Customer Reviews

Another End

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Vincent King's 1971 novel, Another End, is a pretentious and silly waste of time. Hundreds of thousands of years in the future there are very few humans left, and they are spread throughout the galaxy, but they have near god-like powers thanks to their technology. One man, whom I suppose represents the "Everyman," by the name of Adamson (get it?) is pursued through space by the murderous Thead, whose name is an anagram for, well, you know. There is also a sentient spaceship, known as Probe, that can reconstitute Adamson from his memory banks should he be killed, and create perfect illusions to entertain Adamson. Also, there is Protia (her name is a female version of Proteus), who is a shape shifting alien telepath. Protia is devoted to love and peace, and is appalled by how violent and hateful humanity is.

The tone of the book is dream-like, and dare I say, psychedelic. Even though it is thousands of centuries in the future all the characters refer to 20th century figures and events, like Charlie Chaplin, the Beatles, Laurel and Hardy, World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War. Thead chooses to hunt Adamson with a Thompson sub-machine gun, and equips his army of sexy female androids with sabers. The story has no tension or excitement because anything can happen. When Adamson dies, Probe reconstitutes him in the Tank. When Thead dies it turns out that it was only one of his many robot duplicates. Adamson falls in love with a beautiful woman; oh, wait, that was just a dream generated by Probe.

I suppose King is trying to tell us Big Thoughts about Life and Death, Peace and War, Love and Hate, Reality and Illusion, Sex, Religion, Suicide and Immortality. But he never gets past the "War and Hate are bad" stage, and his novel has no drama or interest. Maybe there are people who are into this sort of thing, but I don't dig it, man. One star.