The Critics’ Corner:
Don Webb Bids Farewell to “The Bridge”
It is our custom to say a formal goodbye to long-running serials in a Challenge or short article. We’ve done that for Mike Tyzuk’s Moonshadow and Tamara Tomson serials and for Julian Lawler’s The Prophet of Dreams and Battle Seer, among others.
The novels, in particular, appear regularly for weeks, months and even a year or more and are bound to “get noticed.” euhal allen’s The Bridge joins a select group that began with Cyrano de Bergerac’s The Other World: the Societies and Governments of the Moon, back in Year 1; next came Tala Bar’s post-apocalypse journey, Gaia, and then Michael E. Lloyd’s novel of extraterrestrial espionage, Observation One.
Like them, The Bridge has become an old friend. It began over a year ago, back in issue 99. But it didn’t run continuously. What would eventually become Book I ended in issue 113 with a triple conclusion: one by euhal himself, another by his daughter Katherine, and a third by his brother Karlos. Not only did The Bridge become something of a family affair, the cooperative conclusion provided a fascinating and very instructive example that can only benefit all our contributors.
However, no one was satisfied with an ending that left the Bridge’s mission unfulfilled, least of all euhal. He picked up the story again with Book II, which began in issue 145, and the chapters have been appearing continuously ever since.
One reader has remarked that putting the humor of euhal allen’s short fiction and his “Ants are Blue” poem alongside The Bridge, one might say they were written by two entirely different people. And yet they’re not... I suspect that euhal has a humorous persona to which he resorts for comic relief, but basically he’s very earnest. The Bridge and its characters are very close to him.
The Bridge has very little room for comedy. Like Tala Bar’s Gaia, it is an apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic adventure. Like Julian Lawler’s Battle Seer, it is a stage for characters caught up in an epic struggle where the very concept of civilization is at stake.
In that light, euhal has written us a novel in the grand old style of science fiction: a space opera featuring whole planets and cultures, conquering heroes, swaggering villains, the works... Robert A. Heinlein would have approved of heroes who don’t have many complexes but do have a lot of competence and luck. Joe Haldeman would recognize his own leitmotif of aliens saving humanity but might object that euhal’s aliens are all too human. Isaac Asimov would have enjoyed immensely discussing galactic empires and power politics. And he might have wished his hyperspace travel had been as colorful, not to mention as practical as euhal allen’s Doors.
However, a cosmic scope can overwhelm a story. Politics in the Galactic Council seems just a little too smooth and easy-going; and likeable as the characters are, their public speeches are too long-winded. The formation of the Galactic Assembly is a foregone conclusion that is too short on drama and too long on sentimentality: sorry, but Charlie’s bromide “You can build a platform with platitudes” might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but it does not belong in anybody’s manuals, let alone those of the Qwom-Sor or in an inscription.
Technology is by its very nature anti-dramatic. Qwell and Human inventions have a remarkably predictable knack of arriving just in the nick of time to foil the Galactics’ search parties. And pacing such a story as this would give any author headaches in plot design: the episodes after Charlie’s exploits on Starhell seem anti-climactic until the re-emergence of the Skeltz, in the Epilogue.
In all these stories, some characters stay with us. Julian Lawler’s Renson, the mage protector of Andina; Mike Lloyd’s Carla, who develops as much of a crush on Toni as a space alien can have; Tala Bar’s Timma, the colorful water sprite, not to mention the old woman of the forest, who never quite seems to disappear. And of course Cyrano’s inventive, talkative Elijah; his bold and adventurous “liberated woman,” Achab; and the ever-surprising Sun-being.
My favorites in The Bridge are the ones whose personalities are enlivened by faults or limitations: Me’Avi, who resents having to carry the burden of her family heritage and has a lot to learn; and corn-pone Charlie, who has ingenious ideas that would go nowhere without the ever-practical George to implement them.
In the end, the best-conceived characters are the interstellar civilizations themselves, and they have faults or limitations galore to overcome. Humanity all but destroys itself on Earth through bloody-minded nationalism and greed. The Galactic Council is well-intentioned but so defense-minded that it stagnates from a lack of imagination. The Tunnel worlds achieve stability and cooperation, but they are in a dead end as long as they must remain hidden. The Qwell’Na are superb administrators, but after the Qwell’Di — later to become the Skeltz — split off, they seem to lose a vital spark that only humanity can restore.
The Bridge ends where it began, although the setting is, appropriately, not on Earth but far away in deep space. When the Frawn annihilate the last, desperate remnants of the Skeltz, they write a final chapter to a war that had begun long before the Bridge first came to Earth.
Thank you, euhal. I’m going to miss finding out what happens next in The Bridge every week!
Copyright © 2005 by Don Webb
