A. Betram Chandler and the Alien Encounter

I just finished the short story collection, The Hard Way Up (Ace 1972), by A. Bertram Chandler. I really enjoyed it. I had pigeonholed Chandler as a military space opera writer who was using the back drop of outer space to tell military and political stories of intrigue and adventure; however, after having read this short story collection, I admit he is more than this. He is a genuine Science Fiction writer with a capital S and F who doesn't just use the stereotypical tropes of the genre--spaceships, laser guns, robots, aliens-- to spin yarns. He also utilizes science fiction's speculative and extrapolative philosophical structure to engage in rich "thought experiments."

A story that illustrates this point, I think, is "The Wandering Buoy," which was originally published in Analog in September of 1970. The story is very intriguing, very suggestive. It concerns a strange encounter John Grimes has as he and his crew are wandering through interstellar space in their Adder class space ship on a routine mail courier mission in which they encounter a strange, unidentifiable sphere. The source of the drama in the story is the struggle of the crew and Grimes to "domesticate" the strangeness of this sphere. They launch various probes at the sphere, and these are repelled by an unknown force. They then try to communicate with the sphere, thinking it a kind of ship, through electronic and psionic means, but they fail to make contact. Eventually they come to understand the nature of the repellent force that keeps them at a distance from the sphere, and they suceed in exploring it. I don't want to give away what they discover in the sphere, but suffice it to say it's very interesting.

On the surface, this story seems to be re-telling of Arthur C. Clarke's famous short story, "The Sentinel," which was published in the Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader in 1951. In Clarke's story a space survey crew discover a strange pyramid on the moon which turns out to be the herald of an alien race who nurtured humanity in its youth. Famously, Clarke expanded this story into 2001: A Space Odyssey with Stanley Kubrick. But in some very distinct parts, Chandler puts unique "spins" on this narrative. The Sphere is distinct from the pyramid in Clarke's story and the Monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey in some very important points.

And yet, I'm less concerned with their differences than their similarities. I find it so intriguing that science fiction narratives gravitate toward this interesting "encounter" plot. It's as if a major cognitive affordance offered by science fiction is that it allows us to imagine encounters with strange, Alien entities that challenge our notions of who we are and where we came from.