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Of If by Rog Phillips check out website: www.renebooks.com
Now, here's the rub. Phillips doesn't use fantastic machines or technology to make the transfers to the other reality happen but instead puts it all in the mind by using hypnotic regression to delve into the other ethereal possibilities. Of course, although not new, hypnosis was a subject of tremendous interest over fifty years ago especially as scientific horizons had been broadened by the Second World War and also the Korean War. We only need to look back on films set in Korea where the devilishly cunning Chinese employed all forms of hypnosis and brainwash techniques to divert our heroes from the true course set out by god and country.
'Worlds Of If' is set in the 1980s where the main character, John Dow, is sent back by hypnotic regression to the 1950s. It's probably no accident that John and the author are about the same age but set apart in time so that one can look back on the other's life. However, after reading this novel, I would suggest that it isn't Science Fiction at all and is more a political warning of what would happen if the communists took over. Essentially, all the nonsense about hypnotic regression is just that...it's nonsense and Phillips knows that, too. It's mainly a vehicle to show what America would hold for ordinary people like John Dow (a generic term for anybody) if communists gained control of society. It didn't hold out much promise for the future. John's life under the communists was unpredictable, unsafe and unpleasant. Life is precarious and death is always around the corner for the unwary. Generally, this is a representation of public opinion in America over fifty years ago and it's one which was exploited to the full in the McCarthy era. While Americans had a more polemic view of politics back then, this essentially changed all but slowly over the years. I can remember talking with a friend to a bunch of American students in an Edinburgh park some thirty years ago on a pleasant summer evening. They were here with a band touring Scotland. We were getting along exceptionally well in a friendly manner, discussing all aspects of society, when I announced to them that we were communists. My friend, seeing what I was about, agreed with my statement. Eyes widened, especially the female eyes, and a look of horror crossed their faces. 'Ah...the curfew,' one announced. 'We'd better get going!' Thus we were abandoned. No doubt the Americans were talking amongst themselves of the insidious Commies intent on the subversion of their free minds. It was an interesting experiment, partly brought about by our curiosity and also the late hour. Being 8.30pm, there was only ninety minutes drinking time left (pubs shut at 10pm in these puritanical days) so we made haste for a couple of pints and a discussion on American and European attitudes to politics. Mind you, to most people in the fifties if you talked about communism you automatically thought of Joseph Stalin. A megalomaniacal murderer, he was probably far worse than old Adolf and it's no surprise that people didn't want such a regime in their own country. In many ways, to be anti-Communist as Phillips certainly was, didn't automatically mean you were a right wing fascist. John Dow and Rog Phillips were ordinary mainstream Americans. Phillips was a prolific writer of his time. He also wrote under the pseudonym of Craig Browning. Perhaps his most famous work is 'Rat In The Skull' but he will be remembered for many other stories most of which were well written and unpretentious. There are worse books you could read. The cover for 'World Of If' features a
naked lady within a fiendish device. It
also appears in a webpage devoted to the bimbo in Science Fiction. Of course,
the cover is there to attract the reader and nothing like this appears in the
text which goes to prove that little has changed over the last half century. Rod
MacDonald
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OTHER REVIEWS - November 2004
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Rog
Phillips was a prolific writer in the forties and fifties of the last century
and is resurrected here by Renaissance so that we may once again be able to understand
the minds and attitudes of authors and people from this era of international conflict.
Written in 1951, 'World Of If' explores the possibility of alternative realities
and it did this in a time when such a concept was in its infancy. Alternative
realities are old hat now, so much so that we're sick of them and chuck 'em out
unless they're something really special but back then, the idea was new and exciting.
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