An Audio Book Review: The Fuzzy War; A Battle of Two Centuries! Part One

Little Fuzzy
Fuzzy Sapiens (aka The Other Human Race)
Fuzzies and Other People

By H. Beam Piper

Audio Edition of Little Fuzzy by Audible Frontiers

Read by Peter Ganim

The Stories:

This will be a long one, so I’m going to divide it into the Fuzzy stories by their original author, H. Beam Piper and the stories by other authors.

Little Fuzzy

So far I have been reviewing classics of fantasy and science fiction, and Little Fuzzy is yet another classic. Not only is it a classic in its own right, but is a shining example of one of the best known subgenres of science fiction; it is a first contact story. Boy meets alien… boy loses alien… boy gets alien back again. Well, that might be a “high concept” rendition of the plot, but then so might, “Old coot prospector discovers an adorably cute and incredibly smart critter.” Everything sounds silly when boiled down to a micro-summary.

Seriously, I doubt there’s a story that sounds good when summed up in one or two short sentences. The Lord of the Rings: Some little people undertake the task of destroying a magical ring. Pride and Prejudice: Woman meets man called Darcy who seems absolutely horrid. Great Expectations: An Orphan is mysteriously given loads of money . Romeo and Juliet: His and her drama queens from feuding families fall in love.  Go ahead and make up some of your own. It’s a great party game! It can get hysterical if you insert the line “…and hilarity ensues!” at the end of every summary.

I’ll put a little more meat on the bones. The story begins with Jack Holloway, an old prospector on a planet, Zarathustra, who in the course of events discovers a small bipedal creature in his cabin. He instantly calls the creature a Fuzzy and a xenobiologist of his acquaintance makes that name official. The little fellow is unlike anything he has ever seen, and he has been on more worlds over the course of his life than most others in Piper’s universe. For those of you who have not read this book, they look a little like George Lucas’ Ewoks, but they do not wear clothing and they form small nomadic family units.  They also do not live in the trees.

Zarathustra, however, is owned outright by the Chartered Zarathustra Company – a business venture Piper obviously modeled after the colonial and trading companies of the 17^th and 18^th Centuries, such as the East India Company and the Virginia Company.  Piper was hardly the only author who ever adapted situations from the past and applied them to an SF future. It’s a good way to cobble together a believable, while fictional setting. Piper was a master of that art and it shows throughout his future history in this and other stories.

The kicker? The Zarathustra Company’s charter is only valid on a world without an indigenous population of sentient beings. As Jack Holloway and others get to know the Fuzzies they come to the realization that the Fuzzies are not merely fur-bearing animals. However, they neither speak nor know how to use fire – two definitive signs of a sentient creature.

The top Company scientists attempt to discredit the claims of sentience, but the matter gets thrown into the courts when the head of Science Division kills one of the Fuzzies.

The story is well-crafted and compelling. I firmly believe that every fan of science fiction should read this book at least once.

Fuzzy Sapiens (Originally The Other Human Race)

Avon Books screwed up big time on this sequel.  I am the proud owner of a first edition of The Other Human Race. I found it in a used book shop a few years ago selling for half its cover price so it cost me all of twenty-five cents. It is not in perfect shape by a long shot. Wear marks and a crease in its cover, badly yellowed pages, but it is readable for all that. The cover is mostly black with a dark blue graphic, which in the right light looks like a pair of vaguely Area 51ish aliens (in the wrong light the cover just looks black. The title is in bold green print and then in rather small lettering (10 or 12 pt., I should guess) the following legend, “The startling new novel about man versus a superintelligent race of alien beings By H. Beam Piper, the author of Little Fuzzy.” The cover was clearly not designed to attract readers but anyone curious enough to turn it around would finally read the words, “Are Fuzzies People?” Somehow I thought that had been adequately proven in the first book, but “superintelligent?” Are we talking about the people referred to by Piper’s characters as permanent children? Well maybe they are if they are smart enough not to grow up.

Book sales were understandably low even though Little Fuzzy was a Hugo nominee and might even have won had not Phillip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle not been in the running that year. The second book was released without fanfare and many fans didn’t even know it was available. They certainly were not likely to spot it by the cover and it was removed from the shelves before most fans even heard of it. Those who did manage to find it, loved it. The second book picks up right where the first leaves off and the writing is as good or better than the original.

One thing I liked about this story was that the chief antagonist of the first book Victor Grego, the CEO of the Zarathustra Company, is not the greedy, evil villain he seems like in the first book, just a good businessman doing what he must to protect his company, Having lost the case he was not out for revenge, just continuing to work toward keeping his not charterless company afloat. When he discovers a fuzzy in his own apartment, Victor befriends and eventually adopts him. He tells his secretary, “The Fuzzies were on this planet  for a hundred thousand years before this company was ever thought of,” realizing he should have had that attitude in the first place. In short, Victor Grego is shown to be  quite human and a good one at that. The book would have just been hack work, I think, had we been subjected to another volume of the evil machinations of the big bad boss of the Zarathustra Company. Besides there are worse people that Victor Grego on Zarathustra and Piper does not hesitate to bring them out. Criminals and racketeers, slavers and Fagins all of whom, in their greed, are threats to the Fuzzies and their human friends.

The book was later re-released with the title Fuzzy Sapiens.

Fuzzies and Other People

 

In spite of Avon’s blunder with the second Fuzzy book, the fans wanted more and Piper told various people that he was working on a third Fuzzy novel. He was asked repeatedly how it was going, but Avon’s bollixing with the second book, left Piper without a publisher for the third story. At more or less the same time Piper had been going through a hostile and messy divorce and his agent died of cancer leaving Piper both depressed and unaware of the state of his own affairs. He had been drinking heavily and suffering from depression. Eventually, late in 1964, he committed suicide, leaving the world of Science Fiction Fandom bereft of one of its great masters. But what about that third story?

Rumors abounded as they will at such times, but the manuscript, while finished and read (and rejected) by Frederick Pohl, did not show up when Piper’s belongings were itemized following his death. In fact it was not until eighteen years after his death that a carbon copy of the original manuscript was found. Finally in 1984, Ace released Fuzzies and Other People.

Just as the second story picked up where the first left off, the third reads like a direct extension of the second. Indeed, you could take all three stories and read them as a single, much longer novel.  Fuzzies and Other People  continues the courtroom melodrama of the first two books and continues the adventures of the Fuzzies themselves. So while the villains of the second book are facing trial with their disreputable lawyer, Hugo ingermann, Little Fuzzy flies north with his friend, Victor Grego’s Fuzzy, Diamond to visit the sunstone mining operation at Yellowsand (a rich deposit Jack Holloway found accidentally in the second book). While there, Little Fuzzy slips and falls into the river and is swept downstream. He becomes almost hopelessly lost, but finds and befriends a band of Fuzzies. Together they try to get back to Yellowsand and Little Fuzzy’s home, Hoksu Mitto (the Wonderful Place).

Piper wraps up the story with hints of what might be yet to come, but of course he never lived to write another Fuzzy story.

The series is justifiably one of the most beloved in Science Fiction. The Fuzzies are adorable and charismatic without being too cutesy or too close to human. If you are an SF fan and have not read these stories, find them and read them… Now!

The Audio Edition of Little Fuzzy.

Mister Ganim’s performance, while not perfect, still gets a Very Good rating from me. My main complaint is the voice he uses for Jack Holloway. There is no denying that Jack is an old coot, and probably proud of the fact, but in this recording he sounds like a hick as well; sort of a cross between Gabby Hayes and Walter Brennan from “The Real McCoys.”

The rest of his voices were a mix of various accents chosen from the names of the character, so Gerd Van Riebeek has an Afrikaans accent, Ruth Otheris sounds vaguely Greek, Gus Brannhard sounds like a cowboy just off the range, Judge Pendarvis and his wife are obviously French. It was a nice touch, but given Piper’s tendency to mix ethic types in his futuristic names (such as Mohammed Ali O’Brien) Gus might just as well have sounded distinctly Australian. In fact, according to Piper’s future history, World War III made the Northern Hemisphere of Earth largely uninhabitable and the survivors nearly all moved to the other side of the equator, so maybe Gus should have been an Aussie at that.

The mix of accents sometimes got in the way of the listening experience, but there was never any mistaking just who was talking. Mister Ganim’s pacing was good and the expressions of emotion were never over the top. In spite of the old hick accent Jack sported, I would not mind listening to Peter Ganim reading the rest of the books.

Next, in Part Two; I shall be reviewing the various Fuzzy books written by other authors since Piper’s death and the audio edition of one in particular; Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi and read by Wil Wheaton. Be afraid! Be very afraid!

An Audio Book Review: Cheap at Twice the Price… So We’ll Triple It!

The Space Merchants
 (Unabridged Recording)
by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth

MacMillan Audio

Narrated by Dan Bitner

This review isn’t quite as funny as the last one, but then I did set the bar high by starting out with The Lord of the Rings

The Story

This is one of the great classics of Science Fiction. It was written in 1952 and serialized in Galaxy Science Fiction. It takes place in an over-populated world of dwindling resources in which businesses have replaced the government for all intents and purposes. The most prestigious businesses are advertising agencies. Indeed this is a world in which advertising has gone to its logical extreme. When I first read it in the late 60’s I still thought the world it depicted was possible. Perhaps not likely, but still possible. These days some might think we’ve gone down a different path, making this a somewhat dated future, but maybe not. Pohl did revise the book recently to include more recent corporate debacles as AIG and Enron.  Much of what happens in this book does still go on in the real world.

The protagonist is a “Star-class Copysmith” named Mitch Courtenay, who is put in charge of the project to popularize the colonization of Venus. Along the way he falls afoul of fellow employees, conservationists and a rival, no, an enemy advertising agency.

I learned recently that the OED credits this book as the first recorded uses of several new words and phrases, including “R and D, tri-dee, soyaburger and moon suit. That surprised me a bit, but that is precisely the sort of thing science fiction is credited with.

The Space Merchants is a great satire on the business world in general that still stands up today. Not bad at all when you realize the story is sixty years old. The world it depicts is believable because without a strong government and its consumer protection agencies this sort of thing could happen. For example, one of the products Courtenay’s company advertises is an alkaloid-laced coffee called Coffiest. Mitch describes it best;

“… each sample of Coffiest contains three milligrams of a simple alkaloid. Nothing harmful.  But definitely habit-forming. After ten weeks the customer is hooked for life. It would cost him at least five thousand dollars for a cure, so it’s simpler for him to go right on drinking Coffiest – three cups with every meal and a pot beside his bed at night, just as it says on the jar.”

This may seem over the top, but compared to the riders on some of the bills coming out of Congress merely addicting the public to your products is quite mild. How else can one account for so many votes that essentially waste time and so many bills that sound good go unfunded while money is set aside to build bridges that don’t actually go anywhere? Well, with only approximately one hundred and fifty work days per year, I suppose it is only natural for our Senators and Congressmen to never quite be in practice as legislators. What Pohl and Kornbluth apparently want to say is that even without a strong Congress, the populace will still be subject to the stupidity of a government. It just that the power has moved sideways to the large business enterprises.

Later on, as Mitch is forced to live life as a low-level consumer he still marvels at how his company has links the addictions of various products;  a squirt or two of soda makes you crave a snack,  the snack makes you want to smoke and the smoke makes you need a drink of soda. Given corporate greed, yeah I could see that happening. Of course these days I’d be more worried about hallucinogens coating some toy made in China, but there’s keeping up with the times for you. Hey, just replace Fowler Shocken Associates with Google or Facebook or any other large company claiming to be here for you and you could easily have a modern adaptation of The Space Merchants.

Pohn wrote a sequel, The Merchants’ War which, to me, is just more of the same, but if you liked this book you will probably also enjoy the sequel. The were both collected by the Science Fiction Book Club in a volume entitled, Venus, Inc.

The Audio Edition

I rate the performance as Very Good. Mister Bitner’s voices are varied and easily distinguished from character to character without the all-too common resort to silly and annoying voices that might have been irresistible to some readers, but each voice, while varied is clear and easy to understand. The otherwise excellent performance is marred only by a small tendency to speak a little too fast. Well nobody’s perfect.

How do you pronouce “Courtenay?” I’m actually wrong, but I always pronounced it with two syllables; Court-nee. To me it was just an upscale spelling of Courtney, so I found it a little jarring that the reader pronounced it with three syllables; Court-ten-nay. Well, like I said, I was wrong. Look it up for yourself. Mister Bitner is using the correct pronunciation. No points off for getting it right!

If you have not yet read this classic piece of science fiction literature, I recommend it highly. If, like me, you rarely have the time to read, or cannot read the book due to a disability then this recording is well worth your time.

An Audio Book Review: Will Someone Please Shut the Hobbits Up?!?

The Hobbit or There and Back Again and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
(Unabridged Recordings)
by J.R.R. Tolkien

Published by Recorded Books, Inc.

Narrated by Rob Inglis

I haven’t done much with this site beyond announce my latest novels, so for a change I thought it might be fun to write a few reviews. Well… I think there are enough ill-informed, arrogant reviewers of books and movies already and while I am sure someone is already doing this, I decided to review audio books. I could talk about the stories and also the people who read them and critique both at once.

I have been listening to audio books for years now since I started writing my own novels because, once I started writing, I did not really have much time to read anything by other authors. However, I can either listen to the radio while driving or to an audio book. Consequently, I have absorbed quite a few recent books through the ears rather than the eyes, but I have also listened to books I loved to read back when reading was the only way I could enjoy them. I have not entirely stopped reading, of course and I still buy books, both for my Kindle and in the delightfully old-fashioned “Dead-Tree Format,” which, to me, is still the best way to read a book. But listening is an entirely different experience. In some ways it is limiting as the reader may not pronounce words and names the same way you do, but the spoken word also adds dimensions to the story experience because you can’t skim past blocks of text like you might while reading. Okay you can skip ahead on audio too, but, remember I was driving – keeping my eyes on the road and my hands on the wheel. I didn’t have the time to safely skip ahead even if I had wanted to.

So here goes…

The Stories

I could stretch this out and do all four of the above books one at a time, but the quality of performance is very even through the set and I would be repeating myself a lot. For those who have not read the stories (really?) The Hobbit is a very different sort of story from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King). The Hobbit reads like a very long fairy tale in the classic, non-Disney sense, and I think that was exactly what Tolkien had in mind. It is a children’s story and a classic one at that. The Lord of the Rings is far more serious fare, written for an older audience, but still maintains the most memorable features from the earlier story. Tolkien reportedly revised The Hobbit for its second edition as he worked on The Lord of the Rings, and there are only a few minor continuity errors from one to the other. For example in The Hobbit our heroes run afoul of a tribe of goblins. Most readers understand that the goblins are the creatures later referred to as orcs, but in listening I came across a passage that mentioned orcs and goblins as related but different. It is easy to justify, however. In the Lord of the Rings while they are all called orcs it is made clear that there are quite a few different tribes of orcs and there are physiological and probably sociological differences among them.

I am not going to dis either story, however. Are there flaws? Well, sure. We are, none of us, perfect, but The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings stand as classic works of the Fantasy genre. They won awards and deservedly so and even made a great set of movies. I’ve read the books at least ten times that I can recall and watched the movies through several times. Great stuff and if you are one of those who have not yet read or watched, you should do so.

Oh… okay, one flaw, just as an example: Given the amount of time the dwarves spent in the barrels, which were water and substantially airtight, they should not have survived the trip to the town on the lake. In reality, all the barrels should have opened up to reveal thirteen dead dwarves. “Oh my goodness!” said Bilbo. “I fear dinner will be exceedingly late now.”

The audio edition:

I think Rob Inglis did a remarkable job of reading the stories. His vocal pacing was superb and each character had a distinctive voice and/or accent even if a few of those voices were annoying and each fit the characters well. One thing I did find jarring; the songs. Sorry, Tolkien fans, but I discovered it is one thing to read the verses in the books and another thing to have to listen to them. Delightful verses I could skim through in the books got fairly boring when there were so many of them. There were  a fair number of songs in The Hobbit and I started to chafe listening to them by the time Bilbo and crowd reached Rivendell. Honestly, I was ready to throttle the hobbits before they got out of the Shire in the trilogy. And by the time the elves started singing I would have gladly joined Sauron’s team … until I realized the orcs couldn’t stop singing any more than elves and hobbits could.

Props to the goblins/orcs, by the way; they are a remarkably musical people. Their songs may not be pleasant, but at least twice in The Hobbit they made up and sang songs on the fly as a group. That’s pretty impressive. You might expect that from the Elves, and, yes, they do it too, but goblins? It’s not uncommon to find someone who can improv a song on stage, but to be able to do so as a chorus? Not bad at all! Well, maybe orcs have a hive mind sort of mentality? Do elves?

I should mention that Mister Inglis did a fine job singing those songs, each one with a different and apt melody, but the songs often got in the way of the story, although not always. Some were complete non sequiturs, but others gave us important back story elements. However, by the time we got beyond the Hobbit folk tunes to the stuff with meat on it, I had been overwhelmed with the music and just wanted to push on with the main story. This is not how I felt while reading, just while listening. Like I said above, listening to a story is different than reading it.

I managed to get past the songs by remembering my favorite passages from Bored of the Rings (“…but pity stayed his hand. It’s a pity I’ve run out of bullets!” and songs like “Tim Tim Benzadrine, Hash! Boo! Valvoline!”) as well as commentary from the guys at Rifftrax.

All in all? A good set of recordings. If you’re a Tolkien fan, this is worth listening to and adding to your collection.

The Return of the Pirates of Pangaea

Hmm, if i ever write a second Pirates of Pangaea series, that could be the name. In the meantime I’ve noticed someone out there has a comic out there by the same name. I’m fairly certain I used it first – I really searched the web for mentions of pirates and Pangaea when I first started planning the series – and it has not relation to my stories at all. I haven’t seen the comics, though, and they may be very good. I wish the writer/artists well.

Also…

 Holy Crap! I invented the iPad!!! Well, no, but I did predict the iPad at least two years before Steve Jobs introduced it to an Apple-crazed fan-base. You can read all about that in the Author’s Foreword of The Pirates of Pangaea: A Planned Improvisation which has just been posted for download at my free e-book site. As I write this, I have finally just finished the rough draft of Ars Scientiaque Magicae: Required Components. It took a lot longer to write that one than I might normally have (See my update from January 1) but now I’m proofing it alternately with Dancing with the Sphinx: Tango. I probably ought to move on to The Wayfarers:An Ocean without, but instead I am working on the plot of The Pirates of Pangaea: The Forced Alternative instead which will bring that series to a close. And all the projects I’ve mentioned below? Yes, eventually I shall get to them as well.

 BTW: Much as it pains me, I have to face the fact that Microsoft has abandoned the .lit format that I have used as a staple for my e-books. I think .lit and MS Reader was a great format and way to read and was a great way to proofread my books. I’m, not going to stop posting in .lit immediately. I will use it to finish up most of my current series, but I have already embraced the .mobi/prc format which is also natively readable on all model Kindles. I am also looking at the EPUB format which is a finicky format but one I know some readers prefer. In fact I already have the first two PIrates of Pangaea books as well as the second volume of Gaenor’s Queston the Apple and Barnes and Noble stores in EPUB format. For the record, I had nothing to do with the choices – blame Lulu.com. I just noticed one day that I was getting extra revenue and when I looked to see what was selling got a happy surprise. Anyway while one can purchase several good PDF to EPUB converters, there is a certain ammount of prep work you must do to make the final result something that is 100% complient witht he EPUB format. The converters don;t do the whole job so conversions may have to wait until I have time. Well, I can sleep when I’m dead or so they tell me.

As always my books can be found at my free e-book site and Lulu.com alt

The Return of the Pirates of Pangaea

Hmm, if I ever write a second Pirates of Pangaea series, that could be the name. In the meantime I’ve noticed someone out there has a comic out there by the same name. I’m fairly certain I used it first – I really searched the web for mentions of pirates and Pangaea when I first started planning the series – and it has not relation to my stories at all. I haven’t seen the comics, though, and they may be very good. I wish the writer/artists well.

Also…

 Holy Crap! I invented the iPad!!! Well, no, but I did predict the iPad at least two years before Steve Jobs introduced it to an Apple-crazed fan-base. You can read all about that in the Author’s Foreword of The Pirates of Pangaea: A Planned Improvisation which has just been posted for download at my free e-book site. As I write this, I have finally just finished the rough draft of Ars Scientiaque Magicae: Required Components. It took a lot longer to write that one than I might normally have (See my update from January 1) but now I’m proofing it alternately with Dancing with the Sphinx: Tango. I probably ought to move on to The Wayfarers:An Ocean without, but instead I am working on the plot of The Pirates of Pangaea: The Forced Alternative instead which will bring that series to a close. And all the projects I’ve mentioned below? Yes, eventually I shall get to them as well.

 BTW: Much as it pains me, I have to face the fact that Microsoft has abandoned the .lit format that I have used as a staple for my e-books. I think .lit and MS Reader was a great format and way to read and was a great way to proofread my books. I’m not going to stop posting in .lit immediately. I will use it to finish up most of my current series, but I have already embraced the .mobi/prc format which is also natively readable on all model Kindles. I am also looking at the EPUB format which is a finicky format but one I know some readers prefer. In fact I already have the first two Pirates of Pangaea books as well as the second volume of Gaenor’s Quest on the Apple and Barnes and Noble stores in EPUB format. For the record, I had nothing to do with the choices – blame Lulu.com. I just noticed one day that I was getting extra revenue and when I looked to see what was selling got a happy surprise. Anyway while one can purchase several good PDF to EPUB converters, there is a certain ammount of prep work you must do to make the final result something that is 100% complient witht he EPUB format. The converters don;t do the whole job so conversions may have to wait until I have time. Well, I can sleep when I’m dead or so they tell me.

As always my books can be found at my free e-book site and Lulu.com although selected volumes are also on sale in dead tree and electronic formats at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the Apple store.

I’m Back… uh.. again?

While looking up some details for the sequel, I noticed that my recent release,  Ars Scientiaque Magicae: Theoretical Bases had a badly corrupted section in Part I Chapter 4. it really wasn’t like that while I was proofing it… REALLY! Anyway, I have now corrected it and reposted the book in all formats and they are available at www.sc2.com/e-books Sorry for the inconvenience for all of you who downloaded it and read it immediately. I just hope I caught everything… If not, I’ll try, try again!

I’m Back!

Well, it’s been a while since I updated this site. I hate to admit it, but I forgot it was here. but that aside…

Happy New Year! I have just posted Ars Scientiaque Magicae: Theoretical Bases. and am currently working on the next book of the series, Ars Scientiaque Magicae: Required Components. 2011 did not go as I had planned. Well, life has that habit, doesn’t it. While I will not burden my readers with the sad details, it should suffice to say that I have had to deal with the mental and physical health problems of my mother and that cut deeply into my writing and proof reading time. I don’t even want to think about the time I try to set aside for plotting! So my production is going to be somewhat less than it has been for the foreseeable future. However, I have not stopped writing by any means. I still have a finished plot sketch for The Wayfarers: An Ocean without Charts. And am proofing The Pirates of Pangaea: A Planned Improvisation. There is also a rough draft Dancing with the Sphinx: Tango of waiting for my attention, so the pipeline is hardly empty at this time. I still have plans for the final book of The Pirates of Pangaea: The Forced Alternative, and  Dancing with the Sphinx: Foxtrot, as well as the various projects I’ve mentioned in the past. No shortage of idea, just time. Well isn’t that always the way?