The Shadow of Alpha

The Shadow of Alpha (The Parric Trilogy 1) by Charles L. Grant

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Back in the 1970s, I read a short story in Analog by Charles L. Grant called “Seven is a Birdsong.” It has stuck with me, but I recall it as a confusing and impenetrable read, involving a post-apocalyptic setting, someone named “Parric,” murderous androids, and some kind of historic plague. For a story, I didn't particularly care for, it has stuck with me to the extent that I've been looking for a copy ever since.

I think that what I liked was the mood of the story and the questions it left me about what appeared to be a fleshed-out world that was only hinted at.

This book, “The Shadow of Alpha,” inspires a similar frustration in its confusing and pedestrian writing mixed in with notes that leave me questioning.

One of the frustrating things about this book is its undefined date. This book was written in 1976, which is consistent with my memory of the Analog short story, but it mentions 2020 as a date in the past. There appear to have been six wars (or world wars.) America is now part of “Noram” with a continental government. There are starships, forcefields, and androids. Mention is made of the Japanese Empire. On the other hand, the mores seem to be the 1950s and there are mentions of things like communits and diagunits like it was written in the 1950s. The whole mix is odd.

The main character is Frank Parric, who has been moved from his position as an insurance clerk to a community where he is teaching androids to act like humans so that they can become consumers. Apparently, the birth rate has been declining and people need human-like, human-acting consumers to pass as humans in order to avoid economic catastrophe.

Just as a female character is introduced, war breaks out between the Japanese Empire and the Eastern Panasian Union, which involves releasing biological weapons that get out of hand and contaminate the world...shades of 2020! All this happens offstage.

Parric and his new associates are safe with the androids since they have a forcefield, which apparently is not used around governmental installations because the Contigov apparently collapses over the weekend. Also, the forcefield does not stop viruses from infecting the androids, who become homicidal. Rural people go feral over the weekend and set up independent enclaves. Parric and his friends decide to go on a road trip to another android community that is no better off than his own.

This was all rather pedestrian and not particularly convincing since (a) it happened too quickly and (b) the collapse of civilization is offstage.

So, what is the “Alpha” mentioned in the title? Alpha is the rather uninspired name for a starship that was launched a few years before the events of the book. Parric periodically announces his resolve that when the Alpha returns from its adventures, it will be greeted by an intact civilization.

By the end of the book, Parric is in love and they make it back to “Central,” which can manufacture androids. So, I'm speculating that later installments of the book will involve the descendants of Parric working through problems in a human/android civilization.

I've got a nearly 50 year investment in this, so I will read the next book, but if I had read it back in 1976, I would probably have considered it a fairly lackluster by-the-numbers scifi book.