Evil earths, p.1
EVIL EARTHS, page 1
EVIL EARTHS
Brian W. Aldiss
EVIL EARTHS was first published in hardeover by
Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 11 St. John's Hill,
London SWll ENGLAND
AVON BOOKS
A division of
The Hearst Corporation
959 Eighth Avenue
New York, New York 10019
Copyright c 1975 by Brian W. Aldiss
Published by arrangement with the author.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-52182
ISBN: 0-380-44636-7
Cover illustration by Alex Ebel
All rights reserved, which includes the right
to reproduce this book or portions thereof in
any form whatsoever. For information address
Georges Borehardt, Inc., 136 East 57th Street,
New York, New York 10022
First Avon Printing, August, 1979
AVON TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFf'. AND IN'
OTHER COL,'NTRI MAR. CA REOIS'RADA HECHO EI',I
U.S.A.
Printed in the U.S.A.
ù CONTENTS
Introduction
I
"What is wrong? What is right?
Anwcr, we're here..."
The Last Word Chad Oliver and
Charles Beaumont
Film of Death ]. $. Campbell
The Wound Howard Fast
II
Three green blades of grass
The Golden Man Philip K. Dick
Guest Expert Allen K. Lang
The Valley ltichard Stockham
Dark they were and Golem-eyed
Down canong the Dead Men William Tenn
Among the Hairy Earthmen R. A. Lafferfy
Later Than You Think Fritz Leiber
Yesterdal, tomorrow, amd the deser[
The Time Trap Henry Kuttner
1
5
16
31
45
51
83
86
103
107
133
145
153
157
V
Towards the fall o! night
265
The Men Return ]ack Vance
270
Heresies of the Huge God Brian AIdiss
280
"If I Forqet Thee, Oh Earth..." Arthur C. Clarke 292
Night ]ohn W. Campbell 297
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Howard Fast "The Wound" Copyright c 1969, 1970
Howard Fast from The General Zapped an Angel
lished by William Morrow Co. Inc., New York.
J. S. Campbell "Film of Death" Copyright c 1948
Street & Smith Publications Inc., iR USA and Great Britt
1
' ':A. Lafferty "Among the Hairy Earthmen" Copyright
ù @'1956 R. A. Lafferty.
Philip K. Dick "The Golden. Man" Copyright () I! Mag
zine, April 1954 (Quinn Publishing Co.).
Richard Stockham "The Valley" Copyright ) 1954.
published in Worlds o! 1)Magazine.
Allen K. Lang "Gust Expert" Copyright ) 1951
Stories. William Term "Down among the Dead Men
Copyright () William Tenn.
Chad Oliver and Chas Beaumont "The Last
Copyright () 1955 by Fantasy House Inc. Reprinted
permission of Chad Oliver and A. D. Peters &
Fritz Leiber "Later Than You Think" Copyright ()
by Galaxy Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by
sion of the author and E. J. Carnell Literary Agency.
Henry Kuttner 'Fhe Time Trap" Copyright () 1938
Postal Publications. Copyright renewed 1955.
Jack Vance "The Men Return" Copyright () 1957
Publications.
Brian Aldiss "Heresies of the Huge God.Copyright
1956 by Brian Aldiss.
Arthur C. Clarke "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth..."
right () 1951 Future. First published by Harcourt
& Jovanovich.
John W. Campbell "Night" Copyright ) 1935 by
& Smith Publications Inc., for Astounding Stories,
ber 1935.
INTRODUCTION
It's odd how there are fashions in ideas as in clothes.
What is modish goes by reaction, as the mini-skirt is
chased away by the ankle-length skirt. If things are going
to be different, they must be seen to be different. Late
Victorian men went in for great beards; after which, a
whole generation reacted against fa. ce-fungus, regarding
it as .a token of a stuffy and hypocritical age. In the sixties,
however, a new generation took to beards and long
hair and as much hirsuteness as the head could carry.
]hat was a sign of youth. Perhaps coincidentally, the
Victorian Age returned to popularity.
It is possible that in a year or two face-fungus will hit
another nadir of popularity, as reaction against the drug
generation which cultivated such things sets in. And then,
as the fortunes of the West decline still further--if they
do--the drug generation will once more be admired. And
so on and so on.
Readers of this anthology will doubtless know that clio-metrics
is one of the new sciences made possible by computers,
in which mathematical and statistical methods
are applied to the study of history. Cliometricsin the
shape of a new book entitled Time on the Cross has
just come up with a fresh look at the history of slavery in
the Southern United States.
At the slum end of the paperback industry, there is
quite a fashion for novels of slavery, with much emphasis
on the whip and the exploitation of luscious black female
slaves by wicked white plantation owners. Time on the
Cross contradicts this traditional caricature of life on the
old plantation, claiming that the slave farms were efficient
and nm by black managers as often as not; that the whip
was used less often then positive incentives; that slave
diets were good, even by moderu standards; and that the
black family unit was rarely broken up, since the landowners
realised that stable work-units paid off best.
These findings are being strongly challenged, by both
black and white historians in the States. There are obvious
good reasons for disputing the facts as here laid out, and
not only because they contradict the previous set of facts
in which there was general belief. For beyond the dispute
lies the question of fashion in ideas; it is unfashionable to
recognise that there may be something to be said for
slavery, and that it might be a viable economic system.
Morality infuses itseff even into economics.
Unfashionable and unpopular ideas are a mainstay of
science fiction, even more than original ideas. I have as- ù
sembled this anthology, like the others in the series, for
entertainment's sake; yet it contain.q a sack-full of notions
unacceptable for one reason or another.
Two of the stories, in entirely different ways, suggest
that homo sapiens may soon be replaced by a more efficient
species. Other insulting messages get through: that
terrestrial history is accident, created in mischievous
fun; that there is no other planet in the whole galaxy for
us to go to; that impersonal forces might wipe out civilization
and its beliefs tomorrow; that the dead may have to
defend our rights; that we are mere parasites on a body
whose properties we are not equipped to understand; that
the universe about us is random. Evil Earths indeedl
All of which may suggest that this is not a particularly
cheerful collection. The contrary is true, although there
are melancholy stories here--but the melancholy of
Clarke and John Campbell is elegaie, pleasing rather
than despairing. Science fiction likes to wear a bogjrman
mask, but the effect is meant to cause only a friss0n of
alarm. As the anthologist, I can exercise my prejudices,
and I have not represented here any of those preachy tales
which show Earth depleted, overpopulated and ransacked
by greed and stupidity and capitalism. I know that
men are greedy and stupid, but so far the greedy and the
stupid have never triumphed for long and we may hope it
will continue so. A considerable amount of cheerfulness
breaks in among these stories.
Such themes as depletion of resources and overpopulation
are touched on, although I have gone for a
fight old-fashioned approach (one of the marks of fifties
sf, incidentally, before the sociologists got sf by the
throat). There is some concern with ecology. There is a
feeling for--if I can put it like this---the earthly quality
of Earth, which lies at the basis of ecology. And, beyond
'Earth.
That's how it should be. Throughout Earth history,
various theories of its birth (and hence of its nature) have
been tried out and one by one discarded. The present
version, of the slow evolutionary cooling and the gathering
›0mplexity of organic forms which modified its atmosphere
whi, e being modified by it, is now orthodox; it may
give way soon to a new version,, perhaps with a moro
sophisticated theory of evolution and organic-inorganic-interaction
as its basis.
Earth was the first planet ever discovered by homo
sapiens. It still holds magic and excitement for us. We
have still not finished exploring its geography, let alone its
geology, its life-forms (how much do you know about tho
breeding habits of the scorpion?), or the elaborate
perceptual-conceptual-systems on which mankind's cultural
history is based.
Science fiction, which is slightly mad as well as enormously
sane, has always shown, in the person of its writers,
an ambiguity about its first planet. The urge to wreck
it has been very strong--and not always resisted. We
may observe a tendency which goes back to H. G. Wells's
The Time Machine to depict Earth in the throes of one
terrible senescence or another (if men don't wreck it, it
destroys itself). There is also the tendency to get as far
away from Earth as possiblea tendency well developed
in Space Opera and Space Odysseys, the first two volumes
in this series. Pushed to its limits, this trait produces
stories in which Earth is never mentioned, or is a minor
planet on the fringes of a great galactic empire, or has
been lost millenia ago in cosmic history.
However, in the stories collected here, the third planet
from the sun lies all the while in brooding focus. You may
agree that it is science fiction's Number One Planet. Anything
Mars can do, Earth can do better.
As I have done before, I append to the stories the
blurbs which heralded their first appearance in the magazines.
Where the original blurbs have not been available,
I have made them up; can you tell genuine from fake?
Blurbs were a minor art form brought to perfection under
such sf editors as John W. Campbell and Anthony
Boucher. If my publishers will ever indulge me to that
extent, I shall bring out an anthology of One Hundred
Best Blurbs. They were often better than the stories they
prefaced.
The idea of this series is to do a job of archaeology
among the strata of ancient sf magazines, well-known and
ill-known, and bring up scraps of bone, broken pots and
jewels beyond price for those who have no access to he
magazines (who number some 99.805 percent of the
population at a rough count). In this volume, as it happens,
the span is less wide than hitherto. We have
fourteen stories from nine different magazines; those magazines
are among the less obscure; and three decades of
writing are covered.
The magazines have gone out of fashion. But we have
already remarked on the fickleness of fashion.
Heath House
Southmoor
December 1974
BRIAN ALDISS
Chad Oliver and Charles
Beau
mont: THE LAST WORD
5
J. S. Campbell: FILM OF DEATH
16
Howard Fast: THE WOUND
31
Let us beg/n as we mean to go on--monstrously, and hay-hag
the last word.
One of the attractions of Earth which no other planet
can offer a science fiction writer is a ready-made cultural
history. Messrs. Oliver and Beaumont play fast and
loose with the concept, with an intrepid time-traveller who
manages to be both First and Last Man on Earth. And to
marry an android. Morality gets as short shrift as space
and time. That's what science fiction is all about.
Yet the props with which these authors deal so lightly
ar essential to modern science fiction. Many of the
themes and forms of science fiction have been in existence
since antiquity--the immortality theme is an example.
Such ancient themes have been adapted and used in modem
sr. But evolutionary theory changed everything,
springing as it did from a better comprehension of Earth's
history. Only then was the principle of remorseless and
unending change introduced, and only when the principle
of change is grasped does one have the mainspring of
modern sr. Well, things certainly change ha The Last Word.
Even if human nature remains astonishingly the same.
The other two stories ha this section represent all those
catastrophes which befall Earth though man's interference.
You might call them moral stories, except that
John Scott Campbell's story mixes hope and fear in equal
quantities ha a delightful way, as his two inventions cancel
each other out.
Howard Fast's story brings memories of one of the
more desperate exploits of Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor
ChaLlenger. He is dealing, in a way, with a legend,
and legends have to be reinterpreted for every generation.
For a generation brought up on the Whole Earth movement,
a generation which was the first to gaze upon our
globe from outer space, The Wound has a particular
mysterious meaning. In essence, it would have been found
just as meaningful a couple of million years ago.
