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Cracken at Critical: A Novel in Three Acts
Reading two fantasy books found on a murdered girl, the narrator finds himself at the centre of a conspiracy which shakes his conception of reality. Aldiss is one of Britain's best-known science fiction writers and has Hugo and Nebula awards.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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About the author
Brian W. Aldiss
830 books666 followersPseudonyms: Jael Cracken, Peter Pica, John Runciman, C.C. Shackleton, Arch Mendicant, & "Doc" Peristyle.
Brian Wilson Aldiss was one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He wrote his first novel while working as a bookseller in Oxford. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first work of science fiction and soon gained international recognition. Adored for his innovative literary techniques, evocative plots and irresistible characters, he became a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1999.
Brian Aldiss died on August 19, 2017, just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.
Brian W. Aldiss Group on Good Reads
Brian Wilson Aldiss was one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He wrote his first novel while working as a bookseller in Oxford. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first work of science fiction and soon gained international recognition. Adored for his innovative literary techniques, evocative plots and irresistible characters, he became a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1999.
Brian Aldiss died on August 19, 2017, just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.
Brian W. Aldiss Group on Good Reads
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 12, 2021
When I first read what might be broadly called new wave SF, back in the 70s, I assumed a lot of it was difficult to understand because it was very deep. Now I'm a writer myself, it's now pretty obvious that a lot of this impenetrability was down to sloppy writing. While there is some of Brian Aldiss's 1987 Cracken at Critical that seems to have suffered from being written quickly without much editing, the overall book is, nonetheless, impressive.
Part of the reason I think it's clever is the way that Aldiss has succeeded in re-using old material to good effect, a boon for the jobbing writer who has to earn a living from his words. What we have here is apparently alternative history science fiction story set in Finland, where Churchill was killed in the 1930s and the Germans won the Second World War. The central character is a classical composer: on the way home from a not-entirely successful symphony premier, he discovers a dead girl's body, which precipitates a dark and mysterious series of events.
So far, so normal. However, what makes this book really interesting is that the protagonist discovers in the girl's bag a pair of old science fiction novellas. He reads these at points in the plot, and we get to read them too. In one sense, what we've got is a collection of three novellas, but the way this is done makes the whole far more effective than the parts.
What's particularly interesting is the nature of these novellas. In a Guardian review printed on the back of my copy, the reviewer comments there are 'two meticulous parodies of the kind of SF story written in days long gone...' This entirely misses the point: these are not parodies, but actual stories written (and published) by Aldiss in 1958 and 1965. For me, the main point being made here is that the protagonist enjoys these straightforward stories while reflecting that his wife, who is into heavy literary fiction, would hate them. This seems like Aldiss taking on the pretentious avant garde of SF (despite sometimes being part of it). To make the joke even better, in the story the novellas were written by the dead girl's father, Jael Cracken, which was the pseudonym Aldiss used for many of his early stories, including one of these.
The book is by no means perfect. As was often the case in stories from this period, the ending is weak. And there is a degree of casual sexism. However, the approach is so clever, especially in challenging the SF literati in this undercover way, that this remains, for me, a largely forgotten little masterpiece.
Part of the reason I think it's clever is the way that Aldiss has succeeded in re-using old material to good effect, a boon for the jobbing writer who has to earn a living from his words. What we have here is apparently alternative history science fiction story set in Finland, where Churchill was killed in the 1930s and the Germans won the Second World War. The central character is a classical composer: on the way home from a not-entirely successful symphony premier, he discovers a dead girl's body, which precipitates a dark and mysterious series of events.
So far, so normal. However, what makes this book really interesting is that the protagonist discovers in the girl's bag a pair of old science fiction novellas. He reads these at points in the plot, and we get to read them too. In one sense, what we've got is a collection of three novellas, but the way this is done makes the whole far more effective than the parts.
What's particularly interesting is the nature of these novellas. In a Guardian review printed on the back of my copy, the reviewer comments there are 'two meticulous parodies of the kind of SF story written in days long gone...' This entirely misses the point: these are not parodies, but actual stories written (and published) by Aldiss in 1958 and 1965. For me, the main point being made here is that the protagonist enjoys these straightforward stories while reflecting that his wife, who is into heavy literary fiction, would hate them. This seems like Aldiss taking on the pretentious avant garde of SF (despite sometimes being part of it). To make the joke even better, in the story the novellas were written by the dead girl's father, Jael Cracken, which was the pseudonym Aldiss used for many of his early stories, including one of these.
The book is by no means perfect. As was often the case in stories from this period, the ending is weak. And there is a degree of casual sexism. However, the approach is so clever, especially in challenging the SF literati in this undercover way, that this remains, for me, a largely forgotten little masterpiece.
March 23, 2024
It's fine.
April 12, 2013
Hmmm. This is an uneasy fixup with one story from 1958 and 2 from the 1980's. The stories all involve tales of state intrigue and the plight of the individual underneath them. Most of it I recommend heartily. Equator was light years ahead of 1958. It is one of those sf stories set in souheast asia, and it is well done. Only problem and a major one is that the ending is terrible in that story. The mannerheim story is quite good again with the not altogether satisfactory twist ending I find Aldiss must be fond of. The telepath story is pretty good but nothing too great. There is some challenging theoretical work in here, esp in mannerheim and equator sequences but the whole thing doesnt fixup perfectly. Lots of utopian and political content. Nothing doing as regards race or gender issues. Solid work but not the greatest.
September 21, 2015
Not much to say about this one - two pulpy novellas linked together with a connecting meta-story about a composer. For only being 200 pages long it was a bit of a chore to finish, mainly because the style of the novellas was of the gee-whiz sci-fi of the 1930s or 1950s. Apparently Aldiss used the framing story of the composer as a device to re-explore some of his early work in a different light. I can't say that it works too well, as none of the stories is particularly gripping, and they seem to follow the same sort of plot twists that Kevin J. Anderson loves. (Still, the fact that the framing story highlights the pulpy nature of the stories-within-a-story gives it a self awareness that KJA books lack!)
Ultimately, an interesting experiment, but not one that I found successful.
Ultimately, an interesting experiment, but not one that I found successful.
October 9, 2022
Cracking at the equator: Cracken at Critical by Brian W. Aldiss
This is not a terribly good book. But there are reasons for that. And that is not to say it is without its good points. I believe it was also published as The Year Before Yesterday. What that means, I don't know. 'The last 12 months'. I guess.
First, the structure:
The book is subtitled 'A novel in three acts', but it would be more accurate to say it is two short novels within a framing device.
The first short novel is The Impossible Smile, an overheated tale of espionage, torture and the transhuman future, set in a 1995 (I think that's right) in which the Nazi invasion of Britain succeeded. The front matter says it was published 'in a different form' in Impulse in 1965. How different, I don't know. That Aldiss published it back then under a pseudonym -- the rather unlikely Jael Cracken (up there with Vargo Statten, Pel Toro and others) -- suggests that at the time Aldiss was not that keen on being associated with it. It is a fast-moving story, and I cannot help but wonder if it is in some degree a pastiche of Tiger, Tiger (The Stars, My Destination), with its telepathic hero and its frenetic pace. It amounts to one long chase scene as our hero, Wyvern, continually slides into and out of trouble on Earth and the Moon as he searches for answers and a mysterious telepathic woman.
The second, Equator, is also a long chase. Published in New Worlds in 1958, the year Aldiss's more highly-regarded first novel, Non-stop came out, and later as half an Ace double (as Vanguard from Alpha), this is probably the better tale. Like the first, it is somewhat overplotted, and replete with characters trying to explain the series of double-crosses to each other. Here, those double-crosses are rather the point of the tale, at least, and the story does not hinge too heavily on our being surprised by the twists. The setting -- a humid Sumatra -- is evoked very effectively, presumably as a result of Aldiss being stationed in the East in WWII -- but the characters are essentially cogs in the plot.
In this story, we have aliens landed on Earth, stolen microfilm, lots of gunfire, endless chases, a beautiful alien girl, and a whole series of other components that Aldiss would soon shed in books like Hothouse, Greybeard and The Dark Light Years.
But, recall, this is less than four years after his first SF stories appeared. It is very much the beginning of his first phase as an author, and it shows. The skilled use of language is in evidence, but he feels compelled to marry it to a pulpy plot that will suit his intended market. He's not ready to shape the field -- he is meeting its expectations.
The framing story is set in Finland in an alternative universe; Churchill was assassinated in 1935 on a trip to Finland, and England failed to withstand the Nazis. Whether this is therefore the same universe as The Impossible Smile, I am not sure.
These bits were written in the mid-80s. They tell the tale of a composer who finds a dead girl by the road while he walks home at night, and carries her to his home, then calls the police, and complexities ensure with his wife, the police and so on. He finds two pulpy paperbacks amongst her possessions and proceeds to read them, and compares his own life with what he sees there, and critiques the commercial, simplistic tales, yet admits to enjoying them.
I recall reading somewhere that this book (a fixup, in SFE terminology) was assembled to meet a request from a friend. I can imagine that after the enormous effort of Helliconia, Aldiss was perhaps susceptible to a suggestion that would result in a book with relatively little effort.
This is a minor work, of interest to Aldiss fans and people who like fast-moving, short, plot-based novels of SF adventure from the 50s and early 60s. For a more general reader, I suspect there is little to see here.
The all-too-possible frown.
This is not a terribly good book. But there are reasons for that. And that is not to say it is without its good points. I believe it was also published as The Year Before Yesterday. What that means, I don't know. 'The last 12 months'. I guess.
First, the structure:
The book is subtitled 'A novel in three acts', but it would be more accurate to say it is two short novels within a framing device.
The first short novel is The Impossible Smile, an overheated tale of espionage, torture and the transhuman future, set in a 1995 (I think that's right) in which the Nazi invasion of Britain succeeded. The front matter says it was published 'in a different form' in Impulse in 1965. How different, I don't know. That Aldiss published it back then under a pseudonym -- the rather unlikely Jael Cracken (up there with Vargo Statten, Pel Toro and others) -- suggests that at the time Aldiss was not that keen on being associated with it. It is a fast-moving story, and I cannot help but wonder if it is in some degree a pastiche of Tiger, Tiger (The Stars, My Destination), with its telepathic hero and its frenetic pace. It amounts to one long chase scene as our hero, Wyvern, continually slides into and out of trouble on Earth and the Moon as he searches for answers and a mysterious telepathic woman.
The second, Equator, is also a long chase. Published in New Worlds in 1958, the year Aldiss's more highly-regarded first novel, Non-stop came out, and later as half an Ace double (as Vanguard from Alpha), this is probably the better tale. Like the first, it is somewhat overplotted, and replete with characters trying to explain the series of double-crosses to each other. Here, those double-crosses are rather the point of the tale, at least, and the story does not hinge too heavily on our being surprised by the twists. The setting -- a humid Sumatra -- is evoked very effectively, presumably as a result of Aldiss being stationed in the East in WWII -- but the characters are essentially cogs in the plot.
In this story, we have aliens landed on Earth, stolen microfilm, lots of gunfire, endless chases, a beautiful alien girl, and a whole series of other components that Aldiss would soon shed in books like Hothouse, Greybeard and The Dark Light Years.
But, recall, this is less than four years after his first SF stories appeared. It is very much the beginning of his first phase as an author, and it shows. The skilled use of language is in evidence, but he feels compelled to marry it to a pulpy plot that will suit his intended market. He's not ready to shape the field -- he is meeting its expectations.
The framing story is set in Finland in an alternative universe; Churchill was assassinated in 1935 on a trip to Finland, and England failed to withstand the Nazis. Whether this is therefore the same universe as The Impossible Smile, I am not sure.
These bits were written in the mid-80s. They tell the tale of a composer who finds a dead girl by the road while he walks home at night, and carries her to his home, then calls the police, and complexities ensure with his wife, the police and so on. He finds two pulpy paperbacks amongst her possessions and proceeds to read them, and compares his own life with what he sees there, and critiques the commercial, simplistic tales, yet admits to enjoying them.
I recall reading somewhere that this book (a fixup, in SFE terminology) was assembled to meet a request from a friend. I can imagine that after the enormous effort of Helliconia, Aldiss was perhaps susceptible to a suggestion that would result in a book with relatively little effort.
This is a minor work, of interest to Aldiss fans and people who like fast-moving, short, plot-based novels of SF adventure from the 50s and early 60s. For a more general reader, I suspect there is little to see here.
The all-too-possible frown.
October 9, 2017
An odd bit of speculative fiction; I picked this one up when I was looking for Appendix N books at a used bookstore (Zia Records) and spotted "Non-Stop" by Brian Aldiss, one of the inspirations for Metamorphosis Alpha (the very first science fiction RPG). Then I saw that they had ANOTHER Aldiss book - "The Year Before Yesterday" - and decided to check that one out too! It's set in an alternate world in which the Nazis were more victorious than in our world, and makes odd use of stories within stories to tell several other alternate history speculative stories within the main body of the novel. A very odd arrangement of the stories, but the writing is good, so I enjoyed it anyway!
June 13, 2018
I have never read any other books from Aldiss. This one seemed like some kind of easy, quickly written idea. The stories were quite interesting but they are dated! That is probably the main problem with this compared to the masterpieces: while reading this you see that they are written some time ago.
Anyway this book actually contains three stories that are quick and fun to read but nothing more.
Anyway this book actually contains three stories that are quick and fun to read but nothing more.
March 14, 2022
I didn't know if I should laugh or be disgusted with the characters behavior in this one. Laughing won out
April 15, 2023
Ihan mielenkiintoinen vaihtoehtoinen historia, mutta oli muuten aika epätasainen setti. Tuntui, että tässä oli väkisin nidottu yhteen pari aivan täysin erillistä settiä heikolla taustatarinalla.
May 27, 2009
I was recently reminded that I had read this book, but I don't remember much about it. Unfortunately, I may wind up having to read it again just to remember why it was so bad. It was one of those "what if Germany had won World War II" science fiction books, in which the Reich has an interplanetary empire, but it didn't appear that the author did any actual historical research whatsoever. His future-Reich was a fairly generic espionage-thriller police state with little ideological content or distinguishing characteristics. That's about all I recollect.
April 14, 2016
A short little Science fiction story (stories?) that I got at a used book store. It supposedly tells the story of a Germany that won WWII, but it doesn't go into any specifics or let us see anything of the life or state of the world. Then, it delves into two novels-within-a-novels that take up 90% of the book. The writing was good and it was interesting at times, but I would skip it of you have the choice.
3/5 stars, eh.
3/5 stars, eh.
July 15, 2014
Started this, but couldn't be bothered to finish it. It has an odd story within a story aspect. How the author gets to the story within seemed bizarre and the story within didn't especially spark my interest.
July 1, 2008
Not one of Aldiss' best by any means. The structure (a murder mystery without, two frame tales within) was at the outset intriguing; however, the actual story was not.
October 24, 2015
Two old SF stories of his with a newer story acting as a linking motif. One of the stories was in Vanguard from Alpha, so I didn't reread it. Not bad for golden age stuff.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews