Birthday Reviews: Benford, Deutsch, Farmer

This may be the first installment of a new regular feature of Featured Futures in which I post some of the upcoming week’s birthdays and review at least a story by one or more of the birthday boys or girls. This covers January 25-31, so please join me in wishing a happy birthday (whether they can hear us or not) to Gregory Benford, A. J. Deutsch, and Philip Jose Farmer.

Gregory Benford (1941-01-30)

“And the Sea Like Mirrors” (Again, Dangerous Visions, 1972)

Some stories open with a confusing scenario which either is–or, just as bad, seems like–a sign of incompetence but some open with a confusing scenario which is skillfully presented and some of the enjoyment of the story comes from its gradual clarification. With such stories, reviewing them is hard because you have to give away some of that in order to say anything at all. So I apologize for that and assure you that Benford skillfully presents a strange situation in which a man and a woman are on a raft in an ocean and who then deal with alien critters before revealing that we’re not on an alien world, but on an Earth which has been invaded by aliens who have sown our seas with a variety of life, some of which swarms and attacks like piranhas. Our two characters are the only survivors of a ship that was sunk by these beings. This is, indeed, a dangerous vision not to be read lightly and which succeeds wonderfully on the purely dramatic level of “survival at sea (plus alien invaders)” but which also has thematic depths such as contemplating the extent to which changes without may change us within.

A. J. Deutsch (1918-01-25/1969-11-11)

“A Subway Named Mobius” (Astounding, December 1950)

Deutsch was a respected scientist, but in science fiction terms, he was something of a one-hit wonder, writing only “A Subway Named Mobius.” In it, an elaborate subway network in Boston receives one more element that pushes it into infinite topological complexity and train 86 disappears. Most of the story deals with the station manager and a mathematician trying to understand what has happened and to determine what, if anything, can be done about it. It’s one of those simultaneously funny and freaky stories because the disappearance of 350 people is no laughing matter but lines about a very confused and frustrated manager (“Whyte gripped the edge of his desk and prowled silently through his vocabulary until he had located some civil words”) are. The story is hard to take as actual science fiction and it doesn’t really do much but it’s something like the spatial version (with some temporal aspects, too) of del Rey’s “And It Comes Out Here.” Regardless, it maintains interest.

Philip Jose Farmer (1918-01-26/2009-02-25)

“Sail On! Sail On!” (Startling Stories, December 1952)

I first read of Friar Sparks many moons ago and have read it several times since but it never ceases to amaze. In just a few pages, Farmer puts us on the Santa Maria in what appears to be an alternate world in which Roger Bacon has become a saint and his order has created marvelous things. Things like the “realizer” our good Friar with the large nose and large thirst operates which causes millions of cherubim to line up to convey messages over vast distances (a sort of telegraph interpreted through a different lens). But this is shown to be the least of the changes in what is actually an instance of the omniverse which carries on to a gigantic conclusion. Strongly recommended.