gutfreund.umass-cs@UDel-Relay@sri-unix.UUCP (08/05/83)
From: Steven Gutfreund <gutfreund.umass-cs@UDel-Relay> Is anyone familiar with the work of Charles W. Runyon? Is he primarily and SF writer? Can anyone come up with a list of books he has authored? The novel I read (a one word title whose name escapes me) dealt with the state of Homo Sap after its first encounter with Aliens. <A disastrous affair with Earth being wiped out and only a few underground colonies on Titan left. Why all humans weren't wiped out was not understood> The main part of the story is about the remaining Homo Sap-like species. Lots of genetic engineering had taken place: warrier breeds with only 200 word vocabularies, intellectual breeds with long lives but no power drives (the in-power breed wanted to remain in power, a typical phenomenon if one looks at 1960's history) ESP breeds, and outsider breeds. The in-power breed decides that it must create a super-human breed to go out and find the Alien species and wipe it out before it decides humans are too much of a nuisance and wipes out humanity once and for all. They do this via cross breeding of the remaining species. The story took many novel turns. Basically I think the story was stuffed with as many new twists as Farmer's: Riders of the Purple Wage. The ending was pretty spectacular. - Steven Gutfreund Gutfreund.umass-cs@udel-relay