Book Review: Dark Benediction by Walter M. Miller Jr.

Dark Benediction by Walter M. Miller Jr.

This book is an anthology of shorter fiction by the author of Canticle for Leibowitz. Here's a story-by-story review...

You Triflin' Skunk--A poor, rural mother is worried about her son who is both sick and seemingly delusional. He thinks his long absent father is about to come back and that his father is an alien about to lead an invasion of Earth. It's not as explicit in the story as I describe it, which is to the story's benefit. 

The Will--A boy dying of leukemia wants to find a cure. The hope of a cure happening soon seems foolhardy. Everyone believes that a cure will one day be found but probably not in time to save his life. The boy is a fan of a television science fiction show about a time-traveling captain, which gives him an inspiration to solve his problem. The characters are well drawn and the boy's final solution is both brilliant and moving.

Anybody Else Like Me?--A woman suffering from ennui discovers she has a telepathic connection to a stranger. The stranger knows about it and can use it to his advantage, since it communicates more than just information. He can see with her eyes and put images not just in her head but in her vision. She's very unhappy about that, so when he tries to come calling, bad things happen. The story is very engaging and has a satisfying ending.

Crucifixus Etiam--Manue is a laborer on Mars. In addition to the backbreaking work of digging and pouring concrete, he has to deal with the extra-thin air supply. A respirator is installed in his chest, like everyone else. If he manages it right his lungs will still be functioning when his five-year contract is up and he returns to Earth. By then, he'll be wealthy enough to travel the world and see amazing sights. If he can make it through the hardship. A lot of men give up on managing the respirator and lose their lungs. That means they lose the possibility of a normal life back on Earth. Some have just accepted it and become lifers on Mars. Manue's struggle to find meaning is difficult...will he find some consolation? The story is a bit bleak except for the ending, which I found thought-provoking.

I, Dreamer--An intelligent machine with a flaw that causes illogic and disobedience tries to understand its place in what's going on. It has a male teacher, who is a bit rough with it and does not provide a full account of things. It also has a female technician, who is not supposed to talk to it but the machine works up the nerve to ask about songs she hums. It can't sing except in dreams it has. There's interpersonal drama between the teacher and the technician that leads to more revelations about the machine. The story is another exploration of what it means to be human.

Dumb Waiter--After a future war, people have fled the city which still runs from a central computer. The radiation dust has lost its potency but people are still afraid to go there. Not so Mitch Laskel. He wants to reprogram the system so people can live a civilized life again. He runs into a lot of human obstacles as well as the city central computer which is still enforcing laws and ordinances in the absence of any human direction. The story is an interesting exploration of how dependent people become on technology and how to overcome the "help" the computers provide. The world is well developed and Mitch is an interesting hero.

Blood Bank--A strict, honor-bound military commander has blown up a ship of medical supplies when it refused to be boarded and inspected. He's summarily dismissed from service even though he is sure there must have been some contraband or other illegal substances on the ship. Nothing untoward was detected in the wreckage. To clear his name, he travels as a civilian to the source of the mercy ship, a planet outside the civilized space known as Sol III. It's rumored to be the source of humanity. The moral conundrums in the story are more interesting than the science (there's a lot of focus on the mechanics of their drive systems). I liked the guy's quest to prove himself right in spite of everyone else thinking he's a monster. The discussion of culture clash between his culture and other cultures (Sol's culture and other worlds in his league) is interesting and relevant even today (probably because it is an on-going problem in any larger community that has many sub-communities).

Big Joe and the Nth Generation--A rebellious guy is being crucified (almost literally) for his crime of thievery. He's been stealing information about Mars (where he lives). The atmosphere is slowly bleeding off and he wants to restart the subterranean generators that first made the human-friendly atmosphere. The current rulers are not interested in his ideas but he is clever enough to make some progress at least getting past the guardian (the "Big Joe" of the title) protecting the generators. This story is more a perfunctory and world-building adventure than a human interest story. This might be my least favorite story in the collection.

The Big Hunger--A very poetic tale traces the history of mankind across the stars. Two sorts of people are born, those who are content on the world where they live and those who have the Big Hunger, the desire to travel the stars and find that original Paradise from which we were originally cast out. Sometimes the hunger is not so explicit in its goals but it does inspire people to reach out for the stars. The narrative is given by the spaceship that helps man cross the vast distances and then is left to rust. The spaceship always comes back when the civilization is advanced enough to feed the hunger. The story is an enjoyably different look at the sweep of human history and more so of human ambition.

Conditionally Human--In a population-controlled future, only certain couples are allowed to have children. Others have the opportunity to adopt genetically-engineered pets as substitutes. They are called neutroids and have human-like features (human faces, talking, maybe intelligence?) but other bits (a tail and a limit to their aging) that are decidedly inhuman. Terry Norris is an animal controller, which includes the neutroids that people get too attached to. He and his new wife Anne have a hard time since they are not allowed to have children and she can't stand the part of his job where he has to "put to sleep" the animals that are abandoned or have other problems. Norris gets a new order from his boss--collect a certain set of neutroids because a rouge geneticist has made at least one that isn't neuter. If they start reproducing, that could be bad for business and bad for people who think the neutroids should have human rights. The situation is fairly complicated and the human drama caused by the human experimentation makes for thought-provoking reading.

The Darfstellar--A darfstellar is a certain type of actor: a Method actor who doesn't just perform a character but becomes the character. Such an actor becomes the embodiment of the role which can become a problem for directors or producers who want to craft the overall theatrical presentation, not just a specific role. In this story, that problem has been over for at least ten years. Actors have been replaced by life-like mannequins that are based on real actors who have sold their appearance and even their acting style to Smithfield, the business producing the pseudo-actors. The whole show is run by a machine called the Maestro that dictates the performances and can compensate for any malfunctions. The hero of the story is the theater's janitor, Ryan Thornier, who was an actor ten years ago and is on the verge of being fired from the janitor role and being replaced by a Smithfield-like robot that can do janitor work. The theater is mounting a performance of the last play Thornier was almost in. Circumstances and contrivances lead him onto the stage for one last...statement? The general contour of the story is obvious from the beginning but the path is so interesting and the insights about acting and performing are convincing enough to make a compelling story. Thornier is a complicated character and his grappling with his problems fleshes out the world and drives the story forward nicely.

Dark Benediction--In a plague-ridden present, infected people have gray skin and want to infect others through touch. Paul is a healthy, normal human trying to be smart about how he wanders through the apocalyptic landscape. He plans to go into the ruins of Houston but he's convinced to head in a different direction. He travels with a woman to Galveston, hoping to be safe on the island. He soon discovers that the island is a haven for the plague-ridden, who are rebuilding their own society. They look on themselves as a future. Paul has a hard time adapting to the situation. The story has a lot of rich detail and a much deeper understand of human nature and behavior than you'd expect.

The Lineman--Work crews on the moon are trying to hook various locations together so that things run more smoothly. But work on the moon is really tough. The men are constantly threatened by the environment (both dangers on the moon's surface and the dangers of the delicately balanced biospheres) and by the pressure of living in close quarters. Women aren't allowed there since nearly universal birth defects happen. Some guys come for the high pay that will make life easier back on Earth, as long as they have family to come back to. Protagonist Relke's Earth-bound wife left him for someone else, so he's grumpy and likely to stay longer. The moon-madness is always threatening, especially when he sees what he thinks might be an alien ship coming. Or when he has a run-in with the "Party," an underground group trying to overthrow corporate control. His hard life changes quite a bit when the foreign ship lands and has a most unexpected crew. The story has an amazing amount of detail and history to it. Relke is an interesting character and the story moved in ways I wasn't able to anticipate. Good stuff.

Vengeance for Nikolai--The Americans have invaded the Soviet Union with intense fighting causing death all around. A young Russian woman has lost her infant son. She is recruited for a covert mission: to be captured and to assassinate the American general who is masterminding the invasion. She reluctantly agrees as her handler explains the weird weapon they plan to use. She goes through with it, having a harrowing journey as a prisoner who is eventually taken to the top man. Making the Soviets the sympathetic protagonists is daring (the story was published in 1957) and a lot of the expectations of the reader are reversed. The point seems that war is horrible and it often makes people horrible, or at least do horrible things. Vengeance is not a pretty thing.

This collection provides a lot of food for thought and has a lot of interesting ideas. Even though moon bases and Martian bases still seem too far off in the future, Miller's stories have a moral realism that is easy to identify with and enjoy pondering.

Recommended--like any anthology, some are hits and some are not.

The title story is part of the triptych on A Good Story is Hard to Find #267.