Fantastic Voyage is the only novel Asimov published in the sixties. And somehow, not quite one of his novels.
It is, in fact, the novelization of the film of the same title directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmund O'Brien and Donald Pleasence. The film part of an argument of Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby, adapted by David Duncan and Harry Kleiner.
During the sixties, science fiction film is in some ways, of age. On the one hand, longer grass on the Series B and on the other hand, will gradually becoming more mature in his approach. We can put the beginning in 1968 such explicit maturity, with two capitals for the genre films such as Planet of the Apes Franklin J. Shaffner and 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick. For the remainder of the decade and more than half of the next, the science fiction film becomes progressively more complex and proving to be a useful tool to address certain issues and face certain topics and concerns from an adult perspective. With the advent in 1977 of The Wars of George Lucas, however, this development will be truncated and, from that moment, and with few exceptions, the science fiction film will focus increasingly on visual spectacle and pure entertainment without much complexity.
Fantastic Voyage is in some way a precursor of it. Share with other science fiction films of the sixties their willingness to series A (and well known actors cache, a large investment in special effects) but his intentions are more like science fiction to be dominant twenty years later.
Because, admittedly, Fantastic Voyage is little more than a story of adventure and intrigue. A submarine thriller, actually, except that in this case we are not going through the seas of the Earth, but the circulatory system of a human being. The stage becomes, thus, the protagonist and what we are witnessing is a little more than a sightseeing tour in a wonderful environment. The characters are outlined in two strokes and clipping in certain archetypal roles, unpretentious complexity, and the plot is reduced to a skeleton classic hits that effect are happening at the right pace to keep the viewer hooked to the chair. What matters is the show, the purely visual and everything else is in the service of that premise.
On that basis, what interest can the novelization of the story? Narrative, as we say, is little more than a vehicle for a visual spectacle. Translation into the pure word should be, logically, unattractive.
However, it is not.
The Asimov novel that builds on the film script that is provided is flexible, dynamic and plunges the reader into the story from the first page and not let go until the end. It is possibly one of Asimov's novels are easier to read, where the pace is more accomplished, and the epic captures the reader more effectively. And at the same time, it is a completely novel asimoviana, in which the author does not waive any of its basic characteristics as a writer of science fiction.
And that's because he has put his hand to history and made some changes to the script that has happened. The first and most important is to correct several errors that occur in the film about the scientific issues addressed in it. And, especially, insists on extracting Asimov submarine body at the end of history. Faced with a carefree growers who see no problem in the case (in order of the day, the submarine is engulfed by a white blood cell), an increasingly desperate Asimov them insists that it does not matter, that once the effects of miniaturization will be spent, the atoms of the submarine would expand and burst the body where they are.
For producers, as we say, that's irrelevant. Who, among the public, will look at this detail?, They say. For Asimov obsessed with consistency and credibility (not only science but also the narrative) that must be solved somehow.
And it does so in his novelization.
How does a few things.
Somehow, Asimov manages to bring the game to their land and build a novel that is not at odds with the rest of its production: a story based primarily dialectical exchange, where the action is often described by dialogue, where there are no villains (only protagonists and antagonists, each with their own good reasons for doing what it does) and where, and that's the most surprising of all, the characters are perfectly compatible with those that have appeared in his novels of the past decade .
In fact, it is fascinating to see how the transition from script to novel becomes the protagonist (the character played by William Boyd in the movie) is an action hero in the style of Bond-film franchise that was in its infancy at that time - fully asimoviano a hero: rational, focused and confident. Throughout the novel, the character looks, clear and remains cool and in command and when it's time to unmask the traitor does detailing each and every one of the factors that have led to this conclusion, which in the film, probably because of the dictates of cinematic rhythm, barely bothered to mention. Thus, what was a fairly straightforward thriller plot is transformed in the hands of Asimov in a well-run police in which, moreover, is not an evil villain of operetta, but a human being with a credible motivations.
* * *
Have we mentioned how Asimov faces its narrative tasks. Basically, imagine a problem and a possible resolution. From there, the construction of the story is to go find the various steps by which, from the statement of the problem, just getting to the resolution.
However, in this case and at least apparently, the author did not do anything like that. The story already had been given and all I had to do was narrate. However, Asimov was forced to try to change the proposed solutions (that is incapable of writing a story that does not create and do not believe the story that have happened) and on the other hand, finds that the characters, such as are delineated in the script, not comfortable to use.
The first problem is solved as we have said.
For the latter, it is easier still. At the end of the day, in the script, the characters are nothing more than patterns, archetypes defined without much depth. Based on them, and without contradicting them, you can create characters with which to work and be closer to the type of character designs for their own stories.
After resolving that, the actual process of writing the novel is a breeze. From the time Asimov endorses the story and the characters discover that it is much easier to write Altered States than any other of his novels. Why not: the end of the day, the trip is already marked, the epic is charted in advance and, once it has known about his field and limarla of what is inconvenient, the rest of the process is ridiculously easy.
Asimov while the novel ends long before the movie is ready and is published before it is released. This has meant that some readers come to believe that the Fleischer's Fantastic Voyage is an adaptation (and maladaptation, full of plot holes and characters of little interest) asimoviana a story, rather than the reverse.
Logical confusion, on the other side. Asimov he managed with genuine ability to make theirs a story that was not, and to write a novel in his own style and without betraying any of its features as a narrator. Asimov's concerns known for his novels of the fifties are in Fantastic Voyage, and if at some odds with the rest of the production asimoviana, is the fact that there is too much action for what we are accustomed Asimov. Except for that small detail, plot, structure, elements of mystery and the resolution of the story are entirely consistent with what had been written so far.
* * *
Asimov always saw himself, and he was, as a writer of compass, rather than map. As we have said, posed a problem, imagine a resolution and then began to pursue the path that would lead to this problem to the resolution on the fly solving various problems that could be found along the camimo. Building the landscape in a way, as you walked.
By his own admission, never Outlines or preparing a previous structure. In fact, the only time he tried, proved a complete failure and ended up pulling everything to the trash.
However, when other researchers who prepared the previous scheme, he did a bad job. Fantastic Voyage is not, of course, Asimov's best novel, but is far from being one of the worst. In fact, as pure entertainment , is one of the most successful stories.
REFERENCES:
- Fantastic Voyage (Fantastic Voyage). Houghton Mifflin, 1966. Most recent Spanish edition: Plaza & Janes (2003).
