1972 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. The Electron Pump
has brought limitless free energy to Earth, by exchanging matter with
a parallel universe where the physical laws differ. But one or two
people think there might be a worm in this apple.
There are several books here, and not just the three sections
into which the narrative is divided (its first publication was as
separate novellas). Part of it is a hard-SF story: how could you have
such an isotope as Plutonium-186, and what would happen to it if you
did? Answer, there's a parallel universe where the strong nuclear
force is stronger: protons are more easily held together, so a stable
nucleus of a heavy element requires fewer neutrons than here. So if
matter can be shifted from one to the other, it will decompose into
its this-universe form, releasing energy.
The first part of the narrative is the account of the discovery of
this, with lots of scientific bitchiness as the fellow who got all the
credit was the one who carefully set himself up to do so, rather than
the smarter people who deserved it. Yeah, well, welcome to reality,
Isaac; working human social systems is a skill. When it starts to
appear, some years later, that there might be danger in the
industrial-scale use of this process (the stronger nuclear force leaks
over to some extent, and maybe the sun will go bang), the two people
who think that this is a plausible problem are shocked, shocked that
the entire world won't immediately give up its free energy just
because these smart guys think there might possibly be a danger – not,
as they admit, that they've got any actual evidence of anything.
Obviously everyone else must be really stupid.
Rumour has it that Asimov received complaints that his books didn't
have aliens or sex in them, so he wrote the middle section to satisfy
both sets of critics at once. The beings in the parallel universe form
triads, and gender essentialism is paramount: the left "Rationals"
think, the mid "Emotionals" are intuitive, and the right "Parentals"
care only about having and raising children. While, to be fair to
Asimov, one Emotional does manage to some extent to break free of
this, she does end up being the Exceptional Woman who makes the others
look even worse:
He had passed a cluster of Emotionals, sunning themselves[...]. They
had tittered at the rare sight of a Rational moving in the vicinity
of an Emotional cluster and had thinned in mass-provocation, with no
thought among the foolish lot of them but to advertise the fact that
they were Emotionals.
For such theoretically alien beings, they end up working an awful
lot like stereotypical 1950s American humans; they even have an
analogue of masturbation, which of course is considered "dirty".
There's no real conclusion to this section, except that shutting down
the Pump won't happen on this side either.
The final part happens in a lunar settlement, where one of those
misunderstood researchers has migrated to try to work out a solution
to the Pump problem. The colony is reasonably sensibly worked out, in
an age before most writers bothered: water rationing, extensive
exercise to prevent degeneration, free love, and (since it's a
shirtsleeve environment everywhere) casual nudity. Though it's only
described for the women, of course. The story skips over key moments,
and is marred by yet more pettiness.
It's a curiously leaden narration of what should be a lightweight
novel of ideas, of how to tell people things that they don't want to
hear. The Sun might explode tomorrow! But there's never any sense of
urgency, of things moving quickly. The middle section is probably the
best written, for all it's more mired in its time than it really
should have been, and has the most sense of wonder. I don't see this
ever becoming a favourite of mine, but I suspect that's not what
Asimov was trying for. This was written after Sputnik had killed
Asimov's enthusiasm for writing SF, and at times it seems like a slog,
but even so there are things well worth reading here.
Reread for Neil Bowers'
Hugo-Nebula Joint Winners Reread.
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