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A review by beaconatnight
Pêndulo by A.E. van Vogt
3.0
I've already read a collection of A. E. van Vogt's short stores (or "fix-up novel" if you will), The Voyage of the Space Beagle. While I enjoyed its episodic nature, I got really tired of its idea of Nexialism (a kind of super science) that often basically functioned as a Deus ex machina. When I came upon this collection I thought I give him another try. While I have to admit that I was in the mood for something classic and not too demanding, the latter may actually be the reason why I couldn't really get into it. To put it bluntly, the stories collected in Pendulum just felt a bit too non-consequential.
The titular story was really the main reason why I picked up this collection. Revolving around themes of culture, language, and time-travel, it really should have been exactly my kind of thing. You know, this does sound like Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life", right? Unfortunately, when the story was suddenly over it had me wondering what this was all about (and not in the good kind of way). This doesn't go anywhere, does it? Did I miss something?
I liked the atmosphere of the second story, "Footprint Farm". A meteor hit on the eponymous farm and it's owner gets somewhat obsessed with it. He really doesn't realize how weird it is that his underage daughter is, well, working her ass off ever day (and night, as it turns out) to dig it up. In the end it becomes clear that aliens made her do what she did. Again, the consequences of this first-contact scenario could have been explored further, but it was entertaining enough.
"Living with Jane" made me wonder what it is with science-fiction and telepathy. The premise was kind of interesting. Science is now able to build androids that function as exact duplicates of a human being (externally as well as internally). Parents deploy these androids in case of their absence, most interestingly in case of divorce or death, in order to establish a stable environment for the child. Unfortunately, it turns into a mediocre the robots are taking over storyline that revolves crucially around the daughter's telepathic abilities. Given how she does have very progressive ideas about the human-robot relationships, the execution of the story ended up being rather underwhelming. To be honest, in the time it took me to read this I should have rewatched The Terminator.
"The first Rull" focuses on a member of an alien race that apparently is featured in other stories as well. They lost a ship that somehow ends up on Earth. In order to prevent them from reverse-engineering their anti-gravity drive they send the story's main protagonist to sabotage the Earthling's endeavors of figuring out what the ship is doing. The Rull are shape-shifters and the protagonist assumes the identity of a student at the university which holds the ship. Although I do like the setup, encounters with other human beings end up being pretty dull. Maybe in 1978 ideas of a commune and sending out its women to sleep with the professor to push its male members through the physics exams was kind of shocking (probably not), I'm pretty sure there would have been more interesting ways to explore the first contact scenario.
Finally, "The Human Operators" may have been my favorite story of the collection. It's a bit of a mystery story as we are thrown into this kind of strange setting where we have a boy whose only interaction is with the spaceship for which he is doing repairs. The story is narrated by the boy himself and in present tense. There are no other human beings and he is regularly undergoing torture by the ship for no apparent reason. The only other person he talks about is his dad, who was killed by the ship when the boy turned 14 years old, but who gave him a cryptic message about "98 chances" and how "vicious [not sure if that's the right translation] means smart". I also quite liked the eventual resolution. So, a story well done.
Rating: 2.5/5
The titular story was really the main reason why I picked up this collection. Revolving around themes of culture, language, and time-travel, it really should have been exactly my kind of thing. You know, this does sound like Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life", right? Unfortunately, when the story was suddenly over it had me wondering what this was all about (and not in the good kind of way). This doesn't go anywhere, does it? Did I miss something?
I liked the atmosphere of the second story, "Footprint Farm". A meteor hit on the eponymous farm and it's owner gets somewhat obsessed with it. He really doesn't realize how weird it is that his underage daughter is, well, working her ass off ever day (and night, as it turns out) to dig it up. In the end it becomes clear that aliens made her do what she did. Again, the consequences of this first-contact scenario could have been explored further, but it was entertaining enough.
"Living with Jane" made me wonder what it is with science-fiction and telepathy. The premise was kind of interesting. Science is now able to build androids that function as exact duplicates of a human being (externally as well as internally). Parents deploy these androids in case of their absence, most interestingly in case of divorce or death, in order to establish a stable environment for the child. Unfortunately, it turns into a mediocre the robots are taking over storyline that revolves crucially around the daughter's telepathic abilities. Given how she does have very progressive ideas about the human-robot relationships, the execution of the story ended up being rather underwhelming. To be honest, in the time it took me to read this I should have rewatched The Terminator.
"The first Rull" focuses on a member of an alien race that apparently is featured in other stories as well. They lost a ship that somehow ends up on Earth. In order to prevent them from reverse-engineering their anti-gravity drive they send the story's main protagonist to sabotage the Earthling's endeavors of figuring out what the ship is doing. The Rull are shape-shifters and the protagonist assumes the identity of a student at the university which holds the ship. Although I do like the setup, encounters with other human beings end up being pretty dull. Maybe in 1978 ideas of a commune and sending out its women to sleep with the professor to push its male members through the physics exams was kind of shocking (probably not), I'm pretty sure there would have been more interesting ways to explore the first contact scenario.
Finally, "The Human Operators" may have been my favorite story of the collection. It's a bit of a mystery story as we are thrown into this kind of strange setting where we have a boy whose only interaction is with the spaceship for which he is doing repairs. The story is narrated by the boy himself and in present tense. There are no other human beings and he is regularly undergoing torture by the ship for no apparent reason. The only other person he talks about is his dad, who was killed by the ship when the boy turned 14 years old, but who gave him a cryptic message about "98 chances" and how "vicious [not sure if that's the right translation] means smart". I also quite liked the eventual resolution. So, a story well done.
Rating: 2.5/5