Subject: REVIEW: The Council to Save the Planet

From: [email-masked] (Conrad Lawrence)
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 19:05:55 GMT

[Moderator's note: This review has been written 
	by the author of the book.]

                      One Possible Future
      Conrad Lawrence gives the planet a second Chance in 
                 The Council to Save the Planet
    
    The Council to Save the Planet
    by Conrad Lawrence
    Northwest, 364 pages
    
    Six people determine that in order to save the Earth, it 
    must be destroyed; or, at least part of it.  What started as 
    cocktail party whim for four scientists, a journalist and an 
    Air Force Colonel, becomes a think tank to consider 
    salvation of the planet's environment and ecology; until, 
    one puts forth a call to action.  Thus begins the  first 
    short story of Conrad Lawrence's anthology The Council To 
    Save the Planet.  As the story continues, the six enact a 
    horrible cataclysm designed to give the Earth an opportunity 
    to heal, and it's populous a second chance at caring for the 
    planet upon which they survive.  The six set out to destroy 
    the whole planet's techno-industrial complex and succeed.  
    Or, do they?  As the first story comes to it's culmination, 
    questions are risen as to whether the cataclysm befalling 
    the planet is an act of humans; or, an act of natural 
    forces.
    
    Reminiscent of Ray Bradbury's bestseller of 1954, The 
    Martian Chronicles, Lawrence's anthology chronicles a period 
    of time in the future, setting the scene and conflict in the 
    first story, The Council and reaching a conclusion some 
    twenty stories later.  The volume is both an anthology and a 
    novel.  Each story can be read separately and alone, but 
    when read in order they chronologically tell a larger story 
    of a futre envisioned by the author.  Although, like 
    Bradbury's book in structure, The Council to Save the 
    Planet, is speculative fiction of the same caliber as 
    Orwelle.
    
    The adept breadth of storytelling spans the spectrum from 
    imposing, mind-boggling concepts and schemes, to action and 
    adventure, dotted with periodic levity.  Under the 
    storytelling runs a consistent and curative message that a 
    basic and benevolent change in philosophy toward the Earth 
    as a resource is needed before any specific actions will be 
    of any positive effect on what the author believes to be a 
    damaged environment.  Despite the message bed upon which the 
    story was laid, suprisingly, the narrative never gets 
    preachy.
    
    Once The Council has set the stage for the first third of 
    the Twenty-first Century, comes the crew of the underwater 
    oil rig, the Graeculus  (Ironically, a Greek term for 
    parasite).  Forgotten when the cataclysm strikes, the deep 
    sea drillers are left to reach the surface by their own 
    devises, isolated with no knowledge of what has taken place.  
    In Earthset their struggle to survive the ascent and to cope 
    with the unknown fate of their world is depicted, ending 
    with a somewhat vague positiveness to appears on the surface 
    to be an unpalatable future.
    
    The juxtaposition of stories in content and style creates a 
    panoply in the message and narrative.  In Earthrise we meet 
    two couples who epitomize the polarity of those who only 
    take from any resource available, versus those who nurture 
    resources for long-term availability.  The story is a 
    gentle, though sad, tale of everyday life; or, at least 
    everyday life in the future depicted.  Against this are 
    contrasted the hard edge stories of Die Grunen and 
    Nightmare, which once again examines this polarity in 
    violent and dramatic conflict between whole factions of 
    people.
    
    At other times, the author takes tongue-in-cheek potshots at 
    some of the desecrations people proffer upon the 
    environment.  In Shedim people die and go to a hell 
    befitting of their particular environmental sin.  Jeff, the 
    main character, prone to littering, must spend eternity 
    picking up litter in an endless void of white; while another 
    character must spend forever shutting off lights and 
    tightening faucets.  In Stresspoint an alien abductee is 
    sent back to Earth by a Galactic Federation, with a 
    planetary shrink (who happens to be the Loch Ness monster) 
    to restore the planet's sanity.  The insanity is qualified 
    by one member of the Federation who exclaims, "Here is a 
    population which abuses the planet on which it depends for 
    sustenance of life.  The inhabitants deplete the planet's 
    resources at an abominable rate, endeavoring to do nothing 
    about refurbishing those resources, once depleted.  On top 
    of it they have no effective space travel.  Once they've 
    destroyed their planet, they can't go anywhere else!"
    
    In Retribution, the author takes a compassionate view of the 
    environment's worst offenders by offering a look into the 
    mind of an industrialist who destroyed the ecology 
    surrounding a whole town insuring the town's death.  Facing 
    a lynching, we don't see a malicious discompassionate 
    company CEO, but a man with good intentions to provide for 
    his family.  It is such expositions which provide tones 
    other that black and white to the concept which drives this 
    book.
    
    Throughout the book, members of The Council reappear, 
    influencing and guiding the planet's future.  Through these 
    appearances we see the gut-wrenching self-questioning that 
    members of The Council exact upon themselves, depicting the 
    ever-present theme that there is no precise right or wrong 
    and that nothing of worth comes without cost.  As is 
    passionately exemplified by one of the members of The 
    Council in a moment of doubt: "Who are we to say that our 
    change, or our end is better than the one which this planet 
    has set for itself?"  
    
    Self-questioning costs two of the members their lives.  
    Having enacted a plan that shares the arrogance of the 
    book's title, The Council must bear the burden of it's 
    responsibility.  A responsibility that, in the author's 
    eyes, will not allow them to walk away from the future they 
    may have imposed upon the planet.  Wrong though they may, or 
    may not, have been, the surviving members of The Council are 
    compelled to do what they can to see the planet through to 
    whatever future.   Passages with the Council, portray the 
    author's own rigid sense of responsibility that people 
    should feel toward their planet.
    
    Other stories depict the author's skepticism that planet's 
    populous has the ability to make the changes necessary to 
    ensure its survival.  This is poignantly defined in the 
    final story History, which jumps years to the future and a 
    colony ship headed for another star system.  Throughout the 
    book, people and groups of people are seen repeating what 
    are in the author's estimation the same errors; creating 
    conflict with others whom have learned by the cataclysm.  It 
    is these conflicts that created the basis for captivating 
    storytelling.  This is speculative fiction not common in 
    today's packaged formula oriented literary industry.

%A   Conrad Lawrence
%C   Salt Lake City
%D   12/93
%G   1-56901-189-3
%I   Northwest Publishing, Inc
%K   science fiction speculative envrironment sci-fi sf Sci-Fi
%O   $9.95
%P   364
%T   The Council To Save The Planet