Colin Kapp (1928–2007)

The Survival Game is a pulp fiction story of intrigue and action I’ve read twice and possibly three before. I was much closer to my USMC years the first time and the tale of resourceful earthmen who confront overwhelming adversity and confound powerful star lords resonated with my young persona. In later years, I found the story to be an enjoyable escape that resonated with my no-nonsense approach to solving problems. A week ago, my semi-sporadic revisiting of earlier SciFi favorites brought me to this book again. I was surprised and delighted to find strengths I almost certainly overlooked in my earlier, more superficial readings.

Colonel Bogaert, military aid and technical consultant, Miriam, tall, slender, seemingly fragile wife of the King of Kings, and her children, Arma and Zim, are stranded on Avida. Also present is Bethschart, a native of Avida. The planet is so hostile to human life only extreme vigilance and luck will allow a human to survive a single day. Star lord Xzan removed the last 100 inhabitants for use in his army. Bethschart, his assassin, is returned with instructions to kill Bogaert.

On the surface, this is a story of the superiority of earthmen (most likely of Western European descent) to aliens from other solar systems. But such a casual interpretation misses the point. The earthmen triumph because of their philosophical approach to science and knowledge, not innate superiority.
The aliens possessed Ransad, a library of scientific knowledge left behind by an earlier civilization. Ransad allowed them to achieve a technologically advanced state, but it asserted that everything knowable is known.

This stagnating approach to the search for new knowledge has found expression in numerous contemporary settings. Many fundamentalist religions espouse the literal interpretation of their religious texts, leading them to oppose social and scientific advances in knowledge and increased understanding and tolerance of individual differences. This forms the basis for their treatment of women and their opposition to alternative lifestyles. Anti-vaxxers are similar in their rejection of modern scientific findings. The political leadership in the USSR from Lenin to the early 1990s required science and technology to conform to the approved dogma of the communist party. Mendelian inheritance was rejected in favor of Lamarckian interpretations, and the theory of relativity was dismissed as bourgeois idealism. The resistance of many right-wing political parties to scientific findings and social change that does not reinforce their worldview echoes this hostility.

The earth dwellers in Survival Game have a new philosophy that emphasizes the scientific method and an openness to new ideas and research findings that contradict the prevailing view. Much like the protagonists in Andy Weir’s The Martian and Hail Mary, the earthman survives life-threatening situations by using his knowledge of science and his willingness to experiment.

The Survival Game is a story of the triumph of the scientific approach and an openness to gender equality over an unquestioning reliance on tradition.

As a genre, science fiction is a rainbow-hued collage of the inventive range of human creativity. Oh, yes, and many SciFi stories are also swashbuckling pulp thrillers.… (meer)

I didn't finish this book, nor come close, as I was really put off by Colin Papp's overt misogynistic writing style. One of the primary characters in the book is consistently referred to as "Honey-Bitch" and the back cover describes her as "a sadistic bitch-goddess," which I guess should have been a dead give away. I guess I didn't realize it was going to permeate the entire book so sordidly. It's rather nauseating. Why not call the male lead "ball sac?" That might even things out a little bit? And while this is an old book, published in 1972, it's still "new" enough to have been published well after women's lib got its start, so it should have been more sensitive to this fact, unless the author was, as I've suggested, simply a misogynistic asshole. Which I assume is the case. So I read two chapters and quit. It didn't seem like I would be missing much anyway. Not the most enticing sci fi I've read. If you want dated, sexist, bad sci fi, this is for you. Otherwise, trash it. One star.… (meer)