Adventure Is My Middle Name

It's not, actually. I like my initials, although they do tend to confuse some people when they see my email address and think I picked one that said "Mr. Oehler." No, it's M. R. Oehler. But if my middle initial was an A, I would totally change my middle name to Adventure. Ditto for D and Danger, but you can't do much with Rs.

But I'm not actually here to talk about my name and how, regrettably, it's not going to change into a more awesome one. I wanted to write about one of, if not the, best novel within the uncluttered sub-genre of Planetary Romance. That book is Planet of Adventure (actually a collection of four related novels in a single volume), by Jack Vance.

The iconic author of Planetary Romance is Burroughs and his tales of Barsoom, most notably Princess of Mars. A movie was released recently based on the first few books of Barsoom, titled John Carter of Mars; it was okay.And in Princess of Mars, the main character is an Earthman transported to a strange, distant, hostile planet and has a bunch of adventures and wins many victories; this is a very similar set-up to Vance's Planet of Adventure.

The protagonist of Princess, one John Carter, succeeds in his adventures for two specific reasons, three if you count the uncanny luck that just about every action hero is blessed by. The first is that he's superior physically to just about every other creature or person on Barsoom, justified by the higher gravity of his home planet. He's stronger, faster, and can jump tall buildings in a single bound!

The other reason he succeeds is that on Barsoom, life is cheap, and qualities like kindness and mercy are in short supply. John Carter acts differently, sparing the lives of his enemies and preferring charity to cruelty. This wins him friends and allies in his adventures, and his 'naive' philosophy is ultimately vindicated.

Adam Reith isn't like John Carter, although he's probably the smartest and most capable of all of Vance's protagonists. Reith might be better (physically and mentally) than the other humans on Tschai by virtue of his advanced scientific/technical knowledge and his military scout training, but he's frequently overmatched by the four species of aliens that rule the planet.

And Adam Reith comes from a world more similar to our own, where Good Samaritans often end up killed or robbed, and sparing your enemies is a good way to end up with a knife in your back. Where nice guys often finish last.  The enemies he overcomes are generally undeserving of kindness or mercy.

When Adam Reith wins, it's because he's a bigger son of a bitch than everyone else on the planet. He tricks his enemies, lies and cheats to get what he needs, and never gives his enemies a fair break.More than that, true to the Trickster archetype, thinks differently than everyone else. Humans are a subjugated, lesser species, but Adam Reith insists that his species is superior! And because I can, I'm putting in a funny pic from a completely different work (but the same message). 

Homo Sapiens Are Superior!

When he shares his ideas with the other people on Tschai, they think Adam Reith is crazy, even his friends and companions he meets on his journey. No one believes that humanity has its own home planet under human rule, or that humans could reach the level of technology necessary to travel to other stars.

In the end, it's the fact that Adam Reith operates under a totally different set of assumptions than every other person he meets that allows him to succeed on the harsh, strange world of Tschai. It's why I think Planet of Adventure is such a great book, and deserves wider exposure. So if you're a fan of Vance, Barsoom, other planetary romance, or just science fiction, you owe it to yourself to check out Planet of Adventure.