Book reviews - Dumarest Saga #16 & #17

Reading E.C. Tubb’s long-running science fiction saga, I have reached the halfway point with volumes 16 and 17 in the 33-book series.

While each story is a self-contained adventure, these two books are continuous in theme, characters and environment, so I read them back-to-back.

The Dumarest novels are set in a far future galactic culture that spread to many worlds. Earl Dumarest was born on Earth, but had stowed away on a spaceship when he was a young boy and was discovered. Although a stowaway apprehended on a spaceship was typically ejected into space, the captain took pity on the lad and allowed him to work his passage on the ship. By the time of the first volume, The Winds of Gath, Dumarest has traveled so long and so far that he does not know how to return to his home planet; and in fact nobody has ever heard of it, except as a myth or a legend. It’s clear to him that someone or something has deliberately concealed Earth's location. The Cyclan, an organization of humans (cybers surgically altered to be emotionless, who on occasion can link with the brains of previously living Cyclans, in the manner of a hive mind process, seem determined to prevent him finding Earth. The cybers can call on the ability to calculate the outcome of an event and accurately predict results.

An additional incentive for the Cyclan to capture Dumarest is that he possesses a potent scientific discovery, stolen from them and passed to him by a dying thief, which would inordinately amplify their already considerable power and enable them to dominate the human species. Also appearing in the books is the humanitarian Church of Universal Brotherhood, whose monks roam many worlds, notably every planet where there is war.

All these books reveal imaginative situations, fantastic colourful civilisations and a vast array of characters. 

Haven of Darkness (#16)(1977) introduces us to the planet of Zakym, where the spectres of the dead appear at the time of delusia, when the twin suns attain close proximity in the heavens. On Zakym the beautiful Lavinia is not only haunted by ghosts, she is being courted by an unsavoury power-crazed noble, Gydapen. Into this world arrives Dumarest, cleverly escaping capture by a Cyclan agent. Here, he learns that the human inhabitants stay indoors at night; a curfew is enforced. Anyone caught outside at night falls prey to the Sungari, the original seemingly mythical yet deadly inhabitants of the world.

When Dumarest suffers the kickback traces of an earlier treatment, he is privy to certain knowledge: ‘A man lived every second of every hour since the time of his birth and each of those seconds held all that had happened to and around him. A vastness of experience. An inexhaustible supply of terror and pain and hopeless yearning. An infinity of doubt and indecision, of ignorance known and forcibly accepted, of frustration and hate and cruelty and fear. A morass in which glowed the fitful gleams of transient joy. Each man, within his skull, carried a living hell.’ (p151)

Dumarest earns the love of Lavinia to the chagrin of her suitor and, to avoid a civil war, he has to face Gydapen in a tension-filled showdown.

(At this juncture, the publisher (Arrow) changed the cover artist.]

Prison of Night (#17)(1977) begins with the mysterious death of a monk of the Universal Brotherhood. Meanwhile, the story continues with Dumarest living with Lavinia on Zakym. Dumarest wondered about the delusia effects, a planetary insanity which he now shared. Possibly, ‘wild radiation from the twin suns merging as they closed, blasting space with energies which distorted the microcurrents of the brain and giving rise to hallucinations. Figments of memory made apparently real, words spoken but heard only by the once concerned…’ (p20)

Despite his help in saving Lavinia, her ruling council still considered Dumarest a stranger. ‘Xenophobia, incredible in this age, was not dead.’ (p36)

Time and again, Tubb throws in tantalising glimpses of other worlds, other cultures. ‘There were words, ceremonies deliberately kept devoid of mysticism, the throb of bells. Always there were bells, deep, musical notes captured on recorders, now filling the air with the melody gained on Hope where tremendous castings of bronze, silver and brass throbbed and droned with a solemn pulse, which touched the wells of life itself.’ (p44)

A greater threat to Zakym and Lavinia has emerged, and it is only through Dumarest’s bravery and insight that the danger can be averted. It would also mean confrontation with a powerful manipulative cyber. A tense, fast-paced finale.

After seventeen books, Tubb has remained consistently entertaining. I will surely continue with the saga.

FFB - Spectrum of a Forgotten Sun

Fifteenth in E.C. Tubb’s ‘Dumarest Saga’ is a splendid fast-paced science fiction novel.

Earl Dumarest covers a lot of ground – and space – in this one! Fighting as a mercenary on the planet Hoghan, he ends up on the losing side and is captured. However, his abilities are recognised and he is offered a way off the planet, if he can assist in a little bit of interplanetary smuggling. And one of the main looters is the Lady Dephine (not Delphine as shown in the blurb and on Amazon). Some sci-fi writers can’t write good female characters; Tubb can: ‘Life alone is never enough. Always there is more, for unless there is, we are no better than beasts in a field. Our senses were given us to use; our ambitions to be fulfilled. How well you understand, Earl.’

The pace never lets up: there’s betrayal, a deadly plague on the spaceship, landfall on Emijar, a planet controlled by strict codes of conduct where transgressors can expect to be challenged to fight to the death, and here too are the olcept, nasty critters that are hunted for trophies and attaining manhood. The dead are mummified and deified, though it’s no comfort to them: ‘Time enough for the chemicals to penetrate the tissue, to harden soft fibres and dissolve points of potential corruption. To seal the flesh in a film of plastic, perhaps, or to petrify it, to protect the body against the ravages of time. To produce monuments to the dead.’

And there’s a grand passion between Dephine and Earl. Love: ‘Sweetness and pain, the ineffable joy of affection and the haunting fear of loss. The vulnerability of total surrender. The willing discarding of all defences and the embracing of the unknown…’

Not forgetting another possible clue to the whereabouts of the long-lost planet Earth. ‘Stowing away as a boy… The captain allowed him to work his passage and kept him aboard until he died. When alone, the boy had moved on, ship after ship, world after world, always deeper and deeper towards the heart of the galaxy. To regions where even the very name of Earth had become a legend.’

And the story has a neat twist at the end, too.

As always, Tubb provides us with glimmers of prose that is almost poetry: ‘Her faith had been strong and she had died happy. Now she would drift for eternity or be drawn by gravitational attraction into a sun and disintegrate in a final puff of glory. A minute flame which would, perhaps, warm some future flower, grace some unknown sky.’ And then we’re brought down severely with: ‘Fanciful imagery which had no place in a ship which had become a living tomb.’

And Dumarest’s philosophy, usually within a single paragraph, helps paint a picture of the man: ‘… No human being, no matter how insignificant, can safely be demeaned. Always there is present the danger of restraints snapping, of self-control giving way beneath the impact of one insult too many. Of pride and the need to be an individual bursting out in a tide of relentless fury.’

 
Over the years commentators have wondered why the saga has never been taken up as a TV series. Particularly these days; the CGI wizards could do a great job. Perhaps it’s because TV series have moved away from the lone protagonist – now it seems a series involves a number of regular characters, it’s an ensemble piece, rather than a one-man show with guests.

FFB - Jack of Swords

Jack of Swords (1976) is the fourteenth in the Dumarest saga by E.C. Tubb. The Dumarest series comprises 33 books, each story a self-contained adventure. However, throughout the series the protagonist Earl Dumarest searches for clues to the location of his home world, Earth. The series is set in a far future. By the time of the first adventure The Winds of Gath (1967) Dumarest has traveled so long and so far that he does not know how to return to his home planet and indeed no-one has ever heard of it, other than as a myth or legend.

It seems likely that Earth's location has been deliberately concealed. The Cyclan, an organization of humans surgically altered to be emotionless, seem intent on stopping him from finding Earth. They’re also keen to retrieve a scientific discovery that Dumarest possesses, stolen from them and passed to him by a dying thief, which would vastly increase their already considerable power.

‘At the heart of the web glowed the mass of Central Intelligence, the heart of the Cyclan. Buried deep beneath miles of rock on a lonely world, the massed brains absorbed knowledge as a sponge sucked water… His brain, removed, would join the others, hooked in a unified whole, all working to a common end: the complete and absolute control of the entire galaxy. The elimination of waste and the direction of effort so that every man and every world would become the parts of a universal machine.’

Dumarest has turned up on Teralde, an unwelcoming planet. Here, he is recruited on a quest for a nebulous ghost world. It may even hold the key to his search for Earth. He joins a motley crew and eventually they find what they seek, in more ways than one.

Tubb’s inventiveness never seems to flag, which is remarkable, considering his output.

 

And his descriptions are spare yet telling:

‘“Tell me,” [he said.] For her good, not his, a catharsis to ease her inner torment. Hurtful memories, nursed, could fester and gain a false eminence. It was better she should speak and, until she did, he was powerless to say or do anything which could help.’

‘His face was a combination of disaster, the nose squashed, eyebrows scarred, the lobe of one ear missing. An ugly man with the appearance of a brutal clown but whose hands held magic when it came to dealing with machines.’

Edwin Charles Tubb died in 2010, aged 90. He was a British writer of science fiction, fantasy and western books - writing over 140 novels and 230 short stories and novellas. He used 58 pen names over five decades of writing.