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Space Books Media Book Reviews

Knights of the Limits 40

Posted by timothy from the fiercest-creatures-for-yards-around dept.
JT Martin writes with his review of Barrington Bayley's The Knights of the Limits. Fans of obscure science fiction should thank JT for the service thus rendered.
Knights of the Limits
author Barrington J. Bayley
pages 218
publisher Cosmos Books
rating 9
reviewer JT Martin
ISBN 1587153831
summary Nine stories suffused with a sense of wonder

Obscure genius

Little known even inside the genre of science fiction, Barrington Bayley has been composing tightly plotted work for almost 50 years in relative obscurity.

This astonishing selection of nine short stories has been loudly admired by almost all the stalwarts of the genre; Mike Moorcock recently named it one of his top ten sf books in an article for The Guardian. Bruce Sterling has praised it to high heavens in a piece he wrote for Cheap Truth, calling Bayley "the zen master of modern space opera." John Clute, Brian Stableford, Charles Platt and even the late, great William Burroughs have all spoken of Bayley in fervently admiring words.

Despite all the accolades, strangely and sadly nobody has even heard of the book. Originally published in 1978 it came and went in the blink of an eye, remained unavailable for the past few decades and commanded ridiculous prices in the used book market.

So why all the fuzz

Bayley is one of the great ideas guys of the genre science fiction. When he actually gets mentioned, the response usually is a smile and a gasp; "Oh, he's that wild guy!" Exuberant, weird, metaphysical, astounding, thrilling are all words that apply. Trailing Borges with a serious nod to A. E. Van Vogt, his stuff perplexes and confounds you with the barrage of bizarre ideas he weaves into these stories. He belongs to the great freewheeling tradition of imaginative writers; forget Kim Stanley Robinson and Arthur C. Clarke, think Charles Harness, Olaf Stapledon and Rudy Rucker - he invents his science (that's why it's called fiction, eh?) and bounces off to the nomansland like some mutant kangaroo. This is stuff you can barely find on the shelves today as franchise poop is being pushed on all the fronts.

Bayley knows his science but isn't limited by it - his writing bellows straight from his subconscious pool of theoretical thought, winging it with gusto and joy. For an example, "Me and My Antronoscope," -- one of his signature stories -- describes a universe completely filled with rock. The existing life inhabits pockets of space within. With obvious delight Bayley pauses at the thought and starts imagining "what would it be like?" He finds the answer and runs off with the thought, goes off to describe their version of space travel and the obvious problems facing any such attempts. It is a brilliant vision, conceptualized with wonder, but as much of what is called science fiction today is really just extrapolations of current sciences many readers will simply not see the point of it.

The same is true of most of the rest of Bayley's fiction - it doesn't portray the future; it imagines, dreams and invents new cosmologies, universes, alien life and their respective philosophies. He writes existential pieces about robot consciousness, he tinkers in his workshop wondering about the nature of space, mixing and matching analytical philosophy, mathematics, physics, biology and anthropology in a melodramatic and exuberant manner.

One should be forewarned that his powers of characterization and dialogue are more restrained -- the function of people in his stories tends to simply be setting off the scenery. His love of old pulp science fiction is obvious, and the bizarre juxtaposing of robots and rayguns with rigorous metaphysical invention can be startling, but with a sly satirical touch he succeeds laudably.

It is distressing to see such a vividly entertaining thinker miss the boat -- if Bayley had been born in Poland or Argentina we'd all be reading him now alongside Stanislaw Lem and Philip K. Dick, but as Kubrick never filmed THE SOUL OF THE ROBOT (instead using it as fodder to his conception of A.I.), he remains unread in the English language while the Japanese devour his translated works. So if you feel you're attuned to this brand of extravagnce, THE KNIGHTS OF THE LIMITS is the perfect intoruction, presenting 9 of his key stories. If you decide to give it a try, keep in mind that this most certainly is not extrapolative hard science fiction. It is wildly original speculative stuff that will literally boggle the mind and open new venues of thought and invention.

Related Links:

You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.
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Knights of the Limits More

Knights of the Limits

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  • Hrrmm.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Teancom ( 13486 ) <david&gnuconsulting,com> on Friday November 02, 2001 @11:40AM (#2512168) Homepage
    "Exuberant, weird, metaphysical, astounding, thrilling are all words that apply. ... perplexes and confounds you with the barrage of bizarre ideas he weaves into these stories ... bellows straight from his subconscious pool of theoretical thought, winging it with gusto and joy ... existential pieces about robot consciousness ... in a melodramatic and exuberant manner"

    Okay, we have two equally plausible scenarios. 1) JT Martin is a big fan of writers like Moorcock and Lovecraft, so he is conciously copying their overexcessive verbage and flagrant writing style or 2) he just bought a thesaurus.

    You be the judge.....

    • Re:Hrrmm.... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Must be 2, the chance of finding an actual Moorcock fan is just too unlikely.
      • No way! Elric is one of the greatest hero/anti-hero's around. A man trying to redeem himself, fighting against an intelligent sword that loves to kill and drain souls, but without which he will die.

        He also has some other great characters but they are all the same (for the people who don't get that, read some of other series as well)

        Andrew
      • Well, I'll be boring and say I like Michael Moorcock. Don't know who this Mike Moorcock chap is though.....

        Seriously, Moorcock is a fine author. He's had his crap periods (I've never been able to read "The Time Of The Hawklords", and I'm a great Hawkwind fan....), but overall, Moorcock is worth a read. Just compare his imagination and style with these crappy 700/800 page fantasy epics by Robert Jordan.....

        Tom.

        • Seriously, Moorcock is a fine author. He's had his crap periods (I've never been able to read "The Time Of The Hawklords", and I'm a great Hawkwind fan....), but overall, Moorcock is worth a read

          Hmm. I never read the Time of the Hawklords book, however some of the songs Moorcock wrote for Hawkwind are OK. Better still are those he released as Michael Moorcock's Deep Fix - in particular "Good Girl/ Bad Girl."

          As for Books the experimental Jerry Cornelius novels ("Cure for Cancer" et al.) still stand up very well, as do some of the novels from the 1980's.

          Even the numerous Eternal Champion novels need no apology - books written in three days each (15,000 words a day) to finance a failing fiction magazine by a man whose marriage was failing at the same time.

          Trying very hard to get back on topic, this review has prompted me to think about rereading some Bayley. As I don't go to conventions he is actually the only SciFi author I've ever met. In Liverpool 15 years ago I sat in with a group of philosophy students I knew whilst he talked to them about some of his ideas - many of those that are referred to in the review.
          Of course before I do that I'll have to finish Ash - 900 pages down, 200 to go. Time to go offline and get reading :-)

          - Derwen

      • You mean Michael Moorcock writes science fiction and fantasy novels? I've seen his books before but from the name I'd concluded that they had been mis-shelved from the erotica section.

        I mean... Michael Moorcock. That's almost as good as Dirk Diggler.
    • I was gonna say Don King.

  • Also (Score:3, Informative)

    by The Real Andrew ( 321273 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @11:47AM (#2512205)
    "The Garments of Caean is also worth reading if you can find a copy of it lying around.

    Andrew

  • Sci Fi (Score:1, Interesting)

    by crumbz ( 41803 )
    Reading science fiction as I was growing up was one of the most positive experiences of my life. It provided me with the tools of imagination and the ability to rectify opposing views on social issues. THe best sci-fi ala Clark, Asimov, Gibson, Heinlein is that the underlying social critique is relevent to the hear and now despite an alien setting.

    My 2 cents.

  • Other reading (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 )
    I'll give it a look, but aside from that, I've aready read Terry Pratchett's The Last Hero, which is profusely and beautifully illustrated (picturebook style) by Paul Kidby, which was a fun 4-5 hour read (only ~180 pages)

    Also got a bulletin from Amazon.co.uk that he's got a 'childrens' book coming out shortly, too, Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, a Pied-Piper tale that goes awry (doesn't everything?) set in Diskworld.

  • The Zen Gun - Bayley (Score:3, Informative)

    by Scrymarch ( 124063 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @12:11PM (#2512333)
    Picked this up many years ago second-hand; top book. He has a fun method of making up physics that seems superficially plausible and consistent and then baking it into a metaphorical pizza and starting a massive food fight with it. Lots of pulpy ideas ... worth a look.

  • 26 comments?!? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    worst story *ever*

  • Other BJB books (Score:4, Informative)

    by Chocky2 ( 99588 ) <c@llum.org> on Friday November 02, 2001 @02:01PM (#2512916)
    A lot of Bayley's books are still in print, mainly with Cosmos Books, and are relatively easy to find (as easy as obscure old SF ever is). He manages to do a fair job keeping the science reasonable (if dated) even though the settings are generally space-operary.

    Unless you're a student of the genre, skip his first novel "Star Virus" - it's interesting as an example of an early SF disaster story, rather than a good, well written tale. His next book "Annihilation Factor" is better, but most valuable as it introduces well many motifs he uses in later works. Next come "Empire of Two Worlds" and "Collision with Chronos" (aka Collision Course) - the former good, the latter probably his best work; of his later books "The Fall of Chronopolis" and "The Garments of Caean" are the strongest, with "The Zen Gun" being the last decent thing he's written. Scattered among these are his short stories, which vary greatly in merit, the early ones have for the most part been collected in "Knights of the Limits" and "Seed of Evil", the most notable of these is "The 4 Colour Problem"; the later ones are mostly missable.

  • ... is another of his SF books - I haven't read it for years and years, I can't remember much about it, so if you want to know more try Google. I do know I kept it because it's good and very weird, and now I can read it all over again. Yay!

    Ella the Cat's sister Sam died today. Take a look at her website http://www.shevek.f9.co.uk if you're a cat person.

  • Which came first, this review or the Memepool posting [memepool.com]?

  • I found The Pillars of Eternity at a garage sale for $0.25. It then became one of my favorite books. Boquaz is a long and complicated derivation of Boaz, the name of the main character of the book.

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