Consideration of Works Past: The Transfinite Man

(Picture from here.)

When I read The Transfinite Man by Colin Kapp, I enjoyed it. I found this during the period between 1964 and 1969 when I devoured the contents of the Huntsville Public Library. Rereading it now, it surprises me it was there at all. Those southern librarians were more on the ball than I thought they were.

David Langford talked about TTM in the March 2009 F&SF Curiosities column. He suggested that much of the imagery and ideas in TTM were either derived from or in homage to Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination. Stars was published in 1956 and TTM was published in 1964 so there is some reason to think this. Ivan Dalroi and Gully Foyle are both ubermensches with hidden powers of the mind. Foyle, in Stars, is cast as messiagh. Dalroi, in TTM, is cast as anti-christ.

Given that, I think TTM is a reply to Stars rather than being derivative or a homage. It's the comic book approach to great power: you become hero or villain. I don't think it's an accident that Stars was written in 1956, the second Eisenhower election, and TTM the year after Kennedy was shot.

The problem is, of course, Colin Kapp is no Alfred Bester. Bester was redoing revenge such as in The Count of Monte Christo. Foyle must become the equal of the forces that are arrayed against them and in so doing removes the reason for the revenge.

Dalroi, in TTM, also has a revenge thing going but it's thin. The idea under the book is sort of interesting but it's like watching the Star Wars movies. What a great idea. I wish someone else was doing this other than George Lucas.

Both TTM and Stars attempt something very interesting in SF: the idea that SF stories could be made from unlovely characters. This was a case of the outside world of literature invading SF. Certainly, Norman Mailer knew this. So did Mickey Spillane or Raymond Chandler. SF took a little longer.

If Colin Kapp was Mickey Spillane, then Alfred Bester was Raymond Chandler. There's a reason we still read The Long Goodbye and not My Gun is Quick. If Colin Kapp had been a writer of bigger caliber, his reply to Stars might have been more interesting.

I think it would have been a great movie. George? Are you listening?
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