Book review - The Electric Crocodile

D.G. Compton’s science fiction novel The Electric Crocodile (1970) depicts a near-future Britain that’s subsumed within the Federal European government, the centre being Switzerland, with the flags of the member nations fluttering (p37). The currency is in marks. We don’t know when this future is, though there’s a hint: ‘Pavlov found out how to interfere with its (the brain’s) function over seventy years ago.’(p153) As Pavlov received his Nobel Prize in 1904 (he died in 1936), the story probably takes place in a ‘future 1970s/1980s.’

As with any near-future novel, some inventions are not going to happen in the real world and of course some inventions won’t have been thought of by the author. This doesn’t matter; it’s fiction, an alternate reality.

Matthew Oliver is married to Abigail. It’s significant that they both have Biblical names. Abigail is a devoted Catholic, Matthew pays lip service. Churches are virtually social clubs. Yet there’s an underlying current of God vs machine in the subtext.

At one point, Matthew drives past ‘a shopping complex and a self-service battery station. A hundred or so batteries were on charge in open-fronted racks’. (p37) Matthew’s car had been on charge all night and had a good thirty hours of life in it. So predictions of electric cars were viable then, anyway; they’ve just taken longer to evolve into practical use. Other things in this ‘future’ include laser pistols (Matthew has a license for one) and access passes that are checked in a scanner. Smoking is not frowned upon, since ‘the health risk has been beaten.’ (p51) And cancer was controlled (p93). Now, London is a Limited Traffic Zone… The big Italian manufacturers’ lobby had forced through safety legislation in Geneva that made 80% of not-new cars illegal. (p52) The television is shortened to ‘the tell’. And, perhaps surprisingly, people still write and sign cheques. And they use landline telephones, which are capable of producing ‘phonoprints’. Now, the Nevershave hormone treatment was available, which promised that – you’d never need to shave again!

Matthew has been recruited to join the Colindale Institute, which is guarded by a force field fence, which could withstand the onslaught from a two-metre laser. All workers there and their families must accept the presence of microphones in their homes and anyone leaving the grounds is to be accompanied by a so-called tail, in Abigail’s case, Mrs Foster.

The Colindale project, non-political, belonging to the European Federation, financed by central government, collects scientific information, catalogues and freely disseminates it, aimed solely at improving the welfare of humanity… (p47) That’s the official version, anyway. There have been two suspicious unsolved deaths; Matthew is replacing one of the deceased.

The computer Matthew and the team work on is called the Bohn. It still uses tapes and its output is via teleprinters. Their work is secret, involving intelligent imaginative extrapolation. As the Director of the project, Professor Billon states, ‘People in a democracy dislike being told what is good for them.’

Apparently,’ the social balance is precarious, sustained by oblique oppression. Democracy is eroded almost beyond recognition… We’re leaderless…’ Billon believes that the Bohn can supply that leadership, and can meet the need of the people. (p151)

Middle-aged alienees were demanding the vote back, with placards ALIENATION NO CRIME, and PENSIONERS NOT OUTCASTS.  ‘People in general had little sympathy with alienees and their conditional pensions – being alienated was no more than an excuse for being bone idle. The idea that work was a good thing in itself lingered tenaciously, no matter how much the experts told people it was out of date… Usually alienees demonstrated against compulsory education for their children or in favour of better housing.’ (p92)

The title is gleaned from this: ‘In 1933 a laboratory was built for the physicist Pyotr Kapitza. For its façade he ordered the head of a crocodile in steel. “The crocodile of science cannot turn its head. Like science it must always go forward with all-devouring jaws…’ (p96) A more prosaic explanation can be found here

And perhaps the Bohn can manipulate scientific discovery, change the future even?

So, an interesting socio-political science fiction novel that deals with commitment, love, betrayal, hubris, paranoia and the soul-crushing homogenous federal state.

***

Compton’s most successful novel is probably The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, a highly affecting piece (which was made into the film Death Watch); it was one of my favourite science fiction novels (though I have many favourites!)

D.G. Compton was born in 1930 and his last published work was in 1996.

Style: Straight-forward. Certain sections switch viewpoint and we snatch the occasional comment twice, but perceived from a different listener; like echoes; it’s a neat little touch and isn’t overdone.

Cover (1976): I’m not a great fan of psychedelic covers. The title perhaps suggests something like this, but I don’t find it appealing.

FFB - All the Sounds of Fear

The 1973 Panther paperback was the first British publication of this collection by Harlan Ellison. It comprises eight short stories previously published in magazines from 1956 to 1967. Considering that he was twenty-two when the first of these stories was published, it’s not surprising that he garnered much praise – and awards. On the back cover he is described as ‘one of the most explosive talents in science fiction today’, ‘a non-stop controversialist’ and ‘the bête noire of science fiction.’

Harlan Ellison wears his heart on his sleeve; that’s no bad thing: he has a good heart, even at eighty-one. He admits to possessing an abrasive personality, but that has no bearing here; it is his work that matters.

 

In his introduction to this book (1970), Ellison is not hopeful about our planet and human evolution: ‘we have created for ourselves a madhouse of irrationality and despair.’ Surprisingly, perhaps, we’ve survived, after a fashion, some forty-five years since; as for ‘irrationality and despair’, he could have prophetically been thinking about the ravings and cravings found in social media.

Not alone among authors, he believes that writers can make a difference: ‘The creative intellect struggles against this sorry reality… It would seem only the mind of the madman is free… And even so the artist persists… in hopes that cautions may be flung on the wind and somehow still be heard.’ He states that this collection of stories, written over a decade or so, is dominated by the theme of alienation. However, he is a romantic at heart, and still believes ‘we find hope within ourselves.’

Perhaps one of the most anthologised of his stories is the first here, ‘I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream’ (1967), which won a Hugo Award. It’s the future and the supercomputer AM feels trapped because though he had sentience, he couldn’t do anything except simply be. In a rage, he had destroyed humankind, save for five who he would torment for all eternity. ‘He was Earth and we were the fruit of that Earth and though he had eaten us, he would never digest us.’ They couldn’t attempt suicide, either; they were to all intents immortal, and damned.

‘The Discarded’ (1959) is from the viewpoint of Bedzyk, one of many incarcerated in a space vessel, ‘a raft adrift in the sea of night’. Everyone on-board was a mutant of some description – not X-Men with superhuman powers, simply possessors of additional limbs, eyes, heads, and therefore outcast. All as a result of a terrible contagion on Earth. Once normality had resumed, those who looked different were outcast, set adrift in space, unwelcome on no inhabited station or planet.

‘Deeper than the Darkness’ (1957) concerns Alf Gunnderson who is released from prison for a special task. He was imprisoned because he accidentally started a forest fire with his mind. Now, however, the authorities wanted to put his ‘gift’ to use, to end a war. Alf was in a quandary: ‘What of the people who hated war, and the people who served because they had been told to serve, and the people who wanted to be left alone? What of the men who went into the fields, while their fellow troops dutifully sharpened their war knives, and cried?

            ‘Was this war one of salvation or liberation or duty as they parroted the phrases of patriotism? Or was this still another of the unending wars for domination, larger holdings, richer worlds. Was this another vast joke of the Universe, where men were sent to their deaths so one type of government, no better than another, could rule?’ A novella about conscience and power.

‘Blind Lightning’ (1956) finds us with old spaceman Kettridge stranded on an inhospitable planet with an enormous ravenous beast that happens to speak telepathically in his language... Quite a moving little parable, about redemption and ‘first contact’.

‘All the Sounds of Fear’ (1962) is an interesting story, first featured in The Saint Detective Magazine. Richard Becker is an extraordinary actor – he seems to not only live the stage part, but to become the character he portrays in every way, no matter what the source, historical or contemporary. Until that dark day when he emulated a character to a murderous degree and was sectioned to be studied by doctors. While in the sanatorium Becker transgresses, becoming each part again, from the most recent to the earliest. A stunning end awaits.

 
‘The Silver Corridor’ (1956) is about egomania, where two  powerful men vie to be proved ‘right’ and the other ‘wrong’ regarding the latest theory. They are thrust into a special corridor that stretches reality to the limits, where they contest in many varied duels to better each other. Of all these stories, this is the weakest, though it has plenty of colour, time-shifts, action and excitement.

‘“Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman’ (1965) won Ellison several awards and is believed to be one of the most reprinted short stories in the English language. It is a tongue-in-cheek critique of a dystopian system and in particular of lives being ruled by the clock. In the dystopia depicted, everybody had a schedule to keep; lateness was punishable, ultimately by being switched off – everybody was fitted with a cardioplate that the Timekeeper could make inactive. Unfortunately for the system, Everett C Marm wasn’t punctual and revelled in disturbing the smooth running of the day, causing schedule mayhem while disguised as a harlequin. The mysterious Harlequin became ‘an emotionally disturbed segment of the populace’.

Ellison’s distinctive style is evidenced here, for example: ‘And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we are slaves of the schedule, worshippers of the sun’s passing, bound into a life predicated on restrictions because the system will not function if we don’t keep the schedule tight… Until it becomes more than a minor inconvenience to be late. It becomes a sin. Then a crime. Then a crime punishable by (death).’ In essence, if a person was ten minutes late, then those minutes were deducted from that person’s life-span.

 
The book ends with ‘Bright Eyes’ which is anything but bright, for it is the end of the world. The last survivor – who came before Man – witnesses the utter waste of resources and life. An apocalyptic tale, with bruising and impressive imagery, and no hope.

And of course Ellison ends this collection with ‘no hope’ in the belief stated in his Introduction that his ‘cautions may be flung on the wind and somehow still be heard.’