What do you think?
Rate this book
The Ballad of Beta-2; Bound Together With Alpha Yes, Terra No! By Emil Petaja
Excellent Book
Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
22 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 3, 2019
5 stars for The Ballad
Delaney writes his first, tight narrative with philosophical weight, melding the zip and wonder of Jewels of Aptor with the interest in mind-bending ideas of the Fall of the Towers Trilogy. My early impression is that this is a major turning point in his early works.
Ballad’s protagonist is Joneny, a lone galactic anthropologist tracking down the roots of a the Ballad of Beta-2 among what he believes are the backwater Star Folk, travelers who left earth to colonize the stars before technological advancements leapt beyond them.
There's an erotic passage between the galaxy-minded Destroyer and Leela, the aging captain trying to save her ships from fanaticism. Here's the beginning:
Page 88: “What happened next, oh all the powers and audience of the stars, what happened? I don’t know—the colors, the pain, the flood of sensation that caught me up and broke me apart in swirls of metallic ice, that burned me with myriad thoughts complete and incomplete. The color, breaking from white through red, down through cascading green, soaring through gold that glittered and turned to emeralds, emerald as his eyes....”
Alpha Yes, Terra No! is not so good. Though it includes an interesting imagination of a future San Francisco with touches of Petaja’s SF bohemian present. The protagonist is essentially Bob Dylan as some sort of space messiah who uneasily teams up with a colonial plutocratic (colonizing Mars) to voyage into space for mystical reasons. But the real hero is Stranger the dog/secret alien ally who fixes all their problems. They crash on a frozen space planet with yetis. And end up on the Soviet Union planet which was their destination to plead the case for humanity before Soviet Union planet preemptively blows up humans in fear of their expanding colonial activities. Also per many sci-fi novels of this era there is some fucked up genetic stuff going on. The protagonist is a very special genetic bridge being, which helps him, the very special boy, in another trope of this era, to successfully plead humanity’s case at a climactic trial on planet Alpha. War of civilizations, climactic trial with a big speech--It's very cold war US sci-fi!
Delaney writes his first, tight narrative with philosophical weight, melding the zip and wonder of Jewels of Aptor with the interest in mind-bending ideas of the Fall of the Towers Trilogy. My early impression is that this is a major turning point in his early works.
Ballad’s protagonist is Joneny, a lone galactic anthropologist tracking down the roots of a the Ballad of Beta-2 among what he believes are the backwater Star Folk, travelers who left earth to colonize the stars before technological advancements leapt beyond them.
There's an erotic passage between the galaxy-minded Destroyer and Leela, the aging captain trying to save her ships from fanaticism. Here's the beginning:
Page 88: “What happened next, oh all the powers and audience of the stars, what happened? I don’t know—the colors, the pain, the flood of sensation that caught me up and broke me apart in swirls of metallic ice, that burned me with myriad thoughts complete and incomplete. The color, breaking from white through red, down through cascading green, soaring through gold that glittered and turned to emeralds, emerald as his eyes....”
Alpha Yes, Terra No! is not so good. Though it includes an interesting imagination of a future San Francisco with touches of Petaja’s SF bohemian present. The protagonist is essentially Bob Dylan as some sort of space messiah who uneasily teams up with a colonial plutocratic (colonizing Mars) to voyage into space for mystical reasons. But the real hero is Stranger the dog/secret alien ally who fixes all their problems. They crash on a frozen space planet with yetis. And end up on the Soviet Union planet which was their destination to plead the case for humanity before Soviet Union planet preemptively blows up humans in fear of their expanding colonial activities. Also per many sci-fi novels of this era there is some fucked up genetic stuff going on. The protagonist is a very special genetic bridge being, which helps him, the very special boy, in another trope of this era, to successfully plead humanity’s case at a climactic trial on planet Alpha. War of civilizations, climactic trial with a big speech--It's very cold war US sci-fi!
October 18, 2021
I reviewed Beta-2 separately. So this is just a review for Aloha Yes.
Humans have started reaching their tendrils into space. As we approach Alpha Centauri, the intelligent species there raises alarm against the violent, greedy creatures that will spread like cancer on their worlds. The agreed action is to destroy humans. A lone Alphan makes an illegal trip to Earth to pursue a connected history with humans, but an assassin is in hot pursuit.
This slim story is divided into three parts. The first is from the perspective of the alien as he hops from body to body and travels to various countries as he searches for certain people. The second part follows several humans as they go from earth to Mars to a crash landing on a desolate ice world. The third takes place on the planet Xo in Alpha Centauri.
At the end of this book, a topic that is near and dear to me is touched on: the idea of brotherly oneness amongst all beings. But it's brief. There are some really worthwhile ideas here but the book is too lean to give them the time they need, and the bad editing makes it all feel rushed. The conveniences and good luck are absurd. The ending is abrupt and hard to swallow in its easiness. I would have greatly preferred the Alphan character as the primary character for the whole duration.
The Alphans are a compassionate, gentle and highly civilized people—except that they want to atomize whole planets. This is a pretty bizarre decision just from a scientific perspective. The humans are the problem, not the Earth. And what effect could that have on nearby planets? And maybe just talk to us? Use your calming mind powers to make us understand and maybe we'll stop being shits. That being said, I would have voted for blowing up Earth. The case against us is a compelling one.
Humans have started reaching their tendrils into space. As we approach Alpha Centauri, the intelligent species there raises alarm against the violent, greedy creatures that will spread like cancer on their worlds. The agreed action is to destroy humans. A lone Alphan makes an illegal trip to Earth to pursue a connected history with humans, but an assassin is in hot pursuit.
This slim story is divided into three parts. The first is from the perspective of the alien as he hops from body to body and travels to various countries as he searches for certain people. The second part follows several humans as they go from earth to Mars to a crash landing on a desolate ice world. The third takes place on the planet Xo in Alpha Centauri.
At the end of this book, a topic that is near and dear to me is touched on: the idea of brotherly oneness amongst all beings. But it's brief. There are some really worthwhile ideas here but the book is too lean to give them the time they need, and the bad editing makes it all feel rushed. The conveniences and good luck are absurd. The ending is abrupt and hard to swallow in its easiness. I would have greatly preferred the Alphan character as the primary character for the whole duration.
The Alphans are a compassionate, gentle and highly civilized people—except that they want to atomize whole planets. This is a pretty bizarre decision just from a scientific perspective. The humans are the problem, not the Earth. And what effect could that have on nearby planets? And maybe just talk to us? Use your calming mind powers to make us understand and maybe we'll stop being shits. That being said, I would have voted for blowing up Earth. The case against us is a compelling one.
November 20, 2021
Both books in this Double are rather experimental in nature. The Delaney begins as the story of a student attempting to understand a song and then jumps into an SF mystery story. The Petaja starts as an SF mystery story and then moves to a more philosophical tale. Both could have been told in more straight-forward manner, but the stylings are part of the appeal of these stories. Not the most exciting of tales, but certainly worthwhile attempts.
April 28, 2024
Alpha Yes, Terra No! 2.5
The Ballad of Beta-2 4.5
The Ballad of Beta-2 4.5
July 1, 2012
I've always had a secret fondness for Ace Doubles--what could be better than two science fiction books in one? My mother's shelves used to be full of them when I was a kid, so when I started finding them in bookstores as an adult I decided to build a collection of my own. Most are lesser-known works by well-known authors, or works by lesser-known authors, and for all the issues that I have with classic science fiction (mostly due to technical advances being projected while social advances were left far behind), its strength is in the unrestricted creativity that authors showed.
Not all books are created equal, of course, and my overall rating reflects both books (novellas, really, when taken individually) but each deserves its own rating.
Alpha Yes, Terra No! * * *
While this book had its moments of stunning prescience (I read paragraphs that could have precisely described the world today), it didn't hold my attention particularly well and tended towards the preachy.
The Ballad of Beta-2 * * * *
This one clipped along at a much faster pace, and I was pleasantly surprised by how it didn't fall into the pitfall of overt sexism that I see over and over again. While I liked the story in and of itself, there were also details of the setting that I would love to see spun off in other directions as well.
Not all books are created equal, of course, and my overall rating reflects both books (novellas, really, when taken individually) but each deserves its own rating.
Alpha Yes, Terra No! * * *
While this book had its moments of stunning prescience (I read paragraphs that could have precisely described the world today), it didn't hold my attention particularly well and tended towards the preachy.
The Ballad of Beta-2 * * * *
This one clipped along at a much faster pace, and I was pleasantly surprised by how it didn't fall into the pitfall of overt sexism that I see over and over again. While I liked the story in and of itself, there were also details of the setting that I would love to see spun off in other directions as well.
April 30, 2011
This book has an interesting twist in that it is two books in one. I enjoyed the The Ballad of Beta-2 more than Alpha Yes, Terra No!. Yet both stories are worth reading. Both stories avoid being dated. Thank you to the libarain Michael who added this book to the Goodreads database.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews