J. T. McIntosh (1925–2008)

A silly title though I can see why there was a desire to replace the forgettable original title "The Fittest". This reminded me a bit of Tucker's far better The Long Loud Silence as a not very sympathetic main character makes his way through a devolving civilization. The cause initially seems kind of silly: lab-created intelligent dogs, cats, rats, and mice have escaped, reproduced rapidly, and are now relentlessly killing people and destroying our infrastructure. Eventually this is made a bit more reasonable and the nature of the change a bit more nuanced. Like Kress' Beggars in Spain, the change is small. Like humans, the animals can do one-shot learning. They see something work or fail, and they remember it immediately. Otherwise they're still animals that can't communicate or do higher order cognition. The book also manages to maintain a steady growing sense of tension and despair for much of its short length, though it eventually becomes mostly about humans vs humans, as most apocalyptic stories do.

What makes this hard to recommend is the racism and sexism that appears on virtually every page. If it were just a passage or chapter, it could be noted and passed over , but it's deep in the fabric of the story.

Only for historians of British SF.… (more)

I got onto JT McIntosh from reading the anthologies compiled by John Carnell (
No place like earth, 1952 & Gateway to tomorrow, 1954) so when I saw this book I leapt at the chance to read a full length novel by one of the better contributors to the aforementioned anthologies.

Surprisingly, even though it was written in 1954, Born Leader (later published as Worlds Apart in 1958) doesn't feel dated like some 1950s/60s scifi novels do.

It's the story of a civilisation on the planet Mundis that was settled by people who thought they were the last space flight from a collapsing civilisation on earth. Little do they know a nearby planet Secundis also has been settled by a later flight which was put together after civilisation had collapsed and are looking to 'reunify' aka conquer other human settlements.

Emerging from this and conflict between the age groups on Mundis comes Rog Foley who has plans about what to do and how things should be handled.

Overall it's a great story from a largely forgotten author.… (more)

I rarely give a one-star rating. This one earned it for its constant leering tone and eventually an out and out misogynistic torture scene with whips and slips, no less. This takes place far enough in the future that the Earth is pretty much all housing, going miles underground. So much for scientific plausibility. The people though are straight from the 1950s, with a casual attitude towards clothing. I suspect the author may have done this to justify more lurid covers. There's no sex per se in the book. There's not even any descriptions of human bodies, just of the clothing that is or is not there. The reveal at the end ("the literally shattering climax" according to the blurb) is OK for pulp SF, but there's nothing here to redeem the more reprehensible parts.

Not recommended.… (more)

At its best, science fiction explores themes and theories that wouldn't otherwise be able to be explored. J T McIntosh is not the most well known science fiction writer, but he's one of the best. In this excellent novel, McIntosh explores the possibilities of immortality. The thesis is what would happen if there was one planet where the secret to immortality was discovered. What would that society be like? One of the immediately obvious problems to immortality is overpopulation. Utopia solves that by making the population artificially infertile, vastly limiting births, and making marriage just about illegal. Of course, in this world, with everlasting life, no marriage, and no children, sex is easy and plentiful.

The story involves the first visitor in 300 years to Utopia, Hardy Cronyn, and his introduction to this strange new world that boasted such positives but also so many new and strange customs. It also involves him in quite newsworthy events that he sort of stumbled into.

It is a well-crafted story, easy to read, and quite captivating.… (more)