Reading Time: 6 Mins
Last month I stumbled on a treasure trove of old sci-fi books I had somehow inherited from my childhood home. I have a stack of new books on my bedside table waiting to be read but two of these newfound treasures were immediately placed at the top of the pile.
I remember raiding my dad’s sci-fi collection as a kid and finding Battlefield Earth. I must have been 12 and I had read The Lord Of The Rings already and had started on my Stephen King journey (“You have to read the books in order,” my parents had insisted, “or else there will be references to his earlier books you won’t understand.”) but there was something about Battlefield Earth that excited me like none of those other books had. Forget about the horrendous movie (which would come out a further 11 years later) and forget, if you can, about Hubbard and Scientology and all of that malarky and just think of a kid rooting through his parent’s bookshelf and finding this absolutely massive book, bringing it to his dad whose eyes light up and who says, “Now, that’s a book you should read.”
This post is not about Battlefield Earth and I do not feel the need to reread those 1100 pages again, but for a hilarious account of someone who did reread it as an adult, check out this review here. I feel as though I would share nearly every single opinion in this piece.
As I was going through my pile of newfound books and setting the two aside I could almost hear my dad’s voice in my ear again:
“Son, these are books you need to read.”
So, this month, I did.
The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag – Robert A. Heinlein
I read the novella that shares the title of this collection in nearly one sitting; I found it that compelling.
Hoag has a problem: he has no idea what it is that he does during the day. He arrives at home with no memories of how he has spent his day and he is concerned that he may be doing something sinister with his time. He hires a private investigator husband and wife team to tail him, find out what he’s up to and report back to him.
Immediately got some Severance vibes, having just recently watched season one on Apple TV+ (slow burn, excellent second half of the season, highly recommend) but when the P.I. duo get sucked, almost literally, into Hoag’s world, the sci-fi ideas get real big, real fast. This novella packs a punch in a short amount of time and does not skimp on character; Teddy and Cynthia are a heartwarming pair and I was surprised at how quickly I was invested in their well-being.
No spoilers here but I highly recommend the read.
From there I took my time reading each of the other short stories included in the book, finishing each in a day, but spacing them out, savouring them, enjoying the different themes and styles in each.
The Man Who Traveled In Elephants has a surprise ending that is no real surprise, but I cannot think of a better science love story I’ve read in recent memory. Fans of the first ten minutes of Up (and I do not use that reference lightly) will appreciate this work.
“- All You Zombies -“ took me the shortest amount of time to read but the longest to understand and, I will admit, I did need to resort to the internet to help me figure out the time travel order of events. There is a lot of plot so tightly wound that nearly every paragraph is important in your understanding of how this story unfolds. I was frustrated by it when reading it, but piecing it together after the fact I can admit there’s a bit of genius at work here.
They was a fairly standard outing with a twist ending that, again, was easily surmised early on, but it was well executed. It’s not lost on me that works like this may just be the original inspiration for all the derivatives I’ve consumed over the years, so there is an appreciation inherent in that understanding as well.
Our Fair City was my favourite short story in the whole book, even ahead of Hoag. Completely different to everything else in the book and, in a word, playful, this is a charming story about a man with a special relationship with a whirlwind. Yes, you read that right. Pop Art, a short story by Joe Hill, is the closest I can come to comparing it with anything, and that story is just about as perfect a short story as I’ve ever read. Our Fair City was a delightful find in this book right when I was thinking I’d already read the good stuff.
Lastly, “- And He Built A Crooked House -“ is a mind-bending tale of a house built in a fourth dimension that I would love to see unfold on screen. A bit dry in some parts of the build up, but the action ramps up quickly and then snap it’s over.
Classic sci-fi and I put this book back on the shelf this month with a huge smile on my face, feeling just like a kid again.
Empire Of The Atom – A.E. Van Vogt
In terms of scratching the pulp-itch, this book hit the mark a bit more than Hoag for me this month; after all, any book with the conceit to include a lineage chart in the prologue has my attention. I’m a sucker for a story that shouldn’t be taken too seriously that takes itself too seriously.
I’ll spare you any plot summary except to say that, in the future, politics is just as nasty a game as it is today, even if we are flying atomic spaceships that can only shoot arrows. Honestly, that’s all you really need to know.
Unevenly paced, way too much expository writing, plot twists that are incredulous for even a pulp sci-fi book and a main protagonist you spend maybe five pages in total with inside their head… this book is not for everyone.
Yet I still devoured it and will be seeking out the sequel, The Wizard Of Linn (which is not, unfortunately, in my collection) to fulfill that completist need in me instilled by my parents back in those early Stephen King days. I’ve spent enough time now in this future atomic age that I am still interested in what happens next. Fortunately, there does only appear to be the one other book, so I am spared having to dive into an entire series.
What I will say about this book is that I found it extremely interesting to NOT be in the main character’s head. You are 100 pages in (of a 160 page book) before you get any real sense of what Clane, the mutant boy who lived, is actually thinking. Instead, his story is told through the viewpoints of those who cared for him and raised him. It’s actually a fairly clever way to tell his story because in the book he operates on the fringes of the political spectrum, influencing it from afar and never directly involved. When his tactics and influence bear fruit, you are just as surprised as the other characters in the book because you have only been experiencing his growth and arc through their eyes.
There’s a nugget in that particular way of telling a story that might just stick with me.
Also, if you’ve been catching anything I’ve been writing on twitter the last two weeks for my #vss365 (Very Short Story) stories, you’ll likely see a bit of influence from Empire Of The Atom directly in them as well. In the end, it’s all just a bit of good fun.
Not a great book by any real definition, but even with its flaws, it was a book I couldn’t put down and it has given me a few small ideas that may just inspire a bit of pulp sci-fi of my own.