Casey Agonistes and Other Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories

by Richard McKenna

Contents:
Casey Agonistes (1958)
Hunter, Come Home (1963)
The Secret Place (1966)
Mine Own Ways (1960)
Fiddler's Green (1967)

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Collections, Speculative Fiction

212 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1966

About the author

RICHARD MCKENNA was born and raised in the small desert town of Mountain Home, Idaho. In 1931, at the age of eighteen, he enlisted in the United States Navy and served for ten years in Asia. Two of those years were on a Yangtze River gunboat. During this time he heard many firsthand accounts of the 1925-1927 Chinese Revolution which he put to use in The Sand Pebbles.

Mr. McKenna, a machinist's mate, served in World War II on a large troop transport operating on all oceans, and stayed on through the Korean War on a destroyer. In 1953 he retired from the Navy after twenty-two years of service and entered the University of North Carolina. He received his degree in English in 1956, married one of the university librarians, and settled down in Chapel Hill to become a writer. He wrote short stories for the Saturday Evening Post, Argosy and other magazines. The Sand Pebbles was his first novel.

Mr. McKenna died unexpectedly from a coronary in 1964.

Reviews

[Olethros · Rating 4 out of 5]

-Más literatura que género, o al menos desde las perspectivas más comunes de lo que llamamos “género”.-

Género. Relatos.

Lo que nos cuenta. El libro Casey agonista (publicación original: Casey Agonistes and Other Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories, 1973) es una recopilación de trabajos cortos del autor que se aproximan a la ciencia ficción y la fantasía, dos de ellos publicados después de la muerte de Mckenna (como la propia recopilación). Con introducción de Damon Knight, nos permitirán conocer lo que un militar encuentra mientras busca uranio para un proyecto, ciertos ritos de madurez, las decisiones que toman unos náufragos, lo que ven unos enfermos terminales y la lucha contra la biomasa de un planeta cuyas especies vegetales parecen invencibles.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

https://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com...

[Isidore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Primarily remembered as the author of The Sand Pebbles, McKenna's writing career lasted only ten years, and he had just attained mainstream success when he died at fifty-one.

He started out writing fantastic fiction, and never wholly abandoned the genre. "Casey Agonistes" was his first published story.

I first encountered "Casey" many years ago in a Judith Merrill anthology. It moved me to tears. His first published story? Unbelievable.

Well, I'm now a more hardboiled character than I was in my 'teens, and it still strikes me as quite powerful. Today, however, I can also appreciate the finesse with which he makes the story's almost absurd premise work. I don't like giving away a plot, so I will just say that it's about a group of men in dire circumstances refashioning reality in order to make it bearable. The boundary between real and unreal blurs into non-existence.

The other stories in this collection are, for the most part, less stunning, but they're all remarkably inventive, and most share an appealing sweetness and gentleness which must have been core aspects of the author's personality.

In the novelette "Fiddler's Green" McKenna returns to the same premise which underlies "Casey", but develops it so extravagantly, and with such an abundance of clever ideas and outlandish imagery, that you almost suspect him of showing off. It's a complex tour-de-force which deserves to be much better known.

"Hunter, Come Home", with it's exploration of the conflict between machismo and sensitivity, probably emerged from McKenna's long years of service in the Navy, which he joined as a means of escaping the Depression. It's not hard to imagine McKenna himself as the main character, torn between the aggression and brutishness of his peers and his own tentative, carefully hidden love of beauty and delicacy of feeling. He does a nice job of projecting all this into a science fiction context, although some of the scientific exposition is awkwardly introduced.

"Mine Own Ways" takes "Hunter" and turns it on its head. Here the masculine rites of passage are, if anything, glorified, although the narrative is so compressed that I'm left uncertain of the author's intent. This is the only story in the book I would describe as a misfire; even so, it's lively and intriguing.

"The Secret Place" won McKenna a posthumous Nebula award. The location and nature of the titular secret place, when finally made clear, is breathtakingly unexpected, but somehow I don't feel McKenna successfully builds up to his big revelation. It's definitely an impressive story, but not as powerful as it should have been.

Altogether, I get the impression that McKenna was potentially a major fantasist, cruelly cut off just as he was fully mastering his craft. Despite a certain unevenness, this collection is well worth tracking down. I've read that the recent reprint edition has major textual flaws, but copies of the 1973 or 1978 printings aren't too hard to find.

[Joachim Boaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full Review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...

"Richard McKenna (1913-1964) spent the majority of his adult career (1931-1953) “not very happily” in the US Navy. He was forced to leave college and join the service due to his lack of opportunities in rural Idaho during the Great Depression. Many of his science fiction stories explore the homosocial world of the military–the comradery through shared trauma and battle, the corrosive [...]"

[Oscar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Desde hace tiempo tenía ganas de leer este libro. Me llamaban la atención tanto el título como la edición, en tapa dura, pequeña y manejable, de la antigua editorial Minotauro. Al autor, Richard McKenna, no lo conocía y los relatos incluídos tampoco, aunque son muy admirados por algunos grandes autores, entre ellos Robert Silverberg y Damon Knight.

Richard McKenna empezó a escribir bastante tarde, a los 36 años, y será recordado sobre todo, a parte de por sus relatos, por 'Los granos de arena', libro en el que rememora su vida como marino.

A continuación, voy a desglosar uno a uno los cinco relatos que componen 'Casey agonista', incluyendo entre paréntesis mi nota, del 0 al 5.

CASEY AGONISTA (1). En un pabellón de enfermos una serie de personas, apáticas, están esperando que la muerte las libere. Es entonces cuando uno de ellos les cuenta su secreto, que puede ver a Casey, un mono que le hace la vida más alegre al ver como martiriza (sin que lo noten, por supuesto) a médicos y enfermeras. Este cuento trata de cómo cambiar la realidad, la percepción sobre lo que nos rodea a través de la autosugestión.

REGRESA, CAZADOR (1). A un planeta totalmente dominado por una "raza" de plantas, llegan los miembros de una cultura que necesita restaurar sus costumbres. Es un relato algo flojo para mi gusto.

EL LUGAR SECRETO (2). Este cuento tiene varios puntos en común con el primero, ya que la realidad acaba distorsionada por una ilusión. El protagonista recuerda los años que pasó durante la guerra como ayudante en unas perforaciones en Oregón, donde un chico murió a causa de un cristal de uranio.

MI PROPIO CAMINO (1). Sin duda, el relato que menos me ha gustado. Es una historia extraña, en la que unos "antropólogos" son sometidos a unas pruebas de iniciación para ser hombre, por parte de un pueblo de otro planeta.

EL DORADO (2). Este relato tiene ciertos paralelismos con 'El lugar secreto', ya que la percepción de la realidad juega un papel importante. Ocho náufragos se encuentran en un bote, sin agua ni comida, y están decidiendo si echar a suertes el que uno de ellos se sacrifique para alimentar al resto. Es entonces cuando Kruger les propone una idea a primera vista inverosímil: que mediante hipnosis colectiva todos acaben creyendo en una isla de tal manera que acaben depertando en ella.

Resumiendo, la verdad es que me esperaba más de este libro y de su autor. Los relatos que más me han gustado han sido 'El lugar secreto' y 'El Dorado', pero no creo que volviese a releerlos. Quería resaltar el prólogo de Damon Knight, que mediante cuatro pinceladas, es capaz de darnos a conocer a este desconocido, al menos para mí, Richard McKenna.

[Syd Logsdon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of most of Richard McKenna’s science fiction, but I will focus on Hunter, Come Home. McKenna was a force in the science fiction world, but only for a sadly short time before his death. Outside the SF community, he is known for his best seller The Sand Pebbles.
Here is a brief, spoiler-free summary of Hunter, Come Home.
Mordinmen are descendants of a lost Earth colony which has fought a generations long war against the dinosaur like creatures which inhabited their planet. Manhood has become symbolized by the killing of a dino, but now the dinos were scarce and poor men can no longer afford a hunt. To solve this dilema, Mordinmen have now claimed another planet and are setting about to destroy its native ecosystem in order to rebuild it in the image of their home planet. Hired specialists, the Belconti biologists, are providing the virus-like Thanasis used to destroy the native life.
When the story begins, the fight to transform this new planet has been going on for decades, and it is failing. Now the Mordinmen, against warnings by the Belacaonti, are about to unleash newer, harsher, more dangerous plague on the planet
Hunter, Come Home is beautifully written, full of human passions, and insights into cultures in conflict. On publication, it was far ahead of its time in its appreciation of the importance of ecology. Clearly it is a five star work, as is the title story Casey Agonistes; some of the other stories are weaker, hence the four star rating for the collection. For a full review, see http://sydlogsdon.com/2016/05/11/147-...

[Zeke171 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice collection of 5 short-ish stories from an author that i had only heard of from an old sci-fi guide that I have. The 1st story, Casey Agonistes gave me a slight "catcher in the rye" feel with it's funny "in your face" writing style. A funny and sad story, very good. 2nd was Hunter Come Home which I also thought was very good. I would bet money that James Cameron got some of his ideas for his planet Pandora, in the movie Avatar, from this story. 3rd up was The Secret Place which won a Nebula. While I liked the story, I felt the 1st 2 were better. 4th was Mine Own Ways, a story of 3 men and their wives who are on an alien planet to build a hyperspace relay. The men all get dragged into some strange alien rituals and things get messy. A decent read but probably the least notable of the 5. Lastly is the longest story Fiddler's Green. This was a weird one and had an old school writing feel to it. I liked it but also had a "what the hell just happened" moment at the end. All in all, a really good collection of stories. These were written between 1958 and 1967 and I would have to say that the author was way ahead of his time. Well done.

[Diego Prado · Rating 5 out of 5]

in-cre-í-ble.
el dorado es una pieza de locura lógica sin comparación.

[Daniel Philpott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of well constructed sci-fi short stories is poorly named. With sci-fi books almost any deviation into the fantastical is automatically labeled fantasy. This book would have been more aptly titled "and Magical Realism Stories".

It was a great surprise to pick up what should have been some sci-fi stories by a lesser known author and discover what were instead stories investigating the human condition along sci-fi themes. The tales range from masterfully written dense text on dying to a rambling consideration of the world we construct around ourselves. Richard McKenna doesn't hew to a shared universe in these stories. The stories vary in context from a modern day tramp freighter to a planet of biological unity. He uses magical realism to explore death and immortality, transhumanism and shared consciousness, the personal and the epic.

If you have the chance this short book is well worth the time invested in exploring it.

[Philip Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

The part of Richard McKenna's oevre covered by this volume falls into two classes: rather undistinguished mainstream science fiction, which places humanity painfully at odds with an indifferent universe, and a sub-category which places individuals painfully at odds with an indifferent world, and constructs varyingly extravagant means by which they escape from their travails purely by an effort of will, either by introducing their own adaptations to reality ('Casey Agonistes') or transitioning into a separate 'bubble universe' whilst in extremis ('The Secret Place'; 'Fiddler's Green').
The latter category is, for me, by far the most interesting and thought provoking: well written, absorbing and raising more than a few things to ponder.
The others, such as 'Hunter, Come Home' and 'Mine Own Ways' are, frankly a bit of a slog., but overall the collection is well worth diving into.

[N. M. D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rarely buy a book solely based on the cover. The inner contents have to sound at least interesting enough that I might one day read the book. I found this one while browsing an eBay seller and I loved the David Schleinkofer cover, which made promises of melancholy on alien worlds, and I'll always check out a short story collection.

There are only five stories in this collection, ranging from social SF to magical realism. The last one, Fiddler's Green, is almost 100 pages long. All of the stories feel grim, sometimes playfully so, but usually with hopeful endings. There's a strong literary flare. None of these stories is simply straightforward. They're all thick with meaning and metaphor. Several involve the thin line between imagination and reality, and the two becoming one. Many are about what it means to be a man, and all the protagonists are men. The female characters are thin but not unbearably so. They're like background elements.

The Nebula winning story The Secert Place was a little underwhelming. The story that's depicted on the cover, called Hunter, Come Home, with its pro-enviromental anti-terraforming slant, was my favorite.

Richard McKenna died at only 51 years old, just six year after beginning his writing career. Most unfortunate, because there were the inklings of a great and illustrious career here.

[Eddie Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only read Hunter, Come Home.
Not bad.

[Regine]

Powerfully empathetic.

[Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Score is fore "The Secret Place"

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I were putting together an anthology of the best fantasy stories from the middle of the Twentieth Century, "Casey Agonistes" would definitely be included. It's a wonderful story, far and away my favorite in this book. I don't think it has dated at all.

Richard McKenna had a fascinating life. He enlisted in the Navy at eighteen and served for twenty-two years, through both World War II and the Korean War. In the early 1950's he left the Navy and went to college. He met the woman he married there; she was a librarian at the college. He began writing, starting with science fiction and fantasy short stories. He then wrote an excellent non-genre novel, The Sand Pebbles , which was published in 1962, to considerable acclaim. He died suddenly in 1964; he was only 51.

Three of the five stories in this book share the same central premise, that shared imagination can bring changes. In "Casey," men in a TB ward share an idea about an ape, whom they name Casey, who comes to the ward and interacts with them. In the Nebula-award winning "The Secret Place", a World War II soldier becomes part of a shared experience begun by a young woman and her late brother. "Fiddler's Green," quite a bit longer, is about a world entered by seven men, drifting in a small boat without any supplies; later others enter this world as well.

Another long story, "Hunter Come Home," is science fiction rather than fantasy. It deals with a world with a very different biology, and is largely concerned with what makes a male adult human a "man." The fifth story, "Mine Own Ways," is entirely about the question of what constitutes manhood. I question the premise, but it's a pretty good story anyway.

McKenna was an excellent writer. Even someone who doesn't ordinarily like science fiction and fantasy might enjoy this book, at least in part.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a blast from my past - stumbled upon while retrieving other books (see the Wild Cards). This was one of the first science fiction books I bought while still finding my way. it was part of a large consignment of books which I bought on face value (I was as much knowledgeable about the artist who did the front cover as much as I knew about the author), and it because part of my introduction to the world of science fiction short stories. It is hard to describe the stories without giving them away - they are of interest but nothing really stood out for me - it was more the genre and the style of short stories which really stood out for me

[Variaciones Enrojo]

Edición argentina de la novela de McKenna.

[Phil On The Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can't remember the stories themselves, but I just thought the cover was so cool.