This book plays out as a series of fractured narratives of different character groups—who are spread across the globe—as a planet turned into a spaceship emerges from hyperspace near earth, then eats the moon. This causes massive tidal strain, including death and destruction in coastal and low-elevation areas. It also causes personal changes in the people the narratives follow.
But the book never really finds its footing. Leiber focuses on the story, which could excuse much of this lack of footing, but it doesn’t for me. None of the groups mesh to me: they’re not informing some shared discussion of concepts, they’re not building the tension for each other in ways that seem intentional, and they’re not all converging on a central point for a big finale. There are no threads that show something interesting—a conversation about a concept carried through all these character groups. Nothing ties them together except the fact that they’re all reacting to the earthquakes, tides, fires, changed weather patterns, and new planet in the sky. And their responses also show an opportunity missed by Leiber: this could’ve been an interesting conversation about humans in extremes, but none of the situations or analysis is allowed to get enough depth to be fascinating or informative. Instead of and ensemble film where each character group informs the reading of the others, this was like a few different short stories cut up and interlaced, but going in different directions and discussing different themes.
“No, I don't think so, though I suppose vanity plays a part." He touched his beard. "No, it was simply because I'd found people who had something to follow and be excited about, something to be disinterestedly interested in—and that's not so common any more in our money-and-sales-and-status culture, our don't-give-yourself-away yet sell-yourself-to-everybody society. It got so I wanted to make a contribution of my own—the lecturing and panel bits.”
Part of the lack of depth comes from the ensemble cast and quick jumps between the groups of people. This book is made up of hundreds of snapshots of scenes, vignettes of story that aren’t long enough to develop depth. This type of fractured narrative can be done well—like when Iain M Banks draws all the character groups together for a final showdown where their differing opinions are given space to grow, then come together and explode. But it’s not done well here, partly because the jumps are so short, and partly because Leiber drops the ball on exploring any almost interesting idea he has.
Not for the first time, Richard reflected that this age's vaunted "communications industry" had chiefly provided people and nations with the means of frightening to death and simultaneously boring to extinction themselves and each other.
Leiber has no theme here, really. He may be trying to put in themes, but they all fail to reach clarity. The saucer students are surprisingly functional when led, but that’s not dwelled on. Paul opens his mind to new experiences, but this isn’t explored either because Tigershika spends so much time explaining the science fiction of the story. The poet is a passionate drunk; okay, I’ve heard that before, yet Leiber adds nothing new to the conversation. I'm not going to list them all, but each character group fails to pull out their theme in any meaningful way.
Intelligent life spreads faster than the plague. And science grows more uncontrollably than cancer. On every undisturbed natural planet, life crawls and flutters for billions of years, then overnight comes the blossoming, the swift explosion across the great black distances of seeds that grow like weeds wherever they fall, and then the explosion of their seeds on, on, to the incurving ends of the universe.
There are plenty of science fiction themes thrown in here, but these are dropped as quickly as Leiber introduces them. For instance, galactic politics reflecting human politics: an idea which isn’t given enough space or depth or uniqueness to be interesting, but which also doesn’t terribly inform the story outside of a deus ex machina. The reasons for the Wanderer’s existence and existence near earth interest me, but only because that story is the only thing happening in the novel; and not enough is done with it for me to be satisfied. Another idea deals with relationships between aliens and humans, yet it's delivered awkwardly (sex with a lady space-cat), and lack of followthrough takes the legs out from under it before it gets started.
Then had come three fleeting yet shockingly vivid flashes: first, a huge, tapering, greenish-purplish cat face; second, two staring eyes with incredible five-petaled irises around the black five-spiked stars of the pupils; third, a long, slim, hand-sized paw with narrow indigo pads and four cruel curving claws of translucent, violet-gray horn—he had the impression that they'd just been buried in the scruff of his coat, and maybe his neck, too, hastening him.
However, the book is written wonderfully. The intro chapters particularly hold my attention. Passages throughout the book are well written and beautiful. Leiber practices rhyme and consonance to create captivating sentences. I’ve quoted some of my favorites here.
In closing, the opening chapters left me wondering when he would leave off the fractured narrative jumping between the character groups, and dig into the ideas he left floating off, making them interesting. He didn’t. He just kept jumping around and missing opportunity after opportunity. It’s a book I will not read again.
