Bill, the Galactic Hero
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Bill, the Galactic Hero is a satirical science fiction novel by Harry Harrison, first published in 1965.
It is part of the SF community's response to Heinlein's controversially militaristic Starship Troopers. The overall plot is similar, the details rather less so; and Harrison makes the most of an opportunity to spoof the work of other authors including Isaac Asimov, "Doc" Smith, and Joseph Heller.
Series
Six sequels were published, from 1989 to 1992. The first, Bill, the Galactic Hero ... On the Planet of Robot Slaves, is by Harrison. The other five ... On the Planet of are by others: (Robert Sheckley, David Bischoff, Jack Haldeman and David Harris), with Harrison's name added to the title page.
Plot (first book)
When the recruiters come to town with their offers of fancy uniforms, Bill, a naïve farmboy, is enlisted by the Space Troopers with a mix of technological tricks and ego-reducing drugs. Soon after he leaves town, his uniform instantly degrades as a form of planned obsolescence. "This broad-shouldered, square-chinned, curly-haired chunk of electronic-cannon fodder" is sent to Boot Camp Leon Trotsky for gruelling training under the befanged Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang.
Bill has been recruited for a war against the alien Chingers, painted in propaganda as terrifying monsters, but actually tiny and peaceable reptilians who have been selected as the targets of a 'war of choice' aimed at keeping the discontent of the subjects of the Empire focused on external dangers. Bill's only friend, Eager Beager, turns out to be a Chinger agent.
Bill becomes a Fuse Tender 6th Class on the starship Christine Keeler (Fanny Hill in UK editions). He loses his left arm in battle, but while in shock he manages to destroy an enemy vessel and win himself the "Purple Dart with Coalsack Nebula Cluster" – and a compulsory re-enlistment for seven more years.
Bill is taken to the Imperial planet Helior (a satire on Trantor, which is entirely urban) to receive his medal. He soon becomes lost, takes eight days to return to barracks and is promptly arrested. Bill escapes and finds sanctuary at the City Department of Sanitation - a department facing the crushing problems of waste disposal on Helior. Bill is also inducted as a revolutionary double-agent for the Galactic Bureau of Investigation. When the revolution arrives Bill is safely removed and passed into the hands of the military for court-martial.
Narrowly avoiding the death penalty, he escapes with a year in prison. A slip of the pen on a transfer card lands Bill on the front line, at a prison labor camp in Tabes Dorsalgia on Veneria (Veniola in UK editions).
Veneria is an over-adjectived, poisonous swamp-planet where there is constant guerrilla warfare. Bill is given a pointless and near-suicidal job with no escape. He becomes lost in the swamp during a Venian attack, eventually he finds his way back and – learning that they have a foot shortage and are shipping foot injuries off-planet – he shoots off his own right foot.
The story ends with Bill as a recruiting sergeant assigned to his home world, where he unhesitatingly recruits his own younger brother into the Emperor's cause.
The Bloater Drive
The standard ways of circumventing relativity in 1950s and 1960s science fiction were hyperspace, subspace and spacewarp. Harrison's contribution was the Bloater Drive. This enlarges the gaps between the atoms of the ship until it spans the distance to the destination, whereupon the atoms are moved back together again, reconstituting the ship at its previous size but in the new location. An occasional side-effect is that the occupants see a planet drifting, in miniature, through the hull. ("No-no! Don't touch it!")
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