Customer Reviews

Pandora's Legions

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ever since about twenty years ago when I first
read "Pandora's Planet" I have reread the book about once
a year. It is a fun, light hearted book about what
happens when the dumb aliens try to conquer Earth. The
dumb aliens are, in today's politically correct words,
mentally challenged. A large part of the story is how
humans, as they expand out into the Centran Empire,
affect the great empire. (Hint: there is a lot of chaos.)
"Pandora's Legions" includes the all of the stories
written in the Centran Empire Universe. The original story
was "Pandora's Planet" which was published in Astounding
back in September of 1956. Then a book also titled
"Pandora's Planet" came out 1972. This was the further
adventures of our Centran hero Klide Horsip as he tries to
deal with all the varieties of human philosophies being
implemented on various Centran planets.
Also in the same setting were three stories about
a human named John Towers, who went around helping the
Centran military out of very nasty situations. These three
stories had only been published in Analog. Of these three
my favorite was "Trap" which dealt with the problem of a
race which could teleport. And they could teleport to any
place where an object they had touched was located.
There is also one more story about a Centran
psychologist and how he deals his patients.
It is nice to have all the Centran stories together.
Treat yourself to a couple of hours of enjoyable reading.

Many years ago my 5th grade teacher loaned me a copy of a science-fiction book called "Pandora's Planet", by Christopher Anvil. It impressed me then, being a "humanity uber alles" story that ended with a surprising double twist. I was never able to find another copy, and in fact for a long time was unable to recall the author. Recently, I was told that Baen was re-issuing the Pandora stories and finally was able to purchase a copy.

I began reading with no little trepidation. Would Anvil's story be able to live up to the possibly too-rosy memories of my 11 year old former self?

I was not disappointed. Many details which I'm sure I never noticed were now clear, and I gained a new appreciation of what Anvil did in this interesting little universe. The basic idea is that the Earth is invaded and sort-of-conquered by the Centrans, who have a huge and ancient empire. The problem is that Earthlings apparently are just plain smarter than the Centrans, on the average -- an average human is a genius in Centran terms. This book combines in one volume the original Pandora's Planet, which focuses on the experiences of Horsip, a Centran officer, and other stories which feature the adventures of Horsip's human acquaintance John Towers. The latter I had never read before, and they add more depth to the story. I will not discuss the way in which the book ends, except to say that on re-reading it after more than 20 years it had more impact than I'd remembered.

For any fan of classic science fiction, this is a must-have. The language isn't much dated, and the combined volume is a heck of a value for the money.

There's a button often seen at science fiction conventions that reads: "Save the Mundanes. We Need Them For Breeding Stock."

That about sums up the character of the sole negative reviewer on this particular work. Christopher Anvil's short fiction written around the premise of an alien race luckless enough to "conquer" Earth (and finally collected here by Eric Flint), typifies the *Humanity Uber Alles* problem-solving science fiction beloved of John W. Campbell, who bought and published Anvil's stuff back in the '50s and '60s. More than any other single person, Campbell was responsible for the transformation of Gernsback's "super scientifiction" into the genre we know today, and neither the whining mamzers of the '60s "New Wave" (especially the soggy *New Worlds* dimwits like Moorcock who've been trying to pass off badly-written fantasy as if it were SF) nor the other proponents of "soft science fiction" have ever been able to appeal to the sort of people who read and enjoy the genuinely speculative fiction fostered by Campbell when he began his editorial career.

At a convention some years ago, I recall a neofan asking Jack Chalker how to write science fiction. Chalker paused for a moment, trying to get a grip on the neo's abysmal depth of ignorance, before replying: "Well, you've got to start reading it in 1952."

And that about sums up the fund of knowledge upon which our preceding reviewer predicates his opinion of this book. I'm willing to bet that if said putz were asked who Gernsback or Campbell were, he would either gape at you in bafflement or start waffling so vigorously that the air would be scented with maple syrup. Ghu knows what he'd make of queries about E.E. "Doc" Smith, or L. Sprague DeCamp, or any one of a round dozen top writers of the '30s, '40s, or '50s.

Though Anvil's *Pandora's Planet* is certainly dated, it offers an insight into the literary history of science fiction that only a damned fool could fail to recognize and value. On top of that, it's an entertaining read, certainly fulfilling Poul Anderson's old saw about "writing for beer money," in that the price of a paperback book is about the same as that of a six-pack of decent suds, and it's the author's obligation to provide the purchaser of his book with at least as much pleasure as might be derived from the aforementioned half-dozen cans of brew.

Anvil's work delivers that much at the very least.

Note: Looking up the writings of the late Poul Anderson is left as an exercise for the reviewer who came upon *Pandora's Planet* and failed to figure out how to get the pop-top open.

A hilarious book to be sure, this is not so much of a novel as several smaller stories bundled up under one cover. I couldn't put it down and when it was done, I wished that there would be a sequel.

For those of you that enjoyed Turtledove's World War series, pick this up.

This book reads like a collection of short stories that happen to have a common universe and thread going through them. The premise of alien invasion of earth from the aliens' perspective is a fun twist, but it makes it more difficult on the writer to make us have much empathy for the main alien characters we follow. Caricatures abound of "us humans," bureaucracy, and global politics, some to better effect than others.

Who won? A rather satisfyingly ambiguous ending there.

Main praises: nifty premise, fun romp through the caricatures

Main complaint: a choppy read cutting between micro-episodes and the macro-Big Picture events

Recommendation: 4 stars in the sci-fi genre. Go read it, but consider buying used. Be sure you read the whole thing, including the "extra story" at the end which is really quite good.

The origin of this book was a short story in the late 1950s. Over time it was expanded into a novella, which appeared as an ACE double along with "The Space Willies", aka "Next of Kin", another very funny book. In the early 70s the concept was expanded into a full length book, Pandora's Planet, and now we have it in further expanded form.

Some sections of the book will have you chuckling for page after page, while others will be lifting at least a corner of your mouth in amusement.

A race of lion aspected aliens invades Earth, and even tho they have the numbers and perseverance to prevail, Earthmen give them a fight unlike any other they've ever experienced. This is mostly because the people of Earth are just plain more clever than the invaders, who are rather simple and straightforward in their thinking. The book encompasses the conquest of Earth, Earth military forces later helping out the Empire in actions on other worlds, and the integration of Earthmen into the wider society of the Empire ... which brings about problems for them all of its own.

I had originally read the Pandora's Planet portion of this book almost 40 years ago. I'm rather surprised that I find it just as funny now as I did then. I kept reading passages to my wife as I recently read it again. I'm not sure if she tired of that, but she sure laughed a few times.

Now, senses of humor differ, so there are a few people who just don't get the satire and the farce that make this book so humorous. That's OK. The rest of us get to experience a great ride right through to the last page. :-) Its rare to find science fiction and humor so skillfully wrapped into one package, which makes this book a true treasure.

This review contains no plot point spoilers. Pandora's Legions has a cleaver concept for its plot. A galactic empire has invaded Earth. The only problem for them is that other than having the ability for space travel, their technology is no more advanced than roughly 18th Century Earth; and that the Earth's inhabitants seem to be a lot smarter. The book tells the story of what happens when these seemingly hapless aliens get out classed by us lowly "Earthmen". Despite the nature of this story, it can be classified as Soft SciFi since it doesn't go into depth about futuristic technology. It just tells the story as though everything is matter of fact. I like this sort of SciFi from time to time because it's great to just be able to read a story without getting bogged down with technological details. This is ironic since part of the premise of this story is directly related to how technological differences between societies can create certain outcomes. It is my impression that Pandora's Legions is social commentary born from the Viet Nam War era. It's a story that is even more relevant today than it was then, given the current state of world affairs.

The story is definitely from another era in terms of social queues. There is not one female character in this book. Females are mentioned in passing early in the book as nothing more than someone to with which to have brief companionship. The book is so male centric that the use of the term "Earthmen" is considered the official way to refer to people from Earth. I had to role my eyes when I reached that point in the book.

So, the idea behind this book is good. It is entertaining and humorous at times. However, my impression is that the book has inconsistent quality in the areas of story telling and writing. At times is it an enjoyable read. Other significant portions are just tiresome. This is a no spoiler review, so I will not go into specifics regarding this. That said, I almost didn't bother finishing the first chapter, let alone the whole book. But, I gave it a chance. I'm glad I did. Pandora's Legions is OK and worth the read.

For the most part, this was an enjoyable read. It's a very interesting concept (earth is invaded by a race of aliens who are less intelligent than us). But the concept is really all that it has going for it.

Anvil's writing style is not bad but it's also not great. He takes the really cool concept, builds some neat ideas on top of it (like the 'Trap' story another reviewer mentioned), and then does a mediocre job of translating the concepts into writing. There are some passages that are even painfully bad--near the end of the book there's a space battle that is about 20 pages of the most tedious writing I've ever read.

If you read a lot of SF, sure, pick this up. You will probably appreciate the good aspects of the book. Just don't expect too much.

This was an enjoyable SF military fluff book. The originality of writing from the point of view of the alien invaders was a lot of fun, and made a sort of game out of deciphering what the aliens were talking about when they encountered Earthmen and their ways.

However, I had a lot of problems with the execution of the plot points. Logical or physical elements of the story were overlooked or simply 'waved away' by not discussing them. Space fleets arrived when they were needed, with no explanation of how long it takes to travel from one system to another; technology was presented as "anything is possible as long as someone thinks up to do it" with no explanation of the physics behind it. It was as though the author didn't want to be bothered, and simply said 'ok, assume this works'.

It isn't necessarily a bad thing -- the characters were primarily required to use their wits, and not their guns. But if you like your science fiction with a lot of realistic (or realistic-seeming) science, this book will probably frustrate or bore you.

The only reason why I didn't return it was that I had already read fifty pages and my wife wouldn't let me return a "used" book. Honestly, I haven't read a sillier story in I don't know how long. As one of the reviewers implied, this is veeeeery juvenile fiction that, unlike Heinlein's, is NOT suitable for anyone over age 12 or so. It really belongs in the obscurity of really bad pulf scifi and I have no idea why Eric Flint rescued it when there are so many better scifi authors/stories unknown to today's readers.

IF you allow yourself to be fooled by the other two reviews AND you buy this book, DON'T allow your spouse/significan other to talk you out of getting your money back. And don't say that I didn't warn you!