Author: David Gerrold
Copyright: 1974
Date Reviewed:   12/22/85
Rating: 8.0

 

Synopsis: Mass comes from a harsh world named Streinveldt. The gravity on Streinveldt is 2.5 times that of Earth and only genetically engineered people can live there. Mass is about four feet tall and weighs 318 pounds - all muscle. Four hundred years ago the Empire encompassed 11,000 inhabited worlds. It was the center of a thriving trade economy. Then, almost overnight, the Empire collapsed leaving the remaining planets virtually isolated from one another. Mass decides to go look for the Empire.

Mass's journey begins on an alien world at an Oracle station. An Oracle is a computer with access to large amounts of information - it's an electronic library. Mass finds a tab (like a book) and learns that the Empire fell soon after the invention of the skimmer - the ultimate star ship. A skimmer can travel across known space in months. The best ships up to that time would require 10 years. Somehow, the skimmer is linked to the disappearance of the Empire.

The library tab also lists the route taken by Empire merchant ships and Mass visits each planet in turn until he stumbles across a skimmer. The skimmer is like no other ship he's ever seen. It has no walls - just a frame work. The ship uses a force field to retain its environment and it has it's own gravity so that any surface that you are standing on is down - even if it faces the ground. The skimmer Mass finds is on a planet whose inhabitants have reverted back to savagery. They are using the skimmer as a temple and attack Mass while he investigates it. Mass just barely learns how to use the on board computer enough to escape the primitives but can not effectively pilot it. For that, the computer informs him, he need a construct which he can get at Manolka.

Manolka is inhabited by a population of androids. All of them are in communications with each and the whole - called the massmind - is greater than the sum of its parts. Ike is the first android to be contacted by Mass and the contact makes him so deranged, in the opinion of the massmind, that the massmind cuts off contact with him to prevent further infection. At this cut off Ike gains self awareness and accompanies Mass on is quest.

With no particular destination in mind, Mass instructs Ike to pilot the skimmer to Homeworld. There they meet Tapper. Tapper is a hemophiliac prince of Concourse. On Concourse the elite are bred for luck. Tapper, being the seventh son of a seventh son seven times should be the ultimate in luck but he's not. He was being shipped to Liadne in stasis (so he could not be hurt) for treatment of hemophilia and had bad luck when the Empire broke down. Tapper spent the next 400 years in stasis until found by Mass. Mass would prefer to leave Tapper where he is but agrees, grudgingly, to take him to Liadne for treatment. He also allows an Andalusian Puff Puppy to come along.

At Liadne Mass, Ike and Tapper meet Edelith, an Empire agent (the new Empire is the spiritual heir of the old one) who claims that the skimmer belongs to the Empire and Mass is to turn it over. He refuses of course so Edelith refuses to treat Tapper. Eventually they strike a bargain. Edelith will cure Tapper if Mass will take her places aboard the skimmer. With merchandise so easy to create, the only way to pay for anything now is with services. However, Tapper isn't really hemophiliac. A bad experience at an early age convinced him that he was unlucky and his body produced the hemophilia to enforce that. The only way to cure his mind is to put him in contact with an empath.

Now the four crew members take off for yet another planet. This one breeds empaths as slaves. One buys an empath for her services but they usually don't live too long. Edelith requests an AL-EDC-9083 empath but there are none available. Only JAL's are left. Edelith says that a Jalla will not suffice but Mass decides to try it anyway not realizing how an empath works. A JAL empath is too efficient. The connection is so strong that she usually doesn't survive the first encounter. They bring out Aura - pale, thin and scared.

Once back on the skimmer, Edelith encourages Tapper and Aura to become friends and when they are close enough, the five people all mind meld together and share their souls. All privacies are now revealed and each person sees their true strengths and weakness in the eyes of others. When contact is finally broken, Tapper and the skimmer are cured but Aura's body is dead. Closer than any family could be Mass, Ike, Tapper and Edelith decide to use their skimmer to rebuild the Empire.

Review: "Space Skimmer" started off with a fantastic premise, a man trying to find out what happened to the Empire, but the book degenerated into a travelogue about half way through. I gave it a 9 for the first half and a 7, for the second. Fully three quarters of the book was taken up with the acquisition of new crew members. This should have taken no more that a third of the story. Once every one was aboard, the quest for the Empire should have begun in earnest. Instead the quest is turned into a cure for a hypochondriac prince. Since this prince was picked up well into the story, it seems odd that the climax should revolve around him instead of Mass.

Sometime during the course of the novel, we do find out what happened to the Empire but the information is only incidental to the plot. It seems the fall came when the skimmer was invented which gave free access to pirateers. The explanation is wanting.

David Gerrold has long been known to me to be a minor plagiarist. In one of his Star Trek books he describers his own plot concerning an Enterprise encounter with a race of people living aboard a generation ship that think they are on their own world. The idea is not a new one but many of the details, like the mass conversion death reclaimers, come straight from "Orphans of the Sky" by Robert A. Heinlein. In another proposed story, the Enterprise is taken over by little furry people that bear a striking resemblance to H. Beam Piper's "Fuzzies". Gerrold opens this story with, "The author would like to thank Larry Niven for allowing me to 'borrow' an idea". Actually he borrowed several ideas from Niven, the stasis field, people who are bred for luck, and a gravity generating support structure. Other ideas that come from Star Trek are using empaths as a cure and mindmelds. There were two ideas that he borrowed from himself which I really did enjoy. Just before he introduced the Puff Puppy, he mentions Anterian Glow Water, which can be used to polish Spican Flame Gems.

From all I've said in this review one would think I really hated this book but in fact I did like it. The prose was easy to read and kept my interest peaked for at least a while. The goody goody ending where the crew decides to rebuild the Empire obviously means there is a sequel out there or still in preparation.