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I, Weapon
Paperback Book
- GenresScience Fiction
252 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
2 people are currently reading
43 people want to read
About the author
Charles W. Runyon
46 books2 followersUS author of thrillers and some sf, who began publishing the latter with "First Man in a Satellite" for Super-Science Fiction in December 1958; sixteen further short sf/fantasy stories followed, chiefly for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. His first sf novel Pig World (1971) depicts a Near-Future USA governed by a right-wing tyranny challenged by a vicious would-be demagogue. Soulmate (April 1970 F&SF; exp 1974) is a novel of possession (see Horror in SF), the victim being a young prostitute. I, Weapon (1974) features much violence and Sex involving Aliens. Runyon's sf tends to be action-filled, without extensive displacement or speculative content.
Runyon was one of several sf authors who ghosted paperback-original thrillers under the Ellery Queen byline.
Runyon was one of several sf authors who ghosted paperback-original thrillers under the Ellery Queen byline.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 22, 2014
A fun and original read. In the future, humanity has split off in many specialized races. To combat an alien menace, a scientist from the Venus colony decides to create a human weapon by combining the best genes of the different races. Not realistic at all, but an exciting read.
October 4, 2014
I loved this wild and crazy book...it is a lost classic of gonzo New Wave scifi!
August 5, 2024
Look past the 70s pulp cover and you'll find some detailed world building and satire on class, sex and race (even if originally unintended at publication). A mix of soft SF and fantasy but not in the sense of intentional magic, rather playing *very* loose with science.
Sure computers use 'tape', time dilation is out the window, telepathy is on steroids, copper is all-powerful, and evolution takes mere centuries, but it doesn't get in the way of making it memorable.
The author mostly wrote short pulpy murder / adventure fodder, perhaps out of necessity to pay the bills. So it must've been hard to get this novel off the ground. You can definitely see the potential for this to have been several books in a series as there's several offshoots that could be explored much deeper (e.g., Jupiter) and the ending was sudden. My guess is that without background constraints, this could have been a grand epic.
Either way, happy to have picked it from a used book store.
Sure computers use 'tape', time dilation is out the window, telepathy is on steroids, copper is all-powerful, and evolution takes mere centuries, but it doesn't get in the way of making it memorable.
The author mostly wrote short pulpy murder / adventure fodder, perhaps out of necessity to pay the bills. So it must've been hard to get this novel off the ground. You can definitely see the potential for this to have been several books in a series as there's several offshoots that could be explored much deeper (e.g., Jupiter) and the ending was sudden. My guess is that without background constraints, this could have been a grand epic.
Either way, happy to have picked it from a used book store.
June 11, 2012
Book from my childhood. Rated it more out of nostalgia then anything.
October 30, 2011
I read this book because it was listed as one of the two most "deeply sick and depraved" books of SF, at least according to the readers of rec.arts.sf.written. Unfortunately, it's not really that depraved. Or if it was, I was so overwhelmingly bored by it that the supposed sickness didn't make much of an impression.
Perhaps the best thing I can say about I, Weapon is that it isn't a novel at all; it's the plotter's synopsis for a Marvel comic about the same year as the book. Doing a synopsis of the synopsis will be difficult, but here goes: it is The Future. The Morlocks-- excuse me, the Progs-- live on the Moon and on habitats about Jupiter. Their agents, the Stafi and Landed, do the grunt work and raise the Eloi-- excuse me, the Unguls-- humans so mutated after Terra's first nuclear war that they are fit only as foodstock. Humanity had spread throughout the galaxy, only to be forced back to a few dozen worlds by the villainous Vim. A desperate Prog, consulting The Computer, learns that the only possibility of success is a breeding cycle to create a godlike human who can crush the Vim. The first half of the book deals with her struggles to reach her goal: she has to collect the sperm of an Ungul, an Unchanged, and an "Evolutionary Variant", mix them all together, and then carry the product to term herself all "the old-fashioned way, without the use of a breeding tank or gene equipment," The Computer tells her. The end of the book is an unchallenging narrative of her offspring's heroic success after success. I won't spoil the ending, such as it is, for you.
Is it "depraved?" It certainly may have been once upon a time: we have flat, drab, colorless passion meandering across the page as our blue-skinned, bug-eyed heroine (the lights are low in those sublunarian bases to preserve power) mates with these various creatures. Runyon takes particular delight in displaying the ranches where human-stock meat is raised and butchered, and spends inordinate amounts of time when the hero starts making it with a Vim female.
So: you got your cannibalism, your pornography, your vague sense of bestiality. There's even a snuff scene for those with that kind of bent. There's a hint of lesbianism when the logic-driven Prog heroine tries to describe her feelings for her oh-so-useful-and-beautiful (illegally gengineered to be a sex toy, but now free and educated) Stafi assistant, but then puts them aside as irrational and never acts on them-- pity, as the Stafi seems to be the only real human in the place.
But it's all so boring! Runyon is a complete hack; his exposition goes on for page after page after page. His dialogue is completely "as you know, Bob." When the hero gets into Vim territory he discovers that he is carrying a "psychic inhibitor"; without it, he is a God and an unimaginative one at that, and the book is really over when Runyon has another 80 pages or so to fill. Terrible read.
Perhaps the best thing I can say about I, Weapon is that it isn't a novel at all; it's the plotter's synopsis for a Marvel comic about the same year as the book. Doing a synopsis of the synopsis will be difficult, but here goes: it is The Future. The Morlocks-- excuse me, the Progs-- live on the Moon and on habitats about Jupiter. Their agents, the Stafi and Landed, do the grunt work and raise the Eloi-- excuse me, the Unguls-- humans so mutated after Terra's first nuclear war that they are fit only as foodstock. Humanity had spread throughout the galaxy, only to be forced back to a few dozen worlds by the villainous Vim. A desperate Prog, consulting The Computer, learns that the only possibility of success is a breeding cycle to create a godlike human who can crush the Vim. The first half of the book deals with her struggles to reach her goal: she has to collect the sperm of an Ungul, an Unchanged, and an "Evolutionary Variant", mix them all together, and then carry the product to term herself all "the old-fashioned way, without the use of a breeding tank or gene equipment," The Computer tells her. The end of the book is an unchallenging narrative of her offspring's heroic success after success. I won't spoil the ending, such as it is, for you.
Is it "depraved?" It certainly may have been once upon a time: we have flat, drab, colorless passion meandering across the page as our blue-skinned, bug-eyed heroine (the lights are low in those sublunarian bases to preserve power) mates with these various creatures. Runyon takes particular delight in displaying the ranches where human-stock meat is raised and butchered, and spends inordinate amounts of time when the hero starts making it with a Vim female.
So: you got your cannibalism, your pornography, your vague sense of bestiality. There's even a snuff scene for those with that kind of bent. There's a hint of lesbianism when the logic-driven Prog heroine tries to describe her feelings for her oh-so-useful-and-beautiful (illegally gengineered to be a sex toy, but now free and educated) Stafi assistant, but then puts them aside as irrational and never acts on them-- pity, as the Stafi seems to be the only real human in the place.
But it's all so boring! Runyon is a complete hack; his exposition goes on for page after page after page. His dialogue is completely "as you know, Bob." When the hero gets into Vim territory he discovers that he is carrying a "psychic inhibitor"; without it, he is a God and an unimaginative one at that, and the book is really over when Runyon has another 80 pages or so to fill. Terrible read.
July 6, 2009
The first 25 pages is the most jaw droppingly bad 25 pages i have ever read. This book has scarred me for life.
September 6, 2015
One of the most memorable and... interesting books I read in my teenage years. I recall it being a pretty wild ride. Would I recommend it? NOPE
July 28, 2024
an absolutely brilliant read!!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews