Dave-Platt@LADC (07/15/85)
From: Dave Platt <Dave-Platt%LADC@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA>
Micro-review
I expected to be disappointed; I was. Not worth the money or the time.
Real review
"End as a Hero" bears a copyright date of 1985. The overleaf does not
state (as is usually customary) that a portion of the story appeared in
different form quite some time ago. "End as a Hero" was originally
published as a short story in Galaxy Magazine (copyright date 1963).
The version now in the stores consists of the original short story
with minor modifications, plus 94 pages of new lead-in and about
10 pages of new wrap-up.
The seams between the old and new material show... boy, do they show.
The original material is all told in the first person; everything else
is in the third person (the original material is inserted in the form
of a "voluntary statement"). The original story had sufficient
background information in its first few pages to give the reader a very
good idea of what had been going on up to that point; this material
remains unchanged, but duplicates (and sometimes appears to conflict with)
some of the new lead-in writing. The new ending seems to be pretty much
a tack-on to clean up a few loose ends and "explain" how the protagonist
is going to get away with what he'd pulled at the end of the short story.
Worse yet, the new material is less coherent than the original, and
tends to wander.
Commentary
In a posting to this meeting that I read this week, someone (sorry, I'm
too lazy to dig back and find out who) asked "What has happened to
Laumer recently?" or some such. I wish I knew, and that it hadn't happened.
I'm a Laumer fan from 'way back, and probably own most of what he's
published. I find the quality of what he's written in the past five or
ten years (from "The Ultimax Man" in '78 onwards) to be far poorer than
his earlier writing. Much of what he's done recently seems to be
weak reworking of earlier stories (this book being one example) or
extensions of earlier series that lack much of the craftsmanship and
fun of the originals (the latest "Retief" for one example; I've been
afraid to pick up the latest O'Leary story). I believe "Star Colony"
falls into the first category, but I honestly can't remember enough
about its plot & characters to be certain. It looked for quite a while
('70 to '78, I think) as if Laumer had retired for good, and I kept
wishing he'd write some more. Well, he's been doing so, and I find
myself wishing that he'd stayed retired.
Laumer's earlier stories tended to have a lot in common with one another
(lone-wolf good guy gets thrown into an unexpected & hazardous
situation, develops new powers or acquires new knowledge, has a rough
time of it but wins through in the end). I generally found them well
crafted, reasonably believable (except for the "Retief" stories, of
course) and fun... certainly not "quality literature" in the sense of
the recent network discussions, but well worth the read, and frequently
worth rereading just for the halibut. I don't feel that his recent work
(the last decade's worth) is any of the above. I keep buying in the
hope that I've been wrong and that he still has a fine story or six
in him, and a little voice keeps jeering in my ear, "There is no hope!"
It's gonna be a long while before I buy another, 'less I see a very
favorable review somewhere.
Recommendation
Don't buy the current publication of "End as a Hero" unless you've got
three bucks (ridiculous!) to blow on 50 decent pages padded with 100
mediocre ones. Instead, try to find a used copy of "Nine by Laumer"
(copyright 1967; I got mine for a buck). You'll find the original
"End as a Hero" short, "Hybrid", "Dinochrome" (the original "Bolo"
story, I believe), the eerie "A Trip to the City" (a.k.a. "It Could
be Anything"; would have made a good Twilight Zone episode) and
several others. Or, pick up almost anything Laumer wrote before 1970
(check the copyright dates to be sure); "A Trace of Memory" is back
in print after a lapse of many years, and shows early Laumer at about
his best.