Take Back Plenty - Colin Greenland

1990; 484 pages. Genre : Sci-Fi (Space Opera). New Author? : Yes. Laurels : Arthur C. Clarke, Eastercon, and British Sci-Fi Association Awards (all in 1990). Overall Rating : 8*/10.

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Okay. Start with the Star Wars scenario, but we're going to follow Han Solo & his spaceship instead of Luke & Leia. Now change Han's gender and ditch the Wookie. Limit the traveling world to our Solar System and let our hero have all the sex she wants. That pretty much sets the Take Back Plenty scene.

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Tabitha Jute is an astral barge-driver who's just trying to make ends meet and keep her ship running. When she's offered a tidy sum to take a performing troupe to Triton, it seems like easy money. But there wouldn't be a story if that turned out to be the case, would there?

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What's To Like...

The characters will keep you interested; the storyline will keep you guessing; and the action comes fast enough and often enough to keep you reading. Some of the Good Guys don't make it, and some of the Bad Guys do, and there's a lot of hat-changing along the way. And just who is narrating the tale?

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But it's the detailed descriptions of the various worlds that really sets TBP apart from classic science fiction. I love Andre Norton stories, but goodness, her worlds are paper-thin. If this is what defines the term "space opera" (and there is no consensus on that), then it's a welcome bit of genre evolution.

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OTOH, Take Back Plenty has explicit sex, drugs, the F-word, booze, and a sexual assault or two. If that's what "space opera" means, then it may not be to everyone's taste. Personally, I thought it worked here.

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Kewl New Words...

There were dozens of them. Purlieu : the outlying part of a city. Felucca : a swift, narrow sailing vessel. Superannuated : too old to be useful. Chapati : flat, pancake-like bread that's cooked on a grill. Gantry : a metal framework. Tenebrous : dark & gloomy. Perineum : well this is a family blog, so you'll have to google or wiki this. Ablute : a washroom. Caprine : goatlike. Coulisses : hallways. Carbuncular : resembling a sore. Fatuus : phosphorescent light. Psittacoid : birdlike. Purulent : pus-like. Crepuscular : dim. Profligate : recklessly wasteful. Viridian : a blue-green pigment. Libration : a slow oscillation of a satelite. Kipple : a collection of useless objects. Abattoir : a slaughterhouse. Ordure : solid, excretory product. Macrocephalic : having an exceptionally large head and brain. Collocutor : any person who is engaged in a conversation.

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Excerpts...

Carnival is Schiaparelli. The canals are thronged with tour buses, the bridges festooned with banners. Balloons escape and fireworks fly. The city seethes in the smoky red light. Though officers of the Eladeldi can be seen patrolling everywhere, pleasure is the only master. Shall we go to the Ruby Pool? To watch the glider duels over the al-Kazara? Or to the old city, where the cavernous ancient silos throb with the latest raga, and the wine of Astarte quickens the veins of the young and beautiful? A thousand smells, of sausages and sweat, phosphorus and patchouli, mingle promiscuously in the arcades. Glasses clash and cutlery clutters in the all-night cantinas where drunken revellers confuse the robot waiters and flee along the colonnades, their bills unpaid, their breath steaming in the thin and wintry air. (pg. 7. Is that a fantastic description, or what?!)

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The Capellans didn't prohibit research, not in so many words; they simply assured humankind that for them with their small brains, the mechanics of hyperspatial foreshortening would be incomprehensible. Those who persisted discovered the drives' disconcerting tendency to implode or deliquesce at the merest touch of a screwdriver. If you did manage to open one, it would turn out to be full of dead leaves. (pg. 62)

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God, you were a mess, Alice. Birds' nests in your aerials, bindweed in your undercarriage. The ground beneath you was sticky and black where all your oil had leaked away. The fog had got at you and rusted your compressor vanes and the airlock seals had all perished.

I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. (pg. 445)

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"Salami minestrone... there's whisky in the jar..." (pg. 83)

Take Back Plenty is a complex story that will keep you on your toes. Yet it's also a fun read. The ending is good, and leaves some loose ends with which to forge a sequel and a threequel. Which do exist if you can find them.

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My main question is why this book, which kicked butt in 1990 for British Sci-Fi awards, is now so little-remembered. There are only three reviews of it at Amazon, and only one at Amazon-UK. Methinks someone needs to get a new publishing company. 8 Stars.

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Trivia Teaser : Tabitha's ship is called the Alice Liddell, and is named for a real, historical person. Who was she? (Answer in the comments)