fun hyperbolic blurbs from the jacket text that compare the novel to Clan of the Cave Bear and Dune, books I myself have not read. The cover, by David Schlienkofer, is just mediocre, I suppose a sort of ironic reference to the biblical story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent that echoes the novel's title.

West of Eden delivers the kind of stuff many of us like to see in a science fiction adventure: a cool alien society, action and suspense, plus mastodons and dinosaurs. And if you are into ruminating about gender roles, cultural conflict, imperialism, religion and that sort of thing, West of Eden does a little of that, too. I’m happy to recommend West of Eden.

In Praise of Robert Silverberg

I feel like I have been pretty rough on Robert Silverberg on this blog, but if this is so, it is due to what I might call a sampling error or a statistical anomaly. In fact, I have enjoyed most of the Silverberg I have read, and I have the Amazon reviews from years past to prove it, five of which are pasted below.

The Second Trip

In this very readable novel Silverberg addresses issues somewhat similar to those he wrote about in "To Live Again," but whereas the plot of that novel was something of a soap opera, this one is more of a traditional adventure story.

In the future, serious criminals like rapists and murderers are punished by having their identities erased. An artificial personality is created and implanted in the criminal's empty mind, thus creating a productive member of society. In this novel, however, the personality of the criminal, a famous artist, has somehow survived the process, and the body's new and original personalities battle for control. Silverberg describes this battle for dominance and portrays the character of the combatants in an arresting fashion, and the supporting characters and the world they all inhabit are also pretty interesting.

"The Second Trip" merits a strong recommendation to Silverberg fans. Not as good or "literary" as the brilliant "Dying Inside," but definitely in the same league as "To Live Again," "The Glass Tower" or "Shadrach in the Furnace," and more "adventure"-oriented than those, like, say, "Man in the Maze."

In the Beginning: Tales from the Pulp Era

Fans of Silverberg and anybody interested in the 1950s SF scene should definitely check this out. For the most part the stories are fun and move along briskly, and each is preceded by an epigraph or short essay in which Silverberg talks about his early career and sheds light on his writing techniques and his relationships with SF magazines, their editors, and other SF writers in the 1950s.

Kingdoms of the Wall

Silverberg tells a good, if somewhat traditional, adventure story here, the tale of a long and dangerous journey with Homeric overtones. His effective, and sometimes subtle, use of first person narration takes the novel to a higher, more literary level. A very good read.

The Palace at Midnight: The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume 5

This volume of Silverberg's collected stories, the fifth in this series, is, like the others, full of good SF stories. I wouldn't say Silverberg is a spectacular writer, but he is a solid professional with a smooth style and these stories are all a pleasure to read. There is a lot of the standard SF stuff, like dinosaurs, time travel, scientists and strange alien creatures, but Silverberg also writes about people and their relationships and how they react to novel circumstances, and he does it well.

Each story has a pretty extensive preface in which Silverberg talks about his life, writing and editing career, his relationships with magazine editors and other SF writers, and the history of SF, all of which is quite interesting.

The World Inside

An examination of class and sexual morality on a future Earth with a population of 75 billion, most of whom live crammed into 3 kilometer tall skyscrapers housing 800,000 each, vertical cities they are forbidden to leave. The World Inside is more of a series of interrelated character studies than a true novel. While most of the vignettes are interesting enough (I can only complain about one, the tale of a rock musician's ecstatic concert performance and then ecstatic drug experience, the lengthy "psychedelic" portions of which grow tedious) the book suffers a little from its lack of an overarching plot. Silverberg gives the reader a good setting and some interesting characters, but World Inside is a bit light in the story department.

Deathbeast by David Gerrold

I loved dinosaurs as a kid, and I still love dinosaurs.  One time when we lived in New York I dragged my wife to a museum in New England specifically for the purpose of seeing old Charles Knight paintings and sculptures.  And I have enjoyed three or four of David Gerrold’s novels, in particular Yesterday’s Children (which I thought strongly reminiscent of an A. E. Van Vogt story) and A Matter for Men (which reminded me of Heinlein.)  So, when I saw a copy of Deathbeast on the shelf at a Missouri used book store, I did not hesitate to snap it up.

Gerrold does not waste time with a lot of preliminaries back in modern times; the book starts in the Cretaceous, with a flash and the appearance of the eight time-travelling hunters.  A minute later comes a dinosaur attack, and the hunters are blasting away with their energy weapons.  Gerrold also dismisses any concerns about time paradoxes or changing the past; whereas the hunters in Bradbury’s famous “Sound of Thunder” must keep to an elevated path and only shoot a dinosaur which would have died that day anyway, the hunters in Deathbeast trample the landscape, leaving a trail of dead animals and high-tech refuse behind them.

The plot is what you might expect: led by an obsessive macho man with some prostheses and a name (“Ethab”) that sounds suspiciously like “Ahab,” the eight hunters recklessly pursue a tyrannosaurus rex, suffering periodic losses to the canny beast and squabbling among themselves.  Gerrold tells his tale of modern human vs prehistoric beast with enthusiasm, describing in detail the hunters’ various scanners, ray guns, and other devices, and marshalling a blizzard of adjectives and metaphors to convey the might and fury of the terrifying monster.  (The tyrannosaur is “the furious god of dinosaurs” who “moved like cannon fire…like something evil and possessed…” on page 48; on page 179 the “stench of his breath was fire laced with graveyards.”  On page 186 the dinosaur “came on toward Megan like doom engraved in acid.”) Over the top, but fun and at times funny.  I do wish Gerrold had refrained from committing some of his more groan-inducing jokes to paper, such as page 66’s “Somewhere, something large was saying a lot of very bad words in dinosaur.”  He uses this dinosaur-language joke several times.  

There is also quite a bit of gore; the dinosaurs are able to suffer many injuries before dying, and Gerrold describes these wounds, and those suffered by the hunters, in some detail.  The copy on the back cover hints that the book may contain some kind of erotic content, but it does not.   Oh, those tricky ad men.

Gerrold informs us in a foreword that he has based the behavior of the dinosaurs in Deathbeast on a book by Adrian Desmond, The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs, and an episode of Nova, the PBS documentary series.  Still, he commits some blunders that could have been avoided; for example, asserting that feathers had not yet evolved in the Cretaceous.  I’ll blame the editor for the fact that one hundred pages after telling us that grass has not yet evolved the text has a character throw her knife down into the grass.

     

Deathbeast is not a serious book, you don’t really identify with or feel for the characters, and it certainly doesn’t show the polish and literary ambition of the other Gerrold books I have read, but it is a wild pulpy adventure story and I enjoyed it.