James Nicoll Reviews

Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s 2006 Catalyst: A Novel of Alien Contact is a science fiction novel of alien contact. No doubt some might slide Catalyst over into the YA SF category, but I myself would not be putting this particular novel into little Timmy or Tammy’s Christmas stocking.

Thanks to his father’s involvement in illegal schemes, Kaslin’s family had to flee. Flight led the family to Chuudoku, a world whose Gini Coefficient is high and whose absence of the rule of law is utter. Impoverished Kaslin was attracted to wealthy, alluring Histly Mapworth. To quote:

Kaslin saw Histly and thought, yum. Histly saw Kaslin and thought, prey. After that first day, Kaslin saw Histly and thought, run.

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Dan Simmons’ 1985 Song of Kali is a World-Fantasy-Award-winning horror novel.

Post‑9/11, Simmons outed himself as a virulent Islamophobe. Was this a reaction to second-hand trauma or did it bring out something that had been lurking there all along, unnoticed? Or did it cast light on something that had been obvious from the beginning? Consider Dan Simmon’s debut novel, Song of Kali.

Calcutta, city of pure, unredeemable evil!¹

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Spider Robinson’s 1985 Night of Power is a mercifully stand-alone near-future race war novel.

Aging dancer Dene Grant can hardly turn down an offer to dance at the Joyce Theatre. She, her husband Russell, and Russell’s their thirteen-year-old mixed-race daughter from a previous marriage Jennifer make the trip from Halifax, Nova Scotia¹ to New York City, center of American publishing, finance, and simmering interracial conflict about to boil over.

Scarcely has the family entered New York City when a gang of African American youth criminals descends on them with robbery, murder, and worse in mind.

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Hayden Howard’s 1967 The Eskimo Invasion is a fix-up of several satirical Population-Bomb science fiction stories.

The Eskimo Invasion isn’t so much an infamously bad science fiction work as it is an infamously obscure award-nominated science fiction work. Readers, fannish and professional, liked the series of short works enough to nominate the novelette The Eskimo Invasion for both the Hugo¹ and the Nebula². The fix-up was nominated for a Nebula². However, the book went out of print almost immediately. The only time I’ve ever seen it discussed is in this Revisiting the Hugos thread. Therefore, stumbling across a reasonably priced MMPB, how could I not read it? How bad could it possibly be?

Former Director of Oriental Population Problems Research Dr. Joe West steals into Canada’s Eskimo Cultural Sanctuary.

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Robert A. Heinlein’s 1963 Farnham’s Freehold is a stand-alone post-holocaust novel.

Middle-aged contractor Hugh Farnham and wife Grace host a bridge party for their son Duke, daughter Karen, and Karen’s friend Barbara. Also in attendance, the Farnham’s African American houseboy Joe. The party is marred by alcoholic Grace’s behavior¹, for which Duke blames Hugh’s obsession with nuclear war.

The massive Soviet nuclear attack that ensues lends credence to Hugh’s concerns about nuclear war. Luckily for the Farnhams, Karen, and Joe — perhaps less luckily for the reader — Hugh’s preparations include a well-prepared subterranean shelter.

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L. Neil Smith’s 2001 The American Zone is the fifth and final book in Smith’s North American Confederacy series, which is set in a libertarian utopia.

About ten years after the events of The Probability Broach, PI Win Bear, political refugee from a statist timeline, is distracted from a potentially vexing case¹ by the bombing of the Old Endicott building.

This will not be the last terrorist outrage². News pundit Jerry Rivers blames exochronic refugees (like Bear) for the crime. Has nativism come to the North American Confederacy?

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Norman Spinrad’s 2002 He Walked Among Us is a science fiction messianic fable¹ … or possibly an entirely mundane story about deranged people with overlapping manias and the people who exploit them.

The novel’s protagonist, Hugo Award winner Dexter Lampkin, was certain that Transformations was his Big Novel. But Transformations didn’t even earn out its advance. On the advice of Harlan Ellison, Dexter turned to cracking out television scripts. This did not produce the accolades that Dexter was sure should be his, but it did deliver the income he and his family needed.

Despite his Big Novel’s fate, Dexter does not turn his back on SF conventions. After all, SF conventions provide him with a steady stream of low-self-esteem unattractive fat women with whom he can cheat on his hot wife Ellie.

Fate hands Dexter the chance to save the world.

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Brian Herbert’s 1990 The Race for God is a stand-alone science fiction novel. (One was more than enough!) It is the third novel to be featured in my What’s The Worst That Could Happen? Series of reviews. Readers may question whether Brian Herbert has earned his place in SF history. I can assure them he has earned his spot in this project, a tour of SFF’s worst¹.

Grand Exalted Rooster McMurtrey founded the Interplanetary Church of Cosmic Chickenhood more or less as a joke. But then God decided to speak through McMurtrey — according to McMurtrey.

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Jean Mark Gawron’s 1978 Algorithm is a stand-alone science fiction novel.

ASSASSIN! A word that demands all caps and frequent repetition on the Earth of the day after tomorrow.

Who is the assassin? Who is their target? Can the assassin be stopped?

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Mark Clifton and Frank Riley’s 1957 They’d Rather Be Right is a science fiction fix-up novel. They’d Rather Be Right was also published as The Forever Machine.

They’d Rather Be Right has the reputation of being the worst novel to win the Hugo. Hyperbole or cold fact? Let’s find out!

In the latter part of the 20^th century, kindly academic Dr. Martin realizes that Joey, the troubled boy he is assessing, is a telepath. Joey’s parents are conformist knuckle-draggers. The end result is that rather than being hailed as the next step in human evolution, poor Joey — later Joe — is consigned to a childhood of stupefying conformity.

Thirteen years later, Martin’s associate Dr. Billings, Dean of Psychosomatic Research at Hoxworth University, has desperate need of Joe’s unique talent.

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