The Homo Sol trilogy by Isaac Asimov was his first series of more than two stories. In The Early Asimov, Ike talks about how the short set of stories were written. He also discusses one very important thing that came out of this very minor universe.
Homo Sol
The first story sold to John W. Campbell and Astounding Science-Fiction:
For “Homo Sol,” my nineteenth story, there was no outright rejection. Again, Campbell asked for revisions. I had to revise it twice, but it was not to be another “Black Friar of the Flame.” The second revision was satisfactory, and on April 17, 1940, I received my second check from Campbell (and, by that time, my seventh check, all told).
The plot of “Homo Sol” (Astounding Science-Fiction, September 1940) tells the story of first contact but does it from the aliens’ point-of-view. A busy Rigellian psychologist, Tan Porus, sends his underling, Lor Haridin, to deal with welcoming the Solar System into the galactic Federation. The job is seen has a simple one, requiring no great ability. Tan Porus goes back to worrying about his sleepy squid.
But the negotiations do not go well. It turns out the humans are a stubborn lot who like their weapons. Haridin’s report is called a failure but Tan Porus comes to his rescue. Joselin Arn, the military commander, is dressed down by Porus before he asks him some important questions about humans. The soldier tells how the men of Sol are gadget crazy. Taking fairly benign inventions, they have created better super-weapons of them. In time, their technology will outstrip the Federation’s.
Tan Porus is driven to fix the problem. He and five representatives will go to Earth and settle things. Once there he creates a “passive panic” that brings human commerce to a halt. The five others demand he move the “passive panic” into “true panic”. The result is many dead. The five demand a finish to the project.
Tan Porus has already finished everything. He reveals to his colleagues two human artworks. The first is of Zeus, which looks like a Canopian. The other is of the goddess, Demeter, who looks like a female Betelguesan. Porus understands that to humans these are the supreme archetypes. His new negotiation team is made of Canopians and Betelguesans. Problem solved.
A couple of reactions from this tale: first, the Psycho-history of the Foundation series is clearly seen here in the psychology of Tan Porus. Asimov is trying that out, though sometimes it doesn’t seem quite believable. (How does he create the “passive panic”?) The machinations of Hari Seldan seem more realistic. (The use of Psychology as an over-riding Science will surface again in the works of Frank Herbert.)
Another reaction I had was that all the early stories of Asimov seem to be men gathered in a chamber to argue. There is a problem to be solved and different people have different positions they fight for, then something happens. Even “Nightfall” takes this basic shape, with the different actors arguing about what destroyed civilization before it happens again. If you are a fan of action-oriented SF (which I am hopelessly) this static platform can be a little dull. A repetition of it even more so.
Uncomfortable Attitude
Asimov explains why John W. Campbell liked the story:
“Homo Sol” has a plot of a sort that particularly appealed to Campbell. Although the human beings in the story are far behind the other intelligences of the Galaxy, it is clear that there is something special about them, that they have an unusual ability to move ahead very quickly, and that everyone else had better watch out for them. Campbell liked stories in which human beings proved themselves superior to other intelligences, even when those others were further advanced technologically. It pleased him to have human beings shown to possess a unique spirit of daring, or a sense of humor, or a ruthless ability to kill when necessary, that always brought them victory over other intelligences, even against odds.
This sense of superiority made Asimov uncomfortable because it bordered on racism. (Ike does not come out and call Campbell a racist. John was only three years dead in 1974 and Isaac wisely sticks to how he felt at the time. Alec Nevala-Lee’s Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard and the Golden Age of Science Fiction (2018) doesn’t mince words on this: “At his worst, Campbell expressed views that were unforgivably racist…”) Campbell even inserted paragraphs that made the sense of human superiority stronger. The final portrait of humanity is a pretty close to a gun-toting American.
The Human-Only Universe
What is important here is that Campbell’s actions and attitudes drove Asimov to write differently:
I tried to avoid such a situation in future. One way out was to depart from the traditions of those writers who wove plots against the gigantic web of entire galaxies containing many intelligences-notably those of E. E. Smith and of Campbell himself. Instead, I began to think of stories involving a galaxy populated by human intelligences only.
This came to fruit, soon enough, in. the “Foundation” series. Undoubtedly the Smith-Campbell view makes more sense. It is almost certain that among the hundreds of billions of worlds in a large galaxy there ought to be hundreds or even thousands of different intelligent species. That there should be only one, ourselves, as I postulated, is most unlikely.
Critics and Challenges
Asimov points out that some saw this human-only SF as a conscious change for the better:
Some science fiction critics (notably Sam Moskowitz) have given me credit for inventing the human-only galaxy, as though it were some kind of literary advance. Others may have thought privately (I have never heard it stated openly) that I had only human intelligences in my galaxy because I lacked the imagination to think up extraterrestrials.
But the fact is that I was only trying to avoid a collision with Campbell’s views; I did not want to set up a situation in which I would be forced to face the alternatives of adopting Campbell’s views when I found them repugnant and failing to sell a story (which I also found repugnant).
More Sequels Please: The Imaginary
Whatever Isaac’s feelings about John’s attitude, he wrote a sequel to “Homo Sol”. He chose to do this because he had successfully written a sequel to his “Half-Breed” for Fred Pohl, his first series of two stories:
The success of “Half-Breeds on Venus” made the notion of writing sequels generally seem a good idea. A sequel to a successful story must, after all, be a reasonably sure sale. So even while I was working on “Half-Breeds on Venus,” I suggested to Campbell that I write a sequel to “Homo Sol.”
The plot of “the Imaginary” (Super Science Stories, November 1942) is also a puzzle story but one that takes place in two locations. Tan Porus goes back to his home planet after the success of creating an imaginary number to use in equations. He has abandoned his wife, Nina, on Rigel two years previously and now has to face the music. When he arrives he doesn’t find her distraught or annoyed but wonderfully pleasing. This fact ruins his long awaited meal of tryptex.
Meanwhile back at the University, Lor Haridin and his fellow junior, Eblo Ranin, cook up an experiment for Tan Porus’s famous squid. Using his imaginary number, they subject the squid to an energy field that produces an unexpected reaction. The squid creates a weird field that expands and expands, threatening the entire galaxy.
Tan Porus is suffering through a concert when the University sends for him. He must save everyone from the squid’s expanding field. Nina Porus insists on going with him. Back at home Porus has a special suit made of lead and Osmium. He speaks with Nina before his suicide mission. She drops a book and he takes it along as a good luck talisman.
He flies through the energy field to the university, feeling the weird force around him. He walks into his lab and pours acid into the tank. The squid is defeated. He takes off the suit and looks at the book his wife dropped. It is from a course in Psychology. Now he knows what she was up to: with two years to learn Psychology, she had been trying to beat him at his own game. Tan Porus is happy. He has defeated the squid and his wife. The second one makes him more happy.
The misogyny of this story strikes me as being typical of the time period. In 1942, Ike wasn’t married, hadn’t even been out with too many girls. It reads that way. The idea that Nina Porus would stay at home like a good little wifey is also true to the 1940s.
Rejections
The response was not golden:
Campbell’s enthusiasm was moderate, but he was willing to look at such a sequel if I were to write it. I did write it as soon as “Half-Breeds on Venus” was done and called it “The Imaginary.” Although it used one of the chief characters of “Homo Sol,” the human-nonhuman confrontation was absent, which probably didn’t help it as far as Campbell was concerned. I submitted it to him on June 11, and received it back-a rejection, sequel or no sequel-on June 19. Pohl rejected it, too. Tremaine read it with more sympathy and was thinking of taking it for Comet, I heard, but that magazine ceased publication and the story was back on the market. Actually, I retired it, but two years later I sold it to Pohl’s magazine after all-but at a time when Pohl was no longer editor.[Alden H. Norton was the editor.]
I’m not surprised the editors passed on it. Where the first tale had some drama to it, this one feels far more minor. Norton probably took it because Asimov’s reputation had grown in the two years since he had written it. By November 1942, he was the author of “Nightfall” after all.
The Hazing
Oddly, Asimov wrote yet another story for the series, making it his longest series to date.
The story of “The Hazing” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1942) is set in the same universe but doesn’t star Tan Porus. Four years after Earth’s entry into the Federation, humans are coming to Arcturus University to study. Spoiled Frat boys, Bill Sefan, Myron Tubal and Wri Frase decide to kidnap the ten earthlings and drop them on the quarantined world of Spica. The world is off limits because of a “Prime Directive” type rule that allows primitive humanoids time to gain intelligence before joining the Federation. The University students dump the humans and leave.
A meteor causes the three to have to fix their ship and they come back to Spica eight days later. They land and don’t see any humans. They approach a local village and fight with the savages who have prehensile tails. Captured, they wake to meet the “gods” of the village. It is the humans. With their better understanding of primitive peoples, they have set themselves up as gods. They told the locals to watch for the hazers’ return, calling them “devils”. The newcomers have been promised for sacrifice.
The counter-hazing goes south when the chief of the villagers won’t accept the new command to free the sacrifices. One of the humans takes Tubal’s welding gun and sets four grass huts on fire. The villagers agree to anything the “gods” want. Everybody returns to the University.
Of this third outing he had little recollection:
In going through my stories while preparing this book, I found “The Hazing” to be the only published story concerning which I could remember nothing from the title alone. Even as I reread it, nothing clicked. If I had been given the story without my name on it and had been asked to read it and guess the author, I would probably have been stumped. Maybe that means something. It does seem to me, though, that the story is set against a “Homo Sol” background.
My own reaction is weirdly mixed. First off the ‘savage villagers’ thing is far too close to many jungle adventures in which brave, white adventurers prove smarter than the locals. This struck me as odd after Asimov’s thoughts on Campbell. He doesn’t even see his own racism here.
What makes this all strange for me is I found this third outing the best of the three. Perhaps its clearer, more adventurous plot appeals to me more. Those prehensile tails scream Edgar Rice Burroughs and I have to assume Ike read either At the Earth’s Core (1914) (with the Monkey Men) or equally likely, Tarzan the Terrible (1921) with the people of Pal-u-Don who have tails. (That being said, the early Asimov was no Edgar Rice Burroughs. I imagine Ike would take that as a compliment.)
Conclusion
Thus ended the Homo Sol trilogy of Isaac Asimov, no great shakes next to the Foundation series that ran to seven volumes (as well as a cottage industry for other writers after Ike’s death). Asimov would not tackle extraterrestrials again until later stories like “Hostess” (Galaxy, May 1951) and the novel,The Gods Themselves (1972) for which he won both the Hugo and the Nebula. It is surprising that the idea of the human-only universe should have its origin here in this paltry series of three very minor tales, but it does. Such is history. Not all blockbuster moments.
