I’m always pleased to discover a prolific science fiction author I missed in the 1980s, or was put off reading by dour critics. Especially so if the author is a rare example of straight humour consistently integrated into ideas-based science-fiction. I’d never heard of Christoper Anvil, and his ”Interstellar Patrol” series at first sounded initially to me like the 1930s ”Lensman” space opera, fine at the time but perhaps a bit creaky and staid today. But Anvil’s series began in October 1966 and has been compared to the initial Star Trek series (by Transformations : The Story of the Science Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970) and been called “insistently readable” (by SFE: Encyclopedia of Science Fiction). His ”Interstellar Patrol” is not to be confused with that of Edmond Hamilton, who published his as a series in Weird Tales in the 1920s.
Anvil was a former U.S. military pilot who turned to writing ideas-driven science fiction for Astounding and then Analog. He also wrote mystery stories for Ellery Queen’s and Alfred Hitchcock’s. His main science-fiction series appear to be immense, while others are short and peripheral. But his ”Interstellar Patrol” series seems like a manageable sampler-series to start with, at about 38 short stories and novellas. Apparently it was a roaring success with the readers at the time of publication, and is still very fondly remembered by an ageing few.
It’s almost impossible to find critical writing about him, even reviews on Archive.org, but a brief review in Asimov’s magazine in 2009 had perceptive things to say. Paul de Fillippo observed, reviewing the War Games reprint collection of Anvil’s military stories, that Anvil is not a munitions-and-mud type of military writer. More like an intelligence guy who’s aware of the wide play of “covert and overt” forces, and misguided actions and unintended consequences, that could lead to combat.
The last thing one might notice about these stories — last, because they dazzle us by zipping along like maglev trains through a Disneyland of the jester’s imagination — is how well they’re constructed, and what literary tricks Anvil features in his bag. His prose is hardly ornate or “sophisticated,” but it delivers the action in a punchy, succinct and captivating fashion. … Anvil’s chosen tone is humorous and sardonic, a mix of cautious cynicism and hopeful optimism. This voice alone lifts him out of the common herd of genre writers.
As for the ”Interstellar Patrol” series, it in now to be found neatly presented in two ebook collections, with the stories deftly arranged by an editor to follow the internal timeline of the series. They’re cheap at $7 each and complete, and are not bot-assembled shovelware. The first is titled Interstellar Patrol (2003), and the second is Interstellar Patrol II: The Federation of Humanity (2005). These have rather offputting front covers, a jarring mix of ‘posh’ lettering and pulp art, but the second cover is less cheesy…
No audiobook as yet, but I’m pleased to see that Tantor have a 17-hour audiobook of Interstellar Patrol due in May 2020.
Judging by the first two stories it’s enjoyable slightly zany pulp with military-intelligence nous, good action and clean humour, and a small-c conservative worldview. Anvil seems like a sort of mutant cross between Robert E. Howard and Asimov, with a dash of the Firefly TV series via Star Trek. He certainly is as compellingly readable as the SFE: Encyclopedia of Science Fiction suggests.
He’s obviously very far from Lovecraft’s cosmic horror, admittedly. But in these fraught and impoverished times such relatively light and humorous escapist stories may be just what the doctor ordered.