I grew up reading science fiction: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert Heinlein, Issac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke.. & the not exactly SF but related (at least in my opinion) Ray Bradbury. I even belonged to a science fiction book club that delivered such shockers as Heinlein's "Farnham's Freehold". I now consider Heinlein to be as much an incest promoter as a SF writer - but that's another story. Heinlein was important to me as the author of "Have Spacesuit Will Travel" - an encouragement to the DIY attitude if there ever was one!

"The Man Who Corrupted Earth" reminds me of something that I read by Samuel Delaney in wch he remarked that one of the reasons why he got into SF was b/c he'd read a Heinlein novel in wch it was only revealed in passing that the hero was black - & that over halfway thru the story. I interpret this as meaning that in SF, at least, a future can be imagined in wch the idiotic dividing of people into 'races' that're pitted against each other may be no more. Good riddance!

As I entered my teens & became more aware of literature in general, I temporarily rejected Sci-Fi as too trashy. It might not've been until 10 or 15 yrs later that I began to rediscover it thru writers that I thought were truly great & not as shallow as I'd come to feel Heinlein was.

It was in this phase that I discovered that writers that were to become the standard bearers of SF excellence for me, the ones who addressed issues that I cd relate to & did it w/ sufficiently writerly style: Philip K. Dick, J. G. Ballard, Samuel Delaney, Stanislav Lem, & the Strugatsky Brothers. Alas, though, I quickly read almost everything I cd find by all of these & was hungry for other writers that cd make as strong an impression.

Along came James Tiptree (Alice Sheldon), Michel Jeury, Vladimir Savchenko, & Ursula K. LeGuin. Unfortunately, I've only found one bk each so far by Jeury & Savchenko; & I've read all the Tiptree that I know of. Fortunately there's still plenty of LeGuin to go thru - but I find her somewhat hit or miss.

Later still came along the cyberpunks: William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, John Shirley. I still read them from time to time but find Gibson, in particular, to be little more than a one trick pony whose writing hasn't lived up to the promise of "Neuromancer".

Then a trip to Australia turned me onto Greg Egan, Damien Broderick, & Greg Bear. Somewhere along the way I found Rudy Rucker, Pamela Sargent, Joan Slonczewski & many, many others. But how many of these cd provide the stimulation that Dick, Ballard, Delaney, Lem & the Strugatskys had? Alas, not many. But each had something to offer.

& in the many, many more there were people like James Gunn & G. C. Edmondson. Now, I don't consider either of these guys to be 'great writers' - but, still, there's plenty there to hold my interest.

"The Man Who Corrupted Earth" is the 5th novel I've read by Edmondson & not one of my favorites of his. In the author's bio to his "Blue Face" from 1971, Edmondson is described as "by profession a special projects engineer for the United States Navy, or, as he prefers to call himself, "a creative blacksmith."" Now, given that in 1971 I was a draft resister against the Vietnam War & governments in general, this is hardly a promising bio for me. Nonetheless, it's not like I haven't had friends in the military. Fuck, I was even friends w/ a retired Air Force officer who was an anarchist!

It seems that there's a thread that runs thru Edmondson's novels in wch oppressed peoples turn the tables & create a more just society. & this, of course, appeals to me. Plus he has characters like "Blaise Cunningham" who "was a Nobel-Prize winner, the world's foremost expert in artificial intelligence and one of the best computer programmers alive. He was also a falling-down drunk whose only friends were an intelligent computer, a good woman, a bad scientist,and a frisky puppy named Dobie" - from the back cover blurb of Edmondson & C. M. Kotlan's "The Cunningham Equations". In other words, he has dysfunctional & alienated characters that I can identify w/.

In "The Man.." he has a duo of entrepreneurs, Gus Dampier & Albert, who are champions of a version of 'free enterprise' that Edmondson extolls the virtues of. The bad guys? Well, Ralph Nadar, by proxy, gets more than his fair share of kicks in the ass & this is one aspect of the novel that gets problematic for me. Edmondson, perhaps as a Navy-type guy, really seems to believe in these entrepreneurs who, as far as I can tell, often do more harm than good, & thinks they shd proceed on their 'heroic' paths unhampered by anyone. Well, I don't completely disagree but this particular can of worms is too complicated for the purposes of this review.

ANYWAY, Albert, Dampier's partner, is black & poses as Dampier's chauffeur - mainly to camouflage himself in a racist society so that he can function at a more subtle level. The other main black character is "Army" who ends up as an astronaut for Albert & Damier's asteroid belt enterprise. His 2 cohort astronauts are a woman & a man of Arabic descent. Dampier & Albert team up w/ Mansour, the Arabic father of "Jeff", the other male astronaut.

W/o getting into too many spoilers here, the entrepreneurs, after attempts on their lives & attempted government interference & such-like, succeed in their enterprise AND in leveraging some unexpected justice-oriented influence on the political arena.

So why do I only give this 3 stars? After all, I think I've made it seem somewhat interesting. It's the writing.. there's just something too crude about it for me. Sure, it's written to be easy reading, for the plot to be conventionally engaging (although it does get pretty disconnected at times).. but writers like Dick just pull that style off so much better somehow. ( )