Cloud Chamber

by Howard L. Myers

Mark Keaflyn didn't want to be a space hero
He just wanted to stay alive!

Staying alive should have been easy in a universe where death had been conquered. But suddenly life had become very difficult for Mark Keaflyn.

First he was injected with a sense of humor that made him see everything as hilarious - even his own imminent demise. Then it was arranged that his ravishing lady-love turned into a 9 year old girl. Next he found himself on a planet that resembled a wax-work museum filled with legendary figures from Earth's distant past - only here they were all flesh and blood.

By now Mark could be sure of just one thing. The fate of the universe hung on his discovery of the nature of his unknown enemy, and the unsuspected truth about himself - in a strange and savage struggle that ranged from the outermost reaches of space to the innermost depths of the secret soul...

255 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1977

About the author

Howard L. Myers (1930-1971) was an American science fiction author, best known for his work published in Analog and Galaxy (frequently under the name Verge Foray) and his only novel, Cloud Chamber.

Reviews

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 2 out of 5]

Occasionally you come across an old book that is a hidden gem. This is not that book. Set in a future and a universe where reincarnation is the norm, as a human’s ego-field leaves at body death to inhabit infants, it follows Mark Keaflyn, investigator of Stabilities, strange fixed points in space about which all else seems to revolve. Against this universe is ranged the Negative universe of opposites, like charges, masses and motivations. When a Neg infiltrates Mark’s ego-field it begins a degradation of it that may lead to destruction of parts of the positive universe, which seems to be maintained by a kind of solipsism. A consensus of the living minds. Mark is now wanted as an instigator of Neg values, a subversive, and a destroyer, despite him being largely in control of himself. What profit there is for a Neg to destroy itself is never really made clear, nor is the amazing invention of superwarp speed by Mark. The whole book seemed like a game of Consequences where one author passes a new page to another to continue the story. It is rambling, hard to follow and mostly gibberish, particularly the ‘science’. The characters are cardboard cutouts that serve mostly to espouse the author’s odd ideas. Howard L. Myers should probably have stuck to shorter fiction, and this was his only novel.

[Marty Bruce]

it was a good read

[Bhakta Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was in college one of my favorite authors was Howard L. Myers, but I didn't know it because the stories of his that I admired were published under the name Verge Foray and the best two were published after his death (but the magazine where they appeared said nothing about his death). Thus when this novel appeared in my college bookstore a couple of years later I looked at it but did not buy it. I've only gotten around to reading it this year, almost 40 years later.

This book shares some ideas with the "econo war" stories Myers wrote, but does not take place in that universe. Human knowledge has advanced to the point that people can leave their bodies before death and transfer their "ego field" to a newborn, who will in time remember all his previous lives. Insanity is unknown, because the experiences that cause it can be released from your ego field. There are people alive who can remember thousands of years of previous lives. There are "stabilities", which are phenomena in the universe that never change and which provide continuity when an old universe is destroyed and a new one is created.

Unlike in the "econo war" stories, there are spaceships. There is no econo war, and nobody flies through space using devices implanted in their bodies.

Then there are the Negs. As the book begins, not everyone believes that these creatures exist, but the hero is being plagued by one of them. Negs are creatures from another, negative universe, and they can interfere with the lives of certain important figures in this universe to create a desired result in their own universe.

So the premise of this thing is pretty wild. It more or less straddles science fiction and fantasy. In the world of the novel religious beliefs can be proven, and what happens after death is not a mystery.

This was an interesting read, but not as enjoyable as his short stories and novelettes.