Lloyd Biggle, Jr.Critiques

An average 1970s SF book from a decent author. Biggle's books are always OK but not great. My favorite is still "All the Colours of Darkness".

I like some of Biggle's books. The ones he writes about the agents of Interplanetary Relations Bureau are a bit dull. This is one of those.

So, a sequel, but not really. I read the first book and I have a quick write-up on it on LT -- interesting plot that then meanders and then hard stop throw-up-you-hands ending. I didn't really like it overall.

I said in that review that I didn't know how they were going to do a sequel, and this really isn't. It's a whole separate story with separate characters and ideas, really only bringing over the central idea from the last book but then using it in a completely different way, although still a follow-on to the events of the last book.

This book is actually written by the author's friend -- Apparently and sadly, Sherred had a stroke and discontinued writing but his friend and fellow writer Biggle finished this book for him. And by finish, I'm guessing mostly write including most of the plot and characters. And man, what a difference. I like Biggle a lot and this book reads like a Biggle book from beginning to end.

This book would fit right in as a long form Star Trek story. Like most of Biggle's works, it is thoughtful, interesting, and fun to read. People solve problems through ideas not just action. I liked it a lot.

I have read and liked a couple of Biggles novels. This is a collection of short stories and I lost interest in all of them.

A fun light-hearted take on the natives vs. modern culture theme. The law as 'attorneys face off with URLs in front of a master computer' is typical of the often humourous sometimes thought-proking concepts thrown around.

A weak sequel to All the Colors of Darkness. In the first novel, there was one set of aliens, and, for 60s SF, they were relatively alien. Here, there are half a dozen alien races and they all sound like humans, with cocktail parties and the rest. The setting of the first novel was the Moon. The setting of this novel is galactic. But our hero -- and his senior citizen tough as nails companion -- have no trouble acclimating. It's that annoying lack of concept of scale, where one galaxy invading another is like two countries at war,, and one human can deal with this, as if such a thing for a country would not be overwhelming, much less a world, or a planetary system. And worst of all, the resolution of the core mystery of how the invasion is happening is both hard to credit and has been in-your-face for at least half the book.

Not objectionable but nothing to recommend.½

A slightly dated but enjoyable lightweight SF novel, the first in the Jan Darzek series. Interestingly, Jan is introduced in the second chapter. The first chapter and nearly half of this short novel features an engineer named Ted Arnold. Ted is fairly colorless, so it's not surprising that Darzek returned for future stories, despite knowing no science. Instead, he is a classic detective -- observant, unflappable, and occasionally slightly annoying. The initial setup is more like a locked room mystery -- how are people disappearing in transit in a new teleportation system when there's only here and there? The book has dated when it comes to portraying women, business, and aliens. The feeling is more 1940s than the book's 1963 publication date, with a whiff of Heinlein.

Recommended for lovers of classic SF.

Lloyd Biggle Jr. tackles the thorny issue of apartheid and the marginalisation and harassment of ethnic minorities in the format of a breezy mystery set in the art world. Unfortunately the text is overlong and dull characters fail to draw the reader into the story.

Biggle is not only an outstanding mystery writer, but the author of superb science fiction.
This Holmes homage is one of the best I've read. I almost got the right culprit, but for the wrong reasons, by depending on only the obvious clues.

Some enjoyable short story speculations on the nature of art and music from a futurist perspective.

Based on the short story Monument (Analog, 1961; rpt. in Analog 1) .

Water-damaged.

Based on a short story from Analog, 1961

bello, bello. consigliato

This is not set in the Jan Darzek universe, instead being set in contemporary (as at the time of writing) times (at lest mainly). As the book opens we meet Bowden Karvel, who's a disabled vet who becomes the main witness to the titular event as a... something comes crashing out of nowhere, sweeping through the bucolic American countryside in a spiral of catastrophe that looked to end up at the nearest air force base. Thankfully this doesn't happen but the destruction is fairly impressive all the same. Getting himself involved in the investigation Bowden comes to the conclusion that the devices is some form of time machine. not unreasonably, the general conclusion is that its come from the future but the device disappears before it can be tested. When a similar device appears in the French countryside, Bowden an a friend make their way to see what they can there - not too much as it happens but Bowden sees enough of the destruction this device made to see that the spiral was the other way round this time. A third appearance give Bowden his chance to try out the device himself, very well protected this time against the pressures that were thought to have killed the occupant found squished all over the insides of the machine this time.

After a number of adventures, first in the far future, where Bowden finds a society almost as devolved as HG Wells' Time Traveller but he manages to make his escape into an equally far distant past where he finds the original owners of the time machine - a group of aliens who had become marooned in the dinosaur infested past and it takes all of Bowden's persuasion to get them to put much effort into helping themselves to escape. In the end Bowden (cured of his disability in the far future) is left to consider his future...

Although it's fairly action packed, this isn't a particularly conflict filled book, with much of the action coming from Bowden's internal struggles over his future paths, first as a disabled person then a 'jaded' traveller.½

Quando si dice la sorpresa: questo vecchio Cosmo Argento a firma di un autore ormai dimenticato si rivela un piacevolissimo intrattenimento grazie a una notevole inventiva e a un ritmo coinvolgente che sa ponderare l’azione con attimi più riflessivi. A dir la verità, l’inizio non è che prometta benissimo, con il suo sguardo ironico ma di maniera sulle gerarchie militari combinate con le intrusioni dei servizi segreti in un insieme che rispecchia gli anni Sessanta in cui il libro fu scritto: bastano pochi capitoli perché ci si alzi di livello, in pratica già dalla spedizione con vacanza in Francia del protagonista affiancato al suo amico barman, per poi acuire definitivamente l’interesse quando si inizia a pendolare avanti e indietro nel tempo. Il viaggio temporale è un argomento scivoloso e Biggle dimostra di maneggiarlo con ammirevole misura descrivendo prima una società del futuro basata sulla specializzazione, la proprietà privata e la possibilità di commerciare qualsiasi cosa, inclusi gli esseri umani – in filigrana c’è forse la critica alle multinazionali coerente con il periodo – e in seguito trasferendosi nel Triassico a sfuggire ai dinosauri in compagnia dell’equipaggio di una nave aliena. Il barile a sei zampe di questi ultimi e le corporature alte e snodate, nonché glabre, dei terresti a venire sono funzionali assieme al tentativo riuscito di delinearne una psicologia precisa così da appassionare alle loro vicende non meno che a quelle di Bowden Karvel, un ex pilota dedito all’alcool (un incidente gli è costato una gamba e le missioni spaziali) che finisce un po’ per caso al centro della vicenda. Dalle sue parti, un oggetto misterioso compare dal nulla scatenando una forza distruttiva a spirale: appare evidente che possa viaggiare nel tempo, ma l’extraterrestre alla guida è spiaccicato e i comandi incomprensibili. Inavvertitamente, quello per ripartire viene trovato, ma poco dopo il coso riappare in Francia facendo un altro macello: Karvel si offre per provare ad andare nel futuro a bloccare ulteriori invii del letale mezzo di trasporto. Quando infine riesce a intendersi con i pronipoti, capisce di essere andato nel senso sbagliato, così, non prima di aver fomentato la rivolta terrestre contro gli altri mondi che sfruttano il pianeta-madre, ecco il grande salto all’indietro fino a incontrare gli smarriti Hras bisognosi di uranio per tornare a casa. Il finale interlocutorio per il protagonista è un ulteriore pregio di questo romanzo di genere le cui molte virtù riescono a non far quasi sentire l’inevitabile obsolescenza della parte scientifica per un passatempo con un alto tasso di divertimento.

When the Council of Supreme met for Interstellar Trade Day, Jan Darzek was startled when Eight, the Councillor for Uncertified Worlds, admitted he needed council - something it was better at giving than requesting. When Darzek tried getting more information from the Councillor, he finds him unusually evasive and after he'd got the promise of a meeting out of the councillor, Darzek is startled to find that Eight had gone missing. He's even more worried when he learns the councillor had gone on a mission to Kamm, the world he had raised concerns about but when the being doesn't return he's worried enough to make his own way to Kamm. But with only limited training and background knowledge Darzek is startled to find that virtually all the members of the team of watchers assigned to Kamm have disappeared. Darzek has to uncover the mysteries behind Kamm's death ray before it became known to Central where it would trigger an automatic death sentence on the world of Kamm.

Although this doesn't have the laughs of most of the Darzek books it held me in suspense as I read it and I liked the description of Kamman life and societies to the degree we get to see such.

When a junior astrogator reported the presence of a new sun, he (species equivalent) little knew what he was going to let loose on the galaxy. Soon First of the Council of Supreme was investigating reports of a person who should have been dead but was apparently flitting about the galaxy at will, and a planet that had been threatened with destruction by being turned into a star. What do these things have in common? Jan Darzek, and his faithful sidekick Miss Schlupe, found himself running round Vezpro trying to find someone who could prove that the observed phenomena could have, indeed, happened. Along the way we have pops at established scientific theory and other vested interests, including a pointed comment on the treatment of 'the other' in contemporary society along with Biggle's customary dry humour.½

AS First Speaker of the Council of Prime, Jan Darzek finds himself in a neighbouring galaxy where planetary civilisations are being destroyed in an almost straight-line of destruction that is heading straight into the Home Galaxy. But Darzek is suffering from all the cares of the worlds that his position had laid on his shoulders (and only a single pair of those at that!!). When asked for help, Prime tells all those concerned to meet on the previously unheard of world of Montura, a planet dedicated to trade by those members of the Small Magellanic Cloud who don't have transmitter technology. Prime also suggests that a member of Darzek's own race be hired to aide them in this dangerous mission. Effe Schlupe, his former companion in crime, now seventy five but bored solid on Earth, readily joins Rok Wllon when he comes for her but she realises that her skills aren't suitable for this particular mission and Supreme determines that a struggling Doctor by the name of Marlina Darr is recruited for the traditional million dollars. A fair bit of the book covers Dr Darr's adaption to galactic life and the struggle to keep control of her children.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel that Mr Biggle is as involved with this novel as the first two though some of the writing has it's moments of the humour that makes his writing such fun.

As a major shareholder in Universal Transmitter Corporation and having so successfully found out who had been sabotaging its start up, Jan Darzek need never have worked before but he's a PI at heart even if his heart is not really in the job anymore. And not even he realises that his case was a lie, implanted memories given him to hide the even more fantastic truth. The Galactic Council of Supreme has become aware of a situation that is leaving a wide band destruction travelling with an arrow-like direction and speed towards the galactic council's home world, the planet of Primores housing Supreme hand its Council and they want help as quickly as possible so Darzek is approached by a gentleman going by the moniker of Mr Smith and in an effort to ignore the demand to take on the case, Darzek declares he would undertake this mysterious case for the princely sum of a million dollars in notes so when a lorry load of boxes filled to the brim with notes arrives at his office he considers himself hired in a case that will see him and his secretary travel far further than they could imagine.

Darzek and Miss Schlupe, his elderly but still deadly have to save a galaxy from an enemy that most of its citizens refuse to acknowledge exists in yet another fast moving story of the Galactic Synthesis.

This might not be one of my all-time favourite books but it's still right up there. Written in the early 60s (it's older than me!), it's set in the then future of the 1980s.

When a tech start up determines that there has been sabotage of their technology demonstrators their CTO calls in his best friend and private investigator Jan Darzek to look into it. What Jan finds out is that the saboteurs are in fact aliens rather than Earthbound miscreants. It appears that there is a galactic federation that has a watch station in the Solar System making sure that Earth doesn't develop transmitter technology, along with a number of other things. When Universal Transmitting goes operational, an inexperienced team leader panics and authorises the acts of sabotage and disappearances that had attracted Darzek's attention. Following a suspect through one of UT's transmitters he finds himself on the moon and in a fit of panic he destroys much of the alien base, leaving the observers and himself stuck in a cargo bay with limited life support. As they all prepare to meet death in their own fashion Darzek gains a deeper understanding of the aliens (not that he really understands it - they are alien after all!). All this is brought to a head when a Transmitter equipped moon base is established in the crater where the alien base had been and Darzek has to persuade the aliens that they can all get out of their situation without revealing themselves to the humans.

Inevitably bits of the book now sound dated but we're more than 30 years after the proposed date of the action, not to mention over 50 from when it was written! Unfortunately, many of the attitudes it goes in to are still problems these days

Another good SF book by Biggle. I'm surprised I had never read his books years ago. He is one of the better classic SF writers that I've recently discovered.

This book starts out in the present (1960s) and is a bit slow. Stick with it. Things start to get better after couple of chapters and the last half is a fun read.

In my quest to review Classic SF I've discovered some pretty good writers with whom I was not familiar. Lloyd Biggle Jr. is one.

This book is decent 60s SF. I enjoyed it more then I expected. It's my first Biggle book and I will look for more. I give average books three stars. This one gets 4 because the author surprised me with a couple of good twist.

Interesting. Terminal patients are displayed for the entertainment of persons requiring 'emotional therapy', who watch their suffering to supplement an otherwise emotionally empty life. Meanwhile picketers champion the right to die with dignity, and some of their number work with the hospital's director of security to kill them painlessly with barbituates.

(from OMNI, November 1978)

RE-read this prior to giving away a second copy. Biggle does a great job of social satire, and this one is quite satisfactory. A fun movie could be made of it. Pokes slyly at businessmen, diplomats, anthropologists, and romantics.