Winner of the 1977 British Science Fiction Award for Best Novel, Brontomek! possessed me with a curious grip from its dream turning into a nightmare introduction. Its synopsis reads The planet of Arcadia was on the verge of economic collapse -- its human colony decimated by the Relay Effect. More and more colonists leaving for other worlds. Then the Hetherington Organisation came up with an offer the Arcadians couldn't refuse -- a five-year plan to transform the planet into a new prosperity. Its hold over me soon ended.

Not a novel that will excite the senses in any meaningful manner as Brontomek! fails to come up with an obvious plot. The reason for the planet Arcadia's population exodus is never realy explained, and the local soon-to-be-disenfranchised populace struck me as bucolic yokels deserving of what they get. The Brontomeks arrive along with an unexpected surprise - amorphs. Amorphs are alien beings capable of moulding themselves into human form, the colony knows it has made a terrible but it can't face up against a corporation for whom the bottom line is the only true measure of a planet's worth.

Coney's prose is this somewhat eclectic mix of mundane dialogue interspersed with emotive put downs and wry witticisms. At times I felt like giving up on this novel because all that ever seemed to happen was simplistically cobbled together and delivered with ingenuous aplomb. The main protagonist is a ship builder named Kevin Moncrieff. His view of how his little world is swallowed up by big business is told very admirably but this is meant to be a science fiction novel, not a work of fiscal speculation. He is hired to build a ship that will circumnavigate the world. He duly complies as his debt problems are mounting. Behind the scenes things go from bad to worse for the natives. Displaced by the amorphs, a rebellion of sorts brews and into this mix a rather tacked on reason for the Hetherington Corporation's interest is eventually revealed. This novel only very gradually improved the more I read, but it is yet another science fiction novel, pre 1980's, which refused to please my twenty-first century tastes.

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