BOOKS: Fantastic Voyage

Marvel at the wonders of the human body!

Fantastic Voyage, Isaac Asimov

    Isaac Asimov, as I've mentioned, was (and is still looked at as) one of the big three of sci-fi writers of his day. He's written myriad classic sci-fi books. And in 1966, he wrote a novelization to the movie, Fantastic Voyage. I generally look at movie novelizations as lame cash grabs. Is that unfair, though? Besides this one, I've never read one before, so perhaps I'm wrong. At any rate, this particular novelization was written by a very good, respected author, not Johnny Poor-Pants (...or, something). I picked this book up on a whim, because, I believe, it was stupid cheap at a closing book store (less than a dollar, I wanna say). Very low price, an interesting (albeit sort of silly) concept, and a good author all combined to make me say, "eh, why the hell not. I'll give it a whirl." And a whirl it was given.

Definitely a cool cover

    Overall, I enjoyed this book. It has a similar tone to Dolphin Island, in that both are short, fun adventure novels. Although the stakes in Fantastic Voyage are quite a bit higher than in Dolphin Island, where in Voyage it's basically the difference between winning and losing, "the war". Who are the protagonists warring with? Well, Them, Over There, of course! No enemy is ever mentioned. In fact, where the protagonists are situated is never said either (just, Here). I've read that this is clearly meant to be a Cold War, US vs USSR kind-of-thing, and honestly, that was my first thought when they start mentioning vague enemies in a vague war. At any rate, the basic plot of the novel goes like this: a brilliant scientist has defected from Them to Us, and he holds information that could win the war for either side. As he's being brought to the HQ, an attempt is made on his life. He survives, barely. He has a blood clot in his brain, and it can't be operated on from the outside. Well, what's a government to do? Why, they plan a fantastic voyage, of course!
    As I'm sure everyone knows, from just hearing the title Fantastic Voyage, this is the story of men and women who are shrunk down to bacteria-size (actually, maybe a bit smaller than bacteria?) and are injected into the bloodstream of a living man!This is pure sci-fi goodness, here. Apparently, even Asimov realized the silliness of it all, but I have a feeling he had fun writing the book anyway. Curiously, he wrote a sequel (twenty-something years later, to boot) called Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain. I don't know if I'll ever read that book, but hell, I never thought I'd bother reading this one, so I'm sure at some point I will.
    Since I'm such a pessimist, I'm going to go over, briefly, my main problems with the book. There aren't many, and in fact, I think there is only one. Asimov clearly knows what he's talking about when it comes to the human body. He's very descriptive, and goes into some decent detail about the way the inside of veins, capillaries, lungs, and other bodily-inside-things look. That's all well and good, but for me, Mr. Average Joe Idiot, I had a very hard time visualizing these things in my head. Sure, I can picture well enough a tiny submarine floating down a vein, but corpuscles, arterio-venous fistula, pleura, reticular fibers, and all other manner of biology mumbo-jumbo? I don't want to call them all abstract concepts, because they have definite forms, and scientists can see and study them (so they aren't abstract in the way that all the crazy shit the Ocean from the Solaris novel spewed was abstract), but to my mind, that's the best word. My mental pictures of certain scenes suffered for it. Again, it's probably my problem, and other people can just picture it easily. That's why I sometimes think I'm the least qualified person to read, and subsequently talk about, sci-fi. But I genuinely enjoy it, and I really like the way it gets my mind to think about things (when I can think about things, anyway). But hey, on the bright side, maybe you'll actually learn a few things from the human body as you read this book!

THE MOST INCREDIBLE ADVENTURE NOVEL OF OUR TIME! (if you haven't heard)

    Finally, since I brought it up with Orphans of the Sky by Heinlein, I decided to be on the lookout for bullshit 60's sci-fi sexism. I'm happy to report that while, yes, there is a little bit of it, it certainly doesn't reach Orphans levels of awfulness. I'm not trying to champion any causes here, I just think it's very interesting (and abhorring) how these male authors (and, unfortunately, the male world at large) saw women back in that time. But, there is a woman on the five-person team that gets miniaturized, and it's clear she's very smart, but she gets a good amount of grief from one character (his name is Michaels, for future reference), because she is a female. The other three don't really care. And, I suppose, by the end, there might be a reason why Michaels (hey, future reference!) is a sexist pig towards her. 

    Okay, enough bad stuff. This was a pretty good book. I know sci-fi writing can be seen as cold, sterile, and its not always known for developing characters (characters are pushed aside for story. I'm usually okay with this), but Asimov here differs from those labels. Maybe the characters aren't as fleshed out as in other books, but Asimov is a great writer, and his narrative is easy and casual. Like I said, it was actually fun to read. I'm not sure this counts as, "hard sci-fi", as it were, but that's more than okay with me. 

    The story is good, and it always keeps you interested and on your toes. There's lots of action (including harrowing scenes of: gathering oxygen from the lungs, traversing through the ear, and the final escape from the body, to name three). Besides the action inside the body, there's also a mini-mystery about a potential spy or traitor on the submarine. Also, I'd like to document my enjoyment of the scenes describing white blood cells and antibodies destroying foreign objects. In one chapter (chapter 14, "Lymphatic") the crew witnesses a battle between antibodies and bacteria, and one character (Cora. Okay, sometimes the way she reacts to certain things could be construed as sexist) is horrified to see the antibodies quite literally just squeeze the bacteria to death. Also, one scene at the end shows how terrifying a white blood cell would be to something smaller than it. These parts were some of my favorites, and they gave a sense of the unknown. Asimov isn't writing about space here, but he might as well be, considering how alien everything looks and acts in the human body.

    I think that about wraps it up, ladies and germs (pun definitely intended). This was a fast read (you quick readers could probably breeze through in a couple days. Hell, probably even one!) at only 186 pages. It had good action, an interesting idea, characters that I enjoyed reading about (mostly), and it's very well written. Confusing body part descriptions aside, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the book. I will say, I was never in much doubt about how the book was to end. I've never seen the movie for which the book was based (off of the screenplay, actually), but I had a very hard time believing the crew wouldn't get the job done, one way or another. I don't really consider that a spoiler, because I never thought otherwise during my read. That's a negative too, but it isn't like a mystery novel or anything, so it isn't a huge deal. Besides, all the talk about spies had me guessing until the end (was there one? Wasn't there one? Read to find out!). I'm not sure what I'm going to read next, but it'll probably be more sci-fi. I'm probably only going to have time to read one book in the next few weeks, because I want to focus more time on working on this blog, and gaming. Thanks for reading, everyone! Now, go pick up an actual book by an actual author, won't you?

I would suggest this book to any sci-fi fan, or any fan of short adventure novels. Just keep a medical dictionary near by!

Spines by Epson