Heinlein Makes Twins a Little Less Creepy...or Maybe the Other Way Around

Robert A. Heinlein’s Time for the Stars is an entertaining romp through the dark of space and the labyrinths of time. Twin brothers Thomas Paine Leonardo da Vinci Bartlett and Patrick Henry Michelangelo Bartlett are recruited by the mysterious Long Range Foundation for a project that may take the whole of their lives to see through. In fact, this touches on the one characteristic that must be inherent in any experiment before the LRF will even consider touching it—it must take generations to produce any results.

The particular project Tom and Pat sign on for initially seems to be one of exploration. One twin goes aboard a ship bound for distant star systems while the other stays on Earth. Together, they function as a telepathic communication team that allows for instant transmission of information between ship and home planet. The implications at first seem obvious—radio signals take years to span the light years separating a ship and Earth, and thus are of no use by the time they are received. Telepathic twins like Pat and Tom eliminate this problem. As the ship and its crew streak through space, making pit stops at strange planets and eventually returning home, the brothers realize that the implications of their ability are far more important than dependable communication—they can tear down the walls of time altogether!

More Conjuring From Samuel R. Delany

Whereas Triton seems a cognizant, introspective maze caught up in self-contemplation, I found Nova to be much the opposite. It is a futuristic tale of revenge featuring Holy Grail undertones, tarot card broadcasts, a man with a sun rattling around in his cranium, star-flung gypsies, and a much larger inventory of brain-charming images and ideas. 

Lorq Von Ray is a starship captain racing the wealthy and powerful Prince and Ruby Red to the source of enough Illyrion to change the economies of entire star systems. But what is Illyrion? Is it a superheavy element which in grams can power entire cities for years? Or is it something more elusive and hard to define? 

To carry out his mission, Von Ray enlists the help of the cyborg studs, the Mouse, Katin, Lynceos, Idas, Sebastian, and Tyy. Once pulled in by the quietly leviathan personality, there is no escaping his gravitational field until the uncertain end.

This novel is first and foremost a space adventure, but Delany manages to make plenty of social commentary. The cyborg studs raise questions of the relationship of man to machine, mythology-draped society blurs the line between science and mysticism, and Katin, the anachronistic novelist that has yet to write a word, presents the creative writing process from a totally new perspective. 

Overall, this was an incredibly entertaining novel. The last few scenes with Prince and Ruby Red were some of the best I have read since Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination.

Satellite of Love: Delany Takes on Sex, Gender, and Social Upheaval on Neptune-Haunted Triton

Samuel R. Delany’s Triton comes on like a drug and fades away with the same sort of ambiguity and self-consciousness. Bron Helstrom, a metalogician, is followed throughout this sprawling novel, but it seems as though society itself is more the main character than he. The novel follows Helstrom through the co-ops and unlicensed sector of colonized Triton, past minute-long submersions into avante garde theatre pieces written by the elusive poet, the Spike, into the open spaces of Mongolia on war-torn Earth, past strategic holographic games embroidered upon with the wise commentary of perceptive company, through the midst of gravitational mishaps and the apocryphal stories of moonies that make appearances along the way. The end Helstrom meets is somehow shocking, satisfying, and lacking in any sort of closure at once. 

While a number of issues come up in Triton, sex and gender take the forefront. In this vision of the future, both physical sex characteristics and the gender-related facets of personality and desire can be changed on a whim: the terms ‘male’ and ‘female,’ or ‘straight’ and ‘gay,’ are completely mutable, giving rise to existential crisis in some characters’ cases, and empowerment in others’. The reader may not be forced to change her views, but she is absolutely required to consider perspectives that previously were not only unacknowledged, but perhaps totally unknown.

Now for my problem with the novel. 

I love books that I have to work for. I don’t mind having to consult a dictionary or encyclopedia regularly or cross-reference other books. But there were some passages in Triton—two in particular—that were just too dense. These are Helstrom’s lengthy explanation of the field of metalogics and Lawrence’s talk about the game of vlet. I wanted to understand these passages, and, at the risk of sounding like a dumb braggart, I think I could have understood them if I took them slowly. But they were so dense they became unbearably boring, even though the ideas at their core were incredibly interesting. In retrospect, I really do think these were the only passages to present that problem—the rest were accessible.

Triton closes with two appendices that I found to be especially rewarding. The first is a series of excerpts that did not make the novel’s final edit cuts, and they all take the field of science fiction as their subject. The second appendix is about Ashima Slade, a mathematician and philosopher that is credited with founding the study of metalogics. Neither of these are necessary to the plot of the novel, but they add a richness and depth the reader wouldn’t otherwise even know she was missing. The one lends insight into Delany’s thoughts on his field, and the other makes the backdrop of Triton more real and concrete in its history, more significant in the interrelationships that make that history so.

That twinkle in my eye? That's the reflection of the spotlight pivoting over to Mrs. Emshwiller for the week.

I just saw the May 30 Strange Horizons table of contents, and it injected an otherwise hot and monotonous day with a potent surge of that feeling you get when you’re a kid and an unexpected, late night telephone call from a teacher comes through right before bedtime explaining that school the next day is cancelled for some reason that’s irrelevant. 

That’s the kind of good mood I’m in.

Every department in this week's Strange Horizons (except poetry) takes Carol Emshwiller as its focus. There's the story, "After All," which comes with a nice introduction by Gavin J. Grant, an article in which other writers of high standing discuss her work, a consideration of the cult of "Emshwillerians," and reviews of The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller, Vol. I, Carmen Dog, Ledoyt, and Leaping Man Hill. 
 

I love it! I came across this goodie bag this evening right after having received Report to the Men's Club and Other Stories in the mail just this morning. I should have something up on that one soon, but up next is Samuel R. Delany's Triton.