The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish

by Jack Cady

A man possessing the power to make objects disappear leads the fight against the deadly secret organization, Mobilier, devoted to gaining control of the world

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1983

About the author

Winner of Nebula, Phillip K. Dick, World Fantasy and Bram Stoker awards.

Obituaries:
in Seattle PI
in Peninsula Daily News
in Seattle Times
from Komo News

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

{He} might be the world's most powerful man, but he was also the world's most ethical man. An impossible combination.
—p.27

I've been a fan of Jack Cady's oeuvre ever since running across "The Night We Buried Road Dog" in the January 1993 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, so I was happy to pick up on Renee's recommendation of The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish. In Dale Bailey's Introduction to this short novel, he describes Cady's prose as "muscular." That's... yeah, it's a good adjective to use—although it's not the only one that works. The phrase that comes to my mind, at least, is... grizzled wisdom. Cady's narrator Jake is an old man, a sawdust sage who's seen it all, done at least half of it, and wasted his breath trying to talk younger men down from trying the other half. And since I'm more than a little grizzled myself, more salt than pepper with every shave or haircut, Jake speaks to me. He makes me want to emulate his spare but lovely voice...

If I was not careful I would end up a lonely old man.
On the other hand, if I was careful, then it probably meant that I already was a lonely old man.
—p.44

Written in 1983 but set in 1991, The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish is definitely speculative fiction, but even so it's grounded in inescapable reality. And although the conceit embodied in this novel's title is a comic-book idea, its execution is most certainly not. This book seems entirely unlikely to become the basis for any cinematic universe.

Perhaps Cady did not see the precise shape of the future, but his forecast of its general direction was entirely accurate:

The new class was insanely rich. It was more vulgar than old-time Texas oilmen. The new class had every mechanical toy that a dying civilization could provide. It owned automobiles that were longer than a man's nightshirt, yachts that looked like converted destroyers and sometimes were; and that class ate steak for breakfast while the cities starved.
—pp.109-110

And,

For thirty years, no, more like forty, the nation has gotten more ugly and stupid.
—p.62

How many years does this make now?

This review is, I've realized, mostly going to be quotes from the book—after all, Cady's inimitable voice is the real draw here.

Maybe all people are always alone, but in middle age you know it. The young dreams and young friends are gone. The parents die. If you have brothers and sisters, they have moved someplace else. When this country was mostly agricultural that did not happen. Now, in the cities, even families are fragmented.
—p.77

I looked at the gun. When I was younger I knew insecure guys who could not live without one of these. I am willing to bet that there are still a lot of these buggered hunks of steel wrapped in soft cloth high in people's closets. Of course the poor bastards dream of using them.
—p.81

At this point it might be fruitful to interject the recent results of a computerized analysis of what the Founding Fathers, and other writers at the time, really thought about well-organize militias: Of course...

It seemed like there was a world conspiracy to keep me from getting some sleep.
—p.93

Yeah, I know that feel too, Jake...

Well, if this is to be the end of human society on this planet, then I am glad to be alive and observant, though I would rather it did not happen.
—p.134

Yeah, I know that one as well...

On the other hand, Cady's (or Jake's) views on pacifism do leave much to be desired... several times in The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish, he refers to pacifists as "killers"—or at least as people who end up getting others killed. I would like to think that Jake's at least somewhat misinformed on this point... although it's not easy to argue with him, especially when Jake goes into full-on prophet mode. The section labeled Counterattack is nothing less than a jeremiad:

You are not exempt, you businessman, you bureaucrat, you pablum-brained housewife chatting banalities of Johnny's first and soon to be his last word. You senators pompous and grave, you presidents and judges and spellbinding preachers who will look to the sky or hear deadly and quick the last sounds of this planet squalling.
You have my curse. I curse you with thirty seconds of extra life. Thirty seconds of exquisite suffering as you look at what you have done.
Oh, creatures of smoke. Do not say that you love your children.
—p.184

And then, after that, things fell apart, because... well, because of course they do, but also at least partly because making things vanish is a purely subtractive power. If all you can do is make things go away, then you can only destroy, never build. I've written a bit on that theme myself, in fact.

The other factor is Cady's (and, to be fair, many others') understanding that, ultimately, it is not power that corrupts—humans are corrupt, and having power just amplifies that trait.


Clearly, this edition of The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish was a labor of love—it's but one of a series of Jack Cady works republished by Resurrection House, a small press operating in the scintillating commercial hub of Puyallup, Washington. They're doing good work here, by preserving and promoting Cady's work... and I for one can see and admire the strengths in Cady's prose that would inspire such loyalty.

[Renee E · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm working my way through Cady's catalogue and this one is completely different in every way. Hot, righteous anger roiled from it, almost palpable. It shook me like a Terrier shakes a varmint. Holy gods, Cady must have been gripped in the jaws of a powerful anger when he wrote this — or been serving as the mighty jaws of that powerful anger.

And it served this story oh, so well. Elemental.

It is almost frightening to realize this story was published in 1983 . . . before Cheney, before Haliburton . . . before . . . .

Horrific.

Horrifically good.

You know the people who are his story, too. The ones who are quietly extraordinary, people who have essentiality, whom others overlook, who are drawn together to make, not a family, something more essential — a tribe.

And, once again, Cady discards, breaks, warps and contorts conventions and creates his own literary law, and it is as clear and sharp and nourishing as a the cold waters of Yosemite before man ever left the first footprint.

[Christjan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Port Townsend Mystic

This was a new find for me. Being a Jack Cash can a felt remiss in not knowing about this book.

If you're not familiar with Jack Cady's style you'll be confused for the first half of the book. As you find out that his writing changes for each character if will begin to gel.

Science fiction meets gothic mysticism meets Pacific Northwest is the best way to describe this book. Feel like Cady's, The Off Season, should be read before this one. Cheers.