Last Starship from Earth [Paperback]

John Boyd's The Last Starship from Earth (1968) is a rather forgettable and predictable alternative history/science fiction novel incorrectly described by some reviewers as a lost classic. The basic divergent point in history (which is only mentioned near the end) is the only redeeming feature of the work because the society he's created becomes slightly more cohesive and realized. However, Boyd's reliance on time-travel (unless used in a somewhat less predictable way) to make any interest in the final third of the work is a cop-out. Boyd's prose continually falters -- I dared not count the times "atavistic" was used.

Avoid unless alternative-histories are your Holy Grail.

Brief Plot Summary (some spoilers)

Haldane IV, a young mathematician, falls in love with Helix a young poet. In this society classes based on profession are stringently adhered to and partners (within the class) are selected by a computer. The mixing of classes is forbidden. Haldane decides to study the "mathematics of poetry" as an excuse to meet up with Helix.

Haldane's Earth is divergent from our own at at crucial point in history -- Jesus. Instead of dying, Jesus leads a victorious revolt against the Romans. Here's Boyd's only redeeming concept -- Christianity re-conceptualized as a religion of might/destruction instead of a religion based on self-sacrifice. Also sometime in the past a famous mathematician (a godlike figure for the class of mathematicians) constructed a computer program which serves as the Pope.

Helix and Haldane's love is doomed and they are caught and tried. The events leading up to the trial when Haldane is interviewed by a church official, a mathematician, a lawyer, a sociologist, and a psychologist are the brightest points in the novel.

Haldane is sent to Hell (an dark ice world) in "the last starship from Earth" and discovers an utopian group of convicts who have set up a secret society. Then the novel is quickly inundated with a deluge of hokey plot twists which fail to deliver any surprise because the characters are lifeless and dull.

Final Thoughts

If you haven't read Read Philip K. Dick's masterful The Man in the High Castle (1962) for a solid alt-history/sci-fi novel pick up a copy NOW. Stay away from Boyd's PKD inspired but laborious and un-involving cavalcade of silly plot twists.

As often happens, the most unusual and fascinating ideas -- a reconceptualizing of Christianity, etc -- are only slightly touched on. What remains are skeletal piles of ideas held together by wholly insipid prose and cardboard characters.

Those other reviews, I mean. The ones that fall all over themselves praising this book. I had heard good things about it, but when I finally got around to reading it I found it a great disappointment and a novel I labored mightily to finish. To be honest, I really don't understand what the excitement is all about. The novel starts out as a cliched dystopia, the kind where people are split into rigid castes and go around with names like Hirsute 5, A-6, 33411-CR-445. After a while, we learn that this is technically an alternate history novel, one where the universe of the story diverged from ours about two thousand years ago. The speculative science elements are amateurishly done, with technical words thrown around meaninglessly, on a par with, "According to these blueprints, if we double loop the tachyon incubator, the solution for negative time will be created by the increased flux convergence." The protagonist is arrested on the grounds of sedition, and there is a somewhat interesting though difficult to figure out trial scene, and then the hero is flown via starship to a planet of exile, which turns out to be something quite different. From then on, much of the story reads like Heinlein in his latter-day socio-wacko phase. Along the way, the author seems to enjoy dropping little in-jokes, such as setting a description up so that he can term one character a "master baiter." Although there are some intriguing elements, this is a work of rank amateurism.

John Boyd wrote that his ideal reader "should have the mentality of a Southern stock-car racer, be a Baptist with a sense of detachment, have a well-developed sense of the absurd, and be fascinated with the quirks and accomplishments of the human animal." His dystopian novel, The Last Starship from Earth, is witty, intelligent, playful, subtle, ingenious, and evocative. I've read it many times over the last twenty years. Boyd's later books, although interesting, never equalled this debut effort, which was very well received when it came out in 1968. I guess you're only as good as your last movie, book, etc. A unique sensibility, nonetheless.