Brian Stableford’s series of six books concerning star-pilot
Grainger and his spaceship The Hooded
Swan begins with this novel, Halcyon Drift (1972); they’re regarded as classics by the
science fiction fraternity. Stableford has written in excess of seventy novels; yes, he’s
prolific. I met his mother when she briefly attended a few of my writers’
circle meetings here in Spain. A brief review of his book Young Blood appears
here
Stableford is a good writer who presents effective visuals
with his prose: ‘Brown clouds move sullenly across the sulky face of the sky,
washing the black mountain faces with hazy tears.’ (p7) Other examples from
page 128: ‘Alien night is always a bad place to be.’ And ‘The horizon glowed
white, surrounding us like a vast silvery ring set with a jewel-like flare at
the point where the sun had vanished.’
The story begins with a prologue in the present tense, outlining
the fact that Grainger has crashed his spaceship Javelin on an uninhabited rock, killing his partner, Lapthorn. So
he’s alone. The inhospitable place is
plagued by winds, always blowing down the grave marker. Through his
reminiscences, we get an insight into Grainger’s nomadic life with Lapthorn, trading
and dealing from planet to planet, encountering fascinating and intriguing life-forms.
Grainger is cynical: ‘A lot of spacemen are like me. Cold, emotionless men who
don’t inherit any part of the worlds and the people that they see.’ (p13) He reminisces about his friend Alachakh, a
Khormon trader, whose life he saved once. That’s all he’s got, stranded on this
rock for two years, waiting to die.
And then the wind starts to talk to him in his head. He isn’t going nuts: it’s an alien mind-parasite. It’s quite a lengthy prologue, ending with him being rescued by a passing ramrod ship, the Ella Marita. He gets away but he’s stuck with the mind-parasite – for life.
And then the wind starts to talk to him in his head. He isn’t going nuts: it’s an alien mind-parasite. It’s quite a lengthy prologue, ending with him being rescued by a passing ramrod ship, the Ella Marita. He gets away but he’s stuck with the mind-parasite – for life.
The rest of the tale is told in the usual past historic and
it's inventive, in description and the alien life-forms, and in the leaps to a
possible future: ‘I dialled through to the Illinois cybernet… a credit card, punched
and banded, oozed out of a slot… I tapped out a query on the keyboard, asking
how much the card was carrying…’ Bearing in mind this was written in 1972 or
earlier: not bad. (I didn’t get my first credit card until 1987, when I was
39!)
There’s also irony and humour, to be enjoyed. Here’s the
mind-parasite speaking in Grainger’s head: ‘I’m an expert on you, Grainger, and
I’m learning more all the time. I’m right inside you. I’m with you every
decision you take. I’m riding your every thought, and feeling everything you
feel. This isn’t the most comfortable of minds to live in, my friend. I would
appreciate it greatly if you could get it sorted out a little. Come to terms
with yourself and the universe.’ (p34)
The nameless mind-parasite isn’t the only great invention in
this story. Meet The Hooded Swan, a ship that can fly ‘like a bird. She’s jointed
and musculated. She has the most complete and most sensitive nerve-net any mechanical
device has ever had.…’ In fact, Grainger the pilot is connected to the
nerve-system of the spaceship and feels what the craft feels; his body becomes
part of the body of the ship. Grainger literally flies by feel.
One of the several inventions is the quite tragic Khormon race. When
these people have filled their memories – nothing is ever forgotten – they have
reached their end. As Alachakh says, ‘I wish I could forget a little and create
some space, but I cannot. I am stuck in the day before yesterday. There can be
no question of a long tomorrow, and I doubt the latter hours of today. Soon
even the minute swill become painful to squeeze away into tight corners…” (p89)
Another invention is the metamorphic life system Grainger encounters in his
quest: ‘Our presence and progress would cause the plants which we touched
unbearable pain.’ And: ‘… the feel of the furtive, glutinous chaos through
which we moved. Myriads of tiny creatures were accidentally transferred from
the plants to me, and I hoped none of them was adapted for chewing tough
plastic.’ (p134)
Grainger is hired to pilot The Hooded Swan and enter the Halcyon Drift in search of a spaceship
that was lost in the drift eighty years ago; a distress signal has bleeped
since then but due to the awesome peculiarities of the drift it hasn’t been located
yet: ‘Drift space casually disobeys principles which are called laws in saner
corners of the galaxy.’ (p97)
Perhaps the ending was a little rushed, but he was writing
to fit into a specific format. How Grainger resolves his quest is intriguing –
and moral, to boot. Needless to say, he survives to fly The Hooded Swan in another novel, and I’ll be reading all of the
series.
