Assorted Nonsense #2
Subtitle? We don't need no stinking subtitles
This is the second edition of Assorted Nonsense on Substack, a newsletter from Donovan Street Press Inc.
Adventures in the Radio Trade made a list of the top 264 best biography and memoir books of 2023. To wit, The Best Books of 2023 – Biography And Memoir (A Year-End List Aggregation).
One of the top 264 sounds kind of ridiculous and kind of is. Like, seriously. Could we not have made the top 247? Anyway, with reportedly two million books published a year I’m happy to be considered in the top 264 of whatever category.
I don’t know who the people behind this list are, but they appear sincere and their web presence looks clean and professional. I appreciate appearing on their list. I was curious how it got there. As near as I can figure it’s because my friend and broadcasting colleague and fellow author John Corcelli* picked it as one of his top three picks of the year on his Shepherd’s book list, and they culled it from there.
A couple of things about this. It shows the impact a single voice can have. John thoughtfully included my book in his Shepherd’s list. Someone from the Best Books site saw that and made it part of their list. I saw both and it helped make my day. Maybe they even helped move some copies. Great!
However, life is complicated. I feel guilt. John also published a great book in 2023 called Outside Looking In: The Seriously Funny Life and Work of George Carlin, which I reviewed positively on Amazon and Goodreads. But I didn’t think to include it on my own Shepherd’s List. I try to make up for this egregious omission by mentioning it every chance I get.
*John just subscribed to this newsletter. Welcome John!
What I’m Reading
Poul Anderson “Let the Spacemen Beware” (also published as The Night Face)
Picked this up at Cover to Cover used books in Riverview, New Brunswick. (I like to support them cuz they support me, carrying both A Time and a Place and Adventures in the Radio Trade.)
“Let the Spacemen Beware” is a stupid title. It’s alternate title “The Night Face” is much better. I think there’s an even better title: there’s a line near the end, “…while the Baleflower Blooms” that I thought would have been a great title. Gotta like alliteration.
This is a short novella, 124 pages, published in 1963 by Ace books. Humanity’s spread throughout the galaxy, the remains of a fallen empire is looking to establish a spaceport on a planet occupied by about ten millions humans who’ve lived in isolation for a thousand years, possibly the descendants of one man and two women. They’re completely peaceful and intelligent and welcome the newcomers. Seems like a great place to build a new spaceport. Or is it?
This is a book that defies rating. It gives the lie to the whole nonsense of rating art. There’s a difference between quality and taste. This is quality writing. Whether you like it or not is up to you. Me, I loved it. It had a kick to it. It was interesting and horrifying. The characterization was expert. Well, for two of the characters, anyway. So was the writing. Right away you know you’re in the hands of someone with genuine talent and flair. Of course, it is Poul Anderson we’re talking about here, a Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy. (I never actually knew there was such a thing until I looked Anderson up just now, but it sure sounds impressive. Though “Grand Poobah” would have been better, don’t you think?)
As a kid, when I was just getting into science fiction (to my parents’ dismay), I would not have liked this book. I would have found it boring. Not enough action. I might not have appreciated the thinking behind it. The craft. I might have given it one star out of five. I don’t think it’s perfect. But choosing to accept it on its own terms, today I gave it four stars on Goodreads for the craft, the ideas, the slow burn, the inevitable horrific, tragic ending, and the fact that it was written by a Great Gandalf Poobah Grand Mister Master of Fantasy.
Also, why we don’t publish short books like this anymore? Why did they do it back in the sixties? I’ve heard that indie writers are publishing short books on places like Amazon these days. That’s the new model the kids are experimenting with. Charge a couple of bucks for something short. Write further short works in the series. Get more work up more quickly at a lower price point.
I cannot help but think that Gene Roddenberry must have been familiar with this novella. The main premise bears a striking similarity to the festival, or Red Hour, which takes place in the Star Trek: TOS episode The Return of the Archons.
Which brings us to…
Star Trek!
The Man Trap by by George Clayton Johnson
You might recall I’m watching Star Trek: The Original Series in order of broadcast and reporting back, while also reading the James Blish versions, which are often different. Why? Cuz I’m a nerd. If you have a problem with that, go read some pompous current events newsletter instead of this pompous nerdy one. (Hey, I just noticed there are no Substack smiley faces. Maybe that’s a good thing.)
This week I watched The Man Trap by George Clayton Johnson. This episode wasn’t the second one made (after the pilot); it was actually the sixth episode to be filmed. But it was the first to air. It aired September 6th on CTV in Canada and then a couple of days later in the states, cuz we’re special here in Canada.
James Blish’s version calls it The Unreal McCoy. In fact, in Blish’s Star Trek I book the episode is listed as The Unreal McCoy (originally “The Man Trap”) written by George Clayton Johnson, suggesting that they went back and forth on the title. George Clayton Johnson also wrote for The Twilight Zone, co-authored with William F Nolan the novel Logan’s Run, upon which the movie is based, and wrote the screenplay for Ocean’s Eleven.
In the text of his adaptation, Blish refers to the character of Bierce as having “…a voice with the blaring rasp of a busy signal.” Even today I wonder how many people under the age of thirty remember what a busy signal sounded like.
In another apparent anachronism, Blish has Kirk ask Uhura to make “television rounds” of all posts and stations. What is that? I can’t find any reference to it online. Maybe a naval reference?
Blish’s adaptation differs from the televised version in a few respects. Crewman Darnell is quite a bit older, making it even more unlikely that he would taste an alien plant. There’s no shoot-out planetside with Bierce. Uhura does not encounter the alien impersonating a Swahili-speaking crewman. He refers to phasers as guns.
There’s this passage from McCoy:
“…I do feel like six kinds of a fool. It was simple. She’d come in just after I’d taken the tranquilizer and was feeling a little afloat. She said she didn’t love her husband anymore—wanted me to take her back to Earth. Well, it was a real thing I had with Nancy long ago. I wasn’t hard to tempt, especially with the drug already in my system. And later on, while I was asleep, she must have given me another dose—”
McCoy, you dog. And with an alien salt vampire, no less. I’m not sure I approve.
Spock, after surviving an attack from the salt vampire:
“Fortunately, my ancestors spawned in quite another ocean than yours, Dr. McCoy.”
I’m just a fan, not a Trek expert, but I’m thinking Vulcans are related to humans and other humanoid aliens like Romulans, that there was some original master species from which they all originated. Yeah, I get that it’s all just made up. Still, we want our fictional worlds to be consistent, and make sense, don’t we?
Blish ends his adaptation abruptly with Kirk’s line: “I was just thinking about the buffalo.” This worked in the televised version cuz the camera lingered on the set and the reactions of McCoy and Spock. In Blish’s adaptation it just comes off as, well, lazy. Like, thank God I’m done this silly adaptation. Rolls up sleeve, gets on with the next. Maybe it doesn’t matter; I loved these adaptations as a kid. Probably there’s an argument in favour of doing no more work than absolutely necessary, then moving on. Maybe I’d get more done if I wrote like Blish.
Speaking of buffalo, Bierce compares the salt-hungry alien responsible for sucking the salt out of everyone to the American buffalo. There’s a provincial park on Prince Edward Island not far from where I live called Buffaloland Provincial Park. I visited it this past summer, saw their small herd of buffalo, who happily did not suck the salt out of anyone. I mentioned their presence on Facebook, and someone took me to task for calling them buffalo. Apparently, technically, there are no buffalo in North America. They’re bison. Buffalo are located elsewhere, in Europe. A rose by any other name, I guess.
Why am I watching these shows again? Kind of the same reason I recently watched all of Northern Exposure in order. They’re positive shows, brimming with hope and optimism. I can and do enjoy cynical, well-told stories like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, and darkish shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones, but sometimes I need stories that nourish and reassure my soul.
Like Northern Exposure and Star Trek.
That’s it for this time around. Drop me a line, say hi.
Check out my podcast, Re-Creative, which I host with fellow author Mark A. Rayner. “Art that inspires.”
Yours Truly,
Joe
The only actual buffalo in North America, then, is the city in New York.