1984 (but three of the stories are actually from 1955-57); 253 pages. Genre : 50's Sci-Fi. Overall Rating : C+.
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What if the initial humanoid contact for those cute furry Ewoks in the Star Wars series, instead of being Darth and Luke and Death Stars; had been terran Movies, Books, TV, and History? This book explores that, save that the living, breathing teddy bears here are called Hokas. The book is a compilation of four stand-alone stories (There's a fifth one, but it's a 10-page exercise in self-promotion and is eminently skippable) starring these ursine creatures, who love everything about our culture, and who completely immerse themselves in role-playing, including uniforms, earthly accents, and literary/cinematic dialogue.
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What's To Like...
Three of the stories are take-offs of (literary) Casey At The Bat, Sherlock Holmesian mysteries, and Kipling's The Jungle Book. The fourth one draws upon (historical) Napoleonic Europe, as seen in the cover art. The compilation is a fun read, and a quick one. The stories have neat drawings in them done by one Phil Foglio. The Hokas can drink all other creatures in the universe under the table, and in one story (written in the 1950's) a curiously stimulating herb of some sort is smoked.
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There's not much depth here, but that's typical for the genre. There are two instances of cussing, albeit mild ("H*ll and d*mnation" and "a h*ll of a request"). Which seemed needless to me, since the salty-mouthed alien spouting these phrases had just engaged in about 10 pages of ersatz swearing. For example, "Go sputz yourself" and "Sput Meowr. Meourl spss rowul rhnrrr!"
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Cool/New Words...
Encardined : reddened. Ineluctable : unavoidable. Aquiline : with the characteristic of an eagle or the beak of one. Sui Generis : in a class of its own. Mangel Wurzel : a large beet used for cattle feed (although here it was a term of endearment). Brobdingnag : a land where everything is huge (taken from Gulliver's Travels, and definitely one bodacious word). Autochthones : indigenous people.
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Excerpts...
"It may be sheer accident," Brob suggested. "Mortal fallibility. There is a great deal of wisdom in the universe; unfortunately, it is divided up among individuals." (pg. 178)
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The Hoka France had never had a revolution, merely an annual Bastille Day fête. At the most recent of these, Napoleon had taken advantage of the chaos to depose the king, who cooperated because it would be more fun being a field marshal. The excitement delighted the whole nation and charged it with enthusiasm. Only in Africa was this ignored, the Foreign Legion preferring to stay in its romantic, if desolate, outposts. (pg. 201)
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"I was born with a dull, sickening thud..." (Hoka-penned literature)
Hoka was a nostalgic visit to the sort of book I used to read in my early teens. A lot of Poul Anderson's books reportedly deal with time- and dimension-travel; similar to my favorite writer from those years - Andre Norton. The Hoka series seems to be a comedic side-project by Anderson and Dickson.
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I liked the clever and subtle introducing of higher lit to young readers. Unfortunately, science fiction has come a long way in the past half-century, so this book came off a bit dated. It was a pleasurable read, but there wasn't much substance to it. We'll give it a "C+" and resolve to read at least one of Anderson's mainstream sci-fi books, to see how it compares to Norton.
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