Reading Week: "Them! THEM!"

Robert Graham: And I thought today was the end of them.
Dr. Harold Medford: No. We haven't seen the end of them. We've only had a close view of the beginning of what may be the end of us.

Them!

Following our book store visits (and a quick lunch break in a crowded biker bar) Karli and I do a driving tour through the northern half of Joshua Tree National Park.

Looking out at the arid landscape, it takes me a minute to realize why it feels unexpectedly familiar:  it's the same desert backdrop featured in the classic 1954 science fiction film Them!  The movie is set near Almogordo, New Mexico, site of the first atomic bomb test in 1945, but was actually shot near Palmdale, about 120 miles from where we are.

Them! isn't the first atomic radiation monster movie - the preceding year's Monster from 20000 Fathoms takes first place - but it's certainly the first to introduce the possibility of giant radioactive mutant insects.  Released in the same year that Japanese movie makers first unleashed Godzilla on the world, Them!, like Godzilla, is a cautionary tale about the dangers released from the new Pandora's Box of atomic energy, and sets the standard for these films, in which science is both the villain and the hero.

Considering its subject matter, Them! is oddly plausible in its slow build from two police officers finding a traumatized little girl wandering alone in the New Mexico desert, through to the final battle with a nest of giant ants in the storm drains beneath Los Angeles.  The movie creates an air of suspenseful menace by delaying the reveal of the giant ants themselves, relying instead on the shrill keening noise made by the gigantic insects to suggest their presence.

The giant ants themselves are a bit of a weak point, at least by modern special effects standards - I can only guess how the original audience reacted to the giant ant models. The practical effects look somewhat clumsy and obvious now, but the scene where we first see the giant head and mandibles of an enormous ant appearing out of a sandstorm behind an unsuspecting victim is still an effective piece of filmmaking.  Later there's an equally effective moment where the scientists, having found the ants' nest, see one of the giant creatures carelessly tossing away a human ribcage.

The cast features a grim James Whitmore as police sergeant Ben Peterson, and James Arness as the FBI agent assigned to the mystery, with Edmund Gwenn as Formicidae expert Dr. Harold Medford and Joan Weldon as his daughter, Dr. Patricia Medford, originating in this movie the part of the female scientist who also occupies the role of chief screamer when necessary.*

 

The movie also showcases Fess Parker as a bewildered small plane pilot who thinks that he has seen UFOs shaped like huge flying insects**, and a startlingly young Leonard Nimoy makes an uncredited appearance as an air force sergeant.

One of the great strengths of this movie is the absolute seriousness with which the premise is handled, with the exception of a few quips in the dialogue that actually feel a bit misplaced due to the earnest nature of the rest of the script. Them! is actually plotted more as a mystery than a horror movie, with the first half aimed at solving the enigma of missing and murdered people and stolen sugar, and the second half dedicated to discovering the whereabouts of two queen ants who have left the original nest before it was destroyed. 

In spite of the numerous films dealing with the horrifying possibilities of the atomic bomb, none of these monstrous nightmares appeared in the real world over the succeeding 74 years.  In some ways, it's a shame - the appearance of a few giant insects or a giant lizard breathing radioactive fire might have had a salutary effect on early arms limitation treaties.

- Sid

* Monsters Versus Aliens does an excellent little sendup of this particular trope.

** It says a great deal about the mindset of 1950s America that he doesn't think he's seen huge flying insects, but rather UFOs that look like insects.

Reading Week: "See you, Space Cowboy."

Today's plan is to do a day trip to Joshua Tree National Park, located just north of Palm Springs.  As always when I travel, I've done a search for used bookstores, and to my happy surprise there are not one but two science-fiction intensive shops located close to the northern entrance to the park: Raven's Book Shop and Space Cowboy. 

Raven's Book Shop, located on Highway 62 near the small community of 29 Palms, is a collector's dream, and a bit of a cautionary tale in terms of curating a used bookstore.

Inventory management is a key element of operating any kind of store.  However, unlike most retail outlets, used book stores depend on the kindness of strangers to replenish their stock, picking and choosing from the books that cross their threshold rather than picking things out of a catalogue.*

The key part of that sentence was "picking and choosing".  There are two traditional traps that await the owners of used book stores:  the wrong kind of inventory, or too much.  I can look at the science fiction shelf in a used bookstore and tell you instantly whether or not they know anything about science fiction - basically, the more Dragonlance and Star Wars novels, the lower their knowledge level.

 

The other problem is overstocking, and as the owner of a substantial library, I'm sympathetic with the people who fall prey to this particular sin.  After all, there are so many books of interest, and it must be very hard to say no to someone who walks through the door with a particularly noteworthy volume for sale.  The trick is to make sure that you sell as many of these books as you buy, or else you run out of room and your store begins to look a bit like the bookshelves in my spare bedroom.

The second we walk into Raven's, it's obvious that they've lost the battle in terms of saying no, but they've lost another kind of battle as well. A lot of the shelves are double stacked, and there's a pile of books at least three feet tall behind the front desk. (You can see the edge of the mound in the photo above.)  But not all the shelves are full, and it looks a bit like new acquisitions have been dropped anywhere convenient rather than appropriately sorted and shelved.

Working my way through the stacks, I'm a bit puzzled by the pricing structure.  Prices seem to be all over the map, with some books priced quite affordably, but other similar books a bit at the high end of current used book pricing.  Regardless of pricing, the selection is impressive - there are a lot of books here, but they've certainly been well chosen.  Karli has generously told me that she's prepared to wait for as long as I want to stay there, but it's obvious that I could spend the entire day if not a full week going through the shelves, and we still have another store - and a national park - to visit today.

As such, I'm not too choosy in my selections, and fairly quickly put together an acceptable handful of books: Adam Link - Robot, a collection of Golden Age SF Eando Binder stories published by the Paperback Library in 1965; one of the excellent New Writings in SF collections, edited by John Carnell; a first edition 1966 paperback copy of Starswarm, a short story collection by Brian Aldiss; and a trio of Ace Doubles for my collection.

As I'm preparing to make my way to the front and settle up, Karli glances up and notes a large fuzzy ball on the shelf over our heads. "Probably a tribble," I comment, which turns out to be prescient.  As I look up at the shelf, I see that there's also a tall stack of the Bantam Books paperback editions of the Star Trek original series script adaptations written by award-winning science fiction author James Blish.

 

They're a bit of a collector's item, and although they're not in mint condition, I'd expect them to cost somewhat more than their $3.50 cover price, even if it is in US dollars. Numbers 2 and 12 are missing**, and might even be buried somewhere in the stacks, but we're on the clock, so I just pick up the visible copies and head to the cash register.

Significantly, when the owner is adding up my purchases, she comments that the Star Trek books have probably not been looked at or repriced for 20 years, which pretty much says everything that I need to hear regarding the uneven pricing, but leaves me wondering what the story is behind the store. Inherited, perhaps, and kept open as a labour of love?  Regardless, it's a bit of a "start the car" moment for me - Karli is more than a little amused by the happy noise with which I celebrated my purchases once we were safely back in our vehicle.

Comparatively, Space Cowboy, located in the town of Joshua Tree, is the epitome of a well-curated used bookstore. The shop has a modest footprint, but it's well laid out, and has an impressive selection of classic novels, which have been conveniently pulled off the shelves, bagged and hung on the walls, much like particularly collectable issues in a comic book store.

 

I leave Space Cowboy with a smaller stack of books - not due to lack of attractive options, but purely out of restraint:  having already spent over a hundred dollars on used books at our last stop, it seemed practical to keep the rest of my purchases under control - not to mention the looming threat of overweight baggage charges.

For sale at Space Cowboy: a triptych of Beverly the Madonna and the Blessèd Wesley, worshipped by the twin angels
of Emotion and Science. Originally I thought Data was wearing a yarmulke, which would have been a bit odd
for a devotional painting of this type, but then I realized it was a glimpse of his positronic brain.

Several of them are replacement volumes - their copy of The Wizard of Senchuria/Cradle of the Sun, another Ace Double, is in much better shape than mine, as are paperback copies of The Metal Monster and The Ship of Ishtar, two classic novels by American fantasy author A. Merritt.  Originally written in the 1920s, they were reprinted by Avon in the 1960s and early 70s as part of the Tolkien-influenced fantasy boom that saw the revival of a wide variety of vintage material at around that time.  I also pick up a pair of classic Robert A. Heinlein books: Assignment in Eternity and Waldo: Genius in Orbit, an odd variant edition of Waldo and Magic Inc. from 1958.

Overall, it's been an excellent day for book purchasing, if not for my already crowded shelves at home.  Next, Joshua Tree National Park...and Them!

- Sid

* Well, presumably not ordering from a catalogue.  I've always been a bit curious as to how a used bookstore gets started - it seems to me that buying enough used books to stock a new store would be a net loss approach to the process, although ultimately, as with any store, logic would suggest that the idea is to mark up your stock.  I certainly have enough books in my spare bedroom to start a small shop, compared to, say, the inventory at Space Cowboy, but that feels a bit like starting a clothing store by raiding your own closet.

** I've owned a slightly worn copy of Number 6 in the series since grade school, but to my intense happiness, when we got back to Vancouver I discovered that I'd picked up a copy of Number 2 at some point over time, nicely filling the gap in my new acquisitions. And Number 12s of any series are always easier to find than Number 2s.

Reading Week: "It was a pleasure to burn."

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, Karli and I are taking a break in Palm Springs this week - well, Palm Desert, to be accurate, at a rental condo in a gated community, with easy access to a shared pool and hot tub. Generally my vacations tend to be migratory, to the point that I've gone on trips where I didn't sleep in the same bed twice, but this trip is intended to be more about relaxation than exploration. As such, I'm looking forward to spending some time with the written word over the course of the week.

After picking up our rental car, we've stopped off at Target to do some casual shopping and pick up some supplies.  As we wander through the store, we stop at the book section, where Karli selects a Jodi Picoult book for poolside reading.  To my surprise,  there's a trade paperback copy of Ray Bradbury's 1953 classic Fahrenheit 451 on the Sale shelf, which I instantly add to our basket.*  There’s a kind of casual irony in purchasing this book here - one feels that in Bradbury’s future of outlawed books, Target would be the last place you would find any work of fiction, let alone this one.

Reading the book over the course of the day (it's a quick read at 158 pages, the bulk of this particular printing is made up of commentary) I'm impressed by the poetic brilliance of Bradbury's style, as always.  I'd also forgotten the tragic feel of the novel.  As per Thoreau, Fireman Guy Montag leads a life of quiet desperation, flat and colourless: isolated from his wife, apparently without friends, doubtful of the rightness of his vocation as a fireman who starts fires rather than stopping them, almost indifferent to the ongoing state of war that stands as a constant background.

Fahrenheit 451 is a conflict between two philosophies: thought and complacency.  To Bradbury, the elimination of books is the elimination of thinking, and with the loss of thought, the end of dissent and freedom.  All that is left is the shallow and trivial televised world that obsesses Montag's wife Mildred and her friends, and insulates them from anything that might make them question the status quo.

Regardless of whether or not this is a future that we might ever actually see, this book strikes very close to home for me.

Why?  Because I would undoubtedly be one of the criminals caught with a hoard of illegal books, one of the people who ends up in jail after their library is reduced to charred ashes, swirling in the wind around the skeletal remains of their home.  Or would I refuse to surrender, like the nameless woman who contemptuously stands her ground and dies with her books?

More likely, I might well be one of the quiet rebels who abandons society to live in the woods, becoming a sort of living edition of a memorized book.  Imagine being the last copy of The Lord of the Rings...

- Sid

* Considering that I own between five and six thousand books, you might be surprised that I don't already own a copy of Fahrenheit 451, but there are a few classic science fiction novels that I read early in my fandom and never added to my library.  For example, I don't own a copy of Brave New World, although it's probably time for a reread.  In this case, when we returned to Vancouver, I ruefully discovered that I actually did own a copy of Fahrenheit 451, the 50th anniversary paperback.  Now that I have that and the commemorative 60th edition, hopefully I can skip buying the 70th anniversary issue in 2023.