The Dancers of Noyo

by Margaret St. Clair

Like so many others before him, reluctant Sam MacGregor was sent on a pilgrimage for the Grail Vision by the androids grown from the cells of one man, with the powers of hypnotism and illusion - androids who held the tribes of the Republic of California in thrall.

But soon Sam began to doubt his own identity, for he experienced, in close succession, extra-lives in different corridors of time and space.

And he count not know whom his search would the Dancers . . . or himself.

Genres: Science Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Margaret St. Clair (February 17, 1911 Huchinson, Kansas - November 22, 1995 Santa Rosa, CA) was an American science fiction writer, who also wrote under the pseudonyms Idris Seabright and Wilton Hazzard.

Born as Margaret Neeley, she married Eric St. Clair in 1932, whom she met while attending the University of California, Berkeley. In 1934 she graduated with a Master of Arts in Greek classics.
She started writing science fiction with the short story "Rocket to Limbo" in 1946. Her most creative period was during the 1950s, when she wrote such acclaimed stories as "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles" (1951), "Brightness Falls from the Air" (1951), "An Egg a Month from All Over" (1952), and "Horrer Howce" (1956). She largely stopped writing short stories after 1960. The Best of Margaret St. Clair (1985) is a representative sampler of her short fiction.

Apart from more than 100 short stories, St. Clair also wrote nine novels. Of interest beyond science fiction is her 1963 novel Sign of the Labrys, for its early use of Wicca elements in fiction.

Her interests included witchcraft, nudism, and feminism. She and her husband decided to remain childless.

Reviews

[Timothy Mayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the last novel by Margaret St. Clair, published in 1973. Other than a few short stories and commentaries, I can find no other writing by her after this. Why did she quit writing novels? The answer to this question may never be known. But, as Dancers has never been republished, I suspect the lackluster reception the book received may have been a contributing factor. I'm sure the Aquarian portrayal in the novel- whom the narrator calls "Mandarins"- didn't help it much with the intended audience.
Sometime in the near future, the west coast of the United States has been decimated by a horrendous form of cancer known as the "bone melt". After the disease runs it's course, California reorganizes itself into the Republic of California. Some of the survivors live in the coastal towns. Others have taken to the forest and live in "tribes" or communes. To keep the younger generation in check, the older tribal people start obtaining synthetic human "Dancers". These Dancers enforce the tribal will by making young people join in marathon group dances. They also force them to take psycho-active drugs as a form of vision quest. If any of the kids get too rebellious, they can be sent outside the tribe on the "grail quest". And those who do get sent on the quest have a tendency to return a psychological mess.
The dancers enforce their authority with tribal militias known as "The Avengers". Guns are almost unknown in this post-apocalyptic hippie society, but bows are easily made and arrows can kill. Furthermore, the dancers have begun working with "chemical-conscience men". These are hardened criminals the republic have found easier to control with drugs as opposed to prison. Many are on mood controlling drugs because they were vicious killers.
The novel is told from the point of view of Sam MacGregor, although his tribal name is "Bright Moon". His age is never given, but you get the idea he's around 20-years-old. Sent off by his tribe at Noyo to study with an authentic native American medicine man, Sam returns to his tribal village one evening and refuses to join in the marathon dance. For his insubordination, the tribe's Dancer orders Sam to leave their territory and go on the Grail Journey.
Pursued by a pack of Avengers who are determined to see that Sam meets with an accident on his path, Sam managers to make his way into other tribal lands. Along the way he experiences out of body sensations. Sometimes he's put into the mind of a government agent before the fall of civilization. Other times he's a man named Bennett, who was the cellular template for all the android Dancers. After a bad run-in with a chemical-conscious man who was a serial killer before the treatment, Sam enters the land of the Navarro tribe. But the tribe has vanished. All he finds remaining of it is a young woman chained to a rock, left to die in the rising tide.
Sam rescues the woman who turns out to be Francesca O'Hare, the daughter of the man who created the android Dancers. Her father, whom she describes as ripped out of his mind on drugs, has recently died. She can't figure out why her tribe's Dancer wanted her dead, but she thinks it may have something to do with what she learned before her father died. Sam joins forces with her and flees north to the nearest settlement- Ukiah -outside of tribal control. Together they will do what is needed to bring down the tyranny of the Dancers.
Dancers is similar to both The Sign of the Labyrs and The Shadow People with the use of a first-person male narrator. It falls under the category of science fantasy as it too has elements of both science fiction and fantasy literature. The reader is given a lot of medical herbalism information as Sam carries a small medicine man bag with him. However he's not above using magical rites when they seem appropriate.
St. Clair is particular biting in her depiction of the Mandarins, the aging hippie tribal leaders who will do anything to stay in power. Since Sam was raised in a communal nursery, he really has no idea who is his mother. There's an older tribal woman called "Jade Dawn" who claims to be his mother, but he's not sure. As the local county agent says of the Mandarins: "They're too stoned, usually, to make anybody do anything."
The author still manages to pack the creep factor into the book when needed. There's a chilling scene where Sam and Francesca break into her father's hidden laboratory. It's dark and unoccupied by anything human. The increasingly psychotic O'Hare had booby-trapped the lab not only with chemical poisons, but other android creations. They are forced to navigate their way through the dark labyrinth while avoiding Hunters, Diggers, and other nightmare creatures.
It's sad this would be Margaret St. Clair's final novel. What amazing books she might have penned in the final years of her life.

[Nickie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun book for me, as I spent many summers and even one school semester just north of Fort Bragg, CA. All of the little towns and locales were familiar to me, at a time before it all became an escape destination for Bay Area folks. I have a rare book by Clarke Ashton Smith, inscribed to the author, and looked her up to see what I could find out about her. The book was published in 1975.

It takes place after a bone-melting cancer-like pandemic, and involves strange "Dancers' who were cloned by a scientist who had an underground lab near Booneville, although most of the action takes place up and down the Mendocino coast. The Dancers are wicked and have taken over several of the tribes of native Pomos, and compel them to dance continuously.

The main character is vaguely a hippie sort of native medicine man, the tribes that have survived the epidemic all have those hippie sorts of names, and came from communal living situations. There are plenty of close calls, lots of drug use, and a hallucinogenic quest for a Holy Grail, that is called the Sunbasket.

He joins up with the daughter of the scientist, after rescuing her, and they work together to try and destroy the Dancers. Of special fun for me was a section where they are in Boonville and are deciphering "Boontling," the odd local language that still has vestiges in the town. I remember well going through there in the 1960s and there was a lot of more evidence of it back then.

This is a very period book, one portion reminds me much of Russell H. Greenan's book, "It Happened In Boston?" A look back at a world that is mostly gone, yet still remembered by those who were there to experience it, along with the scifi twist.

[Hex75 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cosa ha fatto margaret st clair per esser stata praticamente dimenticata?
A quanto pare questo "i danzatori di noyo" è stato il suo ultimo romanzo, neanche tanto ben accolto (pare sia fuori catalogo anche in originale), 20 anni prima della sua scomparsa, e stranamente non sembra esser stato ancora oggetto di riscoperte: peccato, perché l'autrice riesce a costruire una storia ma soprattutto uno scenario davvero inediti per il genere, grazie all'ottima trovata di ambientare la storia tra le riserve indiane di un'america di un non precisato futuro, grazie all'ottimo dosaggio di momenti da letteratura gotica (la fuga dal laboratorio è semplicemente perfetta) e altri più visionari, ed infine grazie alla sua attenzione agli elementi più spirituali della vicenda (ed esser stata - a quanto pare- vicina agli ambienti wiccan deve aver aiutato parecchio in questo campo).
Non sfugge poi la curiosa satira che scorre tra le righe: gli anziani della tribù (i "mandarini" : un omaggio alla de beauvoir?) sembrano una caricatura di quelli che sarebbero potuti diventare gli hippies, ed essendo il romanzo del 73 - a controcultura 60s ormai di maniera- vien da pensare che all'epoca debba aver fatto incazzare qualche fricchettone new age...


Beh, non tutto fila liscio (francesca meritava qualche spiegazione in più, ad esempio) ma se il bel pantheon della recente antologia di sf al femminile "le visionarie" non vi è bastato qui c'è un altro nome da aggiungere all'elenco delle autrici storiche da riscoprire, ed un romanzo che merita di essere recuperato tra le bancarelle dell'usato.

[Cynthia Banks Valenti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Giving this five stars to boost the rating. I read an old paperback copy so crispy and yellow that the pages fell out as I read them adding to the charm. What's not to love here? A native american esc future of tribal hippies ruled by frightening androids, visión quests and motorcyle chases? It is definately unique and classic science fiction. An easy and enjoyable read.

[Antonio Ippolito · Rating 3 out of 5]

Autrice mai stata troppo popolare e nemmeno molto tradotta da noi, Margaret St. Clair (alias Idris Seabright) è nota soprattutto per “Il segno della doppia ascia” (“Sign of the labrys”, 1963), storia estremamente suggestiva di avventure stregonesche in un mondo sotterraneo post-catastrofe (l’autrice e il marito furono effettivamente membri di Wicca), caratterizzato dallo stile bizzarro, ellittico, nonché ricco di raffinati riferimenti (l’autrice aveva davvero studiato la cultura greca e cretese, di cui la doppia ascia è un simbolo).
Dieci anni dopo, questo “Dancers of Noyo” è un altro libro visionario, nel senso che sembra costituito da una serie di visioni. In una California sopravvissuta a un’epidemia di osteo-liquoma, esiste una Repubblica ma il romanzo si occupa di comuni post-hippy e neo-native che vivono autonomamente lungo la costa, in luoghi come appunto Noyo. In ogni comune è presente un Danzatore, androide identico agli altri suoi simili, che con il sostegno dei Mandarini, gli anziani della tribù, e in particolare dei Vendicatori (elementi particolarmente aggressivi scelti tra loro) e in qualche caso di “coscienze chimiche” (criminali efferati a cui viene praticata una specie di castrazione farmacologica degli istinti belluini: attenzione però a quando gli effetti svaniscono..), nonché di una frusta per tori, impone ai giovani della tribù una vita opprimente fatta di continue danze, alternate a “ricerche del Graal”, pellegrinaggi da cui i giovani tornano storditi e dissociati. Il protagonista si ribella a questo ordine e, durante il suo pellegrinaggio, farà importanti avventure e scoperte..
Il romanzo voleva essere forse una metafora del rimbecillimento programmato dei giovani attraverso droghe e “divertimenti” da parte del “Potere”. Come il romanzo succitato, è una serie di visioni e avventure dal fantascientifico all’allucinato, dove non mancano poteri ESP (immancabili negli anni ’70), l’avventura con la figlia del creatore dei Danzatori nonché la visita al suo laboratorio infernale (da cui la copertina di Thole; nulla di esplicito però verrà detto sul perché dei Danzatori), il loro abbattimento finale, i modo in cui forse vengono truccati i Pellegrinaggi, una fantasmagorica visione mistica finale, una moneta greca e raffinate citazioni.
Insomma un altro romanzo particolare, non privo di fascino ma che potrebbe sembrare un guazzabuglio insensato a chi cercasse una trama rigorosa. Buona la traduzione della Castiglione, fin troppo tradizionale con i protagonisti che si dànno del “voi” e dicono “non mi garba”, e "stoned" ("fatto" di droga) reso "intontito".. Diversi episodi sembrano scollegati dal resto(le vite parallele del protagonista, la casa isolata in cui fanno rifornimento di whisky..) ma credo sia una caratteristica del romanzo, non segno di tagli significativi, a parte forse una spiegazione iniziale sul fatto che il protagonista avesse completato la sua istruzione di stregone presso Joe Pomo, e sull'accusa di omicidio tramite un costume da orso; probabili molte "asciugature".

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

For all its hippy-trippy trappings, there's deeper stuff going on in this weird but very readable tale. Themes of youth vs. establishment, the corruption of power and cruelty. And there are very few post-apocalyptic tales like this one.

[Allyson Frey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of so many surprises, I literally had no idea what was going to happen next