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Theodore Savage (SF) - Cicely Hamilton **

The MIT Press's 'Radium Age' series is based on the premise that between the scientific romances of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and the 'golden age' of science fiction starting in the mid-thirties, there was an intermediate period of proto-science fiction that has been largely ignored. I'm not convinced this is a meaningful split - something like H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds may have been labelled as scientific romance because the SF term hadn't been devised yet, but it is pure science fiction already - and still very readable today.

The Radium Age books to date have either been interesting as novels or, if not, notable for doing something special that gives them a place in science fiction history. So even though, for instance, Wells's novel The World Set Free from 1914 is hard going, it is nonetheless interesting because of its introduction of the concept of atomic bombs. Unfortunately, Cicely Hamilton's 1922 novel Theodore Savage is both deadly dull and not particularly innovative - nor has it even got much science fiction content.

It's notable that in Hamilton's Wikipedia entry (her surname was actually Hammill - Hamilton was a pseudonym) this book only gets a passing mention: her main claim to fame was as a writer of dramas with a women's suffrage theme. The only science fiction-like aspect of this book is that it is set in the future, though it's a very unimaginative future that hardly differs from 1922, apart from a couple of vaguely described weapons. Written just after the First World War, it features a subsequent war that destroys civilisation.

Hamilton portrays a miserable future, but probably one she felt was appropriate as she seems to consider the human race inherently evil and incapable of altruism. Very quickly after Britain becomes involved in this new world war, it is totally devastated. It appears that Hamilton had little idea of the scale of a country compared with an attack by air - the whole of civilisation disappears in days. Within a couple of years, no one is living in houses anymore: somehow, the buildings, even in country areas are already falling apart. Before long, any suggestion of science and technology is regarded as evil in a kind introverted equivalent to Walter M. Miller's wonderful 1959 novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, where the remnants of technology are venerated though not understood.

It has been suggested that the women in the book represent Hamilton's views of the way women were suppressed in her era - possibly, though it certainly wouldn't pass the Bechdel test, as all female characters are portrayed through their relationship with men. What comes through far more strongly is the author's distaste for the lower classes, typical of Hamilton's upper middle class at this time - particularly in the portrayal of Ada, whose strangulated cockney rendering of English is worthy of Dick van Dyke's in Mary Poppins, and whose selfish, brainless attitude is in contrast to the titular Theodore Savage's gradually decaying middle class demeanour. 

Occasionally the book livens up, but a lot of the time it is dire. It might be true that 'show, don't tell' is a commandment that needs to be broken sometimes - but there is far too much descriptive and ponderous text, with page after page dedicated to characters' thoughts and to working through moral and spiritual considerations. The only possible reason this book might be considered worthy of inclusion in such a series is because it was one of the first novels after the First World War where the author believed that conflict was a precursor to the end of civilisation - but surely there were more worthy books than this.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
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