Bander Snatch

by Kevin O'Donnell Jr.

It is the twenty-second century. A vast, complex bureaucracy rules. The rich live in comfortable enclaves or deep-space colonies. They barricade themselves in the burnt-out shells of the dead Earthly cities. Lord of one such Jungle is Bander Snatch. Street-wise leader of a gang that speaks its own defiant, futuristic slang, he is suddenly chosen for the greatest role of his life. Thrust into the harrowing depths of an alien planet and a terrifying confrontation on his own home turf, he must meet the ultimate test of manhood--or be mercilessly consumed.

Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopia

242 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Peter Alward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read it multiple times as a kid and loved it. Haven’t revisited it as an adult.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easily a four star books but a dismal third act sinks it. A lot of Clockwork Orange vernacular accompanies this telekinetic dystopian adventure story. So close to being great.

[Peter Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

WTF? Alien werewolves. Telepathic bear-people. This book was bizarre af, but it was still fun to read.

[Apocryphal Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first novel by Kevin O'Donnell Jr., and the first time I've read the author as part of my effort to read less-well-known SF authors. I liked this one well-enough, though it certainly wasn't very convincing from a world-building point of view. The novel opens in a sort of modern planned urban city on a peninsula into Lake Erie off the Ohio shore - a place for people who didn't want to work for a living, but where the government could take care of them. However, some of districts fell to revolt, and are now known as 'jungles', basically under control of (benevolent?) gangs. And one such leader is Bander Snatch, named after a monster in a book. Bander is no monster, but he must rule by the system he's got. He gets along with Big Unk (the government) rather well, but not with the other jungle leaders. The first part of the book deals with his problems in the jungle, and how he deals with them.

The government ends up kidnapping his girlfriend to use her as a lure, and when he goes in to rescue her, they reveal their grand plan, which is actually to help him develop his latent mental powers. So he embarks in a (voluntary?) program to develop them as much as possible - but that can only go so far. Part 2 of the book sees him flung off to a distant planet where real psychic people live, and there he goes through some further hard knocks training. It's a pass or fail system, with failure meaning death. While there, he befriends a giant psychic bear and gets raped by an alien woman. Finally, in part 3, he come home again and resolves some of the loose ends created by his long absence.

So yeah, plot-wise it's a bit of a mess. Setting is not very convincing. But it's not un-fun - it's kind of like reading a decent B movie novelization, and fairly imaginative. The closest other work to this I can think of is Sterling Lanier's 1973 novel Hiero's Journey, which I think may have inspired this novel, and Bander Snatch almost does read like a sort of prequel to that work. In fact, if you look up the 1974 Bantam Paperback cover, you'll see a striking resemblance to this one. Maybe it's all a coincidence - what do I know. I'm no psychic.

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some things to like about O'Donnell's first novel...but there are many, many more things to dislike. O'Donnell has some interesting ideas about how a telepathic (alien) society would work and how it would have to be set up and, frankly, Part II of the novel (where the protagonist Bander Snatch is marooned for a time in order to develop his own telepathic powers) is by far the most consistent and interesting part of the book. The only problem with it is the ridiculous "rape" scene where Bander Snatch is raped by a female alien (unbelievable on many levels, the scientific being the least of those). As for the first and last parts of the novel, it's almost like O'Donnell wanted to write _all_ science fiction subgenres and plot devices and cliches into one novel: literally, as if he could not make up his mind what kind of science fiction novel he wanted to write and therefore tried to write them all. This is further marred by what appears to be fairly draconian editing to make the book shorter (rather than giving it the length such a lack of authorial focus would need to fully explore the potential wealth of material O'Donnell seems to have wanted. At times the "characterization" applied to Bander Snatch (mainly the "ghetto" or "city" lingo he and his compatriots speak) fades in and out of use and the plotting is fairly predictable (some "twists" are obvious and forced merely to keep the plot moving in the direction O'Donnell wanted the novel to go). Bander's ultimate fate, becoming an "antibureaucratic" ombudsman for the Federal government is ridiculous on the face of it and thoroughly unbelievable.

Skip this one; O'Donnell did _much_ better writing later in his too-brief career and his sparse output of novel-length work.

[Chris Genereaux · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite books as a kid and one that started me along the sci fi path and writing for my own amusement and entertainment. This is no towering classic of literature but a beacon of nostalgia from a time when imagination and entertainment dictated my reading list and my work. Got this in a sack of sci Fi and fantasy paperbacks and was delighted to see it now on kindle for a blast from the past.