Transfinite Man

by Colin Kapp

DALROI:

Trouble-man of the Future

Dalroi grew up in the shadows of Failway Terminal - a monolithic destruction enterprise that slowly absorbed the very lives of the people around him. For Failway seemed to feed on what was most bestial in human beings. Every day, transfinite capsules went out - pleasure trips to the vast and vicious depths that lie beyond human consciousness. Those that returned from these excursions found that they had legally ceased to exist...

Three investigators from the Cronstadt Committee went into the Fairway Terminal and never came out. Then Cronstadt hired Dalroi to find out what had happened to them.

Suddenly Dalroi's personal war against Failway exploded into a terrifying manhunt that ranged over the six levels of transfinite space...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

160 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Colin Derek Ivor Kapp was a popular UK science fiction author, but one who never became a success in the USA. He was active, though not prolific, as an author in the 1960s through to the 1980s.

He is best known for his "Unorthodox Engineers" stories, which recount an eccentric group of engineers, who accomplish impossible feats of engineering against all odds.

Pen names: Colin Papp, Colin Capp.

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

OK Fine. I've read the reviews and sure, this isn't the greatest scifi book. I acknowledge that. But it presented a "premise" that I've never found anywhere else in this genre

The premise? That homo sapiens are the direct descendents of the most insane, voracious, monstrous beings in the multiverse, and instead of total genocide, the leaders of the multiverse chose instead to suppress their inclinations towards dominance and transcendental powers, keeping them alive but controlled on a tiny planet in the middle of nowhere. There, the multiverse has been trying to breed out the genes responsible for such power. Dalroi is always their greatest fear; the rare birth of a human whose suppressed powers are broken.

I've been looking for part two my entire life, for answers to the question - "why did they keep humanity alive?"

Is humanity the multiverse's answer to "Mother Hitten's Little Kittens"? Are they keeping us around because they know that one day, something REALLY ugly is going to show up, and they plan to "wake up" humanity and sic us on some multiverse-eating "THING"? The book states that they didn't "remove" humanity because of their higher moral/ethical code, but that feels more like propaganda to keep the truth hidden.

I commend Colin Kapp for introducing me to the "Mankind that Deserves to be Expunged" plot device. Brilliant. I only wish Mr. Kapp had written a sequel to explain what should be "The Big Picture".

[Eelko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful epic story of a seemingly simple detective that is harassed by a large multi-dimensional company and holds the key human civilization's place in the universe.

[Jonathan Palfrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like Colin Kapp, but this was his first novel, dating from the early 1960s. My favourite of his novels is his second, Patterns Of Chaos, published eight years later.

For his first novel, he tried to do his own version of Alfred Bester’s Tiger! Tiger!: a man obsessed with revenge powers through all opposition despite the fact that everyone is out to get him. There are a few amusing and presumably deliberate borrowings from Bester’s novel, such as the burning man; and there’s even a form of teleportation. However, Kapp’s story isn’t simple plagiarism: the scenario, plot, and characters are completely different.

The story is told flamboyantly, with much sound and fury, but unfortunately the scenario and plot are implausible and the characterization is sketchy. By the standards of sf in the early 1960s, it’s not a bad book, and I wouldn’t warn you off it as long as you’re familiar with sf in general; but Kapp wrote some better novels later on.

If you’re not accustomed to sf, I’d advise you to skip Colin Kapp’s novels completely. There are other authors who could give you a better introduction to sf, although exactly which ones would depend on what you want out of fiction.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometime in the future Ivan Dalroi investigates the disappearance of three detectives in connection with Failway, a powerful multinational company. The first quarter of the novel has a strong noir atmosphere, which I rather enjoyed. Then, in my opinion, it all falls apart, with multi-dimensional settings, and questions as to who and what Dalroi and Failway really are. I never got a strong sense of the world. Dalroi has strong hate issues, and not much else, which didn't endear him to me. The other characters are barely more than names. This might have made a good short story, but even at 160 pages, it seemed long. A big disappointment. I still recommend Kapp's book of short stories, "The Unorthodox Engineers," (especially "The Pen and the Dark") which is now easily and cheaply available as an ebook.

[Steve Rainwater · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ivan Dalroi is a private detective with a shady past who’s out to discover the secrets of Failway Terminal, a big corporate-owned building that serves as a sort of multiverse transit station. The corporation has a monopoly on transit so they essentially own entire universes full of real estate. Lots of political intrigue and action. The author has a strange obsession with “bogies” – those rotating wheel assemblies on the bottom of railroad cars. The hero is always jumping onto and off of railway car bogies (for never explained reasons trains are used to move between the alternate universes). The book provides a plot-twist ending similar to an old Twilight Zone episode. Readable if you run across it but a little below average and not worth seeking out.

[SciFiOne · Rating 2 out of 5]

1985 grade D+

[Marko]

I have the german edition: Dimensionen des Satans