Customer Reviews

Polymath

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Two lifeships crash on an uninhabited planet, and their passengers must struggle to survive.

The storyline is fairly simple adventure/survival, with lots of detail. It is somewhat like Golding's classic, but less gruelling, and with a bit more faith in human nature.

First of a trilogy: 2. The Avengers of Carrig 3. The Repairmen of Cyclops

John Brunner's novel Polymath, written early in his career, is a gem and highly recommended. This tale about survival on an alien planet by shiploads of refugees escaping from a home world with a star going nova is not very original. In these types of stories we are confronted with, well, the usual: deadly flora and fauna, hostile climate conditions, boisterous settlers and inadequate resources. Brunner uses these familiar themes to create, yes, a fascinating backdrop, but the interaction of diverse character types makes this book exceptional. John Brunner is, in my estimation, a brilliant writer of Science Fiction whose body of works has disappeared from bookshelves since his untimely death in 1995. This book is an excellent introduction to a very underrated writer. Note to readers: there are two versions of this book one published in 1963 and one in 1974. The edition published in 1963 is shorter and substantially different than the 1974 version. This review is based upon the 1974 edition.

After their sun goes nova, two groups of survivors find themselves marooned on a faraway planet. Cut off even from each other, the two groups follow two distinct paths: one attempts to organize itself around more or less democratic structures and the other descends into "Lord of the Flies" savagery. The majority of the action in the first part of the novel revolves around showing how difficult it is to maintain a civilized social order in the face of extreme deprivation and hardship. Each of several main characters reacts differently to the situation, and these personal dramas also fuel the novel's development. From the p-o-v of this female reader, the sub-plot involving the female characters was incomprehensible, truly, I could not understand what was supposedly happening to them nor why they reacted as they did. None of the female characters came across as particularly well-developed. But once the two groups encounter one another again, the book loses this more interesting, multiple perspective and focuses on one individual, the eponymous "Polymath," a genius-in-training, and his personal quest to unify the survivors. In the end, the book's message "planet-builders dare not fail" is simply not universal enough to rank this novel a permanent place on my bookshelf.

Standard SF fare from 1974. In my opinion, Brunner had his best novels before this time (Zanzibar '69 and Sheep '72, for example). Original idea of stranded unprepared colonists/refugees, which allows for millions of different scenarios to play out. But the written plot feels too molded rather than loose, free-flowing. It was so written that everything was stacked-up to end up the way it did; there was no fluidity or compromise. And again (as it seems to be a key SF ingredient from the 60s-80s), I must say characterization of women through sexualization is a cheap cop out for any writer. Brunner wrote terrible one-dimensional female characters in Polymath. Thankfully, the SF ideas (mainly, the Polymath career idea) were original enough to rescue this book from a 2-star rating.

Brunner is rightly famous for his masterpieces Stand on Zanzibar, Shockwave Rider, and the Sheep Look Up. However, his earlier pulpish sci-fi such as Polymath is actually a pretty good survival tale on a very interesting planet. Secondly, I did not find its slight disturbing nature annoying at all, perhaps since I have managed to read Sheep Look Up and tons of Philip K. Dick. Yes, Captain Gnomes is unbelievable (but are the villains in 8/9 of fiction?) however Devia and Lex are suprisingly well rounded for characters for such a brief book that probably took Brunner a few months to write. For its one hundred and fifty four or so pages its a suprisingly good read. 4/5

Yes, this type of story is a staple product of scifi. But it's an important staple.

John Brunner fleshed out an amazingly complicated and intelligent character - Lex - who is a polymath (essentially a savant planetary engineer). The story centers around his leadership of a coastal colony of survivors on an unknown planet 70 light years from their own star system after their sun went nova. This leadership is sharply contrasted with the failed leadership within a second castaway colony on a plateau some miles from the coast.

This is scifi at its best, where Brunner shows us how humans react in times of need, in close quarters, in novel situations, etc.

The TV series Stargate Universe was an attempt to do this. So was the season where the Battlestar Galactica survivors landed on a planet for a year, and were ultimately overrun by the Cylons. But this novel came before those TV storylines - and Brunner did it right.

I highly recommend this story for anyone who enjoys this brilliant author. The Crucible of Time is another of his novels, entirely different from this one, which I also HIGHLY recommend.

YOU have to pay attention within [this] one, THE simple, you dont want to think much about . SURVIVALthe past [ furrows ]anywasy pondered and ploted WELL tilled, GARDEN OF THOUGHTS,about what would happen,TOMMORROW , and the AWFULL JOBS DONE AND DEEDS DONE TO INSURE,,PRAGMATISED erotised theorised till , nearly death does you indetail stuns , explodes with INSIGHT THE FOLLYS man proabably shall still embrace in the far off tommorrows of yesteryear,BRUNNER MAKES CLEAR AGAIN AND AGAIN ITS CLEAR HE THINKS IT WORTH DOING,ALL THE BRILLIANT CRAP, DONT ME NOTHING IF YOU DONT STIR IN THE ESSENTIALS, its LIKE an EQUATION which the author examines in a plain to TELL you HOME SPUN, good versus, bad SURVIVALIST yarn, future science glory hard boiled collide with the alien NATURAL ..