Review - In our hands the stars

With any book beginning with a physicist blowing up his lab and simultaneously discovering a powerful new energy source; the ‘Daleth Drive’, you think you more or less know what you’re in for. That presumption is turned on its head here with a novel not so much about the gizmo, but the problems the invention of a gizmo that everyone wants presents, like early adopted paranoia on an international scale. Harry Harrison enjoys writing about rapidly developed new technology and here marries that with his thoughts about the consequences of how the speed of that development might outstrip man’s maturity to make proper use of it.

The fantastic is kept securely in harness here. Yes, the Daleth Drive is an amazing new power source that could be a true ‘space drive’, but the first consideration of the inventor is not ‘how do I attach this to a space ship and visit Mars?’ or ‘Fame!’ ‘Women!’ ‘Money!’ or ‘Streets names after me!’ or even ‘More women!’ But instead ‘the military will take this simple energy device and pervert it so that my invention ends up killing people and, although space battles are pretty cool, ships the size of aircraft carriers that can move at will over the surface of the planet, raining fire and terror down on cities, villages and eventually refugee camps (or ‘terrorist training camps’ as they would no doubt be designated) is very bad.

Nor is the inventor faced with an easy choice. His adopted home and the home of the discovery is Israel, such an invention could free the country of foreign threat forever. However, he still does the morally responsible thing and goes home to his native Denmark, where he is more confident that the natives will use it for peaceful purposes, such as space flight, distilling strong liquor and terrorizing herring.

The rapidity of the development of the Daleth Drive, is explored in detail. Fleeing to Denmark, the Government there are short on space-ships to test out this new device, but with a great seafaring tradition decide to try it first on an icebreaker. The image of something that was never intended to fly flying is a strong one, and Harrison builds on that when the next test is made by turning a bathysphere into first a high altitude craft and then into a craft capable of travelling to the moon. The drive is finally used to power a true space ship, constructed in a Danish shipyard and intended for travel throughout the solar system. This then, is the evolution of the space ship. And it’s a true space ship, not a canister attached to the top of a rocket but something with large internal compartments and the feeling that it’s the natural progression of the liner, the cargo ship, the galleon.

While Harrison has a lot of fun with the technology of adapting existing gizmos to space travel, this is balanced soberly by true drive of the novel, what would the effect on men and countries be if somebody developed, overnight almost, a device that renders obsolete the space programme and defence structures of any country that does not possess it?

The cloak and dagger merchants in the story see themselves as patriots and use this as a justification of their actions. In truth they are just nasty little men, mean of spirit and mean of imagination. Just how little they are is revealed in the final twist of the plot.

Not that the sympathetic characters are entirely flawless. While the inventor of the Daleth Drive struggles with his decision to abandon his adopted Israel and constantly reconsiders whether or not he has done the right thing, the brave and handsome test pilot of the spaceship, who, in one of the best sequences of the book leads the rescue of three Soviet cosmonauts stranded helpless on the Moon, indulges in cruel and casual infidelity without thought or regret.

The story deals very eloquently with the question of the ‘big boys’ – the wealthy and developed nations – being denied the shiny new toy. We see this today when some upstart nation starts a nuclear programme and in that, Harrison’s novel is a chilling parallel.