"The Day After the Day the Martians Came" or "The Day the Martians Came" by Frederik Pohl

First appeared in Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions. Reprinted by Rich Jones, Richard L. Roe. Both Lester del Rey and James Frenkel thought this one of Pohl's best.

Summary:

A deceptively simple tale of a hotel manager, Mandala, and Ernest, the bell captain on the day after the aliens came as people joke about the arrival of the new aliens found on Mars.

 

Discussion:

Ernest, an African American, is grateful for the jokes about the aliens so that he's no longer the target.

While not speculatively inventive, the story may be one of Pohl's better velocity exercises as the length supports the story told here.

While this works as a short story, it may come as some surprise that it spawned a story-suite/fix-up, The Day the Martians Came. The second title seems to be what the story goes by after the first appearance. But the first may be the better selection. It suggests the after effects of a big event. The ripples of such an event. This latter choice emphasizes the theme here, so it's a bit of surprise that the story takes on the lesser secondary title. Perhaps it has something to do with capturing the "novel" or story collection, but I suspect that readers would still connect this tale as the cornerstone of the larger work.

For links to other stories in this series/novel and comments on the novel they make, follow this link.

Review of Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders (2019, Amazon Prime)

Amazon Prime did it's own version of Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders [link to movie], which is one of her more striking and elaborate mysteries. Thanks to the BBC, viewers have a certain expectations. While one expects murder, gore and the unpleasantries of life are minimized. What is maximized is the puzzle of the murder. This type--the "cozy"--has been so well defined that even Merriam-Webster has an entry for it:

"a light detective story that usually features a well-educated protagonist and little explicit violence"

This definition already contains its critics' own condemnation as "light." A true aficionado would probably bristle at that and suggest that the puzzle is foregrounded, which can be an intellectual if a reader so chooses to match wits with the detective, so that it is not necessarily light. The "light" probably refer to its shrugging off of violence (hence, realism, in some minds) or perhaps of literary pretensions.


It's little wonder that viewers would bristle at an Agatha Christie mystery where violence in presented (if not gruesomely so) as well as the seamier side of life (if not salaciously so). Any fan upon first viewing this three-part series may balk, wondering if the additions are gratuitous moderizations of Christie's work. But if you liked Sherlock Holmes' updated, more personal treatment from Ian McKellen's portrayal in Mr. Holmes, you might well be intrigued by John Malkovich's portrayal of an older Hercule Poirot. They aren't mirror images. This one has a murder mystery at its heart whereas Mr. Holmes has a personal mystery.

Hercule Poirot has no sidekick (no Captain Arthur J. M. Hastings, OBE to bounce ideas off of), which makes sadder and lonelier. Worse, he's lost his ally in the police with only a detective (played surprisingly well by Rupert Grint) who isn't interested or doesn't trust Poirot. Poirot has been receiving taunting letters from "A.B.C." who eventually resorts to murder. The murderer seems to have a personal vendetta against Poirot, forcing him to rake through his brains for someone in his past. Since the police won't help, Poirot has to take on the murderer alone.

Poirot's own past and his ability to detect are called into question and have a bearing on the case. The mystery is not quite well delineated as a puzzle to match wits with the private detective as in most of Christie's work, yet I do believe well worth watching, even if (especially if?) you've seen it before.

“Ulan Dhor" or “Ulan Dhor Ends a Dream” from The Dying Earth by Jack Vance

First appeared in The Dying Earth.

Ulan Dhor, nephew of Prince Kandive the Golden, is sent on a mission to collect tablets from the lost city of.Ampridatvir.  Both desire to become more powerful magicians.  They read a scroll about the legend, explaining what had happened to the city:

"Ampridatvir now is lost. My people have forsaken the doctrine of strength and discipline and concern themselves only with superstition and theology. Unending is the bicker: Is Pansiu the excellent principle and Cazdal depraved, or is Cazdal the virtuous god, and Pansiu the essential evil? " 

"These questions are debated with fire and steel."

Ulan Dhor finds the city and encounters two groups--one that will wear green and not gray, and another vice versa.  Ulan Dhor fruitlessly argues that you can wear any color you want.  He discovers that the two groups are unable to see each other (until he unites the tablets).  He meets and falls for Elai, a young lady of the grays.  They fly about in a flying car, grab the tablets, unite them and...

*SPOILERS HERE ON*

...they release the people to see one another so that they attack.

When Ulan Dhor unleashes the knowledge, he didn't realize the high priest of these religions would still be alive (at least the nervous system of it).  The priest thought he'd only be asleep for a generation before the different religions created peace, but it was 5000 years--and not even an adherent did it.  So he's bent on destroying everyone and saving only Ulan Dhor and Elai to repopulate the religion... except neither wants a part of this. Ulan Dhor thrusts his sword at the brain and flees.  He prays to his flying car, that it help him escape.

Although this hasn't been reprinted, this for me was the highlight of the collection--a thought-provoking meditation on perceived differences between peoples of color or religious groups.  Clearly, differences exist, but they do not justify hate.

The author goes beyond just this.  The prophet-god (?) destroys.  Ulan considers it mad, tries to destroy it, and prays to technology instead.  The scroll reading above basically tells the story.  See esp.: "[The believers] concern themselves only with superstition and theology."  Due to the nature of "and," the last two nouns may be conflated.

Note: I do not have to agree with something to admire its aesthetics.  The over-simplification could read as an insult to religions and their adherents.  There's no need to boycott Jack Vance (I don't know his religious affiliation or politics, if any).  Rather, it's better to engage in dialogue.

"The Horror at Red Hook" by H. P. Lovecraft -- Keys to understanding Lovecraft's work

First published by Weird Tales, reprinted by Christine Campbell Thomson, Herbert Asbury, Charles M. Collins, August Derleth, and Barry J. Gillis. Free online.

The impoverished children of New York are disappearing and Thomas F. Malone is on the case. Robert Suydam, who gets younger and more invigorated, comes under suspicion when a child's face is spotted in one of Suydam's basement windows. Malone stops by various properties and finds fleeing foreigners, charnel stench, mysterious instruments, and blood spatters.

Lovecraft wrote of the tale's origin:

"The idea that black magic exists in secret today, or that hellish antique rites still exist in obscurity, is one that I have used and shall use again. When you see my new tale "The Horror at Red Hook", you will see what use I make of the idea in connexion with the gangs of young loafers & herds of evil-looking foreigners that one sees everywhere in New York." 

From our twenty-first-century perspective, the tale's origin is an embarrassment of racism, yet Lovecraft's influence permeates the genre and wider culture. We need to understand where we've come from. Plus, it's too easy to be dismissive of times other than one's own. As Roger Luckhurst points out in his introduction to Oxford University Press's The Classic Horror Stories by H. P. Lovecraft, following the millions devastated by W.W.I and the Spanish flu, western civilization was felt to be on the decline. Moreover, social Darwinism gave racism an intellectual justification, with such prominent proponents as Jack London. Lovecraft likely considered himself an intellectual studying myth and even penning a chemistry textbook.

Lovecraft's racism comes from a slightly different place. Tragedy filled his personal life: a father who went insane from syphilis; the loss of the grandfather, his fortune, and displacement from his home so that Lovecraft felt like a wanderer; his mother's insanity; and Lovecraft's own financial instability. No wonder he felt the imminent, inexorable collapse, the encroaching horror that has no respite, no escape. This describes not only Lovecraft's key story elements but also his plot structures. The evil of the foreigner is inextricably linked to the uncaring and amoral gods--rather beings from another plane.

The story opens with the protagonist's madness ("Malone was content to keep unshared the secret of what could reduce a dauntless fighter to a quivering neurotic"--a term that Lovecraft, according to Lockhurst, once used to describe himself), and the opening quote from Arthur Machen discusses evolution:

"It is possible that man may sometimes return on the track of evolution, and it is my belief that an awful lore is not yet dead.”

So we witness the typical, inevitable doom of the Lovecraftian tale. His life mirrored civilization, and his fiction mirrored both. While many critics are dismissive of this tale, Lockhurst sets the story in a primary position, and it does appear to illuminate Lovecraft's work.

"Good News from the Vatican" by Robert Silverberg

The next pope is a robot. Why did Carr, del Rey, and LeGuin think this an important story? It was probably the then recent Vatican II that many saw as the beginning of many changes within how religion--at Roman Catholicism--was interpreted. Without historical context, the story loses some of its power. Another lens to read the story would be through race relations with the fear of robots running operations. Nonetheless, despite allusions, metaphor and theme, sometimes a robot is just a robot. It is often more useful to read at a literal level before advancing to other topics and heading off into misinterpretations.

• Universe 1, ed. Terry Carr, Ace 1971
• Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year, ed. Lester del Rey, E.P. Dutton 1972
• Nebula Award Stories 7, ed. Lloyd Biggle, Jr., Harper & Row 1973
• Unfamiliar Territory, Scribner’s 1973
• Social Problems Through Science Fiction, ed. Martin H. Greenberg, John W. Milstead, Joseph D. Olander & Patricia S. Warrick, St. Martin’s 1975
• The New Awareness, ed. Patricia S. Warrick & Martin H. Greenberg, Delacorte 1975
• The Best of Robert Silverberg, Pocket 1976 The Best from Universe, ed. Terry Carr, Doubleday 1984
• Beyond the Safe Zone, Donald I. Fine 1986
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. IV, ed. Terry Carr, Avon 1986
• The Norton Book of Science Fiction, ed. Ursula K. Le Guin & Brian Attebery, Norton 1993