Jack Williamson Books

This book audio cassette is in good condition. I haven't listened yet since I am saving it for a long car trip next month. The shipping was so fast and the seller pleasant to deal with.

A good book for the winter reading list. I pictured Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as the two main characters here. No, not that movie, just a interesting Vietnam Vet mystery novel. Check it out.

A reporter named Barbee uncovers a murder, and a plot that goes deeper and deeper after meeting a bewitching woman named April.

He soon discovers that the pair of them are shapeshifters, with the ability to alter probability by the use of floating mental webs. These sorts of people are a result of speciation in the icy mountain region of the Gobi.

Eventually, they ruled the globe, until man domesticated the dog as an ally and knew enough to know that silver disrupts these mental webs. They are the source for most of the legends about monsters, gods and supernatural beings like werewolves and vampires.

Now, there are no full bloods left, and hundreds of recessive genes must express themselves to get
such a being. He will be known as the Child of Night.

A group of his friends know about this, which is why they removed him from their presence, but they are dying, one by one.

A secret struggle is happening between a government agency, and a small band of mutants led by a rogue geneticist. Sound familiar? Well, it should, except this story is from 1951.

A young man is being recruited by both sides, and has to choose.

The hunter side tells him "They're somewhat tougher and quicker and stronger than we are, and apparently immune to most diseases... High intelligece,...A average I.Q. probably twice ours...But the gift that makes them so dangerous, and so difficult to trap, is ESP."

Dane ends up joining the mutant side, and working with the scientist that inspired his own studies, who is hiding under an alias in New Guinea.

Now, the really interesting thing is is organisation is called Cadmus, and their manager is Vic Van Doon.

A confrontation between forces is inevitable, but it does give both leaders a chance to talk, to see if they can reach a compromise and co-operation situation.

There are two other stories in this book, much shorter, with themes that are similar.

Alphamega: Child of one man's unlimited imagination, the product of genetic manipulation experiments to create new lie forms. Alphamega: The only survivor of a fiery assault by Bioscience Alert, God's watchdogs who have named all scientific research the devil's handiwork. To the U.S. government, she is a menace- a plague carrier to be destroyed on sight.
But to Sax Belcraft, she is the only link to his lost brother and to Panchito Torres, who knows her best, she is an angel come to Earth, able o heal with a touch. Alphamega. What is she... and what will she become?

It's a shame these great interviews vanish so quickly and are unavailable for fans of the genre. Jack Williamson, in particular, has seen it all when it comes to 20th century (and now 21st century) science fiction. Unlike other earlier writers, he's been able to adapt his writing style to remain relevant, and his opinions on everything from his early work like "The Humanoids" to working with Fred Pohl are fascinating. Everything he says is worth paying attention to. For fans or researchers of Williamson's work looking for interview material, you might want to check out Voices of Vision: Creators of Science Fiction and Fantasy Speak. The shorter interview in there isn't as exhaustive, and doesn't necessarily cover the same ground, but is still good for such great Williamson observations as: "Good science fiction is the result of... let's say a strong personal reaction to what's happening. If it's a good story, it'll have character values and thematic interest and narrative drive that will be there after the science changes. Too, cosmology and many other sciences are becoming too recondite for the average reader to understand. Science has become indistinguishable from magic in the popular mind." Until a small genre publisher like Monkeybrain brings this stand-alone interview back into print, VoV is likely your best bet.

I just finished the last book of the STARCHILD TRILOGY by Pohl and Williamson last week. I thought the first book REEFS OF SPACE was the best.

Some of the things I liked about REEFS OF SPACE:

The Plan Of Man - A super-computer which runs all human affairs. Citizens must constantly check-in at computer terminals for orders ie. before beginning work, after completing each task, before leaving a room, after entering a room etc.

Risks - People who have performed badly, underachieved, or been caught performing unplanned actions or having unplanned thoughts.

The Collar - An explosive collar worn by the Risks which can be detonated at anytime The Plan Of Man sees fit. It also explodes automatically if tampered with.

The Body Bank - If a Risk continues to screw up or underachieve there is still one way he can contribute to society by providing body parts for transplanting onto or into those citizens who need them in order to remain useful to society.

The JunkMan - A man built by using body parts and made to look exactly like one of the donors at The Body Bank in order to take his place so that this donor could escape, the only person ever to do so.

There was some cool scientific stuff too; jetless drive, Hoyle theory, simbiotic relationships. But all that mumbo-jumbo means little to me. Just call me Olaf Simpleton because it was the simpler concepts which I found entertaining and interesting.

One thing left me cold....At one point in the story someone says that they've known several people who were sent to The Body Bank, but they've never known anyone to recieve a body part from there. Nothing else was ever mentioned about that.

=============================Book II=============================

The first book of THE STARCHILD TRILOGY (The Reefs Of Space) I gave four stars. This book (STARCHILD) is not quite as good as the first one. I can't give it 3-1/2 stars so I'll round up and settle with giving it four stars also.

In THE REEFS OF SPACE you're shown how The Plan Of Man super-computer affects and controls every aspect of daily life for the citizens of Earth and it's colonies. You also get to experience what it's like to wear The Collar and a really good tour of The Body Bank. In STARCHILD The Collar is still a big part of the story, but only brief mention is made of The Body Bank. This second book of the trilogy also gives an up close and personal view of The Plan Of Man super-computer. You get to see how it needs human extensions of itself, humans who can be completely trusted. You're shown what it takes to become a companion of the computer; the education and training involved, the surgical modifications needed, and the sacrafice of "self" and the leaving behind of all that had been a part of your previous life, including loved ones. You also get to see what it's like to live out on the reefs as free men, out of the reach of The Plan Of Man. The climactic ending is great.

If you intend reading the entire trilogy I suggest you stop after this book, I could hardly finish ROGUE STAR(the third book). You DO need to read the first book(The Reefs Of Space), but I'd say the conclusion of STARCHILD is adequate enough to wrap up the series.

=============================BOOK III============================

This trilogy got progressively worse for me. The first book (REEFS OF SPACE) I really liked and it was my favorite, but by the time I reached the final pages of the third book (ROGUE STAR) I didn't really know where the authors were heading with it and I really didn't care.

I felt they had abandoned some earlier concepts a little too early, and perhaps could have pursued and developed other story-lines further. I hate when that happens! Abandoning one really cool concept or story-line for a lame one. I couldn't buy into that "infant star has a crush on a beautiful woman" thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. It ate her boyfriend and that's why it has feelings for her. Still not sold.

"Wall Around a Star" by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson, © 1983

This futuristic novel is wonderful. There is a good story and some wild imagined innovations. The oddest part is the hero is a linguist!! Who ever thought a linguist would save the world? The funniest part is his name: Jenson (Jens) Babylon.
The science that is novel is the tachyon transmitters. Because nothing can go faster than light, except a tachyon, which cannot go slower than light, it is contrived that transmitters that send by tachyon beam information, such as body chemistry or radio messages, make the visiting of far off stars possible. The impossibility of having a person transmitted to another star and remember all he knew up to the point of transmission, is beyond belief. But this is science fiction, there has to some notions we cannot believe will happen.
Dr. Babylon has his working vacation in Polynesia interrupted by some message to return home, but the message is garbled or has missing information, so he does not know what is going on for some time after he gets home, and even then he finds he can only 'go with the flow.' He becomes two: one here on Earth and one around this place that is coming into our galaxy. The magic of the tachyon transmission is that one is not erased in the transmission, but copied, so there are two of each, or more, if one, somewhere, does not die. The place out in space is some sort of orbiter around this odd thing that is traveling through intergalactic space. It turns out to be a Dyson sphere from another galaxy. The other galaxy has turned itself into a black hole through natural attrition or evolution. It is quite a good story. The long spans of time involved are touched on, but never really dealt with. For instance, how long would it take to build a Dyson sphere? Would the sun even last that long?

This collection of shortstories, written by a distinguished group of authors in tribute to the world created by the imagination of Jack Williamson.
I really purchased this book to read some more stories about one of the SciFi characters I love most; Giles Habbibula - from the group of Legion of Space stories.

This is Top Notch Higgins. Be warned that this is a little Dated. The setting is the era of the ORIGINAL "Day of the Jackal". Believable story. Interesting Characters.

This was an interesting idea with a hopeful but down beat ending.
The story of a failsafe base on the moon started by some well meaning scientists and the clone children who are reborn with each catastrophe that strikes the earth over literally millions of years was interesting but grew repetitive. Upon reflection you really could see that the last part of the story was the novella he won accolades for and the prior portion was filled in to flesh out the story.

When Jack Williamson wrote TERRAFORMING EARTH, he was NINETY-THREE years old, and in his SEVENTY-THIRD year as a published author. (He was born in 1908, published his first story in 1928, and wrote this in 2001.)

Take that, Norm McLean!

I think that's pretty amazing, especially since this book, for all its flaws, really is original. An asteroid wipes out almost all life on earth, but human clones and robots live on on a base on the moon. Their goal is to monitor the earth, and restore life to it as soon as possible. Thousands of years pass, then millions, whole ice ages; the master computer and its robots brings the clones back to life, educates them about the earth, its past, and their mission; the clones attempt to restore life, die, and get cloned again millions or however many years later.

The story's idea is terrific, and the first fourth of the book is absolutely great--but it does get redundant, and most times Williamson takes the story into places much less cool than the possibilities suggest. For instance, he brings aliens into the picture, which is just totally unnecessary and doesn't do much for the story. (The aliens arrive in a giant spaceship many miles across, just like in his book THE COMETEERS, and they lead to all sorts of New-Agey imagery of flying golden fruit-women and that sort of thing.) It often does seem a lot like A CANTICLE FOR LIEBOWITZ, with its accounts of civilization passing over thousands of years, and it just seems that it could have been a lot cooler, could have done more justice to its premise.

Still, I enjoyed it, and I appreciate that it really does try to do something different. Plus, I love stories that deal with deep time, that show the process of time passing and evolution, even if, like this one, they don't follow the story all the way to a more natural conclusion, and even if they don't turn our to be all that they could have been.

(I do have to say though, that in my research into works of science fiction set partially in New Mexico, this is one of the most enjoyable books I've come across. The earth's sole survivors take off from a base in the White Sands area.)

The first problem with this work is it never really lives up to the title. There is no hard science behind the Earth's future evolution as chronicled here. The characters cloned on the moon charged to repopulate and re-form the Earth's ecology do by happenstance- or perhaps a complete lack of care on the part of the author's. They all just bend with the wind, their actions never directly affecting change. They are simply observers- which also could be the fault of Williamson's choice to use the first person narrative for the book, told by the clones' official biographer and journalist.

I kept reading just to see what the next generations of clones would encounter, and was somewhat disappointed with each section. All of the chapters are almost separate short stories, with the original short, which this work builds upon (which I have not previously read) somewhat sticking out like a sore thumb.

Williamson also shows signs of not quite maturing beyond his 50s sci-fi novels, with winged creatures and mind-controlling parasites populating a few of the chapters. Sorry Jack, but contemporary readers need more than a chronicle with such a heady topic.

After my failed attempt to read Williamson's previous effort, *The Black Sun*, I decided I needed to read the only other book of his I own but hadn't yet read to see if it was as bad. I can report that it is not. But, for all the promise of the story idea, it is flat and a little unimaginative.

A store of all life on Earth is placed on the Moon in case of catastrophe. The catastrophe eventually arrives in the form of a massive asteroid strike that wipes out life on Earth. A new set of caretaker clones are created on the Moon and the terraforming of Earth begins to build it back to a life-supporting planet. Through generations of these clones over millions of years, the effort the help guide evolution anew through such technology of "Life Bombs" slowly brings earth back to a thriving ecosystem under the watchful eyes of the clones.

Sounds potentially great doesn't it? Except, instead of taking this opportunity to evolve life in an entirely new direction, and exploring where this could go, *Terraforming Earth* is more of a history is doomed to repeat itself motif that is just plain stale in the end - right down to whites subjugating Blacks to slavery. What *A Canticle for Liebowitz* did so brilliantly within the context of its story, this book does so flatly and predictably.

*Terraforming Earth* is lightly entertaining, but fully lacking in what it could have been.

>>>>>>><<<<<<<

A Guide to my Book Rating System:

1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper.
2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead.
3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted.
4 stars = Good book, but not life altering.
5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.

Forget the title and the intriguing cover art, both are misleading. This book is about the earth getting whacked and a bunch of cloned kids passively waiting for it to re-evolve on it's own through many generations--no assembly required. So if you're hoping for great feats of engineering look elsewhere.

There is absolutely zero tension in this novel. The writing at times is so detached it becomes unintentionally sociopathic--as when the children visit their super-evolved and much-beloved uncle, but when they arrive unexpectedly he abandons them and suggests they should find their way to a museum exhibit where they will fit in with the interactive robots. I'm not kidding. It's about equivalent to telling an orphan to go live at Chuck E. Cheese with the animatronic band who seem very friendly. But in a few more pages, he's their beloved uncle again and a hero figure for the book. It's disturbing, but not in a good literary kind of way, more like a "Is Mr.Williamson taking his meds?" kind of way.

And there's precious little science in this fiction. The clone kids are along for the ride while the "computer" makes all the decisions and never explains it's analysis to them or the reader. The criminally incurious kids may not want to ask the big questions, but that's a pretty big reason why people read SF novels. I don't how an author gets to be a Grand Master without figuring that one out. I'll just assume Williamson's former novels were better, though I do plan to avoid them along with the books touching them on either side just to be safe.

Please, people rating this book highly, read some Dan Simmons or Greg Bear. Dust off the old Asimov and Heinlein sitting in libraries for free. There's so much better to be had. This is a one-star book if these ratings are to hold meaning.