| We can easily picture the problem of those who | | | | invulnerable. Too invulnerable for the health of the |
| have to write stories about Superman. How do you | | | | plot. One way round this is to have the force field still |
| build up sympathy for a character like that? For a | | | | vulnerable to nuclear bombs (as in Poul Anderson's |
| writer it is interesting, from a technical point of view, | | | | Shield). Another idea is to postulate that the |
| to observe how the problem is surmounted; how for | | | | defensive force of the field is somehow derived |
| instance Superman can be given personal problems | | | | from the speed of projectiles which attack it, which |
| (loneliness of his position; threats to the secrecy of | | | | leads to the interesting conclusion, that slower |
| his alter ego) and danger and opposition (via the use | | | | attacks could get through whereas faster ones are |
| of kryptonite). Not a lot to go on, yet the old DC | | | | stopped. In other words, bullets will fail but |
| comics churned out the stories successfully month | | | | sword-thrusts are still effective. This results in a |
| after month, year after year, and the films haven't | | | | return to swash-buckling, as we see from Charles |
| done badly. However, Superman hasn't given rise to | | | | Harness' The Paradox Men and Frank Herbert's Dune. |
| great literature. The theme is too open-ended in the | | | | Reincarnation, an open-ended theme which allows the |
| sense that the fellow can, at any rate by normal | | | | possibility of an infinite succession of lives, can also |
| standards, do virtually anything he wants. | | | | thereby unfortunately decrease the suspense of a |
| Larry Niven wrote some stories about a man with | | | | plot in which one of those lives is threatened. The |
| psychokinetic powers. They are collected in The Long | | | | Ooranye Project gets round this difficulty by |
| Arm of Gil Hamilton. Psychokinetic powers are | | | | "pruning" the concept: reincarnation gives the |
| dangerously open-ended. If you can move things at a | | | | inhabitants of the giant planet a mere two or at the |
| distance through the power of your mind, you're | | | | most three lives. It is enough to give extra colour |
| virtually invincible, aren't you? The villain in Frank | | | | and an extra sphere of human interest, but it does |
| Robinson's The Power has this power, and the story | | | | not go too far towards that kind of infinity which can |
| fails to convince. The opposition should have been | | | | bring indifference. |
| wiped out easily. But in the case of Niven's hero, the | | | | One great author who does not heed the perils of |
| notion has been ingeniously "pruned". Gil Hamilton, for | | | | open-endedness is Edgar Rice Burroughs. His hero |
| reasons that are plausibly explained, does not have | | | | John Carter gets to Mars simply by wanting to go |
| an open-ended psychokinetic power; in fact he only | | | | there. It is outrageous, and likewise outrageous is the |
| has what amounts to an invisible third arm, with a | | | | fact that he does not use this ability to transmit |
| reach no longer than a flesh-and-blood arm. It's still | | | | himself instantaneously from world to world |
| enough to get him out of some tight spots, but it | | | | whenever he is in a tight spot on Mars. He doesn't |
| doesn't make him into a superman. Psi powers - | | | | even think about it. It is so outrageous that it |
| paranormal powers - need very careful handling. | | | | actually... works. Perhaps it works because it |
| James Schmitz is very good at it, so good that even | | | | convinces us that the author was writing in some |
| though he is making up the rules as he goes along, | | | | kind of trance of the imagination, so that his books |
| he makes them convincing. | | | | to that extent manage to replace waking logic with a |
| Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings gives his principal | | | | dream logic which we intuitively sense but do not try |
| civilization a great communications device, the palantiri | | | | to rationalize. After all, maybe John Carter was an |
| or "Seeing Stones", but they are rare and precious, in | | | | Atlantean or something, subject to periodic |
| fact numbering only seven, and most of those are | | | | dematerializations and re-materializations when |
| lost by the time the story starts. Otherwise they | | | | stressed, or when certain cosmic powers reacha |
| might have undermined the sense of distance and | | | | certain point in their blah blah whatever. Some excuse |
| the realistic toils of travel in his Middle Earth. | | | | like that. Anyhow it works. But as a reader I don't |
| Force fields are a frequent theme in SF. Protected by | | | | advise writers other than ERB to go down that road. |
| a powerful personal force field, one would be | | | | |