David J. Lake (1929–2016)

An uncomplicated tale, set in a future colony. The crew of the colony ship, rendered immortal by a wonder drug, have set themselves up as (in theory) benevolent gods, with the rest of the colonists spread out in a world where artificial transparent sky-layers separate layers of different altitude and aerial density, each with its own pre-scientific cultures. Invention is held in check by the gods and their semi-educated priesthood through the dictum "thou shalt not know too much". In the Middleworld, between the gods and the Neathings, Signi, a young "Norse" fighter, conducts an adventure among devious slave-merchants, half-naked warriors, and squabbling nobles, where the sky-ships sail across the transparent skin enclosing the nether world. Empire-building, rupture of the membranes, discovery of specially adapted races in the netherworld, and revelations of the nature of the gods ensue.

Though the scenario of a layered world is picturesque, and the set-up clearly foreshadows Gene Wolfe, it provides the setting for a fairly basic early medieval war-story in a manner hovering somewhere between Edgar Rice Burroughs and Conan the Barbarian, with much detailed strategy, the hasty invention of chariots and other pre-modern technology by a convenient Archimedes-figure, and the sudden acquisition of martial prowess among disparate and unwarlike peoples, and some love-interest thrown in.

All in all, a pleasant light read in the old-school style.

MB 5-ii-2013… (altro)

This sole sequel to Lake's Gods of Xuma follows its Barsoomian models somewhat by progressing a couple of generations from the initial volume. Also, in a reversal of the first book, the human protagonist is female, and her Xuman companion matures into a male during the course of the story. (The paperback cover art by Oliviero Berni shows her credibly -- if a bit overdressed -- but he looks far too human.) In general, the content and tone of this story are more traditionally sword-and-planet than its predecessor.

If there were more of these books, I'd probably read them. They are quick, exciting stories with some worthwhile implicit philosophy. The four-stage lifecycle of the Xumans, with their resulting six genders, opens a lot of interesting narrative possibilities which these two novels certainly didn't exhaust.… (altro)

The Gods of Xuma is a mildly metafictional take on Burroughs' Barsoom, framed by a "harder" SF scenario of attempted 24th-century emigration from the solar system. Instead of being the nearest planet in our system, as Barsoom was, Xuma is in the nearest star system that has an Earth-like planet. The explorers have read the old Barsoom stories, and they are intrigued by the arid planet with a canal-based civilization. The protagonist is the crew's linguist Tom Carson (note the shared meter and assonance with "John Carter"), who is the first to land on the planet and engage the natives.

In an interesting counter, Carson is not given low-gravity superpowers by the below-Earth gravity of Xuma, because he (like all healthy surviving humans) has actually grown up in even lower gravity among the human settlements on the Moon and Mars. What the humans do have is excessive military technology. The Xuman natives, while suspiciously advanced with respect to cultural continuity and general sciences, have no automated transport or weaponry beyond a medieval standard. But the humans barge in with beam weapons, tanks, and orbital barrages. Thus the star-faring humans are mistaken, first by the natives, and later by themselves, for "The Gods of Xuma."

Communications between the humans and Xumans are established quickly and easily, although without any cross-species telepathy or magical translation. Although superficially quite humanoid, the Xumans have a very different developmental and sexual cycle, which produces real but not insurmountable cultural distances from the explorers. The book does not shirk from an account of the first sexual encounter between humans and Xumans, along with the subsequent developments of this possibility.

The human characters are reasonably fallible, sometimes verging on pathetic, and the Xumans are a little incredibly benevolent. On the whole, the book is a pretty effective anti-imperialist fable. It has a sequel (Warlords of Xuma), but it doesn't cry out for one.… (altro)