In reference to the ongoing Hugo Brou-Ha-Ha (to which I've refrained from commenting), the cultural ancronymosity surrounding it, and the greater controversy to which it rightfully belongs, I throw my hands up at the pseudo political catch-22. Because, regardless of my gender, or political leanings, or small obsessions, I do not self-identify with m/any parties in "the war" except the one which is deeply personal - namely, an abiding relationship with the body of science fiction, fantasy, games, and literature at large that has profoundly shaped who I am as an individual. I have never needed the genre to reflect me, despite many contradictions or exclusions, because I came to expect fiction that explored the contemporaneous hard questions beyond me, to push the boundaries of what we can and should expect from our future, to delve into places that are impossible or simply incredible - to both remonstrate and demonstrate. Yes, at the same time, to escape, entertain, to exhilarate. And also, Yes, to communicate in a such a textual barrage of marvelous craft and language so as to convince me that there are different ways of looking at things whether I agree with them or not. Science fiction, in short, liberated me, and to find myself at this moment inadvertently in bed with some backward imperative to categorize, weaponize, attenuate, and defile is just, in a word, shitty.
Two (ok four) very compelling, very hard sci-fi books and one equally compelling movie in a span of a two weeks. Plus there was that big red moon not too long ago. And now, for a review of those recent novels which made me despair, and the counterpoint book which inspired me to catalog stuff and spend an inordinate amount of time buoyed by faith in all things good about people in space.
The Rifter Trilogy
An unfortunate cultural bias becomes apparent when the idea that astronauts need to be sociable, stable, professional and down to earth (pun intended) seems far-fetched, that the inevitability of human failure, emotionally and intellectually, is a given. Take for example, Peter Watt's deadly depressing depiction of life in earth's most proximal deep space - the ocean. The specter of the unknown abyss, primordially eerie and ferocious, plays a huge role (Starfish particularly) in establishing the idea that people can only survive deep space conditions, or perhaps persevere in anything, through shitty experiences. The rest of the series proceeds to devil's advocate that fallacy by exploring the superheated Darwinist fallout of relativistic morality through biological and digital global apocalypse. Watt pursues the chilling logic of self defeating interpersonal chaos to an uncomfortable, unsparing dystopia of potential transcendence.
The Martian
In the same way that Moon returned a sense of wonder to the potentiality of space travel, Andy Weir's near future survival story, The Martian, expresses incredulous awe for the ingenuity of man to traverse the universe despite the frankly terrible, horrible, no good odds. Written as a Murphy's law solution handbook for Mars, Weir's elegant and sometimes desperate problem solving exercises are utterly compelling on their own. But consider this...Science-ing the Shit out of something is also an evolving story written daily act in the act of research and building stuff - from particle physics to the bridge that straddles the San Francisco Bay to the water that comes out of the tap. In the mundane context of daily life, a celebration of scientific accomplishment is often forgotten but no small miracle.
The truly remarkable idea embedded in the Martian's hopeful, exuberant expression of love for all things geeky - engineering, biology, chemistry, computer science, physics, astrophysics, and daunting capital-m Math - is that all of it is accomplished by capital-p People. Qualified people that somehow didn't make it onto the crew manifest of the ill-fated Nostromo. In some ways, Weir's portrayal of the scientific community is an ode to all the individuals - even all those pesky admin party poopers - who come together to get things done, like I dunno, designing the perfect bolt so that the soft, squishy biology of a human being is able to propel like some suicidal shooting star into the inhospitable terror of outer space and penetrate a resolutely unfriendly world for the purpose of nothing more than something bigger than themselves.
Increasingly, I'm convinced that making interesting positive art is more difficult than painful existential and material drama. Certainly, happy endings are more difficult after painful existential and material drama in most of life. So if my promotion of all things positive and happy and generous towards the human spirit sounds fantastically and idealistically old fashioned, just a silly Tomorrowland Disney hallucination for children, then consider the dreary, soul-sucking alternative.
Bonus:
Sean Bean on the Council of Elrond. Twice, you geeks...
Fantastic article on Mars expeditions in the New Yorker.
The Rifter Trilogy
An unfortunate cultural bias becomes apparent when the idea that astronauts need to be sociable, stable, professional and down to earth (pun intended) seems far-fetched, that the inevitability of human failure, emotionally and intellectually, is a given. Take for example, Peter Watt's deadly depressing depiction of life in earth's most proximal deep space - the ocean. The specter of the unknown abyss, primordially eerie and ferocious, plays a huge role (Starfish particularly) in establishing the idea that people can only survive deep space conditions, or perhaps persevere in anything, through shitty experiences. The rest of the series proceeds to devil's advocate that fallacy by exploring the superheated Darwinist fallout of relativistic morality through biological and digital global apocalypse. Watt pursues the chilling logic of self defeating interpersonal chaos to an uncomfortable, unsparing dystopia of potential transcendence.
The Martian
In the same way that Moon returned a sense of wonder to the potentiality of space travel, Andy Weir's near future survival story, The Martian, expresses incredulous awe for the ingenuity of man to traverse the universe despite the frankly terrible, horrible, no good odds. Written as a Murphy's law solution handbook for Mars, Weir's elegant and sometimes desperate problem solving exercises are utterly compelling on their own. But consider this...Science-ing the Shit out of something is also an evolving story written daily act in the act of research and building stuff - from particle physics to the bridge that straddles the San Francisco Bay to the water that comes out of the tap. In the mundane context of daily life, a celebration of scientific accomplishment is often forgotten but no small miracle.
The truly remarkable idea embedded in the Martian's hopeful, exuberant expression of love for all things geeky - engineering, biology, chemistry, computer science, physics, astrophysics, and daunting capital-m Math - is that all of it is accomplished by capital-p People. Qualified people that somehow didn't make it onto the crew manifest of the ill-fated Nostromo. In some ways, Weir's portrayal of the scientific community is an ode to all the individuals - even all those pesky admin party poopers - who come together to get things done, like I dunno, designing the perfect bolt so that the soft, squishy biology of a human being is able to propel like some suicidal shooting star into the inhospitable terror of outer space and penetrate a resolutely unfriendly world for the purpose of nothing more than something bigger than themselves.
Increasingly, I'm convinced that making interesting positive art is more difficult than painful existential and material drama. Certainly, happy endings are more difficult after painful existential and material drama in most of life. So if my promotion of all things positive and happy and generous towards the human spirit sounds fantastically and idealistically old fashioned, just a silly Tomorrowland Disney hallucination for children, then consider the dreary, soul-sucking alternative.
Bonus:
Sean Bean on the Council of Elrond. Twice, you geeks...
Fantastic article on Mars expeditions in the New Yorker.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind - Miyazaki
Much preferred to the film version... this beautifully illustrated Manga pits the determined mystic against mankind's need for warlike resolutions to save a ravaged world.
Cities in Flight - James Blish
Elegantly written prose probes economics and restless political imperatives during the long relentless game of survival.
Fanciful blurring of lines between history and science fiction, young romance and religious passions to serious affect. Not an accident is the fall from Eden.
Much preferred to the elephant series, though burdened with similar lackluster character writing. Stay for the utterly compelling investigation of space travel and various permutations of corporeal knowledge encompassing eons.
Let not the confusing pronouns and big statements deter you, this book deserves it's accolades on the basis of of imaginative characters, an unusual central conceit, and a tensely plotted narrative whole that reveals one bit at a time.
A very masculine text with a flawed, psychologically unstable protagonist and his band of ruffian friends, making and breaking their fortunes at the edge of the known human world in a way that will feel utterly universal. Probably my favorite out of this bunch of readings.
Much preferred to the film version... this beautifully illustrated Manga pits the determined mystic against mankind's need for warlike resolutions to save a ravaged world.
Elegantly written prose probes economics and restless political imperatives during the long relentless game of survival.
"Living seems to be a process of continually being born again. I suppose the trick is to learn how to make that crucial exit without suffering the trauma each time. Good-bye John..."In the Garden of Iden - Kage Baker
He thought that what she had said was probably the truth - for a woman. For a man, he knew, life is a process of dying, again and again: and the trick, he thought, is to do it piecemeal, and ungenerously.
Fanciful blurring of lines between history and science fiction, young romance and religious passions to serious affect. Not an accident is the fall from Eden.
And as the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so was my beloved among the sons. Et cetera. What would I give, to have that night back, out of all my nights? No treasure fleet could hold it. What I'd give; no caravan of mules could carry it away.House of Suns - Alistair Reynolds
Much preferred to the elephant series, though burdened with similar lackluster character writing. Stay for the utterly compelling investigation of space travel and various permutations of corporeal knowledge encompassing eons.
To see something marvelous with your own eyes—that’s wonderful enough. But when two of you see it, two of you together, holding hands, holding each other close, knowing that you’ll both have that memory for the rest of your lives, but that each of you will only ever hold an incomplete half of it, and that it won’t ever really exist as a whole until you’re together, talking or thinking about that moment …that’s worth more than one plus one. It’s worth four, or eight, or some number so large we can’t even imagine it.Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie
Let not the confusing pronouns and big statements deter you, this book deserves it's accolades on the basis of of imaginative characters, an unusual central conceit, and a tensely plotted narrative whole that reveals one bit at a time.
Thoughts are ephemeral, they evaporate in the moment they occur, unless they are given action and material form. Wishes and intentions, the same. Meaningless, unless they impel you to one choice or another, some deed or course of action, however insignificant. Thoughts that lead to action can be dangerous. Thoughts that do not, mean less than nothing.Gateway - Frederik Pohl
A very masculine text with a flawed, psychologically unstable protagonist and his band of ruffian friends, making and breaking their fortunes at the edge of the known human world in a way that will feel utterly universal. Probably my favorite out of this bunch of readings.
What were we doing here? Traveling hundreds or thousands of light-years, to break our hearts?
Less well known to me than the SF Masterworks list...
- The Book of the New Sun, Volume 1: Shadow and Claw - Gene Wolfe
- Time and the Gods - Lord Dunsany
- The Worm Ouroboros - E.R. Eddison
- Tales of the Dying Earth - Jack Vance
- Little, Big - John Crowley
- The Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
- Viriconium - M. John Harrison
- The Conan Chronicles, Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle - Robert E. Howard
- The Land of Laughs - Jonathan Carroll
- The Compleat Enchanter: The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea - L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt
- Lud-in-the-Mist - Hope Mirrlees
- The Book of the New Sun, Volume 2: Sword and Citadel - Gene Wolfe
- Fevre Dream - George R. R. Martin
- Beauty - Sheri S. Tepper/
- The King of Elfland's Daughter - Lord Dunsany
- The Conan Chronicles, Volume 2: The Hour of the Dragon - Robert E. Howard
- Elric - Michael Moorcock
- The First Book of Lankhmar - Fritz Leiber
- Riddle-Master - Patricia A. McKillip
- Time and Again - Jack Finney
- Mistress of Mistresses - E.R. Eddison
- Gloriana or the Unfulfill'd Queen - Michael Moorcock
- The Well of the Unicorn - Fletcher Pratt
- The Second Book of Lankhmar - Fritz Leiber
- Voice of Our Shadow - Jonathan Carroll
- The Emperor of Dreams - Clark Ashton Smith
- Lyonesse I: Suldrun's Garden - Jack Vance
- Peace - Gene Wolfe
- The Dragon Waiting - John M. Ford
- Corum: The Prince in the Scarlet Robe - Michael Moorcock
- Black Gods and Scarlet Dreams - C.L. Moore
- The Broken Sword - Poul Anderson
- The House on the Borderland and Other Novels - William Hope Hodgson
- The Drawing of the Dark - Tim Powers
- Lyonesse II and III: The Green Pearl and Madouc - Jack Vance
- The History of Runestaff - Michael Moorcock
- A Voyage to Arcturus - David Lindsay
- Darker Than You Think - Jack Williamson
- The Mabinogion - Evangeline Walton
- Three Hearts & Three Lions - Poul Anderson
- Grendel - John Gardner
- The Iron Dragon's Daughter - Michael Swanwick
- WAS - Geoff Ryman
- Song of Kali - Dan Simmons
- Replay - Ken Grimwood
- Sea Kings of Mars and Other Worldly Stories - Leigh Brackett
- The Anubis Gates - Tim Powers
- The Forgotten Beasts of Eld - Patricia A. McKillip**
- Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury**
- The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales - Rudyard Kipling
- The Dragon Griaule - Lucius Shepard (October 2013)
- Last Call - Tim Powers (October 2013)
- The Phoenix and the Mirror - Avram Davidson (December 2013)
- The Falling Woman - Pat Murphy (November 2013)
- Aegypt - John Crowley (October 2013)
- Votan and Other Novels - John James
- The Dragon Griaule - Lucius Shepard
- Mythago Wood - Robert Holdstock
- Ombria in Shadow - Patricia A. McKillip
“He had a suspicion of plausible answers; they were so often wrong.”
Generous though exasperated (and with surprising levity), Clarke places Humanity appropriately (at the bottom) in the mysterious order of the infinity that is the cosmos. We understand next to nothing about the universe except our own reflection. But tiny as we are, awed, we strive inquisitively and resourcefully, despite our fears and limitations, sometimes even doing the right thing, to know that which is yet unknown.
Diagram of Rama from the Rendezvous with Rama videogame.
Quick as cotton candy, Ready Player Go spins a compelling yarn and dissipates on the tongue. While glancing off some deep thoughts, the author really doesn't ask hard questions. But the novel is a fine vehicle of nerdy easter egg hunt for anyone currently between the age of 30-40.
Set in the Westeros world, G.R.R. Martin's relatively short-winded and well written adventures of Dunk, a hedge knight, and his boy squire, Egg.
"I'm sorry Father, I feel that the laws of society are what makes something a crime or not a crime. I'm aware that you don't agree. And there can be bad laws, ill-conceived, true. But in this case, I think we have a good law. If I thought I had such a thing as a soul, and that there was an angry God in heaven, I might agree with you."
Abbot Zerchi smiled thinly. "You don't have a soul doctor, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily."
The visitor laughed politely. "A semantic confusion."
"True. But which of us is confused? Are you sure?"
