Reception
Terry Pratchett talks of the ironic nature in Russell's storytelling; that Wasp is a "funn terrorists' handbook." An example of this humour is found in the protagonist's letter to the Sirian Central Bureau of Records in which he mockingly registers the rebel organization Dirac Angestun Gesept as a legitimate organization:
Title of organization: Dirac Angestun Gesept.
Purpose of organization: Destruction of present government and termination of war against Terra.
Customary meeting place: Wherever Kaitempi can't find us.
Names and address of elected officers: You'll find out when it's too late.
Attach hereto complete list of members: Nar.
The novel has also been praised for its gritty realism. Along with the alien culture being more believable by including slang (such as "yar" for yes and "nar" for no), Mowry's creative disruption is seen as astute. As Rupert Neethling of infinity plus states:
One has to wonder whether Eric Frank Russell applied firsthand knowledge of espionage or sabotage when writing his 1957 classic, Wasp. At the very least, he seems to have had access to some kind of saboteur's checklist.
As Russell was in the Royal Air Force during World War Two he may well have had firsthand experience of the operations of the British Special Operations Executive agents who were trained to disrupt the Nazis in occupied Europe in much the same way as Mowry does in Wasp.
Galaxy reviewer Floyd C. Gale praised the novel, saying "Russell has invested this hard-boiled yarn with plenty of action and authenticity."
Read more about this topic: Wasp (novel)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)