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And Having Writ...
In this alternate history novel, the Tunguska event was caused by an alien spaceship crashing. The novel takes place in an alternate timeline where the crew manage to land safely and then spend the next few decades changing history as a side-effect of encouraging the creation of technology that can repair their ship.
Hardcover
First published July 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 18, 2022
Rec. by: A wire rack somewhere in a store that sold nothing but printed matter, as I recall
Rec. for: Explorers of a certain sort
In our universe, the Tunguska event of June 30, 1908, "is classified as an impact event, even though no impact crater has been found; the object is thought to have disintegrated at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometres (3 to 6 miles) rather than having hit the surface of the Earth."
But so what if the object that disintegrated happened to be a spacecraft, a vessel its crew calls Wanderer? And then what if Wanderer managed at the last moment to sort of... jink sideways, diving into (or perhaps even creating) an alternative timeline where the ship didn't explode, instead gliding to a more-or-less safe splashdown much farther east, just off the coast of California? How would that change history? And the four Explorers who were aboard that ship—Dark, Valmis, Ari and our narrator Raf, the Recorder—how would they take being stranded on a planet whose technology and social development was so far behind their own? Especially when Explorers aren't even supposed to interact at all with the indigenes on the planets they're Exploring?
The result is really rather fun (with caveats).
*
The title of Donald R. Bensen's SF novel And Having Writ... comes from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám:
*
And Having Writ... was published in 1978, and it's a humorous and, especially for the time, remarkably gentle alien contact story. It reminded me a lot of Christopher Anvil's Pandora's Planet—minus the invasion. As the Explorers bumble around, trying to manipulate humanity into advancing enough to repair Wanderer, they get to observe our numerous cultural blind spots—and, in the process, the crew of Wanderer expose just how many blind spots they have, too.
Bensen manages this double feat deftly, even brilliantly... which makes it all the more ironic that—although I didn't notice this during my first time through, or even my second—Bensen's writing betrays his own blind spots, ones that make it harder to appreciate this novel now as wholeheartedly and uncritically as I did when I was a teenager.
I may well have had more blind spots of my own, back in 1978...
I didn't notice, my first times through, that there is only one woman with a name in all of And Having Writ...—and even she is only called by her husband's name! ("Mrs. Keppel" (p.145) was a real historical figure, by the way.)
Every other woman in Bensen's book is anonymous, present only as staff, or as a sex object, or as the butt of a joke (the "female native" reporter on pp. 76-77, in particular).
But... as little as Donald R. Bensen acknowledged women, it's more than he noticed other aspects of humanity. Race, for example, is simply erased—apart from one throwaway line late in the book about the "universities of Africa," which could well refer to European colonial institutions, the variations of human skin simply don't come up, and despite one of the Explorers being named "Dark," the crew of Wanderer are indistinguishable from the white males who are their only important counterparts.
Nor was there any mention of any gender or sexuality, other than the one Bensen accepted without question as default.
On Earth and off, every single being who matters in And Having Writ... is a white cisgender male—one of the laziest of science-fictional assumptions.
*
And yet... by and large, I still think the virtues of And Having Writ... outweigh its flaws. The Explorers get to interact with a host of major historical figures, largely in peaceful ways, while knocking their lives askew in hilarious fashion (what happens to Rasputin... hoo, boy). And the last line of the book is just perfect.
Bensen's novel remains an above-average and underappreciated classic of 20th-Century SF, and I'm not sorry I brought it out of the box to read one more time.
Rec. for: Explorers of a certain sort
In our universe, the Tunguska event of June 30, 1908, "is classified as an impact event, even though no impact crater has been found; the object is thought to have disintegrated at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometres (3 to 6 miles) rather than having hit the surface of the Earth."
But so what if the object that disintegrated happened to be a spacecraft, a vessel its crew calls Wanderer? And then what if Wanderer managed at the last moment to sort of... jink sideways, diving into (or perhaps even creating) an alternative timeline where the ship didn't explode, instead gliding to a more-or-less safe splashdown much farther east, just off the coast of California? How would that change history? And the four Explorers who were aboard that ship—Dark, Valmis, Ari and our narrator Raf, the Recorder—how would they take being stranded on a planet whose technology and social development was so far behind their own? Especially when Explorers aren't even supposed to interact at all with the indigenes on the planets they're Exploring?
The result is really rather fun (with caveats).
*
The title of Donald R. Bensen's SF novel And Having Writ... comes from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám:
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,Which is itself based on a story from the Old Testament (in the book of Daniel 5:26-28). The moving finger appears to Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, writing words of warning. Those specific words do not appear within And Having Writ..., but they are still a big part of its central theme.
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
*
And Having Writ... was published in 1978, and it's a humorous and, especially for the time, remarkably gentle alien contact story. It reminded me a lot of Christopher Anvil's Pandora's Planet—minus the invasion. As the Explorers bumble around, trying to manipulate humanity into advancing enough to repair Wanderer, they get to observe our numerous cultural blind spots—and, in the process, the crew of Wanderer expose just how many blind spots they have, too.
Bensen manages this double feat deftly, even brilliantly... which makes it all the more ironic that—although I didn't notice this during my first time through, or even my second—Bensen's writing betrays his own blind spots, ones that make it harder to appreciate this novel now as wholeheartedly and uncritically as I did when I was a teenager.
I may well have had more blind spots of my own, back in 1978...
Just because a man is professionally involved with Infinity doesn't mean that he should talk at infinite length.
—p.9
I didn't notice, my first times through, that there is only one woman with a name in all of And Having Writ...—and even she is only called by her husband's name! ("Mrs. Keppel" (p.145) was a real historical figure, by the way.)
Every other woman in Bensen's book is anonymous, present only as staff, or as a sex object, or as the butt of a joke (the "female native" reporter on pp. 76-77, in particular).
But... as little as Donald R. Bensen acknowledged women, it's more than he noticed other aspects of humanity. Race, for example, is simply erased—apart from one throwaway line late in the book about the "universities of Africa," which could well refer to European colonial institutions, the variations of human skin simply don't come up, and despite one of the Explorers being named "Dark," the crew of Wanderer are indistinguishable from the white males who are their only important counterparts.
Nor was there any mention of any gender or sexuality, other than the one Bensen accepted without question as default.
On Earth and off, every single being who matters in And Having Writ... is a white cisgender male—one of the laziest of science-fictional assumptions.
*
And yet... by and large, I still think the virtues of And Having Writ... outweigh its flaws. The Explorers get to interact with a host of major historical figures, largely in peaceful ways, while knocking their lives askew in hilarious fashion (what happens to Rasputin... hoo, boy). And the last line of the book is just perfect.
Bensen's novel remains an above-average and underappreciated classic of 20th-Century SF, and I'm not sorry I brought it out of the box to read one more time.
February 2, 2025
I bought this on whim at the end of 1980, not having heard of the author; it’s a minor novel that might be described as science-fiction light comedy.
Four aliens from another solar system crash-land their spacecraft in the sea off the coast of the USA in 1908, while Theodore Roosevelt is still president; and they set about negotiating with the natives, whose technology they wish to improve sufficiently to repair the spacecraft.
The aliens are remarkably similar to humans in every way, although they still possess a few items of advanced technology that they salvaged from the wreck. They’re also rather naïve and bumbling; their efforts to influence events do have considerable effects on human politics and technology, but not in the ways they intended.
As a comedy it’s no more than mildly amusing, and as science fiction it’s more in the style of the 1950s than the late 1970s, but it’s pleasant and harmless and passes the time amiably enough, if you like this kind of thing.
Bensen’s writing style reminds me vaguely of Hal Clement’s, although Clement didn’t tend to go in for comedy. They were relatively close in age: Clement was 5 years older.
Four aliens from another solar system crash-land their spacecraft in the sea off the coast of the USA in 1908, while Theodore Roosevelt is still president; and they set about negotiating with the natives, whose technology they wish to improve sufficiently to repair the spacecraft.
The aliens are remarkably similar to humans in every way, although they still possess a few items of advanced technology that they salvaged from the wreck. They’re also rather naïve and bumbling; their efforts to influence events do have considerable effects on human politics and technology, but not in the ways they intended.
As a comedy it’s no more than mildly amusing, and as science fiction it’s more in the style of the 1950s than the late 1970s, but it’s pleasant and harmless and passes the time amiably enough, if you like this kind of thing.
Bensen’s writing style reminds me vaguely of Hal Clement’s, although Clement didn’t tend to go in for comedy. They were relatively close in age: Clement was 5 years older.
October 14, 2019
If you don't look or think about it too hard, this book is pretty basic.. aliens crash land near San Francisco in early 1908, and the world changes. The unique part is that it's told entirely from the point of view of one of the aliens, and never changes. .. even though the aliens are more spectators in the story than anything else.
They try to get Earth's tech to advance, and utterly fail, only to have their mere presence have massive unintended consequences. It's hard to go into any more details without spoilers, but while it was a fun, unique book, there were a couple problems.
Really, this should have been a short story... a good 1/2 the book was spend on the aliens 'European tour', when probably 10 pages would have done.. they did the same exact thing 3 times (vising the three major European monarchs), with almost no variance. The other was that it was just too darn optimistic... while I've love to think what happened could really be in real life, it's so insanely positive as to be even less believable than the aliens themselves. Between the ideas and the writing style, though, I'd definitely be interested to read other things by the author.
They try to get Earth's tech to advance, and utterly fail, only to have their mere presence have massive unintended consequences. It's hard to go into any more details without spoilers, but while it was a fun, unique book, there were a couple problems.
Really, this should have been a short story... a good 1/2 the book was spend on the aliens 'European tour', when probably 10 pages would have done.. they did the same exact thing 3 times (vising the three major European monarchs), with almost no variance. The other was that it was just too darn optimistic... while I've love to think what happened could really be in real life, it's so insanely positive as to be even less believable than the aliens themselves. Between the ideas and the writing style, though, I'd definitely be interested to read other things by the author.
September 29, 2024
The aliens are surprisingly one-dimensional, and when reading, one is required to progressively heighten their suspension of disbelief, as is natural for these types of books, from a high baseline level to almost-impossible heights. Perhaps for contemporary standards this was a decent novel, but with so many great books in this genre now-adays it is no longer a particularly compelling read.
November 24, 2017
It lacks verisimilitude, but is a quick, entertaining, charming, and easy read. May hold an overly optimistic view of mankind, but I don't really mind that.
January 17, 2020
This is very silly and probably, on the whole, no better than mediocre, but I absolutely loved it; there's an optimism to it that I found very satisfying.
January 19, 2018
Reread June 1980.
Read May 1979.
Read May 1979.
February 9, 2015
The idea was interesting but the execution was clumsy.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews