Fantastic Voyage [Novelization]

A fun novelisation of the 1966 movie by Asimov, who does what he can within the scifi premise to include realistic science as problems to be solved by the crew of scientists and technicians, miniaturised in a nuclear-powered submarine and injected into the bloodstream of a defecting physicist with an inoperable brain tumour, to save his life and the knowledge he has in order to maintain a cold war stalemate.

Some nods to the Manhattan Project, deconstruction of super-spy tropes, critique of sexism in science (which Asimov then forgets), wrapped up in a neat race-against-time adventure.

3 1/2 stars: Good.

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From the back cover: Four men and one woman reduced to a microscopic fraction of their original size, boarding a miniaturized atomic sub and being infected into a dying man's carotid artery. Fighting their way past giant antibodies, passing through the heart itself, entering the inner ear where even the slightest sound would destroy them, battling relentlessly into the cranium. Their objective--to reach a blood clot and destroy it with the piercing rays of a laser gun. At stake--the fate of the entire world.

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This was a solid "Good". A Page turner, fast read. It is certainly a cold war era book--they go on the journey to save the life of a Soviet defector who has scientific knowledge that show more can change the balance of power. And our five protagonists--of course, one is actually a secret agent who wants to defector to die before he can tell his secrets.

Typical Isaac Asimov, the characters are caricatures, particularly our female. I had a few eye rolls, but nothing I would go so far as to say offended by. Asimov is the Agatha Christie of Sci-Fi-- great plots, cardboard characters.

I did love the descriptions of the parts of the body they were running across in miniaturized form. In one sequence, three characters had to leave the sub, and one started getting attacked by antibodies. I wanted to hug one! :)

Here is a passage in the "antibody sequence" which shows what I mean, both about the descriptions and the caricatures:

"They had no brains, not even the most primitive, and it was wrong to think of them as monsters or predators...They were merely molecules with atoms so arranged as to make them cling to the surfaces that fit theirs through blind action of inter-atomic forces. ... He kept pulling at the fuzz [antibodies] on Cora's back. .. [Antibodies] clung and joined, spanning her shoulders and making their wooly pattern across her abdomen. They hesitated over the uneven three dimensional curve of her breasts as though they had not figured that out yet."

Seriously??? Antibodies that are in a constant microscopie 3D environment at all times can't deal with breasts? Grow up, Isaac!

I would have liked the book better if there had not been the secret agent aspect, but conversely I liked that there was never an issue of "will they be shrunk forever"? There was the time element--the shrinking would automatically expire and they might start growing and thus kill their patient, but it was never a question of whether they'd be shrunk forever. That would have been tedious.

A good, fun, fast read. You can finish it in a few hours.

Sending this to a friend's son. show less

Well that's a bizarre little story. On one hand, it's 1960s scifi in a nutshell, full of tensions about the 'Other Side' (obvious enough), weird but fascinating scientific gadgets and ideas, sexism, and with odd pacing and dialog. It's pretty much what I remember from other Asimov novels, although it's been a while.

Which is amusing, given that unlike what I'd guessed, in this case the movie actually game first. Based on a short by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby, Asimov only got involved in the novelization--and then only if he was given leave to do the science properly. For the most part, he did. I don't know enough ananotomy to know if anything in particular is wrong, but it makes me want to know *more*, which I think is pretty much the show more entire point of the thing.

Otherwise, the entire plot is adventure driven: a (rather oddball) team must used a mostly untested technology to shrink down small enough to fit into a human bloodstream in order to remove a life threatening clot. Of course things go wrong (wouldn't be much of a book otherwise) and they end up on a rather circuitous route. Will they make it out and save the day? Of course. But what's going to go wrong first? Well that's the story!

There's a romance subplot, which is about as subtle as a brick to the face and sexist as heck. But I guess that's what they needed for the film? So it goes.

Overall, the first third or so (before they actually shrink or even know what's going on) eis boring and stilted to the extreme. Once things get going though, it's quite an enjoying ride. show less

After a scientist named Benes is successfully transported into the country from enemy territory, an assassination attempt leaves him with a dangerous and inoperable clot at the base of his brain.

The situation falls under the jurisdiction of the CMDF (Combined Miniature Defense Force) run by General Alan Carter and Colonel Donald Reid. Once Benes is stabilized far underground in CMDF headquarters, a team is formed that will be miniaturized and injected into Benes’s bloodstream to destroy the clot from inside his body using a laser.

The team consists of civilian CMO Michaels, neurosurgeon Peter Duvall and his assistant Cora Peterson, special agent Charles Grant—who smuggled Benes into the country—and Captain William Owens, designer show more and pilot of the experimental submarine Proteus, which will carry the crew through Benes’s circulatory system. They are given one hour to complete the mission and exit Benes’s body before the miniaturization effect begins to reverse.

As if this were not dangerous enough, there is suspicion that one among the crew might be an agent for the Other Side, sent to kill Benes. Every setback and mishap causes yet another member of the team to come under scrutiny as precious time ticks away…

Contrary to popular belief, the classic film Fantastic Voyage was not based on the novel by Isaac Asimov. It’s the other way around. Otto Klement and Jay Lewis Bixby wrote the original story, which was adapted for the screen by Harry Kleiner and David Duncan. Asimov was hired on to write the novelization of the movie and he did a decent job with the material. While character development is non-existent (with the most interesting being Grant, Duvall, Michaels, and Peterson) the pacing is perfect and the challenges that plague our heroes at almost every turn maintain solid tension through to the end. show less

This novel isn't an original Asimov story, but his only novelization of a screenplay. While I prefer the movie for the sheer sense of wonder of the visuals, this is far from the worst novel Asimov wrote; he sticks close to the movie script, but manages to work in a bit of characterisation and background, and fixes some of the worst plot holes of the film. The end result is still recognisably Asimov and makes for non-essential but decent reading.

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2146110.html

The story of a mission ministurised and injected into the bloodstream of an ailing scientist to cure him, the protagonists being four men and a woman who, this being an Asimov story, is the centre of some dubious sexual politics. The whole thing is very much in the Cold War context, the miniaturisation technology being fairly blatantly a parallel of nuclear technology.

Although I am aware of the general course of Asimov's career, I hadn't previously known some of the details of this book - that it was intended to be the novelisation of the film, but because Asimov finished faster than the studio it was actually published several months before the film was released; that he tweaked various details show more to make it more plausible than the film script; that the story it was based on was actually set in the nineteenth century. Asimov did his best with some tricky material; basically to keep the film plot going for the full 100 minutes there has to be an unexpected and implausible problem every few chapters which sets our team back. But this is not his greatest work. show less

Fantastic Voyage is a little novel by Asimov with all his hallmark style. He starts off by cranking up the tension with everyone anxiously waiting for a defector with a great secret to land safely and be transported to the safe house. Things get ratcheted up from there.

Some time in the future, an important man is injured, and causes a blood clot in his brain. The safest way they can figure out to save him is to shrink a submarine with a crew of 5 to a size smaller than a bacteria inject them into the circulatory system to use a laser to clear out the clot. It should be fairly simple and only mildly dangerous if they all successfully survive the shrinking procedure. Of course things never go as smoothly as planned.

Like much of Asimov's show more work it is a great story that captures your attention and makes you think about things. The story is what is important, and he has a way of casually explaining away things that would make the story impossible, in order for the reader to ignore those problems and focus on whats important. I've enjoyed every Asimov book I've ever read and this one is no exception. show less