Gordon Eklund

Sometimes you just need one from the pulp paperback shelf, especially when there are a couple of long plane rides in the offing, and so it was with my decision to take this fun science fiction novel along on my recent vacation. Falling Toward Forever was published in 1975. Two soldiers are fighting on the same side in an anti-colonial war in an unnamed African country. One, Ahmad, is a black man fighting to free his own country. Waller is a white mercenary, a former Vietnam War prisoner of war and torture victim. Embittered by the experience and the hypocrisy of the U.S. government, he was turned soldier for hire, willing, so he says, to fight for any insurgency against any established government. Although Ahmad is suspicious of Waller's motives and what he believes to be Waller's death wish, the two have respect for each other as fighters. In the heat of a battle, Waller comes upon a woman who is trying to hide from the fighting. But she has a gun that she fires at Waller, hitting his arm. Just as he is about to return fire, Ahmad runs up from behind and yells at Waller not to shoot. Suddenly, all three of them are snatched from the spot by an unseen force and dropped down in a wholly alien environment. Where are they and what has happened to them? The rest of the novel, of course, brings us the trio trying to sort out their circumstances and deal with the people whose time and place they have suddenly entered.

Eklund seemed to be attempting to add at least a touch of social awareness to his story. It's hard to miss the fact that our trio of heroes include a white man, a black man and a woman. The leadership and planning, and the best ideas and plans, ebb and flow between all three characters throughout the story. On the other hand, the leadership often does default to Waller, and we are expected, it seems, to see this as natural. Well, I don't want to make too much of all that. This is, after all, a pulp novel, and it appears Eklund was at least aware of these issues in his storytelling. At any rate, Eklund's writing is pretty good, here, in terms of physical detail and even, to a certain extent, characterization. The plot itself gets more implausible as things go along, and the ending is rushed, but what the heck, I had fun reading the tale, which was just right for vacation reading.… (mer)