Subject: Algis Budrys' HARD LANDING (spoilers?)

From: [email-masked] (Joseph Brenner)
Date: 18 Nov 92 01:02:42

I had high hopes for Budrys latest novel (which I read in
the October/November 1992 issue of Fantasy & Science
Fiction), but I don't think I get the point.

This is not to say that it's a bad book... Budrys has
written some excellent books where the point may not be
obvious (for example, _The Amsirs and the Iron Thorn_).

So what might he be up to this time?  One thing: he's
rationalizing away the standard UFO scenario.  You know how
a lot of skeptical types (like myself) will sometimes argue
that the claims of the UFO fanatics are crazy on the face of
it, because there's no reason for an alien race to act that
way?  Well, Budrys tries to explain why they might, and he
doesn't do so bad a job.

I can't say I entirely believe in his crew of aliens -- they
seem too much like the classic pulp story concept of a
spaceship crew.  They're all male, there's a ship's
chaplain, etc.  But then, it could be that that's the idea,
this is one more absurdity Budrys wanted to make credible.
And I guess they're at least not incredible.

There's another thing: the premises of Budrys story
interlock with our recent history in some odd ways, so that
some current events (the rise of certain politicians, the
advent of Adidas shoes and so on) are "explained" in a
different way than we would.  So he might be interested in
alternate views of history... 

But anyway, there's this small crew performing one of their
infrequent visits to our planet.  They develop some engine
trouble and they crash.  Our ship-wrecked crew of aliens
actually has a strict code about what they're supposed to do
when they crash, which is to split up and go into hiding,
and more or less forget about any rescue.

And _this_ is what I think Budrys really wanted to write
about: you have four aliens stuck in what to them is a
primitive, strange place, and they have to adapt to it, they
have to find ways of living there.  And each of them reacts
differently, and I guess this illustrates something, but I
don't exactly see the structure to it...  one of them is a
lover, one's a killer, one is power-hungry, and one finds no
way to cope at all.  Or maybe these are the wrong labels?
Maybe the Power-Hungry is better termed a Schemer, maybe the
Killer is really just the Expedient...

So what is Budrys really trying to say?  Why did he select
these four characters?  Are they supposed to exhaustively
demonstrate the only ways of being?