James Nicoll Reviews

Christopher Anvil’s 1980 The Steel, the Mist, and the Blazing Sun is (almost) a stand-alone post-apocalyptic proto-military SF novel.

The atomic unpleasantness left half of North America as slag lands¹, and left Europe untouched but a Russ dependency. The Russ even established colonies on the North American east coast. It seemed unlikely that the invaders would ever be forced to leave. After all, the Russ have (dwindling) stores of Old Stuff, whereas the descendants of American and Canadian survivors make do with far more primitive equipment.

Recent events proved that the Russ were curiously vulnerable. Under Arakal, King of the Wesdem O’Cracys², the North American savages somehow overcame their technological and ideological impediments, outmaneuvered their enemy, and drove the Russ high command from North America.

What next?

The Wesdem O’Cracys have only a rudimentary grasp of their own history. The Russ considers them something apart from the old Americans and Canadians. The Wesdem O’Cracys consider themselves Americans and are determined to win back every inch of former American territory. The Wesdem O’Cracys are convinced that Old Brunswick (the UK) and Old Kebeck (France) were once part of America and are determined to liberate them.

There is the small matter of the Atlantic Ocean. Happily, the Russ (for reasons that are unclear) situated much of their military shipbuilding industry in North America. When they retreated, an entire fleet was left in Wesdem O’Cracys’ hands. That solves the problem of how to reach Old Brunswick and Old Kebeck.

Scouting missions reveal that Europe’s west coast is fortified but curiously undefended… for the moment. No doubt the news of the reconnaissance has reached the Russ. The liberators must assume all those empty gun emplacements will be manned by the time the fleet arrives.

Furthermore, although Arakal and his subjects do not suspect it, that fleet (abandoned when the Russ fled) is still a Russ asset. Every cabin is bugged. Every war plan made onboard a captured ship has been relayed to and analyzed by the Russ.

On their home turf, the Wesdem O’Cracys were able to outwit the Russ. However, is even Arakal’s martial genius enough to match an enemy on his home turf, an enemy whose actual identity Arakal does not know, an enemy whose goals he does not suspect, an enemy whose cunning plan it is to lose every battle?

~oOo~

This was going to be a review of Gene Wolfe’s The Shadow of the Torturer until I discovered Shadow was published a few months after the Tears’ review cut-off date, March 18, 1981. I think I rediscover that fact every few years. 

The reason that this novel falls short of being stand-alone is because it follows immediately on the heels of 1972’s ​“Ideological Defeat,” originally published in Ben Bova’s Analog and later reprinted in such anthologies as Carr and Pournelle’s Guns of Darkness (There Will Be War, Volume 6). If you don’t know the There Will Be War series, lucky you.

It’s also not quite a Mil-SF novel because, being published before Mil-SF’s conventions were established, it deviates from those conventions. In particular, war crimes and crimes against humanity are not only not glorified, they are considered bad.

To be blunt: this is less a thrilling Mil-SF novel than it is the result of flawed writing habits that better writers should study so as to more effectively avoid them. In a word, the book is dreadful.

To begin with, the characters are extremely thin, even taking into account that Anvil was a Campbell-era author. Oddly, the Russ are more fleshed out than the Wesdem O’Cracys folk, but not so much so that I am going to name any of them.

A core assumption of the novel is that nations have character and that this character prevails despite minor events like the total nuclear annihilation of every city in North America3, the sterilization of much of the continent, and the reduction of the survivors to semiliterate savages. Americans are all around swell guys.

And it was the historical policy of the Americans, in their own view of things, to bind up the wounds of the suffering, attack tyranny, shoot pirates, twist the lion’s tail, and spit in the eyes of those in authority. In a fight, the Americans, Comrade, love to spring a nasty trick on you, and then afterward they clap you on the back. There are no hard feelings, finally. 

While this means it’s possible for Russ officers to have cordial relations with their opposite numbers on the Wesdem O’Cracys⁴ side, it’s also a problem for the Russ. The Wesdem O’Cracys are happy to naturalize Russ colonists who recognize Wesdem O’Cracys’ sovereignty and expect that life under Arakal might be better than life under the Russ.

Other nations have their own characters, which (astonishingly for a book written by a Yank) do not seem as nice or admirable as that of the Americans.

Characterization by nationality, when there is characterization at all, would be forgivable if the plot were in any way interesting. However, Arakal is as lucky as he is brilliant. The battles are a series of one-sided victories whose outcome is foreordained.

There is a moment of hope, in that it’s made very clear there is something important about the Big Smash that the Americans have forgotten and the Russians do not care to reveal:

The Americans had been paid back; but don’t talk of it; and it wasn’t as you think. 

Eventually, the Russ reveal why American cities were nuked and vast swaths of Russian subjected to orbital weapons… and it’s pretty stupid. I won’t spoil it but really, don’t be tempted to track down the novel to discover what really happened.

If you still want to acquire a copy of this, you’re on your own.

1: USA delenda.

2: King is the Russ term. Arakel is the elective absolute monarch governing through a nonhereditary oligarchy. The Russians struggle to find the right words to describe the arrangement, which seems a little odd, as I can think of obvious comparisons.

3: Strictly speaking, North America includes Central America as well. Of Mexico, no word (except that the Gulf of Mexico is still called the Gulf of Mexico). Of nations farther south, also no word. Africa and Asia seem likewise unknown. The world seems to consist of North America (much of it still inaccessible) and Europe.

4: I got very tired of typing Wesdem O’Cracy.