Isaac Asimov's Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction, Volume 10: Invasions

My reaction to reading this anthology in 2003.

"Introduction", Isaac Asimov -- Rather perfunctory introduction briefly talking about how European civilization was last invaded from outside by the Mongols and how the idea of alien invasions was taken up by sf in H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds.

"Living Space", Isaac Asimov -- A very Asimov story. Earth is run by a technocracy which thinks it has solved the problem of overpopulation (one of Asimov's lifelong concerns) by putting people in alternate, uncrowded Earths. These alternate Earth settlements and the commutes to them via a "twisting place" in this 1956 story were obviously inspired by the great post-World War II flight to the suburbs in America. This story is also a bit of an show more alternate history since the protagonist meets up with an inhabitant of a world where Hitler was victorious. At story's end, the settlers of these vacant Earths begin to meet aliens settling them for the same reason.

“Asylum”, A. E. van Vogt -- I would be curious if Philip K. Dick ever read this story given that he said he was influenced by van Vogt because this story has many features Dick went on to use: implanted memories and implanted personalities inhabiting a body that doesn’t know they are artifacts, overlays to its original self. This story even features two personalities inhabiting the same head which Dick used, with a different rationale (his personalities were also both human and one wasn’t, as here, a “Great Galactic”) in A Scanner Darkly. The story doesn’t really hold together logically (something Damon Knight and James Blish, in their critic mode, often noted of van Vogt) because van Vogt is too busy piling, characteristically, surprise on surprise. (I didn’t count to see if he followed his idiosyncratic method of 800 word scenes.) The van Vogt who later when on to champion L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics shows up here when the Leigh personality is bribed with an increase of mental powers to merge back with the Galactic Mind. Another influence on Dick might have been the espionage plot since the Leigh construct is a deep cover for a Great Galactic hoping to wipe out the vampiric (they suck up the electrical lifeforce) Dreegh.

“Exposure”, Eric Frank Russell -- An enjoyable joke story with a reconnaissance party of shapeshifting aliens (Russell gets a lot of humor from the aliens’ custom of trying to match their Captain Id-Wan’s form as custom dictates) being thwarted in their exploration of Earth by landing in a nudist colony and thinking its inhabitants are normal and worthy of imitation.

“Invasion of Privacy”, Bob Shaw -- Interesting story of a quiet alien invasion. The invaders only assume (and the nature of the invaders’ home or their exact relationship to humanity is unrevealed) the identity’s of those who have already died. The narrator, at story’s end, cooperates with this quiet invasion (he doesn’t even know how many alien impersonators are on Earth) since his wife is given an ersatz son to replace one who has died unbeknownst to her. (The narrator, telling the story years after its events, doesn’t even know if the invasion has been aborted or is going apace.) The narrator opts for one of his typical compromises by sparing his wife grief by not revealing that their real son is dead.

“What Have I Done?”, Mark Clifton -- A rather fun story that takes a decidedly cynical twist at the end. The narrator runs an employment agency and prides himself on his ability to read people. He comes across (one applies at his employment agency) an alien race bent on taking over the Earth and letting the human race die out. (The aliens are facing overpopulation on their planet. This 1952 story is another example of that decade’s sf concern with that theme.) The aliens can’t seem to understand how we could object to so logically motivated and humanely executed extinction, and they ask the narrator to help them impersonate humans. He moves them out to Hollywood, where their eccentricities won’t be noticed, and begins the lessons. That’s the funny part of the story. The cynical part comes in at the end. The narrator succeeds, by exposing the aliens to the best in man’s nature, art, and history, in changing their minds. Indeed, they agree, nobly, to help man explore space with them. They achieve the nobility the narrator hoped they would -- and knew would be there downfall. He knows that, as the “noble, the brilliant, the splendid”, regular, real men would rip them apart out of resentment and envy.

“Imposter”, Philip K. Dick -- On this, the second time I’ve read this story, I noticed a couple of hints that Olham was, in fact, a robot. First, he notes that the Security men pursuing him are not much good at running. Second, his vision seems to be better at night than his human pursuers.

“The Soul-Empty Ones”, Walter J. Miller -- A surprisingly routine and not very good story from Miller. It’s a fairly action-oriented story from 1951. The main flaw is the unconvincing fact that the primitive Martians manage to not only learn how to operate human technology but best man in its use to the point where they could invade Earth. The post-nuclear war setting certainly wasn’t surprising from Miller, author of the classic A Canticle for Leibowitz. (It’s never clear just how bad the war was only that the android protagonist and his fellows were engineered to survive the high radiation count of its aftermath.)
And the barbarian tribes of androids reminded me of the Miller-Terry Bisson sequel to A Canticle for Leibowitz

“The Cloud-Men”, Owen Oliver -- I haven’t been able to find supporting evidence, but I suspect this pastiche of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds was written by one of the anthology’s editors. I can find no listing for other Oliver stories; no copyright information is given for this story while all the other stories in the anthology have it. Furthermore, it seems, in its London setting, its prose style, its Edwardian feel (despite motor cars being mentioned), its aliens leaving Earth through no efforts of man, to be a takeoff on the Wells' novel. There is also some of Wells’ In the Days of the Comet in the end paragraph where the “days of discord” are over and a new, utopian social order promises to spring out of the aftermath of the alien invasion. There is a vaguely socialist feel to the story with “unprofitable employment” being punished in the post-alien England.

“The Stone-Man”, Fred Saberhagen -- A somewhat interesting installment in the Berserker series which features time travel and, perhaps, an early example of telepresence in sf as humans remotely control warbots to battle timetraveling Berserkers.

“For I Am a Jealous People!”, Lester del Rey -- This story is one of those rare sf stories that takes a religious premise as literally true. Here the premise is that the Judeo-Christian God of the Old Testament really did make a covenant with man -- and has revoked it and made a covenant with a conquering, savage alien race (who often tortures their human victims). The hero is a sympathetically treated Christian minister who tries to succor and tend to the victims of the aliens while loosing his family. He’s probably sympathetically treated because of the premise of the story, because he has rejected fanaticism and evangelism (which he regrets), because his best friend is a virtuous, courageous atheist, and because the story centers around his philosophical reorientation. Following the words of Immanuel Kant, he comes to view helping his fellow man as an end, not a means of religion. The story ends with the minister proclaiming man to now be in opposition to God.

“Don’t Look Now”, Henry Kuttner -- This story, with its explicit reference to Charles Fort, is the reason I read this anthology. It’s a fun story with various illogical behaviors of man, everything from war to listening to the radio, being motivated by the parasitic presence of an invisible race that co-evolved with man and kept its presence secret. (They got the upper hand on us when we were still apes.) Unlike Eric Frank Russell’s earlier Fortean-inspired Sinister Barrier, (this is a 1948 story), the invisible entities are roughly humanoid. However, both stories have the presence of the parasites being revealed through advances in infrared photography. The ending, where one of the two characters in the bar turns out to be an alien agent trying to uncover who knows about his race’s existence, was not a surprise. What did surprise me was that the agent was the listener in the bar, not the verbose guy.

“The Certificate”, Avram Davidson -- A short, very grim story of the aftermath of alien conquest. Doomed to a Metropolis-like existence of pulling levers on machines of enigmatic purpose, we think the protagonist is petitioning, in this dictatorial, Soviet-like existence of crowded dormitories, to somehow be allowed to leave. Then the grim truth is revealed. The aliens can keep humans alive as long as necessary. (The protagonist is a medical doctor whose skill has been rendered obsolete.) The “escape” he is petitioning for is death.

“The Alien Rulers”, Piers Anthony -- The title is made ironic by a rather pulpy plot: a rebel against alien occupation of Earth ends up not only siding with those aliens but being chosen by them to help rule their world. In as sense, this is a political version of Murray Leinster’s “First Contact”, but, instead of exchanging spaceships, alien and human exchange governance of their respective worlds. The notion that an intelligent species may be unfit to come up with rulers to govern itself is interesting. However, I found the story a bit unconvincing. First, why does man, after conquering the Kazo, send them over to govern Earth? (I suppose it’s simply because the human lords of the Kazo know alien talents are needed to administer Earth. However, if they’re so good, why can’t they rule themselves since the races are not shown to be that different temperamentally? Anthony supposes that man secretly knows he’s unfit to govern himself since no resistance is offered to the Kazo. This eliminates the need to show how they can conquer Earth while their fellow aliens were conquered by Man. Indeed, most people are, I think somewhat realistically, rather indifferent to the benevolent leadership of the Kazo on Earth.) Second, at story’s end, the possibility of a sexual, or, at least, romantic relationship between the species is hinted at. Indeed, it’s to be desired as “common ground with the master”. However, protagonist Dick Henrys, manipulated by the Kazo to protect female Kazo Serena during a revolt, is specifically mentioned as not finding Serena attractive even after she’s literally altered her body along the lines of a centerfold. Perhaps he’s just saying that, but I saw no evidence of that though you could argue his great efforts to protect her speak to the beginnings of a relationship based on more than honor. It was interesting that the rebellion based itself on an excerpt from George Bernard Shaw’s “Man and Superman”.

“Squeeze Box”, Philip E. High -- This story, especially in its language, makes me think High is English. This biter-bitten story of humanity casting off the yoke of alien oppression could have been longer. There are several references to classical mythology in the story, and the basic plot of humanity gaining the help of the alien (and, it turns out, very advanced) zipcats because a human shows kindness to a trapped zipcat cub is much like the story of Androcles and the lion. The story was enjoyable, if too short. I couldn’t help thinking that the alien policy of exterminating man by confining them to increasingly smaller areas of Earth was inspired by the Nazi treatment of the Jews. This is, after all, a 1959 story.

“The Liberation of Earth”, William Tenn -- This is the second time I’ve read this delightful, witty story, complete with future slang. The first time around I got that it was obviously a satire on the political relations of the superpowers to Third World countries during the Cold War. This time I think that Marxist Tenn was specifically reacting, in this 1953 story, to the Korean War. show less