Two Hawks From Earth

© 1979 by Philip Jose Farmer


Imagine an Earth where plate tectonics never cause the Americas to rise above sea level – save for a few island chains where the Rockies and Andes might have been. There is no jet stream; there is, in effect, but one global ocean. This affects the drift of the other land masses; Europe, for instance, is a couple hundred miles north and India never joins Asia.

What non-geographic changes might these geographic changes spawn in this world? The Negro race never evolves. The Amerinds, who migrated into the Americas over the Siberian-Alaskan land bridge, travel westward instead into Europe. Hence, Western Civilization is an amalgam of proto-Iroquoian and Greek culture. And since there are no Americas, there is no rubber, horses, corn, potatoes, or tobacco. Also, thanks to the Amerind conquest, there is no Hebrew people, no Semitic peoples, and no Roman Empire. Christ never walked this Earth.

However, despite all these metachanges, things are remarkably similar. Or so Roger Two Hawks comes to understand. On a moonlit night in mid-1943, high above the oil-rich fields over Nazi Romania, Two Hawks is one of hundreds in the air, dropping bombs and dodging fire from German Messerschmidts. Then, as his ship disintegrates beneath his feet, as he and his co-pilot O’Brien bail out, they somehow slip out of the Earth they know to this new Earth of Farmer’s we’ve been describing.

Though there is no Germany and no Russia and no England on Earth 2, there is Perkunisha, Hotinohsonih, and Blodlandish. There is no Hitler, but there is the Kassandrash. And, like the events on Earth 1, there is one, long, global conflict, with Perkunisha out to conquer all of Europe and eradicate anyone of non-white descent.

The economy, though, is still based on steam. Cars driven on wooden wheels (no rubber, remember) are powered by a boiler where an internal combustion engine should be. Since there is no gasoline-powered engines, there are no airplanes. Instead, massive blimps spined with balsa wood (no aluminum) bombard enemy infantry. Firearms are single shot muskets. Clubs and knives are part of every enlisted man’s personal armament.

Because of this, Two Hawks and O’Brien find themselves very important men. Men whose knowledge – of engines, aircraft, and weaponry – make them very valuable. Thus, once they are found out, just about every nation on the planet is after them, and if one nation can’t have them, they’ll kill them so another won’t have them. Such becomes their lot on this parallel world.

Like most of the Philip Jose Farmer books I’ve read, Two Hawks from Earth is fast-paced though never rushed. There’s plenty of deus ex machina to drive the tale forward, as our heroes become, in turn, the property of one superpower after another, escaping this trap and that predicament, propelling their destiny with their wits and, on more than one occasion, their fists and their guns. Like any tale set during the grim days of World War II – even world war on a parallel planet – it’s unexpectedly and shockingly brutal in more more than a couple of spots.

Does Two Hawks survive and thrive on Earth 2? Does his stereotypically-Irish pal O’Brien? Do they overcome the deadly schemes of their nemesis – a German named Raske who’s also been pulled in through the mysterious parallel world gate? What happens to Perkunisha and Blodlandish and the millions of war-ravaged refugees?

There’s a nifty twist concerning Two Hawks’s origin revealed at the end of one of the closing chapters that almost makes the whole thing worth reading. (However, to pick a bone, it could’ve been written a little better for a greater shock value). And a couple of chapters book-ending the original story, written in a decade after original publication, kinda detracts from a leaner, meaner tale.

All in all, though, I enjoyed the read. Like I find myself saying after a lot of these PJF stories, it ain’t Dostoevsky or Dickens, but it’s a great couple-hours read that pulls you completely into the tale.

Grade: B+