EMPIRE by H. Beam Piper

TITLE: EMPIRE
AUTHOR: H. Beam Piper
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Collection
FORMAT: Paperback
PUBLISHER: Ace Books, New York, 1981 (ISBN: 0-441-20557-7-250)

CONTENTS:

• Terro-Human Future History Chronology
• Introduction, by John F. Carr
• The Edge of the Knife
• A Slave is a Slave
• Ministry of Disturbance
• The Return (with John J. McGuire)
• The Keeper

Last time out, I featured FEDERATION, the first of two collections gathering together the short fiction of H. Beam Piper's classic Terro-Human Future History cycle. This time it's the turn of EMPIRE, the second collection of stories set in that future history.

The book starts with an excellent three-page chronology of Piper's Terro-Human Future History, put together from dates, events and other data spread over all of Piper's short fiction and novels. This is followed by yet another fascinating and detailed ten-page Introduction by Piper scholar John F. Carr, which gives a lot of useful additional details on the future history as related in the five stories in this collection.

The five stories in the FEDERATION collection are from the earlier phase of Piper's Future History, whereas the five stories in EMPIRE cover the later stages of that Future History, with the exception of The Edge of the Knife, which is unique in that it is set in the more contemporary timeframe of the early 1970s, pre-dating the formation of the Federation, and thus placing the story effectively outside of the future history itself.

I haven't read this collection for years, but I have fond memories of The Keeper, Ministry of Disturbance, and The Edge of the Knife, although I remember very little about either A Slave is a Slave or The Return (which are lined up for a much-needed re-read in the not-too-distant future). If they turn out to be even half as good as the other stories, that will be the cream on top of the cake, as far as I'm concerned.

The Keeper, in particular, is very moody and atmospheric, and is one of my favourite Piper stories, in my opinion bettered by only Omnilingual (I've always found it funny that my two favourite stories in Piper's Future History chronology are, by their positions in that future history, the very first, Omnilingual, and the very last, The Keeper). The Keeper allows us the only available brief and tantalizing glimpses into the mysterious far future of the Fifth Empire, and is also the only known story written by Piper which is set beyond the end of the First Empire. The rest of the existing Terro-Human Future History Chronology doesn't go beyond the First Empire, which makes The Keeper seem strange and out of place compared to the other stories, until we accept that it is the only surviving proof that Piper intended to write other stories extending his future history far into the distant future.

Aside from the few snippets of background information contained in The Keeper, we know absolutely nothing about Piper's plans for developing the details of these distant far-future eras of his chronology. According to Jerry Pournelle, who had a lot of contact with Piper back in the day, he had certainly planned something much bigger. Pournelle has always asserted that he had seen Piper's folders full of extensive notes and details of a much longer and more complex future history chronology. Tragically, those notes were lost after Piper's suicide, and all that we're left with is a big bunch of "maybes" and "what-might-have-beens", only too aware that the future history material which (fortunately) still exists in print, as good as it is, gives us only a tiny portion of the greatness that might have been.

As it stands, EMPIRE is a strong collection, and already contains at least three of my favourite Piper stories, plus the excellent chronology and introduction. And as such, it's definitely well worth adding to any aspiring SF reader's bookshelf.

Yet another very good H. Beam Piper collection.

FEDERATION by H. Beam Piper

TITLE: FEDERATION
AUTHOR: H. Beam Piper
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Collection
FORMAT: Paperback
PUBLISHER: Ace Books, New York, 1981, ISBN: 0-441-23189-6-295)

Contents:

• Preface, by Jerry Pournelle
• Introduction, by John F. Carr
• Omnilingual
• Naudsonce
• Oomphel in the Sky
• Graveyard of Dreams
• When in the Course-

The book starts with the brief Preface by Jerry Pournelle, a short but fitting tribute to Piper and his writing. This is followed by the lengthy twenty-page Introduction by John Carr, which is a much more detailed and even more fascinating essay on the life and writings of Piper.

The five stories themselves are from H. Beam Piper's acclaimed TerroHuman Future History cycle, one of the most complex and detailed future histories in science fiction literature. This collection, Federation, is made up of stories from the earlier stages of that Future History, and a later collection, Empire, completes the stories from the later part of the cycle.

There are certainly some very good stories in this collection, but the stand-out for me is definitely Omnilingual, which I first read a long time ago, way back in my teens. Along with He Walked Around the Horses (which isn't in this collection, and isn't part of the Future History), this has always been one of my favourite pieces of SF short fiction, and I regard both Omnilingual and He Walked Around the Horses as his two best short stories.

As far as I'm concerned, the collection is worth buying just for Omnilingual alone. But the other four stories are nothing to turn your nose up at either. This is H. Beam Piper we're talking about here, and he simply did not write bad SF stories.

Very good collection.

A Couple of Classic Alternate History Stories

[I]'ve recently come upon an unusual (but nice) little paperback anthology of alternate history stories, OTHER EARTHS edited by Nick Gevers and Jay Lake. I'll talk more about that one at a later date.

Strangely enough (well, maybe not so much for me), finding this anthology started me on a major alternate history trip, sending me off on an expedition to dig out of the vaults some of the best examples of classic AH in my admittedly large collection of SF books. I've just finished re-reading two of my favourite classic alternate histories, and these two stories are a perfect example of just how good AH can be.

The first is the magnificent novelette, He Walked Around the Horses, written by one of my favourite-ever SF authors, H. Beam Piper. The story was first published in the April 1948 edition of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, but I first read it back in 1982-1983, in the anthology THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION, edited by Kingsley Amis, which is also where I've just finished re-reading it. It is set during the Napoleonic War, when a British ambassador to her European allies takes a step sideways into an alternate reality where Napoleon never made it big, there is no war, and the political and military alliances in Europe are quite different from those in "our" world. This world's alternate version of the protagonist leads a different life altogether, and, understandably, the authorities in this alternate reality consider "our" protagonist to be some crazy guy, so he's locked up.

The second story is the excellent novella The Summer Isles, written by one of the best SF authors in the UK, Iain R. MacLeod. I first read this little gem back in the October/November 1998 edition of ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE, and I've just re-read it in MacLeod's excellent short story collection, BREATHMOSS AND OTHER EXHALATIONS (2004). This is a sensitive tale of a forbidden homosexual relationship, set against a background of fear, paranoia and deadly political skullduggery. It takes place in an alternate 1930s Britain, in a reality in which the Allies lost in World War I, and the Germans were obviously victorious. In this reality, it is, ironically, Britain which has become the repressed fascist dictatorship, and not Germany.

Both stories are exquisitely written, and examples of the best of the genre. They're the sort of story you can show to even mainstream literary snobs without fear of them ridiculing you, and they are also the type of story that the pretentious "mainstream literary wannabies" within SF itself can't even begin to criticize. I don't believe in any of the elitist bullshit that these people hold to - a good story is a good story, irrespective of genre. And keep in mind that SF isn't merely a "genre", it's a "state of mind", a meta-genre, encompassing many other sub-genres. Alternate histories represent one of the many "respectable" faces of SF, a sub-genre with (in the vast majority of cases) no spaceships, laser guns or BEMs, just mankind and the "human condition", and a lot of history, mixed with a big dollop of "What If?" that really gets the speculation flowing. And one of the main fundamental pillars of SF has always been "What If?"

In my "mundane"/non-SF persona, I'm an historian. I've always been fascinated by history, its mechanics, and its possibilities, its futures. And I've also always loved SF. So mixing the two in the shape of alternate histories was always going to be a winner in my book. The two stories above are among my favourites, but there are so many other great alternate histories out there that I can't even begin to list them all. Go track them down, take your pick of a few of the recommended ones, and read some of the best stories that SF has to offer.