The Eskimo Invasion

by Hayden Howard, Richard M. Powers (Illustrator)

Dr. West was puzzled, frustrated, and mad.
He knew something was wrong up there in Boothia Sanctuary, but what?
Why, really, did the government want to keep him out? He didn’t for a moment believe the spurious political excuse of preserving a “cultural sanctuary” intact. What were they hiding? What could possibly be wrong with a harmless, lovable group of Eskimos?
Dr. West could never leave a puzzle alone. Besides, if he went up there, maybe he could get proof.
Of something.
Unfortunately, even when he did, no one believed him…

Genres: Science Fiction

380 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

Reviews

[John M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Eskimo Invasion" begins as a mild sort of dystopian/social experimentation novel about Inuit more or less forcibly penned into a closed reserve in Arctic Canada in an effort to preserve their "true culture." A scientist with an interest in ethnography, Dr. Joseph West, decides to visit them to see how things are progressing after about nineteen years, but he must do so clandestinely. On his visit, he makes findings that indicate that something is happening with the Inuit that has the potential to permanently unbalance the Arctic biosphere of the reserve. While there, he has struck up a relationship with a woman and resolves to escape, taking her along, and publish his findings to the world in the hope of sparking some environmental action.

Thus the first two chapters. Then the story starts mutating and going off in several seriously mind-bending directions, including bizarre social rehabilitation programs in Canadian penal hospitals, communal universities, US Department of Defense population control plots, time travel via cryogenics, alternate realities and psychic powers induced through psychopharmacology and hypnosis, paranoid Pentagon officers and Chinese dictators, and ultimately the threat of worldwide apocalypse. And more.

It has been noted by another reviewer that the author seems to have been a college professor with an axe to grind, and that this book was his method of doing it. This theory I find completely believable. He probably did some experimenting with LSD while he was at it. As I read it, the stories that I was most strongly reminded of were M. A. Foster's "The Gameplayers Of Zan" and his other Ler books, infused with "Dr. Strangelove" and "Zardoz." If that's your thing, then light some incense, throw on a Zager & Evans album, and groove with this, baby.

[Shira and Ari Evergreen]

This is kind of a pulp fiction thing from 1967, about a swinging Berkeley professor of the future who discovers something fishy about an Eskimo cultural sanctuary. He then decides he has to take some action to save the planet, and the plot goes craaaaazy from there, ranging from government conspiracies to aliens to population science to discussions of specieshood and genocide and the future of the planet. The author manages to be quite progressive considering his subject matter and when he was writing the book, though it's (unintentionally) racist over and over again. It's very anti-CIA, and feels like it was written by a real-life activist professor, so it really gets into the science at the expense of the plot and characters making sense. Nonetheless it was worth reading, if only because it's a real sign of its times, and still so relevant today.

[Leif · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably deserves a better rating than this but I just can't.

The story begins with a group of Inuit whose population's females appear to be able to have a viable pregnancy 12 times a year. This overarching idea is then threaded through academic and inter-agency rivalries to cryogenics to international psychic spying. Pretty creative, actually. Unfortunately, some of the attitudes about race are kind of rough and I'm not always sure that it is just the characters who are bigots?

Although I spent the whole book being intrigued, I did not really enjoy it.

[Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Eskimo Cultural Sanctuary was intended to preserve the Eskimo way of life by isolating them from the world. Bypassing guards and a no-fly-zone, former Director of Oriental Population Problems Research Dr. Joe West expects to find the Sanctuary depleted -- its population starving without Canadian aid and high tech hunting tools. Instead the population is booming, the Eskimos are in perfect health and -- oddly -- almost entirely made up of children.

Dr. West's shock grows when he discovers that not only is their gestational period only one month, but they reach sexual maturity at the age of three. With their population doubling, soon the earth will be awash in Eskimos (or Esks, as Dr. West brands them).

And then the novel loses its way.

Dr. West marries an Esk named Marthalik who says things like, "This person will boil your meat" and "My babies are my purpose." They move to California, have six kids and then she wanders off-page. But sometimes Dr. West still thinks, Marthalik!

There's a bit about education and prison systems in the futuristic 1990s. A chapter called "The Spray Cans of Death" which should be exciting, but isn't nearly as good as the earlier "Polar Bear!" And toward the end of the book, Dr. West gains mind control over China's Mao III.

This book was actually nominated for a Nebula in 1967 so something must have resonated at the time. I found it to be a ridiculous topic approached so seriously that all the fun was drained 100 pages into this 380 page book.

[James Broussard · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was rough, and I don't recommend it to anyone just casually looking for something to read. I'm currently trying to read all the novels ever nominated for either the Hugo or Nebula award for best novel, and I picked this book up because it has an interesting title. It's pretty dated, but it provides a good insight into the roots of science fiction's pulp roots, though the author is pretty racist at times, if unintentionally, and really interested in describing out of date science.

I'm trying to write a review of every novel ever nominated for these awards at "http://www.allthenominees.blogspot.com" take a look.

[David Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Genocide; the purpose of life; recapitulated dialogue; unnecessary scenes, characters and superfluous adverbs; and, a thoroughly unlikeable protagonist. This book would have been great if it weren't for any of the characters.

[Ralph Carlson · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not as good as I remember it from when I first read it back in the late sixties, it id still a worthwhile read.