C. M. Kornbluth and Judith Merril are important figures in Science Fiction history. Kornbluth teamed up with Fredrick Pohl to write SF classics like The Space Merchants and Gladiator at Law. Judith Merril edited the ground-breaking YEAR’S BEST SF series and help to kick off the New Wave which brought adult themes to Science Fictionland. Gunner Cade was published in 1952. It’s the story of a stagnant society 10,000 years in the future where science has been banned. Stasis is the operating principle of the unchanging society. Gunner Cade, part of the warrior sect, gets embroiled in a conspiracy with a feisty, mysterious woman. Yes, it’s outlandish. But it’s fun to guess which parts of the book Kornbluth wrote and which parts Merril wrote. I think Kornbluth wrote the action sequences and Merril wrote all the scenes where a woman is present. If you’re in the mood for an empire-toppling SF adventure, Gunner Cade fits the bill.
A friend of mine and I loved this one back in the ’50s. We still talk about it now and then.
Rereading GUNNER CADE brought back a lot of memories. I had forgotten the part of the story set in a brothel.
It is a nice book, but now is old fascion and to quick in the conclusion on Marte, they were the time of V2, I have stilll the book. I liked it when I read the book in 1953 ( 12th years old), expecially the beginning, should be revised according to developes in 70 years.
Lucio Diamanti
A fan of Piper, but this one is a bit too slow and talky. Have not read GUNNER CADE.
Both Ace covers are pretty good, but please tell me that the gentleman on the left is not using a parachute in outer space.
On second thought, I kinda hope he is.
Frequently, ACE DOUBLE covers had nothing to do with the book they were illustrating. But in this case, Gunner Cade is tethered to his shuttle as he fires at enemy war shuttles.
So then “A Major Science Fiction Novel” might be overstating it, George?
GUNNER CADE is a distinctly minor SF novel. But it shows Kornbluth and Merril learning their craft so it possesses historical interest.
George, I’d suggest that by GUNNER CADE, the novel shows Kornbluth and Merril making a few bucks…they already knew their ways around a story by 1952, particularly Kornbluth.
Frederik Pohl, btw. Who, of course. ccllaborated wtih both the others, as perhaps the closest literary friend of Kornbluth, at least (both had children who had to deal with disabilities, and the psothumous collaboration “The Meeting” is pretty devastating (Kornbluth died young, and Pohl finished some fragments and incomplete work by CMK over the next decade or so)…and as the husband of Merril, as well as doing projects together such as ghost-editing TOMORROW THE STARS the anthology for Robert Heinlein to sign his name to.
Like Henry Kuttner, C. M. Kornbluth died too young. Both writers bursted with talent in careers that were cut too short.
“In a world that had forgotten history and love.” Love it.
I thought you might like that blurb, Patti. They don’t write them like that any more.
I have that Ace Double (somewhere around here) and remember reading it as a kid. I liked CADE better than the flip side, but don’t remember a lot about it. Sure was good to see it pop up here, though. Thanks, George!
The other side of that ACE DOUBLE was an H. Beam Piper novel. Glad to refresh your memory.
I understand that Merril and Kornbluth both considered this novel to be weak work that they wrote specifically to cater to the tastes of John W. Campbell — they must have succeeded since he did serialize it. I just had no luck trying to find the reference again. But I must say Astounding DID publish a lot of weak stories around 1951-52, and Campbell increasingly published work merely because it conformed to his POV — he also managed to alienate some of his better writers with his increasing eccentricities. Personally, I think Gunner Cade is an interesting enough 50s style pulp story. The two authors also poke fun at other personalities in the story. Threadwick is actually supposed to be Frederik Pohl, whom Kornbluth had had a recent falling out.
Thanks for the insights into GUNNER CADE, Jonathan! I consider it an underrated novel (good, but not great). You’re right: Campbell’s eccentricities pushed better writers to submit their work to the new GALAXY and MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION in the early Fifties.
As a young boy gorwing up on a ranch in the netherlands the town library was a wonderous have. I payed special attention the the science fiction section, much to my mother’s chagrin. But GUNNER CADE gave me the name of my first horse, Gunner. He was a true and loyal companion that got me out of more than one scrape.
Great story, Dean! Sadly, GUNNER CADE has pretty much been forgotten. Maybe it will show up on AMAZON as an ebook someday.
I remember this Gunner Cade, because it was my first SF book some where in 1970 or so. As an avid reader of military history this lead me into the military future history books and the rest of the SF universe. If I track a copy down, I’ll read it again.
I’m sure GUNNER CADE is available on ABE.COM, Bob. It might also be an ebook.
I, for one, have not forgotten http://fav.me/d5037z8 . The link is to a a Photoshopped photo on a website where I post art. When I saw the finished result I thought of Gunner Cade, for some rerason. It wasn’t The Space Merchants or Gladiator At Law, but then Judith Merril wasn’t Fred Pohl. What she did do with her Best F & SF Of The Year series was to broaden the tastes of fans who grew up with ‘Golden Age’ pulp SF. Gunner Cade may have been a ‘pot boiler’, but it was a good pot boiler or I woyldn’t remember it.
The epo0nymous hero spends two years learning how to use the fanulous handgun he’s equipped with, so I won’t spoil it for you be describing the training he gives to the revolutionaries who eventually rebel against the dismal, dystopian despotism under which everyone lives, but it was the main thing I remembvered, along with some of the eloborate marksman’s discipline displayed in the earlier, ‘set up’ parts of the novel.
This book is a collector’s item.
You’re right on all counts, Martin. Judith Merril changed the whole direction of SF with her Best F & SF series and those New Wave anthologies she edited.
The book is also interesting because it explores the morality of aerial warfare, speaking perhaps more pointedly to an age when bloody assassination from half a world away is both commonplace and widely accepted. That may bore some people, but it’s certainly topical.
I hadn’t thought about GUNNER CADE in that way, Lee-Anne.
Reading this one now. Got interested in the 50s SF authors again after reading “A Century of Science-Fiction 1950-1959.” One of Kornbluth’s stories is in it. This book isn’t exactly “Childhood’s End” or “The Man in the High Castle,” but it was very professionally written, and never gets boring. Parts of it reminded me of John Boorman’s film “Zardoz”. Wonder if the scriptwriter for that one read “Gunner Cade”?
Timesthree, I’ve found some of the novels from the Forties and Fifties hold some unique surprises.
I looked this page up because I heard a piece on NPR a few minutes ago about the head or spokesman of the govenment agency in charage of drone strikes defending the policy as defending Americans, etc. I’m almost surprised that I remembered the name of the book and its author(s)!
My family’d just moved to a farm in the hills of NE Oklahoma, and I found a little second-hand store just off the park in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, with science fiction books displayed in its window. I’d just started reading sf, and this was one of the first books I bought there.
I remember a few things about the book, especially the prohibition against “firing from a flyer”, which the cover shows the hero violating, and the names of some of the legendary killing machines of the past (bee-fi-voh, for instance). Lee-anne’s comment is spot on.
Another detail I recall, also pertinent to this day, seems to me to have been in the flip-side book: Computers have taken over so much of the detail of life that society has become illiterate, and the hero seems to have learned math, and brings his skills to the revolution(?) The prevalence of hand-held devices and the concern that they’re MAKING people illiterate has brought that book’s detail to my mind in these times, along; with a confusion as to which book’s plot that illiteracy was part of.
Another book I read in those days was Hal Clement’s NEEDLE. In the past couple of years I’ve read his early ICEWORLD and more recent HALF-LIFE (http://www.nesfa.org/reviews/Carey/halflife.htm). Considering the amount of time I spend online and on Facebook (and, notice, HERE!), I find his picture of a society of space-explorers who are unable to ever meet face-to-face carrying-on their social and professional lives electronically touchingly familiar.
Enjoyed this thread. Learned some things. Thanks!
Randy, I’m a big fan of NEEDLE, too!