Planet Stories, $12.99, ISBN 978-1-60123-047-6
Fantasy, 2007 (Reissue)
When folks claim that fantasy fiction from a time before the current year is a bastion of misogyny and other social media buzzwords, this is a clear sign that they have not many of such stories and, instead, having made assumptions from the scantily clad women assuming a position of weakness in those covers and illustrations or, most likely, just aping the statements uttered by their favorite screech-monsters on social media.
A good example of how wrong the “women are always weak and hapless in stories of those days” assumption is this compilation of two of Leigh Brackett’s more well-known tales. Ms Brackett is credited here as the author of the first draft of the script of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, but back when she was at her career peak, she was a pretty big screenwriter and author. She was called the Queen of Space Opera and, I believe, also the first woman to be shortlisted for the Hugo Award, back when that award actually meant something.
The Secret of Sinharat and People of the Talisman feature the same protagonist: Eric John Stark. Honestly, he’s quite a formulaic hero of pulp sci-fi back in those days: he’s wanted by the law, claims to be an anti-hero, broods a lot, can do anything because he’s secretly a muscle-bound genius, et cetera. Don’t be fooled by the description of his dark skin into thinking that he’s born with more melanin than the typical hero of that age: he’s that way because he’s been under the Martian sun for too long. No, really.
The setting is pretty typical, too: the planets in the Solar System are full of humanoid folks that congregate and mingle, not always peacefully, with Mars being the pit stop and melting pot of all kinds of folks from Neptune to Mercury. Mars is a low-technology steampunk setting, with spears and guns coexisting with magic, and there is always a touch of eldritch cosmic horror lurking in the background.
In the first story, the law finally catches up with Stark, but instead of arresting him and dragging him back to Earth, the officer leading the charge had Stark infiltrate a rebel faction led by Delgaun, lord of the Martian city of Valkis, and report what that fellow is plotting. Conveniently, Stark already has plans to sign up as a member of Delgaun’s mercenaries, so he doesn’t have to go out of his way to accommodate these pesky people. Things aren’t what they appear to be on the surface, however, as Stark will learn soon enough.
In the second story, Stark’s friend dies while they are trying to reach this friend Camar’s home city in time before Camar bites the big one. Oh well, crap happens. Before he dies, Camar asks Stark to return an item he has stolen from the city, a theft that led to Camar fleeing that place in the first place. Conveniently, the thief doesn’t know what it does, and even better, he tells all of this to Stark just before he kicks the bucket. Stark is too stoic and manly to pitch the corpse in a fit of pique over this surprise request, and instead he tries to honor his friend’s last request. This leads to some pretty interesting fun that ends up being more complex that this synopsis would suggest.
It’s a formulaic setting with a rather generic action hero of that era, but it’s a fun one where I am concerned. I couldn’t access these stories when they were published, mostly because I was not aware of the pulp fiction genre when I was younger, the world was far more insular then (TV never really took off in my part of the world until the 1980s, when we finally got a greater influx of shows from the US and the UK instead of just having to watch mostly locally made shows), and there was no such thing as online stores that would sell me books that I couldn’t find locally. When the Internet took off in the 1990s, that’s when I got to really explore the pulp fantasy scene. Quite ironically, at that time I had drifted away from the fantasy genre to romance, so life could be funny like that.
Anyway, this collection is noteworthy in many ways. It’s a good introduction to pulp fantasy fiction, because unlike, say, Robert E Howard’s Conan the Barbarian books, it has a narrative style that is both accessible even today without feeling too old school for younger folks. There are not many elements of the story that would feel problematic to more sensitive folks out there. In fact, there are some pretty memorable and capable female characters here that would shatter the inaccurate assumption that this genre is misogynistic. The Secret of Sinharat has a memorable female antagonist and a somewhat-less-interesting-in-comparison female ally, while People of the Talisman has a female ally that is capable of taking care of her own self.
Both stories boast of vividly drawn setting and intriguing, if sometimes dangerous, lore. This plays a big part as to why both stories are fun to read, as things are always interesting as I turn the page. They rock a solid, action-packed pace, so there is never a dull moment in these stories. Some of the things here have become overused tropes these days, but these stories have aged pretty well regardless if you ask me.
If there is one noticeable issue here, it’s that Stark is actually a boring protagonist. He’s too capable and the only reason he is even caught in the first story is because he is vastly outnumbered, but that’s the reason why he is dull. He is dull because he barely has a personality aside from surly, and he is also frustratingly mulish. He sees everything in black and white, and once his mind is made up, nothing can change it. Because of this, Stark appears very one-dimensional and bland, incapable of complexity or nuance.
Then again, Stark isn’t the actual hero of the story, come to think of it. He’s just the blank slate around which things happen. The real stars of the show are the key characters of whatever plot he ends up embroiled in. He’s just the mule that make things happen, often at behest or under the manipulation of these characters, and that’s about it. This approach is pretty common in fantasy, and can be done right—think of Riddick in Pitch Black, in which he still manages to hold his own despite being overshadowed by the entire plot—or not—Mad Max: Fury Road, in which everyone remembers Furiosa but not the guy whose name is in the title of the movie.
In the first story, Stark is more like Mad Max in the sense that I recall the female antagonist far more easily than he. In the second story, he holds his own considerably. Unfortunately, this is because People of the Talisman boasts a weaker plot and cast, not because Stark is somehow more interesting.
Still, no matter, the stories are all enjoyable in their own right. They won’t get the brain thinking too hard, but they offer a good time with surly heroes, magic, and more. What’s not to like?
