PIERS ANTHONY’S
HASAN
(1983)
Hasan
was the third or fourth novel written by Piers Anthony, but it remained unpublished in book form for more than ten years after its completion. Anthony had originally become enthralled with
The Thousand and One Nights
(c. 1450) during his teenage years, later deciding to adapt the tale of Hasan from its original sources into a full-length fantasy. The book was written without a publisher in mind in 1965 and 1966, and then sold to a paperback firm which cancelled the project after the editor who had purchased it moved elsewhere. It finally saw print in
Fantastic Stories
(1969), but remained unpublished in book form until 1977. Of the many publishers who turned the book down, Anthony has said, most expressed interest in the novel but failed to see how they could market it. During this time, the only fantasy being published successfully was Tolkienesque in nature; the utter failure of two nineteenth-century Arabian Nights fantasies reprinted in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series prejudiced this particular subgenre for ten years. Yet for all its difficulties in finding a publisher,
Hasan
remains an important book, both for the history of fantasy and for the consideration of Anthony’s work.
The story is fairly simple. Hasan, a naive and feckless youth of Bassorah, a small town on the Persian Gulf, is seduced from his metal-working job by a kindly old man who promises him gold and wealth if the lad will only help him. Actually, Bahram the Persian needs Hasan as a sacrifice to obtain the final ingredient for his elixir of gold; he kidnaps the boy and takes him to Serendip (Ceylon), leaving him to be torn to pieces by a roc. Hasan escapes, kills his master, and wanders through the jungle looking for help. Instead, he stumbles across an exquisite palace peopled by the seven lovely daughters of a king of Sind (India), who has secluded his girls to protect their innocence. On the roof of the palace is a garden, and there Hasan discovers a flock of giant birds landing by the pool; these suddenly transform themselves into the beautiful Sana, a princess of the Isles of Wak, and her handmaidens, who have used magical feathers to make the long trip from their homeland (Indonesia). Hasan falls in love with the Princess and manages to capture her with the help of his friends; he then marries her and returns home to Bassorah, where he assumes the life of a wealthy merchant.
Hasan’s mother makes the unfortunate mistake of showing the girl her feather-dress; the homesick girl puts on the magical suit and flies back to her homeland. Hasan is grief-stricken; returning to Serendip, he once again seeks the help of the seven maidens; Rose, one of the girls, refers him to her uncle, Abd al-Kaddus, a magician of Sind. Abd al-Kaddus sends Hasan to Abu al-Ruwaysh, his mentor, who enthralls a flying ifrit, one of the many ranks of jinn (spirits); this particular ifrit, Dahnash bin Faktash, is noted for his peculiar sense of humor. With the help of Dahnash, Hasan is able to find his way to the distant land of Wak, where he persuades the Amazon general, Shawahi, to support his cause. The Queen of Wak, Sana’s sister, refuses to let her go, thereby starting a war between the Queen’s Amazon army and Hasan’s army of jinni. When it appears that Hasan is losing, he orders Dahnash to awaken a sleeping marid (an extinct volcano); the resulting explosion devastates the surrounding area, including the Queen’s soldiers, and Hasan is reunited with his love. In gratitude, he frees the spirits from his control, and they return to the netherworld.
Hasan, innocent and naive at the start of the book, has grown by its end to the point where the kings of the ifrits do him homage; while taking his leave, Dahnash tells Hasan: “One man
is
worth a thousand jinn, provided it is the right man.” Coming from an immortal spirit, this is high praise indeed. Hasan has never shown any real intelligence, but his heart has always been in the right place; he has never shirked his duties or avoided the unpleasant. He has learned from his many teachers—his wife, his magician, his friend Rose, Shawahi, Dahnash—and has in turn earned their respect. Anthony seems to be saying, however, that learning in itself, although admirable, is not enough; after all, Bahram the sorcerer is very learned but also corrupt. Hasan is never corrupted by what he learns; he may have lost his physical innocence, but psychologically he will always be innocent enough to take people as they are, to enjoy life without hurting others. His attitude is demonstrated very early in the book when Anthony notes: “He had refused to believe that a man could be inherently evil, even a Persian.” It is his noble simplicity that makes him so attractive to his fellows, men and women alike: they see in him a basic goodness that few human beings have.
What distinguishes this book from Anthony’s other early novels is its lack of seriousness—or perhaps stuffiness. While he does deal with the essential questions of life—good and evil, the nature of love, the necessity for responsible action—he never beats them into the ground with heavy-handed moralizing. The spice of humor savors the brew and makes it a much more palatable concoction. Anthony had a tendency in his early work, particularly in his science-fiction novels, to become ponderous, weighty, reflective, and intricate for the sake of intricacy. In some of his books, he seems almost to be playing rather futile games with his readers. This is the first of his books to demonstrate a lighter, more caring side, one that seems closer to Anthony the man than is seen elsewhere. In his later and more successful work, particularly in the Xanth series, this same energetic, highly imaginative, light-hearted, down-to-earth, caring force of the writer pushes its way to the surface, making
Hasan
and his other novels in the same vein utter delights to read, on whatever level.
Anthony’s book was the first successful attempt in modern times to break away from the Celtic/Germanic/Norse/Welsh mythos as the only approved source for re-mythologized fantasies. Anthony demonstrates here that other mythologies are equally valid sources for stories; since the first publication of his novel in 1969, others have turned to
The Thousand and One Nights
, to Japanese, Sumerian, and African mythology, and to any of the archetypal tales handed down by men from their earliest oral recollections. The source is irrelevant; the only thing that matters is the story itself and how it is told.
THE PROBLEM OF IMMORTALITY IN EDWIN LESTER ARNOLD’S
PHRA THE PHOENICIAN
(1983)
Of all the different kinds and subgenres of the fantastic story, among the most compelling is the tale of immortality, in which some poor mortal is transformed by fate or circumstance or curse into living history. Typical of these tales is the legend of the Wandering Jew, first put into definitive form in 1844-1845 by the French writer Eugène Sue. Sue’s long novel
Le Juif errant
(
The Wandering Jew
, 1844/45) tells the story of a Roman soldier who taunts Christ on his way to the Crucifixion and is cursed by God to wander the ages until Christ returns to save mankind. Another variation on the same theme is the story of the Flying Dutchman, put into novel form in 1888 by William Clark Russell as
The Death Ship.
Here, a Dutch mariner curses God for the foul winds he has been sent, and God in turn curses him to spend the rest of eternity trying to sail around the Cape of Good Hope, doomed only to meet those unfortunate sailors who are sailing doomed ships themselves.
Edwin Lester Arnold, son of the well-known English man of letters, Sir Edwin Arnold, was taken to India by his father in his youth and studied agriculture and ornithology while traveling extensively throughout the world. He became a journalist for the
London Daily Telegraph
in 1883, wrote a book on ornithology, and then turned his hand to fiction.
The Wonderful Adventures of Phra the Phoenician
, his first novel (of four published), was serialized in the
Illustrated London News
in 1890 before appearing in book form later the same year; it was immensely popular at the time and went through numerous “cheap” editions before fading into obscurity after the turn of the century.
Phra is an adventurer, a merchant seaman who travels to the far corners of the globe looking for bargains. When he comes to the British Isles, not long before the first Roman invasion, he quickly becomes involved in the struggle of the native peoples to resist the conquest. A British princess, Blodwen, becomes enamored of the Phoenician, and the two are married. A jealous Druid blames Phra for a defeat by the Romans, and the angry mob carries Phra away to a ritual execution. After his “death,” Blodwen, a priestess in her own right, conducts an arcane ceremony which heals his wound and puts him into a coma-like sleep that lasts for centuries. When Phra finally awakens, four hundred years have passed, and the Romans are preparing to evacuate the British Isles. Phra becomes involved in a love triangle between Electra, a British matron preparing to desert her villa, and Electra’s beautiful servant girl, Numidea. During the course of the chaotic flight, Electra slays Numidea rather than lose Phra to her, and Phra “dies” again trying to save his love from the waters of the swiftly-flowing river.
He awakens a second time in a Saxon monk’s cell, where he had been placed by King Alfred; the time now is 1066, and Harold II is King of England. William of Normandy invades the eastern coast of England, and Harold is defeated and killed; Phra, who once again has been in the midst of the fight, escapes with other Saxon nobles. He retires to Voewood, a Saxon estate and noble house, and there falls in love with Editha, now heir to this land. Their idyllic existence lasts only twelve years, the longest stretch of time he has spent “alive” since his transformation. Inevitably, the Norman overlords discover the small manse during the great census of households; a fight breaks out when Phra loses his temper, and he and Editha are forced to flee with their family. They are given shelter by a local monastery, but there once again Phra falls into his dreamless sleep of the centuries.
When he awakens, having been preserved by the monastery as a “living” display, three centuries have passed, and it is now the year 1346. King Edward III is preparing to fight the French at the Battle of Crécy. Phra is introduced to Lady Isobel, daughter of a nobleman, and presses his attention upon her; she disdains him, but secretly follows him into battle, dressed as a knight. During the worst part of the fighting, she takes a spear thrust meant for him; he discovers her love for him just as she is dying. Overwhelmed by grief, Phra begs the King to send him to England; during his passage, the ship is wrecked and he alone is swept ashore. There he stumbles into an ancient tomb, and once more falls asleep.
Phra is roused a last time in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Taken in by an old scientist, Adam Faulkener, who is perfecting a steam engine, Phra finds himself in a love triangle between Faulkener’s comely daughter, Elizabeth, and the scientist’s Spanish assistant, Emanuel. In the end, Emanuel treacherously poisons the couple as they say their marriage vows. Throughout the centuries, Phra has been “awake” for no more than fifteen years, having slept away the rest of some fifteen hundred years.
Arnold’s book was popular enough to spawn several imitations, including George Griffith’s
Valdar the Oft-Born
(1895), and it is chiefly through his influence on other writers that Arnold is remembered today. His later novel,
Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation
(1905) is cited as the progenitor of all of the later romantic Mars novels, including those of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Both Arnold and Sue influenced George Sylvester Viereck and Paul Eldridge in their well-known Wandering Jew trilogy.
Still,
The Wonderful Adventures of Phra the Phoenician
stands on its own as a minor masterpiece of fantasy adventure. Arnold is commenting on the force of love in human affairs: how love, if sufficiently strong and passionate, can conquer even the ages. At every stop in his journey through the centuries, Phra meets a new avatar of Blodwen, his first love; and on several occasions, Blodwen appears to him, reassuring him that all will be well in time, that they will be reunited again when he is finally given the gift of death. The reasons for his odyssey are unclear, even to Arnold; somehow, apparently, Phra must live through the life denied him by murder, step by step, woman by woman, a few months here, twelve years there, a few days somewhere else. His nature changes little from century to century, but his desire for death gradually grows stronger as each brief stop results in another tragedy. All life is tragedy, says Arnold; all love affairs are brief, even those which last a lifetime; and life is always too short, even when it spans the centuries. At the end, Phra is ready to accept the death finally forced upon him; and death, in the person of Blodwen, finally accepts him. His last conscious vision sees the fair British maid coming for him out of the mists, claiming her husband at last.
THE FICTION OF BRUCE MCALLISTER
(1986)
Bruce McAllister is a writer’s writer, a critic’s writer, a man whose work has always been highly regarded by his fellow professionals, but who remains relatively unknown and unappreciated among science-fiction fans. The reasons for this are legion: he is a slow and meticulous craftsman, often doing twenty drafts for every story completed and published; he has pursued a dual career as a university English professor, thereby severely limiting his writing time; throughout most of his career he has preferred shorter lengths, in a field where regular production of novels is essential to achieving and maintaining broad public recognition; he eschews sequels, serials, and sword-and-sorcery fantasy; his fictions focus on character development, not mindless action-adventure; and he has never been prolific, even in his early years. Since 1965 he has published some fifty short stories, two novels, and forty-five poems, in addition to editing several noteworthy anthologies. It is only in the 1990s that he has stopped writing short fiction, “probably forever,” he says, “(or for a decade).”
“The Faces Outside,” written when the author was sixteen, sets the tone for the rest of his work. The nameless hero finds himself floating in a tank with his mate and an assortment of aquatic creatures; their only contact with the outside world is a disembodied Voice. The Voice tells them that the faces watching through the ports are the Enemy, aliens who have annihilated the rest of humanity and have altered these two survivors into underwater humanoids. The two eventually transcend captivity by developing mental powers which will vanquish their alien captors, thereby assuring the survival of a new human race.
Here in microcosm we see the basic themes of McAllister’s work. His protagonists are tortured individuals caught between a Heaven and Hell not of their own choosing. Their suffering and tribulations take them from the Limbos of their own minds to an ultimate realization, epiphany, or metamorphosis—or a combination of all three. In the author’s early fictions, the theme of self-transcendence often translates into rather obvious power fantasies, in which one lonely or alienated character somehow manages to conquer his nemesis (
i.e.
, himself), represented by alien or human monsters, or by some other life- or mind-threatening situation.
In the later stories, and particularly in the two long novels,
Humanity Prime
(1971) and
Dream Baby
(1989), the author’s treatment of these themes becomes more sophisticated, his view of mankind more cynical, his treatment of man’s self-sacrificing inclinations more realistic, his feeling for the ultimate tragedy of the human condition more poignant (but never needlessly sentimental). These fictions also demonstrate an understanding of the female psyche unsurpassed in the work of any other male SF writer except D. G. Compton.
Humanity Prime
, greatly expanded from “The Faces Outside,” mixes mermen, cyborgs, intelligent sea turtles, and telepathic powers to produce one of the most compelling and convincing portraits of an underwater human species ever published. The author’s intimate knowledge of human and animal biology, and his childhood experiences as the son of a behavioral psychologist, are reflected in this realistic and plausible extrapolation of man functioning in an alien environment. To McAllister, animals are as human in their own ways as men are sometimes animal-like in theirs; much of his fiction specifically concerns itself with the question of what it means to be human, and the answers are never simple, never easy to assimilate by either the characters or the reader.
The mutual themes of man’s alienation from man and the transcendence of human nature reach a crescendo in McAllister’s brilliant and highly-acclaimed second novel,
Dream Baby
, which took a decade to write, partially under the aegis of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. Set in Indochina during the Vietnam War, this “nonfiction” novel is told largely in the first person by an Army nurse, Lt. Mary Damico, with interstices of real and fictional statements from Vietnam veterans (the author interviewed some 200 survivors of the War over a ten-year period).
McAllister cleverly interweaves the surrealism of the wartime experience with actual contingency plans developed by the U.S. Army to end the War by interjecting special forces units into North Vietnam. In
Dream Baby
the military cynically gathers together a group of veterans who have been experiencing a variety of paranormal experiences under combat. Mary’s “talent” is her ability to dream the future, to forecast events which are rarely pleasant and often depict horrifying glimpses of brutal deaths to come. The group is dropped into the North, where it is ordered to destroy the dikes in central Vietnam during the monsoon season, thereby flooding Hanoi into the sea (attempts were actually made by U.S. forces during the War to bomb these embankments).
The combination of severe psychological stress, discovery of the infiltrators by the North Vietnamese, and the threat of imminent death, suddenly melds the team into one psychical whole, and provides it with the means to escape and survive. To complete the circle, the would-be destroyers of tens of thousands of human lives return to South Vietnam to destroy just one life, the soulless instigator of the project, Bucannon, whose brutal psychological manipulations have matched anything the Vietcong had ever devised. Mary Damico, the healer who had been so overwhelmed with horror that she could not heal, must restore order to the universe in the only way she can, by executing the agent of chaos. Only in this way can her life and the lives of the other survivors return to some semblance of normalcy, with their talents gradually fading away. In McAllister’s universe, although a precarious balance between the forces of order and chaos can sometimes be achieved, ecstasy always walks hand-in-hand with agony, transcendence is always temporary, and nothing worthwhile is ever achieved without pain.