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labingiJack Vance's novella, "The Dragon Masters," which won a Hugo in 1963, must be given handicap points for its age. If it's reminiscent of various Star Trek episodes, it's worth remembering that it predates Star Trek. Generally, it stands up well. It gave me a feeling that's rare for me today of enjoying getting lost of a pulp fantasy/sci fi world (as opposed to finding it stereotyped and irritating).
The story would be classed as science fantasy today--one of those Pern-like future medieval worlds--and concerns a battle between medievalistic humans and invaders from space. Its focus is plot, with evolutionary themes, and its characters range from interesting but not fully explored to annoying cardboard.
Its most interesting and original aspect is its dialogue with the evolutionary science fiction of Olaf Stapledon, particularly his Last and First Men, which Vance invokes in so many words.
Spoilers follow...
For those not up on their 1930s science fiction, Last and First Men is a very fast trip through a million-or-something years of future human evolution, positing that humans exterminate most other vertebrate life on Earth and then, when disasters periodically devastate the human species, humans re-evolve to fill the empty niches so that most vertebrate lifeforms descend from humans: human-bats, human-horses, and human-humans, of course. With each of these cycles of mass extinction and evolution, human evolution progresses a little further until humans ultimately become (by our standards) supermen beyond our ken.
Vance takes off on this theme by positing two species, humans and grephs, who at some point mutually enslaved each other and genetically modified each other into a variety of working animals, mainly for war and beasts of burden. Despite the Stapledonesque feel, though, Vance's story challenges the progressive evolution of Last and First Men: there's little sign of genuinely "higher beings" evolving here. The one branch of humanity that seems to fit that bill--like Star Trek's Organians or Blake's 7's descendants of a great race in the episode "City"--are called pretty vigorously into question. In a genre that tends to favor progressive visions of evolution, from H. G. Wells to JMS, this story is an interesting, if not terribly explicit, critique.
Because I read for character, I have to say a word about the characters, though they're not meant to be a focus. Only two characters are given much identity, Joaz Banbeck and Ervis Carcolo, respective leaders of two attacked human towns. Joaz is competent; Carcolo is not. Joaz is pleasantly interesting; Carcolo is not. Carcolo serves no purpose in the story except to be an idiot, and the story would have worked fine (even on the plot level) without him. Joaz, on the other hand, wants only more development. He's interesting in his comparative ordinariness. As a leader, he earns about a B+, and this is really much more engaging than earning an A. It's a shame that this very solid character sketch never got fleshed out, particularly when the rather repetitious dragon battles could well have been pared down to make space for it.
There's only one named female character, and she's about what you'd expect. I will say that she so unerringly hits the beats of winsome-servant-girl-bred-and-trained-to-make-the-man-feel-attractive-and-superior that it feels socially constructed more than essentialized, though, there is, of course, no explicit commentary on whether we are meant to regard this performance as a performance or just the way girls are.
On the whole, this story kept me engaged and reading (which is no mean feat these days). I would recommend it to fans of science fantasy or old-school SF classics or to folks studying evolutionary discourse in fiction (you know who you are).
The story would be classed as science fantasy today--one of those Pern-like future medieval worlds--and concerns a battle between medievalistic humans and invaders from space. Its focus is plot, with evolutionary themes, and its characters range from interesting but not fully explored to annoying cardboard.
Its most interesting and original aspect is its dialogue with the evolutionary science fiction of Olaf Stapledon, particularly his Last and First Men, which Vance invokes in so many words.
Spoilers follow...
For those not up on their 1930s science fiction, Last and First Men is a very fast trip through a million-or-something years of future human evolution, positing that humans exterminate most other vertebrate life on Earth and then, when disasters periodically devastate the human species, humans re-evolve to fill the empty niches so that most vertebrate lifeforms descend from humans: human-bats, human-horses, and human-humans, of course. With each of these cycles of mass extinction and evolution, human evolution progresses a little further until humans ultimately become (by our standards) supermen beyond our ken.
Vance takes off on this theme by positing two species, humans and grephs, who at some point mutually enslaved each other and genetically modified each other into a variety of working animals, mainly for war and beasts of burden. Despite the Stapledonesque feel, though, Vance's story challenges the progressive evolution of Last and First Men: there's little sign of genuinely "higher beings" evolving here. The one branch of humanity that seems to fit that bill--like Star Trek's Organians or Blake's 7's descendants of a great race in the episode "City"--are called pretty vigorously into question. In a genre that tends to favor progressive visions of evolution, from H. G. Wells to JMS, this story is an interesting, if not terribly explicit, critique.
Because I read for character, I have to say a word about the characters, though they're not meant to be a focus. Only two characters are given much identity, Joaz Banbeck and Ervis Carcolo, respective leaders of two attacked human towns. Joaz is competent; Carcolo is not. Joaz is pleasantly interesting; Carcolo is not. Carcolo serves no purpose in the story except to be an idiot, and the story would have worked fine (even on the plot level) without him. Joaz, on the other hand, wants only more development. He's interesting in his comparative ordinariness. As a leader, he earns about a B+, and this is really much more engaging than earning an A. It's a shame that this very solid character sketch never got fleshed out, particularly when the rather repetitious dragon battles could well have been pared down to make space for it.
There's only one named female character, and she's about what you'd expect. I will say that she so unerringly hits the beats of winsome-servant-girl-bred-and-trained-to-make-the-man-feel-attractive-and-superior that it feels socially constructed more than essentialized, though, there is, of course, no explicit commentary on whether we are meant to regard this performance as a performance or just the way girls are.
On the whole, this story kept me engaged and reading (which is no mean feat these days). I would recommend it to fans of science fantasy or old-school SF classics or to folks studying evolutionary discourse in fiction (you know who you are).
