‘The Godwhale’ – T.J. Bass (Gollancz)

I never seem to read as many SF Masterworks as I mean to. There’s a bookshelf, in my house, full of books where I’ve thought to myself ‘ooh SF Masterwork, I really need to give it a go’ and then promptly forgotten about it. At the rate my reading is going at the moment, I have enough books on this shelf to keep me going for the rest of the year and it is way past time that I started on the twisty turny (filled with obstacles) road to reading redemption. So here goes…
‘The Godwhale’ is a title that has always intrigued me as whales are a little god-like sometimes aren’t they? Both majestic and mysterious… It’s also a title that defeated me the last time I tried reading it, a few months ago, so it seemed like the appropriate place to try and make some kind of dent in my ‘SF Masterworks’ shelf. I made it through this time, but all the obstacles from before were there. Before we get into that though, have some blurb…

Rorqual Maru was a cyborg - part organic whale, part mechanised ship - and part god. She was a harvester - a vast plankton rake, now without a crop, abandoned by earth society when the seas died. So she selected an island for her grave, hoping to keep her carcass visible for salvage. Although her long ear heard nothing, she believed that man still lived in his hive. If he should ever return to the sea, she wanted to serve. She longed for the thrill of a human's bare feet touching the skin of her deck. She missed the hearty hails, the sweat and the laughter. She needed mankind. But all humans were long gone ... or were they?

I finally finished ‘The Godwhale’ yesterday and I’m really glad that I made the effort. It was a bit of a slog though and I have a horrible feeling that all the reasons it was a slog are the reasons the book is justifiably an ‘SF Masterwork’… What does that say about me and my reading? These days I’m very much reading for pleasure and ‘The Godwhale’ doesn’t quite deliver on that score. It’s not a book that you can while away a lunch break but it is a book that will really get you thinking about the direction our world could conceivably head in. I loved the way that Bass did this by the way, showing the reader how the world changes (over thousands of years) in between Larry Dever’s waking up from medically induced comas. It’s a great way to cram a lot of change into a small number of pages and we get to share Larry’s shock as the world changes through his eyes; a very effective narrative approach that throws the reader right into the middle of things and leaves them trying to make sense of it all.

And what a world it is! A starkly realised world of ‘Nebishes’ living underground and having their entire lives regulated by social lottery and AI. A world where, on the surface, half-starved tribes of humans risk death to steal from the jealously guarded vegetable gardens as the oceans no longer support life. Bass has clearly put some real thought into how the damage we are doing to our world right now will affect us in the far future and it is all so plausibly done with the creation of a society that literally has nowhere else to go but under the ground where space is at a premium and humanity adapts accordingly.

Life will find a way though and it’s this that gives ‘The Godwhale’ a note of hope that leaves the reader optimistic for the future rather than reaching for something alcoholic. The re-emergence of Rorqual Maru and the arrival of Larry Dever throw a well ordered, if dying on its feet, world into change and evolution that drives the plot forward to that optimistic end. Larry’s trying to make sense of the world forces change when others realise that he might have a good point with his questions. It’s not just what he does in the ‘present’ either, Larry’s actions echo down the ages with a pleasing hint of things just coming together. Rorqual Maru trying to do the job she had been created for forces change in the dynamics of both the Nebish and Benthic people as they suddenly have to deal with a new presence in their lives, the ‘Godwhale’ (something that is beyond their control and understanding).

The resulting plot is both ecological commentary and a cautionary look at how the demands of the far future could ultimately shape us. It’s also a testament to the strength and determination of humanity to overcome these obstacles and forge forwards (the Benthics more so than the Nebish, it has to be said). It’s stirring stuff, in its own understated way, or it would be if Bass didn’t smother it with an overabundance of maths and medical terminology. This isn’t the best way to make a high concept tale accessible to the casual reader (hence my going on about it being a slog) although I understand that it actually backs up the concepts at the same time (hence my believing that ‘The Godwhale’ is a Masterwork, it simply has all the ingredients to be so).

It felt like a tough one to call then but it’s clear that ‘The Godwhale’ is perfectly justified to sit in the ‘SF Masterworks’ collection. It’s so good in fact that I’m going to have to search out a copy of ‘Half Past Human’ (a prequel) and read more about this world. If nothing else, that kind of reaction makes the ‘Masterwork’ title very apt. 'The Godwhale' isn't a light read, by any means, but one that is worth sticking with.

'Emphyrio' - Jack Vance (Millennium)

It's funny how I'll read the Fantasy Masterworks books with a sense of eager anticipation (wanting to be transported somewhere amazing) but the Science Fiction Masterworks are read with a sense of, 'Masterwork eh? We'll soon see about that...' Years of being told that 'sci-fi was better in our day', and the associated feeling that fantasy never really has been, probably has something to do with that. I kick back against the daftest things sometimes but at least it spurs me into reading books that I wouldn't normally try.
Books like 'Emphyrio' for example. I've never read anything by Jack Vance (yeah, I know...) so finding 'Emphyrio' was a chance to kill two birds with one stone so to speak - fill in a gap in my genre reading (with a fairly quick read, only two hundred and eight pages long) and see if 'Emphyrio' was an SF Masterwork, all at the same time. And you know what? For all its modesty (perhaps because of it) I think it is.

You want some blurb? Go on then, here's some blurb...

Far in the future, the craftsmen of the distant planet Halma create goods which are the wonder of the galaxy. But they know little of this. Their society is harshly regimented, its religion austere and unforgiving, and primitive -- to maintain standards, even the most basic use of automation is punishable by death.
When Amiante, a wood-carver, is executed for processing old documents with a camera, his son Ghyl rebels, and decides to bring down the system. To do so, he must first interpret the story of Emphyrio, an ancient hero of Halman legend.

'Emphyrio' has the big concept that you would expect a Masterwork to have, the usual tale of mankind being enslaved but spun into something else with an examination of galactic economics and a slavery so subtle that people don't even realise it is happening. Where Vance really makes the concept work for him though is that he makes sure it drives the plot instead of being the plot (hence that modest air). There’s no showing off how clever he is here, Vance makes the story the thing and 'Emphyrio' is all about the effects of economic slavery on the people of Halma, Ghyl in particular. Vance has clearly given one hell of a lot of thought to how life might be and how events will play out for Ghyl as they happen. The end result is a tightly plotted tale with a lead in Ghyl that I couldn’t help but root for despite him being a little too stolid to be a truly compelling character. Everything is against Ghyl, up to and including things that he isn’t even aware of, he keeps going though and the questions raised (along with tantalising clues) are such that I had to keep reading.

The pay-off is worth the read but, to be honest, the travelogue element of the tale would have been worth sticking around for anyway (even if the ending hadn’t). From my own (very) limited reading of his work, Vance clearly has a real gift for instilling that sense of the alien in his surroundings as well as making them living, breathing environments for the reader. I’m really looking forward to reading his ‘Tales of the Dying Earth’ if ‘Emphyrio’ is anything to go by. If I read some SF I want to feel like that planets are alien and that’s exactly what I got here.

Look past that the air of modesty and you’ll find that ‘Emphyrio’ is a thought provoking sci-fi tale, making its characters the focus to good effect. The ‘big concept’ is extremely well handled and I think the story itself will stay in my head for a long time to come; that makes it a ‘SF Masterwork’ as far as I’m concerned.

‘Wasp’ – Eric Frank Russell (Gollancz)

I really don’t read enough of the SF Masterworks books as I should. This is especially the case as I haven’t found a book in the series yet that isn’t thought provoking on one level or another. I say ‘thought provoking’ though… Sometimes the thoughts provoked do send me off on a tangent; for example, how did ‘The Difference Engine’ make the ‘Masterwork cut’ while ‘Neuromancer’ hasn’t? Anyway…
‘Wasp’ is a title that has intrigued me, ever since I saw it as a ‘forthcoming release’ a few months ago, not least because I am scared of wasps so naturally have a morbid fascination with them. The blurb is also very intriguing, check it out…

The war had been going on for nearly a year and the Sirian Empire had a huge advantage in personnel and equipment. Earth needed an edge. Which was where James Mowry came in.

If a small insect buzzing around in a car could so distract the driver as to cause that vehicle to crash, think what havoc one properly trained operative could wreak on an unsuspecting enemy. Intensively trained, his appearance surgically altered, James Mowry is landed on Jaimec, the 94th planet of the Sirian Empire. His mission is simple: sap morale, cause mayhem, tie up resources, wage a one-man war on a planet of eighty million.

In short, be a wasp.
A tale of espionage, one man against an entire planet? What’s not to like there? I’ll bet that, right now, you’re thinking that you wouldn’t mind giving this book a go yourself. Am I right?
I would say definitely give ‘Wasp’ a shot; I read it in a single sitting last night and was happy to pay the price of feeling dog tired this morning. Approach it with caution though, ‘Wasp’ isn’t the book that you might think…

‘Wasp’ is a book very much concerned with it’s concept, that one man (suitably equipped) can bring an entire planet to a standstill and so cause repercussions for an entire galactic war. The problem I found was that Russell is so pleased with his concept that he never really tests it. Agent Mowry is too well equipped and the Sirian Secret Police are always at least one step behind; everything that Mowry turns his hand to succeeds and the planet falls. Yes, the concept works but it does so at the expense of the story to a degree. Mowry has a few close shaves here and there but nothing that really makes the plot twist and turn like I’d have wanted it to. Russell attempts to address this by talking about the kind of questions that might be asked (in the aftermath of a ‘wasp sting’) but might ask is a long way from something that actually happens.

But I still kept reading. Like I said, I couldn’t put the book down.

While concept is clearly prioritised over plot, there is no doubt that it is fascinating to see Mowry in action and how his actions affect his environment. Russell does go into this in a little too much detail (for a book that is only a hundred and eighty pages long) but the exploration does make for interesting reading.

‘Wasp’ is also an interesting read in terms of what we find out about Mowry himself (with a little extra dash of humour added by Russell). Here is a man who doesn’t want to fight but reluctantly agrees to when confronted by the inevitability of his files.

‘James Mowry, twenty six, restless and pigheaded. Can be trusted to do anything at all – provided the alternative is worse.’
The affects of long term infiltration are also explored to good affect in Mowry; he gets the job done but even he can only take so much of being the only Terran amongst eighty million Sirians. There are some bittersweet moments of what is almost homesickness that are then followed by some slightly odd moments where everything is made better by well cooked ‘earth food’. I didn’t think that would be all it took to make Mowry feel better. Whatever works I guess…

‘Wasp’ is essentially a great concept that doesn’t quite make the jump into being a great story (and I think this was done purposefully). Not a ‘Masterwork’ in my book then but still a gripping read in its own right and a lot of fun. I’d definitely pick it up again.