review of
John Brunner's Polymath
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 12, 2014

John Brunner's Polymath reminds me of J. G. Ballard's short story collections: Vermilion Sands, Chronopolis, The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard, & most likely others that I don't have in my personal library.

Why? Is it b/c they're both British SF writers w/ radical leanings? No, among other things, their radicality is quite different. It's b/c of the way the publishers reuse older material to sell newer bks. In Ballard's 1971 Vermilion Sands, there's a story entitled "The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista" that had previously appeared in the 1963 collection Passport to Eternity. In 1971's Chronopolis, there's "The Voices of Time" (The Voices of Time), "The Drowned Giant" (The Impossible Man), "Manhole 69" (The Voices of Time), "Storm-Bird, Storm-Dreamer" (The Impossible Man), "The Sound-Sweep" (The Voices of Time), "The Watchtowers" (Passport to Eternity), "Zone of Terror" (The Voices of Time), "The Cage of Sand" (Passport to Eternity), & "Deep End" (The Voices of Time).

Therefore, in Chronopolis, there're 9 stories out of 16 total culled from previous collections. That's pretty annoying for people who want to read the 7 stories not in the bks they already have but don't want to pay for the filler. It gets even worse when we get to 1978's The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard insofar as "Manhole 69" had now appeared in at least 2 previous collections, "Chronopolis" in at least 1, "The Voices of Time" (2), "Deep End" (2), "The Overloaded Man" (1), "Billennium" (1), "The Garden of Time" (1), "Thirteen for Centaurus" ("Thirteen to Centaurus" in Passport to Eternity), "The Cage of Sand" (2), "End Game" (1), "The Drowned Giant" (2), "The Terminal Beach" (1), & "The Cloud Sculptors of Coral D" (1). That's 13 out of 19 stories, at least, that'd previously appeared in bks. Buying The Best got the consumer Anthony Burgess's Introduction as well.

Ok, reprinting the same stories in multiple collections isn't such a heinous crime, I'm really just having some fun & showing off a little tangential data in order to build up to the annoyance of Polymath. Polymath (1974) is just a slight rewrite of Castaways World (1963) wch was part of an Ace Double. You can see my review of that here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7215530-the-rites-of-ohe-castaways-world & if you want to just get an idea of what the story is you might as well just skip to that earlier review & not read any further here.

On the verso of the title p it says: "A shorter and substantially different version of this novel appeared in 1963" (p 4) They don't tell the reader the name of the previous bk. It's the "substantially different" claim that I scoff at here. Castaways World is 127 pp, Polymath is 156 = 29 extra pp. The plot doesn't change at all. Polymath begins w/ this: ""One thing about those damn winter gales," Delvia said in a make-the-most-of-it tone. "They did give us a bit of stored power to play with." (p 5) Castaways World begins w/: "["]One thing about those winter gales," Delvia said in a make-the-most-of-it tone, "they gave us a bit of stored power to play with." (p 5) "winter gales" becomes "damn winter gales", etc.. These are the kinds of 'substantial' changes the reader can expect.

Of course, the filler has to get a bit more, uh, filling, in order to add on another 29pp: So, in the beginning of chapter 2 the 15th paragraph in Polymath is the same one as the 5th paragraph in Castaways World - it just takes 10 paragraphs longer to get there but those 10 paragraphs don't make much difference.

On p 91 of Castaways World we can read this:

""No . . ." She kicked at the sand. "Mainly I come out here to look at Zara. It seems absurd that the star that I used to think of as the sun is still up there, shining quietly, when in fact it's a raging cosmic explosion. How long till we see it happen, Lex? Sixty years?"

& on p 118 of Polymath we get this:

""No . . ." She kicked at the sand. Grains of it rattled on the nearest reflector, like dried corn spilling into a pan. "Mainly I come out here to look at Zara. It seems absurd that the star which I used to think of as the sun is still up there, shining quietly, when in fact it's a raging cosmic explosion. How long till we see it happen, Lex? Is it sixty years?"

Maybe the biggest question in the mind of readers of this review by now might be: 'Doesn't this guy have anything better to do than write a review of a bk wch he probably read knowing it was just a fluffed-out repeat of something he'd already read?! To wch I answer: "Yes, I do have better things to do. BUT, grains of this review rattle in my reflective brain, like dried corn spilling into my brain-pan." ( )

Not bad. I've been reading some '70's DAW scifi lately & this is one of the better--at least there's no egregious sexism. Must be why Brunner is still a published author.
The book starts in the middle of a situation, almost as if this is a continuation of another book which would describe a civilization's reaction to their sun going nova. Here we have 2 ships which escaped that planetary destruction but crash landed on a habitable planet. Having just come thru a severe winter, one group is building more homes, discovering how to deal w/local flora & fauna, developing alternative technology. But some people are suffering from PTSD (not called that, as that term wasn't in much use when the book was written) and conflicts occur.
Maybe only 1-2 dozen characters are given any actoin, so that I was much surprised later in the book to hear talk of 800 survivors. ( )

This is an entertaining planetary colonization story, if much less ambitious than books like Stand on Zanzibar or Shockwave Rider. A group of 800 refugees find themselves stranded on a somewhat hospitable planet. As you might expect in a group of 800 people, some of them turn out to be jackasses, but others turn out to be surprisingly effective. Our protagonist is a young man, only partially trained in managing planetary colonization, who eventually finds himself the reluctant leader of the refugees. ( )

Colonizzare un nuovo pianeta richiede molto più che stabilirsi su di un'isola appena scoperta della vecchia terra. I nuovi pianeti sono diversi per mille ragioni, diversi dalla terra e diversi fra loro. Ognuna di queste diversità può significare morte e sciagure per una colonia umana. Quando un'astronave gremita di fuggiaschi, scampati ad una catastrofe planetaria, atterra fracassandosi su questo mondo senza nome, alla loro vista appare una situazione piuttosto precaria. Perduta l'astronave, diminuite le possibilità di salvezza, tutto dipende da un giovane in gamba che per caso si trova fra loro. E' un allievo costruttore di pianeti. Dovrebbe prevedere tutti i problemi che si presentano per fondare una dimora sicura per l'umanità. Ma la difficoltà di soluzione consiste nel fatto che egli era un semplice studente e che stava studiando il pianeta sbagliato.