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Knights of the Limits
Obscure genius Little known even inside the genre of science fiction, Barrington Bayley has been composing tightly plotted work for almost 50 years in relative obscurity.
This astonishing selection of nine short stories has been loudly admired by almost all the stalwarts of the genre; Mike Moorcock recently named it one of his top ten sf books in an article for The Guardian. Bruce Sterling has praised it to high heavens in a piece he wrote for Cheap Truth, calling Bayley "the zen master of modern space opera." John Clute, Brian Stableford, Charles Platt and even the late, great William Burroughs have all spoken of Bayley in fervently admiring words.
Despite all the accolades, strangely and sadly nobody has even heard of the book. Originally published in 1978 it came and went in the blink of an eye, remained unavailable for the past few decades and commanded ridiculous prices in the used book market.
So why all the fuzz Bayley is one of the great ideas guys of the genre science fiction. When he actually gets mentioned, the response usually is a smile and a gasp; "Oh, he's that wild guy!" Exuberant, weird, metaphysical, astounding, thrilling are all words that apply. Trailing Borges with a serious nod to A. E. Van Vogt, his stuff perplexes and confounds you with the barrage of bizarre ideas he weaves into these stories. He belongs to the great freewheeling tradition of imaginative writers; forget Kim Stanley Robinson and Arthur C. Clarke, think Charles Harness, Olaf Stapledon and Rudy Rucker - he invents his science (that's why it's called fiction, eh?) and bounces off to the nomansland like some mutant kangaroo. This is stuff you can barely find on the shelves today as franchise poop is being pushed on all the fronts.
Bayley knows his science but isn't limited by it - his writing bellows straight from his subconscious pool of theoretical thought, winging it with gusto and joy. For an example, "Me and My Antronoscope," -- one of his signature stories -- describes a universe completely filled with rock. The existing life inhabits pockets of space within. With obvious delight Bayley pauses at the thought and starts imagining "what would it be like?" He finds the answer and runs off with the thought, goes off to describe their version of space travel and the obvious problems facing any such attempts. It is a brilliant vision, conceptualized with wonder, but as much of what is called science fiction today is really just extrapolations of current sciences many readers will simply not see the point of it.
The same is true of most of the rest of Bayley's fiction - it doesn't portray the future; it imagines, dreams and invents new cosmologies, universes, alien life and their respective philosophies. He writes existential pieces about robot consciousness, he tinkers in his workshop wondering about the nature of space, mixing and matching analytical philosophy, mathematics, physics, biology and anthropology in a melodramatic and exuberant manner.
One should be forewarned that his powers of characterization and dialogue are more restrained -- the function of people in his stories tends to simply be setting off the scenery. His love of old pulp science fiction is obvious, and the bizarre juxtaposing of robots and rayguns with rigorous metaphysical invention can be startling, but with a sly satirical touch he succeeds laudably.
It is distressing to see such a vividly entertaining thinker miss the boat -- if Bayley had been born in Poland or Argentina we'd all be reading him now alongside Stanislaw Lem and Philip K. Dick, but as Kubrick never filmed THE SOUL OF THE ROBOT (instead using it as fodder to his conception of A.I.), he remains unread in the English language while the Japanese devour his translated works. So if you feel you're attuned to this brand of extravagnce, THE KNIGHTS OF THE LIMITS is the perfect intoruction, presenting 9 of his key stories. If you decide to give it a try, keep in mind that this most certainly is not extrapolative hard science fiction. It is wildly original speculative stuff that will literally boggle the mind and open new venues of thought and invention.
Related Links:
- Astounding Worlds of Barrington Bayley
- Annihilation Factotum
- Cheap Truth
- Jorge Luis Borges
- A. E. van Vogt
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.
"The Garments of Caean is also worth reading if you can find a copy of it lying around.
Andrew
Picked this up many years ago second-hand; top book. He has a fun method of making up physics that seems superficially plausible and consistent and then baking it into a metaphorical pizza and starting a massive food fight with it. Lots of pulpy ideas ... worth a look.
A lot of Bayley's books are still in print, mainly with Cosmos Books, and are relatively easy to find (as easy as obscure old SF ever is). He manages to do a fair job keeping the science reasonable (if dated) even though the settings are generally space-operary.
Unless you're a student of the genre, skip his first novel "Star Virus" - it's interesting as an example of an early SF disaster story, rather than a good, well written tale. His next book "Annihilation Factor" is better, but most valuable as it introduces well many motifs he uses in later works. Next come "Empire of Two Worlds" and "Collision with Chronos" (aka Collision Course) - the former good, the latter probably his best work; of his later books "The Fall of Chronopolis" and "The Garments of Caean" are the strongest, with "The Zen Gun" being the last decent thing he's written. Scattered among these are his short stories, which vary greatly in merit, the early ones have for the most part been collected in "Knights of the Limits" and "Seed of Evil", the most notable of these is "The 4 Colour Problem"; the later ones are mostly missable.