Vulcan’s Forge by Robert Mitchell Evans
Robert Mitchell Evans is an author I met while taking part in the Horrible Imaginings film back when it was still a San Diego event. I have seen him at a few local events at Mysterious Galaxy as well. He is an active member of our community and a smiling face who I am always happy to see. A valued member of the community. So I was excited to check out his first novel.
Vulcan’s Forge is an interesting piece of work that shows some growing pains of a first-time author, but it has a real old-school feel that I enjoyed. Speaking as someone who likes Golden Age and new wave science fiction I liked that this felt like a lost 60s or 70s novel. There is very little that feels modern about this novel, that is a compliment by the way.
One of the best elements of the novel is the setting and world-building in the first act. The story takes place on Nocturia, the sole human colony that survived the exploitation and death of the earth. While many ark ships were sent out, they only know that they made it. Jason the protagonist of the story wants to contact other worlds in the hopes that other colonies made it, but he is met with resistance.
“And what good would that do us? We can’t get to them and they can’t get to us. Hell, Wolf, it took the Ark three centuries to get here.”
This mission was overseen by the Founders super-intelligent Ais that followed orders and self-destructed after completing the mission, the thing is one of those computers still exists – Forge. At this point, I was super interested in this ark mission. My brain started to explore how that mission would work, and I thought OK Bob this is a fascinating epic tale of survival. However, that is all background.
Jason doesn’t fit in, like your normal dystopian lead, he is a bit of a stand-in for the author as he is into ancient movies. That seemed a bit of a stretch but if you think about Humans on this world would learn about the earth. Movies and old news footage. You do have to be careful because that is how you ended up with Chicago gangster planet on Star Trek.
This novel could have made that commentary and gone that direction as the supercomputer is under the control of a gangster named Eddie. The movies are mostly little easter eggs like inner monologues about The Day the Earth Stood for one example. I think the novel would have benefitted by integrating the movies more. Anyways the middle of the book centers around Jason’s new love Pamela who wants to escape but tells Jason that he has Forge, one of the supercomputers that are all supposed to be gone.
There is much to like about the old school feel early and, in the end, but it made me uncomfortable in the middle. The woman needing our hero to help save her from the crime boss elements in the middle felt a little tired to me. The interesting setup and sci-fi elements seemed to get lost in some over-familiar noir tropes.
“That’s really bad news. How the hell did you get mixed up in that?”
“A woman.”
I expect to read that in a 60s hard case crime novel, but in a science fiction novel published in 2020 it made me uncomfortable. I thought we were past “I did it all for the dame.” That said if Evans intention was to crossover Sci-fi and hard case I will say he has done that. Without spoiling it there are a couple of reasons Pamela was not my favorite aspect of this book.
The novel comes back around with a good twist in the final pages but I kind of wish it happened a bit earlier and was more of the third act. The final chapters presented ideas that I felt were more interesting elements to build a story around. This novel is focused on the Jason and Pamela crime story when I found the social-political nature of the world far more interesting.
That said if you are looking for old-school sci-fi that crosses with a hard case crime feel then Vulcan’s Forge captures that feeling. I admit I was more invested in the setting off-screen from the story and that made the middle of the novel sag a bit for me. I am interested to see what Bob does next. Fun debut novel.
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