Wolfbane by Frederik Pohl (1957)

Name: Wolfbane
Author: Frederik Pohl

Wolfbane, by Frederik Pohl, follows Citizen Roget Germyn of Wheeling, West Virginia, a banker who lives under the rigid, ritualized culture of the Citizens — a diminished humanity subsisting on 1,000-1,500 daily calories under a series of short-lived artificial suns. Earth and its Moon were stolen from the Solar System two centuries earlier by a mysterious binary planet governed by inscrutable, midnight-blue Pyramid entities, one of which sits atop Mount Everest. Every five years the old sun burns out and the Pyramids rekindle a new one from the Moon; on the forty-first day of an unusually prolonged dark period, Citizens anxiously await the Re-creation of the Sun. Among Wheeling's residents is Glenn Tropile, a "Son of the Wolf" — one of a rare, competitive, unculturable minority who cannot embrace Citizen passivity or meditative "Appreciation." Tropile dominates his wife Gala through psychological manipulation and secretly despises the gentle, ritual-bound Citizens around him. When a Citizen named Boyne runs amok and kills a baker, Tropile is exposed as Wolf by Citizeness Germyn and sentenced to the Donation of Spinal Fluid, a ritualized execution. He manipulates the Keeper into releasing him with Gala's help and flees. Boyne, awaiting his own Donation, is instead "Translated" — vanishing in an instant, seized (unknown to humans) by the Everest Pyramid's electrostatic "Eye" as a harvested biological Component. Fleeing Wheeling, Tropile is captured by a helicopter crew from a hidden Wolf colony in Princeton, led by Haendl, where "Sons of the Wolf" maintain fusion power, machine shops, and weapons salvaged from the ancient world, secretly working toward an assault on the Everest Pyramid. Tropile trains there, torn between Wolfish ambition and the meditative habits he cannot shake. While Water Watching and meditating despite warnings, Tropile is himself Translated. Aboard the Pyramids' home planet (Earth's stolen former Moon, now converted to a mining/processing world), he learns humans are harvested as "Components" — mindless, blanked-out organic switches wired into vast industrial and computational systems, their personalities erased to serve tasks like refining chemicals or, eventually, navigation. Tropile is surgically joined with seven other human Components (including one called Alla Narova) into an eight-branched "snowflake" gestalt-mind meant to compute an interstellar course, since the Pyramids' mining "vein" on Earth is exhausted and they intend to move on. Unlike previous Components, Tropile's mind reawakens and, by patiently coaxing his fellow Components, restores their identities too. Discovering he can access and manipulate the Pyramids' entire communication network, he begins "harvesting" Translations of Wolves and Citizens on Earth as armed recruits instead of blank Components, funneling them through the network with the help of a telepathic alien Component called Joey. This awakened human army, including Haendl and even Citizen Germyn (who is inadvertently Translated for having known Tropile), battles the Pyramids' automated machines underground. Meanwhile, unexplained mass Translations back on Earth alarm both Haendl's Wolf colony and Wheeling's Citizens, who realize the disappearances are all connected to people who knew Tropile. Tropile's forces destroy the Pyramids' weapon convoys, but the Pyramids retaliate by physically severing sections of their planet's network, including the propulsion controls, threatening to strand or destroy the human fighters. Alla Narova volunteers to project her consciousness into the cut-off section to restore control, succeeding but becoming trapped and unreachable — she reveals in a farewell note that she was elderly and disabled in life and refuses to let Tropile see her that way. Grief-stricken and alienated by the pettiness of both Citizens and Wolves (Germyn wants him to publicly recant being a Wolf; Haendl only cares about future looting), Tropile nearly abandons humanity to remain a godlike networked mind, but Gala follows him and their reconciliation, combined with a flood of raw human emotion broadcast through the network, allows Alla Narova to break free and restore full control. United, the awakened Components seize the Pyramids' master electrostatic generators and use them to seize and destroy every Pyramid one by one, hurling them into the artificial sun. The Pyramids are entirely annihilated, and the Earth is left free under its small sun for the first time in centuries, with the war ending as abruptly as it began.

By Frederik Pohl · First published 1957 · Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian, Adventure · 14 chapters · 42,375 words

First lines

Appallingly, the Earth and the Moon had been kidnapped from the Solar System -- but who were the kidnappers and what ransom did they want?

Roget Germyn, banker, of Wheeling, West Virginia, a Citizen, woke gently from a Citizen's dreamless sleep. It was the third-hour-rising time, the time proper to a day of exceptional opportunity to appreciate.

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Wolfbane is listed on Textopian as a novel by Frederik Pohl, dated 1957 CE.

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Work type: Novel
Author: Frederik Pohl
Date: 1957 CE
Language: English
Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopian, Adventure, Fantasy
Length: 42,375 words
Structure: 14 chapters, 1,102 paragraphs
Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)

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Genres

Science Fiction — The book is set in a dystopian future with advanced technology and explores themes typical of science fiction such as space travel and alien encounters.
Dystopian — The narrative takes place in a future society characterized by oppressive control and bleak conditions, which are central to the plot.
Adventure — The story involves a journey and quest-like elements, with characters facing various challenges and dangers.
Fantasy — There are elements of the fantastical, including otherworldly settings and beings, although these are grounded in a science fiction context.