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| Sunday, March 8, 2009 09:02 PM |
| (Last updated on Monday, March 9, 2009 08:32 AM) | | Book Report - Nightflyers |
 by Fëanor |
I love George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire novels, but for whatever reason I'd never read any of Martin's other work until now. Nightflyers is an anthology of short science fiction stories, originally published throughout the '70s and early '80s. Most of them seem to be set in the same universe - apparently a future version of our own universe - as they mention some of the same alien races and some of the same historical events. First up is the novella the collection is named after, "Nightflyers." It's about a scientist who brings together a group of other scientists, researchers, and psychics to help him investigate the legends of a mysterious alien race called the volcryn whose ships have been traveling without stopping throughout the universe for eons upon eons. But the spaceship the scientists charter to fly out and meet the aliens is a strange one indeed. The captain is locked away in an inaccessible part of the ship and appears to his passengers only as a hologram. He is also, unbeknownst to them, watching them constantly on video screens, even when they're going to the bathroom or having sex (which they all seem to do almost constantly with whoever is nearby). Meanwhile, the sensitive folks on board begin to sense some kind of dark presence. Is it the mysterious aliens they're heading toward? Or is it something else? Something closer? They'd better find out soon, because whatever it is is killing them off one by one!
I guessed at the identity of the mystery killer about halfway through the story, but then thought, "Nah! That can't be it. That's lame." So I was pretty disappointed when it turned out I was right. It's basically a weird kind of rip-off of Psycho. Plus the story is full of characters I just couldn't relate to and mostly didn't like. Not to mention Martin's usual preoccupation with weird sex. What kept me going were the story's twin mysteries. The solution of the one - what the deal was with the Captain and who was killing his passengers - was disappointing, but the solution of the other - what the deal was with the volcryn - was sad, disturbing, imaginative, and rather unexpected. It's not a great story, but it's rather exciting and there are some cool ideas in it. Interestingly enough, it was adapted into a film in 1987. I'd be curious to see it, but I have a feeling it's probably a terrible B-movie.
The next story, "Override," has some of the same problems as "Nightflyers," but is much weaker. It's set on a planet that's being mined for precious jewels. The best way to mine the jewels is to use corpse handlers. A corpse handler is someone who controls one or more corpses via a remote device that lets him pick up sense impressions from each corpse and control that corpse's movements. The corpses aren't really dead bodies; they're people who've had their brains replaced with synthabrains. It's a strange concept, and it seems even stranger that we're asked to sympathize with a corpse handler, and dislike another character who finds corpse handlers disgusting and offensive. I mean, it actually is kind of disgusting and offensive! Also odd to me is the fact that corpse handling isn't even the central issue of the story; it actually ends up being about business, politics, murder, and betrayal. I'm just puzzled as to why you would introduce this idea of corpse handling, and then not use your story to discuss the many moral and ethical implications, but instead just use it as a tool to tell a really pretty dull story about one guy needing money and trying to kill another guy to get it. What's the point?
(UPDATE: I meant to mention, when in the second story a little animal called a nightflyer was mentioned in passing a few times, I thought perhaps the word "nightflyer" was going to be a theme throughout all the stories in the book, and would mean something different each time. But then it never showed up again! Ah, well.)
"Weekend in a War Zone" could easily be an episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. It imagines a future in which there are no more "real" wars; instead, war has been transformed into a recreational sport. You sign up with a company for a weekend campaign, pay them an exorbitant fee, and play a war game out in the jungle against the soldiers of another company. Except this war game is played to the death with live ammunition. The story is told in first person, present tense, from the perspective of a really sad and pathetic little man, just full to bursting with hate - of himself and of pretty much everyone else - and envy of his too-perfect co-worker. He's never gone to war before, and is quite terrible at it. He complains and freezes and freaks out and has to be constantly saved by his "buddies," until finally, he just flips and starts killing people. He also figures out a way to play both sides of the game and ends up enjoying himself after all. It's a twisted, satirical morality tale along the lines of Dr. Strangelove, showing us how macho posturing, sex, and money are all tied up in how we wage war. It's about the evil men do and the horrors of commoditizing death, and it's reasonably clever. But it's also pretty hard to get through. It takes a while to make its point, and in the meantime you have to put up with a narrator who is a truly shameful and pathetic human being, constantly complaining. You can sympathize with him sometimes, but as soon as you realize you're doing it, you feel dirty and sick. It's not a pleasant experience. And the premise as a whole is a bit gimmicky.
"And Seven Times Never Kill Man" is an odd tale about a war-like race of people called the Children of Bakkalon who invade a planet inhabited by a peaceful and primitive race called the Jaenshi. The Children of Bakkalon are rather like Spartans; they have a harsh, war-like way of life dictated to them by their religion. Even though the Jaenshi are intelligent, the Children of Bakkalon treat them like animals and slaughter them mercilessly, also destroying their religious icons. Most of the Jaenshi seem oddly impassive about the whole thing. But a human trader from another world who has come to like and care for the Jaenshi tries to organize a resistance. His plans fail, but there's a strange power working through the Jaenshi's religion that slowly poisons the minds of the Children of Bakkalon and transforms them. Ultimately the religious zealots are themselves converted and swallowed up by the peaceful people they seek to destroy.
I feel a little dumb for saying this, but I don't think I quite "got" this story. I feel like there was some final secret about the Jaenshi and their religion that I was supposed to have been able to work out that just flew completely over my head. Regardless of my confusion, however, I still found the story interesting and moving. I was particularly fascinated by the culture and religion of the Children of Bakkalon.
Most of "Nor the Many-Colored Fires of a Star Ring" is just as pretentious and corny as its title implies, although I did really love the ending. It seems humanity has discovered natural phenomena in space called nullspace anomalies. They're small, but can be opened wider using something called a star ring. Once they're opened, a starship can pass through and be transported to a completely different location. The widely accepted theory is that the anomalies are holes in the fabric of space-time that allow people to travel from one part of the galaxy to another. But one of the anomalies opens on a place called Nowhere - an utterly black, completely empty void, with no stars or planets or anything. Where is Nowhere? What can its existence mean? No one knows for sure.
A group of scientists and researchers, led by a woman named Jennifer, are performing an experiment on Nowhere's star ring. Jennifer is convinced that if the star ring is turned on for long enough, its energy reactions will become self-sustaining, and the anomaly will stay open forever. Her boyfriend Kerin is with her on the star ring, but he's become obsessed with the void of Nowhere and stares into it day in and day out, brooding on the immensity of it and the depressing existential thoughts it implies. He's so ridiculously emo, and his dialogue is so corny and full of darkness and doom, that he's almost impossible to take. Finally Jennifer turns off the star ring to see if it will remain open by itself, only to discover her calculations were off, but in a way she never anticipated. Not only is the anomaly going to remain open, it's going to keep opening, further and further, exploding outward, expanding and expanding into the darkness of Nowhere. Kerin is overjoyed, and realizes before anyone else the enormity of what they've done. It's a pretty fantastic ending; a mind-bending burst of creation, and a victory over emptiness and death.
The last story in the collection is "A Song for Lya." It's about a couple of psychics - one who's fairly powerful and can pick up people's emotions, and the other who's extremely powerful and can actually read people's thoughts. The former is a man named Robb (our first person narrator), and the latter is a woman named Lyanna - the Lya of the title, of course. They are deeply in love with one another, and also work together. They're called in to help with a phenomenon occurring on a planet called Shkea. The Shkeen who live there have a strange religion wherein they submit to a parasite called the Greeshka in a ceremony called Union. Those who've done this are called the Joined, and afterwards they wander around for a while, happy as a clam, with a big red parasite stuck to them. Then eventually they move on to Final Union, where they go into a cave, lay down on a giant Greeshka, and are submerged in it entirely, their bodies slowly consumed by it. It all seems pretty horrible to most of the humans living in the colony there, but on the other hand, some of the humans have begun to convert. The human officials can't understand what the attraction is and have called the psychics in to try to figure out why people are converting and how they can stop it.
The problem is, the story keeps going on and on, with Robb totally confused as to what's going on with the human converts, and totally blind to what's happening to Lya, while the reader has already solved the mystery and has seen the ending coming a mile away. It's too bad, because there are some interesting ideas here, and the characters are actually reasonably likable and sympathetic (well, except for Robb when he's being so obtuse).
Overall, I'm sad to say it's a pretty disappointing book. I was excited about reading science fiction by the genius behind The Song of Ice and Fire, but most of these stories are rather clumsy and gimmicky. I'll give Martin a break, though, as these were pretty early works by him, and he was still young and green. I'd be interested to read some science fiction from a bit further on in his career, when his talent had matured further. I might even have a book or two that fits that description; I'll have to check my shelves. |
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