Space War Blues

by Richard A. Lupoff

New Alabama. A planet that's a fair reproduction of long-lost Dixie, filled with down-home, racist rednecks. The N'Alabamians have carried their tribal prejudices to the farthest reached of the galaxy, like the other minorities expelled from the Earth by the dominant Pan-Semitic Alliance. There's New Transvaal. New Cathay. And New Haiti, a black world where Papa Doc's descendants carry on the old ways.When New Alabama and New Haiti go to war with each other, it's a bloody black-versus-white stalemate. Until the N'Haitians develop a horrific new secret weapon based on a very ancient tradition.Imagine you're a clean-cut N'Alabamian good ol' boy, giving your all up there in the space fleet, and you suddenly realise the enemy crews aren't human at all. They're what people back on Earth used to call Zombies...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1978

About the author

Richard Allen "Dick" Lupoff (born February 21, 1935 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice Burroughs and has an equally strong interest in H. P. Lovecraft. Before becoming a full-time writer in 1970 he worked in the computer industry.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lupoff tried to do something really new and unique with this book, and I think he had a lot more success that he was credited. It's a melding of new wave and space opera, and science fiction and horror, and societal commentary with adventure. The portion published in AGAIN, DANGEROUS VISIONS seems probably much better than the rest of this version, but it was a thoughtful and fun read. I remember it fondly after many years.

[Sheldon Wiebe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard A. Lupoff's Space War blues is a devastatingly original novel - expanded from a novella included in Harlan Ellison's Again Dangerous Visions anthology (which various chapters/revisions appearing in New Dimensions IV, New Dimensions 5 and Amazing Stories before it all came together as a novel).

As indescribable an experience as anything I've ever read, Space War Blues is, as Ellion describes it in the cover blurb, 'There has never been a thing like this before... Audacious... Extravagant... It will raise one hell of a noise!'

If you can find a copy of Space War Blues - and you love a challenging, boisterous, exuberant read that also Says Stuff - you owe it to yourself to read it.

[Frederic Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Planets colonized by southern rednecks. Australian aborigines surfing through space. alien life forms harvested and used to create soldier zombies. What's not to like?

[Josh Berthume · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is wild as hell. Hardcore late 60s sci-fi with huge and overt social commentary. If that’s your thing, this book is for you.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alternately wonderful, ingenious and incredibly frustrating, Lupoff's novel (which, best I can interpret from Harlan Ellison's introduction, is made up of several interconnected short stories) jumps willy-nilly through a galaxy of Old Earth colonies that retain their old racist attitudes simply out of spite. Essentially it's the South trying to put all those "nigras" back in their place. These sections are made up of some of the most dense vernacular jargon outside of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. Almost incomprehensible, it's honestly like learning a new language...but one that will earn you zero academic credit. However, the book drifts into a few interesting subplots, not all of which tie together so neatly, but make for fascinating reading all the same.

I read Lupoff's Sandworld first - a simple-minded John Carter rip-off that showed none of the talent on display here. So I might have to give him another try and see which author shows up next time.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books like this are why I slog through so many lame science fiction paperbacks. Once in awhile you find yourself holding one that effortlessly transcends the genre, or any genre, novels brilliant and so original and unique as to be humbling to anyone with literary pretensions. I ignored this one for many years because I thought the title stupid. I still think it's stupid, but that was the work of the publisher and not the author. When Harlan Ellison said something like "there's never been anything like this one" it's entirely true (and I didn't quite believe him because I find him somewhat ridiculous and a 3rd-rate writer at best). His introduction, and the author's, are both very interesting, however -- that is, if you take an interest in the vagaries of the science fiction publishing world of the 1960s and 1970s. I will be reading more by Lupoff, though I have heard somewhere that he never wrote anything else like "Space War Blues."

[KHLOARIS · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rude military sci-fi about a war between some rednecks from a planet called New Alabama who are trying to subjegate their neighbors on New Haiti. Can space-age Voodoo technology succeed in raising an army of undead super-soldiers to defeat their racist agenda? More cartoony than nasty, the prose switches to rhymed free-verse for long streches whenever the soldiers go to a stripclub for sexy-time. Lupoff’s experiments in wordplay are fun, but they read like a juvi-version of Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo (1972), without any social criticism or deep cultural history for the reader to decode. Lupoff’s story first appeared in superior form when it was anthologised as a novella in Again Dangerous Visions (1972), before getting padded with a few of his other short stories into this fix-up edition.

[Andrew Brooks · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tries to write scenes for dramatic impact, but it's often garbled by excess use of words spelled as the author imagined them pronounced, or Sentences with words from a tribal vocabulary that the reader not familiar with that tradition won't know (and often can't find online)
Also has a number of pretty sloppy plot errors for the sake of drama... Like a racist surprised at boarding a ship crewed completely by blacks, when the entire cultural background of the story makes it clear that that type ship is only EVER crewed by black people, so it is unbelievable that anyone would expect otherwise.

[Richard Gombert · Rating 2 out of 5]

This might've been relevant in the late 1960s, or even interesting I the late 1970s.
Now it's dated, and tiresome to read.

[Marva · Rating 1 out of 5]

Introduced interesting characters and themes then I realised I was over halfway through and Lupoff hadn't even started to deliver on them. Had to scan finish it to make sure I wasn't going crazy 😟

[Ernest Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forget DUNE and its cornball, mystical imperialism. This is the space opera the world needs to be reading. Somebody needs to make a movie . . .

[Scott Holstad · Rating 1 out of 5]

I get ticked off when I come across a book I'm reading that lists so many different bizarre sounding and reading names of people and places (especially in sci fi), that your mind is permanently warped. Honestly, is it really that necessary? Can't we just stick to four or five characters with reasonable sounding names. I started this book today at lunch and got so ticked off, I've decided not to finish it. Never mind that it begins with a long introduction by Harlan Ellison (for an editor, he can't write briefly to save his life) that drones on for 17 pages, complete with an answer by the author whose agent got his feelings hurt by Ellison and who he must defend. Bizarre start to the book. But then, in the first two pages, we encounter Jiritzu, Djanggawul, Nurundere, Wuluwaid, Kunapi, Dua, Bunbulama, Miralaidj, Aranda -- and that's just in the first four paragraphs! Enough! You're no Anthony Burgess, Mr. Lupoff. You shouldn't be creating a ton of unpronounceable names just to impress or confuse. I'm having none of it. I should have known when Harlan Ellison endorsed it -- practically everything he's ever endorsed, I've hated. Certainly not recommended.

[Alien · Rating 1 out of 5]

Many countries on earth (and smaller political entities) have colonized different planets. Black and white people are strictly segregated. There is extreme racism.

I quit after 80 pages. The idea about the sailors in space is just moronic. It may seem original for a second, but if you think about it for another second it is clear that it is so stupid that the author should have chucked the idea.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expecting more action, something along the line of Starship Troopers. It's much more of a political/social novel to me.