IN SOLITARY - Book review

 

Garry Kilworth’s debut novel In Solitary was published in 1977. Since then he has produced novels in a broad number of genres, among them science fiction, fantasy, and history.

Earth has been under the domination of aliens for centuries. The Soal are uncompromising, their laws stating: ‘No member of the Human Race born a native of the Planet Earth may have contact with any other such native by any medium, natural or otherwise, after the age of 170 months [just over 14 years-of-age] except for the performance of mating. No member of the Human Race under 170 months of age born a native of the Planet Earth may have contact with any male member of the same race. The penalty for disobedience of the Soal Law is death’ (p6). Hence, the males are effectively ‘in solitary’ all their life (save for the rare mating events).

The Soal resemble birds with pointed beak-like faces and a web of elastic skin joining the upper and lower limbs; fine hair-like feathers cover their bodies. They’re about a metre tall – ‘more like flying foxes than birds’ (p8).

The book begins with Tangiia – a native Polynesian – embarking to sea on a mating journey in the Oceania area near Ostraylea. Apparently the earthquake of 2083 Old Time had altered the physical relationship between Brytan and Yurop. Apart from the first chapter, the novel is in the first-person, related by another human, Cave, who is serving the Soal in Brytan – until he is banished to live among the mud people… Here, Cave meets a female, Stella, who is quite formidable. They live in tall towers – mushrooms – and barely subsist. Eventually, these two join forces with others, including Tangiia – all the while evading Soal patrols for, clearly, if they were caught congregating, they would be killed.

Of them all, Tangiia is the romantic: ‘She is what makes it so beautiful. Man was made to have woman by his side, otherwise there are just empty holes in our chests where our hearts should be’ (p70).

Kilworth has created an original scenario and populated it with humans and aliens who exhibit all the usual traits – anger, deceit, violence, hate and love. And close to the end, after a rebellion against the Soal, a twist in the tale is revealed.

At 139 pages, it is a short book, but packed with fascinating descriptions of an unusual environment and traumatic events.

FFB – ALIENS by Alan Dean Foster

Foster is the undisputed king of film novelizations. It has been stated that Foster claims to add an additional third to each script he novelises, such as providing the characters with thoughts and past history. Having written a screenplay of my book Death is Another Life, I know how much has to be left out for a script to work. Virtually all the description goes, as do the thought processes – though some can be verbalised if essential to the forward motion of the story.

I reviewed this way back when it was first published, but I think my comments still stand up.

Manipulation of the viewer or reader can annoy; the scene in Alien where Ripley stripped to her underwear, besides seeming unnecessary for the story, was to my mind deliberately manipulative, offering her up visibly defenceless, without even the dubious protection of clothes, and of course the scene was there for titillation, perhaps. Aliens does it, too, manipulating, that is: not only is Ripley destined to face the aliens, but she is to be accompanied by a child – a sure-fire heart-stopper. Despite these misgivings, the manipulation is effective, as it was in the forerunner, Alien.

This sequel picks up Ripley in suspension floating in her drifter, Narcissus, some 57 years after she rid herself of the alien. The character of Ripley is enlarged upon, and her susceptibility to nightmares is both understandable and well conveyed – in the event she undertakes to return to the alien planet of her nightmares in order to exorcise them. The planet now has a name, Acheron, and a colony, which inevitably succumbs to the aliens! So the space marines are sent in, with state-of-the-art weaponry which is convincingly featured.

Drawings that accompanied my original review.

 

You won’t get a great deal of style or literary writing, but the story and characters are convincing and occasionally Foster illuminates with a telling phrase or two, viz:

‘Both wore the expression of men for whom sleep is a teasing mistress rarely visited.’

There are minor irritations, such as ‘politicoporate manoeuvering’, repeated use of ‘heretofore’ outside of legalise contexts, ‘she was slipping on her equipment’ for ‘she was putting on her equipment’, a different image entirely, death is an ‘irritating finality’ – irritating seems an inappropriate description. But these are trifling quibbles concerning a good edge-of-seat read which kept me awake into the early hours. Reviewers of the film say they felt drained and limp after the movie, due to unremitting tension, and the book does read like that too. Yes, it is very well done.

 

ALIENS AND COWBOYS REVISITED (sort of...)

Reading some commentators, you’d think that the concept for Aliens and Cowboys was new. Yet combining western and science fiction genres goes back to the 1950s, if not earlier.

Certainly, the pulps had fun with cross genre books, and comics tended to follow suit.

Here is an eye-catching cover of a DC Comics Special from 1970.

 

The Special is a crafty idea, as it repackages previously published tales about several DC frontier characters within a cross-genre story arc. There’s a book-end and linking storyline ‘Behold the Wild Frontier’ where the modern-day Gramps tells frontier tales to his two grandsons. This arc is drawn by Gil Kane, I reckon (author and artist credits were not given), and here’s the first page.

 

The rest of the stories are drawn by their respective illustrators of the time. There begins a Daniel Boone tale, ‘Son of Chief Black Fish!’ Then Gramps went on to relate the story of ‘The Junior Ghost Patrol!’ featuring Tomahawk. Next up was Davy Crocket with ‘War Stick of Chief Fighting Elk!’ This was followed by Kit Carson and ‘The Raiders of the Oregon Trail!’  We’re moving forward a little in time, I guess, and now meet Buffalo Bill in ‘Young Bill – of the Pony Express!’ No sooner is that story told than Gramps relates the story of Pow-Wow Smith, Indian Lawman. (The only story title that doesn’t boast an exclamation mark!) And the book-end/story arc concludes with Gramps meeting up with aliens. The comic is rounded off with a DPS text story, ‘Death Hunt’, uncredited.

 

[Eli Katz (April 6, 1926 – January 31, 2000) who worked under the name Gil Kane and less famously Scott Edward, Gil Stack and other pseudonyms, was a comic book artist whose career spanned the 1940s to 1990s and every major comics company and character. Kane co-created the modern-day version of the superhero Green Lantern.]

Ah, those were the days.