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 To Prime the Pump
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 17, 2016


The front cover of this one says: "El Dorado is a planet with a problem: the men are infertile—and the ladies are getting out of hand" so the targeted reader of the time, 1971, probably mostly young heterosexual boys, is immediately led to imagine 'our hero', John Grimes, landing on a planet where he's expected to impregnate a bevy of desperate women. This is sortof what happens but the whole show more business is more about class than it is about sexual fantasy.

"["]Even you, young Grimes, must know how, on world after world, the trend has been towards socialism. Some societies have gone the whole hog, preaching and practicing the Gospel According to St. Marx. Some have contented themselves with State control of the means of production and supply, with ruinous taxation of the very well-to-do thrown in. There have been levelling up processes and levelling down processes, and these have hurt the aristocracies of birth and breeding as much as they have hurt the aristocracies of Big Business and industry.

""And so the Corporation was formed. Somehow its members managed to get most of their wealth out of their home worlds, and much of it was used for the terraforming of El Dorado. Terraforming? Landscape gardening would be a better phrase. Yes, that world's no more, and no less, than a huge, beautiful park, with KEEP OFF THE GRASS signs posted insofar as the common herd is concerned."

""What about servants? Technicians?" asked Grimes.

""The answer to that problem, my boy, was automation, automation and still more automation.["]" - pp 10-11

Alright, here're a couple of typical asides of mine: Notice that the word "levelling" has a doubled consonant before the suffix. That wd've been 'correct' at the time. Now it's 'incorrect'. That's how fast the rules of language change. Change them yrself! Take yr new language out for a test drive! ALSO, automation as a thing that eliminates the need for human labor is completely delusional. Just as there are factory workers for cranking out the cars & mechanics for servicing them so will there always be humans somehow stuck w/ keeping the automation going.

"The voice was as arrogant as Daintree's own but in a different way. It was the arrogance that comes with money (too much money), as with inherited titles, with a bloodline traced back to some uncouth robber baron who happened to be a more efficient thief and murderer than his rivals." - p 15

Well put. Strangely enuf, these days, tho, I'm not hating on the robber barons as much as I once did. In Pittsburgh, where I live, Henry Clay Frick was 'smart' enuf to buy the coke ovens off of the individual owners & to turn the result into the basis for a huge steel industry. Then Frick violently suppressed any attempts by the workers to unite for better working conditions. Alexander Berkman tried to assassinate him during the thick of this. I admire Berkman's audacity but he wasn't really a killer or he wd've succeeded. He was probably too nice a guy. Now there's a Frick Park in Pittsburgh. It's large & I love to go there. It's too bad that there's no Berkman Park but I'm thankful for the Frick one.

El Dorado, the planet of the super-rich, has no government. I reckon that that makes this particular fantasy planet of Chandler's a little less believable insofar as I find it hard to imagine any planet of ruthless bloodsuckers not trying to dominate a radioactive shit-pile. Then again, maybe they save that for planets where there're serfs.

"["]I take it that you are representative of your government."

""We have no government, Captain Daintree, such as you understand the word," said de Messigny. "But it was decided that this little group here was the best qualified to meet you.["]" - p 45

This makes the people of El Dorado anarchists - highly improbable given their wealth & their choice of planet name. Then we get to the meat of the matter:

"["]Insofar as the humans are concerned, there are no births. No, that's not quite correct. Some of the women were pregnant when they came here. The youngest of the children born on El Dorado is now a girl of seventeen."

""Something in the air , or the water, sir?"

""Could be, Grimes. Could be. But I'm a spaceman, not a quack. I wouldn't know. If it is, it must be something remarkably subtle. And you'd think that such an . . . agent? would affect the plants and the livestock as well as the people.""

[..]

""Do you think, sir, that they called us in so that we could . . . ? How can I put it? A sort of artificial insemination by donor? Only not so artificial."

""Mr. Grimes!" Daintree at once reverted to his normal manner. "I ask, no, I order, you to put such ideas out of your alleged mind at once. These people, and never forget it, are in their own estimation the aristocrats of the Galaxy. They want children to inherit their wealth, their titles. But they made it quite clear to me that such children must be sired by themselves, not by mongrel outsiders."" - pp 55-56

"["]You're away from your bloody ship, and all the stiffness and starchiness that are inevitable when the common herd puts on gold braid and brass buttons."

''You snobbish bitch! thought Grimes angrily.

""Sorry," she said casually, but you have to remember that we, on El Dorado, regard ourselves as rather special people."

""That reminds me," said Grimes," of two famous Twentieth Century writers. Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald said to Hemingway, quite seriously, 'The rich are different from us.' Hemingway replied, 'Yes. They have more money.'"

""So you read, John. You actually read. A spacefaring intellectual. I didn't know that there were any such."" - pp 80-81

I'm reminded of a Bulgarian expatriate friend of mine who I 1st met online or in a phone conversation a decade or more ago. This friend made a disparaging remark about Americans 'not reading' that was meant to dismiss a whole nation of 100s of millions of people as idiots. Naturally, I deflated this person's stupid European aristocratic stereotypes ASAP.

""And you mean to tell me that that huge building is for one person?"

""Isn't it time that you started to lose your petty-bourgeois ideas, John? I warn you, if you start spouting Thorsten Veblen at me on the subject of conspicuous waste I shall lose my temper. And as far as Marxism, there isn't any exploited proletariat on El Dorado, with the exception of the lower deck ratings aboard your ship."

""They aren't exploited. Anyhow, what about the people on the other worlds who've contributed to your fantastically high standard of living?"" - pp 82-83

"Conspicuous consumption is a term introduced by the Norwegian-American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen in his book "The Theory of the Leisure Class" published in 1899.

"The term refers to consumers who buy expensive items to display wealth and income rather than to cover the real needs of the consumer.

"A flashy consumer uses such behavior to maintain or gain higher social status. Most classes have a flashy consumer affect and influence over other classes, seeking to emulate the behavior.

"The result, according to Veblen, is a society characterized by wasted time and money." - http://www.conspicuousconsumption.org/

"what about the people on the other worlds"? The people of El Dorado wdn't want them on their planet!

""You mean that there's no privacy?" asked Grimes, shocked.

""I suppose you could put it that way."

""But . . . But I thought that this was a society of . . . aristocratic anarchists."

""That's a good way of putting it, John. And a true way." She lay back in the chair set before the huge screen, relaxed, but her fine features were thoughtful. "But can't you see?, neither the aristocrat nor the anarchist suffers from false shame. I can conceive of situations in which a petty bourgeois such as yourself would be agonizingly embarrassed if he knew that he was being watched. During copulation, for example, or defecation. But we . . ." In spite of her almost supine position she managed a delicate shrug. "But we . . . We know that it doesn't matter."" - p 97

"aristocratic anarchists" is an oxymoron insofar as "an-archy" means w/o rule & an aristocrat is defined by hier-archy. Being watched does matter if the activity so watched is likely to be used against the person watched.

Anyway, as yet-another SF bk that shows an appreciation for class issues I enjoyed this very much, as just a novel w/ a story n'at I also enjoyed it. As a sexual fantasy? Well, I prefer my sexual fantasies manifested in real life - bks just don't do it for me. show less