The Fenris Device

Hooded Swan #5

by Brian M. Stableford

Science Fiction. A very nice vintage collector's item. Number # UQ1147(130). Original price 95 cents.

Genres: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Fiction

156 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Brian Michael Stableford was a British science fiction writer who published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published under the name Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford. He also used the pseudonym Brian Craig for a couple of very early works, and again for a few more recent works. The pseudonym derives from the first names of himself and of a school friend from the 1960s, Craig A. Mackintosh, with whom he jointly published some very early work.

Reviews

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

DAW Collectors #130

Cover Artist: Kelly Freas

Name: Stableford, Brian Michael, Birthplace: Shipley, Yorkshire, England, UK, 25 July 1948.

Alternate Names: Francis Amery, Olympe Chambrionne, Brian Craig, Brian M. Stableford.

Grainger is a star-pilot on the Hooded Swan, working off a two-year indenture. His bosses insist that he land the Swan on the planet Leucifer V. With a name like Leucifer V, you know that's no cake-walk.

Grainger makes one attempt, but the atmospheric storms are too unpredictable and unsafe. He refuses to try again. His bosses insist, because this request came straight from the mysterious alien Gallacellans. The Gallacellans are a reticent species, but old and very powerful, and they want a human pilot to help them recover the Varsovien, an abandoned Gallacellan spacecraft stuck on the surface of Leucifer V.

Grainger has an alien consciousness sharing his mind. He calls it the wind. The wind and Grainger get along all right. Mostly the wind just stays out of the way, but he pops up occasionally with useful observations or bits of information. Handy guy, that wind.

The "Hooded Swan" series was written while Brian Stableford was a postgraduate student at the University of York.

Hooded Swan series:

1. The Halcyon Drift (1972)
2. Rhapsody in Black (1973)
3. Promised Land (1974)
4. The Paradise Game (1974)
5. The Fenris Device (1974)
6. Swan Song (1975)

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the fifth book of a series of six (I think!) science fiction books by Brian Michael Stableford, born in Shipley, Yorkshire, England (1948-2024). He was a prolific author and perhaps not as well-known as he should have been. I like his writing for his characters and the concepts in his stories. And one of my favorite SF series is his Daedalus Mission series.
This one is a story about Star-Pilot Grainger, the man with a double-mind. When he was shipwrecked on an alien planet, he was joined by a mind parasite. As the series progresses, the relationship becomes symbiotic... In this book, published in 1974, Grainger fails to make a landing on a hellish gas giant world. But it is important for the alien race known as the Gallacellans for the pilot to try again. They are the oldest starfaring race that humans have encountered. They are also very secretive and, while they seem very peaceful, Earthlings can't be sure what they're up to... Apparently, they left a ship on the gas giant, a ship that may have some sort of weapon, known as the Fenris Device. Grainger refuses to risk his life to retrieve the ship... until a madman hijacks his ship and forces him to return to the inferno...
A good story I thought--and at only 156 pages. You don't need 500 pages to tell a good story! So a nice fast read. 4 stars

[Darnoc Leadburger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brian M. Stableford delivers yet another satisfactory romp full of alien action and understanding in his fifth Hooded Swan novel, *The Fenris Device*. It doesn't quite fill the boots formed by its predescecor, *The Paradise Game* (the best of these books so far, in my opinion), but it does do the best job at exploring human-alien communication since the inaugural *Halcyon Drift*, and I think that in and of itself makes it worth your continued time. I could make some more critical grandstanding here, but since this is no one's first rodeo with Star-Pilot Grainger, let's just get on with the recap and then the juicy critique...

In true Stableford fashion, *The Fenris Device* kicks off in the middle of the action with Grainger piloting the *Hooded Swan* through a gas giant for his employer Chalot and the couple of alien Gallaceans whom Chalot has invited aboard since they're looking for something deep within this gas giant. But Grainger is unable to complete the absurdly difficult landing and must back out, angering Chalot. During their stay on a nearby half of a double planetary system, Grainger is confronted by both Nick (about whether or not he cares for others) and one of the Gallaceans (Ecydon, who serves as a translator for his master because it's insulting for a Gallacean to learn alien languages) before he picks up a distress call from elsewhere in the system. He takes the *Hooded Swan* - along with Nick, Johnny, Even, and Ecydon - to respond, but upon his and Nick's boarding, they realize it was a trap laid by a mentally ill man who thinks he can read minds in order to steal the *Hooded Swan* and take it into the nearby gas giant to find the same thing the Gallaceans were looking for: an ancient weapon called the Fenris Device (which no one believes could exist because everyone knows the Gallaceans are a fiercely pacifistic people) that he wants to use to destroy all humans on one of the system's two inhabited planets because he believes everyone on it mocked and scorned him. Grainger has no choice but to attempt the dangerous landing; this time, he succeeds, and the hijacker - named Maslax - takes him and Eve on the trek to the Fenris Device. But along the way, the wind inside Grainger tells him that the Gallaceans used to have weapons, and that there's a real possibility the Fenris Device is a real threat. How would he know? Well, because he used to be one...

This unprecedented glimpse into the wind's past puts pressure on Grainger after they find their way into the Fenris device, which is as big as a large city on the inside. Ecydon hints that not all Gallaceans want this device unearthed, and Grainger eventually does his thing where he puts all the pieces of a puzzle together and realizes that the Fenris Device isn't just a weapon; it's a generation ship! As they progress throughout the ship Ecydon dies in an altercation with Maslax, but by then the Device is in space and Grainger is able to take over from Maslax. The problem? They're being hailed by a Gallacean ship which will fire upon them if they don't get a response from a Gallacean, the Fenris Device will automatically fire upon and destroy any vessels which attack it (as previously seen), and their Gallacean just died so there's no one to warn the Gallaceans approaching. So the wind takes over Grainger and speaks in Gallacean (since he used to inhabit one, after all), to talk his way out of the situation and get them all rescued. But by the time they reach Charlot, Grainger is oddly affected by Ecydon's death and declares that he's done and wants to be bought out of his contract in return for dropping onto the surface of the gas giant and rescuing Nick, and Johnny. and the *Hooded Swan*. Charlot agrees and Grainger makes a miracle happen, only to walk out on everyone's lives...

This book is a Hooded Swan novel in every sense there is: it showcases a new dimension to human-alien cooperation (which we'll touch on in the next paragraph), the plot is very well balanced, and the characters have moments where they really pop off the page and interact with you. As far as the plot goes, Stableford is able to accomplish a lot in about 150 pages, giving us an engaging opening action sequence followed by some cool worldbuilding which is followed by another long action sequence with gradually picks up puzzle pieces which are assembled at the climax, only to get a genuine tide of falling action before a secondary climax (bolstered by the character moments in the exposition) which sharply leaves things off in a really good way for *Swan Song*. This plot is choreographed almost like a movie, but unlike books like the Expanse novels, that cinematic quality is granted by engaging and careful plotting rather than Hollywood-esque bloat. I don't know if everyone will get the same kick out of the character moments as I did, but the moments where Nick delArco and Grainger debate if the latter is really a good man are heartfelt and left me thinking, even if the previous four books and the effect of Ecydon's death on Grainger make the actual point they're arguing a bit too trite and moot at the end of the day; maybe it would've been better if the wind started having a say in this consistent moral pendulum? Regardless, this sets a final volume up really well, and the plot is more dynamic than most space opera you'll read.

But *The Fenris Device* doesn't just exploit Stableford's penchant for planning; it digs into his beloved world of human-alien cooperation with more focus than even the other four books in this book do thanks to the wind revealing his past as a Gallacean. His and Grainger's relationship is as consistent and rewarding as the previous volumes set up for, and while having a self-professed mind reader as the book's primary antagonist leans too heavily away from the Gallacean civil conflict and the theory that some factions are trying to reclaim the Fenris Device so they can escape the reach of humanity as we start encroaching upon their Core-focused civilization, the flavor does remain entrenched in the wind's past. Having the barrier of the wind's past break down between him and Grainger almost seemed like a final step in their evolution, and now you kind of wonder what all they'll be capable of. Little details like the Gallacean upper echelon needing lower Gallaceans to translate from human for them so their minds remain pure don't hit quite as hard as, say, the aliens in *Promised Land* creating secondary personalities to talk to humans, but they still augment all the flavor that the wind brings and make the whole act seem a little more cohesive than it could be otherwise.

That being said, for all this praise, I didn't find *The Fenris Device* the most memorable of the Hooded Swan books. It doesn't have that as large of a cast of characters as in *Rhapsody in Black* or *Promised Land* (although I think this is a better book than those two), and I just wasn't as engaged by it as I was in *The Halcyon Drift* or especially *The Paradise Game*. It's not as flavorful, even if there are certain things it hits harder than its older brothers. That's okay, but it is probably worth knowing before you dive into this one head-first.

All in all, since its well-choreographed plot is just a little behind all the flavor and color of *The Halcyon Drift* (which is an 8/10), *The Fenris Device* gets an 8/10 too. Some of these Hooded Swan ratings might deserve re-evaluation (maybe bump a couple of these books up to 8.5/10?...), but for now I'm happy with where these are at, and while I'm not happy that the series is almost over, I'm looking forward to *Swan Song* and seeing how Stableford can provide us with an emotionally and thematically satisfying conclusion. I have high hopes, and I think Brian can deliver. But I have to read a few other things before I can tackle that one, so... I think I'll be off. Thanks for reading, and hopefully, I keep convincing you to check these out and stick with em; anyways, I'll see you for the conclusion. Bye for now...

[Scott Shjefte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scott's Sesame Rating R2. 5th in series of Grainger - a man that shares his Brain with WIND, an alien mind parasite. Grainger is a space ship pilot who goes to a very wind torn up planet to recover an alien warship. but ... almost does not succeed.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best in the series since the original, largely because it delivers on the original's promise to explore interspecies relations through Grainger's cynical, narcissistic personality. It's also the most focused, thriller-paced, action-packed, and cohesive of the sequels, which helps with entertainment, but also puts more weight on the thematic work being done here. Stableford accurately predicted the 21st century personality in the 1970s, writing Grainger as brilliant and independent but jaded, selfish, condescending, cocooned in cynicism and irony to protect himself from the idiots around him - but also emotionally dependent on those same idiots for social interaction and sanity. It's a paradox that only gets more poignant as narcissism and technology bring us closer together and further apart.

The counterpoint to this is the villain introduced here, a man who feels only fear and hatred and so projects it onto the people around him. Grainger's struggles to overcome Maslax highlight the ugly solution to the above paradox: is the only way to better someone else to overload them with your own negative emotions? Grainger is one of the all-time great science fiction characters, and a marked contrast from the Mary Sues of the Golden Age and the shallow, vacuous cutouts of more modern works.

Overall, The Fenris Device is one of the best entries in a great series, criminally overlooked, but representing the best of what space opera can produce. Anyone who loves sf will like the series in general, and this entry in particular.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual, I started reading this before realizing it was part of a series - what is with these books that they never tell you this on the back? - and I do own the first two, but not the third and fourth. I got what was happening though, so it wasn’t a big deal.

To start, The Fenris Device is a quick, easy-to-follow, entertaining read that was actually quite a delight. But, in truth, there isn’t much to it. We have Grainger, whom we learn has an alien inside his head whom he can talk to Venom-style, is a space pilot, and is of an undetermined age (though from a few things he says, it seems he’s rather a grizzled older man versus a young dude). He just wants to get out of his space contract. He’s a pretty likeable character because he’s honorable, a bit grumpy but not a wet blanket, and is easy to root for. The other characters are quite flat, but it’s possible this is because they are from the other books. We get minimal background on them, but we don’t really need them for the plot.

The story itself is quite short and simple. The back makes you think it’s some sort of exploration/race to get to the planet, but instead it involves a hostage situation, an interesting ship, and some aliens. Also, a person who is out for vengeance. The tension isn’t really there and I could have used a lot more exploration of a certain ship, but it kept me engaged.

Where the story excels in the writing. For a 1970s book, it’s quick-paced, lacking in verbose carryover from the pre-modernist period, and the descriptions are lovely. I understand why Stableford is kind of a staple at used bookstores. I have a bunch of his books but this might be the first I’ve read.

Overall, if you want a quick little story with a decent plot, a likeable main character, and great writing, check this one out. Or maybe book 1 instead?

[James Hogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 5 in the Hooded Swan series...another classic sci-fi book here. And what a ride this was! I really liked this one - obviously I enjoyed the previous ones in the series too, but the few books before this dropped something that I had really loved in the first few books - namely, the spaceflight awe and wonder. Grainger's piloting in this book is marvelous to read...and yes, you'd think - what's so exciting about reading a man piloting a spaceship? To that I respond - you need to read this series. The last few books had a lot more planet-time (which was fun in and of itself!), but this book gets back to space. A great romp, this one sees Grainger and crew trying to land on a planet that is very not easy to land on, due to a very dense and messy atmosphere. I shan't get into the plot of this story, but it's serviceable enough. Again, the main glory of this book is simply reading about the tense beauty that is spaceflight. (Also there is one simply epic scene in which Grainger must ride in a metal pod - unpiloted!! - down to the planet surface...one of the most tense and epic scenes in entire series. Pure adrenaline. Pure gold)

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I pick up a battered old paperback SF from before I was born, I usually do it based on the absurdity of the cover, title, or opening line. (I believe it was the former of those, this time, and predictably enough the machine depicted bore no resemblance to anything in the book.)

I also start out with low expectations. I hoped, at most, for a campy swashbuckling tale, with some delightfully weird aspects thrown in if I was lucky. In this case, I got all that in full supply as well as actually a rather good plot, a female compatriot of the protagonist who is her own person and he simply respects and treats as a colleague, and really pretty decent writing. Quite a happy discovery!

[Mirko · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a case of having all the vital elements available but not quite coming together. Psychedelic, philosophical space opera with grand imagery and evocative characters. However, it was very hard for my attention-atrophied 2025 brain to keep track of what was going on. This could be because I started with the fifth book in the series but, in line with lots of vintage SF, I think it's more because the writing craft just isn't there. All that said, I would read Stableford again and would also try more in this series - those beautiful 1970s covers are like a siren song from an alien planet saying 'Read me, read me'.

[Paulo "paper books only" · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fifth book "The Fenris Device" begins with Grainger is ordered to attempt a difficult landing on the surface of Leucifer V, as part of a rare diplomatic request by the Gallacellans, one of the oldest known starfaring races. The planet's atmosphere is dense and extremely turbulent and even Grainger fails to land, and only barely manages to escape the atmosphere alive. While Grainger is recovering from the first attempt, they receive a distress call and Grainger goes to intercept (taking along those already aboard: Eve, Johnny, Nick, and a Gallacellan intermediary named Ecdyon)... but it turns out the distress call is a ruse by a crazy man named Maslax who is convinced he has the ability to read minds. Maslax sets a bomb on the Hooded Swan and threatens to detonate it if Grainger doesn't land on Leucifer V. Maslax wants the ancient Gallacellan ship that's been parked there, because he believes it contains an awesome weapon known as the Fenris Device. He wants to use it against the population of Pallant, as revenge for what he perceived as constant hatred and mocking for his size. Of course, everybody else knows that the Gallacellans have never used weapons, but Maslax is undeterred, claiming he read it in the mind of his former employer. The wind privately informs Grainger that, over a thousand years ago, the Gallacellans did use weapons, and had huge wars, before they decided to give up violence entirely. He knows this because, before encountering Grainger, his last host was a Gallacellan who crash-landed on Lapthorn's Grave about a thousand years ago. After an failed attempted to remove the detonator he eventually must attempt the landing, and he barely succeeds. Maslax takes Grainger, Eve, and Ecdyon in the Iron Maiden overland across the planet's surface to the location of the Gallacellan ship, only to find it's much bigger than expected, the size of a city. While trying to activate it, Maslax is startled when the artificial gravity shifts on (and shifts direction), and accidentally fires his weapon, seriously wounding Ecdyon. The group manages to activate the ship, but it's pre-programmed for a destination and begins to lift automatically. Grainger suspects it's an emigration ship, designed to take a whole population out of the galaxy. A police ship attempts to stop the vessel, but when it fires on them it's revealed that the ship does indeed have a powerful weapon... an automatic and purely defensive one, that annihilates any ship within range once it's activated... and they don't know how to turn it off. Grainger achieves to demonstrate that Maslax can't read minds and gets the weapon and detonator away from him. Unfortunately, Ecdyon is too injured to communicate with his people, and no human speaks Gallacellan... but by turning control of his body over to the wind, the wind is able to make himself understood. They are able to disable their ship and the weapon and arrange for a rescue, but in the process, Ecdyon dies. Johnny, and Nick are still down on the planet's surface, and neither of them have the ability to bring the Hooded Swan to orbit. Grainger officially quits his job, reincurring his full twenty-thousand debt. Then, he volunteers to make a difficult drop to the surface of the planet without a ship, in order to bring it back up and rescue the crew. However, he won't do it for free. He wants a salvage fee. He wants Charlot to pay off the entirety of his debt.Charlot agrees, and Grainger makes the drop and returns the Swan to the surface, and then leaves Charlot's employ to start a life of his own.

[Nik Morton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fifth in the Hooded Swan series (1974) by Brian Stableford. Spaceman Grainger is still shackled to the Swan and employ of its owner Charlot. He has been talked into taking the Swan into the hell of planet Leucifer V, the world the Gallacellans called Mormyr. It’s tricky, treacherous and his attempt fails. Plenty of fascinating convincing techno-gobbledegook as Grainger makes the attempt, his body and mind merged with the Swan’s controls. ‘I was really pounding the flux, because I needed all the shields up. Leucifer was a matter-dense system and you can’t go making tachyonic transfers in bad vacuum without a full complement of shields. As it was, we were bound to lose power when I went transcee…’ Why venture there? Some Gallacellans want to recover a spaceship that was abandoned over a thousand years ago.

Stableford gives us another extra-terrestrial race: ‘the average Gallecellan is about seven feet tall, but he looks taller because he has big ears which stick upward from his head. At least rumour has it they are ears. After several hundred years, we still don’t know for sure. He has a face which might be yellow or brown, sometimes striped or blotched, the texture of wax. He has eyes in the back of his head as well as the front, he also has a mouth in the back of his head, but somewhat modified… One is for eating, the other is for talking. A Gallacellan usually turns his back on you to talk to you, but if you are another Gallecellan you have your back turned as well, so it doesn’t seem rude…’ (p19)

The current antipathy towards ‘globalisation’ has its pre-echoes here. ‘Worlds like Pallant were the only places where they could make a safe living now that the companies were steadily absorbing everything exploitable.’ (p21) And: ‘The expansion of the companies was devouring the galaxy… War was coming. War between the companies and the law, war between the companies and each other. War between human and alien…’ (p139)

Fenris stems from the Old Norse/Icelandic – wolf, eater of the moon in the twilight of the gods. There’s a villain, a dwarf with a massive chip on his shoulder, who also happens to be deranged.

Yet again Grainger is aided by ‘the wave’ ensconced in his head, a symbiotic creature who has been around for a long time.

Grainger tells us – and all and sundry – that he is no hero. Yet he tends to do heroic things. His endeavours to rescue friends stranded on the inhospitable planet vouch for that in some tense imaginative writing. Why put himself at risk? Maybe he can negotiate his freedom from his debt to Charlot, finally... for the final book in the series.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flying in certain types of planetary atmospheres can be more difficult than flying in space. And landing can be trickier still. When Grainger fails to land on the planet Mormyr, he outright refuses to try again... even if it means losing his ship and getting the crippling debt that his employment is working off reinstated in full. And if that means the first outreach between the notoriously isolationist but utterly peaceful Gallaceans fails, he doesn't particularly care, he doesn't want to die in the attempt. Except, when, during his recovery, he is waylaid by a madman with a gun, who wants him to make the drop... and steal the ancient alien warship he believes is what the Gallaceans want to recover.

The penultimate book in the Grainger/Hooded Swan series, this one once again puts a high emphasis on flying, but with the Gallaceans Stableford's biology skills once again come into play, creating an alien race with a psychology that reflects its biological origins. We also learn a little more about the wind, the helpful voice in Grainger's head... Grainger has never wanted to hear about its life, but when the information becomes relevant, that changes.

This one might be the highest on action in the series, what with the tense standoff (and eventual resolution with) the madman Maslax, and huge weapons are even fired, but Grainger's aversion to killing is still front and center, though not obtrusively. But really, for me, the book shines around two scenes it seems built around... one, where Grainger has to make use of the wind's skills in full view of one of his shipmates, and another, where he makes a hard negotiation with his boss after the immediate threat is over. Aside from the first, the other books could probably be skipped and you wouldn't miss a huge part of the plot... this one fully advances that plot.

Lots of fun, again from a very subjective point of view. One to go.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In which Grainger the grumpy is held at gun point by a non-telepathic dwarf. The Hooded Swan performs great feats of flight, and Aliens are rather timid versions of humanity, though with bigger guns.

[Mark O'Donnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a chapter in this book that just shouts film me.

[L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entry #5 in the continuing, fascinating adventures of Grainger and the Hooded Swan. Better and smarter than anything being published today.

[SciFiOne · Rating 3 out of 5]

1979 grade C

series book G5