Roger Zelazny Book Review: Halfjack

Nobody says "Halfjack is my favorite Roger Zelazny story!" It's pretty forgettable and I would never cover it here except for two reasons. 1.) I always get it confused with The Engine at Heartspring's Center, because they both open with a cyborg walking on a beach, and 2.) It's one of the few Zelazny stories that strike me as being tied to a specific era.

I think that Zelazny is among the best of science fiction authors in that his stories are largely timeless. Stories about the future are always informed by the era when they written, so you never have "the future" as much as you have "the future as seen from 1966." Zelazny largely manages to avoid this and set his stories in the timeless now. The oldest of his published works are approaching the half-century mark, and while there are occasionally anachronisms, he's no worse than most authors and better than many. 

In the introduction, Zelazny writes:  One day, I saw a nice, slick, pretty, new magazine called Omni and was overcome by the desire to have a story in it, so I wrote this one and did.

I grew up in the 80s and my dad had a subscription to Omni, so I'd sometimes read it, and Halfjack strikes me as the absolutely archetypal Omni short story. There's the popular science, the human element and the twist at the end, all in the space of a few pages. 

The main character is Jack, a cyborg pilot who usually keeps his cyborg parts covered with a fleshy bodyglove that gives him a human appearance.  His girlfriend not only tolerates his cyborg parts, but she kind of likes them. Jack breaks up with her and returns to his ship, where he undresses and interfaces with the computer.

Blue-and-pink world below him, black sky above, the stars a snapshot snowfall all about, he bade the shuttle pilot goodbye and keyed his airlock. Entering the Morgana, he sighed and set about stowing his gear. His cargo was already in place and the ground computers had transferred course information to the ship's brain. He hung his clothing in a locker and placed bis body glove and hairpiece in compartments.

He hurried forward then and settled into the control web, which adjusted itself about him. A long, dark unit swung down from overhead and dropped into position at his right. It moved slowly, making contact with various points on that half of his body.

They have a conversation, where it seems the ships computer Morgana is a better match for Jack than the human woman had been.

Several hours later, when they lett orbit, he had already switched off a number of his left-side systems. He was merged even more closely with the vessel, absorbing data at a frantic rate. Their expanded perceptions took in the near-ship vicinity and moved out to encompass the extrasolar panorama with greater than human clarity and precision. They reacted almost instantaneously to decisions great and small.

—It is good to be back together again. Jack.

——I'd say.

Morgana held him tightly. Their velocity built.

I don't think it's Zelazny's best work, but it's a quick enjoyable read.

Bonus: Cyborgs on the beach

Okay, Zelazny fans, which is which? Engine or Halfjack?

Story One:

He walked barefoot along the beach. Above-the city several of the brighter stars held for a few final moments against the wash of light from the east. He fingered a stone, then buried it in the direction from which the sun would come. He watched for a long while until it had vanished from sight. Eventually it would begin skipping. 

Story Two:

Upon this day, he walked beside the water, poking with his forked, metallic stick at the things the last night's storm had left: some shiny bit of detritus useful to the weird sisters in their crafts shop, worth a meal there or a dollop of polishing rouge for his smoother half; purple seaweed for a salty chowder he had come to favor; a buckle, a button, a shell; a white chip from the casino.