William Dexter Children of the Void (1955)
With Children of the Void, I think I've finally identified a previously unrecognised science-fiction subgenre. I'm tentatively naming it Theosophic science-fiction, in reference to its scrambling towards some image of a cosmos subject to the secretive or otherwise hidden influence of a Godlike figure or figures. Characteristic of the genre - and which arguably excludes Philip K. Dick, although he's clearly related - are novels of occasionally allegorical persuasion utilising science-fiction tropes as support for what otherwise reads like mythology, and making frequent use of telepathy, subterranean realms, idealised or angelic alien visitors, mind control exerted by unknown forces, and other conditions commonly associated with certain forms of schizophrenia. So far I have William Dexter, Richard S. Shaver, and Robert Moore Williams on the list, and George Adamski's accounts of trips aboard flying saucers tick most of the same boxes - keeping in mind here that Shaver similarly claims the events described in his fiction to have actually happened to him. It's been a while since I read Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race but I've a feeling it may also count.
Without getting bogged down in what some other fucker is welcome to write up for Wikipedia if they care that much, I'm not proposing that Theosophic science-fiction should be considered an actual school so much as that it's a distinct type just as Menippean satire is a distinct type, the essence of which can be distilled to A.E. van Vogt rewriting Madam Blavatsky, or thereabouts; so it's arguably cranky, and may count as outsider art in so far as that it's never going to achieve the relative respectability of Asimov or Clarke - although 2001 might have made the list had Arthur thought to include an underground race of mole-people.
I resent the term outsider art, but we're generally talking about novels which may eschew certain literary or grammatic conventions to tell stories with a peculiar dream-like quality not unlike those of the aforementioned van Vogt. It is this quality, often dismissed as a basic inability to tell a coherent tale, which has marginalised the authors under consideration, possibly meaning that I'm the first to attempt to define this thing as an actual literary tradition, and I suggest that it's worth defining as a literary tradition - albeit a vague one - for the sake of discussion. These books have elements in common, not least that they make for very weird reading. I like it very much when a novel surprises me, and Shaver, Dexter, and Williams score very high in this respect.
Anyway, this one came to my attention when someone took the piss out of its admittedly ludicrous cover art on Tumblr, or one of those things - as you will see if you scroll to the foot of the page. It made me laugh but I felt sorry for the book, and a little research revealed it to have formerly been Children of the Void by one William Dexter, rather than Zorgo the Red's Come Be My Friend. Sadly, it seems Dexter's publishers weren't significantly more respectful of his art than whoever mocked up Come Be My Friend. The bat-winged creatures of the planet Varang-Varang are eight rather than hundreds of feet tall, and both front and back cover blurb refer to Earth torn from its orbit and sent hurtling through space. Not only does this not happen in the novel, but it's not even referenced as anything likely, so they were probably thinking of the aforementioned Varang-Varang, upon which our heroes spend some time, and which has enjoyed an unpredictable orbit.
As with World in Eclipse, to which this is the sequel, here we have a fairly straightforward morality tale about how it's good to not blow ourselves up with atomic bombs, in this case expanding the idea to suggest that despite our differences, we're all brothers, that we're all - quite literally - children of the void. This understanding is achieved through a series of scrapes and encounters experienced by Denis Grafton, our narrator, as he travels between worlds in a flying saucer piloted by creatures called the Nagani. They become lost in the tunnels beneath the surface of the near dead world Varang-Varang, then escape to an Earth depopulated by the events of the previous novel - specifically to Crystal Palace and south-east London, which was nice for me seeing as that's my old manor. The Anerley Road even gets a mention.
I would guess that Dexter was inspired by either Wells or Wyndham, as his prose has some of the same qualities, sober or even stately whilst retaining a conversational tone. The story is narrated very much in the style of a travelogue, even incorporating peculiar references to the typewriter our man has on board the Nagani saucer; and as with van Vogt, there's a sense of constant motion combined with a disorientating absence of focus. We're never quite sure where the story is going, or what anyone is trying to achieve, but the pace is such that this never becomes a problem. Children of the Void is one of the weirder things I've read this year, and it came as an immense pleasure after the turgid and surprisingly predictable plod through Alan Moore's Jerusalem.
With Children of the Void, I think I've finally identified a previously unrecognised science-fiction subgenre. I'm tentatively naming it Theosophic science-fiction, in reference to its scrambling towards some image of a cosmos subject to the secretive or otherwise hidden influence of a Godlike figure or figures. Characteristic of the genre - and which arguably excludes Philip K. Dick, although he's clearly related - are novels of occasionally allegorical persuasion utilising science-fiction tropes as support for what otherwise reads like mythology, and making frequent use of telepathy, subterranean realms, idealised or angelic alien visitors, mind control exerted by unknown forces, and other conditions commonly associated with certain forms of schizophrenia. So far I have William Dexter, Richard S. Shaver, and Robert Moore Williams on the list, and George Adamski's accounts of trips aboard flying saucers tick most of the same boxes - keeping in mind here that Shaver similarly claims the events described in his fiction to have actually happened to him. It's been a while since I read Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race but I've a feeling it may also count.
Without getting bogged down in what some other fucker is welcome to write up for Wikipedia if they care that much, I'm not proposing that Theosophic science-fiction should be considered an actual school so much as that it's a distinct type just as Menippean satire is a distinct type, the essence of which can be distilled to A.E. van Vogt rewriting Madam Blavatsky, or thereabouts; so it's arguably cranky, and may count as outsider art in so far as that it's never going to achieve the relative respectability of Asimov or Clarke - although 2001 might have made the list had Arthur thought to include an underground race of mole-people.
I resent the term outsider art, but we're generally talking about novels which may eschew certain literary or grammatic conventions to tell stories with a peculiar dream-like quality not unlike those of the aforementioned van Vogt. It is this quality, often dismissed as a basic inability to tell a coherent tale, which has marginalised the authors under consideration, possibly meaning that I'm the first to attempt to define this thing as an actual literary tradition, and I suggest that it's worth defining as a literary tradition - albeit a vague one - for the sake of discussion. These books have elements in common, not least that they make for very weird reading. I like it very much when a novel surprises me, and Shaver, Dexter, and Williams score very high in this respect.
Anyway, this one came to my attention when someone took the piss out of its admittedly ludicrous cover art on Tumblr, or one of those things - as you will see if you scroll to the foot of the page. It made me laugh but I felt sorry for the book, and a little research revealed it to have formerly been Children of the Void by one William Dexter, rather than Zorgo the Red's Come Be My Friend. Sadly, it seems Dexter's publishers weren't significantly more respectful of his art than whoever mocked up Come Be My Friend. The bat-winged creatures of the planet Varang-Varang are eight rather than hundreds of feet tall, and both front and back cover blurb refer to Earth torn from its orbit and sent hurtling through space. Not only does this not happen in the novel, but it's not even referenced as anything likely, so they were probably thinking of the aforementioned Varang-Varang, upon which our heroes spend some time, and which has enjoyed an unpredictable orbit.
As with World in Eclipse, to which this is the sequel, here we have a fairly straightforward morality tale about how it's good to not blow ourselves up with atomic bombs, in this case expanding the idea to suggest that despite our differences, we're all brothers, that we're all - quite literally - children of the void. This understanding is achieved through a series of scrapes and encounters experienced by Denis Grafton, our narrator, as he travels between worlds in a flying saucer piloted by creatures called the Nagani. They become lost in the tunnels beneath the surface of the near dead world Varang-Varang, then escape to an Earth depopulated by the events of the previous novel - specifically to Crystal Palace and south-east London, which was nice for me seeing as that's my old manor. The Anerley Road even gets a mention.
I would guess that Dexter was inspired by either Wells or Wyndham, as his prose has some of the same qualities, sober or even stately whilst retaining a conversational tone. The story is narrated very much in the style of a travelogue, even incorporating peculiar references to the typewriter our man has on board the Nagani saucer; and as with van Vogt, there's a sense of constant motion combined with a disorientating absence of focus. We're never quite sure where the story is going, or what anyone is trying to achieve, but the pace is such that this never becomes a problem. Children of the Void is one of the weirder things I've read this year, and it came as an immense pleasure after the turgid and surprisingly predictable plod through Alan Moore's Jerusalem.
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