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Saturday, December 15, 2007
A Single Silicon Superman Against the Advancing Terror of the Slarrn World!
Gardner Fox’s Escape Across the Cosmos (1964), bought in a Staines charity shop a little while ago. As it says on the back cover: “A Single Silicon Superman Against the Advancing Terror of the Slarrn World!” Twenty p. well spent, I’d say. For Fox is a master of style. Of a crazy style. Fox, indeed, is crazy like a Thog. Naturally my first instinct was to send Dave Langford some of the choicer phrases.
For one thing, Fox employs a wonderful idiom of eyes touching things (‘His eyes touched the yellow sky, slipped down to the curving horizon dancing with heat waves.’ [6]; ‘His eyes touched his body’ [8]; [of a hover-sled]: ‘his eyes picked it out of the red sand and examined it closely’ [12]; ‘His eyes moved on, touched another animal and another’ [24]). But then again, Fox has a wonderful way with prose, full stop:
‘His voice lashed the hands of his men to fire the others’ [7]
‘Taking her own drink she moved to one of the lounges and reclined on it.’ [22]
‘One of those old-fashioned protonic guns … they kill without damaging tissue, by destroying brain cells’ [56]
‘She went where he pushed, moving one foot after the other but she was still standing back on the platform, mentally.’ [69]
‘Mai Valoris was waiting, her steaming lobster warming on a portable grille, in a translucent mist of red and gold fabric through which he caught glimpses of skin tints. She laughed at his expression. “You like?” “I’m speechless,” he admitted.’ [73]
‘Robots were constructed with an inbuilt verboter unit, preventing them from either doing or not doing an action that might result in harm to a human.’ [75]
‘Her eyes … rolled a little in her sweet face, wildly, as if she had lost all control over their muscles. Her eyes rolled with insane movement and then went backward.’ [91]
‘I could see from the crown of the hill where I stood that the city was dead. There was no sign of life in it. The people of Palmira’s kaygan could be seen, moving slowly and steadily along its streets.’ [92]
‘The girl was watching Carrick biting her full lower lip’ [103]
‘He tried to shake his head, but only his heavy jowls moved.’ [156]
The second one there looks like it should be ‘lounger’, I know; but it is ‘lounges’. You’ll be pleased to hear that, in the end, the Silicon Superman saves the universe from the Advancing Terror of the Slarrn World, and in the nick of time, too.
I hope his comics were better written than this.
Comments
These are wonderful samples; I wonder if they are an example of the raw material out of which PKD took his great/awful, expressive awkwardness with a phrase. This is the discourse of SF, Sturgeon’s 90%.
But there is nothing wrong with “lounges.” Is this a problem with British vs. American usage? A lounge is a couch. “One of the lounges” makes sense, but putting “lounger” there results in nonsense, to my ear.
To my ear, a lounge is a room; a lounger a piece of furniture. You Americans are a strange and exotic people.
A lounge is a couch, a room, or an establishment offering drinks and entertainment. Knowing which is being referred to . . . ah, such is the subtlety of the exotic American mind, lost in its timeless, inscrutable traditions. No logic-headed European could be expected to understand.
‘He tried to shake his head, but only his heavy jowls moved.’ [156]
I had a good 10 minutes of hilarity trying to recreate this with my (I should say, heavy jowless) face. Go on: try it.
I think it’s about time someone presented the Slarrn World’s side of the story.
You all might appreciate The Eye of Argon.
Gardner Fox was from the era of knocking out as many words as possible to keep the bills paid. I grew up reading his comic book stories, which had their share of similar syntax and wild ideas. There was one issue of Justice League of America wherein most of the members of the group were held immobile and laid out like bowling pins, while the Atom, who was six inches tall, was trapped in a round cage which was rolled towards them.
I thought Fox mostly wrote romance novels in between his comic book work. I didn’t realize he did science fiction, too. Heck, he probably banged out dozens of novels while writing hundreds of comic book stories.
Gardner Fox was always a favorite of mine. Not so much because of the stories themselves, but because my grandpa had ton of the comics and would always share them with me. This thread brought back a sweet memory that I haven’t thought of in a long time. Thanks!