Asimov's SF, April-May 2009 Read online

  It sounds like pretty silly stuff. It is pretty silly stuff.

  * * * *

  Damon Knight documents all the places where the plot contradicts itself, usually because Gosseyns I and II fail to comprehend what's right under their noses. He points out horrendous stylistic blemishes. ("Gosseyn's intestinal fortitude strove to climb into his throat, and settled into position again only reluctantly as the acceleration ended.") He shows how feebly imagined van Vogt's twenty-sixth century is. (In the twenty-sixth century, one still gets phone numbers from the yellow pages of a printed directory.) He cites nonsense science. Thus, by citing chapter and verse, he shows how misconceived and poorly written this supposedly great science fiction novel is. I could add many more examples of my own. (Gosseyn is given a device made of “Electron steel, the metal used for atomic energy.” Reference is made to characters, and even a Galactic League, that have not previously been introduced. And so on.)

  Van Vogt actually read Knight's acidulous essay, took it in remarkably good spirit (in a replying essay he shrewdly predicted that Knight would go on to a great career writing science fiction himself) and when he prepared the novel for its 1948 book publication he adopted many of the Knight strictures, extensively rewriting the story to strengthen both its logic and its prose. Whole sections were junked, especially in the Venus section of Part II. Great sequences of plot were restructured in the later chapters. Many, though not all, of the passages of dreadful prose singled out by Knight were rewritten. And for a 1970 reissue van Vogt revised it again, not as drastically: for example, by then it was known that Venus is uninhabitable by humans, so the third version noted that in the twenty-first century it had been terraformed (by a notably wacky technique involving the hauling of ice meteorites to Venus from Jupiter and letting them melt) so that Earthmen could settle there. Et cetera, myriads of changes over the years.

  And here is where I part company with Damon Knight's famous attack. I think that every time van Vogt revised the book in the interest of making it make more sense, the worse it got. The original 1945 magazine version of The World of Null-A is, I think, far superior to its two successors of 1948 and 1970.

  This is my reasoning:

  The first version of the book seems to me to be a goofy masterpiece with no internal logic of plot or character, a kind of hallucinatory fever-dream that carries the reader along on a pleasant tide of bafflement from one Gosseyn to the next. It is a novel best read, as John Campbell did, in one bleary-eyed all-night sitting, without trying to make sense of anything. Taken in that headlong way, it offers a kind of surreal pleasure. The original text has a crazy magic about it, particularly in the discarded Venus section. Any revision in the direction of greater rationality, any attempt to clarify the unclarifiable, dilutes the effect of this fundamentally irrational story. The two revised editions, having had so much of the nonsense combed out of them, are not only still silly, but dull. The first text is the one to read.

  Alas, those 1945 magazines that I read in the wrong order are now quite rare. But I see now that I did the right thing back in 1949 by reading the text out of linear sequence. Scrambled that way, it has a strange beauty. The more van Vogt tried to straighten it out, the more ordinary it got.

  I think Damon missed the point about the novel's nonsensicality. There's poetry in its very incoherence. No wonder it's been hailed as a classic all these years.

  Copyright © 2009 Robert Silverberg

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  * * *

  Novella: THE GREAT ARMADA

  by Brian Stableford

  Brian Stableford is continuing his project to translate the classics of French scientific romance and adventure SF into English for Black Coat Press. Recent titles include Albert Robida's The Clock of the Centuries and The Adventures of Saturnin Faran-doul, Gaston de Pawlowski's Journey to the Land of the Fourth Dimension, and Henry de Graffigny and George Le Faure's mammoth cosmic tour The Extraordinary Adventures of A Russian Scientist. His latest story for us is the last in a series of tales about the galactic adventures of such sixteenth century luminaries as Sir Walter Raleigh, Edwin De Vere, John Dee, and Francis Drake, which culminate in the ferocious onslaught of...

  Preface

  In “The Plurality of Worlds” (August 2006), set in 1572 in the reign of Queen Jane, Thomas Digges piloted an ether-ship designed by John Dee into orbit around the Earth. Digges’ body was invaded by a tenuous “ethereal” life-form and the ship was captured by the insectile colonists of the moon. The ship's crew—including Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, John Field, and Edward de Vere—was subsequently sent by hyperetheric transporter to the center of the galaxy for examination by the molluskan Great Fleshcores, rulers of a vast invertebrate empire. Digges was informed by a rogue endoskeletal robot, however, that the empire was unsteady, and that the discovery of humankind might be the turning point that would shatter its integrity.

  In “Doctor Muffet's Island” (March 2007), set in 1577, Francis Drake, disappointed by the fact that he was generally thought to be mad because he insisted that the adventure of the ether-ship was real rather than illusory—as the other known survivors, Digges and Field, both claimed—hoped to discover new possessions for the English crown in the Pacific. He found that he had been preceded by an expedition whose members included the Paracelsian physician Thomas Muffet and Walter Raleigh, the latter strangely transformed after a lunar encounter with a spider. Like humans, Raleigh informed Drake, arachnids were misfits within the galactic empire, and had their own plans for the destiny of the newly complicated scheme of things.

  In “The Philosopher's Stone” (July 2008), set in 1582, Edward Kelley, pursued by John Field's Church Militant on suspicion of sorcery, made his way to John Dee's house on the instructions of an “angel” that communicated with him by means of a black stone. Assisted in his progress by an extraterrestrial robot, but then betrayed by a false friend, Kelley was eventually captured by Field, along with Dee and Giordano Bruno. Kelley's “angel” then took a more active hand in his affairs, liberating him so that he and Dee might find a safe haven in which to construct a fleet of ether-ships, in the hope of repelling an impending invasion from the moon.

  Now, in 1588...

  * * * *

  1

  Francis Bacon looked up from the manuscript he was studying. His brother was standing at the window that looked out toward the river, although there was little to be seen without; the fog had reduced the light of the nearest street-lantern to a mere yellow stain and blotted out all trace of moonlight. There were no inns or eating-houses closer than Newington Butts, so there would have been few passers-by even if the evening had been clear.

  “There it is again!” Anthony said, excitedly. “It swooped close to the window, as if it wanted to look in. It was a firebird!”

  “There's no such thing as a firebird,” Francis told him, patiently. “It might be a raven strayed from the tower.”

  “The queen's ravens don't scavenge the grounds of Lambeth Palace,” Anthony retorted. “Too much competition.” He meant the black-clad officers of the Church Militant, who were abundant between Foxe's lair and St. Mary's Church. Stephen Batman had received a living as rector of the parish, although the post was a sinecure. The house in which Francis was now going through the remnants of Batman's papers was a small tenancy in the shadow of the palace.

  “There's no need to be ill at ease,” Francis told his brother. “My association with John Dee and Tom Digges hasn't turned Field against me. He's a milder man than he once was, and he values my friendship for the news I can bring him from Wilton.”

  “When I'm ill at ease, Francis,” Anthony said, “it's because my sixth sense gives me reason. This wasn't a good day to cross the river.”

  “You didn't have to accompany me,” Francis reminded him. When he had been a child, he had been grateful for the fact that Anthony had cast himself in the role of protector, but once they were grown the affection had soon become tiresome, and now thre
atened to become intensely irritating. Although their duties in the service of the crown hardly allowed them to keep close company for more than a few days in a month, Anthony still felt obliged to pose as Francis’ guardian when they were together. Francis was attending to personal business now—which was why he had to attend to it by night—but that only made his brother more wary of disaster than he usually was.

  Most of Batman's books had already been taken to Cambridge to be integrated into the collection he had built at Corpus Christi, but the notes he had made while laboring on the updating of the great English encyclopedia seemed to Francis to be a monument to the old man's endeavor, well worth preserving if only they could be sensibly organized. If he did not make the effort himself, the best result that could be anticipated was that the papers would be crammed into half a dozen satchels and left in a cupboard to be devoured by greedy insects. Given that Dee, Drake, and a thousand others were working relentlessly to build a fleet of ether-ships in order to prevent the heritage of human civilization being wrecked by insects, it seemed to Francis that there was a point of principle at stake.

  “It was a firebird,” Anthony repeated, stubbornly. “Perhaps I'm the only human soul who can see it, just as Ned Kelley is the only one who can see and hear his angels, but I saw it. Something's afoot.”

  There was a sudden rapping on the door of the house, for which Anthony's forebodings might have served as a cue. Francis waited for Stephen Batman's old maid-of-all-work to find out who it was. The name she gave, when she appeared, was Christopher Marlowe.

  Francis frowned. He went to the door himself, but when he recognized the playwright's voice he drew back the bolt, and opened it.

  Marlowe was not alone. Before stepping across the threshold he introduced his companions as John Faust and Gawain Brook. Faust was a greybeard clad in black traveling-clothes, every inch a scholar. Brook was younger, probably no more than forty, but he was wearing a sword and had the air of a fighting man.

  Francis took them to the study, where he gave them a second glance by candlelight, and felt a slight thrill of shock, although he could not be entirely certain that “Gawain Brook” was really the man he took him to be.

  “I asked Master Marlowe to introduce me to you, Master Bacon,” said Faust, in perfect English with no more than a slight Germanic rasp. “We arrived in England yesterday, with a companion who is enthusiastic to meet you: Rabbi Low of Prague. You will understand why he could not come himself.”

  Francis did understand. Queen Jane had lifted the proscription that excluded Jews from London some twenty years earlier, but there might still have been an element of risk in a Rabbi walking abroad within a stone's throw of the Archbishop's residence.

  “You might have sent a letter to my home warning me of your impending arrival,” Francis commented, “and might have found more suitable companions to escort you—no offense, Kit.”

  “None taken,” Marlowe said. “Men of the theater are always regarded a trifle askance by true scholars.” His tone was ironic.

  Marlowe's companion was not so content. The glint of anger in his eyes was evident. “You can have no objection to me, Master Bacon,” he said, softly. “We have never met.”

  “I saw you at court when I was a boy,” Francis said, sure of his identification now that he had heard the man speak. “I also watched you climb aboard John Dee's ether-ship sixteen years ago. The occasion made a deep impression on me.”

  The expressions that crossed the other man's face were swift, but revealing. The first was pride, at having been remembered over such a distance of time; the second was annoyance.

  “You're a wanted man, Lord Oxford,” Francis observed, “outlawed by Church and State alike.”

  “Aye,” retorted the man that Francis had recognized as Edward de Vere, “on the basis of inaccurate suspicions. I'm not here on behalf of the Pope or Elizabeth Tudor, but a different master.”

  Francis returned his attention to the greybeard. “There was a pamphlet produced in Germany last year,” he said, uneasily, “telling a fanciful story about a scholar named Faust who died some fifty years ago.”

  “My namesake's reputation has preceded me for some little time,” Faust replied, with a thin smile. “The Rabbi has a similar problem. We apologize for approaching you in this unorthodox manner, but the matter is urgent and delicate. It concerns Dee's project—and its guide.”

  Francis glanced at de Vere again, wondering what he might have reported to his current employers. Marlowe was only a common eavesdropper, but de Vere might have given them a first-hand account of the ether-ship's adventure—an account that he had never seen fit to give to John Dee or the queen's Privy Council.

  “Be careful, Francis!” said the ever-wary Anthony. “If these men want you to serve as their ambassador, they should not have come gliding through the fog like shadows.”

  “You can hardly hold the fog against us, Anthony,” Marlowe put in. “Nor can we hold back the night. You are right to count your brother precious, and I assure you that he is just as precious to us.”

  Francis raised a hand to bid his brother be silent. “You've come from Prague, you say,” he murmured, still addressing himself to Faust. “Did the Emperor send you?”

  “No,” said Faust. “We're not agents of any foreign state. If you will take the small risk of coming with us now you will be amply recompensed. What Dee, Drake, and Digges are doing in preparation for war is necessary and heroic, but no momentary exchange of fire can settle the tortured matter of Selenite xenophobia. We know why the colonists of the moon are so anxious to recruit humankind to their version of True Civilization, and we know that there are allies who might help us if we can apprise them of our plight and establish means by which they might intervene. We hope to achieve that, but this is a delicate matter, to which the Church of Rome and your Church Militant are equally sensitive. The slanders leveled against my name and Judah Low's are stupid, but men have been burned for less. The Rabbi is aboard a ship, moored a few miles downstream. We have the tide with us now as well as the current. We can be there in less than an hour.”

  Francis tried to calculate how far a skiff might travel along the Thames in an hour, given the advantage of the tide as well as the river's flow: beyond Rotherhithe, for sure, and further than the Isle of Dogs. He had only the vaguest notion of what lay between there and the marshes. The journey back would not be as easy, though, and he had no idea how long it would take to hear whatever Faust and Judah Low were eager to tell him.

  “This is foolish, Francis,” his brother said. “Don't go.”

  “I have to, Anthony,” Francis said. “This might be important.”

  * * * *

  2

  As they put on their cloaks, Anthony whispered in Francis’ ear: “This Low is the man who consorts with a golem, is he not?”

  “So they say,” Francis told him, choosing to make a jest of it. “And this Faust is the scholar who was made immortal by the demon Mephistopheles some fifty years ago. The wonder is that you did not see a whole flock of firebirds tonight, or hear a choir of banshees screaming.”

  Anthony scowled, but said no more. He set his hand on the hilt of his sword as the party left the house, but Francis knew that the gesture was mere bravado.

  Once they were swallowed up by the fog, Francis began to feel a little guilty at having mocked Anthony's anxieties. The thick vapor did indeed have an eerie quality about it, especially when it was infected by the sulfurous yellow light of the tallow street-lanterns. It seemed malevolent in itself, as well as extending an obvious hospitality to all manner of skullduggery. The embankment was little more than a hundred paces away, though, and there was a boat waiting for them at the nearest quay—a launch with two oarsmen, easily capable of accommodating five passengers. It had a lantern in the prow and another in the stern, the latter veiled in red translucent cloth. Faust gave orders to the oarsmen in German. The rowers were obviously skilled mariners, used to dealing with waters far rougher
than the Thames. Once they caught the current they soon built up a healthy speed.

  The ceaseless train of horse-drawn barges continued on either side of the river in spite of the fog, audibly if not visibly, but the Thames was wide and there was plenty of navigation space available. The darkness was so intense as to seem almost tangible. The fog added a slight seasoning to the odor of ordure that always afflicted the surface of the river, but Francis’ normally sensitive nostrils had long grown used to ignoring that kind of stink, in all its subtle varieties.

  Faust sat beside Francis; Marlowe and Anthony were in front of them, facing the two oarsmen. De Vere stood in the prow, posing as lookout, although it was doubtful that he would be able to give much warning if another vessel did emerge from the fog.

  “Why have you come to England, Master Faust?” Francis asked the German scholar. “If you and the Rabbi wanted to exchange information with Dee, you could have done so by letter—encrypted, if necessary.”

  “We would have benefited from entering into regular correspondence with Dee twenty years ago,” Faust replied, “but we did not know that at the time. Besides, the Empire has not had a moment's peace since Luther nailed up the thirty-nine articles; we are, it seems, an innately combative species. That is what alarmed the Selenites, I suppose, and led them to a heretical Protest against their own Empire. They too are Reformers at heart—they want to invade our world in order to save our souls.”

  Francis shivered, and drew his cloak more tightly about him. “How did you come to hire de Vere?” he asked, bluntly. “He has the reputation of being as dangerous a man to have on your side as to be pitted against you.”