BooksScifi

The Night Face by Poul Anderson (book review).

The copy of ‘The Night Face’ by Poul Anderson was its fourth reprinting, finally getting a better title than ‘Let the Spacemen Beware!’ in 1963. I tend to read novels of short length over a couple days but found this book a page-turner and finished it in a couple hours, so make sure you give yourself time if you get this book.

The setting remains Anderson’s Polestechnic League, but it shifts to a future where civilization is still in the process of regrouping. Michael Whelan’s illustration of the aliens on the cover depicts an ape tribe living in the mountains, not the main population.

The Quetzal is orbiting the planet Gwydion, and anthropologists have been sent down as the second team to meet and study the Lochlanna. They also note how they’ve learned a lot from men before them, but they appear to be hiding secrets and living a quiet life. The story unravels as Raven, Tolteca, and Elfavy further integrate themselves while scrutinizing the contradictions. The ending is obviously the spoiler.

Anderson is a master of world-building, and Gwydion is no exception in this. He also dimensionalizes the aliens. You can see parallels to mankind before radical differences that make them different.

If you’re a novice SF writer, reading the early works of the Golden Age masters can show you how to compress information into fewer words. We’ve grown accustomed to doorstop-sized books in today’s world. Given the dearth of new science fiction releases, it could be worthwhile to return to smaller-sized books, which could appeal to readers seeking a quick read on the bus, train, or vacation.

GF Willmetts

October 2024

(pub: Ace Books, 1979. 145 page paperback. Price: varies. ISBN: 0-441-57451-3)

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.