Sci-Fi Review: "The Waveries" Short Story

I was unfamiliar with Frederic Brown until I picked up "The Waveries." But it turns out I was. He wrote a short story entitled "Arena" on which a Star Trek episode of the same name was based.

And then there is the exquisitely brief "Answer", which seems to have been an inspiration for Douglas Adams' Deep Thought. While hardly more than a thumbnail sketch, it gets the point across rather well.

"The Waveries" is one of those stories that hook you and reel you in before you know it. It has some great imagery, and a great resolution, though it leaves you with some mystery and a few questions left unanswered.

I was hooked at the third paragraph:

"George Bailey wrote advertising for the radio. The only thing he hated worse than advertising was radio."

"The Waveries" describes the story of an invasion of earth by beings not quite organic, drawn to the planet through space by radio and other transmissions that had drifted through space. Caught up in the "scent" the wave-like beings surround the earth and begin siphoning off any electricity generated anywhere on the planet, effectively de-industrializing the earth overnight. And the story takes us just far enough ahead to see that humanity adapts and rebuilds society as best they can.

Once George Bailey and Pete Mulvaney, a recently unemployed research technician, realize that machines are going to be defunct very quickly due to the "invasion" by the 'vaders (short for invaders) they start to come to some logical conclusions:

"George shook his head slowly, in wonder. He said, 'Streetcars and buses, ocean liners-Pete, this means we’re going back to the original source of horsepower. Horses. If you want to invest, buy horses.
Particularly mares. A brood mare is going to be worth a thousand times her weight in platinum.'
'Right. But don’t forget steam. We’ll still have steam engines, stationary and locomotive.'
'Sure, that’s right. The iron horse again, for the long hauls. But Dobbin for the short ones. Can you ride, Peter?'
'Used to, but I think I’m getting too old. I’ll settle for a bicycle. Say, better buy a bike first thing
tomorrow before the run on them starts. I know I’m going to.'
'Good tip. And I used to be a good bike rider. It’ll be swell with no autos around to louse you up.'"

From that point Brown begins to outline a somewhat feasible plan for any government faced with industrial collapse. Was Kunstler inspired by Brown in writing his "World Made by Hand" series?

The story jumps forward in time to 1981 where we find George Bailey—again—waiting for the train to come in to the small town he's adopted as home. And off the train steps a tall figure. On the buggy ride back to George's house he asks his old friend Pete Mulvaney:

"How’s New York?”
“Fine, George. Down to its last million people, and stabilizing there. No crowding and plenty of room for everybody. The air-why, it’s better than Atlantic City, without gasoline fumes.”
“Enough horses to go around yet?”
“Almost. But bicycling’s the craze; the factories can’t turn out enough to meet the demand. There’s a cycling club in almost every block and all the able-bodied cycle to and from work. Doing ‘em good, too; a few more years and the doctors will go on short rations.”
“You got a bike?”
“Sure, a pre-vader one. Average five miles a day on it, and I eat like a horse.”

"The Waveries" starts off in typical pulp sci-fi tones, but it offers a surprising twist, and an even more surprising glimpse of the post-apocalyptic world that that would be a sure effect of most of the pulp alien invasion stories of the '50s that never seemed to get much press. It was nominated for a retro Hugo for best short story in 1996 and lost to Hal Clement's "Uncommon Sense." The story was originally published in 1945.