Dark Light Years

Satire is a form of literature in which the follies of mankind are (either lightly or bitingly) exposed in the hope of bringing about social or political reform. Northrup Frye (1957) has suggested that there is a moral agenda that all of the great satirical authors endorse. Thus Aristophanes, Juvenal, Horace, Jonathon Swift, Alexander Pope, Voltaire, Mark Twain, G.B. Shaw, Aldous Huxley, Joseph Heller, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. all believed in a set of moral standards that humanity _ought_ to live up to-- even if in practice mankind usually did not. Reportedly, Brian W. Aldiss originally wrote _The Dark Light Years_ (1964) in anger over the inhumane treatment of dolphins in laboratories. It first appeared as a novella in _Worlds of Tomorrow_ back in 1964, and in various book length treatments shortly thereafter. Aldiss recounts a first contact scenario in which Earthlings encounter a reptilian race called the Utods. The Utods are scientifically advanced, philosophically sophisticated, and peace-loving. But they engage in the practice of bathing in their own excrement (shades of Jonathon Swift!). Pious but vicious humans cannot tolerate this practice. So they begin to slaughter, torture, and abuse the Utods. Aldiss' real target is, of course, not the Utods, but the human race. Here are several quotations from the novel in which Aldiss takes mankind to task: "And it was at that moment that the creatures on the bank raised Eathmade weapons to their hips and opened fire" (13)... "The Captain's left eyebrow arched like a foil being tested by a master fencer" (15)... "With the fun-loving ebulliance of youth, he turned the hose on them" (28)... "There was no progress being made chiefly because the aliens, imprisoned in their hygeinic cell, showed no interest in the humans..." (61)... [The human research team had] "bouts of self-pitying oration, as if, like a Communist millionaire, they felt impelled to explain a position of some delicacy" (61). Yes, Aldiss does have a moral agenda. And yes, he does make some satiric hits. But I think that we must also admit that there is something a bit heavy-handed and cutesy to his style. _The Dark Light Years_ is not really major Aldiss. There are other Aldiss novels-- _Non-Stop_ (1958), _Hothouse_ (1962), _Graybeard_ (1964), _The Saliva Tree_ (1965), and _Frankenstein Unbound_ (1973)-- in which satire is blended with literary subtlety. _Reference_: Frye, Northrup. _Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays_. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1957.

In my edition of the book it's pretty obvious that the person who wrote the back cover copy didn't actually bother to read the book itself and just read the last two chapters, since that's basically what it describes (it must be the publisher, because my copy of Barry Malzberg's "Galaxies" is from the same publisher and the same problem is there) . . . which isn't bad, but turns out to be incredibly misleading and makes you think the point of the book is very different from what it really is. What we have here is a slim novel about humans making contact with an alien race and lousing it up pretty bad. Aldiss' theory, in what was becoming a fairly prevalent one among SF authors at the time, was that aliens, not being human, can't be necessarily understood very easily and it'll take a lot of work. Unlike Lem's Solaris, which postulated that we'd never be able to understand aliens no matter how hard we tried, Aldiss states that we could do it if we work at it, but nobody will bother. The bulk of the book is a satire on the human race essentially, dissecting all the little things that make us so screwy as a whole. It's not a very optimistic book, so don't expect any uplifting message here, while most of the humans are fairly decent people, a lot of them do some pretty mean things out of ignorance or just plain spite. And the aliens themselves are sort of dopey, while the whole "communicating through excrement" thing is pretty funny and there's some other scattered neat ideas, as a race they just aren't that interesting. In fact the whole book suffers from good ideas but okay execution . . . the plot itself is almost too straightforward, there are barely any really standout characters (the main characters disappears partway through the book, never to be seen again) and while there's a statement lurking in the story somewhere, it never really coheres into a solid one. On the whole though it's a thought provoking and entertaining read and short enough that you can finish it off in a long afternoon without much trouble. Aldiss is enough of a master that even his minor works offer something to take home and make it a worthwhile read. Definitely worth a look.

In a myriad of SF-writers, Brian Aldiss has always stood out because of his ability to infuse typical genre scenarios with unique imagination and gentle irony, and The Dark Light Years is the author at his best. The plot follows humanity's first contac with an alien race called the Utods, an intelligent, gentle people who think technology is a strange Idea and socialize using their excrements(!). Aldiss turns this scenario into a humorous but but bleak fable about human nature, with lots of sideways glances at heavy philosophical themes like the nature of communication, religion and progress. A great book, halfway between Ellison and Asimov. Thoroughly recommended.

If mankind met an alien race which built no structures and wallowed in mud, would we understand their intelligence? If we found they communicated by tasting the excretions of others in the mud wallow, would we be ready to communicate? Think so? A cautionary fable by SF great Brian Aldiss displays a lot less trust in mankind's basic decency towards less developed civilzations.