A. Bertram Chandler (1912–1984)

a review of
A. Bertram Chandler's Spartan Planet
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 25, 2016

I'm pretty sure that if I'd read the description of this bk 40 yrs ago I wd've shied away from it as entirely too lo-brow. NOW I think it was great, really inspired, hilarious. The basic premise is that there's a planet that'd been colonized by Earthlings long ago that'd developed into an all-male planet partially based on the male dominated militaristic city-state Sparta from ancient Greece. show more

Blundering into this is a Federation Survey Spaceship captained by Chandler's recurring character John Grimes & carrying a woman doctor named Margaret Lazenby whose job it is to study this lost colony's culture. Lazenby is the 1st & only woman most of the planet's inhabitants have ever seen. Human reproduction is a science controlled by specialists: doctors, & 'effeminate' male nurses. Creatures lower on the food chain give birth by having their male offspring rip off from the side of the father's body after having grown there as a conjoined twin of sorts & this is what the Spartans have been taught was their reproductive ancestry before the doctors improved things:

"["]it's just that some of us don't like to be reminded of our humble origins. How would you like to go through the budding process, and then have to tear your son away from yourself?"" - p 6

"The larger of the scavengers, the parent, had succeeded in bringing one of its short legs up under its belly. Suddenly it kicked, and as it did so it screamed, and the smaller animal shrieked in unison. They were broken apart now, staggering over the cobbles in what was almost a parody of a human dance. They were apart, and on each of the rough, mottled flanks was a ragged circle of glistening, raw flesh, a wound that betrayed by its stench what was the usual diet of the lowly garbage eaters. The stink lingered even after the beasts, rapidly recovering from their ordeal, had scurried off, completing the fission process, in opposite directions.

"That was the normal way of birth on Sparta." - pp 6-7

Chandler gives a reasonably imaginative treatment to his idea of a lost colony isolated from their true past to the degree that things have become redefined. As such, colonists speaking English consider it to be Greek b/c their seemingly all-male society is partially based around ancient Greek culture:

"Walking with calm deliberation the two men approached the barrier. The one with the trousered leg called, "Anybody here speak English?" He turned to his companion and said, "That was a silly question to which I should get a silly answer. After all. we've been nattering to them on RT all the way in."

""We speak Greek," answered Diomedes.

"The spaceman looked puzzled. "I'm afraid that I don't. But your English is very good. If you don't mind, it will have to do."

""But we have been speaking Greek all the time."" - p 24

The Spartans are accustomed to Spartan conditions - ie: stern & hard ones not inclined to comfort. They board Grimes's spaceship:

"Brasidus remained standing until he received a grudging nod from his superior. Then he was amazed by the softness, by the comfort of the chair into which he lowered himself. On Sparta such luxury was reserved for the aged—and only for the highly placed aged at that, for council members and the like." - p 32

Never having seen women before, the Spartans advance various theories about the 'deformities' on Lazenby's chest:

"["]it's manned by robots with twin turrets on their chests from which they shoot lethal rays."

""They must be functional . . ." mused Brasidus, "I suppose."

""What must be?" demanded the librarian.

""Those twin turrets. Good day to you."" - p 47

Now, it's probably all too easy to (potentially incorrectly) read personal details into an author's story. As such, I imagine Chandler writing this at a time when he was upset w/ a lover or a wife or getting divorced or somehow having trouble w/ the women or woman that he was intimate w/ in his life:

""A mere dozen of these malformed weaklings, without arms. . . . No, there can be no danger. Obviously, since they are member's of Seeker's crew, they can coexist harmoniously with men. So, we repeat, there is no danger."

""Sire!" It was the doctor who had raised the objection. "You do not know these beings. You do not know how treacherous they can be."

""And do you, Doctor Pausanias? And if you do know, how do you know?"

"The Councilman paled. He said lamely, "We are experienced, sire, in judging who is to live and who is not to live among the newborn. There are signs, reliable signs. She"—he pointed an accusing finger at Margaret Lazenby—"exhibits them."" - p 67

It's decided that these strange men w/ the protuberances on their chests are aliens from a planet called Arcadia - &, Lo & Behold!, they do exert a suspiciously entrancing fascination on the Spartan Brasidus & others - even to the extent of leading Brasidus astray from his boyfriend:

""Brasidus, I have to be on duty soon. Will you come with me to my room?"

"The Sergeant looked at his friend. Achron was a pretty boy, prettier than most, but he was not, he could never be, an Arcadian. . . .

"What am I thinking? he asked himself, shocked. Why am I thinking it?

"He said, "Not tonight, Achron."" - p 85

I don't want to spoil the plot for you but the ending cd be sd to have a wry ambiguity. Watch where those twin turrets are pointed! They might be coming after YOU!! show less

I love the aura of late 1950s and early 1960s space opera. There is an innocence to the stories, not a moral innocence, more an innocence of imagination, free from the restraints of the realities of space travel and the habitability of other planets.

That’s what’s going on here. This is a kind of odyssey story. We follow the protagonist, Calver, as he signs on to run the Rim, the outer edge of the galaxy, in the Lorn Lady, a cargo ship circulating among various not-so-heavenly planets out show more there.

Calver, naturally, is something of a hero, along with his heroine, Jane Arlen, aka “Calamity Jane”, who is haunted by tragedy wherever she goes. Calver is undaunted, and their adventures begin with Calver serving aboard the ship as
Second Mate and Arlen as “caterer” (cook).

Their adventures include galactic spies, a medieval-style battle (in which Arlen plays the part of captive to be rescued by Calver), a ghost ship mirroring the Lorn Lady, and more. You can probably get the picture. It’s not swashbuckling, but it’s swashbuckly.

The plot’s development revolves around Calver’s fulfilling his need to experience the outer reaches, and Arlen’s battle with the grip of her “Calamity Jane” curse.

It’s a space opera adventure of that innocent age.

Not to put too big a dent in the innocence, but this is thoroughly a book of its time. We could call Calver and Arlen “archetypes.” Or we could call them “stereotypes.” Arlen has the girl’s job on the ship, although she’s heroic in her way. Calver is the strong, heroic type. Bracket that stuff out if you can. show less

Yes, this really, truly, honest-to-God is a book about werewolves in space. Horny werewolves, to be exact. Probably written on a bet (the dedication is "For Harlan Ellison, who made me do it").

In the future, the ftl drive that grants access to the stars has an odd effect on those few folks unfortunate enough to have the (extremely recessive) lycanthropic gene, and after the discovery of a few too many random bloodied crew member corpses, our protagonist Falsen finds himself marooned on an show more uninhabited and fairly dreary planet. Fortunately, it doesn’t take long to find a similarly abandoned and horny female werewolf with whom to sate mutual needs. Opportunity and adversity arrive in the form of the horny ostensibly all-female crew of matriarchal cat/human-hybrid-like aliens who are exploring said planet to evaluate its suitability for colonization. The story follows a sequence of exploration, violent confrontations with horrific ostensibly native fauna, and observations on aspects of the anatomy of cat/human girls in various stages of undress.

There’s not much good to be said about this book. The engineering problem that dominates a good part of the second half of the book is reasonably interesting. And, while the ostensibly big surprise at the end was really no surprise at all, the final couple of paragraphs offer a deliciously Martinesque conclusion that perhaps makes the fairly minimal effort to slog your way through this one worth it. show less

review of
A. Bertram Chandler's Contraband from Otherspace & Philip E. High's Reality Forbidden
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - February 19, 2017

This continues my spree of reading A. Bertram Chandler bks. This will be something like the 22nd of his bks I've read & reviewed in the last 9 mnths. As far as I can tell, I haven't given birth to anything yet.

This is yet-another bk in the John Grimes saga, something that I deeply enjoy w/o being passionate about. Grimes & Sonya resign their show more respective positions to go into business for themselves but, these being adventure stories, of course they're not just going to plod along making money.

"["]It seems that there's a little one ship company for sale, just a feeder line running between Montalban and Carribea. The gratuity barely covers the down payment—but with your gratuity, and our savings, and the profits we're bound to make we shall be out of the red in no time at all. Just think of it, John! You as Wonder-Master, and myself as your everloving Mate!"" - p 7

But before they get that there biz launched a mystery comes their way: "["]It seems that this ship just appeared out of nothing—those were Hall's own words. There was no warning at all on the Mass Proximity Indicator. And then, suddenly, there she was—on both M.P.I. and radar. . . ."" (p 9)

"The Psionic Radio Officer was slumped in his chair, staring vacantly at the glass tank in which, immersed in its cloudy nutrient fluid, floated the obscenely naked brain. The Commodore tried to ignore the thing. It made him uneasy. Every time that he saw one of the amplifiers he could not help wondering what it would like to be, as it were, disembodied, to be deprived of all external stimuli but the stray thoughts of other, more fortunate (or less unfortunate) beings—and those thoughts, as like or not, on an incomprehensible level. What would a man do, were he so used, his brain removed from his skull and employed by some race of superior beings for their own fantastic purposes?" - p 15

Funny that you shd mention that. I founded a small orchestra called "HiTEC", Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative, & one of our text instructions was entitled "Brain-In-A-Vat":

"Decide that you're a brain-in-a-vat instead of a brain-in-a-skull & that your perceptions of what's happening in the current Systems Management session are programmed perceptions rather than 'real' ones. Adapt yr Management to what you think is the most likely 'reality'."

I like the perceptual challenge(s) of thought experiments like this.

Grimes & co eventually board the mysterious spacecraft & theorize about its dead occupants:

""My dear John," Sonya told him in an annoyingly superior voice, "these hapless folk are neither the builders nor the original crew of this ship. Refugees? Could be. Or must be. This is a big ship, and a fighting ship. You can't run a vessel of this class without uniforms, without marks of rank so you can see at a glance who is supposed to be doing what. Furthermore, you don't clutter up a man-o'-war with children."" - p 28

The plot thickens, of course. It's a veritable blood clot.

"It was the tissue culture vats that held the shocking secret.

"The flesh that they contained, the meat that was the protein supply for the tailed beings who should have manned the ship, was human flesh." - p 34

These mysterious beings who eat human flesh try to contact Grimes & co in the ghost ship: ""Heenteer tee Ceerseer. Whee ees neet yeer veeseen screen een?"" (p 72) It's a Pidgin English! The creatures must be Pigeons! (or Businesspeople)

"Yes, it was familiar, and the Commodore could make out the site of his first landing—one of the smaller clearings that, by some freak of chance or nature, had the outline of a great horse." - p 74

NO! It's Businesshorses.

""Greetings," replied the Commodore.

""You come again, man Grimes." It was a statement of fact rather than a question.

""I have never been here before," said Grimes, adding, "Not in this Space-Time."

""You have been here before. The last time your body was covered with cloth and metal, trappings of no functional value. But it does not matter."

""How can you remember?"

""I cannot, but our Wise Ones remember all things. What was, what is to come, what might have been and what might be. They told me to greet you and to bring you to them."" - p 76

Nay!

"They came to the clearing, to the charred patch of ground already speckled with the pale green sprouts of new growth. And already the air ferns had begun to take root upon protuberances from the ship's shell plating, from turrets and sponsons and antennae; already the vines were crawling up the vaned pod of the landing gear. Williams had a working party out, men and women who were hacking ill-humoredly at the superfluous and encroaching greenery." - p 80

I like to say that Pittsburgh, where I live, is a temperate rainforest & that if humans were to stop battling the plant-life that the city wdn't be visible from the air in 50 yrs. Even the spaceship in my backyard wd be overwhelmed despite its force-field. The problem is that these horses can graze on any field.

"Grimes took her upstairs himself. With a deliberately dramatic flourish he brought his hand down to the keys, as though he were smacking a ready and willing steed on the rump. It was more like being fired from a gun than a conventional blast-off. Acceleration thrust all hands deep into the padding of their chairs. The Commodore was momentarily worried by a thin, high whistling that seemed to originate inside the ship rather than outside the hull. Then, had it not been for the brutal down-drag on his facial muscles, he would have smiled. He remembered that the Streen, normally coldly unemotional, had always expressed appreciation of a trip in a space-vessel and had enjoyed, especially, violent maneuvers such as the one he was now carrying out. If Serressor was whistling, then he was happy." - pp 82-82

The moral: "smacking a ready and willing steed on the rump" causes whistling.

THE END.

Well, not really, b/c now it's time to flip ye old Ace Double to the Reality Forbidden side. Whenever I read an SF bk by an author I haven't heard of it's probably a good idea to check on ye old internet whether that name's a pen name of some other author that I have heard of. But, NO! Not only was that his non-pen name name there's even a website dedicated to his writing: http://philipehigh.com/ . You can even get Reality Forbidden on Kindle! How SF can you get?!

""We can find our own way out, thank you."

""Oh, but you can't. You can find your way in but you cannot find your way out until I have shown you."

""Does it matter?"

""Of course it matters." the old man was suddenly shrill and petulant. "There is a way in and a way out, a way to enter and a way to leave. That is the order of things and we must obey orders."

"Behind his back, Glliad looked sideways at Kendal and tapped his temple meaningly. His lips formed the word "nits."" - p 6

Of course, what the old man was referring to was this review. Reality being forbidden by the horses n'at YOU think that you can leave this review whenever you want to but you can't. The review is in yr mind now. Horses & tigers. They're out to get you.

"The corridor turned again and the old man paused. "Keep to the left here, there is a tiger in the third room."

"Gilliad looked at Kendal and raised his eyebrows despairingly. When he reached the door with the word "Tiger" on it he kicked it contemptuously with his toe.

"There was a snarling sound and Gilliad screamed. He flung himself back from the door and put his hands over his face.

""Oh, my God," he said. There was a jagged gash beneath his left eye and blood trickled down his cheek." - pp 6-7

Horseshit. Who do these guys think they're kidding?!

"["]Before you try and answer that, we see it something like this. We see you floating in on a repeller unit just like a feather. When you touched the tops of the trees, however, all the various appendages crumpled and snapped off as they were designed to do. As a crash it looked real good even if the repeller did get you down safely and burn itself out automatically as soon as you touched down.["]" - p 9

Are you pickin' up what he's puttin' down?!

""We wanted to know"—Kendal was suddenly sweating visibly—"if coherent culture existed, what methods it had employed to suppress the machine."

""Machine? You mean the wish-machine"? He stared at them and suddenly burst out laughing. "My God, man, they're legal here." - p 10

You wish.

"Their voices were cool, neutral and without triumph. "In the event of an addict being apprehended, what is the procedure?"

""The addict is confined in a temporary prison until the effects wear off."

""And then?"

""Then"—Gilliad tried to hold back the words or alter them but found the task hopeless—"then he is paraded through the streets and publicly executed in a slow-heat cubicle."" - p 21

This bk was written in 1967 by a British author. I wonder what the drug laws were like in Britain at the time?

"Drugs considered addictive or dangerous in the United Kingdom are called "controlled substances" and regulated by law. Until 1964 the medical treatment of dependent drug users was separated from the punishment of unregulated use and supply. Under this policy drug use remained low; there was relatively little recreational use and few dependent users, who were prescribed drugs by their doctors as part of their treatment. From 1964 drug use was increasingly criminalised, with the framework still in place as of 2014 largely determined by the Misuse of Drugs Act."

[..]

"Following pressure from the US, the UK implemented the Drugs (Regulation of Misuse) Act in 1964. Although the Convention dealt with the problems of drug production and trafficking, rather than the punishment of drug users, the 1964 Act introduced criminal penalties for possession by individuals of small amounts of drugs, as well as possession with intent to traffic or deal in drugs. The police were soon given the power to stop and search people for illegal drugs."

[..]

"1964 – Dangerous Drugs Act, following UN 1961 Single Convention. Criminalised cultivation of cannabis.

"1964 - Drugs (Prevention of Misuse Act) criminalised possession of amphetamines.

"1967 – Dangerous Drugs Act. Doctors required to notify Home Office of addicted patients. Restriction on prescription of heroin and cocaine for treatment of addiction." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_United_Kingdom

W/ that info in mind, at least part of Reality Forbidden seems to be a warning for the way that drug laws in the UK were going at the time.

"["]The potential addict is the man with problems, the type of man who lives beyond his income, the man with an erring wife, or worries too much about this and that, the unrequited lover; in short anyone who has good reasons for wanting to escape either from himself or his problems.

""In the subjective world which the machine, responding to his imagination, creates for him, his problems are resolved. Naturally, once the effects of the machine's stimulation wears off, the real problems of the world loom even larger and he resorts to the machine again—once this becomes habitual he is a second degree addict.["]" - p 31

"Keisler cleared his throat and straightened in his chair. "It was only when several good men had met rather messy ends that the authorities began to wonder and, by the time they had finished wondering, the truth was all too clear. Ina large number of cases, the addict's imaginary protectors were coming to his aid."

[..]

"["]Some speak glibly but a little obscurely of a 'retained hypnotic mental impression' while a more cautious school is engaged in physical research. They are working on the theory touched upon by most great physicists, that thought has substance.

""Which school of thought is right I'm not prepared to say, but this fact is inescapable—if an advanced addict concentrates too long on a means of defense, this means of defense becomes objective to a Susceptible." - pp 35-36

This notion of thought becoming palpable, of mind-over-matter essentially, is a key fantasy to many people, myself included. Movies like Dr. Strange appeal to it. It's just like ceremonial magick: there are people who practice it who seem to think that they can get the power that they're otherwise lacking in their life by going thru the right mumbo-jumbo.. & maybe they can.. although I've never known anyone to succeed. I think they'd be better off becoming an accountant for a university & ripping off a million or so. They'd stand almost no chance of being prosecuted - unlike if they stole a piece of meat from a supermarket.

"He turned from the window, frowning. "From right now Ontario is a beleagured province; we stand alone." He pulled himself abruptly erect and grinned twistedly at the other. "The Mother Country stood alone more than once, guess we can, huh?—let's go and have a beer."

""A beer!" Gilliad, borught up in regimented society looked vaguely shocked. "Shouldn't we tape a report or something?"

""What the hell for?" Osterly tapped a small device strapped to his left wrist. "Everything was recorded, they'll have it all; if they want me they'll send for me—come on."" - pp 46-47

That's right, we've just uncovered a plot to attack a large population, let's go relax now, that was hard work.

Question: Why did you wish to conceal your identity?
Answer: It was a prepared policy.
Question: Did all the Immunes adopt it?
Answer: Yes.
Question: How old are you?
Answer: Two hundred and eighteen.
Question: How old do you hope to be?
Answer: Around three thousand." - p 83

Ok, give the guy a break. I mean, let's get real: If he revealed his true age he'd never get laid.

""Attention all citizens. Observers report three active volcanoes twenty miles beyond the city limits. Remember, please, that this volcanic activity is not real, it is subjective." - p 112

'Attention all citizens. Observers report three major tv news networks in this country. Remember, please, that this news is not real, it is propaganda.'

"Osterly, his pipe halfway to his mouth, froze. This was the end, there were limits to what the human mind could conceive. God, earthquake, fire, flood and tempest. The Immunes had not only thrown the book at them but the wrapping and price tag as well." - p113

Horsepuckey.. Wait a minute! What's THAT doing here?! That's from the other review! show less