Dying Of The Light (1977) - George RR Martin

 

There was a time when GRRM was not a world famous author, but just an obscure cult writer.

In Spain, DOTL was a hidden gem for years, even if it was translated as early as 1979. Talked about and referred to as a favorite, few had actually read it.

The title was audaciously picked from Dylan Thomas (Rage, rage against the Dying of the Light).

Its scenario is ominous, also impressive. Dirk t’Larien and Gwen Delvano, two ex lovers, meet on a rogue planet, Worlorn. What's a rogue planet? One not orbiting any star, but lost in deep space, except when temporarily approaching a star’s proximity.

Rogue planets are not fiction. They exist in reality, and many have already been identified (btw none back in 1977, when DOTL was first published).

Dirk travels to Worlorn, to reunite with Gwen, years after their love story was over. The planet had capriciously been terraformed, just to hold a big Festival of Cultures: those of all 14 outer planets (all inhabited by humans and their rich and different cultures).

The terraforming took advantage of the fact that Worlorn was to be, for just a few decades, within the proximity of a group of stars, thus receiving daylight. Now the Festival is over, and light is dying out. Cities abandoned; ice, decay and death spreading over.

This is the bleak place Dirk is asked by Gwen to travel to. After years of not hearing a word from her.

DOTL is a love story, sure. With such titles, we could perfectly come up with a new subgenre: Romantic Sf. But it is also adventure, violence and an anthropological feast.

The DOTL universe is populated by humans, all originated from Old Earth. Human condition remains unchanged, though (no genetic improvement here). Larteyn, the city in Worlorn modeled after High Kavalaan, with its virile culture of the medieval type, of clashing clans and ancient codes of honor, might give the reader an early taste of Game of Thrones.

Kindred (1979), by Octavia E Butler

 

Dana is a black young woman, living in 1976 California. She’s achieved her dream: becoming a writer. Just moved to her new apartment with Kevin (her white husband). Also a writer, a successful one at that.

They’re busy placing their many books, when suddenly Dana feels unwell, experiencing some sort of dizziness. To his astonishment, Kevin sees her dissolving before his very eyes. To magically materialize again a few minutes later.

Dana appears to be deeply shocked; and what she tells Kevin is quite weird.

While vanishing, she lost sight of the room, only to find herself in a natural setting, with trees and grass all around. And a river, where a white redheaded boy seemed to be drowning. Still dazed and confused, she rushes to save him.

What happened? Well, a disturbance of spacetime. And where she ended up, she finds out, is not California, but somewhere in Maryland: like 3000 miles away. And most of all, it was not 1976, but 1819!

The redhead's name is Rufus, who happens to be her ancestor (probably through the rape of a slave black woman?). The spacetime disturbance repeats itself; Dana comes to understand that there's now a strange connection between her and Rufus.

Everytime Rufus is in trouble, or in a life threatening situation, Dana is pushed back in time. To the early 1800s Maryland plantation of the boy’s family or whereabouts; where black slaves live, work and die.

On every occasion Dana is sent back to antebellum Maryland, she spends more time there. From hours to months; she will have to learn how to survive on the plantation. Also make a sense of the experience, as a free woman of the future.

Dana experiences the brutality of the 1820s, a time when a set of people owned the lives of another set of people. This gives the past a rough, more aggressive turn. As if 1819 felt more real and tangible than (comparatively) easy going 1976.

The reader experiences the same shock. The immersion in 1819 is quite realistic. Along with Dana, you sense 1819 as well.

Kindred was first published in 1979. But to me this is the finding of the year, or the decade.

The Invisible Man, by HG Wells

The invisible Man is one of the author’s best narrations, the ones he wrote in his youthful years. The “fantasias of possibility”, as he called them, which he published between 1895 and 1901. The Invisible Man is a tale of solitude and alienation. A tale of an ambition wrongly (wickedly) directed. 

It is also, one fiction work that clearly casts a shadow on Science.

By the late 19th century, Science was a positive force, linked to progress and improvement of life. The treatment of Science in literature or papers was almost unanimously positive. Let’s recall Jules Verne, for instance: a positivist feast, and Science and Technology as radiant deities. That was the norm. 

From 1945 on, however, the thing was to change dramatically, even if there were some previous warnings, like Huxley’s 1932 Brave New World. Hiroshima and nuclear devastation was to damage the social image of Science since the mid 20th century onwards. And novels and movies were invariably to provide scenarios of Apocalypse.

But when The Invisible Man was published (1897), the suggestion of Science as evil was still rare. 

In the novel, Griffith, a chemist, discovers a way to make matter invisible, through a scientific process that Wells does not explain in the same technical detail as Verne used to. The author is more concerned with the social and moral implications of Science. Griffith is, like Victor Frankenstein, a guy who’s passionate for the wonders of the natural world. He researches tiressly, determined to pull out secrets from matter.

He applies his technique to himself and so becomes invisible, except when dressed, or after lunch. But he can't properly manage his new power, as a result he abandons all moral constriction. And knowledge without morality, science without conscience, leads to disaster. The topic has now become a cliché. But it was not in 1897.

The Invisible Man also makes us wonder if our morality could not just come from the fact that we are being watched at all times. By the others, by Society, by the State. Un uneasy thought. But if our morality truly depends on that, let us not worry too much. We cannot certainly complain of not being monitorized enough these days.

The Night Land (1912), by WH Hodgson

William Hope Hogdson (1877-1918) was praised by Lovecraft, and that’s no easy praise. Such works as House On the Borderland or The Night Land were proclaimed “impossible to forget by any reader” by the author of Providence. And we should not rule out the possibility that WP Hogdson’s visions could be even more powerful. 

 Hogdson’s literary style is a bit harsh, or cumbersome, as Lovecraft himself pointed out. In The Night Land, for example, this might be something of an obstacle for a comfortable read, mainly if English is not your first language. Hogdson’s writing here is some kind of pretended 17th century style which can prove hard to swallow. 

 Perhaps it’s not an overstatement to say that WHH is more readable in translations, as translators usually “fail” to reproduce this obscure style. Then you have the brilliantly gloomy plot and mise en scène created by Hogdson, but you avoid the harshness of his original writing. 

 The Night Land is an impressive description of a horrid world. The sun has died out, and it is now millions of years in the future. The Earth is frozen and resignedly keeps revolving around her star. (In 1912, when TNL was published, star evolution was not as well understood as today). The whole surface of our planet is in darkness. 

The remains of humanity live in the Redoubt. This is a huge pyramidal construction that holds all men and women surviving in this half-dead world. Away from the Redoubt, and sorrounding it, are the deep shadows, the Night Land. A full mysterious geography: paths, valleys, mountains. Also monstrosities wandering by: lovecraftian creatures whose origins, nature or purpose are unknown. 

A man from the past transports his mind into this distant dark future. He will inhabit the Redoubt. One day he hears a woman’s voice by telepathy, and this voice reveals that there is a second Redoubt, also inhabited by people. The mysterious narrator, who traveled through the ages into this horrible time, will now venture onto the Night Land, in search of that second pyramid. 

 One must agree with Lovecraft. Few other times has human imagination conjured up such a terrifying scenario, fascinating in its weird originality.