The Devniad, Book 15 Bob Devney 25 Johnson Street, North Attleboro, MA 02760 508-699-7885 [email protected] APA:NESFA #313, June 1996
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The Devniad, Book 15 Bob Devney 25 Johnson Street, North Attleboro, MA 02760 508-699-7885 [email protected] APA:NESFA #313, June 1996 White Magic medicine and surgery on a multi-species space station hospital. Mighty few authors manage to make Picture ER drawing its casualties a mark by being decent. However, that from the Star Wars Cantina and you can forthright bit of legerdemain is just what imagine the possibilities. But probably the Irish writer James White has not as many as White has envisioned, accomplished. He’s been writing science and not with such fascinating details of fiction marked by decency, goodwill, bizarre anatomy, pathology, and and a gentle good humor steadily since psychology (and that’s just among 1953. the staff….) God, I can feel prospective White For me, though I quite like the Sector readers swooning away with every word General books and have a deep fondness I write, paralytic with anticipated for the undersea colony in 1966’s The boredom. It’s all true, dammit! But he’s Watch Below, White’s single most also fun to read, he really is…. satisfying and sustained work is The In fact, White is still producing Escape Orbit (1965), about a breakout decent stuff, and will be recognized as attempt from a prison planet in a future Guest of Honor at this year’s SF world war. It’s 188 pages of the best problem- convention in LA. So nice guys do finish solving, old-fashioned adventure SF with first. Eventually. Sometimes. never a wrong note or missed beat. And Mark Olson was looking recently for for those put off by the word “war,” I recommendations on White short should note that White is far from a stories, I believe to select for a con GOH militarist or war-lover. Rather, as we book. Given my luck, he’s probably discover here, the reverse. already gone to press. But the request prompted me to go back and reread On to the short stuff. From the some White. Let’s see how Mark’s collection Monsters and Medics (1977), I’d selections match mine in the two short recommend the introduction, “Reality in story collections I’ve recently had a Science Fiction,” a nice little essay on the chance to reread. eternal “Where do you get your ideas for stories?” question. Not surprisingly, First, though, let me mention the it explains where he got his ideas for novels. A fair proportion of White’s these stories. Plus “Counter Security,” output continues to fall within the Sector about a very strange break-in puzzling a General medics-in-space series he began night watchman in a big department with Hospital Station in 1962. This is by store. And perhaps “The Apprentice,” far his most popular stuff, stories from about another store with a new Hospital Station to Ambulance Ship (1979) extraterrestrial staffer who’s giving to The Genocidal Healer (1992) dealing Personnel fits. mainly with the complex problems of The Devniad, Book 15 Page 2 of 6 White spent 6 years as a department stories over the next 30 years, Conway, store tailor-shop clerk himself, so the as the ever-alert Encyclopedia of Science background for these is convincing and Fiction points out, has never to date been the humor grounded in wry observation. given a first name.) And perhaps “Second Ending,” a long story in the White’s best story of his debut decade, same collection, is more problematical. 1954’s “The Conspirators,” showcases This combination last-man-on-earth and his charming way with animals in a far-future tale was actually nominated satisfying tale about a spaceship’s cat — for a Hugo as best novel in 1963. At 108 plus its mice, guinea pigs, and canary. pages, guess it would be cast in the The amusing rodents-in-free-fall scenes novella category today. But brevity weren’t matched until their darker echo probably wasn’t the chief reason it lost in the Niven-Pournelle classic The Mote the award that year. It must have in God’s Eye 20 years later. sounded a bit dated even when written, and despite a grand subject and some One of White’s greater magics lies in (consciously) noble writing, whole his ability to clearly and interestingly chunks of it just don’t convince. describe complicated problems and their Besides, as White himself might put resolutions. Such as the steps involved it with his endearing stylistic habit of in escaping from a primitive prison detonating a surprise and then using planet, starting more or less with your ellipses to let the irony linger in the bare hands and concluding 3 years later mind as the bits tinkle down all around with the intricate hijacking of a you: in the 1963 contest his story was up technologically advanced guardship against something called Stranger in a space shuttle (The Escape Orbit). Strange Land…. Or how to cure a giant intelligent crab of life-threatening diabetes. (No, By the way, whoever edited this Del NOT just by cutting down on crab cakes. Ray Book for Ballantine in 1977 should The solution, of course, is to surgically be shot for that title. Granted, a few implant an artificial giant-intelligent-crab peripheral medical personnel are pancreas, as shown in “Countercharm.” mentioned here and there in passing. ) But a James White collection called But in most of these cases, White Monsters and Medics certainly sounds like wisely keeps the fascinating details it’s got at least a few Sector General percolating along in the background, stories. Bzzzttt — wrong! reserving the foreground for strongly drawn, humanistic (even if alien), decent The collection The Aliens Among Us (there’s that word again) characters (1969) contains lesser stories, all but one trying their best to do the right thing, from the 50s. often with conflicted emotions, in Two stand out among a pack of puzzling or adverse circumstances. For White’s early and sometimes awkward the reader, that’s the real magic of efforts. “Countercharm” from 1960 leads White. off strongly as one of White’s first stories about Dr. Conway, in a how-to- perform-surgery-on-aliens plot FlimFan described below. (Note that despite starring in many other Sector General The Devniad, Book 15 Page 3 of 6 Noteworthy movies seen in the last The shows are written by a lone month or so: Mission Impossible; The genius, Jimmy McGovern, if I read the Arrival; The Phantom; Paradise Lost: The credits right. I don’t know anything else Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (on about him. But feels he deserves a HBO); Cracker: Brotherly Love (on A&E). paragraph to himself anyway. In Britain, they combine Oscars and Admittedly, I was skeptical about Emmys into something called the the casting. As I commented to my BAFTRA awards. This show has won friend and main movie man Steve: two BAFTRAs as best drama. “Finally, Charlie Sheen in the role he Consecutively. And the incredible was BORN to play: A brilliant radio Robbie Coltrane (remember the garage astronomer....” guy in Mona Lisa? OK, OK, how about But by the time the conclusion of The the fat one in Nuns on the Run?) has won Arrival arrived, I thought it was a solid three as best actor for Fitz. SF flick with a fairly intelligent script, Yet chances are you’ve never seen good performances, a few laughs the show. Or heard of it. (mostly intentional), and fine direction Still think God’s a film fan? and atmosphere. Excellent scorpions-in- the-bed scene especially. Even Charlie My friend David Rice, playwright, did well. Steve concurs. Recommended economist, and weird-furniture artist, — on video or cable, since it lasted a called from St. Louis to mention I measly week at my hoodplex. completely missed the boat last month in reviewing the Dutch film Antonia’s Much more brilliant but seen by Line. Ignored all the symbolism: Antonia even fewer people: the latest Cracker the strong woman is postwar Europe. film. This is about sixth or seventh in a The farmer (Boer Bass) is the prewar series of bloody fantastic British TV patriarchal Dutch society for which she movies about a fat, brilliant, self- has some almost nostalgic affection but destructive, charming, can’t-not-joke-to- by whose rules she cannot live. The save-his-life (why am I so drawn to this character Crooked Fingers is European material?) Brit police psychologist intellectualism: nihilistic, circumscribed, named Edward “Fitz” Fitzgerald. Fitz suicidal, doomed. The fascistic farmer’s eats, drinks, and gambles way too much; son who joins the army to continue his commits the odd spot of adultery; at one career of bullying, intimidation, and point in this episode responds to his rape? Obviously the modern European wife’s groans in the delivery room male. And so on. during labor by inquiring lightly, “Still I guess Antonia’s life of suffering think God’s a woman?” — and yet and struggle against male oppression, manages to get inside the heads and climaxed by her laying down to die, is under the skins of tough suspects during not exactly the brightest omen for interrogation with relentlessly insightful Europe today.... So why did we leave monologues that crack their shells and the theater smiling and humming? split open the dark hearts of their But thanks for the advisory, Dave. motivations for the crimes. Usually. Maybe next month we’ll discuss Christ Unless he’s wrong. I told you this was symbolism in The Arrival. quality stuff. (Well, Charlie Sheen has a beard.