Book Review : ‘Planet’: An International Look at S-F

Tales From the Planet Earth by Frederik Pohl and Elizabeth Anne Hull (St. Martin’s: $15.95)

There is an international character to science fiction with a readership that is increasing around the world. Some American authors now earn as much from the translation of their works into dozens of foreign languages as from their initial U.S. printings.

Perhaps this is because science fiction stories are so often set in times or places that make today’s intense political struggles seem petty and parochial. Or, possibly, it is the attraction of a genre that tends to assume that there will at least be some sort of future at all. Whatever the reason, there is no mistaking the trend toward a worldwide readership of this literary form.

And yet there is an irony. While science fiction is increasingly popular in other lands, it is in the English language that nearly all professionally published S-F is produced. With the exception of a few sub-varieties, such as magic realism, the field is dominated by authors from the United States and the United Kingdom.

Fresh Viewpoints

This is a pity. Exploring alternative futures for mankind should not be the sole privilege of English-speakers. Bringing in other, fresh viewpoints can enrich everyone. From time to time, special collections have been produced to showcase talented writers from other lands. Although these volumes have rarely done well in the market place, they do remind us of the international character of the field.

“Tales From the Planet Earth” is not just another collection. Neither is it quite what its editors have called it--”a novel with nineteen authors.” Rather, Frederik Pohl and Elizabeth Anne Hull have created an international anthology that revolves around a common theme. One unifying idea was presented to talented writers from China to Brazil to Thailand to Italy, and the tales that were inspired have been translated and published in this volume.

The unifying theme is that of alien possession of a human body--with or without the permission of its natural owner--by some intelligence from a far-away star. Pohl establishes the situation in the first of the tales from “Planet Earth,” entitled “Sitting Around the Pool, Soaking Up the Rays,” in which the story’s narrator finds himself “employed” against his will by an emissary from an advanced interstellar culture. In a well-guarded Hawaiian luxury hotel, scores of similarly possessed human acts as mouthpieces for diverse alien races, speaking of words and moving their limbs to the command of beings far across the galaxy. It is an interstellar diplomatic conference, held by mind projection and proxy. And while Earth’s governments are profiting by playing host to the meeting, the human subjects aren’t having a fun time of it at all. Pohl’s story is eerie and unnerving, and an excellent piece to set the tone for those that follow.

From this beginning, the other authors diverge in their own ways. Some, such as Joseph Nesvadba of Czechoslovakia and Harry Harrison of Ireland, stick closely to the scenario, and their stories do feel somewhat like chapters in a “novel” with a cohesive theme.

Others, notably England’s Brian Aldiss and Bulgaria’s Ljuben Dilov, strike off on their own with stories that aren’t quite consistent with the book as a whole. Also divergent is “The Tale of the Paper Spaceship” by Japan’s great science fiction writer, Tetsu Yano. What Yano’s story lacks in consistency with the others, however, it makes up in clarity and breathtaking beauty.

A Touching Reminder

Humorous and enticing is “Fiddling for Water Buffaloes” by Thailand’s Somtow Sucharitkul. And West Germany’s Karl Michael Armer turns his story of alien possession into a touching reminder that old people can still be strong.

There is awkwardness in many of the tales. Some of this must, no doubt, be due to the problems of translation into English. And yet, one is left hoping that some of the nations represented here have other writers doing much better work. For instance, while one can sympathize with the contributors from Poland and the Peoples’ Republic of China, it grows tedious when Janusz Zajdel and Tong Enzheng turn their stories into patriotic, nationalistic paeans. (An alien supermind is depicted attempting to take over a typical Pole/Chinese and finds itself thwarted because of the “indomitable spirit” of the Polish/Chinese nation and people.)

These complaints notwithstanding, “Tales From the Planet Earth” stands as a fascinating controlled experiment in the way writers from many lands will approach the same concept and each turn it in his or her own way into that magical thing, a story.