Sphere, 1970, 187 p.

As its title announces, this is a collection of nine Science Fiction stories written by Keith Laumer, one of the jobbing SF writers of the 1950s and 1960s. The stories are very much of their time (in fact of before the book’s time of publication since many of their backgrounds are redolent of the 1930s.)

Hybrid is an account of the last days of an organism with a strange life cycle on a planet where a group of more-or-less uncouth humans are exploring. The story’s title somewhat gives the plot away.

End as a Hero is the story of Granthan, an Earthman sent out to try to defeat the Gool, who are at war with humans. He survives fire and broken limbs but on return to Earth finds himself able to access others’ minds and influence them so is mistrusted since the Gool may have taken over his mind and so he has to struggle against both species. This is well-plotted but these days reads as very dated indeed.

As a story The Walls foresaw the coming of flat screen television, but here as a distraction from an outside world that has no wild spaces save for those used by the TV production companies and the President’s garden. Flora, the woman subject of the tale, whose husband seems obsessed with lining all four walls with screens, is driven up them by her isolation.

In Dinochrome, the narrator, a war machine, reactivates after three centuries in the enemy’s heartlands.

Placement Test panders to that US myth of exceptionalism and the utility of breaking rules in a story where the protagonist engages in all sorts of mayhem only to be rewarded for it.

Doorstep has a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later one star General in charge of responding to an alien craft landing in his area. Things do not go well.

The Long-remembered Thunder is one of those stories set in the US backwoods where a stranger has taken up a house on the edge of town and appears not to age. It develops into a tale of attempted alien invasion.

Cocoon is another tale of humanity circumscribed by what is in effect virtual reality though in Laumer’s day it had not been described as such. Here people are living in cocoons, drip-fed pap and kept amused and interested by Vital Programming, Sitcom and Pubinf. But Sid and his wife Cluster have been in their closed environments for a long, long time and things are starting to go wrong.

A Trip to the City is a curious mix of the sudden travel through a portal tale and Invasion of the Body-Snatchers. A man called Bret leaves his home town of Casperton for adventure and ends up in a strange city where amorphous aliens known as Gels have replaced nearly all the inhabitants with golems. His situation is, of course, resolved by violence.

Laumer is a writer whose work I found interesting back in the day but I would not recommend this collection to anyone now setting out to read SF. It is too rooted in the past and USian gung-ho-ism.

Pedant’s corner:- unfocussed (unfocused,) rear-ranging (presumably due to the transition from typescript to printing block: rearranging,) “here eyes” (her eyes,) “the Harry Trimble’s” (Trimbles,) inpression (impression.) “The trouble is father back” (farther back,) imulse (impulse,) gasses (gases,) “then the time comes” (when the time comes.) “There was cries” (there were cries,) lintal (lintel.) “‘Which was did Bram go?’” (Which way,) “his hand, in his pocket” (does not need that comma.) “Brams’ eyes opened” (Bram’s eyes,) “I only know what it required to operate the device” (what is required,) gasses (gases,) “Bram cut in heavily accented English” (Bram cut in in heavily accented English,) “he held out is hand” (his hand,) “autho-hypno” (auto-hypno: used later,) Sir (x 3, always ‘Sid’ elsewhere,) “‘this is free country’” (is a free country.) “Heaven’s” (as an exclamation it’s ‘Heavens’,) “‘they haven’t built the computer yet than can’” (yet that can.) “He’d seen about that” (it’s yet to happen; ‘He’d see about that’,) a missing start quote mark when a piece of dialogue carries on into the next paragraph, “Mr Phillips’ hand” (Mr Phillips’s,) “a green waitress’ uniform” (waitress’s.)

Dobson Science Fiction, 1968, 158 p.

Oh dear. The past really is a different country. This book has not worn at all well. I can see that in its day it was intended to be humorous but its humour is aimed at easy targets. It also displays just about every “ism” you could list. Racism, anti-semitism, sexism – as well as jibes about the Irish and Italians, while Hispanics are routinely dubbed “wetbacks” by the characters, many of whom are themselves out of central casting. It also panders to the “humanity is uniquely gifted” school (if in an outrageously obtuse way.) This is a pity because I had remembered the author’s “Retief” and “Worlds of the Imperium” stories with some nostalgia.

As to the plot: everyday life is interrupted one day by the television on a pub wall demanding attention for an “announcement of vital importance.” This is from “the Tersh Jetterax” to the citizens of Earth announcing a new regime has taken over. An indication of these invaders’ superior powers is that their broadcast is not prevented even when the television is turned off and then unplugged from the wall. The announcement is immediately followed by men in yellow uniforms disgorging from huge airship-like ships. These are the Monitors of the title, who from now on will regulate daily life and are able somehow to control humans’ behaviour if it is threatening or unco-operative. Among the other sour notes is one where viewpoint character Ace Blondel, under (totally non-violent) persuasion to accept the Monitors’ rule, is shown a classroom recording. During this scene a teacher warns a pupil, “you’ll be back down to Mr Funder’s office quicker’n a nigger’ll steal whiskey.”

Blondel manages to get himself away from the city but never fully from the Monitors. Every human he meets (most of whom are thick as mince) gets the wrong end of the stick of his conversational gambits, representations which rapidly become tedious, but Laumer has some fun with the typical bone-headed right-wing type response, as exemplified by self-styled General Blackwish, of attributing the invasion to “borscht-and-vodka-swilling” Reds. Some idea of the level of humour is given by organisations whose acronyms read as SCRAG and CHANCRE, while the introduction of Nelda Monroe seems included solely to provide a one-dimensional (and illustrative of sexist wish fulfillment) representation of insatiable womanhood. If this is humanity then the Monitors are profoundly better. At least Blondel seems to recognise this as – on behalf of humanity as a whole – he comes to an accomodation with them.

File under: well past its sell-by date.

Pedant’s corner:- “a squad .. were” (a squad … was,) “‘Don’t ast’” (ask,) bannistered (banistered,) kidnaping (kidnapping,) focussed (focused.) “‘Our network …. were planned’” (was … planned,) good-by (goodbye,) a World War One veteran says he ‘took a Jerry 88 millimeter right through the gonads.’ (the German 88 millimetre anti-aircraft/anti-tank gun was not developed till the 1930s.) “All that was left were a pair of …” (all that was left was a pair of …,) “like baby elephants trunks” (like baby elephants’ trunks.) “There were a number of apparati” (‘There was a number’; and the Latin plural of apparatus is ‘apparatus’, the English plural is ‘apparatuses’ but ‘pieces of apparatus’ is also common.)

Sidgwick & Jackson, 1973, 185 p

I bought this book not long after the same author’s The Infinite Cage. This one was much less palatable.

Having previously performed services for Central, which co-ordinates travel between the different parallel worlds, Lafayette O’Leary is living out a sinecure existence in the royal court on the planet Artesia. This is suddenly disrupted when he finds Artesia disappearing around him and he ends up marooned on Melange, a world in which his ability to access the psychic energies is compromised. He is thrown into various escapades as the person whose appearance he has is wanted for crimes of various sorts on the new world. He manages to escape each predicament in a variety of unlikely ways while trying to search for the counterpart on Melange of his Artesian love Daphne.

Despite his knowledge of the different continua O’Leary is very slow on the uptake, failing for a long time to recognise that the look-alikes on Melange to his acquaintances on Artesia are not the same people and have different statuses.

This book has very little to recommend it except as a product of its time. I very much doubt it would be published today.

Dobson, 1976, 221 p.

Well this one took me back.

If it wasn’t yellow jacketed Gollancz hardbacks on the SF shelves at Dumbarton Library in my youth it was Dobson Science Fiction ones. Well, this has a yellow cover but it’s a Dobson. It’s also a former library book. I recently picked it up in a local charity shop.

A naked man wakes up in a police cell with no memories. He escapes more or less by accident and by turns falls into the orbit of Louella, a medium who quickly spots his ability to read minds and conceives of him as a route to riche. For convenience she names him Adam.

He has an ability to tune into voices but his knowledge of society and how to interact with others is limited. This gives Laumer the opportunity to engage in satire on late 60s early 70s US life. (The novel was first published in 1972.)

To make seed money Adam takes a job as an accountant using the experience of one of his voices. He quickly reveals the proprietor was being conned by suppliers and staff.

Through his voices he realises the level of need in the world and resolves to make money so that he can alleviate people’s worries.

This gives Laumer the opportunity to illustrate the difficulties of giving money away – or rather, having your motives for doing so misunderstood or impugned.

Various other adventures befall Adam including tangling with the darker side of the betting industry.

In this context I would note the utter immorality involved in a hospital precipitately discharging a very ill patient on its authorities’ belatedly discovering he has no money for the treatment.

The book is entertaining enough in a slightly old–fashioned way but falls in to metaphysics towards the end. It’s not without merit though, even if the characterisation is sometimes rudimentary.