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| Review free eBook The Jewels of Aptor |
This story has an interesting premise but a slow, and confusing plot. I included Mr. Delany's book because it does have some interesting aspects and I am glad I chose to read it. The premise is pretty interesting and there are settings, situations and creatures that I really liked.
It's set in a post-apocalyptic future where people live very primitive lives and trade by sailing ships. There are legends and myths about technology and science the ancients had and speculation about what happened, though access to concrete information is controlled by religious groups. These cults horde the remaining technology and use it to control their people though, even these think of most science and technology as magic. There are also a lot of mutants and creatures, possibly the result of radiation from nuclear wars, though that is never discussed. It was the description of ruined cities and the creatures that inhabit them that kept me interested enough to finish the book. As and example, a ways into the story, the main characters come to an island, or other land across the sea, and stumble on ruins of civilization. I had actually forgotten we were supposed to be in a post-apocalyptic situation by this point and was surprised; the ruins and their discovery were described well. In this same area, they also come into another ruined city and face remote controlled Zombies and a sort of blob of energy thing and all of that was really done well.
The Plot
The plot is confusing and thin in places, though it may be the version that Gutenberg has is to fault. The Wikipedia page for The Jewels of Aptor mentions there was a better version released in 1968:
"From the 1968 edition onwards, Delany's original text has been restored, as the first edition was shortened by about fifteen pages for publication in the Ace Double format."
quoted from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jewels_of_Aptor]
This review is of the free eBook that Gutenberg currently has available, though I will look for other free eBook sites to find the 1968 version, when I have time. I will update this post if I find it.
The book starts with a grim experience an anonymous girl has, all of which will not be explained or related to the story in anyway until much later, but it sets the tone okay I guess and it did hook me. We then meet the maim characters, a 4 armed mute boy, a seemingly supernatural woman, a poet, a tough guy and a gang of sailors. Some of them have just returned from a voyage chartered by the woman, which cost them a lot of men, and they are planning to set out to the same place again to rescue the woman's younger sister (this seems like the pre-68 story based on just this). The lady also wants a jewel the cult holding her sister are likely to have, though her exact motives are never clear. The woman decides she needs the mute mutant, and poet along and gets the poet's large tough friend as a bonus. Nobody involved want to go on this trip but they all agree and head off. Once they get to the land they seek, they start to get involved with two religious groups that are competing for technology or people or something, though it is never really clear what either side hope to accomplish. But our heroes do their best to rescue this girl and the jewel, and have many adventures along the way. I do not want to give away too much or the book will not be fun at all, so I will not relate any more of the plot; it is a pretty thin plot. The story sort of works because, even though it is in a future setting and written in the 60s, the author does not try to explain details of what is now out-dated technology or science. Instead he has the characters treat science and technology as magic or the supernatural. The few cases where he does explain how some device works or deals with something like radiation, it is really bad though. The ending is abrupt and a bit anticlimactic though, at least in the edition that Gutenberg has available. I will have to hunt down the revised book with the original ending to see if it ties things up better than this one.
The bottom line is that the book has some redeeming qualities and I think is worth a read. It is a free ebook so it only cost in time. If you are trying to kill time, this book will help you do it, and entertain you from time to time. I am not sorry I read it, as some aspects were really well done, though it is not a masterpiece of Science Fiction for sure.
Free eBook Download at Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41981
Misc. links for more information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_R._Delany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jewels_of_Aptor
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