Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (382 page)

Laumer and Saberhagen continued writing their stories of Bolos and Berserkers though the sixties and seventies.

“History,” according to Ken MacLeod—himself a military SF writer (
The Cassini Division
, 1995)—“is the trade secret of science fiction.”

Just so: Fred Saberhagen’s Berserker story “Stone Place” (
If
, 1965) is a science-fictional retelling of the Battle of Lepanto. And H. Beam Piper, better known for his Little Fuzzy and Paratime series, wrote
Uller Uprising
(1952), loosely based on the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the same war that motivated Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo to seek revenge on the British, the same war in which
The Battle of Dorking
’s author was wounded.

The 1960s also saw military science fiction break out of the print media. While there had been earlier radio, television, and movie examples of the military in space (acknowledging the fact that the military had the money, personnel, and organization needed to reach the stars) the fact of military service was seldom important; e.g. in the film Forbidden Planet (1956), a science-fictional re-telling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the characters’ military ranks are essentially irrelevant. In the ’30s and ’40s, spaceship captains were as likely to be eccentric inventors or to be working for civilian companies, as they were to be military officers.

In 1966,
Star Trek
—created by WWII Army Air Force veteran Gene Roddenberry—brought to the mass audience a military vessel on an exploration mission, with an integrated crew (black and white, male and female, human and alien).
Star Trek
, and its ever-expanding list of novelizations, spin-offs, and tie-ins, made science fiction in general, and military SF in particular, accessible to more than science fiction’s core readers. The argument has since been made, not without justification, that science fiction is the new mainstream. If this is so, then
Star Trek
, together with 1977’s
Star Wars
and its sequels, tie-ins, spin-offs, and novels, all of them also military science fiction, are the hinge on which the change turned.

1870’s
Twenty Thousand Leagues Beneath the Seas
was near-future military science fiction, featuring technology which, while it did not then exist, was nevertheless possible. In 1962, another such book,
Fail-Safe
by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, set forth the fictionalized outbreak of a nuclear war between the United States and the USSR (not symbolized in this case by implacable alien bugs, but presented under their true names) This future war used aircraft which was not then, and never would be, in the US inventory. Later still, Tom Clancy wrote The Hunt for Red October (1984), again with the US and the USSR under their true names, but featuring a submarine that used a propulsion system that did not then, and to this day still does not, exist. Red October was the first fiction ever published by the US Naval Institute Press, otherwise a small academic press that specialized in Naval policy and military history. With Red October, the “technothriller,” which had begun with Twenty Thousand Leagues, broke away from military SF to become its own subgenre.

In the 1980s, Jerry Pournelle, who had been an artillery officer in the Korean War, edited a series of reprint-and-original anthologies of military SF called, collectively,
There Will Be War
. Pournelle wrote or co-wrote a number of military SF stories and novels himself; including but by no means limited to
A Spaceship For the King
(serialized in
Analog
magazine, 1971–72) and
Footfall
(1985), an invasion novel.

Throughout the ’80s, ’90s, and into the twenty-first century, Jim Baen, of Baen Books, published a large number of military SF novels. Some of his major authors included Vietnam veteran David Drake, former paratrooper John Ringo, and Vietnam-era former US Marine Elizabeth Moon. Lois McMaster Bujold was another of Baen’s military SF authors of the late eighties, beginning with Shards of Honor and The Warrior’s Apprentice (both 1986).

Then, without warning, in 1990–1991 the Soviet Union collapsed. There was no longer a monolithic, unknowable opposing superpower to be symbolized by soulless killing machines or inhuman bugs. At the same time, another branch of military SF arose to join the invasion stories, the future war stories, and the technothrillers: the alternate history. Rather than looking forward to wars that might be, and to militaries of the future, they looked back and rewrote past conflicts, not in symbolic form as had Piper and Saberhagen, but with names and places taken from history. Examples include Harry Turtledove’s
The Guns of the South
(1992), in which time-travelers give AK-47 assault rifles to Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War. Turtledove also wrote the WorldWar series of novels, beginning with
Worldwar: In the Balance
(1994), in which space aliens invade earth in middle of World War II, forcing the humans to put aside their differences in order to fight against the outside foe.

The late eighties and nineties also saw the arrival of women as military SF writers. Elizabeth Moon has already been mentioned. Others include Sherwood Smith and Dave Trowbridge, with their
Exordium
series (1993 and following), Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald with their
Mageworlds
series (1992 and following), and ex-Canadian military Tanya Huff, Valor’s Choice (2000).

What the future holds for military SF is hard to predict. What isn’t hard to predict is that with conflicts large and small still ongoing around the globe, writers of science fiction will not lack for sources of experience or subjects for commentary.

* * * *

James D. Macdonald
is the author or co-author of more than thirty books, ranging from space opera and military science fiction to (pseudonymously) military thrillers and an annotated book of sea chanties. A former Navy officer, he lives in New Hampshire with his wife and frequent co-author, Debra Doyle.

(1914–2002)

An unpredictable, funny writer whose stories were filled with tall tales and larger-than-life characters, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty had a tragically short but very productive career. An Oklahoma native, Lafferty’s first SF story, “Day of the Glacier,” appeared in 1960, when he was in his late forties; over the next twenty years he wrote twenty books and more than two hundred stories, both fantasy and science fiction. A stroke in 1980 essentially ended his writing career, though he lived more than twenty years afterward.

Lafferty’s writing was quirky and sometimes unpolished, which made him a better short story writer than novelist, even in the 1960s when novels were typically about half as long as they are today. But his style was perfect for illuminating the strange surreality of everyday life, whether it was life in the present day or in some far-off place or time. And his writing tended to have a sense of humor about the strangeness of the world, and of people who take themselves too seriously. He won a Hugo in 1973 for “Eurema’s Dam,” and was a frequent award nominee during his brief career.

First published in
Galaxy Magazine
, February 1967

“We’ve been
on some tall ones,” said Gregory Smirnov of the Institute, “but
we’ve never stood on the edge of a bigger one than this, nor viewed one with shakier expectations. Still, if the calculations of Epiktistes are correct, this will work.”

“People, it will work,” Epikt said.

This was Epiktistes the Ktistec machine? Who’d have believed it? The main bulk of Epikt was five floors below them, but he had run an extension of himself up to this little penthouse lounge. All it took was a cable, no more than a yard in diameter, and a functional head set on the end of it.

And what a head he chose! It was a sea-serpent head, a dragon head, five feet long and copied from an old carnival float. Epikt had also given himself human speech of a sort, a blend of Irish and Jewish and Dutch comedian patter from ancient vaudeville. Epikt was a comic to his last para-DNA relay when he rested his huge, boggle-eyed, crested head on the table there and smoked the biggest stogies ever born.

But he was serious about this project.

“We have perfect test conditions,” the machine Epikt said as though calling them to order. “We set out basic texts, and we take careful note of the woild as it is. If the world changes, then the texts should change here before our eyes. For our test pilot, we have taken that portion of our own middle-sized city that can be viewed from this fine vantage point. If the world in its past-present continuity is changed by our meddling, then the face of our city will also change instantly as we watch it.

“We have assembled here the finest minds and judgments in the world: eight humans and one Ktistec machine, myself. Remember that there are nine of us. It might be important.” The nine finest minds were: Epiktistes, the transcendent machine who put the “K” in Ktistec; Gregory Smirnov, the large-souled director of the Institute; Valery Mok, an incandescent lady scientist; her over-shadowed and over-intelligent husband Charles Cogsworth; the humorless and inerrant Glasser; Aloysius Shiplap, the seminal genius; Willy McGilly, a man of unusual parts (the seeing third finger on his left hand he had picked up on one of the planets of Kapteyn’s Star) and no false modesty; Audifax O’Hanlon; and Diogenes Pontifex. The latter two men were not members of the Institute (on account of the Minimal Decency Rule), but when the finest minds in the world are assembled, these two cannot very well be left out.

“We are going to tamper with one small detail in past history and note its effect,” Gregory said. “This has never been done before openly. We go back to an era that has been called ‘A patch of light in the vast gloom,’ the time of Charlemagne. We consider why that light went out and did not kindle others. The world lost four hundred years by that flame expiring when the tinder was apparently ready for it. We go back to that false dawn of Europe and consider where it failed. The year was 778, and the region was Spain. Charlemagne had entered alliance with Marsilies, the Arab king of Saragossa, against the Caliph Abd ar-Rahmen of Cordova. Charlemagne took such towns as Pamplona, Huesca and Gerona and cleared the way to Marsilies in Saragossa. The Caliph accepted the situation. Saragossa should be independent, a city open to both Moslems and Christians. The northern marches to the border of France should be permitted their Christianity, and there would be peace for everybody.

“This Marsilies had long treated Christians as equals in Saragossa, and now there would be an open road from Islam into the Frankish Empire. Marsilies gave Charlemagne thirty-three scholars (Moslem, Jewish and Christian) and some Spanish mules to seal the bargain. And there could have been a cross-fertilization of cultures.

“But the road was closed at Roncevalles where the rearguard of Charlemagne was ambushed and destroyed on its way back to France. The ambushers were more Basque than Moslems, but Charlemagne locked the door at the Pyrenees and swore that he would not let even a bird fly over that border thereafter. He kept the road closed, as did his son and his grandsons. But when he sealed off the Moslem world, he also sealed off his own culture.

“In his latter years he tried a revival of civilization with a ragtag of Irish half-scholars, Greek vagabonds and Roman copyists who almost remembered an older Rome. These weren’t enough to revive civilization, and yet Charlemagne came close with them. Had the Islam door remained open, a real revival of learning might have taken place then rather than four hundred years later. We are going to arrange that the ambush at Roncevalles did not happen and that the door between the two civilizations was not closed. Then we will see what happens to us.”

“Intrusion like a burglar bent,” said Epikt.

“Who’s a burglar?” Glasser demanded.

“I am,” Epikt said. “We all are. It’s from an old verse. I forget the author; I have it filed in my main mind downstairs if you’re interested.”

“We set out a basic text of Hilarius,” Gregory continued. “We note it carefully, and we must remember it the way it is. Very soon, that may be the way it
was.
I believe that the words will change on the very page of this book as we watch them. Just as soon as we have done what we intend to do.” The basic text marked in the open book read:

“The traitor Gano, playing a multiplex game, with money from the Cordova Caliph hired Basque Christians (dressed as Saragossan Mozarabs) to ambush the rear-guard of the Frankish force. To do this it was necessary that Gano keep in contact with the Basques and at the same time delay the rear-guard of the Franks. Gano, however, served both as guide and scout for the Franks. The ambush was effected. Charlemagne lost his Spanish mules. And he locked the door against the Moslem world.”

That was the text by Hilarius.

“When we, as it were, push the button (give the nod to Epiktistes), this will be changed,” Gregory said. “Epikt, by a complex of devices which he has assembled, will send an Avatar (partly of mechanical and partly of ghostly construction), and something will have happened to the traitor Gano along about sundown one night on the road to Roncevalles.”

“I hope the Avatar isn’t expensive,” Willy McGilly said. “When I was a boy we got by with a dart whittled out of slippery elm wood.”

“This is no place for humor,” Glasser protested. “Who did you, as a boy, ever kill in time, Willy?”

“Lots of them. King Wu of the Manchu, Pope Adrian VII, President Hardy of our own country, King Marcel of Auvergne, the philosopher Gabriel Toeplitz. It’s a good thing we got them. They were a bad lot,”

“But I never heard of any of them, Willy,” Glasser insisted.

“Of course not. We kiDed them when they were kids.”

“Enough of your fooling, Willy,” Gregory cut it off.

“Willy’s not fooling,” the machine Epikt said. “Where do you think I got the idea?”

“Regard the world,” Aloysius said softly. “We see our own middle-sized town with half a dozen towers of pastel-colored brick. We will watch it as it grows or shrinks. It will change if the world changes.”

“There’s two shows in town I haven’t seen,” Valery said. “Don’t let them take them away! After all, there are only three shows
in
town.”

“We regard the Beautiful Arts as set out in the reviews here which we have also taken as basic texts,” Audifax O’Hanlon said. “You can say what you want to, but the arts have never been in meaner shape. Painting is of three schools only, all of them bad. Sculpture is the heaps-of-rusted-metal school and the obscene tinker-toy effects. The only popular art, graffiti on mingitorio walls, has become unimaginative, stylized and ugly.

“The only thinkers to be thought of are the dead Teilhard de Chardin and the stillborn Sartre, Zielinski, Aichinger. Oh well, if you’re going to laugh there’s no use going on.”

“All of us here are experts on something,” Cogsworth said. “Most of us are experts on everything. We know the world as it is. Let us do what we are going to do and then look at the world.”

“Push the button, Epikt!” Gregory Smirnov ordered.

From his depths, Epiktistes the Ktistec machine sent out an Avatar, partly of mechanical and partly of ghostly construction. Along about sundown on the road from Pamplona to Roncevalles, on August 14th of the year 778, the traitor Gano was taken up from the road and hanged on a carob tree, the only one in those groves of oak and beech. And all things thereafter were changed.

* * * *

“Did it work, Epikt? Is it done?” Louis Lobachevski demanded. “I can’t see a change in anything.”

“The Avatar is back and reports his mission accomplished,” Epikt stated. “I can’t see any change in anything either.”

“Let’s look at the evidence,” Gregory said.

The thirteen of them, the ten humans and the Ktistec, Chresmoeidec and Proaisthematic machines, turned to the evidence and with mounting disappointment.

“There is not one word changed in the Hilarius text,” Gregory grumbled, and indeed the basic text still read:

* * * *

“The king Marsilies of Saragossa, playing a multiplex game, took money from the Caliph of Cordova for persuading Charlemagne to abandon the conquest of Spain (which Charlemagne had never considered and couldn’t have affected); took money from Charlemagne in recompense for the cities of the Northern marches being returned to Christian rule (though Marsilies himself had never ruled them); and took money from everyone as toll on the new trade passing through his city. Marsilies gave up nothing but thirty-three scholars, the same number of mules and a few wagonloads of book-manuscripts from the old Hellenistic libraries. But a road over the mountains was opened between the two worlds; and also a sector of the Mediterranean coast became open to both. A limited opening was made between the two worlds, and a limited reanimation of civilization was affected in each.”

* * * *

“No, there is not one word of the text changed,” Gregory grumbled. “History followed its same course. How did our experiment fail? We tried, by a device that seems a little cloudy now, to shorten the gestation period for the new birth. It would not be shortened.”

“The town is in no way changed,” said Aloysius Shiplap. “It is still a fine large town with two dozen imposing towers of varicolored limestone and midland marble. It is a vital metropolis, and we all love it, but it is now as it was before.”

“There are still two dozen good shows in town that I haven’t seen,” Valery said happily as she examined the billings. “I was afraid that something might have happened to them.”

“There is no change at all in the Beautiful Arts as reflected in the reviews here that we have taken as basic texts,” said Audifax O’Hanlon. “You can say what you want to, but the arts have never been in finer shape.”

“It’s a link of sausage,” said the machine Chresmoeidy.

“‘Nor know the road who never ran it thrice,’ “ said the machine Proaisth. “That’s from an old verse; I forget the author; I have it filed in my main mind in England if you’re interested.”

“Oh yes, it’s the three-cornered tale that ends where it begins,” said the machine Epiktistes. “But it is good sausage, and we should enjoy it; many ages have not even this much,” “What are you fellows babbling about?” Audifax asked without really wanting to know. “The art of painting is still almost incandescent in its bloom. The schools are like clustered galaxies, and half the people are doing some of this work for pleasure. Scandinavian and Maori sculpture are hard put to maintain their dominance in the field where almost everything is extraordinary. The impassioned-comic has released music from most of its bonds. Since speculative mathematics and psychology have joined the popular performing arts, there is considerably more sheer fun in life.

“There’s a piece here on Pete Teilhard putting him into context as a talented science fiction writer with a talent for outre burlesque. The Brainworld Motif was overworked when he tackled it, but what a shaggy comic extravaganza he did make of it! And there’s Muldoom, Zielinski, Popper, Gander, Aichinger, Whitecrow, Hornwhanger—we owe so much to the juice of the cultists! In the main line there are whole congeries and continents of great novels and novelists.

“An ever popular art, graffiti on mingitorio walls, maintains its excellence. Travel Unlimited offers a ninety-nine day art tour of the world keyed to the viewing of the exquisite and hilarious miniatures on the walls of its own rest-rooms. Ah, what a copious world we live in!”

“It’s more grass than we can graze,” said Willy McGilly. “The very bulk of achievement is stupefying. Ah, I wonder if there is subtle revenge in my choice of words. The experiment, of course, was a failure, and I’m glad. I like a full world.”

“We will not call the experiment a failure since we have covered only a third of it,” said Gregory. “Tomorrow we will make our second attempt on the past. And, if there is a present left to us after that, we will make a third attempt the following day.”

“Shove it, good people, shove it,” the machine Epiktistes said. “We will meet here again tomorrow. Now you to your pleasures, and we to ours.”

* * * *

The people talked that evening away from the machines where they could make foolish conjectures without being laughed at.

“Let’s pull a random card out of the pack and go with it,” said Louis Lobachevski. “Let’s take a purely intellectual crux of a little later date and see if the changing of it will change the world.”

“I suggest Ockham,” said Johnny Konduly.

“Why?” Valery demanded. “He was the last and least of the medieval schoolmen. How could anything he did or did not do affect anything?”

“Oh no, he held the razor to the jugular,” Gregory said. “He’d have severed the vein if the razor hadn’t been snatched from his hand. There is something amiss here, though. It is as though I remembered when things were not so stark with Ockham, as though, in some variant, Ockham’s Terminalism did not mean what we know that it did mean.”

“Sure, let’s cut the jugular,” said Willy. “Let’s find out the logical termination of Terminalism and see just how deep Ockham’s razor can cut.”