Review: “Shock Absorber” by E.G. von Wald (1955)
Posted on January 22nd, 2008
Damn fine short story, somewhat in the vein of The First One, but here the author feeds the reader enough to let them see the twist coming.
When a particular spaceship returns from combat and puts in at Mars for overhaul, Lieutenant Maise is assigned as its new executive officer. The previous captain, after seeing action eighty-eighty times, was killed during number eighty-nine along with the previous exec. Lt. Maise therefore takes over command for the two months the ship is refitting in drydock and awaiting the replacement captain. The small crew is hostile to Lt. Maise, suspecting he may be a dreaded Psi Corps officer. Word has just leaked through the fleet that those with special psi abilities are being put into regular Space Combat Service officer positions because they have better odds of surviving combat missions, but the fleet is tense. Outright mutinies against such officers have occurred, started by crews unwilling to obey commanding officers they perceive as relying on hunches instead of experience in combat.
Commander Frendon is assigned as the new commanding officer. Commander Frendon is, of course, the very epitome of the Psi Corps, a too-young, too-skinny, nervous fellow who has no idea how to command. Lt. Maise has his hands full keeping the lid on the mutinous mutterings Frendon’s appearance engenders. The talk centers around a plan to poison the captain by exposure to certain Martian plants, a plot which Maise relays to Frendon. Frendon is poisoned anyhow, Lt. Maise takes over as captain, and Maise and the crew become best buds because the crew knows it did not poison Frendon and now trusts Maise’s judgment.
As I stated, there is a twist at the end that is seen coming a mile away, but again the strength is more in the build-up, in giving the reader just enough to think he’s smarter than the author and to keep reading to prove himself right, than in the final payoff.
Lastly, the opening is a little clunky, with exposition disguised as extended dialogue, but it certainly fits better here, in the format of a military briefing, than in other stories I’ve seen.
Very much recommended. Command your own copy at Project Gutenberg in a couple formats or at Manybooks.net in more.
Tags: free science fiction, public domain science fiction, Review, speculative fiction
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