I first read Harry Harrison’s, To the Stars trilogy, during my teens. I remember gobbling down Homeworld, and then being forced to wait months until I eventually found a copy of Wheelworld at one of the handful of bookstores that stocked science-fiction. Science-fiction and fantasy were the red-haired stepchildren of literature in the 80s (and before). Obtaining Starworld took more months and a bunch of luck. Ultimately, I remember enjoying the series, and felt they were definitely worth the wait.

However, I have since read them a number of times in the forty or so years since, and I find my enjoyment of the To The Stars trilogy wavering. A number of issues with the structure, the characters, and the style keep cropping up. I’ll explain as we go along.

By the way, while this isn’t a review exactly, it will dive into the specifics (plot, characters, etc) so, spoilers.

WARNING
Spoilers ahead

Table of Contents

• To the Stars
• Homeworld
• Politics
• Wheelworld
• Starworld
• Conclusion

To the Stars

To The Stars is set five-hundred years into the future. Humanity has burst forth from its nest to populate the cosmos. Except, it’s not a utopian future as dreamt by Star Trek, Harrison’s take is far more cynical. Most of the colonised worlds are run by corporate or government overlords overseeing a mass of serf-like populace to produce the necessary resources for Earth. Things are not much better on Earth, where a small number of elites live in luxury while the masses of Proles attempt to scrape through an existence under an authoritarian surveillance state.

Homeworld

He is rescued by a submarine

Enter Jan Kulozik, a young electronics engineer, who has been raised as one of the British elites. He believes the Proles are lazy and stupid, however events conspire to teach him otherwise. While out sailing on the Red Sea (as you do) his yacht is sunk, but before he can drown he is rescued by a submarine.

Once aboard the sub, he meets Sara, who provides him with information that causes him to question what he has been told about the world and his place in it. He subsequently becomes involved in the resistance against his own government (teaming up with Sara as they go up against Jan’s own brother-in-law), and learns that the Proles aren’t bad fellas after all, but he is ultimately caught. Such are the events of Homeworld, the first book in the series.

One of the key things is that the submarine is Israeli. Yes folks, somewhat ironically (at least, according to some), the Israelis are the good guys in this series. Israel is a pariah state, built on democratic principles rather than authoritarianism, like the rest of the world.

Politics

It’s actually this that I find troubling. Not Israel specifically, but the lack of creativity when it comes to the world governments. There’s also US, Britain, Australia, and the Soviets. All straight out of 70s-80s politics, as if nothing had changed in five hundred years – which is frankly preposterous.

Five hundred years ago, the Europeans hadn’t reached the Americas or Australia. Britain consisted of the divided kingdoms of England and Scotland. Palestine was controlled by the Mamluk Sultanate. Russia wasn’t even a kingdom, let alone an empire. Very different, and so it would be logical to presume that five-hundred years from now the world would be a very different place politically, too.

All Harrison did was basically extrapolate what was happening in the late 70s and early 80s

Except in To The Stars, it isn’t. All Harrison did was basically extrapolate what was happening in the late 70s and early 80s. Which is lazy and very disappointing.

Just a note about the Soviets, I read Homeworld soon after the break-up of the Soviet Union, and I couldn’t read it. I thought it was nonsense (I may have even thrown the book across the room). My world view had changed drastically from that at the height of the Cold War. The idea that a totalitarian government could exist even in the future was absurd. I had clearly become too optimistic and naive.

Wheelworld

To the Stars – Wheelworld
The next time we encounter Jan Kulozik he is trapped on the agricultural planet of Halvmörk, which is tilted on its axis at a forty-one-degree angle and with a perverse orbit. That means that only the areas near the poles are habitable (for four years at a time) and then the inhabitants need to make the several tens of thousands kilometre trip to the other pole.

When the ships, that take their grain, are late by six weeks, Jan convinces the oligarchic families, that control Halvmörk, to leave rather than to wait for the ships. They will take some of the grain with them, then return to collect more – despite the dangers of operating during the ‘day’.

There’s politics aplenty and personal drama, but the bulk of the first half of the novel us taken up with the journey from the North to the South Pole. It’s enjoyable stuff, with loads of obstacles that need to be overcome, while also dealing with the stupidity of the masses (often ending in tragedy). It’s the sort of fun I’ve come to expect from Harrison.

Things start to fall off the rails

Even once they reach the South Pole, the betrayal by the families and banning of the return journey is well done. However, once Jan leads a group of rebels to steal the vehicles and return Northward to collect the valuable grain, things start to fall off the rails.

What could have filled at least as much as the previous section of the novel is condensed into a few chapters in a very hand-wavy way. Look, I’m a big proponent of less is more, but in this case I felt short-changed. I think there was more to learn about Jan and his comrades (particularly his new wife – who is an object of desire in the first half of the novel, but is essentially forgotten in the second half), and especially about the world of Halvmörk, and its ecosystem. We get hints of things, but they are never paid-off. Given how well Harrison did with the ecologies in the Deathworld and Eden series, it is certainly a disappointment.

Jan is charged with treason and sentenced to death

Wheelworld ends with the return bearing the grain. Yet instead of glorious tribute, Jan is charged with treason and sentenced to death. However, at the very last moment, he is saved by the arrival of the ships. But not those of their overlords, but of rebels that have thrown off the yoke of their oppressors.

However, they are in desperate need of food for the colony worlds. Jan does a deal with the fleet commander. In return for the food, he will be taken with them to act as an envoy for Halvmörk, to ensure its populace gets the benefits from their labours.

Starworld

To the Stars – Starworld
So begins Starworld. However, from the outset it feels like Harrison had a change of heart with the direction he wanted to take resolving the series. The first thing he does is have the ships attacked while still in orbit around Halvmörk and Jan captured.

This still might have worked, but ultimately it ends up being a very ham-fisted way of Harrison showing off his Earth-of-Tomorrow. Ursula Le Guin did something similar in The Left Hand of Darkness, but Gethen is far more original and interesting. Harrison’s Earth is really Earth-of-Yesterday – filled with cliché and racism. The latter is supposed to indicate how bad the Earthers are, but it feels very lazy.

Jan ends up back on Earth where he manages to escape (the lone survivor – clumsily done and reeking of protagonist armour) where he gets a quick tour of the United States, which is just like the US in the 80s but with the stereotypes and racism turned up to eleven.

Then he gets captured again, and we discover that Jan’s brother-in-law is now the biggest wig of all security wigs, but instead of taunting Jan – like he did in Homeworld – he sends him on a secret mission to Israel. The plan is to help the rebels both in space and on Earth.

He helps them perfect a Gauss cannon

Look, let’s just cut to the chase, the good guys win, but it’s so poorly written it’s hard to read. The only real interesting part of Starworld is the bit where Jan ends up with the rebel space fleet, and he helps them perfect a Gauss cannon, that is used to wipe out the Earth fleet.

What is particularly hard to read is that while in Israel, Jan meets Sara’s sister, and of course they fuck (because fucking the little sister of your dead crush is what’s done in every resistance movement). It’s just so on the nose, even if you ignore the morality of cheating on his wife. Not that the marriage was going to last anyway once Jan managed to return to his luxurious lifestyle on Earth.

Conclusion

There’s definitely the potential for a great epic series submerged in To The Stars. Homeworld is splendid, and shows Harrison at his best. The first half of Wheelworld is also excellent, but from there-in the rest feels rushed. And perhaps the last two novels were rushed. Both Wheelworld and Starworld were released in the same year.

Overall, I now find the To The Stars series very disappointing.

Perhaps this is a review after all.