Bill, the Galactic Hero, by Harry Harrison

[Anthony G Williams]

Harry Harrison, who died this year, was one of the most popular SF writers of his generation with more than 50 novels published between 1960 and 2010. He specialised in light, fast-moving and entertaining adventure thrillers, generally flavoured with his satirical sense of humour. Bill, the Galactic Hero (published in 1965), one of his best-known stories, standards out as one of his most strongly satirical works. His targets were the military (especially as portrayed in Heinlein's Starship Troopers, to which this was presumably a riposte), aristocracy, space opera featuring giant space ships, and imperial planets entirely covered with buildings (a side-swipe at Asimov's Foundation trilogy), plus various other random SF cliches along the way.

At the start of the story, Bill is a young farm-hand on an agricultural planet, working towards his qualification as a Technical Fertilizer Operator, when a military recruiting fair marches into town. He is soon tricked into signing up and, much against his wishes, transported to a military boot camp for a period of training conspicuous for its stupidity and sadism, personified by the memorable figure of the recruits' nemesis, Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang. Despite various vicissitudes in which Bill, the perpetually hopeful innocent, is usually on the wrong end of, well, just about everything, he is hailed as a hero for accidentally saving his ship Fanny Hill during a space battle, and travels to the imperial capital Helior to be awarded his medal by the Emperor. As usual, he soon finds himself in trouble again and has some more colourful adventures before the story concludes by turning full circle.

Throughout, the military is portrayed as nasty and incompetent, the aristocracy as inbred and gormless, and life generally as grossly unfair, with everything turning out to be much worse than it first appears - especially for Bill. However, what might otherwise have been a grim tale is all recounted with a wicked sense of humour which has the reader grinning with acknowledgement at the points scored against multiple SF targets. A quick, fun read which is well worth the time.

(An extract from my SFF blog: http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.co.uk/)

 

[Toby Frost]

I've been meaning to read this for ages, but as with most SF comedy I'm rather wary of it seeping too far into my subconscious. Harrison always seemed like a decent sort of guy, and Prime Number and the West of Eden novels showed that he could write well and carry ideas (although The Turing Option was dull). In any event, Starship Troopers is a stupid book and deserves a good mocking, and I'm sure Harrison is the man to do it.

 

[J Riff]

Funny, funny.

 

[Tyler Danann]

Not my thing at all. He sounds like he'd fit right in with comedy sci-fi though, if there's such a thing.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

There used to be a lot of comedy SF around at one time - Robert Sheckley was one well-known author - and humour often featured in short stories. SF nowadays seems to be almost entirely po-faced and serious. I suspect it's caught that from fantasy, which (apart from spoofs like Piers Anthony's Xanth novels) takes itself very seriously.

 

[AE35Unit]

I remember reading this a while ago- very good! I dont understand those who run away at the thought of humorous SF! Life's far too short.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The problem I have with most humorous SF is that it's often much too silly. I greatly enjoyed Bill, the Galactic Hero, on the other hand, and Robert Sheckley is brilliant, but that's because they are examples of outstanding satire, and not just sophomoric slapstick. (I can't enjoy Ron Goulart's stuff very much, for example.)

Another comic SF novel I liked quite a bit is The High Crusade by Poul Anderson. That seems to work because it's very carefully thought-out science fiction, not just nonsense thrown together for a laugh.

 

[AE35Unit]

I still enjoy Hitchhiker's Guide as well as Harrison's own Stainless Steel Rat boks!

I have an Eric Idle comedy SF book upstairs. Must read it sometime!

 

[JoanDrake]

I've been meaning to read this for ages, but as with most SF comedy I'm rather wary of it seeping too far into my subconscious. Harrison always seemed like a decent sort of guy, and Prime Number and the West of Eden novels showed that he could write well and carry ideas (although The Turing Option was dull). In any event, Starship Troopers is a stupid book and deserves a good mocking, and I'm sure Harrison is the man to do it.

It's precisely because Starship Troopers is most definitely NOT a "stupid book" (it did win a Hugo in 1960) that Harrison is able to mock it so well. You cannot burlesque burlesque as the saying goes.

Are you sure you're not thinking of the movie? That WAS stupid, but it resembles the novel only very superficially

 

[AE35Unit]

Starship Troopers is a great film. Stupid but great fun. Its a movie, entertainment. I do hope the book is different tho...

 

[Anthony G Williams]

The book Starship Troopers is serious, the film is more of a parody. My review of both is here: http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/starship-troopers-by-robert-heinlein.html

 

[J-Sun]

The book Starship Troopers is serious, the film is more of a parody.

Exactly - if I were to watch the movie in a serious mode... well, I couldn't. But as an over-the-top satire, it's pretty funny and sometimes on-point and I like it. Ironically, if I take it as "serious satire", then it fails again, because the book is worthy of any of (1) admiration and direct influence, (2) serious commentary (this isn't all The Forever War is, but some of it), or (3) an actually brilliant satire that takes what it's satirizing seriously and is good in its own right. I usually use the word "satire", qualified as I did above with "over-the-top" but "parody" is actually a much better term. And, as such, it's a loose broadside shot that splashes water over the bow of the book and I find it entertaining. That's sort of why I like Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers better than Bill - Star Smashers is dead-on point-by-point and yet has much affection (I feel) for what it mocks and yet actually somehow works on one level as a good example of the form. Bill was trying to be the serious sort of satire and is fine at it but not as stimulating as Heinlein is and it suffers (IMO) from the other two-thirds of the book that aren't directly about Heinlein, but about Trantor and Deathworld. That said, I do think it's worth a read.

 

[JunkMonkey]

It's full circle time.

Bill the Galactic Hero: the Movie

Alex Cox (director of Sid and Nancy, Repo Man, Walker etc.) bought the film rights to the book years ago and now, finally, via Kickstarter, has the money to make. It's "ultra low budget", and black and white (and shot on real 35mm FILM! - none of this digital stuff), and I for one am really looking forward to it.

 

[Toby Frost]

I was probably wrong to say that Starship Troopers is a stupid book. However, I think it's a poorly-argued and mean-minded book, but I do realise that I'm firmly on one side of a very entrenched debate and I don't expect anyone to necessarily agree with me. One of these days I'll write up my issues with it, but it would take too much space to ague properly on a thread devoted to something else.

Anyhow, I hope that the film of Bill works out well. I was reading Alan Moore's Ballad of Halo Jones recently, and have just realised the debt that it owes to Bill, as well as The Forever War.

 

[J Riff]

Read the Rat and laff.

 

[AE35Unit]

It's full circle time.

Bill the Galactic Hero: the Movie

Alex Cox (director of Sid and Nancy, Repo Man, Walker etc.) bought the film rights to the book years ago and now, finally, via Kickstarter, has the money to make. It's "ultra low budget", and black and white (and shot on real 35mm FILM! - none of this digital stuff), and I for one am really looking forward to it.

Oh no, it needs to be colour!! Ive only read the first book but hes like a funny Duke Nukem!

 

[JunkMonkey]

Oh no, it needs to be colour!!

Why?

Ive only read the first book

I would stop after the first one. The sequels were written much later:

Six sequels were published, from 1989 to 1992:

• The first, Bill, the Galactic Hero On the Planet of Robot Slaves (1989), is by Harry Harrison.

After this, the sequels were penned by other writers and edited by Harrison. Harry Harrison expressed his own disappointment in the series in an interview with Brian Ireland, quoted on Ireland On-Line.[3]

"They have a thing in the States called 'share cropping' where you have a series or character, and you have other writers do work with it [...] I never wanted to do it, I'm not interested. But one of the packagers said, coming back to this thing I said about the pornography of violence: Harry, why don't we do a Bill, the Galactic Hero series and actually do some anti-war propaganda instead of all pro war. So they eventually talked me into it. "The second one — Bill, the Galactic Hero on the planet of Robot Slaves — I did myself, that was a lot of fun. If they could all be like that. But no, no. We all make mistakes. I'm a professional writer. I earn a living at it. These are the only ones where I did it wrong."
​

 

[AE35Unit]

Why?

r:

Well, it just seems to be something that needs colour- such a character as Bill is a very colourful one-same with Slippery Jim deGriz.
I wish that J J Abrams had done it!

 

[Rastus]

The problem I have with most humorous SF is that it's often much too silly. I greatly enjoyed Bill, the Galactic Hero, on the other hand, and Robert Sheckley is brilliant, but that's because they are examples of outstanding satire, and not just sophomoric slapstick. (I can't enjoy Ron Goulart's stuff very much, for example.)

The third book, Bill the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains, was written by/with the aforementioned Robert Sheckley. Can't remember anything about it but there's a copy on my shelf.