Men Like Rats

by Rob Chilson

Paperback

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

I was born at home in Oklahoma, after my mother spent part of the morning hoeing in the garden. It was a pretty old-fashioned family even for that time (1945) and place. My father was a scarecrow. We subsequently moved to California, where my memories begin. I remember the first flake of snow I ever saw. (It disappeared before I got a good look at it.) Since then I've lost track of snowflakes; we moved back to Missouri (my mother's natal state) when I was eight, and I have been a confirmed Midwesterner ever since.

I decided, about age six, that I wanted to be a writer. I even wrote a couple of stories. I concluded that I was not yet ready to be a writer, so postponed it until I was grown up. At age eleven, I concluded that I now knew enough to be a writer; for instance, I now understood improper fractions. I knew, of course, that I would rarely have occasion to mention improper fractions in my stories, but I argued that my knowledge of them indicated that I had acquired a great deal of other knowledge which I could use. A sophisticated argument for an eleven-year-old. (To this day I have never mentioned improper fractions in a story.)

Reviews

[James Seger · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gigantic alien race conquers the Earth to use it for… storage!?

Men Like Rats presents a world where the planet is covered with gargantuan warehouses (Lows) and cargo is moved back and forth via automated drop ships (Highs). Humans eke out an existence on the fringe, infesting the warehouses and ships like vermin. The setup reminded me of Rene Laloux’s strange animated movie Fantastic Planet with humans creeping among an outsized alien landscape that they do not comprehend. In Men Like Rats though, the aliens are offstage.

We follow Richer the Quick, a human who has been living on his own for a while. The book doesn't really have a single story. It's more about following Richer through the world Chilson has created. Exploring that world was pretty interesting. It appears that things have been this way for a long while, as the humans have already adapted their theology to explain the Cargo, the Highs and Lows and the reason their Creators provide so well, yet have seeded their world with traps and vicious beasts (which are actually intended as pest control). The entire human race (or what we see of it) has become a cargo cult.

I think the description could have used some work. He chose to write the narrative using the language of his characters. This gave the book a bit of a learning curve, which has been used to strong effect in other sci-fi novels, but I'm not sure it added to this book. When I started the book, I kept thinking, what is a High? What is a Low? What is a Middleplace Low or a Lowerplace Hole? I had such a hard time figuring things out that it drew me out of the narrative. Lots of the landscapes he writes about are so alien anyway; some nice concrete descriptions would have helped the reader connect to the book a little earlier.

Still, I did get into the book. There was a neat concept here, but it was a little too confusingly presented. However, if the premise sounds interesting I would say pick it up. It has issues; but at only two hundred pages, if you don’t mind spending a short time with a book where the premise outshines the story being told, it is worth a read.

[Addie Cook · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hate to say it, I really do, because I loved the concept the book started out with...
But this book is a nothing burger.
I'm sorry, I am, I wanted to like this book but I just feel nothing after finishing it. I think the book would have benefited from following a more consistent story and maybe not using the language of the characters to tell the story. I couldn't really set this book down and come back to it because I had to remember all the different names they gave the different upper and lower places and it just made my head hurt for a while. It is unique though, so I will add a star for that. And although it was quite boring and hard to get through, the fight scenes between the men and the monsters were pretty tense. So, yeah, probably won't pick this up again but at least the cover is really cool.
Overall 1.8⭐️

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rick meets young Loy after he had been Exed from his Low, an area of rich pickings in an enclosed dome for the production of food and equipment. Rick is from a more dangerous High, where he traverses Bales and Boxes of materiel, and the more deadly Cans. Highs and Lows periodically merge with one another to exchange goods. Roaming throughout are hunters of men (considered vermin by the human-like invaders) such as ferrets and Ogres. This book by Robert Chilson follows Rick and Loy from one perilous High or Low to another, until they reach the Outside. But always they meet treachery, sometimes by matriarchs protective of bloodlines, and sometimes by men, jealous of their success and strength. Mostly an episodic adventure tale, it still has its entertaining moments, but don’t look for any strict heroes and villians. The morality in Rick’s world is more pragmatic.

[Jimyanni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Concept: Earth has long since been conquered by some sort of aliens, probably large, certainly with highly advanced technology. Humans have been reduced to scavenging among the giant alien warehouses. They are beneath the notice of the aliens, except in the way that humans now notice rats among their supplies: attempts are made at pest control, but it isn't as if they consider us threats, just nuisances.

It's an interesting concept, although one only picks it up as one goes along, it's never spelled out. The story is told from the point of view of one of the characters, who obviously don't know much about it; too many generations have passed since the invasion for there to be anything more than myth explaining the state things are in. The real downside is that the terminology used to describe things is again, that of the feral humans, and is frequently difficult to parse out. (Except when it comes to ages, which are kept track of by number of days (sleeps) but which the author kindly translates into years parenthetically. It would have helped if he had followed the same pattern in regard to more concepts.)

[Robby S. Hunt · Rating 1 out of 5]

*Deep sigh*

I really wanted to enjoy this book. Loved the concept, but damn was it a slog to get through. For something reasonably short it took me forever to force myself to reach the end.

I enjoyed the main character Rick and his sidekick Loy, but the story seemed to waffle on through various phases without any consistent narrative thread. Towards the end things began to move at such a fast pace all of a sudden, that it felt like a whole book could've been written in the span of time between chapters. And don't get me started on one of the biggest cop-out endings I've ever experienced.

Cool cover art though, so at least there's that... (This is what sold me in the used bookstore where I picked this up for a couple of dollars)

[Charles · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this book when I read about it, but I just didn't think the story worked really at all. This is one of the few books I ever finished reading and immediately tried to trade in at a used bookstore for something else. Other's experiences might differ.

[Steve · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not good at all...incredibly bad. I finished it mostly to see what or who they enemy was. The author side steped answering that question. Unpardonable in my opinion. I despise authors that create mysteries and then refuse to provide a solution.

[David Wade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bizarre, bold, and original. Humanity has apparently *really* lost a war with an alien intelligence, and survives now only as scavenging vermin. A very under-appreciated minor classic.