Crown Of Infinity / The Prism (1968)
A couple of years ago, A.V. Club editor Keith Phipps purchased a large box containing more than 75 vintage science-fiction, crime, and adventure paperbacks. He is reading all of them. This is book number 72.
The Ace Double: In these lean economic times, isn’t it a concept due for a comeback? It’s two books for the price of one, bound together with the two sides printed in opposite directions, so there’s no proper front or back cover. So make that two books and a neat trick sure to confound nosy commuters who, at first glance, might think you’re reading a book upside down. And think of the convenience: Finish one book, and you need only flip it over to start another. No more fumbling for the next book in your backpack! You can even amaze your friends by trotting out the French word for such a book: dos-à-dos, as those who read this column’s other foray into Ace Double territory already know.
Another advantage: As with microwave burritos and drugstore sunglasses, it’s hard to feel too ripped off. Sure, these aren’t the greatest novels ever written, but at a fraction of a penny per page, who’s going to complain too much? That might explain the pairing of John M. Faucette’s Crown Of Infinity and Emil Petaja’s The Prism. Nothing really links them, but having read them both, I can report that they’re pretty much meant for readers who consume science fiction by the yard. And even the most ravenous genre fans may find Crown Of Infinity tough to digest.
Let’s start with the better of the two. A lifelong science-fiction fan, Emil Petaja palled around with Ray Bradbury and others before turning pro. He published frequently throughout the ’60s and ’70s, basing some of his works on the Kalevala, the epic poem of Finland, home to his ancestors. I’m not versed enough in Finnish folklore to say whether it exerted much influence on the reasonably clever but clunkily executed novel The Prism. But I do know enough about the late ’60s to see where it’s coming from. Though set in a far-off future, this is a novel about young folks upsetting the established order and sticking it to The Man. (Actually—spoiler—a genetic monstrosity who never dies, and grows his children on his body.) The tools of the revolution: deception and swordsmen.
Let me explain: The Prism’s cover and its opening chapter don’t really represent the contents found therein. Kor, the loincloth-clad fantasy hero fighting the vampire on the cover? He’s in the book. But as we quickly learn, he’s the unwitting star of a “livideo” program watched by citizens seeking “titill.” He thinks he lives in a kingdom called Vicaria, though if he had a grasp of Latin, he’d recognize himself as a dupe.
So who’s watching Kor? The future citizens of Earth, now an inflexibly hierarchical society regimented by skin color. But not, strictly speaking, regimented by race. In the unforgiving caste system of The Prism, skin color is everything, and not limited to the colors provided by biology alone. The aristocratic Golds—given their hue through genetic engineering—sit at the top of the pyramid above Blues, Greens, and way down at the bottom, Browns and Blacks. The novel is clear that Blacks and Browns aren’t necessarily descended from those bearing similar pigmentation in our day, but I don’t think Petaja chose those colors by accident. Old prejudices have lingered long after something called the Racial Wars, even though some people have forgotten the source of those prejudices:
“Blacks don’t feel pain, do they, Uncle Dorff?” Sena remarked.
“What difference if they do?” […]
“They’re like the ancient Negro slaves from China.”
The Sena doing the asking is the novel’s heroine, a young woman with—we’re repeatedly told—exceptional breasts, who’s determined to smash the system. To that end, she uses her “breathless bosom” to seduce a man close to the source of power. She also finds a way to draw Kor away from the livideo environment to fight the real enemy. Kor is understandably confused, but the novel goes where you’d probably guess it’s going to go as soon as Petaja reveals the twist, and getting there through his functional prose isn’t much of a pleasure.
John M. Faucette’s Crown Of Infinity, on the other hand, doesn’t have a predictable plot. In fact, I looked long and hard for any sort of plot at all. I wouldn’t make such a hackneyed complaint if it weren’t true. It’s a centuries-spanning bit of space opera about the Star Kings and their various enemies. In each chapter, we meet some of the Star Kings, watch as they struggle with some enemy or other, usually meet a Star King love interest, then learn whether the Star Kings defeated the enemy at hand, and whether the love interest lived or died. Repeat until the book ends.