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Rite of passage
Books
ECONOMIC REFORM SOVIET UNION
IN THE
by M. Ellman 96 pages.
10s. PEP,
London
This PEP broadsheet, no. 509, discusses the prospects for the future evolution of the Soviet economy, though the author stresses that the main problems facing the Soviet people are not economic but political. The present Russian economy can best be understood as a permanent war economy, mobilising and allocating resources in accordance with political leadership priorities. It is suggested that a gradual transition is required to a new system of ‘optimal planning’ combining both planning and the use of price mechanism and market forces.
SCIENCE FICTION
SURVEY
by Dennis Livingston John Brunner, The 397 pages. g5c. Ace
Jagged
Orbit.
Frederik Pohl, The Age of the Pussyfoot. 191 pages. $4.95. Trident Press Alexei Panshin, pages. 75~. Ace
Rite of Passage.
254
These three novels are of high literary compared to most science quality, fiction, and are excellent examples of the science fiction story as scenarios. All three take current or foreseeable trends in technology and social behaviour and weave them into plots which are quite believable and consistent, successfully fulfilling science fiction’s major contribution to futures research-the presentation of carefully thought-out alternative futures that may stimulate the reader’s own line of work. Specifically, Brunner’s book, the most topical of the three, is a provocative extrapolation of the trends desscribed in the Kerner Commission’s study on race relations in the United
FUTURES
June I969
States. Brunner assumes that the USA is indeed moving towards a society m which white and black will form separate political entities, and that such trends as black nationalism, racial animosity, and the general level of tension of urban life will continue unabated. He depicts the USA in the year 2014 as still maintaining its political viability, at the price of the formation of separate black enclaves into which the majority of Negroes will have moved. The Federal government arranges with the enclaves to provide them with utilities, while they pay taxes in return. This delicate balance is not helped by protracted urban guerrilla warfare between black and white, nor by the stimulating advertising campaigns of a giant weapons corporation desiring to maximise its profits. The result is a society heading for breakdown as the social glue of common decency and friendship dissolves in a mire of mutual suspicion. Pohl bases his book on the extrapolation from current trends of two major technological developments. In his world of 2527, immortality has been achieved by the freezing in liquid helium chambers of individuals when they die. They can be revived when science has discovered how to cure the cause of death and repair the ravages of age, and when the individual’s bank account has advanced to the point where he can afford the expensive death reversal treatment. The other development assumes that miniaturisation and diversity of computers will proceed to the point where every solvent citizen of the future will have a portable device (called a ‘joymaker’) that can connect him to a central computer utility. The joymaker performs such functions as communicator, travel guide, employment agency, and pharmacy. Panshin’s first novel is the most realistic version I have read on a popular science fiction theme-the spaceship in which generations of humans
375
376
Books
live out their lives as it travels through the void. The narrative is given through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old girl who is to undergo her rite of entry into the adult community of the ship (actually, a hollowed out asteroid) in the year 2198. To maintain the fitness of its members, the ship community deposits each fourteen-year-old age group on a primitive colony planet of old earth; those who survive the experience after a month become adult citizens. All three books have avoided the prime criticism of science fiction-its over-concentration on gadgetry and adventure, to the exclusion of recognisable human relations. Brunner and Pohl do not hesitate to make ample use of interesting technology in their scenarios, but the devices are always subordinate to the plot. Panshin is concerned entirely with the sociological aspects of the closed world of an interstellar spaceship. There are several interesting convergences among the authors. Pohl and Panshin have assumed with credibility that the conventional family will not be the only unit of that kind in the future. Given the existence of long life and a decent minimum standard of living, marriage arrangements in the societies described will tend to be fluid, depending on the needs and interests of the partners. In Panshin’s world, children may be raised if the parents so desire in ship dormitories run communally along the lines of the Israeli kibbutz. Education will have become individualised and based on a tutorial system in which children will engage in a free learning environment, taking up whatever subjects their interests lead to (for Pohl, the tutor is the joymaker, for Panshin, an elder citizen). The future America depicted by both Brunner and Pohl has serious flaws, more explicitly so in Brunner’s book. Indeed, the latter is a much needed
corrective to the many non-fiction books about the future that blithely spin out the technical wonders of the future in a completely out-of-context social vacuum, ignoring such real possibilities as Brunner raises. The most serious danger Brunner alerts us to is not so much racial hostility, but the growing estrangement of man from man in the alienating urban culture, to the extent that one major therapeutic technique will have become simply the isolation of individuals in cells leaving most private and public decisions to be made on the basis of computerised probabilities. Things are not quite so bitter in Pohl’s story, but he outlines one interesting consequence of immortality, the casual acceptance of killing and brutality, which provide entertainment for the somewhat jaded, drugoriented personalities in the society. When the time comes for humanity to face the possibility of invasion by aliens, most people flee to the underground helium chambers, assuming that whoever is left will take care of things. On the other hand, Panshin describes a society which has fully and responsibly accepted the conservation philosophy necessary for the survival of a people living in the closed environment of a spaceship. Thus, the heroine takes the fact that population must be strictly controlled as obvious and just. She is horrified to find that the inhabitants of the planet on which she carries out her trial period believe that mating may be directed for the purpose of eugenic procreation and that otherwise, one is free to live with anyone. Of course, the ship of the story is an apt analogy with the spaceship that is our planet. In an epilogue to his book, Pohl explains what trends in current society led him to extrapolate his plot. This is very useful information that would be well imitated by other science fiction authors.
Printed in Great Britain by Unwin Brothers Limited, The Gresham Press, Woking and London
ECONOMIC REFORM SOVIET UNION
IN THE
by M. Ellman 96 pages.
10s. PEP,
London
This PEP broadsheet, no. 509, discusses the prospects for the future evolution of the Soviet economy, though the author stresses that the main problems facing the Soviet people are not economic but political. The present Russian economy can best be understood as a permanent war economy, mobilising and allocating resources in accordance with political leadership priorities. It is suggested that a gradual transition is required to a new system of ‘optimal planning’ combining both planning and the use of price mechanism and market forces.
SCIENCE FICTION
SURVEY
by Dennis Livingston John Brunner, The 397 pages. g5c. Ace
Jagged
Orbit.
Frederik Pohl, The Age of the Pussyfoot. 191 pages. $4.95. Trident Press Alexei Panshin, pages. 75~. Ace
Rite of Passage.
254
These three novels are of high literary compared to most science quality, fiction, and are excellent examples of the science fiction story as scenarios. All three take current or foreseeable trends in technology and social behaviour and weave them into plots which are quite believable and consistent, successfully fulfilling science fiction’s major contribution to futures research-the presentation of carefully thought-out alternative futures that may stimulate the reader’s own line of work. Specifically, Brunner’s book, the most topical of the three, is a provocative extrapolation of the trends desscribed in the Kerner Commission’s study on race relations in the United
FUTURES
June I969
States. Brunner assumes that the USA is indeed moving towards a society m which white and black will form separate political entities, and that such trends as black nationalism, racial animosity, and the general level of tension of urban life will continue unabated. He depicts the USA in the year 2014 as still maintaining its political viability, at the price of the formation of separate black enclaves into which the majority of Negroes will have moved. The Federal government arranges with the enclaves to provide them with utilities, while they pay taxes in return. This delicate balance is not helped by protracted urban guerrilla warfare between black and white, nor by the stimulating advertising campaigns of a giant weapons corporation desiring to maximise its profits. The result is a society heading for breakdown as the social glue of common decency and friendship dissolves in a mire of mutual suspicion. Pohl bases his book on the extrapolation from current trends of two major technological developments. In his world of 2527, immortality has been achieved by the freezing in liquid helium chambers of individuals when they die. They can be revived when science has discovered how to cure the cause of death and repair the ravages of age, and when the individual’s bank account has advanced to the point where he can afford the expensive death reversal treatment. The other development assumes that miniaturisation and diversity of computers will proceed to the point where every solvent citizen of the future will have a portable device (called a ‘joymaker’) that can connect him to a central computer utility. The joymaker performs such functions as communicator, travel guide, employment agency, and pharmacy. Panshin’s first novel is the most realistic version I have read on a popular science fiction theme-the spaceship in which generations of humans
375
376
Books
live out their lives as it travels through the void. The narrative is given through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old girl who is to undergo her rite of entry into the adult community of the ship (actually, a hollowed out asteroid) in the year 2198. To maintain the fitness of its members, the ship community deposits each fourteen-year-old age group on a primitive colony planet of old earth; those who survive the experience after a month become adult citizens. All three books have avoided the prime criticism of science fiction-its over-concentration on gadgetry and adventure, to the exclusion of recognisable human relations. Brunner and Pohl do not hesitate to make ample use of interesting technology in their scenarios, but the devices are always subordinate to the plot. Panshin is concerned entirely with the sociological aspects of the closed world of an interstellar spaceship. There are several interesting convergences among the authors. Pohl and Panshin have assumed with credibility that the conventional family will not be the only unit of that kind in the future. Given the existence of long life and a decent minimum standard of living, marriage arrangements in the societies described will tend to be fluid, depending on the needs and interests of the partners. In Panshin’s world, children may be raised if the parents so desire in ship dormitories run communally along the lines of the Israeli kibbutz. Education will have become individualised and based on a tutorial system in which children will engage in a free learning environment, taking up whatever subjects their interests lead to (for Pohl, the tutor is the joymaker, for Panshin, an elder citizen). The future America depicted by both Brunner and Pohl has serious flaws, more explicitly so in Brunner’s book. Indeed, the latter is a much needed
corrective to the many non-fiction books about the future that blithely spin out the technical wonders of the future in a completely out-of-context social vacuum, ignoring such real possibilities as Brunner raises. The most serious danger Brunner alerts us to is not so much racial hostility, but the growing estrangement of man from man in the alienating urban culture, to the extent that one major therapeutic technique will have become simply the isolation of individuals in cells leaving most private and public decisions to be made on the basis of computerised probabilities. Things are not quite so bitter in Pohl’s story, but he outlines one interesting consequence of immortality, the casual acceptance of killing and brutality, which provide entertainment for the somewhat jaded, drugoriented personalities in the society. When the time comes for humanity to face the possibility of invasion by aliens, most people flee to the underground helium chambers, assuming that whoever is left will take care of things. On the other hand, Panshin describes a society which has fully and responsibly accepted the conservation philosophy necessary for the survival of a people living in the closed environment of a spaceship. Thus, the heroine takes the fact that population must be strictly controlled as obvious and just. She is horrified to find that the inhabitants of the planet on which she carries out her trial period believe that mating may be directed for the purpose of eugenic procreation and that otherwise, one is free to live with anyone. Of course, the ship of the story is an apt analogy with the spaceship that is our planet. In an epilogue to his book, Pohl explains what trends in current society led him to extrapolate his plot. This is very useful information that would be well imitated by other science fiction authors.
Printed in Great Britain by Unwin Brothers Limited, The Gresham Press, Woking and London