Science Fiction Book Review: Ace Double D-69: Beyond Earth's Gates by Lewis Padgett and C.L. Moore, and Daybreak 2250 A.D. By Andre Norton

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I'm still going through my large collection of Ace Science Fiction Doubles, that well-remembered series of paperback books that were published from the early 50s to the early 70s. For me, it's a classic era of SF, when books were shorter than they are now, so the writers got straight to the point – and besides, I like the cover art. Today I'm going to review one of the earliest Ace Doubles, published in 1954. For those that haven't read my previous reviews, Ace Doubles consisted of two books printed back to back and upside-down in relation to each other, so you got two short novels instead of one long novel, and two front covers. People collect them for the cover art as much as the stories. Beyond Earth's Gates by Lewis Padgett and C.L. Moore Before reviewing the story itself, I'll start with a quick word about the authors. “Lewis Padgett” was a pseudonym of Henry Kuttner. Kuttner and his wife, Catherine Lucille Moore, formed quite a prolific writing team during the 40s and 50s. They also used a couple of other pen names, as well as publishing under their own names, for some reason. During their relatively short career, they built up a decent reputation. “Beyond Earth's Gates” is a simple story, but well told. The protagonist is Eddie Burton, an up-and-coming stage actor who is being pursued by a less successful nightclub singer called Lorna Maxwell. Lorna is convinced that if she can attach herself to Eddie, he can help her with her career in show business, but Eddie can't stand her. When she comes round to his apartment, Eddie would rather switch off the lights and pretend to be out than let her in. A word need to be said about Eddie's apartment – he inherited it from his mysterious Uncle Jim, who had disappeared for years when Eddie was a young boy, before re-appearing in bad health. Uncle Jim had stayed with Eddie and his parents for several months while he recuperated, and during that time he told Eddie a series of adventure stories set in the – supposedly – fictional land of Malesco, even going into enough detail to teach Eddie the language. This becomes important to the plot. One night when Lorna is hammering on Eddie's door and demanding admission, Eddie lets her in to stop her making a scene – but the wall of his apartment seems to fade away for a minute or two, to be replaced by a vision of a city that Eddie recognises from his Uncle Jim's stories – Malesco. Some force sucks Lorna into this alien vision, then it reverts to being a normal wall. So Lorna has vanished, and circumstantial evidence makes it look like Eddie has killed her and got rid of the body – but there's no evidence for the police to arrest him on, but it doesn't do his career any good. Some time later, Eddie is alone at home when he sees the vision of Malesco again – and this time it's him who gets sucked into it, finding himself in a strange land being attacked by a priest. The rest of the action takes place in a single night. Eddie knows enough about the local language to follow what's going on, and manages to just about blend in with the local population. Malesco is in an alternate universe that diverged from our own at the time of the Roman Empire. Rome fell earlier than it did in our world, and was replaced by a religion that embraced science, but also monopolised it. Only priests have the education to understand science and engineering – the general public aren't even taught enough to understand how a light bulb works. The result is a theocratic society that reached a scientific peak centuries before us, but which has become very conservative and resistant to change, with the whole system ruled by “the Heirarch”, who is the head of this world's state religion. The people of Malesco are aware that our world exists, but the Heirarch and his followers tell the population that it's the afterlife – they sometimes use their technology to show project sanitised images of New York, which they refer to as “Paradise”. When Lorna accidentally came through the “Earth Gate”, she fell into the hands of the Heirarch, who has presented her to the people as an angel from Paradise. With the aid of some scientific enhancements to both her appearance and voice, film footage of Lorna promoting the official line are projected to the public, who are encouraged to venerate her. Opposing the Heirarch is an underground revolutionary group headed by Coriole – who turns out to be Eddie's cousin. It seems that Uncle Jim accidentally found himself in Malesco years before, and was there long enough to start a family and become the leader of a failed uprising, hence Eddie's convenient knowledge of the language. Coriole hopes to use Eddie in his struggle against the Heirarch, but Eddie is not interested in getting involved in another world's politics – especially as it's not clear whether Coriole genuinely wants to improve things,or if he's just out for power. Eddie freely admits that he's no hero – he keeps comparing himself unfavourably to famous literary heroes like John Carter and Alan Quartermaine. His only objectives are to stay alive, find Loran, and get them both back to Earth. But despite everything, Eddie does become a hero – of sorts. He manages to spark a revolution,not by doing anything brave or clever, but through a moment's carelessness. As I said, this is a short novel – less than 140 pages – and the action all takes place during the course of a single night. But the authors do a very good job of giving a sense of this strange city that Eddy has found himself in, along with sketching the characters out economically, but in a way that makes them believable. I found Eddy to be a very relatable character, and I never lost interest in what was going on. This story isn't a classic by any means, but it's skilfully written, and I'll look out for more by these authors. An easy 7/10. Daybreak – 2250 A.D. By Andre Norton This was originally published in 1952, under the title “Star Man's Son”, which I think is a better title. It's a post-apocalyptic adventure story, set approximately 200 years after a catastrophic war destroyed civilisation. Humanity has reverted to a pre-industrial state, organised into various clans and tribes. The hero is a young man (late teens or early twenties), called Fors. A member of a society called “the Eyrie”, which is based in a mountain range, Fors is the son of Langdon – a “Star Man”. The Star Men are a caste within the Eyrie who operate as scouts and explorers. The Eyrie places a high value on re-learning the knowledge of the previous civilisation, and that's the main job of the Star Men – exploring the continent they live on, establishing new trails and sometimes finding ruined cities, which can then be looted for both resources and knowledge. The Eyrie seems to have a fair understanding of science and technology already – they're stated as having hydroponic farms, and they also know how to pulp and recycle 200 year old paper recovered from the ruined cities, but they lack either the knowledge or resources to make paper from scratch. There's also no mention of them having any ability to manufacture things like gunpowder and explosives, petrol or other products that require complex processes to make. They do seem to be able to work metal though. So they travel on foot or on horseback, and arm themselves with swords, bows and arrows. They also have only fragmentary records of the time before the war, so they don't have very much knowledge of the land around them – only what they know from direct exploration or what they've learned through contact with other tribes. But the people of the Eyrie don't mix with others very much, as they suffer from a belief in racial superiority. Fors was taught the skills of wilderness survival by his father, in the expectation that he would one day become a Star Man himself. But his father was killed by “Beast Things” - heavily-mutated descendants of urban survivors, who have degenerated to an almost animalistic state. Fors himself is a bit of an outcast in the Eyrie, being a mutant himself – he has a shock of white hair and enhanced senses, he especially has good night vision. His only friend is his mutant cat Lura, with whom he has a telepathic connection. So having no connections, and with the people of the Eyrie being generally prejudiced against mutants, Fors is not invited to become a Star Man. Embittered, Fors steals his father's equipment and leaves the Eyrie, determined to prove himself. Langdon had a theory that there was a city some distance to the north of the Eyrie which had not yet been discovered, so Fors sets off with his cat to find it, believing that this will prove his worthiness to be a Star Man. But now he's an outlaw, and the leader of the Star Men, Star Captain Jarl, is apparently out looking for him. And it's not only Jarl that he has to avoid. At one point, Fors sees Jarl in company with a group of “Plainsmen”. The Plains People are a collection of nomadic tribes who live in a similar way to the old Native American tribes, although it's not clear if they are the same ethnicity. The Eyrie has some limited contact with the Plains People, and in fact Fors' father married a Plains woman – making Fors mixed race as well as a mutant. So he can't contact the Plains People for help in case they hand him over to Jarl. At around the same time, Fors also sees a man travelling on his own, a man with much darker skin than Fors has seen before. He also seems to be avoiding contact with the Plains People. Travelling north with his cat Lura, Fors crosses a largely-uninhabited landscape which is littered with the wreckage of both conventional warfare and the use of weapons of mass destruction, until he finds the abandoned city that his father theorised about. There he encounters the dark-skinned man he'd seen earlier, injured and caught in a trap prepared by the Beast Things. This man is Arskane, a member of a tribe based in the south, who have previously led a life based on agriculture and small scale manufacture of pottery. Arskane's people have had to abandon their previous home due to a natural disaster, so they have started to migrate northwards and sent out scouts – including Arskane – to find a new home. This has brought them into conflict with the Plains People. So now Fors and Arskane have to escape from the dead city and make their way cross country to return Arskane to his tribe, while evading the hostile attentions of the Beast Things. Can they survive the journey? Can Fors get reinstated by the people of the Eyrie, or is he condemned to remain an outlaw? More importantly, can war between the various human tribes be averted and can the threat of the Beast Things be averted? This is a decent adventure story, and the world-building isn't bad. The characters are likeable. I've read several of Andre Norton's stories from about this time now, and Fors is a character type she used on more than one occasion – a young male, confident in the outdoors, starting the story with no friends or family, other than the cat that he has a telepathic bond with. Norton must have really loved cats, they seem to turn up in her stories a lot, not that I have any objection to that! It's an entertaining adventure story that maintains the reader's interest throughout. Based on my experience with her work so far, Andre Norton is almost always worth reading. Another 7/10. You never know what you're getting with Ace Doubles. They can be very hit and miss, but this particular volume has two good stories, and I liked both covers too – and they're both reasonably accurate to the stories that they're illustrating, which you can't always take for granted. All in all, one of the better Ace Doubles that I've read.