In my teens I devoured these books as quickly as I could find them in scond hand shops (or new if I had enough spare cash). I just found out PJF died almost exactly 10 years ago so picking this book was oddly appropriate.
One of the things I like about his books, especially the pulp paperbacks from the 70s, is the glorious covers. The cover on this is restrained compared to some of his. It also has nothing whatsoever to do with any of the three novellas contained within.
Story 1 - The Alley Man
This was a weird story. The last neanderthal is living in an unnamed city in some weird future/alternate recent history and grubbing off garbage piles for a living. He believes himself to be heir to some sort of throne which h could claim if he finds a particular hat. He keeps two women in his house who serve his every need. Women might be too generous a word as they may not be fully human, they may well be part neanderthal themselves. The old guy, as he's known, treats them horrifically, beating the most human of them repeatedly and using the other as a slave. A young woman studying him for whatever reason falls for his pheremone scent and becomes another of his hangers on, grubbing the piles with him and attracting the ire of the two existing slaves who can't compete with her fully human beauty.
The story is pretty damned misogynistic throughout. I genuinely don't know which of the characters, if any, that the reader is supposed to root for. The dialogue is deliberately confusing and needs to be deciphered before any sense of the story can appear.
There are some funny moments and descriptions - for instance one character's first appearaance
"Deena, tall, skinny, clad only in a white terrycloth bathrobe, looked like a surprised and severed head stuck on a pike."
She's the best looking of the two existing slaves.
Overall though, I didn't like this story. Was the misogyny deliberate to emphasise the neanderthal nature, or was it just a product of the time it was written? I can't decide.
Story 2 - The Captain's daughter
The location switches to the far future and spaceships crossing the vast reaches of space. Technobabble abounds. as does horribly expositional yet still confusing dialogue. As does extraordinarily crass characterisation of the women in the story.
The story concerns a doctor asked to examine the eponymous daughter of the captain of a ship called the Erlking, an intergalactic ship that translates itself across lightyears in mere days. The daughter is suffering from a disease which apparently gives her epileptic seizures. Also, a crew memner she was very close to has just gone missing. Throw in some futuristic religious cults and an alien parasite that feeds on sexual chemistry (literally, it feeds on the chemicals released when its host is sexually excited) and a murder or two and you have what could be a good sexy romp across space.
Sadly the technobabble in the explanations drowns the story and makes it almost unreadable in places. there s an excess of scientific explanation, of impossible chemistry and biology. The imagination on display is impressive I suppose. I might have found this a much better story 30 years ago, but now it seems weak and juvenile.
Story 3 - The God Business
We're back on earth in an alternate present day (think 1950s when the story was first published) where Illinois has become a new Garden of Eden inhabited by demigods and naked hedonists who are capable of defeating whole platoons of marines using only water pistols. Our narrator is tasked with entering the the affected area to steal/break the mysterious neverending bottle of liquid that started the whole situation. He has to go with a beautiful blonde woman and of course they have to journey naked so as to fit in with the natives.
This is the most fun of the three stories. It's free of a lot of the faults of the first two stories, the dialogue isn't as clunky (until the end) as in the others. Our two heros encounter all kinds of allegorical situations leading to our narrator's final voyage into his own psyche.
The ending features a complete run down of the story so far from the bad guy's point of view explaining in minute detail why every little thing happened along the way. It's the worst expositional dialogue in the entire book. Despite that, this remains the best of the three stories.
I realise that I'm placing modern sensibilities on stories written over half a century ago. but I'm sure he was capable of much better writing than is on display in these three stories. The last of his books I read (about two years ago) was a really good fun adventure story. His dayworld books are really very good indeed with none of these weaknesses (that I remember).
Disappointing 4/10 overall. The cover is by far and away the best thing about this book.
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