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Product Description
Product Description
The war had been going on for nearly a year and the Sirian Empire had a huge advantage in personnel and equipment. Earth needed an edge. Which was where James Mowry came in. If a small insect buzzing around in a car could so distract the driver as to cause that vehicle to crash, think what havoc one properly trained operative could wreak on an unuspecting enemy. Intensively trained, his appearance surgically altered, James Mowry is landed on Jaimec, the ninety-fourth planet of the Sirian Empire. His mission is simple: sap morale, cause mayhem, tie up resources, wage a one-man war on a planet of eighty million. In short, be a wasp. First published in 1957, WASP is generally regarded as Eric Frank Russell's best novel, a witty and exciting account of a covert war in the heart of enemy territory.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Other reviews address the quality of the book itself - simply a brilliant science fiction book. Small idea, expanding perfectly into a driven narrative. This book is difficult to get hold of ordinarily, my edition was from the 1970s. This is the only modern edition I found. The one drawback, not clearly stated here, is that this is a large print edition. That's very large print. Unless you have particular need for this, it makes for quite an odd reading experience and may lead to repetitve strain injury as you finish a page every few seconds! So that's five stars for the book and one off for the odd font size. If you can cope with that buy it! If not, check out a second hand edition....
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a really fast-paced thriller about infiltrating an alien society for political ends. If that sounds more like a political thriller than science fiction it's because that's really what it is. And yet the science fiction bit only adds to the story by adding a touch of extra weirdness you wouldn't have if it was set in, say, Albania.
It really is a book you can read in one day, and you may have to once you get into it. One thing: don't let the first few pages put you off. Those first pages are really badly written. But then it starts properly, so perch yourself on the edge of your seat and stay there.
I've never noticed a movie of this book and if there isn't one, it's a real missed opportunity. It would make a great movie. It feels like a movie.
This should be in everyone's library.
It really is a book you can read in one day, and you may have to once you get into it. One thing: don't let the first few pages put you off. Those first pages are really badly written. But then it starts properly, so perch yourself on the edge of your seat and stay there.
I've never noticed a movie of this book and if there isn't one, it's a real missed opportunity. It would make a great movie. It feels like a movie.
This should be in everyone's library.
Format:Paperback
The title of Eric Frank Russell's science-fiction novel Wasp comes from the idea that one wasp in a speeding car can annoy the driver to the extent of causing a crash and damage out of all proportion to the wasp's size and strength. In the case of the book, the 'wasp' is a human, James Mowry, sent to terrorise an alien planet as part of Earth's war with the aliens.
The book starts well, with simple minor acts of sabotage building up believable levels of disruption (in a way that echoes The Cool War). Seeing a small number acts of terror trigger widespread security crackdowns and fears of people who appear to be a bit different works, if anything, even better for an early 21st century audience.
There is a fast moving and at times very tense plot that at times is very open to different reader interpretations. Is Mowry's casual indifference to the deaths he causes a callous disregard of the life of others, even civilians, if they can in some ways be labelled "the enemy"? Or is the book really a satire against such callousness? You can read the book either way, making it very relevant to modern themes.
In other respects, however, the book rather shows its age. In the science fiction of 1957 women barely exist as characters. The future involves heavy use of file-card based computer technology and - luckily for Mowry - very little development in the way of surveillance technology. The aliens have space travel, but no CCTV and are heavy users of typewriters and phoneboxes.
In fairness very few writers manage to predict a future that does not age badly, but a more serious failing is the weak ending. What should be a nightmare act of physical endurance becomes a rather brief, matter of fact sequence. The ending at least has hints of a much darker view of life, rescuing the final section and making the book a satisfying and enjoyable read.
A note if you have a choice of which edition to purchase: the production quality of the Polling reprint is poor - a poor choice of font face and spacing for the text, even though it is a large print format, and with a smattering of typos in the text.
The book starts well, with simple minor acts of sabotage building up believable levels of disruption (in a way that echoes The Cool War). Seeing a small number acts of terror trigger widespread security crackdowns and fears of people who appear to be a bit different works, if anything, even better for an early 21st century audience.
There is a fast moving and at times very tense plot that at times is very open to different reader interpretations. Is Mowry's casual indifference to the deaths he causes a callous disregard of the life of others, even civilians, if they can in some ways be labelled "the enemy"? Or is the book really a satire against such callousness? You can read the book either way, making it very relevant to modern themes.
In other respects, however, the book rather shows its age. In the science fiction of 1957 women barely exist as characters. The future involves heavy use of file-card based computer technology and - luckily for Mowry - very little development in the way of surveillance technology. The aliens have space travel, but no CCTV and are heavy users of typewriters and phoneboxes.
In fairness very few writers manage to predict a future that does not age badly, but a more serious failing is the weak ending. What should be a nightmare act of physical endurance becomes a rather brief, matter of fact sequence. The ending at least has hints of a much darker view of life, rescuing the final section and making the book a satisfying and enjoyable read.
A note if you have a choice of which edition to purchase: the production quality of the Polling reprint is poor - a poor choice of font face and spacing for the text, even though it is a large print format, and with a smattering of typos in the text.
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