Friday's Forgotten Books, Friday, July 15, 2011

I won't be able to post links for forgotten books on Friday, July 29th or August 12th if anyone cares to step in. Otherwise, take a holiday.You need it.

Check our my review of THE TRIP.

Thanks to today's contributors.

Milton Burton is the author of NIGHTS OF THE RED HORN and ROGUE'S
GAME.

POINT ULTIMATE

Back in 1959 I was introduced to science fiction via a cousin who gave me a copy of Alfred Bester’s “Starburst.” It is still to this day one of the best single-author anthologies I have ever read. From then on, I was hooked. The next Saturday at the Safeway grocery store in Jacksonville, Texas, I looked through the small, revolving book rack for more. I had a free hand with my reading, which my mother never censored. A teacher herself, I have heard her say, “If he understands it he’s old enough for it, and if he doesn’t it couldn’t possibly hurt him.”

Seems to have worked. I haven’t developed too many quirks, twitches, or perversions.

That Saturday I bought two books, both of which I remember vividly: Erle Stanley Gardner’s “The Case of The Velvet Claws,” which doesn’t concern us here, and “Point Ultimate” by Jerry Sohl, which does.

Sohl was a prolific scriptwriter for “The Twilight Zone,” “Outer Limits,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and later “Star Trek.” Point Ultimate,” which appeared in 1955 was a classic example of Cold War fiction, one reflective of the fears and anxieties of the era, and it is a true period piece that stands alongside Pat Frank’s “Alas Babylon” and Nevil Shute’s “On The Beach.”

Set in 1999, as the story begins the U.S. has been conquered by the Soviet Union and is held in thrall by a widespread virus which infects citizens and conquerors alike, all of whom need monthly booster injections to stay alive. A handsome Midwest farm boy rebels, kills a local Soviet honcho, and then gets in contact with the Resistance, a small, tightly-knit group that has found a way to synthesize the booster vaccine in small quantities. The Resistance has also created a clandestine space program under the noses of the occupiers, who have become lazy and degenerate, and established a colony on Mars from which they plan to re-conquer the country. After many adventures, the book ends with our hero about to embark on a trip to this colony. The ultimate end is a foregone conclusion: the American people have become once again tough and resilient through oppression while their communist masters have let themselves become fat, lazy, and complacent.

It never happened, of course. In 1999 the Soviet Union was almost a decade in the dustbin of history. But if one approaches this book as an example of alternative history, one is in for a good read. Several used copies are available through Amazon, and probably other booksellers as well.

Yvette Banek
Joe Barone
Paul Bishop
Bill Crider
Scott Cupp
Martin Edwards
Elizabeth Foxwell
Jerry House
Randy Johnson
George Kelley
B.V. Lawson
Evan Lewis
Steve Lewis/Barry Gardner
Todd Mason
J.F. Norris
David Rachels
James Reasoner
Gerard Saylor
Ron Scheer
Michael Slind
Kerrie Smith
Kevin Tipple
James Winter