Chad Oliver (1928–1993)

Picked up because I've very much enjoyed other anthropological speculative fiction by Oliver. He's intelligent, educated, and thoughtful, a joy to read.
So far, about 1/3 in, this reminds me a lot of the early 'classics' by [a:Michael Crichton|5194|Michael Crichton|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1359042651p2/5194.jpg]. Not as intricate, so it will be shorter. But immersive and educational in the sense that Crichton and some other HF and SF can be. Haven't gotten to the SF part of this show more yet....
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Not as analytical as the blurb and imply; turns into a somewhat more superficial adventure than I was hoping for. Still a fun fast read, esp. for those who like 'manly' books. (It's only a bit sexist, in that the one woman is respected, but this community is male-dominated by it's very nature.)

Africa is another world, not just an exotic safari resort: "Some men, the dead ones that still walked, never could feel it. They were men who might glance at a trout stream in Rockies and see just another creek."

"He did not move. He forced himself to stay where he was. He could not afford the luxury of [violent] action."

I will continue to read Oliver's works as I find them. show less

“Suppose that one day man landed on some distant planet. Why would he have come, what impulse would have driven him across the darkness and the light-years? Could he explain, and would he even try? If he set out to explore that fearful world, if he trapped some specimens, what would he do if he were attacked by monstrous beings he could not understand?”



In “The Shores of Another Sea” by Chad Oliver



Right after the Bishop’s “No Enemy but Time”, I re-read “The Shores of Another show more Sea” by Chad Oliver, a first contact story also set in Eastern Africa. Though it devoted a good deal of space to story elements arising from its Kenyan setting, the character setup was pretty minimal, a sympathetic protagonist built on a fairly standard “rugged outdoorsman” chassis. However there was a character arc which was economically worked into the story, its resolution arising from the experience of the alien contact. I didn’t think it was a great book, but it was an interesting contrast to the Bishop. Where Bishop tended to draw his non-SF elements from literary fiction, Oliver turned to another generic tradition, an adventure tale set on a wilderness frontier, a strategy that worked better for me as it seemed less dissonant when grafted onto an SF story. show less

I've loved Oliver's anthropological science fiction. I'm not so sure he's fully qualified to write from the perspective of a Comanche, though. I think I'll finish (it's short and the style is marvelous) but I hope that real people of the Comanches don't feel insulted or disturbed by this attempt. Oliver definitely is attempting to show respect and affinity for all his characters; I hope that counts for something.
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Ok done. Literary historical fiction, not, I think, genre Western. (Though show more it's only the third book I've read that was tagged Western, and one of the other two was [b:The Ox-Bow Incident|7125267|The Ox-Bow Incident|Walter Van Tilburg Clark|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1267262673l/7125267._SY75_.jpg|100337] which is also literary, so I'm no expert.) Quite brilliant, this exploration of the extermination of the last free Indians, and what that act meant for some of men (and women) responsible for it.

From Fox Claw's perspective: "... stories all began the same way: 'One day there were a couple of Comanches out looking for trouble and...'"

From Curtis's perspective: "First, the army had to remove its weight from its collective saddle sores and take the offensive against the Indians...." show less

Anthropological science fiction is relatively rare, especially so when this was first published in 1971. This was Oliver's sixth novel, and the author was an anthropologist as well as a professor at the University of Texas in Austin. According to the introduction in my copy of the book the author spent time in Kenya doing anthropological research, and Kenya is the setting for the story. Frankly I'd call this almost a horror story for the way it plays out - something Stephen King might have show more written back then. It is set on and around a research station which collects baboons - the dark side here is that although it is not explicitly shown during the story, one realizes and is told that these animals are captured for experimentation, not for behavior research or even zoos. That knowledge actually dampened my enthusiasm for the story, but it is the setup for what we very quickly see is an alien invasion story.

The author is a very good descriptive writer and the setting in Kenya is really brought to life exceedingly well. That was the highlight of this story for me. show less