review of
John Christopher's Planet in Peril
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - November 7, 2020

This is the 6th Christopher I've read & the 5th I've reviewed in the last few mnths. He's become a 'go-to' writer when I want to read something easy & enjoyable & quick. Right now I'm reading something like 8 bks & even though I think most of them are good they don't fit into the e&e&q category. This was written in 1954 &, as such, is the earliest Christopher I've read yet.

There's a TV broadcast by someone who's definitely outside of the mold of what TV's become &, presumably, was even then.

""More than two thousand years ago this great comet last swept in its parabola round the sun. While eighty generations of men have come and gone, while the human race has climbed so painfully to its present eminence, that majestic luminary has been plodding round a course trillions of miles away in the outer dark."" - p 10

Um, 2,000 yrs ≠ 80 generations of men. If a generation is the time it takes for someone to grow up & produce their own progeny then what constitutes a generation is dependent on the social as well as the biological conditions prevailing. Hence, 200 yrs ago a new generation might've started at age 16 — whereas now age 26 might be more normal. Let's just say a generation is 20 yrs. 20 X 80 = 1,600. Close, but no tumescent cigar. If the author wanted to round off why not just say 100 generations? If we divide 2,000 yrs by 80 that makes the average age of childbirth in those 2,000 yrs = 25.

"Women born in 1935 had the lowest “average” (median) age at first birth (20.8 years). The highest median age was 22.7 for women born in 1960. The 1910 cohort was between the other two cohorts, with a median age at first birth of 21.1." - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db68.pdf

That means that when Christopher was writing this bk the generation before the yr of writing wd've had an average 1st birth age of 20.8 yrs. Then again, it's probably a convention to call a generation 25 yrs.

""I suggest you get up out of that goddam chair, and go outside and have a look for yourself. Channel KF proposes to help you on your way by closing down for half an hour. We are going out on the roof to have a look at the comet ourself. Good-bye."" - p 11

I don't know about YOU (whoever YOU are) but I'd love it if a TV or radio person anounced they were going off-air for a half-hr to encourage their (v)audience to look at the sky. IN FACT, on March 9th, 1982E.V., at the Krononautic Organism's Party for People from the Future(s)" during a partial alignment of the planets, I was interviewed by a TV person & I insisted that I read a statement off a sheet of paper — the TV person protested saying that people wd turn off their TVs b/c they'd be bored & I told him that that was exactly what I wanted. He didn't use the footage.

I always enjoy little details about the author's vision of the future.

"Dinkuhl glanced at his watch; it was extraordinarily big and he wore it on his wrist instead of on his watch-finger." - p 18

""People come over here for both those reasons. There are always some students who find the system in operation across the border more attractive than that at home. And the standard of personal comfort is less high in Siraq. There's a third reason as well, though. My father came over as a political refugee, and I came with him."

""Political refugee?" It was hard to get hold of a term that had ceased to be valid, in the major world, a century before. He saw Sara smile, understanding his bewilderment. "In what way?"

""It would be difficult to explain. Men conspire as much in Siraq as they do here, but in rather different ways. Daddy was in some plot to overthrow the government, and the plot was discovered. He would have been imprisoned if he had stayed."" - p 24

Siraq? It's hard in this day & age to not turn that into Iraq. This is the 1st of the recent 5 novels I've read by Christopher that doesn't seem to be directed at Young Adults. I must be one of those Adult Adults by now & maybe I'm a tad too old for this so maybe it's aimed at a Not-So-Young-Anymore Adult Who-Isn't-Incredibly-Jaded-Yet-However. At any rate, I enjoyed it.

People die or disappear, alleged suicides.. but, of course, there's some doubt about that. Sara joins the crowd.

"As far as those two worthies were concerned, they had constructed a closed case for suicide on Sara's part; they had theorized she had never recovered from Humayan's death—she had never really been persuaded that he had not been murdered. Sara's father, whom Charles never got to see in the flesh, had also, according to Caston and Stenner, committed sucide—having left a note indicating he intended to do so, feeling that there was nothing left for him to live for after he presumed that his daughter had taken her own life. Charles, however, was unconvinced." - p 37

Not only was Charles unconvinced, he didn't trust his boss. Clearly he has to go. Not to the bathroom, mind you.

"The solicitude was wrong, altogether wrong. There was one possibility, he reflected wrily, that might account for it. Stenner seemed to have had some doubts as to his mental balance. It might be that Ledbetter had them, to an even greater degree. Some people were naturally polite and considerate to the insane." - p 42

Fortunately, as is the case in all times & places, there are HERETICS (see my own book entitled Unconscious Suffocation - A Personal Journey through the PANDEMIC PANIC cowritten by 6 HERETICS) who help Charles cope w/ what he's increasingly perceiving as wrong, wronger, wrongest.

""Hiram should have introduced us collectively as well as one by one. This is the Society of Individualists, Charles, Headquarters Branch and General Assembly combined. We lift our helping hands to any little lame dog that looks like he's having trouble with his climbing apparatus. We don't amount to nothing, but we like to think we do."" - p 55

I'm an anarchist, a type of creature that seems to've been largely subsumed into a braindead Big Brother embracing liberal bourgeoisie these days (OOPS! Did that just slip out? Geez, sorry [NOT]). Ok, ok, I'm referring to former friends of mine that I'm currently disgusted w/ — I'm sure there're still some anarchists out there who haven't been completely reshaped by propaganda into zombies. Ahem. Anyway, as those of you who've read other reviews may've picked up on by now, when I read a bk that mentioned anarchy w/o having to immediately reduce it to "chaos" or otherwise oversimplify it that bk earns kudos from me. Christopher, in 19-fucking-54 no less, has a character be an anarchist who's respected. Gotta love it.

""I guess not." Dinkuhl turned to Sara again. "You both look happy. What's it like being in Atomics? You got the secret of ultimate bliss? Think I should maybe join up, too?"

""Why not?"

""Yes, why not?" Dinkuhl echoed. It make a nice bolt-hole. Comes the big bang, bolt-holes are going to be handy. They give you at least five minutes extra, before someone comes along and pumps gas in from the top."

"Grinning, Charles switched the screen off.

""You're an anarchist, Hiram, and anarchists always underestimate the reorganizational powers of society."" - p 101

Is that so?! Harumph. Well let me tell you, buster, there's always someone out there justifying war!

""You want war. Why?"

"Professor Koupal raised his hands. "Wanting doesn't enter into it. The world outside is breaking up. There will be chaos there, anyway, within a couple of decades, and, as the only state with any vitality at all, we should have to go out then and reclaim the chaos. It would be a long job and a painful one—unnecessarily so. It is simpler, and a lot more efficient, to precipitate matters.["]" - p 139

Sorry, bub, but that strikes me as the usual specious logic based on a prediction wch may or may not come true. Personally, I'm tired of hopelessness.

"The Siraquis, the Managerialists, the Cometeers. . . . There was nothing to despair of losing, and so there could be nothing to hope for." - p 158

Y'know, some of us, admittedly an extreme minority, have positive imaginations. I don't think any of us are lusting for power but we are creating oasises in a world desertified by greedy megalomaniacs. Check out this feller as an example: "Old Folks at Home: Doug Retzler": https://youtu.be/vqLZkrl_yWo . ( )

Review to come... I can't advice to anyone. Sorry. Other Christopher novels I read are a thousand times better than this one... one week of my life to read 159 pages. That's how hard it was to me... painful but I finish...

Second edit:
What can I say about this book? It's worthless in my opinion. I read three more books of the author and nothing compares to it. Maybe it's because this was one of the first he written, I don't know. The book itself doesn't have a good flowing. Things just happened in the backstage. Most of them without the direct influence of the main character.

A cientist is going to substitute another cientist of have dissapear. That scientist is on something that could change the power balance of some nation. With the help of a female scientst he is embroiled into turmoil as A, B and C factions wants to enlist him.

The ending is quite bad as the rest of the plot. I think it was one of the most uninteresting books I had the displeasure to read. And believe me this don't happened very often. Usually I find some redeeming part of a book but this one... meh. I don't want to think anymore of it. ( )