"King of the Beasts" by Philip José Farmer (reassessed)

Warning: This is all discussion, or all spoiler. You can find a PDF of the original publication here.

So earlier this year, I found a comment on the brief "King of the Beasts" by Philip José Farmer, asking what the theme was. I think the theme was implicit in comments.

I still stand behind my initial assessment although I didn't give it its full due. After the first reread, I added this comment:

"The King of the Beasts" is #17 on this blog's most popular posts. That suggests that the story has more impact on readers than one might have supposed. Time permitting, I will need to revise it. It has more relevance than the tone may have implied.

The theme deals with how, as a consequence of allowing so many species to become endangered. humanity itself might become one of its own victims. Potent, surely.

But I reread it several more times, pondering. At first I felt it should have been longer, perhaps characterizing better, but then the punchline loses its punch.

Then I finally decided to examine it, line by line, to see what worked, what didn't. These lines were especially effective:

Passenger pigeons strutted. A rhinoceros trotted like a dainty battleship.

The strutting or arrogance of a species that had been wiped out--much like humanity within this tale. The next line was even more potent: there's nothing dainty about a rhinoceros or a battleship and it serves as an effective contrast.

One thing I originally listed as a problem--hiding the identity of the characters as aliens (to us)--may or may not be. The only way we can enjoy the surprise ending--humans are the extinct species resuscitated!--is by hiding physical details that we would have known were we there. A cheat.

On the other hand, what if the story assumes we are one of the aliens and can observe humanity from the outside? On the other other hand, wouldn't we be unlikely to make the visitor's shocked comment?

The one thing that I dislike about the story isn't the common misanthropic punchline, but that shocked comment:

 “Then it must be...But you wouldn’t dare!”

Some may feel it's necessary, but we're being fed what our reaction should be. After all, in the far future, would humanity be more likely be forgotten, seen as a foolish mistake, or seen as a terror unleashed upon the universe? While the above suggests part of one problem, the dialogue also limits some of the tale's thematic potential. 

What is the source of the misanthropy? Nuclear war? Certainly that would have been at the backs of many minds when this was published (note the aforementioned battleship). Our destruction of species? That may be here with the passenger pigeon although many here were not extinct and endangered species at the time of writing. Perhaps it is a combination of sins.

"King of the Beasts" is a great title, which suggests that humanity is nothing more than a beast like the rest of the animal kingdom and this little vignette might have focused more tightly on that.

If we consider ourselves as just one of the animal kingdom, it's interesting that such a theme arises when it arises. The literary past has plenty of precedent for respecting animals (the Bible, native American legends), but if we see ourselves as animals before we considered ourselves as insulated and safe from wild animals, one suspects that this now common misanthropic conclusion in the modern world, would have seemed incongruous in an earlier time. Of course, we would have seen our kind as dangerous, but imagine complete annihilation? Probably not. 

While many would have been saddened at the passing of a species, would it have been seen as the accidental victim of "progress"--an idea we cling to this day? This is not an agreement with such an interpretation, but merely a SF'nal thought, exiting our own perspectives to see our perspective again. It's a claret, a palate cleanser. Perhaps one day, our children will see our modernity through yet another lens.

"The Ugly Chickens" by Howard Waldrop

 This first appeared in Terry Carr's Universe, was reprinted three times by Terry Carr (once within a month of its first appearance), twice by Gardner Dozois (once a major genre retrospective), once by Donald A. Wollheim, Arthur W. Saha, Jerry E. Pournelle, John F. Carr, Martin H. Greenberg, Ellen Datlow, Leigh Grossman (another genre retrospective), and Norm Sherman. It won the Nebula and World Fantasy awards, and was nominated for Hugo, Locus. and Balrog awards. Online.

If you'd like to read the story so the writer is compensated, his ebooks seem to be the primary method. The story is found in both Things Will Never Be the Same [Kindle or Weightless] and Howard Who? [Kindle or Weightless].  

Summary:

A graduate student, Paul Lindberl, riding a bus because his "car was broken," pages through a book of extinct species. One passenger, noticing the illustrations, tells him she's seen one species as a child.  

Analysis (spoilers):

Lindberl eventually tracks down where the species was supposed to be as well the family that was said to have had them. As had happened in Europe, one species of dodos had happened to be passed on in the family as one might keep chickens. They eventually died out.

The strangeness of the story is indirectly mapped out everywhere. Note that it won a fantasy award, yet it appeared in every year's best science fiction anthology of the year. Only one editor really discusses the merits of the story itself. 

Piggybacking on the weirdness of the award and the anthologies it appeared in, I'll include this circuitous gem from Wollheim and Saha's introduction:

"Science fiction is subject to many definitions and there are some that are so specific that they might exclude this unusual story. But if science fiction deals with the probable that is just beyond the newspapers of with things that might have happened--even thought they did not shake the world--then this is truly science fiction. Further, it's zoological science fiction--and you almost never get any of that!"

Note how nicely they point out that some readers won't think this is SF, but the editors do, so they're including it in this anthology.

Gardner Dozois really only discusses Waldrop the writer with insight:

"called 'the resident Weird Mind of his generation...' he has one of the most individual and quirky voices (and visions) in letters today. Nobody but Howard could possibly have written one of Howard's stories; in most cases, nobody but Howard could possibly have even thought of them. Nor is any one Waldrop story ever much like any previous Waldrop story, and that respect (as well as in the panache and pungency of the writing, the sweep of imagination, and the depth of offbeat erudition), he resembles those other two great uniques, R. A. Lafferty and Avram Davidson.... [Waldrop] remains underappreciated."

Probably that last statement is more true today with most of his books out of print. Terry Carr makes the best case for this particular story: 

"Ornithology isn't one of the usual sciences employed in science fiction, but it's certainly a legitimate one. In any case, Howard Waldrop's stories are seldom of the usual kind, and during the past half-dozen years sf readers have come to expect the unexpected from him... such as in this fascinating, funny and poignant tale."

One suspects that Carr, by reprinting the story immediately after having just printed it the first time, had a hand in bringing this story to readers' and critics' attention. The reprint book has the subtitle, "Science Fiction Stories About the Future of Planet Earth," which doesn't really fit Waldrop's story until you realize it's the Sierra Book Club. If you extrapolate Waldrop's story, then it becomes relevant, but some stretching's involved. 

Incidentally, Carr reprinted two stories in the Sierra book from the same year the originals were published. The second was Larry Niven's "The Green Maurader." Dozois republished both. That the Sierra Book Club agreed to the anthology and that Dozois collected both suggests that this may have been a hot topic in 1980. So that might be another reason that "The Ugly Chickens" garnered so much attention.

Once, in a private discussion with another classmate and myself, Waldrop mentioned that a New Yorker editor said he/she would have published it, which no doubt whipped up a mélange of emotions: thrill, disappointment, and doubt. He expressed the doubt. But it does have a very contemporary focus. The speculative wonder is subdued, pointed more at a scientific discovery than something rich and strange. I could see it in The New Yorker, although some passages may require the standard SF reader (although those literary readers who are willing to read lengthy passages about whales in Melville's Moby Dick, might well put up with Lindberl's historical passages about the dodo.  

So what the story had going for it: 1) realism, (semi-realistic portrayal of graduate student), 2) pursuit of an almost mythic if absurd creature, thought lost to time long before, 3) zeitgeist, 4) unusual science/subject matter, and 5) Howard Waldrop's oeuvre up to that point. Both Carr and Dozois allude to this--that Waldrop had been getting attention for his work.

Besides the above, what are the story's strengths?

One is simply Waldrop's moment-to-moment charm:

Then she began to smile.

“Oh, you mean the ugly chickens?” she said.

I smiled. I almost laughed. I knew what Oedipus must have gone through.

A weird allusion, to be sure, but it describes a sudden attraction toward an older woman,  so that we feel a warmth toward both. How many writers have you seen characterized via an allusion--Oedipus, no less. 

The opening is another strength. How exciting to find out that a stranger on a bus has seen a supposedly long extinct species:

What I should have said was: “That is quite impossible, madam. This is a drawing of an extinct bird of the island of Mauritius. It is perhaps the most famous dead bird in the world. Maybe you are mistaking this drawing for that of some rare Asiatic turkey, peafowl, or pheasant. I am sorry, but you are mistaken.”

I should have said all that.

What she said was, “Oops, this is my stop,” and got up to go....

I have several vices and follies, but I don’t think foolishness is one of them.

The stupid thing for me to do would have been to follow her.

She stepped off the bus.

I followed her.

Lindberl doesn't make a good case for his not following her. While the dodo species remains extinct, he remains excited about the discovery despite learning that the loss is still permanent. Perhaps emotionally it would be foolish/stupid. Another possibility exists, which I'll discuss later.

"Lindberl" is a cool name to choose. Apparently, no one in the history of the internet has chosen to name anyone with the same name. A search only turned up mentions of Waldrop's story. The name's almost "Lindbergh," which we are supposed to think of; in fact, someone calls him by that name. Readers, then, are supposed to associate our narrator with the man who first flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean--an appropriate association since we are dealing with birds (although dodos are flightless, so are humans without some intervention). Lindergh was also the first to accomplish a thing, so too will Lindberl.  

Much of the story is devoted to the history of the dodo. It's doom seems inevitable, yet Waldrop makes us feel a tender, sadness at their loss, nonetheless.

There are a few issues that seem like authorial errors. For instance, Lindberl collecting evidence in a sack, as opposed to doing a careful excavation. Likely there would be a lot of evidence destroyed by humans. Still, in trying to suss out on how the dodos behaved, surely they'd want to look at where the evidence was found. 

Also, it ends with his hope about getting into Scientific American. One would think his concern would be getting into a professional journal. Scientific American is for lay readers. 

It took me awhile to put this together, but maybe Lindberl prefers Scientific American to an academic journal. Maybe his goal isn't academia at all but a launchpad for, say, popular scientific writing (nothing indicates this in the text, though). Or maybe he's kind of a goofball, half-cocked grad student. Maybe that's why he felt foolish and stupid above. Maybe he's so eager to find out about the dodo that he's rushed into this, unprepared. Maybe that explains the mention of his professor reading Nature. Not that whatever he's done would ruin his chances for getting into a good academic journal and Scientific American or wind up with a good study, but his rush into this might have been prevented with a discussion with his advising professor. I'm not sure how he talked his way into getting money from the department. Perhaps they had a slush fund for whatever purpose. I would suspect there would have to be some sort of application process.

Other Quotes:

The following excerpt seems to be a self-allusion, perhaps to his future work, Them Bones:

Or [the dodos] could have been brought centuries before by the Arabs who plied the Indian Ocean in their triangular-sailed craft, and who may have discovered the Mascarenes before the Europeans cranked themselves up for the First Crusade.

This passage, describing the narrator, seems to mirror humanity's own historical behavior toward animals: 

"At one time early in my bird-fascination days (after I stopped killing them with BB guns but before I began to work for a scholarship)"  

Comments Published, Howard Waldrop story updated, Future Posts

• Realizing that someone might misunderstand my intent, I added on to the commentary on "Night of the Cooters" by Howard Waldrop. Mostly it deals with how the story conforms to and confounds H. G. Wells' original tale, War of the Worlds.  
• Discovery!: Eileen Gunn wrote a sequel to Waldrop's story for Tor.com.

• I used to get emails when someone commented on my post, and frankly it slipped my mind that I needed to approve them. There's usually more spam than comments. When I unleashed about two years of comments, I found two interesting ones:
• One asked about the theme in "The King of the Beasts" by Philip José Farmer.
• A second asked me to discuss ethics and morality in "Microcosmic God" by Theodore Sturgeon.

"The King of the Beasts" by Philip José Farmer

It's interesting that "The King of the Beasts" is #17 on this blog's most popular posts. That suggests that the story has more impact on readers than one might have supposed. Time permitting, I will need to revise it. It has more relevance than the tone may have implied. 

The theme deals with how, as a consequence of allowing so many species to become endangered. humanity itself might become one of its own victims. Potent, surely. 

I still contend that, instead of building up to the surprise, the idea might have been developed a little more although one could argue that that would be unnecessary due to its brevity. 

I will rewrite this post to incorporate the above.

"Microcosmic God" by Theodore Sturgeon

This post is #8 on the all-time most popular blog posts. I will need to reread the story with the question of ethics and morality in mind. What a fascinating question. Thank you.

I looked up the definitions and commentary and it appears that most of us use them interchangeably. However. some view morality as a personal thing and ethics as a group thing. 

I don't. I see morality as a group and personal thing. They are the rules we live by and sometimes share with others. Ethics would be examining these rules closely, trying to eliminate bias, to understand our rules and others' rules. Morality would be the vine that grows naturally. Ethics would be the trellis that someone constructed (or that someone examined). Others have made different distinctions--if there are any. 

I hope to eventually write a post addressing this, assuming that, when I reread it, I will come up with something interesting. Great question. 

 

Future Posts

I hope to write about more mentors and colleagues who became friends as a result of our mutual interest in writing. SF is a small field. Some mentors were kind, some were not. Some I disagreed with ethically, some not. You probably cannot guess which is which by the way I write about them here since I try to maintain integrity in examining the stories. Stories are not people. Besides these comments are as much for me as for others.

Howard Waldrop was a mentor. As Chad Oliver called him, he was a story doctor, knowing how to diagnose a story's ills. His perspective always surprised our Clarion class.

After winning the Writers of the Future contest, I plan to read and discuss stories from those anthologies as well L. Ron Hubbard's own oeuvre. I discussed a few of his works on here: Fear and "Beyond All Weapons." I thought there had been more. In terms of books, Battlefield Earth I found particularly interesting for its discussion of economics though I forget now what that discussion entailed (hence, the blog). Ole Doc Methuselah wasn't as effective. As a young man, I remember getting enthralled by the opening of the Mission Earth sequence; however, my rereading was interrupted. I am most fond of his pulp stories, though. So I plan read those. I seem to recall being particularly fond of "Crossroads."

The WotF contest has its own, self-guided workshop with essays by Hubbard and videos with Orson Scott Card, Tim Powers, and Dave Wolverton. Pretty interesting, so far.

Some claim they have the contest figured out. I don't, so I don't know that I can offer general advice. However, I do think the "After the Workshop" podcast on this link is particularly enlightening. If you're submitting a story to the contest, good luck!

Ivory by Mike Resnick

Ivory was up for the Nebula and Clarke awards.

            Summary

The novel opens telling how the Kilimanjaro elephant tusks were lost by a Maasai in a card game (more or less tricked). And then it alternates between private detective, Duncan Rojas, was hired by Bukoba Mandaka, the last Maasai, to track down the legendary ivory tusks lost some 3000 years earlier—so long ago that the information trail is fragmented at best. Rojas finds stories showing how museum curators fought to protect them from being sold into private hands.

Slowly, Rojas builds an idea of not just where the tusks are located but also what the tusks have meant to the possessors, the Maasai, and this last man who is finally hunting them down, no matter the cost.

            Discussion

The best thing about the narrative is figuring out its shape. It becomes clear that Rojas is finding these stories we read—apart from the first that appears before Rojas is put on the case. It isn’t clear who observed the first story.

More apparent on the second reading is that not all of the stories involving the tusks are equally compelling. The novel may have been stronger if some of the weaker chapters had been cut—ones not building the legend of the Maasai, the elephant, and Mandaka. This would have made a slender volume, which might have persuaded fewer to buy—those who are motivated by how heavy it is, but a slender volume might have created more rereadings and made its fans more avid.

Now comes the flaw that reveals the strength. When the last Maasai has to be destroyed, not only does it render that character’s life meaningless, but also his peoples’ and the tusks themselves (if they are said to derive their true meaning from the Maasai)—not to mention Detective Rojas himself who has absorbed himself in this mysterious pursuit without knowing the end goal. The tusks become the ultimate MacGuffin.

We cannot allow our lazy reading to stop there, however, as the penultimate chapter describes the meaning of life (since everyone’s going to die, anyway) as being one of a worthy pursuit, even if it is ultimately a MacGuffin. Rojas could be said to be pursuing money, which he was initially, but even money is a MacGuffin if we consider that it cannot be taken with him into some afterlife. He knew less than Mandaka about the end goal.

The opening chapter, the gambling chapter, shows the Maasai trying to talk the poker-game victor out of taking his people’s tusks. He tells her the monetary value of the tusks is less than other items “she” could take. She says it is the value that he invests in them that makes the tusks more valuable.

The tusks change in value as they are transported from setting to setting. In one, they are thought to be invaluable as part of an exhibit, but lose all value (except monetary) when they learn that the tusks don’t belong in said exhibit.

The novel becomes a lens to examine the meaning of life—an intriguing perspective.

It might be useful useful to look at the novel through biological conservation back when biologists held up animals near extinction for protection as opposed to ecosystems..