Why Do Birds [Paperback]

Damon Knight (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1994

It is the early 21st century, and Ed Stone says he's been in suspended animation since the 1930s--put there by aliens who have sent him on a mission: convince the nations of the world to build a massive vault, in which humanity's billions will lie in suspension and survive the Earth's impending destruction. And, the strangest thing of all is everybody believes him.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ed Stone, kidnapped by aliens in the 1930s, returns to Earth in 2002 to announce that the planet will soon be destroyed. Humanity can be saved, says Ed, only if everyone is packed into a giant box which the aliens will remove to another habitable planet. To boost his credibility, Ed wears a ring that charms everyone he shakes hands with into trusting him. Before long, he's shaking hands with world leaders and the human race is scrambling to get into the box. Knight avoids the mistake of trying to sound plausible. Despite the detailed discussion of the physical, political and geographical ramifications of packing the human race into a box, the basic premise remains absurd, which is precisely what gives this provocative tale by the author of The Observers its kick, from the hilariously deadpan beginning to its apocalyptic conclusion. Some readers might interpret the story as a satire of the New Age or an indictment of today's media-controlled culture, but why bother? A book this much fun to read doesn't need interpretations to justify its existence.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Ed Stone claims that aliens kidnapped him, held him in stasis for 70 years, and returned him to Earth with a grand plan to save the world from destruction. With this unlikely premise, sf veteran Knight ( The Observers , Tor, 1989; CV , Tor, 1986) begins a cautionary tall tale that is by turns a devastating look at human gullibility, a light-hearted spoof of world leaders and bureaucrats, and a poignant tale of love won and lost. Entertaining as well as disturbing, this sf parable belongs in most libraries.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr (July 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312890095
• ISBN-13: 978-0312890094
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,133,183 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Koans have no punchline., April 1, 2009

By 

Forrest L. Norvell (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why Do Birds (Paperback)

Damon Knight was a revered writer, critic, editor and teacher within science fiction and he knew the ins and outs of his genre as well as anyone ever has. This book is clearly a product of a lifetime of working within the field (along with his last book "Humpty: An Oval"), and is only more enjoyable the more of its tropes you recognize. It plays as one extended riff on a very old idea, and part of the pleasure in reading it comes from recognizing the frequent references to earlier versions of itself. It is always plainly evident how much fun it must have been to write, and that carries over to the reader. The story flows with effortless smoothness, never pausing for exposition or to try to make sense of the compounded absurdities of the plot, and Knight never tips his hand as to what it's all about. I'm a close reader and I've read this book several times, and I'm still impressed by how seamless the tale is in the telling; Knight makes an absolutely preposterous story seem plainly obvious, and that is a difficult feat.

Is Ed Stone a pawn or a monster? Is he a con artist or a fraud? Or is he simply what he claims to be, a man wrenched out of time and given an absurd mission by "aliens"? Anyone expecting a satisfying resolution or explanation of what's going on is bound to be disappointed, nor is this a conventional character study (even by sf's lax standards). Much of the story's appeal comes from its irresistible momentum once it gets going, and the subtle way Knight uses transparently cartoonish caricatures to make brief, slashing observations about the way the world works and is. The politicians, businessmen, hustlers, and miscellaneous authority figures with whom Stone interacts hardly seem realistic, but that seems to be much of Knight's point.

Really, the books this reminds me of most are John Brunner's apocalyptic early-70s novels "The Sheep Look Up", "The Jagged Orbit", "Stand On Zanzibar" and "The Shockwave Rider". Like Brunner, Knight was deeply preoccupied with humanity's welfare, and like Brunner, he seemed ambivalent about its ultimate chances for survival. Like most satires, this book has a point. Like most good satires, it's not immediately obvious what that point is.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Missing the punchline, a disappointment, April 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Why Do Birds (Paperback)

The story is well written, but like the title, something vital is missing, without which it doesn't make sense. Things happen, but there's little progress after the situation is set-up.

The characters are unusally low-key; in most other SF stories of this type, upon realizing that they are brainwashed by aliens, a character will try to resist; here they just shrug and go on with the alien plans.

When I read the last page, there was no sense of finishing a complete story: we never do find out what it was all about, anymore than we find out what the missing verb was in "why do birds".

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A comic apocalypse -- interesting but not quite brilliant, June 14, 2006

By 

Richard R. Horton (Webster Groves, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why Do Birds (Paperback)

Why Do Birds is Damon Knight's second-last novel, from 1992. It is described on the cover, fairly accurately, as "A Comic Novel of the Destruction of the Human Race". (Actually, it's not clear that the Human Race is actually destroyed.) The main character is Ed Stone, who shows up in 2002 claiming to be from 1931, despite being about 30 years old. He says aliens kidnapped him and kept him on their spaceship for 70 years, and now they have released him and given him a job. He is supposed to convince everyone on Earth to voluntarily enter a huge cube, and go into suspended animation. Then the aliens will take everyone somewhere, while the Earth will be destroyed.

Naturally people think he's crazy -- indeed, he thinks he might be crazy. But he has a ring that compels anyone he shakes hands with to believe him. Before long he is meeting the President and other political leaders, and the Cube Project is well under way. He also acquires a girlfriend and a number of additional allies. But there are a few people who oppose his plans, in some cases for sinister reasons.

The narrative is deadpan, simple on the surface, often quite funny. Ed is a curious character -- not quite likeable, a bit sinister himself, but in the end someone we sort of root for. His girlfriend Linda Lavalle is rather more likeable. The story plays out over a dozen years or so, as the Cube is built, while the forces arrayed against Ed raise doubts about his story, and Linda has her own loyalties tested. The ending is pretty much as we are compelled to expect, and mostly satisfying. That said, I couldn't love the book -- parts of it made me impatient, and I must confess I am not sure what Knight was really up to. Certainly the aliens and their plans are never explained. There are hints that the world of the book is not quite our world (besides the obvious differences between the 2002 Knight imagined as of 1992 and the real 2002). There are strange occurrences that might imply something really odd is going on, but I never figured out just what. Knight is never less than interesting, but I never really warmed to his book -- perhaps simply because I failed to grasp it fully.