Wasp

One of the best entries in the SF Masterworks series, this is a tense, gripping and humorous story of one man's covert operation to seed dissent on an enemy planet with disruption, fake propaganda and gossip

ie by being annoying. What a great job to have!!

The book hooked me from the get go. Within 50 pages we get the mission briefing, humorous anecdotes, a trip to another planet, some brief background, a bit of extra-planetary subterfuge and the start of the campaign against the enemy including propaganda leafleting, disruption on a train and the killing of a high profile military target. Phew!

From there the tension just kept rising and I have no shame in saying I was rooting for Mowry all the way, despite having no initial reason to show more pick a side in the war and some of his antics having morally troublesome consequences towards innocent citizens. I'm sure that highlights some deep rooted problem in my psyche and perhaps it's fair to say I fell a bit too easily into step, but when the Gestapo-like enforcement appear to thwart him, then it was hard not to root for his cause. And there are plenty of genuinely tense moments where I wasn't sure if he'd finally get caught or what his escape plan would be.

Despite some moments requiring a suspension of disbelief, it's mostly intelligently thought out, proceeding quickly and with little preamble; something I wish more writers today would take notes on, as this is a prime example of tight, focused plotting with snappy dialogue, that gets a lot done in well under 200 pages. The only pin I'd put in this was that the purism of the science fiction element is somewhat oblique to the plot. The premise could work for any war, but it's scaled up here in the background to a mini galactic scale just for extra effect. Perhaps though, that Cold War feel gives it a greater appeal outside of it's own genre.

Overall, fantastic; I laughed and was gripped until the end. show less

Wasp by Eric Frank Russell is one of the most gleefully subversive books I've ever read. Its SF premise barely disguises an A-Z manual on how to destabilise governments.
Earth is losing a war against the Sirian Empire. In a bid to change the odds one man is disguised as a Sirian and sent to the enemy homeworld. His instructions: to cause as much chaos as he possibly can. He does. And after reading Wasp, you'll know how to follow his example. :D

One of the all time fun books to read. A lone Earthman is dyed purple and dropped onto an out-planet of an empire Earth is at war with, where he proceeds to wreak havoc all by himself - just like a small wasp can cause a heavy automobile to crash and kill all its occupants. As in Sinister Barrier, the enemies here are thinly disguised stand-ins for the WW2 Japanese. As for the atmosphere, although this is classified as a science fiction book, it has no science fiction elements other than the fact it takes place on another world and the hero arrives by spaceship. Once there, it is a very 1940s noir setting that Russell describes exceedingly well. Our hero, James Mowry, manages to enlist a few helpers, who don't even know they're part of show more the super-secret organization that is giving the government fits. Despite the violence, this is one of the funniest books I've ever read.

Why has this never been made into a movie? It would be perfect. Somebody dye Keanu Reeves purple - immediately! show less

A SF Masterwork, and I was pretty sure I’d read this many, many, many years ago, but I couldn’t remember anything about the story. I must have picked up the main points of the plot through general osmosis, because once I started reading the book I realised it was all new to me. The story is simple enough: Earth is at war with the purple-skinned humanoid aliens of the Sirian Empire, so Earth drops an agent provocateur, skin suitably dyed (really? yes, really), into a city on a Sirian world, and his job is to disrupt industry and government to such an extent the Sirian Empire finds it hard to wage war. This involves lots of the sort of tricks that may or may not have been successful during World War II against the Germans. show more Unfortunately, the Sirians are implausibly stupid, their secret police are more like the Thompson Twins than the Gestapo, and except for a few pieces of sf furniture, the story could just as easily have set in, well, 1957. If you think this reads like a how-to manual for destabilising governments, as some reviewers apparently do, then I suspect you need to get out more. show less

I've previously enjoyed short stories by the author, but this is the first time I've read one of his novels. Given that it was first published over 60 years ago, it hasn't dated at all badly.

There was certainly humour, but I found the tone a bit darker than Russell's short stories. That said, there was minimal on-page violence. Perhaps because I'd expected something lighter, the pacing dragged a touch for me by around the 75% mark, despite the shortness of the book.

Mowry seems uncannily lucky, and coincidences often go his way. But somehow, he doesn't feel like an annoying Gary Stu. I think it's because the pleasure of reading doesn't come from wondering whether he'll succeed: it's more watching the knock-on effects of his schemes on show more the behemoth that is the Sirian empire. The machinery of the enemy lumbers on, hampered by its own bureaucracy. I don't imagine this is a new concept for a story (not even back in 1957), but it's still fun to watch it topple. show less

Read this if you want to know how terrorism 'works'. And mind you, Eric Frank Russell was one crafty author. His aliens are more like humans than not. Just to avoid any controversy, Russell created a far away planet (Planet Jaimec) on which our protagonist (or is he?) must practice his 'skills' of terrorism for the whole humanity.

Now let me just leave you with one of the gems from the novel (don't worry, it won't spoil anything, the dialogue takes place in the first chapter itself):

"Finally, let's consider this auto smash up. The survivor was able to tell us the cause before he died. He said the driver lost control at high speed while swiping at a wasp which had flown in through a window and was buzzing around his face."

Wolf said, "The show more weight of a wasp is under half an ounce. Compared with a human being, the wasp's size is minute, its strength negligible. Its sole armament is a tiny syringe holding a drop of irritant, formic acid. In this instance, the wasp didn't use it. Nevertheless, that wasp killed four big men and converted a large, powerful car into a heap of scrap."

"I see the point, but where do I come in?"

"Right here," said Wolf. "We want you to become a wasp." show less

James Mowry, whose body structure kind of matches that of Sirians, an alien race humanity is waging war against, is sent to infiltrate the Sirian totalitarian society and cause trouble. He is a Wasp - a saboteur, who, like a tiny wasp that can harass a driver of a gigantic truck to make them drive off the road, can cause lots of damage with minimum effort. He achieves this by assassinating a few key people and attributing this to an entirely fictional anti-war terrorist organisation, "Dirac Angestun Gesept" or "Sirian Freedom Party", then just sowing other kinds of seeds of dissent while dodging the dreaded Kaitempi, the Sirian secret police.

Wasp is a rousing, humorous 1950s scifi adventure, with *strangely* out of place and interesting show more psychological ponderings. Specifically, it's a great study of how masses of people *actually* behave when there's a great big looming terrorist threat out there. I always get the feeling that this book lacks some substance - it feels kind of short. It also feels that the book is just parodying the real-world totalitarianism while the topic was still current in post-war years - it's not exactly a remarkable book in scifi world-building sense, the story might have been as well set in Earth. But what it *has* is quite incredible. It's loads of fun. It really makes you think what makes people tick and why society fails to address all sorts of disruptive crimes when the authorities are claiming every possible step is being taken.

[Originally posted by me to Goodreads. Edited a bit since.] show less