BOOK REVIEW – BARRY LONGYEAR – ENEMY MINE in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF SHORT SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS 1979.
This is a classic Science fiction novella with a simple premise and a powerful anti-war message.
Earth is at war with an alien species, and in a space ship battle one of our pilots and the pilot of the reptile-like enemy ships shoot each other down and end up crash landing on a very inhospitable island on a seemingly deserted planet. The pair initially try to kill each other, but they gradually realize that hey must work together if either of them has a hope of surviving. Their hatred and prejudice gradually give way to an understanding and respect for one another.
Steadily, they learn to combat the fierce raging storms that ravage the planet (the weather there being the main danger to them).
When the alien male dies giving birth (yes, you read that right), the human survivor brings up the child (they are marooned for several years) and having learned to tell stories in the alien’s oral story telling tradition, he tells the child about his father.
The survivors are now rescued by the alien’s people and discover that their war is in fact over, having ended in an uneasy peace settlement, with no clear victor. The human hero finds that he is treated with some hostility for not doing his duty and killing the alien enemy and his offspring.
He finds himself increasingly subjected to prejudice by his own people, so he decides to visit the alien family and discovers that the species not only has prejudices maintained against him, but that they have also alienated the son of the alien who had survived the space battle. The family of the boy maintain their love for him though, and they are pleased to meet the man who maintained the story of the boy’s father.
Realizing that they are all now effectively excommunicated by their respective peoples, the family and the Earth pilot go back to the planet that the man and aliens had survived on, to found their own colony, one which the human cannot produce offspring with, so he spends his last days happily watching the new peaceful, unprejudiced alien family starting to colonize and tame their new home.
A lovely story, which has been filmed. It was probably inspired in itself by the old Lee Marvin / Toshiro Mifuto war film Hell In The Pacific, which had a similar premise, but without he science fiction elements that are essential to this version.
Arthur Chappell
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