Short Story Reviews: Hugo Correa’s “Alter Ego” (1967) and “Meccano” (1968)

Today I’m joined again by Rachel S. Cordasco, the creator of the indispensable website and resource Speculative Fiction in Translation, for the third installment of our series exploring non-English language SF worlds. Last time we covered Vladimir Colin’s Lem-esque story of an unusual alien encounter “The Contact” (1966, trans. 1970). We have stories from the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, and France in the queue.

This time we shift continents from Europe to South America with two stories by Hugo Correa (1926-2008). According to SF Encyclopedia, Correa was the “leading Chilean sf author of his generation.” Unfortunately, his best-known work, the novel Los altímos (The Superior Ones) (1951, rev. 1959) remains untranslated. Correa’s brief appearance in the American market–three short stories–came courtesy of Ray Bradbury. In 1961, the young Chilean author received a grant to participate in the writers’ workshops at the University of Iowa. He translated a handful of his own stories from Spanish to English and sent them to Ray Bradbury, who responded “with enthusiasm and encouragement.” Bradbury met with Correa when he visited Los Angeles, and the famous SF author sent a few of the translated stories to various magazine editors. Four stories eventually appeared in the North American market. It’s a shame that more of his work hasn’t been translated — yet alone a complete bibliography compiled at The Internet Speculative Fiction Database. The SF Encyclopedia entry mentions works that aren’t listed in the database. And this Spanish-language website contains a far more extensive bibliography.

We’ve selected two of his four translated stories for this post:

1. “Alter Ego” first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Edward L. Ferman (July 1967). You can read it online here.
2. “Meccano” first appeared in International Science-Fiction, ed. Frederik Pohl (June 1968). You can read it online here.

Both are super short and worth the read.

Now let’s get to our reviews!

Rachel S. Cordasco’s Reviews

Hugo Correa, a native of Chile and active as an SF author from the 1950s through the 1970s, was first introduced to American audiences with his story “The Last Element” F&SF (1962). A number of other stories followed, thanks to Correa’s correspondence with Ray Bradbury, who was enthusiastic about his work and helped find publishers for him. One additional story “When Pilate Said No” (1971) appeared in the 2003 anthology Cosmos Latinos with a translation by Andrea Bell.

Correa’s two stories, “Alter Ego” (1967) and “Meccano” (1968), are perfect examples of what the SFE notes are “recurring themes… the mysterious and the unknown; First Contact; the struggle to communicate; human identity and isolation; authoritarianism; and the nature of evil.” What it calls his “horror-tinged sf” is apparent in “Alter Ego,” where a toothpaste salesman, who has discarded his youthful dream of being an actor, tries out a biomechanical avatar. Once Antonio puts on the headset and engages the Alter Ego, the latter seems to take over, having now acquired Antonio’s five senses and even his voice. The narrative point of view then shifts to the avatar for the rest of the story as the machine lectures Antonio (presumably because Antonio is making it talk?) on his lifetime of giving up on his idealism for the sake of money. Perhaps Antonio purchased this avatar because he wanted to die but couldn’t bring himself to commit suicide, or perhaps the avatar decided this on its own, but the story ends with the avatar pointing a gun at Antonio, saying “Man is the supreme inventor. He made these weapons to kill men, and doubles to pass judgment on himself…The cycle is closed.” The last we hear of Antonio is the narrator calling him “the figure in the chair,” as if the two (android and human) have fully switched places.

If “Alter Ego” seems sinister and disturbing, “Meccano” is downright terrifying. (As an aside, I’ve been reading short SF to my kids before bed, to introduce them to the best kind of fiction in the world, but decided against reading them “Meccano” because I didn’t want them having nightmares.) A crew of human explorers lands on an unnamed planet, ready to mine ore for an unexplained “Cause.” All we know about what happened on this planet before comes from brief conversations between two crew members (The Captain and Robert)—the only ones who know that, ten Earth years before (but a thousand years for this planet), some men left the planet, returned to Earth, and then planned this current expedition back in order to further their plans. These people left a contingent behind, including a “cybernetic genius” named Daniel, destroying his craft and buildings, stranding them for good. What Robert and the Captain don’t know, but the reader learns, is that Daniel got busy a thousand years ago building a massive robot guardian to stop humans from stripping the planet. As the human crew goes about its work, Meccano slowly assembles itself from parts that were hidden in the ground. This slow, methodical assembly and the guardian’s swift destruction of the crew and its ship gives the story its horrifying atmosphere.

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Joachim Boaz’s Reviews

“Alter Ego” (1967), 4/5 (Good). Antonio acquires an alter ego, a perfect android recreation of his own body. It does not have a mind of its own. Instead, via an “introjection helmet”, Antonio can animate the android “as though it actually possessed bones, muscles, nerves and the organs of a living being” (77). He can smell through the android. He can speak through the mouth of his duplicate self (78).

An unusual displacement occurs as he hears himself speaking from afar. He can suddenly lay bare his own past, and its failures: “he felt overcome by a strange courage and desire for remembrance” (78). And it’s not a past he’s proud of. His youthful aspirations to be an actor and his supportive and romantic relationship with a fellow acting student gave way to a career selling toothpaste, and all the empty materialist rhetoric tied up in spouting the “big things” a salesman must say about their product (78). The distance between himself and the doubled-version he can sense the world through simultaneously comes to an extreme conclusion. A fateful questions hangs over the stories final moments: “will your mechanical double do what you don’t dare do with your own hands?” (79).

While not surprising, Correa’s sparse telling gives a shocking spin on android story. “Alter Ego” is an unsettling exploration of the middle-life crisis and the displacing effect of modern technology. It’s a polished, concise, and disturbing parable of the afflictions of modern society. Technology simultaneously gives space for self-reflection and acting upon our darkest desires.

Recommended.

“Meccano” (1968), 3.75/5 (Good) first appeared in the second and last issue of Frederik Pohl’s revolutionary, and unpopular, International Science-Fiction. According to Michael Page, while the magazine folded almost immediately, this was the start “of Pohl’s wider efforts for developing a cross-cultural dialogue among science fiction readers and writers from around the world, which would eventually lead to the creation of World SF.”¹ Mike Ashley points out that sales of the magazine “were poor,” which I assume is the reason it immediately folded.² Correa’s contribution to the magazine gives added impetus for me to read both issues cover to cover!

A handful of resource exploiters after rare ore illegally return to a planet that they had visited in the past. Due to time-dilation, a ten-thousand years have passed, and the men they abandoned on the planet long since dead. An Olmec-style head waits for them “from its stone pedestal placed in the exact center of the crater” (104). There’s a problem. The men they had abandoned on the planet included a “cybernetic genius” named Daniel, and the head might be part of a brutal revenge fantasy. There arrival triggers various movements on the planet’s “burning plain” (106).

As with “Alter Ego,” “Meccano” spins a remarkably tight and sinister story in its handful of pages. Correa in both stories explores the effects of technology on the troubled and greedy of our species. Technology perpetuates our dark desires to exploit and brutalize.

Recommended.

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Notes

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