Roger MacBride Allen’s writing career started in
1985 with the publication of Torch of Honor, the
first of two above-average space operas involving
an interstellar war and making use of most of the
familiar devices of military science fiction. Although the story is not particularly original, Allen
demonstrated an unusual depth of characterization
in his resourceful group of space cadets. The sequel, Rogue Powers (1986), starts as a reprise of the
first novel, with the old conflict renewed, but stirs
the pot to good effect by introducing a race of
aliens who specialize in biological weaponry. A
third space adventure, Farside Cannon (1988), is
set closer to home. An increasingly repressive government on Earth has built a military installation
on the Moon to perpetuate its control of the myriad small colonies spread through the solar system,
but the colonists predictably object to having a
sword held over their collective heads and devise a
plan by which to destroy the installation.
Having established himself as a promising new
practitioner of intelligent space opera, Allen then
did an about-face with Orphan of Creation (1988),
an impressive and restrained novel that must have
caught Allen’s readers by surprise. In contrast to
his earlier work, his fourth novel is a quietly told
story about a black paleontologist who discovers
evidence that some of the slaves brought to America were actually a form of prehistoric human, and
that some of their descendants survived for several
generations. It was the first time Allen merged science fiction with mystery themes, a mix that he
would return to later in his career.
Allen established himself as a major talent
with the Hunted Earth novels: The Ring of
Charon (1990) and its sequel, The Shattered
Sphere (1994). At some time in the distant past,
aliens planted numerous devices throughout the
solar system—devices that remain dormant until
a scientific mission on Pluto inadvertently triggers
them to wakefulness. Almost instantaneously, the
entire Earth is transported through a rift in space
to an artificial system where numerous captured
worlds are held in a complex series of orbits, and
where alien devices prevent travel from one
planet to the next. The story alternates between
characters trapped on kidnapped Earth and their
efforts to understand the alien devices that hold
them captive, and the relatively small number of
humans left in the sundered solar system, where
Allen, Roger MacBride
they fight to survive the cataclysmic aftereffects
and hope to find the means to reverse the process
and bring Earth back to the solar system. The
two novels convey a sense of awe and wonder
about the nature of the universe, examine the
ways in which ordinary people react to stressful
situations, and provide a fascinating scientific
mystery. Despite its popularity, the sequence remains unfinished, and may have been abandoned
by the author.
During the early 1990s, Allen’s output included several minor novels, including Star Wars
tie-ins and two mediocre collaborative novels.
However, he also wrote four science fiction mysteries of exceptional quality. The Modular Man (1991)
is a stand-alone novel whose premise is that
human consciousness can be transferred to electronic storage. A terminally ill scientist shifts his
personality into the memory bank of what essentially is a very sophisticated vacuum cleaner, and in
that new form, kills his former biological body. The
mystery in this case is an entirely scientific one.
There is never any doubt about how the death was
brought about—but was it murder, suicide, or
something else? The novel demonstrates the impact technology can have on society, and the way
in which we must change our preconceptions
when faced with a new set of conditions not anticipated by existing laws.
Allen’s trilogy of Caliban novels consists of
Caliban (1993), Inferno (1994), and Utopia (1996).
As a unit, they are a direct sequel to a classic sequence of novels by Isaac ASIMOV. Asimov developed a unique set of rules for robots (described in
I, ROBOT) that was so useful that it was adopted by
numerous other writers for their own purposes.
With permission from Asimov, Allen rethought the
Three Laws and developed a new set, then wrote
the first novel in which Caliban is the first robot
programmed with this experimental set of instructions. When Caliban becomes strangely reticent
about the mysterious death of his creator, a human
and robot detective team must determine whether
Caliban killed his creator or whether he is concealing the truth for some other reason.
The basic plot is reprised in the first sequel,
set after the New Laws robots have been created in
quantity and are interacting with humans and with
one another. The two detectives return to investigate a second murder, this one also apparently at
the hands of a robot. The straightforward mystery,
however, is superimposed on an increasingly complex back story. Human culture is evolving in two
contradictory directions, with a potentially disruptive effect on the development of the planet Inferno; and a backlash against the new style of
robots has caused the latter to seek their own company. These two issues come to a climax in the
concluding volume, wherein drastic steps are proposed to stabilize the planet’s ecology—steps that
will wipe out an independent robot civilization.
The trilogy is written in a controlled, thoughtful
manner that compels the reader to think about the
issues it raises.
Allen returned to space opera with Allies and
Aliens (1995), an entertaining but less substantial
work about a secret mission to disrupt an enemy
military force. The plot grows increasingly complex
with the introduction of aliens, double crosses, and
masked intentions, but only suggests the skill
demonstrated in his previous novels. Allen
remained largely silent for the next several years,
and no significant work appeared until 2000.
The Depths of Time was the opening volume in a
new trilogy, another space adventure but one far
more complex than anything he had previously
attempted.
The first premise of the trilogy is that space
travel also requires displacement through time.
Because information from the future could alter
the past and potentially destabilize space-time, a
military force is created whose purpose is to monitor jumps back and forth through time and to prevent any such disaster. Although the mechanics of
the situation are suspect, the proposition helps establish the scientific problems that have to be resolved. The second premise is that there has been
an underlying flaw in the way humans have colonized other worlds—a flaw that is about to result
in the universal collapse of their ecologies. A small
group of individuals, including a retired spaceship
captain and the man most directly responsible for
the colonization effort, becomes aware of the potential disaster in the opening volume, and spends
most of the two sequels, The Ocean of Years (2002)
and The Shores of Tomorrow (2004), trying to find a
Allen, Roger MacBride
solution. The trilogy is easily Allen’s most impressive achievement to date.
Allen rarely writes at shorter length, and most
of his short fiction was published early in his career. “A Hole in the Sun” is noteworthy chiefly for
its strong characterization. “Thing’s Ransom” sets
up another situation where changes in technology
force a responsive change in human behavior.
Allen is notable for the complexity of his settings,
the depth of his characters, and his talent for examining the interface between human society and
its technological creations. His plots frequently involve fast-paced action sequences and dramatic effects, but they are supported by a framework of
well conceived and evocatively described societies
and situations.