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Unpopular Planet
Science Fiction
- GenresScience Fiction
335 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
25 people want to read
About the author
Evelyn E. Smith
182 books22 followersEvelyn E. Smith was an American author of Science Fiction. During the 1950s, her works appeared regularly in magazines such as Galaxy and Fantastic Universe. In the 1980s, she wrote a number of novels featuring the character Miss Melville, a middle-aged assassin.
She also wrote as Delphine C. Lyons and Christopher Grimm.
She also wrote as Delphine C. Lyons and Christopher Grimm.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 15, 2022
review of
Evelyn E. Smith's Unpopular Planet
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - April 13-14, 2022
For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
Another author that I'd never heard of, another author whose work I found admirable, another author whose work I'll seek out to read more by, another source of more material than I'll ever have time to explore in my lifetime if I even explore 10% of what I've already got on my plate. Home. James.
Oh, NO! I just did something that many or most readers may not understand! I must be a thought criminal (or creative, same thing).
I like Smith's writing. She deliberately uses an unusual vocabulary.
"Suddenly, from behind a giant tomato bush two figures leaped out, faces blackened, bodies sheathed in tight dark garments. Wolfmen! I recognized them from the numerous teredo shows on which they had played villians' parts: and combined with my natural apprehension was a kind of pleasure at the knowledge that they were not Legends after all, but living, breathing Monsters, Ancient Enemies coming to life . . . far more satisying than Ancient Friends because here was one occasion upon which the use of Violence could be condoned. Of course, the truly conformable Citizen would die rather than be guilty of such an indelicacy as Physical Assault; however, Survival was on the list of Approved Instincts and so could be Legally even if not altogether Morally implemented. Unlike the ordinary conformable Citizen, I was prepared to implement my Survival" - p 8
That excerpt doesn't demonstrate the unusual vocabulary mentioned (be patient, there will be examples) but it does demonstrate Smith's penchant for capitalizing words for emphasis, in some cases as if they're Proper Nouns instead of merely descriptive terms. I like that.
Nick, the protagonist, is a lowly musician & a sexual prolifigate. He's just been attacked by creatures thought to be mythical. It's too soon to suspect that he, specifically, is being targetted. Not long after, the next attack is more obviously a frame-up.
""Murderer!" he said again, as if to make sure everyone got the idea.
""Even if he should by some mischance be dead, which I do not for a moment believe, you have no right to call me that. You all saw him fall in the punchbowl while he was trying to hit me. It was an accident."
""Not only a Murderer, but a Liar, trying to put the blame on one who can't ever speak for himself again. You deliberately pushed him into the punch; we all saw you do it!"" - p 29
Hence, Nick is on the run & I finally give you a taste of the delectable vocabulary:
"only the incandescence emanating from my companion's scaly hide enabled me to noctivate at all." - p 31
Context tells the reader that "noctivate" means something like "see in the dark" & "noct" seems close enuf to "nacht" or "night" or "nuit" to be recognizable as night - w/ "ivate" meaning "to trigger" or some such - so the reader, such as myself, who hasn't previously seen the word might still conclude that it means something like "to enable to _____ in the dark". Now this is where I'm happy to say I found something missing from the internet. I did a Google search for "noctivate" & didn't find it! Isn't that wonderful?! SO, being the nerd that I am, I decided to look up the word in my A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580. However, since I wasn't sure wch pile of unshelved bks that was in (although it turned out to be exactly where I last remembered seeing it) I looked it up in more readily accessible dictionaries: The Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words (not really that difficult), the Dicitionary of Confusing Words and Meanings (not really appropriate), & the Quick Scientific Terminology (also not appropriate but handy) before I found the Middle English one. It wasn't in any of them. It was only then that I dug out my favorite: Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words &, Lo & Behold!, I found this:
"noctivigation" [..] "n. wandering around at night, once illegal." - p 140, Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words, twelfth printing, Citadel Press & University Books, 1974
Yep, the exact word to use in this circumstance, although, I suppose, it shd really be "noctivigate". NOW, it's worth mentioning that I didn't find "noctivigation" online either. Good onya Smith!! Good onya Josefa Heifetz Byrne!! It's also worth mentioning that Smith might've been deliberately shortening the word to show its possible future form. Now, John Waters sd something like 'If you go home with someone and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em.' I'd take that a bit further: 'If you go home with someone & they don't have at least 5 dictionaries & a musical instrument, don't fuck 'em.' - but, then, if you're desperate, there's some leeway.
"the stone walls and roof had been smalmed over to give the place some cubical semblance" - p 39
Again, context tells the reader that "smalmed" means something like "smoothly contoured". This time I go straight to Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary. Not there! Online? Also not there! It's not in the Middle English dicitonary either. Those are my best bets. Unpopular Planet was copyrighted 1975. My deduction is that Smith had at least one good dictionary from before that time. Here's a relevant excerpt from my bk footnotes about something I wrote in 1968 when I was 15 yrs old using a dictionary:
"unranographic: not a graphic representation of a threadlike vertebrate? I DON'T THINK SO! In the above-quoted article re ovarian follicles, "5th month gestination ranographic" seems to refer to some timeline overview of pregnancy activity. AND, a follicle is, "in anatomy, a small saclike cavity for secretion or excretion". SO, maybe "a graphic representation of a threadlike vertebrate" is not so far off after all? But why on earth (as it may or may not be in so-called 'heaven') wd there be an "UN" version of it!! Obviously, I'm missing something here. BUT, it's time to move on. Whew! I'm glad that's over.
"wrasse: "any of various species of sea food fishes inhabiting the rocky parts of the coast of Europe and belonging to the family Labridæ." Now, what exactly does that mean: "sea food fishes"? Does that mean that these living creatures are being primarily classed according to their food value for other critters? Strange. Are humans Earthquake &/or Shark Food?
"zymurgical: zymurgy: "the chemistry of fermentation, as applied to winemaking, brewing, etc.", -ical: a suffix used to form adjectives from nouns. Therefore, zymurgical: having to do w/ the chemistry of fermentation. Something's brewing here.
"neodymic: Well.. spelled like NeoDymic, it's the brand name of a "bicycle to moped upgrade" [not really sure that's an 'upgrade', personally - given that it's going from pedal power to motor power]; an adjective used to describe a type of laser used to treat gullet diseases in a regional hospital in Odesa; an adjective describing the frontal filler of a reflector in a Halogen plant light that favors a photosynthetic effect and stimulates growth of plants; an adjective used to describe magnets used for "magnetic healing"; an adjective used to describe magnets again in a thread criticizing "quack" medicine; an adjective used to describe a strong magnet used on oil filters; dymic: I found this in many contexts: "building dymic web-pages"; "discharge have certain dymic. energy"; "understand and serve the local, complex, diverse, dymic and unpredictable"; "dymic or ovarian parenchyma" [hey! what's w/ all these ovaries?!]; "Representing dymic (runtime) interdependencies between. objects is an essential part"; "I bought my Zippy Dymic HST blank at FisHunter"; "Estuaries are inherently dymic. ecosystans in wch substantial spltial and. tempral heterogeneity. exists"; "geometrical definition of ... Dymic. &se. calculations in. HDR. brachytherapy"; etc.. So "dymic" seems like a shortening of "dynamic". Maybe. As close as I can figure out from my half-assed definition searching, "neodymic" probably just means something like "NEWER!, STRONGER!, BETTER!" - wch is to say: not much at all.
"asegaic: What dictionary was I getting these words from?! Google, wch is probably the most commonly used search resource these days, can't find this word or coccidioniodonycosic, etc - &, yet, I cd find these words as a fairly ignorant (but inquiring) young mind in 1968 in a book that was probably just laying around in my English classroom at the time. Perhaps having something to do w/ "asea": an adverb meaning "at sea; in the direction of or toward the sea" (but probably not). Perhaps having something to do w/ "Gaea", the personification of the Earth as a goddess. So, let's say "asegaic" means something like "moving toward the sweat glands of the Earth goddess". That'll do.
"clepsydric: I reckon this means something like: relating to "a water clock" (clepsydra).
"coccidioniodonycosic: Another one I reckon I'll have to break down into components: cocci: a combining form meaning a kernel, seed, or berry; di: 2; oniodo: ?; ny: and; cos: "a kind of lettuce w/ a cylindrical or conical head"; -ic: a suffix used to form adjectives meaning "having to do w/". My guess is that this is a botanical classification meaning something like "having to do w/ the seed of a 2 part conical plant". Is there a botanist in the house?"
Now, I hope the point is obvious. I was using those words & had easy access to their definitions 54 yrs ago. They aren't easily available on the internet - something entirely too many people believe is 'all-knowing' (& wch, of course, does provide easy access to an incredible amt of information & misinformation). Words & LANGUAGES have disappeared in my lifetime. DO YOU CARE?! I do. Thank you, Evelyn E. Smith, for giving me an excuse to go off on my rant here.
""Oh, I'll name names if you like." And he uttered some sounds that were like nothing I'd ever heard before or would want to hear again, each sound tintinnabulating terebratively in my eardrums until I felt as though I were being perforated." - p 283
"terebration" [..] "n. boring or drilling." - p 211, Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words, twelfth printing, Citadel Press & University Books, 1974
Believe me, Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary is fabulous. I did find "terebration" online too, tho.
Some humans on Earth have ended up living underground away from the more automated surface society. That's where Nicky gets led to once the hunt is on for him in connection w/ the fake murder.
""Me go Topside?" Klopstock spat and made a sign later explained to me as a protection against the weevil eye. "Y'll never get me t'go up there, no siree. Don' know whatcha might run into—sunspots, cosmic rays, 'tomic blasts . . . 'N they put suthin' in the air and the water to make a Man less'n a Man, a Woman less'n a Woman."" - p 41
This is probably as good as time as any to say that this bk reminded me a bit of the rampant sexual adventures in John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor, wch I read so long ago (45 yrs or more?) that I may be confusing it w/ another Barth & wch I compared at the time to Rabelais (high praise). I'm also reminded of the epic adventure of Joanna Russ's And Chaos Died ( https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ), a novel that I loved & that surprised me w/ how wide-ranging it was. Nick's adventures in Unpopular Planet take him to many planets & into sexual congress w/ many life-forms. Perhaps it's like Casanova's memoirs too (wch I have a copy of but haven't read - although I've witnessed the wonderful Fellini movie based on it). It's bawdy. Nick is a complex character w/o necessarily being very deep. He can be selfish & myopic, but also entertaining & generous. Once undergound, he makes this social observation:
"Although there was much I found novel and challenging in Lower Manhattan, there was still more I did not care for. For one thing, although I welcomed the absence of Magnates, Unions, and similar concomitants of the Classless Power Structure, the Society down there was a bit too egalitarian for my liking. I believed in judging Man on individual merit, not reducing Mankind to its Lowest Common Denominator." - p 45
Nick becomes aware of a creature that he perceives as a dragon who informs him that his race has been manipulating human industry throughout thousands of yrs.
"["]Why would any Human Being in his right mind drink anything as nasty as coffee? But back in the Eighteenth Century we brainwashed the Human Race into believing they couldn't live without it, because it's the only thing that'll kill the Snarkweed on Tawadyn and Earth's the only Planet it'll grow on.["]" - p 50
"As matters had been left, I would stumble blindly among the hypogeous ways" - p 61
"Hypogeal, hypogean, hypogeic and hypogeous (meaning "underground", from Greek hypó "under" + gaîa "earth") are biological terms describing an organism's activity below the soil surface." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypogeal
Nick has a somewhat out-of-character excellent vocabulary.
An important part of the plot is that Nick, a person low in the social hierarchy, is engaged to Bernardine, someone high in the hierarchy & completely obsessed w/ him. Nick wasn't planning to marry her for love but for the advancement of his career & social status. Once all that's been obliterated he prefers to avoid her. As far as he knows, once he went underground he was concluded to be dead.
"A sharp click and the walls were drenched in a green light so dazzling I had to shut my eyes. When I opened them again, everything snapped into focus. I saw my faithful Bat for the first time. It wasn't a Bat at all, but a Mechanical Bird, all camouflage dissipated now . . . the Eagle Scout Bernardine had put on me, lo, those many months ago." - p 62
The Mechanical Bird whose purpose it was to keep tabs on Nick b/c Bernardine didn't trust him has now kept track of him post-disappearance - thusly letting Bernardine know that he was still alive. I found the use of "Eagle Scout" interesting. I was in the Cub Scouts, I hated it. My mom told me it was so I cd join the Boy Scouts. I did, I hated that too. As I recall, the Eagle Scouts were the highest Boy Scout level. I vaguely remember someone telling me that they were the 'CIA of the Scouts'.
"Despite this monition" - p 81
Now, I've seen "admonition" many times but never before "monition" on its own. From "Oxford Languages": "a warning of impending danger. a formal notice from a bishop or ecclesiastical court admonishing a person not to do something specified." Another excellent word choice - but what about admonition?: "an act or action of admonishing; authoritative counsel or warning." It wd seem that the "ad" is somewhat superfluous! 'A formal notice monishing a person not to do something specified' seems to work just fine.
"You never heard such hypocorism" - p 86
hypocorism = a pet name - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...
I'm going to try to use "hypocorism" the next time I talk to a baby or a dog. 'Oh, you addddoooooorrable little hypocorism, you!'
"he conjured up a little whigmaleery" - p 92
Mirriam-Webster spells it slightly differently:
"Definition of whigmaleerie
1 chiefly Scotland : WHIM
2 chiefly Scotland : an odd or fanciful contrivance : GIMCRACK"
- https://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...
Coincidentally, I was just thinking recently about "hippy" vs "hippie". "hippie" becomes plural easily w/ the addition of an "s" at the end, whereas "hippys" looks 'wrong' to me. As such, I tend to spell it "hippie" (as if I've ever written it before?!) - but what's wrong w/ "hippys"? Maybe nothing. That, in turn, applies to all words that end in "y" that when pluralized end in "ie". THEREFORE, perhaps "whigmaleery" is preferable if one is to follow the spirit of Webster's innovations in creating Americanized spellings. Alas, that still leaves us w/ the problem of "theater", "theatre", & "theatrical". I'm tending toward the British "theatre" on that one. Ahem.
Wow, now I'm going to make a plot-jump that's almost inexcuseable (except for avoiding spoilers). Nick has left Earth, gone to a planet called "Paradise", where he finagled his way into becoming King of the planet, then had to flee, & ended up on another planet on auction as a slave. The details of the rules & regulations of the Slave Market are excellent parody in & of themselves.
"2. Prospective Purchasers are invited to avail themselves of the Opportunity to examine the Items to be sold during the Public Exhibition held prior to Sale. Although Attendants have been empowered to take all Reasonable Precautions, the Market is not to be held responsible for any Damage to Purchasers arising from any Action of the Merchandise. (Duration-of-Exhibit-and-Sale Life and Accident Insurance Policies are available in the Anterooms at Nominal Cost.)" - p 148
Talk about euphemisms!
Nick has teamed up w/ Estrilda, also sold into slavery to the same beings. They've escaped & gone to another planet.
"Estrilda and I were well received on Cokeney, and, although I never quite forgave Professor Robinson for installing us in the Zoo (the Colonel was right; and why shouldn't he be when Past, Present, and Future were all the same to him?), it was a nice restful place; and I really enjoyed the first year or two."
[..]
"The Hall of Man, in which Trildy and I were given a suite, was in the shape of a small medieval castle, with attached garage, containing a motor car, a high-perch phaeton, and a lawn mower. Nearby was a red barn in which were housed typical Domestic Animals such as Cows, Sheep, and Yaks. (The larger and/or less amiable Earth Creatures, Professor Robinson informed me, made their homes elsewhere on the Grounds according to genus: for example, the Dinosaurs, should I feel homesick for them, would be found in the Hall of Reptiles. Later I went to look and, by the Great Mother, there were two fine Specimens of Tyrannosaurus Rex, as well as a rather seedy Pterodactyl.)" - pp 184-185
For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
Evelyn E. Smith's Unpopular Planet
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - April 13-14, 2022
For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
Another author that I'd never heard of, another author whose work I found admirable, another author whose work I'll seek out to read more by, another source of more material than I'll ever have time to explore in my lifetime if I even explore 10% of what I've already got on my plate. Home. James.
Oh, NO! I just did something that many or most readers may not understand! I must be a thought criminal (or creative, same thing).
I like Smith's writing. She deliberately uses an unusual vocabulary.
"Suddenly, from behind a giant tomato bush two figures leaped out, faces blackened, bodies sheathed in tight dark garments. Wolfmen! I recognized them from the numerous teredo shows on which they had played villians' parts: and combined with my natural apprehension was a kind of pleasure at the knowledge that they were not Legends after all, but living, breathing Monsters, Ancient Enemies coming to life . . . far more satisying than Ancient Friends because here was one occasion upon which the use of Violence could be condoned. Of course, the truly conformable Citizen would die rather than be guilty of such an indelicacy as Physical Assault; however, Survival was on the list of Approved Instincts and so could be Legally even if not altogether Morally implemented. Unlike the ordinary conformable Citizen, I was prepared to implement my Survival" - p 8
That excerpt doesn't demonstrate the unusual vocabulary mentioned (be patient, there will be examples) but it does demonstrate Smith's penchant for capitalizing words for emphasis, in some cases as if they're Proper Nouns instead of merely descriptive terms. I like that.
Nick, the protagonist, is a lowly musician & a sexual prolifigate. He's just been attacked by creatures thought to be mythical. It's too soon to suspect that he, specifically, is being targetted. Not long after, the next attack is more obviously a frame-up.
""Murderer!" he said again, as if to make sure everyone got the idea.
""Even if he should by some mischance be dead, which I do not for a moment believe, you have no right to call me that. You all saw him fall in the punchbowl while he was trying to hit me. It was an accident."
""Not only a Murderer, but a Liar, trying to put the blame on one who can't ever speak for himself again. You deliberately pushed him into the punch; we all saw you do it!"" - p 29
Hence, Nick is on the run & I finally give you a taste of the delectable vocabulary:
"only the incandescence emanating from my companion's scaly hide enabled me to noctivate at all." - p 31
Context tells the reader that "noctivate" means something like "see in the dark" & "noct" seems close enuf to "nacht" or "night" or "nuit" to be recognizable as night - w/ "ivate" meaning "to trigger" or some such - so the reader, such as myself, who hasn't previously seen the word might still conclude that it means something like "to enable to _____ in the dark". Now this is where I'm happy to say I found something missing from the internet. I did a Google search for "noctivate" & didn't find it! Isn't that wonderful?! SO, being the nerd that I am, I decided to look up the word in my A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580. However, since I wasn't sure wch pile of unshelved bks that was in (although it turned out to be exactly where I last remembered seeing it) I looked it up in more readily accessible dictionaries: The Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words (not really that difficult), the Dicitionary of Confusing Words and Meanings (not really appropriate), & the Quick Scientific Terminology (also not appropriate but handy) before I found the Middle English one. It wasn't in any of them. It was only then that I dug out my favorite: Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words &, Lo & Behold!, I found this:
"noctivigation" [..] "n. wandering around at night, once illegal." - p 140, Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words, twelfth printing, Citadel Press & University Books, 1974
Yep, the exact word to use in this circumstance, although, I suppose, it shd really be "noctivigate". NOW, it's worth mentioning that I didn't find "noctivigation" online either. Good onya Smith!! Good onya Josefa Heifetz Byrne!! It's also worth mentioning that Smith might've been deliberately shortening the word to show its possible future form. Now, John Waters sd something like 'If you go home with someone and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em.' I'd take that a bit further: 'If you go home with someone & they don't have at least 5 dictionaries & a musical instrument, don't fuck 'em.' - but, then, if you're desperate, there's some leeway.
"the stone walls and roof had been smalmed over to give the place some cubical semblance" - p 39
Again, context tells the reader that "smalmed" means something like "smoothly contoured". This time I go straight to Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary. Not there! Online? Also not there! It's not in the Middle English dicitonary either. Those are my best bets. Unpopular Planet was copyrighted 1975. My deduction is that Smith had at least one good dictionary from before that time. Here's a relevant excerpt from my bk footnotes about something I wrote in 1968 when I was 15 yrs old using a dictionary:
"unranographic: not a graphic representation of a threadlike vertebrate? I DON'T THINK SO! In the above-quoted article re ovarian follicles, "5th month gestination ranographic" seems to refer to some timeline overview of pregnancy activity. AND, a follicle is, "in anatomy, a small saclike cavity for secretion or excretion". SO, maybe "a graphic representation of a threadlike vertebrate" is not so far off after all? But why on earth (as it may or may not be in so-called 'heaven') wd there be an "UN" version of it!! Obviously, I'm missing something here. BUT, it's time to move on. Whew! I'm glad that's over.
"wrasse: "any of various species of sea food fishes inhabiting the rocky parts of the coast of Europe and belonging to the family Labridæ." Now, what exactly does that mean: "sea food fishes"? Does that mean that these living creatures are being primarily classed according to their food value for other critters? Strange. Are humans Earthquake &/or Shark Food?
"zymurgical: zymurgy: "the chemistry of fermentation, as applied to winemaking, brewing, etc.", -ical: a suffix used to form adjectives from nouns. Therefore, zymurgical: having to do w/ the chemistry of fermentation. Something's brewing here.
"neodymic: Well.. spelled like NeoDymic, it's the brand name of a "bicycle to moped upgrade" [not really sure that's an 'upgrade', personally - given that it's going from pedal power to motor power]; an adjective used to describe a type of laser used to treat gullet diseases in a regional hospital in Odesa; an adjective describing the frontal filler of a reflector in a Halogen plant light that favors a photosynthetic effect and stimulates growth of plants; an adjective used to describe magnets used for "magnetic healing"; an adjective used to describe magnets again in a thread criticizing "quack" medicine; an adjective used to describe a strong magnet used on oil filters; dymic: I found this in many contexts: "building dymic web-pages"; "discharge have certain dymic. energy"; "understand and serve the local, complex, diverse, dymic and unpredictable"; "dymic or ovarian parenchyma" [hey! what's w/ all these ovaries?!]; "Representing dymic (runtime) interdependencies between. objects is an essential part"; "I bought my Zippy Dymic HST blank at FisHunter"; "Estuaries are inherently dymic. ecosystans in wch substantial spltial and. tempral heterogeneity. exists"; "geometrical definition of ... Dymic. &se. calculations in. HDR. brachytherapy"; etc.. So "dymic" seems like a shortening of "dynamic". Maybe. As close as I can figure out from my half-assed definition searching, "neodymic" probably just means something like "NEWER!, STRONGER!, BETTER!" - wch is to say: not much at all.
"asegaic: What dictionary was I getting these words from?! Google, wch is probably the most commonly used search resource these days, can't find this word or coccidioniodonycosic, etc - &, yet, I cd find these words as a fairly ignorant (but inquiring) young mind in 1968 in a book that was probably just laying around in my English classroom at the time. Perhaps having something to do w/ "asea": an adverb meaning "at sea; in the direction of or toward the sea" (but probably not). Perhaps having something to do w/ "Gaea", the personification of the Earth as a goddess. So, let's say "asegaic" means something like "moving toward the sweat glands of the Earth goddess". That'll do.
"clepsydric: I reckon this means something like: relating to "a water clock" (clepsydra).
"coccidioniodonycosic: Another one I reckon I'll have to break down into components: cocci: a combining form meaning a kernel, seed, or berry; di: 2; oniodo: ?; ny: and; cos: "a kind of lettuce w/ a cylindrical or conical head"; -ic: a suffix used to form adjectives meaning "having to do w/". My guess is that this is a botanical classification meaning something like "having to do w/ the seed of a 2 part conical plant". Is there a botanist in the house?"
Now, I hope the point is obvious. I was using those words & had easy access to their definitions 54 yrs ago. They aren't easily available on the internet - something entirely too many people believe is 'all-knowing' (& wch, of course, does provide easy access to an incredible amt of information & misinformation). Words & LANGUAGES have disappeared in my lifetime. DO YOU CARE?! I do. Thank you, Evelyn E. Smith, for giving me an excuse to go off on my rant here.
""Oh, I'll name names if you like." And he uttered some sounds that were like nothing I'd ever heard before or would want to hear again, each sound tintinnabulating terebratively in my eardrums until I felt as though I were being perforated." - p 283
"terebration" [..] "n. boring or drilling." - p 211, Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words, twelfth printing, Citadel Press & University Books, 1974
Believe me, Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary is fabulous. I did find "terebration" online too, tho.
Some humans on Earth have ended up living underground away from the more automated surface society. That's where Nicky gets led to once the hunt is on for him in connection w/ the fake murder.
""Me go Topside?" Klopstock spat and made a sign later explained to me as a protection against the weevil eye. "Y'll never get me t'go up there, no siree. Don' know whatcha might run into—sunspots, cosmic rays, 'tomic blasts . . . 'N they put suthin' in the air and the water to make a Man less'n a Man, a Woman less'n a Woman."" - p 41
This is probably as good as time as any to say that this bk reminded me a bit of the rampant sexual adventures in John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor, wch I read so long ago (45 yrs or more?) that I may be confusing it w/ another Barth & wch I compared at the time to Rabelais (high praise). I'm also reminded of the epic adventure of Joanna Russ's And Chaos Died ( https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ), a novel that I loved & that surprised me w/ how wide-ranging it was. Nick's adventures in Unpopular Planet take him to many planets & into sexual congress w/ many life-forms. Perhaps it's like Casanova's memoirs too (wch I have a copy of but haven't read - although I've witnessed the wonderful Fellini movie based on it). It's bawdy. Nick is a complex character w/o necessarily being very deep. He can be selfish & myopic, but also entertaining & generous. Once undergound, he makes this social observation:
"Although there was much I found novel and challenging in Lower Manhattan, there was still more I did not care for. For one thing, although I welcomed the absence of Magnates, Unions, and similar concomitants of the Classless Power Structure, the Society down there was a bit too egalitarian for my liking. I believed in judging Man on individual merit, not reducing Mankind to its Lowest Common Denominator." - p 45
Nick becomes aware of a creature that he perceives as a dragon who informs him that his race has been manipulating human industry throughout thousands of yrs.
"["]Why would any Human Being in his right mind drink anything as nasty as coffee? But back in the Eighteenth Century we brainwashed the Human Race into believing they couldn't live without it, because it's the only thing that'll kill the Snarkweed on Tawadyn and Earth's the only Planet it'll grow on.["]" - p 50
"As matters had been left, I would stumble blindly among the hypogeous ways" - p 61
"Hypogeal, hypogean, hypogeic and hypogeous (meaning "underground", from Greek hypó "under" + gaîa "earth") are biological terms describing an organism's activity below the soil surface." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypogeal
Nick has a somewhat out-of-character excellent vocabulary.
An important part of the plot is that Nick, a person low in the social hierarchy, is engaged to Bernardine, someone high in the hierarchy & completely obsessed w/ him. Nick wasn't planning to marry her for love but for the advancement of his career & social status. Once all that's been obliterated he prefers to avoid her. As far as he knows, once he went underground he was concluded to be dead.
"A sharp click and the walls were drenched in a green light so dazzling I had to shut my eyes. When I opened them again, everything snapped into focus. I saw my faithful Bat for the first time. It wasn't a Bat at all, but a Mechanical Bird, all camouflage dissipated now . . . the Eagle Scout Bernardine had put on me, lo, those many months ago." - p 62
The Mechanical Bird whose purpose it was to keep tabs on Nick b/c Bernardine didn't trust him has now kept track of him post-disappearance - thusly letting Bernardine know that he was still alive. I found the use of "Eagle Scout" interesting. I was in the Cub Scouts, I hated it. My mom told me it was so I cd join the Boy Scouts. I did, I hated that too. As I recall, the Eagle Scouts were the highest Boy Scout level. I vaguely remember someone telling me that they were the 'CIA of the Scouts'.
"Despite this monition" - p 81
Now, I've seen "admonition" many times but never before "monition" on its own. From "Oxford Languages": "a warning of impending danger. a formal notice from a bishop or ecclesiastical court admonishing a person not to do something specified." Another excellent word choice - but what about admonition?: "an act or action of admonishing; authoritative counsel or warning." It wd seem that the "ad" is somewhat superfluous! 'A formal notice monishing a person not to do something specified' seems to work just fine.
"You never heard such hypocorism" - p 86
hypocorism = a pet name - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...
I'm going to try to use "hypocorism" the next time I talk to a baby or a dog. 'Oh, you addddoooooorrable little hypocorism, you!'
"he conjured up a little whigmaleery" - p 92
Mirriam-Webster spells it slightly differently:
"Definition of whigmaleerie
1 chiefly Scotland : WHIM
2 chiefly Scotland : an odd or fanciful contrivance : GIMCRACK"
- https://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...
Coincidentally, I was just thinking recently about "hippy" vs "hippie". "hippie" becomes plural easily w/ the addition of an "s" at the end, whereas "hippys" looks 'wrong' to me. As such, I tend to spell it "hippie" (as if I've ever written it before?!) - but what's wrong w/ "hippys"? Maybe nothing. That, in turn, applies to all words that end in "y" that when pluralized end in "ie". THEREFORE, perhaps "whigmaleery" is preferable if one is to follow the spirit of Webster's innovations in creating Americanized spellings. Alas, that still leaves us w/ the problem of "theater", "theatre", & "theatrical". I'm tending toward the British "theatre" on that one. Ahem.
Wow, now I'm going to make a plot-jump that's almost inexcuseable (except for avoiding spoilers). Nick has left Earth, gone to a planet called "Paradise", where he finagled his way into becoming King of the planet, then had to flee, & ended up on another planet on auction as a slave. The details of the rules & regulations of the Slave Market are excellent parody in & of themselves.
"2. Prospective Purchasers are invited to avail themselves of the Opportunity to examine the Items to be sold during the Public Exhibition held prior to Sale. Although Attendants have been empowered to take all Reasonable Precautions, the Market is not to be held responsible for any Damage to Purchasers arising from any Action of the Merchandise. (Duration-of-Exhibit-and-Sale Life and Accident Insurance Policies are available in the Anterooms at Nominal Cost.)" - p 148
Talk about euphemisms!
Nick has teamed up w/ Estrilda, also sold into slavery to the same beings. They've escaped & gone to another planet.
"Estrilda and I were well received on Cokeney, and, although I never quite forgave Professor Robinson for installing us in the Zoo (the Colonel was right; and why shouldn't he be when Past, Present, and Future were all the same to him?), it was a nice restful place; and I really enjoyed the first year or two."
[..]
"The Hall of Man, in which Trildy and I were given a suite, was in the shape of a small medieval castle, with attached garage, containing a motor car, a high-perch phaeton, and a lawn mower. Nearby was a red barn in which were housed typical Domestic Animals such as Cows, Sheep, and Yaks. (The larger and/or less amiable Earth Creatures, Professor Robinson informed me, made their homes elsewhere on the Grounds according to genus: for example, the Dinosaurs, should I feel homesick for them, would be found in the Hall of Reptiles. Later I went to look and, by the Great Mother, there were two fine Specimens of Tyrannosaurus Rex, as well as a rather seedy Pterodactyl.)" - pp 184-185
For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
May 4, 2024
DNF. The novelty wore off pretty quickly. Life is too short for crappy books and I have a whole shelf full of stuff to try to read.
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January 7, 2017Read 108 of 335 pages.
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