Not Free SF Reader
Humanity is again thinking about genetic engineering as a tool for the exploration of space, to look at malleable androids, or other forms that could interact easily with alien beings and environments.
This had been tried before, and failed, because melding with alien beings or minds allowed them partial or full control of the host, and they could change forms back at times - hence the Werewolf Principle.
40 years old and more current than ever!
Upon turning the final page of this powerful novel, 21st century readers of "The Werewolf Principle" will likely set the book down slack-jawed with amazement at Simak's thoughtful, prescient exploration of genetic engineering, a scientific field of endeavour that, unheard of a scant 40 years ago, now reaches front page headlines on a regular basis.
Space travel as technology is now several hundred years old. But, currently debate is raging in the Senate over a proposal for a program of bio-engineering as a basis for the colonization of other solar systems. Is it better to force the planet to fit the man through terra-forming or to bio-engineer the man and mold his abilities to withstand hostile alien environments? There are those that feel the results of such a modification would somehow be less than human or may even be perceived as a monster.
But neither side to this debate is aware of Andrew Blake. Two hundred years earlier, this problem had already been faced and resolved at that time by producing a synthetic human - an android with the imprint of a fully human mind that would be capable of absorbing the form and mind of any alien culture it might encounter. The mission that carried Blake to the stars had been lost and the Space Administration reached the decision to formally bury any reference to the project as a regrettable failure! Luck and happenstance have now returned Blake to earth into the middle of the current debate and the world is shocked to learn of the flaw in their 200 year old experiment - the "data" from the absorption of an alien mind could not be erased. Blake is now an amalgam of three wildly different alien personalities able to interact and communicate with each other but within a single body.
Under the circumstances, Blake, of course, becomes the lightning rod "poster child" for BOTH sides of the debate. Even Blake himself is puzzled and questions both his humanity and his place on earth.
"The Werewolf Principle" is a trademark Simak blend of soft and hard sci-fi, crafted in his low-key softly stated pastoral Midwest style that cannot fail to amaze any thinking reader. The ending of the novel not only contains a blind-side twist worthy of the finest thriller but is also warmly romantic and intelligently optimistic without being trite or gushy. With standards like this to live up to, it is a miracle that contemporary writers of science fiction can actually make a living!
Paul Weiss
One host mind- many resident alien personalities...
I find it remarkable that Simak was writing about genetic engineering in 1967. He even nailed the fact that religious and social conservatives would be up in arms over the issue.
Set some five hundred years into the future, mankind has been exploring space for centuries. Yet, remarkably few of the new worlds that have been discovered are suitable for human life. In fact, only the terrible expensive and time-consuming process of terra forming can make more worlds livable for man.
However, genetic engineers have come up with a program to adapt man to fit an alien environment and not vice versa. Humans could be genetically altered to exist under hostile conditions of intolerable gravity, heat, cold, or toxic atmospheres. While they might not look strictly human in the traditional sense, inside they would still think and feel as any other human being might.
Reactionary elements, however, held that this would be unnatural and the results would not be human as much they would be abominations and monsters.
What neither side initially knew was that this experiment had been tried two centuries before- and abandoned. At that time an even more radical experiment had been attempted. Instead of adapting one strain of man to a single hostile environment, a synthetic man (an android) would be developed with an open-ended genetic structure that would be able to mimic the form, and the mind, of any alien life form. It was thought that this would be the perfect tool to infiltrate and study any alien culture. It was also thought that such an open-ended synthetic man could be reused on many different planets. What the bio-engineers didn't realize was that every time such a being took on the form of an alien he would also take on its mind- permanently. This meant that over time many different, individual, alien personalities would share the same brain- a sort of ultimate schizophrenic. Not only that, but these different alien personalities would be able to intercommunicate and cooperate. Plus, at any moment, they could take on their original form once again. That was why the original breakthrough had been termed the "Werewolf Principle."
Now, after 200 years of being frozen in deep space, the last surviving experimental "werewolf" has been found and returned to earth. Yet neither he, nor his rescuers know who or what he truly is. Not only that, but the two alien personalities melded with the original synthetic are a psychic wolf-thing that can even talk to the stars, and a chameleon-like biological computer of near infinite intellect.
The debate over genetic engineering is about to get very interesting....
Snappy, typical Simak.
A very characteristic book for Simak. This is not "easy reading", but it will reward those willing to think.
Intriguing, perplexing, extremely thought provoking
There are few writers of sci-fi that even come close to the intimacy and emotional life that exists within the Werewolf Principle
(5 reviews)
