Fantastic Metropolis

Taking scissors to fiction, the tailor cuts and sews, patching up a worn genre. With language as sheer as sarsenet, he unpicks clichés, embroiders complex plot-devices, adds pockets of wit. The resulting garment is a jacket which is stylish, but which fits no market comfortably. For mass consumption, it is not gaudy enough. There is nothing technicolour about it: an amazing four-colour dreamcoat, it is slightly flared at the hip, too subtle for its own good. For the literati, it is not obviously heavy or warm enough. On the seriously hard catwalks of the SF show, it is likely to be overlooked in favour of Bearskin and the hides of other Gregs.

Undeterred by lack of commercial success and critical acclaim, Barrington Bayley quietly continues his work, creating a wardrobe as impressive as any in imaginative writing. He is the most underrated SF British writer since David Masson was forgotten in the 1960s. Ironically, he terms himself a ‘traditionalist’, though his name is generally linked to the radicals. Rather than switch from the slide-rule concerns of conventional SF to the left-bank affectations of the New Wave, he sought to extend one into the other. His engineers do not quite make it to the espresso machines, but they are competent in eschatology and Russian. Possibly only Ian Watson shares a similar methodology, but the writers are approaching the café from different directions, like the converging realities in Bayley’s Collision with Chronos.

Born in 1937, Bayley worked as a civil servant in the Ministry of War before joining the RAF. A brief stint as a reporter on a minor paper coincided with his first story submissions: his tale ‘Combat’s End’ was published in 1954. The early Bayley is unremarkable, his awkward prose rooted firmly in the conventions of space-opera, but lacking the grand sweep of the best practitioners in the field. In the ensuing decade, he nurtured his ambition and ability, careful to ensure neither outgrew the other. In 1959, he helped write Michael Moorock’s first story, ‘Peace On Earth’, a crude but well-meaning fantasy which reads like Van Vogt. A better collaboration came in 1963 with ‘Flux’, an unusual time-travel tale in which the future is revealed as existing in alternative presents. His career really began with ‘Double Time’, a rousing solo effort which demonstrated his interest in metaphysics. Other competent work followed, much of it published in New Worlds. Under Moorcock’s editorship, Bayley became one of the magazine’s regulars.

Never a prolific writer of short-fiction, he started turning his attention to novels. Space-opera was already in a vegetative state when he launched his debut, Star Virus (1964), a mildly exciting foray into a neurotic theme: the end of the Universe. It betrays a certain impatience, the complex plot held together as if by a shoelace, the story hampered by unsatisfying explanations for each new twist and curl. Bloated beyond its own limits, the novel should have some of the exuberance of a Bester or Harness, a foolish and charming vitality; but Bayley offers a rather dour experience. This is not necessarily bad: indeed, the tone of the book has proved more influential on succeeding writers than its callow attempt at mutating the ethics of the disaster-epic. Notably, the virus infected M. John Harrison, who carried off the form and fever to unimagined heights. Bayley also learned from the pandemic: he retreated into the laboratory and emerged with a stronger strain of apocalypse.

Annihilation Factor (1964), with its planet-devouring protagonist, a cosmic anomaly called ‘The Patch’, seems dated now. Even back then it was standard fare; but Bayley distinguishes himself by using the mechanics of destruction more as backdrop than focal point. Under the strain of living in the path of the ravenous entity, an interstellar empire comes apart at the seams. Bayley is nothing if not imperial in his imagined politics: he is inordinately fond of galaxy-spanning governments. They feature again and again in his books, becoming more refined—and bureaucratic—as his skills evolve. Often theocratic, always militaristic, such societies are a drain on a modern author’s resources, threatening to become outmoded or silly. Bayley manages to keep his functioning with Golden Age smoothness, using just a drop of lubricating parody.

The conclusion of Annihilation Factor is bleak; there are few happy endings in any of Bayley’s tales, another disincentive to the public. His optimism withered rapidly, after a stint of hack-work in juvenile comics. The cynicism which replaced it was streaked with humour. Two of his best short-stories, ‘Integrity’ (1964) and ‘All The King’s Men’ (1965), are unique satires, the comedy deriving wholly from the ideas rather than the language, plot or characters. Both illustrate the dangers of taking ideas to their extreme: in the first, a libertarian, committed to the ideals of freedom, liberates the cells of his own body. From this point on, Bayley proved himself to be a thought-experimenter rather than a simple writer, working from analogy and switching premises between disciplines. This can often result in stunning absurdity, especially when fiction is subjected to the analytical rigours of mathematics.