Books: Childhood's End By Arthur C. Clarke (1953)

 

“The Overlords appeared suddenly over every city—intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior to humankind. Benevolent, they made few demands: unify earth, eliminate poverty, and end war. With little rebellion, humankind agreed, and a golden age began. But at what cost? With the advent of peace, man ceases to strive for creative greatness, and a malaise settles over the human race. To those who resist, it becomes evident that the Overlords have an agenda of their own. As civilization approaches the crossroads, will the Overlords spell the end for humankind . . . or the beginning?”

I made a few attempts over the decades to read this book –but it’s probably close to 30 + years since my last attempt.

The themes of a peaceful alien invasion of Earth by these mysterious Overlords, is an interesting take on the genre, and while their arrival begins decades of apparent utopia, under the indirect alien rule, the cost of it is our human identity and culture. I can see why a lot of science fiction shows –like Star Trek- lifted some ideas Clarke came up with, even while he would further use this novels subject of transcendent evolution in his later work, in particular 2001: A Space Odyssey and their sequels.

It also goes against every other sci-fi novel of the era, where humans are forbidden to leave Earth because the there is really nothing there for them – but death, I guess. But there seems to be a lot of symbolism here, both philosophical and religious –not sure I clearly got them. Also, while dubbed the Overlords, the aliens see themselves more as Guardians of Earth, which should’ve been the first clue as to where the tale was going.

I was further intrigued by the utopian ideals postulated here, where robotics and computers are advanced to the point that humans are only need to work about twenty hours a week. This enabled people to continue their education (sometimes going back several times just to learn something new),  develop new hobbies and skills, if only because ”The existence of so much leisure would have created tremendous problems a century before. Education had overcome most of these, for a well-stocked mind is safe from boredom.”

Now that I could get into. Like a lot of hard sci-fi of the era, it’s a bit dry, but I found I enjoyed the novel, even if Clarke’s vision of mid-twenty-first century America sort of resembled 1950s America.

Books: Backtrack By Joseph Hansen (1982)

"Did handsome, charming Eric Tarr, small-time actor, really kill himself? He left behind a lot of wreckage broken promises, broken hearts, broken lives. Backtracking through his father's past, young Alan, another of the betrayed, begins to see how many men and women might have been bitter enough to murder Eric Tarr. By the time Alan learns the truth, it becomes his own personal tragedy and, both legs in casts, he waits helpless in a storm-shaken deserted house on the beach for his father's killer to find and kill him too.”

While published in 1982, Backtrack feels like more like a tale set in the 1950s, with reminders of Hansen’s scathing look at Hollywood, Los Angeles, and gay life. Like his Dave Brandsetter tales, young Alan Tarr is smarter than everyone else when he decides to venture to Los Angeles for his father’s funeral –a father that left him and his mother at 6 months and never returned. It’s a nebulous reason, but for Alan, he needs to find some tangible reason to get there. But Alan arrives to late (a misadventure involving hitchhiking -a very 60’s and 70s thing- and a boy-ish looking girl named Gus prevents it. But soon, after talking to a few people, including the cops, Alan becomes convinced his father’s death was more than it seemed, and Alan ventures around the dark underbelly of Los Angeles to find a truth –one he’s disgusted to learn, but none the less seems attracted to as well.

There are some memorable characters here, fully realized, with Hansen’s patent prose style of not letting words go to waste. These books may be short, but there are not many writers who can evoke mood and setting with without filler –so every word does count. But like a few of his Brandstetter tales, the plot is a bit over the top, and melodramatic for no good reason, along with a few characters that flip-flop on their sexuality like they’re turning on a light switch.

Like a lot of books of this genre, it also comes off as dated and I sometimes cringed at causal racist and homophobic language. I understand this was what Hansen grew up with, but it’s also a reminder that while he can laser focus his eye on the lurid aspect of Hollywood, he could not give up the internal homophobia he might’ve had (after all, he was gay, but was married to a woman –who was a lesbian- from 1943 until her death in 1994. They also had a child).

In the end, it was a page turner. But your mileage will vary.

Books: The Busy Body By Donald E. Westlake (1966)

“The corpse isn’t anybody special—a low-level drug courier—but it has been so long since the organization’s last grand funeral that Nick Rovito decides to give the departed a big send-off. He pays for a huge church, a procession of Cadillacs, and an ocean of flowers, and enjoys the affair until he learns the dead man is going to his grave wearing the blue suit. Rovito summons Engel, his right-hand man, and tells him to get a shovel. Inside the lining of the blue suit jacket is $250,000 worth of uncut heroin, smuggled back from Baltimore the day the courier died. When Engel’s shovel strikes coffin, he braces himself for the encounter with the dead man. But the coffin is empty, the heroin gone, and Engel has no choice but to track down the missing body or face his boss’s wrath.” 

Like a lot of Westlake’s stories –both the serious noir and the caper comedies- it eventually becomes a detective novel, as much as anything else. And Westlake’s specialty is that they’re written frequently from the criminal’s point of view. While Al Engel may not be hardened crime lord, he works for them, so he becomes guilty by association.

The Busy Body –one of his earliest in the “nephew” genre he created- borrows themes from The Fugitive Pigeon, which I mentioned in my take on that book, had been Westlake’s first really big seller for Random House, and which ironically, outsold the Parker novels by a 2 to 1 margin. Here the tale is bit tighter, the humor less forced, but it’s still a bit weak. The plot is still a bit complex, built like a detective novel with Engel trying to find a body, please his boss Nick, and running into more complications than he ever dreamed of –including, eventually, being sought for murder by Nick’s goons and the hapless police.

I don’t really love the book, mostly because all the characters are just reworked clichés. None appear to have a soul, or any real empathy (much like the characters in his Richard Stark written Parker novels). Even Engel comes off a bit cold in the end –but there is a part of me that understands him when it comes to his relationship with his mother. I could see him escaping to California to get away from her.

There was a film version of this book released in 1967, produced and directed by William Castle, a well know filmmaker who churned out a few competent B-movies quickly and on budget. This led him to independently produce and direct thrillers, which, despite their low budgets, were effectively promoted by using gimmicks, such as 3D. He was also the producer for Rosemary's Baby. It featured Richard Pryor's film debut, but I hear it's horrible.