Walkers on the Sky

Breakout #1

by David J. Lake

1st Daw edition 1976 paperback, vg++ In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction

222 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 21, 1976

About the author

David Lake was educated in both India and England, then taught English in various countries, including Vietnam and Thailand; since 1967 he has been at the University of Queensland, Brisbane. He began creative writing as a poet about 1970.

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very fascinating concept. The sky is separated from the earth by an invisible force field, and someone falls through. The concept was very cool and the writing held up it's end. 3 and a half stars.

[Hyman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really wasn’t expecting to like this book as much as I did.

I picked it up at a used bookstore while visiting my mom at her beachside apartment in Sarasota about 10 years ago, but never got around to reading it. Every Christmas, when I went to visit her, I would see the book on the night table, but could never summon the interest to read it. The premise just seemed a little too silly. My relatives would tease me about always reading books like this ever since I was a teenager.

I finally got around to reading it a couple of weeks ago, and I was completely surprised by it. I don’t mean to say that it’s great literature, it really isn’t. But it did turn out to be fun, imaginative, creative, and the premise was unlike anything I’ve seen before.

The story begins as fantasy, in a world that that is somewhat reminiscent of the Hyborean age of Conan the Barbarian, with a Leonardo da Vinci style renaissance inventor thrown in to mix things up. But fairly quickly we come to see that this is not fantasy but science-fiction. Although it isn’t exactly spelled out in detail, we get the impression that the Earth was destroyed, and the survivors lived for a while on the moon (several generations, from what it looks like), until they develop the technology for interstellar travel. By the time they arrive at the world where the story takes place, the last survivors of human civilization have developed a technology to make themselves immortal. They are also advanced enough to make of this world whatever they want it to be. What they chose to do, partly out of necessity, because of the low gravity and thin atmosphere, is to create a kind of force field around the world, which contains the thick atmosphere of the lowest level, where a sort of Stone Age society develops. Above the force field (a transparent “sky“ that people can actually walk on) is another “world“, the inhabitants of which live on “Islands“, actually the peaks of the mountains that poke through the force field. There is yet another level to this world, yet another “sky” overhead, where the immortal, gods live… that is, the now immortal creators of this world that have developed super technology.

The netherworld, that is, the lowest level, is kept half as a savage wilderness, half inhabited by a prehistoric society that is idyllic, without warfare. The middle world, which exists in a perpetual state of pre-Middle Ages social environment, is forever at war. There are also monasteries where a priestly caste interacts with the gods and manufactures the air and “sky” (the one people are able to walk on and sail ships on). The levels never interact with each other. At the highest level, the god like humans lord over this world and interact with the middle world fairly frequently (very often to hook up with good looking mortals, occasionally spawning offspring).

It all sounds very convoluted, but the writer manages to lay everything out in a fairly clear and fun way, never burdening the reader with information dumps or long backstories. It almost feels like he spent a great deal of time world building, but when it came to the story, he just made it up as he went along with a general idea of where he was going. There isn’t any great character development, but somehow it doesn’t seem to matter very much. You simply follow the main character from one adventure to the next, each episode crafted simply to show you a different aspect of this world the writer is inventing.

One of the reviewer‘s mentions that at the time this book was written the author was around 40 years old. If you are expecting any of that post 1960s social commentary you often get from this kind of book from the early 70s, you’ll be disappointed. There really isn’t much of that. His treatment of women and sex is about what you would expect from a 13 year old boy, and pretty goofy at that, but it doesn’t really detract from the story. Aside from an occasional eyeroll, there isn’t anything to embarrassing on that front.

In short, not a very profound story, but surprisingly entertaining, all things considered.

[Valerie]

It's a common conceit to explain the basic physical and social structures in a new book through the education of a 'country cousin': in this case, a young exiled thane from the Uplands.

Though the protagonist is admittedly poorly educated, he's not noticeably more so than most people in a society that declares 'innovation' the ultimate sin. And he's quick at figuring out the implications of things.

But a lot is left obscure, at least as far as I've gotten (There's a little more elaboration later, but it's not particularly explanatory). The 'gods' in the piece seem to be meant to resemble Olympian gods, and they claim identity with those gods--but there's an odd lacuna here: about half of the Olympian deities were female, but none are mentioned here, and these 'gods' of Melior (the setting world) are prone to take concubines from among 'humans', often resulting in 'Heroes' like the protagonist. One wonders, are there no female 'Heroes'? And if so, what becomes of them?

There's far too much valorization of warfare, especially given that the official story is that the ancient society (our own) destroyed itself in massive warfare. Limiting the capacity of weapons (and, not coincidenally, any type of mechanical civilization) is not likely to prevent a repetition, unless people are NOT being taught militaristic nonsense by hymns glorifying fighting and killing, and other such notions of 'honor'.

There's no real explanation of the mechanism of the transparent membranes (force fields?) that form the walkable 'skies', at least in the first half of the book. And the explanation of the air plant is also not very detailed. It's likely that there's more explanation later on, since there must (by the way things are going), be some expedition to Celadon at some point. There's obvious dissension between the 'gods', and there are some vague references to some sort of 'plan'. But the technical explanations, at least so far, seem to be deliberately obscured by the 'religious' authorities. There's some evidence that those who show technical talent and inclinations are recruited by the 'gods' to serve as subservient technicians (if the 'gods' can get hold of them). This is done by condemning them as 'sinners' and confining them to the temples, whence some of them are permitted to take 'pilgrimage', and by recruiting anyone of curiosity and promise to take orders (again, if it can be done). But this system is bound to break down, especially as it's evident that the 'gods' are not only quarrelsome but few in number. It's actually somewhat amazing that it's continued more or less successfully for so long. Possibly this is at least partly due to the fact that living conditions on 'Melior' are in fact quite a bit easier than on the homeworld(s).

Also, it's not clear what the biological basis for the biosphere(s) of this 'new world' are. There's repeated mention of 'bats' for example, which evidently exist both in the 'Nether' and the 'Middle' sorlds, but whose characteristics don't seem to be well known (no nocturnal people, then, to observe them? But somebody must have observed their wings in developing the Neathing's wings). And it's evident that at least some humans have been genetically restructured.

One thing: I'm a bit suspicious about the claim of a starfaring journey in cold sleep. The description of the structure of 'Melior' is not completely incompatible with it being a terraformed version of Earth's Moon. Understand that this is speculation only--but it does fit, with some minor ambiguities. But in either case, what about meteor watch? This whole system would be quite vulnerable to rocks, spent cometary cores, etc: or so it seems to me. The 'gods' are making no claims to protecting the 'better' world against such threats...but surely they can't be unaware of them?

The presentation of the Neathings as nonviolent is dubious from the start. It looks to me as if they simply have a taboo against killing 'speaking peoples'. And once they agree to abandon this taboo (at least temporarily), they behave with a ruthlessness that appalls even those who have been taught a sort of code duello. They argue that this parallels their behavior toward the animals they hunt, and it looks likely. But this indicates that they are very violent people INDEED, and they may very well succeed in wreaking mass extinctions if they're not taught better manners. The refusal even to consider negotiations, the berserker slaughter so severe that it's almost impossible to restrain the Neathings in order even to capture prisoners to question...

It might be useful to compare them to the Khentorei in Joy Chant's The Grey Mane of Morning. The Khentorei get most of their food from hunting (there's very little mention of gathering in the book), but they honestly respect the animals they hunt, and it's established in Red Moon And Black Mountain that their greatest sin is to kill more than they need, or to deliberately kill pregnant animals. And when they decide they MUST kill humans, even in 'battle madness' they don't kill indiscriminately.

The argument that the animals in the lower level of Melior are
non-negotiably destructive almost without exception is one of the unexamined myths Lake seems to have swallowed whole. There are others. The notion that immortals are unchanging: that they reach a certain level of development, and then don't change at all, for example. What evidence is this based on? Even in the context of the story it's evident that the immortals DO change their minds. Pedantry might persist, but the 'gods' in question aren't immune to argument or persuasion.

Another is the idea that certain forms of knowledge should be suppressed for the good of all. One of the characters in the book is essentially an Archimedes type. Is it a bad thing that he's unconcerned about the uses to which his devices are put? Of course it is. But is it acceptable to essentially place him under house arrest, without giving him an opportunity to develop techniques that actually might IMPROVE the lives of the people? Archimedes is pretty generally believed to have created military devices because it was the only area in which he was allowed to work more or less freely. If there had been some academy or library where he could have peacefully worked on his calculus and other mathematical and scientific innovations, who knows what he might have achieved? But even if he HAD been allowed to work freely, if he didn't PUBLISH his work for colleagues and students to follow up on, his talents would not have been much better used.

For the 'gods' to restrict all their technical and scientific knowledge to themselves and a few of their clients is another form of enslavement. Invisible chains are every bit as binding. And the common peoples of Melior (meaning everybody on the lower levels, in this context) are aware of these chains. Many accept that the restrictions are well-meant. But they can't really know that until they get a chance to examine the books, now can they?

[Thomas Devine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walkers on the Sky is a first novel, with all the issues that implies. Plus Lake seems to have wanted to cross Planetary Romance with Sword and Sorcery. If the result is not great literature, it's fun if you're in the mood.

As the book was written by a political and cultural conservative who was at least in his forties in the early seventies don't look for a modern viewpoint. This is a boys adventure book with some fascinating, if not well thought out, world building.

If you do RPGs, this book is good to raid. Just assume the "Gods" are villains (a pack of elitist swine) and play with the large numbers of recreated ancient and medieval cultures.

[Brown Robin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this one, as it has a bit of a forgotten-gem reputation, but it does not transcend its trope or regrettable atavistic elements. Think of it as a kind of ERB fan-fiction.

Imminently skippable.

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for a fabulous old gem. The world building here is actually pretty cool and our "boy meets world" character turns out to be a godling, of course. Still, the heavy handed sexism and racism against those "darker" types was pitiful. And this from 1976. Jeez.

[Trip · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an old book, so it is regrettable with sexism, but not as bad as some, and the setting is pretty darn cool.