review of
Kenneth Bulmer's / Mack Reynolds's Behold the Stars / Planetary Agent X
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 18, 2018


Here's another Ace Double that I got for the Reynolds story — only to realize once I got it home that I already had Planetary Agent X in a different edition. Duh. I wasn't that excited about reading another bk by Bulmer since I hadn't liked the only other thing I read by him very much (see my review of his The Key to Venudine here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2460708541 ). However, it was a quick read & an easy review & I liked it more so here's the thin skivvy:

"He would look forward to the reunion hopefully, as each year passed and his buddies filled out and married and became good citizens—they really had been a tear-away bunch. He would go along to enjoy himself in the old talk and the jargon and the memories. But each year brought the same jokes and the same memories that yet were subtly not the same, so that the outlines blurred and—was it Johnny Red who got that Venie gunner on their forward base or was it Jackie Franks?—no, he bought it in the drop on Suvla—surely that was when that new blond young shavetail got his when his parapack roman-candled—no, you're thinking of that guy, what was his name? was always sick when we went through the box . . ." - p 6

An ex-military guy goes to a reunion of his former unit members. These days, his job is to service space freighters that're accessed thru faster-than-light boxes that were the same boxes that enabled him & his unit to drop in uninvited on the Venies they were fighting. The bk was published in 1965 & we're in the future where it's possible to travel to very far-away places almost instantaneously.. but some things just never change:

"As soon as he decently could after the meal, when the ex-troopers were once again standing and sitting around the bar and looking forward to a night of it, Ward walked through to the phone booths." - p 8

Yes, phone booths are still w/ us, maybe tape is too, alcohol is bound to be. Anyway, there's talk of another possible-threat-to-humans-from-another-exraterrestrial-but-people-are-not-in-any-hurry-for-yet-another-war:

""Stupid talk. Those aliens may look like us and the Venies and the Centaurians and Procyns and a dozen other local stellar races; but they're more alien, if you allow a vague sentiment like that—"

""We know what you mean." Crombie sat quietly with the others now, his usual liveliness not evident. "We remember the Venies as they were—oh—ten years ago. But today they're just another friendly race in our local interstellar civilization. Sometimes you can make contact with an alien race and remain friends and sometimes there just has to be a dumb stupid war. But so far we haven't bumped into any alien aliens so hostile that they won't see sense."" - p 9

My description of the boxes as FTL isn't quite accurate:

"Zukowsky switched his train of thought: "Pal of mine working for SSA tells me they're still a million parsecs from ever pushing a ship along at FTL."

""I don't think they ever will. Einstein won't be mocked."

""We do, don't we, every day, after a fashion? We break down a person or a load of freight, shoot them along our beams from one box to the receiver box and recreate them. Just about instantaneously too."" - p 26

Close enuf for me. But what about the possibilites for things not working as you've intended? Computers & marriages are bad enuf:

"He'd shown himself to be a coward; in a way that step across the matter transmitter threshold was in a very real sense a step towards his own mental rehabilitation.

"He stepped out the far door, adjusting his body to the anticipated near free-fall conditions in the carrier and fell full length on his face, his body crushed down by a stunning and unexpected and altogether terrifying acceleration." - pp 44-45

Some violence ensues but he survives & the next thing he knows he's encountering a conspiracy of pacifists. PACI-FIST? That wd make a nice knuckle tattoo. A variation on LOVE HATE that plays off the hand position.

""So you've seen . . ?"

""I've seen tough men talking like pacifists. There's no harm in that, it's the only sensible way to think about aliens when the aliens come in friendship. But I've been worried—"

""Something—or someone—is deliberately forcing our fighting men to demand peace at any price. You have the wit to guess what that will do if the Gershmi are out for a fight? Steve was assigned a task in trying to uncover the truth. He has disappeared."" - p 62

But what I want to know is Do the Gershmi have any natural resources that we want?

"Jordan shook his head. "I can understand why you are saying this, Dave. And I can understand what you are saying. But, surely you realize that I cannot feel it at all? You know the detractors take away all combative feeling for aliens? I just can't envisage what you're suggesting, and the effort to achieve the impossible makes my head ache. . . ."" - p 107

Don't worry, there's bound to be a Happy Pill for that soonish. SF is full of stories of battle between Earthlings & Extraterrestrials, it's full of stories of Earth being quarantined b/c of human violence. Behold the Stars puts a slightly new twist on it.

As for Planetary Agent X? You can read my review of that here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/629641-gotta-luv-ya-mack-reynolds .

Have a nice day. ( )