By Fritz Leiber
Rating: **
When I first started reading sci fi from the fifties and sixties, a
recurring problem I saw was that the ideas the authors came up with
were really interesting and exciting to read about, but the actual
writing was bad. In some cases, the ideas were good enough and the
writing decent enough that I could really enjoy myself. With other
writers (I'm looking at you, Heinlein), I just couldn't do it. A lot of
times I would get done reading something (or stop reading partway), and
sigh to myself thinking that it was a really good idea, poorly executed.
Which
sums up a lot of science fiction. A textbook example of this phenomena
is 1965's The Wanderer. The idea is, an earth-sized
planet shows up literally out of nowhere, and parks itself next to the
moon. It doesn't come crashing down to Earth. It doesn't blow up the
planet. There's no fleet of invading aliens. It just kind of sits there.
Rotating. Most of the action of the book results from the the
earthquakes, tidal waves, and resulting fires, floods, storms, and
general chaos the planet's gravity creates.
This
is an idea I've never seen before, or heard of before. Mostly because
it's a ridiculous idea; but it's science fiction, and sometimes
ridiculous things happen. And that's a large part of why I love science
fiction.
The problem, as I said
before, is in the execution. The author wants to show the effect that
this would have to people all over the world, in every setting
imaginable. The middle of the ocean, a plane in mid-air, along the
coastline of an incredibly flat penensula, along a coast that already
has regular earthquakes, the top of a sky scraper, in a subway station,
and probably several more that I'm forgetting. Which makes sense,
really; it's a catastrophe that's going to affect ever part of Earth.
It's an ambitious task, but the author really isn't up to the task of
juggling that many characters. I didn't find myself caring about any of
the characters, largely because most of them were more caricatures than
characters. There's the "weed brothers" in New York City, who's defining
characteristic is that they smoke weed. There's the black servants in
Florida who are more concerned with what people will think of their
treatment of their white employer, than with their own safety. There's a
would-be actress who tries to find a way to turn this catastrophe into
an opportunity to get into film. There's a meteorologist who's too old
and set in his ways to believe the reports of extraordinary weather and
tides caused by the new planet. And on, and on, and the book describes
all of these characters with roughly the same level of attention, care,
and depth that I just gave them.
Characterization
aside, there's more to the book that I could criticize. It's just
cheesy at places; there's a green cat/human hybrid alien who calls
herself Tigerishka, speaks broken English, and has sex with a daring
male adventurer, even though Fritz Leiber (as far as I can tell) never
had anything to do with Star Trek. The character motivation is baffling
at times, which is odd since staying alive during natural
disasters is so obvious and straightforward. The author, for
the most part, ignores this. He decides that his main group of
characters will spend the entirety of the novel trying to go talk to a
scientist. Presumably so that the scientist can science the planet away.
Or something. When they finally get to the scientist, does it resolve
anything? Of course not. What is one scientist going to do about a giant
planet hogging the sky? What could he possibly do in this situation?
Why did this group not ask themselves these questions?
It's
just not good writing. If I didn't set the unexpectedly-masochistic
goal of reading all the Hugo winners, I would've dropped the book at
Tigerishka.
