The Demon Breed, James Schmitz (365 Books, Day 291)

[rushthatspeaks]

I desperately love James Schmitz's The Witches of Karres and have since I was very young, but I consistently bounce off his short work. It feels as though it ought to engage me-- it has everything that I usually enjoy in fun action-y fluff-- but it never quite hooks my interest.

Then it occurred to me, hey, he wrote other novels.

And indeed, I liked this much better than any of his shorts I've read, although it is nowhere near as good as The Witches of Karres.

On a water planet with a rather interesting ecology of floating forests, Dr. Nile Etland and her [[ giant talking otters ]]* have become worried about a scientist who hasn't contacted home base for a while. Since he was Dr. Etland's teacher and mentor and is engaged in research that has been both profitable and interesting, they'd kind of like to know what happened to him.

In the meantime, said researcher is frantically conducting psychological warfare against the powerful and psychotic aliens who have secretly invaded his floating forest and kidnapped him, and his only hope is that Nile can pick up on and fabricate adequate proof of his lies.

This is a fast-paced little book, with entertainingly nasty if not terribly original aliens, a nifty ecosystem full of things that are pretty, destructive, and helpful in about equal measure, a real sense that all this takes place in and around the ocean, and [[ giant talking otters ]], sometimes with blowguns. The end is a bit odd and divagates more into infodumps about the Possibilities Of Human Evolution than one might like, but it's a short book and that bit's even shorter; besides which the actual plot winds up satisfactorily. This is not Great Literature or anything, but it provides adequate and enjoyable fluff in a way his short stories just don't for me, and I have to love anybody who consistently wrote competent, intelligent, interesting women a couple of decades earlier than one might really expect that in the pulps.

Also, I may have forgotten to mention the [[ giant talking otters ]], which would be silly of me. Honestly, my principal complaint is that there isn't enough of that.

So I may give other Schmitz novels a shot, if I run into any; this wasn't good enough to cause me to seek any more out in an active way, but I've been having an exhausted last couple of days and it's always good to have a store of things I can manage to put into my brain until it can digest things with real substance again.

* This typographical convention is meant to indicate the approximate degree of reader distraction that occurs every time one of them so much as flips a whisker, because seriously, [[ giant talking otters ]] are one of the most distracting things you can put into a book, the authorial equivalent of carrying around a puppy and randomly handing it to people. You could probably hide just about any plot legerdemain ever under a [[ giant talking otter ]], not that this book does, much. I should remember that for future reference.

Comments

[niqaeli]

Legacy is his other main novel that I'm aware of. I liked the themes and setting of The Demon Breed better (you're right, there wasn't NEARLY enough of the GIANT TALKING OTTERS) but the characters of Legacy really own my heart. I've always wanted to be Trigger Argee when I grew up since I was like, twelve. (She's the heroine of the book.)

Something worth noting, if you're familiar with the Vorkosigan novels by Lois McMaster Bujold is that apparently Miles nearly had a sister named Nile, and that eventually that name was bestowed as a middle name upon Ekaterin whom I dearly adore as a character. If you don't know the Vorkosigan novels, feel free to ignore this entire paragraph.

(Er, sorry for the random comment -- I stumbled across this via a link from jmtorrres. James Schmitz is one of my favourite authors pretty much ever, so I can talk about him FOREVER.)

[movingfinger]

Yes! GIANT TALKING OTTERS are awesome. And a restful change from giant talking cats, dragons, and the like.

Seriously, though --- Schmitz is underappreciated and it is good to be reminded that he wrote so many good stories.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Query: do hrossa count as giant talking otters?

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

You were wondering which reviews go in the eventual book? This one. This one goes in.

Because [[ giant talking otters ]]

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I read this years ago - I remember it as being decent, but (as you say), not nearly as good Karres, which was the first thing of his I read. Unfortunately I've had that reaction to all of his other fiction - it's generally pleasant, but I don't generally feel compelled to re-read it. I might make an exception for this if I can find it - since I couldn't find it, it's the only Schmitz book I didn't send off to rachelmanija.

The end is a bit odd and divagates more into infodumps about the Possibilities Of Human Evolution than one might like

He does that sort of thing a lot - have a perfectly decent action-oriented story or novel and then toss in a bunch of philosophical noodling in the late stages. It tends not to work well. Probably the worst offender is The Eternal Frontier, which you might find interesting - he seems to have been trying to really stretch himself with it. I don't think he managed it properly, but it might make for a nice chewy review.

[sovay]

You could probably hide just about any plot legerdemain ever under a [[ giant talking otter ]], not that this book does, much. I should remember that for future reference.

Sirens singing from our lady’s sea-straw?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Nah, that's the manatees.

[sovay]

Nah, that's the manatees.

I thought those were the bagpipe-breasted ladies in the deadweed.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

They are. But bits of the poem do apply different metaphors to the same things. Like, the entire first stanza is a character description of Abaddon.

... I appear to have now gotten to everything but stanzas IX and X in the book. How odd. Especially because the last several, I wasn't hardly trying; I guess it internalized.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Wonder if he'd been reading Lewis's Space Trilogy. Floating forests, and ... hrossa. (Nya nya.)

[marchharetay.livejournal.com]

GIANT TALKING OTTERS!!!!
+ amazing footnote! I LOVE your reviews!

[[giant talking otters]]

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That's a great typographic convention!

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me to mention - I don't know what kind of cover was on the copy you read, but mine (a SF Book Club edition of the original hardcover, I think) was kind of bland. However, the original publication in Analog got this great cover (http://pulparchive.com/analog-september-1968/).

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

* This typographical convention is meant to indicate the approximate degree of reader distraction that occurs every time one of them so much as flips a whisker, because seriously, [[ giant talking otters ]] are one of the most distracting things you can put into a book,

I don't remember if the odders of Mirable talked. Probably not, because they weren't distracting enough to actually hide the sloppiness of the plot. (It didn't matter. Plot was obviously not the point.)

the authorial equivalent of carrying around a puppy and randomly handing it to people.

Are you sure you mean a puppy, rather than a basket of ducklings?