Planet Story
I can clearly remember when I first came across this most unusual book. I was twelve years old and on a trip to Sudbury, Suffolk for the weekend....
It's fair to say that Sudbury was my second childhood home. My maternal grandparents black & white 450-year-old terraced cottage is still there on Church Street (although the front door is now red, which seems very odd). We went there very regularly and when I was younger my brother and I stayed with my grandparents for two weeks of the summer holidays in between school terms. We had days out to local places of interest, trips hiking across the lush green water meadows full of cows and fun exploring the towns many narrow alleyways and disused railway lines. Plus we visited every bookshop, newsagent, "jumble" sale and second-hand book seller in the quest for any comics and books to read. It was a peaceful, idyllic time with memories that I cherish. I knew Sudbury almost as well as the village in which I grew up. Even now I just have to think back to that time and I can recall the smell of the papers as I entered the newsagent on Friar Street. My grandfather passed away when I was nine, but we continued to visit my grandmother once a month.
As I said, it was on one of these monthly trips when I was browsing through the science fiction section of my favourite shop that I first spotted a new book by American author Harry Harrison. I've mentioned very briefly before about my love of his work, especially his long sequence of "Stainless Steel Rat" novels featuring master criminal 'Slippery' Jim DiGriz - the first of which was released in 1961, six years before I was born. To be honest I think the first six or so are the best, but then again I might be influenced by the excellent adaptions of books one, three and five that appeared in 2000 AD in the early to mid-1980s.
I'll probably write more about the man himself at some point, but Harrison also published many other novels (both humorous and serious) in his extensive and successful career. The hard-hitting "Deathworld" trilogy, the Hollywood SF satire "The Technicolor Time Machine", the space opera parody "Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers" (which is even more fun if you are familiar with the 'Lensman' books by EE 'Doc' Smith), the alternative history "Eden" series and of course "Make Room! Make Room!", which explored the consequences of unchecked population growth and famously was (loosely) adapted into the film "Soylent Green" starring Chartlon Heston. However in 1979, Harrison released something different - a tongue in cheek, innuendo laden short story, accompanied by lavish full colour illustrations from an up-and-coming artist.
His name? Jim Burns.
Even if the name doesn’t ring any bells, there is a good chance that any SF fan over the last few decades, will have encountered more of his art than they realise. Burns has worked on movies (including Blade Runner), games, and books and his shelves are full of trophies, including multiple Hugo Awards and numerous British Science Fiction Awards.
Burns had been preoccupied with drawing science fiction imagery every since he was a child in South Wales in the 1950s, growing up with the inspirations of the technological marvel of early television and those first SF themed productions on radio - plus the burgeoning space race as Sputnik 1 and Yuri Gagarin expanded man's horizons into the cosmos. Comics fed into the mix too, especially the classic "Eagle" and the character of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future.
In fact Britain's premier space hero kind-of led to the young Jim deciding to join the Royal Air Force in 1966 instead of going to art school . However, space pilot Burns was not meant to be as despite getting to fly solo in 'Chipmunk' and 'Provost' jet planes, his RAF career only lasted a brief 18 months. Returning to his first love, Burns spent four years studying, first at Newport College of Art in South Wales and then St. Martin's School of Art in London.
Somewhere along that journey, amongst all the student parties, he succeeded in turning a passionate hobby into a burgeoning career and in 1972 got his first professional science fiction commission for an anthology called "Towards Infinity". His hyper-detailed style of advanced machinery and spaceships, exotic life forms and somewhat erotically-charged humanoids became popular with certain publishers and numerous book covers for authors like Jack Vance and Robert Silverberg followed during the early 1970s. But big-time success and recognition alluded him, until a certain Mr Harry Harrison came on the scene.
But "Planet Story" wasn't the first time that Harrison had used paintings by Jim Burns. In 1978 he published "Mechanismo" - a look at possible (and improbable) technologies that may one day exist. This wasn't a prose story, more a collection of images, engineers technical drawings and detailed specifications of things that might come to be. The book postulated a century where inter-galactic space travel had arrived, "biotic" robots were the norm and cities in space existed alongside vast troop carriers and time machines.
Burns was only one of many artists represented, although he did have fifteen pages including the front cover. The large format book also included excellent work from SF stalwarts such as Bob Layzell, Alan Daniels, Chris Achilleos, Angus McKie, Ralph McQuarrie and even H.R.Giger. It was a visual treat for the eyes for any SF fan . I actually didn't get a copy until a few years after I discovered Jim's work in "Planet Story", but it's still a treasured possession.
But let's get back to that bookshop in Sudbury in 1979. Dominating the science fiction shelves was a very large softcover book This thing was BIG (11 inches or 28cm square) - far bigger than anything I'd bought before, even my treasured "Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction". Glaring up at me from the front cover was a severe-looking man in a black military uniform, clutching a wicked looking riding crop, while a massive spaceship hovered in the background. The back cover blurb promised an "...epic tale of a doughty bank of space pioneers who forge a railroad across Strabismus, the frontier of space..." (no, at the time I didn't know what the name of the planet really meant - it just sounded really alien - like...Slartibartfast).
Cracking open the pages I was confronted with some of the most spectacular SF-themed illustrations I had ever seen - green scaled monster lizards, giant crustaceans, exotic vistas, what looked like an airship and a steam train - and very attractive voluptuous women. There were chapter headings such as " Enter RRARG" or "Styreen and the Big Boy". I *had* to have this book !
The problems was that it was an eye -watering £ 5.50, which was a lot of money to a youngster in the late 1970s, when paperback novels were generally only around the £ 1.50 mark at most (less if you bought them second hand as I often did). Undaunted, I poured out my saved "pocket money" and any cash I had been given by my grandmother onto the counter. There was enough - just. Clutching my prize I scooted back to the cottage and settled into a deckchair in the tiny walled sunlit garden. Marvelling at the unbelievable detail on the opening double page image of a dilapidated looking spaceship, I began to read. Chapter One: "Exile To Strabismus"...
"Planet Story" is the tale of Private Parrts (yes, I know - trust me it's more of the same from here on in so get used to it). Parrts is the lowest of the low, a Trooper on board the warship "Excrable" as it zooms through space on its mission as part of the war between the United States of Earth and well, everything else that's alien. Everyone is included in the imperialistic war effort. His father was drafted seven seconds after Parrts had been conceived and the boy grew up in a Home for Future Troopers, dreaming of a career in exobiology just because it carried the highest military disqualification.
Everything was quiet until Parrts hit puberty and discovered that he had a rather unusual curse - he exuded overpowering sexuality and *everything* loved him - girls, dogs, horses, cattle, the ugliest old man and the sweetest young child all only desired one thing from him. Life becomes a nightmare and when he spurned the affections of the hideous crone running the draft board, Parrts found himself reclassified and immediately spat out into the war - doomed to spend his life as a button pusher, staying out of sight and avoiding the constant sexual desires of his fellow Troopers.
This is where our tale begins. Sent to the Over-Sergeant for unknowingly sowing dissension in the ranks, the poor Private has to turn down *his* advances too and in a fit of pique the toad-like Sergeant assigns him to the mostly-automated resupply base on the planet Strabismus under the command of Colonel Kylling - the most feared man in the military.
Parrts is horrified. The Cro-Magnon Kylling is so evil that his riding crop is actually the mummified and shrunken corpse of a Trooper and he delights in torture, bigotry, flagellation and sadism. Terror turns to delight however when it turns out that Kylling is so devolved that he is immune to Parrts' pheromones. Our hero is overjoyed - here at last he can find peace...
Leaving the Colonel to brood about new and interesting ways to torture things. Parrts plans a quiet existence - and all is well until a transport capsule drops the seedy-looking Professor Shlek onto Strabismus to carry out a planetary survey. The Trooper fends off the Prof's salacious intentions (the sequined jockstrap, black dress, fake breasts and red wig don't really help matters) and the survey is over in just a few hours. It seems to be a waste of time until a huge deposit of Lortium is discovered - a transplutonic element essential to powering the warships of the U.S.E. fleet (and at this point I'm starting to think that James Cameron stole parts of the plot for "Avatar"...)
Enter RRAGG. The RailRoad And Ground Grader is dropped on the planet to build a track to the north pole location of the Lortium. This gigantic self-aware machine (admittedly with the sense of a three year-old) will cross gorges, ford rivers and drill tunnels through mountain ranges. A demon of destruction spewing out steel track from it's nether regions. it will carve a path through the planet. RRAGG will stop for nothing and no-one - especially as it's control lever has been set to "UNINHABITED".
It's not long before RRAGG's builder - and self-confessed train nut - Admiral Soddy, arrives to inspect his pet's handiwork and to drive a replica locomotive on the newly laid track. He is accompanied by the voluptuous and desirable exolinguist, Lieutenant Styreen Fome, She is every mans dream - including surprisingly, Private Parrts - who finds himself passionately attracted to someone else for the first time:-
"My name is Styreen", a husky, sensuous voice sussurated. "What's yours, handsome?"
"Private Parrts, ma'am."
"Yes, I've got them and I hope you have too. You're fast but I like it. Look here."
She slowly opened the closure of her jacket as she spoke and the pink protuberances of her breasts swelled out like twin dirigibles emerging from the same hanger. "Dive in," she husked.
Okay, okay - I'll admit, the above image did have an effect on me. I was a twelve year old boy in 1979 - what did you expect? It certainly wasn't what I had been imagining would be in a science fiction book. I'm still not sure that my mum would have let me buy it had she seen the pictures first! Ahem. Moving swiftly on...
The story continues in a similar humorous tongue-in-cheek vein, as the train and it's passengers discover the extent of RRAGG's destruction of the indigenous people and their towns and cities. As one can imagine, they receive a less than friendly welcome. Luckily the sensuous Ms. Fome speaks 657 languages (via hynpo-injection) and is able to parlay with Kroakr, king of the lizard-like Slimey's. It turns out he's not too bothered about the mess RRAGG caused (it only went through the poor district after all) and is willing to forgive and forget if the humans help them in their war against invading giant lobsters from space - the Gornisthilfen.
What follows though is a a madcap race across the surface of Strabiusmus and a game of cross and double-cross as Parrts and his colleagues discover that the Slimeys want to eat everyone in sight and the Gornisthilfen just want to live in peace (even after the good ole United States of Earth destroyed their planet and turned it into a car park). Meeting ever more outlandish alien creatures on their journey northwards and trying not to make things even worse, all Parrts and Fome want to do is find a quiet corner and...well, you can guess the rest.
As with much of Harrison's less serious work, there are some broad satirical swipes at capitalism, the military and - despite what you might think from that image above and others within the book - sexism. Throw in some slightly mangled Yiddish phrases as alien names and a smattering of his beloved Esperanto (which I'd recommend translating) and you have a fun little story. It's not quite "Hitch Hikers" levels of funny but then very few things are.
What makes it worthwhile compared to other humourous stories of the period is of course the art. To be honest the story is really only there as a vehicle for Jim Burns to go crazy and show off his incredible, consistently inventive talent. It was just mind-blowing to a youngster like me. I poured over every page and memorised every alien species. There are a few instances where an illustration is repeated on a following page in close up - which gives a great way of examining the Jim's almost obsessional attention to fine detail.
Although I was already into comics, I think this was the book that made me interested in SF artwork in it own right and I began to recognise artists work on the covers of novels. Over the decades I must have purchased dozens of books with covers by Jim - I can see some of them right now as I look over at my bookshelves. Certain pieces of his work have been used repeatedly over the many years of his career.
"Planet Story" is still part of my collection after all these years and I doubt I will ever be able to let go of it. It's too tied up with happy memories of halcyon days spent with people I loved and when I seemed to have all the time in the world to read and read and read. You can pick up a copy of the book for only a few pounds. If you love SF art in any way or want to see the result of an unusual pairing of writer and illustrator, I really do recommend it. I'm off to take another look right now...
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