Wallace West (1900–1980)

Lords of Atlantis supplies a science-fictionalized euhemerism to classical mythology, characterizing the Olympian gods as the final generation of the human elite in a prehistoric Atlantean empire established by colonists returning from Mars. The city of Atlantis is located in a dry Mediterranean basin isolated from the Atlantic by a dam at what would be the straits of Gibraltar. Their technology functions on the basis of broadcast power generated from radioactive "orichalcum" and transmitted from the "Tower of Bab El." In the course of the novel, an uprising among the Atlantean vassal states leads to the doom of the empire and Atlantis itself.

The book offers a typical assortment of Edgar Rice Burroughs-style fantasy-adventure tropes, and the prose reads something like a superhero comic from the early 1960s (when it was indeed first published). The character interactions must have seemed "modern" to mid-twentieth-century readers, but now read as dated and provincial. Paleological megafauna feature in unpersuasive ways, as the Egyptians have pterodactyl cavalry, and saber-toothed tigers roam the Mediterranean wilderness.

Twenty-one numbered chapters and an unnumbered "L'Envoi" tempted me to consider whether the tarot trumps might have been used in some way to structure the story, and I concluded that they were not. Most chapters have epigraphs, about half of which are from Plato's writings on Atlantis. These don't really elevate the tone of the story or lend it any real sophistication, but they do make it seem as if the author was perhaps taking it a little more seriously than it deserved.… (more)

This novel first appeared in the July 1951 Startling Stories (says ISFDB), but I am reviewing its 1961 Avalon Books hardcover version. The public libraries I frequented as a kid stocked lots of these small, hardcover titles from Avalon, many of which have nostalgic associations for me.

So, long ago humans escaped a dying Earth and settled the planets around Alpha and Proxima Centauri. Their civilization is centered on the Memory Bank, wherein citizens periodically deposit their memories, keeping only those of the most recent 90 years. The deposited memories no longer reside in their heads, just in the Bank. The process extends their lives indefinitely; there are numerous 1000-year-old, youthful, second-generation Centaurans around. This serene, highly developed civilization is threatened, on the one hand by the sinister, telepathic, never-seen Siriuns (sic), who demand ruinous trade terms, and on the other hand by human barbarians, later arrivals from Earth, who raid the Centauran planets for...well, women, mostly. The Centaurans can't quite manage on either front.

You see where this is going, right? After much strife, the Centaurans, eventually led by young Merek, who is a mere 50-year-old at the book's beginning, end Bank deposits in order to stop forgetting useful experiences. They recover strategic memories from the Bank, ally with the barbarians and other more recent Earthly immigrants, and defeat the Siriuns.

The various spaceship duels, land battles, giant-ice monster hunts, barbarian swordfights, tedious Council meetings, political betrayals, Siriun telepathic brain-invasions and the like are told in the breezy, 1930s-American wiseguy voice so common in mid-20th Century SF, deemphasizing the impressive body count.

In between battles, Merek weighs emotional attractions to two women: the tall, raven-haired, agressive, barbarian warrior Iskra, who goes about her frozen homeworld wearing only a fur kilt, and Marian, the 1000-year old, blonde, coolly-intellectual, chiton-clad head of the Memory Bank. The one who finally wins his love is...OK, let's not always see the same hands, class. The sexism here may not be as bad as you'd expect - both women have agency - but it's still pretty bad. The one Centauran woman we meet who has been kidnapped to be a bride is plainly well-satisfied with her vigorous barbarian husband, so we're not to worry about that issue, evidently. Sexual references are veiled, since most science fiction at midcentury was intended for 13 year old boys. From the character descriptions, everyone is white, cis, and straight. Mention of a long-ago bayonet charge against the aboriginal inhabitants of one Centauran planet is tossed off as an aside at one point. I note that modern SF&F stories are much more commonly inclusive along racial and other dimensions.

I like to note examples of what Cordwainer Smith called the Great Pain of Space. Here, the Centaurans dislike using hyperspace travel because it hurts. As a spacecraft enters hyperspace, the corridors fill with green mist, and the crew suffer muscle spasms and hallucinations; some die during the trip.

No need to enumerate the various scientific inaccuracies; not that sort of story. It does occur to me that West's Memory Bank may have been meant as some sort of metaphor for economic relations. Deposited memories/wealth as a dead weight on society? ...Nah.

I'm giving this an extra half star for sentimental reasons, but unless you share those, or you're an SF&F scholar, I can't see why you'd read this book.… (more)

No excuse except nostalgia for reading this, a book I read probably just when it was published in 1962. There were large parts I didn't remember, turns out, and I don't think I had quite, at age ten or eleven, acquired the skills properly to decode plots. At the time, that effect made books seem mysterious and wonderful.

Like many titles published by Avalon Books in the 1950s and 1960s, this is a fix-up, or compilation, of related stories published at various times from 1931 through 1962, mostly in the 1950s. They comprise an episodic novel, more or less, about the early exploration of the solar system. The plot is inconsequential, having elements of planetary romance in adventures on the Moon and a jungle-covered, habitable Venus. The story looked forward to futuristic dates from 1969 through 2069.

The main lesson to draw is how greatly writing standards have risen in science fiction over the decades. Also, I was struck by how goofy some of West's ideas now seem. Written before anyone actually flew in space, this story employs the minor trope that I think of as "the great pain of space" -- the phrase from Cordwainer Smith, the idea that space travel would be harmful in ways that we now know it isn't. West assumed that low or zero gravity would discombobulate the human system in severe ways. The members of the first circumlunar expedition are paralyzed by gravity's absence, and later travelers must hibernate between Earth and Venus. In the 1/6 G at the Moon's surface, people get by - but do much better when music is played in the corridors to help them coordinate their muscles. Scenes with people dancing through the colony, to foxtrots and tangos. A pursuit by foot is speeded up as the music changes to "The Campbells are Coming." I don't think modern SF television has quite caught up with West's vision in this regard.

Venus, where incorrigible criminals are sent, is what you'd get if you explained libertarianism to a seven-year-old boy. By law, partnerships and cooperation are forbidden, although murder is fine if you can get away with it. However, if you rob someone and take his gun (mostly "tommy-guns", everyone has one), you must leave him with another weapon.

West is a bit shakey on some of his science. In trajectory to the Moon, sensed gravitational acceleration in the spacecraft falls off gradually, reaching zero only near the Moon. In one place, West seems to suggest that the natural logarithm of 2 might be changed. No.

Some of the dates don't seem quite to line up properly either, a plotting problem.

I was also reminded of how society has changed since West wrote. Hitting a 14 year old to get her to attend to her studies is presented as a reasonable thing to do, and a source of light comedy. Sexism isn't as great as in some era stories, but it's there; as was common, the female lead character is of the "spunky" variety.

In the end, the gang bosses of Venus are defeated and a bright new age dawns.

I can't possibly rate this, but can't recommend it for most readers.… (more)