NIGHTFALL by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg
In 1941 John W Campbell gave a quotation by Ralph Waldo Emerson to Isaac Asimov
and, inspired by it, Asimov wrote his short story "Nightfall". It describes a planet with six suns
which never knows darkness until one fateful day. With Robert Silverberg as his collaborator
that story has been expanded into this novel. That is, the first two thirds of the novel are based
on the story, the last section which describes life after the catastrophe is new.
What has been added to expand from forty pages to three hundred and fifty? Firstly, a
section which describes the original archaeological work which helps the astronomers by
confirming that society is destroyed by fire every 2049 years; secondly, the background to the
mathematics which throws the theory of universal gravitation into doubt and leads the
astronomers to think that the eclipse is coming as the 2049 year cycle is coming to its close;
thirdly, the introduction of a bit of xeno-psychology which explains how a whole planet can be
driven mad by Darkness; and fourthly, the role of the religious cult who know from their Book
Of Revelations that the end is nigh.
These now constitue the first two of the novel's three sections, and they end with the
original story's last line - "The long night had come again". However, the night is not absolute,
and the whole tone of the novel is much lighter and more optimistic than the short story. In the
last third of the novel, "Daybreak", nearly all of the main characters are discovered to have
survived with their senses intact, and they tend to survive the barbarism to which society has
collapsed as well. The short story implied that the situation was much worse.
The names of some of the characters have changed, the six cycling suns now have names
instead of letters of the Greek alphabet as their identifiers, the role of the Cult is changed, and
the lead roles are now taken by minor characters from the story. There are one or two other
small changes which seemed to have little point - for instance, the original game of
"multichess" has become "stochastic chess". And what it still missing, is a good description of
what the different suns look like and their positions in the sky.
With little difference in quality between the two, a lot of people who liked the story may
find they enjoy the novel.
ISAAC ASIMOV'S ROBOT CITY BOOK ONE: ODYSSEY
by Michael P. Kube-McDowell
(Orbit pp212 £2.99)
PIERS ANTHONY'S WORLDS OF CHTHON: PLASM
by Charles Platt
(Grafton pp236
£2.99)
Apart from the proofreaders and printers I can think of no one who comes out with any
credit from the production of these books. On almost any scale they are aweful. Piers Anthony
probably comes out least worst because he has not contributed an introduction to his book
(although he has kept the copyright a la Robert Maxwell), but the writers, illustrators,
conceivers - they all deserve censure, and Asimov does as well.
Charles Platt has written a John Norman style woman-abusing fantasy with some scientific
trappings and a preface that says "The reader is asked to remember that this is a science-fiction
adventure containing characters who should not be seen as role models in the real world".
Unfortunately, the adventure is not very exiting and he happened to use the same plot feature
as Kube-McDowell: both these books have a hero waking up in amnesia who then chases a
woman. This chase is not finished at the end of Odyssey but that is no reason why the series
should not be aborted.
Ignoring the sickness of Plasm, if that's possible, Odyssey is a worse production.
Essentially, Kube-McDowell has been allowed to take and use positronic robots and quote
the Three Laws of Robotics, and set his story roughly in Asimov's future history. Asimov's
role was from the first to have been to "answer questions, make suggestions, veto infelicities,
and provide the basic premise". The book is illustrated, although all the illustrations are
grouped in a few pages at the end. Asimov says "I am pleased with what I've seen, including
the captivating artwork of Paul Rivoche". Now, either Asimov had not seen the artwork when
he wrote that or he did not do the job he claimed to be doing of vetoing infelicities. The
illustrations do not illustrate the text.
Derec, the hero of Odyssey wakes up in a survival pod, where he is sleeping laying on the
floor - but the pod illustrated on page 209 only has a seat and no room to lay down. Later,
Derec builds a robot from parts - he uses an arm described on page 82 - "the arm had no
joints. Not at the elbow, not at the wrist, not at the knuckle". This robot is shown on page 211
- it has the arms the wrong way round, the unusual arm was fitted to the right - and it has
joints at the wrist and in the hand, which does not look like a hand. Who could have let this
pass? Who is to blame? As people have pointed out before, Asimov wrote a number of
future histories although in the past decade he as tried to make them merge. In some ways
Odyssey fits into none of these - it introduces sentient non-human lifeforms, for instance which
Asimov never allowed for (or rather, he did, in "Victory Unintentional" only to then ignore
them), and then Kube-McDowell's literary style is nothing like Asimov's - Asimov wrote
detective novels, Odyssey has no detective elements, it is episodic, boring and not well
plotted. It is not Asimov's world.
When John Gardner took over James Bond he kept the same atmosphere and style, even
while making changes. Bulldog Drummond remained constant from Sapper to Gerald Fairlie;
Carter Youngman kept up Albert Campion. Why should SF have to suffer this lack of care?
Whatever the answer, Odyssey, like Plasm, is worthless. Are the men and women who
would write this rubbish so hopeless that they could not refuse, did they not recognise how
bad their production was and put it in the waste bin? Charles Platt has written pornographic
SF before and he must know that it's never been widely regarded, although he is recognised as
a good critic. Why has his critical faculty abandoned him, or was this book ghosted for him by
some other wretch in turn?
I honestly do not see how people can be expected to tolerate this standard. If the BSFA is
to mean anything, should it not issue a warning that if a member of the public complains and a
trading standards officer brings a prosecution against the bookseller and publisher that the
book is "not of merchantable quality", that the BSFA will support the prosecution?
Things are that bad, and publishers' announcements threaten an increase.
|