Rick Raphael (1919–1994)

Four short stories by Rick Raphael, who had some success in the 1960s and then faded from view (in the science fiction community, at least). Three of these stories are set in the same shared world, a medium-term future where the Continental USA is heavily populated and resource-scarce, and water in particular is a carefully-managed resource. The first two of these, the title story and Guttersnipe tell in some detail stories of the highly competent men (and they are all men) who work in the show more vast technical bureaucracies managing water resources and waste water treatment, and how they cope with disaster situations (an earthquake in one story, a radioactive pollution incident in the other). Water resource management has changed since our time; the authorities are so concerned to prevent water loss that reservoirs are all roofed over to prevent evaporative loss (which is not nearly as great in temperate zones as the author thinks it is), and irradiation is an accepted technology in water treatment. But these are two good problem-solving stories, even if the solutions are generally Big Tech that looks like overkill to us today. There are also assumptions about the way Raphael's future world is governed that would lead to some less pleasant conclusions. Interestingly, although there is no Internet, one minor character does manage to come up with some surprisingly familiar-sounding conspiracy theories and fake history.

The other two stories are less successful. In The Mailman Cometh, two employees of the Galactic Postal Service struggle with overwork and an under-resourced space station mail sorting outpost, using technology that seems completely outdated - automated spacecraft carrying written mail on microfilm. Their slobby bachelor existence is interrupted by the arrival of an interloper - a woman. This aspect of the story is equally completely outdated, even though the woman in question turns out to be in the same competent mode as other of Raphael's characters; she just finds it convenient to hide that fact in order to conceal her true purpose. If I say that modern sensibilities are likely to find this story unsatisfactory, you must understand that by "modern", I mean "any viewpoints rooted in a time since the late 1960s", and this story dates from 1965... The combination of outdated views and old tech makes this a difficult story to take seriously.

The final story, Odd Man In returns to the world of the first two stories, but looks at the conflict between the last old-time rancher and the US National Parks Service. National Parks are seen as essential safety valves for the huddled urban masses; but through bureaucratic oversight, one rancher avoided being bought up when land was effectively nationalised. For all that Raphael's other stories show technically competent bureaucracies, the Parks Service here is a typical caricature of an overwhelming, hidebound bureaucracy trying to roll over the hardy, down-to-earth individual. Oddly though, the resolution is brokered by an honest, if manipulative, politician back East. That probably stretches our credulity nowadays more than anything else. What seemed like a radical compromise solution in 1965 would probably have been the starting point in our modern world, but then there would have been no story. If Raphael had been trying for a political angle to this story, it would have been an example of "Government bad, individual good"; but instead, a compromise is reached, even if the bureaucracy has to be forced to consider it. In the end it is the political system that delivers the solution in concert with the individual.

A interesting collection then, but not without its faults. Some leeway has to be given for the attitudes of the times, but when those mount up too high, as in The Mailman Cometh, the result is too much. show less

Very slice-of-life novel about future traffic cops who can terminate with extreme prejudice. When it was written - nay, even when I bought and read a modern reprint in 1985, this was far-fetched sf. Now, with modern policing and whole channels of tv devoted to police camera footage, this doesn't seem so fantastic.

I was a bit puzzled when I was reading this, because the author's style is so close to Bob Shaw's that I thought I was reading BS' work under a pseudonym. How wierd is that?

Didn't like either of the Librivox narrators