| LIFEBURST Jack Williamson New York: Ballantine Books, November 1984 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-345-31394-1 | ||||
| ISBN-10 0-345-34032-9 | 271pp. | HC | $12.95 | |
LIFEBURST. The evolutionary leap into space from a planetary birthplace. The crucial event in the evolution of any race, comparable only to the earlier leap from water to dry land. It becomes possible only when primitive survival modes are superseded by intelligence, technological sophistication, and a holistic regard for the total space environment and its entire community of life and mind.
Each chapter leads off with an explanatory note, like a brief encyclopedia entry. They are an elegant way of explaining crucial elements of the story. The one above is particularly elegant.
The story concerns SkyWeb, the ring of cities and factories girdling Earth, supported by super-strong cables. Here dwells a new ruling class, headed by the Kwan dynasty. Access is rigidly controlled by genetic tagging, and any interference is met with deadly force. On Earth's surface are the new peasantry, and they resent their second-class status. SkyWeb facilities on the surface are subject to attack by rebels. Any such attacks draw a brutal response.
When the story opens, no human is aware that a complex alien civilization called the eldren (uncapitalized) has taken up residence in our solar system's Oort Cloud — the distant realm far from the Sun, filled with comets and ice asteroids.(It's also called the Halo.) The eldren have mastered "nanionic physics" and integrated it with their bodies; thanks to it, they need no air and little food, and can swim through the vacuum of space as easily as you or I might cross a swimming pool. They need nothing from humanity, but are open to contact if humanity can prove itself worthy.
That humanity has so far failed to do. The first expedition to the Oort, led by a Kwan, has needlessly injured a female member of the eldren who it chanced to encounter. Brought back to Earth, she is confined in the SkyWeb.
Despite his lack of the proper bloodline, Quin Dain is determined to make it into space. By persistence and some fantastic luck, he succeeds just in time to rescue the wounded eldren prisoner and escape the destruction of SkyWeb in a private spaceship moored next to where she was being held.1
What was it that brought down the SkyWeb? Call it a random factor — or the Red Queen.2 Suffice it to say that Quin Dain deals with it and is granted probational welcome among the eldren as a result, taking up residence in the Halo at a place called Cluster One, the closest thing to a seat of government. He and his family are there on sufferance; like all planetics, planet-dwellers, they need to breathe and have no contact with nanionic physics, the basis of eldren life. If they wish full acceptance, they must undergo the Game of Blade and Stone. But this is a rough game, not meant for planetics. Quin's son Benn seeks to qualify for the Game — but that is another story.3
Jack Williamson (1908–2006) was one of the more prolific authors of the Golden Age of science fiction. He attained Grand Master status, the second to do so, after Robert Heinlein. This is not one of his best-known tales, but it is a great read.
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