Nick Kamin

review of
Nick Kamin's Earthrim & Walt & Leigh Richmond's Phoenix Ship
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 4, 2016

This isn't one of my favorite Ace Doubles, the writing's a little too forced or amateurish or something, but I chose to read it b/c half of it us by the Richmonds who I only recently discovered & found 'interesting' 'despite-themselves' (sortof). The previous bk by them that I read & reviewed is called The Lost Millenium & you can read my review of it here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/477512-whatever-pt-6-000-000-000 . I found that one to be epic & imaginative but somewhat 'crackpot' in a post-Velikovsky/Scinetology kinda way.

Having the flipside be by someone w/ the last name of "Kamin" added extra interest since the only other person I've known of w/ that name was my friend Franz Kamin about whom I made a movie called "DEPOT (wherein resides the UNDEAD of Franz Kamin)". I'm curious about whether there's a familial connection but I've done nothing to check for one (until now). Nope, according to the Science Fiction Encyclopedia, "Pseudonym of US writer Robert John Antonick" ( http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/kamin_nick ). Too bad. Franz's life covered roughly the same timespan: May 25, 1941 – April 11, 2010. Maybe there's still a connection somewhere.

Anyway, I found both novels to be somewhat generic SF of the type that wd've probably led to my becoming disinterested in SF long ago before I became reinterested. Earthrim was written (or, at least, copyrighted) in 1969 & it has that dystopic wartorn insanity vibe to it that so many of us remember from the Vietnam War that we were hoping wd go away after that mess was 'over' but, no, war is still a constant.

The reader learns early on that the main character, Standard, is a secret agent, for what purpose we don't know yet:

""Oh, Lordy," Standard moaned. He could see he was getting nowhere this way, but his instincts were welling up to a dangerous level. Now that was not particularly smart, because the last thing he could afford to do would be to make a big antisocial scene and get labeled as an Unstable by Policontrol. That would really be cute. A secret agent running around with a social stigma and a listing with the area psychologist." - p 7

"He squinted at the menu card, annoyed that the breakfast list had already been removed. The choice was on the sparse side: fried soya mash or cellumeat. He pushed his credit plaque into the menu box and punched the mask selection.

"Clunk, went the vendor. Standard peered at it. Nothing came out. No fried mash. No returned credit plaque." - p 12

Dysfunction frustration. Well, life in the US hasn't gotten to the point where the Average Joe's eating options are some kind of fake meat slush doled out by a vending machine but I'm sure many of us can relate to the dysfunctional whatever scenario. Ever put yr debit card into an ATM at nite when you need some cash for, say, a cab ride home & had the ATM eat it? & then had to walk home for entirely too many miles thru 'enemy territory'? Well, maybe not, & maybe that's a pretty trivial '1st world' problem anyway but things like that can grind a person down if they happen too often, if they start to feel like the norm. & what about this "Policontrol" anyway? We might not have it in the US yet but it seems like a pretty good description of what the Saigon police were like during the war when General Loan was the head honcho supported by the US:

"The legal limitations were meaningless to Policontrol, because Policontrol rarely bothered to take its cases to court. Legal entanglements ceased to exist when Policontrol handled a case. Policontrol did away with all those little inconsequential matters, like warrants, arrests, trials and the like. It did away with its suspects just as efficiently, too." - p 17

Like General Loan executing the alleged Viet Cong by shooting him in the head out on the street in broad daylight. Talk about impunity! SO, to me, this novel is sortof metaphorically about US political intervention in Viet Nam, or, at least, the way-the-world-was-back-then. Here's the context:

""I was just a kid before the war. Were things really any different then? Tell me more about them, Mike."

""Things weren't all that different. People worked, people argued, people dropped over. They had put the second colony on the moon and were starting to go out to Mars, and that was pretty exciting. When they said they planned to go public on the Mars colony in five years, I remember thinking that's where I wanted to go. But then the war broke out and everything came to a stop. So I enlisted and got shipped over to Australia. Got busted up a little, but it didn't seem to matter very much. Everything else seemed to be going to hell anyway."" - p 28

Standard's enemy is a being called "Rim" who's exerting psychic power over the world.

"Rim was too smart to make any sweeping changes as he was growing. But there were indications already.

"Even Condliffe did not know what was happening, or how, or why. But it was a slowing-down process. The birth rate was declining rapidly, in all opposition to the post-war feelings to rejuvenate the country. People were maturing later. Infancy lasted until four or five. Teenagers were not reaching puberty until their late teens. Nothing that the Bureau of Statistics could put its finger on, but something was there, insidious, creeping, sapping the vitality from an entire country.

"And it would spread until it was global. A contagion, a disease that was putting the brakes on life itself." - pp 53-54

The story proceeds using the common device of flashing back & forth between various times in the protagonist's life. By Chapter V the reader is finally into Standard's wartime experiences:

"The war had been coming for two decades, seething and boiling in southern Asia. It had ignited in northern China; then, while the attention had been drawn, broken through the Indonesian islands, expanding in volume.

"It was no pushbutton war. Australia learned that when the northern coast became a holocaust within a week under the onslaught of the first wave.

"The rise of nationalism that had overtaken the seventies had immobilized SEATO years before and before the alliance could realign, the battle of the mid mountains had been fought and lost. Two-thirds of Australia fell with more than half its population under occupation." - p 62

Standard gets captured during the war & the reader gets a taste of what the Asian side of the battle is all about:

"["]The entire freedom-loving world will rejoice and will begin a new calendar. That is what is important."

""Until I start rejoicing, what day is today by the old-fashioned decadent figuring?" He had long since learned not to take Lin Sang too seriously in his conversational moods and often questioned whether Lin Sang himself took the whole glorious revolution very seriously.

""If I told you that this was the Year of the Ox , would that have any meaning for you?"

""Not much. How about telling me in respect to the year of Our Lord?"

""Since I do not recognize your 'lord' that would be difficult and meaningless to me. We are struggling to create a new world in which all men can obtain their true nobility and democracy without the oppression of lords and serfdom. How can I tell you what year this is of your lord, when you have no understanding of the Year of the Ox?"" - p 72

How often do people think about the significance of the dating system that measures their life & about the differences in these systems between cultures? No often enuf IMO.

& what about this "Rim" character? One of his 'puppets' or followers explains & Standard replies in a way that seems somewhat out-of-character in its knowledge base:

""The rim of the cup, of course. It doesn't do anything to the water, it only puts a definite limit on the cup. Rim doesn't interfere with people unless they're disrupting the social fabric. Then Rim would stop those people for their own good.""

[..]

"Standard sucked on his tooth. "A topologist would disagree with you about a rim defining the limits of a cup. He'd say it was only a part of the cup's surface and not a limiting mode."

""Well, maybe that's what a topologist would say, but what does he know about people?"" - p 86

My own perception of the current age is that we're forced into things that're purported to be for 'our own good' but we don't get to choose what WE think is for our own good. The (Not)Affordable Health Care Act exemplifies this. Anyway, it's weird to me that the author. 'Kamin', has the generally not-particularly-intellectual character, Standard, reference topology b/c that was a favorite subject of Franz Kamin's.

Standard's s fugitive. He appears to die. A Policontroller ponders:

""Everything's so damned neat and tidy," he grumbled. "Standard and the girl are dead. Quinn's dead. All the witnesses are dead. That's too neat. There's something more here. Something underneath all this. We don't know any more now than when we started."" - p 101

Imagine a future in wch the reader can communicate w/ the fictional characters & share insights! Ah.. the future..

"Graystone flicked on the booth vidiscreen and spun through the channels. Automatically, he flipped past the homosexual network, pausing at an adult cartoon show until he realized it was a rerun of Freddy Fornicator and that he had seen it before in a phone booth." - p 105

& then there's Police Theater, a subject I reference frequently enuf. This brings us right back to present-day TV:

"["]One person murdered, two destroyed themselves trying to escape, two policemen injured trying to bring this mad killer to bay. I'd say that we owe a vote of gratitude to our area Policontrol, wouldn't you, Gorse?"

"The team newscaster nodded and paused dramatically. "I certainly would. Alex. It's interesting to note that the officer who managed to shoot down the killer's escape ship was actually on loan to the Department of Interception. Normally, we understand, he works with Computer Control."

""I think that all points up how thoroughly trained all members of our Policontrol are. Speaking of well-trained, we have a message here from our friendly people who make Soyagood, the breakfast cereal that is soy good you can serve it for dinner. Here's how."" - p 106

Oh, well, 'Kamin' is a pessimistic writer & I won't spoil the plot by giving away the moral ambiguity. Let's just say that:

"The doctor watched the egg whites cloud an firm. "If Rim can do everything Jeannine says he can do, then I think your best course of action would be to join your comrades on the moon. It is impossible for you to win. This confusion you are having with the island is a fair indication of your impotency. If Rim is on that island, then he has either moved the island close to us, or he has moved us closer to the island. In either event, that makes for a rather formidable foe."" - p 124

THIS IS WHERE I WD FLIP THE TXT UPSIDE-DOWN IF I KNEW HOW TO DO SUCH A THING ON GOODREADS:

Phoenix Ship is a fairly conventional SF hero's journey w/ the obstacles & action that one wd expect. I'm reminded of Heinlein. The hero, Stan, gets selected to go to a school that proceeds to confound his expectations:

"But it wasn't a school, Stan told himself. It was a series of tests. It was nothing but tests, actually, with occasional lectures that seemed more designed to puzzle than inform. The first day's schedule had consisted of nothing but tests, in this same cubicle, on subjects that ranged from engineering to sociology to anthropology . . . any and every subject you could think of. At the end of the tests he had learned that the next day would consist of a similar series, and that he could study for it or not as he liked." - pp 9-10

It becomes quickly obvious to the reader that the shots (or whatever) Stan's getting are a major part of what's going on:

""You have had your inoculations?" Again the soft voice carried no inflection other than the question.

"Stand was startled. Inoculations had been part of the entrance proceedings. He nodded mutely.

""You will have them weekly," he was told. "They will . . . help."" - p 11

Somehow, Stan doesn't figure this out, tho.

"Bracing himself against the gusting wind, Stan went to meet the figure. "Dr. Lang," he shouted through the wind when they were near, "have I done wrong to come out?"

"The face that he knew to be broad and expressionless was hidden behind the hood, but as the wind lulled between the gusts, the voice was unmistakable. "I think, Stan, that we shall give you a special inoculation. No you have not done wrong. Should it be wrong to come out into the open?"

"A question for every question, Stan thought." - p 14

The hermetic process, a stimulant to thinking. After being exceptionally dim, Stan learns about his molecular learning, learnedly:

""At any rate, young man, you have very little choice. The results the school is obtaining must be demonstrated to the military in no uncertain terms and as immediately as possible. We have convinced them theoretically that with molecular training we can put the wisdom of an older man into the resilient body of a young man on a stimulus-response basis. But theory and demonstration are two separate items. Therefore the demonstration must take place. Once they are convinced, we will be able to do this work on a mass production basis.

""You have no choice, as our top pupil, but to be the demonstration agent—and you will not fail us." Over the precisely composed face a slight smile was allowed to appear and the voice that continued was more kindly now. "We have made an investment in you of well over a megacredit. That is an obligation that you cannot disregard."" - p 22

Hey! Big deal! They spent over a teracredit on me & that's already obsolete as an impressive sum a mere few mnths later. Stan rebels, in the spirit of all good SF characters everywhere, &n instead of being a tool of a fictitious Military-Industrial brainwashing complex he becomes a puppet for the approved-rebellion of his authors.

""With this molecular training system, we will be able to fill the action posts of government and the military with young men who will dependably react to almost any situation not only with the most extensive knowledge and abilities that experts have achieved, but in the manner that would be dictated by those same elderly, disciplined minds!"

""In other words," Stan said slowly, "what you are doing here is creating educated robots?"" - p 24

I feel ya, Stan. Stan does, of course, use his molecular training to outwit his handlers:

"Just inside, he held himself out of the way so that the two following him could reach the control panel. Then, turning his head, he noticed the travelcase still floating in the air lock.

""Oh. My duffel," he said happily, and pushed himself into the air lock again, angling his motion toward a large red handle marked EMERGENCY PRESSURE RELEASE.

"His fingers grasped the handle before anyone could react, and he used the lever to set his feet against the side of the lock and pull against his own leverage.

"Abruptly the air spilled from the lock, and with a thwummp, the tube bulkhead closed. Stan, timing the lowering of pressure by a feeling of internal expansion, had just released the handle when Paulsen reached him." - p 37

Not yr everyday move, fer sure. Stan reaches Belt City where he becomes a clasp rather than a mere hole:

"The first and gigantically expensive but necessary act of the BC Corp. was the construction of an even flooring over the entire scalloped-looking built-up portion of the planetoid, a section around the equator that extended roughly thirty-degrees to the north and south. It was flooring, not ceiling, since centrifugal force applies outward, and the floors of the existing structures were toward space, the ceilings toward the planetoid core." - p 50

But it's not long before the short leg of capitaljism spurts all over his escapee dreams:

""Mr. Dustin, I am Jonathan Weed of Astro Technology. Your activities since the Sassy Lassie docked here have been reported to me from no less than five different sources. Your current position is pinpointed as twelve-thirty-two, forty-seven south fifth; area one, seventy-five, the restaurant at fifty-eighth.

""Your call to Dr. Lang will not be accepted. Since AT is only one of the several parties interested in your current activities, and since you must know that your interests lie with AT, I suggest that it would be to your advantage to report to my office immediately, before your life becomes unduly complicated by others. You are, as I hope I have impressed you, easily monitored in our society.["]" - p 63

The Richmonds are pro-individualists, as am I, so, of course, their hero triumphs & gives his philosophical say:

"Stan smiled and shook his head. "You don't need physicists, General. You need individualists. Mallard and Weed sere trying to give you robots; and that was the worst sabotage anyone could have perpetrated upon you.["]" - p 103… (altro)

Neither book did much for me. [Phoenix Ship] opens with an unusual young man recruited by a mysterious stranger to go to an advanced school located in the arctic. He is clearly being Prepared For Something(tm). I found his secret unlikely. The biased reporting of the Belt's first rebellion held my interest, but not enough to continue: I just couldn't stick with the book.

[Earthrim] starts with a doctor lousing up a procedure on the narrator's black-market bionic arm. The resulting conversation (wait you have a super-strong, functional bionic arm and you just *talk*?) seemed unrealistic -- for both characters. I put it down.

(My patience was greater when I did not have boxes upon boxes of SF to read.)… (altro)