The Star Kings is actually cited by Wikipedia's article on its author, Edmond Hamilton, as being the "best" representative of his science fiction style. Apparently one of the most prolific authors of his era, while he never was considered a shining luminary of science fiction as the space opera declined in popularity, his career actually continued in comic books-specifically, at DC comics during the Silver Age. He is also credited by some as being the first author to conceptualize the "energy sword" (and thus apparently inspiring a rather more famous creator to use them).
Also, Hamilton is the creator of the Captain Future science fiction series, which includes The Solar Invasion, another of the books I promised to review, although that one was written by Manly Wade Wellman. Not relevant here, but noteworthy nonetheless.
The Star Kings has a reasonably interesting plot, as such things go; a "young accountant clerk" named John Gordon is antsing for action, as he's been back from World War II for a while now. He was a bomber pilot during the war, and despite the 90% casualty rates, he misses the action. (I could be misremembering that, but it's funny to think that some people from that time period had much more skewed views of this kind of thing than people do even now.) So, when all of a sudden, a voice starts talking in his head, he wonders briefly if it's some kind of post-traumatic shock syndrome or something (although he simply calls it "going crazy"). It turns out, though, that it's not-it's the scientist Zarth Arn (hmm...) from 200,000 years in the future. Holy cheese.
Anyway, Zarth Arn tells him that he's using his magic mind-projection machine to travel through time, and he's used it to find like-minded people to himself (i.e., people looking for adventure and new experiences) and gather information on their obscure historical periods. FOR GREAT SCIENCE. (cough) He says he's never been this far back into such a primitive time, and he's champing at the bit to see just what a nasty ol' heckhole he's going to get into. Gordon is a little hesitant at first, but then he has another really boring day at the office, and away we go! Heh.
(Note: It's pointed out in the comments that I forgot to mention why the mind-projection machine works, and time travel for matter supposedly can't-the mind "travels back in time" whenever it remembers things. Thanks, sis, for reminding me of that.)
So he gets some children's books for Zarth Arn (who speaks no English) and then makes the swap, ending up mind-swapped with the rogue scientist, and left alone with the guy's mentor and assistant. There, he has a few weeks to rapidly learn the language and some general facts about the universe of 2000 centuries in the future! (I'm sorry, I just find that phrase really funny, and it's in the blurb on the back more than once. The blurb also mentions the sorcery of super-science! Woo!) In the process, he learns that 1) Zarth Arn is actually the second son of the king of the freaking galaxy (mostly-they do have enemies), 2) they are on the edge of WAR with the League of Dark Worlds (toldya they have enemies-although they're only called "the League of Dark Worlds" because they're in a giant space nebula appropriately called the Black Cloud), and 3) Earth, despite being the homeworld, is now a backwater. Appropriate.
Anyway, then some Cloud-men (as they are consistently referred to), show up, shoot the heck out of the old man with "atom guns," and try to kidnap Zarth Arn. Who is John Gordon. This sends him plummeting down a course of blundering his way through the "hyper-advanced" feudal society of 200,000 years from now, and effortlessly duping and fooling people when he barely speaks the language and knows practically nothing. He's lucky that he's the hero of a pulp fiction book.
On the science front, the book is almost total poppycock. There are magic rays which let them travel faster than the speed of light because the rays do (no, I don't know how that makes sense), and these same rays are used to shoot stuff out of the various guns and cannons. There are atomic gun shells which are the same size as modern handgun bullets, which cannot actually function (at least, not without some real quantum gymnastics) alongside the massive and more plausible cannons. There's also a device which I will talk about a little later which uses the aforementioned magic rays to operate called the Disruptor, but that deserves its own paragraph.
But there are also some interesting concepts and some reasonably plausible ideas (just not exactly plausible the way they were described). There's the paralyzer, essentially exactly the same device as a modern stun gun but fancier looking. There's the telestereo, which is a very early fictional instance of holographic projection technology and a kind of virtual reality (which has a fascinating military application developed by the League of Dark Worlds within the story). Computers as such are not particularly present in the story, but the warships have semi-automated guns, primarily because there's no way a human being could effectively guide the darned things. (Kinda makes you wonder why they still have such huge crews.) There's mind-reading technology in several forms, from record-keeping to torture device. There is also a scene where Hamilton gets back to his "weird fiction" roots with strange rubbery monsters and the like, which I always enjoy. And there's something called "the Wave," a mysterious radiation that kills anyone it hasn't been set to not kill, in incredibly horrible ways. (More plausible than you'd think, but only in broad strokes.)
Then there's the Disruptor, the grandaddy of all big scifi weapons. I call it the grandaddy because not only is it a really old one, but it's also one of the most efficient and powerful, even by space opera standards. It's made up of about a dozen pointy cone things which get strapped on to the front end of a standard large battleship (of 2000 centuries in the future), and thus is highly efficient-doesn't use up much material, doesn't need much power (relatively speaking). And it's powerful enough to blow a hole in space itself.
Not a little hole, either. At the book's climax, the Disruptor is used against the League's fleets, and destroys half of their ships. (The reason it didn't destroy more is because the rest of them were a little too close to the good guys.) And it unleashes shockwaves when space has to close up to fill the hole that just got blown in it. (This is the kind of stuff that Hamilton is really known for, by the by.)
The real icing on the cake, though, is the fact that only three people in the galaxy know how to use the bloody Disruptor-Arn Abbas, king of the galaxy (who dies early in the action), Jhal Arn, heir prince and replacement king of the galaxy (who gets knocked out of commission by a gunshot wound to the arm), and Zarth Arn (who is 200,000 years in the past, while John Gordon pilots his body). OH SNAP! So a (disappointingly small) part of the book is John Gordon going "OHEMGEE I GOTTA FIGURE OUT HOW TO USE THIS CONSARNED THING WITHOUT BLOWIN' UP THE GALAXY AYUH! AH FEEL LAHK SUCH A HICK!"
Heh. Anyhow, obviously he does all right, mostly on information gleaned from Jhal Arn talking during fever dreams (!). But that's only half of the story.
The other half is a rather pulp-fictionesque romance/triangle/mutant quadrilateral involving Zarth Arn's morganatic (unofficial) wife Murn, John Gordon in Zarth Arn's body, and Lianna, the woman to whom Zarth Arn is engaged to marry for purely diplomatic purposes.
Here's kind of what the screwy chart looks like:
To clarify:
John Gordon is in love with the gorgeous, capable, incredibly wealthy, intelligent Lianna.
Zarth Arn is in love with his side hottie Murn.
Lianna is in love with John Gordon (this is a very good example of telling rather than showing, by the way, in terms of how it's related to the reader), but thinks she's in love with Zarth Arn.
Murn is in love with Zarth Arn, and is one of only two people who can tell to any degree that John Gordon is not actually Zarth Arn.
Aside from the fact that it's a rather typical INSTANT LOVE JUST ADD WATER (OR MAYBE ALCOHOL) pulp fiction romance, it's actually surprisingly well-played. John Gordon is given the opportunity to sleep with Murn more than once, but refuses primarily because he thinks it'd be a nasty thing to do to Zarth Arn. (It would be, of course.) Lianna decides, because John Gordon doesn't want to betray the trust Zarth Arn apparently had in him as steward of his very body and life, that Zarth Arn doesn't love her and will simply be "just friends," which Gordon appreciates but is also frustrated by. There's a resolution to this crazy polygon, but I won't share more than the fact that Zarth Arn likes contradicting his own brilliant super-science.
(As a funny aside which actually contradicts me not talking about the resolution: When Zarth Arn and John Gordon switch back at the end [OMG SPOILERS], John Gordon is told by Zarth Arn some weeks later that he's going to try to invent a physical time machine to let John Gordon come to the FUTURE OF 2000 CENTURIES FROM NOW!! so that he can be with Lianna, who also talks with Gordon over the time-telepathy machine. What has likely not been mentioned between the three of them is that John Gordon is considered "compact" in his own time, that is, muscular and relatively short, contrasting Zarth Arn's fairly considerable height [the members of the royal families are taller than average, in this future time period where most people are presumably quite tall because of nutrition]. Lianna is Zarth Arn's height. I wanna see a comic book or movie adaptation where they meet in person at the end now. Heh heh heh heh heh.)
The book is obviously kind of dated in many respects, and this particular front-the relations between the sexes-seems particularly so. Very few female characters appear. (I think I've mentioned all of them already. Huh.) There are no women in the militaries. Despite this, the portrayal of women is not negative or a sort of "women are weak" thing. Murn seems to be highly perceptive, and while this plays up the whole "woman's intuition" stereotype, at least this means she isn't an idiot. (Actually, we never find out just what Murn does besides sleep with Zarth Arn. For all the readers know, she's actually a very successful businesswoman or something.) Then there's Lianna. Aside from the aforementioned JUST ADD WATER aspect of her relationship with Gordon, she is actually a very capable character. She's not much of a fighter, but then, she's a pampered royal. John Gordon, while he is in the flabby body of a fellow pampered royal, has at least had combat training, so his fighting skills make a little bit of sense. But Lianna never faints (she fakes it once) and rarely if ever cries; she has the same kind of fierce and stern leadership qualities most of the royals have; and when faced with a problem, she only breaks down in the same situations others do (okay, a little more often, but she does pretty well, all things considered). Of course, on the other hand, the book highlights sexist ideas, with the fainting, excessive concern for females, etc. all playing roles. Ironically, the society of 1/5 of a million years from now is awfully backwards in a lot of ways, so these sorts of assumptions actually mesh with its weird little world. (The inhabitants of the time period are actually more upright and honorable than John Gordon, and the book's villain, Shorr Kan, leader of the League of Dark Worlds, considers himself a throwback to Gordon's time.)
That brings me to one final note on the story itself-there's a weird little friendship struck up between John Gordon and Shorr Kan. About halfway through the book, Shorr Kan successfully kidnaps Zarth Arn/John Gordon, and has him brought before him to learn the secret of the Disruptor. As an absolute last-ditch measure to avoid getting his brain fried by the brain-scanning device invented by Cloud scientists, Gordon tells Kan that he doesn't know the secret of the Disruptor because he's not Zarth Arn. Kan disbelieves him and has his brain scanned anyway. When he discovers rapidly that he really isn't Zarth Arn, he has him disconnected before the serious brain damage sets in, and Gordon (falsely) agrees to get the secret of the Disruptor for him in exchange for being puppet ruler of the galaxy and getting Lianna all to himself. In the moment of victory of the Mid-Galactic Empire over its perpetual enemy, the League (oyah, I forgot to mention how evil the good kingdom's name is, didn't I?), John Gordon bluffs that he will use the Disruptor on the Black Cloud. Shorr Kan's fanatical followers aren't that fanatical, and they rebel against him and kill him. Shorr Kan is put on in the midst of his death rattle so that the rebels can prove they've killed him, and Kan and Gordon have a brief discussion as he dies. At the moment of Kan's death, Gordon feels a little pang, because they actually had stuff in common, and he liked the dictator and his practical mindset. ("You an evil dictator who dupes your guys? I'm cool with that.")
In terms of prose, The Star Kings is simple and easy to read, slightly antiquated but not so obscure it's unreadable. (I admit I'm not the best person to judge this, as I was able to easily drop into the rhythm of Roughing It, which gave many people in the class I was reading it for fits, but whatever.) Its total lack of slang keeps the language itself from being too dated, although old-fashioned expressions creep in here and there. It's rarely if ever an impressive piece of prose, but it gets the job done respectably, and I never found myself going "What a heck was that supposed to mean?"
In the end, The Star Kings is a nice example of what science fiction would really rather not be identified with anymore. Star Wars aside, in general the space opera is considered one of the corniest and dated of all genre dramas by many parties (i.e. the science fiction community). However, it's still a fun genre for many, myself included, and if you like space opera style scifi and don't have trouble finding a copy, you might consider picking it up. (Just did a quick search. The Star Kings is available in print as part of an anthology which is made up of mostly stories that were written by Hamilton's wife, Leigh Brackett, who many consider the better author of the two [she wrote an early draft of the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back, by the way]. One of the other stories in the anthology is actually a crossover between The Star Kings and some of Brackett's stories. Fascinating. I can't tell you if it's worth the $45 bucks they're asking for on Amazon, though...)
1 comment:
You forgot the part about why thought can travel through time as opposed to physical objects. Which was a nice little trick, I thought, so I'm mildly dissappointed. XD ;3
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