A villanelle is a kind of 19th-century French poem long derided by modern poets for its fusty, pompous formalism &#8212but, like many things, revived when the madness of the 20th century brought about nostalgia for structure. H.G. Wells was a prophetic writer and social critic who has gone in and out of favor since his death in 1946. Both are decidedly ungroovy in our currently self-navigating, chronically manifesting science fictional milieu, which is why I’m reviewing Wells’ ridiculous 1904 scientific romance, The Food of the Gods&#8212a novel about a food that causes gigantism&#8212in the form of a villanelle.

When, suddenly, a giant is born,
Product of misplaced toxic vial,
He looks down on our world with scorn.

Who of us can safely warn
The young colossus of his trial
When, suddenly, a giant is born?

Before we know it, we will mourn
Our lilliputian lifestyle.
He looks down on our world with scorn.

Now giant wasps, and giant corn,
Will populate the British isle.
When, suddenly, a giant is born.

With massive step, our city torn,
For him our avenues are aisles.
He looks down on our world with scorn.

Reader, no need to feel forlorn,
It’s just our future that’s on trial.
When, suddenly, a giant is born,
He looks down on our world with scorn.

This world is a
Haven for
Extra-terrestrial

Stones. The Earth
Yields them,
Nestled in the dirt and
Thoroughly unconcerned with
Humanity.
Every night,
They quietly
Invent perfect
Copies of

Men.
A dream is all we are, the
Nightmares of a jewel.

Martian Time-Slip, a sonnet:

Canals lie void of water in the dust,
This is the dream…to stand here and see this:
See old men die wrapped up in tubes and rust.
A home on Mars. Beyond it, space, abyss.

Reality inside the schizoid mind?
Through blight and death, decrepitude and mold,
A child alone to future isn’t blind.
His madness lets him see himself grow old.

Beneath each man a horrible machine;
At least that’s how the world begins to feel.
Harrowing decay, veiled behind a screen
Am I tripping? Or is this arrow real?

On Mars the only men of wisdom say:
“Gubble, gubble, gubble, time rots away.”

From the Archives:

Space Canon review of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Space Canon review of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Space Canon review of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

“Brightness falls from the air” is a line from A Litany in Time of Plague, a death-themed Elizabethan poem by Thomas Nashe:

Beauty is but a flower
Which wrinkes will devour;
Brightness falls from the air,
Queens have died young and fair,
Dust hath closed Helen’s eye.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

The line, both unlikely and modern, is perhaps what Nashe is best remembered for: T.S. Eliot wrote about it at length, and, in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the protagonist Stephen Dedalus meditates on it extensively, despite misremembering it as “Darkness falls from the air.” Unfortunately, most literary scholars believe “air” is a typographic error; Nashe probably meant “hair,” which makes considerably more sense in the context of the poem. If the typo hadn’t occurred, Nashe would almost certainly be a footnote in poetic history; could he have known that one misplaced letter could make his name? Doubt not the power of well-chosen (or accidentally-chosen) words to make history.

In any case, the typo prevailed over the centuries, and the line eventually became the title of a science fiction novel by James Tiptree, Jr. Unfortunately, the title is probably the best thing about Tiptree’s novel. Brightness Falls From The Air is a good story, involving an isolated outpost of keepers on a distant planet, charged with studying and protecting a vulnerable, beautiful alien race that had been roundly abused by humans in the past. There are some interesting themes, about the destruction of beauty and how it’s the worst of all crimes, and Tiptree has an elegant style. Nevertheless, the whole thing is encased like in a block of lucite in a deep and complicated parlor drama among its characters, a motley crew of “wacky” aliens and people, thrown together in extenuating circumstances like a long, tiring sitcom (or space opera).

This isn’t to say that I hated this novel or have anything particularly virulent to say about it. There was story, but nothing subversive, funny, no subtext, nothing for me to get excited about. No gristle.

I had great hopes about Tiptree, because of the writer’s history: James Tiptree Jr. is actually Alice B. Sheldon, a lady science fiction author who decided to cut through the crap and just pretend to be a dude for most of her career, in order to get published. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that her true identity was revealed, much to the embarrassment of critics who had praised “his” work over the decades. She’s known now as being a catalyst for the overall maturing of SF at the end of the 20th century; The James Tiptree, Jr. Award is given in her honor every year for a work of science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender. Besides, she seems like she was a really cool woman: a liberal bisexual who worked for the CIA. Of her pseudonym, she said, “I had the feeling that a man would slip by less observed. I’ve had too many experiences in my life of being the first woman in some damned occupation.”

From what I can gather, Brightness is both Tiptree’s best-known and least-liked work, and the short stories are what’s really good, so I will be happy to give him (well, her) another chance.

NEXT BOOK: BRIAN ALDISS’ GALAXIES LIKE GRAINS OF SAND