APB-SAL is a blog about education, science, science education, fiction, science fiction, literature, literary stories, poetry, and anything else that strikes the blogger's fancy.
NOTE: This blog interrogates art. It rarely make moral proclamations. For that attend the church or politician of your choice. This blog concerns aesthetics, not propaganda. Consider this as interviews with books where the interviewer presents interviewees, so you get what you need to do your own thinking.
Originally appeared in Edward L. Ferman's F&SF. Reprinted by Isacc Asimov and Edward L. Ferman in different retrospectives. It was up for the Nebula. James Frenkel considered it one of Pohl's best.
Summary:
Jeremy Shaffery is a jack of all sciences and master of none. He attempts cock-eyed experiments with outlandish predictions in hopes that one of his crazy theories pans out. He has a theory that he looks and acts like Einstein and tries to be Einstein, but all of
Discussion (with spoilers):
This quote captures the tone, the protagonist's incompetence and treatment yet his persistent, resilient attitude (which makes him look the part of an educated fool--in multiple senses of the term):
“ 'Your trouble, Jeremy, is you're a horse's ass.' But he knew that wasn't it. Who was to say Isaac Newton wasn't a horse's ass, too, if you looked closely enough at his freaky theology and his nervous breakdowns? And look where he got.”
Only one experiment works, sort of. He's been irradiating mushrooms to make them hardier except they've become infectious, kill him others exponentially, and becomes his claim to fame, however dubious, as they name the plague after him.
The story is perhaps too long for what it accomplishes, but it actually has some contemporary relevance to the challenges and difficulties in modern academia.
It also straddles two modes of writing--combining how he used to write toward how he would write. It has satire, but also combines a newer style of writing SF that becomes more and more meticulous, perhaps to the betterment of some works and detriment to others. "The Merchants of Venus" falls on the side of strength, here less so. But the story is effective enough, nonetheless, to catch the attention of several editors and writers.
First appeared in H. L. Gold's Galaxy. Reprinted in a retrospective by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. A British band, The Icicle Works, borrowed the name for their name. Both Lester del Rey and James Frenkel collected this as one of Pohl's best.
Summary:
A lawyer, Milo Pulchur wants to understand what is really happening to young people who have been arrested for kidnapping in order to escape their homeworld, Altair Nine. What they are doing to make money and a chance misunderstanding (of who Milo is) leads him to understand what is going on.
Discussion (part 1 -- the Title: meaning for the story and the band):
1.a. The Story
It's hard to say what Pohl meant by the title. The icicle works is an excuse to explore a completely different idea. Even "Day" could mean the day or a period of time though it must mean the later since the actual day is irrelevant to story. It probably should say "the day after" so that consequences after the death (rather, so called "death") of industries could be discussed.
Apparently on Altair Nine ("Altair," some sources say, is a falcon; some a flying eagle. Google Translate simply calls it "birds" which coincides nicely with The Icicle Works most famous song "Birds Fly"--however, the "Nine" suggests eight others had this same idea or perhaps that they are the eighth colony of the original Altair planet), ice formed around airborne organic particles with antibiotic properties and fell as snow. This was presumably processed by the icicle works and became the planet's only export. A way of processing the chemicals synthetically called the Gumpert Process made the exports unnecessary. However, it doesn't make sense that a distant planet would export such a chemical over interstellar distances and hope to make a profit unless it was insanely pricey and had insanely valuable antibiotic. That Pohl dreamed up and killed this industry suggests he was less interested in the industry than in the consequences for its lose.
Because the industry is a larger part of the title than it contributes to the story itself, a term which sounds absurd without the elaborate explanation, suggests that Pohl may have had other intentions such as creating 1) a mystery, 2) a joke, 3) a mood, 4) a culture, 5) readerly estrangement, 6) some combination of the above.
1.b. Icicle Works, the Band
The band The Icicle Works seem to have chosen it for similar reasons. In a 1984 interview, lead singer/guitarist/keyboard player Ian McNabb, said he liked "silly names" for bands. He called the book "nonsense," which may or may not be dismissive of the work, but it sounded like it, which is odd since Pohl may have used the term in the same way. On the other hand, perhaps "nonsense" was the sense he was seeking--or sense through nonsense. It may be that McNabb himself never read it, but a band member had. Or maybe he'd loved science fiction (as a 2023 interview suggests by a band putting on an act with an SF theme) and just went perusing books for a title that fit what they were trying to do.
Their top British charting single (#15), for instance--"Love Is a Wonderful Colour"--shows a kind of lyrical synesthesia (if one could transfer an emotion to a color), creating a kind of, in SF terms, estrangement. It treads near but isn't nonsense, asking people to return to love after difficulties.
"Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)" is perhaps their most famous in the world, charting in the Top 40 for the US and Top 20 for Canada, having appeared in Stranger Things (season 2). The title originally was Elvis Costello's, but they took off the "From" which opens it more meanings (or perhaps none). At least part of their modus operandi seems to be thwarting meaning, but there may be some sense of self-definition, of encompassing/accepting all emotions. Perhaps the lyrics are of the type that allows the listener to pour in their own feelings and come up with their own meaning.
Pohl's story didn't seem to have an immediate impact on the
genre except for del Rey who first selected it as one of his best. Even
then, it didn't see a reprint until after the band's appearance, which
Pohl quite rightly took some pride in, especially since it had moderate
impact on the culture in the early 80s. The band, too, should probably embrace its namesake.
Discussion (part 2 -- the story itself -- spoilers):
What happens when an area's industry, known for this one thing, dies?
There a number of ghost towns that may be one answer, if not the primary one. Perhaps Pohl is exploring the process before it becomes a ghost planet. People are resorting to crimes in order to survive and escape. But even the rich are resorting to crime in this case. Using the poor who are selling their bodies as victims for whatever they plan to do while in this disguise.
However, it turns out the Gumpert Process is a sham, rigged so that the real criminal could buy up shares in the company. For some reason, this gets the kidnappers off the hook for their crime (presumably they would not have tried to kidnap if it hadn't been for the true criminal).
I'm not sure if I've seen this SF trope of "riders" from this angle before. This may be why Lester del Rey chose it, and part of the reason why Asimov and Greenberg chose it for theirs.
It may not be one of the greats of SF, but certainly one of the more inventive and fascinating.
In honor on Stefan Wul (pen name of dental surgeon and SF writer Pierre Pairault) on his 102nd birthday, we will discuss the movie based on his novel, Oms en série: Fantastic Planet. The script was written by Roland Topor and the director, René Laloux.
It won the 1973 Cannes Film Festival's Grand Prix special jury prize, was nominated for Nebula and British Fantasy awards. Rolling Stone listed as #36 among the greatest cinematic animations.
The main plot involves the Oms who are human-like creatures who have been enslaved as pets by the larger blue Traags, who have technology, power, strength, and size over the Oms. There is little one could do to exercise one's independence from the Traags. Our protagonist manages to escape and tries to convince and help the Oms have their independence.
Paradoxically, it is both a strange and familiar film. A number of factors contribute to this.
the animation itself. It is both two-dimensional and three, sliding between them in the same frame
both surreal yet standard SF. So many of the events that strike us bizarre could really be standard biological behavior in an ecology we are just encountered--cruel and heartless even among the intelligent species
sexualized yet in a biological manner. Certainly, in 1973, this would have been standard preoccupation in much art of the era, but it is less provocative than mundane as if it were meaningless to the players
heartless everywhere yet, here and there and ultimately, humane
bewildering yet understandable. It seems to suggest that this distant alien although the beings may look like us, have minds far removed from our own. Yet one hardly needs to understand anything of what the characters say to get the gist of the story. In fact, much of the storytelling seems to through us off the scent.
described, apparently, as needing to be watching with mind-altering narcotics. But this isn't true. However, even the aliens partake in inhaling some cloudy substance.
Both sets of aliens are us. We are sometimes the powerful, sometimes the weak. Yet even the weak have strength and the powerful are powerless in certain regards.
Being at the tail end of a strange decade in the arts, which this seems to attempt all of the various rebellion's the arts were participating in at the time. Even a kind of cross-dresser, who seems initially oblivious to his dress until his fellow Oms mock it. The film is like an Easter egg, full of the things that was meant to take it out of its time made it fully part of that time. And yet there are interesting, science-fictional apparati to appreciate.
If you are looking for something strange, here you go.
First appeared in Terry Carr's Universe anthology series. Reprinted in retrospective collections by Donald J. Pfeil, Lester del Rey, Terry Carr, Isaac Asimov, Thomas F. Monteleone. It was a runner-up for the Hugo and Locus award (according to ISFDB) and a finalist for the Nebula.
Background:
Rotsler's art appeared in fanzines and was his first major impact on the genre, winning ten major awards from Locus and Hugos between 1971 and 1997. He did cartoons and made movies, of a kind [IMDB]. They don't seem to be high art although I doubt he'd have agreed when he made them, based on some of my readings of his own writings (see some of his quotes in the Youtube video below). Quotes like these (and perhaps this one from the story) seem to have made him an attractive person to be around:
"[Y]ou might be without money, but you are not poor."
The author grows as a literary artist in later novels, but it retains a very uncluttered SF style from the 70s.
This story seems tailor-made made for a man like Rotsler: A story about art, written by an artist. Except the writing is less artsy than philosophical--almost dialectical. One of my favorite quotes is this (albeit, from the novel, not the story), which I thought prophetic:
"Today the artist who cannot master electronics has a difficult time in many of the arts."
This next quote may or may not be true, but at least it illustrative of the writer and perhaps the story itself:
"The artist doesn't see things, he sees himself."
Rotsler's best quotes seem to set up expectations and break them in the next with some revelatory insight into the arts or human nature (as the first above and, again, see more quotes below).
A number of artists have had to work in electronic mediums to pursue at least the financial benefits of living the artist life although, no doubt, some artists have escaped having had to do this.
The novel bogs down in its own dialectic, bit at points it articulates some cogent points about art that's fascinating to ponder. One almost wishes this were Rotsler's Leaves of Grass that he kept tinkering with advancing, revising until it was a masterwork.Still it has much to recommend. What's most fascinating is how this is a doorway into the mind of an era.
You can see this in the image above, in Fred Pohl's "Day Million", in Terry Carr's "Dancer and the Changer Three" and in the movie Fantastic Planet. They all reach for the ineffable, which is cool albeit at times they purposefully obscure what could be made clear. One part was nudging boundaries wider thanks to "obscenity" court cases like Allen Ginsberg's Howl, which led to others pushing the envelope. Sometimes just putting a thing in a story was enough for some to call it art--no matter the quality. The other part was the Vietnam War and narcotics and reason and defiance of things like story structures and any other reason to offend people gave some reason to call it art. Probably a safe bracket around this era might be 1965-1975.
But it bleeds out a little before and a little after. Take Terry Gilliam's 1981 movie, Time Bandits,for example. The irreverent surrealism of Monty Python lingers, sensing it in 1981. I don't think the former ways were abandoned so much as transformed, altered, shifted. Perhaps too much presence of what might offend was eventually seen as just bad art, and they wanted to refocus on the art of the thing itself. Where Monty Python and the Holy Grail has a cornucopia of brilliant wit, but Time Bandits has the stronger, more unified story. Which is better art? It depends on what you value.
This doesn't mean that because someone bought into one or more aspects of counterculture that they bought into all. William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson's Logan's Run, the movie, is part of, speaks for and speaks against such counterculture. It is a fascinating beast. (The novel feels less cohesive, a bit too picaresque, but maybe it might have made more sense if we were reading it in that era.)
This story is Rotsler's one-hit wonder and he mainline's into this vein of the zeitgeist. Probably part of the reason is success in the other arts. In 1968 he has a documentary capturing the culture of its time, a documentary that may have excited Harlan Ellison to collaborate with Rotsler.
The aformentioned style and development as a literary artist and the tapping into the zeitgeist of his day may go some way the lifespan of its reprints ending in 1977. That doesn't mean it isn't a story worth reading, but that it should be read within its context, its background.
Summary:
Brian Thorne, a patron of the arts, has various discussions with the artist, Michael Cilento. Cilento makes sensual portraits of people and transfers them into vivid, technological cubes called "sensatrons." Thorne encourages Cilento to make one of Madelon Morgana, a woman whom Thorne marries and wants immortalized to let others know she is his "as much as she could belong to anyone." As a patron, the art he helps create will make him immortal as well.
Further Analysis:
At least, two musical artists make guest appearances [David] Bowie as a butler of sorts and Earth Wind & Fire as a location (name altered to keep with what the "ancients" once thought to be the four elements of nature).
Cilento agrees to take on Morgana, but only if he can have her in other ways. Thorne assents because he wants the art. The final work becomes the greatest of its kind. Cilento gives the work to Thorne only because Cilento is taking Morgana--an act which haunts Thorne, painful as his surname.
One can see why it was held in great esteem. The ending is emotional, as editors point out, but not necessarily in some profound manner. Effective. It's his ars poetica giving one a sense of art in his time and outside it. If you are looking for stories with statements on art, here's one.
Quotes:
"[Art] was 'mine' only in that I could house it. I could not contain it. It had to belong to the world."
"[Great art] is different each time, for I am different each time."
"[H]e is an artist of his time, yet like many artists, not of his time."
"[T]he reality of art is not the reality of reality."
First appeared in Ted White's Amazing. Reprinted by Martin Harry Greenberg, Joseph D. Olander, Patricia Warrick, Isaac Asimov.
Summary:
A baby is born:
"Bohassian was being born and he didn't like it."
The first telepath sloshing happily in its womb encounters not only light but his first minds.
Analysis (with Spoilers if that's possible):
A brilliant opening, if you'll pardon the double or triple entendre.
This is the third of Rotsler's stories, and only that was more reprinted. It seems to be as much about itself as the author learning his trade. That language is rudimentary but fits with a subject: the awakening of a mind.
The flaw here (or at the unexplained) is that it suggests that the mind only awakens when given birth. Why then? Why not before? Why not after?
But it remains fascinating. How would the telepath first awaken and how steep would that learning curve be? It probably not understand its relationship to the world and may well destroy, if it could, minds it perceived as potentially harmful although, not being telepathic, how would they know that a telepath existed unless the unformed mind communicated in some fashion? But it seemed like it was more probing other minds than communicating. However, the portrayal is convincing: Were telepathy real, something like this might occur, allowing us to recognize them.
A Google search yielded so few instances of "Bohassian" that one can reasonably guess the origin: Igor Bohassian: an essayist first published two years after this story, writing about various science issues such as the energy crisis and that the pyramids were actually astronomical observatories. The writer seems reasonably intelligent although the conclusions don't feel especially unusual.
Two possibilities: 1) Igor is a friend perhaps encountered at a science fiction convention. 2) Igor is a pen name of the author or a friend. Since so few instances of the name occurs, I'm learning toward the latter. The surname suggests "bohemian" which, according to Oxford, means "a socially unconventional person, especially one who is involved in the arts"--a definition with two parts, both of which strongly correlate with Rotsler. Bohassian writes something shy of a dozen articles then disappears. So either Igor is Rotsler or someone with strong spiritual kinship. Given that the name doesn't appear in Google, it seems most probable that Igor is Rotsler.
As mentioned earlier, one of Bohassian's article discussed the Egyptian pyramids and other ancient cultures. For further evidence, see his story "Patron of the Arts":
"The very old civilizations interest me the most.... Babylon, Assyria, Sumer, Egypt, the valley of the Euphrates. Crete seems like a newcomer to me. Everything was new then. There was everything to invent, to see, to believe."
One expects some seismic story shift, inverting our readerly expections, but none arrive. There are no surprises. It just presents the idea itself . While profound and thought-provoking, it doesn't feel like an ending. Perhaps it was part of something longer he'd wanted to develop and decided to send it off, as is.
In 2017, Terry Gilliam was inducted into SF Hall of Fame and received the 2009 BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement. In 1976, he shared with his co-writer Terry Jones, a British Fantasy award. For Time Bandits, he received a nomination for the same award. Empire magazine listed it as #22 of children's movies, and as Time's "Top 10 Time-Travel Movies".
Time Bandits, I loved as a kid, as much as I loved nearly all of Terry Gilliam's work, even the ones I'm not supposed to. As a kid, I must have loved all the crazy plot shifts in Time Bandits, which still are fun. It retains some thought-provoking good vs. evil, bunched at the end. This is the only film I can recall where the protagonists were all short. But why wasn't I disturbed about the ending as a kid?
It has fallen on my nebulous list of films, from the upper stratosphere of brilliance--probably due to the semi-picaresque nature--but not as far as I'd thought.
The following spoilers may affect some people's enjoyment, but for those who want to keep their enjoyment active, it should enliven their viewings. I leave some key things out, but of course, you can watch the movie yourself and return to read.
First, it opens with a marvelous commercial where it talks about how wonderful modern conveniences are, how they free up our lives so we can live as we want to, and we get to view a family watching TV and/or reading what seems, not necessarily life enlivening stuff (which is an alternate interpretation of the title). The wife complains about differences between a neighbor's and her microwave--one being 7 seconds faster at heating up. And of course, this calls into question what we are freeing up our lives to do. The speed of the microwaving suggests that the timeline begins in some near future (Yes, I realize, this scene is a joke, but it's also serious in terms of contemplation. So much information in so tight a space.)
There's a TV show called "Your Money or Your Life," and I must admit to not fully grasping this one, which must be critical. Clearly not a game-show phrase, but what a robber says when he wants you to choose between giving him your money or dying. But here, it's a game show. I don't think there is (in the movie's universe or any other) a realistic game show unless again that society is less interested in human life that people are willing to gamble their life on a TV game show, which I'm dubious about. Whenever we do see these game shows in literature, I think we only buy into them when there is an element of coercion which does not seem to be happening here. Unless I'm mistaken. Maybe life means less in a world of convenience (or so Gilliam predicts?). But if we simplify this as a metaphorical choice between things (You can work for a good living or live a life that involves family), then I'd buy into the equation, but I doubt you could make a game-show out of that. That, though, is an interesting way to frame our lives. I'll return to this in a different section.
The game show comes into play toward the end when the evil one appears with his parents, but first we have to discuss reality.
What is reality and what is imagination? On the kid's [Kevin's] wall are drawings and images of everything he's about to experience. Is this a dream, a lively imagination, or reality? But the father suggests that it is all real by saying Kevin is making a lot of noise in his bedroom. The only explanation is that these fantastic events are reality. Yet how did he "predict" these events in the past with his drawings? So is it real or not? My feeling is that we are meant to these are imaginings fleshed out in reality since there often is evidence proving fantastic events even after everything has been reset to reality. Of course, it's possible that we are still within a dream world, but then we have no idea what reality is in this world.
So when his parents appear as part of the game show, we learn that they were part of the illusion of the evil one. But if true, why were they drawn to touch the pure concentrated evil?
It's hard to know what to make of what happened to Kevin's parents? Is it all a dream or imagination, or did imagination create reality, or did a capricious god who seems to be restoring order in other ways, suddenly allow this tragedy to occur? If so, why? Caprice? Anger over behavior within someone else's imagination or illusion?
We laugh at us humans in the opening scene, at our "problems," but then we have arrive at the end with a more serious problem and it's related with a similar jocular tone. Do we laugh again, or do we pull back a bit and wonder about how we should feel given the circumstances? Is the first scene altered in our mind? or the last?
Originally appeared in H. L. Gold's Galaxy. Reprinted in
several major retrospectives, by such editors as Arthur O. Lewis, Jr., Ben Bova, Gregory Fitz Gerald, Brian
W. Aldiss, Kingsley Amis, Robert Conquest,
Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, Charles G. Waugh. Lester Del Rey
selected it as one of Pohl's best.
Summary:
The "Midas" world is one where energy is so plentiful, that to be a good citizen means consuming more. The more one consumes, the higher one rises on the societal ladder. How does one consume ever more? If one cheats to get ahead, how does one hide their misdeeds? Surely, the evidence of their guilt
Commentary with Spoilers:
First, we should point out the famous fairy tale of Midas, who had the golden touch. Everything he touched turned to gold, making him very rich... until he touched his daughter, suggesting that greed may make us regret how it affects other parts of our lives.
Pohl takes this fairy tale and completely repurposes it. Note what the titles are for anthologies and collections it was reprinted in (he named two of them): American Utopias, Nightmare Age, The Case Against Tomorrow. Now some seem to suggest he does not mean the world he proposes, but the subtitle of Nightmare Age--"Tomorrows... we may be building today!" suggests that his aim seems utterly realistic.I also like that someone thought this deserved a place among utopias, not dystopias.
There's some truth here, but of course it's exaggerated for effect. The coolest thing about this short work is that what starts as a dystopia ends as a kind of utopia. It looks like doom for our hero who at first tries to make it through honesty and is forced by unsavory characters who trick his wife into forcing the couple into having to consume more. So he has to cheat, using robots to help him achieve this end. As he's hailed as a hero of consumption, the noose of his getting caught is cinching around his neck... until it turns out that they knew all along what he'd been doing and were impressed, starting to employ his techniques for consumption.
Absurd but strangely delightful. It's difficult to explain the metamorphic shift in storytelling as we learn we weren't living in the morality of the dystopia but a true if bizarre utopia. Little wonder it was listed as one of the great short works in the history of SF.
Originally appeared in H. L. Gold's Galaxy. Reprinted in several major retrospectives, by such editors as Arnold Thompson, Brian W. Aldiss, Kingsley Amis, Susan Morris, Orson Scott Card, Tom Shippey, Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, Brian W. Aldiss. Lester Del Rey selected it as one of Pohl's best.
On June 15th, Guy Burckhardt wakes from a dream about an explosion, to a world that's off. One example would be a loudspeaker outside advertising "Feckle Freezers! Feckle Freezers!" repeated over and over that comes off angry, if not insane. Guy goes about his day attempting to make it as normal as possible but the oddity of existence keeps rearing its head until Guy meets someone who will help him piece together what this world is all about.
Commentary (with Spoilers--don't read this if you haven't read the story):
Guy is told that they've been asking questions about the world and it's always June 15th. Everyone remembers the June 14th explosion and keeps waking up here. He's taken to the underground tunnel where all is revealed in several frame by frame revelations. Not only are they all dead, but are tiny figures (robots) on a tabletop, part of an experiment in advertising.
If one were to limit one's self to just one Fred Pohl story, this may be it. Super cool. Comparing it to "The Midas Plague," it is half the length, but the speculation does feel more concentrated and, therefore, more awe inducing. Still "The Midas Plague" is worth reading, but this one is tight.
My only complaint is that there should feel like there's a gradual change to the changes in advertising, adapting to the subjects, so that it becomes impossible to be sure about any aspect of reality--at least that's how I'd write the movie version.
Pohl clearly has an aversion to advertising despite or because of having worked in it (see also "The Midas Plague" and The Merchants of Venus). He would have been born before the proliferation of ads and grown up with radio and catchy jingles and phrases that people paid for to get customers to remember their products when they entered the store. It must have been jarring to move from a world where it didn't exist to emerge into a world where it did. Whereas later generations may understand where he was coming from, but accepted the ads as the price one paid to get listen to their favorite radio programs or watch TV shows. Nonetheless, our distrust and/or dislike of ads is mixed with our understanding why they exist.
But it's strange what advertising is foisted upon these people whose after-life is spent in a kind of advertising hell. There's coercive methods of ads, to what end? Perhaps they are testing out a kind of oppressive tyranny, seeing to what extremes they can press on people without making them snap.
The term "Feckle Freezer" is curious. They are frozen in time and place and thought. "Feckle" may be altered from "fickle" (erratic) or "fettle" (fitness) or "feck" (value/worth). It seems to be also have a corrupted term in Scotland suggesting one's mettle, to withstand adversity with resilience. Combing all of these definitions has a powerful effect. The sellers want to suggest one thing, but the buyers hear something else. Or maybe it's just meant as a nonsense word that is meant to suggest it has meaning. The cumulative effect is powerful.
There are a number of stories that begin questioning reality especially in the modern era, especially in the works of Philip K. Dick. Perhaps advertising, according to Pohl, is at least one root cause of our losing our grip on what reality is.
First appeared in Shawna McCarthy's Asimov's. It won the Hugo and was up for the Locus and SF Chronicle awards. Reprinted in several retrospectives, by Gardner Dozois, Arthur W. Saha, Donald A. Wollheim, Isaac Asimov, Sheila Williams, Martin H Greenberg, James Frenkel, Jack Dann, Mike Ashley.
Summary:
Nuclear war wipes out most of humanity and friends, including their supper. A small remnant escapes to Iceland.
Discussion (Spoilers):
When this appeared, nuclear holocaust stories had been appearing since the bombing of Hiroshima (see Pohl's earlier "Let the Ants Try" which provides an interesting contrast--optimistic about surviving nuclear bombing, but not so lucky about what might follow). Many worried about not just about the survival of themselves, but also human species. Some may have more optimistic than they ought to have been.
While not a difficult story, it can be read too hastily. One might miss choices of tone and word choice. In a sense, there is no story. There is, but it is subverted, short changed. If someone insists there is a story, ask them to summarize it.
There's a boy, but he's sentimentalized, orphaned, helpless, wet. We're told he's nine then reminded he's young. The opening line: "On Timothy Clary's ninth birthday he got no cake."
We have an omniscient narrator who drops into the minds of many. Then we switch to Harry Malibert, a scientist who runs a radio telescope in Arecibo. We think we've finally got our protagonist. But not exactly. We're given the nigh impossibility of survival. Probably it is set in Iceland for its geothermal activity so there is a remote chance of survival, a source heat and energy that is not reliant on the sun.
Then there's the issue of tone: "Get away! Climb the highest mountain! Drop yourself splat, spang, right in the middle of the widest desert! Run! Hide!"
All of those exclamation marks. Due to juxtaposition, it suggests that some leap off the mountain. But "splat?"
A few paragraphs later, it suggest that Timothy "might have wound up in the plane of refugees that reached Pittsburgh just it time to become plasma." Just in time? Plasma? There's a dark humor here at work. It discusses all of the likely outcomes where he'd die, but then writes:
"he might have been given medicine, and oufnd somebody to protect him, and take him to a refuge, and live...
"But that is in fact what did happen!"
At this point, we doubt that any kind of survival will happen, and that last line, a little glib, remarking on the improbable chance that something good would happen. That last line is repeated at the end, where we have even less faith. But he adds, "At least, one would like to think so." This final sentence rubs a little of the dark humor off. It feels more honest in its feigned hope even though it has provided ample evidence that it won't.
This wasn't the only nuclear-worry story to catch the Hugo's eye that year. David Brin's The Postman also took home a trophy. This was probably part of the zeitgeist, worrying over the arms race build-up. See the cover story in the image above.
At any rate, what makes this story successful is knowledge of the subgenre (post nuclear war stories), knowing the common tropes found in such stories. "Let the Ants Try" subverts the subgenre as well with the thwarting of hope for human survival, but part of the success of that is also knowledge of other stories. But this one takes a hard, realistic look at our optimism. It is the Uber-story, paradoxically superseding all others yet entirely depending on knowledge and existence of that subgenre.
First appeared in Paul L. Payne's Planet Stories, reprinted by Pohl himself, Robert Silverberg, and Algis Budrys. Read online.
Summary:
After a nuclear war, the radiation creates ants with lungs. Two men, including Dr. Salva Gordy, see this as an opportunity to go back in time.
Discussion with Spoilers:
This seems to be Pohl's mash-up between H.G. Wells' The Time Machine and his "The Empire of the Ants." Without lungs, there is a limitation to the size an insect might grow, hence the spontaneous of lungs in ants--however improbable. It may still be that mash-up, but apparently it began as several Midtown Manhattan discussions between himself and George R. Spoerer (not known to be a writer--the only info that I can seem to find is that he was 16 years Pohl's senior and had an apartment at one time in Brooklyn's Jackson Heights). Another source points out stories that precede this one as the inspiration, but Wells' supercedes them all and being the more famous and more reprinted, perhaps a more likely source. Wells, after all, is mentioned in the story.
The idea is to take these ants back in time and release them and occupy the human beings throughout history in wars with the ants, thereby preventing nuclear war.
This seems a half-baked idea, especially how far back in time he goes. More likely, three scenarios would occur: 1) The ants eradicate the humans, 2) the ants are still battling humans, perhaps preventing educational/technological progress, 3) one species domesticates the other into companions or as a beast of burden, 4) the humans eradicate the ants.
Only in scenario 2 is it possible that the nuclear bombs are not created. Apparently, the ants can manipulate equipment and reverse engineer technology (although presumably using different appendages), so they seem just as likely to build a nuclear bomb at some point, making the whole project foolhardy.
I had assumed, at first, that the clip below was the goal, thanks to the title. So I was surprised that the protagonist cared what the ants did to the humans since humans had destroyed the world (whatever the ants did would have to be better), but rereading I paid better attention to how he simply wanted his family back. Note the first "Salva" which in Spanish means he/she/it saves (although that could have referred to the ants as well.)
Therefore, apparently, the unnamed narrator titled this story--as well as having written it since who else was left to write it? But of course that means they went back to different timelines to witness events and assumed what other people were thinking.
Pohl himself was the first to reprint his own story (Silverberg followed 20-odd years later). I'll let the cover of that anthology speak for what he thought about his own story. He said it was the first story of his he thought worth preserving
In the 1977 movie adaptation of Wells' "The Empire of the Ants," characters welcome their new ant taskmasters which The Simpsons famously allude to where they stirred up a number of memes, decades later:
