Philosophical Gas		Editor:John Bangsund
Autumn 1974		Number 27

RUSSIA AND THE WRITER

As I write this. Alexander Solzhenitsyn is very much in the news. Like most people I was greatly relieved to learn that the penalty for his ‘crimes’ was merely exile and not a return to the forced-labour camps or a sojourn in a psychiatric hospital. I am sure that all of us hope that his many true Mends in the Soviet Union are not made to suffer for their loyalty; a rather hopeless sort of hope. I admit, although some of them, Dr Sakharov especially, seem to be of such standing that even the KGB handles them with kid gloves.

May it stay that way.

Not so long ago my wife and I were discussing Russia. It was shortly after one of our masters, whose ship had been loading grain in a South Australian port, had told me about a cocktail party thrown in that port by the master of a Russian vessel, the guests being the local business community and the captains of the other grain ships.

My friend had managed to get his host by himself in a corner, and over several glasses of vodka, had compared notes. He discovered that in Russian vessels the sacred margins are maintained. In pay and in conditions there is a great gulf between the master and his officers. Also the master’s powers have not been steadily eroded over the years by industrial courts and the like, as they have been in this country and in other capitalist countries.

I said ‘As a shipmaster I’d be far better off in Russia - and as a writer I’d probably finish up in the salt mines!’

Mind you, politics can work against one in the Western World as well as on the other side of the Iron Curtain, although the worst that can happen to you is not selling. I am still amused by what happened to a story I wrote many years ago, called ‘Artifact’, It was about the first American Mars landing - all very much according to von Braun - and the discovery by the astronauts of what they at first think is a fair-dinkum Martian. The Martian turns out to be the offspring of two Russian cosmonauts. survivors (briefly) of an unpublicized Russian expedition to the Red Planet. The present regime in Russia has crumbled shortly after this expedition failed to return, and the new rulers have more important matters on their plate than astronautics.

Well, the story sold at once on the British market. It was a long time selling in the USA. According to my agent, the American editors just refused to entertain the idea that the wicked Russians could possibly be first on Mars. Then the first Sputnik was launched, with the consequent shakeup of American thinking. ‘Artifact’ was promptly purchased by Amazing (who, for some obscure reason, retitled it ‘The Last Citizen’).

I don’t know whether or not this story has ever been published In the USSR, but I have been surprised to learn how much of my work has been printed in that country - all of it, unluckily, before the recognition by Russia of the Bonn Convention. Before this recognition Western authors were paid for their work, of course, but the moneys earned had to be spent in the Soviet Union. There were, as a matter of fact, loopholes - as there are in all laws. One prominent British writer, whose works sold very well in Russia, discovered that, legally speaking. Indonesia was somehow part of the Russian currency empire. (It was in the days when Russia was playing Big Brother to our northern neighbours.) Once a year he and his wife would blow the accumulated royalties on a holiday in Bali.

It was fairly recently, however, when I learnt personally of the fear that is always at the back of the minds of everbody in Russia engaged in literary enterprises, no matter how minor. It was when my Russian Faithful Reader (I may have more than one, but he’s the only one who writes to me) asked me if I would give him permission to translate one of the stories in THE HARD WAY UP for his university magazine. He also asked which one I would recommend.

My choice was ‘The Tin Messiah’ (also published in Galaxy as ‘The Soul Machine’). You may recall the thing. In it the young Grimes, captain of the Survey Service’s courier ‘Adder’, has as a passenger a humanoid robot, a Mr Adam, who (or which) has been manufactured by the Federation for the sole purpose of stirring up revolt among the robots on a planet that happens to be in the Federation’s bad books. At one stage of the story Grimes wonders if the driver of the train which brought Lenin, in the famous sealed carriage, to the Finland station ever foresaw the consequences of merely taking a passenger from point A to point B. The question was raised very briefly, in just one short paragraph.

And it scared my penfriend. He said, frankly, that he didn’t like to think of the consequences to him if he used that story, even though in it I had said nothing at all unkind about the Little Red Father. He translated instead ‘With Good Intentions’, the first story in the collection.

Funnily enough I had that same story, ‘The Tin Messiah’, knocked back in this country. It was when Angus & Robertson were collecting the material for their third anthology of Australian science fiction. They turned down ‘The Tin Messiah’ and took instead ‘The Mountain Movers’.

Mention Lenin and you don’t sell in Russia. Mention Ayers Rock, and you sell in Australia. I think I prefer our way of doing things.

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PRESENT SHOCK

Unfortunately Mr Tofler has already used ‘Future Shock’ as a title. The main point of his book is that the Future is on us before we’ve had time to adjust to the Present, and that this is a severe shock to all those who do not read science fiction. For example, every sf reader has been aware for years that the supplies of fossil fuels are far from inexhaustible, and that Mankind has been squandering mineral wealth like a drunken sailor. But to the vast majority of the general public, the Energy Crisis has come as a Toflerian shock, and people in the part of the world most affected are standing around wringing their hands and intoning dolefully ‘The End has come.’ But the essential truth of what Abraham Lincoln almost said should have been glaringly obvious for at least the last thirty decades: that you can fuel some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fuel all of the people all of the time.

The people most susceptible to Future Shock are also those most incapable of reading the lessons of history. I am writing this at sea, so I do not have my reference library at hand, but I think I am right in saying that the first nuclear fission weapon was produced, from scratch, in a very short time. It was strongly suspected that both the Germans and the Japanese were working on such devices and if the Germans had been able to marry a nuclear warhead to their V2 rockets, the course of history would have been changed. The Manhattan Project was a damn-the-expense operation. At the time of its initiation there was no know-how, scientific or industrial; there was only Einstein’s famous equation. Techniques had to be worked out hr the separation of the essential isotope U235 from the far commoner U238. The job was done, with time to spare. Perhaps this was a Bad Thing, as affairs have turned out since - or was it? Without the threat of The Bomb, an only slightly updated version of H. G, Wells’s WAR IN THE AIR would have been all too possible, bringing with it the collapse of civilization.

Not a very great effort would be required to cope with the Energy Crisis - but the effort would require an American President more like the late Franklin D, Roosevelt than Richard M. Nixon. Some readers might remember his CCC - Civilian Conservation Corps - that was set up to solve the problem of unemployment during the Great Depression. Workers, skilled and unskilled, were conscripted to do jobs that badly needed doing, but which private enterprise had refused to tackle because there wasn’t enough profit in it. If FDR were in charge now he would have long since begun to recruit technicians and mechanics from the slowing-down factories of Detroit.

The main thing to bear in mind is this; when there is no oil, for any reason whatsoever, it is not necessary to invent, a new power source. There are energy sources that have been used ever since Man decided that the hard work could be done by machinery. A sailing ship is a machine, after all. Oh, I’m not saying we should return to the days of sail. Our knowledge of aerodynamics has grown considerably since the heyday of the windjammers. But even in those days it was only the Norwegians who used wind power to its full extent. Other seamen, seeing a Norwegian vessel, would make disparaging remarks about ‘the Norwegian ensign’. This, easily seen from other ships, was a small windmill on deck. Non-Norwegians obliged to pump bilges would do so by hand - a back-breaking job - or, if their craft were so fitted and if the Old Man sanctioned the squandering of precious coal, would start up the steam -driven donkey engine.

But there are other ways of using wind to drive a ship as well as sails, no matter how well designed and beautifully cut. In the late l920s or early 1980s the Germans experimented with the so-called rotor ship. I remember passing one of the things at sea, and she was an odd looking brute. Unluckily, not much technical information was made available, but as far as I recall, the rotors were fluted, vertical columns which in any wind at all rotated, driving a generator which supplied the electricity to drive main and auxiliary machinery. Such a ship could steer directly into the wind. A square-rigged ship could not come closer to the wind than about 6 points, or 70°. A fore-and-aft rigged ship could come closer - 4 points, or 45°.

On the same voyage that we saw the rotor ship we saw Graf Zeppelin making one of her commercial flights to Rio de Janeiro. (At the time I was an apprentice in a coal-burning tramp steamer.) Dr Eckener, then commanding Graf Zeppelin, was one of the greatest airship captains of all time - if not the greatest. On one voyage to South America all four diesel engines broke down. Eckener juggled ballast and buoyancy to find a fair wind, and by the time his engineers had the engines fixed he was almost there. You can’t do that sort of thing In a Concorde or a jumbo jet...

Quite a while back I was flying from Sydney to New Zealand by Qantas. It was shortly after the Qantas pilots’ strike over the unreliable radio navigation and ground approach aids at Djakarta airport. I spent most of the flight in the front office, yarning with the crew. Inevitably we talked about the recent strike. The Qantas captain said to me ‘When you’re in trouble you can go full astern and let go both anchors. I can't.’ In an airship you could.

I have written at far greater length on the subject of airships in another magazine (Ark 2: Ron & Sue Clarke), so cannot carry on without repeating myself. But I will say this again; Why burn fuel to proceed from point A to point B and to stay up, when you need burn fuel only to proceed from point A to point B? I hope that the Energy Crisis will mean a return of the airship to most of the passenger and freight routes. Apart from anything else, it will mean a great reduction of atmospheric pollution.

Wind power, as I have said above, can be and has been used for driving both surface ships and airships. It has been used for the generation of electricity for a very long time. Towards the end of World War II there was a quite feasible scheme for covering the surface of the British Isles with wind-driven generators, sophisticated wind turbines rather than primitive windmills. It never got off the drawing board. It would have annoyed too many vested interests - on the Left as well as on the Right. Hell bath no fury like a trade unionist who sees his job threatened. (All right, all right, we’ve all come in that category, myself included.)

In the same way the Severn Barrage scheme - tidal power - has been jammed by vested interests for many, many years. Since well before World War II, Messrs Parsons, the turbine people, have been waiting for the go-ahead.

The production of methane gas from organic refuse is not new. The sewage plant at Bondi has been burning this fuel in its own generators, supplying the power hr its own pumps and lights, for years. Solar power is not new - and why should we need any other energy source when that enormous atomic furnace is there in our sky, a mere eight light minutes away?

Unfortunately, before the alternative power sources are fully exploited there must be a period of inconvenience, and in less lucky countries than our own, actual hardship. But in the not-so-long run we shall benefit. Time and time again, arriving at Sydney, I have been obliged to grope my way in through the smog - and I remember well the beautifully clear air and sky over the city during the last oil strike. The atmosphere of a city should be like that all the time.

I foresee (said he, going out on a very fragile limb) the smaller, economical cars driving the fuel-bogging monsters off the road. I foresee those same cars having their engines modified to burn natural gas, or methane, or (the perfect, pollution-free fuel) hydrogen and oxygen obtained by the electrolysis of water at the solar power stations. I foresee the return of the airship, from the small, handy blimp (such craft would be ideal for coast patrol and air/sea rescue work) to huge passenger-carrying dirigibles. After all, helium is relatively cheap now - and neither ‘Hindenburg’ nor R101 would have come to such spectacular and tragic ends had they not been hydrogen filled.

I foresee screams from the conservationists about the covering of thousands of square miles of desert with solar power screens. Frankly, I’ll probably do a little screaming myself on that point, but admit that it would not be too high a price to pay for a smog-free atmosphere and independence from both the Western oil companies and the Arab oil kings.

I foresee an increasing use of wind power, both ashore and afloat.

And there is one power source the use of which I do not foresee, although I have been meaning to work it out and make use of it in a story for quite some time. Imagine a ship rolling heavily. Visualise the enormous number of foot/tons (or metre/tonnes?) ((joules?)) involved in such motion. Couldn’t all that kinetic energy somehow be utilized for propulsion? Perhaps. But that, I fear, is rather less practicable than the diesel cannon I have worked out but haven’t got around to using yet.

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RUNNING OFF THE RIM

All good things - and bad things - have to come to an end some time. It is just possible, however, that Commodore Grimes has not retired, although he has been sent on his well-earned long service leave. Whether or not I bring the old bastard back remains to be seen.

Not so long ago I typed the magic words THE END at the bottom of the last page of a 70 000-word Grimes novel. I hope it sells. I always feel that there’s something missing from my own life if any Grimes adventure falls to see print. Apart from THE BIG BLACK MARK, the story just finished, THE WAY BACK which is a follow-up to THE DARK DIMENSIONS, has yet to find a purchaser.

THE BIG BLACK MARK had to be written. Just what did happen to cause Grimes’s resignation from the Federation Survey Service, followed by his emigration to the Rim Worlds? (Of course, in one of the many alternate universes he didn’t resign, and lived out his life as the commanding officer of an utterly unimportant sub-base on a very dreary planet...)

THE BIG BLACK MARK has all the answers, of course. It finishes with Grimes, inextricably in the cactus, wondering if the Imperial Navy of Waverley would take him and coming to the conclusion that they most certainly wouldn’t, and deciding that Rim Runners, If they happened at the time to be short of officers, just might...

So...

So what do I write now?

Do I make the transition (it shouldn’t be hard) from sea stories thinly disguised as science fiction to sea stories that are just that?

The trouble is that I like science fiction. I always have, and always will. A sea story has to be really outstanding (and there was only one Conrad) before I can finish it. Usually when reading one I come across something that indicates the author’s ignorance of nautical matters in the very first chapter, and that puts me off, One of the few laymen who could write convincingly about the sea, seamen arid ships was Forester. Another, surprisingly, is Paul Gallico.

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE is a book that I had no intention of reading. In most of his stories Gallico’s goodies exude far too much sweetness and light for my taste. But various friends In the USA asked my opinion, as a shipmaster, of the novel - so I bought a copy, and almost didn’t get past the first chapter. Here. I thought, were all the stock Gallico characters - the tough cop with the heart of gold, the lovable old Jewish couple, the charismatic radio priest who is also an outstanding amateur athlete. But I got hooked, mainly because Gallico, quite early In the book, made It clear that his opinion of the personnel of flag-of-convenience vessels is at least as low as mine. Here I will digress slightly to put readers not familiar with maritime matters in the picture.

In ships sailing under respectable ensigns all the officers hold real qualifications - certificates gained after undergoing quite tough examinations. It must be realized that at sea, as in any profession requiring qualifications, there are quite a few people whose only real ability is that of passing examinations. Nonetheless, our certificates are not purchased from the nearest friendly neighbourhood consul of some banana republic.

‘Poseidon’, in the book, was an ex -British passenger liner running cruises under a flag of convenience, The main reason for her instability was the incompetence of her Master and his officers. In the book, the officer of the watch, seeing what looked like a solid wall on the radar screen, attempted to turn away -which was, I admit, a natural reaction, especially since no warning had been given about the submarine volcanic eruption and earthquake.

In the film, ‘Poseidon’ was a passenger liner making her final voyage, on the way to the breaker’s yard, with a full complement of passengers. Her Master and officers were all quite competent - by Hollywood standards. But her new Owner was on board and refused to allow the Master to take measures to correct the instability, threatening him with Instant Dismissal if he did not carry on with the voyage. And that, regardless of the flag worn at the ensign staff, is absolute absurdity. Of course, the Owner could have said ‘I’ll fire you as soon as we reach port:’ The Master would then have sent a long radio message to whatever maritime union he happened to belong to, detailing the circumstances, and all hell would have been let loose on the hapless Owner.

In the film, ‘Poseidon’s’ Master and officers had received radio warning of the tsunami, and when they saw the wall of water on their radar screen they attempted to turn towards. but too late. And that mock-up of a radar presentation looked very unconvincing to anyone familiar with the Instrument... And in the film, much to my annoyance, the characters remained real Gallico characters to the very end, their hearts of gold shining through the begrimed tatters of their evening finery. In the book, they soon started behaving in a very un- Gallico-like manner, with the possible exception of the elderly Jewish couple. The charismatic radio priest revealed himself as an absolute phoney.

In the film, the priest’s party, which made its way to the shaft tunnel through the perils of the upside-down engineroom alone survived (apart from those killed en route). In the book, the final irony was that another party which had made its way towards the bows was rescued without suffering any casualties.

As you will have gathered, the film annoyed me. Special effects notwithstanding, it was infuriating to see a first-class novel so utterly ruined.

I have often wondered why people who make films about the sea and ships don’t go to the very minor expense of employing an expert to check technicalities. Recently ABC TV ran a BBC serial, ‘The Oneidin Line’. People tell me that it was good. It may have been, but I was put off it by a shocking anachronism that cropped up in the very first episode. It was about a sailing ship captain some time in the 19th Century who became an Owner! Master, as many did in those days. (Ships weren’t as expensive then as they are now.) Every shipmaster who appeared on the screen wore on his sleeve four gold bands with a diamond in the middle - and that Is today’s Standard Uniform, which was introduced after World War I...

A really prize example occurred in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. The people who made the film spared no expense in rigging up the characters in World War I uniforms, riding around in motor vehicles of suitable vintage (when they weren’t on camels), being bombed with little bombs by ancient-looking biplanes... and then, when Lawrence and his companions reached the Suez Canal, what did they see? A fairly modem Blue Funnel liner, complete with radar - and the big fat arse of a super-tanker vanishing round the bend! To maintain authenticity the film-makers should have chartered one decrepit tramp steamer for one day, given her one coat of grey paint and mounted a wooden gun on her poop. (Wooden guns were, as a matter of fact, used quite a lot in both World Wars when the real things weren’t available. They were alleged to have a certain deterrent value...)

And what does all the above prove? It proves that unless you are a Conrad or a Forester, capable of making technicalities fascinating to the lay reader, sea stories are best avoided by writers with a maritime background. Sooner or later there would be the temptation to refuse to let proper seamanship get in the way of the plot - and either one would resist temptation and write something boring, or yield to temptation and incur the scorn of one’s fellow mariners.

So sea stories are out. And much as I enjoy reading about the James Bonds, the Mart Helms, the Harry Lamberts and all the rest of them. I just don’t have the Inside knowledge of the shadowy world of espionage and counter-espionage possessed by the late Ian Fleming and his fellow spy masters.

A real novel?

Oddly enough, the idea has no appeal. I read real novels as well as thrillers. I read anything and everything, but somehow I’ve never had the urge, as a writer, to stray from my own well-trodden pastures.

Probably I'll finish up as so many others have done, selling my story-teller’s birthright for a pot of message.

(21.1.74:) 1 have retired to the naturist club to lead a virtuous life - alcohol is banned on the premises - and to make a start on the next novel. As far as the Rim Worlds are concerned, however, I fear that Commodore Grimes will not be going on his long service leave after all. The new editor of ‘If’ is demanding more Grimes/Rim World stories.

This may amuse you. As you may have guessed, I’m rather pro-Israel. I won’t say that I’m pro-Semitic, as there are so many Semites. the Moslem variety, whom I dislike. Anyhow, I was sitting on the edge of the swimming pool discussing Middle East politics with one of the lady members. She asked: ‘Are you a Jew, Bert?’ I replied: ‘You aren’t very observant. Rene.’

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© Used with kind permission of Susan Chandler and her agents, JABberwocky Literary Agency, PO Box 4558, Sunnyside, NY 11104-0558 USA. The "John Grimes" novels of A. Bertram Chandler are available in electronic form for your Palm OS handheld at Palm Digital Media. They are also available through the Science Fiction Book Club to readers in the US and Canada.
© www.bertramchandler.com, David Kelleher 2006