These “classics” are mediocre at bestI’ve always been a big fan of the Library of America. Mostly I’m familiar with their volumes of classic literature in the black and white dustjackets. When it comes to that sphere of publishing, they put together the best-edited and best-produced books in the business. When I saw that this volume on American Science Fiction was being offered as a Kindle Daily Deal, I snatched it up, expecting that it would reflect the smart editorial choices and general excellence I’ve come to expect from the Library of America. American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1968–1969, however, proved to be a major disappointment. Although I enjoy reading vintage science fiction from this era, these selections did not impress me at all. Two of the books were terrible, and two were mediocre at best. The four authors featured are all well-respected in the genre, and these books have maybe won Nebula or Hugo Awards, but I don’t always agree with the arbiters of taste who hand out such accolades. If these four books are indeed regarded as “classics” of the genre, then they are vastly overrated.
Past Master is the debut novel by R. A. Lafferty. In the 26th century, an Earth colony on a far-off planet is facing unrest in their utopian community, so they reach back in time to abduct Sir Thomas More, author of the original Utopia, to rescue their government. The book is filled with bad ideas, nonsensical language, meaningless dialog, and silly attempts at humor that aren’t funny. Even worse is Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ. This novel is ostensibly a wilderness adventure, devoid of adventure, in which Alyx of Tyre (a recurring character for Russ) leads a band of frequently weeping idiots on a pointless trek through the mountainous terrain of a planet ironically named Paradise. Like Lafferty, Russ takes so many liberties with the English language that her prose reads like fruitless nonsense.
The other two selections in the volume fare better by at least being readable. Like the two aforementioned, both take place in a distant future after mankind has populated many worlds. Samuel R. Delany’s novel Nova has a decent story about interstellar voyagers aiming to fly through a star as it goes nova. It just gets too bogged down in an overly melodramatic space opera and a bunch of tangential digressions about Delany’s pet interests (tarot cards, for example) that in no way contribute to the main plot of the narrative. The best novel in the collection, and that’s not saying much, is Jack Vance’s Emphyrio. Man’s interstellar colonies are governed by a sort of medieval feudalism, which Vance uses to advance his libertarian theories of economics. Inspired by the legend of a Christ-like martyr named Emphyrio, a young hero decides to resist the ruling empire. Unlike the other showings in this collection, Vance is at least a good craftsman of the English language and a thoughtful storyteller who can write science fiction that doesn’t defy logic.
The Library of America has published at least three other volumes in this series of American Science Fiction collections, all edited by Gary K. Wolfe. I am familiar with a few of the novels included in those other volumes, such as the excellent Way Station by Clifford D. Simak in the 1960–1966 collection. After being disappointed by Wolfe’s selections in this 1968–1969 volume, however, I don’t have confidence that another volume of science fiction from the LOA would be worth my money or time.
Novels in this collection (all previously reviewed at Old Books by Dead Guys)
Past Master by R. A. Lafferty
Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ
Nova by Samuel R. Delany
Emphyrio by Jack Vance
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Interesting sci-fi bogged down in melodrama and metaphorSamuel R. Delaney’s science fiction novel Nova was published in 1968 and nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel the following year. The story takes place in the 32nd century. Mankind has spread to other planets. Earth is the home world to an interstellar government known as the Draco Sector, consisting of hundreds of inhabited worlds, but pioneer settlers have ventured beyond even its boundaries to farther stars, establishing the Pleiades Federation and the Outer Colonies. The main characters in the book are the interstellar equivalents of sailors. To conduct their work, almost all humans are equipped with cybernetic ports in their bodies through which they plug into the starships, computers, mining equipment, or other machinery that they use to perform their manual and intellectual labors.
Although humanity has emigrated far and wide into the vast heavens, Earth cultures have remained remarkably preserved through the centuries, with many people speaking Greek, Turkish, and Portuguese in space. One of the main characters is a gypsy. This multiculturalism seems pretty farfetched, or at least wishful thinking. If anything, mankind will likely become more ethnically homogenous over the next thousand years. Delaney, however, seems to revel in the romance of likening future space travel to the ancient days of Mediterranean seafaring.
These travelers of the 32nd century all seem to be scholars or enthusiasts of some 20th century writer or painter. Artworks of our recent past maintain an unrealistic level of esteem in this distant future, mainly so that Delaney can indulge in cultural criticism of the present day. Another of the main characters is an aspiring novelist, which gives Delaney the mouthpiece through which to pontificate on his own philosophy of literature. Another holdover from an earlier time that appears repeatedly throughout the novel is the tarot deck. Delaney presents a clever twist by making the majority of this future society firm believers in the tarot, while the few who denounce card-reading as mere superstition are considered kooks. Unfortunately, the tarot cards don’t really serve much purpose in the narrative other than that Delaney really seems to find them interesting, so the inordinate amount of time spent on them just feels like a waste.
All of these idiosyncratic literary touches just distract from the science of this science fiction, which is really quite interesting. Delaney’s conception of mankind’s colonization of the galaxy has the potential to develop into another Dune- or Star Trek-sized mythology. The method he has envisioned for how man flies and navigates his spacecraft through interstellar space is quite inventive and plausible within the fictional universe he has created. As the title of the book indicates, the plot of Nova also has something to do with the life cycle of stars, and the speculative astrophysics with which Delaney peppers the story results in some fascinating theories.
To enjoy these interesting ideas, however, the reader must wade through a melodramatic space opera, complete with a tortured romance and a villain who resembles Darth Vader as a high school bully. I liked the story of where these characters were going and what they were trying to accomplish, but their inner dialogues just seemed to amount to a lot of unnecessary digressions intended to add depth and interest to the story. More often than not, such musings ended up feeling shallow rather than profound. Nova is not a bad novel by any means, but it is hardly a timeless classic of its genre. The reader is left feeling halfheartedly interested and only partially satisfied.
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