Ursula K Le Guin's "Nine Lives" (novelette): A feeling of loneliness

10-clones, 5 men & 5 women, all derived from the same man, act as a single individual, mutually dependent, but not noticing others. Even sex is within the group.

9 die in an earthquake. Story is of the survivor discovering life as an individual.

Collected in.

1. David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (Ed)'s "The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF".

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, November 1969.
Nominated for Nebula Award 1970 in novelette category.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Ursula K Le Guin.

Jack Vance's "Emphyrio" (novel, dystopia): Hero brings happy change to a dystopic society

While I didn't dislike it, I found it easy to put it down often. But surprising ending changed the book for me; beautiful. I think it will read much better on a reread, knowing the ending.

There are a lot of places where I could  identify with the stupidities of current India.

Story summary.

First half is a coming of age story - (Recepient) Ghyl Tarvoke growing up in an oppressive welfare state where state ensures you have minimum necessities of existence but where you can never be rich. Where duplication is an extreme offense, inviting extreme punishment (there is a moving scene when Ghyl's gentle father is killed by the state for producing multiple copies of political banners with the same text!) - state apparently thrives on the reputation elsewhere of the originality of its artisans. There is also a curious religion that involves ritualized "leaping". Then there are "lords" (elites outside of welfare state), & "noncups" (few ordinary citizens who chose to live outside the welfare state, mostly by criminal means).

Later part is a faster moving adventure where Ghyl will discover the true nature of his society, & will end up overturning the current political establishment. There is a detective story here the clues for which were all over, but I didn't see them until suddenly the story turned in a totally unexpected direction near end.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1969.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Jack Vance.

Alice Sheldon's "Beam Us Home" (as by James Tiptree, Jr) (short story, Star Trek fanfic, free): A US soldier's life, & death

Mostly beautifully done, it describes the life story of Hobie. Scenes from different life stages of him, with vague hints that he may be an alien...

Later parts, I suppose are a criticism of some US war or the other; US readers with '60s political background should be better able to see the point.

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, April 1969.
Download full text from Internet Archive, Lexal.
Rating: B.
Among the classics of Sci Fiction, edited by Ellen Datlow.
Related: Stories of Alice Sheldon (as by James Tiptree, Jr).

Piers Anthony's "Macroscope" (novel, space opera): Snakes & ladders for star travel

Going by the amount of praise it has received, you'll have to take my views with a pinch of salt. I found the later parts extremely tedious to wade through. Primarily because of many jarring diversions, most of which seem to be here to simply add pages rather than further the story. Early parts - about half the book or more - however, is very readable.

Story employs a variety of stock tropes, as you would expect in a space opera. There are a few things, however, that were new to me:

1. To be able to take shock of 10g acceleration during interplanetary travel, you "liquify" the human traveler! For star travel, you further "gassify" the protoplasm to better prepare for bigger shocks. And for inter-galactic travel, you further transform the gas into a living radiation being (radiation idea is, of course, quite old.)
2. An alien signal that hypnotizes the human receiver to use him as a zombie or interacts with him in an individual-specific way is quite old. Author, however, puts it to novel uses I'd not seen before.

Story summary.

A "macroscope" is two devices in one: a sort of infinite-resolution telescope with range across the galaxy; & a receiver of (alien) "broadcast" signals on various "macroscopic" bands. There are a variety of broadcasts available in aether, but two play a key role in the story:

1. "Destroyer" fries the brains of anyone smart enough to comprehend the broadcast!
2. "Traveler" seems to provide a lot of extremely useful information, provided you can get past "destroyer" (because "destroyer" signal is far too strong).

This story is of a quest - 4 individuals travel all over the galaxy, with the help of information provided by Traveler, to locate & disable the destroyer source. They'll eventually find the purposes of both destroyer & traveler, & get some enlightenment in the psychology of sentient beings.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1969.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Hugo Award 1970 in novels category.
Related: Stories of Piers Anthony.

Fred Hoyle & Geoffrey Hoyle's "Rockets in Ursa Major" (novel, space opera): Humanity with its long lost cousins fights off alien raiders

This started out as a disappointment because of expectations mismatch: I was expecting a hard sf novel by the author of "The Black Cloud"; it turned out to be a free-wheeling space opera by his son, Geoffery. Fans of Fred Hoyle will be disappointed.

As space opera, it's an ok read though nowhere near top league.

Story summary.

Earth is not the home world of humanity. Eons ago, when our ancestors began ruthless colonization of galaxy from wherever their home world was, few alien races could stop them. Until they came across Yela.

Yela have an ultimate weapon. They can cover an oxygen world in a layer of hydrogen, then somehow set the two to react - setting the world on a grand fire! They drove humans from all inhabited worlds & turned them into galaxy's brigands - always on the run. That was some 100,000 years ago, but galaxy is still an enemy of humanity.

50,000 years back, one of their groups was shipwrecked on earth & stranded. We are descended from these.

Now, the earth bound humanity has began exploring the galaxy, unaware of old antagonism. Aliens now know of earth as a human world, & are coming to raid.

This is the story of long lost cousins of humanity coming to aid of earth men against the aliens. Two together will repel the raiders ... for the moment at least. By deploying a super-bomb - drop some tonnes of Lithium near a sunspot on Sun's surface to generate a flare big enough to hurt supremely advanced aliens but with little damage to earth!!!

See also.

1. Michael Shaara's "All the Way Back": Another story share the basic idea of why galaxy is antagonistic to humanity.
2. Arthur Clarke's "Reunion": "Spacefaring humans originated elsewhere in galaxy" is an old meme. This Clarke story is one of the better examples of it. I initially read it as a somewhat racist story, but I now think better of it.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1969.
"Based on the play of that title by Fred Hoyle" "for presentation at London's Mermaid Theatre in 1962".
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Fred Hoyle.

A Bertram Chander's "The Subtracter" aka "The Minus Factor" (novelette, politics, free): Someone has taken Asimov's psychohistory to heart

In the political heart of the Federation, the human galactic empire, a mathematician is in an influential position. Because he's supposed to have worked out a mathematically predictable way of determining the future, & of changing it by influencing significant factors shaping it.

This the story of one of his influencing operations that didn't quite work out as expected...

Fact sheet.

First published: 1969. Where?
Rating: B.
Download full text from Webscription.
This story is part of author's John Grimes' series.
Related: Stories of A Bertram Chandler.

Larry Niven's "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" (short story, humor, free): Superman's sex problems!

I guess it will appeal more to those familiar with Superman; my own exposure is limited to very occasional pictures in Indian media with a costume that has S marked on front.

Story tells us Superman is one of a race of aliens called "kryptonians", & goes on to satirically discuss his sex problems. There are references to "Clark Kent" & "Lana Lang" - presumably Hollywood actors (I'm not sure).

It's not for those offended by explicit sex talk.

Fact sheet.

First published: Knight, December 1969.
Download full text.
Rating: B
Related: All stories of Larry Niven.