The novel “The Ballad of Beta-2” by Samuel R. Delany was published for the first time in 1965.
A expedition of starships that left in 2242 for a multi-generational journey had a negative result. Two of the starships arrived without passengers, killed by mysterious causes. The passengers survived on the other starships reached their destination but only to find settlers who arrived before them thanks to a faster-than-light propulsion developed after their departure.
Joneny is a student charged by his anthropology professor to make a historical analysis of one of the ballads that tell the story of the expedition of the “Star Folk”, “The Ballad of Beta-2”. Joneny starts investigating to find the sources of the ballad, with the difficulty that the text was modified over time. His findings will be truly amazing, also thanks to a strange encounter.
“The Ballad of Beta-2” begins as a research on an old mystery about the outcome of an expedition and in particular the catastrophe that struck one of its starships. Joneny is a student who takes a journey to examine the historical records available and finds more than he bargained for.
The theme of the generation starship was already a classic when Samuel R. Delany wrote “The Ballad of Beta-2” thanks to the novel “Orphans of the Sky” by Robert A. Heinlein. In this case the expedition was composed of twelve starships equipped with safety systems that were supposed to ensure reaching their destination. Instead, on two of them there’s a serious problem and their passengers die but in later centuries no one can figure out what happened.
The passengers of the starships that reached their destination, called the “Star Folk”, have degenerated and their civilization has plunged into barbarism. Their descendants live in isolation and are tolerated by the other humans who have meanwhile colonized the stars thanks to the invention of a faster than light propulsion.
A major step forward in the research is achieved by Joneny thanks to the encounter with a strange kid who seems to have supernatural powers. Understanding his true identity and nature are one of the key elements in solving the mysteries around the expedition.
Joneny’s research marks the development of some recurring themes in Samuel R. Delany’s works such as language and memory, which can be in the form of history but also become folklore. The starting point of the Joneny’s research is a ballad that tells a story but exists in a few different versions.
Other research sources consist of documents from the expedition’s time, including the logs of Captain Leela of the starship Beta-2. In a good part of the novel, Joneny serves only to examine those logs so for the reader it’s as if there were flashbacks. The story of the research becomes a frame story and within it past events are told that allow to better understand the story of the Star Folk’s expedition.
In the narration of the expedition’s stories and in particular of the starship Beta-2, the religious themes become more and more important. Samuel R. Delany uses these themes in various ways, going so far as to use basic elements of Christianity, though with some variations.
“The Ballad of Beta-2” convinced me only in part. The build-up of the mystery around the interstellar expedition is done well, like a jigsaw puzzle of which the author gives the pieces in the course of the novel. My main problem is that this mystery is quite abstract, in the sense that the story and characters are developed mainly to serve it.
The result is a novel that by today’s standards is really short but also when it was written was far from long. In the end, the mystery of the expedition of the Star Folk is solved with various twists but we know only the bare minimum about it. The characters aren’t well developed so it can be hard to sympathize with them and participate in their dramas.
For these reasons, “The Ballad of Beta-2” gives me mixed feeling. It’s intellectually intriguing but I read it with detachment. It’s a novel you can like especially if you like science fiction mysteries keeping in mind that religious themes are important.
