Steven Spruill

review of
Steven Spruill's The Paradox Planet
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 16, 2013

I'm more or less positive that I read Spruill's The Psychopath Plague wch was a precursor to this insofar as it also featured the team of Elias Kane, detective hero, & Pendrake, a "Cephantine" (ie: not an Earthling, not human but humanoid), a pacifist whose colossal strength & speed are always saving Kane. BUT, I don't really remember The Psychopath Plague at all.

One of the things that appeals to me about the Pendrake character & his presence in these bks is that w/o him the tales wd be little more than generic Space Opera w/ the usual struggles for power. But Pendrake's pacifism complicates matters considerably. A pacifist fighting evil n'at w/o using a ray-gun or whatever? Makes sense to me, pacifists do that all the time.. but not in Space Opera!

"Pendrake looked grim. "So much pointless savagery. And you are all brothers. Couldn't this be resolved if Earth simply relinquished her goverance of the colonies?"

"Elis became exasperated. "Damn it, now you sound like a rebel propagandanist. Understand this: The empire is culturally the direct descendent of the old United States, which finally imposed world government in 2041. U.S. history prevails - in the thinking of Earthmen and colonists alike" - p 45

"Pendrake raised his hands to his bowed face clenching them into fists. "All this strength," he said bitterly, "and what is it good for? In the world of men, nothing. Why was I cursed with it and then put among you?"

""To show us that strength doesn't have to turn into brutality."" - p 144

Of course, nit-picky, &, at times, no doubt ignorant, shit-kicker that I am, I just have to call attn to this part: "the oxyplex was filtering out everything but pure O2" (p 58) [imagine that "2" as subscript - I don't know how to make it so here]. What is "O2"? 2 parts Oxygen to what? I mean, isn't that a relative usage in wch no relativity is presented here? Or, rather, the "oxyplex" is filtering H2O - so how does it filter "O2" out of H2O? [2 parts Hydrogen to 1 part Oxygen] Whatever.

As part of his investigation, Elias foolishly allows himself to be led into a recreational area by a person w/ dubious motives:

"Jost led him further into the concourse, through the crowd, past stall after stall. Elias kept seeing shops that offered back rooms supplied with ropes. Gaudy ads invited colonists to pair off and tie each other up. He paused at one of the bondage shops, drawn with a mixture of revulsion and fascination to the animated holo advertisements. Men binding women and women binding men; so much rope that only slivers of flesh were visible. Total immobilization. The looks on the faces were neither pain nor ecstasy, but a sort of contrite acceptance, as though they were performing a religious ritual rather than an erotic game.

""Be that to thy liking?" Jost asked.

"Elias flushed, embarrassed, though there was no scorn in Jost's voice. "No thanks. I wouldn't want some woman coming unraveled over me."" - p 90

More nit-picking: "As long as Martha was cutting the nerveless, bloodless plastiflesh, he'd be all right. But when she got to the meld of the plastiflesh and his skin, she'd have to sever thousands of surface nerves and capillaries that had bonded through the skin with the gel undercoat of the plastiflesh. It would be like being skinned by a stone-aged axe." (p 210) I remember studying in Physical Anthropology that stone axes are actually very sharp.

While I enjoyed this bk, esp its main surprise, I found, as I often do, that the writing was a bit too cliché and generic. This is, perhaps, the worst example: "The two sculpted guide-handles sprang up into his palms. Through the clear shield of the gunnery bubble he saw the ugly V-winged shape of a rebel fighter bearing down. he gritted his teeth and swung the handles, squeezing, tracking by sight, knowing he had a bout two seconds. Red lines sprang from his laser cannon and converged on the rebel ship; it ballooned into a searing red-orange smear that faded quickly against the black sky." (p 222) Oh, well..… (más)

This is a fast-paced adventure in the space opera tradition, complete with handsome hero (Elias Kane) , faithful huge (but pacifist) alien sidekick (Pendrake), and beautiful love interest, in this case a female doctor. (Dr. Raik) This is the third in the series and I have not read the first two; there are enough references to fill in the background early on so it is not confusing. Apparently the first book involved defeating an alien invasion and the second involved a plot by internal rebels (with alien help) to assassinate the ruling human emperor, Gregorius. This was partially successful --the emperor's body was destroyed; he living head was preserved but is being kept preserved by his orders not to be disturbed until he can be transferred to a new body (an option which apparently is not currently available. In the meantime, his daughter Briana, who had a brief affair with Kane in, I suppose, book 2 and then dropped him, is the ruling empress. The same attack also killed Beth Tyson, who was apparently Kane''s great love up to that point. This third volume begins with an attack on Kane's ship by nasty little alien vampiric superbeetles, which aborts his intended departure from the capital planet. After a brief episode in which the empress tries to force her way past the late emperor's faithful insectoid bodyguard to consult his head (contrary to his orders) and is talked out of it by Kane after a fierce little fight, she then sends him on a mission to find out why the last 3 imperial inspectors sent to the planet Cassiodorus have suddenly died. Cassiodorus matters because its mines produce eta-steel, used to make the imperial dreadnoughts, the space warships which maintain imperial power. It is suspected some beta steel is being diverted to make dreadnoughts for the rebels. Kane is accompanied, naturally, by Pendrake and more surprisingly, by Dr. Raik, whom the empress sends along to get a medical opinion on the deaths, despite her jealousy of Kane apparent interest in Raik. Not surprisingly, Kane and Raik promptly become lovers on shipboard. (They are traveling by an imperial warship just below the dreadnought class, with some useful space marines.) They find that the miners of Cassiodorus are massive (300 pounds plus) and muscular, able to mine all day and revel all night despite te 1.5 Earth gravity. (Somehow, nobody but Kane, and, presumably, the dead imperial inspectors, noticed anything strange in this.) Spoiler warning: it turns out the miners get their strength by using detahed earlike bodyparts of the local more-or-less intelligent local aliens (like human-sized T.Rexes). These organs let the aliens (and, properly adapted, the miners) drain mental energy from their prey --the aliens use whatever thy can catch, preferably humans,the iners use their own children. (I found that psychologically unlikely., since adult human can also be used, though they have less energy.) Kane figures this out after breaing into a "school" for the stunted torpid children, and getting hold of one of the ear devices (which Rak implants in Kane's own chest to hide it.) The rebels who are indeed diverting beta steel, kidnap Raik; Kane and Pendrake pursue them across a desert, are captured (along with the rebels who had taken Raik, though they have already delivered her to rebel hq) by a T.Rex, then rescued y the rebels who take Kane and Pendrake to rebel hq where they find that the rebel leader is Richard DuMorgan, an old comrade of Kane's from book one. Du Morgan tells the rebels they will be executed by being drained of energy, but instead has their deaths faked and they are locked in a prison with a super-strong steel door (because in a previous book Pendrake had ripped out a weaker steel door); Pendrake cannot rip this one out on his own, but Raik cuts the device out of Kane's chest and lets Pendrake drain her energy so he rips ut the door; this brings on a final fght in which the imperial maraines arrive and take the rebel hq, but Du Morgan escapes Brianna, who had showed up with massive imperial backup to join in suppressing the rebels, tells Kane she is pregnant with their child; a provisional arrangement is made that Kane will be Brianna's right hand man, but Raik wll be his lover. Obviously, the series is intended to continue.… (más)