Man Plus

Meh. As far as SF masterpieces go, this one was pretty bad. I read it as the literary equivalent of a 50's B movie and found a modicum of enjoyment this way, but it was not a particularly interesting or fascinating read.

Man Plus concerns itself with manly astronauts yearning to conquer space, and the women orbiting their lives. If this book had been published in 1956 I would have rolled my eyes and moved on, but for a 1976 book, it's pretty darn backwards. Women are literally there to be lusted over and humped. There's one woman who doesn't fit that mold, and she's such a shrill caricature of a hardcore feminist that it's hard not to frown on Mr. Pohl's misogynistic shenanigans. Dorrie, the wife of the protagonist, possesses three distinguishing characteristics: 1) every man including the President wants to screw her brains out; 2) she cheats on her husband; 3) she sells ceramics.

The SF itself is interesting but ultimately too clunky to offer much payoff. The best parts concern Roger's horror as he adjusts to his new Martian body. There are moments where the novel verges on The Fly or--very distantly, mind you--on a science fiction Metamorphosis. But the novel is never realistic enough, the characters never interesting enough to take us into truly dark territory.